Lily
“I know you’re in there, Miss Erickson. Your car is in the lot.”
Miss Erickson?
Bang. Ring. “Let me in. Mr. Hanley sent me.”
“Luke?” I whisper, my hand reaching for but falling shy of the lock. My heart is racing, my breathing puffing out. I grab my phone, figuring I can text Luke, ask him for confirmation of this unexpected visit.
But he’s banging so loud, I can’t text straight. I get through the message eventually, relying on the spell check feature, and then I open the door despite the warning alarms sounding off in my head.
I’m thinking of Luke and Floyd and their family’s side business. This guy is connected to the loan shark dealings, I know that. I don’t want the neighbors’ gossiping and harming Luke or getting him in trouble with his father.
“Are you going to let me in? I told you, Hanley sent me.”
I leave the door at the sliver of a crack, enough for me to peer up at him and assess if he means to harm me. He’s dressed in head-to-toe black today again, but this time there’s no mask covering the lower half of his face. His glassy blue eyes stare down at me from his six-something, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his duster coat.
I don’t like that sight at all. “Hands?”
He sighs but draws them out. “I am armed, but like I said, Hanley sent me over here.”
“To help me pack?”
“Yeah,” he says. “To help you pack. So, you going to let me in?”
Slowly, I draw the door open wider, gesturing him in. I’ll be happy for his strong hands to help me out, but I am not going to play hostess. It’s hard to forget staring down the barrel of his gun, his finger snapping off the safety.
Taking him into the kitchen, I open some drawers and two sets of cabinets up top and reveal an array of silver tableware. I know Luke will have tons, but my mother, in one of her forgiving moments, gave me the family heirloom silver. My great-great grandmother started the tradition and I want to continue it with my children.
“Pack these up, please,” I tell him, pointing to the hall. “I’ll be in the bedroom if you have questions.”
As I’m sitting down in front of my open, half-filled luggage, I check the vibrating phone in my pocket. Luke’s text is chilling.
Lily get out of there
Then he’s calling me, and I’m fumbling to slide the screen and accept the call, but he’s there—Luke’s thug, and he’s grabbing at my shoulders, crushing an arm around my middle. The phone is knocked from my hand and it hits the floor by my suitcase.
I scream, but it’s short-lived when his sweaty, salty palm slaps over my mouth, pushing down hard enough to make me scream in pain. He holds me up like a flailing, writhing doll, carrying us backward out to the living area.
My body goes rigid at the sight awaiting me there.
Art Dayton.
Dayton is looking handsome in a flashy suit, his hands preening and smoothing his emerald green tie. But it’s not his fashion sense that has me freezing up. It’s his nodding grimly at the couch and the thug manhandling me listening to the silent order.
Deposited there on my belly, I scream as soon as I can get my lungs to cooperate. The thug pushes me down, his big, meaty hand over my back, holding me fast to the sofa. That doesn’t stop me from praying the neighbors hear my screaming and call for help.
It’s the brush of the cool metal over my cheek that shuts me up.
“Huh? Look at that. Quiet as a mouse suddenly,” the big thug taunts.
“Mr. Raymond, I’ll ask you to lower your voice,” Art tells him.
“Hey, what did I say? It’s just Keith, okay?” He snaps at Dayton. “Shit, you’re only here because of me. So I think maybe you should sorta listen when I ask you to do something.”
I stare up fearfully at Art Dayton, begging for his help. He doesn’t even give me a look, his gaze on Keith Raymond.
I’m alone. Art is a bad guy. Just like Luke suspected.
I cling to the information I have. I have a full name to go with the thug, and without his scarf covering his face, I can work with a sketch artist to make sure he pays once I get through this.
And I would get through. I had to.
As if sensing I’m thinking of the baby, Keith pushes me down harder into the sofa. I groan.
“Now, record your damn questions already. I think she called someone, probably Hanley. If he suspects anything, we’ll both be dead before the sun rises tomorrow.”
“Hush,” Art narrows his eyes, his attention finally falling on me. “Did you call someone, Lily?”
I tighten my lips, glaring at him.
Seriously, he couldn’t think I’d share details with him when he orchestrated this bullshit. And all to get Luke charged with the murder of Derrick Smyth. Luke might have pulled the hit, but I know him now, and Derrick seemed to get what would be coming his way someday anyway.
I did my search online and everything Luke said checked out. Derrick was a bad man—an evil man, and no amount of jail time would cleanse him of his propensity to hurt others.
Besides, if anyone should be charged, it should be this brute crushing me with a fraction of his weight. It was his gun and his hand pulling the trigger killing Derrick.
“Lily,” Art shakes his head with a sigh. He pushes my name out in a clipped tone.
Art walks away, stepping out of my vision. His ominous footsteps thud softly from the room and they find a squeaky floorboard on his way back. “I see. You’ve been a busy girl.” He slides back into my vision, my phone in his hands.
“Guess we’ll have to speed this up.”
Art drops my phone on the coffee table and crouches in front of me, his hand reaching out and digging into my hair. He yanks my hair tie out sharply, smiling cruelling at my yelp and tearing eyes.
“We could have been magnificent—you and I, but you tossed that away for a criminal.”
I can’t help snapping, “I’m looking at the real criminals now.” I cheer for my bravado. As quickly as he slaps me, Art tugs my head back sharply by my hair and pushes his face in close, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
“Lord knows I’d like to fuck that mouth of yours, but I need it more for this.” He magically produces a pocket-sized voice recorder, waving it tauntingly in my face. “You’re going to tell me Luke Hanley had his men murder Derrick Smyth. Better yet,” Art grins manically, “you’re going to say the great and wonderful Luke Hanley, Potentia’s Oz, pulled the trigger himself.”
“I won’t—” I start, another slap silencing me.
He wouldn’t bully and batter me into saying those words though. Luke will be here soon. I know it. When a tear leaks out, Art snarls.
“You stupid bitch. Do you know how long I’ve waited for this? How long I waited for that bastard to slip up?” Art unloads some history on me. “I asked to be assigned here, you know.
“Did my research, knew all about the Hanley's game in St. Louis. They’re almost legends there. Toeing the line of black and white, paying the right people to look the other way. I, on the other hand, dedicate sixteen years of my life to law enforcement.
“It all went to hell one night and the next thing I know, I’m staring unemployment and a shamble of careers straight in the face,” he spits his rage out in my face, his hot breath forcing me to blink my eyes. “Then I have this opportunity land on my lap. Come here to Potentia, keep my head low, look for a way out, a way back to what I deserve.”
Keith yawns and Art breaks off to glare his way. “Now here I am, dressed down by a lowly town’s low-ranking police chief, a man I once could have ordered to bring me my coffee,” Art laughs bitterly.
Setting the recorder down under my head, he clicks it on, a red light glowing to indicate it’s recording. Art pulls my head back and stands, reaching for his fly.
“Finally, some fun,” Keith chuckles darkly.
“No,” I beg, voice weak. “Please, don’t do this.” I appeal to Art, but I realize he’s no different than Luke’s traitorous thug. He’s hell bent on ruining Luke’s life, and that means ruining me now.
For a second there are no other sounds than my sniffling and the sound of their shifting clothing as both men work their cocks free. I feel Keith’s hard dick bumping my leg over my jeans. I squirm from it until he grabs me and snaps, “Don’t move.” He bumps my cheek with that dreaded gun.
“Why didn’t you choose me, Lily?” Art breaks off, his hand moving from his open fly to smooth over the cheek he’s been abusing. My skin is hot and throbbing there, and I draw back from his touch.
This sets him off again. “I’m going to fuck you and this is going to record our wonderful noises. I’ll make sure to send a copy to Luke, so every time he gets between those thick thighs of yours, he’s going to know I got in there too.”
The sound of sirens splits the air.
Both men still, like a calm before the real storm hits. And it hits hard. Activity explodes all around me.
“I’m out of here.” Keith hops off me. I hear his zipper slide blessedly closed, his gun moving off my cheek.
Art also moves, releasing the hand tugging the hairs out of my scalp. I’m seeing stars still from Art’s slapping, and my body is aching from Keith’s rough handling, but I half-turn, half-slide up on the armrest, shifting into a position to keep my eyes on my two almost-rapists as they turn on each other.
Art beats Keith to the door, reaching inside his blazer. The detective trains his gun on his fleeing partner.
Keith laughs. “You idiot. You won’t shoot. You care too much about getting that fancy, old life of yours back. My death would certainly set you far, far away from it. Killer cop doesn’t have as great a ring to it as hero cop, now, doesn’t it?”
“Or,” Art says, coolly, “I came here to ask Miss Erickson some further up questions, and I saw the door ajar and you on top her, ready to force yourself on the poor woman.”
“She won’t take that sitting down.” Keith’s voice has a wavering to it though, and he asks me, “You won’t, will you? Let this bastard get away with it? He’s the one who started this. I didn’t want to come here. But he made me do it.”
I couldn’t process any of this now. It had to be the shock setting it, numbing me to their squabbling.
“And who’s going to believe her word?” Art is saying, his question high and reedy. “Maybe I’ll kill her too, blame your ass for that as well.” Art barks a laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. There’s no mention of me in her cell message to Hanley. This has your name written all over it.” Before Keith can get a word in, there’s a loud bang, a groan, and a thud.
Art moves on quickly, prowling to me next.
All that I can see of Keith Raymond is his feet sticking out from behind my large-screened TV.
“Now, Miss Erickson,” he brandishes his gun, the barrel pointed at my chest, “it’s time I said goodbye. I’d say I’m going to miss you, but I’m not. I only regret I couldn’t screw you before this but,” he chuckles, that demented look blooming over his face, “I guess you sort of already screwed me. I’ll remember it...not so fondly. Good bye.”
The front door is slowly opening behind him all through his speech. I try not to gasp when I see Russ. I don’t see his gun until the shot rings out, once, twice, three times.
Art’s blood sails and splatters over me. I flinch.
The detective groans, eyes rolling to the back of his head, the gun slipping from his hand and clattering to the floor. He sways and drops to a knee, his body hunching to the side, caving in on itself.
His eyelids flutter and then he moans, “Lily…”