Lisa Ch. 08b: Evil

"You haven't explained your plan."

Several seconds ticked by and Abe didn't say anything. Jessica took Riley's hand, and then Angus'. She placed each on her arm, then Scott's on one side of her waist. Josh's on her back, Jim's on the other side of her waist.

The silence continued and it wasn't until Scott pulled her in for a hug and Riley took her one hand, Jim the other, and Angus and Josh grasped a spot on each arm, rubbing their thumbs back and forth in absent minded circles that Jessica felt strong enough to go on.

"Abe, you said you had a way to get Sean and the other's out of the field. What is it?" Jessica said again.

"It doesn't matter." Scott said. He'd planted his chin on the top of her head but slid it down to the side of her head so his lips were near her ear. "There's no way Anthony is going to let this slide. Stasia just lost all usefulness as a pawn between Anthony and Paul. There will be a war."

"Why? Just because of some fake band? We can be a band ..." Jessica said intending to sweep her hand and indicate everyone in the room, but her hands were full.

"The deal between Anthony and Paul when Anthony married Stasia, included complete disclosure." Leah said when everyone else still appeared to be too angry to speak.

"Meaning?" Jessica asked.

"Meaning that Paul had to tell Anthony about everyone in his clan and Anthony had to tell Paul about everyone in his clan."

"Oh." Jessica said when the implication became clear to her.

"Yeah, 'oh'." Angus grumbled, "Stasia has screwed all of us now."

"She had no choice!" Rick shouted at Angus and then looked around at everyone. "Who knows what the hell Anthony has done to her! He won't let Doc anywhere near her. Paul thought Terry may have more luck. Since he's married to one of Anthony's second cousins ... twice removed, or some shit like that, but it didn't work. She had to say something or Anthony would have attacked Paul."

"But he hasn't ..." Jessica jumped in. "Anthony hasn't attacked Paul." She added when the looks she received were clearly askance. "How long ago did all of this happen?" she asked, looking between Abe and Rick.

"A few days ..." Abe answered.

"So why aren't we at war already?" Amanda asked. Jessica nodded at Amanda and noticed that Amanda's men, like her own, had converged around her. And to Jessica's relief, Amanda wasn't burrowed in Quinn's arms. She wasn't burrowed in anyone's arms ... Stan stood to her right, holding her arm, Don and Caleb, behind her, Quinn to her left. The relief was short lived however when Stan threw a withering look at Quinn. Quinn didn't notice. No one seemed to notice except Jessica. Jessica didn't understand why Stan was so mad, but then she noticed that Amanda was clutching Quinn's hand in both of hers. If looks could kill, Quinn would be dead a hundred times over. But when Amanda looked up at Stan, his face shifted to neutral. A chill ran through Jessica. Something wasn't right there ... but Jessica didn't have time to deal with it right then. Bigger problems were at hand.

"That's true, why aren't we at war?" Chris asked and Jessica knew things were looking better when Scott's arms loosened around her.

"And ..." Riley added when everyone looked back at Rick and Abe, "when the hell were you planning to tell us that all this shit was going on?"

Abe shrugged. "You're immune." Abe said to Riley. "I didn't see the point in telling you ... I had no idea that your clans were going to merge again." He added looking at Sean. "And it's not my place to give directives to the clans. You would have heard from Paul soon enough." He added to Sean ... who nodded.

"Do you really think Anthony would honor any deal we had with Paul?" Riley demanded and he had an edge to his voice that made it clear that he found Abe and Rick's apparent naivety to be a sign of either sheer stupidity or betrayal.

Jessica slid from Scott's arms into Riley's and hugged him tight. Riley's arms automatically went around her, tightening in kind.

"I doubt it." Abe replied, "Honestly Riley, I didn't even consider that. This has all happened so fast, and you were still under heavy protection." He nodded at Sean and the others. "I dropped the ball on that ... sorry."

Jessica squeezed Riley tighter, burying her face deeper into his chest. Willing Riley and the other's to accept Abe's explanation. This was no time for divisiveness.

"Okay ..." Riley said, patting Jessica's back. "Okay. I can see how that would happen." Jessica looked up at Riley. He attempted a smile ... that didn't quite work. Jessica pushed herself up onto her tip toes and kissed him.

"Thank you." She said.

Riley nodded. "Just following your lead Jess. Now what?"

Jessica searched his eyes for a moment. Jim hadn't been exaggerating when he said that Riley and the others would do anything for her. It was disconcerting. But a relief at the same time. She pecked his lips again before turning to lean against him and look at the others.

Everyone was looking at her, waiting.

She looked at Abe, "So ... your idea?"

Abe cleared his throat. "I think we're not at war yet because Anthony wants to torture Paul some more. Stasia's made some friend's among Anthony's people and through them she managed to get some information out. Anthony had pressed her for specifics about her outings. Still trying to keep the clan out of it, she'd given him details that were so out in left field that no one in the clan could possibly have been involved. And she walked into Anthony's trap, hook line and sinker. Because after all of this information was given, Anthony demanded to see it. For himself. He caught Paul completely off guard. He knew nothing about any of it. If Stasia hadn't gotten that info out, Paul would have been walking into a trap. As it is, he's been desperately trying to find people and a place to have this band play for Anthony and his clan."

"And that's where we come in?" Jim asked.

"No. That's where Jessica comes in." Abe said locking eyes with Jessica.

"Now wait a minute ... " Angus said. When Jessica had moved to Riley the men had reconfigured themselves so that they were touching some part of Jessica again. Jessica had been clutching Josh and Jim's hands but when Angus' let go of her arm and took a step toward Abe Jessica let go of Josh and Jim and grabbed Angus' arm.

"Angus, please, let him finish." Jessica pleaded. Angus stopped, and looked at Jessica. It was clear that an inner struggle was going on but finally Angus hung his head and took a step back.

"The make-up of the band is very specific." Abe said, "No one from Anthony's clan has ever, ever, ever ..." Abe emphasized, "seen any of the members. They're from somewhere up north ... Alaska, northern areas of Canada. So none of you can be members of the band." Abe scanned the group, "The lead singers are a male and a female, who are married. And they play heavy metal music. I've been able to dig up some old friends of mine who are not part of the cause ... but like minded ..." Abe said, "to be the male members of the band. But we've had no luck with the female. Paul is desperate. And I mean desperate ..."

"Holy fuck." Angus said.

"I never considered you." Abe said still looking at Jessica. "And I never would have except now you're talking about a way to get Sean's men off the field. Well, this is it."

"If he's so desperate," Jessica said, "we should be able to get Beth in as part of the deal."

"Jess ..." Josh muttered, Riley and Angus groaned, Scott and Jim were shaking their heads when Jessica looked around at them.

"What?" Jessica said, "If he's that desperate we should be able to get whatever we want ..."

"You sure know how to play hardball ..." Abe said with a laugh and shake of his head, "but with Beth it won't work. Paul is desperate but he's also pissed. Beth picked a particularly bad time to push Paul Jessica. If you try to push him on Beth, you'll lose. You'll even lose what you're trying to achieve. Take my advice and don't do it."

"So those are the details? Unknowns, married lead singers and heavy metal?" Corey asked. Jessica glanced around and couldn't help but smile at the way everyone cuddled up. Amanda and her men, Corey and Leah, Sean and Sara, and Justine with Caleb ... and Mark? That was new ... she kind of wished that Abe and Rick would break down and show some affection between them too, but it seemed the most they'd do was Abe's hand on Rick's shoulder. One upside to this whole thing was the cementing of relationships. Jessica clung to that positive when despair threatened to overcome her. Despair about Beth.

"There's more." Abe said. "The avenue is to be clan owned. Another source of desperation for Paul. He doesn't own anything that remotely resembles a bar. And Stasia told Anthony that she is personal friends with the band. Knows them well. Real well."

"So you say that Stasia got these details out ..." Caleb said, "How do you know they came from her? What if Anthony leaked those out himself?"

"And heavy metal?" Jim added, "Jess, do you even know heavy metal? We've never played that before ..."

"Yes ..." Jessica said at the same time as Abe said, "I'm positive ..."

"Go ahead." Jessica said to Abe when they both stopped and looked at one another.

"I'm positive it came from Stasia ..." Abe said to Caleb, "We have a code and she used it." Abe sighed when everyone looked at him expectantly, "When she wanted to go dancing she'd work 'funky chicken' into the conversation. If she was in trouble she'd say 'sauce' ... a play on 'SOS'. The message that came out of Anthony's clan stated all of these details and then added that Anthony wanted to have a 'funky chicken dish with special sauce for his dinner'."

"Ahuh." Caleb said when no one else said anything.

"Jess ... heavy metal?" Jim prompted.

"Oh, yeah, Marcus loved heavy metal. I used to listen to it with him, watch the music videos. I can pick it up with a bit of practice, I'm sure."

"Marcus?" Sara asked.

"My brother." Jessica said.

"Oh ... oh." Sara replied and looked sorry she'd asked but Jessica threw her a smile which seemed to offer her some consolation.

"You're not going to have a lot of time." Rick said breaking his silence. For the first time in the whole conversation he seemed to have some hope. "The band is to play in two nights. You'd barely have time to meet the band and get acquainted enough to act like you know each other. Especially you and the lead singer ..."

"We'd be pretending ..." Jessica said when Riley's arms constricted around her, and the other men's hand tightened where they touched her, "It'd be like we were in a play or something ... you won't get jealous over an act will you?" Jessica asked looking around at her men.

Angus narrowed his eyes at Jessica but ignored her question, instead looking up at the other's in the room. "What if Paul agrees to all of this ... lets us save his sister's ass, and then backs out? Letting all of us out of going in the field is a lot. He loses a lot of strength that way."

"I've never known Paul to go back on his word ..." Rick began in a defensive tone.

"He's done everything he promised he would for you ..." Abe added.

Jessica tuned out the arguments around her. There had to be a solution to this. To all of this. To Beth, to Stasia, to ensuring Paul kept his word. Angus was right after all, it seemed like a lot to expect Paul to allow. But it was also a lot to solve with one solution. Everyone made it clear that Beth couldn't be helped by the same solution as Stasia. Fine, fine, those were two separate problems. Two problems, two solutions. But which one to focus on now? They were both serious and urgent as far as Jessica could tell. But maybe Paul was so busy trying to solve the issue of Stasia that he wasn't focused on Beth. So that made Stasia's issue of first priority.

It wasn't until Riley shook her that Jessica registered that her name was being repeated. Looking up she found everyone watching her.

"What are you doing Jess?" Angus demanded.

"Huh?" was all Jessica could muster.

"What ... are ... you ... doing?" Angus repeated very slowly and clearly.

"Other than chewing your lip off ..." Josh added, putting a finger under her chin to lift her face. Jessica froze mid chew. She hadn't even realized she'd been gnawing on her lip or staring at the floor.

"Oh ... thinking." Jessica said.

"You'd better do that out loud." Riley said, "Please." He added when Jessica looked surprised by his tone. Which had been forceful, almost angry. "I just don't want any surprises." He added in a more gentle voice.

"You have that look on your face Jess." Jim said by way of explanation, "The same one you had the night before you rode for Paul."

"When you were apologizing to us all night the night before but we didn't know why ..." Josh added.

"So think out loud." Angus said.

"Please." Scott added when Jessica had looked from Riley, to Jim, to Josh and then Angus as if she were being wrongly accused of something and her stunned expression began to turn into a pout.

She was pouting, but she nodded.

"The only way to ensure that Paul doesn't change his mind on us is to make ourselves, as non-combatants, so important to him that he can't change his mind."

But, how? She asked herself.

"Out loud Jess ..." Josh said and Jessica realized that she'd lowered her head, began chewing her lip and thinking to herself again.

"It's actually not that easy to think out loud ..." Jessica muttered.

"Pretend we're not here." Leah said, "Say everything you think out loud ... we won't interrupt you."

"Just tell us when you're done ..." Scott said and nodded in encouragement when Jessica looked skeptical.

Jessica shrugged and lowered her head again.

"Paul has a big problem ..." Jessica began, "that problem is Anthony. Anthony thinks he can catch Paul in a lie ... in order to prove Anthony wrong and protect Stasia, Paul needs to own a bar where this distant clan comes to play. This distant clan can't be combatant otherwise Paul has lied to Anthony. We don't want to be combatant ... so we have to be like the distant clan. We and the distant clan are the same ... the distant clan entertains people ... so we entertain people ..." Jessica paused. And then it came to her in a flash. "This place!" she said looking up and finding everyone concentrating. They seemed to be trying to follow her logic. "It's perfect!"

She was so excited she gave a little hop.

"Ah ... are you done thinking out loud?" Sean asked, clearly skeptical.

"Yes ... no ... maybe. Look, Paul needs a place for the band to play. A place that is always used for the band to play. We have a place, here."

"Here?" Scott asked.

Jessica nodded, "We have to add a stage but otherwise this place is perfect. And the clan is kind of like a business, right?" But she didn't wait for an answer, "And every business has different departments ... accounting, advertising, entertainment ... we are the entertainment department of Paul's clan ... oh, and intelligence gathering, of course." Jessica added when everyone looked disbelieving.

"I'm sorry." Abe said, "But this thinking out loud thing is actually very confusing. I'm completely lost."

Jessica looked around the room. Everyone looked lost, even her men.

Jessica sighed. "Anthony has never met me ... Stasia's never met you guys ... right? Right?' Jessica demanded when no one replied.

"I was going to say that Anthony and his people probably got a good look at you at the race." Jim said.

Jessica shook her head. "I don't think so. I've never met any of them. And during the race I had my helmet on."

"But when Doc was checking your leg out you had your helmet off." Josh said, "Anyone could have seen you then."

"True." Jessica said, "But that doesn't matter anyway. I propose that Stasia thought we were all from out of town because she'd never met you ... but the lead singers could very easily be Jim and me. The out of towners can be specific to heavy metal, but we have a band so to speak anyway. None of that really matters anyway. The point is ... we are Paul's location, we, with the addition of Abe's friends, are the heavy metal band." Jessica's eyes wander over Sean and the others. "You can be the serving staff ... waiters, waitresses, bartenders ... if Anthony ever needs to entertain, I'm sure Paul could offer our services."

"You're serious!" Riley said.

"And insane!" Angus added when Jessica nodded.

"Do you honestly want to provide food and entertainment services for Paul and Anthony?" Scott added.

"No, not really." Jessica said, "But intelligence is our main service to Paul. This is secondary. And it will make us indispensable to him. I mean, how often do Paul or Anthony entertain anyway? They're too busy killing people ..."

"I'm with Jessica on this." Abe said. "There's not much better that can be done in these circumstances and in the time we have. Paul is desperate and I think that if you don't offer him a solution tonight he'll just go to war."

"We have him where we want him." Justine said, sounding somewhat surprised. "To not take advantage of that is insane."

"Well?" Jessica prompted her men when no one said anything.

"But you're not just married to Jim, Jess, you're married to all of us." Riley said.

Jessica shrugged, "Stasia is not the expert on us. Just because she told Anthony that the lead singers are married doesn't mean she would necessarily know anything else about them. We can make up whatever we want so long as there's a place ..." she opened her hands to indicating the room, "lead singers ... "she indicated herself and Jim, "and a metal band," she pointed at Abe.

"Okay." Riley said. He looked at Abe. "You think I have to talk to Paul tonight?"

Abe nodded.

"And then we have twenty-four hours to get ready ..." Angus said.

"This will work." Jessica said, squeezing Angus' hand.

"So much for the rest of your party ..." Josh said.

"It's not going to take long." Jessica said, "it's early still. Get this over with quickly with Paul and then we still have time to finish the party."

"Assuming Paul goes for it we'll have a ton to do to get ready." Jim said.

"And we can do that tomorrow." Jessica said. "A few hours won't make much of a difference."

"Okay. But Jess, I'm going to deal with Paul tonight. You're going to stay out of it. Understand?" Riley asked.

Jessica nodded. "Perfectly."

"And Beth ..." Riley said, "Jess ..." he pulled Jessica out of Scott's arms and took her by her shoulders. "I know you want to help Beth. But you have to stay away from her. Listen to me ..." he said when Jessica was about to protest, "we will find a way to help Beth ..." he said nodding his head at the others, "But if Paul gets any indication that you have any relationship with Beth he's going to consider you his enemy. And any agreements that you had with him will be void. Do you understand?"

"You promise to help her?"

Riley nodded.

"Okay. I won't talk to her, I promise." Jessica said.

"Don't go near her either. No singing together at the bar, nothing. Please Jess. It's really important."

Jessica nodded. "I promise."

"Okay. Well, I guess we better get back." Riley said looking around.

Everyone looked glum. All that fun earlier seemed to be a distant memory.

Everything got packed quickly but quietly. Jessica helped too despite everyone telling her to leave it to them and just relax.

They returned to the house by six.

"There was so much more planned ..." Jim said as they all stood on the front lawn looking despondent. "Dinner, cake, presents, bonfire, singing ..."

"It's only six o'clock." Jessica said, "I'm not even hungry yet. Riley, call Paul. Let's get this done and then we can have dinner and finish the party."

Jessica looked around at all the sad expressions and stomped her foot in frustration. "Will you people snap out of it!" she demanded but her voice couldn't match the appropriate tone required to convince anyone that she was angry. "I'm still the birthday girl, right?" she tried to demand, "Right?"