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"Yeah, you do that while I... hnf!... Put this little monster to bed," Grandpa Mike wrestled to grab Sue who started screaming: "Nine thirty! Nine thirty! Just one more level," she begged.
"No, eight o'clock" I proclaimed. "Oh, and Dad, please do not let her play President Evil at night or she'll have nightmares."
A glint of mischief sparkled in Sue's eyes when I said those words and she stopped struggling with Mike. She started giggling like she and Bill always do when I mention video games. What is that all about, did I say something wrong?
"Ooookay bye Mom" she waved at me, running for her room with Mike in pursuit.
"Sweet dreams, lollipop!" I screamed, but she didn't hear me.
Josh's icon on the left of my screen was green. He must have made himself available to skype with his boyfriend Johnny while away. I gave him a call.
"Hey, sexy, what's up?" Josh answered. Shirtless, of course, I watched him put on a shirt, gawking at his ripped abs. Geez, was this guy even human?
"Josh, did you leave your emergency contact here in Akron with Trish?" I asked, nervous.
"Yeah, why?" Josh raised his eyebrow. I saw him turn. His doorbell was ringing. "Hang on a sec..."
"No!" I screamed. "Do not answer that door! Listen, Josh, Bill called Trish today asking for that address. I think he's here in Akron. Bill's beside himself and I fear he's coming after you."
Josh's face tensed while the bell kept ringing, over and over again.
"Hold that thought," he finally said, getting up.
"Josh, do not open that door, he's gonna kill you!" I shouted. Josh was already at the door: "Don't worry about it, babe, nobody kills The Josh."
In came my husband, holding a 34 inch Brett Bros Maple bat.
"Hey, beautiful," Josh smiled, opening his arms. Bill barged in in silence, his face twisted with anger. I could barely recognize the man I fell in love with. Josh pointed at the bat: "For me? You shouldn't have... well, you should, but I much prefer magnolias."
My husband hesitated, looking at Josh's disarming smile. Bill was many things, but he would never hit an unarmed man, I hoped. Then, he saw my face on the Skype screen and his eyes filled with rage. O God, what a faux-pas!
"My wife? My fucking wife, you cunt?" Bill growled at Josh.
"Bill? No, it's not what you're..." I tried to justify myself.
"You making the moves on my wife? You motherfucker!" He grabbed Josh by his neck, pushing him against the wall. Bad move. Josh grabbed his thumb and twisted it back, making my husband scream in pain: "Hands off the merchandise, baby cheeks. Dinner, first!"
Bill swung the bat, hitting Josh in the lats. Josh winced in pain, bending on himself, hands on his side. My husband saw the opening and punched Josh with a left jab, watching him fall to the ground.
"You prick, who raised you? Don't you know you don't mess with married women?" He snarled, twirling his bat. This was bad. Josh was younger and quicker; Bill had his military training, the bat, and his bad back. Oh, God, I had to stop this before one of them got hurt, or both:
"Bill, stop it! Please, stop it! You're going to kill him!" I begged to the screen. Bill looked at me like a deranged man. Anger clouded his judgment and Josh used it to his advantage. Turning on the floor, he swept Bill's leg, making my husband lose his balance. His phone jumped from his shirt pocket, landing on the couch. As my husband tumbled to the ground, Josh rose and hit Bill with a powerful uppercut. I saw my husband vacillate, dazed by the sucker punch.
"You punch like my Grandma Dezba," Josh sneered. Bill grunted, shaking the stupor off. Both men got up, sizing up their opponent. "That's a pretty big bat for such a little kitten. You afraid to face me like a real man, Billy-boy?"
Bill stared at him before throwing the bat away. "I don't need a bat to kick your fucking ass!"
My husband lunged but Josh sidestepped him, hitting Bill with a right jab to his ear. He followed it with a vicious left-right hook-hook to the body and an uppercut that failed to hit my husband's jaw by inches. Bill responded with a left punch to Josh's skull and a kick to his damaged knee. He was slow and Josh dodged it, taunting my husband with his index finger: "Nuh-huh, you naughty, naughty boy!"
Groaning from the hits, Bill realized his mistake and covered his guard. Anger had him fighting like a stupid kid. I could see reason taking over in his eyes. Josh saw it too, but too late. He threw a right jab at my husband and Bill blocked it with his left, rotating his forearm to lock Josh's arm under his armpit and drag him closer to him.
Bill's devastating right elbow hit him twice in the face and the light in Josh's eyes dimmed; a side throw sent him to the ground. Grabbing him from behind, my husband locked his arm around Josh's neck in a chokehold. It was over.
"Bill.. Bill, please don't kill him... please..." I begged my husband. Bill wasn't listening to me. His ears were focused on something. A phone was ringing. It had been ringing for a while, now. It went to voicemail. It was Josh's boyfriend, Johnny:
"Hey, Sweet Bee, miss you. Listen, your sister called, there's an opening in Reno next month, she thought you'd be interested. Good pay and you'd get to see her and your parents more than once a year... lemme know. Say hi to Annie for me. Love you, babe, and hurry back."
They looked at the phone in silence, Bill's arm still around Josh's neck.
"Sweet bee?" Bill mumbled. Josh grunted a reply: "Fuck off, Mr. Mushroom."
Bill looked at me, angry: "You told him?"
"Sorry..." I looked away, mortified. Bill's anger subsided, but he wasn't letting go of Josh.
"You've been hit by, you've been struck by," Michael Jackson burst in. It was coming from Bill's phone on the couch. "A smooth criminal."
Bill and Josh stared at it. Then, they tried to stare at each other, a tall order when you're in a chokehold. Finally, as the only one with his hands-free, Josh reached for the phone and put it on speaker.
"Where the fuck are you?" a deep voice screamed from the other side. "Why aren't you at the Lindy Lodge? I waited for you the whole day, why did you turn off your cell phone?"
"You know I'm in Akron?" Bill's mouth opened in surprise.
"Of course I know you're in Akron, I'm a detective," the voice on the other side snarled.
"Some fucking detective you are, did you know lover boy here is gay?" Bill shouted at his phone. "Wait, of course, you knew. You knew all along, didn't you? You just hid it from me to get me here. You've used me! What kind of a P.I. are you?"
"I'm the kind that needed your moping ass to wake up, straighten up and fly here." The voice continued. "I couldn't look out for Robert and protect Annie at the same time. Remember safety in numbers."
"Who the fuck is Robert?" Bill questioned. He was at a loss. I watched his grip on Josh weaken. "What does he have to do with..."
"Cowntact!" A child's voice screamed on the phone. "Black Pontiac Aztek on the parking lot, two ow'clock. Guy headed for the east side dowr. It's Robert."
"It's going down, get your fucking ass to the Lindy Lodge right the fucking now," the man shouted and I saw Josh writhing in panic, trying to let go of Bill.
"We have to go! We have to go! You can kill me later; we have to go help Annie now!" He screamed to my frozen husband.
The cold hand of fear glided down my back, making me shiver. Robert was here?
There was a snap downstairs and my room went black.
The only light was coming from my laptop screen. I saw my boys getting up in a rush, Bill extending his hand to help Josh to his feet. My hands gripped the Taser and I remembered Maggie. Safety in numbers, he had said. I headed out to call her when the emergency lights kicked in and a fire alarm blared. The sprinklers came online and I was hit by cold water. Screams from the guests echoed across the corridors. I put the Taser in my purse to protect it from the pouring water.
Nobody answered when I knocked on Maggie's door. I turned the knob and the door creaked open. Her room was empty. Maggie wouldn't leave without me, would she?
My eyes combed through the lobby, filled with running guests fleeing the water from the sprinklers.
"This way, please everybody this way, calm and easy". The lodge personnel steered the crowd toward the exit doors.
My eyes caught her mulberry waistcoat. Maggie was walking through a side exit, carrying her Louis Vuitton. She looked strangely calm amid the yelling crowd. Someone was holding her arm, leading her. A chill ran down my spine. I grabbed my purse and followed her outside.
The night was freezing and windy in the parking lot. My wet clothes didn't help matters. Maggie was headed toward a car. A man held an arm around her shoulder. A lover? Did Trish know about it?
"Maggie?" I called to her.
They turned and a gun stared back at me. Robert.
"How kind of you to join us Annie." He smiled. "Drop the purse."
My Taser was inside. I couldn't...
"Drop it!" His gun waved at me and my fingers released the leather straps.
"It's too late, Robert," I yelled over the fire alarm noise coming in from the lodge, showing him the 911 call on my cell phone. "I've already called for help."
"Drop that too." He aimed the gun at my head, then at the phone and at me again. "Drop it!"
It click-clacked in the pavement.
"It takes the pigs at least forty minutes to get here." He laughed. "Cops aren't gonna help you, Annie, and your precious Josh's back home sucking his boyfriend's cock."
The roar of Josh's 2003 Kawasaki Vulcan Drifter 800 filled the air.
"Guess again!" I stared at him.
Robert pushed Maggie to the ground and turned to face the approaching bike. He aimed his gun, firing three times:
Bam! Bam! Bam!
He missed.
Bam!
Another shot rang out. The bullet hit the forward wheel, collapsing the bike into the ground while its back rose in the air. Josh was sent flying like a ragdoll.
Robert dodged the screeching metal, watching its trail of sparks on the asphalt. The bike crashed into a parked Ford Fiesta. Josh hit the Prius next to it and rolled to the ground, unconscious. The helmet had saved his life, but his ribs were going to pay dearly.
"So much for Josh," Robert smirked. I looked at him with fear and anger as he reached for Maggie on the ground, zip tie on her wrists.
"You won't get away with this, Robert," Maggie's empty threats flew. "I will take you down, swear to God!"
"You and what army?" He laughed at her, gesturing to the dark skies. I squinted as I saw something in his chest. A green dot of light glided down across Robert's body toward his left leg. "Who's going to save you now, Maggie?"
The top of Robert's left shoe exploded in a boiling soup of leather, blood, muscle and bone.
He twirled on himself like a spinning top while I screamed in horror.
Ka-pow!
A sniper rifle screamed its anger in the distance.
Robert screamed back in pain, hiding behind Maggie. I reached for my purse lying on the ground.
"Stop!" Robert yelled, pointing the gun at me: "Get back here, you cunt!"
A supersonic bullet whistled five feet past his head and he further hid behind Maggie.
Ka-pow!
The rifle roared in frustration, too dark for a clear shot, too much wind.
No, it was a distraction.
Something plastic slid my way across the parking lot asphalt; my phone.
I turned to see blue butterflies fluttering away toward the back of a parked Volvo.
Sara.
My baby girl was here. My heart pumped with strength and resolve. I was now invulnerable, my little angel had come to protect her Mommy.
Robert pushed Maggie into his car's driver's seat. His gun urged me to join her inside and I smiled, at least it was warmer there.
As Robert climbed into the backseat, the window closest to him burst into a thousand flying shards, piercing his face.
Ka-pow!
Robert screamed at both Maggie and his pain: "Your hands, give me your fucking hands!"
He cut Maggie's zip tie with a switchblade, threw her the keys and pressed the gun into her head. All this happened in a span of seconds. I was in awe, fear gave you wings.
"Drive!" He screamed, cowering in the back seat. "Get us outta here or I'll blow your fucking head off!"
The right rear wheel blew into pieces of rubber, hissing as Maggie hit the accelerator.
Ka-pow!
The wounded rental car sped into the night, screeching against the asphalt.
Sparks bled into the air.
Maggie drove in silence, gloom in her face while Robert sat on the back, alternating his aim between my head and Maggie's. He had the home advantage, having grown up in the area. The ease with which he had walked into the Lindy Lodge, snatched Maggie and lured me out was still very present in my mind. But it didn't matter. My phone still had its GPS tracker on, there was nowhere Robert could take us that our mysterious sniper couldn't follow. Ripping a sleeve from his suit, he used it to quench the bleeding on his foot.
"You are fucked, Robert. Kidnapping, attempted murder?" Maggie grunted in a somber tone. "What did you expect to achieve, coming to Akron?"
"Fuck off, you have no idea. No idea!" He grunted in pain, combing through Maggie's purse. "You understand nothing, you never did!"
The car crawled in defeat, coming to a halt near an abandoned warehouse five miles away from the Lindy Lodge.
"Where is it, where is it?" Robert was screaming now, crazed.
"What?" Maggie asked. "Where is what?"
"The fucking manuscript!" Robert shrieked. "Alexander Waiting! I know you have it in an encrypted flash drive, you take it everywhere you go! I need it!"
Robert lifted his head and looked around, assessing his options before pushing us out of the car. The cold, windy night greeted us back.
We rushed inside the decaying building, it was dark and musty.
"You did all this for a book?" I asked in dismay.
"What, you think I came all this way to Akron for you? You're just another one of the dime-a-dozen vapid office monkeys concerned with your shoes and your pussies. What do you know about art, really?" He snarled, a plum of mist emanating from his mouth.
"The fuck..." Maggie ground her teeth with cold. "Robert, did you just go full mental?"
"Shut the fuck up!" He bellowed. His eyes and teeth almost glowed in the dark. "I brought E. M. Parker to you on a silver platter and you had the gall to cut my access to his writings. Cut me off?"
"Good God, he really is insane," I looked at him stunned. Behind Robert, a shadow suddenly came alive and my heart raced.
I knew what had to be done.
"Is that why you tried to kill Corinne Pritchard?" I asked him.
"Corinne was a prosaic distraction for Elliot, robbing us of his genius. I saw it in his eyes; she needed to be dealt with." Robert explained. "Art is sacrifice. Elliot works at his best when he is in pain."
Maggie and I looked at each other in disbelief. Fuck me, here was an actual, real-life cartoon villain. Right down to the twirled mustache. We had this maniac beside us all this time, how did we fail to realize how gone he was?
"I've seen into his mind. I know what makes E.M.Parker tick." He grinned, patting his own head with the barrel of his gun. "Losing his only granddaughter would have been perfect, his creativity would have soared! If only my stupid wife hadn't walked in on us. Instead, he just quit Centaur One, dumping on them that After Belphegor shit. No, literally shit! Have you ever actually seen an image of Belphegor?"
"So, I guess we were just pawns, uh?" Maggie grunted. It all made sense now, the disguise, his mustache, the dyed hair, his constant presence at the office sniffing for crumbs of the E.M.Parker novel.
"Well, what about me?" I asked, furious, trying not to look at the darkness closing in behind Robert." All this time spent harassing me, with nobody there to protect me but Josh?"
"He was harassing you?" Maggie turned to me in shock. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"She was afraid you'd pick my side," Robert laughed. "I did deliver you the great E. M. Parker, after all."
Maggie looked at me with regret in her eyes.
"Oh, Annie, I am so sorry..." Her voice faltered, "I had no idea..."
"Yeah, our little Annie has been through Hell these past few months. I'm not proud of it, but the good news is there's a pill for that." He grinned, waving his gun. "And I just happen to have eight of them right here. So, tell me where the pen is, Maggie, or your pet here..."
The cell phone was dirty from sliding on the pavement, but it responded to my touch. I lifted it up to his eyes and pressed the lantern app, lighting up his face.
Robert stumbled back and I thrust my knee up into his groin, screaming:
"Fuck you, Moustatchoo Bob!"
"Oww!", Robert crawled back in pain. "You bitch! You fucking bitch!"
He slapped the phone from my hand, sending it flying into the ground, the beam of light spinning in the darkness.
Robert moved to hit me and I smiled.
It was too late, I had stalled long enough; the shadow was upon him.
"Lights out, motherfucker!" My husband howled, swinging his baseball bat at Robert's shoulder. Something cracked and the gun was sent flying:
Whack!
The Second one hit him hard on the back, plummeting Robert onto the ground.
Whack!
"Sup, Moustatchoo Bob!" Bill greeted him, twirling his brother's 34-inch bat. He proceeded to pound Robert's legs and arms with it.
Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!
"You've been harassing my girl all this time?" Bill sneered. "Have you, Moustatchoo Bob?"
Whack!
There was fury in his eyes, but Bill seemed to be taking particular care not to hit vital organs:
"My girl? You've put your fucking hands on my wife, did you, you punk?"
Robert writhed in the dirt, rolling toward his gun. I grabbed it, heavy, hard and cold and I pointed at his head. He screamed at me:
"Do it! Do it, you fucking bitch!"
"This is for all you've put me through!" I screamed back, kicking him in the jaw. Tears of anger glided down my face as I continued to kick him, after all the misery I'd endured at his hands until Robert lost conscience.
"There's a switchblade in his pocket," Maggie warned. Bill frisked him and removed it, before tying Robert's wrists with the shoelaces from his ruined left shoe.
"You came for me," I looked into my husband's face. My beautiful Bill, how long had you been gone from me? I hugged him with all my strength. "You came for me!"
"Ow!" He winced, "Careful with the ribs, your boyfriend hits like a motherfucker!"
"You're my boyfriend," I smiled hugging him more gently. Bill crushed me back.
"Why didn't you tell?" he was crying. "Why didn't you tell me? I love you, baby, don't you know I fucking love you?"
"I'm sorry! I love you too, Bill," My tears joined his." I love you so much!"
"Fucking seriously?" A bratty little voice echoed behind us. "You chose the 34 inch? After I put all my money on the Louisville Slugger?"
I turned to see a huge black man approaching us, holding a sniper rifle. Next to him, the gorgeous little Asian girl from the airport with the blue butterflies dress held up a five dollar bill, angry. The man snatched it:
"This is why I am the detective and you're the sidekick, kid." He snickered at her.
