The Lady Executive Returns Ch. 06

Readers, please note that this is a multi-volume and multi-chapter story. It is best when read from the beginning "The Lady Executive, Chapter 1".

"Ah shit. Reggie, go get her." Lance said urgently, but it was too late. Before Reggie even moved, they heard screeching tires and a roaring engine.

Reggie held his hand out to Cory. "Gimme your keys!" he exclaimed.

"Dude! I just got this car. If you wreck it going after her, you WILL buy me a new one, upgraded." Cory warned as he tossed his keys to his brother, whom they both knew was the better pursuit driver.

"If I somehow manage to wreck your car, I promise I will buy you a Stage III." Reggie answered with a smile as he caught Cory's keys in the air.

Reggie got out the door just in time to see which way I turned at the end of the street. He ran to Cory's new car, a Cobalt Blue 2011 Ford Mustang Stage II Supersnake. He'd chosen Cory's car because it was the fastest one in the group. He started the car and put the seatbelt on and floored the gas pedal, causing the engine to roar and the tires to spin, threatening to spin the car itself around. He backed off the gas a shade and rocketed down the driveway. At the end, he whipped the car to the right and drifted around the corner, pulling out of the drift just as the car entered the street. "Jeez! I gotta get me one of these!" he exclaimed out loud.

I was furious as I ran out of the house and got into my car. I started it and floored the gas, leaving tire marks and smoke behind me as I flew down the street and turned left, drifting the big car around the corner.

At the end of the street, I looked right and left, trying to decide which way to go. I decided on left. I knew that if I went to the right, I would soon run out of road and I needed some time behind the wheel to think and sort things out. I made it half a mile down the road before I got stuck behind two slow moving cars. I honked the horn and

received an extended middle finger in response. I knew I'd have to just wait it out so I settled down and got comfortable for the slow cruise down the road. Soon I was clear of the houses along the road for a bit so I carefully pulled a little to the left to see if any traffic was coming. Seeing none, I pulled out and floored the gas, flying around the two cars in front of me. They honked their horns and I returned the finger I had been given earlier. As I pulled back into the lane, I suddenly noticed a dark blue car pulling in right behind me, with a familiar face behind the wheel. He smiled and held up his phone. I answered on the first ring.

"Fuck you." I said evenly into the phone.

"Joanie, please let me explain what that was about. You came into the room at the absolute worst possible moment." Reggie pleaded into the phone.

"What could you possibly have to say to me that would make this any better?" I asked.

"How about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" Reggie asked.

"That's a start. O.K. Fuck it, follow me." I said and hung up as I turned into the parking lot for a marina.

We parked side by side in the visitor parking lot and got out of our cars. Reggie made a move to hug me and I warned him off.

"Don't touch me right now. You might lose something." I said, looking him in the eye.

Reggie immediately put his hands up. "Ok, hands off. What are we doing here?" he asked.

"First of all, put your hands down, you dork. You look like you're being mugged in broad daylight by a woman four inches shorter than you." I said, failing to suppress a smile. "As for what we're doing here...we're going for a boat ride. If I don't like what you have to tell me, you will be swimming back. You got that?" I asked.

"Yes Ma'am. I understand. Lead the way." he said, allowing me to walk past him.

I took my phone out and made a call. "Hi Howard, this is Joanie. How are you doing today...I'm good. Listen, I was wondering if the boat is available today for a few hours...I was thinking about running from the Marina to Rich up the coast to Howard's and back down to the Marina...yeah, make the run back inland...great, when can you be at the marina?...oh really?...well my friend and I just parked...we'll be right there...thanks Howard...see you in a moment."

"Who is Howard?" Reggie asked warily.

"Howard owns and pilots the boat we are going to be on. It's a 56 foot catamaran called The R&R. He charters channel and ocean cruises and he's a very good friend of mine. Yes, before you ask, I've slept with him. We were fast friends long before we became lovers and to my knowledge, he's never lied to me. Unlike some others I've recently made the mistake of becoming involved with." I said as I glanced sideways at Reggie.

"Now wait a minute...I have never outright lied to you." Reggie said defensively.

"Lies of omission are lies just the same. Now when we get to the boat, you let me do the talking. When we are out on the water, you will be doing the talking and like I said, it better be good, because it is a very long swim back from where we're going." I said.

"Understood. I will not speak until you say so, unless spoken to, of course. Is there anything I need to know?" Reggie asked.

"Howard knows all about my online business so there is nothing to hide there. He will give us the privacy we need so you've nothing to worry about from him. He is the epitome of discretion." I answered.

Howard appeared just as we arrived at the side of the catamaran. He extended his hand to each of us and welcomed us on board with a smile.

"Hello, Joanie! It's so good to see you." he exclaimed with a thick Caribbean accent. Although he was through and through Caucasian, he sounded more like a Jamaican. As we hugged, he whispered to me, "Who is your friend? Is he a good man?"

"He is a good friend. Whether he is a good man remains to be seen, but he will not trouble you." I answered aloud. "Reggie, this is our intrepid captain, Howard. Howard, this is my good friend Reggie. Depending on what he has to say to me while we are out, he may or may not be with us on the return trip. I have informed him that if I don't like what he has to say, he will be swimming back." I said, looking at Reggie to prove I was serious.

"Ah Joanie, you are such a joker." Howard said as he took Reggie's hand with a smile and looking Reggie in the eye, he applied enough pressure to tell Reggie that he would be backing Joanie if she needed it.

Reggie smiled and returned the squeeze, using just enough force to show Howard that it would not be easy to do so. "It's nice to meet you, Howard. This is a beautiful boat. Thank you for taking us out on such short notice." he said.

"Oh it is no trouble. I had no plans tonight and it is a beautiful night for a cruise. Now if you'll excuse me, I must go set our course and we will get under way. Joanie, you know the boat, I will allow you to show your guest around." Howard said before turning and walking to the Bridge.

"Thank you, Howard. I am going to leave my things in the box, ok?" I said before opening a lid on the side of the cabin and placing my purse inside. I turned to Reggie. "Follow me." I said, leading him to the front of the boat and out onto the netting. I kicked off my shoes and stepped out onto the netting between the hulls and laid on my back, looking up at the sky as the boat began to back out of the slip and into the channel.

Reggie followed suit and kicked off his shoes and socks, leaving them next to mine. He came out onto the netting and lay down beside me. We silently watched the shore pass by as we pulled out of the marina and turned north into the main channel.

"This is incredible. The breeze and the motion, it's so relaxing and the netting is amazingly comfortable." Reggie said conversationally.

"That's why I was coming to see Howard. I need some stress free down time and The R&R is the absolute best place for that. When we get out of the channel and onto the open water, I like to lie out here nude, just soaking up the sun and feeling the breeze across my body." I said.

"Mmm, now that is a nice thought." Reggie said.

"Don't get any ideas, buddy. It ain't happening tonight. We came out here for you to tell me what you need to tell me, and for you to answer some questions I have recently developed. So start talking, mister." I said, looking at him.

At that moment, Howard appeared above us. Looking down at us, he asked, "Would you like some drinks before I start cooking?"

"I would kiss you for a good, stiff Margarita on the rocks." I answered.

"I won't kiss you, but I'll shake your hand again for a good Morgan Coke." Reggie said with a smile, causing Howard to laugh.

"Reggie, if you were to kiss me for a drink, I would toss you and the drink right off the front of that net." he exclaimed, laughing. "Ok, one Margarita and one Morgan Coke coming up." he said before disappearing below decks.

"Now before you get started, I have to know something. This morning, Bailey got a call from Ramona, Randall's secretary. She said this morning, Randall was found in a hotel room in Houston, dead. By the end of the day, it came out that it was a pretty kinky scene. The police aren't officially releasing any information about it, so Bailey called a friend of hers who is on staff at the hotel where he was found. Her friend told her Ramona had been there but left abruptly after receiving a message at the front desk. Reggie, I need to know if you had anything to do with this." I asked, looking him in the eye.

"How much do you want to know?" he asked me without hesitation.

"Everything." I said.

"Ok. Just remember, you asked for it, so here it is. I told you that I would protect you and take care of you. You know what I do for a living. I have dealt with this kind of man before and the only thing that works is to make them go away, so that's what I did." he said, evenly.

"Reggie, I'm not angry. In fact, I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I am kind of relieved that he is gone. He's been a major thorn in my side for a long time, not just professionally but personally as well. I feel bad for his wife, but I'll see to it that she is very well taken care of. Now tell me, what did you do?" I asked, looking him in the eye again.

"When I left the other morning, I went to the airport and got on the first flight to Houston. When I got there, I scouted the place and bought some supplies. After work, I followed Randall to his little date. I gave them some time to get into the middle of things. While I waited, I wrote a note to Ramona and had it delivered. As she was at the counter receiving the note, I went up to the room and found Randall in a very compromising position." Reggie explained, ending with a smile.

"What do you mean by 'compromising position'?" I asked.

"This is what I call a 'compromising position'." Reggie said as he took out his phone and showed me the picture. I couldn't suppress the laugh that erupted from my lips when I saw Randall tied face down and spread eagle on a bed with a dildo sticking out of his ass and a ball gag in his mouth. The look on his face was priceless. Remembering that he was dead dampened the joy a little bit.

At that moment, Howard arrived with our refreshments. I took a long drink of mine and sighed.

"Oh Howard, that is so good. Thank you, dear." I said, smiling.

"Yes Howard, this is excellent. Thank you, sir." Reggie said after taking a drink of his.

"You're both very welcome. Now I will leave you to your discussion. Joanie, you know where to find me if I am needed." Howard said, glancing at Reggie, who just smiled back at him.

"Continue." I said, looking at Reggie after Howard left.

"Well I let him stew for a moment while I went about wiping down the surfaces in the room that would hold prints. I told him to think about who might send someone like me after someone like him. He immediately started to struggle and freaked out for a while. I got tired of his struggles so I slapped the bed next to his face with a riding crop. He shut right down. For a moment, I thought I'd made him pass out, but then he opened his eyes and just looked at me with contempt. I had to laugh at that. For him to be in the position he was in and to show contempt to me was pretty ballsy. After that, I turned on the TV and turned the channel to a music channel and turned up the volume a bit. Then I got his attention in the mirror and pulled out my knife and went to work on him." Reggie said, looking off in the distance.

"Reggie, I said I want to know everything." I warned him.

"Ok, ok. To be precise, I told him that it was going to hurt quite a bit, and then I slowly stabbed each of his asscheeks with a hunting knife. He was screaming and struggling again. Then I carved a big capital A in his back, stretching from his ass to his neck. I figured that would be a nice bit of confusion to toss onto the fire of the investigation. The police like to try to figure out what everything in a murder means and a capital A gives them a load of possibilities. After that, I decided I was running out of time so I finished the job I went there to do. I leaned down close to his ear and gave him a message to take into the afterlife and then I cut his dick off and placed it on the bed next to his face where he could see it. After giving him a few seconds to process that, I stuck the knife in each leg, quickly severing each of his femoral arteries, and covered him up with the blankets. Between the blood and the severed dick, I do feel kind of bad for the housekeeper who found him the next day." Reggie finished with a smile.

"Jesus Christ, Reggie. What did you say to him?" I asked, as shivers ran up my spine as I realized I was lying on my back next to a man who would murder someone in cold blood for me. I didn't know whether to be disgusted, appalled or in awe of such a man.

"I told him that you said goodbye." Reggie said, looking me in the eye.

"And you did all of that for me, because he was blackmailing me?" I asked.

"I did it for you because he was a serious threat to you and, by association, to everyone you hold dear. I told you before, I will protect you and keep you safe from anyone who intends you or yours harm. This man who was in your chat room, Starrman, is just such a man. You are not safe, nor is anyone you love or care about safe. He is fixated on you and he is a very dangerous man. Until he is dealt with, your life will never be the same." Reggie said seriously.

I looked at him for a moment and was startled to realize that we were leaving the channel and entering the open ocean part of our cruise.

"Does Lance know about this? Do you have any plans as to how to deal with this Starrman?" I asked.

"Lance is well aware of who Starrman is. He used to be one of our operatives overseas." Reggie admitted, grimly.

"You used to work with this guy!?" I exclaimed incredulously. "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?" I asked, angry all over again.

"To be precise, I never worked with him because I never trusted him. He was continually disobeying orders and killing innocents. He called them collateral damage and bullshit like that. Then one night he committed the ultimate betrayal and went rogue, killing the client instead of the target. Later that night, Cory and I were sent to finish the mission and we found him in bed with the target." Reggie explained, gazing out at the ocean in the twilight.

"What did you do?" I asked, forgetting all about my present situation.

"We did what we were sent to do. They'd made a mistake and left the blinds open. We set up on a hillside a quarter mile away and, using a Barret 50 cal., Cory shot her head clean off her shoulders just as they finished a kiss. Lazarus barely flinched. He wiped the blood off his

face and then threw her body to the side and stood in the window, arms wide, begging to be shot with her. We should have shot him but we weren't there for him, only her, and we followed orders." he explained, lost in the past.

I had nothing to say, so I remained silent. I lay back on the netting and stared up at the stars. As I closed my eyes, he continued his confession.

"After verifying the status of the target, we left Lazarus to deal with the situation and we disappeared into the night. The next night we were debriefing with Lance when Lazarus kicked in the door and shot Cory and Lance. As a precaution against this very sort of thing, we were all wearing heavy duty body armor under our jackets, so the shots mainly just pissed them off. He missed me and I had him by the throat before he realized they weren't hurt. I picked him up by his throat and balls and turned and slammed him onto a coffee table. I kicked the gun out of his hand and then proceeded to literally kick the shit out of him. I'm serious, he literally shit his pants in the middle of the beating I was putting on him." he continued with a chuckle. "After a few moments of that, Lance called me off so I stopped mid swing. I got down in Lazarus' face and told him the timing of the kill was payback for his betrayal on the mission and that the things that were about to happen to him were a direct result of his own arrogance and stupidity. He smiled and spit in my face and told me to fuck off. I looked at Lance and he smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders before turning to help Cory off the ground. I took out my knife and showed it to Lazarus before telling him that I was going to enjoy the next few moments very much. He surprised me again and had a knife of his own which he proceeded to stick in my thigh. If he hadn't missed the artery by an eighth of an inch, I'd be dead. Even so, it hurt like hell and made me even madder than I was. So, with the knife still in my thigh, I picked him up off the floor and turned and slammed him into a wall, hard. I meant to push him through it, but he hit a wall stud and just kind of bounced off it. In the rebound, he reached for the knife in my leg and I rewarded him for that

by first stabbing the forearm he reached with and then the other arm. With his hands useless, I proceeded to hit him another eight times in various places with the knife. One of those shots damned near cut his ear in half. He was lucky because I was aiming for his throat and he moved at the last moment. Before giving him the last shot, we heard sirens approaching and knew we'd run out of time. What I thought was the kill shot was a stick upward through the diaphragm into the heart. He wasn't breathing when I looked at him before we went out the window and disappeared into the night." Reggie said with a sigh of relief.

"Um...wow! You see that kind of stuff on TV and in the movies all the time and it's no big deal anymore. But to hear someone talk about it, first hand, is another thing altogether. I don't understand, though, why are you guys are so convinced that Starrman is Lazarus?" I said, signaling Howard to stop the boat and drop anchor. I looked around and saw that we were all alone out on the ocean, about a mile from shore. The water was almost calm and it was incredibly peaceful. I began unbuttoning my blouse as he began to speak, still looking at the stars.

"It was the phrase he used when we got him riled up. When he said it wasn't a matter of if, but a matter of when he made us worm food, a cold shiver went down my back and I'm sure Cory had the same reaction. In all my years of being a mercenary, I have never heard anyone else use that phrasing. It was kind of his thing. Right before he'd kill someone, he'd say something along the lines of 'Say hi to the worms!' or something stupid like that. It always involved worms." Reggie said, giving me a funny look when he realized I was lying there with my blouse open and my bra undone.

"I think we need to change the subject, lighten the mood. I think it's time we go for a swim." I said with a smile as I tossed my blouse and bra to the side. I unzipped my skirt and raised my hips, taking it and my panties off at the same time. I pinched and played with both of my nipples while he watched, stunned by the sudden turn of events. I