In Her Eyes

A novel by T.R. Jones

Copyright © 2009 , Tyana Rainey, All rights reserved.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Books by T.R. Jones

In Her Eyes

Volume I of Burn & Chaos

Gun Happy Burn

Volume II of Burn&Chaos

American Prodigy

Follow her blog for free short stories and poetry at

TRJones1@wordbpress.com

I

Sam ran her fingers over the smooth warm skin of Rachel’s stomach, starting at her naval and stopping at the slight dip that marked the bottom of her diaphragm just below her shapely breast. Rachel lay with her back pressed against Sam’s small firm breast breathing short shallow breaths. Rachel stiffened slightly with anticipation as Sam’s hand began to make the return journey knowing that it would pass her naval, an impatient sigh slipping from her lips. Sam’s other hand wound it’s self in Rachel’s thick dark tresses and pulled them firmly towards her exposing Rachel’s tender neck to her teeth. “Sam.” Rachel gasped as Sam’s clever lips found the hollow of her shoulder trailing bites and kisses. Rachel’s hips began to rock rhythmically as Sam’s fingers played in her wetness bringing her ever closer to brink. The heat of their coupling played like liquid in the air around them drawing sweat from them both. Their bodies slipped smoothly against each other as both women rocked their hips in one continuous snaking motion. In a moment Rachel’s entire body would tense and arch shaking as she climaxed. Her hands were already pulling the sheets away from the mattress, her moaning becoming louder and more urgent.

              Laughter in the hallway dragged Sam from her memories and into wakefulness. The air in the room was dry and hot from the hotel heater being left on too long. The thing hummed and droned on as though it could turn all of the world into a stale dessert. Sam’s tongue felt swollen in her mouth and as dry as the air she breathed. The tastes of last night’s activities were still prevalent on her lips as she traced them with the tip of her tongue in an attempt to moisturize them. In the dim light of the hotel room Sam suddenly found that she was not alone.

              Thick dark auburn hair lay like a sea between her and the woman that shared the hotel bed with her. The woman was soundly asleep and snoring lightly, her back to Sam broad and smooth, tapering gracefully at the waist and filling out again as her hips emerged from the white sheets that covered the rest of her graceful form. For one blissful moment Sam let herself believe that if this woman rolled over she would be Rachel. Sam let her mind imagine that her lost love had come to wake her from a ten year nightmare. In the next moment she shook the idea from her head leaving a familiar and choking emptiness to take its place. How many times had she let her mind slip into some fantasy that Rachel lay beside her only to be crushed by the reality of her situation? Rachel Burn was dead and there was no changing that now. Sam absently stroked a scar left by a bullet that had entered her body just below her collar bone. She had already been on her back by the time that particular round had entered her chest. It had gone through her lung and out of her back, severing bone and tissue alike. Its five brethren marked her torso in a spray pattern that showed the shooter’s determination to see her dead. A tear rolled unnoticed to her jaw where it clung for a moment before falling away into the darkness to be absorbed by the tangle of sheets. Memory pressed at the edges of her mind causing her bottom lip to quiver slightly as she fought hard against the tears that threatened to take her under.

              A man had wanted Sam and Rachel dead and for nine years he had succeeded in turning Sam into an empty husk, a despairing shadow of the woman that she had been. When he killed Rachel, he had killed Sam. Her resurrection had taken time and the kind of marathon commitment from her friends and family that can only be inspired by love. Her years of medications, and stints in the psychiatric wards of state hospitals had taken their toll on everyone around Sam. She had taken to calling herself Sammy Chaos in the privacy of her head as a way to cope with the chaos that her life had become.

              Now she was not only healthy but one of the world’s truly successful artist owning her own gallery in Chicago with invitations to show in New York and Paris just beginning to come in. Her days of suicidal depression seemed to be far behind her. There were of course the dark times that still took her every now and again when she could think only of Rachel’s death and nothing else. The memory of the shooting that claimed Rachel’s life and almost claimed Sam’s would play over and over again in her head like the broken reel of a movie projector that never switched over. In these periods Sam collected guns, storing them in every room of her cabin in Michigan and her studio in Chicago. She learned to shoot, and took hand to hand combat classes. She armed herself for the day the gunman came back to finish the job. She armed herself because there was nothing else that she could do to feel safe again.

              The woman stirred in her sleep turning to give Sam a view of her face. It was a beautiful face, fine high cheek bones, well shaped eyes, a broad commanding mouth capable of a charming grin, a sexy pout or a dazzling smile. The woman was an actress and could call on all three facades at will, something Sam had found admirable while the Champaign buzzed in her head, and lust quickened her pulse. In sleep this face reminded Sam of the stillness of the ocean after the tide had settled and the winds had died. It was the kind of face that was easy to fall in love with, the kind of face that made men stare and women envy. For Sam the face was close to the one that she sought, Rachel and the woman could have been sisters, but not close enough to fool her into thinking that she could ever be happy with it. This woman the actress could never play the part of Rachel Burn. This face wasn’t Rachel’s and never could be so Sam dressed quietly. She slipped silently into the hallway of the hotel and away into the cool night wearing skin that still remembered the heat of her dead lover‘s touch.             

              Rachel Burn sat in an ornate Iron lawn chair with her arms crossed, staring at the sky. She loved it like no other thing on this earth, mostly because she didn’t love anything on this earth. It reminded her of something that she could not name, but that she ached for day in and day out. That ache was like a tiny funeral in her soul, silent and solemn, only broken by brief laments spoken in the back rooms of dive bars and secret midnight tears. Somewhere in her misty past she had lost what the blue sky represented and having lost the mastery of her memory she could not hope to reclaim it. She gave the sky one last mournful look and got up off of the cold comfort of the Irion chair.

              There were conference calls to be made, reports to be generated and filed, subordinates to chastise, meetings to arrange, mergers to go over, and asses to be kicked. All of which left no time to wonder about that particular blue that marked the heavens in October. It had only taken life ten years to limit her time under the sky, and soon enough she would have no time at all. She trudged dutifully back into her office building.

              Rachel checked her reflection in the tinted glass of the revolving doors as she passed. It seemed for a brief moment that there was a girl there. A girl who loved the world. A girl who laughed with all that she was about the smudge of paint on her face. A girl that everyone loved. A girl who wasn’t utterly alone. When Rachel tried to focus on the image it faded. It left behind only her own reflection staring bitterly back at her. Her auburn shoulder length hair was pulled tightly into a bun, her grass green eyes cold and calculating, the area around her mouth and eyes was not yet beginning to show her age. Only the slight tremble of her right hand gave away what she had been through. Rachel was damaged goods, but she hid it well. She was a very attractive woman who took no pleasure in that fact the way that most women did. She scowled at her reflection and pushed her way into the office.

              “Ms. Burn, Mr. Richmond called and cancelled your one o’clock. Mr. Blake called to ask if you could pencil him in sometime today, he has a concern about the Huffman merger.” It never ended. A young blond woman chased Rachel down the hall running off a list of missed phone calls and jotted down messages that were a mile long. The woman did her best to hand Rachel a steaming cup of coffee which she had requested, but now chose to ignore. Rachel preferred the slosh of the vodka in her stomach that dulled her senses ever so slightly. The stuff worked miracles to take the edge off of her world. If she were to drink the coffee then she would certainly loose the light buzz that made her day and the voice of her assistant bearable.

              The blonde’s name was Mary or Meredith or one of those M names, Rachel couldn‘t quite remember. She had been Rachel’s assistant for a little over a year. She was too nervous, talked too fast, and was too young and too pretty to be bothered with. She also had a habit of sucking on her lower lip when she was lost in thought that was disgustingly adorable. Another woman, this one closer to Rachel in age, had followed them down the hall a few yards, but turned and ran the second Rachel focused her attention on the woman. The woman looked vaguely familiar. Probably some insane secretary, they tended to scatter when Rachel appeared due to the fact that Rachel made no qualms about firing those she thought unworthy. The woman was definitely on Rachel’s termination list as she left a cup of steaming coffee pouring its contents onto the marble floor. Rachel watched the woman’s back as she fled and made a mental note to get her name.

              At her side the blond was still prattling away. Rachel wanted to turn to the blond and tell her to go to hell. She wanted to run up the stairs to her boss’ office and tell him to take her entire career and shove it up right up his ass. There were times when she would have done all of these things, and done them with a shit eating grin on her face. Those days were gone, however. Her head had already begun to throb. “Fax the new merger contracts and reports to Mr. Blake. Then call that spineless little shit, and tell him that if he doesn’t get it together and grow a pair I will personally mount his head on the wall in the break room while his balls reside in my trophy case. The Huffman Merger goes through as I have planned it.  I have worked too long and too hard for that wretched little slug to mess this up!” Rachel said, trying not to growl at her assistant, but she had long ago run out of patience with the rest of the world.

              The truth about the Huffman merger was that if something did go wrong they would all be out on their asses. One of the stock holders for Squire Industries had already committed suicide or been murdered over the company’s financial crisis. Blake was right to be concerned. With a family to feed, a kid in college, two-ex wives to pay alimony to, and a long list of bastards he was supporting on the side, he couldn’t afford to let his career go up in flames. After nearly a decade of the same old crap Rachel wanted to piss in the ashes of hers.

              “Call Mr. Richmond back and tell him that he’d damn sure better have his ass there at one o’clock or it will be his ass. Godwouldn’t dare to cancel on me, what the hell gives him the audacity to try?” Rachel didn’t dislike, nor did she like, the fact that everyone that she worked with feared and hated her in equal doses. “If he is not there when I get there then you are fired.” The blond continued taking notes as used to Rachel’s threats as she was to breathing. She bit her bottom lip as she wrote and Rachel fantasized about strangling her.

              Often behind closed doors Rachel was referred to as H.B. or Hell Bitch, or The Bitch, or Balls, or any number of ridiculous nick-names that her male co-workers came up with. She had once heard her Boss, Jack Squire, president and CEO of Squire Industries say when he thought that she was out of ear shot, “That woman would eat her own young.” His remark was met with a round of laughter from her co-workers. Their comments didn’t bother her. Rachel Burn was a construct and so it was in her nature to be emotionless and cruel.

              She had appeared in the world at the ripe age of twenty three. She woke up from a coma missing most of the memories of her life, but otherwise intact. Some of her childhood memories remained; her first day at school, her first kiss, the boy that took her to the prom, but other than those few minor details she knew nothing of who she had been before. Her mother, father and fiancée, Charles had been there to see her through her rehabilitation and her introduction back into the world. They told her that a car jacker shot her in the head and left her to die, but she had lived. She was their miracle, she would be perfect, and she had been. She graduated from Dartmouth at the top of her class, completing her master’s in record time, and went on to have a sterling professional career. The only thing that she had not given them was grandchildren. After surviving a bullet to the head and the six month coma that followed, no one could hold it against her. Ten years and a divorce later no one even dared to try. There was no one left. She had alienated all of her friends and driven her parents from her life with a zeal that bordered on the obsessive.

              The only person who ever came to see her was her ex-husband whom she filed a restraining order against after one of their many arguments became physical. Charles had come to her condo drunk and stinking of another woman demanding that Rachel return to his side to be his wife. “What Godhas joined let no man put asunder!” He had lamented to her. Charles was a member of a church in which women were viewed as property. Her very successful divorce of him had unmanned him in the church’s eyes. He did not love her, but he needed her back. She did not love or need him at all. She did not love or need anyone at all.

              Sam took successive deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself the effect of which left her light headed and dizzy forcing her to sit down a few feet from the spot where she had emptied the contents of her stomach. She pressed her back against the cool brick of the building that she had just exited trying to affix herself to the reality of it. She wanted her reality to match the cool solidness of the stone that made up the building. She wanted her world to be as sure and as that dense thing that not only supported her weight, but the weight of the dozens of floors that made it into a sky scraper. Her pulse pounded in her throat making it hard for her to swallow.

              Rachel. Rachel was alive. Not possible. Sam had watched Rachel die. She had seen the gunman put a bullet through the left side of Rachel’s head seconds before he turned the gun on her. Sam flinched at the memory of the sound the gun made when it went off. She could still remember the taste of Rachel’s blood as it spattered into her open and screaming mouth. Her hands shook uncontrollably, the trembles from which began to spread throughout her body. “I’m having a nervous breakdown.” She told the empty air of the alley, her words lost to the sound of the nearby traffic. “I can handle this.” She told herself as she got to her feet refusing to let the weakness in her knees get the best of her. There had to be an easy way to sort out the truth which was that Rachel was gone. She was gone forever and Sam’s mind was simply playing tricks on her. “Come on Sammy Chaos, just think.”

              “Excuse me, do you have an office directory that I can see?” Sam asked the woman at the front desk who was thankfully too busy shuffling through the ten or so ringing phone lines to notice the way that Sam shook or her disheveled appearance. Without looking up the woman pointed one hot pink acrylic nail adorned hand to a marble sign stand and put yet another person on hold. Sam walked over to the sign which listed not only employees of the company but their extension numbers as well. A woman like the one that she had mistaken for Rachel would certainly be listed here. The woman had been at the very least commanding and more than a few of the workers had scattered when she appeared. Sam was convinced that the woman would be listed on the sign. She traced the names with her finger reading each one out loud until she came to the second from the top of the list. She couldn’t bring herself to utter the words, Rachel Burn ext 529. The world went black and Sam dropped to the floor in a dead faint. The busy receptionist did not notice her lying on the cold marble of the floor for several minutes.

II

              Rachel lay still as her One o’clock appointment rolled off of her and lay gasping with his efforts. The room was silent except for his panting and she felt no better than she had in years. At least she didn’t feel worse which she often did after sex. Like most things in her life it left her where a void where something was torn out of her. “Rachel,” Mr. Richmond panted.

              “What?” Rachel couldn’t help but sound angry. She had warned him not to talk to her during or after sex. Mr. Richmond, or Jason, was a twenty something failing musician with little between his ears, and a lot between his legs. Rachel was quickly losing interest in both. Jason had a good libido and good looks and at the time when they met that was all she needed for him to have. He served his purpose well, but she’d lost interest in him as she had in all of the lovers she took before him. As with everything else in her life she felt no connection with them. Even after hours of vigorous sex had left her sore and sweating she felt no closer to those men than she did to any stranger she met wondering down street. She shared no human bond with any of them. After sex she felt less than human. She imagined that she’d felt more once upon a time before that magic bullet had splattered her life all over the side of a car. She imagined that she must have been madly in love with her ex-husband and passionate about something. Now she felt empty and used up. She had no passion left. She didn’t even have convictions to lean on.   

              “I fucking hate you.” Jason propped himself up on one elbow still panting from the eight minutes he had spent jabbing at her and failing to bring either of them any pleasure. “I took Viagra to stay hard and I still went limp just thinking about being inside of you another minute.” Rachel said nothing. Felt nothing. Her lover announcing that he hated her after sex was just another drop in the bucket that was over flowing. She had of course done things to try to stem the flow. The name Aaron on her cell phone was actually the number for a twenty four hour suicide help line. She had called twice in the last week. She had also tried to see a therapist and had gone through a list of antidepressants that was longer than her phone number, but nothing had worked.

              “I’ve got a job and I’m keeping the apartment, but I don’t want to see you anymore. I’ll pay all of the rent and bills, but I don’t want you to come here anymore.  You’re a horrible person and you make me cry.” A mental picture of the very large and manly Jason crying over the things that she had done and said to him flashed in her head. She felt nothing about it. She had done things to him that would have driven lesser or smarter men to tell her off long before this. She had been systematically trying to emotionally destroy him, but he had not gotten the hint until now.

              Rachel got up began to put on her three piece suit. She checked her watch as she slipped it back onto her wrist. Without a word she headed for the door when she had finished. “Did you hear me? Aren’t you going to say anything?”  Jason followed her down the hall way in the buff, his bare feet making slapping sounds on the wood laminate floors. “I mean it this time! I don’t want to see you anymore!”  He yelled at her.

              “I heard you. Have all of your stuff out of my apartment by tomorrow morning.” Rachel told him calmly. She closed the front door behind her. Jason jerked it open with enough force to smack it into the wall and stepped into the hall not caring about the eyes of his neighbors on his swinging manhood.

              “You have two houses and I have nowhere to go!” He yelled as he marched after her. There was a whining plea to his voice. The apartment was his. He lived there. There was no reason for her to take it from him. It was his home. She spent more time in commute to work every day than she spent at his apartment. It was just a place where she kept him like her pet, but he did not want to be her pet anymore.

“If you are still here when I return then I will have the police remove you,” the elevator doors opened and Rachel stepped into the mahogany lined booth where several others did their best to look away from the naked man in the hall way, “and Jason, I hate me too.” The doors slid shut removing Jason from view. Rachel ignored her fellow passengers and kept her eyes forward.

              The impact of what she had said did not fully hit her until she was sitting behind the wheel of her metallic silver Mercedes Benz in the parking garage. I hate me too, She thought over and over again. She did. She hated herself. She hated everything that she was. When did everything go so very wrong? Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she drove away.

              Sam did her best to get her therapist on the line, but the woman was the best so she was always swamped with appointments. Sam left a message that it was an emergency and to give her cell a call as soon as possible. Sam was tempted to leave a message describing the nature of her emergency but thought better of it. How many times in the past had she said that Rachel Burn was alive? How many times had she claimed that she had seen Rachel fleeing down some side street, or being driven just out of view in one of the city’s many taxis? How many times had she chased that specter to find that it was some perfect stranger who gave her tearful explanations a pitying look before they continued on their way? Claiming that she had seen Rachel now would only throw her carefully constructed life into utter chaos.

              Sam paced her studio for days trying to make up her mind as what to do next. She thought about going back to the building and demanding to see the woman, to hear her voice so that she might be sure that this was just another figment and that Rachel Burn was indeed dead. She had done similar things in the past, some of which she had been able to walk away from, others she had been carried away by the authorities kicking and screaming. The object of her fixation could be identical to Rachel to the last eye lash but the second the person spoke the allusion was over. The voice was a deal breaker. She could recognize Rachel’s voice anywhere. All the while she paced and waited not daring to leave her tiny space where she felt as safe as she could. Her mind told her all of the reasons that the woman that she had seen could not be Rachel Burn. Her heart didn’t care what her mind said, it knew love, and so she paced and waited.

              When Dr. Hauser finally got back to Sam she reassured her that it was just stress that was dredging up Rachel’s memory for her again. “Take a few days off, and see if you don’t feel better, and Sam, it’s okay to still be mourning her. Rachel was the most important person in your life for a very long time so just take it easy for a while.”

              “I’ll do that.” Sam told her before hanging up. She opened a bottle of low dose valium and popped one of them into her mouth. She chased it with a half a glass of white wine. She thought about turning on the radio, but the idea of one of her and Rachel’s songs coming on was too much to bear so she went for a walk in the cool night air. By the time that she was a block away she was feeling warm despite the chill and good about how she had handled her situation. Of course she was going back to the building to meet this Rachel Burn and be sure that the woman was not her Rachel Burn. She wanted to hear the woman speak, no doubt to call security to throw her out. She wanted to be sure that her mind had just played another cruel joke on her. No matter how small the chance that the woman had been Rachel she had to take it. As for tonight she would simply walk and enjoy the calm that had come over her. Maybe she would call a few old friends and take in a show.

              Thursday was crunch day. The big Huffman merger was on the line and it was now or never. Either it would go through and they would all live like kings, or it would fall through and Rachel and a number of her co-workers would be out in the streets. Their names and thus their careers would be ruined. One of the major stock holders had already thrown himself from the window of his pent house or been thrown because he couldn’t handle the stress of the possibility of the company going down in flames and taking him down with it. The police were still toying with the theory of murder, but they leaned more and more towards suicide as the days passed and no evidence to the contrary surfaced.

              Everyone in the board room did their best to seem nonchalant, calm, relaxed. Only Rachel succeeded. Even Jack Squire was visibly sweating. Rachel watched the sky through the floor-to-ceiling conference room windows. Even in this obscured state, tainted by the tinted windows, she would have loved the sky to be blue, but the sky was grey and had already begun to sprinkle the city with snow.

              “I just don’t think that the benefits of this merger are equal. You gain every-thing, I make a lot of money, but I lose everything that I have worked for for the last fifty years. My company, my namesake disappears forever.” William Huffman was saying. Rachel considered him to be a doddering old fool who had fought the merger every step of the way. He had more than tripled her work load with his constant inquiries and demands. He was moments away from the grave with no heir in sight and not willing to let go of his legacy. 

              Rachel wanted to tell him that if he backed out now she would personally inform each and every one of his competitors exactly what his weaknesses were and drive him and his company into the ground. Instead she said, “You are working to protect a side of beef in a pool full of sharks, Mr. Huffman. We both know what kind of trouble Huffman industries is really in. To back out of this deal now would sink you. Permanently.” Rachel didn’t waste time with niceties. She always went straight for the kill. She had sunk so many companies like Huffman industries over the years that she had lost count of them. There was any number of people out there in the world she had screwed out of what they had worked and sweated for that wanted her dead. In certain circles her name alone was enough to make men shudder.

              “From what I hear, you all need this merger just as much as I do, if not more.” He fired back at her. She had to admit that he was formidable. She stood and placed her hands coolly on the back of his chair. She wanted him to feel her standing over him so that her next words would hit home with a physical presence. It was a maneuver that had never failed her. 

              “We have taken that fact into account.”  Rachel had warned Jack Squire that letting their weakness show would be the death of them. He believed that a company in trouble would be more willing to accept help from another company in trouble, but what a fool Jack had been. Of course none of the other players had any idea of what kind of trouble Squire Precision was really in. No one but she, Jack, one dead stock holder and the FBI knew about the tens of millions that were missing. Rachel had done her best to down play the company’s financial crisis. She did not mention that somehow millions had been misplaced and that there was no small amount of suspicion that a large embezzlement operation was in play. An army of investigators and forensic accountants had been hired to find the missing funds, but none of them had managed to track down a single penny. Jack Squire was beside himself with worry. He had every employee of the company double checked. Rachel had her suspicions that Jack’s hands weren’t exactly clean in the matter, but she couldn’t prove it and didn’t care enough to stop him if she could. “I have personally put together a backup merger that would admittedly be less profitable, but will bring us back into the blue none the less. We were planning on merging with you and then them, but we can just as easily merge with them and become another one of your competitors. We know a considerable amount about you operation and would have no problem taking you apart. When we are done with you, and I assure you we will come after you, there will not be bones left to pick over. However, if we do it the way that we have all been planning for the last six months, we all stand to make a bundle and remain in the game for a very long time.” Rachel didn’t care anymore if the merger fell through. She was just going through the motions. Hunt, chase, kill were all mechanical actions for her. She was destroying lives with little more than muscle memory. The thrill was gone. She was just going through the motions and waiting for the end.

              “Wow.  All I can say is wow. Woman you got more . . . balls than anyone that I know.”  Jack was handing out the kudos at the mandatory celebration drinks after the final paper work had been signed making Huffman industries a holding of Squire Precision Industries. Soon all of the names would be changed, despite the fact that William Huffman had been promised that they would not be, and Huffman Industries would cease to exist. Huffman was in bad health, however, and would probably not live to see his company die. Lucky him. 

                Rachel was barely listening holding her glass of whiskey and water. She was lost in thought, her eyes blind to the table strewn with overpriced drinks that lay before her. Her life had gone horribly astray. When did she stop being that insatiable girl and become this dry cold husk of a woman? One bad night and a tiny piece of metal through the skull and now she was this person she could barely face in the mirror every morning. It wasn’t her fault, she told herself.  It was the doing of the guy who now sat behind bars serving a life sentence for shooting her.

              Rachel had gone to see her would-be killer once. It was years after she had awakened from her coma. She asked about him and the trial many times, but her parents and Charles had always side-stepped the issue, feeling that maybe it was too much for her to deal with. So she went to the state correctional facility to find the man who had taken her away from herself for a car. When she asked if he remembered her he had simply denied ever car-jacking anyone.

              “Yea, I’m here for shooting a bitch, but it wasn’t you,” the man told her through the glass. She didn’t bother asking him anything else. She had his records pulled, and there on the paper work it clearly stated that he was doing life for the shooting of Rachel Burns. She took the “S” on the end of her name to be a typo and went on with her life knowing that she would get no closure from that man who had shot her. He was convinced that he didn’t shoot her, and would never be able to tell her the reason he wiped out over twenty years of her life for a car she surely would have given him.

              “Have you heard a single word that I’ve said?” Jack demanded, irritation registering in his voice.

              “No. No I haven’t,” Rachel replied, finished her drink, and began to gather her things. He could fire her for all she cared. The whole world could burn down for all she cared. “I’m Stressed Jack. I am going to take a break from all of this. I’ll come back fresh in a month or two.” She zipped her Italian leather hand bag. “After I get my focus back.” She slipped into her black wool trench and tied the waist belt snuggly against her.

              “But you just brokered the deal of a life time. Put us back on top again. Now isn’t the time to stop. Now is the time to go for the kill!” Jack squeezed her shoulders for emphasis, their eyes level. She loathed his touch, loathed anyone‘s touch. He had the kind of meaty sweaty hands that reminded her of canned hams. 

              Rachel gave him a weak smile fighting the urge to shrug off his touch and slap him. “I’ve lost the blood lust, Jack. I need some time to get it back. I’ll put my affairs in order tomorrow, and let you know how long I’m going to need.” Rachel wasn’t worried about keeping her job. There were a hundred firms that would walk over hot coals to offer her a position now that she had conquered the unconquerable Huffman industries. She also owned enough shares in the company that terminating her would be a massive risk on the part of Jack Squire. She knew that Jack knew it, and walked away without giving him another chance to protest. None of her co-workers spoke to her as she left, she didn’t expect them to. 

III

              Sam rounded the corner. Her step was light as she made her way home from the closing of her gallery. The night had been a phenomenal success. She had sold a half dozen or so paintings and been offered a major commission to do a mural in an oil tycoon’s summer home. The idea that Rachel Burn was alive had loomed large in her mind, but she had been able to focus through the possibility and even to allow herself to be inspired by it. Of course she still had to deal with the entire Rachel situation. There was no way around it. If Rachel Burn was really dead and her mental stability was slipping again then she had to know so that she could get it taken care of before things got too far out of hand. If Rachel Burn was alive then she would have to deal with the idea that Rachel had simply stopped loving her after the shooting and become someone else. In either case Sam would have a lot to cope with. So much in fact that as she rounded the corner she was nearly run down by a woman who still failed to see her even after they had made physical contact.

              “Hey, How’s it going?”  Rachel had been lost in thought and had not noticed the woman she rudely bumped into or that the woman was now walking along beside her. She had been wandering again, down strange streets, through old memories that did not exist, trying to breach the haze in her mind. Trying to eliminate the feeling that she had somehow been rendered less than human by being shot and left with no sense of what made her truly human. She was doing her best to make up excuses not to call Aaron again but the idea of ending with a stiff drink and a bottle of pills didn’t seem all that bad to her.

                “Earth to you, what is up?” The smell of the woman’s perfume wafted into her nose. It reminded her of easy summer days spent watching the clouds. It was light, allusive even. It smelled of roses. A moment after smelling it she doubted she had ever really smelled it at all. An image of a laughing girl sprung into her head. She looked up to find a more mature more beautiful version of the girl standing before her. Rachel’s mouth dropped open. For just a moment she felt something deeply intense plucking at the strings of her heart.

The image disappeared before Rachel could truly lay claim to it as a memory and she went back to being her inhuman self. Inhuman her was in no mood to deal with lunatics on the streets. “Nothing is up. Why are you following me?” She had no idea where she was. The street looked vaguely familiar, but she could not recall the name of the place, although she was sure that it was near her office building. She was distracted by the image and the woman who had appeared before her. Her heart was still racing and she mentally berated herself for playing the fool to her mind which she knew that she could not trust.

              “I know about you” Sam said smiling in the face of Rachel‘s hostility, willing herself not to believe her ears or eyes. “You think you haven’t got a friend in the world, but you‘ve got many, and we have all missed you very much.”

The woman before her had perfect lips and a radiant smile. Her expression reminded Rachel of the televangelist when they claimed to have seen God. Rachel wanted to see no more, but she couldn’t help herself as her eyes met the eyes of the woman speaking. She stopped walking. She stopped breathing. 

              The woman’s eyes were bluer than the October sky. They were offset by gold hair that curled every which way. “I’ve been watching you.” The woman was a mass of perpetual motion as she spoke. Her face continuously twitched between a toothy grin and modest smile. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands so she put them in her pockets and pulled them out and ran them over her jeans and through her tangled hair. She reminded Rachel of the images of excited children that were carried to her via her television screen. “You don’t think that you are, but you are that girl that I knew.” There was a dreamy quality about the way the woman spoke. Slow and with an ease that Rachel had not known could exist in the waking world. It contradicted her physical motions. She was beyond nervous, with her jittering motions and twitchy stride. She danced around Rachel in a circle forcing Rachel to turn around as well just to keep her in sight.

              Rachel raised an eye-brow. “You’re a crazy person. You are off your meds and harassing strangers in the street. Well I’ve got news for you,” Rachel straightened up to her full stature of five foot eight which towered over the woman, and straightened her coat, “I haven’t got a dime on me, I’ll cancel every credit card in my wallet before you can get fifty feet, and I don’t wear any jewelry at all.” Problem solved. Now the woman would leave her alone. No point in robbing someone who had nothing worth taking. Rachel started walking again at a brisk pace forcing the woman to do a half jog to keep up with her.

              The woman laughed, a clear ringing sound that lifted Rachel’s heart. Despite herself she smiled. “I suppose some people might consider me to be a little odd,” the woman stopped walking and ran her fingers through her disheveled hair “but I’m not on any meds. I mean I do have a few drinks here and there, smoke a little dope, but no meds. Oh wait, sometimes I take a valium every now and again.” Rachel had continued walking and the woman had to do a little jog to catch up with her. For every stride that Rachel took the woman had to take two. Rachel took no small pleasure from that fact. Rachel looked around for a street sign. She would certainly have to call a cab to get out of here, and away from that person. 

              “You like my eyes.” The woman said. “You said they were prettier than the sky once. It was a long time ago, more than ten years, but I remember. You said it was the first thing that drew you to me.”

              Rachel was forced to look at the woman more closely. She did look familiar, but Rachel could not be sure. Ten years was a long time ago, and she didn’t have any memories of ten years ago. The woman had her interest.

              “Ten years is a very long time. What’s your name again?” Rachel checked the time on her phone. It was just past midnight. It was impossible to get a cab to some places in the city, and she hoped she was not in one of them. She was, however, a regular client of a limousine service she was sure would pick her up anytime, anywhere, no questions asked. She could go home, soak in a hot tub and drink herself into a stupor on expensive scotch. Then she could curl up in her empty king size bed with pillows all around her and pretend that she was not alone. She could pretend she was warm and loved, and loved some other in return. Then she would fall asleep, have horrible night mares, wake up in the dark alone and afraid.

              The woman grabbed the phone out of Rachel’s hand. “Yea, I’m betting I’m not in there.” She slipped the phone into own her pocket. Rachel stared daggers at her.

              “Of course you’re not in there, you are a crazy person. We have never met. You look like a woman off of a magazine cover that has gone more than a little crazy, and well I am willing to bet that is exactly what you are.” Rachel held out her hand. “Now give me my phone or by GodI will ruin you.” When Rachel Burn threatened to ruin people they cowered. They bowed down and they sure as hell got out of her way. The woman laughed. “I am rich damn it, and I don’t care what you do. I assure you that I have my hands in it.”

              The woman just kept laughing and walking. She wore very nice fitting jeans that showed off the curves of her body perfectly. Her shoes were relatively new and the jacket she was wore was medium to high-end. Rachel assessed that she wasn’t homeless, and was too attractive to be one of those skin and bones women that populate magazine covers. Perhaps she worked for one of the companies that Rachel had crushed over the years and was simply mistaken about the time period. Then it hit her. This was the secretary that had run away from her last week and left coffee spilling all over the floor. Rachel couldn’t remember if she had had the woman fired or not. If she hadn’t she would certainly rectify the problem before she took her hiatus.

              “I assure you that you don’t.” the woman told her. “You wouldn’t have to ask who I am if you did. You shouldn’t have to ask who I am. Something is wrong with you. You are being very rude and I am very tired of talking to you. Goodnight.” The woman suddenly turned into a door way and disappeared up a flight of stairs twirling her keys around her finger. Before Rachel could grab it, the security door slammed shut and locked behind her leaving Rachel standing alone on the side walk. She pounded on it and swore at the woman, but the woman just kept climbing the s tairs. Rachel fumed for another fifteen minutes before walking to the next intersection and flagging down a late night cab and made her way back to her empty condo and her empty life. Her phone was gone forever.

              Sam fell to her knees at the tops of the stairs just out of sight of the door where she could hear Rachel pounding on the glass. Her heart was pounding at a mile a minute and tears had already begun to drip from her eyes to the hard wood floor. Rachel was alive, but didn’t know her. She was sure of it. She had the proof in her hand and a way to verify that the woman at the door was in fact her Rachel. She quickly opened the contacts on the phone and scrolled through them. She checked under “mother” first, but found nothing, then she checked under Debra and saw an all too familiar number. Sam closed the phone and let tears of joy roll down her cheeks. Rachel was alive. Rachel was angry with her, but alive.

              Ross Inc. was the only information available on the building that the woman had disappeared into. Ross Inc. didn’t ring any bells, didn’t sound familiar and running it through a half dozen search engines had produced nothing that helped Rachel to retrieve her property. There was an article about a painter that she briefly scanned, but there was no picture. All other information about Ross Inc. and all of its holdings were kept very private. She hadn’t slept at all and it had made her absolutely vicious. She stared at the brightly lit computer screen and cursed it for not telling her what she wanted to know. The woman did not work for Squire Precision. Rachel had given out her description to everyone on her email list and every one had responded negatively. She had even gone down to the bull-pin where the assistants of assistants did their work, but she did not find the woman or any sign that she had ever worked there.

                There were no numbers to be called. No names that she could destroy. There was nothing. That lunatic had taken her phone and walked into oblivion. A half-dozen complaints to the police had left her even angrier than before and still empty handed.

              “Why didn’t you call when it happened?” the officer on the phone asked. Rachel could picture him behind his desk, feet propped up reading the sports section, over weight and balding.  He didn’t give a damn about her phone or the information that had been stolen with it.

              “My phone was stolen, how was I supposed to call?” Rachel kept her voice even if not sweet. She liked her prey to feel safe before she sunk her fangs in. She wanted him to expose his soft belly before she ripped him to shreds.

              “Well you make a good point, but lady the police have better things to do than chase down cell phones. Next time don’t give it to crazy people you don’t know.” The line went dead before Rachel could respond. She tore the phone off of her desk and hurled it at the wall where it shattered into a dozen or so pieces. She screamed. She had waited, or rather had Meredith, or Marry or whatever her assistant’s name was, wait on hold for nearly an hour so that some flat footed fat ass could tell her not to give her phone to crazy people. She felt like her head was going to explode, the vein in her forehead danced with the beat of her anger. She wanted to crush someone. She put her finger tips to her temples and rubbed them in a circular motion. 

              This is my own fault, Rachel thought. If I had backed up my phone in the first place I would still have all of my info and I wouldn’t be so screwed. She sat down for a moment. There were things on the phone that she had planned to use to blackmail herself into an early retirement, and now they were gone. She had to slow down and stop thinking of the problem and start thinking of the solution. Solution. Solution. She would just go back down there. The cab driver said that it was Clark and Fifth street where he picked her up. She would just go back down there and get what was hers. Certainly someone would let her into the building. A woman that looked like that couldn’t go completely unnoticed by her neighbors. She reached for the phone, but it lay in pieces on the plush forest green carpet. She would have to have another brought in.

              “You!” Rachel pointed at her blond assistant, noticing the plunging neck line of her sweater. Her breast rose and fell seductively. Dangerously. She had clearly just returned to her desk holding a stack of files that she was leafing through quickly. She looked up at Rachel as though she did not know her for a moment. Then she picked up the phone.

              “I was just about to come and see if there is a problem with your phone. Mr. Richmond is on the line,” the woman began. Rachel had no interest in anything that Mr. Richmond had to say.

              “Mr. Richmond can burn in hell. Tell him never to call back. I need a car, no driver and clear the rest of my afternoon.” Rachel didn’t wait for a reply, but instead returned to her office. The blond chased after her. “I want my phone and this hideous carpet replaced before I return this evening. Don’t wear that sweater ever again. Who the hell picked this out anyway?” Rachel pointed at the carpet.

              “Well, you did Ms. Burn, and I don’t think that anyone can replace the carpet on such short notice.” The blond told her eying the shattered phone in the corner. She had the look in her eye. The look that all of Rachel’s assistants got after a while. The look that said they were done putting up with her crap. The look that said she had better not push.  Even in her cotton candy pink sweater the blond had somehow managed to look formidable. She had lasted longer than the others. She had the sort of determination about her that would one day make her really great at something, but today was not that day.

              “Well, it’s a good thing that I don’t pay you to think. Just see to it.” Rachel waved her hand to dismiss the blond.

              The woman made no move to the door. “Yes you do. You pay me to think. I have a Masters in Business Management, and you treat me like an imbecile. I came to this company because I thought it would be a good place to start, but you have made it a hell. I thought that working for such a powerful woman would be an inspiration. You are an absolute hell on earth, and I hate you. You are the worst person that I have ever met.” 

              Rachel didn’t even look at her. No point. The girl would quit and move on to better things, and Rachel would go on not remembering her name. Another one bites the dust, Rachel thought to herself cheerlessly as she pulled a company phone directory up on the screen of her lap top.

              “Do you even know my name?” The woman slammed the file down on the desk in an attempt to get Rachel’s attention. “I’ve worked here for 19 months and I bet you don’t even know my name,” the blond demanded.

              “No. I don’t know your name. So do what I told you to do or quit. In either case, get out of my office.” Rachel shooed her away. She had no time for this.  She had to get her phone back. All of her business contacts were in there, even some of her financial information. How could she have been so stupid? A small voice in the back of her mind kept screaming at her that she needed to see the thief that had taken her phone again, but the larger angry voice said it was all about the phone.

              “My name is Janine. I used to admire you, queen in a man’s world, but now I know that you are a cold, lonely and heartless bitch!” The blond left her office and slammed the door. Rachel would have to call for her own car.

              Sam went to the Café across the street to fortify herself against the trip that she planned to make to Rachel’s office. She dressed warmly against the biting chill outside and took care to place a small digital camera in her pocket. She had a plan. Since she could not be trusted to pick Rachel out of a crowd she believed that her friends could trust her camera to take a picture of the woman and take it to the people who used to know her so that they might verify or refute the fact that Rachel Burn was still alive. After her behavior the night before she would certainly need a buffer between her and Rachel who would more than likely want her arrested. At the Café she ordered a large coffee with chocolate and a bear claw. She sat down at one of the outside tables to eat and think when she noticed that someone was knocking on her door.

              Two hours later Rachel was across town standing in front of a glass security door.  It had taken her hours to locate transportation, even longer to program the GPS to give her directions to the place, and longer still to force herself out of the door. Her hands were sweaty, her heart thudded in her chest and her mouth felt like a desert. She was nervous and had no idea why.

              Why was she nervous? She had every right to come here and retrieve her property. What did she have to worry about? She thought of blue eyes and knocked on the door. There was little traffic on the street. The business day had already drawn to an end. People had given up their quest for financial sustenance and gone home to their loved ones and forgotten the world outside. Dinners were being served. Hugs were being given. People were asking each other how their day had gone. Rachel stood on a quickly darkening street with nothing to look forward to. There was no warm home waiting for her, just her heated, sterile and overpriced cave with the amazing view of the city. Why did she care so much about this phone? There wasn’t a single item of information that she couldn’t retrieve one way or another. In all of the world of mergers and acquisitions there was no one who would deny her what she sought. She was Rachel Burn after all. They would be fools to try. Most of the people would fall all over themselves to be the ones to give her the information that she needed. There was very little that strange woman could do with the information contained in the phone, assuming that she would be able to recognize it for what it was or even get into it. Rachel had password protected every bit of information.

              Still she stood on a street that she didn’t know, for reasons she couldn’t understand staring at a glass security door. Long minutes ticked by with no response.   She knocked again, this time hard enough to leave no doubt that she would be heard by any one inside. Still there was no response. She fumed. Why had she come back here?  Her phone was probably long gone, sold for drug money on some black market somewhere. This had been pointless. That lunatic woman probably didn’t even live here, Rachel thought. She had seen a door, stepped into it, and waited for Rachel to leave.

              “This is getting a little boring.” The voice from behind her was almost musical.  She turned to find the woman standing behind her sipping a cup of coffee, half of a bear claw protruded from a napkin that she held in her other hand. Steam rose into the cooling evening air to form curls in front of her face before they finally disappeared into becoming as cold as the air around them. “All of this angry door pounding, and no response.” The woman stepped passed Rachel casually and opened the door while cleverly juggling her bear claw, coffee, and bag. Rachel could only stare at her.

              “You’ve been standing here pounding on that door for a good fifteen minutes, and to no avail, but you never once checked to see if it was locked. Have you ever wondered how much of your life you’ve wasted doing these kinds of things? All of this running around with your panties up your ass all of the time has got to chafe more than a little bit.” The woman stepped through the door way with her coffee and her knowing smile.  “If you had just looked around you would have seen me sitting right over there.” the woman pointed to a small coffee shop with outside tables across the street “the whole time.” She opened the door and started up the stairs

              Rachel watched her, unable to move. She couldn’t think. All she could do was watch those golden curls sway across that straight back as they marched up the stairs.    Her heart had again started to pound, as something she had long since thought dead and gone, stirred in her. She watched as the woman’s toned legs carried her up the stairs one at a time, her jeans straining to contain the beauty of the shapely muscles underneath.               “Are you going to watch me go, or are you going to come with me?” The woman’s voice was barely audible through the glass. Sam had to get a picture of Rachel to be sure that she had the right woman. Once she was sure she would go and confront Debra who no doubt had something to do with Rachel’s fake death and she would no doubt be arrested. Maybe she would take the photo to someone else first.

              “I, I want my phone back. I’ve come here to get it,” Rachel stammered after she opened the door. “You took it,” she added feeling stupid. She had been reduced to a gibbering pile of foolishness by a nice pair of legs. A woman’s legs. She was furious with herself.

              “I know what I did, and well I can’t say I’m sorry about it. Come up and I’ll give it to you, or at least I’ll think about giving it to you assuming you can behave as though you weren’t raised by a rabid beast. I‘ve met your mother so I‘ll forgive you for last night.” Without another word she reached the top of the stairs and turned left.

              Rachel raced after her for fear that she would disappear again. At the top of the stairs Rachel found a long hallway. Everything in the hallway was painted the same slightly glossy shade of green. A few feet down, the woman was walking sipping her coffee. A few feet past her stood a green dresser boasting a green plate with flowers that had been painted green. At uneven intervals in the hallways, there were doors made almost invisible by their flushness with the wall and their color.

              “Is your favorite color green?” Rachel asked the woman when she caught up.

              With a puzzled look the woman answered, “No, why would you guess green?”  The woman opened a door and stepped through. Rachel followed her. The room on the other side was warm and filled with warm rich colors. The thick rugs under foot were made up of burgundies and gold. For furniture there was only a lounge couch also gold, and four easels, two of which boasted blank canvases, the other two were empty. Every inch of the walls were covered in paintings. They ranged from the mundane fruit in a bowl to extraordinary renderings of the human form. In one, a young woman held her arms and one leg extended making her body into a plane. In another, a very well muscled nude young man held a kitten to his chest and smiled revealing a chipped tooth. Both paintings were rendered with amazing attention to detail. On her buttocks there was a mole and on his left hand a broken nail. Every imperfection was recorded for history making the paintings into a form of perfection all their own. Rachel failed to notice Sam taking her picture while she studied the wall hangings.

              “These are amazing.” Rachel gasped. “Is this a studio?”

              The woman chuckled, set down her coffee on a counter that Rachel had not noticed and tossed her jacket over the back of the lounge chair. Beneath she wore an old orange t-shirt who’s lettering had long since faded into obscurity leaving only the slight stain on the left side of the collar to distinguish it. The stain made Rachel shudder. The shirt had been cut in half at some point and sown back together.

              The woman’s smile made Rachel feel warm inside and Rachel could not help but smile back. “It’s a studio apartment.” She went about opening paint cans and putting a fresh canvas on the larger of the empty easels. Rachel continued to look at the paintings suddenly in no hurry to conclude her business here. She came to one hanging just above her head. There were perhaps thirty paintings in all, each their own world, but this one drew her into itself. It was obviously new, the paint was still tacky. It was composed of mostly reds, oranges and varying shades of gray and black. In the center of the painting stood a solitary blue figure indistinguishable in sex or age. The figure held the standard brief case and wore a three piece suit its tie aflame beneath its chin. It stood in an office with a desk and a computer. All around the little blue figure the world burned, red flame and black smoke. The figure did not flee for its life but simply stood frowning in the middle, beaten. For some reason the strange painting brought a hint of tears to Rachel’s eyes.

              “I called it funeral tier last night when I painted it, but now I think I’ll call it Rachel Burns.” The woman said. Her voice brought Rachel slamming back to the reality of the situation.

              “Oh you think you’re clever? Got my name out of my phone, and now you think I should be wowed with how resourceful you are.” Rachel was suddenly angry. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Well, you’ve got another thing coming, Princess. Give me my phone now!”

              “Sam.” The woman said simply. She reached on the other side of the counter, and handed Rachel her phone. “My name is Sam, not Princess.” Tears welled at the corners of the woman’s eyes, Rachel ignored them.

              “I don’t care what your name is. I just want what’s mine.” Rachel stood frozen in the middle of the room holding what she had come for. Sam studied her sadly.

              “Well you’re holding it,” she said to Rachel. “You’re holding everything you’ve ever wanted and aren’t you the happy girl?” Rachel didn’t move. Didn’t speak. “It’s ok, I have everything I’ve ever asked for and I’m not happy either. So go Rachel, who used to be that girl that I knew. Go and live your horrible happy life.” Sam turned her back to Rachel and picked up her paint brush. She studied her empty canvas as though she would find answers there. Her hand trembled suspended in the air as she willed an image to form in her mind so that she might transfer it to the canvas.

              Rachel was desperate not to go. She was desperate not to step back into the cold of the falling night, not to step back into the cold that was her life. Desperate to think of something to say that could change it all back to what it had been the moment before she spoken with such anger. Why was she always so angry? How had everything gone so horribly wrong that she couldn’t even connect with strangers on the street enough to return a smile?

              Rachel had tasted a warmth in herself that she had not tasted in years and it left her weak and wanting. Her control had slipped, and that was something she couldn’t allow. She silently slipped back into the hallway and shut the door behind her. As she made her way back to the street she thought that green was the saddest color of all.

              Sam dropped her paint brush. Tears rolled down her cheeks and kneeling on the lush carpeting was all she could do to stop from chasing the dead woman down the hall.  She made sounds like a woman grieving the dead. Deep low moans made by a broken heart. She had been right the night before. Rachel had burned and burned so brightly that she had become ashes in the world, stale and cold.

              Rachel awoke with a start. The darkness of the room pulsed with the thudding of her heart. She panicked as she found that she could barely move. She struggled against her captor for a second before she realized she was tangled in the sheets which were damp with sweat. When she finally freed an arm she switched on the lamp beside her bed. The doctors said she would have nightmares, and were they ever right. She had had nightmares that had left her clawing her face and screaming. She had night mares that had crippled her with fear even after day-light had come crawling in to comfort her.

              Rachel fumbled with the bottle of valium she kept next to her bed. The words, ‘mild chemical dependency,’ raced through her mind. She scoffed at the word mild and dropped the bottle of pills on to the floor, it rolled under the bed. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and made her way to the kitchen. 

              Once there she poured herself a shot of Jack. Swallowing it she decided that this was no time to be shy and gulped down another. Leaning over her Italian marble counter top she ran her hands through her hair, her left hand slowing over the part of her skull which was made up of a metal plate. 

              The doctors told her, other than airport security, she would never notice that it was there, but she noticed. It always felt cold when she touched her head despite the fact that it was under her skin, and it ached when it rained. She never let the men that she slept with run their hands through her hair because the thought of anyone touching her steel plate made her skin crawl.

              She poured more Jack into a glass. Jack Daniels, the only man she really loved.  He was the only man who had been able to warm her after all of these years. She held the glass to her fore-head and tried to think. It hadn’t been a nightmare that she had. Not at first anyway. They were never nightmares at first. It always started somewhere wooded and warm, but not too warm. Early fall she guessed, as the leaves had barely started to change color. She had been happy. Happier than she could ever remember being. She was holding hands with someone walking along enjoying the simple fact that they were in the world together. There was laughter, smiles, and promises of more to come. She wore simple clothing, jeans, a warn and familiar orange t-shirt that bore the name of her favorite soft drink. Her companion was dressed similarly. 

              Rachel took another gulp. She poured another glass of whisky. It was such a sweet thing, young love in full bloom. They were two young women alive to the wonders of the world, taking advantage of youth and health. She had never before been able to give her companion in the dream a sex or a face. Not once in the thousands of nights of having this dream had her companion been anything more than a warm blur. Tonight it was Sam. Sam had held her hand. Sam had made her laugh. Sam had made her smile. Sam’s face had distorted in horror as blood splattered across it. Rachel’s blood. The same blood that flowed hot and thick down Rachel’s neck, drenching her shirt, before she hit the ground. Sam bent to her, screaming her name franticly only to be jerked backward as red erupted from sudden holes in her chest.

              Tears ran from Rachel’s eyes as she realized that her nightmare was not a figment of her mind as she had been told. It was a memory. She remembered. She finished her drink, set the glass on the table and reached for her phone with trembling hands.

              Debra woke from a sound and drug induced sleep to the ringing of the house phone. It sounded like a siren in her head. She pulled her blindfold from her eyes to find that the glowing green letters on the clock read 4:05. “What sort of lunatic?” she wondered aloud. Her husband slept soundly besides her snoring in his blue silk pajamas, as usual, his sleeping pills making his sleep impenetrable. She elbowed him brutally, but only received a grunt for her efforts. Debra was sure that she could have sex with another man on his back without waking him up. The phone rang on mercilessly.

              “Who is Sam?” The voice on the other end of the phone growled to her. Even in her sleep addled state Debra recognized the voice of her daughter. It wasn’t the familiarity of the voice she was hearing, it was the rage, the open hostility with which the caller spoke that told Debra that it was Rachel on the line. “I wish you would have let me die.” Were the last words spoken between them. Now there was this.

              “I don’t know anyone named Sam, darling.” Debra sat up and switched on the light. “Do you think 4 a.m. is really the best time to be calling about this person?” Even as the words left her mouth her heart sank. She had not heard word from her estranged daughter in a year. A year of despair, foretold by years of unease. Now a four a.m. call about all of the lies that she had told to keep her child safe. The doctors had told her there was a possibility that Rachel would remember someday, but they had said it was slim. Apparently Rachel was running on slim.

              “You’re lying to me. I know you’re lying to me. You’ve already lost me, so you might as well tell me the truth about what happened to me. Tell me who I was!” Rachel’s voice was low and slurred, but controlled. 

              Debra saw her chance and took it. “You’re drunk, and I will not deal with you in this state, good bye.” Her words carried no conviction. She hung up the phone limply and put her hands over her face. She sobbed loudly while Darryl slept soundly beside her. Her best laid plans were coming undone.

              “Six.” Sam answered simply and lifted her shirt. There were indeed six circular scars marking her well-toned torso, most of them delivered to her chest, one partially hidden by her lime green lace bra. “He shot me six times because I didn’t stop crawling to you. He even kicked me when I was down.” The room was filling with the gray predawn light. “We died holding hands.” Sam was still wearing the orange T-shirt. Rachel now knew that the stain on the collar was her blood. It was her shirt.

              Rachel had slammed down the phone after her mother hung up on her. She then stormed into her bedroom, dressed quickly, grabbed the keys to her Mercedes Benz and left her down-town condo. She had come back moments later for the bottle of Jack. After an insane race of drunk driving she had made it to Sam’s place. Receiving no answer at the door she had thrown any and everything that she could find at the only lit window facing the street. Three minutes later Sam was opening the front door. Ten minutes after that Rachel was staring at scars that proved all of her night mares were real.

              “We’re alive,” Rachel pointed out lamely. If her dream was true then everything else that she was told was a lie. There was no car jacker, but there was a man in jail serving time for her attempted murder. If her dreams were true then they were both dead and the entire world had gone insane.

              “We were both declared DOA at first, but they worked on us and got us back.  First you and then me. When I came to they said you were dead. The doctors said that psycho had blown your brains right out. I told them to pull my plug then ‘cause I just wasn’t going to go another breath without you.” Tears ran down Sam’s face at her remembered pain. “I told them that if they didn’t go ahead and do the job that I would when I got out of the hospital, so they committed me. They fed me enough pills so that they thought that I forgot, but I didn’t. They said our love was an obsession. They said that it was a mental illness, that it would fade, but it never did.”

              Rachel ran her finger tips back and forth over the plate in her head feeling the cold skin that covered it. So everything that she knew was a lie. “So what you’re saying is that you and I were gay together, then someone shot us, what did he want? Was he a car jacker?” Maybe some of what she had been told was true. Maybe her parents had been told the wrong details and mistakenly relayed them to her. Perhaps the school had tried to hide from them the fact that their daughter was the victim of a vicious hate crime in an effort to spare them the pain of being the parents of a sexual deviant. She spoke to Sam’s feet. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. Her mind raced. Everything that she knew about herself was a lie.

              Sam laughed suddenly startling Rachel out of her brooding. “Gay together? If that’s what you want to call it. Gay together.” She laughed again. “He wanted us dead.  Wanted us dead for being gay together. He was not a car jacker, we were over half a mile from the nearest parking lot on the edge of the campus near the woods.” She replied bitterly. “He walked up behind you put a gun to your head and blew your brains all over my face.” Sam made a gun with her hand and made a shooting motion.

              “Kinda botched the job didn’t he?” Rachel said forcing a smile. It became more of a grimace. 

              “Yea he kinda sucked.” Sam managed a bitter smile, and drew a short laugh from Rachel She fought the urge to hug her. “Boy did he shoot the hell out of me though. He emptied his gun and reloaded then he shot me again. The cops said I must have been the one that knew him for him to take it out on me so badly, but I told them no, you said you knew him, and that you had said that he was harmless. They said that you were dead, and that was that. I’m not sure if they even really looked for the guy.”

              “Why didn’t you run?” Rachel asked, her voice thin and weak. She took a deep pull from the bottle she was holding, handed it to Sam.

              “And leave you? Are you kidding?” Sam took a swig, and grimaced, not used to the sting of hard alcohol. “Never in a hundred million years would I have left you there, or anywhere. Ever.” Sam handed the bottle back to Rachel and touched her hair. “I always loved your hair.” Rachel pulled away. Sam shrugged.

              “Don’t touch me.” She took a long pull from the bottle she was holding. Stood up and put on her coat. “Thank you for telling me the truth. Thank you for that.” She handed the bottle woodenly back to Sam. Her words were stiff, formal. “But just because I was cheating on Chuck with you and having some kind of adolescent fling doesn’t mean I’m going to pick it up again. I didn‘t come here for that.” Before Sam could protest, Rachel stepped into the hall way and shut the door behind her. She heard Sam punch the other side of the door. Rachel walked drunkenly back to her Mercedes Benz and drove home partially on the sidewalk.

              Rachel’s head throbbed, but as a full blown alcoholic she was used to it. She swallowed down four ibuprofen and as many glasses of water and crawled back to her bedroom and the solace of the darkness that lay within. Her phone had rung several times. She had made no attempt to answer it. Instead she pulled the battery out of it after the fourth or fifth call. Someone had even come to the door and pounded on it as though they would kick it down. They left after a few minutes.

              “I know that guy, he’s harmless, but let’s keep walking before he makes a huge scene.” She had told Sam on that long ago autumn day. The details seemed to fill themselves in. Never before in this dream had she been able to make out the dialogue between her and Sam, or smell the flowers on the air. Now she could. She could feel Sam’s hand warm in hers and a need to get her away from the man that was following them. She did not want them to meet or to speak to each other.

              “I think we should go back, he’s been following us,” Sam had told her, grabbing her possessively around the waist. Rachel turned to Sam kissed her lightly on the lips and then the world went soundless. Sam‘s lip’s parted in what could only be a scream, but Rachel heard nothing.

              Rachel awoke to more pounding at the door thankful that her memories had been interrupted. This time the knocker proved relentless. He continued his barrage for nearly thirty minutes. When she finally got to the door she could hear male voices in the hallway. “Look if she doesn’t answer in the next five minutes I want you to kick the damn door down.” a voice she recognized was saying. “I give you permission.”

              “You don’t have to kick the Goddamn door in Chuck, what do you want?” Her ex-husband stood in the hallway with two confused looking police officers. All three of them glared at her when she opened the door. 

              “Well? What the hell are you doing at my door?” she added when she got no reply.

              “Your mother called me and said that you called her at four this morning screaming nonsense about her lying to you. I’ve come by here three times to see if you were ok.” Charles explained. He wore an Armani suit, perfectly tailored to hide his midlife spread. His red hair was in its usual three hundred dollar cut that failed despite its price tag to disguise his receding hair line. He wore a beard that she had never seen before.

              “Well you look like a fucking lumberjack, now don’t you?” She sneered at him her words dripping with disgust.

              “Ma’am, are you ok? Would you mind if we came in and took a look around?” the younger of the two officers asked. He took a step towards the door as though he would force his way in if necessary. The older officer did his best to stare her down and intimidate her. Mrs. Crawly, from across the hall, opened the door and eyed the men in the hall way. Rachel glared back at both of the officers standing her ground. Only Charles dropped his gaze.

              Rachel didn‘t wait to hear what Mrs. Crawly had to add to the conversation. “Get the fuck out of my hallway you snide little man. You don’t have a warrant or a right to be here. This man is not my husband and I think that I still have a restraining order against him.” She jabbed a finger in Charles’ direction before slamming the door regretting it instantly as her head began to throb anew. She replaced all of the locks, crawled back into her warm bed and fell back asleep restarting her dream at the happy part.

              Sam sipped her coffee and watched as the thick red headed man and the two police officers left the building. From that distance she couldn’t really make out much about their demeanor, but she figured their visit had something to do with the car parked partially on the side walk. Even as they left a tow truck driver was hooking it to the back of his truck to take it away. There was nothing special about the three of them. She was just glad that they left without Rachel in hand cuffs. Once they were gone Sam discreetly made her way to the building.

              Sam climbed the stairs two at a time with a basket of fruit. She had told the door man that she was there for a singing telegram/fruit delivery. The man had looked at her and laughed. “Good luck with that one,” he had told her after she had informed him of who she had come to see. “You come down alive, and I’m likely to tip you, and I would skip the singing if I was you.”

              The knocking on the door started again. This time it was less insistent, almost polite, but this caller, like the other had no intentions of going away. The tapping persisted for five minutes and kept her from the comfort of oblivion. Rachel dragged her beaten body out of bed once more. 

              Sam Smiled brightly up at her and offered her a fruit basket as she opened the door. “So how much of what I told you do you remember?” she asked pushing her way into Rachel’s condo. Rachel made no real protest against Sam’s intrusion. Sam sat the ignored fruit basket on the kitchen table and took a seat. From her pocket she produced a warm can of ginger ale and placed it on the table opposite of where she sat. Rachel watched her and tried to think. She remembered seeing Sam last night. She remembered wanting to leave so badly that it hurt. She remembered that the entire encounter had been painful but beyond that she had no idea.

              “All of it,” Rachel lied, “but why don’t you go over it again so that I can be sure.  I’ll make some coffee. I know that that shirt you were wearing with the stain on the collar is mine.” She busied herself with the coffee maker while Sam recapped the evening and helping herself to the fruit that she had brought to get her into the building. “We were what?” she demanded when Sam got to the part where they were lovers.

              “Lovers. Why do you have so much trouble with this? Hey, you harassed me for months before I agreed to go out with you. You were persistent. It’s one of the things I loved about you.”

              “Because I’ve never had a lesbian affair in my life!” Rachel gripped her coffee mug staring at the can of ginger ale that Sam had brought for her. She knew that there was something wrong with those kind of women. Women who loved women had psychological problems that needed to be treated. Her mother had always warned her to never cut off her hair lest she look like one of them and berated her about staying away from them. It went against Godfor Christ’s sake. Well, if she believed in Godthat was.

              “Well you’ve had the one that I know of. I wouldn’t call it an affair though. It lasted six years. We lived together. We had an entire life together.” Sam made small circles with her finger tip on the table. She failed to meet Rachel’s gaze.

              “I was with Chuck from the time I was in high school until we married and then divorced. I mean we went to different colleges, and I’m sure we both had our affairs, but we were together.” Rachel refilled her Coffee cup, and added Bailey’s. Sam pretended not to notice.

              “No you were not. You were with me. You had a restraining order against someone named Chuck, but I only met him once. You said he was stalking you. He left the worst messages on our answering machines. He showed up once and scared the crap out of our roommates.” Sam met her eyes with her own perfect blue eyes and Rachel couldn’t help but think that she would do anything to look into those eyes forever. She looked away. “What did they tell you happened when you woke up?” 

              Rachel briefly relayed the car jacker story to Sam, “But I’m sure about Chuck.  My parents wouldn’t lie about that sort of thing. They wouldn‘t do that to me. Our marriage was a disaster, but I think that is because of how much I changed after the shooting. I wasn‘t the same person and I didn‘t know or love him anymore.” 

              Sam sat back in her chair and scoffed. “Debra. Ha. To keep us apart Debra would have lied to Jesus on his birthday. She called me an undesirable influence on you, turned her nose up and never spoke to me again. Darryl said he would have us both killed before he would let you embarrass him like that. They used to call me ‘That person‘.” Sam took a big gulp of her black coffee. Rachel watched the way her hands gripped the mug. They still had paint on them in some places. Spots of orange and gray that made Rachel wonder what she had been painting. Perhaps another fiery scene of her destruction.

              “Sounds about right. Do you think Daddy tried to have us killed?” Rachel sat down across from Sam, and stared into her coffee. The Bailey’s was taking the edge off of her hang over, and waning sunlight was easier on her aching eyes.

              Sam shook her head slowly. “He’s a bastard but he loves you, and he would never hurt you. He once tried to buy me off. Yep, he knew I was always short on cash and wrote me a check.” Sam smiled to herself. “You yelled at me for not taking the money when I told you. You said it would have taught him a lesson. We laughed all night about that one. The next day I came home and you were railing at him on the phone. I‘ve never heard anyone speak to their father like that before and I had never heard you yell. To tell the truth it kind of scared me.” 

              “Let’s see if Daddy will write you a check to go away this time.” Rachel laughed, and felt good for the first time in a long time. She reached for the phone.

              Debra had been dreading the phone call all day, but here it was. Charles had called earlier to report that her daughter was in an awful state. “You’re such a good man Charles, I know you’ve made your mistakes in the past, but I just can’t see why you two can’t work this out.” She’d told him before hanging up. She did, and had always adored her son in law. He had always been the perfect gentlemen, and handsome. Rachel couldn’t have picked a better man, and she had to go and ruin it. Debra made a point of inviting Charles to every family event whether Rachel showed or not. After all, she had her reasons.

              “Hello Mother,” Rachel said into the receiver. 

              “You were drunk last night and it is very unbecoming of a lady to get drunk,” Debra told her curtly. 

              “I’m drunk a lot mother. I guess you could say that I am a drunk,” Rachel said curtly. Her mother was obviously uncomfortable and trying to change the subject. “So who is Sam?” Rachel asked.

              “I told you I don’t know anyone named Sam. This is ridiculous. We don’t hear word from you in a year and now you call with all of these accusations. This is some dream you’re having, you know that you have a condition.” Debra was on the verge of hanging up the phone unwilling to do defend her point. 

              “You lied to me mom. You are lying to me right now. Would you like to know how I know this?” Rachel paused for dramatic effect. She always loved to let Debra twist in the wind. “Sam told me.” She handed the phone to Sam.

              “Hi Debby,” Sam said into the phone knowing that Debra hated to be called Debby. “It’s your favorite undesirable influence, Sam.” She burst into laughter as she handed the phone back to Rachel. 

              Rachel took the phone but the words ‘call ended’ were already flashing on the screen. She began to laugh, just a little at first, but before she knew it she was rolling on the floor. Sam joined her just as the window shattered and plaster just behind where her head had been exploded out of the wall.

IV

              Rachel and Sam looked up at the plaster in shocked silence. They couldn’t understand what happened. Neither of them moved, and then a second pane of glass broke and a bullet buried itself in the linoleum next to Sam’s head on the floor. Rachel grabbed her by the front of the shirt and pulled her into the hallway. Glass shattered everywhere as the shooter unloaded into the condo with its floor-to-ceiling windows, covering the wall-to-wall white carpeting with glass. It gave the room a look as though it were systematically sprinkled with diamonds. The shots themselves made little or no sound. Rachel and Sam crawled on their hands and knees into the bathroom glass raining down on their heads. The bathroom was the only place with no windows.

              “What the fuck is that?” Rachel asked Sam. Glass continued to shatter outside of the door. Sam just shook from head to toe. “Why are they still shooting? They can’t even see us anymore.” 

              The braking glass stopped for a moment, then began again. The shooter had probably needed to reload. “What the fuck, are they just shooting out my goddamn windows for fun? Fixing this is going to cost a damn fortune!”  Rachel was nearly foaming at the mouth her anger putting her fear on the back burner of her mind.

              “We have to get out of here.” Sam grabbed Rachel’s arm in a vice like grip.

              “I’ll just call the cops.” Rachel flipped open her cell phone. “In this neighborhood they’ll be here in under a minute.”

              “It won’t be fast enough, listen.”  Sam put her hand over Rachel’s mouth when she began to interrupt. The shooter had destroyed all of the glass near them and was now destroying other parts of the condo. Over the distant crashes that signified the destruction of her possessions Rachel could hear the sound of glass crunching beneath someone’s boots growing ever closer. Whoever it was did their best to approach with stealth but every inch of the floor had to be covered in glass.

              “The window. We have to go out of the window.” Sam pulled Rachel to the small window above her toilet that was not really a window at all, but a decorative pain of glass fixed into the tile.

              “The window? Are you out of your mind? It’s not a real window not to mention the fact that we are twenty floors up!” Rachel wrested her arm from Sam’s grip. A sense of raw elation had gripped her. For the first time in a very long time Rachel found that her life was worth fighting for and she wasn‘t about to run away.

              “Then what do you want to do? Wait here till that ass hole in the hall way breaks down the door and shoots us?” 

              “We push that dresser in front of the door and wait for the cops.” Rachel put her shoulder against her Grandmothers giant oak dresser, but it didn’t budge. Sam joined her and they managed to push it the three feet to block the door from opening. They wedged the corner of the dresser against the wall so that there was no way for it to be moved from the other side of the door. A chunk of the dresser burst into the room just as they finished missing Sam by an inch. Sam pulled Rachel by the arm away from the door. She could barely keep her knees under her. A bullet exploded through the door and dresser and shattered the false window behind them. Then came another and another exploding the tiles off of the wall. After the toilet shattered Rachel pushed Sam into the claw footed cast iron tub, laid down on top of her and called 911. She could hear the thunk thunk as some of the slugs were stopped by the iron sides of the tub.

              More shots were fired through the door, aimed at all angles. Someone attempted for a moment to beat the door down, but immediately went back to shooting. Rachel lost count of the shots that came through the door. Tile and plaster rained down on them for what seemed like an eternity. Then the gunman ran down the hall as the sound of sirens could faintly be heard. 

              Harvey knew that women were within his grasp, but the cloying sound of police sirens told him that he did not have time to reach for them. He ran his hand through his jet black hair and made a run for the exit. He promised them silently over his shoulder that he would kill them. He had never failed before and he wouldn‘t be starting with them. “Police! Is anyone alive in there?” Rachel didn’t answer right away. She was watching Sam who was watching nothing. Her face was a blank and her eyes staring unblinking straight ahead. Rachel shook her lightly, but got no response. She was breathing, but otherwise showed no signs of life.

              “Is there anyone in there? Jo, this door is blocked from the inside someone might be down in there,” one cop said to another.

              “If anyone survived this it’s a miracle. I count over a hundred rounds fired into the walls alone. I count another thirty in the door.” A female voice answered in a low tone. “I think we’re too late.”

              “But someone called us. No one reported a single gunshot, but someone called us. We need a battering ram to break this door down,” the first cop told Jo, giving the door a good kick for measure.

              The thud pulled Rachel back to the reality. We’re alive!  She called to the cops. “Help me open the door, push.” She half climbed half fell out of the tub. Sam made no move or any indication that she had heard anything at all.

              With the help of the two cops on the outside of the door Rachel got the dresser moved by first un-wedging it from the wall where it had made several cracks then pulling as they pushed. She couldn’t help but think that not only was her priceless air loom destroyed but every towel she owned had to have bullet holes in it. “Sam’s in the tub. I don’t think she’s hurt, but she’s not moving,” she told the female cop who mercifully offered her support. Her legs felt like they couldn’t hold her any longer. Her adrenalin rush was starting to fade. She suddenly felt nauseas.

              “Frank, take her to the kitchen and call the paramedics up. Don’t worry about your friend miss,” Jo said, “I’m going to go in and take care of her.”

              Frank was young and mildly handsome. His neatly pressed blue suit was stretched over broad shoulders, and an average waist. Rachel couldn’t help but notice these things as he helped her to the table. The kitchen, which had only moments before looked like it had come out of a kitchens and gardens magazine was now in shambles. Everything that could brake was broken. Shattered glass and food covered every surface. A lucky shot had taken out one of the tables legs and left it tilted to one side, its contents spilled to the floor. The fruit that Sam brought lay spilled everywhere. The shooter had even taken the liberty of blowing an apple apart for good measure. Rachel almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Almost. No words came to Rachel’s mind. All she could do was wait for word on what was wrong with Sam. Numbness had set in on her.

              “Your friend is fine, she’s just in shock. It happens sometimes, usually when someone has been through something terrible, and something similar happens again, but she’s going to be fine. It’s called PTSD. She’ll snap out of it.” Jo was in the doorway. “I just wanted to tell you, I’m going to go and stay with her until the ambulance gets here.” Jo too was mildly attractive. She had fire red hair that fought its way out of the tight bun at the back of her head, and a confident way about her that made Rachel want to believe what she said. She was sure that Jo knew her stuff.

              “She was shot. A guy shot her.” Rachel told her. 

              “I checked, she’s got a couple of scratches,” Jo began

              Rachel interrupted, “No, not tonight a long time ago. A guy shot her. He killed her friend.”  Jo nodded and went back to the rest room. It was only after Jo had gone did Rachel realize the she had described herself as killed.

              “Who would hate you enough to shoot up your condo like this?” the detective interviewing Rachel asked. It was late, they were both tired, but his attitude towards her told her that he would have been just as big an ass if the interview had taken place at four in the afternoon. 

              “A lot of people. You don’t get to where I am without making a few enemies.” Rachel had already given the cops a list of everyone she felt she had pissed off enough to want her dead. It was a very long list that would only get longer after she got some rest and thought about it with a fresh mind. “I can’t pick out one, and say, ‘don’t bother doing your jobs, it was this guy’.”

              “Well your little friend in the next room can’t think of a single person who would want her dead other than the guy that shot her ten years ago. She’s a damn painter. She’s a popular painter, but she’s a painter. Nobody kills painters because there paintings are worth more if they over dose, and from the looks of her she’ not too far from it.” Detective Roesch was a pig faced man with thinning gray hair, a cheap badly fitting suit, and a nasty disposition. He didn’t care for the rich, or for women, and he hated rich women. “So that brings us back to you, you know something, and hiding it from me is only going to make this worse for you. I’ll put you back out on the streets and let you get your ass blown off if I don‘t get some kind of cooperation soon.” He slammed his fist down on the table for emphasis. Rachel was unimpressed.

              Rachel hated men like Roesch. They were disgusting little self-loathing trolls and not to be tolerated. “Officer, there is nothing else that I can tell you except” Rachel put on her sweetest I own your ass smile and leaned across the table, “I know everybody who is anybody in this town and if you don’t catch the guys that did this your career is going to go down in flames. I will personally light the match. Why don‘t you go ahead and call the chief of police and the commissioner and tell them that you are threatening Rachel Burn or any Burn for that matter. Go ahead. I dare you.” Rachel brought up the phone numbers for both men on her cell and slid it across the table to Roesch.

              Sam was still visibly shaking when Rachel found her in the lobby of the police station, but at least she was animate again. It was uncommonly quiet, occupied only by a prostitute who seemed to be catatonic and hand cuffed to a bench and a drunk who had long since abandoned the world of consciousness. “What are you going to do now?” she asked. Sam just shook her head. “Well, you can’t stay here in the lobby all night.”

              “Well, neither can you. Why aren’t you terrified?” Sam stood up then sat down again. “The last time, was so bad.”

              Rachel put a hand on her shoulder, and waited for Sam to look at her. “There was no last time for me, Sam. This is the first time I have ever been shot at. I got lucky, when that bastard blew out my brains he blew out the part that could remember being blown out. I just have a dream that I can‘t really remember clearly five minutes after I‘ve been awake.” Rachel gave her a weak smile. “I have other houses, but I don’t think that I should go to them tonight, on account of someone trying to kill me.”

              “I just can’t get over it.” Sam fumbled with a bottle of pills. Rachel took them and opened them. “I’ve been on these since that day.” Sam explained after swallowing two little blue pills dry. 

              “Yea, I’m a big fan of valium myself.”  Rachel put her hands on her hips and stared at the vaulted ceiling of the lobby. “Still, I haven’t had an adventure in a long time, well ever, that I can remember.”

              “We went skinny dipping and cliff jumping in Minnesota that time. It was about an eighty foot drop.” Sam told her. She stood up. “We have to get out of here.”

              “We could go back to your place, hide out, split a bottle of scotch, and order some food.” Rachel suggested. A gun fight and a bottle of scotch, what an evening! She thought to herself. 

              “I could use a drink,” Sam agreed. She looked tired.

              “I would suggest against either one of you going home tonight.” Jo came strolling up to them fingers hitched in her belt. They both stood up. “I know of a couple of low-key hotels you can stay in. Some just outside of the city, some inside. I suggest leaving town, at least for tonight. Safer that way.” Jo walked in a way that caused her to sway from side to side like the toned-down walk of a toddler. She eyed them with no little suspicion. Years on the force had taught her that no one who got shot at the way these ladies had been shot at could have their noses completely clean. She had counted hundreds of rounds in the hallway alone. Someone had dropped no small dime to grease these two.

              “Well could you give us the name of a place, and maybe call a car for us?”  Rachel liked Jo, and was fully aware of the woman’s distrust of her. Who could blame her? Rachel thought. I wouldn’t trust me either. Rachel found that she wasn’t particularly surprised to find that gunmen were after her. She had never imagined that it would happen, but still there was no shock that it did. How many lives had she destroyed for the hell of it?

              “By car I imagine you mean limo?” Rachel nodded causing Jo to laugh. “Not the best idea in the whole world. What you want to do is catch a cab, head to this place, pay cash, ‘cause if they got the money to shoot up your place the way they did, then they have the money to keep track of your credit cards, and lay low for a few nights. By lay low I mean don’t call any one, call whoever you have to call from here before you go. Take the batteries out of your cell phones. They can be tracked on the internet through the GPS chip. Sit in the room, watch some T.V. order bad take out, get a deck of cards. Pay for everything in cash, like you see in the movies. Again, do not use your credit cards.”

              “Shouldn’t we be in police protective custody?” Sam asked. She rubbed her hands together nervously, and shifted her weight from foot to foot constantly. Clearly the valium had yet to take effect.

              “No. Not everyone on this force is as honest as Frank and I. That was a professional hit and an expensive one at that. That means that whoever paid for it may try to buy himself a few cops as well. You’re best on your own with no one knowing where you are. We’ve been having some trouble with leaks around here. Just do exactly what I tell you and you will be alright, for tonight at least. I’m also pretty sure that they were trying to take you alive.” Jo scribbled down a list of names and addresses in her note book and handed them to Sam.

              The curling lock of golden hair had been cleanly severed by a bullet that was still lodged in the linoleum. Michael quickly sniffed it, folded it neatly into a napkin and stuffed it into his pocket. He liked to get the scent of his prey before he met them face to face. “Hey, just take the pictures, don’t touch anything.” a plainclothes officer ordered. Michael, sure that his theft had gone unnoticed took a picture of the bullet in the floor.              “This is a real mess. All of this to kill two women? It seems like amateurs on a rampage.” Michael said to no one in particular. He moved a few feet to his right and took a picture of an exploded banana. “I mean look at this mess. Who assassinates a basket high end fruit?

              “It was a pro job. One guy was taking shots at them to pin them down while at least one other came in through the front door to kill them while they were cowering from the first guy. They had to kill the doorman just to get into the building. They shot him in the back of the head. He never saw them coming. This was an expensive hit. They knew what they were doing. They were pros.” The officer told Michael.

              Know it all, Michael thought. Of course it had been pros. Messy, insane pros who didn’t understand what subtlety meant. Pros who now hunted the same quarry as he. Pros that he now had to kill or beat, and in the name of the Almighty. Besides, he had already placed bombs at the painter’s studio, her gallery, and in her car. One way or another he was going to get her. As the old saying went, she could run, but she couldn’t hide.

              Michael turned to the open gusty place where the window used to be. A light freezing rain that would never reach the ground but at this altitude was soaking the carpets had begun to fall. Work men fought with a sheet of ply wood to patch the holes before the interior was damaged further, but they were no match for the elements and many of the windows were left gaping even at this late hour. Michael watched through one of the gaping windows letting the icy rain sting the pores of his face. The next building was too far to make out any details, but he was sure that someone was watching him. He could feel the eyes of another on him like hot breath creeping down the back of his neck. He adjusted his collar and looked through the zoom lens of his camera. No luck. Most of the shades on the other building were drawn and the windows that were not were too dark to give away any detail of their interior.

              Harvey sneered at the photographer that he knew couldn’t see him through the sheer curtains. The man had stolen the lock hair that he had taken grate effort to have Bill shoot off of the blond woman’s head without killing her. He had his doubts as to the officer’s good intentions. Behind him on a couch, his bald head gleaming from the dim lamp sat Harvey’s brother. Behind Harvey’s brother lying in a pool of her own blood was the rightful owner of the apartment that they now stood in. She was an elderly woman who had put up what little fight she could against the two monsters that pushed their way into her apartment. Harvey had taken his time with her after he was forced to let his prey get away. He had bathed her lifeless body, loved her and then dumped her back into the puddle of blood that had marked her passing hours before.

              “Are you sure we killed all of the other men the boss hired?” Harvey asked his brother, Bill.

              “We killed them good. As far as I know, we’re the only ones left with a pulse.” Bill answered idly digging his knife into the couch cushions next to him, the senseless destruction holding most of his attention.

              “We need to check the list again. No one is going to take what’s mine. The Burn woman dies, and she dies by my hands. We collect the money and blow town. If anyone gets in our way, they die to. That includes any others that might be after her for the same reasons as us.” Harvey put the binoculars back to his face. In the hallway he could hear cops going door to door looking for shooters. They had already been to this apartment. Bill had answered in a bath robe saying that he had heard nothing and that his grandmother was a deaf as the dead. When the police were gone Harvey had slapped him for being a smart ass.

              The Motel that Jo recommended was a dump. It was worse than a dump. It was a good old fashioned hell hole. It was furnished with a full sized bed, two chairs and a card table. Rachel hesitated before setting her coat down on the bed. She pulled back the comforter to look at the sheets. They were mercifully clean. She let out a sigh of relief.

              She and Sam had come directly from the police station, riding almost an hour in a cab and arrived late into the night. A light snow had started to fall that helped to mask the hideousness of the place until they had already paid the cab driver and had no other choice but to rent a room. The building itself was a half circle with the door to each room facing a filthy little parking lot. The clerk, a boy of maybe eighteen, with long greasy hair, eyed them for a moment with a knowing grin and offered them an hourly rate. Rachel slid him a fifty dollar bill and was shocked to receive twenty five dollars change for a night’s stay. 

              “Well this should be interesting. I’m going to run over to the store across the street and see if I can pick up some provisions.” Sam left without saying another word.  Rachel shook her head, and picked up her cell phone. There were four missed calls all from her mother, and two from Jack Squire. She had forgotten that she and Sam had called Debra just before the bullets started to fly. Rachel hit the send button. Debra answered on the second ring.

              “What is going on, Rachel? Your Condo is all over the news, and the police won’t say anything about what went on there. Your father was convinced that you had been killed! This is because of that person! She is nothing but trouble for you. You get away from her. You get away from her right now!” Debra was wailing into the phone so loudly that Rachel had to hold the receiver away from her ear. She could already hear her father in the background asking if it was her, demanding that she come to their house immediately.

              “Debra. I don’t know what happened, and this isn’t Sam’s fault. Someone is trying to kill me. I know I’ve made enough enemies over the years. I have to go now.  Tell Dad that I’m alright.” Rachel flipped her phone shut before Debra got to reply. The thought of separating from Sam had never occurred to her. Maybe it would be best for them if Sam went her own way. After all, the men who did this were after her. Sam really had no part in this, and obviously didn’t have the nerve for it. The thought of Sam leaving made her heart jump into her chest. For the first time the reality of her situation hit her. Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed to collect herself. 

              In the last forty-eight hours her life had suddenly become worth living. She had gone from a corporate suit waiting to die, to a living breathing woman on the run from professional killers at the side of a daring stranger. She finally had secrets all her own, and someone to explain them to her. Her life was her own again, not something she agreed to, when she didn’t know who she was. Now she had an idea of the woman she was before to help her shape the woman she wanted to be, and she owed all of those things to Sam.

              “Maybe you should go.” Rachel couldn’t believe that she was saying what she was saying. She kept her hands folded tightly on her lap and her back straight. She felt as though all of the air had gone out of the room. Sam had only just come through the door.

              “Go where? Why?” Sam put a small army of shopping bags down on the floor next to the bed and began to unpack them before taking off her coat.

              “Umm, maybe you should just go away from me. I mean, I got you shot at tonight. You could have been killed.” The words seemed to stick in Rachel’s throat unwilling to be pushed past the lump that was growing there. Her face felt hot, tears burned at the corners of her eyes begging to be released. She clenched and unclenched her jaw. She couldn’t believe she was sending away the one person who had touched her on any level in a decade. Sam had touched her on more levels than she cared to admit even to herself.

              “No.” Sam finished unpacking the bags laying everything neatly on the card table.  Her response had been very matter of fact. “You always do this. You are not my knight in shining armor. We are in this together. Anyway, they, whoever the hell they were, took the first shot at me.” She shook off her coat and tossed it over the back of a chair.

              “I always do what?” Rachel demanded. “I’m trying not to get you killed! Do you think that I want to be in this alone? Do you think that I want to stay in this hell-hole by myself and pray that some lunatic for hire doesn’t find me and blow my brains out of my head for the second time in my life?”

              “You always try to protect me. I am fine, and I am also not leaving. You don’t have to stay here alone, and no one is going to find us tonight. We did what Jo said, and I trust her.” Sam finished unpacking the bags and tossed Rachel a T-shirt and shorts. “This was as close to sleep wear as the drug-store across the street had, but I think I got everything else we need. I got tooth brushes, tooth paste, soap, deodorant, and chocolate. You know, the basics. So you can just take any ideas about me leaving you here alone in this dump and shove em where the sun don‘t shine.”

              “Thank you. Thank you, Sam.” Rachel held the clothes Sam had given her as though they were the finest on earth.

              “Umm you’re welcome. They’re just something to sleep in. Figure you wouldn’t want to sleep naked since we have to share the bed, although you never did like sleeping in clothes.” Sam was blushing slightly at all of the sexy memories that swam into her head. She didn’t mention them to Rachel.

              “I still don’t, and I mean thank you for everything. For taking my phone, for driving me crazy, for telling me who I am. For everything. Thank you. Everyone else that I know would have left me the first chance they got.” Rachel went into the bathroom before Sam could see the tears of joy and relief running down her cheeks. Sam watched her back puzzled by her strange behavior.

V

              Less than an hour later Sam lay sleeping only inches away and Rachel couldn’t help but watch her. There was something so familiar and comforting about the soft lines of her face lit by the silvery moonlight. All of the worry had faded from around her eyes and mouth leaving her looking child-like and innocent. Even her wild hair had somehow become tame in sleep. She could see all of the different shades of gold in those curls. Rachel fought the urge to reach out and touch them, trace them back to her head, then down to that face, to those sweet lips.

              It was an urge that had started deep within Rachel before the bullets had started to fly and had been growing by the moment. She curled her hands beneath her head and lay as still as possible. Sirens played out their own symphony somewhere off in the distance breaking the peaceful stillness of the night and distracting Rachel just long enough That she found that her fingers were gently pinching a golden lock.

              Rachel tried to imagine what she would be doing if Sam had not walked back into her life. She would probably be sitting at home alone drinking a bottle of bourbon and coming up with ways to financially ruin someone for profit. Who was she kidding? She would do it for fun. She would be trying to make everyone’s life as miserable as hers. Now she was in an amazing situation that had changed everything forever. People were trying to kill her, but she felt happy for the first time that she could remember, and somehow it was all Sam’s doing. She wanted to shake Sam awake and ask her a hundred questions. Rachel got out of bed unable to resist touching her any longer. 

              She went and sat at the small card table wishing she had a drink in her hand.  Damn my drinking has gotten out of control, she thought to herself. She thought about the bottle of valium in her purse, and sighed deeply. She promised herself that if she could just get through this she would get her life back under control. She would start by quitting her job. She got a glass of water from the bathroom sink and sat at the table again.  The room was so silent that she thought that if she tried hard enough she could hear the snowflakes falling outside over Sam’s soft breathing.

              Sam awakened to a cold bed. The valium she had taken at the police station had lost their hold on her and now that old fear had again crept into her heart slowly pulling her out of her dreamless slumber. The room was lit only by the light coming from the narrowly cracked bathroom door and the neon vacancy light outside of the window. The bed beside her was empty. Rachel sat at the card table, her form outlined in red by the neon hotel vacancy light. She looked unbelievably tired. It seemed as though the weight of their situation had hit her all at once. Her long auburn hair hung limp around her shoulders. “Hey, why don’t you try to get some sleep? We can figure out what we should do tomorrow. I know a place where we can go and be safe for a while.” Sam’s words were half whispered as though the full sound of her voice might do Rachel harm.

Sam wanted to wrap her arms around Rachel and hold her and never let her go. Rachel didn’t look at her. “You know the first time I saw you, well saw you since the shooting, you had that exact same expression on your face.” Sam pulled the blankets up around her against the chill of the room. “You were staring at the sky.”

              “How did you find me?” Rachel walked over to the bed and sat down next to Sam. “I mean, you thought that I was dead for ten years, but suddenly you just showed up out of nowhere.” 

              Sam’s face turned bright red and she was happy for the shadows that hid her blush from Rachel. “Well, about two months ago, I was in a café listening to this poor girl go into an absolute fit about how her boss was such an evil vile bitch.”

              “So you assumed it was me?” Rachel couldn’t stop herself from giggling.

              “Godno. I would never have thought in a million years that someone would describe you of all people as being vile. I told her she should piss in your coffee, which she was fetching at the time.” Sam laughed. “She said she would do better to pour holy water in it, kill you off completely. Well we had a good laugh, and she said she had to get back. I was planning on picking her up so I offered to walk her to her office, and then I saw you. She rushed inside to do something and I stood and watched you staring at the sky until you went inside and then I followed you.”

              “Two months ago?” Rachel tilted her head like a puppy in thought. “You saw me two months ago, and you said nothing? Have you been following me around this entire time?”

              “I couldn’t. When I saw you I got so sick and so scared, and felt so terrible.  I started to shake, and ran I away. So I kind of followed you around for two months trying to get up the nerve to see if you were really you or if I had finally cracked up, turns out both. I convinced myself that I should get a picture of you to show my friends. Then I drank a bottle of port, and went for a walk, and there you were again. You came wondering around the corner like magic, so I behaved like the nut I am and took your phone.” Sam covered her face with her hands and spoke through her splayed fingers, “So now you know I’m insane.”

              “Did you think we would be lovers again? I mean after all of this time?” The words sprang out of Rachel’s mouth before she realized she had thought them. Just as quickly a hope that she had never imagined sprang into her chest and she found herself holding her breath wondering what she was asking.

              “Oh no. Godno! I just thought maybe I could know you again. Maybe find out why you hadn’t tried to find me, and well obviously you had every memory of me blown out of your head.” Sam lied. She had hoped that when Rachel saw her they would fall into each other’s arms and never be apart again. She had nursed several fantasies in which she and Rachel ran away together. Instead Rachel had looked right at her and had no idea of who she was.

              The hope in Rachel’s chest died. She let out a deep sigh. “Not every memory.  I’ve watched you die every night for the last ten years. I just never knew it was you. It’s all I have ever dreamed about, well I guess not ever, but you know since I, I mean we, were shot, it’s all I’ve ever dreamed about.” Tears came hot and fast enough that Rachel couldn’t stop or hide them.

              “I am so sorry it was so hard for you. For both of us.” Sam pulled back the blankets next to her, “Tonight we should just try to get some sleep. Think about tomorrow. Tomorrow is a chance at a better day. You used to tell me that when I was having a tough time. You said that your nanny taught it to you.” She patted the bed beside her invitingly. “Come on, we’ll feel better after some rest.”

              Rachel went to the window and arranged the curtains as best she could to block out the neon lights. She got up and switched off the bathroom light. The room instantly went pitch black. Rachel lay on her back for a while listening to Sam’s slow rhythmic breathing. It began to lure her into a calm state. “Are you sleeping?” She whispered to the empty air. 

              “No. Not yet, still trying to clear my head.” Sam whispered back. 

              Rachel could no longer resist, she could not remember ever wanting anything so badly. She reached for her in the darkness, and found Sam’s hand, then her arm, and finally her shoulder. She pulled Sam into her arms and held her tightly. Sam returned her embrace. “Ok?” Rachel asked terrified of the answer. Sam just nodded into the hollow of her shoulder. Rachel sighed in relief and languished in the feeling. She promised herself that she just needed this tonight. That after tonight she would be done with this. She promised herself that tonight would be enough. A heat she had never known crept through her second after second pulsing with every beat of her heart. She listened to Sam’s breathing as it became slow and even with sleep, and still she stayed awake holding her. Holding Sam felt like the only good thing in the world. When Rachel finally fell into sleep it was dreamless for the first time in a decade. Her nightmares could never take what now lay safely in her arms.

              Sam awoke to a strange sound. Her mind refused to tell her what it was.  Something scraping on metal was really all that she could fathom. Rachel lay sleeping against her, holding her as usual. Their bedroom was dark and quiet, but there was something very strange going on. Something wasn’t right. She did her best to push it out of her mind and go back to sleep, after all she had an early class tomorrow, and a paper to write, and. . . . . .

              Something outside of the door clanked on the pavement. Sam untangled herself from Rachel and crawled out of the bed as quickly and quietly as she could. She had slept very little in the last several nights and sleep was not ready to let her go. Her body was generally numb. They weren’t in their house, she had no classes and the scraping sound had come again. This time she knew where it had come from, outside of the hotel door, someone was out there trying to trip the dead bolt. She had lived in enough bad neighborhoods in her life to know when a lock was being picked. She groped for Rachel in the dark, and slipped a hand over her mouth. “Someone is outside of the door,” she hissed in Rachel’s ear as her body tensed into wakefulness. “They’re picking the lock, don’t make a sound. We are going out of the fire escape.” She felt Rachel nod, and they made quickly for the window. Sam found it easily and opened the drapes. Neon lights had been replaced with moonlight, which flooded the room. Sam silently prayed that the lock picker didn’t notice the change in light under the door.

              Sam opened the window while Rachel jammed the door with a chair from the card table. It wouldn’t hold much, but it would slow the attacker down. Just as Sam got the window open, the dead bolt clicked. The intruder tried to kick the door open, but the chair stopped it from opening all of the way. The barrel of a gun sporting a silencer and held by a leather glove slipped into the room through the crack and fired wildly in no particular direction. The shot went wide lodging itself into the wall.  The two women scrambled out of the window and into the cold night air.

              “My purse,” Rachel started to go back into the room.

              “Too late for that.” Sam held her arm in an iron grip and pulled her to the rickety ladder which hung twenty feet above the ground. “We’ve got to find help. Get the clerk to call the police.”

              The clerk, a nineteen year old pimple-faced kid, lay slumped behind bullet proof glass with blood pooling around his head. It was no small comfort that his hair covered his face. The two women looked him in disbelieving horror. The door to the office stood wide open.  “How the hell?” Rachel asked no one in particular. “Why would he open the door? He was safe back there. He could have just stayed there and he would have been safe. Why would they kill him? They didn’t have to kill him.” She felt empty and helpless. 

              “We can’t help him now. We have got to go.” Sam pulled Rachel away from the glass. She could already hear the footsteps of someone running in their direction. Her heart pounded as though at any moment it would escape her chest and run away on its own.

              “How did they find us?” Rachel wondered aloud as she and Sam ran bare foot down a side street ignoring the stabbing pain that the debris on the street caused with each step. They stayed where they could see people which was hard to do so late at night, but became easier and easier as they made it to a main thoroughfare. They ran for as long as Rachel could then were forced to slow to a fast walk. Rachel gasped in the frigid air.

              “I Don’t know. We need a pay phone.” Sam said as they emerged at a busy intersection. She franticly searched the corners for one. “Damn cell phones, you can hardly find a pay phone anymore.”

              “I had my cell phone in my purse, we could already be in a limo by now.”  Rachel grumbled at her. As far as she could tell they were not being pursued, but there were people everywhere on this street, even at this late hour, and they were all looking at the two bare foot women as though they had both lost their minds. Some of them were spilling out of the clubs from the night before. Some of them emerged from apartments dressed for the day’s work, others looked as though the street was their home.

              Rachel spotted the younger of the two cops that had been with Charles only a few nights before. He wasn’t in his uniform, but Rachel was sure that it was him. “Hey, right there, he is a cop. He can help us.” She grabbed Sam’s arm and pointed. The young man glared at them, turned and started to walk away.

              “He’s a cop? A cop in the city where only the cops knew where we were going and you want us to stop and talk to him?” Sam dragged her across the street to a gas station.

              “You think the cops are in on this?” Rachel asked her. “That’s insane. How hard would it be for someone to wait around to follow us? How hard would that be?”

              “Well why the hell did he walk away? He was looking right at us and the second you pointed at him he turned and ran off. If he is a cop he is either trying to avoid you, or crooked and trying to kill us. Either way, he’s not much help.” Sam pushed Rachel ahead of her into the gas station.

              “I left my cell phone on after I called my mother. That’s how they found us.” Rachel realized out loud.

              “Why would you call your mother? Jo told us not to call anyone.” Sam demanded while she searched the corners of the store for a phone.

              “Because she called me four times, and she is still my mother.” Rachel told her. Sam rolled her eyes and went to find a phone. With a mother like Debra Rachel was better off with no mother at all.

              “I don’t think that I have ever been in a gas station for this long of a period of time.” Rachel leaned against the door eyeing the people who walked by. Morning was breaking. Everywhere the sky had given up its dark blue for the steel colored dawn that only came with winter. She sipped the coffee that the clerk had given her out of pity. It was the best cup of coffee she had ever had. It warmed her which she desperately needed.    A few early morning costumers came in for the morning sustenance, but for the most part she, the clerk and Sam were the only ones in the store. Between customers the clerk snoozed with his head down on the counter.

              “No point in staying in one if you don’t work there.” Sam said casually. She had declined the coffee, and was visibly fraying around the edges. She rubbed her hands together nonstop, as she stared out of the glass. “Come on Bell! Where are you?” She said to herself.

              “How did you know what was going on? I mean with the guy outside of the door?” Rachel watched Sam intently remembering the way Sam felt in her arms, the way her skin smelled. The way the soft curls of Sam’s hair had tickled her face.

              “I heard him. He scratched the lock or dropped a tool or something. I’m a light sleeper, have been for years.” Sam didn’t look at Rachel, just watched the cars going by. 

              “Hey, about last night,” Rachel began,

              “Don’t worry about it. You just needed someone to hold on to, I get it.” Sam interrupted still looking out of the window. Her face brightened. “Bell!  We’re saved!”  Sam opened the door and ran out to a powder pink 1969 V.W. bug that was making its way into the parking lot. A tall muscular woman with windblown blond hair stepped out of the car.

              “Sam! Sam, what kind of trouble did you get into now?” The woman demanded and swept Sam into a giant bear hug before Sam could answer her. Sam almost disappeared into the woman’s ample bosom. When she let Sam go again she briefly looked at Rachel. “Gone off to get yourself a new accomplice in crime?” She gave Sam a sly sideways look, and a very obvious wink.

              “Well not exactly new, Bell,” Sam walked back over to a very wary  Rachel who had come out of the gas station to meet their knight in shining armor. “Look at her again.”

              “Well, I saw the woman and she is,” Bell stopped in mid-sentence her face turning white. “What the fuck Sam? Have you gone completely off your rock? Again? I don’t care. I don’t want to know, just get in the damn car!” The woman got behind the wheel of the car without another word. “Really?” She asked no one as she slammed the car door.

              “What was that about? I don’t want to go with her.” Rachel whispered to Sam. “We can call someone else. We can call my office and tell them to send us a car to the airport and we can fly out of here. We can go anywhere. Europe maybe.”

              “Bell, get out of the damn car and look at her, again.” Sam leaned over Bell in the driver seat. Even sitting down Bell looked twice her size. “Get out of the car!” Sam growled at her from between clenched teeth, angry with her friend’s dismissive nature.

              “Look if you never get over Rachel, we, your friends, will understand, but dating a woman that looks just like her is a sign that you have a serious problem. So you and your friend get in the car, so we can get you out of whatever the hell you have gotten yourself into.”  Bell didn’t look at Sam while she talked. She checked her hair in the rear view mirror, her face drawn with worry and frustration.

              Rachel walked around to Bell’s side of the car scooting Sam out of her way.  “Have we met? Do you know me?” She asked Bell who now turned even whiter than she had before. She looked at Sam. Sam smiled at her and gave a nod. Bell opened the door.

              “I, ummm, I,.” was all Bell could manage. She reached up and put a hand on Rachel’s cheek. “Dear Goddess, is this real?” She asked Sam through the open door. Sam gave her a serious nod. Bell swept Rachel into a giant bear hug before she knew what had happened. Rachel’s feet dangled in the air. When she regained her composure she held Rachel away from her at arm’s length. “You’re a fucking miracle! An honest to Goddess miracle!”  She hugged Rachel again. “What? How?” Bell stumbled over her words.

              “Slide on into the passenger seat, I’ll drive,” Sam told her. “Rachel hop in the back, and I will fill Bell in on all of the lies that we were told.” Sam couldn’t help but laugh as Bell, speechless got into the passenger seat. Sam drove them onto the highway and out into the countryside as she told Bell the story of how Rachel’s parents had had her moved and then lied to everyone on the campus and told them that she was dead. It was a long drive impeded by the steady snow fall so Sam finished the story with how they had ended up in the gas station. 

              Bell turned in her seat to look at Rachel again. “I can’t believe this. This is insane, I mean I know your parents hated your life style, but for them to just snatch you out of it and lie to you for ten years! Now people are trying to kill you!” The snow fall had become heavier and caused the road to become slippery. It was early in the season for such a snowfall, but not entirely unheard of. Sam brought the car to a crawl. Everywhere that Rachel looked giant pines frosted in white dominated the landscape. The snow had somehow muted the world so that it seemed as though the only sound came from the car, its inhabitants and the occasional groan as the branches of one of the monstrous evergreens that lined the roadway creaked and split beneath the weight of winter.

              “Well, they have this idea of what life should be. Successful career, successful marriage, successful children. They can’t deviate from that, or the idea of that, and well, I haven’t been able to in years.” Despite the fact that the heat in the small car was blasting Rachel felt the cold. Her clothes were still a little damp from their escape from the hotel. 

              “I am so unbelievably glad to see you. I don’t care how, why, or how long it took, you’re back and I am so glad.” Bell’s eyes spilled tears of joy down her cheeks. Rachel found herself over-come with emotion taking Bell’s hand in her own and squeezing it.  Sam watched the exchange in the rear view mirror and smiled to herself.  It was as though she could see the vile woman that Rachel had become melting away.

              “Bell! Is that you honey. You got Sammy?” A cheerful voiced asked from somewhere in the house. They were in a cabin on a private lake near Greenville, Michigan. A fire burned in a large fireplace making the room warm and pleasant. Smells of frying bacon, and maple syrup filled the room and made Rachel’s stomach growl.

              “Mary, come in here, Sammy’s got a surprise for you,” Bell yelled as she took off her coat and hung it in the closet. She came back with two blankets and handed Rachel and Sam each one. “We can work on getting some clothes for you in a minute.”

              “I just started cooking, figured it would take you a while to get back with the weather and all.” A curvaceous woman came into view drying her hands on a dish towel. She had chocolate skin and shortly cropped hair. She wore a violet robe that hung to her bare feet. She had a shuffling way of walking that made her sway back and forth and reminded Rachel of Jo. “Figured you all would be cold, so I went ahead and stoked the fire, put on a pot of coffee. Breakfast will be ready in just a few min,” Mary stopped in mid-word as she saw Rachel and held her hand over her mouth. The breath slowly crept out of her. She groped for the edge of the couch with her other hand and finding the arm slowly lowered herself onto it. “Sweet Jesus!” She gasped.

              Her scrutiny made Rachel uncomfortable. “Hi, I’m Rachel Burn. I’ve been told we’ve already met, but it is nice to meet you again.” Rachel offered her hand. Mary didn’t take it. 

              “It’s her, baby. It’s really her.” Bell put her hands on Mary’s shoulders to give her support. “It would seem that the Burn family told a couple of little white lies, and hid our own little Rachel away from us.” Mary didn’t take her eyes off of Rachel for a moment. “But for now I bet these ladies are cold and hungry and very tired. They’ve been through hell lately. So let’s get some food in them and let them get some sleep.” Bell helped Mary up and led her into the kitchen. “Why don’t you two have a seat next to the fire, warm up while we finish fixing breakfast?”

              Sam, still grinning from ear to ear, replied “Sure, you do that. It took me months to believe she was alive, so you take your time.” She called after them. She grabbed two over-stuffed pillows from a corner and plopped them down in front of the fire. “Come sit next to me, we’re safe here, and Mary is the best cook I have ever met.” Sam sat on one of the pillows.

              “Tell me about them. I mean, who are they? How do I know them?” Rachel felt stunned. Despite her now comfortable surroundings she could not get the image of the clerk at the front desk face down in a pool of his own blood out of her head. A large sliding glass door gave her a breath-taking view of a beautiful lake frozen for the winter and covered in snow. The still rising sun washed the entire landscape in colors like so many spilled wines. She pushed all thoughts of her hijacked life, killers, and murdered boys out of her head and tried to focus on the things around her. 

              “Our friends. There was a group of us, and we were always hanging out, you know palling around together. We all rented a house together for a lot of years. It was a fantastic time. Everything was great until, well you know.”  Sam pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. She smiled sadly at Rachel. “You were kind of like their pet, because you were younger and because of the way they doted on you. You were, and it is so strange to be telling you about you. You were young and had never been away from home or your mother. So they took it upon themselves to watch out for you. Well there was also the fact that you were a little adventurous.” Sam smiled.

              “Me? Adventurous? I’ve never been adventurous a day in my life.” Rachel tried to imagine herself as a twenty something out tromping the world looking for trouble.

              “Oh, you were bad. You broke into the boys dormitory, you flooded the cafeteria, you blew the power on a quarter of the campus. There was no telling what you would do next. Some of the things you used to do scared the crap out of me.” Sam smiled to herself. “I kept waiting for you to get caught and expelled but you never did.”

              “That explains the scars.” Rachel laughed as she stroked a long scar that ran the length of her fore arm.

              “Oh, you got that jumping out of our bedroom window into a tree.” Sam traced Rachel’s scar with her finger relishing the contact. “You said you were trying to hand feed the squirrels. You got 32 stitches from that one. Mary drove you to the hospital, and you were trying to feed squirrels the very next day. At least you did it from the ground the second time.”

              “Hey Sam, could you go into the kitchen and make sure Bell doesn’t burn it down. I want to talk to this ghost.” Mary had come up behind them her voice still shaky. Sam popped up and made her exit from the room. “I’ve been warned that you don’t remember me.”  Mary said coming over to sit next to Rachel. “That you don’t remember us, or anything about your past really,” Her voice was smooth, almost musical. It was deep for a woman’s but femininely so. Her body language was warm and inviting, Rachel liked her right away.

              “So I’ll tell you who we are, and you can tell me who you are, and we can go from there.” Mary got down and sat on the pillow that Sam had just vacated. She gave a nervous laugh. “That damn Sam! Boy did she pull a rabbit out of a hat on this one. Where to start, where to start?” She crossed her legs at the ankles and made herself comfortable.

              Rachel laughed. “She is a little strange. I don’t think that I have ever met anyone quite like her.” She wanted Sam back in her arms more than anything at that moment, but was content to sit and listen to Mary tell her more about her past.

              “Well there is no one like her. But you have to know that she did go a little screwy over all of this.”  Mary reached out to stroke Rachel’s hair, but Rachel reflexively pulled away. “She didn’t handle your death well at all. She never got over you. Guess she didn’t have to, but she’s still the same old Sam, a little wounded is all. I think all of that is going to heal up just fine.” A solitary tear rolled down Mary’s cheek. Rachel couldn’t tell if it was a happy or a sad tear.

              “Thought I was going to burn the kitchen down?” Bell was standing in the doorway way smirking. “When have I ever burned anything?”

              “Ha! I’ve seen you burn water, love, you’re not fooling anyone.” Mary told her as she got up. “Come on Rachel, you can tell us all about it.” She held out her hand to Rachel. Rachel took it and was surprised that Mary did not let it go until she was seated at the kitchen table.

              Rachel ate more than she could ever remember eating in any single sitting. She ate a pile of scrambled eggs with cheese, a mountain of bacon, and three buttermilk pancakes. All of it was the most delicious food she had ever eaten. Between bites she did her best to answer their questions, and to ask her own. It turned out that She, Bell, and Mary had all become friends after she had taken up asking Sam out on a date every day. 

              “I used to tease you every time I saw you, but you wouldn’t give up. You were determined to make her yours. I’ve never met anyone more stubborn than you. You even cut off all of your hair because you thought it would impress her. It looked like one of them ‘ol Nazis.” Mary laughed, which made them all laugh. “I should have known you wouldn’t die!” They all laughed long and hard. 

              “Why would I think shaving my head would impress her?” Rachel asked just before she shoveled a fork full of eggs into her mouth.

              “I have no idea. You two are the strangest people that I have ever known. Artist!” Mary poured herself another cup of coffee.

              Soon Rachel found that she could barely keep her eyes open. The coffee had long since lost its influence and a full stomach was weighing heavily on her. She came awake to find Bell touching her lightly on the shoulder. “How about a warm bed? We can tell you more later.” As Rachel passed the window in the front room she found that the sun had come to rule the sky. “Must be noon.” She mumbled. Mary laughed as she led her into a room in which the drapes had been drawn. 

              “It’s actually closer to eight a.m. You can sleep here, there are pajamas you can wear on the bed. Sam’s in the bathroom, it is right there.” She pointed to a door from under which light was coming and they could hear the sound of running water. Rachel stopped in front of a picture just outside of the bathroom door. It was perhaps and eight by eleven depicting a younger version of Sam and herself grinning at the camera in bathing suits on the edge of the lake. “It’s us.” Rachel ran her finger tips over the cool smooth glass that protected the photograph from the rigors of time. “This is here, we were here.”

              “You and Sam and Amy and Blue and Bell and I all spent a week up here one summer. We were all housemates at the time. Sam said it was the best time of anytime ever. Buying this place is one of the things that helped her to get better. It helped her to hang on to the good memories of you instead of that last one. Bell and I bought a house in town to keep an eye on her. This is a good place. You should think about moving out this way, you look like you could use some rest.” Mary steered Rachel away from the picture and into the bed room by her shoulders. Rachel nodded and sank down onto the bed. She felt a blanket being thrown over her before she drifted off to sleep.

              Sam sipped from her mug and watched the sleeping woman on the bed. The house was silent. Both Mary and Bell had gone off to work after drilling her for every bit of information that Sam had to offer. Sam, despite her exhaustion and the fact that she hadn’t slept more than four hours in the last three nights, couldn’t sleep. She lay down next to Rachel for an hour and still couldn’t sleep. She closed her eyes, but they refused to remain shut. Something was bugging her. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Her sleep deprived brain was simply not up to the task. She had seen something or someone and now it was twisting just outside the sphere of her recognition. She watched as Rachel stirred in her sleep and turned over. If only she could clear the events of the last couple of days out of her head. Let her thoughts quiet down so that she could think. She had seen something that would explain all of this. She was so sure of it that she could feel it tingling at the base of her skull. Sam got up as quietly as she could and wandered to the kitchen.

              “Oh, I took the rest of the day off, but I didn’t think that you guys would be up.  It‘s not even noon yet.” Bell sat at the kitchen table sipping a mug of tea with milk. “I figured we could go have some lunch at the diner in town when you got up. Mary is going to try to finish her case files for today early and get back here. She had two emergent cases or she would be here right now not letting poor Rachel get any sleep at all.” 

              “Sounds good. This is crazy isn’t it?” Sam asked her sitting down on one of the four chairs at the table. “I mean, I feel like I should be back in the hospital in a straitjacket, not having coffee with my best friend at my kitchen table.”

              “Yea, but it’s the good kind of, we got our friend back crazy. You know, straitjacket free. Relax Sam, you’re doing good, all things considered and you got your Rachel back. You’ve got to be so excited.” Bell placed hand on Sam’s shoulder.

              “I don’t have Rachel back. She’s not the same. I mean it’s her, but it’s not her.  Get my drift? She’s straight, formerly married, mean, and not interested in being my lover or my anything really. Everyone that I talked to about her that knows her now says that she is the worst person they have ever met. People are afraid of her.” Sam pushed her hair out of her face.

              “Give her time. I don’t think that the kind of love that you two had, have can be killed. Not with time, or lies, or even a bullet. She’s just lost right now. This is hard on both of you. Hell, I’ve only been in it for the last few hours and it’s hard on me. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you two. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through or what you are going to go through to put this back together, but I know that you can and will put it back together.” Bell took a long pull off her drink. “As for her being mean, she has probably been angry because she belonged somewhere else this entire time and somewhere inside she knew it.”

              “You might be right. I just don’t think that you are. I hope that you are. I just can’t dare to believe that you are. I’m going to try to get some sleep. I feel like I‘m going to drop.” Sam got up and headed for the bedroom. 

              Rachel had awakened to the faint sound of voices. She did her best to roll over and go back to sleep, but they had said her name so she got up and went to see what it was that they wanted. Now she dashed back into the bed room wide awake and slipped beneath the covers. She didn’t want Sam to know that she was ease dropping. Her heart raced and heat spread through her body. Was Sam what she wanted? Was Sam what had been missing from her life for so very long? She wondered what she would do with a woman. She imagined Sam’s lips on her own. She imagined their naked bodies pressed together and moving against one another’s.

              “You’re awake.” Sam said as she stepped into the dimly lit room. Rachel sat on a king sized bed amongst an assortment of overstuffed pillows ranging in color from deep mauves to powdered lavender. Beneath the pillows lay a red, white, and blue square patterned quilt that boasted multi colored yarn threads all along its borders. The room was warm and the odor of the scented candles burning over the hearth had drifted down the hallway to make it smell of cinnamon. The oak paneled walls boasted overfull book shelves every few feet. The light from the hallway reflected in Rachel’s eyes while she studied Sam. She found herself pressing her bottom lip between her teeth and looked away.

                “Did you get enough sleep? You don’t have to worry now. You can sleep a while longer if you like.” Sam was wearing a set of oversized sweat pants and a T-shirt. Rachel wondered if they belonged to Bell or Mary. She wondered that despite the fact that while Sam, in her petite stature was absolutely swimming in those clothes, she could still see the signs of her curves. The angle of her hip. She imagined dragging her finger tips over those hips, maybe her teeth. She tried to picture Sam’s round breast beneath the giant shirt.

              “Yea, I guess I just need a shower, you know relax a little. Then maybe I’ll go back to sleep. I umm, well, I wanted to ask you something.” Rachel felt the words on the tip of her tongue, but they fought against surfacing. They were the kind of words that got you into situations you couldn’t possibly know what to do with or get out of once you were there.

              “Ask me anything you like, Ray. Anything at all.” Sam sat beside her and kicked off the baby blue slippers Bell had lent her. 

              “It’s about you, and me.” Rachel wrung her hands together. “How did we umm, become what we were?” Sam raised an a questioning eye brow at her, “How did we become lovers?” 

              “Well, that’s one for the story books. You decided you wanted me one day, and you wouldn’t take no for an answer. You just showed up and declared that I was going to be yours. I had never even seen you before. No matter what I told you, you weren’t giving up. I told you I was taken, you said you’d wait. I told you you were straight, you shrugged and said not any more. I told you to get lost and you didn’t have a chance with me, you laughed at me and said it was never going to happen. I was stuck with you. You said we should be together, and it took some time, but eventually I believed you.” Sam was putting a nice spin on the story. 

              She originally tried to frighten Rachel away by being absolutely horrible to her.  She even made up a girlfriend who lived in another city. “You see, you had just broken up with your boyfriend at the time. Well I found out later you had dumped him after deciding you loved me, and had never kissed a girl before in your life. You lived down the hall from me in the dorms I think. You decided I was the one for you and walked up to me in front of all of my friends and declared that you loved me. I laughed at you of course. I thought that you were insane personally, but in the end it was Mary who made me go out with you, and what can I say? You were both right, I loved you. I loved you right away, no matter what I told myself. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. It only took you six months to get me to go out with you.” Sam ran her slender fingers through her hair. Rachel imagined herself doing the same. 

              “I chased you for six months? Six months of you saying no? That’s insane.”  Rachel blushed. She had fought for mergers far longer and had no doubt that she had pursued Sam that long. “I would have thought that I was insane too.”

              “You were enduringly sweet. You were the nicest, sweetest girl that I had ever met, and Godwere you gorgeous!” Sam slipped beneath the covers as she spoke. “I think I should try to get some sleep. You should too. We’re safe for now, but we don’t know what’s coming next.”

              “Just one more question,” Rachel pushed her long hair out of her face and found it nearly impossible to look Sam in the eye. She wanted something she couldn’t bring herself to express.

              “You can ask me anything.” Sam assured her putting a hand lightly on her shoulder. Rachel took comfort and strength from the warmth that that contact left on her skin.

              “Did I fall for women or did I fall for you?” Rachel forced herself to look Sam in the eye.

              “Me, and thank you for it.” Sam told her before lying down and turning away.  Tears for everything that she had lost made their way from her eyes to the pillow leaving little dark circles barely visible in the dimly lit room.

              “Tell me about it,” Rachel said to Sam’s back. “I need to know.” She let her eyes boldly trace the outline of Sam’s back. “Tell me about our first time together.”

              Sam gave a short laugh at the memory of the first time she and Rachel had made love. “Ok.” She did her best to keep her emotions out of her voice, but did not turn to look at Rachel. “Well Ray after your great pursuit it turned out you were actually a little terrified when it came down to it.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. She turned over onto her back and watched the ceiling as she spoke. Rachel had picked a night when she knew that Sam’s roommate would be gone to come over and try to seduce her. She brought wine, candles, and a mix CD of love songs. “So you showed up with a back pack full of romance, but you were scared.”

              “Because I had never been with a woman before?” Rachel asked trying to imagine her young self seducing this woman before her. She imagined that she would have felt very much like she did at the moment, enthralled and terrified. No, she corrected herself, the girl that this woman had been. Sam couldn’t be more than two or three years older than herself.

              “Well with anyone before, as you told me the next morning. You were scared for like the first ten minutes and then we decided to just kiss a while, but that led to groping which led to other things, which led to moaning, which led to gasping, which led to praying.” Sam’s tears stopped as she remembered the feel of Rachel’s hips gyrating beneath her, her hands slipping up the back of her shirt, undoing her bra.

              “Praying?”  Rachel snickered. “As in dear God please forgive me for I have sinned, kind of praying?” Rachel could imagine herself freaking out afterward but not praying. Religion had never been one of her strong suits. She had always found that placating herself for following her natural instincts was ridiculous, not to mention how ridiculous she had always found her family’s church.

              “No, it was more of an ‘oh God, oh God, oh, oh don’t stop. OH GOD!’ Kind of prayer.” Sam rolled over in time to see Rachel hide her quickly reddening face in her hands. “Oh yea baby you were a screamer. If you need more details you should ask Bell or Mary. They used to call you Howler.” Sam laughed good and long at that one.

              “Howler? I’ve kind of always wanted a nick-name, but I didn’t want that one. Howler! I don’t believe you. I barely make a sound these days,” Rachel said to her lap as she giggled like the school girl that she had been while Sam watched. “Tell me more, tell me how.” She told Sam when she finally got herself together.

              “More? What do you mean by more? You mean like all of the sticky little details?” Sam asked, not sure of how she would bring herself to disclose the details of their sex life even to Rachel. Rachel nodded at her. “Well we touched each other, and well, other stuff. I really can’t tell you how, but I know some books that you can read. Some of them have pictures.” Sam pointed to a shelf she knew to contain some pretty explicit material.

              Rachel leaned over Sam and kissed her. She had not planned on doing so, nor did she realize what she was doing until their lips touched, and she became lost in the soft warmth that she found there. A burst of electricity ignited in her chest and electrified her entire body slowly moving down her torso. “Then show me,” she whispered after their lips parted. “I’m not scared this time.” Sam kissed her again, not daring to believe that this was really happening, afraid to let it, but unable to stop herself. Rachel slipped an arm around Sam’s waist and drew them closer together. Her heart pounded. She had never wanted anything so badly.

              Rachel moaned softly as Sam ran her fingers lightly over the small of her back.  She parted her lips slightly and felt Rachel’s tongue move slowly over her lips and briefly intertwine with her own. A little gasp of pleasure escaped Rachel’s lips as Sam found her way beneath her oversized T-Shirt. They slipped each other out of their borrowed clothing and climbed beneath the sheets. Rachel was amazed at how soft Sam’s breast felt against her own and in her hands. She delighted in how heavy they sat in her palms as she lifted them slightly. She pushed Sam on to her back and proceeded to kiss and nibble her neck and chest until she set upon one pink nipple. She sucked vigorously for a moment before biting it just a little. She was rewarded with a moan of pleasure from Sam. She rolled and pinched Sam’s other nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Sam responded with a sharp intake of breath and by pulling Rachel’s face back to hers for a long sweet kiss.

              “What now?” She half whispered to Sam, as she felt Sam’s hands running up the back of her naked thighs and over her smooth, firm ass. She could already feel a wetness pooling between her legs. A wetness that Sam’s fingers barely skirted. 

              Sam maneuvered them so that she was on top and spread Rachel’s legs with one of her own pushing her thigh against Rachel who was already making good use of it.  Sam let her lips and tongue chase her finger tips from Rachel’s neck to her navel leaving a cooling trail of kisses behind her. She felt the way Rachel’s hips rose at the approach of her lips. Sam ran her nails lightly over the inside of Rachel’s thighs. The light scent of Rachel wafted to her nose and made her mouth water. She looked down to see dark hair neatly trimmed glistening with wetness. “Now?” She asked, teasing with feather like touches from her fingers. “Now I play.” She ran the tip of her tongue over Rachel’s engorged clit to receive a surprised gasp of pleasure. “You still taste like candy.”

              Rachel had never felt anything like it. In all of her life she had never been so aroused by anyone. Her body became a sea of sensations springing tiny islands wherever Sam placed her lips. Her hips rocked uncontrollably to a rhythm that Sam followed as though she had been moving to it her entire life. Then the sea began to swell as her body moved to an intense precipice of feeling. Orgasm after orgasm rocked her body as she panted and screamed. Her thighs trembled as Sam slowly kissed her way back up until their lips met, and those sky blue eyes were staring back into her own.

              “Howler.” Sam teased in a husky voice and enfolded Rachel’s trembling form. Rachel laughed weakly and let herself be held. “I feel like I’ve been drugged!” She exclaimed.

              “I’ve been known to have that effect.” Sam boasted. “Oh, I could die a happy woman right now. I got to be your first for the second time,” she whispered into Rachel’s ear. 

              Rachel wiggled to separate them and force Sam on to her back. “How about I help you die, just a little?” Rachel began to nibble on Sam’s slender neck and run her fingers over her firm breast, her soft stomach. “Le petite mort.” She could begin to feel Sam respond to her touch. She felt the muscles in her thighs tighten and release.

              “Ah, the little death,“ Sam said to the top of Rachel’s head as she focused on the way Rachel’s lips felt on her stomach, the way her hands lower down felt caressing her runner’s thighs, the way Rachel found the hot place between her thighs, and began to play in the wetness there. Sam rocked against her hand slowly. Rachel watched her with those piercing green eyes the way a hawk would watch its prey. Most women would have found Rachel’s studying gaze off-putting, but Sam reveled in it, and was made hotter by the scrutiny.

              “Little deaths,” Rachel corrected as she slid her fingers slowly in and out of Sam, who had begun to throb noticeably, “I want to make you die many times.”

              Sam put her hands over her eyes, no longer able to meet Rachel’s intent gaze, as the first of many little deaths caused her to convulse.

VI

              Rachel awoke to the sound of a phone ringing. She had no idea how long it had been ringing and had no intentions of answering it. Sam slept soundly with her arms around her, breathing the slow even breath of sleep, each exhale ruffling Rachel‘s hair just a little. The phone rang again. Rachel cursed the caller silently. She didn’t want this time to end. She wanted to stay forever and sleep in Sam’s arms, make love and fall back asleep, over and over again for all of eternity.

              The phone rang again. Rachel fumbled in the quickly darkening room and wondered how long they had been asleep. They had made love for hours and hours each taking turns enjoying the body of the other until exhaustion had overcome them. The day was all but gone and night was quickly moving in. The phone rang again. Rachel found a shirt and a pair of sweat pants tangled in the covers, which had ended up on the floor and climbed into them. She emerged from the room into the hallway to find out that her clothes were on inside out and made her way in the direction of the kitchen. 

              She found the ringing phone sitting in the corner of the cabinet, next to a note from Bell. She briefly read the note. “Dear Sam, and Rachel, thought you guys could use some time, call us when you get up.” It was signed, “love, Bell.” Rachel dropped the note back onto the counter. “I am not that loud.” She said to herself as she answered the phone. “Hello?”

              “Hello. Whom am I speaking to?” The caller on the other end of the line did her best to sound well-versed in proper phone etiquette and failed. Rachel jerked the phone away from her ear. It was on speaker and unbelievably loud.

              “Who do you want to speak to?” Rachel demanded, already irritated. Why the hell hadn’t the caller hung up after the first five minutes?

              “Well I, . . . this is officer Cobb, and I am looking For either Rachel Burn, or Samantha Ross. It’s urgent.” The voice on the other end of the phone had dropped all pretense of formality. Officer Jo Cobb, how had she found them? Rachel wondered to herself. “Is this Rachel Burn? If I can find you then the man that came to your hotel and shot the clerk can find you.” 

              “How did you find us?” Rachel asked coming fully awake for the first time since she crawled out of bed.

              “Well you left the battery in your cell phone for one thing. I told you to take it out, all they had to do was pull up the GPS chip and they can come within three feet of you. Apparently, you ran through a snow storm dressed in shorts and a T-shirt to a gas station, called this number, which is in Sam’s name, from a pay phone and drove away in what the clerk called the most memorable car in the area.” Jo continued to go down a long list of mistakes that Rachel and Sam had made in their efforts to hide.

              How could I have been so stupid? Rachel thought to herself. “What should we do?” She asked the phone receiver numbly. The image of the dead clerk ran through her head over and over again.

              “Well, lock all of the windows and doors for one thing. I am on a cell phone and on my way to you, but the snow is causing me to go slow so I won‘t be there for an hour.  Turn off all of the lights that you don’t need inside, and turn on all of the outside lights. Stay away from all of the windows. The lights being off will make it hard for them to see and therefore shoot you, but there are no guarantees.”

              Rachel walked to the wall switch and turned off the kitchen lights.  She tried to loosen the collar on her T-Shirt which suddenly felt as though it were choking her. It had become hard to breath. “This is a fucking nightmare! Why the hell would anyone go through this amount of trouble to have me killed? Why now?” Why now that she was happy and actually wanted to be alive did all of this have to happen? “Why, Jo?” Rachel was close to tears.

              “I don’t know, but it gets worse. Someone dressed as a police officer got to the gas station before me and pulled the phone records. No precinct in the area has any investigation record of this, so I think that there is someone on their way to kill you right now. Also, your Mercedes blew up this morning when someone backed into it. The other driver was not hurt, but it was definitely a car bomb.”

              Tears dropped from Rachel’s eyes to the floor. It was too much. Everything was too much. A sniper, a car bomb, a mad shooter, a dead boy. She let herself slide to the cold tile of the floor. She had begun to tremble. 

              “Ms. Burns, are you still there?” Jo asked the silent line. Rachel nodded her response. “Ms. Burns, are you nodding?”

              Rachel let out a half laugh, half cry. “Sam. You’ve got to get Sam away from me before she gets killed. I’ll go with you, but I want you to make Sam get on a plane. She won’t listen to me, but you’re a cop and she’ll have to listen to you.”

              “No good, Rachel. Someone bombed her studio, gallery, car, and her house. They are trying to kill her too. Maybe just to get to you, maybe because she knows something. I don’t know, but she won’t be safe on a plane to anywhere. I need you to get up and do the things I told you to do. I will be there soon, but my phone is low on power and I need to save it. Call me if you need anything.”

              “Guess I won’t be showing any of my paintings anytime soon.” Rachel could barely make out Sam’s outline in the doorway. She spoke as though she was answering a question. “I had enough material for two shows in that studio.”

              “Did you hear that? All of it?” Rachel asked, trying to stand up.

              “I heard enough that I loaded the Forty-five I keep here in the pantry.” Sam tapped the pantry door she stood next to with something heavy that Rachel couldn‘t see. “If you look under the sink you are sitting next to then you will find a Nine-millimeter taped to the bottom of the sink. It’s loaded, but the safety should be on. There is also a Beranger in the closet of the room where we were sleeping.” Sam came over to Rachel and helped her to her feet.

              “I was very scared for a very long time so I bought a whole lot of guns and really learned how to use them. I carried one on me everywhere that I went up until maybe four years ago. Bring the phone.” Sam put her arm around Rachel’s waist and led her down a set of steps next to the fire place she had not noticed when they came in. The door was discreet and designed to be as flush with the wall as possible. Sam shut and bolted the door behind them.

              When they reached the bottom of the steps she switched on a tall, orange lava lamp and began to dial a number on the cordless phone she had brought from upstairs. She waited while it rang. Rachel found a bright orange leather couch and sat on it. The rest of the furnishings in the room were orange and green leather love seats and recliners, set off by green shag carpeting. Posters on the wall depicted kittens, and puppies in various adorable poses surrounded by chic sayings such as hang in there. “What the hell is this?” Rachel motioned around the room.

              Sam smiled and shook her head. She took the phone off speaker. “Hey Bell. I know I said you could use the cabin while they were re-modeling your house, but I need you to stay away from here for a while.” Sam paused while Bell spoke. “No, I wish it was like that, that would be great. Someone is trying to kill us and may have followed us here.” She paused again. “Well it’s a good thing you got trapped in town by the snow, because you might be here for this.” Another pause. “No, the police are already on their way. We’re in the basement. Don’t worry. This guy may not even be en-route at this exact moment. We just know that he knows where we are so it’s a good idea that we leave as soon as possible. I love you guys, have a few drinks, a nice dinner, and don’t worry about us. Give Mary my love. No one is going to come in here tonight.” Sam hung up the phone and checked the cylinder of her revolver. It was loaded and ready to go.

              The snow muffled the sound of Michael’s approach but he didn’t believe that it would make a difference. He figured he would catch the two dykes in bed and drill them both, or maybe tie one up and make her watch while he used her friend for a bit of fun. He even knew which one he would do it to. The one that had soiled the other, changed her from a good girl into a satanic whore, put the devil’s touch on her. He had heard the story of how the one had corrupted and spread her homosexual disease to the other and even though it was not the other’s fault they both had to be put down to stop the disease from spreading further.

                He had been watching from the hill when the kitchen light came on and one of them stumbled into view and picked up the phone. Then the other came and the light went off. He knew what they were doing and it made is stomach ache to think of them that way. It made him sick that they would deny a man his right as a husband and forsake him for each other. For this they would pay. In the name of The Almighty they would pay! He gripped his rifle, it’s cool handle bringing him down from the haze of his righteous anger. The rifle was an extension of himself, as he himself  was an extension of GodAlmighty, doing his work this night. He lifted the cross from beneath the heavy hunting jacket that he wore and kissed it. “Tonight,” He promised it, “the bitches of Satan will be brought to heel.” He was Michael, named after god’s very own avenging angel.

              The house was easy enough to gain entrance to. He chose to force the lock on the sliding door rather than break a window, better to catch them in the act, just like he caught the boy in the hotel.

              He’d been watching. Followed the women to the hotel, seen the way the boy had ogled them in their sinful ways, and later after they had gone to their room, had pleasured himself right there at the front desk for all of the world to see. He was still panting from the experience when Michael had walked in and demanded their room number. The boy eyed him with open hostility and distrust. “Cops here wear gray. You’re wearing blue, which means you’re not a cop,” the filthy boy had told him. Michael sneered at him, already committed to spilling his blood no matter what the outcome of their meeting. The boy disgusted him.

              “I am an officer of the law, and you can call your cops hear if you like. They’ll back me up. I just need to know what room those two women went into. They’re in a lot of trouble, and by not telling me you become an accessory, and that puts you in a lot of trouble.” Michael had done his best to intimidate the boy, but the boy was used to pimps and thugs and not impressed in the least bit. He was of a rough world, and adept at dealing with those people who would use violence to get what they wanted.

              “Get a warrant,” the boy told him, and went back to reading whatever smut he had been reading before the women came.

              Michael pulled a warrant out of his pocket. It was a vehicle search warrant issued to him months before, but never executed. He found that when presented with a warrant of any kind a suspect rarely read it, but accepted their fate and stepped aside. He pressed it against the glass. “Open the door now.” Of course he hadn’t had a real reason or a real need to kill the boy, but Godhad given him alone the vision to recognize the wicked, and dispatch them in the way that he saw fit. The boy had been wicked alright. The floor of the office in which he sat was sticky with his wickedness.

              Now at the cabin Michael searched the rooms one by one, but found them all empty. From his vantage point on the hill he had not seen the two women leave. He was careful not to alert them to his presence, he stayed well hidden and out of view. He sneered at the pictures of different women on the wall all of them hugging, touching each other, even one of a black woman kissing a white woman. His anger began to get the best of him, and then he saw it.  A door he had not noticed because it was tucked neatly into a corner on the side of the fireplace. He set his rifle on the couch along with his jacket. He pulled a Nine-millimeter sporting a silencer from a holster hung over his shoulder. 

              Michael took off his glove and placed his bare palm against the wood of the door.  He could almost feel them in their debauchery on the other side. Feel them touching each other in ways that only men should touch women, in ways that they had no right to touch each other taking a whores pleasure from the whole sinful act. He could feel his own breath bouncing off of the door and coming back to hit him in the face. It intoxicated him to be this close, made him hard to think of what he would do to them. He would make them bleed before he was done. It quickened his heart to feel his prey mere yards away from him with no idea that he was there. No, they knew he was there. Something was wrong. He didn’t bother to check the door, he knew that it would be locked. 

              Rachel had heard nothing, but Sam had had the gun pointed at the door for the last couple of minutes, putting pressure on the trigger. Both of them remained absolutely silent, not daring to move. Moments before Sam had been trying to explain the room’s eccentric decor to Rachel. Something about a bad mix of medications, and a brief obsession with Andy Warhol films. She put her finger to her lips hushing Rachel’s nervous laughter, and moved swiftly to the bottom of the steps. Now she was there poised to kill whoever came through the door at the top. Rachel did her best to silence her beating heart which seemed to drown out every other sound in the room. The air had been cold and dry, now it seemed hot and humid. Rachel could see the sweat forming on Sam’s forehead. 

              Michael took no chances with these women now. He knew that they were only women and he as a man was their better, but they had the devil on their side, so he took every precaution. He went back to the couch where he had left his coat, and took a tear gas grenade from his pocket. He pulled the pin, but held the handle firmly in place. He aimed a careful kick at the door where he guessed the dead bolt would be and with the Lord’s Prayer on his lips kicked the door in and flung the grenade down the steps.

              There was a loud crack and then a little white and gray thing came flying into the room spewing gas. The room filled quickly blinding Rachel, and gagging Sam. Sam grabbed Rachel, and both of them half blind made their way up the stairs, Sam with the gun pointed in front of her. Upon making the top of the stairs, she opened fire at what she thought was movement, but really couldn’t tell. Rachel’s eyes and skin burned fiercely, as she fought the desire to run blindly away from the poison that spewed into the room behind them. She gripped Sam’s hand mercilessly as they entered the dark room above. 

              Sam fired again, more trying to clear a path than at anything in particular. She was blinded by her own tears, and blinked furiously as she tried to clear them. She knew that someone was in the room, and had not fled in the face of her blind firing. She’d heard a plank creak above them and had thought about just shooting the person through the door, but had hesitated. There was a chance that Jo had made it to the cabin and had been unable to call them. Maybe Mary and Bell had come back. Now as she stumbled blind with her and Rachel’s life hanging by a thread through what she had always hoped would be a sanctuary from the madness of her world. She could only wonder at how it had come to this. Something slammed hard against her head, and she didn’t wonder about anything anymore.

              “You godless whore!” The words were muffled and far away. The speaker seemed to be having a fit of some kind. A head jerked as it was dealt a blow, but it seemed remote and unimportant. Sam floated in unconsciousness, irritated that this lunatic was screaming. Another blow, this time it was her head that jerked.

              “She’s little, you’ll kill her you fucking psycho!” Even through her haze she understood that it was Rachel yelling now, and that they were in a lot of trouble. Sam forced herself to open her eyes, and take in the scene in front of her.

              “You’ll get what’s coming to you, bitch! You keep your fucking mouth shut!”  Michael turned his attention to Rachel long enough to deal her a blow that left her ears ringing. “I’m going to fucking kill her. I’m going to kill you both, but not before I show you what a man is and make you watch.” He hit Sam again. 

              Sam snapped out of her stupor at the third blow. “What, what do you want?”  She asked the man standing before her. His eyes were wild, his lips flecked with foam. In his hand he held a copy of the King James Bible. He had been beating her with it.

              “You dare to question me?” Michael stood to his full height of six foot two, his arms extended to the heavens. “I am made in the image of God! You dare question me?”  He screamed at the top of his lungs. Just beyond him, bound with duct tape to a towel rack by the sink, Rachel shook her head and looked imploringly at Sam. She did her best to stop the tears from flooding her eyes. Sam found that her hands were similarly bound, but that her clothing had been removed. A new fear crept into her.

              “That’s right, whore. I have laid you naked before the righteous judgment of the Lord who hath given me, man, dominion over you, woman for you are little more than a child in the eyes of the Lord. You are like a rutting beast in the eyes of the lord!” Michael grinned as he began to undo his belt buckle, his erection already visible through his pants.

              “So you’re into fucking sheep, you sick inbred bastard?” Rachel screamed at him as she fought against her bonds. “What the hell kind of man are you anyway? Can’t get it up until a woman is tied up?” She egged him on, trying to draw attention away from Sam, who looked helpless and tiny where she sat struggling on the cold powder blue linoleum floor.

              “Sheep? Sheep?” Michael turned on Rachel, his erection in his hand as though he planned on killing her with it. “All good people are the lambs of God. Baaaaaaaaaa!” He threw his head back and bayed loudly at the ceiling. It was so absurd that Rachel almost laughed. Almost.

              “Image of God? Is Goda rapist? You motherfucker.” Rachel asked him when his animal display was over. 

              Michael took his penis and slapped Rachel across the face with it. “No! No, Godis a man! I am from the first church of the one true god, and I tell you that Godis a man! Like this!” He slapped Rachel again, this time leaving a wet streak across her face. She did her best not to gag.

              “So Godis a premature ejaculator?” she demanded, meeting his crazed glare with one of her own. Anything to keep him from looking at Sam who had lifted her bound wrist to her mouth and was biting through the duct tape. Rachel dared not look at her. She felt the sticky wetness on her cheek and let her disgust show in her face. “And I would hope that Godwould pack something, a little less pathetic.” 

              He slapped her with the bible. “You blasphemous dirty, dirty, little whore!” He crouched before her and sneered in her face. “Just wait till you see what I am going to do to your friend over there. Her blood is going to run before I’m done with her. Then While I teach her the duty of a woman to a man I’m going to slit her throat and plant my seed in her blood. How do you like that? You’re going to watch every second of it, hear every scream, and she is going to scream.” He grabbed Rachel by the hair and pulled her head back. “He said to leave you alone. He said that you could still be saved, but he was wrong.” He had drawn a knife from the folds of his shirt and was slowly stroking her throat with it. Rachel dared not swallow as she felt the point of the blade come to rest at the hallow throat. “You’ve forsaken him. Forsaken your man, the king of you, the one thing that kept you from rutting in the mud like the pig you are. You’re just the devil’s whore.” He spat in her face and pushed her head back against the cabinet so hard the wood cracked.

              Sam didn’t hesitate after she freed herself. She grabbed one of the steak knives out of the block on the counter took aim and brought it down with enough force to bury even the handle in Michael’s back. He moved at the last second causing Sam to fall on Rachel and nearly stab her in the face, leaving the knife imbedded in the cabinet door next to her. Their eyes met for a moment. “It’s all worth every second just to look at you now.” Sam whispered her last words to Rachel, and then swore to herself she would fight like hell and never utter another sound for this bastard to get off on.

                Michael’s first reaction was surprise, then rage. He snatched Sam by the neck with both of his giant hands and hauled her into the air where she kicked at him fruitlessly. He flung her over the counter with ease causing her to bounce off of the kitchen table and fly into the wall. She came to rest with her arm pent beneath her. He forgot that his pants were around his ankles in his righteous rage and fell flat on his face as he tried to go after her. “Whore!” was the only word that he could muster as he flailed on the floor “Whores!” foam flecked his lips as spittle flew onto the floor in pools in front of him. He got up and went after Sam again.

              The knife cut deep into Rachel’s wrist, blood ran down her arm and dripped on the floor. She didn’t care. She had twisted herself so that the duct tape that held her was pressed against the blade. Her shoulder felt as though it would pop out of the socket with any more pressure, but she pressed harder still, not caring for herself. She just had to get to the gun that Sam had told her about. There were mere inches of tape left standing in Rachel’s way.

              Michael grabbed Sam by the throat and dragged her across the floor. She was dazed and barely conscience. He wanted her awake to feel every inch of him. He dragged her into the bathroom and forced her face into the toilet. “You bitch, you like that? You like it don’t you whore?” Sam fought against him to get her face out of the toilet water long enough to draw a breath, but it was no use. He held her down with all of his weight crushing her throat against the bowl. “I should have pissed in there first! Shit in there! You deserve shit! That is what you are!” Sam’s vision exploded with black pin points as she began to lose consciousness.

              Rachel pulled the gun from under the sink and ran to the bathroom with murder in her heart. The lunatic knelt with Sam’s head in the toilet holding her face under the water. Rachel pointed the gun at him just as he looked up at her. “You crazy fuck.” She pulled the trigger. It didn’t move. The safety was on, and Rachel having never fired a gun before had no idea about safety switches or how to turn them off.

              Michael smirked at her and let go of Sam who fell coughing and sputtering to the floor. “Do you not see?” He demanded of her. He approached her slowly as though he had all of the time in the world. “Godis on my side.” He pointed dramatically at the ceiling with his left hand and put his right over is heart. “He protects me from all of Satan’s minions who have forsaken him. He made me his avenging angel, and gave me power over the sick and twisted people of this world.” He ran his water soaked hands over his face and through his light brown hair.

              Rachel backed away from him trying to pull the trigger, cock the gun, anything that she could remember from what she had seen on TV. She tried Over and over again she and nothing happened. He made a show of slowly removing his gun from the holster where it hung under his arm, switching off the safety and pointing it at her. “All fucking whores must fucking die!” he said just as he pressed the barrel of the gun against Rachel’s forehead. Rachel closed her eyes.

              Rachel heard the gun blast, but felt nothing. Something hot spattered across her face. She froze waiting for death to claim her and tried to call to mind every detail of Sam’s face. She counted her heart beats as she felt the blood pulsing through her body.  She wondered if she would start to feel it drain. Something hit the floor with a loud thud.              “Are you ok?” A woman’s voice asked from behind her. A hand was placed on her shoulder. “Ms. Burn, Rachel are you hurt?” Rachel opened her eyes to find Jo peering at her. She couldn’t speak. Blood ran hot down her cheek.

              “Where is Ms. Ross? Where is Samantha?” Jo demanded. Sam, as though cued, stumbled into the hallway unable to speak. She gripped the walls to stay upright long enough to make her way to Rachel and fall into her arms. “I need to know if either of you is hurt, the snow storm is getting worse, but we have to get out of here and we have to get out of here now. I know what’s going on, now.” Jo took a moment to take the man’s I.D. out of his wallet and pocket it before dropping the wallet back onto the corpse.

              Rachel held onto Sam for dear life. The lunatic that had tried to kill them only moments before lay at their feet in an ever expanding pool of blood. The fingers on his right hand still twitched, but the smoking crater of meat that used to be his face told the real story. Tiny blood bubbles rose and popped revealing fragments of bone and teeth as he expelled the last of his breath. Sam squeezed Rachel as tightly as she could bear to, but didn’t look away from the body that was cooling before her. They stood in the hallway in shock unable to answer Jo’s questions, or make sense of what had happened.

              “Bruised larynx, severe bruising of the right arm, mild concussion, mild state of emotional shock, and her clothes is too big. Now do you want to tell me what’s going on, officer?” the Dr. that was checking out Sam seemed to be in his mid-hundreds, with short fluffy thinning white hair, and from some unidentifiable region of the south. He cleaned his glasses as he talked, and sipped bourbon while he worked. He seemed to have stepped out of a Mark Twain novel. Jo had driven them as far as she dared, which was the next tiny town over, and dragged the good Doctor away from his nightcap. He made Rachel think of the images of Mark Twain she had seen on a book sleeve as a child. “Y’all didn’t kidnap this girl did you? I’ll have to report you to Wilbur Hodgens, he’s the local law enforcement, if you did. You can’t just go around taking people. Ain’t right you know.”

              Sam shook her head, and tried to speak. “You ain’t going to be able to talk for a while girly, so you just sit tight, and that arm of yours ain’t going to be no good to you for the next couple of days. You’re lucky it didn’t break. You look like you’re lucky to be alive, the beating you’ve taken.” The Dr. patted her on the knee and handed her a tumbler full of bourbon. “This might do a little something for you.” 

              “This is official police business,” Jo answered in her most official voice. “I can’t talk about it. We need a hotel for the night, can you give us directions?” 

              “Your friend’s got brains on her face and you want to know the way to the hotel?”  The good Dr. scratched his head for a moment. “Well there is one about three blocks down, you take a left, and it’s the only building out that way so you can’t miss it. You can take your official police business over there, see what kind of reception you get with this one all beat to hell and you two covered in blood.”

              “A mad man tried to kill us. He broke into her cabin and tried to kill and rape us.  We don’t really know why yet, but this nice officer saved our lives and she’s going to tell us why just as soon as we get to a safe place and get cleaned up,” Rachel spoke up. She had been stroking Sam’s tangled matted hair. “We just need a place to get some sleep.”

              “Well at least one of you has some kind of manners. Here,” he dampened a towel in the sink and threw it to Rachel, “wipe the goo off your face and I’ll call down to Gladys and see if I can’t get you a room or two for the night.”  Rachel scrubbed at her face until it was raw. Sam handed her the bourbon the doctor had provided. Rachel decided that it was best to turn it down. She’d been feeling sick from not drinking for a while, but she decided to stay sober and bare it. 

              The hotel was a small building sporting maybe a dozen small rooms, none with double beds. “We don’t get too many visitors here, mostly truckers stopping for the night.  We never get three women wanting to stay in the same room.” Gladys was a short round woman with graying hair and bad teeth. She sucked on her tongue when she wasn’t talking, and distrusted all strangers. “But the good doctor said y’all was in a bad way and it wouldn’t be very Christian of me to turn you out. I Couldn’t turn out a dog in this kind of weather.” She fished around in the pockets of her floral blue night gown for the keys to the rooms that she led them to. 

              “Well thank you Ms. We won’t be any trouble at all. We just need a place to get out of the storm for the night. We’ll be on our way first thing in the morning.” Jo assured the woman. 

              “I’ll give you three rooms right next to each other, but that’s the best that I can do.  This is a Christian place and we won’t have any funny business here.” She eyed Rachel and Sam who had been holding hands since they left the Doctor’s’s office. 

              “Well, here’s the deal. It’s you. It seems your boss, Jack Squire, wants you dead.”  Jo and Rachel sat on the springy bed while Sam showered. The entire room looked as though it had escaped from the 1920’s and set up shop in modern America. The wallpaper was a yellowing white with little yellow daisies all over it. The bedspread matched the wallpaper and the carpet was that standard dark brown that seemed to prevail in low-end hotels. The room was small but warm and welcoming considering the cold outside.

              Rachel sat stunned, her mouth hanging open. “Why?” was all that she could manage to say. 

              “He’s been under investigation for embezzlement since his divorce. His ex-wife informed the IRS that he was siphoning money out of his company and into overseas accounts. Well, all of the account numbers and the paper work that can convict him has come up missing. They were stolen. Now we can’t put him in jail and he can’t get the money that he has been stealing.”

              “So when I went on sabbatical he assumed that I’d done it?” Rachel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She would never have done anything like that. She wouldn’t even have bothered to turn him in. She truly didn’t care about his crimes. “That bastard! What the hell was he thinking?” 

              “He was trying to cover his ass. Now no one can find him, and we have been informed by some of our people on the street that he has hired some pretty heavy hitters to take you out.” Jo felt that Rachel was taking the news rather calmly. “I guess that it’s safe to assume that you don’t have what he’s looking for?” 

              “Well arrest the heavy hitters, damn it. Do something! I don’t want to end up dead, or get Sam killed. Tell them I’ll pay them more to leave us alone. Tell them to name their price. If I don‘t have it I can get it.” Rachel thought of all of the banks that would fall over themselves to buy her out of trouble. “I can get it as soon as we get back to Chicago.”

              “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t buy these people off and no one knows who they are or how many they are. It gets worse.” Jo took a deep breath.

              “How the hell can it get worse?” Rachel was trembling and on the verge of hysteria. “Professional killers are after us, and one of them would have done the job earlier if you hadn’t shown up when you did.” 

              “He wasn’t one of them. That’s how this gets worse. He was a cop, not for hire for killing, but he was part of some crazy cult. Internal affairs has been after this guy for years, but they haven’t been able to nail him for anything. Someone other than Jack Squire sent that guy after Sam, and I doubt that he’s the only one coming, and he came for Sam, not you.”

              “Yeah, he said he wasn’t supposed to kill me, that I could be saved. He said he was only supposed to kill Sam. Someone told him not to touch me. I thought he was talking about God. I thought he meant that Godsent him.”

              “No, a member of his woman hating church sent him. These guys are off of their rockers. They make their wives sit on the floor, no birth control, no say in their own lives, just out of their minds. We found out about them because one of them killed his wife and a group of them broke into the courtroom during the trial to assault the female judge. It was crazy. Three of them are still doing time in Joliet. They said it was a man’s right to decide whether or not his wife lives or dies. They say they are from the oldest sect of Christianity. They call themselves the First Church of God.” Jo gave a visible shiver and looked at the bathroom door. “She’s been in there a while. Maybe you should check on her.”

              Rachel started to get up when Jo put a concerned hand on her arm. “Did he rape her? I saw that she was naked, but I didn’t want to ask. I‘ve got some numbers she can call to help her get through it if he did.” 

              Rachel shook her head. “He didn’t get the chance, but he was going to. He was going to rape her and make me watch. He was crazed. There is no other way to put it. That man was crazed. It was like he was out of his mind on drugs or something.” There was no answer when she knocked on the bathroom door. 

              “I’m going to go to my room and give you two sometime. Bolt this door when I’m gone, and give a holler if you need anything. Also,” Jo held up Sam’s pistol. “The safety is this switch right here, it works like this. Just flick it off and fire.” Jo showed Rachel how to work the safety and then set the gun on the bedside table. Rachel dutifully locked and bolted the door after Jo left.

              “Sam? Are you Okay in there?”  Rachel knocked on the door lightly before opening it. Sam was on the other side naked and dripping wet, the shower still running behind her. She opened her mouth to speak, but winced instead. She covered her throat with her slender hand.

              “Oh, I forgot. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. You’ve been in here a while.” Rachel did her best not to look at Sam’s naked body, her breast hanging just so above her firm flat stomach which was already painted with darkening bruises. “I’ve got some things I’ve got to tell you, about the guy from the cabin, you know after you get dressed.”

              Paul stepped over what he believed to be the remains of Michael to search the rest of the house. He had no doubt that the women were gone, the snow had all but covered tire tracks leading away from the house, but he believed in being thorough. Perhaps he would find some clue as to where the women had raced off to. He had warned Michael not to go ahead of him. Michael was unbalanced at the best of times. He was a zealot who would use a hammer to do the job of a cotton ball. Paul had noticed that his mental state had been in a steady decline for some time now. There were a couple of incidents that made him believe that his brother of the cloth was less than fit to carry out the Lords work.

              When he finally entered the cabin, he had circled it several times to make sure that his prey was not inside. Once inside he had not been surprised at what he found. Over-turned furniture, a faceless corpse, and the air still stinging with the taste of pepper spray, and the smell of gunpowder. This whore had done their brother wrong, and had to be taken care of, but this was not the way to take care of it. Now Michael, after leaving a trail of bodies from Chicago to Michigan, seven in all, lay in a pool of blood.

              Michael had killed two men in Chicago, for reasons unknown to Paul, but he guessed homosexuality, and had killed four women en route to the cabin seemingly with-out cause. He’d killed a boy in a hotel. Now he was dead at the hands of the only woman he should have killed, and Paul was trapped in a raging blizzard with a bloody corpse that had voided its bowels while the godless ones escaped him. His only comfort was that his prey was caught in the same storm as he, and subject to the same laws of the beast. They wouldn’t get far, and no matter how far they got they couldn’t out-run God’s wrath. As he said a prayer over the remains of his fallen brother, he added a prayer for the souls of those who had fallen by the hands of that brother.

              Jack Squire sat in his pent-house, rented in one of his mistress’s names, and imagined what Rachel Burn was doing right then at that moment. That bitch was probably yucking it up while she stole the money that he had stolen first. She had known the entire time and played him so coolly that he had taken the bait and was now going to go to jail for the rest of his life for it. She was going to sink him, she was probably toasting his death with that brain dead musician she’d been screwing at this very moment. 

              That cold bitch. He should have known that she would be his ruin. Jack poured his glass of twelve year old scotch in the plant. Nothing could numb the anger enough. He had paid a king’s ransom and hired an army of henchmen to take the bitch down. His only hope was that one of them would find and kill her before she could turn the evidence in to someone who could do something about it or before she skipped the country as he had planned to do. He wished he’d never seen her résumé come across his desk. He cursed every dollar that she had ever made for him because it had lured him into believing she was worth the risk. He cursed himself for thinking that he could use her as a fall guy.

              Debra paced because her only daughter was somewhere lost in the world with killers on her trail. She would give up everything right then to have Rachel safe at home where she couldn‘t cause the family any more embarrassment. Even when your children get into their forties their still your children, and you still worry about them every day of your life. Charles stopped her and put his giant hands on her shoulders, and then pulled her into his warm embrace. “She’s going to be alright, Debra. She’s going to get back here safe and sound.” Her former son-in-law promised.

              “But she’s with that person, and the last time that person almost got her killed.”  She couldn’t bring herself to say Sam’s name. Twenty years later and she believed to the depths of her soul that if Rachel had never met Samantha then she would never have been shot. Ten years she had hid Rachel away from that terrible world where people like Samantha Ross ran wild with their sexual deviancies, flaunting their disgusting life styles, and for ten years Rachel had prospered. For ten years she had kept her little girl clean and safe from the world and most importantly respectable.

              Chuck clenched his jaw muscle. He hated Samantha Ross with a passion. Even after a bullet had erased every memory that Rachel had of her she still remained, lingering throughout their marriage. In the end it was Samantha that tore them apart. Rachel would say it was because she was unhappy, unsatisfied, that she didn‘t and couldn‘t love him, that she never had. She would say that she had lost interest in Charles within a year of the wedding. She would become cold and distant. She screamed Samantha’s name in her sleep and denied knowing anything about it the next morning. Rachel had been his since they were eight years old, but Samantha Ross had come and taken everything away from him. Rachel was his. He sat down on a plush burgundy couch which creaked under his weight. He sipped his scotch and wondered what it would take to get rid of Samantha Ross once and for all and to make Rachel his again. “Have a seat Debra, you’re wearing a path through the carpet.” he told his former mother in law. 

              “Well, I can’t just sit and wait, pretending everything is going to be okay and drinking scotch. Rachel is going to be killed! Do you not remember what happened the last time Rachel was with that person? She was in a coma for six months. She lost every memory of her life!” Debra threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars just to keep the circumstance out of the media!”

              “It was only six years! We were together twice that, and married besides. Who do you think she is more likely to listen to? Some crazy woman who fell off the face of the earth ten years ago, or her man?” Charles ran his hands over the pink skin of his balding head. His stomach churned as he counted off the beat of his heart in his temples. He knew that it wasn’t him. It was, and it would always be Samantha. Rachel had sworn to love and honor him forever, but her promises had proven empty. She didn’t know why, but he always had.

              “She never listened to you, Charles. Never.” Debra knew how her words stung him, but facts had to be faced if they were going to get Rachel back in one piece.

              Darryl had kept his peace long enough. He was a large, quiet man who had passed his deep green eyes and their open intensity onto his daughter. Rachel had also inherited his height and determination. He knew that the only way to keep Rachel away from Samantha Ross was for Samantha Ross to die. Samantha Ross would never leave her alone, and she would never leave Samantha Ross alone. He’d had an encounter with the Samantha Ross in which she had told him as much. She was intelligent, diligent, and worthy of a certain amount of respect. A lot of people backed down from Darryl Burn simply because he was who he was, but not the Ross woman. She looked at him and laughed in his face when he threatened her and later tried to buy her off. He understood why Rachel had chosen her, and that it had been Rachel who had done the choosing. Lesbianism wasn’t something that his daughter had been dragged into. He had always had an idea that she would be led by her heart even if that meant straying from the beaten and acceptable path. Rachel had always been passionate as a child, and stubborn. There were few things that would sway Rachel Burn. Very few indeed. It seemed not even a bullet to the head could change her mind.

              “Rachel is taken care of,” he told his son-in-law. He didn’t believe in divorce and had never acknowledged theirs. What Godunited no man could put asunder. “I paid a detective to retrieve her before she was hurt. She has Rachel and Samantha in custody as we speak. They are safe for the night, or at least they were two hours ago when I talked to detective Cobb. They were going to head back to the city when the storm lets up. Until then they are holed up in some little hotel with no room service. They will be fine.” He took a long pull off his glass of scotch feeling very much the man of the hour. His wife looked at him with what passed for love with her, and his son-in-law with awe. His daughter would be safe at home soon, what more could a man ask for?

VII

              Jo cursed her phone as it powered down. She had been hoping to get one more call off to Mr. Burn before she lost all contact with the modern world, but her luck had run out. The phone lines at the hotel had been taken out by the storm, and even now the lights flickered threatening to leave them in the dark. Mr. Burn had warned her that he thought his daughter was in a lot of trouble, but he had no idea.

              Moments before Jo left to track the two women a call had come in from the FBI notifying her that she had twenty-four hours to release Rachel into their custody and that her former employer had hired someone to kill her. The man she had killed hadn’t been one of them. He was a completely separate lunatic that was after Sam. What had Jo gotten herself into? She could be safe behind her desk clearing her case load, but instead Frank, her partner of six years, had talked her into running up to Michigan to make a couple of extra bucks. She wouldn’t have turned him down, she desperately needed the money for personal reasons, but she cursed him anyway. While he sat warm and safe with his family she was on the lamb from irrational religious zealots with unlimited resources as far as she could tell.

              Rachel dozed lightly in a chair. Sleep had been hard to come by, and she had spent the night holding Sam while she cried. She hadn’t dared to sleep for a moment for fear that another lunatic would show up to torture and kill them. Sam had fallen asleep for maybe an hour, hour and a half, but now Rachel could hear her moving around the room. It was hard to tell what Sam was doing, because Rachel was dreaming the only dream she had ever dreamt. Even now in her dream Sam was pulling her away from the unseen gunman, kissing her, smiling for her.

              The snow continued to fall as though it would never stop. Sam didn’t care if it ever stopped. It just meant that everything had been brought to a standstill. They couldn’t run, but no one could chase them either. It gave them a moment to catch their breath, get their thoughts together, and decide what to do next. Sam had already decided. She wanted to disappear. Take Rachel to some unnamed part of the world and grow old together far from all the kinds of people who wanted them dead. She didn’t care why any of those monsters were after them, she just wanted to go and live in peace. 

              Now all she had to do was convince Rachel to go with her and convince Jo to let them run. But Jo was a cop with a job to do, and that job was to take them back to the city to testify against some jerk Rachel worked for. Convincing Rachel to walk away from a fight was the bigger problem. She would see it as war and Rachel had always been a fighter. Sam had never been much of a fighter, unless it was for Rachel. Her old scars itched fiercely in the dry air of the room.

              Sam watched the snow fall and prayed that it would really never stop. They could stay safe together in this one horse town, get jobs, and pretend that the last ten years never happened. Together they could rebuild the life that was stolen from them. In time the world would forget about them and then they could think about going home. Something moved across the street. The snow cover was too thick for Sam to be sure, but it seemed as though someone was running away from the hotel in which she stood. Rachel screamed her name behind her.

              Jo pulled her gun out of instinct when she saw the man running down the street from her window. There was no reason for anyone to be out in this sort of weather, certainly not running on snow covered ice. She headed for the door. With any luck she would be able to track his footprints. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard Rachel scream. She turned around just in time to catch a blast that threw her over the remaining stairs and out into the street, where despite the cushion of the deep snow she landed hard enough to knock the wind out her.

              There was no sound. Pieces of the room were reclaimed by gravity and hit the floor soundlessly. Sam herself had hit the ground and bounced twice. The window, the wall it had been attached to, and a huge section of the floor where Sam had stood seconds before Rachel screamed were now part of a large smoking hole. Smoke drifted up from several small fires that were quickly becoming large fires. She’d gone to Rachel to wake her from her nightmare, and the world had simply gone mad. 

              Rachel sat six inches from her just as stunned as she. Her hair was tangled with rubble and her cheek was smeared with ashes. She looked at Sam questioningly. Sam shook her head and crawled across the floor to the place where it stopped. From what she could see the front of the hotel had simply exploded. The entire street was strewn with rubble from one end to the other. People had started to emerge from their various houses and places of employment. One man was helping Jo up out of the snow, even from the second floor Sam could see that Jo was bleeding from the head. 

              “I was dreaming. It was a dream.” Rachel was mumbling to herself. She clumsily used the wall to climb to her feet. Her ears were ringing so badly that she couldn’t hear her own words. She felt as though the blast had taken out her right ear drum. “What the fuck happened?” She asked the nightmare scene in front of her. Snow had begun to blow into the room making it all seem even more ridiculous. Sam was on all fours staring out into the street. “We have to get out of here.” She yelled to Sam, but got no response. She walked over and grabbed Sam by the hand, and motioned to the door. They could already feel the building missing half of itself, begin to groan under the stress. The fires had picked up and were spreading across the room, licking the daisies off of the wall.

              Jo cleared her eyes just in time to see her charges emerge into the street with Gladys between them, her night gown covered in silt. She was cursing them and pulling away from the two younger stronger women but to no avail. Jo did her best to get them to go back, but the gun shots started before they understood what all of her urgent motioning meant.

              A bullet seared the skin off of Rachel’s shoulder whistling as it passed leaving the stench of burnt flesh behind. She tackled Sam and Gladys into the snow as the blood began to pour down her arm, a wet and hot contrast in comparison to the icy wind pushing against her. The people in the street began to scatter in every direction their panicked screams filling the air as more gun shots rang out. Rachel, Sam, Gladys and Jo crawled through the snow with more gun shots sounding behind them. In the storm it had to be nearly impossible for the shooter to see them, but he continued with his blind. Stray bullets hit cars, windows, and buildings. The few people who had taken to the street to check out the explosion had all disappeared behind closed doors. Jo imagined that even now some of them were loading their own guns and preparing to take back the streets of their small town.

              “How did they track us in a blizzard?” Rachel asked her as they all crouched along the side of the hotel. Rachel had her doubts as to the intelligence of this move, but they were pinned where they were. She could feel the bricks warming from the fires burning on the other side. She could only hope that if the building did eventually collapse that it would collapse inward and not rain thousands of pounds of bricks onto their heads. Sam peered at the bloody patch of Rachel’s shoulder where the bullet had made its track. She risked moving to take a closer look and saw that the wound was superficial.

              “He’s probably a friend of the guy in the cabin. This is as far as we could get in this storm and there is only one hotel.” While Jo reasoned out loud the wheels of her mind turned trying to figure out a way to get them to the car and the hell out of dodge. “The real question is how the hell did he get here? There is no way he could have come on foot, not in this storm.”

              “Hallow be thy name as it is in heaven. . . .” Gladys prayed, trembling. She was still in her floral night gown from the night before, her disheveled hair hung in her face.  They had found her in the back of the hotel tied to her kitchen sink, a dishtowel taped in her mouth. Rachel insisted that they look for her before they made their escape. The death of the boy at the hotel still weighed heavily on her mind.

              “Snowmobile.” Rachel could just barely see the tracks the machine had left in the snow. They led back and around the building. She’d had a brief encounter with snow mobiles in Minnesota when Charles had insisted that they go trail riding. He had also insisted upon driving. He broke the steering riding too close to the trees two miles from the nearest help. She had berated him mercilessly about it since she had not wanted to go in the first place. It was the first and last time that he had hit her, she used the incident to force him to sign the divorce papers. Give me a divorce or go to jail, she had told him before dragging him into court and financially ruining him. “I bet it’s parked close by. It will hold two of us, so two of us could get to the car and come back for the others.” 

              “Screw the car. Steal a truck. We need something with four wheel drive to get out of here. We have to get back to Chicago. Frank has a safe house set up there, some place where we will actually be safe until we figure this out.” Jo was scanning the roof tops of the opposing houses trying to find the shooter who had stopped shooting. She had no doubt that he was waiting for his targets to reappear.

              “Safe.” Sam had not felt safe since they had been shot and separated for what seemed like a life time. Her life seemed to be nothing but a long chain of violent events. 

              Rachel gripped her hand. “We’ll be safe. We are going to be fine.” She promised.  She only hoped that her promises weren’t empty. She wanted nothing more than to spend some time with Sam in a world away from the bullets and the explosions. She was going to get the sons of bitches that were causing this, and use every bit of power she possessed to make them pay. Jack Squire was as good as dead, she promised herself.

              Jo caught a splash of color on a roof through the storm, but couldn’t bring herself to shoot unless she was sure of the outcome. The last thing she wanted to do was kill some local cow boy trying to be a rooftop hero. Still she focused on the task at hand. She knew she wouldn’t get her man with a lucky shot taken half blind. He had come prepared, and made no assumptions about the blast killing them. He definitely was nothing like the lunatic from the cabin. He was a thinking man, calm and calculating. Still Jo doubted that he was one of the professional killers that Jack Squire had sent. They wouldn’t have blown apart a hotel. A professional would have come in and done the job quietly and certainly would not have left a witness like Gladys behind. No, the old lady would be as dead as they were if professionals had found them. It had to be the nut jobs from the church.

              “Can you drive one of those things?” Jo asked Rachel. Rachel shook her head.  “Neither can I. Can either one of you?” Sam shook her head slowly, and Gladys went on praying as though Jo was not speaking to her. “Well so much for that plan. No one can see more than a hundred yards in this. We’re going to have to take our chances on foot.  Now I can hot wire a truck, but I need you two to stay here with Gladys while I find us one. I can’t believe I’m about to steal a truck.” Jo shook her head and Jogged off into the blinding snow, hoping that it would be enough to cover her from the sights of the gun man‘s rifle. 

              Paul saw the cop go, for just a moment the wind parted the curtain of snow and revealed her to him, but didn’t dare to make a move. He didn’t have time to get a shot off.   There was no way to tell how far she had gone, or if she was just trying to lure him out into the open so that someone else could take a shot at him. He was also not interested in killing anyone other than the two women that he hunted. He leveled his rifle at the alley and waited for a sign of his quarry making a note to himself that the cop was on the move. 

              The old woman had let Paul in and he had given her some sob story about his car breaking down and how he had been forced to walk to town in this blizzard. She had taken mercy on him, giving him coffee, and lodging. He lured her into a conversation in which she revealed to him that the three women were the only other occupants in the hotel. He then tied her up in the kitchen where the bomb would do the least amount of damage, and blown her hotel apart. The bomb did not do its job. All three of the women made it out of the hotel alive and ready for a fight. He had assumed for a moment that he killed the cop, and he was sorry for that, but then she rose from the snow, a testament to God’s power working in him.

              The sound of a roaring engine brought Gladys out of her praying. A giant white club cab pickup slid to a stop at the opposite end of the ally. The passenger side window slid down and Jo yelled for them all to get in. As Sam, the last one, climbed into the passenger seat a man ran into view and with his feet still sliding on the wet snow leveled his rifle at the truck and opened fire, shattering the glass of the driver’s side window and missing killing Sam by mere inches. His stance was steady, confident and even calm as he took aim again. The truck sped out of sight before the door had completely closed.

              The drive was long and slow. The blizzard broke after they had driven an hour south, but the roads had yet to be cleared and twice Jo lost control of the vehicle almost sliding off of the road. No one spoke. Gladys had even taken to praying silently, her hands pressed together, her eyes squeezed shut. She did not ask where they were taking her, or why they were taking her at all. She was in God’s hands now. The others sat in silence all the way back to Chicago.

              Frank paced. He lost contact with Jo more than twelve hours ago. He cursed himself for not making the trip. He knew what kind of danger they were in, but given a choice between the sit and wait game, and the mad dash to beat the homicidal maniacs and Jo had insisted on taking on the maniacs. He was the one with the wife two kids and new baby on the way, she had reminded him. She was the women whom the other women were more likely to trust. Plus Darryl Burn had insisted that she make the trip and not he. He believed his daughter would respond better to a woman at this point. In either case fifty thousand dollars was fifty thousand dollars. All they had to do was get one woman back to her father’s house. How hard could it be?

              Frank had his answer when the door of the apartment burst open, showering the room with splinters and two linebacker sized men walked in sporting stun guns. Frank was down before he knew what was going on. He fought for consciousness as the men lifted him onto the table and began to strip his clothing off of him. One shoved his shirt into his mouth and tied it in place with his tie. “We only have one question for you little man,” one linebacker with a particularly bad case of halitosis hissed into his face, “Where is Rachel Burn?” The second linebacker had been putting the door back in place as best he could and was now brandishing a large knife he had pulled from his belt. Frank thought of his wife and kids as he bit down and gagged on the taste of fabric softener.

              “Why don’t we send Gladys home?” Rachel asked Jo. The old woman had begun to threaten to call the police on them if they did not let her go. Her silent prayers had turned to indignation and finally threats and curses.

              “She’s the only one of us who has gotten a good look at this guy. We need her to go through some mug shots.” Jo answered. She was circling the safe house for the fourth time. Something was wrong. It was long past dark, but no lights were on. Even if Frank had stepped out for a moment he would have left the lights on. It was a rule with them to make the safe apartment look as inhabited as possible at all times. Even when no one was in residence a timer did the job for them, even turning the television on and off at certain hours. Now the place was as dark and silent as a tomb.

              “Sam slide over here and drive around until I flag you down. If I don’t flag you down in ten minutes, then go to Rachel’s parent’s house. Don’t go anywhere else, and call the police right when you get there. Do not go anywhere else, any of you. Ask to speak to Roesch and no one else.” Sam and Rachel both nodded.

              Jo stopped the truck and hopped out. She waited until she was in the building’s doorway to pull her gun. She opted to take the stairs the three floors she had to go to get to the apartment. Her footsteps echoed as she took the first two flights at a run. On the last flight she slowed to a crawl so as not to alert anyone who might be waiting for her in the hallway. As she rounded the corner gun first she found the hallway empty, but the door to the apartment had been kicked off of its hinges. Frank. She opened the door, ready to fire on anyone in the room. What she found brought the contents of her stomach rushing into her throat. She expelled the vomit quickly even as she visually cleared the room, letting her training take her through the automatic check list. The corners check, behind the doors in a glance, closets with caution, and finally anywhere else that a threat could hide. She went into the other two rooms of the apartment to find that they as well were clear.

              Frank lay splayed on the living room table his intestines wound in puddles on the floor. Blood coated most of the room causing it to shine in the pitiful light that came into the room from the hallway. Jo’s eyes were first dragged to the giant smiley face drawn on the wall in blood.  It leered at her as though to say “Look what I did!” Jo avoided the wall switches and searched for a lamp and switched it on to reveal new atrocities. Frank’s face had been cut off. Huge chunks of flesh had been cut from his arms and chest. Jo couldn’t look away. Horror, sorrow, and anger fought for control of her. She drew short sobbing breaths as she could only stare at the best man she knew stripped and disemboweled before her.  Her eyes raced over every inch of every atrocity that had been visited upon him starting with the spreading pool of blood surrounding the table on which he lay. He was mutilated, the skin and muscle surrounding his chest plate flayed open to reveal the cartilage beneath.  Almost every inch of him was covered in blood so she focused on his left hand. It was perfect, clean, and moving. For the first time since entering the room she realized that Frank was breathing.

              “Has it been ten minutes?” Sam asked Rachel over her shoulder, she could barely force her voice above a whisper forcing Rachel to lean forward and strain to hear her over the rumble of the truck’s engine. Cold air rushed into her face and made her shiver. She turned up the heat.

              “No. It’s been three.”  Rachel answered, eyeing their supposed safe house and trying to get the image of the warm reception they would get if they went to Rachel’s parent’s house out of her head. She tried to imagine facing Debra after their last encounter on the phone.

              “Rachel, we should just go.” Sam said more to the steering wheel than to Rachel. She turned the corner just as the light at the intersection turned green. “We should just take this truck and ride for as far as we can get, and take it from there.” The words could barely make it out past the lump in her throat caused by guilt at her cowardice, but their entire adventure was becoming too much for her. Life on the run was too much. She had been running for over ten years, and she wanted to stop. Sam slowed the truck and stopped as the light at the intersection turned red and then yellow. Sam thought that was kind of strange, it had been green for less than three seconds.

              Rachel sighed in the back seat. As much as she would love to run away with Sam, she couldn’t just walk away from everything she fought so long and so hard to build. At the same time, she hated that life, hated the empty pointless toil, the lonely nights spent in despair. Was that life really worth fighting for? “Sure Sam, we just have to wait for Jo, and then we can go anywhere you like.” She conceded. Gladys glared at them both and bowed her head once more in prayer, her contempt for them embedded in the words.

              “That’s soo sweet. You two going run away together.” The man outside of Sam’s window said mockingly. He had two broken front teeth and a scar over his left eye that could only have been caused by an attempt to remove that eye. His head was shaved and gray with cold. He looked like every storybook rapist had had a child together. Before any of them had a chance to react to his sudden appearance he reached in through the broken window and dragged Sam out by her hair. She fell the distance to the street and found herself tossed into a waiting car.

              Rachel had already leapt over the seat and was halfway out of the window when the man brandished a huge black bladed buck knife warning her to come no further. He smiled “Phones for you.” He tossed a small black cell phone on the seat beside her.  Rachel could see Sam in the backseat held hostage by another man with black hair and ice blue eyes. She had a knife pressed to her throat and tears rolling from her eyes. The bald man got behind the wheel and the car sped out of sight just as an ambulance pulled up. Without a foot on the brake pedal the pickup had continued to idle through the intersection carrying Rachel and Sam even further apart.

              “She’s a fucking dyke?” Jack Squire stood at the French doors admiring his view of the lake front. On either side of him hung thick curtains gold and white in color to match the rest of the room. The room was elaborate, with gold trimmed silk upholstered chairs, and a trophy cabinet which stood empty awaiting the things that Jack would never buy to fill it. Paintings worth more than most Americans make in a year hung all over the walls covered in dust that the maid staff had chosen to overlook.  He had misjudged Rachel Burn for the second time, something he had never done before. Fucking women! You could never trust them. 

              “Looks that way sir. We don’t think that she has had a chance to deliver the package to anyone. Someone is trying to kill our friend here and they have been on the run a while.” His henchman answered. His name was Harvey, and the man was a sociopath. He was cold and calculating and would no doubt slaughter everyone in the room on a whim. His gaze made Jack’s heart hesitate in his chest. He had been killing a long time, no doubt longer than he could remember. Even now Harvey was eyeing the woman that lay bound and gagged on the couch, no doubt fantasizing about finger painting in her blood.

              “And this is her lover? Well well, she‘s pretty.” Jack smiled to himself.  He could get out of this yet. He could get his money and flee to France, and live like a king for the rest of his life, maybe teach French women the value of shaving under their arms. He ran his fingertips through the grey flecked stubble that was beginning to dominate his cheeks. He didn’t bother to shave any more. He figured that a beard suited a man living life on the run. 

              “I say we kill them both, just stick them in the ground and be done with them. You can pay us and then we can get out of here.” Bill interjected. Bill was an imbecile and a killer because it was easy, but he loved to play the sociopath. He talked to much, was sloppy and slow, and more than a little squeamish about torture. Had Harvey not been around Jack had no doubt that Bill would be dead or in jail. Jack Squire didn’t like him and didn’t want to hire him, but he and Harvey were brothers and they did everything together.

              “No one cares what you think.” Jack was thinking quickly now, just as Harvey had been when he decided to bring the woman to Jack instead of killing her. He paced doing his best to make his thoughts linear. He could still use the same plan as before.  “Harvey, how do you know they haven’t had a chance to talk to the feds yet?” 

              “The cops are trying to kill her. Well some of them are, some of them aren’t, it’s a big mess, and the reason they are still breathing is some nut job chased them out of the city where we couldn‘t find them.” Harvey ran his hand over Sam’s straw colored hair as though she were his loyal dog. She trembled and kept her gaze on the floor. Jack couldn’t help but wonder what Harvey felt about women. Did he crave them as every man did? Did he want to play with their breast and then rest his head there?  Did he want to smell and taste that place between their legs? Did Harvey possess the ability to be tender with them, even love them? Jack guessed that the answer was no.

              “Trying to kill Rachel? Or trying to kill this one, what did you say her name was again.” Jack took a sip of red wine. He savored the taste and the tingle as it ran at room temperature down his throat. Harvey stated the woman’s name as though he was rambling off the digits of his social security number for the one millionth time. Bill too, eyed the woman on the couch his intentions unlike those of his brothers very clear. Jack had no doubt that given a moment alone with this woman Bill would do things to her that most men would never admit to fantasizing about.

              “A painter you say?” Jack mused. What the hell could a painter do that warranted hiring someone as expensive as police officers to kill her? “So we have Samantha Ross the painter, who is lovers with Rachel Burn, the hell bitch that has tried to ruin me, and someone is trying to kill her. She must be similar in personality to Rachel.” Jack smiled to himself. His luck was looking up. Not only could he get his account numbers and documents back, he could have Harvey slit both Samantha and Rachel’s throats and drop them off at the painter’s apartment and it would just look like whoever wanted Samantha dead had killed them both. He could go back to his daily life as though this whole nightmare had never happened. The FBI would of course continue to breathe down his neck, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop him from taking his money and running for the hills. Hell he felt like throwing his ex-wife to Bill just to start completely clean of women.

              “Cops are expensive, are you sure it was them? I’ve seen some botched paint jobs, but not to the point where I would pay that kind of money to get back at the guy.” If it was cheap he could see having a painter killed that ruined an important room in his home, but not for more than it would cost to hire someone else to do a good job.             

              “An artist sir, She paints pictures, not kitchens.” Jack knew that Harvey’s calling him Sir was not a sign of respect, but another psychotic game the man was playing with him. Some sort of lunatic’s punch line that like every other bad joke he had heard over the years failed to amuse him.

              “Maybe one of her fans wants to sell his collection and needs her dead to up the price.” Jack thought about all of the expensive paintings on his walls. He thought to himself that maybe he should buy a couple of her pieces for himself before her tragic and violent death caused the price to go up.

              Janine cursed herself as she sat staring at a map of Illinois. She couldn’t begin to guess where it was they were hiding, or even if Sam and Rachel had stayed in Illinois.  What had she done? She had pretty much sentenced Rachel to death, that’s what she had done. It had been such a long and hard assignment, and Rachel had treated her worse than anyone ever had, but that was no excuse to put anyone in danger, even someone as vile as Rachel Burn. All she had done really was her job, gather the information needed to stop Jack Squire from embezzling millions, participating in insider trading, and report any signs of tax fraud. The closest she could get to Jack had been Rachel, which as it turned out was as close as she needed. 

              She had found the files by accident, Rachel had forgotten something in Jack’s office and had sent her back to fetch it, and she took them while Jack was talking dirty to someone who was definitely not his wife on the phone. It had been easy, he had left them sitting open on his desk while he was distracted and she had picked them up and walked away. Moments later she picked a fight with Rachel and lost her job just like every one of Rachel’s assistants had before her. No one suspected her. No one knew a thing, about her. She was just another poor schlup that Rachel had pissed on and pissed off until she walked out of the door. She had made one mistake however. In the hurricane of Rachel destroying her office, throwing phones and all, Janine had set the papers down and lost them. 

              She had gone back to look for them, Searched every inch of the destroyed office, but found nothing. Rachel must have stuffed them in her brief case with the rest of her documents before she left.

              She followed Rachel, thought about mugging her for her briefcase, but was interrupted when Sam showed up. Sam, the woman who had run away from Rachel months before after suggesting Janine piss in her Coffee. There was more to Sam than met the eye. There was something about Rachel Burn and Sam which she had missed.  Janine had her own assistant looking into it.

              Janine had little to no doubt that the killers that Jack Squire hired to kill Rachel would soon find her and put an end to her unless she had help. Janine cursed herself again and began to study the map anew. If she could only find Rachel first, or find her briefcase first, at least then Rachel Burn wouldn’t die in vain.

              “It’s touch and go. We can’t say if he’s going to pull through, he’s suffered a lot of organ damage, blood loss, and trauma.” The doctor was an average looking guy, black, five nine, neatly trimmed hair, neatly trimmed mustache, deep voice which he kept as flat and as unemotional as possible, but Jo could hear the anger and disgust creeping through his words. He was a trauma surgeon used to saving people after car crashes and motorcycle accidents. The idea that one human being would do such a thing to another did not sit well with him. Jo couldn’t help but think that given the surgeons description that it would be impossible to put out an effective A.P.B. The boys in blue would pick up every black male in the city. It was moments of extreme stress that caused Jo to revert back to her basic police training. Size up everyone and everything. Notice the details. They could make the difference between catching the guy, and a murderer walking free. Check your watch, note the time when things of significance happened.

              Jo had checked her watch in the apartment. 8:27 pm, and Frank was still alive.  He was still holding on to life. From the hallway Jo could hear his wife sobbing loudly on her sister’s shoulder. Jo had told him to think of his wife and kids in the moments while they waited for the ambulance. She was sure that he heard her.

              Jo was fully aware of the very tense woman standing behind her, clutching a cell phone to her chest. Another woman’s high heeled shoes clicked on the pristine white floor as she entered the room of another patient, followed by another doctor in soft soled Italian shoes. She could feel the air from the heater duct just barely moving the hair on the top of her head. The doctor’s words had faded to white noise. She heard all that she needed to hear. Frank was alive. Frank had a chance. It was more than she could say for Sam.

              Sam had no chance. Even if Rachel gave the men everything that they wanted Jo knew that Sam was in fact a goner, if she wasn’t dead already. These were professional hit men, they didn’t give back hostages. They left them buried in unmarked graves where no one would ever find them.

              “What the hell is going on here?” Roesch didn’t care for Jo. She was a solid cop who did solid police work, but lately she had been messing up, and he didn’t like people who made mistakes. He didn’t care for anyone and was looking for a reason to hang Jo out to dry. “You get your partner killed. You lose a witness. You go to fucking Michigan without notifying anyone. Your ass is in the fire now!” He was prone to ranting. Roesch was an angry man. The year before his wife had left him, taken the kids, their house, and most of his savings. He lost half of his pension, and his house in the divorce. His fits of rage had cost him the right to see his children. His marriage and the life that he had worked so hard to build was over without any explanation at all. He had a lot to be angry about. 

              “I was under the impression that the witnesses would only turn themselves in to me as I was the first officer assigned to their case.” Jo lied. It was easy. She had been lying for a very long time. Since her lover, Stacey had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had no insurance. “Frank is not dead.”

              “I saw that crime scene, you saw that crime scene. Do you really think that he’s going to come back from that? Do you really think that a man who’s had his guts splashed from one end of a room to the other is going to live? Don’t be stupid. He’s as good as dead, a breathing corps,” Roesch sneered in her face. “You’re as good as fired. Consider yourself suspended without pay until further notice. Turn in you badge and gun at the precinct. When I get done with you, you won’t be able to get a job working security at the local department store. If I catch you anywhere near the guys who did this I’m going to have your ass in cuffs so fast you‘ll forget that you ever pretended to be a cop.” Jo handed her gun to the nearest officer in blue and threw her badge at Roesch’s feet. She neglected to spit on him, but the thought had crossed her mind.

                Somewhere in the back of Rachel’s mind she wondered why Jo had shown up at the cabin if not directed to by Roesch, but mostly she waited for the cell phone she held to ring. She checked to make sure that it had a signal every couple of seconds. She didn’t want to miss a call. She tried to think of a way to get what Jack Squire wanted, paper work that she had never seen, didn’t know what it looked like, flash drives she didn’t have. She was sure that he would tell her to deliver these things or Sam would die. Sam’s life hung on her possession of things that she had not known existed until they had been demanded from her.              

              “I have to turn you over to the FBI now,” Jo told Rachel as they left the hospital.  A uniform had already taken Gladys to the station to look at mug shots and then would transport her home, “but first we have to make a stop by your father’s house so that he can see that you are alright.” Jo felt naked without the familiar bulge of her service revolver pressing into her hip. It had taken her years to earn her detectives shield and now it was gone, and maybe forever.

              “My father? What they hell does he have to do with any of this?” Rachel still had the cell phone and almost four hours later it had still not wrung.

              “He paid Frank and I to bring you safely back to Chicago. He’s the reason that I came to Michigan to find you in the first place. I only found out about the other cops after I had started to look for you.” Jo was in no way proud of herself for the last 48 hours. She had betrayed her badge, almost got her charges killed, and endangered the life of dozens of civilians, and may still yet cost her partner his life. The only chance that she had to salvage the situation was to get the money to get Stacey the treatment to save her life.

              “Frank’s got a family to take care of, and I needed the money.” Even now Jo had trouble admitting she was in trouble to any one in her professional life.

              “You only helped us because my father paid you?” Rachel demanded. She felt as though the last brick holding her world up had suddenly crumbled. The woman whom she thought was her last friend on earth turned out to be a snake.

              “Look, you’d be dead if I hadn’t, now get in the car.” Jo opened the door of her dodge neon for Rachel. 

              “No. You are not even a cop any more, and I’ve got to find a way to get what Jack needs so that I can save Sam.” Rachel shut the door of the tiny red car.

              “Sam is dead. Professional killers don’t take hostages, they kill them, and even if she is alive at the moment she will not be the second you give them what they want. They’ll just kill you both. Get in the car.” The cop that had freed them from Rachel’s destroyed bathroom was gone and replaced with a desperate and thus dangerous woman. “Look, I’m sorry about Sam. I really am, but your family loves you and wants to see you. Stay there with them or don’t. It doesn’t make a difference to me. I’ve just got to get you there.”

              “I can’t go. I’m going to my office to find whatever the hell it is Squire is looking for. I’ve got to try to save her. You don’t understand.” Rachel turned to walk away, her office was only four or five blocks away, she could make the trek on foot. It would give her time to think.

              Jo took a deep breath. “My lover is going to die. She has cancer, and we don’t have the money to get her the treatment that she needs. This state doesn’t recognize gay marriage so she can’t be on my insurance. I only agreed to get you there because, well I’m desperate. Please help me.” Saying those words out loud lifted a weight off of Jo’s chest that she had been bearing alone for a very long time. “Please.”

              Rachel stopped in her tracks as she felt one of her old replies come to her throat.  She was on the verge of telling Jo to go to hell and take her lover with her, but thought better of it. She didn’t want to be that version of herself any more. She wanted to be the version of herself that Sam loved, and that version would help Jo save her lover.

              “We can go and save your lover’s life, but only if you help me get Sam back. I don’t care if it kills me.” Rachel got in the neon and slammed the door.

VII

              “So, what new and exciting lies do you have to tell me today?” Rachel sneered at her parents. They sat with her ex-husband in front of the fire in the family room sipping scotch as always. She had not set foot in that room in years, but she felt as though she had never left. Nothing ever changed in that place. “Before you answer that pay your flunky and get her the hell out of here. She disgusts me.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Jo who had been ushered in by the maid.

“It’s nice to see you to dear. Where is Samantha, we were under the impression that she would be joining us?” Her father did not rise to her taunting. Darryl knew better than engage Rachel when she was in one of her moods. There was no talking her down once she was up on her high horse.

              “Josephine, if you could give this one to your partner for me,” Darryl stood up and handed Jo two checks, “as well as my thanks,” he shook her hand, “then I believed we are settled and you can go.” Jo placed the two checks in her wallet nodded at Rachel and made her retreat to the front door silently.

              “Samantha is as good as dead.” Rachel told the three people who should have meant the most to her in the whole world, but at the moment meant very little. They were the people who should have taken care of her, but they were the ones who had stolen from her when she was weak. Her words stung, but she needed to say them anyway. She needed the strength they gave her to stop them from becoming true. If she didn’t do something Sam was as good as dead. “I think that you know that.” 

              “It’s God’s will.” Charles conceded. “You don’t belong with that person. You belong here with your family where we can protect you. She has almost cost you your life more than once.” 
              “I don’t need your protection. I do need you to call off your little friends though Charles. You know the ones from the First Church of God. One of those cops that you brought to my front door put a gun to my head and tried to kill me.” Rachel said the last as casually as she could manage and it had the effect she had intended. Confusion registered on the face of Charles, but shock on the face of her father. Rachel had expected as much.

              From the moment that the Looney at the cabin had announced which church he belonged to she had wanted to have her doubts, but she never really had. She only knew three people who belonged to that church, and one of them was a woman effectively rendering her powerless amongst their ranks. One was Charles who had shown up with the Looney at her door step. The other was her father. Charles was impulsive, controlling, and obsessive, but he was not a charismatic man, and was certainly not the kind of man who could inspire other men to cold blooded murder no matter how mentally unbalanced they were. Her father was. He should have been a general.

              Darryl Burn was the kind of man who weighed outcomes and made decisions without conscience. It would be easy for him to order Sam to death if it meant that Rachel would step back into his ideal mold of what a woman should be. He was not a firm believer in the ways of the church, but he held a few of their ideas close to heart. Close enough to have Sam killed to make Rachel do what he wanted.

              “What has the church got to do with any of this? You’ve already shamed me in their eyes, don’t bring them into this!” Charles was already up and yelling. The maid had quickly beaten a retreat under the guise of making sure that Jo would find the door.

              “Are you going to hit me again, you son of a bitch?”  Rachel was fully aware that Charles had never gotten over hitting her, but she would never let it go. “So you paid a hundred thousand dollars to have me brought back here, how much did you pay to have my lover raped and murdered?” Rachel directed the question to her father without taking her eyes off of Charles. She wanted to watch him squirm beneath his lack of action. He had struck her once, and she would never stop making him pay.

              “Not a dime. I didn’t order her raped or murdered. I ordered her gotten rid of. I was never specific as to how. I didn’t care.” Darryl remained calmly detached. He knew that it was his best chance of defense to this onslaught. He had seen better men than he leveled by daughter’s vicious tongue. He knew better because he was the cause. After her coma he had been the one to order her to go for the kill. Being a sweet girl had gotten her shot, so he had made a monster of his daughter and let her loose on the world. What a monster she had been. He had heard of her exploits as far away as Hong Kong where the Japanese feared to not take a meeting with her. She crushed men like she crushed financial empires. All they had to do was give her one little niche into their minds and she tore it open for the world to see. So he presented her with a mental and emotional surface smoother than glass. He had done what he knew was best for her. He had no regrets. “Sit down Charles you’re making a fool of yourself.” 

              Rachel snapped her fingers at her ex-husband, “That’s right, sit Chuck, like a good dog.” Charles sat and imagined wrapping his hands around the throat of his ex-wife. He should have beaten her into obedience like most of the men of The First Church had done to their wives. He wished that he had smothered her on their wedding night for leaving him in the first place.    

              “Well, since you didn’t care how Sam was gotten rid of, a lunatic chased us from Chicago to Michigan, and tried to kill us both, but not before he tried to rape Sam in front of me. You’re lucky you sent your little minion up there or I would be dead right now. So why should I believe a word that you say?” Rachel demanded. Debra put a hand of comfort on her daughter’s shoulder. Rachel pushed her away hard and pointed a warning finger at her.

              Darryl knew what had happened without really thinking about it. Paul’s young protégé Michael. Michael the sociopath, the woman hater who Darryl had no doubt was a serial killer. When he read the murder reports in the Sunday paper he couldn’t help but wonder which ones had been the doings of Michael. Michael, whom he had watched with his own eyes murder a starving stray dog for the act of begging. He had warned Paul about the boy, but Paul, ever the lord’s servant, was convinced that Michael could be brought to heel. What a fool Paul had been, and oh how he would pay for turning that rabid dog loose.

              “You’re being unreasonable,” Darryl told his daughter, although no one on earth would have agreed with him at that moment. He stood up as though to leave. 

              “Fuck you, dad. Fuck you! You three have been lying to me for the last ten years.  You’re nothing but a liar! A fucking liar!” Rachel screamed into his face.

              “Such language.” Darryl told her calmly shaking his head. He had not wanted to lie to her, he knew that she would find out eventually, and really it had not mattered much to him who she slept with as long as she was successful and happy. It was Debra who made such a fuss, and Rachel had been shot in the head. The idea of losing her was enough to let his wife convince him to do the worst, besides, what mother didn’t know what was best for her child? “It was for your own good. We leave you on your own and you almost get killed. Now you’re tangled up in this new mess. Squire has professional killers after you. The church has its ear to the ground.” It was true the church was good for gathering information on the rich and powerful. He did not believe every teaching of the church, in fact he disagreed with most of them, but the members of the church were often times powerful men, with information not easily gathered in other places. Darryl used the First Church of Godas he used any other tool, efficiently, and with great care for the damage that it could do to him if it were not used properly.

                Jack Squire had also been less than discreet in acquiring his hired help. For his complete lack of finesse he should have just taken out an ad in the Tribune that read “Killers wanted for hire.” Darryl had yet to think of a way to keep his daughter out of the way of the killers, but with her here and safe in his house, he felt that he had some time to come up with a way. He of course had plans for Jack Squire that involved him disappearing off of the face of the earth.

              “You’re upset darling, why don’t you go upstairs and take a hot bath. Relax so that we can talk about this like rational adults.” Debra suggested to her daughter. She did believe in the teachings of the church. She believed that her husband had been wrong to raise their daughter any other way, but who was she to question the decisions of her man?  “I’ll have Marta draw you one right now.”

              “Don’t bother mother, I’m not staying. I’m going to give Squire what he wants and I’m going to try to save Sam. They may kill me, they may not, either way you will never see me again.” Rachel turned ignoring the pleas that her family did not make and made her way to the front door.

              “You’re not going to do this to me again.” Charles warned. There was an edge to his voice that Rachel had never heard before. She turned to face him. “You’re not going to run off with that bitch and embarrass me again. You’re not going to do that to me!” They stood in the driveway. Charles had chased her from the den to Jo’s car. He was sweating so much that it rolled down his temple where she could see his pulsing shrinking and swelling the vein there. 

              “I’m not doing anything to you Charles, other than walking away from you.”  Rachel found herself suddenly wary of her ex. He had struck her once, what would stop him from doing it again? “I’m not yours, Charles. I never was. Everything that we had was a lie. That’s why it didn’t last. Every second of our Marriage was a lie. You are as good as a rapist to me. I never loved you, not for one second.”

              “Do you know what you are doing? You’re making me less of a man, making yourself a whore. Better you die than take any of this any further.” He reached into his brown suit jacket. 

              Jo had seen and heard enough from where she had been waiting for Rachel. She pulled her back up revolver from its ankle holster and was out of the car before Charles could get his hand out of his pocket. “Drop it! Drop it right now!” She jabbed Charles behind the ear with the pistol. Charles dropped his white handkerchief to the pavement.

              “Relax Jo, he’s not just harmless,” Rachel glowered in her ex-husbands face, “he’s spineless as well.”

              “I’m not pretending to know what you know about that guy,” Jo negotiated traffic at a speed that kept Rachel’s hands firmly planted on the dashboard in horror. “but I wouldn’t count him as harmless if I were you. He blames you for the loss of his manhood, and that can make even a good man go bad, and I doubt that he was ever a good man.”

              “Charles is my father’s dog. Always has been, always will be. He doesn’t take a dump without calling to consult Mr. Burn.” The neon sailed within inches of a merging semi and a minivan full of screaming children, Rachel closed her eyes against the imminent impact that didn’t come. They scraped by with mere inches between them and the blaring horns of the other drivers. When she opened them again they were running head long into the back of a trailer full of SUVs. She closed her eyes again.

              Jo ignored the distress of her passenger. They were officially on the run from The First Church of God, hired killers, and with their deadline well passed, the FBI. She could feel the heat from her professional career smoking in ashes in the back seat. She still had to call the hospital to see how Frank did on his fourth surgery. The driver of a Ford Explorer laid on his horn as she cut mere inches in front of him.

              “Do you think that your father will call off the church?” Jo asked about the real reason Rachel had picked a fight with her parents, to show her father that it was not only Sam that he had sentenced to death, but her as well. He needed to understand that the lunatics from the First Church of God were beyond his control.

              “If he can then he will, but I have my doubts as to whether or not he has that kind of pull with them. We killed one of their members. They won’t get over that easily. No man should be laid low by the hands of a woman for any reason.” She quoted one of the few sermons she had heard as a child while sitting on the hard wood floor in the back of the church. She looked at the cell phone that Sam’s abductor had tossed at her. The battery was getting low. It seemed that time insisted on running out on them from every possible angle.

              Jo saw her exit, and cut across four lanes to get there. She bounced in front of two trucks and screeched out into a busy intersection. When they reached their destination Jo told Rachel to wait there for her and hopped out of the car. She made the front door at a dead run, unlocked it and was inside in a matter of seconds. Her first stop was the wall safe in the hallway. She opened it and removed three hand guns, their ammunition and the ammunition for the shotgun she kept in a cage in the closet. After gathering the shotgun and bagging it along with the other guns she set them by the front door.

              Stacey slept soundly wrapped in a thick comforter on the living room couch. The room was overly warm, but Stacey couldn’t take any kind of cold. Chemotherapy had shot her immune system to hell. The once radiant woman that Jo had fallen in love with was now pale, bald, and shriveled, another side effect of the chemo. A half smoked joint lay in the ashtray alongside of a plate of food that had barely been touched. Jo had given Stacey the weed in an attempt to get her to eat, but it did little for her. Nothing worked for Stacey, and without an act of Godshe would certainly die. Jo scribbled a quick note on a yellow legal pad she found near the phone. She set it on the table next to the ash tray along with the two checks Darryl Burn had given her. The note read:

              Take this money and get treatment. Give the other check to Frank’s wife,

Love forever, Jo.

With the note written she made her way silently back to the chaos of which she was now a part.

              Paul walked to the pulpit slowly.  Before him he could see an angel of the lord guiding his every step. The angel turned to smile at him. He smiled back. Michal had always claimed that Godhad given him the power to weed out the wicked. He had once told Paul that he could see the souls of men, and that Godhad designated him to clean up the world. Paul had had his doubts about Michael, but conceded to seeing his own angels, and decided that Godhad sent him Michael for guidance. He felt that Michael had been sent to him so that he might be properly turned to the work of the lord.  In this Paul had failed.

              Michael had killed twenty people that Paul knew of. Some of them wicked, yes, but most of them people selected at random to cull Michael’s growing blood lust. One of them an innocent child Michael had slaughtered in an ally. Paul also knew that Michael kept grotesque trophies from each victim. From the child he had taken an eye, which he had dried out and made into a keychain.

              “We have gathered here today to mourn the loss of our most dedicated and righteous brother, Michael.” He began his sermon looking out over his brothers and their wives who sat dutifully on the floor in the back. The room was cool despite the heater that hummed. The men sat silently waiting for him on their padded pews made of dark shining wood. “He was struck down only days ago in the service of the lord. Struck down by wicked women who still to this day seek to disrupt the path of the righteous on our journey to the kingdom of the one true God.” The angel nodded his praise at Paul. The congregation called out their praise to the memory of Michael.

              In the back of his mind he wondered if the congregation would still be praising Michael if they knew how many rapes, and murders Michael had committed. He wondered if they would be there if Paul told them of his own work for the lord, if he told them that the angel of Godat that moment stood at his right shoulder. He wondered if they would falter in their dedication to the lord, if they knew what believing really meant. 

              “The wicked would have us falter. They would have us fall, and they would have us turn away from the light of heaven. Michael did not falter. Michael did turn away from the light even in the face of the horrors that he alone witnessed. Michael did fall, but when he fell he fell into the loving arms of the lord and was carried on high!” He finished with a triumphant sweep of his arms to show the congregation that their fallen brother had in fact been delivered to the Promised Land. He himself doubted as much. The congregation cheered and let their prais fill the room to the rafters. The angel smiled at Paul again.

              “What is done can’t be undone. She signed her own death warrant when she signed on with sin.” Jonathan said. He was a shriveled old bible beater and head of the church council. Darryl had expected no less from him. In all of his corrupt dealings with the men of the First Church of Godhe had found no other man as incorruptible as Jonathan. He would have been the most useful in acquiring power, he was a state senator and had access to the kind of power that most men only dreamed of, but he would only use it for the advantage of the church.

              “When she killed our brother she might as well have killed herself, and you did a father‘s duty trying to save her. You are a good man, this is the doings of evil and no fault of your own.” another council member told him. This one was younger, but no less dedicated to the cause of the church. He went by the name of Samuel for church business even though Darryl knew that was in fact not his name. Darryl had had dealings with Samuel outside of the church as he had with many of the members of the church. He had given Darryl insider trading information that Darryl had used to increase both of their fortunes tenfold.

              “I understand. What is done can’t be undone.” Darryl conceded. He stood up and exchanged parting pleasantries with the members of the council before he left. He had expected no less from them. They were stuffy old fools, bound to their ignorant ways, or killers like Michael, and Paul. Every year their congregations shrank and every year they became stricter. In their minds there was no room for change. Darryl knew that in this world everything must either evolve or die.

              The cult had long since lost its cult like appeal to disgruntled men who were often unhappy with themselves and blamed the world for their own short comings. Once it had been ten thousand strong drawing men from every corner of the country to its ranks. Now it had dwindled to just over a hundred, its woman hating doctrine chasing away the saner members who had come to value their female counterparts as equals or at the very least human. The churches inability to change was slowly but surely killing it.  Darryl didn’t think that it was necessarily a bad thing.

              Darryl discovered at a very young age that change meant everything. Change brought new opportunities that could be utilized to one’s advantage if one had the intellect and insight to do so. This discovery made him a formidable foe in the financial fields as well to all of those who would oppose him in life. When his enemies stabbed right, he had danced left. When one of his investments went down in flames he used the smoking wreckage to build something new. It was his flexibility that helped him rise from rural country side of Indiana to be one of the greatest lords of the great city Chicago. John Gotti would have been proud. Change was everything. 

              So Darryl thought of the black leather shoulder bag that he had casually left under his chair as just another change. He was almost a mile away when the bomb went off and leveled the First Church of Godforever. Darryl continued on his way humming Sweet Home Chicago as he merged into the traffic of the dangerous Dan Ryan express way.

              Janine Colt heard a phone ring and froze. The warrant she carried in her back pocket would no doubt cover and explain her presence in Rachel Burn’s boarded up condo, unless it was someone who was not interested in an explanation. She pulled a twenty two caliber pistol from her purse, and stepped down off of the stool she had been standing on as quietly as possible. 

              The gun was small in comparison to the one she usually carried in a hip holster, but it was easier to conceal than the Glock nine-millimeter, and it slipped into her tiny purse nicely. At the time when she had been issued the weapon she had thought it cute, but had also been told that her assignment was in an office setting and that it would be unlikely that she would need the weapon at all. Now that it seemed to be all that stood between her and imminent death she had second thoughts about its usefulness. There were a lot of people who could take a twenty-two caliber bullet and still keep coming. She had seen a story on the news where a pack of marauding pit bulls had attacked and killed a man armed with a twenty two caliber rifle. It was discovered later that he had managed to shoot several of the dogs, two in the head, but had failed to bring down any of them. Janine did not think of her gun as cute anymore.

              “I have no idea where it would be, I don’t know what I’m looking for.”  Janine heard Rachel say. “I’m just going to give him every file that I have, and tell him that I don’t have his crap if it’s not with what I give him.”

              “At this point I think that he is more worried about killing you so you can’t testify than getting back the information.” Jo did her best to step over the broken glass, but it was still everywhere and unavoidable. Jo could not help but think of the condo as ground zero, where it had all begun. “If he has any sense he will realize that regardless of the outcome of this that he is going to go down for conspiracy to commit murder. He can try all that he likes to get away, but the second he walks into an airport he will be arrested.” 

              Janine put her gun away and came out of hiding. “Oh, I’m sure he wants her dead anyway. After all he did meet her, and that’s enough to make anyone want her dead.”

              Rachel’s mouth dropped open as Jo pulled her gun and pointed it at Janine. “Get your hands up, and get against the wall!”  She ordered. 

              Janine did as she was told. “I’m agent Janine Colt, of the FBI. We actually spoke on the phone.” Jo ignored her and patted her down. She kicked Janine’s purse over to Rachel and ordered her to search it.

              “Didn’t I fire you? What the hell are you doing in my condo?” Rachel demanded as she unceremoniously dumped the contents of Janine’s purse onto the floor. The twenty-two plopped onto the ground. Rachel picked it up and stared at it for a moment. “What are you doing with a gun?”

              “I’ve always wanted to know how a hell bitch did internal décor and came to take a look. It’s pretty much what I expected. That or I’m a FBI agent heading an investigation into the activities of you and Jack Squire.” Janine straightened her suit coat and smoothed down her skirt after Jo finished. “That and I have a warrant for your arrest.” Janine smiled sweetly and handed Jo the warrant. She removed a set of handcuffs and a badge from her jacket pocket.

              “Me? Why me? I didn’t do anything other than make that bastard millions.”  Rachel was shocked to find out that she was under investigation. She knew that various agencies of the government were investigating Squire Precision, she had not known that she was in any way a focus in the investigation.

              “Well, you also have millions, and you could easily acquire the money and hide it overseas, and I thought that you and Jack were having an affair for a while, well until I realized that no one could possibly like you.” It felt good to get back at Rachel for over a year of mistreatment. Janine doubted that her barbs were hitting home, but it made up for all of the times that she had been forced to bite her tongue. 

              “You took the files, didn’t you?” Jo interrupted what she could quickly see becoming a cat fight. She physically stepped between Rachel and Janine. She understood from descriptions that Rachel Burn was not someone that you would want to socialize or even be in the same room with, but the woman she knew as Rachel Burn was sweet and dedicated to the rescue of another.

              “Yes, but I lost them.” Janine admitted with no small amount of embarrassment. “I grabbed them to make copies, I didn’t have a warrant to take them out right, nor did I want to raise suspicion if they proved to be useless, and then I had to deal with that one destroying her office in a fit of rage. I set them on her desk, but when I came back to get them they were gone. I figured she was on to me and took them to cover her own ass.”

              “I always knew you were incompetent! I didn’t take them. I didn’t even know that they existed for me to take!” Rachel put her hands over her face. Her head had begun to throb with the stress of the situation. All she wanted was to be somewhere warm alone with Sam where all of the lunatics of the world couldn’t find them. The files were lost, as good as gone rendering Sam as good as dead. “Do you at least remember anything that was in them? Anything that we can give Jack? Anything at all.” She begged Janine.

              “I couldn’t tell you anything. They were bank records from no named numbered accounts. They were spread out all over the world, they all had substantial amounts that had been sent through several other accounts I guess to hide the amounts, maybe. I do know that they were detailed and that it was enough to convict if we could link them back to Jack.” This new side of Rachel had taken Janine aback. She almost seemed humane. “Why would you give them to Jack? He is actively trying to have you killed as I’m sure you have figured out by now.”

              “Can you give me one account number? Just one, please they’re going to kill her!”  Rachel was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. She could feel her fatigue wrapped around her spine sucking the rationality out of her head. Days without sleep, on the run, and far away from her day to day world that she could understand and rule, had finally taken their toll. She felt on the verge of collapse in this new world where she couldn’t control a single thing about her life.

              “Kill who? Who’s going to kill who?” Janine asked her, staring at the woman in front of her as though they had never met before. This new Rachel confounded her.

              “Sam.” Jo answered. “One account isn’t going to get it. We need a whole lot more than that. Who else had access to her office?” Jo was thinking now. If the money was substantial enough, maybe they could use the files to get out of this alive, maybe they could get Squire out into the open with Sam, lure him and his shooters into a trap or at the very least into the sights of a police rifle.

              “Samantha Ross? What has she got to do with this? We haven’t been able to figure it out. I know you to were almost killed together, but that was ten years ago, and as far as we could tell you haven‘t had any contact since.” Janine did her best to remember the moments following her resignation from the employ of Rachel Burn, but it was so hard to think at the time. She had been so angry.

              Rachel rolled her eyes, “Nothing. She has nothing to do with this. Who went into my office after I left? Did you leave? Did you come back? Was it Jack?” Questions poured out of Rachel two at a time as she attempted to jog Janine’s memory. At the same time it had occurred to her that if she had just done a little research into her life before the shooting then she might have found Sam and the last ten years wouldn’t have been so dismal. It was too much to think about. “Think, Janine or Sam is going to die. She is not a criminal, she has nothing to do with any of this. She is an innocent woman that Jack Squire has taken hostage.”

              “I left, stormed out, but then I remembered the files and I came back, but I never left the building. It was like three minutes, and when I came back the folder was gone. Everything was gone. I assumed that you took them with you.” Janine mentally retraced her steps. There were literally dozens of people who had access to that office that could have taken the files. There were just as many who would have liked to see Rachel Burn and Jack Squire go down in flames and would see the taking the files and turning them in as an opportunity to make sure that that happened. There were even more who would steal the money and let Jack and Rachel take the blame. She couldn’t narrow the list down in her mind.

              “Where did you go when you left?  Think, it’s really important.”  Jo gripped Janine’s shoulders willing her mind to remember.

              “I went to tell some of my work friends goodbye. Then back to my desk to get my things, then to the elevator, but by the time I got to the elevator I remembered the files and went back for them, but they were gone. I didn’t see anyone in your office.” Janine’s eyes widened slightly as something dawned on her. “Mr. Richmond! He was there demanding that you come and talk to him. He said if you wanted your shit then you would have to come and get it from him. Then he stormed off. I don’t know if he had the files, but he did have a bag.”

              “Jason? Jason wouldn’t know what was in those files if they came with instructions. He’s a moron. Think harder.” Rachel crossed her arms and began to tap her toe. She counted the taps to keep herself from collapsing in tears. She had learned the technique in grad school. Tap your toe or your fingers and focus on the tapping. Count the taps up to twenty and then back down again.

              “Who’s Jason?”  Jo didn’t look away from Janine to Rachel. People often underestimated the people around them. At the end of the day no one really had an idea of what another person was truly capable of. Jo had seen it a hundred times. A husband goes home and butchers his wife after telling a dozen people he was going to do it. They all said the same thing in the interview. They just didn’t think that he was capable of such brutality. She had been to a crime scene in the parking lot of a grocery store where a woman had threatened to strangle her son in front of dozens of people if he didn’t behave. None of them paid her any attention. She had promptly taken the boy out to the car and strangled him to death with enough force to break the vertebrae that lined his neck.

              “This imbecile I was screwing for his looks, but he broke it off with me and I put him out in the streets.” Rachel wondered how she had become so heartless. The true magnitude of what she had done to Jason only now dawned on her. She had thrown a man out on the streets for nothing more than the act of being vindictive.

“What of yours does he have?” Jo asked her. “What the hell would he be doing at your office? I imagine he’s not something that you were trying to flaunt?”

              “No, he was my dirty little secret, and he doesn’t have anything of mine, well maybe a pair of my panties.” Tears welled in Rachel’s eyes, she couldn’t hold them back any longer. She thought of Sam in the clutches of the bald man who had dragged her out of the car window as the first one rolled down her cheek.

              “Then he has Jack’s files. Let’s go.”

VI

              “Make the call.” Jack Squire smiled down at the woman whom he held hostage on his couch. He was fully aware that if he wanted his life back, she and her lover would have to die along with anyone else who knew of his criminal activities. He straightened his powder blue tie, and lined up his matching suspenders over her freshly starched shirt.  He’d had Bill polish his shoes to a mirror shine.

              The fates had left him with a full head of hair despite his genetics which he combed diligently into place. His suit jacket, which had been tailored to hide his ample midlife spread, hung in the closet ready for his last meeting with Rachel Burn. He wanted to look perfect when that bitch walked through the door. He wanted her to know that she had never been his equal, never been a match for him and that he had had her all along.  He wanted that treacherous dike bitch to look up at him in his perfect suit and his spotless appearance and know that he was the man of the hour as he ordered her death.

              “What do I tell her, I mean about where to bring the stuff?” Harvey asked him.  Harvey had, as expected, doubled the price for the job without sighting a reason, but Jack had the funds to cover it, and would have more in just a few hours. He had surprised Jack by asking to keep the woman, Sam as his own hostage. Jack didn’t wish that fate on anyone, but had agreed to it, to stay on Harvey’s good side. He couldn’t trust the man not to hold a ridiculous grudge against him. Whether she died tonight with Rachel or tomorrow cut into a million little pieces by a whack job didn’t matter to Jack.

              “The things we’re going to do to you.” Bill promised Sam. He leered into her face brandishing his pocket knife, reflecting light off of it into her eyes. “First, you are going to spread those pretty little legs for us, show us what you got. I bet you’re all pink and wet.” He opened his hands in front of her face to show her the way her legs would part. “Then you’re going to open that pretty little mouth of yours, and show us what kind of dirty little whore you really are.”

              “There’s an old warehouse that I know down on MLK boulevard, My former partner used to own it.” Jack scribbled an address on a piece of paper, and handed it to Harvey. “The police will find the bodies there and they will assume it was gang members or maybe the cult that‘s been chasing them. They probably won’t ID the bodies for weeks. One of you needs to go down and make sure that it is ready and clear.” He hoped that it was Harvey who would go, but he knew better. Harvey would send Bill and Jack would be left alone with the Ross woman and a murderer who might be thinking of killing him for fun. He wished that he had not had to hire Bill and Harvey, but all of his other prospects for hit men had disappeared.

              “Do you know who this is?”  Harvey asked the woman on the other end of the line. She gave her reply. “My name is not important, but I know that what I have is important to you. I believe her name is Samantha, or that is what she told me when she begged me not to kill her. I’m going to kill her, if you don’t bring what Jack wants.”

              “Put her on the phone.” Rachel just wanted to hear Sam’s voice. Know she was alive, she held her breath.

              “No. You meet us at this address, tonight at ten or she dies.” Harvey didn’t want to hear his prize plead with her lover over the phone. He wanted Sam to be his, and to pretend that she had always been and would always be his. He’d had other women before. Other tiny beautiful delicate women that broke quickly like the dolls they resembled. All of them had by and by found slow and painful deaths, but he hoped that this one would last, for a while at least.

              “You either put her on the phone so that I know that she is alive or I march right up to the next police station I find and I hand the damn files in. I’ll tell them everything I know, and make up the things that I don’t.” Rachel wasn’t bluffing. Jo had prepared her for the possibility that they had killed Sam already and that they only intended to kill them to. Jo had insisted that Rachel speak to Sam before they went any further.

              Harvey conceded and promised himself that for every loving thing Sam said to the woman on the phone he would make her pay for not being his and his alone. He removed the duct tape covering Sam’s mouth with a quick and painful jerk. “Make it quick.”               

              “Baby, I love you so much, they are going to kill you. Run!” Harvey slapped the tape back over Sam’s mouth and pushed her hard enough to knock over the chair to which she was taped. She hit the ground with a thud and a groan. He had heard enough. 

              “You run and I’ll cut her open just like I did that cop, but I’ll make it worse. A hundred times worse.” Harvey rambled off the address of the warehouse and closed the flip phone.

              “I bet you think you’re so fucking cute, making me feel like nothing.” He had shoved his bald brother aside and taken his place in front of Sam. He effortlessly jerked her and the chair upright. His nose was less than an inch from Sam’s nose his threats coming out just above a whisper. “Well I own you now, and I’m going to kill that bitch in front of you so that you know that I am the only one.” He ran his hand gently over Sam’s head as she tried to pull away from his touch. “You’re a whore just like the rest of them, but don’t worry, I’ll teach you to be good.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You’ll be good for me.”

              Bill watched the exchange with a sinking heart. There were things about his brother that scared him. The things that Harvey did to people, especially to women, terrified Bill to the point that he had nightmares from which he would awaken flailing and screaming to ward off that monster that he called brother. Bill knew that his brother was more than a hired killer, more than another psycho living the way of the gun. Harvey had done things. He had done things that Bill had never dreamed could be done in his worst nightmares. As a child Harvey had been his worst nightmare.

              The cop that Bill and Harvey had tortured while looking for Rachel Burn had told them everything that he knew within five minutes. Harvey had tortured him for three more hours, resuscitating him through CPR when he died, and then torturing him even more. He had cut the man’s face off and put it on his own, painted a giant smiley face on the wall with the man’s blood. Harvey made balloon animals out of his entrails, and even licked at some of the wounds. Then Harvey had left him alive a cruelty that Bill would have never wished on anyone. Bill had watched every second, because he knew that if he ever turned away, took his eyes off of Harvey for one second that he might join whatever poor creature Harvey had brought so low. Bill knew that he would watch the woman die, and die slowly. He had watched many women die the same way. Nothing that Harvey ever did to the women compared to the things that he had done to their mother. Bill shuddered at the memory while Harvey was still terrorizing the woman.

IX

              Rachel opened the front door of Jason’s apartment to find utter chaos spread from one end to the other. It was the smell that hit her first. The air was hot and thick with the stench of sweat, cigarette smoke, booze and vomit. The place looked as though every frat party that had ever taken place had somehow gathered for a reunion in that one small space. Her mind refused to comprehend the damage. Holes scarred the wall, the plaster that had once filled them laid ground into the hardwood floors. Various fluids coated everything in a thick film of filth. Brown liquid ran slowly down one wall in a last attempt to resist coagulating. Even after Rachel turned on every light switch she could find the space remained dank and dark. The glass from several light bulbs ground under the feet of the three women as they walked.              

              The bank records lay sprawled across the kitchen table. Some were used for coasters, others were painted with spills. Most were unreadable, the ink they were printed with dissolved with spilled beer drained from a nearby keg that had rolled into the kitchen cabinets and come to rest. Jason himself was passed out drunk on the couch with several of his comrades in various states on the floor. They tried to wake him with no success.

              “This is disgusting.” Janine stepped gingerly over a pile of vomit. “You live like this?”

              “No I don’t live like this.” Rachel shook some of the beer soaked pages to dry them. “That idiot has destroyed this place. It was a nice apartment.” 

              “Well after what you told us you did to him you can’t really blame him can you?”

  Jo blotted some pages with a t-shirt she found on the floor in the corner. “Let’s just get what we came for and get the hell out of here before I puke.” Janine gathered some of the cleaner pages from the floor, and added them to the pile that Rachel was making.

              “I think that these are all that are worth taking. The rest are mush. I can‘t believe that guy.”  Rachel rolled up the damp papers carefully and tucked them under her arm.  “Let’s call the cops and get out of here before any of these people wake up.”

              “You can’t call the cops. Some cop is trying to kill you. That’s the only way they could have found the safe house. That’s the only way they could have gotten Frank.” Jo shook her head. It should have been her. She should have let Frank go after the girls. She wouldn’t have been at the apartment. She would have been home with Stacey waiting for Frank to call when those men showed up. They would have found the place empty, and probably waited in the dark which would have given Frank the notion that something was wrong. He would have moved on and tried to call her. They would both be fine, and those men would be in custody.

              It was a great scenario when Jo ran it through in her head, but it wasn’t necessarily what would have happened. At the cabin, Frank would have raced up there without thinking to call first leaving Sam and Rachel unprepared and defenseless. He would have also kicked in the door and rushed in guns blazing, and would have probably gotten shot by that lunatic, or the lunatic would have already killed the two women and been gone. Or Frank would have done exactly what she had done, come back to the apartment through the worst of the storm and the men would have all three of them instead of just Sam. All of the possibilities swam in Jo’s head, but there was no way to tell if Frank’s demise was actually her fault. They had both walked blindly into a job in hopes of earning a little more cash, and everything had gotten out of control.              

              “It was probably that bastard Roesch, He seems like the right kind of jerk to sell us up the river for a buck.” Rachel felt the urge to smother Jason in his sleep. She couldn’t understand the destruction and havoc that he and his friends had reaped upon the place. She could understand his anger at what she had done to him. She could even understand why he had taken the files, but not why he had destroyed the place where he had lived. Then it hit her. He didn’t live there anymore. She had taken his home away and he had destroyed her property to get back at her.

              The apartment had been his home for years and meant nothing to her. She only took it away from him out of spite. Her weekly visits had never made it a home for her. It was nothing more to her than an expensive place to get laid when she was stressed out from work or lonely. The last few days with Sam had taught her to feel again and she was now fully aware of what she had done to Jason. She was fully aware of the fact that for the first time since they had met he had done something to make his life better. He had taken a step in the right direction, and she had put him out into the streets for it. That old feeling of self-loathing crept back into her chest. “Do either one of you have a pen? I doubt that I‘m going to find one in this mess.”

              “For what?” Janine took a small silver pen out of her hand bag and handed it to Rachel.

              “I just want to leave him a note.” Rachel picked up a beer box and tore a section of it away. She quickly scribbled her apologies and that she would sign the apartment over to him as soon as she could. She set her note on his chest as the three women made their way to the door.

              Jo’s cell phone rang in her pocket. “Hello love.” The three women filed into the elevator to make their way out of the apartment building, all of them glad to be leaving the stench of the apartment behind.

              “No, nothing to worry about. We did the job, we got paid. Frank got messed up really bad by two real bad guys though. I’m on my way to track them down now. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got the whole department behind me. You worry about those two thugs when I get ahold of them.” Jo lied. She hated lying to Stacey, but she hated even more to worry her while she was so sick. She had enough to worry about as it was. “You know how it is. You can’t mess with a cop and get away with it.” Jo watched the elevator floor. It was impossible to keep a private conversation private in an elevator. “No, we don’t know if he’s going to make it yet. The doctors say that it’s touch and go. I did get suspended, but Roche is just on a rampage. Don‘t worry about it.” She could feel her ears burning as Stacey said she loved her and expected the same in response.

              “Boyfriend huh?” Janine asked as Jo stuffed the Phone into her pocket.

              “Yea something like that.” Jo did her best to sound nonchalant but could feel the blood pulsing in her face. Janine and Rachel shared a private look that said, ‘What was that about?’ that Jo failed to notice while she studied the elevator doors in front of her.

              Darryl Burns made his way through the midday traffic squinting against the brutality of winter’s early sunset. Traffic was thick and moving at a crawl under the heavy snow fall that had just begun. Quarter sized snowflakes landed on his windshield and melted one at a time. He could see the other drivers in their mid-priced cars eyeing him in his Jaguar with disdain. He did his best to keep his eyes forward and watch the car in front of him. He didn’t wish to draw any more attention to himself than necessary.

                Already the story of the church bombing played on the radio. The newscasters spoke in a solemn voice of the men inside who had lost their lives to what could only be the work of a terrorist. Darryl wondered if they would still call him a lunatic if they knew what sort of crimes these men had cast upon society. If the reporters knew about the countless innocent women who lost their lives at the orders of those men would the reporter still sound so solemn? If they knew about the tortures that took place in the basement of that church in the name of Godwould they still mourn the monsters that Darryl had used and then murdered? Descriptions of his car and person played but they were too vague to give him anything to worry about. He had ransacked the Church’s security cameras before leaving, and worn a wide brimmed hat both in and out of the building to conceal his face from any cameras that might be on nearby buildings.

              Of course the authorities would be able to place him at the church many times, even once earlier that day. There would be phone records, he had called the council together to try to get them to call of the hit he had put on Samantha Ross. At the time he had meant his daughter well. He had believed that getting rid of Samantha Ross once and for all would put his daughter back on track, give her closure to the part of her life that had already died and stood no chance of a resurrection. He had thought that he could fix his family, get Debra off of his back and keep Rachel out of the hands of the kind of men who had tried to blow her head off ten years before. A lot of very serious considerations swirled in his mind.

              The matter of the church bombing did not weigh heavily on his mind however.  What was done simply had to be done, and after all it was already done and there was no way for him to take it back now. Nor did he want to. The men of The First Church of Godhad long out lived their usefulness, and had information on him that could sink him if they decided that he was a threat to them, or if they decided to be vindictive. Either one was a very real possibility for the men of the church. Thus eliminating them was really his only rational choice. 

              One thing did weigh on Darryl’s mind however. Paul. Paul was out there somewhere hunting his daughter who had left the safety of his home for the love of her life. He now understood that despite his plans for her Rachel had become exactly what she was, her own person subject to the rules of her own reasoning, and determined to live her own life. He was sure that all fathers in one way or another believed that their children, even well into their adulthood, were somehow still subject to their rule. He was sure that he was not the first man to assume that he could control his offspring simply because he had given them life. People were their own and he had had no right to interfere. Not ten years ago, and not now.

                Darryl loaded the Lugar he had bought at a World War Two auction some time ago. He kept it in a cabinet with a lot of other Nazi paraphernalia. He had plates, belts, patches, and medals. He was no great follower of the philosophy of Hitler. He found the man to be a brash lunatic who was very taken with himself. Darryl was not a racist nor was he an anti-Semite, or was he fond of them or their ways. He had found over and over again that men were just that, men, and that all of them were subject to their faults no matter what their lineage might entail. His true interest with the Nazi memorabilia lay in the fact that it was more than expensive, it was rare. He had pieces that no one else in the world had. The Lugar he held now was carried by Adolf Himmler himself during WWII.

                 He had seen a video in which a gun very similar to the one that he was holding was used to shoot through the heads of an entire line of Jewish men leaving the last one spattered in blood and shaking. Darryl only needed it to go through the head of one man.  He loaded it now with the remaining ammunition that had been in it when American troops had seized it after the war. He had had the shells opened and refilled with gun powder shortly after he had purchased the weapon. The shells were kept warm and dry after that and he had no doubt that they would do the job that he needed them to do. He aimed the gun at the cabinet from which he had taken it.

              In his reflection in the glass he could see his hair, once as dark and as rich as his daughters, now grey and thinning in the meager light of his study. The lines of age formed on his once handsome farmer’s son’s face and made him look old and tired. He had gotten all that he had wanted as a young man, power, fame, money, houses on three continents, a successful progeny, a name that struck envy into the hearts of those who heard it, and it had never been enough. Now he was old and tired with a wife that didn’t really love him, and was sleeping with another man, a daughter who would never speak to him again, and son-in-law who, above all else, was a schmuck. 

              He tucked the Lugar into his belt and promised himself that after he took care of Paul he would leave the city he had come to admire as a young man and conquer as an old one, and move some place where he could spend his days fishing. He missed the lazy summer days of his youth spent on the shore of distant lakes watching the clouds pass and waiting for a bite. Despite the fact that he didn’t have grandchildren he decided he would surround himself with young ones and show them the best way to reel in a good catch. Perhaps he would sponsor the local boys and girls club or take in some foster children to make him feel alive again. Maybe he would even go to some of his mistresses and gather the children he had fathered and denied over the years and take them all down to Florida with him. 

              There would be trips to Disney World, and hot dogs at the ball park. He would teach them to ride bicycles and throw a baseball and watch them as they headed off to the prom and graduated from high school. He would do all of the things with these new children that he had missed doing with Rachel, and he would never believe for a moment that they would do as he said once they became adults. He would raise them to be the brightest happiest people that he could, but first he would put an end to Paul.

              Sam bided her time and did as much as possible to draw as little attention to herself as possible. Whenever one of the three men looked her way she made sure to let her horror show on her face as well as let her tears flow freely down her cheeks. She dutifully trembled any time one of them laid a hand on her and whimpered when they raised their voices. She had made herself into no more than a gibbering mass of terror in their eyes who would faint before she made an attempt to deceive them and deceived them she had.

              Sam had been ruled by terror since the day a man she had never seen before shot her love in the head in front of her and then put six bullets in her chest. For years she had mourned and cowered in the face of life. For years she had not slept at night, and painted her nightmares larger than life on canvas to decorate the walls of the wealthy. She was so afraid of living life that for years she had been a shadow of what life should have been. In a moment that had all changed. Fate had shown her that her fears had been misplaced and that the love that she felt for Rachel couldn’t be stopped by death itself. Fate had shown her that love could be hers again if only she would reach for it. Sam was not afraid any more.

                At first Sam thought of nothing but flight. She had desperately wanted way out of the turmoil that seemed to follow them wherever they went. Now she understood that if they didn’t end this that she and Rachel would never be allowed to live in peace together. People like Jack Squire and Debra Burn would always seek to stand between them and tear them apart. There would always be someone who didn’t understand and would try to make the two women part ways one way or another. Sam decided that the only way that she and Rachel would ever part ways again would be in death. Debra and Jack be damned, but for that she had to get away from her captors.

              Sweat is a funny thing. You sweat when you’re nervous. You sweat when you’re hot. You sweat when you’re afraid and Sam had been very afraid before the events of the last week had galvanized her terror and plans of flight into determination. Before she understood that Jack Squire planned to kill both her and Rachel she had sweated so much that it had run down her wrist and caused the duct tape that held her wrist to slip. It had not been enough to set her free but it had been enough to show her the way. Now every time she cried she made sure to let her tears run down her wrist to the tape. She slobbered into her hands when she cried to add to the moister that was making her freedom a little bit closer every moment. Every time Jack ordered Bill to give her water she would do all that she could to make sure that some of the water ended up on her skin near the tape then she would let gravity do its job.

              She also took great pains to make sure that the loosening of her bonds went unnoticed by her captures who obviously thought very little of her. When she was not wetting her wrist she kept her hands beneath her body as much as possible. She spent most of her time curled up on a couch in the living room so there was a simple way to hide what she had been doing. Then just as the clock was striking the hour she slipped her left wrist free from the tape, and knew that it would only take moments to free her legs and be gone into the lobby where she could use the stairs to make her escape. All she needed now was an opening in which the three men were occupied. So she put her hand back through the loop of tape and waited.

              “Why are we so early?” Janine, Rachel, and Jo sat in a car across the street from the address that the man on the phone had given Rachel. 

              “They’re planning on killing all of us here tonight.” Jo sat behind the wheel of maroon Nine-Eight they had stopped to barrow from a friend of hers. She felt that her bright red Neon would be too inconspicuous in this neighborhood. The Nine-Eight blended in very well as there were already three of them parked within two blocks. The car had a spacious plush interior that offered them no comfort. “So if they have any sense at all one of them is going to come down here and have a look around to make sure that they can use this place without drawing attention, and if they are really smart then they are going to make sure that they have a clear getaway after the shooting starts. I’m just hoping that they haven’t already.

              “Got that. Why aren’t we calling for back up?” Janine sat in the front seat with her arms folded across her chest. She was fully aware that the worst thing she could do for her career at this point was to call for other agents. She had dropped the ball on her first major assignment and it should have been a cake walk. She should have been able to get the evidence, copy the evidence and then turn the evidence in. She wanted to blame Rachel, but the truth of the matter was that she had let herself become too involved with the woman and her cruelty. What she didn’t understand was why Jo didn’t have all of the Chicago Police force behind her, but she was sure that Jo must have had a reason. Janine eyed the woman in the back seat using the rear view mirror. She had known Rachel Burn for over a year but now felt that she had never in fact met the woman. 

              The woman that sat behind her now was focused, faking calm, and seemed ready to take on the world to get Sam back. Mere hours before Janine had felt as Rachel would simply collapse and would no longer be of use to them. Whatever the man on the phone told her had fortified her and now she seemed as unstoppable as her old self.

              “Because I got fired this morning, a cop is responsible for what happened to Frank, so I’m not calling the station until I’m sure that I’m calling out a lot of cops giving whoever it is that’s working for Squire no choice but to let them come.” Jo had received several phone calls from fellow officers swearing their allegiance to her in helping her bring the men that assaulted Frank to justice. They were for the most part good men and women that she knew that she could trust. They knew that she was out and after the perpetrators despite that Roesch had told her to steer clear of the case. There were dozens of them out combing the streets for word on what had happened at the apartment looking for any little way that they could help her. She had accepted their oaths, but she had plans of her own. There was also the matter of finding out which one of her fellow police officers had betrayed her and Frank. Even if Jo and her fellow officers managed to bring the men who had hurt Frank in alive they wouldn’t talk. They were hired guns and pros. Anything that they were willing to share would in all likelihood be a lie. The scene at the safe house had also spoken volumes of their mental state. What they had done to Frank had not just been about getting information, it had been about fun. Jo could still see the smiley face drawn in blood leering at her in the back of her mind.

              “Well I think that your idea is going to pay off.” Rachel leaned forward from where she had been sitting in the back seat to point at the man that had snatched Sam out of the truck. He was doing his best to keep his head down and move quickly, but in a predominately black neighborhood he stuck out like a sore thumb. He used a crow bar to break into the front door that was directly across the street from them and went into the building. A few moments later he reappeared from another door in the side of the building. He checked both doors again, doing what he could to hide the broken lock and went back to his car.

              Sam was alive and she was going to find her. Rachel smiled to herself. She’d had no hope that the two men had not simply slaughtered her once they were out of sight but to hear her voice on the phone was more than enough to make Rachel believe that all things were possible. Sam was alive and that was enough to keep her standing and fighting until they were together again no matter how long it took. Now the man that had taken Sam was about to lead them right to her. Rachel ran her fingers over cell phone in her lap. She had no doubt that this was going to be a fight, but she was ready.

              Jack Squire was in the shower. Sam could just barely hear him singing a Carpenter’s song to himself through the closed door. Harvey sat watching a cartoon mouse serenading at cat on a large flat screen T.V. in the next room. She could see the back of his head over the couch on which he sat through the doorway. He was sharpening knives. She could just barely hear the sound of steel sliding over stone as he worked. He’d told her his plans for the knives. He told her that he was going to cut her into little tiny pieces and she had no doubt that he would. She had to get away from him and fast.   

              Sam silently removed the duct tape that was wrapped around her legs by tearing it slowly up the middle and made her way to the entrance of the penthouse. She tried to conceal the sound that her shoes made on the marble floors as she moved and hoped that the noise from the T.V. would be enough to cover it. She moved as quickly as she dared pausing only to grab a letter opener she found on a table. She tucked it into the waist of her pants and pulled her shirt down over it. 

              She reached the foyer of the penthouse and silently cheered. Now all she had to do was open the door and be away. The foyer was a simple all white open area containing a coat closet, and a heavily laden coat stand. The lock was a simple deadbolt which opened without a key from the inside and wasn’t locked. Sam could hardly believe her luck as she reached for the handle, but before her fingers made contact with the cool brushed steel the knob began to turn. 

              Bill stepped into the foyer to find it empty. It had taken him a moment to open the door as he fumbled the bags of food and the drinks that he carried. He was tired of being the errand boy. He was tired shining Jacks shoes, and tired of his lunatic brother calling the shots. He wanted to get paid take his money and be gone. Maybe he would go down to Mexico and live like a king for a while. Get a house on the beach and meet a few of the local girls and teach them what American men were all about.

              Bill shut the door behind him and carried the food into the living room where he had left the woman on the couch. It was her food that he carried. Jack had ordered him to go and get her a last meal. Jack had not told her in so many words that they were going to kill her, but she knew. Harvey had told her. Her meal reflected that fact. She had ordered a double bacon chili cheeseburger with a large chili cheese fries, a double thick chocolate shake, and a twenty two ounce Corona to wash it all down. Bill had a theory that she planned on dying from indigestion before Harvey could get a hold of her. He wished her luck.

              Bill had of course added his own order on top of hers and his own beers. He liked to have a slight buzz and a full stomach when he worked. He felt more at ease with what he was doing when he had softened the blow with a few cold ones and a solid meal beforehand. All and all it had taken him just over an hour to make sure that they could access the warehouse with ease, gather the food and return to the apartment. In that time the woman disappeared.

              “Harvey!” Bill turned the couch over as though she would be underneath.  It slid across the floor with enough force to hit the door jamb. Bill did a full spin around the room to make sure that she simply hadn’t wiggled off into a corner somewhere.

              Harvey came into the room at a slow leisurely pace carrying the knife he had been sharpening only seconds before. A film of sweat had formed on his upper lip. The look in his eyes spoke of a man who had reached the limits of his control. He had purposely stayed away from the woman to avoid killing her. That whore had betrayed him like every whore before her right back to his mother. Every woman had always loved someone more than him. His mother had loved Bill more, and now, more than thirty whores later Sam loved the woman Rachel more. Harvey had reached a breaking point.

              “Where is she?” Harvey slid the knife into the brown leather sheath on his belt. A hurricane of rage stirred behind his flat dead eyes that made Bill want to climb into a hole and stay there until Harvey was long gone.

              “She’s fucking gone, man. You were supposed to watch her and she’s fucking gone! The front fucking door wasn’t even locked.” 

              Harvey stepped over the bags that his brother had dropped spilling their greasy contents all over the floor. He stopped when his nose was less than an inch from his brother’s nose. “You let her go.” There was no question in Harvey’s words. It was a gross accusation that Harvey knew not to be true. She was on the couch when Bill left and there five minutes before when he’d checked on her. “Why would you do that little brother?” Harvey’s words were ice and menace. Bill felt the all too familiar knot of terror twist in his intestines.

              Bill had learned to fear his brother as a young child. He had learned that he was the cause of the particular brand of madness that gripped Harvey at his worst. Their mother had loved Bill best and Harvey had suffered. When Bill did wrong Harvey had been punished. When either boy did well Bill got the praise and Harvey received hardly a glance. Bill had been told that he and he alone was mommy’s little angel and Harvey had been told that he was a curse wrought on her by and evil man. Harvey had never been a normal kid, but their peculiar upbringing had its effects as well.

              Even as a boy Harvey had killed with a certain glee that seemed unnatural to Bill.  He had murdered animals indiscriminately and Bill suspected that some of the missing children in their neighborhood had in fact been Harvey’s doing. Before their mother finally died at Harvey’s hands she made Harvey promise to take care of Bill and he had. He taught Bill the trade of killing. Taught him who to trust, when to collect and above all how to get away with it. Over the years Bill had played with the idea that his earlier fears of his brother had been misplaced. He had tried to believe that Harvey had somehow put their past out of his mind and forgave his brother for thier mother’s crimes. Harvey had after all extracted his pound of flesh from their mother while she lay gasping on the floor of their childhood home.

              Bill was about to protest when he found that he couldn’t breathe. Heat seared through him blocking all words but one from his mind. “Why?” he gasped, his mouth already thick with the hot taste of blood. He grabbed the handle of his brother’s knife over which he could already feel his own life draining one gush at a time out of his abdomen. He knew better than to expect an answer. He understood why. He had gotten everything and left Harvey with nothing. Harvey was only returning the favor.

              Sam clamped her hand tightly over her mouth to stifle the scream that fought its way out of her throat. She watched as Bill’s body hit the ground with an ominous thud. Blood spread from his stab wound at an amazing rate running along the floor boards, filling in the cracks and racing in her direction. Bill’s eyes settled on the small crack in the cabinet door through which he could surely see her as he died.    

              Harvey didn’t give his brother a second thought. He marched right over to the coat closet and flung the door open. Inside hung a few garments and on the floor a couple of pairs of shoes. There was nothing inside to conceal the woman. The room was silent except for Harvey’s steady breathing and the soft pat pat of the blood hitting the floor as it dripped off of his knife.

              “Jack!” Harvey pounded on the bathroom door. “That bitch is gone and Bill is dead. Get your ass out here!”

              Jack had just finished his shower and was toweling off. He dropped his towel and walked into the steam free cool air of the hall. Goose flesh formed on his thighs around his prick which had already begun to shrink into his body. “What do you mean she’s gone?” He looked over Harvey’s shoulder to see Bill lying in a pool of blood. “How the hell did she get loose? Where did she get the knife?” 

              The remnants of Sam’s bonds lay on the couch and the floor. Harvey picked them up and examined them. “She cried. Once this stuff gets wet it’s no good.” He tossed the tape aside not interested in how she had orchestrated her escape. He cared only that she had escaped.

              “How did she get the drop on him? Well did either of you check the hall?”  Jack was now pulling on a pair of trousers, hopping gracelessly on one foot while his belly jiggled with rage. “You take the stairs, I’ll take the elevator, she can’t get that far away and as long as we stop her before she gets out of the building we’ll be fine.” He sounded calm but the tremble of his hands gave him away. Despite the cool air he was beginning to sweat. He pulled a shirt over his head and tucked it in. The two men dashed from the condo in search of her.

              Sam, in her hiding spot in could barely breathe. Her knees were pressed to her chest with one of her arms trapped between them. She had thought about hiding in the closet where there would be ample room, but knew that she would found right away. Now as she squirmed to free herself from the storage cabinet she tried to imagine what to do next.  Bill’s dead eyes still watched her as if to say “what will you do next?” She almost felt sorry for him. He had been a monster, sure, but he did not deserve to be stabbed to death by his own brother. Then just as she stepped over him he blinked.

              Darryl had been on the hunt. He had driven to Paul’s last known address, but failed to find anything useful. Paul’s wife, a woman half of his age and overly timid when talking to men answered the door. She would barely look at Darryl and pronounced that she had no idea of her husband’s whereabouts. Darryl had expected no more from her. She was a good wife, and did not question her husband’s coming and goings. She was trained to only ask him about his needs which she would directly address.

              Next Darryl checked with the second apartment that Paul kept downtown that his wife didn’t know about. He didn’t have a second wife or a mistress, he was a devout man of Godafter all. He simply needed a place of his own to carry on with his work in secret. Darryl had helped him broker the deal for the place because the building owner owed Darryl no small number of favors. Had it not been for that one stroke of luck Darryl would have known nothing about the place. He was tempted to break in, but was sure that Paul was not inside. His cell phone was once again vibrating in its holster. 

              Members of The First Church had been calling all day. They were devastated that the members of the church council had been inside the building when it was bombed. They looked to him in their moment of need and desperation for leadership. They all asked the same question, what would they do now? Darryl gave them the most generic answer that he could without laughing at them over the phone. “We shall persevere.” Then he asked them about Paul. None of them knew where he was, and some of them even speculated that Paul had been inside the church when it was bombed. Darryl knew better.

              Darryl was out of places to look for Paul. He would have tried the church, but he had blown it to smithereens. His best bet was to look for Rachel and hope that he found her before Paul did. He had an idea of how to go about finding her. He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Jo Cobb. Even if Rachel never wanted to see him again, even if she would not see reason he could at least warn her about the kind of man that was following her. 

              Jo was practiced at the art of following unnoticed in Chicago traffic. She surmised that where ever Jack Squire was keeping Samantha couldn’t be far from the warehouse. The first stop the man they were following made was to get food and beer, then he made a twenty minute drive to a large building known for its plush condos and amazing views of the lake front. He parked his car two blocks away and walked to the front door. The doorman gave him a nod and opened the door for him. They exchanged pleasantries as the man made his way to the elevator with his packages.

              “This is it. She’s in there somewhere. We just need to know where.” Jo flipped the Nine-Eight into reverse and made her way away from the building. 

              “Why can’t we just call the cops? I know they fired you, but wouldn’t they want to get those guys that did that to your partner?” Rachel was quickly losing patience. She wanted Sam back and to be away from this city. Maybe they could move to San Francisco or L.A. where they could blend in and live in peace.

              “Because they will just kill her if the cops show up, plus the cops can’t get into the building without a warrant and there is no way we’ll be able to get a warrant before we are supposed to meet Jack at the warehouse.” Jo had her doubts that they hadn’t killed Sam the second Rachel hung up the phone but she kept them to herself, and tried to come up with a way to get into the building. She had not agreed to help Rachel find Sam for Sam’s sake after all Jo had a score to settle.

              “Why don’t I just flash the doorman my badge and see if he won’t let us in?”  Janine had agreed to help them get Sam back, but she had insisted on making photocopies of the paper work she had stolen from Jack Squire and faxing it to her superiors. She tried to get Rachel to call Jack and stall for more time. Janine was mere hours away from a warrant for Jack Squire‘s arrest for the murder of one of his colleagues. Rachel and Jo shot down that idea stating that Sam would be dead long before Janine got her warrant and Squire would be long gone.

              “Because that’s the type of doorman that won’t let anyone in without a warrant.  If you call for an ambulance in that building the EMTs have to get clearance with him before they can come up and save your life. He’s not going to let you in just because you have a badge. The people who live here pay a fortune for this to be s secure building and they mean secure. No one walks through that front door.” Jo crossed her arms and tried to think.

              “So you’ve been stuck outside of this building before?” Janine smiled to herself.  She could always tell when cops hated people because they didn’t respect the badge. Or rather when cops hated people for not running scared from their badges. She had herself abused having a badge several times to get the bad guys. Most people who saw that you had a badge just got out of your way as fast as they possibly could. 

              Jo didn’t answer Janine’s razzing. She was deep in thought. There had to be a way into the building. 

              “Janine, did you know about this building?” Rachel asked. She had an idea.

              “Yea of course I did. Jack had me send some men over here to do some work a while ago. It’s in one of his girlfriend’s names, but no one has heard from her in months. Seems she was smart enough to get out of town when his wife found out. He has places like this all over the state. That’s why he was so hard to find. Plus it‘s impossible to get a warrant to search the place for him because it is in the name of someone that we can‘t prove he has any criminal involvement with.” Janine had kept a list of Jack’s mistresses and the properties that they owned which more often than not meant that he owned the properties in one capacity or another.

              Despite the fact that Janine was Rachel’s assistant, Jack had often given Janine assignments to carry out. She had been more than happy to do it as it gave her access to a lot of his personal life as well as his professional life. He had opened the door for her assuming as Rachel had that she was brainless. She had physically searched his office several times without being questioned once.   

              “So it would be conceivable for you to show up here and say ransom the papers to him?” Rachel thought of a way to get Janine into the building. “Does he know you’re a cop, or an agent or whatever the hell you are?”

              “I’m an agent. A special agent with the FBI, thank you. You two are the only ones that know what I am, and I would really like to keep it that way. This case is not exactly closed. We could have gotten him for conspiracy to commit murder but he disappeared before we could get a judge to sign the warrant to serve him. I doubt that he even suspects me. I wanted to arrest that bastard so bad.” Janine left out the part where she had fully intended on taking Rachel away in cuffs as well. 

              “Well you should give him a call and tell him you have his files and that you’ll give him back half of the account numbers if he gives the pass words for the other half.  He’ll let you into the building and then you can let us in one of the fire exits.”  Hope had made Rachel rash. It was a senseless and reckless plan, but it was a plan when they had none.

              “It won’t work. Squire will know something is up right away if she suddenly shows up with exactly what he wants, at a place that no one is supposed to know about, and it won’t stop him from killing Sam. There’s no way he’s just going to let her into the building. There’s got to be another way.” Jo circled the block. “It’ll be dark soon, we can try then. We still have a little bit of time on our side.”

X

              Sam was running out of time and she knew it. She dragged Bill into the bed room and told him to lock himself inside. It was against her better judgment to help him but she couldn’t bring herself to leave even him to Harvey’s mercy. She had not seen the things that Harvey had done to Jo’s partner, but Bill told her enough to inspire her aid. Bill did what he could to help her, but at least two of his organs were pushing their way through the hole that Harvey had slashed in his gut and he was gushing more blood than Sam had ever seen.

              “He’ll cut my face off! He cut that cops face off and wore it like a Halloween mask. Harvey kissed him with his own lips. Please help me. I didn’t mean all of those things I said to you. I was just trying to look tuff for Harvey.” Bill had begged her. So she dragged him as far as she could and wished him the best. She gave him a phone that she found on the desk and told him to call 911 if he wanted to live. He did not thank her, but began to dial. Considering the amount of blood on the floor and the trouble he was having holding the receiver she did not believe that he would make it to the last one. 

              Now she was out in the hallway not sure of which way to run. She had no doubt that if she took either the elevator or the stairs that she would run into Jack or Harvey.  She was also sure that at any moment they would return and kill her for the hell of it.   She thought of knocking on one of the neighbors doors, but found that they were few and far between, and for the most part the occupants were not home or not willing to open the door for an uninvited guest covered in someone else‘s blood. She pleaded with the people on the other side whether they were there or not. Each floor contained two units, and by the time Sam had carefully used the steps to descend three floors she lost all hope of finding someone to help her and decided to go all the way down pausing on every other step to listen for the man who was surely waiting around the next corner.

              The stairs wound around the greenish gray hall way lending many corners from which Harvey could emerge at any moment. The building had thirty floors that she could count from where she stood. Sam couldn’t imagine how they had gotten her in. The stairs that she was on were far from the lavish interior of the rest of the building that she had seen. The stairs were striped with some sort of slip resistant tape and clearly meant to be used in an emergency exit situation. Certainly they had not carried her up every flight of stairs and a building as elaborate and as richly decorated as this would have a doorman. She had only seen the penthouse and hallways, but they both made her aware of exactly how much it would cost to live there. She could only assume that they had brought her in through the front lobby, and that the doorman was aware of their criminal activities. This fact made her wary of the elevators which would open into the front lobby and into the arms of yet another of Harvey’s accomplices.

              With each floor Sam descended her chances of running into Harvey heightened. He had to be on his way back up by now. There was only one fire escape in the building. Her heart pounded in her ears, but not loud enough to drown out her panicked breathing or the sound of her tennis shoes slapping the steps. She imagined that anyone in the halls must be able to hear her. Sam slowed her descent to a crawl when she heard a door one floor beneath her open. She backed up the stairs certain that it was Harvey and even more certain that he would not hesitate to gut her the moment that he found her. He did not need or want a hostage. He wanted blood or worse. She had to hide, but there was nowhere to go. 

              Sam found that once she was in the stairwell the door that let her in had locked behind her. She was sure that they were not all locked, but she had no time to find one that was unlocked granting her access to safety. She took a chance and leaned over the railing to make sure that she wasn’t hiding from some harmless neighbor who could have possibly given her help. She found herself looking down on Harvey who was climbing the stairs, his fist clenched, his strides purposeful. She looked around to find a small silver door in the wall. It was maybe three by two feet and four feet off of the ground. It had a small brushed steel latch, but didn’t look to have a lock. She opened it and the stench of rotting garbage came rushing out at her on a freezing draft of air. She looked down into a black shaft that seemed to go on forever. Her time had run out as she heard Harvey’s heavy boot falls coming ever closer she stepped up on to the rail of the nearest stairway and opened the door. She slipped her feet in so that she didn’t have to go head first. Before she knew it she was plummeting down the shaft into an endless darkness.

VII

              “They couldn’t have taken her in through the front lobby. There has to be another way in.”  Jo Cobb was ignoring her Cell phone buzzing in her pocket. She wasn’t interested in anything that Darryl Burn could possibly have to say. It was Rachel she was trying to help now. He had sent murdering lunatics after unarmed women, one of whom was his daughter. He had also failed to mention this fact when he sent Jo after his daughter. As far as she was concerned her work with him was finished.

              “There is probably a service elevator in the back. You know for when people move in or out or the maintenance people. When you pay to live in buildings like this you don’t want to see the help walking around in the lobby. I’m sure you need a key to get in.” Looking up at the building Rachel tried to imagine which one of the windows contained Sam. There seemed to be thirty floors in all, but she was sure that knowing Jack Squire it would be one of the higher up ones if not the pent house. Jack Squire would accept only the best. 

              “I can pick a lock, would it be guarded?”  Jo asked her. 

              Rachel shook her head. “No, not usually. There might be an alarm, but we should try it.”

              The maintenance entrance was between two giant green dumpsters. One was full and awaiting the trucks to come, the other was still attached to the building catching the refuse of the people who dwelt within. It was not guarded nor was it anything like the rest of the buildings immaculate exterior. The ground was littered with cigarette butts, and various other trash that had escaped the bins lay strewn here and there. Rachel thought of her own building but couldn’t imagine that any part of it would be allowed to sit in such disarray. Not that it mattered to her any more. Her life in her condo with its floor to ceiling windows, its white carpeting and its lifeless charm was over. If she got out of this alive she would sell it and get the hell out of the city.

              “Got it!” Jo had been on her knees for several minutes messing with the lock on two double doors. Rachel was tempted to ask her if her ability to pick locks had been acquired as a side effect of an ill spent youth or as a side effect of not wanting to bother with the process of getting warrants.

              Jo must have read her mind, “Misspent youth.” She winked as she opened the door. “Alright one of us has to stay here and keep watch, and two of us will go up and find Sam.” 

              “I’ll Stay.” Janine volunteered quickly. She had no interest in climbing thirty steps of stairs hoping to find a woman in a single apartment out of sixty apartments whom she believed to dead and all without a search warrant. It would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack and then getting fired regardless of whether you found the needle or not. She believed their chances were slim at best, but she figured that any person that could turn Rachel Burn into a human being was worth standing watch while others looked for her. She wished them the best and gave Rachel her twenty two before they entered the building. 

              Once they were gone Janine felt incredibly vulnerable standing outside of the doors. If anyone should happen by then she would no doubt be questioned and anyone involved would know right away that something was up. So she wedged herself between the dumpster that was still in use and the wall. From this vantage point she was invisible to anyone who didn’t know where to look, but she could still see the only two routes to the back door. She kept her cell phone in her hand with Jo’s number as the last one dialed so that she would only have to hit send twice in the case of an emergency.

              Time dripped past and Janine found that she was checking her watch every thirty seconds. She had only been working with the two women that had gone inside for a matter of hours but she felt a certain kinship with them. She liked the way Jo dealt with things, one issue at a time until the problem was solved. Now she found herself worrying about them as though they were all old friends. She wondered what would happen to Rachel if they found Sam dead. Janine wondered if she would go back to being the woman she had been last week, or if she would become something worst.

              Something large clunked through the garbage shaft and landed in the bin that Janine was hiding behind. She tried not to think of spoiled chicken splashing in with all of the other garbage that she could smell. Nausea had been threatening to overtake her ever since Jo and Rachel had gone into the building. She hated the stench of garbage.  The smell of rotting food and babies diapers even stifled by the cold was almost overwhelming, but she couldn’t find a better place to hide. Then she realized that whatever had fallen into the dumpster was far too large to have been a chicken, and too heavy to have been a bag of garbage. Janine wondered if Jack’s killers were really sloppy enough to start dumping bodies down the trash shoot.

              Sam felt more than heard herself moaning. She had done her best to dig her hands and feet into the filthy sides of the garbage shaft to try to slow her fall, but the sides had been slick with the moisture and slime of decay. Her efforts had been barely enough to keep her from shattering when she finally landed in the trash bin below which had been thankfully nearly full. She ached from head to toe as she tried to pull her senses around her. Her left arm was altogether useless as she tried to sit up. A tight fog gripped her mind and prevented her from thinking clearly. She forgot why she was laying in that stinking darkness and let herself drift off to memories of better times.

              Paul thought about making quick work of his quarry, but decided that he could kill two birds with one stone. Eventually Darryl Burn would go to his demonic daughter and then he would kill them both. For now he watched Darryl from a distance and plotted on how he would make him suffer. He could see the angel that guided him out of the corner of his eye nodding his approval. 

              Paul had been following Darryl ever since he’d seen him leaving the church. He figured that he would catch him talking to his whore daughter and follow her and kill her and the witch that she was with. Then the church exploded and he knew that a wolf had been in their midst all of this time. He also knew that the man was armed and dangerous. There was nothing as dangerous as a parent protecting their child even when that child was thirty years old. Paul bided his time and plotted his vengeance. That is until the man gave up looking for him and went home. So Paul parked his car as close to the Burn residence as he dared and he waited.

              The woman at the coffee stand had said something about the crazy homeless talking to themselves and as a reflex Darryl finished paying for his drink glanced over his shoulder. The reflex probably saved his life. He had no idea how long Paul had been following him, but he knew that the gig was up and that that lunatic knew exactly what he had done at the First Church of God. Now he had to kill Paul and soon. He closed his cell phone with which he had been trying to call Jo Cobb, and he went home. 

              Once Darryl was in his castle he thought of the advantages of his current situation. He no longer had to worry about Paul finding Rachel since he was obviously waiting for Darryl to lead him to Rachel. Now that he had Paul only a few blocks down he could rest easy. He poured himself a stiff drink and sat back in his recliner. Time was on his side after all. Rachel swore never to return to his house again and she was a woman of her word so he didn’t have to worry about her coming to Paul. No, Darryl could sit in his castle for as long as he needed to and Paul would sit outside waiting for a chance to kill him. Darryl had one of the houses security guards retrain a camera so that Darryl could watch Paul on the closed circuit TV. In time he would figure out what to do with Paul, and he certainly had time.

              There was no time. Sam was not aware of how long she’d been drifting in the darkness when she noticed the sound. Time had given up on her and cast her out. Seconds were seconds, but they were hours as well. Sam tried to count to five and found that 1, 2, and 3 had gone normally enough, but 4 and 5 had come to her mind with momentous gaps between them. Someone was grating metal on metal and she hated that sound. It made her think of the time that her older brothers had forced her to chew tinfoil as a child. She tried to fight her way back to her dream state but the grinder persisted and she was forced to open her eyes and deal with it. At first she saw nothing in the darkness of the trash bin but shadows and the shadows that exploded behind her eyes. The stench was nauseating, but not nearly so much as the pain in her head. The grinding was growing more intense and with it came light. Small slivers at first, but after one last loud wrenching sound the light poured in and she was delivered out of a small panel on a wave of sticky trash bags and onto the cold frozen ground.

              “Are you Samantha Ross?” Janine wasn’t sure if she recognized the woman from the coffee shop lying filthy on the ground. After the trash bin began to moan Janine had decided that she should take a look inside. She had been debating since the initial thud whether to call for back up or go ahead and look for a body herself. She didn’t know how to open the top of the bin which was attached to the building by a heavy yellow canvas tube. After a few minutes of searching she had found a small panel on the side of the bin towards the bottom. The original paint job of the bin still held the door firm. It had never been opened. She tried for a few minutes to force it, but with no luck. Thinking quickly she had run back to the car gotten a tire iron and forced the door. It had taken some sweat and some effort, but with a shoulder wrenching jerk she finally opened the sliding door.

              The woman didn’t answer her and began to shiver. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head and she was bleeding from several places. Janine covered her with her coat unsure about moving her just in case she was badly hurt. Whoever she was, she had gone through a hell of a lot to end up in that garbage bin. Janine took her cell out of her pocket and hit send.

              Rachel stared at the pool of blood on the floor. No words could describe the emptiness and disbelief that filled her mind. There was a trail of blood where one person had dragged another into a different room, but the door was locked and there was no way to know what was on the other side. She couldn’t think. She tested her theory that Jack would take the pent house and he had. She had also found the door slightly ajar from someone either making a careless or hasty exit. Other than the pool of blood and the mystery that lay on the other side of the locked door she had found nothing else of significance. Jack and his hired guns were long gone, and Sam was probably dead on the other side of the door. Rachel backed against the nearest wall and slid to the floor. She was too late.

              Jo cleared the apartment room by room hoping that she would find the men hiding inside somewhere. They were gone however. When they would be back was unclear so she busied herself with picking the lock sure of what she would find on the other side. Once the door was unlocked she still couldn’t push it open. Whatever was on the other side was way too big to be Sam. “I know that it looks like a slaughter happened in here, but you’ve got to think positive. We don’t know what happened here. For all we know Jack is laying on the other side of this door his own henchmen could have killed him taken his money and ran. Hired killers aren’t the most trustworthy people in the world.” Jo didn’t like to fill Rachel’s head with false hope, after all if someone Sam’s size had really lost that much blood then she was certainly dead, but she needed Rachel moving at least until they got back to the car. Rachel was already beginning to gibber behind her. Even if Jack Squire lay dead on the other side of the door she had no intention of calling the police until Jo had an idea of where the men had gone who had tried to kill her partner.

              Rachel didn’t say a word. She just got up and started to push on the door as hard as she could still mumbling, but clearly fighting the despair that threatened to rule her. Jo knew that the only way to get her to leave the apartment was to let her find out was on the other side so she helped her to push. They were sweating with the effort before the door gave enough for Rachel to stick her head through and see Bill sitting against the door, dead on the floor his blood staining the beige carpeting like cranberry juice, a bleating telephone in his lifeless hand, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He had bled out from a vicious wound in his stomach. All around him there were foot prints that could only have belonged to a woman.

              “It’s not her!” Tears of relief washed Rachel’s face as she clamped her hands over her mouth. “It’s not her.” She said again through her fingers. “It’s one of the men that took Sam. The one that gave me the phone.” In her relief she failed register that she was seeing her third dead body of the week and of her life. The gruesome truth being that she was just getting used to seeing them.

              “The one that did that to Frank.” Jo clenched her hands thinking the son of a bitch had gotten off easy. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t know how many men he has and when they are coming back. I say we meet them at the warehouse and see if we can get her then.” Jo could hardly believe that it was not in fact Sam dead in the room. It was even harder for her to believe how relieved she was. She was relieved that the Ross woman may still be alive, and disappointed that Frank’s assailants were either dead or gone.

              Jo’s phone buzzed with a picture message from Janine. She and Rachel were making their way to the service elevator which did not go all of the way to the top of the building.  Jo opened the phone to find herself staring at a picture of a very dirty Sam. The caption below the picture said. “Is this Sam?  I found her in the garbage.” 

              “Is she alive?”  Rachel was looking over her shoulder. It was hard to tell from the grainy picture taken with a cell phone in failing light. They both stopped walking and were standing in a stair well. An awful silence had settled over them. They could hear the footsteps of someone running on the stairs many floors beneath them and getting further all of the time. 

              “I don’t know. I can’t call to ask, I don’t have a signal any more. We have to get moving.” Jo raced down to the next landing and to the door she had fixed open by jamming a quarter into the dead bolt slot. She opened the door and jogged along a long hallway which sported only four doors. Two were apartments, one was the regular elevator and the other was the service elevator which was cleverly disguised with wall paneling to look as though nothing was there at all. Rachel raced right on her heels and almost ran into her back as she stopped. 

              “If Sam jumped down the garbage shoot to get away from someone then it’s pretty likely that whoever it was running down the stairs is going after her to kill her.” Jo worked the panel that hid the elevator buttons. They were inside and pressing the first floor button a moment later. The elevator jerked as it started its slow descent.              

              “They are going to get their first.” Rachel couldn’t believe their bad luck. If only they’d waited a few minutes then they would have been down there when Sam had fallen and they would all be on their way to somewhere safe leaving the killers in their wake.             

              “Don’t play the what if game right now.” Jo said as she leaned against the wall of the elevator to catch her breath. She checked her gun and the backup clip she slipped into her pocket. Bothe were ready to go. Men like the ones they were chasing would fight to the death rather than be taken alive and she had no intention of taking them alive. “You’re thinking what if we had just stayed down stairs for a few minutes longer, but that kind of thinking isn’t going to get us anywhere right now.” The elevator was moving slower than Jo could remember any elevator moving all of her life. Jo was already playing the what if game in her own head. What if they had taken the stairs? What if they had Left Janine a weapon? “It will just distract you. Get your gun out and stay behind me when this door opens. Only shoot if you are sure that I am out of the way or if I go down.” The elevator reached the ground floor, dinged and the doors opened.

              When they reached the maintenance door it stood wide open and sirens could be heard in the distance. There was no sign or of Janine and Sam, but Harvey was there looking for them. Rachel stopped Jo just before she stepped out into the open where Harvey would see her. “That’s him, that’s the other guy that grabbed Sam.” Rachel was gripping Jo’s arm just inside of the door where the corners and the shadows hid them. 

              “Then that’s the guy I’m going to kill.” Jo pulled her gun from its holster and stepped into the quickly disappearing sunlight that painted her already flaming hair a deeper shade of orange. Jo had given her companions reasons for not calling the police, but none of them had been true. She wanted this man to herself. She wanted to see the look on his face when she blew his brains out of his head. She wanted to ask him why he had done those things to Frank. She wanted to know what kind of monster would cut an honest man open and paint with his blood on the walls. She wanted to look him in the eye and then she wanted to kill him.

              Jack Squire took the elevator back up to his pent house. The door was open, but Harvey was not there. He grabbed a bag and began to pack. All either of those idiots had to do was keep a bound one hundred pound woman under control for just a few more hours and they had failed. Now she was loose somewhere in world, probably marching to the nearest police station to tell them everything that she knew. One of his hired killers had even ended up dead in the process turning his sanctuary into a crime scene. It was Rachel’s fault. He was certain of it. That bitch robbed him and before he left town and the life that he had fought like hell to build he would make her pay. 

              The first thing that Jack packed was his little black book full of the numbers of the various women whom he used and who used him in turn. He had had an assistant transfer them from his Smart phone before he mailed it to a random address he had picked out of the phone book. There was a GPS chip inside that would allow the police to track him. He would look to most of them for financial support to make his escape from this country. All he had left were his personal bank accounts and he was unsure if they were frozen yet. The next thing he packed was his passport. He doubted his ability to walk into an airport and catch a plane to France without the police dragging him out in hand cuffs, but it should still get him across the border to Canada where he could catch a plane off of the continent or Mexico where he knew towns where everything that one needed to become someone else could be bought at a very low price.

              After the passport he packed random items from around the room. The watch his mother had given him for his college graduation, a pair of cuff links someone left at his house in the Hampton’s, a money clip a woman friend had given him for a reason that he had long forgotten. He recognized a panic in himself and tried to pull it together, but all that he could think of clearly was Rachel Burn and how she ruined him. All he could think of was how she would be laughing at him while she spent his money on that bitch that had escaped. Next he took a towel and wiped down the counters, door handles, and anything else he might have touched. He was damned if he was going to go down for a murder he didn’t commit. 

              He went into the room where Bill lay dead and patted the corps down. It was not work that he was used to nor did it bring him comfort. The body was still wet and warm and resembling a living thing in most ways. The eyes were still open and bright as though at any moment Bill would sit up and ask for payment for the work he had done so far.  There were of course indications of death. Bill’s bowels had voided leaving a stinking dark stain on his pants. He was becoming stiffer even as Jack searched him. Jack was just about to give up when he found what he was looking for. There it had been all of the time tucked into the top of Bill’s boot, a shiny chrome pistol with a full clip. Now all he had to do was find Rachel Burn before the authorities found him.

              Rachel didn’t understand the sudden terror that had gripped her. Her fist involuntarily clenched so hard that she could feel her nails in her palms like pin pricks.  Jo had already killed one man when she was in trouble and Jo had had no other choice, but now Jo was on the verge of committing cold blooded murder and Rachel feared that she would never be the same afterward. She watched Jo approach the nightmare man as if the entire world had slipped into slow motion. The man made no indication that he had  seen her heard her. He held a knife and Rachel could see the blood drying on the handle from where she hid. She briefly wondered what had gone on in the pent house. Had this man killed his partner over some financial dispute? Or had he simply snapped and gone on a killing spree? She also wondered if she could stop what was about to transpire or even if she should.

              Harvey saw the woman approaching out of the corner of his eye but he bided his time. The woman had a gun pointed at his head, and he had only a knife. He had to wait until she put it against his head and demanded that he drop his knife before he stuck. He would take the gun from her and split her open so fast she wouldn’t know he’d cut her until her guts hit her shoes. Her posture and stance told him that she was a cop. She would try to put him in cuffs giving him the perfect opportunity to kill her. Other cops had tried. Other cops had died at Harvey’s hands. Harvey waited for his moment, but the woman opened fire without warning. Harvey was hit in the side and went down hard, the impact of the bullet spinning him onto his face.  

              “You shot him!” Janine came out of hiding from inside of the second dumpster.  She’d heard the man running down the stairs and had for once not failed to put two and two together. She thought about the car, but they would never have made it in time. She then dragged Sam to the dumpster not attached to the building, forced the side door, which fortunately had been used and opened easily and dragged her inside. Before she could shut the door all of the way the man appeared with his bloody knife and started to search the dumpster that was attached to the building. She watched him from the dumpster until someone shot him. Now she was looking at Jo in disbelief.                           

              Rachel came dashing out of hiding and grabbed Janine by the shoulders. “Is she alive? Where is she?” 

              “She? Oh Sam, yes, but she needs a hospital right now. I called an ambulance and the police. Give me my gun back.” Janine held out her hand and Rachel stopped just long enough to shove the gun into it before running to the dumpster. Janine checked the chamber, and clicked off the safety. She pointed the gun at Jo. “Drop it. Drop it right now!” 

              Jo was still facing Harvey who was writhing on the ground. “Step away from him and drop the weapon. You can’t shoot a man without warning. Jo, drop the gun!” Janine meant it. She knew police protocol, and shooting a man without warning was unacceptable, no matter what he had done. He hadn’t even been looking at her. Jo had shot the man for revenge pure and simple. She had crossed the line.

              Jo dutifully tossed her gun aside and took a step away from Harvey who was still moaning at her feet. “You don’t know what he did.” She wanted to argue with Janine, but she had met too many buy the book rookies for it to be effective. Understanding the fact that some people didn’t make it to the inside of a courtroom was the best thing for everyone was a fact that had to be learned over time.

              “I don’t care what he did. I saw what you did, and you have stepped way over the line. You could have arrested him. You tried to execute him. You’re a loose cannon. Now put your hands up!” Janine took her hand cuffs out of her back pocket and approached Jo.

              “Sam. Sam wake up. Please Sam, wake up.” Rachel stroked the side of Sam’s face gently. She had no idea how many floors Sam had fallen but she was sure that it was far. Sam opened her eyes briefly then they slipped shut again. She mumbled incoherently when Rachel asked her questions. Rachel did her best to keep her talking. She had always heard the importance of keeping someone who was hurt talking. She didn’t understand why it was an important thing to do, but she did it anyway. “It’s okay, I’m here now Sam. Jo is here to, and we’re going to get out of here real soon.” She kissed Sam’s forehead and tried not cry.

              Jo glared at the man on the ground as she let Janine hand cuff her. She hoped that his death would take a very long time. She had aimed for his liver to ensure that it would, but was not sure if the bullet hit home. “You have the right to remain silent,” Janine was going through her Miranda rights as though Jo didn’t already know them by heart. As though years and years of reciting them herself could be erased from her mind by anything short of death.

                “I don’t know what the hell that was, but you are going down for it. You can’t just shoot a man.” Janine had never been a beat cop. She had gone straight from college to Quantico, to carrying a badge and a gun. She was extensively trained in the rules of conduct. One of those rules was that you gave all suspects a chance to surrender unless it was a case of life or death. The man on the ground had not even looked Jo’s way.

                There was no blood that Jo could see. The man even seemed to be recovering from his wounds. Jo understood too late to warn Janine that he was wearing a vest.

              Harvey struck fast when the female officer bent down to check him. He stuck her deep and would have twisted it insuring her death if the hand cuffed woman had not thrown herself on top of him. Her hands were bound behind her back, but she rolled clear of him and made her way to her feet. Before Harvey could get clear of the woman that he stabbed the other one kicked him in the face with enough force to knock him on his ass.  He got up and wrenched his knife out of the woman on the ground.

              “You’re going to pay for that bitch.”  Harvey was already planning the ways he would cut the hand cuffed woman up. He loved to play with women and knives.

              “No, you’re going to pay.”  Despite her hand cuffs the woman was not backing down. She had assumed a fighting stance as though she had a chance which gave Harvey pause. Her kicks were not fumbling or desperate. They had been precise and expertly delivered. His head rang from the blow to the face and he could feel that more than a couple of his teeth were loose in their sockets. She was a trained fighter and a danger even in cuffs. It was a fact that only made her more of an interesting challenge to Harvey. He began to plan his attack. He took several test swings at the woman which she dodged easily and earned a solid kick to the ribs for his trouble. The vest absorbed most of the blow, but he could still feel it when he drew breath. On his third strike he caught her off balance and sliced her across her cheek drawing a line of blood a mere half an inch below her eye. This earned a smile from Harvey. He had succeeded in nearly blinding her. Their fray had been going on just over a minute and had had already found his advantage. On his next attack he pretended to go for her other eye and she kicked for the knee closest to her, but he threw himself bodily into her and brought them both to the ground. He rolled on top of her crushing her handcuffed wrist between her body and the asphalt. He raised his knife to deliver the killing blow with a smile on his lips. A bullet hit Harvey in the arm, he didn’t try to find out where it came from. He rolled off of Jo, got to his feet and took off running. He had forgotten for a moment that he had brought only a knife to a gun fight.

              Janine rolled on to her side to try to squeeze off another shot at the man, but he rounded the corner and was gone. She could taste blood in the back of her throat. Her hands let go of the gun and she gripped the hole that had been opened in her upper abdomen certain that her attacker had grazed a lung. Jo knelt down next to her.

              “Hang in there, kid, I can hear the ambulance already, you’re going to be fine.” Jo assured her. “You’ve got to let me out these cuffs, in case he comes back.” Jo turned her back to Janine and sat down on the ground to give the wounded woman a chance. “I know it hurts, but you’ve got to try.”

              Rachel loathed leaving Sam alone, but she had heard a shot and could see Janine on the ground. She had no idea of what had happened to Harvey. “I will be right back sweet heart. You won’t even know that I’m gone.”  Rachel hated that her words were true. 

              “What the hell happened?” Rachel knelt beside Janine and tried to staunch the flow of blood that was pooling around her. Janine was losing consciousness quickly. 

              “Un-cuff me so that I can help. The keys are on her belt somewhere. Try that little pocket on her left.” Jo feared that the man would simply take a lap around the building and come back to kill them all. Worst yet he could simply run to a nearby car and get a gun to come and finish them all off. Rachel Un-cuffed Jo even though her hands were slick with blood and she dropped the keys several times in the process. 

              Jo checked Janine’s pulse and began CPR. “Please. Please Goddon’t let her die!”  She gave her mouth to mouth and checked her pulse again. “Keep holding pressure on it.  Just don’t let it go.” She told Rachel who was trying to staunch the blood flow. Outwardly Jo seemed calm and in control of the situation inside of her head she was panicking. She made herself focus on the task at hand, “One two three, breath, damn you breath.”  Janine showed no response. Jo also kept an eye out for the perp to return. “Damn you, you by the book fucker!” Jo growled at Janine whom she rolled on to her side so that she could void the blood that was pooling in her lung.

              The ambulance sped into the parking lot to the front of the building. “Go get them and tell them to get their asses back here now.” Jo ordered. Rachel didn’t hesitate. She was up and running like she had never run before. She was determined not to let Janine die. 

              “Over here. Their back here!” She yelled at the ambulance drivers who were arguing with the door man whom had refused to let them in. They quickly followed her to the back of the building leaving the door man to complain about trespassing to the empty air.

              “Mam, you need to back up and give us some space. What happened here?” One of the EMTs was on his knees opening a giant orange tool box. The other had gone back to get a stretcher after Jo told them she was a trained EMT herself and could assist.

              “Single stab wound to the abdomen, maybe six inches deep. She lost consciousness less than a minute after that. He meant to kill her.” Jo didn’t take the latex gloves the EMT proffered to her. She kept applying pressure while Rachel looked on helpless. 
              “Why did he try to kill her?” The EMT asked questions as he worked. He knew that even though it wouldn’t help, it was best to keep all of the persons involved talking. It kept them from losing their heads. It also helped him to give the police details of what was done and said so that they would not waste his time later grilling him with questions that he didn’t know the answers to.

              “This is Agent Janine something or another I forget, and I am detective Josephine Cobb. He is a suspect in a murder case. I shot him, he went down, but he was wearing a vest. When she went to check him he stabbed her and ran. She shot him once in the arm.” Jo decided it was best to leave out the part where she was hand cuffed.

              “I see.” The EMT said. He then gave instructions for the police to come to the back of the building, and that one of their own was down into his radio. The ambulance pulled up beside them and they loaded Janine in. “Your friend needs surgery and a blood transfusion. If we don’t go now she dies. You two can wait for the cops.”

              “Call another ambulance. Our friend, she’s in the dumpster, she seems like she might be hurt pretty badly.” Jo added not really wanting the cops to get a hold of Sam just yet. At least one of the cops were still crooked and one was enough to quietly kill someone at a crime scene and make it look as though their injuries had simply gotten the better of them. Sam needed medical help in the worst way though, so they had to take that risk. The ambulance driver nodded as he shut the door. Jo ran to the dumpster to check on Sam.

              Sam had to fight to keep her eyes open. They seemed so heavy and nothing made any sense at all. She heard a scream and then a gun shot. Someone had been there with her, but they had gone. An overwhelming stench filled her sinuses and made her want to vomit. “She’s awake!” an excited voice told someone. Sam wanted to tell the voice not really, but her mouth was too dry to form words. Her head ached more than she imagined possible. All over her body she could feel a sort of swelling pain. 

              “If she’s okay enough to move then we are getting her out of here. It’s best if she doesn’t go to the hospital, someone is still trying to kill her and she will be a sitting duck at the hospital.” Another voice told the first. Sam tried to focus on them, but her vision swam and made her even more nauseas. She closed her eyes against the swirling images.

              “There is no way to tell if she has internal bleeding or not, but I don’t think that any of her bones are broken.” Jo checked Sam over quickly. “Well maybe these two ribs on the right side are broken.” They had mere minutes before the police arrived and they would all be taken into custody. To the best of her knowledge Sam simply had a concussion, for which they could do nothing at the hospital.

“Rachel, you have to call this one. We can wait for the ambulance, or we can run.  Running is our best bet, but Sam might be hurt somewhere that I can’t tell. I’m no doctor.” Jo looked to Rachel to make a decision.

              Rachel didn’t have to think about it. They had to run. She couldn’t bare the thought of Sam lying unconscious in a hospital bed somewhere while some monster of a human being held a pillow over her face. “Can we take her to another hospital and tell them that her name is something else?” 

              “We don’t have to tell them a name. We can say we found her like this. They’ll check her out for us.” Jo was surprised by how quickly Rachel thought. It had not even occurred to Jo to shoot across town where no one was looking for them and check Sam into an ER as a Jane Doe. “County. We’ll take her to County General and check her in as a Jane Doe and give them my badge number. They won’t call the cops with a cop on the scene already. Alright, we have to carry her as smoothly as possible to the car and get the hell out of here.” 

              Rachel took Sam’s feet and Jo took her torso. She weighed next to nothing so moving her was an easy process that took only a few minutes. They had her lying down in the back seat and were driving out of the parking lot when a bullet came through the open window and lodged it’s self into Jo’s chest.             

              Rachel didn’t hesitate to return fire on Jack Squire who came out of the building’s front door with his gun blazing. He was two hundred yards away, and Rachel missed every round she fired at him as Jo Pulled the car into the street and sped away. He fired at them again and again not getting as lucky as he had been on his first shot. He shattered some of the windows and put a few holes in the doors but didn’t hit any of the women inside.

              Jo tried not to cough knowing that it would only make her injury worst. She could feel her lung filling with blood. It had been no lucky shot. He had missed her heart by mere inches. Her abdominal muscles started to contract causing her to jerk uncontrollably. 

              “Stop the car!”  Rachel grabbed at the wheel of the car which had begun to swerve dangerously back and forth across the road. Jo’s heavy foot was crushing the accelerator to the floor, and she seemed not to hear her passenger as seizures gripped her body. She could feel herself going cold as shock set in. Where there had been fire and pressure ice formed in her chest chasing out every other sensation. It took everything that she had left to force her boot off of the accelerator. After that her world simply went black. 

              Rachel managed to get the car stopped and pull Jo into the passenger seat just enough to give her room to drive. They could no longer afford to go to another hospital or Jo was going to die. Cops and ambulances sped by them going the other way, Rachel thought about flagging them down and telling them that she had an officer shot and bleeding to death in her front seat. They could treat Jo, and Rachel could drive to another hospital with Sam.              

              Harvey couldn’t believe his luck. There was Rachel Burn getting into the driver side of a red nine eight. He could just see the cops head slouched over the seat and he had no doubt that the woman he truly hunted was in the back seat. His arm bled fiercely and ached so badly that it blurred his vision when he jostled it too much, but he bolted for them anyway. There was no amount of pain that could stop him.

              He caught Rachel by the hair just as she put the car back into drive. He yanked with everything that he had but couldn’t pull her out of the car window. She pulled away from him leaving behind a fist full of her hair and torn scalp and reached for a gun in the passenger seat. He opened the car door and dragged her out by the sweat shirt she was wearing just as her fingers brushed Janine’s twenty two pistol.

              Jack squire saw the car swerve away and come to a stop a few blocks down. The ambulance and police were already in the parking lot of his building piling out of their cars. Some of them ran for the front doors, while others ran around back. “Have you seen any one hurt around here?” One cop stopped to ask him. The man looked to be in his forties and still wearing the blue uniform that said he would never get his detective’s shield.

              “Something happened in the back. An ambulance just left. I don’t know what it was though. I think I heard a gunshot.” Jack had tucked his own gun into his coat pocket.  The cop warned him not to go far, they would need a statement, and made a dash for the back of the building. Squire promised not to and in the confusion made his way to the street. To his surprise the nine eight had come to an uncontrolled crawl as it’s driver fought Harvey like a mad dog in the street.

              The man made the mistake of putting his hand in Rachel’s face and for that she took a finger. The taste of his blood nearly gagged her, but she kept swinging her fist at him as he screamed in pain. She spat the finger out and punched him again. She had never hit anyone before that she could remember, but it felt good. She was done letting these guys chase her around and torment her. She had no doubt that this was the man who shot the windows out of her condo and the man who forced Sam to jump down a garbage shoot.  

              Harvey stumbled away from Rachel off balance, in pain and shocked by her attack on him. She didn’t let up even for a second. When his clumsy feet carried him out of reach of her fist she kicked him in the groin for all she was worth. He doubled over and she brought her knee up to meet his chin. She saw that his arm was bleeding and she struck there as well. Rachel thought that she had him, but he came out with the knife and left a shallow cut across her stomach when she didn’t jump back quick enough.

              Jack Squire thought for a moment that Harvey was a dead man. Rachel’s attack on him was as brutal as it was relentless. He had always known that bitch was a killer at heart. Like a proud savage she had severed Harvey’s finger with her teeth and spit it back him. Jack ran as quickly as he could toward them not wanting to miss even a moment of the fray. Jack wanted to see Rachel kill Harvey and then he wanted to see the look on her face when he killed her. 

              Jack was a big man and it took him some time to reach the combatants. When he did Rachel’s chin was covered in blood and she looked every bit the wild beast. Harvey was using a buck knife to keep her at bay. He swung and missed twice. Adrenalin made the woman quick and she had the sense that most men lacked in a good fight. She knew when she was beat and backed off. Harvey clutched his bleeding hand to his chest and backed away as well. His shot arm barely allowed him to hold the knife, and his missing finger was too painful to try to switch hands. She was just waiting for her chance to finish him off and with the amount of blood he was losing her chance would come too quickly if he didn’t get away from her.

              “I always knew you were blood thirsty.” Jack Squire held the gun to Rachel’s head smiling at his own bad pun. Now he had the bitch right where he wanted her. She had not heard his approach. She had focused all of her attention on Harvey thinking that he was just playing possum and that he would renew his attack at any moment. 

              “I didn’t take your goddamn files you ass!” Rachel turned to sneer at him. She wanted to bite his face off and spit it at him. Squire looked at her confused. “I never even knew that you had them.” Rachel panted from the exertion of her fight with Harvey. Long years of drinking hadn’t left her in the best shape. She could barely stand up straight. “You know Janine? My Assistant? Well she works for the FBI and she took them. You were long fucked before you ever hired that idiot to kill me. By the way she was going to arrest me too you bastard!”

              “You’re lying.” Jack’s mind swam. He thought of the day that his files went missing. Rachel had been in her office on the phone, but Janine had been running errands all over the building. It would be nothing for her to walk into his office, grab the files and walk back out. No one, including himself would have ever suspected her. No one would even have questioned her. It was her job after all. He jabbed Rachel in the head with his gun not wanting to believe what he knew to be true. “You are fucking lying!” He wanted it to be Rachel who had taken his files, because she was in front of him and at his mercy. Janine was gone to God knew where. 

              “I’m not and you know it. If you would have just stopped to think for a moment about what you were doing then you would have known. Instead you chose to blame me because I’m better at the job than you will ever be.” Rachel was goading Jack on purpose.  Even now she could see uniformed officers approaching over his shoulder. She only had to keep his attention for a moment longer and they would have him in cuffs.

              “Shoot that bitch! Shoot her.” Harvey had backed into one of the many cars lining the street and begun to sink to the ground. He was gibbering now. The bullet that hit his arm had nicked a major artery and he was now slowly bleeding to death. He could see his life flashing before his eyes. In every scene he was taking care of Bill. Now he would never have to take care of Bill again. “Kill her Jack,” he begged, “bitch took my finger. Took my woman.”  He held up his left hand to show Jack his missing digit oozing blood, but Jack wasn’t looking at him. Sam was. Harvey smiled at her. Sam didn’t smile back.

              Sam understood what was going on. Her head pounded, but she understood. Everything was difficult to focus on, but she understood. Sam also saw the gun to Rachel’s head, and the cops creeping up behind Jack. In the front seat Jo was making gurgling noises as she fought for breath. Blood had run out of her mouth and down the front of her shirt. Next to her there had been a gun. Sam had taken the gun, cocked it and was waiting for an opening.

              “Drop it! Drop it right now!” The forty something cop yelled at Jack. Jack deftly stepped behind Rachel keeping the gun to her head. He wrapped a meaty fist around her neck and squeezed. “I said drop it! There’s no need for this to get any uglier than it already is.” Rachel saw two cops grab Harvey and drag him away from the potential gun fight. She wanted to warn them that he was dangerous, but Jack was choking her for all that he was worth. Whether or not he made it out of the situation he had every intention of making sure that she didn‘t.

              The nine eight, unpiloted crashed into a car maybe a dozen feet away and came to a stop. Sam crept out of the back seat with the gun concealed in her shirt. She found that she had to limp to get anywhere and as quietly as possible made her way back to Jack and Rachel. Some of the cops eyed her and others tried to discreetly wave her away but she kept going until she stood maybe three feet behind Jack.

              “You get me what I want or I’ll waste this bitch.”  Jack didn’t really have any demands. He wasn’t some bad guy out of the movies with a plan or delusions of grandeur. He was an embezzler. He was a white collar greedy son of a bitch that had planned badly. He was no worse than the guys from Enron. He was a man in the throes of panic. He had never intended on taking hostages, or killing anyone. All he wanted was to skip the country and not pay alimony or child support any more. Was that too much to ask? Rachel Burn had ruined that dream and now she was toast. 

              Jack started to pull the trigger, but Sam pulled hers first and for the second time that day Rachel felt another person’s blood running down her face. She truly disliked the sensation. Sam dropped the gun as the cops yelled at her to do.

              “Detective Jo Cobb is in the front seat of that car. She’s shot in the chest.”  Rachel told the cops as she pulled Sam into her arms. Sam winced at the pressure on her bruised flesh, but didn’t pull away. She buried her face in Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel cried as she kissed Sam’s head over and over and over again. An officer came and picked up the gun that lay at their feet.

XI

              “She’s going to make it.” The doctor that stepped into the room was the same man who had been talking to Jo about Frank only the day before. Sam and Rachel lay curled together in Sam’s hospital bed unwilling to be separated. Rachel also had Jo’s pistol tucked discreetly into the waist band of the scrubs that the hospital had lent her. Sam was out, dosed with sedatives and pain pills to keep her from aggravating her internal injuries and broken ribs that she had sustained in her nearly thirty floor plummet.

              “Who’s going to make it?” Rachel asked groggily as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Which one of them is going to make it? Jo Cobb Or Janine Colt or Frank Small?” 

              “Janine Colt. She will be just fine. She’ll have to stay here for a week or two while she heals, but she’s going to be fine. The other two officers are still touch and go at this point. She’s awake if you want to see her. She asked about you.” The doctor dutifully checked Sam’s vitals, updated her chart and began to leave the room.

              “Hey Doc., could you stay with her for just a minute while I run over and see Janine?” Rachel loathed the idea of leaving Sam alone, unconscious and defenseless, but she wanted to see Janine for herself, if only for a moment. The doctor agreed to lock himself in the room with Sam until she came back.

              The uniform that sat outside of Sam’s door nodded to Rachel as she walked out.  “No one goes in. You got it?” She told the man. He straightened up and saluted her sharply as she passed. She guessed that he had no idea of who she was or why she dared to speak to him in such a manner. She kept walking to the room number the doctor had given her.

              “You are the last person I would ever have expected to see at my bedside at my bedside two days ago. The very last.”  Janine teased as Rachel entered the room. Janine was pale and hooked up to a half dozen machines that were spitting out information about her vitals every few seconds. An IV ran blood and antibiotics into her arm. She wore the standard backless hospital gown. Her face was dominated by a drug induced grin. “I also never thought that I would be happy to see you.”

              “Well it’s a good thing that I don’t pay you to think.” Rachel took Janine’s hand in her own and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you for everything, and I’m sorry that I was such a monster to you, if there is any way that I can ever make it up to you, you just let me know.” Rachel kissed Janine’s hand and set it back down on the bed spread.

              “Anything?” Janine smiled up at her. Rachel nodded. “They got me eating chicken broth. You could sneak me a cheese burger with fries. I don’t even care if you get it from the cafeteria down stairs.” Four days had passed since Sam had blown Jack Squire away. Janine had been touch and go the entire time. Neither Jo nor Frank had regained consciousness even for a minute. It did not look good for either of them.

              Frank had suffered extensive nerve and brain damage, while Jo had suffered enough blood loss that she had died on the operating table and had to be revived.

              “I’ve been living off of that food so trust me when I say that you’re better off eating the broth. When I go out I will be more than happy to get you anything that your little heart desires. Though, if I were you I would start with Ice Cream.” Rachel said and then kissed the hand that was slowly going limp in her own. Janine smiled weakly at the thought of ice cream and fell into a pain killer induced sleep and dreamed of fudge sundaes.

              When Rachel returned to Sam’s room the Doctor was catching up on his paper work and Sam was awake. “Remember what I told you, take it easy, or we’ll have to put you back on the tranquilizers a while longer.” He gave Rachel a smile and left the room.

              “Hey stranger.” Sam Smiled at Rachel. “Where did you get yourself off to?”

              “Janine is awake and I thought I would go and thank her for her help.” Rachel offered Sam a cup of iced water which she took.

              “Who is she again?” Sam crunched the ice loudly not daring to believe how good it tasted.

              “You met her in a coffee shop, and she led you to me.” Rachel recounted what she knew of the last few days to Sam leaving out most of the gory details.

              “And we’re still alive. Wow. It seems like some bad dream that I was having. The whole thing at the cabin, Harvey and Bill snatching me, Harvey stabbing Bill. It’s all too insane to be reality, and yet it is.” Sam laughed at her own disbelief. Not only had it all happened, but at least three people were dead and four people were in the hospital to prove it. 

              “Well at least it’s over.” Rachel took the empty cup from Sam and set it on the bedside table.

              “Now why did you have to go and say that?” Sam demanded in mock anger.

              “Say what?”  Rachel laughed glad to see Sam was feeling good enough to make jokes.

              “Every time someone in a movie says it’s over, it’s never over. Some forgotten bad guy shows up and all of the killing starts again.” They both had a good long laugh at that one.

              “Well it’s a good thing we are not in a movie.” Rachel told her as she climbed back into bed.

VIII

              Darryl groaned against his restraints barely conscious, and already in pain. He had done everything within his power to mislead Paul. He had driven out of the city to random locations, trying to lure the man in close enough to kill him. He had gone to random apartment complexes, malls, neighborhoods and buildings. He had even driven to a forest preserve and pretended to take a leisurely stroll amongst the snow frosted trees.

              All the while Paul had kept his distance and bided his time. He was careful not to give Darryl an opening or any chance to take a shot at him. He was sure that Darryl was armed and just as he was sure that Darryl had been on to him for some time. Darryl had started to behave strangely, visiting places he would have normally avoided. He never once went anywhere near his daughter. Darryl even sent his wife away on a trip that required dropping her off at the airport. Paul was done being fooled with. So Paul pulled abreast of Darryl Burn and looked the man in the eye before driving away calmly. Darryl’s games of cat and mouse had reached a definite end.

Paul made trip back to his own house where his wife, Carol had dinner waiting. He told her that he had no time to sit down and eat so she dutifully made him a lunch to take with him. The house was spotless as usual. His children were fed, and doing their school work. He greeted them and talked to them about their day at school. He gave them each a hard candy for being such good boys and girls. He hugged them and kissed them and told them to mind their mother while he was gone. He did not tell them that he was not coming back.

              Paul’s trip home was not been to see his family. They were just something that he as a man had been instructed by Godto do. The good lord had said go forth and multiply and so he had. He had gone home to retrieve his cattle prod so that he might deal with Darryl Burn properly. 

              “So I bet you think you’re the smartest wolf in all of the land.”  Paul had been waiting for Darryl to come to. The man had gone down like a wet towel when Paul hit him with the cattle prod. Paul had caught Darryl off guard as he attempted to get out of his car and juggle his cell phone and brief case at the same time. Darryl had been offering someone thousands just to return his phone call and telling that person or their voicemail that Rachel was in danger. Paul had no trouble creeping up behind him and jamming the cattle prod into his exposed neck. Moments later Paul had stuffed Darryl into the back seat of his own car and driven away. No one on the busy street had even noticed his blitz attack.

              Darryl’s dazed mind did not fail to make the connection between Paul’s calling him a wolf and the biblical references to a wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Well I fooled all of you. It didn’t really take much if you think about it.” Darryl winced as Paul swung the cattle prod his way, but didn’t make contact. The tip of the thing crackled in the open air as it whirled by Darryl’s face. “All I really had to do was pretend that I hated women and loved God. Neither of those is true by the way. I love women and don’t mind the Godthing.” He was trying to goad Paul into killing him quickly. He didn’t have any information that he could give Paul under torture, but he preferred to avoid torture all together.

              “Not me, Darryl. All of the long while you fooled them, I had an angel to guide me on all of the evils that you would perpetrate.” Paul smiled at the angel who stood quietly in the corner watching him with approving eyes, and a calm smile. Paul smiled back. The angel glowed slightly brighter at him. Its skin made Paul think of hair gel. Glowing blue hair gel, devoid of the imperfections and bubbles that one finds in bottles of hair jell. It was a gel angel, perfect and smooth sent from the lord to be his guide. Paul had always wanted to touch the angel, to feel its cool wet surface, but he had never dared that kind of intrusion upon it.

              The angel had spoken to him for the first time the morning that he had stopped following Darryl. It had told him of his mother, she was an old whore who washed her genitals in the sink between clients. It also told him of his father, a confessed man of Godwho preached by day and sinned by night. Paul’s father had often visited Paul in his mother’s little shack, bringing them food and gifts and the word of the lord. 

              Later, when his mother passed, his father took him to live in a great white house on a large hill overlooking a beautiful lake. The lady of that house had no children of her own and hated Paul. She knew what he was, his father’s bastard from one of his whores.  She would later tell Paul, after she beat him viciously, that the women like his mother were the reason that she didn’t have children. They had given his father a disease that he passed to her and left her barren. 

              The lady would beat and Paul and drink while his father stayed away for days at a time making money from selling cars and holding church revivals. It was while his father was away that the angel first appeared to Paul. He had not eaten in days, the lady was punishing him again, and the angel appeared to him. He got down on his knees and prayed to it for hours. When he was done the lady brought him food. The more he prayed to the angel the better the lady treated him until one day she just began to ignore the fact that his existed at all. Eventually she developed cancer in her lungs and died shortly afterward. Paul liked to remember her there in the big picture window overlooking the lake with a cigarette pressed between her lips and her eyes focused on happier days that had passed her by.

              “Paul,” the angel said in his father‘s voice, “I have shown you the ways of wicked men. I have shown you the light of heaven. I have shown you all things great and small, and I have promised to take you home.” Paul nodded at the angel not daring to believe that his dream of heaven was about to come true. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Now you must show me that you are worthy. Show me that you can step out of your father’s shadow and eliminate this false profit. You must wipe his demon seed from creation. Send this devil who calls himself Darryl to hell. Do these last few things and you shall be rewarded.” Paul had waited all of his life for the angel to speak to him and now it had. 

              Darryl watched his captor closely. The man seemed to be receiving instruction from a corner of the basement where Darryl now lay bound to a large wooden X. In the corner Darryl saw nothing but a pile of chains covered in dust on the floor, but Paul deferred to it often as he went about checking his tools and searching the grey utility cabinets for the other things that he might need. The man looked as though he had been up for days. Darryl had never had the chance to witness someone in the throes of a psychotic break, but he was sure that Paul was in one now.

              “Where are we?” Darryl asked. The room looked like a display he had seen in museum once. There was old blood splattered on the floor and walls. Knives hung on the walls like family portraits, and a car battery charger sat plugged in and waiting. The display had been on the art of medieval torture and except for the battery charger everything fit. Even Paul with his wide wild blue eyes and perfectly combed hair looked as though he belonged to part of the exhibit that Darryl had seen.

              “We are in Michael’s basement. You know, the man you sent to his death against that demon you spawned.” Paul was beyond believing that Rachel Burn was merely a woman prone to the devil’s ways. She was a devil herself, sent from hell to mislead and destroy the righteous people of the world. Certainly Satan himself had charged the Burn woman with the task of destroying the race of man. Paul wheeled the Battery Charger over to Darryl and attached the terminal clamps to his nipples. Darryl winced as tiny red droplets appeared around the area where the clamps tore his tender flesh.

              “That’s what I figured. Well go ahead and kill me because I don‘t know where Rachel is. I don’t know where Sam is, and there is nothing that I can tell you that’s going to help you carry out your psychotic mission from whom ever you have been addressing in that corner.” Darryl did not want to die. He wanted to teach children to fish in Florida. He wanted to walk on the beach and fall in love with a woman for the first time. He also knew what he had done, and he believed that Godwas watching. In his time he had been a very bad man. In his time he had lied, cheated, stolen and killed. He had betrayed his family, nearly cost his daughter her life, and had taken a wife that he did not, nor had he ever, loved. He had always known that someday he would pay for his sins in blood. At least he knew that his daughter was away from this raving lunatic.

              “I don’t need you to tell me where that satanic whore is.” Paul adjusted the knobs on the battery charger to allow them to administer the highest possible voltage into Darryl Burn’s body without killing him too quickly. “I don’t need you to tell me anything.” He checked to make sure that the clamps were attached solidly to Darryl’s chest by giving each a painful tug. “Nothing at all. You see I got that cop’s phone number off of your cell phone. I’ve been tracking the GPS chip in her phone since I snatched you off of the street. Wherever she is they are. Even if they aren’t with her, she’ll tell me where they are. All I have to do is go to the hospital and ask her the right way. Paul flipped on the switch sending electricity racing through Darryl’s body. Darryl tried to scream, but his jaw wouldn’t unlock. His fist clenched hard enough for his manicured fingernails to dig deep gouges in the palms of his hand. His back arched against his restraints as though his body were trying to snap his spine. Through the tears in his eyes he could see Paul making his way up a set of stairs. He looked to be humming something. Darryl’s skin began to burn.

              Jo awakened to find that she was not alone. It was like surfacing out of a black lake. She fought and fought, but no matter how she swam for the top it seemed she would never breach the surface. Sometimes she floated in the lake and didn’t fight at all. She floated in peace of oblivion as though there had never been anything else. Sometimes she felt like letting go and sinking into oblivion for she knew that beyond the surface of the black lake lay her life in shambles. Stacey was going to die. Frank was going to die. She would never be a cop again. She had lost everything so sinking felt like the better option than waking to her life. Then light crept in beneath her eyelids and she knew that the surface was at hand.

              “There you are.” Jo barely heard the words spoken. She could feel warm breath against her ear and then cool lips against her Cheek. Her eyes were open but they didn’t to give her a clear picture of the world around her. “I was afraid that, well, that you might never wake up.” 

              Stacey. It was Stacey who spoke to her so soothingly. Jo fought harder for the surface and was rewarded to find that she was in a dimly lit room with the woman she loved holding her hand. “Hi.” was all that she could manage and a weak smile. She could feel a dull ache somewhere in her body.

              Stacey kissed her cheek again leaving her tears behind. “I was so scared that you would die on me, and I was so mad at you for it. Then I got to thinking that this is what I put you through every day.” Stacey spoke softly and cried openly. Jo could see from where she lay that Stacey was hooked to an IV and wearing standard hospital dress.

              “Well you finally got me into those matching pajamas that you’ve always wanted.” Jo squeezed Stacey’s hand as tightly as she could which left her just barely hanging on. “You don’t put me through anything that I wouldn’t pay to do twice. You’re worth every moment. Still I’m sorry about the gun shot hole. I was wearing your favorite shirt.” It was too much. They both broke down in tears pressing their foreheads together, connecting on a new level and happier to be together than they could ever remember.

              Jo got herself under control enough to ask, “Did you start the new treatment? Is it working?” 

              “Yes. I started the new treatment. You don’t worry about whether it’s working or not, I’m going to be around long enough to make sure that you don’t get shot ever again.  You’re done being a cop, Jo Cobb, and that’s just the end of it. I won’t hear anything else about it!” Stacey stuck her fingers in her ears.

              “Well I did get fired. Have you heard anything about Frank?” Jo had forgotten all about Frank, now her guilt came creeping back into her mind.

              “Well the doctors say that his first four surgeries went fine, and that as long as he responds the antibiotics then he should be fine. They won’t guarantee anything, but they gave him a real fighting chance at making it. Of course they don’t think that they can fix his face. I’m sorry that something like that happened to such a great guy. What kind of monster would do that to a man?”

              Harvey begged and pleaded for them not too hand cuff both of his arms to the bed. He told them that his right arm hurt too much to let them cuff it to the bed. “At least cuff it up, so I don’t have to straighten it out,” he had whined at them. Harvey had no way to hide the fact that he was a sociopath. His eyes gave him away every time. They were empty and cold like the eyes of the dead. If his life had been a zombie movie Harvey was sure that he would be no hero, but instead he would be the ground zero zombie that brought about the apocalypse. However when he whined at people and pretended to be weak, they took mercy on him. Or they called it taking mercy on him. Harvey called it being gullible and just plain stupid. Of course it was in their nature to be kind and to be caring and there was nothing that they could do to fight their nature.

              The cops, in their infinite mercy cuffed his arm higher up on the bed frame close to his head where he could roll over and use his mouth to pull the IV needle out of his arm. Of course it hurt like hell, but in Harvey’s life a lot of things had hurt a lot worse. He then used the IV needle in his mouth to pick the lock on hand cuffs that bound him. It was a lot of work. Twice he had dropped the needle and had to pin it between himself and the guardrail to stop it from dropping to the floor. Other times he had had to spit the needle onto his pillow and lay his head on it when the officer that was supposed to be guarding him looked into his room to check on him.   

              Harvey had persevered for hours trying to pick the lock on his cuffs and just as he was about to give up, he heard that telltale click and he was free. He quickly picked the lock on his other cuff and called for the officer in the hall way.

              “What the hell is the matter with you?” The cop demanded not particularly happy to be pulled away from his 3:00 am nap. He was an older guy that reminded Harvey of everyone else’s grandfather. He had brown eyes, an ample waist, and chocolate skin. Everyone that the cop had talked to had really liked the guy. He had even tried to make a few jokes for Harvey’s sake since there was no TV in the room. All in all, the cop seemed like a really good guy. Harvey really hated really good guys.

              “It hurts, it hurts so bad, hit that button and call the nurse.” Harvey squirmed holding his wrists beneath the open cuffs to make it look as though he were still bound. “I think something burst!” he added when he saw the cop hesitate at the door way and looking as though he might turn away. Harvey cursed him silently for a second, but the man dutifully rushed for the button on the wall behind Harvey’s head. As he leaned over Harvey, who stopped writhing reached up with both hands and, despite his missing finger and the hole in his arm, snapped the officer’s neck with ease. Harvey smiled as the man hit the ground with the satisfying thud that told Harvey that he was a corps. His right foot twitching even after death had claimed him. Harvey climbed out of the bed and stomped his head until the foot stopped twitching for good measure. 

              Nurse Milford did not like the way the police treated the man whom they had brought in four nights ago. They had insisted on handcuffing both of his arms despite the fact that he was shot in one and someone had bitten the finger off of another. He begged them to handcuff his arm up so that it would not be straight. The police had not wanted to do it, clamming that he was a danger, but she had made them do it anyway. She knew she made a mistake when she walked into the room to find officer Williams dead on the floor and her patient gone from his bed. 

              Harvey saw the nurse that had been so kind to him. She knew what he was, of course. The police told her all about how he had killed his own brother and tried to kill a woman, and that he was suspected of killing many more. They told her that he was a hired gun and that there was no way that they could begin to take a guess at the numbers of bodies that could be attributed to him. Harvey had listened, chained to his bed and drugged as the police informed her of all of the horrors that they had perpetrated on one of their detectives and she had still demanded that they make him comfortable. Nurse Milford had fought for Harvey like a champion. She had gotten him the best possible care that the hospital had to offer and it was what she did for all of her patients. Another man, a better man, would have hid until nurse Milford left to sound the alarm and then made a run for it. Harvey wasn’t a better man. 

              He wasn’t really a man at all. He was a monster who stepped out of the small closet while Nurse Milford knelt to check for a pulse on the fallen officer. He took a hypodermic needle full of air and shoved it into her neck. He clamped a hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. Harvey was forced to lift the woman off of the ground she went so wild after he grabbed her. She fought him as hard as she could, but she knew that as soon as the plunger went down that there was nothing that could save her. Tears rolled over Harvey’s hand as nurse Milford’s heart exploded from that bubble of air that Harvey had pushed into her veins.

              Sam was still a light sleeper despite the drugs. She opened her eyes when she heard something fall in a nearby room. The hospital was quiet at night. All that could be heard over the soft whirr and beeps of the machines that monitored their patients was the soft foot falls of the nurses as they made their rounds. Whatever had fallen had been completely out of place. It had been heavy for one, and no other sounds came after it.

              If a person had fallen certainly they would make noise as they got to their feet. If they had rolled out of bed there should have at least been one startled cry as they regained consciousness when they hit the floor. If a patient collapsed you would hear the sound of the medical staff running to their aid. No more sounds came after the thud. 

              Sam counted in the dark using Rachel’s rhythmic breathing to keep time. After three minutes she heard a nurse walking then, another thud, and again nothing. Silence had always scared Sam. Even as a child when the noises of the world went away Sam instinctively knew that something was wrong. The world was a noisy place and even in nature complete silence marked the approach of something dangerous. Despite all of the beeps and the whirrs Sam felt as though she was walking in a forest full of animals that had suddenly gone dead silent.             

              Slipping out of bed was not easy. Her body ached from her thirty floor plummet into a garbage bin, and Rachel held her tightly and slept deeply, but she freed herself from the covers and her lover and slipped her feet to the cold sterile floor. Her stocking foot-falls sounded like thunder to her ears as she made her way to the blinds that gave the hospital room privacy from the prying eyes that walked the halls. She knew better than to touch them, it would be a dead giveaway to anyone on the other side that she was there watching. Instead she put her eyes close to the holes where the string that held them together went and peered out into the hall.

              At first all she could make out was the nurse’s station, her long golden eyelashes prevented her from getting too close, then she could make out the chair where an officer was supposed to be guarding their room. When she saw Harvey making his way past her, his back side open to the air, she was glad that the cop had taken off. If he had been there then Harvey would have known right away that someone of interest was in the room, and he would have come to kill them after he killed the cop.

              The doctors warned Sam that she couldn’t take any physical duress. Several of her internal organs had suffered damage and were bleeding as a result. If she were hit in the right spot no matter how lightly she would most likely die of internal bleeding. They told her to be especially careful of her abdomen and lower back. Sam definitely wasn’t looking to get into a fight with Harvey.

              Rachel came awake when Sam put a hand over her mouth. She had awakened when Sam had crawled out of the bed, but assumed she was going to the restroom so she had gone back to sleep. Her heart jumped into her throat when she felt Sam’s fingers on her lips. Sam shook her head not daring any words at all. She pointed and Rachel’s eyes followed her to the door.  She mouthed the word “Harvey.” Rachel understood. The nightmare man was loose again.

              Sam had done her best to tell the police how dangerous and deranged that man was. They all laughed at her. After all, Rachel beat him in a fight, how dangerous could he be? Then Rachel had explained about what he had done to Jo’s partner. The police promised to take care of him. Sam had demanded to know why he wasn’t in a prison hospital, and they gave her the old song and dance about him having to go to trial and be convicted first and having a right to medical treatment.

              Rachel reached under the pillows where she had been keeping the gun when they slept. She checked the chamber and cocked it. Sam had warned them. Sam nodded her head. It was all that she could do.

              “Hey, there buddy.” Officer Brant was in the cafeteria purchasing coffee out of the machine. Brant had drunk his fair share of bad coffee in his life, but the stuff that came out of the hospital vending machine had to be the absolute worst. It tasted like goat piss but it wired you to the wall and at 4:05 am Brant needed something to keep him standing. He didn’t feel bad about leaving the two women unprotected, plus his partner, officer Williams, was only a few doors down guarding that psychopath who would only give his first name. No, the ward was quiet enough for him to slip up to the roof and have a quick smoke and take in the city sites.              

              “I was wondering if you could give me some help.” The man had startled him, and none of the few cafeteria workers that were there preparing breakfast had acknowledged him. He was about the average height with graying hair and bright blue eyes. He gave Brant a weak half-smile, and placed a hand on his shoulder. The man looked to be exhausted. “I’m Darryl Burn, and I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Rachel, and I flew all of the way from California as fast as I could, but no one here seems to be able to tell me what’s going on.”  

              The man seemed stressed and on the verge of tears, but Brant knew that rules were rules for a reason. “You got an ID? I can’t tell you anything till you can prove to me who you are.” The man handed Brant an ID, from which he read the name. It had a bad picture but the basic features were the same. The man standing before him was beardless, and the man in the picture had a beard, but they were close enough. “I can’t let you see her right now, but I assure you that she is just fine and actually not a patient here at the moment. I’ll give you the room number that she is in and you can come by in the morning.” 

              The officer patted Mr. Burn on the back and made his way to the elevator that would take him to the stairwell and the roof. He had a daughter of his own and understood what the man was going through, and those two women had been through hell in the last couple of days. Brant shook his head as the elevator doors opened. All of this mayhem and his superiors wouldn’t tell him what it was over.

              Paul took the stairs two at a time in an attempt to beat the cop onto the ward. He wasn’t Michael and had no intentions of killing innocent men who upheld the laws of man and god. He was here to kill two people, and only those two people. His angel glided smoothly up the stairs in front of him leading him to his destiny.   

              Once he reached the ward he had no problem finding the room number that cop had given him. The shades were drawn hiding his prey from him, but he knew that they would be there. His angel stood beside the door and his angel would never lead him astray. He tried the handle, the door was locked. For a moment he thought that someone had warned them, but then he saw the man in the hospital gown with the scalpel round the corner. He held the weapon in his bandaged hand and was grinning like a loon. 

              He smiled when he saw Paul. “Jack’s dead. No one to pay up for killing those two, better just leave them to me. I have a score to settle.” Harvey approached Paul slowly, his stocking feet silent on the cold tiles of the hall. He had no intentions of letting the man leave. This hospital was to be his final stand and he was going to take as many people down with him as he could.

              “Who’s Jack?” Paul asked not wanting the stranger to come any closer. He made Paul uneasy. Paul slipped his hand into his pocket as casually as he could and wrapped it around the handle of Darryl’s Lugar he switched off the safety and prayed that the man didn’t hear the click. 

              Harvey brandished the scalpel threateningly at Paul. “Who are you?” Harvey was, and had always been aware that Jack had hired other men to do the same job that he had hired Harvey to do. He had found a list of names that Jack kept and he and Bill managed to kill all of the men on that list. It didn’t surprise him to find another man’s whose name was excluded from the list.

              “Somebody who doesn’t work for Jack. I’m Darryl Burn.” Paul took a step away from the door and away from Harvey. He had no interest in fighting or shooting the man even though he was left with no doubt that he was evil. Even Paul’s angel steered clear of the man with the scalpel.

              “I didn’t really think that you did. I also know that you’re not Darryl Burn. I’ve seen Darryl Burn with my own two eyes and you ain’t him.” Harvey liked the way the man backed away from him. He liked the way it felt to know that someone was afraid of him. He could feel his heart beat picking up at the prospect of fighting and killing this man. It wouldn’t be like killing Bill and so many others who he had simply gotten the drop on. It would be nothing like killing the nurse or the cop, he had been old and she had been small. This man was strong and ready for a fight. Harvey heard him taking the stairs two at a time, and yet he wasn’t winded in the least bit. Harvey liked that. He wanted to sweat for his kill for once. He wanted to prove his strength and right to life against this man who stood before him.

              Paul knew that there was simply no way around shooting the man who even now readied to fight him. The gun shot would be heard, the police would come, if they weren’t already on their way, and there would be little to no chance that he would make it out of the hospital. Paul thought a moment longer as Harvey, thinking he had the upper hand, crept closer, his scalpel at the ready. Paul would have to live to hunt his quarry another day. The lord’s work was never easy. Paul shook his head and pulled the gun from his pocket, but before he could take aim Harvey threw the scalpel and hit Paul in the eye.

              Paul stumbled backwards with his free hand groping for his wounded eye. He pulled the scalpel out of his eye and tossed it aside. With his good eye he tried to take aim on Harvey, but the man moved quickly and was hard to get a bead on. Harvey jumped onto the counter at the nurse’s station, bellowed, and then jumped over the gun that Paul pointed at him and into Paul. Harvey’s momentum carried both men into the wall. The gun slid down the hall, hit the wall and fired a single shot into the corner where the wall met the floor.

              Rachel was certain of two things when she followed Sam into the bathroom. One was that the man who had blown up the hotel in Michigan was here and the second was that her father was dead. She heard a man’s voice claim to be her father that she knew was not her father’s voice. A bullet had come through the wall and ricocheted off the frame of the hospital bed. It lodged its self head high into the wall, kitty-corner to the door. They shut the bathroom door and locked it behind them. 

              Stories of the church bombing had been all over the news since they had arrived at the hospital. Rachel believed that her father had something to do with it. The kind of man that came to Sam’s cabin in Michigan was the type of man that was not only beyond her father’s control, but beyond controlling himself. Rachel knew the men of the First Church well when she was growing up and knew that more than a few of them were capable of the kind of insanity that had gripped the man at the cabin. Her father knew how to deal with those kinds of men. He would do it quickly, ruthlessly, and he would think of it as putting down a rabid dog. For him it was just another chore that had to be done. She believed that her father bombed the church to stop the men that were after her. It seemed that one of them had survived. 

              “If they come through the door I’m not going to give them a chance to fire.” Rachel backed into the shower stall with the gun pointed at the door. 

              “Give me the gun, Rachel” Sam said stepping in front of her. “I’ve had more practice with them.” Sam took the gun from Rachel and found that her hands were shaking. They were not shaking enough to cause her to miss at such a close range, but they were shaking enough to tell her that Harvey scared her more than she was willing to admit even to herself.

              Rachel put one warm steady hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You’ve only got two shots so go for the kill.”

              “Jo, we can just lock the door, you don’t have to go out there.” Stacey tried to hold Jo in the bed, but in her weakened condition couldn’t manage. “Please baby, don’t go out there.”

              Jo heard the shot and immediately reached for her gun only to find that it was not on the bedside table as usual. She had forgotten for a moment that she was in the hospital, and that her gun was far away with her badge and all of the things that didn’t make her any safer in a world where men cut off other men’s faces and wore them like masks. “I’m a cop, this is what I do.”  

              “You’re not a cop now, Jo. You got fired, you got shot, you damned near died!”  Stacey was begging Jo, even though she knew that it was no use. Jo would go and fight the good fight no matter what the odds. It was one of the things that Stacey had always admired and loved about her. 

              It hurt to stand. It hurt even more to walk. Jo had been shot before. She knew that despite the fact that the pain was there it wasn’t the end of the world. She knew that a person could go through an incredible amount of pain and come out of the other side smiling. She scanned the room for any possible weapons, and her eyes settled on the stand that hung her IV. She unhooked all of the tubing from it and hefted it a few times.  It had a good weight to it, but wasn’t heavy enough to throw her off balance with a good swing. “Stay here, and lock the door after I go.” Stacey began to interrupt, but Jo kissed her solidly on the lips muffling her protest. “I’m only going to Frank’s room. When I get there I’m locking myself in just like you’re going to do here.”

              “Then let me go. I can lock Frank in just the same as you. You barely made it through the surgery. You need to stay in the bed.” Stacey blocked the door to the hall with her body.  

              “Nope. You just get in the bed and keep it warm for me. I bet the cops are already here and I’ll be back before you know it. Hell I’m even willing to bet that one of those rookies they have guarding this place dropped his piece, and all of this is over nothing.”  Jo Kissed Stacey savoring the feel of her lips and stepped around her and out into the hall. “Lock this door until I come back.”  

              The hall was not as bright as they kept it in the daylight. All of the lights had been dimmed to help patients sleep and to conserve power. Jo kicked off her slippers and made her way barefoot down the hall. The tape that held her bandages pinched her skin as she walked unsteadily. She heard the sounds of the fight long before she could find her way to the combatants. Two men were throwing each other around the hall, grunting and sweating with their efforts as each attempted to kill the other. It took her a full three minutes to locate them.

              One of the combatants was Harvey, pinned beneath a larger man in casual clothing. Despite his disadvantage Harvey fought fiercely against his assailant. He threw a barrage of punches into the man’s ribs with one hand while holding him by the throat in the other. The other man’s face was red with blood from his wounded eye socket. More surprising than anything, Janine stood over the two of them holding the paddles from a defibrillator. The unit was on a cart behind her charging up. Jo could just here the rising hum of the machine beneath the sounds of the fight.

              What the hell? Jo mouthed at her when she looked up. Janine shrugged and pressed the paddles against the man’s back, bracing him with her knee. Before Jo could stop her she pulled the triggers and she, Harvey, and the man all went rigid and then limp as the charge from the paddles knocked all three unconscious. Jo rolled her eyes and walked over to Janine. “Maybe you should have thought that through a little more. Who has the gun?”

              Janine lay on the floor dazed not only from the electrical current which had just invaded her body, but also from the pain killers which still ruled her system. She shook her head at Jo. The drugs had blocked most of the pain from her shared electrical charge, but she still tingled from head to foot. The two men beneath her began to stir. “I found them fighting.” She said.

              “Who has the gun?” Jo patted the pockets of the man, and tried to look between them. She looked around the floor and saw the gun a few feet away lying on the floor. She could also see the bullet hole that had been left, by the shot that it had fired. “Get up Janine, see if Sam and Rachel are alright.” She picked up the gun and checked the clip.  It was only missing the bullet that had gone into the wall.

              “You get up and tell me who you are.” Jo pointed the gun at the men on the ground. Janine rolled off of them and used the counter at the nurse’s station to get herself off the ground. “Harvey, please lunge at me, because I would love to put a bullet in your head right now.” Janine had dropped the issue of Jo shooting Harvey without warning, but Jo was sure she would tell if she shot him again. Harvey rolled onto his stomach, revealing exactly how backless his hospital gown was, and put his hands palm down above his head. He looked up and grinned at Jo, sweat mixed with the other man’s blood dripping from the tip of his nose.

              Paul got to his feet and put one hand out in front of himself, but kept the other clamped tightly over his bleeding eye. “I’m here to visit my daughter, and this lunatic attacked me.” He looked at Jo and realized who she was too late. She didn’t show any sign of recognizing him, after all he had been wearing a mask over his face the one time that Jo did get a good look at him. 

              “Who’s your daughter?” Jo didn’t trust the man. The gun she held now was a very old Lugar, not police issue, which meant that he had brought it on to the ward himself.  She didn’t trust a man that carried a gun like the one she held. She didn’t trust a man who claimed to come to a hospital to see his daughter with a Lugar in his pocket.

              “Her name is Mary Hinckly. She’s having a baby.” Paul knew that Jo Cobb wasn’t buying his lies even for a second. “My eye, can’t you just call me a doctor? He stabbed me in the eye.” 

              The second Jo looked away from the man to pick up the phone he bolted, but with his newly altered depth perception he hit the corner of a wall and knocked himself down. Jo sighed and looked for something to tie him up with. Harvey chuckled merrily and stayed where he was, knowing full well that Jo was looking for an excuse to shoot him dead. In any case he had escaped once, he could do it again.

              “It’s Janine! Come out come out,” Janine called through the door. It was locked as she expected it to be. “Jo’s got everything under control.”  Her hands still shook from the shock she had taken. She decided as she knocked again, that she missed her life as one of the top paper pushers in America. No one ever shot at you, stabbed you, and you almost never electrocuted yourself. “Fine, don’t open the door, just yell and say you’re alright, and I’ll go away. Hey, I know what you’re doing in there!” Janine hoped that her dirty insinuation would get a response out of them.

              The door opened. “Yeah, I bet you do.” Rachel told her as she stepped into the hallway. Sam was right behind her. “What are either of you doing out of bed?”

              “Trying to stop insane men from killing you two as usual.” Janine lifted her shirt to check her stitches. She was bleeding, but not too badly. The bandage would have to be changed soon.

              “Well as long as you stopped them.” Rachel loved that her Janine’s relationship had evolved to one of friendly banter so quickly. She decided that it must have something to do with going through hell together. People could know each other for years and not feel as close as she did to Janine now. She felt closer to Janine, Jo, and Sam than she had felt to anyone in her entire life. She felt like hugging them, but had more pressing matters to attend to.

              “What did you do with my father?” Rachel demanded of the man that Jo tied up using medical tape she found in the drawer. She looked at him closely, but didn’t recognize him from the church.

              Paul looked to his angel who nodded his permission to answer. “Well, like I said before I came to see my daughter, and I must have gotten off on the wrong floor, you see she just had a baby.” 

              “Then why did you run from me?” Jo demanded as she checked the knots that held Harvey who had not said a word. Instead he leered at Sam and licked at the blood running down his face.

              “Because you have a gun.”  The man was very convincing. Jo however, knew enough about liars to know that if they were worth anything then they had to be convincing.

              “A gun that you brought up here.” Jo told him.

              “He claimed to be my father earlier.” Rachel marched right up to the man and grabbed a fist full of his hair and began to check his pockets with her free hand. 

              “I did no such thing. That man had the gun.” Paul began to protest as he did his best to bend with Rachel‘s pulling, but Rachel slugged him across the face.

              “And the old Rachel comes back in swinging!” Janine announced as she lowered herself into a chair. The pain killers were wearing off and the wound in her stomach was beginning to bleed in earnest. “I think I might need a little help here, or maybe more than a little.” Blood was running down her leg and onto her stocking feet.

              Sam came to her aid and lifted her shirt. “She’s busted a couple of stitches, we need to get her back to bed and get a doctor up here.”  

              “This is my dad’s.” Rachel held up her father’s stolen driver’s license. 

              “Well, I guess you got me, I found that and used it to get your room number. I wanted an interview for my blog. You two are hot news right now.”  Paul lied. Paul had served for years as a law clerk, and new that the police had little to nothing on him. He knew that if he played his cards right he could be bailing himself out of jail within the hour. If he could get the police to focus on the lunatic that stabbed his eye out then he might not even have to go to jail. It would be self-defense, and the loony who had stabbed him would be blamed for the Lugar.

              “What did you do with him, you monster?” Rachel slugged the man again, this time in his bleeding eye socket. Jo was appalled at how incredibly un-squeamish she was.  Rachel wiped her bloody fist on the front of his shirt. 

              It took a moment for Paul to get himself together after the searing pain that shot through his head. His world spun and he could feel what was left of his last meal rising in his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know your dad. Please get me a doctor for my eye.”

              Rachel hit him again as hard as she could knocking him unconscious. She never stopped to consider how much trouble Darryl Burn might get himself into if he went up against a church that was mostly made up of fanatics. She had no doubt that the man that she had just beaten senseless was lying to her. She wanted to believe that her father hadn’t ordered the church destroyed or worse, done it himself, but now she was beyond doubt of his involvement.

              “He’s dead, I know he is.” Rachel said aloud, allowing herself a moment to wallow in her anguish. “Is this the guy that blew up the hotel in Michigan?” She asked Jo.

              Jo shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t get a good look at him. Everything was moving a mile a minute and by the time he appeared I was focused on getting us the hell out of there. I don’t even know how many of them there were.”

              “I’m Sorry, Rachel.” Sam pulled Rachel into her embrace. Rachel buried her face in Sam’s hair and began to sob. Sam held her tightly feeling her grief shake her. The door leading to the stairs opened and four cops dressed in swat gear stormed the floor.

              “Detective Jo Cobb.” Jo introduced herself immediately. “There should have been two officers on this floor, both are missing. These two are perps.” Jo pointed to Paul. “Due to Harvey here, he needs some medical treatment.” I’m going to go to Frank’s room and check on him. Jo left the cleanup to the swat team. Harvey laid his cheek against the cold linoleum of the hall and began to giggle.

              Jo made her way slowly to Frank’s room. Her chest hurt as though she had just been shot, and she was tired. Maybe she wouldn’t fight to get her badge back. Maybe she would retire, and spend her time taking care of Stacey. 

              “Hey there pal. How’s it going?” Jo said to Frank’s unconscious form. He had yet to wake up and open his eyes, but the doctors had said that his chances were improving with every hour that he stayed alive. His wife slept curled in the reclining chair. Jo wasn’t surprised. She was pregnant and exhausted after days of being at the hospital. Her name was Sara and she was good friends with Stacey and Jo.

              She took care of Stacey when Jo was away. The four of them often had dinner together and had even vacationed together once or twice with Sara and Frank’s two kids. Jo pulled a blanket out of the closet and spread it over Sara. The woman had been through hell and deserved a little comfort. 

              Jo could also use a little comfort and slowly made her way back to her room where Stacey welcomed her with open arms. “Never leave me again.” Jo knew Stacey was squeezing her as hard as she could, but it still felt as though she was barely hanging on. Jo closed her eyes tightly and focused on the way Stacey felt in her arms, the way she smelled. Jo decided that though the last couple of days had been hell, they were worth it to keep this beautiful woman with her.

XII

              “I’m so going to get you, you bitch.”  Harvey sneered at Sam who didn’t bother to look at him. “You are different than the rest. You’re a bigger whore than the rest.” They were sitting in the hallway of the police station. Harvey was handcuffed to a bench under arrest and waiting to be transferred, Sam was waiting for Rachel to come out so that they could go. Sam had checked herself out of the hospital against medical advice less than an hour after Harvey almost escaped. The hospital expelled Harvey after they found officer Williams and nurse Milford murdered in his room. The police left Harvey handcuffed in the hallway because he was too hurt to put in with the rest of the prisoners and too dangerous to be let out of sight. Even now the desk sergeant sat only a few feet away eying the man every couple of seconds. There was any number of cops praying that Harvey would try something, anything, so that they could deal with him.

              Sam rolled her eyes. “How the hell did you get so crazy? What did somebody do to you?” She asked Harvey without looking at him. “Don’t lie and say that you are not crazy either, because I know that you know that you are off of your rocker.” She pressed her hands deep into the pockets of the scrubs that she wore to hide the way they trembled.  She had watched this man stab his own brother and knew that if he ever got loose he would come after her with a vengeance. He would do everything that he promised and more. 

              When they had arrived and found that Harvey was chained to a bench and not in a cage somewhere. Rachel had insisted that Sam join her and the detectives handling the search for her father in their office. Sam volunteered to sit in the waiting area with Harvey. She believed that she had better start facing her fears, even when they scared her as much as Harvey did, if she wanted a happy life with Rachel. Sam had been too afraid for too long to go on living that way. 

              “You don’t talk to me like that!” Harvey told her. “I’m going to get out of here.  We both know that these idiots are going to drop the ball. I’m going to get free, and I’m coming straight after you. There is nowhere in the whole world that you can hide that I can’t find you.” Harvey purred at her. His tone of voice reminded Sam of a lover’s whisper, gentle and sweet. “You belong to me. I got your smell on me.”

              Sam fought the urge to scoot away from him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how afraid she was. She focused all of her attention on the door that Rachel disappeared into. It seemed like forever ago since Rachel hugged her and went with the detectives. As soon as she was done in there they were going to see Debra and then get the hell out of dodge. Sam convinced Rachel that she owed her mother that much, Rachel said she didn’t owe those people a damned thing. 

              The new Rachel bothered Sam more than a little bit. She was rough, rude, mean, and at times positively heartless. The way she had beaten Paul in the hospital spoke volumes of this woman that Sam simply didn’t know. The way Janine described Rachel at work didn’t help her form a positive image of the person that her sweetheart had become. Everything moved so quickly for the last couple of days that Sam had not once stopped to think about the fact that she didn’t really know who Rachel was anymore. So as Sam sat waiting for Rachel to emerge she couldn’t help but ask herself if she really love the woman that Rachel Burn had become? 

              Rachel was so angry that she had literally become speechless. Her face was redder than an overripe cherry tomato. Her jaw locked shut and wouldn’t move. Her every breath shook with the effort of not jumping across the table and beating the crap out of the man that watched her smugly now. She could barely put two thoughts together without one of them involving killing Paul who smiled sweetly at her while the cops put her in handcuffs.

              “Rachel Burn you are under arrest and have the right to remain silent. Do you understand?” Detective Roesch read her rights with a smile on his lips. Roesch believed in Karma. He believed that in the end everybody got theirs. He was a bastard to a lot of people in his life and knew that he had it coming someday. He also knew that that bitch Rachel Burn would get hers soon enough for the way that she had talked to him. 

              Now he was taking her down a notch and putting her in a jail cell to think about the way she had disrespected him. He had no doubt that a rich hag like her would have some fancy Jew lawyer who would get her out in an hour, but it didn’t matter. She had threatened him and now he was putting her in jail.

              “You keep biting down like that and you’re going to crack all of those pretty teeth.” Paul told Rachel. Paul had awakened in a hospital bed with an orderly cleaning his eye socket. The Doctors had sadly informed him that his eye was gone. Harvey had severed the optical nerve and even if you hadn’t Rachel’s blows would have finished the job. Paul had thought that he would be facing jail time, but the cop that told him Sam’s room number was in so much trouble for leaving his post that he forgot all about seeing Darryl Burn. The story that he told them about finding Darryl Burn’s ID card worked. The police questioned him and he had lied and lied well. Now he was a fee man pressing charges on the woman who had brutally assaulted him after a lunatic gouged out his eye with a scalpel. It had only been three hours since Harvey had attacked him. Three hours since he had lost his eye and already he was feeling good. He would soon be in the kingdom where is omnipotent father would grant him better eyes.

              He hadn’t killed Samantha Ross and Rachel Burn in the hospital as he had planned to, but now they were separated and that would make it a simple matter of killing Samantha, and waiting for Rachel to make bail so that he could kill her too. His angel sat next to him and watched as Rachel Burn was put into cuffs and led out of the room. The lord did work in mysterious ways.

              “What’s going on here?” Sam demanded forgetting about Harvey the second that she saw Rachel being led out of the interview room in handcuffs.

              “She’s under arrest for assault. She hit a man.” Roesch didn’t bother trying to hide his pleasure at leading Rachel away in cuffs. He smiled at Sam as though he had just been crowned prom king.

              “Rachel, what the hell is he talking about?” Sam demanded stepping in front of them to stop Roesch from taking Rachel away. 

              “Out of the way sweetie, or I’ll throw your ass in with her for obstructing justice.” Roesch roughly pushed Sam aside and kept right on walking back to the cells.

              “He’s arresting me for hitting Paul at the hospital, but being a genius he is letting Paul go free, even though he had my missing father’s ID in his pocket.” Rachel could barely force the words past her lips. 

              “Then you’re the crooked cop Jo warned us about.” Sam stepped in front of Roesch again not caring if he threw her in jail or not. “Well you’re not going to get away this. Not for one damned second.”

              “He’s not crooked, just an incompetent, impotent, woman hater with an inferiority complex and a lap pinky.” Rachel shouted the last right into Roesch’s ear.

              “You just keep it up with your big words and your bigger mouth. Ain’t going to help you one little bit once I close that cell door. I’m sure you’ll be out in an hour, but not before the sisters have their way with you.” Roesch pushed Rachel hard against the wall while he opened the door that would take him to booking.

              “I’ll call a lawyer and I’ll get you out of here.” Sam told Rachel. She wondered how men like Roesch lived with themselves. She wondered how they threw their power around day after day, abused the system, mistreated their fellow man and then went home and slept at night.

              “My lawyer is already on his way. Don’t worry about me, Sam. Just wait here where you will at least be safe and as soon as I’m out of here then we can go.” Rachel called back over her shoulder as the door shut behind them.

              “That woman is a lunatic. You’re better off without her.” Paul leaned against the wall and smiled at Sam.

              “You are not fooling anybody.” Sam glared at him. “I was there at the cabin when somebody turned your friend into a smoking pile of hamburger, and I know what kind of monsters you people are. He was going to rape and kill us both.”

              “I’m nothing like Michael.”  Paul told her and walked away. He thought for a moment that he could play the kind older stranger and offer her a ride home, but she had seen right through him and even tried to goad him into doing something to her in front of all of the officers. It had been a long shot and he had not placed much hope in his ruse, but it had been worth a try.

              “Looks like your running out of friends.” Harvey told Sam.

              “Shut up, Harvey.” Sam told Harvey as she headed for the front door, with Paul ten feet in front of her. She still had Janine’s twenty two tucked into her pocket and she thought about using it on him right then. He was a monster and she doubted that the world would truly miss him, but it wasn’t in her nature to kill and she had done enough of it for a life time, so she kept the gun in her pocket and made her way to the car that she and Rachel had borrowed from Jo upon leaving the hospital.

              “Then why did you leave the police station?” Jo demanded of Sam who sat at the end of her bed recapping how Roesch put Rachel in cuffs and marched her away. Janine sat nearby in a wheel chair and Stacey slept drugged on the bed. “You should have just stayed there and waited for her. You’re lucky that guy didn’t try to kill you on the way over here. I‘m going to call some cops to keep an eye on you. You‘re dealing with a seriously bad apple. If he’s the same guy he blew up a hotel trying to kill you.”

              “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I’ve done nothing but hide from a man just like Paul and I wasted years. Now I’m going to do something about it.” Sam held up the ID that Jo had taken off of the man that she had killed at Sam’s cabin in Michigan. “I’m going to find Darryl Burn, and prove that that lunatic killed him.”

              “You can’t do that. You’re going to get yourself killed. A good fall will kill you right now, you should be in your hospital bed getting some rest. I’ve seen Rachel in action, and I’ve met her lawyers, she will be just fine.” Janine said from her wheelchair with her feet propped out in front of her. A nurse had re-bandaged her wound and given her some more pain killers. Her eyes were glazed slits in her face and her head lolled to the side.

              “No she won’t. You should have seen her face.” Sam held back her doubt and tears until she was alone.

              Janine let out a short chuckle. “I can imagine. Oh she is going to have someone’s ass for this one. Your Roesch has bitten off way more than he can chew this time. She knows the commissioner. Roesch just committed career suicide.”

              “Well I can’t. She is not the girl that I knew, and she is getting worse. When I knew Rachel she would never have hit that man no matter what he had done. She was the sweetest most endearing person that I had ever met. Everybody loved her. I don’t know who she is now, but I know that she needs help, before whatever it is she had become becomes permanently her.” Sam recognized the lilt in her voice that meant that she was going more than a little insane, and her hands were shaking more than a little bit.

              Since the shooting Sam had been unable to deal with stress. She couldn’t finish school, and was forced to withdraw despite the support of the faculty and her peers. She couldn’t hold a job, she couldn’t live alone for more than a few weeks. The only thing that she could do was paint and she was brilliant. Her paintings sold before they were dry, and with the help of her family and friends she opened her own studio and made a small fortune. However she suffered several emotional breakdowns, and had to be institutionalized twice in the process.              Samantha Ross was fully aware that she couldn’t take much more, but for Rachel she was willing to try.

              Jo made several phone calls, but couldn’t get through to Roesch. She knew that he was avoiding her phone calls because he knew that he was wrong to arrest Rachel. He was also fully aware that Frank was going to recover and that Jo would be reinstated against his will. There would be repercussions for all of his actions. All he could do now was hold on tight to what little power he had for as long as he had it.

              Sam lied to Jo and Janine and told them that she would wait for Rachel to get out of jail before she did anything. She knew better than to try to go to her studio which had been destroyed, and re-arm herself so she had to settle with going to Michael’s with the two bullets that she had. She did acquire some street clothes and a cell phone from a locker she found unlocked in the doctors lounge. She felt bad for stealing, but she had no money, no ID, and no way to get either in as short a period of time as she had before Rachel got bailed out and killed someone. 

              Sam was aware that Paul followed her from the police station to the hospital. She was also aware that he was behind her now waiting for the chance to slit her throat. She watched him in her rearview mirror and tried to focus on saving Rachel from herself. She blended into the tail end of rush hour traffic and kept an eye out for Paul. When he appeared again three cars behind her, she called the police. “Yea, I don’t know what he’s doing, but he has a gun and he’s pointing it at cars.” She told the police. “He might just be showing off, or playing around but I thought I should call anyway. He shouldn‘t have a gun in this kind of traffic.” Sam read off Paul’s plate numbers gave their location, and hung up the phone. 

              Sam was worried that her ruse had not worked and that she was leading Paul to a place where he could kill her. Minutes ticked by in the five mile an hour traffic leaving her to wonder how many cranks called the police every day with stories similar to the one that she had made up about Paul. Just as she believed that they had not taken her seriously she saw the police lights coming up from behind. Everyone, including Sam and Paul, pulled as far out of their way as rush hour traffic would allow, but they pulled up right behind Paul with their guns drawn. Sam watched as they got him out of his car and began to search him. As traffic began to move around them again pushing Sam out of view a cop pulled something that might have been a gun out of Paul’s pocket. Sam smiled to herself. She wasn’t in the clear, but at least she could breathe a little easier.

              The house didn’t look like a monster’s din. The yard was neat, the walk covered in a light dusting of snow where it hadn’t been shoveled from the last snow fall. Six copies of The Chicago Sun Times lay on the front stoop forgotten by their dead owner.  The trim was neatly painted, and the windows were clean. Sam looked at the house and could imagine a happy family behind its wall enjoying a late breakfast, playing hooky from work and school to spend the day together. She swallowed hard and knocked on the door. 

              After knocking for five minutes she decided to break in. She hadn’t expected anyone to answer, the resident of this particular house was laying faceless in her cabin in Michigan, the snow preventing the authorities from retrieving the body although they had been informed that it was there. 

              Sam had decided to knock in case the man had a family. She doubted that anybody as crazy as Michael had been could have lived with other human beings and hid how insane he was, but she convinced herself to check. She checked the first floor windows first, but found that they all had bars on them. She cursed her luck. She didn’t think to bring tools with her to pick a lock nor had she had access to them. Next she checked the doors, but found them pretty much as she had expected to find them, locked.

              Sam was about to give up when she noticed that there was a small opening that may have been a window near the basement door.  It was even smaller than the trash shoot that she had escaped from Harvey threw, but she decided to give it a shot. The second that she opened it a rush of smoke that smelled like burning hair and meat, filled her nostrils, gagging her, she understood its purpose. It was an exhaust shoot and somewhere below in the darkness someone was burning. She took a deep breath and slipped into the narrow space.

              Her feet landed on top of busted fan blades, but stopped there. There was a grate beneath the fan that prevented her from entering the room beyond.  Looking down she could just barely make out a cement floor in a dimly lit room.  She stood at maybe a thirty-five degree angle to the floor, but couldn’t discern any more about her situation than that. If she could have knelt she was sure that she could see more, but she couldn’t even turn around in the space in which she stood. So she jumped.

              Her first landing did little to shake the fan mounts loose from the wall to which they were bolted, her second jump brought a rain of debris down on her causing her to cough loudly and fill her lungs with the acrid smoke. Her third jump brought the fan crashing down out of the wall nearly spilling her to the floor beyond. Sam caught herself on the walls of the exhaust shoot before she fell. She lowered herself to the floor. Her broken ribs ached fiercely.

              Sam took in a deep breath glad to be clear of the stench that had flooded the shoot, but the smell was a hundred times worse in the basement and she found she was vomiting before she could stop herself. She was sure as she stood up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, that someone had burned to death down there. She was just as equally sure that it had been Darryl Burn. She hoped for Rachel’s sake that it wasn’t.

              The basement was divided into three rooms that she could tell. She checked the other two to find they were full of dust and old boxes. The room in which she stood had a stair case leading up into the main house which she searched quickly doubting that she would find anything of significance. The only interesting thing that she did find was that there was no electricity to the house and that there was another stair case leading down into a second basement. This one was barred with a dead bolt. Jack pot, she thought to herself as she searched for something to force the lock with. After a quick search turned up nothing she began to kick the door where she assumed the dead bolt was. The frame of the door splintered and gave after maybe a dozen good kicks.

              The stairs below plunged into pitch blackness. Sam had expected as much and brought a flashlight she’s found when she was looking for something to break the door with. The beam from the flash light barely provided enough light for her to see the steps five feet in front of her and shook badly like the rest of her. More of the rancid smoke rolled out of the opening and stung her sinuses. Sam took a deep breath and began her decent into the darkness, her steps sounding like an alarm against the quiet of the house. She wanted so badly to be away from there and back out into the light of day, but she wanted the Rachel that she knew back even more and she felt that this was the best way to start.

              Sam’s shaking was uncontrollable by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs and she was forced to stop and calm herself. She counted her heart beat against the utter silence of the darkness. She counted fifty beats and then counted down fifty beats to zero.  It was a trick that a shrink had taught her in California. All she had to do was focus on something small for a while to drag her world back into perspective. It had never once worked for her. She tried it when her gallery opened, she had a nervous breakdown before they cut the ribbon, and any number of other occasions and the counting method had never worked for her. 

              Now with each number she whispered Rachel’s name to herself and drew an image of Rachel’s face into her mind. It was not the image of Rachel punching Paul in the hospital, nor of her young and sweet and untouched by the world. It was the image of Rachel looking at her, a smile on her lips just after they made love in the cabin. It was an image of Rachel when there was nothing else that came creeping into interrupt their utter bliss at finding each other. Sam wanted another moment like that one so badly that she got up and began to search the darkness for the man who had once tried to pay her a quarter of a million dollars to stay away from his daughter and later ordered her death.

              The room was filled with odd things, the kind of things you would use to torture someone with. Sam was beyond being surprised. She found a rack of knives on a wall and kept searching. Three feet to the left of the knives she found a grey breaker box and opened it. As she suspected the main breaker had been blown by something. She thought for a moment. It took a lot to throw a houses main breaker switch, usually one or two rooms on the same circuit went out when a breaker was thrown, but something tried to suck enough juice to throw the switch that supplied power to the whole house. If she switched it back on she risked re-supplying whatever it was with power, and considering what she had been able to see of the room with the small flashlight she carried, it couldn’t be good. On the other hand, the room was far too large and far too dark to determine if Darryl Burn had ever been there. She could be standing next to the guy and never know it if she didn’t get some more light. 

              She threw the switch. Darryl bucked against his restraints scaring the crap out of her. Blood ran freely from his mouth and huge burns spread across his chest.  Every hair on his body had already gone up in flames filling the house with a putrid smell. His eyes bulged out of his head at her begging her to kill the power again. 

              Sam walked over to the wall and snatched the plug to the battery charger out of its socket. It was no normal plug, it was a 250 volt plug that you would find only on a washing machine or other industrial equipment. The battery charger itself had also been altered so that it carried more voltage than was really necessary to charge a car battery.  Darryl hung limp and whimpering in his restraints. She doubted that he knew what was going on after a shock like the one he had just received but she spoke to him anyway.

              “Hey there.” She began keeping her voice soft and not sure of what to say to him. He was alive and keeping him that way was all that she really cared about. “Do you remember me?” Darryl made no sign of hearing her. She kept talking to him while she pulled one of the knives off of the wall to cut him down with. “I’m Sam Ross, but you always called me Samantha or Ms. Ross. You were very formal like that in our dealings.” She decided it was best to cut his leg restraints first so that maybe he could take some of his own weight. There was no way that Sam would be able to carry him up the stairs and out of the house. She removed the clamps from his chest. She checked the cell phone in her hand and found that it had no signal.

              “I’m going to need your help. I can’t carry you, but I have to get you out of here.  I’m going to go to the top of the stairs, and call 911 before I cut you down. When I come back you and I are going to head for the front door. A bad man put you here and I’m sure that he is on his way to kill us both.” She spoke slowly and clearly hoping that her words got to him. She went to the top of the stairs and called for help. She gave them the address off Michael’s driver’s license, and told them to hurry.

              “They’re on their way, but we need to get out of this house and out into the yard before that lunatic comes back. He can’t kill us in the yard, but if he catches us in here, then we are as good as dead.” Sam cut the first of the arm restraints that held Darryl in place. She draped his arm over her shoulder even though he showed no sign of understanding her. 

              Sam could barely stand under half of his weight. She cut the second arm restraint and braced herself against the table so that they didn’t fall. She wrapped both of Darryl’s arms around her shoulders with the bulk of his body dragging on the ground behind her and began to make her way to the stairs. It took her a full five minutes to climb the first three steps. She sweated with the effort and something in her abdomen felt as though it would rip if she took another step.

              “Well, well.”  Paul stepped into view grinning from ear to ear. He held the cattle prod he had used to take out Darryl. “A two-for-one deal. I see Michael’s little device didn’t do its job on you Darryl. No problem, I can finish you by hand.” Paul made his way slowly down the steps all the while twirling the cattle prod around his finger by the leather loop that protruded from its end.

              Sam thought of the twenty two in her pocket, but couldn’t let go of Darryl with either hand. It would throw them both off balance and cause them to fall, which would certainly prove fatal for both of them. Paul moved ever closer. “Stop right there. God-boy.”  Sam warned him. She had to think fast, but panic was slowly crippling her mind. “You don’t want to do this. I’ve already called the police. They’ll put you in the gas chamber if you kill us.”

              “You silly bitch. I’ll never make it to the gas chamber. Glory awaits me right after I finish off you two and his hell spawn daughter. My angel has shown me the future, and it is bliss.” Paul stopped his decent to give his crazy speech which gave Sam a little time to think.

              If she could only back down the stairs then she could lower Darryl to the floor and go for the gun. There was no way that she would be able to pick him up again, but if she killed Paul she wouldn’t have to worry about it. She also only had two bullets, and if she missed it was over.

              “On High!” Paul was caught in a moment of divine rapture when the woman tried to back away from him. She tripped over her charge’s leg and began to fall backward. 

              Darryl knew that Paul would kill them. He never meant for anyone to come and rescue him, and he had certainly never meant for Samantha Ross, the woman’s whose death he had so casually ordered, to come to his aid. He had not wanted to be rescued. He had accepted that he would die there alone in that basement when the power went out and the room went dark. He was not a good man, and it was a fitting death. He had, for all intents and purposes, accepted his fate.

              He did not die however. Instead a woman that he barely knew risked life and limb to come and find him. As they fell Darryl reached out with one charred hand grabbing one of the four by fours that supported the main floor, and wrapped his other arm around Samantha arresting their fall. Every nerve left alive in his body screamed for him to let go, but he held.

              Sam didn’t think or hesitate. She pulled the gun out and opened fire on Paul but she was off balance, swinging from the arm of Darryl Burn and missed both shots.  Knowing that she didn’t have another bullet she took a bead on Paul as she steadied herself against another four-by-four. “I won’t miss this time.” She warned him. Darryl let go of her and slid to a sitting position on the steps. The little bit of energy that he had possessed was now spent. He couldn’t even stand. “Don’t move.” Paul put his hands up leaving the cattle prod to bounce noisily down the steps.

              Sam tried to think of what to do next. She didn’t have another shot. If she told him to go back up into the main house in front of her then he would certainly make a run for it and try to attack her again, or at the very least run away before the police could get to them and they would all have to wait for him to strike again. “Sit down.” She ordered him and took out her cell phone. It had no signal. She wished that she could shoot the man right in his missing eye.

              Sam thought back to what she told the operator when she placed her 911 call. Maybe they would simply break in and find all three of them on the stairs. She didn’t dare, even for a second, take her eyes off of Paul to check on Darryl, but feared the worst. She couldn‘t hear him breathing. It didn‘t mean that he wasn‘t breathing, it just meant that she couldn’t hear it, she told herself.

              “You are a hard one to kill. You’re cunning, more cunning than any of your kind I’ve ever met before.” Paul eyed the devil with the gun pointed at him and wondered why it was that she didn’t shoot. Was she planning on converting him? Did she have something in mind that would strip him of the divine light and make him into some unholy monster? Certainly she had some monstrous trick up her sleeve that would leave him in a situation worse than death. She would infect him and he would become Satan’s lap dog.

              “My kind?” Sam decided to keep the man talking. The longer he talked the less time he had to try something. Time was what she needed most, but she feared that time was what Darryl Burn simply didn’t have.

              “Devils. You do know that you are a devil?” Paul asked. He had always known that when he met the devils that walked the earth that they would be in human form. He knew that they would be evil, he knew that they would lie, and he knew that they would try to deceive him. He had not known whether or not they would know that they were devils. Perhaps their dark lord would hide their true nature from them to keep them as human as possible so that the rest of the humans of the world would fall victim to them that much easier.

              “You have really cracked up. Take it from someone who has cracked up a few times herself. You’ve lost it.” Sam checked her Cell phone again. How long had it been since she called for help? Ten, maybe fifteen minutes? She chanced a glance at Darryl who sat slumped just one step beneath the one on which she stood. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. “I am not a devil. You are not the divine hand of Godor whatever craziness you think that you are, and you are not doing the good Lord’s work by running around torturing people and killing them.”

              “I’ve seen the light of heaven. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Paul couldn’t’ help but be condescending to the devil woman that now kept him hostage, after all, even if she was human she was nothing more than a low life heathen. She was a sinner who denied the ways of god. A rabid dog that the lord had sent him to put down.

              Sam decided that it was time to take another risk. She backed down the stairs as carefully as she could. “You, get down here and pick him up.” She ordered Paul who did what he was told all the while grinning as though he was completely in control of the situation. Sam hoped that her voice sounded more confident coming out of her mouth than it did in her head. “Now get to moving up the stairs and don’t try anything.” Sam felt like a detective out of an old black and white movie. “You try anything at all and I’m going to send you to meet your God.”

              Paul smiled at Sam beneath the weight of Darryl who was barely breathing, but breathing none the less. Now Sam could see Darryl’s back where most of his flesh was burned away, revealing the bones of his vertebra and blackened fat and muscle surrounding them. “What if I decide to snap his neck?”

              Sam shrugged. “He tried to have me killed. I told Rachel I would try to find him, I didn’t make any promises, plus she already believes that he’s dead, and I‘m sure he‘s really close.” Sam bluffed. She needed Darryl to live now that she had found him alive. When she expected to find him dead she hadn’t really had any idea of what she was going to tell Rachel other than that she’d found him. Now he was alive and there was hope for him yet.

              Paul accepted her bluff on face value and started to drag Darryl up the stairs one by one. It was slow going and by the time they reached the front door the EMTs were already knocking, asking if anyone needed help. Sam motioned Paul aside and unlocked the door. Before she could open it he threw Darryl at her and bolted. Darryl’s dead weight carried both he and Sam into the living room where they landed on a plush leather couch littered with religious magazines and dirty tube socks. The stench of burning human flesh smothered Sam as she lay pent beneath him.

              “Mam? One EMT asked as they carefully lifted Darryl off of her and placed him on the floor face down trying not to aggravate the burns on his back. “Are you okay?” 

              “Is that guy gone?” Sam asked holding the cool gun flat against her forehead.

              “Yea, he went out of the back door. What’s going on here?” The nearest EMT checked Darryl with a stethoscope. He had a large orange tool box from which he pulled a bottle of burn gel and packages of wet gauze.  

              “Then I’m just fine.” Sam laid back on the couch and sobbed. The EMTs busied themselves with preparing Darryl to take him to the hospital. One of them said something to Sam that she couldn’t hear above the sound of her own relief.

XIII

              One hour turned into two. Two hours turned into three until Larry Rosenberg finally appeared at the cell bars looking frustrated and angry. His bald head shown with the sweat of his efforts. His manicured hands straightened his tie. “Rachel, I’m so sorry that it took me so long to get you out of here.” one of the cops opened the cell door and Rachel came rushing out. 

              She had been harassed for hours by the other inmates, twelve in all, about the way she was dressed and the blood on her clothes. One had anointed her as a back alley abortionist and they had all taken to calling her Back Alley for short. Two had threatened physical violence against her when the guard wasn’t looking, and another stared daggers at her without speaking a single word. Rachel had never imagined that she could be so happy to see anyone in her life. “What took you so long?” She threw her arms around Larry’s neck.

              He stiffened with surprise. Larry was not a handsome man, he was a rich man who did him well in some circles with some women, but he never thought that he would see the day when the legendary evil, Rachel Burn threw her arms around him. It made him more than a little uncomfortable. “Well you’ve made some enemies in some high places. There is a captain around her that has a taste for your blood.” Larry cleared his throat and adjusted his tie again after Rachel let go of him. “He changed the charges against you three times so that every time you were done being booked they had to redo your paperwork. 

              “I’ve met him. He has a taste for the blood or rich powerful women. It really has nothing to do with me.” Rachel was already waiting at the locked door that led to the lobby where she expected to find Sam for the cop to let her out.

              “Well, he seems to think that it does. He made it impossible for me to even see you until just now. Part of Bush’s home land security act. He said you were suspected of blowing up a building along with the assault charges.” Larry angrily motioned for the guard to open the door. The police had given him the run around long enough.

              “Where is Sam?” Rachel demanded entering the lobby, not bothering to stop and get her personal effects.

              “Who’s Sam?” Larry Checked his watch. “I have to go. I have to be in court in less than an hour. Have your assistant send me all of the paper work and I will see what I can do about having this whole thing thrown out.” Larry didn’t wait for Rachel to say goodbye, he simply headed for the door, his Italian leather shoes squeaking and clicking as he went.

              Harvey smiled up at Rachel. “Biter, she’s mine.” he rocked back and forth like a freshly chastised child. “I got her smell on me.” Harvey softly hummed to himself to the melody of an old Rolling Stones song. “I got her smell on me.”

              Rachel looked at him and rolled her eyes. “You open your mouth again, little man, and I’ll bite all of your fingers off.” 

              “Your lawyer ain’t even out of the building yet and you’ve committed another crime.” Roesch knew better than to try to arrest Rachel again. The commissioner himself had chewed Roesch a new one. He was told if he ever put Rachel Burn in cuffs again for anything less than murder then he would be checking parking meters for the rest of his life. 

              Rachel raised an eye brow at him. “Still you’re not putting me in hand cuffs, I have to wonder about that one.” 

              “You’re a rude bitch. You’re going to get yours.” Roesch turned and walked slowly away glaring at the people who made the mistake of existing in his line of site. “She’s going to get it.” he promised himself.

              “I don’t need no fingers to know that your friend don’t love you anymore. She loves me. You should have seen the way she looked at me. Her panties are wet for me.” Harvey burst into laughter and was still laughing when Rachel gained the street and began the three mile hike back to the hospital. She could only hope that Sam was there. She didn’t know where else to look.

XIV

              “Clear!” The young doctor standing over Darryl Burn yelled before shocking him for a third time. The man’s heart had stopped again while the medical staff of Cain County Hospital did their best to keep him alive. He had third degree burns covering parts of his body, organ damage from electrocution and every tooth in his head was shattered or ground down to stubs. Before he stopped breathing the nurses had suctioned a great deal of his dental work out of his airway. “Get him another amp of epi, and an adrenalin shot. The pain killers are stopping his heart.”

              Sam watched in horror as they stripped Darryl of his clothing, and in some places skin peeled away with what was left of his shirt. He was so badly burned that she could barely recognize him as being human. She stood at a giant window watching the ER doctors work. Nurses ran past her fetching this and that, pulling carts, carrying sterile gauze and Novocain gel to numb the working nerves that Darryl had left.

              Sam read somewhere that the human body did not conduct electricity efficiently.  She had always wondered what that meant. Now she understood. A person that was wet would simply die from the electricity rushing through their body, destroying their organs and nervous system. A person that was dry would catch on fire and burn from the inside out long before they died. She could still smell Darryl Burn’s charred flesh on her.

              “Crack his chest, we’ve got nothing to lose.” The young doctor took off his gloves and tossed them onto the floor. He walked over to the window where Sam watched her hands pressed over her nose and mouth. He looked her in the eyes solemnly and slid the curtain shut.

              “What’s going on in there?” Rachel had seen Sam standing in the hall way and walked up to her.

              Sam jumped and turned around as Rachel placed a hand on her shoulder. Rachel shivered badly as it was a long walk from the jail to the hospital and she had no coat. Sam shook her head, words escaping her. She wrapped her arms tightly around Rachel while she worked up the courage to speak. “Your dad, he’s alive, but he’s hurt really badly.”

              “He’s alive? How?” Rachel focused her eyes on the curtain trying to discern anything that was going on behind it. She could see shadows moving to and fro, but not much else. 

              “I used the ID that Jo took off of the guy that she shot in Michigan to find his house. I broke in and looked around and found him in the basement.” Sam recounted her encounter with Paul and her rescue of Darryl.

              Rachel Squeezed Sam as hard as she safely could. “You are so amazing. You saved my dad.”

              Night dragged into day while Rachel and Sam waited to see if Darryl would live or not. Rachel found her mother by calling every friend of her parents until she found one the Debra had contacted.

              “This little prank is well beneath you, Rachel.”  Debra watched Charles swim laps in the hotel pool. She used her new Rolex watch to shine a small circle of light onto his back highlighting his many freckles. “Have him do some extra laps, he’s got to take the weight off.” She told the trainer who stood next to the pool looking very bored. Steam rolled off of the heated water turning the large gymnasium into a sauna. Debra swirled the ice of her drink in her glass lazily.

              Rachel bit back a sharp reply, “It’s not a prank mother. Dad is hurt. He may be dying so get your ass back here before he does.” Rachel thought her mother hung up on her. 

              “I’ll call a jet, and we’ll get there as soon as we can.” Before Rachel could ask who we was the line went dead.

              “She’s in Rome.” Rachel came back to where Sam was dozing lightly in a chair.  They had been in the ICU waiting room for twelve hours. Janine had come down to see them. Jo’s condition improved and she was shipped to another ward of the hospital where the less critical were left to recover before they were sent home. “I talked to her and she’s getting a private jet to fly her back tonight, but she won’t be here until late tomorrow night.” 

              “She can hire a private jet?”  Sam couldn’t fathom the idea of being able to hire a private jet to fly across the ocean. She came from a working class family and earned multiple scholarships to put herself through college. Rachel had always spent money like it was water and Sam was beginning to understand why. “Can you hire a private jet to fly across the ocean?” 

              “Me, sure, I guess if I wanted to. It would cost a lot, I could buy a house for that much.” Rachel sat down and put her hand on Sam’s knee. “Is there somewhere across the ocean you would like me to fly you to when this is over?”

              “What do you do? I make a pretty good living, some people would call it a killing, but I can’t rent planes to fly across the ocean.” 

              “I destroy multi-million dollar companies. I merge them with a bigger company the second they get into trouble, and then I break them down into assets for the bigger companies. I get just over a quarter of what each company is worth. I am very very good at what I do.” Rachel ran her hands through her unwashed hair. “Usually all of the employee’s lose their jobs and their 401k plans, so I pretty much ruin lives for a living. Well I used to. I don‘t have a job anymore.”

              “You were a music major, a virtuoso on the piano!” Sam exclaimed.

              “So I’ve been told. That’s the fun part of frontal lobe damage, you lose parts of yourself. I can’t even hum a tune these days. It’s insane to see a video of yourself playing Bach and not be able to recall a single note of it.” Rachel could feel tears at the corners of her eyes. “I watched that video so many times, I took lessons, I tried so hard to get that back. I tried so hard to be me again, and it made me so angry that I quit. I’m still bitter. They said that it made me mean.”

              “You’re not mean. You’re angry. Is there any chance that you will remember any of it? Something, anything at all?” Sam took both of Rachel’s hands in hers.

              “There are always little flashes of memory that pop up every now and again. I’ll be sitting in my living room drinking, and I’ll suddenly remember drinking somewhere else some when else. Or a song will play and I’ll remember dancing to it. Nothing useful.  There is a 90% chance that I will never remember anything useful. I remember seeing you get shot, but I thought it was a dream this whole time. It’s the only thing that I remember in any real detail.” 

              “Wow, I wish you could have remembered something a little more upbeat.” Sam gave a short laugh trying to lighten the mood. “You used to laugh at everything that I did.  Paint, you used to love the fact that I was always covered in paint. You said it made me look rogue.”

              “So you were always a painter?” Rachel inquired looking at Sam. The only place that she still had paint was under her nails, and only small flecks.

              “Oh yea, but if it wasn’t for that whole shooting thing I would never have been a tortured artist and made my fortune. That painting you hated, Rachel Burns, would have gone for a quarter of a million if I had been willing to part with it. The paintings you saw are the ones that I’m not willing to part with. I have a storage space full of them. I think that I‘m going to sell them now.”

              “Well at least something good came out of all of this insanity.” Rachel crossed her arms and the wait began.

              “He is expected to make it but he’s going to need multiple skin graphs in the areas where he was burned, he has some organ damage and cardiac damage. You can see him in a few hours when the sedation is lighter.” Dr. Stein stopped in front of Rachel and began talking without giving any indication that he was talking to her. He never once looked up from his clip board. He wore dark blue scrubs that were covered in small spots of blood. He reminded Sam of a giant hobbit with his large mid-life spread and his bad comb over. When he finished he simply moved on as though they were nothing.

              Before Rachel could think of any questions to ask him he was gone. “What was that?” She asked Sam.

              “If he was talking to the right people I think that he said that your father is going to make it.” Sam sat up, she had been slouched in her seat and mostly asleep.

              “Good.” Rachel said crossing her arms and sitting back. “Now we can get out of here.” 

              Sam was shocked by Rachel’s sudden indifference. “You want to leave? Without even seeing him?”

              “I don’t want to see him. I’m glad he didn’t die, but that’s all I can say about him.” Rachel stood up and straightened her scrubs.

              “I understand that you are angry with him, but he’s your dad and he almost died.”  Sam grabbed Rachel by the arm to arrest her escape from the hospital. “I’m really worried about you. You’re becoming more violent and distant by the moment. Now you want to leave the hospital without even seeing your dad who was captured and tortured by a lunatic who happens to still be on the loose.”

              “I’m worried about me to, but I don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I’m in a free fall, but I don’t know what to do about it. My life is gone, but I’m not sure if I want it back. I’m not who I was before all of this started, and I’m not the woman that you loved.  I’m not anything right now. I’m just trying to roll with the punches until I can get off of this crazy ride.” Rachel took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. Her throat became tight as she began to slowly voice her worst fear. “I know that I’m not the girl that you fell in love with, I can’t remember what she was like. I don’t know anything about that part of me, but I have dreamt of you every night of my life for the last ten years and that has got to mean something.”              Rachel sat down again not daring to look at Sam. Her next words hurt so badly that she had trouble getting them about. “I love you. I am surer of this than I have ever been of anything in my entire life. I know that you won’t hang around me much longer because I’m not the Rachel that you knew. I can see it in your face when you look at me, but I want you to know that this version of me loves you to.”

              It took Sam a minute to form a reply. She swallowed her guilt and pushed away her anger with herself. This woman despite all of her differences and anger was still the woman that she had fallen in love with. “I don’t know what I feel right now, but I want the time to spend with you away from all of this insanity. Even if my love for you is different I still love you and I always will. In any case I’ve seen a lot of the girl that you were in you, and I think that she’s still around.” Sam ran a hand lovingly over Rachel’s cheek. 

              “Miss, you need to go in and see your father now, or come back after 11 we are closing the ICU for a few hours.” A nurse who had been listening to Sam and Rachel’s exchange said. “If you’re not ready I can give you the number to the hospital and you can call and ask about him any time that you’re ready.” She offered Rachel one of the hospital’s business cards, which Rachel took. She put a comforting hand on Rachel’s shoulder gave a quick squeeze and walked away. 

              Through Jo, Janine, and word of mouth their story had spread throughout the hospital. Sam’s rescue of Darryl only added to the interest of the medical staff. No one dared ask Rachel or Sam about their adventure to their faces, but they came under the distinct impression that everyone was talking about them. When they reached the front desk the items they left in the hotel that Michael had chased them out of were waiting for them. 

              “Is there anything that you two need to? Everyone here will help you in any way that they can.” The receptionist told them.

              Rachel checked her purse to make sure that everything was there. He phone was dead, but everything else was fine. Even the cash in her wallet was untouched. “No we’re good. Really, thank everyone for their help if you could.” She said without looking up.

              “She’s preoccupied.” Sam explained before following Rachel out of the door.  They flagged down a cab and headed for a local hotel. “Where are you going?” Sam asked Rachel.

              “With you.” Rachel answered. “Where are you going?”

              “To a hotel suit with room service and a hot tub.”  Sam answered

              “Sounds good, but what will we change into?” Rachel leaned her head against the back seat of the cab. 

              Sam only shrugged beside her. “Towels. Towels sound good to me, but now that I have my wallet back, we can go to a department store and pick up some things.”

              “Shopping sounds like a nice normal thing to do to me. Driver, take us to the nearest mall.”

              While Sam and Rachel spent the afternoon buying new clothing, having lunch in the food courts and enjoying each other’s company Paul drove north. He’d stolen a car from a parking garage maybe two miles from the hospital. He was aware that the police were now looking for him and it was not safe to take his own car or to go to his home. The winter storms blew themselves out making it an easy drive. Traffic remained thick throughout all of Illinois, but once he reached the boarder of Wisconsin became light and intermittent. Once he reached the road that led to the cabin however he found it unplowed and impassible by car. So he loaded up his pockets with ammunition and took the two guns that he had. It took him more than an hour to get to the cabin, but he found it the exact same way that he had left it. He was the last one to leave there, and the first to return. 

              He entered through sliding glass door that over looked the frozen lake. The first thing that he noticed was the stench of Michael’s decaying body carried on the dry hot air. He lay where his killers had left him, his face a mystery of graying matter and oozing fluids. Only Paul’s memory told the story of who the man who lay on the carpet once was. They had even taken his I.D. “Oh, Michael, how did we come to this?” Paul asked expecting no answer and he received none. “How did we, the soldiers of Godfall so low in our quest for heaven?” He took the dead man’s hand in his own and gave it a squeeze of comfort. The hand was stiff but the skin slid loosely over the decaying muscle. “We haven’t failed yet, brother.”

              Bell and Mary avoided going back to the cabin for as long as they could. They called Sam’s phone repeatedly, but received no answer. Mary remembered that Sam and Rachel had been forced to leave their phones and belongings in a hotel. They called the cabin and received no answer there either. Fearing the worst they called the sheriff and had him drive them up the private road to the cabin with his four wheeled drive jeep and plow. 

              Sheriff Marley was a man in his early thirties with a wife and kids. He was a kind man with a giving heart and not a bad word to say about any one. He loved his job and he loved his town. When Mary and Bell asked him to escort them to the cabin and told him that they were worried about Sam he didn’t hesitate to load up his Jeep Wrangler with a plow and head out to Sam’s cabin. Sam was a friend of his, she’d come by and painted a mural of teddy bears in his youngest daughters nursery long before his wife had begun to show. They spent a lot of mornings drinking coffee and fishing in the lake that was her back yard.

              “So you think that she’s gotten herself into a bit of trouble?” Marley asked Mary who sat in the passenger seat. 

              “We just can’t find her. We don’t know what she’s gotten into. Sam avoids trouble when she can, but sometimes it just finds her.” Mary stared straight ahead willing the Jeep to go faster, but knowing that it was unsafe.

              “There’s no chance that she and this new friend of hers aren’t spending a little time away from the phone curled up in front of the fire?” Marley didn’t really doubt that Mary’s concern was well founded. Mary was not the sort of woman prone to panic. He had seen her stare down the worst kind of people to advocate for the children that she had sworn to protect. She was a good and strong woman who would be the last person to panic, but he just liked to hope for the best. “No chance we’re going to find these two wearing only a smile and splitting a bottle of wine?”

              “No. Sam was afraid of something when she called us. She didn’t say what it was.  If she wanted to spend some time alone with Rachel we would have understood, and she would never have hesitated to say so.” Bell answered from the back seat. She wished that she could Share Marley’s optimism. “She told us to stay away, but that was days ago, and now we can’t get in touch with her.”

              “We’ll see. I hope that I’m right, and that’s for more reasons than one.” Marley gave Mary a weary smile. Mary hoped that he was right as well.

              Paul heard them coming long before they arrived. They moved slowly plowing the road as they came. Once they were within view he hid and took a bead on the man that led them up the path, all of them stumbling in the high snow. The man wore a green jacket with a star shoulder patch which marked him as the local law enforcement. Paul never killed the innocent. That particular trait had been Michael’s primary flaw. Now he took aim on the man’s knee and measured its height against the door. Before the sheriff could open the door Paul shot out both of his knees. He came crumbling through the door screaming.

              “Ladies, how nice to see you.” Paul pointed the gun at Mary’s head and motioned for them to step inside. “Grab your friend would you?” Bell grabbed Marley and dragged him in behind her. She shut the door. “Now get his gun and toss it over here. If you try anything I’ll shoot her in the face.” He pointed his gun at Mary.

              “What do you want?” Mary asked the man with the gun.

              “What do any of us want? Divine light. I want to see the heavens.” Paul answered. He tossed a roll of duct tape over to Mary. “Tie them up.” He ordered.

              “We don’t have any Divine light here. You have to look to the lord for that. It‘s not something that we can give you.” Mary answered as she wrapped tape around Bell’s outstretched arms. 

              “Let them go.” Marley said from where he lay on the floor, his teeth gritted against the pain. “You let them go and I’ll give you anything you want.”

              “The things that I want, as your friend has already told you, aren’t yours to give.”  Paul tied up Marry when she finished with Bell and dragged Marley to the couch.

              “You’re just a lunatic then. You killed that man and now you’re going to kill us.”  Bell stated blandly.

              “No. A demon killed that man. A demon that I must kill before I can enter the gates of heaven. A demon whom I must bring here and slay. Now,” Paul searched Mary’s purse and found her cell phone. He flicked it open. “Call Rachel Burn.”

              Sam let the water of the shower run over her hand for a second reveling in its warm temperature. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had felt anything so wonderful. The noise of the running water covered Rachel’s approach causing Sam to Jump when Rachel put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just wanted to check and see how you were doing.” Rachel suddenly found herself feeling very shy. 

              Sam forced her best smile. “We’re fine, Rachel. I know that we’ve been through a lot the last couple of days, but I’m sure that we can figure this out when things are back to normal. When we have more time and less stress. We can take a trip to somewhere quiet and talk about all of this. 

              Rachel took a deep breath. “I don’t want things to go back to normal. I hate the way my life was. I hate the way I was and I know how I feel about you. I don’t have to figure it out. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my entire life. I love you. I don’t know about anything before. I just know that I love you right now.”

              Sam smiled and took Rachel’s hand. She kissed that hand over and over. “I love you to. I don’t know how or why I ever could believe that I didn’t. I’ve had to live without you for the last ten years and I won’t go another day.” Sam wrapped her arms around Rachel and kissed her deeply on the lips. “Shower with me?” She asked running her hands up the back of Rachel’s shirt, lifting it as she went.

              “I’d love to.” Rachel laughed letting Sam take her shirt and drop it onto the tiled floor. They undressed each other slowly kissing each patch of skin that they exposed.  They explored each other in the light delighting in the beauty of form that lay beneath their bruises. They stepped into the shower and began to wash each other luxuriating in the textures of their skin and hair. The running water and contact washed away the stress of the last week and left them renewed. 

              Sam and Rachel sank to the floor of the over-sized tub and entangled their bodies moving against one another in a rhythmic motion. Rachel lay with her back against the bottom of the tub while Sam slowly kissed every inch of her pausing here and there to nibble dangerously on certain places she knew to be more sensitive than the others. She deliberately took her time bringing Rachel to the height of arousal and taking full advantage of their new found safety. 

              Paul stood in front of his hostages waving the gun at them. “I don’t know how to call Rachel Burn. I thought that she was dead for the last ten years.” Bell told him for the fifth time.

              He struck her again and again. “Don’t lie to me.” He ordered. His face was bright red and tears flowed freely down his cheeks. His eyes bulged from his head with anger causing his captives to flinch when he looked their way. “I won’t kill you. If you get me Rachel Burn I’ll let you live. I’ll Let Samantha Ross live. Rachel is the demon so Rachel is the one that I want.” He did not like to lie, but it was necessary. He was of course going to kill both Rachel and Sam.

              “Why Rachel? What has she ever done to you?” Mary asked. She kept her head held high and her back straight. She believed Paul to be no more than a misguided lunatic who needed help more than anything else. She had seen his type again and again. They had some mental defect that had gone untreated for far too long which brought them to the kind of break downs that Paul was suffering from.

              “She did that for one thing.” He pointed to the decaying corps that lay only a few yards away. “She raped and killed a man of god. He was a misguided man of god, but he was a man of god. Don’t worry. I’m not like him. I have an angel who has told me to do away with these agents of Satan and I shall be admitted to the gates of heaven.” Paul pointed to the corner of the room where his angel stood silently waiting. “I have a guide to the gates. I know what has to be done.”

              “Is your guide in the corner, because I can’t see him?” Bell asked dubiously.

              Mary elbowed her lightly in the ribs. “Don’t egg him on.” She whispered. 

              “He’s not for everyone to see.”  Paul sat down in the recliner and relaxed a little while he spoke of his angel. He even smiled. “You live in sin. He can’t be seen by sinners. He can’t be seen by most of the righteous.” He jumped out of his chair quickly as an idea formed in his head and flipped open Mary’s cell phone again. “Call Samantha Ross.”

              Sam’s phone rang on the table, but as she pressed her fingers deeper into Rachel’s warm silkiness she blocked the sound out of her head. Rachel gasped and began to rock against that hand as she rode wave after wave of pleasure. Sam used her tongue to manipulate her in ways she never thought possible. Her thighs trembled as she rocked, but Sam held her more tightly than before. Sam continued her attentions knowing things about Rachel that she couldn’t possibly know about herself. 

              “Hey this is Sam. I either can’t or won’t come to the phone right now. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you when I do. Bye.” Paul held the phone to Mary’s ear, his own ear pressed against the other side waiting for the beep. 

                            “Say it just as I told you.” He instructed Mary knowing full well that his voice was being recorded. He no longer cared.

              Mary began the message that Paul had taught her. “Sam, the angel of Godhas come upon us, here at the cabin. He wants you and Rachel to come right away and alone or he is going to kill us.” 

              Paul closed the cell phone and placed it on the television. “Thank you. Good job. With any luck three will be out of here in no time.” Paul promised fully intending to keep his word. “You don’t have to worry about me coming after you. I’m not going to make it out of this cabin.”

              Sam could feel it coming, causing her to breathe in short shallow gasp. “Please!” She begged as it crept slowly closer. Rachel’s slow deliberate strokes caused her to twitch and pull the sheets away from the bed. “Faster.” She panted, fully aware that her request would be ignored. Rachel simply smiled up at her. She reveled in the taste of Sam and the way that her thighs felt pressed against the sides of her head. On the table Sam’s phone chimed announcing that it had a new message, but the sound was drowned out by Sam’s yell as she climaxed.

              The phone kept chiming every five minutes drawing Sam out of the deepest most peaceful sleep she could remember having. She and Rachel lay together in a jumble of arms and legs. The morning sun barely made its presence felt around the edges of the curtains. Sam wiggled out of Rachel’s arms and checked the phone. She thought of ignoring the message until she found that it was from Mary.

              “Wake up.” Sam Shook Rachel.

              “What? What are you doing?” Rachel asked Sam attempting to retrieve the covers Sam threw across the room. Sam was already on the phone demanding that the front desk get her a car as soon as possible. The urgency of Sam’s voice got her up and moving. She was dressed and looking for her shoes before Sam got off of the phone.

              “He has Bell and Mary.” Sam said dryly. “We have to get back to my cabin in Michigan or he’s going to kill them. Mary left the message sometime last night.” They were marching down the hall, Rachel putting on her shoes as she went.

              Before they reached the front door of the lobby which let them out of the hotel they were intercepted by Debra. “What are you doing in this third rate hovel?” She demanded of Rachel. “For Christ sake what have you got on?”

              “Mother where’s your car?” Rachel asked without breaking stride.

              “Out front with the driver. Where are you going?” Debra was forced to spin while walking to keep up with her long legged daughter. She did her best to ignore Samantha Ross who was leading the way.

              “Dad’s at the hospital, we’re barrowing your car to help out some friends of ours.”  Rachel pushed the lobby doors open.

              Debra glared at Sam. “This is your fault.” Sam ignored her and kept walking.  Rachel got into the passenger seat of her mother’s rented Jag as the driver rushed to open the door for her. Sam slipped behind the wheel of the car and sped away before Debra had a chance to protest further or the driver had a chance to stop them. 

              Sam reached the toll way and punched the accelerator. The luxury sedan sped smoothly as Sam piloted it through traffic at a speed that made Jo look like a Sunday driver. Rachel flinched as Sam passed within inches of a sixteen wheeler and a pickup truck. She closed her eyes and gripped the door handle tightly. “How long until we get there?”  Rachel asked opening one eye to check if the coast was clear.

              “It is a three hour drive, I’ve done it in two, but now I think that we’ll be there in an hour and a half.” Sam felt badly about scaring Rachel but didn’t dare to slow the car for a moment. While they made love a lunatic held the two people who had stood by Sam through everything hostage at gun point. 

              Rachel opened her eyes to find that the city had already fallen far behind them. Sam sat white knuckled at the wheel, all of her focus on the road in front of them. Traffic had become significantly lighter as they reached the boarders of Wisconsin and disappeared entirely as they drifted further from the city. When they reached the road that let to Sam’s cabin only one side of it had been plowed. Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road.

              “They are going to be fine. We’re going to get there in time to save them. Don’t worry.” Rachel squeezed Sam’s hand and kissed it. “Just tell him that you drove straight up here without talking to me. Offer to call me if you need to.”  Rachel slipped her hand into her pocket and turned her phone to silent.

              Sam stopped a quarter mile down the road from the cabin and let Rachel out. “It’s in the closet. It’s loaded. All you have to do is switch the Safety off.” Sam watched Rachel run through the deep snow for a moment before continuing on her way to the cabin.

              Sam pushed the front door open and peered inside. She was shocked to see Marley lying on his back on the floor, both of his pant legs covered in blood. His eyes were shut. Mary and Bell watched her slip into the room. Paul sat in the recliner snoring lightly his hand still on the gun.

              Sam scanned the room with her eyes looking for something to cut Bell and Mary’s bonds with. She feared that unwrapping the tape might not only take too long, but make too much noise and wake Paul. She slipped a drawer open on a cabinet where she kept a pair of scissors. When she turned around Paul was awake with his gun trained on her head.

              “I won’t miss.” He echoed her words back to her. 

              “I know.” Sam slid the drawer shut leaving the scissors where they were and raising both of her hands above her head. “So, you’re the angel?”  She asked, her voice unnaturally calm against the background of her pounding heart. 

              “Me? No, and you’re not the demon. Your just her minion. Where is she?” Paul demanded realizing that Sam was alone. He covered the distance between them in two strides and grabbed Sam by her hair. “Where is she?” He growled in her face pressing the barrel of the gun against her nose. “Where is she?” he purred in a lower tone pressing the gun against her nose and his cheek against hers.

              “At the hospital with her dad!” Sam answered pulling away from Paul and his gun. “They think he’s going to die. I didn’t even call her before I came up here.”

              Paul hurled Sam onto the couch with Mary and Bell. “You’re not who I wanted.”  He repeatedly gouged the side of his head with the barrel of the gun leaving angry red welts behind. “You’re not the one! You’re not the devil woman. You’re not the one who killed Michael.” Paul pointed the gun at the three women on the couch.

              “Rachel didn’t kill him. She didn’t kill any one. The police did.”  Sam sank deeper into the couch as Paul came closer with the gun. “You’ve got to believe me. That guy was insane and he probably killed a lot of people. He was more crazed than any one I have ever seen.”

              “No! No! He was misled, he lost his way!” Paul screamed in Sam’s face. He began to pace swinging the gun wildly. 

              “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Mary prayed out loud her head bowed and her eyes squeezed shut. 

              “Again. Say it again.” Paul demanded letting the gun drop to his side. When Mary began Paul joined her, their two voices standing in a perfect contrast to each other. When they finished Paul began again Marley joined in as well. Paul snatched Sam off of the couch and pushed her to her knees in front of him. He put the gun to her head. “Pray.” He ordered. He tucked the gun into his belt and pulled a large hunting knife out. He put the knife to Sam’s throat and held it there while she prayed. “Pray and prove to me that you are not the spawn of hell. Prove you are not a demon, but a corrupt woman who has lost her way.”

              Rachel ran careful to avoid the debris hidden beneath the snow. She had not stopped to grab a jacket so the cold air pricked her skin as she ran raising all of the fine hairs on her neck and arms. Her lungs burned and her blood ran hot in her veins keeping the devastating effects of the cold at bay. In the back of Rachel’s mind she wondered how long she could last in the cold. Once she was within sight of the cabin she stopped and took cover behind a large tree. From her hiding place she searched the cabin windows for signs of life.

              In the picture window facing the road Rachel could see Mary and Bell sitting on the couch. At their feet lay a man who looked to be dead. Just beyond them Paul stood over Sam with a knife to her throat. All of them seemed to be singing. Rachel ran around to the side of the cabin until she found a widow that over looked the bed room in which she and Sam had made love. 

              She checked the latch to find that the window was locked. She used her elbow to break it hoping that the sounds of the people singing in the front room would cover the sound of the braking glass hitting the bed below. She unlocked the window and pulled herself through cutting her hands and side in the process. 

              The shot gun cage was bolted to the back of the closet just as Sam had said it would be. The combination was Rachel’s birthday. Rachel flicked off the safety and headed for the front room. She stepped over Michael whose blood and bodily fluids had formed a glossy crust over the carpet. She leveled the shot gun so that the weapon pointed at Paul’s chest. Sam had told her not to shoot while Paul was next to any one because the pellets inside of the shot gun would spread out as they flew and hit everyone. He needed to be away from others or Rachel needed to be in close enough so that Paul would absorb the full blast.

              “I see how easy it is to get women to lie for you demon. They are weak.” Paul said to her, not at all surprised to see her emerging from a previously empty room. He brandished the knife at Sam’s throat. “I knew that you would come. I knew that she was lying.” Paul pointed his knife at his angel. “My angel told me so.”

              “Hey there. Let them go and you and I can talk about this.” Rachel kept the shot gun leveled at Paul’s chest knowing that she could not fire without maiming or even killing Sam.

              “You don’t give me orders, demon. I am a man of god, I give you orders and you go back to hell!” Paul pointed the knife at Rachel. Spittle flew from his lips with every word.

              Rachel rolled her eyes. She’d had enough. “I’m not a demon you nut job.” Rachel pointed the shot gun at the ceiling trying to deescalate the situation. “You’re hallucinating. You’re a very ill man. I’m just a woman and you’re just a killer.”

              “You think that I’m Crazy?” Paul let out a short and bitter chuckle. “I am not crazy! I am touched by the divine light, I know the Heavens that await me, just like I know that hell is waiting for your return. My angel has told me what the future holds for me.”

              “There is nobody there.” Rachel gave Sam a confused look. “I know that you see someone, but there is no one there. Your mind is playing tricks on you.”

              “You are trying to play tricks on me. You are trying to corrupt my pure soul as you have corrupted the souls of these people here.” Paul was screaming now his voice cracking with emotion. His red rimmed eyes stood enormous above his flaring nostrils.

              “Have her say the Lord’s prayer. The Pater Noster.” Mary interrupted. 

              “What?” Paul, Sam and Rachel asked in unison.

              “If she’s a demon or possessed by a demon then she can’t say the Lord’s Prayer. Plain and simple. Have her say it just like we were all saying it moments ago.” Mary spoke with confidence hoping that if Rachel said the Lord’s Prayer that it would shatter Paul’s psychosis.

              “Okay. You have me there. Say the Lord’s Prayer hell bitch and I’ll let you and all of your friends go. I bet you can’t do it.” Paul gloated. Dropping his knife and pulling the gun out of his waist band. “Say the lord’s prayer and I’ll let your demonic little friend stay pretty.” He jabbed Sam in the top of the head with the gun.

              Rachel froze as her mind blanked. She didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer. The First Church of Godhad brought her to hate religion. As soon as she could she forgot every bit of the dogma that her mother forced on her when she came out of her coma. 

              “Ha! She’s a demon! I told you. My angel told me! I knew! You’ve been in league with the devil this whole time and you didn’t even have the sense to know it!”  Paul began to dance in place his free hand held high as testament to the power of his lord.

              Mary let out a deep irritated sigh. “You don’t know it do you?” Rachel shook her head. “Repeat after me. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Rachel repeated Mary’s words verbatim.

              “Paul’s mouth dropped open. “No! No! How? You’ve tricked me!” Paul pointed the gun at Rachel. “What was that?”

              “The Lord’s Prayer.” Rachel answered. 

              “Not you! I’m not talking to you.” He advanced on Rachel too quickly for her to lower the shot gun. He shoved her aside at the last moment. “How did she do it?” Paul growled at the empty air where Rachel had stood moments before. She trained the shot gun on his back and waited.

              Sam untied Mary and Bell who dragged Marley out of the door and began to get him into the jeep. “He’s lost a lot of blood, we have to take him to the hospital now or he might not make it.” Bell told them when she came back more than a little hesitant about entering the cabin despite the fact that Paul had dropped his gun. It lay forgotten at his feet.

              “Call the police and go. We’ll hold this guy until they get here.” Sam told them.

              “How?” Paul’s tears came again as he pleaded with the empty air that had guided him most of his life. It shrugged at him. Paul understood. It had no response because he had none to give to it so that it could give one back to him. The women were right. He was insane. He was a killer. Most of all he was alone. He felt his heart and mind brake as one.

              “Okay.” Paul turned to face the two remaining women, pulling the large hunting knife from his belt. “I’m just a killer. I guess I’d better get to killing.” He charged Rachel with a roar that would have shamed a lion. She pulled the trigger of the shot gun. The impact of the blast spun Paul on one leg and sent him sailing into the entertainment center. The left side of his abdomen was a gaping hole exposing all that he was made of. He fell to the floor with blood already flowing from his mouth.

              Rachel held the smoking gun too shocked to move. “It’s okay.” Sam told Rachel as she took the shot gun. “You had no choice.”

              “The police and an ambulance are on their way. You just hold in there, we’re going to get you all the help that you need.” Mary told Paul as she came back to check on her friends. She was not willing to get too close to him. Instead she squatted a few feet away and spoke softly to him trying to calm him down. “We know you’re not evil, just sick and we’re going to get you help for that.”

              “No help. No.” Paul groaned as he dragged his wounded body across the carpet. He thought of all of the people he had killed because his angel had wanted him to. He clawed mercilessly at his already tragic wound in an attempt to make it fatal. He uttered low guttural sounds into the air. When he reached Michael’s body he threw one arm over the corps and gave his innards one last fatal twist and lay still. The three women could only watch in horror.

XV

              Despite the testimony of one of their own the local authorities drilled the four women incessantly for hours. One young and benevolent officer went so far as to suggest that Rachel might be charged with murder and that it would be in her best interest not to leave the state of Michigan. Six hours later the four of them stood outside of Marley’s hospital room. The doctors informed them that he might have to retire from police work, and would have a bad limp, but that he would be fine otherwise. He was drifting in and out of a morphine induced sleep. His wife stood by his side and held his hand even as he spouted gibberish to her. 

              “We’re going to go to Marley’s house and get their kids so that they can stay with us for the night.” Bell told Sam and Rachel after talking to Marley’s wife who was desperate to spend the night at the hospital with him. “That way she can stay here and the teenager that she has watching them can go home.”

              “I understand. Do you think that we can get you to put us up for the night? The nearest hotel to here was blown up a few days ago.” Sam asked.

              “Sure. Did you blow up the hotel?” Mary asked Rachel.

              “Me? No, I was in it, but I didn’t do it. Why do you think that I would blow up a hotel?” Rachel asked shocked.

              “History has a way of repeating its self.” Bell answered. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Marley’s house.” Bell put an arm around Rachel’s shoulders as the two headed for the elevator.

              “That was an accident, it doesn‘t count!” Sam called after them.

              “So someone tell me the story of me blowing up a building. Was any one hurt?” Rachel climbed into the back seat of Bell’s Volts wagon once again incredibly happy to be there.

              “It was an accident and no, no one was hurt. Any way, you didn’t blow it up you burned it down. The idiot who was storing propane tanks inside of a closet because he was too lazy to take them to the basement where they belonged blew it up.” Sam slid in next to Rachel and gave Bell a dirty look. “I can’t believe that you brought that up when you know how bad she felt about it.”
              “Well, I think that it’s important to ask a person that has burned down a building in the past if they had anything to do with a new building burning down.” Bell told her passenger. Rachel could tell from Bell’s tone that she was teasing Sam.

              “Come on. Tell me how I burned down a building.” Rachel demanded.

              “The building wouldn’t have blown up if the janitor hadn’t had propane tanks in the storage closet. The firemen even said so.” Sam defended Rachel knowing how Rachel had cried on her shoulder for days after it happened.

              “Well how did I do it?”  Rachel asked.             

              “You were eating and reading, a dangerous combination for any one. I guess your food got cold or something so you tossed it in the microwave but you forgot to take the fork out of it first. Then you just wandered away.” Mary started to laugh. “We’d give you a book and you would wonder around on auto pilot until you finished it. We used to always tease you about walking into traffic.”

              “So I just blew up the microwave and burned down the kitchen?” Rachel asked feeling amused at Mary’s laughter. She was happy to be with them and to have found people who would tell her about herself. She felt that she could trust them like she had never been able to trust her parents or Charles. 

              “Well that’s what would have happened, but the janitor put the extra propane tanks for the lab burners in the closet instead of taking them to the storage cabinets in the basement where they belonged. It wasn’t your fault. Well the micro wave was your fault, but not the whole building.” Sam interjected unable to stop herself from smiling. It was over. They could finally breathe. Everyone that wanted she and Rachel dead was dead themselves or incarcerated. There were no more monsters chasing them.

              “Well the kitchen caught on fire. You pulled the fire alarm and ran out of the building with everyone else. The fire should have gone out quickly because it was an old building and most of it was brick walls over cement floors. Not very much to burn, but the fire caught to door of the closet which was lined with ply wood, the closet heated up until the propane tanks exploded and blew the roof off of the building. Oh, you should have seen your face!” Mary twisted in her seat to smile at Rachel who laughed openly at the follies of her youth.

              “I think that they’re great.” Rachel said to Sam who was curled around her. She and Sam lay in Bell and Mary’s guest room. The signs of a major renovation lay everywhere in the form of stored sheets of drywall, and discarded tools. The air smelled lightly of saw dust which was not at all unpleasant.

              “They are wonderful. They helped me get through the worst of it and stood by me every time that I broke down.” Sam squeezed Rachel tighter to ward off the memories of the bad times.

              “So I take it you didn’t do so well with being shot?” Rachel asked jokingly. “What were you like before?”

              “Oh I was a very serious artist, full of myself really. When I got too serious and full of myself you would make me laugh until I thought that I was going to cry.” Sam smiled to herself.

              “You don’t really seem that way now.” Rachel said trying to avoid the issue that hung so heavily on her mind.

              “I’ve changed.” Sam said, a slight bitterness putting an edge to her voice. “I hate the man who shot us. He put us through hell for no reason other than he hated what we are. He took ten years and the person that I loved most in the world from me. I’ve been in mental institutions because of him. There were years of my life when I couldn’t trust my own mind because of him.”

              “So we’ll make the next ten count double for the last ten.” Rachel promised as she turned to kiss Sam on the lips. She pushed the guilt over killing Paul to the back of her mind and focused on Sam’s smooth skin as she ran her hand up her back.

              “So you’re going to start this again?” Sam asked mischievously helping Rachel to remove her shirt.

              “I am.” Rachel told her nibbling on her collar bone.

              “Well, try to keep quiet, Howler. There are people trying to sleep not so far away.” They both laughed.

              Rachel’s cell phone complained loudly about its dying battery. “I wish that I had a car charger.” Rachel looked at her cell phone and found six missed calls, all from her mother, but with no messages. “I need to go and make a phone call.” She and Sam sat on Bell and Mary’s back porch admiring the view that the hills provided. They sipped rich dark coffee that Mary had made. Marley’s Children built a snow man only a few feet away with Bell’s help. All three of them moved awkwardly in the deep snow. They were caked in the stuff from head to foot giving them the appearance of a tribe of animated snowmen. Rachel smiled at the snow man builders and went into the kitchen to make her call.

              She found Mary cleaning the kitchen as best she could, but it was in the middle of being remodeled and there was no fighting the dust and the debris left behind by the workers. Rachel understood why she and Bell had opted to stay at Sam’s cabin. “Hey Mary, do you mind if I use your phone? I need to make a phone call.”

              Mary stopped cleaning and pointed to a phone hanging on the wall. “Make yourself at home, Sweety. I don’t know why I’m trying to clean this mess anyway. I think I’ll go outside and play with the kids. Let the carpenters clean up when they’re done.” Mary went in search of her coat leaving Rachel to her phone call. Rachel took a deep breath, blew it out and picked up the phone.

              Debra’s phone was answered on the second ring, but not by her. “How can you leave your family to go with that bitch?” Charles demanded .His voice had the same dangerous tone that he had used with Rachel the last time that she saw him outside of her parent’s house. She remembered Jo’s warning about him not being harmless.

              “Why do you have my mother’s phone, Charles?” Rachel asked making a point of letting her irritation register in her voice. “Is my father okay?”

              “No thanks to you, and I’m shocked that you bothered to ask about your dear old dad. Is Sam there?” Charles growled Sam’s name like a dog protecting its bone.

              “Put my mother on the phone you arrogant son of a bitch.” Rachel had had enough of Charles and his attitude.

              “No, you put that dyke on the phone so I can tell her to stay away from what’s mine.” Charles growled back.

              “You and my parents are liars, Charles. I was never yours.” Rachel felt her patience wearing thinner by the second. “I dumped you six years before I went into that coma and you know it.” Rachel wished that Charles was there in front of her so that she could spit in his face.

              “You were and will always be mine. It’s the decree of god.” Charles gave a short and bitter laugh. “Lies or not you still married me. You are mine.”

              “Do you know what happened to the last man who started spouting that religious nonsense at me? I cut him in half with a shotgun. Now put my mother on the phone you psycho.”

              “Rachel where are you?” Debra demanded in a voice that pierced the happy morning like a knife.

              Rachel’s head instantly started to pound. “How’s dad? Is he awake yet?”

              “He’s stable and he can write, but he can’t talk yet. He still has all kinds of tubes going down his throat. Where are you?”

              “I’m in Michigan, but I am leaving to come back very soon and bring your car back to you. I had a lot of business to take care of up here. Some old friends needed my help. I’ll see you soon.” Rachel closed the phone before her mother could protest further. Something inside of her convinced her not to write her family off just yet. Maybe there was something left of their relationship to salvage. Rachel did not want to be the kind of woman that wrote people out of her life anymore.

              Rachel went outside and sat back on the porch with Sam who was still watching the children trying to straighten their lopsided snow man while Bell looked on in amusement. “Charles?” Sam asked without looking at Rachel. She could feel the jealousy welling in her. She was tired of hearing about Charles.

              “Have you ever met Charles or seen him?” Rachel couldn’t believe what she was about to ask. The idea that had formed in her head horrified her.

              “Just once. He hated me, called me an affront to nature.” Sam answered.

              “And you saw the man who shot us? Was it Charles?” Rachel held her breath waiting for an answer dreading the idea that she had slept next to the man who had tried to kill them for a year and a half, or that she had made love to him no matter how infrequently.

              “No. He wasn’t particularly happy about us, but it wasn’t him. I would know the guy if I saw him. I could never forget his face. Why do you ask?”

              “Because My ex-husband has said some pretty nasty and strange things about you.” Rachel slipped her arm around Sam’s shoulder and gave her a weak smile.

              “I bet he hates her guts.” Bell chimed in coming to join them on the porch. “In his mind she stole you. He stole you back, you left him, and she got you back again. He knows that he can’t compete. He used to leave the worst messages on our answering machines. We changed our number twice, but he always found it somehow. You had to get a restraining order to make him stop.”

              “So he’s just a jerk. I suspected as much.” Rachel sighed with relief and went back to watching the happy children playing in the snow. She wished that she had a drink in her hand and pulled Sam closer to her to defeat that wish.

              “If you need me to stay here so that you can spend some time with your family I will understand.” Sam tried to give Rachel the keys to her mother’s Jaguar. They stood in front of Sam’s cabin which was still wrapped in crime scene tape. Footprints from EMTs and police investigators had all but trampled the snow to ground level. The drive and road were freshly plowed to allow the investigators a more ready access to the house. “I can stay here and get this mess all straightened out and you can deal with your family stuff.”

              “You are my family. Those people back there are liars and I don’t owe them anything. I just need to go and check on my dad, and you and I can get on a plane out of here. I have a house on a small island in Hawaii that I have never used. Get in the car, Sam. I’m not letting you get out of my sight. Not even for a second.” Rachel smiled to make light of what she said, but had every intention of making it true. Every time she thought of making good with her family she thought of what they had done to her and what they would certainly do to her again if they were given half a chance. They had erased her and everything that she had been so that they could make her into they thought she should be. They had taken her love from her. She opened the passenger door and climbed in not sure if she could handle Sam’s driving again so soon.

              Sam and Rachel promised to call Bell and Mary when they got back from Hawaii, and left for the long drive back to the city. Sam stayed within five miles of the speed limit, so the drive took longer than it had when they had raced up from Chicago. They made light conversation about their past, Sam filling Rachel in on the details of her life before the shooting and Rachel telling Sam about her life after. She skirted around the details of her marriage to Charles to spare Sam’s feelings.

              Upon arriving at the hospital Rachel and Sam found that Debra had banned Sam from the ward where Darryl was recovering. “The nerve of that woman!” Rachel snarled to no one in particular. “You saved his life for God’s sake!”

              “It’s okay. I’m going to go and visit Jo and Janine. I still need to thank Janine for saving my life. You check on your dad and then let‘s get the hell out of here.” Sam patted Rachel’s back and got on the elevator. Rachel gave her a weak apologetic smile as the doors closed.

              Sam felt herself feeling lighter as the prospect of spending some time on a sunny sandy beach with Rachel. They could sleep in, and wander the beach looking for sea shells. No one would shoot at them or burst in raving about the wrath of Godwith their imaginary friends in tow. She began to whistle singing in the rain while she walked feeling happy and content with the prospect of their great escape. She found Janine’s room empty and was informed by one of the nursing staff that she was released early that morning. Jo had been moved from the critical ward to inpatient care ward where she was to be released shortly.

              It took Sam a few minutes to find Jo’s new room. Jo was inside flicking through the channels bored out of her mind. “If Stacey think’s that I’m going to retire and watch day time TV with her she is out of her mind.” Jo told Sam without looking away from the TV. Stacey was off to receive her new cancer treatment. Jo didn‘t want to get her hopes up, but she already seemed to be doing better. “Well don’t stand in the door way, come in, tell me about that crap that went down in Michigan. I‘ve been on the phone all day, had to sign to have my piece sent up as evidence.”

              “Well,” Sam began as she came over and sat on the edge of the bed, “a friend of the first guy that tried to kill us in my cabin showed up and tried to kill us again. Rachel killed him, the cops told you the rest over the phone. No big deal. Nothing we couldn’t handle. Some cop threatened to charge Rachel with murder. Cops just don’t like her. No offense.”

              “She is not an easy one to deal with. He was probably just tooting his horn. Some cops just like to press their authority as far as they can. It is widely known that these people were trying to kill you and Rachel. She’s not going to jail for murder.” Jo told her with a chuckle.

              “Well she called her lawyer just in case. I think that guy must jump a mile high every time Rachel tells him to.” Sam said.

              “From what I’ve gathered Rachel is a pretty heavy hitter. The police commissioner himself called me to thank me for saving his good friend’s daughter. I had no idea of who he was talking about until he said her name. The Burn family has some serious connections. I can see how it was possible for them to fake Rachel’s death. They probably just made a few phone calls. Sam, how is Rachel dealing with killing that guy?” Jo asked sitting up and switching off the television. She was suddenly very serious and looking Sam right in the eyes.

              “I don’t think that it’s hit her yet.” Sam shrugged.

              “Yea, sometimes it takes a while, but it’s going to hit her and it is going to hit her hard. You’ve just got to be there for her when it does. That woman would do anything for you so don’t let her down.” Jo took a deep breath as she switched to the next difficult question. “How are you doing with having to shoot Jack? Make no mistake about it, you had to shoot him. He wasn’t going to be taken alive and he wasn’t going to let Rachel survive.”

              “I don’t know, I’ve just been avoiding thinking about it this whole time and with everything that’s been going on it hasn’t been hard to do. I‘ve just been waiting for the right time to let it out I guess.” Tears fought their way to the surface of Sam’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She cupped her hand over her eyes and turned away.

              Jo took her other hand and squeezed it tightly. “Well if that’s your plan then you can just go ahead and do it right here right now.” Sam broke down entirely sobbing so loudly that a nurse came to the door. Jo waved him away and patted Sam’s back as she cried.

              “It was such a waste of life.” Sam said to the blankets which muffled her cries.  When Sam recovered she apologized for her outburst.

              “Don’t worry about it. It happened to me the first time I had to use my gun. That kid couldn’t have been any older than nineteen. He was already a murderer and high on drugs, but I still feel bad about killing him. He took aim on my partner and I had to take him out.”

              When she fully recovered Sam hugged Jo as best as the machines she was hooked up to would allow. “I’ll come back another time and I’ll try to be more together.” She joked.

              “Bring me a cheeseburger if you could. You should see the crap they are trying to feed me in this place.” Jo told her as Sam made her way out of the door.

              Sam washed her face in the women’s rest room and checked herself out in the mirror. A little cold water and you could hardly tell that she had been crying at all. She stopped by the cafeteria and got three coffees before heading back to the ward were Darryl was recovering. She decided to make a peace offering to Debra. She was still thinking about shooting Jack when she found Rachel and Debra arguing in the waiting room.

              “How’s he doing?” Sam interrupted offering Rachel one of the cups that she held.

              “He’s doing well. The doctors are talking about taking him off of the machines and maybe sending him home with around the clock nursing staff. The doctor wants to pull the tube out of his throat in another hour or so. Well when he comes back from lunch.” Rachel sipped her coffee and glared at Debra.

              Sam offered Debra coffee, but Debra refused to look at her. “Rachel, call Charles and tell him to get up here. We need him.”

              “We don’t need Charles for anything and I wouldn’t call him if he was the last person left on earth. If you want Charles then you call him.” Rachel told her mother.

              “He is your husband!” Debra yelled at her. “Not this person you keep tramping around with.”

              “He’s not my husband! I divorced him, and dumped him long before that. You lied to me and ruined my life. You let me marry a guy that I had a restraining order against and with good cause.” Rachel headed for the door not wanting to hear another word that her mother was saying.

              “Your father could die and all you can think about is this person. All that he wanted was for you was to have a good life and all that you do is disappoint him by doing Godknows what with her.” Debra jabbed a finger in Sam’s direction. 

              “He’s not going to die. He’s going home, and the only reason that he’s going home is because Sam risked her life to go and save his from those lunatic church people he sent to kill her. He did it to himself.” Rachel whirled on her mother just before reaching the door.

              Sam stepped between them fearing that they would come to blows. “Let’s go Rachel. I don’t think that there is anything good that can come out of this right now.”

              A nurse came into the room. “I’m going to have to ask you to quiet down or leave the hospital. I will call security.” She threatened.

              “I want this woman removed from the hospital. She is a danger to my family and a degenerate.” Debra jabbed her finger at Sam’s back. Sam was busy pulling Rachel into the elevator and away from Debra.

              “Don’t bother, we’re leaving.” Sam called over her shoulder.

              “So Debra hasn’t changed.” Sam slid into the back seat of a cab beside Rachel. “She still hates my ass.” Sam rubbed Rachel’s leg comfortingly.

              Hot angry tears rolled out of Rachel’s eyes. Her jaw worked grinding her teeth together. “When I told her that he hit me she told me that she was sure that he didn’t mean it. She loves him. She’s always loved him, and she has always loved him more than me.”

              “I’m sure that that’s not true, honey.” Sam put an arm around Rachel’s shoulder.

              Rachel laughed bitterly. “She told me so when I divorced him.”

              “I bet she was just mad at you. She can be so nasty when she’s mad. You would understand if you could remember some of the things she said to us over the years.”

              “I want to remember. I need you to go over that day with me. I need to remember the day that we got shot.” Rachel told Sam as she scrubbed tears away from her eyes.

              “Right now? You want to go over this now, after all that we have been through? Who am I kidding? Of course you do.” Sam let out a deep sigh before she gave the driver directions to the hotel where they were staying.

              Sam and Rachel sat cross legged on the bed of their hotel room. The curtains were pulled giving the room a theatrical darkness. They faced each other and held hands. Sam closed her eyes to bring as many details of that day to mind as possible. Rachel did the same so that it would be easier for her to picture the things that Sam would tell her.  Already the dreamscape of Rachel’s night mare began to form behind her lids. “Start before we got shot, start at the beginning of the day.”

              “Well you got up and left the house before I did. You had an earlier class, and I wanted to sleep in. I met you by the music building after I turned in the last piece that I had to produce for the semester, and you had some kind of musical evaluation which you aced like you always did. You were so excited that you bounced around me in a circle for two maybe three minutes before telling me how well you did.” Sam’s mind drifted to the day that would haunt her forever. She and Rachel had been so happy. They were able to attend grad school in San Francisco together, and were making plans for the future. The next weekend they had even planned a trip out to California to look at apartments.

              “It was still early, before ten so we decided to get some brunch. We saw our roommate Amy and said hello.” Sam smiled despite what she knew was coming. They had been so incredibly happy that the people who saw them walking seemed to brighten just because they were their spreading their amazing positive energy.

              “What happened next?” Rachel asked trying to force the images in her mind into focus. Instead they remained fractured like a broken pain of glass. There was no way for her to tell which images the cracks had severed from which images first or what shape they had taken before that fateful fall.

              “Well we walked a while, and I noticed that a man was following us. He made no secret of it. He had straight blondish hair and blue eyes. He made me really nervous. He gave me dirty looks whenever I looked his way so I pointed him out to you and you said that he was harmless and let’s just leave so we did. We kept walking and he ran up out of nowhere and shot you in the side of your head. Then he shot me, kicked me and he ran away.” Sam’s voice cracked as the tears came. “I didn’t see which way he went, and the people around us didn’t know what happened, they just saw us on the ground and called nine one one. For all I know he walked away whistling Dixie.”

              “What a jerk” was all Rachel could manage around the lump in her throat. She squeezed Sam’s hands in her own. “But I still didn’t see him. I couldn’t remember him.” Rachel was about to open her eyes when images slowly began to appear in the darkness behind her eyelids. At first they were incoherent flashes of a life long lost to her, but after a half dozen of them she began to recognize a theme. They were images of Sam. They were of Sam painting, dancing, singing, and laughing. There she was at midnight eating peanut butter out of a jar, and again helping to hang a banner over a door way, and again throwing water balloons at her. The images went on and on completely without order and out of tempo with life until one specific image stopped them in Rachel’s head. There Sam was standing beneath a half-finished sign which read ‘October, the musical’. She gazed blankly at the sky, her mind completely somewhere else. Her left hand was stuffed into the pocket of her red corduroy overalls. With her right hand she scratched her head absently smearing her cheek with orange paint from her paint brush. Rachel recognized the image right away. It was the first time that she saw Sam and she had fallen in love at that very moment.

              “Are you okay?” Sam asked her in the present washing the image of her past self out of Rachel’s mind.

              “I remember.” Rachel said puling Sam into her embrace. “I remember you.”

XV

              “I have never seen you smile so much.” Darryl remarked. His throat was still raw from having tubes down it for days, and it was hard for him to speak above a whisper. He still looked like a man who cheated death, but he was on the road to a complete recovery. “I know that it has nothing to do with me and how angry at me you must be. I understand if you hate me and never want to see me again, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart that I am so sorry about everything that I’ve put you through, and I mean everything.” Darryl reached for Rachel’s hand only to have her pull it away.

              Her smile disappeared instantly. “You’ll never be sorry enough for me to forgive you for any of the crap you’ve pulled over the last ten years. When I was at my lowest you took my life from me.” A rage that had been growing in Rachel for almost a week slowly began to break the surface of her consciousness.

              “Fair enough.” Darryl conceded. “Will I ever see you again, I mean once I’m done with this place?” Rachel shook her head as way of reply not trusting her voice. “Well then I would like to see Samantha Ross and thank her for saving my life.”

              “Don’t bother trying to buy her off, Dad, she won’t budge.” Rachel warned as she gathered her things.

              “Ouch. Please try to think more of me than that. I really do want to thank her, and that is all.” Darryl watched his daughter leave his hospital room without another word knowing that there would never be anything that he could ever say to make her forgive him. He lay back in the bed with his good arm under his head and wondered what would become of him.

              “You wanted to see me?” Samantha Ross appeared at the end of his bed and watched him with unwavering sky blue eyes.

              Darryl began slowly knowing that he was on thin ice. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life and my daughter’s life as well. I also wanted to apologize for not accepting you before all of this happened, and for all of the trouble that I‘ve caused you. I wish you all of the best.”

              “Well you can write me a thank you card from jail.” Sam told him and began to turn to walk away.

              Darryl laughed at her. “I’ll never do a day. I doubt I’ll spend an entire hour in jail. I never ordered anyone to kill anyone. I never paid anyone. I have yet to break the law.”

              Sam turned to glower at the man lying helpless in the bed before her and swallowed a sudden urge to smother him with his pillow. “You’re in this up to here, and I’m going to testify against you in court.” Sam held her hand over her head.

              “That would be up to my chin if I were standing.” Darryl remarked offhandedly. “You can testify all that you like. I still haven’t done anything illegal. I never told those men to kill you or do anything to you at all. All I told them was to leave Rachel out of whatever they did. Think about all that you know about my involvement in this. Go ahead and tell the police every little detail. It won’t matter.”

              “Well then, why don’t I just grab a pillow and smother you right here right now?” Sam offered furious beyond anything that she had ever experienced.

              “Because you are a far better woman than I am a man, and you would never do that to Rachel. If it’s any consolation I would take back everything from the day that I met you until now if I could.” Darryl sat up as best he could and held out his hand to shake Sam’s.

              “You may be right about not going to jail and me not being able to kill you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to shake your hand you sick son of bitch!” Sam turned on her heel and stormed down the hall. Rachel chased her.

              “He’s right.” Rachel told her once they made it to the cafeteria. “He has the money and the lawyers. He would never see the inside of a jail cell. I know that I wouldn’t, and I don’t have half of the resources that he does.”

              Sam piled a tray high with baked goods. “I know. You’re right. He blew up a church. He sent killers after us and Godknows what else, but he’s going to get away with it because he has money and he’s evil, and manipulative. I don’t want to talk about it. He’s a jerk, he’s going to get away with all of this, and I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to eat my cookies and book a flight out of here.”

              Rachel laughed a little at the amount of cookies Sam was planning on eating. “Well that’s a healthy way to deal with it, and you won anyway.”

              “I won?” Sam asked as she paid the cashier.

              “Yea, all of this, the last ten years was to keep me. I was the prize and you’ve got me for as long as you’ll have me.” Rachel wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked to a table. “Please tell me its forever.” Rachel whispered in her ear as they sat down.

              “It’s long after forever.” Sam promised tearing into her first package of chocolate chip cookies. She offered Rachel one with a smile. She could already feel her anger subsiding. “I suppose I already knew that people with money got away with murder, or at least attempted murder. At least he’ll be horribly disfigured for the rest of his life. I should have left him in that basement.”

              “He tried to have you killed, why did you save him?” Rachel took a bite of her cookie the phrase ‘small pleasures in life’ running through her head.

              “Because everything went so wrong for you after I showed up that I thought that maybe if this one thing could go right then you would be okay.” Sam said abashedly hanging her head at the naivety of her idealism.

              “Silly girl. You were the first thing that went right for me in ten years. If it weren’t for you showing up I would be sitting in jail framed by that jerk Jack, and I wouldn’t even know why.” Rachel leaned across the table and kissed Sam lightly on the cheek. When she pulled back Sam’s jaw had dropped. “What is it?”

              “How dare you bring that person here again?” Debra demanded of her daughter. Rachel was a thorn in Debra’s side from birth. She was supposed to be a boy to begin with but out came a beautiful baby girl to smite her. To make it worst Rachel’s birth left Debra with an emergency hysterectomy leaving no possibilities of her ever giving Darryl the son he deserved. Rachel was a willful child with little regard for what her mother thought to be lady like behavior. Darryl adored and spoiled his daughter to no end between his many affairs and obligations to his profession. Most battles in the Burn household ended with Darryl and Rachel on one side and Debra on another.

              Over the years Debra came to truly dislike her daughter. She always suspected her of having perverse feelings for the other girls and was not in the least bit surprised when she came home one summer break with her new lover Samantha. Debra wanted to disown her right then and there, but Darryl refused and said that it was just a phase and that she would get over it. Even when Rachel had no idea of who she was Darryl wanted to let Rachel go back to her old life, but Debra put a stop to that idea right away. Through tragedy she had a chance to have the daughter that she had always wanted and she took it.

              “This person saved your husband’s life.” Rachel pointed out to her mother. Rachel was aware of how her mother felt about her. Debra had told her on more than one occasion. “You owe her your respect if nothing else.”

              “I don’t owe her anything. If it weren’t for her poking her nose in where she’s not wanted then none of this would have ever happened.” Debra looked at Sam for the first time. “If you would have just stayed gone none of this would have happened.” Sam made no reply. She simply looked through Debra as though she weren’t there.

              “By poking her nose in do you mean telling me about my life before you decided to lie to me. She loves me and you took her away from me and left me alone and bitter.”  Rachel stood up to look her mother in the eye. “You ruined the last ten years of my life, I hate you now and forever, but do you know what? You don’t matter anymore, mother. So go away and stop pretending that you do.”

              “Come along, Charles leave these undesirables to their future burning in hell.” Debra turned around to find out that she was standing alone. She wondered back the way that she had come calling her son in law as she went.

              “Sam?” Rachel realized that Sam had been silent throughout the entire exchange between her and her mother. “Honey, are you okay?” Rachel touched her lightly on the shoulder. The touch seemed to reanimate her.

              Sam took a deep breath, her voice trembled as she spoke. “That guy was Charles? He’s not the Charles that I met.”

              Rachel hadn’t seen Charles with her mother, but had no doubt that he was there. “Probably, but I didn’t see him. I’m sure he was there. He’s my mother’s lap dog. Red headed guy?”             

              “Blond, but not like me strawberry blond and going bald.” Sam muttered quickly gathering up her things.

              “Red, blond, whatever. He’s a bastard and a fool if he thinks that I’m done with him. I’m going to have his ass for marrying me. Where are you running off to in such a hurry?” Rachel eyed Sam’s sudden frenzy suspiciously.

              Sam dropped her goodies back on to the table. “We have to go.” She grabbed Rachel in a vice like grip and started to pull her to the door.

              “What are you doing?” Rachel tried to shake Sam’s grip and failed. “You’re hurting me.”

              Sam paid no attention to her until Rachel slid to a stop and refused to take another step. “He’s going to kill us, we have to go. Now!” She attempted to pull Rachel away from the table. Tears had already begun to run down her cheeks. A decade worth of horrors stood on the verge of crushing her mind.

              “Who? Who’s going to kill us?” Rachel demanded finally shaking off Sam’s grip, sure that it would leave a bruise.

              “Charles. He killed us. He shot you in the head. He shot me in the chest six times and kicked me in the face. We have to go.” Sam reached for Rachel again but she pulled away.

              “I thought that it wasn’t Charles. You said that it wasn’t Charles.” Rachel walked to the entrance to oblige Sam and try to calm her panic.

              “That’s not the guy. That’s not the Charles that I met.” Sam seemed to be in a dream state of shock. She began to form words, and stopped.

              “I’m going to take you to my parent’s house and show you a picture, so that you can be sure. I want you to be sure.”

              “No, we have to leave. We can’t stay here. It’s not safe.” Sam began vaguely aware of how irrationally she was behaving and not caring. She wanted to be far away where her nightmares didn’t walk around in three thousand dollar suits.

              Charles couldn’t help but think of Samantha Ross while he pumped his hips against the woman that was bent over before him. Anger and shame made him violent in his love making and his lover complained loudly. He didn’t stop, but slowed slightly to silence her. He failed to reach climax and sat down on the edge of the bed, his shame hanging limp between his legs.

              “What is the matter with you today, Charles?” She asked. He used to love the way that she said his name. Even when he was a boy it had made him hard in his pants.

              “Samantha Ross should be dead.” He whined. Charles covered himself with a pillow which was unusual for him. He usually reveled in his nudity, proud of the ample gifts that Godhad given him.

              “I wish that she were.” Debra conceded running a finger over Charles’ slightly hairy slightly sweaty chest. She was far from satisfied with his performance and attempting to arouse him again. She had been enamored with her son in law long before he ever became her son in law. The first time that she allowed him to mount her he had been a boy of sixteen. What he had lacked in skill and staying power he made up for with blind enthusiasm. Debra still considered that day as one of the best in her life.

              Charles pushed her hand away. “You don’t understand. I shot her six times, in the chest from two feet away and then I kicked her until she stopped moving.”

              Debra froze fully aware for the first time that the man who had only moments ago been inside of her tried to kill her only child. “You shot Rachel?” She didn’t need to ask she knew. Somehow she had always known and lied to herself.

              “I did. You knew that I did. It worked out in any case. Until Sam showed up again alive and well to take what’s mine once more.” Charles dug his nails into his naked thighs drawing blood from beneath one white finger.

              “Well you shouldn’t have hit her. I know I’ve told you this over and over again, but the harder you try to control Rachel the harder she will try to resist you.” Debra rolled herself into the three thousand thread count sheets and stretched out. It was strange that she wasn’t upset about her son in law’s treachery, but she didn’t feel one way or another about it. The past was the past and he was here with her now.

              “She’s my wife. I can hit her if I want to. I don’t care what the law says. If Darryl walked in here right now and shot you dead he would be well within the rights of a husband.” Charles unlike Darryl was a true believer of the ways of the teachings of the First Church of God. He was raised in the church all of his life by a father who taught him what a woman was to a man. It was like comparing a knife and a shot gun, his father had told him. Sure the knife is a good tool, but a shot gun can get you anything you want, including more knives.

              “Then you’d better do something about Samantha Ross before she embarrasses my family or you any further, but before you do that why don’t you come over here and show me the kind of man I know that you are.”

              “It’s him.” Samantha only needed to glance at the picture that Rachel held in front of her for a moment before deciding. It was a picture of Charles and Rachel together on their wedding day, both of their smiles forced as though they already knew that it would end in folly.

              “Then you probably met my cousin Charles. He’s a jerk as well. I can’t believe this. We have to go to the police and tell them.” Rachel threw the picture into the fire place and watched as the flames licked away the faces of the bridal party.

              “We can try, but that was ten years ago, with me as the only witness and I’ve been committed more than once over that day.” Sam sat down hopelessly on the overstuffed chair and clasped her hands between her knees. “Lets go. I want to go now.”

              “Well, then I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. He shoots us then marries me, he’s got some nerve!” Rachel imagined all of the times that she had sex with her ex-husband all the while he had previously tried to kill her. She felt a new level of disgust creep over her and fought to hold down the contents of her stomach.

              “Maybe you shouldn’t kill any one. I mean anyone else. We should just leave. You know stick to our plan about getting away from these sickos.” Sam stood up, but was visibly shaking. She couldn’t get the anger on Charles’ face out of her head. He had been wearing the same expression that he wore the day that he shot them. She had never seen the human face so successfully display such disgust and hatred.

              “I wiped him out in the divorce, and now I’m going to wipe him out again. I’m going to sue that son of a bitch for every damn dime he has to his name and every one that he’ll make for years to come. I will ruin him.” Rachel took her arm and with a large sweeping motion knocked every picture off of the hearth.

              “Stop that and listen.” Sam ordered shushing Rachel when she began to protest. “Someone is here.”

“There is an entire house keeping staff. Someone is always here.” Rachel rolled her eyes skyward before she heard it. The moaning floating down the hall from the direction of the guest rooms. It had only just started but was building in its fervor. “Oh good, firing some filthy maid is just what I need right now.” Rachel stalked down the hall fully intent on bringing the offenders to tears. Sam chased her not really caring about the maid, just wanting to leave. She told Rachel’s back as much, but got no response.

              Rachel stopped in front of the door that the sound was coming from. She reached for the handle, but stopped when her hand was two inches away. The female moaning had been joined by a man grunting his pleasure. “That’s Charles. That motherfucker tries to kill me then comes over to diddle my father’s maid! The audacity of that man!” Before Sam could protest seeing the man that had tried to kill her in action Rachel lifted her booted foot and kicked in the door.

              The door exploded inward so quickly that Debra had no time to roll off of her son in law. She sat in shocked silence as her daughter stared back at her, mouth agape. No words came to mind to explain what she was doing. Beneath her, Charles smiled at his ex-wife and continued to pump away enthusiastically glad that the secret was finally out of the bag.

              Words rose and died in Rachel’s mouth. Her jaw worked but her throat could form no sounds against the slapping sounds that Charles made in his fervor. Her hand superstitiously searched the air for something to hold on to but found no purchase. Sam stood just behind her in the hall way watching in horror as her nightmare reached climax and farted all at once.

              “You used to like it like this.” Charles told his audience.

It was too much for Debra. She rolled off of him and wrapped herself in a sheet, a shame growing in her that she never thought that she would know. “Rachel, I’m sorry.” She began before her daughter turned and ran down the hall.              

              Sam was left staring at the two of them unable to move as Charles fondled himself for her to see. “Bet you wish you had some of this you dyke bitch! This is Rachel’s favorite meat.” Sam disgusted and less fearful of her assailant, turned to chase Rachel out of the house.

              “What have I done?” Debra asked the air before sliding down the wall and onto the floor. “What have I done?”

              “Rachel, maybe you should let me drive.” Sam stood by the driver’s side door and held her hands out for the key which Rachel was trying desperately to force into the ignition of the rental. Tears streamed hot and angry from her eyes as she failed to hear any of the things that Sam said to her.

              “Rachel, please give me the keys. I’ll get us out of here. You can’t drive like this. You’re so angry that you can’t get the keys in the ignition.”

              Rachel looked up at Sam still failing to hear a single word that she had said and asked, “How long? How long have they been doing this?”

              Sam shook her head slowly, her heart breaking for her lover. “I don’t know.”

              Rachel handed Sam the keys. “Get out of here. Leave.” She told Sam as got out of the car and headed back towards her father’s house. “You don’t want to be any part of this.”

“Rachel! Stop! We should just leave.” Sam called after her, trying to stop her from making a huge mistake. When Rachel made no response Sam headed back to the house after her.

              Charles met them in the foyer wearing only his underwear and carrying a pistol. “Do you remember this?” He jabbed the gun in Sam’s direction. “Do you? You should, you have seen it before.”

              Rachel in a rage pushed him away from Sam and stepped in front of her. “How could you? You said you loved me, but you tried to kill me. Now you’re fucking my mother?” She slapped at him and shoved him showing no respect for the lethal weapon that he held.

              “You were mine. My property. Mine!” Charles shoved Rachel hard and grabbed her by the throat. He waved the gun at Sam again. “Bitch, you should have stayed away from what’s mine! Now you and she have to die.” With a one armed although powerful shove he managed to knock Rachel off of her feet, re-aiming the gun at her splayed form as she fought to check herself from sliding across the marble of the foyer. His finger hesitated on the trigger.

              “Get away from her!” Sam grabbed the gun forcing his aim away from Rachel. Charles fired wildly the resulting bullet ricocheted off of the floor and lodged it’s self in the mahogany of the door frame. He took one giant hand and clamped it around Sam’s throat stopping her words and breath instantly. The pressure of his grip caused her eyes to bulge from her head as she clawed at him.

              “Let her go you son-of-bitch!”  Rachel, upon gaining her feet joined the fray attempting to separate the two by delivering vicious blows to Charles head, and kicks to his groin area. He was forced to release Sam to defend himself against Rachel‘s savage onslaught , but not before turning the gun on her. The scene played before Rachel’s eyes in nightmare slow time, the smoke blast from the revolver, Sam’s face before Charles released her to fall limply to the floor, the butt of the gun as it met with her eye socket sending her to join Sam.

              “Now, bitch, you’re going to get what you had coming all this time.” Charles aimed the gun at Rachel’s face as she lay stunned at his feet, barely conscience and unable to move. The shot rang out, the sound of it louder than the two that had come before it. It resonated off of the walls of the foyer pulling Rachel out of her stupor unable to take her eyes off of Charles as he crumpled very much like Sam before him and fell to the ground. A pool of blood spread from beneath his inert torso to mingle with the pool spreading from Sam’s. Debra was left standing in the door way, her hands shaking beneath the weight of the pistol that she held, her mouth agape with the terror of what she had done.

              “I didn’t know. Please believe me, I didn’t know.” She stammered at her daughter who could only stare at her in response. In the distance the first sirens could be heard. Rachel crawled to check on Sam while Debra tried to stop the blood flowing from the wound in Charles’ back. Mother and daughter looked at each other over their dying lovers unable to make eye contact.

              Epilogue

                            Debra watched her son in law, Charles through the plexie glass that separated them. He rolled his wheel chair that was now his permanent prison as far into the corner as he could get so that he didn’t have to see her watching him. In time she believed that he would forgive her, he believed that she thought him weak, but despite their differences their love persisted and he got stronger every day. Soon his lawyers would get him out of the mental institution and he would be free to be with her. His obsession with Rachel seemed to be gone, now that it was possible for Debra to be his. So Debra watched and waited for her love to heal from the wound that she had owed him for shooting her only child.

              Darryl Burn would never be the man that he was. He promised himself as he watched his sons playing in the warm ocean. The sun shown brightly on their backs as they gathered around the oldest boy. They leapt and yelled joyfully for Darryl. He threw a football which the five of them scrambled through the frothy surf to retrieve. Before they could return it to him he picked up his cell phone and called his daughter. He received no answer, but in time he imagined that he would. After all, didn’t time heal all?

              The man known as only as Harvey stood at the door to his five by eight padded cell and looked out of the12x12 inch plexie glass window. Doctors and attendants passed by his door all day long paying him no attention. The people at the hospital had long since stopped talking to Harvey. In a year he only had one thing to say. “I got her smell on me! I got it good!” The hospital workers had no idea who she was. They only knew that Harvey was one of the sickest men that they had ever met and that if he ever got out that she, whoever she was, would be in a lot of danger.

              Jo and Frank clinked their cold beer bottles together as they watched Frank’s children playing in the yard. Stacey dozed close by on a lawn chair, the sun bringing out the multicolored highlights of the new hair she had begun to grow. She was still weak from the treatment, but she was getting stronger every day, and the doctors hadn’t find a trace of the cancer in the last six months. She had even begun to put on weight. It was a miracle what you could survive if you had the money to pay for the cure. Jo watched her sleeping lover letting her heart swell with pure joy. Everything that she had done had been worth it.

Frank’s scars barely showed these days, after he’d spent most of his money on rebuilding his face. They were pale pink lines crisscrossing his chin and hidden by a new beard. Jo smiled nodded at him and he nodded back. Neither of them had badges anymore. Neither of them cared.

              Sam had awakened in a hospital ten years before to find that she was alone in the dark, now she awakened hours after being shot a second time to find Rachel sitting next to her bed with tears streaming down her face. “What are you crying for? That was just one bullet. It was nothing like the time I got shot six times.” She reassured Rachel who could only smile in response and kiss her hand. “Weren’t we going on a trip?” She asked around the ice chips that the nurse gave her to chew on.

              “Anywhere you want to go.” Rachel promised her, and she meant anywhere. Sam sat back content to watch Rachel and bask in the love and hope in her eyes.

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