Damn. The truth hurt worst of all.
KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO’S THERE?
“Get everyone up. They’ll be here soon.” Sam moved past me into the living room. I went to Marjorie first, put a hand under her armpit and helped her stand up. The blood already started drying in her hair and she moved a little wobbly from her hard fall. I sent her out to join Sam and pulled open three drawers before I found a dish towel and wrapped Barry’s hand in it. The blood had mostly slowed, but it felt like doing something to wrap it up. Plus, we didn’t have to look at his ruined fingernail and bloody hand anymore.
He shuffled into the living room a broken man, me as his escort.
Sam stood. I put Barry on the couch next to Marjorie and she instinctively reached out for his hand. He yelped and pulled his dishtowel back to his lap and she apologized over and over, patting his shoulder like a puppy.
“You now this won’t work,” I said to Sam.
“Do you know it won’t work?”
My answer froze in my throat. I didn’t know for sure. From everything I’d seen, she seemed damn sure to kill Lucas as soon as he showed up. I wondered if she would cry then.
“We love him, you know.”
“You love him.”
“We do. Anything I feel, you feel too.”
“Bullshit.”
I pinched flesh on my forearm and twisted. Sam’s arm jerked involuntarily. “See?” I said.
“Look, I’m glad you have so much love filling your heart. You got it all, you see? I didn’t get shit. Not one drop. There is no love in here.” She tapped on her chest with the butt of her gun, the Smith and Wesson still tucked in her belt. “Same as you try really hard to hate me but there’s no hate inside, I have no love. Fucking waste of time anyway.”
But she was wrong. I did hate her. It just wouldn’t come out. Yet.
The feeling had grown since two days ago. I took on shape, recognizable form. I could name it. Hate. Bone marrow deep. For her. For Calder and Rizzo. For the old me. I felt hate all right, like an old friend come to visit.
A car pulled into the driveway. Sam turned and watched through the blinds. Marjorie and Barry huddled closer together.
“What the fuck?” Sam said. A knock on the door. “Answer it,” she said to me.
I opened the door to find Blake standing on the porch, his arm sling over his shoulder. No Lucas. He hesitated, unsure which one of us opened the door. He saw something in me, my eyes maybe, and he relaxed a tiny bit.
“You okay?”
I shrugged. “A little too early to tell.”
“Where the fuck is he?”
Blake stepped slowly inside, his hands visible and palms out. He saw Marjorie and Barry on the couch, the bloody dish towel on his hand, the stiff coagulated red of her hair.
“You two okay?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Sam said, waving over Blake’s attention with the gun. “Where is he?”
“Not here.”
“I can see that, asshole.”
“You want me to call him?”
Bless you Blake. You did have a plan.
“Tell me where the fuck he is.”
“I’ll let him tell you.” Blake made a slow, deliberate move for his pocket. “My phone,” he explained. He lifted out an iPhone, pressed the screen and clicked the volume buttons on the side to turn up the speakerphone.
Sam shifted her weight on her feet, annoyed, losing control of the situation. I felt her nervous stomach knot up in my own like I swallowed a D-size battery.
The screen came to life on Blake’s phone. A video call—like we’d been told about since the Jetsons and here it was, the most modern of technology to handle a good old fashioned hostage situation.
“Lucas?” Blake asked.
“I’m here.” The camera view swung around and Lucas’s face filled the screen. There wasn’t much detail behind him, but he stood indoors and it looked familiar, though I couldn’t place it.
“Your sister is alive.”
“Thank God.”
Blake panned the camera phone over to the couch where Marjorie and Barry didn’t paint the most convincing picture of calm.
Marjorie pleaded with her brother. “Lucas, what the hell is happening here?”
“Calm down Marjorie. We’ll take care of this, I promise.”
Oh, Lucas. So quick with a promise. Promises to clients, promises to me about dinners I knew would never happen. Promises to his sister there might be any other way out of this than completely fucked.
“I asked for you shitbag,” Sam said. “Not your messenger boy.”
She really was an unpleasant person, this other side of me. I hope I didn’t let too much of her slip out before. It’s not often you’re confronted with the worst version of yourself, and good thing. It’s miserable. And she sometimes tries to kill you and your friends.
“Let them go,” Lucas said. I had to hand it to him, he appeared remarkably strong for someone with zero experience at this. Blake must have coached him well.
“No fucking way. You didn’t listen to me, why should I listen to you?”
“You want your money, don’t you?”
Sam threw up her hands. “Jesus Christ, to think I wanted to marry you.”
“Show her, Lucas,” Blake said.
Lucas panned his camera phone over and the familiar room made sense. I couldn’t believe it and I knew damn well she didn’t either. Lucas stood in Calder and Rizzo’s condo.
The brothers sat behind their desks silently. Obediently. Odd, I thought. There were boxes piled up like the boys were moving out. Good move. A little too late though.
“What the hell is this?” Sam said.
“You let them go or these guys get it. And you don’t get your twenty million.” Lucas swallowed hard, let out a little cough. That little move betrayed his façade of calm. I felt so proud of him in a way, doing some big boy work.
“You’re not going to kill them Lucas. You can’t even shoot.” Sam raised her gun at Blake. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”
“I won’t kill them, you’re right. I’ll take them to jail though.”
“You and what army?” she said, chuckling at the pure eighth grade playground silliness of it all.
“Them.” Lucas panned the camera further left and six men were revealed. Calder and Rizzo’s subservience—explained. Who the hell these six Latino muscle men were helping Lucas was a harder question.
Sam squinted into the tiny screen, taking in the faces, the guns they held, the total control they held over Calder and Rizzo. The men began to look familiar.