FOREVER MINE (16 page)

Brody is sitting at the hotel bar, after having said good night to Kevin.  He is enjoying a whiskey on the rocks.  The slow burn of the alcohol running down his throat is soothing.  His nerves are shot.  He can’t stop thinking about Charlie.  He hates that she is alone.  He is so lost in his thoughts he doesn’t realize someone is speaking to him.

“Hello, Brody, right?  You were in the training session.  You look like you could use another one of these.”  She slides another drink over to him.  Brody looks at the girl.  She is a tall, skinny brunette.  Her long hair is in a pony tail at the nape of her neck.
Sleek and stylish.
  She is wearing a simple black pants suit with shiny red heels to finish off her business casual look.  She has a nice smile.

Brody takes the drink, tips it in her direction, “Thanks, I did need one more.”

“So what has you sitting here looking so down?” She puts her hand on his arm.

“I just miss my girlfriend.”

“I should have known someone as broodingly sexy as you would be taken.  Is it happily taken or would you like a distraction?”

“Very, happy.
  It’s very new.”

“Well, in that case I wish you all the luck in the world and bid you good night.”  She clinks her glass with his, takes it like a shot, and walks away.

Brody smiles as she leaves.  She was nice.  He sits quietly for a bit and finishes his drink.  He starts to feel a little tipsy.  Form two drinks? 
Pussy.
  Laughing, gets off the bar stool and stumbles a little.   He puts money on the bar, enough to cover his drink and a tip.  He hurries to the elevator.  When he reaches the 10
^th
floor he can hardly stand and feels nauseous.

The elevator doors open, he stumbles out to the hall.  Holding onto the wall, he reaches his room and can’t find his room key.  Crap.  He turns and looks to the elevator.  Can he make it back down stairs to look around?  No, defiantly, not.  He turns back to his door and rests his head against it.  He hears movement inside, and then the door opens.  He falls inside the room and lands on his face.

“Hello, Brody.  We meet again.”

He rolls over and is looking at a pair of naked legs. He follows the legs up to a pink frilly negligee; that has just enough fabric to cover the two big overly round breasts of the unknown woman from the bar.

The unknown woman drags him over to the bed.  She takes off all his clothes, lays him down, and sets something up in the corner.  He can’t move and his head feels heavy. His tongue isn’t working his eyes are barely open.  He thinks he keeps passing out for a few seconds at a time.

The woman climbs on top of him.  She lowers her top and exposes her herself.  She takes his hand and holds it to one of her breasts, making it look like he is fondling her.  She starts to ride him even though she still has her panties on and he is nowhere near able to penetrate her.  She is making noises and faces and holding his hands so he is touching every part of her.  She does this for awhile, and then she stops, gets off of him, moves around the room, gets dressed and leaves without a word.

Patrick arrives at the house two hours after Charlie.  He drove through the neighborhood, and circled back to the house.  Everything seemed quiet.  He gets out of the car and walks up to the door.  He knocks and waits for Charlie to answer.

She answers wearing a t-shirt and short cotton shorts, lord have mercy.  If I wasn’t older than her I would give Brody a run for his money.  Her long wild curls were in a ponytail at the top of her head, but they don’t seem to want to stay there.

“Well, it’s about God damn time you show up.  Do you know what I had to do while I waited, no?  I’ll tell you, I had to deal with Brody’s ex girlfriend.  She is a bitch.  She made me so mad I ate a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s, by myself.  Do you know how many calories are in a pint of Ben and Jerry’s?  Like 260 per serving.  Guess how many serving are in a pint, Pat, there are three and a half.”

“Can I come in now, or are you going to continue my Ben and Jerry’s education?”

“Sorry, come in.”  She looks a little embarrassed by her tirade.

When I walked in I stopped abruptly, half of the furniture was missing out of the house.  There was a couch, but no tables or chair, the TV was on the floor.  The dining room had a table and chairs but the hutch that held the ‘nice plates’ was missing.  I could tell because there were plates on the floor.  In the kitchen the area that should’ve had a table was bare.  You could see the marks on the floor where one used to be.

“Wow, she cleaned him out.”

“Yeah, he’s going to be pissed when he gets home, she even took his bed.  Not that he needs it, since he has been in my room.” See looks up, eyes big, she is blushing, “I mean, not that we sleep together, well we did, but just sleep, sleep. Oh, hell, never mind.”

I have to laugh, “Charlie, relax you don’t need to explain anything to me.”

“I just don’t want you to think badly of me.”  She looks down and away.

“Hey I already told you I think you are remarkable.  I know you have a thing for Brody, and he for you.  Hell, anyone with eyes can see you two are crazy about each other.  If I was a younger man I give him a run for his money.”  I tell her, repeating my earlier dialog with myself, out loud.

She laughs out loud and it is a remarkable sound, she should do it more. “Brody and I are just friends and why are you acting like you’re old, how old are you?  Is that rude, I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer.”  There she goes blushing again.

“I am 39; I will be 40 in September.”

“That’s not old.  That’s 9 years older than Brody and I. Brody’s birthday is July 4
^th
.  Mine is August 3
^rd
.  I thought you were our age.  You must take really good care of yourself.”

“Thank you, I try.  I have to stay in shape working patrol.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Well you seem ok in here.  I have to go drive through the hood,” I wink “I will be back but I’m going to stay outside.  I want to stay on the move so I don’t draw attention to myself.”

“Ok, I am just going to clean and go to bed anyway.  I have a lot of energy to burn off and I don’t want to think about the calories, again.”

He reaches over and kisses her cheek.  “Sleep well.”  Then he turns and leaves the way he came in.

Michael sits and watches from the alley.  He knows now that the big guy is a police officer.  He is out of his jurisdiction way out here, so he must be watching over Charlie.  Michael, can easily take care of him.  He watches while he looks around the house.  Apparently, Steph was here earlier and moved out.  She took half of every room.  Michael had to laugh, he always did like her.  She had balls.

While the cop and Charlie talk, Michael goes over his time line.  He has a plane to catch at 2am.  It takes an hour to get to the airport; he has to give himself enough time to make it through security.  It is 8:43, now so that gives him about 3 hours to do what he needs to do.

Mr.
hero
cop walks out the front door, after he gives Charlie a kiss on the cheek.  I wonder if Brody knows she lets him touch her like that.  She lets everyone touch her like that, everyone but me.  He swallows his anger, not now, he needs to focus.

The cop drives away and Michael follows.  He knows a cop can spot a tail, so he takes a gamble and circles around in front of him.  In a couple of blocks their paths cross again.  This time though, Michael is in front.  He drives a minute and makes a right turn.  The cop goes left.  Michael pulls over and sits in his car for awhile.  Twenty minutes later, the cop’s car is coming slowly to the stop sign where they parted ways.  This time he makes the same left Michael made earlier.  When he drives past Michael’s car, Michael gets out and waves him down.

He parks in front of his car and gets out.  “Hey, what can I do for you?”

“I seem to have a flat tire, and my cell phone isn’t working.”

The cop takes out his cell phone and looks for a signal.  At the same time Michael reaches into his pocket and turns on the portable signal jammer.  The cop says, “Huh, I never have trouble with service.  Well let’s take a look at this tire, maybe I can help change it and you can be on your way.  Where is that by the way?” 

Michael was ready for this.  He knew that this guy wouldn’t be able to resist helping someone, but the help would come with questions.  “I live just into the next town.  About 20 minutes from here.  I was visiting someone from church, after work.  They had recently been sick and I wanted to check to see if they felt better.”

“Oh, that was very kind of you.”  He says as he is bending over to look at the tire.  “Your tire…

Michael injects the cop, in the side of his neck, with a very powerful sedative.  The cop is down before he can finish his thought.  He should stay down for a good part of the night.  Laughing under his breath, he drags his body to his car and throws him across the backseat. 

Michael looks at his watch, cursing under his breath; he takes out his knife and puts a hole in all four tires of the cop’s car.  It’s now almost 10o’clock, this took a little longer than he wanted.  He will have to hurry now.  He gets in the car and hurries back to the house.

Charlie looks at the clock, it’s almost 10, and Brody still hasn’t called.  She knows his training is just ending, but she is getting tired so she decides to call him.  Knowing it will go straight to voicemail, she tries to think of something witty to say.  When the phone beeps she’s out of time.

“Hey handsome, I hope you’re not breaking too many hearts in Chicago.  You don’t need to call me back, I’m going to go to bed,
I’m
really tired.  I hope you dream about me.  I will be dreaming of you.  Good night, I can’t wait until you’re home.  I really miss you.”  She hangs up feeling a bit sad.  She puts the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, when the lights flicker.

“Crap.”  Just as she opens the junk drawer for a flash light the house goes dark.  She flips the switch on the flash light and picks up her cell phone.  She has no signal.  Putting her cell in her back pocket, she reaches for the land line Brody has hooked up but never uses, the phone is completely dead.

Charlie is trying to quiet her rising panic.  She has an increasingly bad feeling Michael is here.  She walks around the kitchen shining the light in every dark corner.  Her heart beat is erratic and her breathing is labored.  She knows if she doesn’t calm down, she will pass out.

She closes her eyes and sits on the floor, where the table used to be, and counts one, two, three breaths in; one, two, three breaths out.  She repeats a couple times.  When her breathing is under control she opens her eyes.

She is using all of her senses to try to figure out what is going on and where.  It’s too quiet.  No dogs are barking, no crickets chirping, no wind blowing through the tress.  She is listening so hard, she almost misses the sound of the front door knob rattling.  Someone is trying to open the door.

Her heart is in her throat.  She can’t remember if she locked it after Pat left.  Her gun is upstairs in her room.  She felt more vulnerable while she slept.

She gets out of the corner and crawls on her hands and knees to look around at the door.  The knob stops moving.  It’s quiet and then a huge bang on the door makes her scream, a blood curdling scream.  Someone is trying to rip the door from the hinges.  Again and again the door is banged and kicked and wrenched.

Then everything falls quiet.  Charlie does the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her life; she turns off her flashlight.  Thrown into darkness, she scrambles to the living room on her hands and knees.  She turns the corner, moving toward the stairs, and hears an awful scratching sound at the back of the house. 

The kitchen is on the same corner of the house as Charlie’s room.  It has just as many windows; an entire wall of windows.  The kitchen door is locked, that she is sure of.  The scratching continues to a shrill pitch, like nails down a chalk board, across every window in the kitchen.

“Charlie, come out, come out where ever you are.”  The back door bangs loud. “How about this one, since you won’t come out.”  He starts to laugh and abruptly stops and growls under his breath, making his voice sound menacing.  “Little pig, little pig let me in.”

Charlie starts to cry.  She can’t see any way to get out of this.  The terror she is feeling is worse than any she has ever felt.  He has seceded in making her powerless once again.  She cannot beat this sick, crazy man that wants her dead.  She just gives in and cries.

“You are a little pig, aren’t you Charlie?  Letting everyone you meet touch you and kiss you.” He pets the window in the kitchen with his hand, he runs a knife down the pane of glass; making the awful scratching sound again; and then he rubs his face on it.  “Do you let everyone into your sweet, tight pussy?  Has Brody touched you, yet?  I will kill him, Charlie, I hope you know that.  I love you, and no one can have you if I can’t.  You don’t choose me anymore, like you used to.  Remember how much fun we had?  Do you remember how many times I was inside you?”

Charlie gags.  She can taste the bile rising in her throat.

“I’m going to get into you one more time Charlie.  Do you hear me?”  He licks the window.  “I am going to tie you down, and lick your nether lips until they’re swollen with need for me, and then I’m going to fuck you till you scream for me like you used to.”

Charlie throws up all over the floor; loud, gut wrenching, and uncontrolled.

Michael laughs outside.  She can see his silhouette outlined on the window with moonlight behind him.  She wipes her mouth and crawls up the stairs sobbing and sick.  When she gets to the top, she runs for her room and grabs her gun.  She runs down the stairs and opens the front door.  Just as she steps outside all the lights come back on.  The stereo upstairs is playing, loud.  It’s playing Skillet, Monster. She lets the song play, as she looks around the yard.  He is gone.  Charlie turns and walks into the house.  She locks every door and window in the house.  She turns off the stereo, cleans her vomit off the floor, and goes into the living room, curls up on the couch, and cries herself into oblivion.