Quintic (66 page)

Her story
was going to be bad, but he needed to know. “So. Let’s recap. You
gave him the scar during the only ten minutes you were with him. Is
that right?” He played out the scene. “One minute to lock you up.
Two to three minutes of him groping you, you pushing him away. Two
to pin you down to the floor. Then a good three of you arguing.
Followed by another two to three to get you out of some clothes. I
assume the asshole wasn’t taking his time, not if he wanted you
bad.”

“Christopher, stop.”

“
Probably he
didn’t undress you completely, too eager to see some skin,
your
skin,
fast. Desperately. That’s ten minutes, Pussycat.”

“Christopher, please
don’t.”

“
Don’t what?
You’re over it, right?” He brushed a crazy curl away from her
cheek. “Remember our first fight? The first time you thought you
could physically take me down? Fuck, I was so turned on.” From the
first moment they met, they liked each other. “I was so fucking
hard I wanted to both take the night to toy with you and sink into
you in one thrust. How long did we fight?”

“
Christopher, that wasn’t the same, and you know
it.”

“
Yah, I
know. I kissed you so hard, you tried to kick me after. One fucking
girlie kick I stopped with my thighs. My balls and cock hurt, same
as now. From the start, rolling around with you’s been foreplay.”
He didn’t want to imagine what the jerk had fucking felt. “We’re
good at fighting together, Angel, but on your own you suck. Why’d
you think I’m pushing so hard for you to carry a gun?”

“I’m not carrying a gun!”

“
Damn it,
Patricia, don’t try to veer this conversation away from the jerk
and his scar. Ten fucking minutes! You didn’t have time to hurt the
creep, at least not badly enough to leave a scar, so either it
lasted more than ten minutes, or he didn’t get the scar that time.
Which one is it?”

“What? Which one is what?”

“
Were you
with him more than ten minutes or did you see him again? Fight with
him again and made the scar then?” From the way she jerked at his
words, the second scenario was the winner. “OK. A first ten minutes
with the asshole, and then he ran off. I’ll believe that.”
Part of it at
least
. “You left with Joshua, and then
what? The copper had an off-the-books source of income. You hadn’t
gone to report him, you couldn’t, not without incriminating Joshua,
so he figured he was clear. Then what?”

“
What on
earth are you talking about, Big guy?”

That line
was her classic attack line. One in a the million variations of her
‘what the heck can I say without getting into trouble?’ retort.
Anything she said after that was going to be a lie. Furthermore,
she would put herself into a state in reaction and bitch at him
defensively.
I know your
tricks, Dollface, I won’t let you distract me
. He waited.

Damn him!
F
rom the looks of him, Christopher
wouldn’t let it go. She didn’t want to fight with him.
I should have killed the bastard
when I had the chance; he’s probably long gone now.
“Fine! After that night, Joshua stopped paying
for, hum, protection. Nothing happened for a while, but then one
day the creep showed up at a club where the hackers used to hang
out, the arcade place in the report? Anyway. The jerk turned up
late one afternoon, saying that since Joshua was late in his
payments, he had to pay interest. I wasn’t seeing Joshua at the
time, it was during our first break-up, so I wasn’t there, but
Joshua told me he told the guy off. The
salopard
tried to push
Joshua around that time but must have realised he was in the wrong
place. Even if the hackers were afraid of him, they were still
witnesses. And they had surveillance cameras. So he left, saying he
was going to be back.”

“Then what? How do you fit
in?”

“
I got back
with Joshua a week or two after that, but he didn’t tell me about
that little scuffle until later. One night we were coming back from
the movies, and the cop was waiting for us with his partner. We
often took a shortcut through the park; that’s where they showed
up. The first thing we know, we have one in front and one in our
back. Payback time.”

“
And you
were the interest on the back fees.” Of course. Knot and Fists hurt
at the thought.

“
Something
like that.” Her teeth sank into her bottom lip once again. “But
nothing happened,” she added in a small voice.

His
fist
hit the wall. Reflex again. Already
bruised when he had punched the wall earlier, and the elevator door
the night before, his hand started blending. He looked at her with
something close to rage in his eyes. “Don’t say nothing happened,
Patricia! Don’t EVER fucking tell me nothing happened!”

“
What I
meant to say was h
e didn’t rape me. He
hit me. Yes. He even touched me. A little. But he was, ah, a little
excited, and his buddy was watching, and, well, hum,
helping
.
Or he wanted to go at it first while the creep watched, I’m not
sure, but the buddy was holding me around the neck and trying to
put his gun in the front of my pants and well, hum. I don’t
remember everything clearly but at some point, I must have grabbed
the gun because a shot went off. The creep was standing against me,
so it blasted at him, burned his neck, not missing by much.
Sadly.”

“Where was Joshua?” The lousy
coward.

“They had knocked him out.”

Again?
“Why didn’t they shoot you
then?”

“
The fat cop
was screaming like crazy. It looked like it hurt a lot.”

“
Must have,
but still, why didn’t the other one shoot you?”

She looked
at him. He
was thorough, wasn’t he? Damn,
she was crazy about the man. “Lemieux punched the buddy, grabbed
me, and we ran off.”

Lemieux.
That was how the
creepy cop knew him.
“Why was Lemieux there?”

“
He had come
to the showing with us.”

“
You left
Joshua there?” She didn’t answer. Yup, they had left the jerk
there, alone in the park. Good girl. “Did Lemieux ever do jobs for
the asshole cops?”

“
I don’t
know. I don’t think they knew each other much. I only saw the creep
talking to Joshua, but I don’t know. I don’t know the jobs Lemieux
did. I think he was more into surveillance. Blackmail. Breaking and
entering. He was Joshua’s handyman so maybe.”

“Did you see the jerk
again?”

“No. Not until the club. With
Steve. And then with Charles.”

She wasn’t
lying for that part. “Did he see you? Recognise you?”

“
No.
I look quite different now. My hair’s a lot
shorter, and most times I keep pulled off my face.” She pouted and
tried to tuck a wayward strand behind her ears
. Leave it be, Angel; your waves are sexy as
hell and reflect your personality perfectly
. “Moreover, back in the days, it was more blue than dark
brown. Besides, I was wearing a cap at the club. And even if he had
seen me, he wouldn’t have recognised me. I was very slim then; my
cheeks are a lot fuller and my face rounder now.”

Rounder
might be a slight exaggeration. Her face might look healthier now,
but her features were the same as back then. The guy had gone nuts
over her and tried to rape her only to end up getting shot by her.
Whatever her disguise, the sonofabitch was going to recognise her.
Chris did not tell her that, though; he did not want to worry
her.
I will take care of the
creep for you once and for all, Darling of mine
.

He
wanted
to go over what she had told him
and clarify the tiny imperfections that still peppered her story,
but she looked so tired, he let it go for now. The team was pacing
the corridor when they came out of the toilets.

“Go home. I’ll keep you guys
posted.”

Once he had
her tucked in, he wa
s going to send the
team in pairs on a hunt. First and foremost, they would visit strip
clubs in search of the fat creep with a scar. In essence, pursue
what Patricia and Charles had started, even if Chris doubt the
asshole would be stupid enough to go back. Secondly, look for
witnesses who had intel on the creep’s whereabouts. To cover all
possible ends, Steve had already issued a warrant out on the creep
for the fight. The chase had begun.

“
Where
to
, Angel?”

“I don’t know. Your place I
guess.”

She took
a
nother excessively long shower and
cried, alone in the shower. She didn’t tell him, but he knew just
by looking at her. It pissed him off.

“
Nothing happened
,” she kept
repeating.

He didn’t
beli
eve her. The guy had scared her; that
in itself was already too much. He had hurt her. That was NOT
nothing, not for Chris.

She crawled
into bed naked and stretched on top of him. “Fill me.”

He soothed
and kissed and caressed and came, his cock buried inside her to the
hilt as she had requested.

“
I want to
feel you come
,
mon chéri
.”

H
e came like she wanted even if
she held back.

After,
cradling her tight, he asked about Lemieux. “That time you went
with Lemieux when you were with Joshua. Was it that
night?”

“
Yes. Joshua
got himself up somehow and followed us. Perhaps he had a
concussion, but he had gone down so fast, they had not beaten him
severely. He looked as if he was taking a damn nap! Anyway. Later
he showed up at Lemieux’s place looking for me. Lemieux was in a
worse shape. The shot probably saved us both.”

“Lemieux fought for you?”

“
Yes, he
did.”

“So you spent the night with
him.”

“
Oui
.” A last nick on her bottom
lip. “That night and the following. I did tell Joshua. He never
raised the subject again.”

The Break-in,
Part III

“G
o wait in the car,”
the creep ordered his ugly partner.

Ugly mumbled something
unintelligible.

“
You can have the rest after,” Creep
replied. More grumbling, more of Creep, “After. Leave him there.
Let someone pick him up in the morning for breaking in.”

Ugly left on that cheerful note.

Think!

Creep turned to her as he locked the
president’s office door, “Just me and you, pussy. Let’s have some
fun.”

She tried to run, but his had fist
had a death grip on her top. She tugged and struggled until her
shirt ripped open and she slipped away to the other side of the
desk. She was not crying. Nor yelling. Nor pleading.
Focus. Think.

Creep rounded the desk; she followed.
For each step he took, she jumped back, making sure to keep the
desk between them. He toyed with her, yelled at her, laughing.

His craziness convinced her right
then and there that she wasn’t a nutcase for compared to him, she
was about as normal as could be. The
salaud
practically drooled as they danced around
the presidential bureau. J must have majorly pissed off the creep
for him to go wild over her like that. Dirty cops sure turned
creepy when out for revenge.

The bastard never came full circle,
hence never came far enough behind the desk to clear the path to
the door. Wasn’t he tired of the game? Inevitably, considering his
weight, he was heading straight to a stroke, wasn’t he? Preferably,
in the next minute.

Unfortunately, he did not suffer a
heart attack even though he was pumped. Excitement. Lust. Power.
Revenge. She saw it all in his beady eyes. His breaths became
laboured for after his last lunge, though. He took his gun out
then.
How original, salopard
. She
had foreseen it would come down to him and his gun in the end but
had hoped for more time.
Think of something,
fillette
. Anything. The creep grabbed a chair by its
backrest, one of the two guest chairs facing the desk that the
president probably offered to his employees before talking down to
them, how appropriate.

The door, three steps of free space,
the fat ugly creep and the chairs, another four paces of empty
space, and the desk were now aligned in a neat row in front of her.
The second guest chair, he threw at her. She dropped to the floor a
fraction of a second before the chair crashed into the wall behind
her.

Silence. Then, the wooden floor
creaked, the door rattled, a chair squeaked indicating Creep had
braced the chair against the door and settled his bulky frame into
it.

“
Come here, kitty. Time to play
nice. I want you to be sweet, to me and my gun.”

She crouched lower down behind the
desk. Think, she willed herself.

“
Come here, pussy. I want you to
come. Fast. I’m all ready for you. My gun’s waiting.”

She spied on him from under the desk.
He made kissy noises as he licked his service piece once. His fat
belly bulged in front of him, and he propped his right hand holding
the gun on his round blob while his left hand cupped his crotch.
How cosy. She gagged and almost threw up.