Saints and Assassins (The Sentinels) (3 page)

Eve leaned close to the counter so no one would hear her. “I think she’d kick both our asses. You behave now!” 
That’s how their conversations usually ended as Eve walked away.

“Be safe!” he called after her.  Raising her left arm she waved back at him.
Eve laughed at the idea of someone pursuing her, with all of the mental baggage that she currently carried. Good luck with that!

Eve
n
i
n the vast and diverse
city of Chicago
Eve had never felt in danger
.
 
There are certain places that you just don’t
go and you can avoid most
opportunities
for trouble
. Besides she had always been physically fit, working out three
or four
times a week at the gym.
She knew she could outrun most trouble if it had presented itself.
Eve had also taken
self-
def
ense classes after Michael died
strictly out of boredom.
The aggressive form of exercise had let her mind release some of the pent up energy she had.

Pausing for just a moment
,
she sipped her coffee trying to decide whether to turn left or right.  Her instinct today said left. So left it was on this calm, warm March morning.  Warm meant that it was actually supposed to reach forty degrees out instead of the usual
thirty-two
.
She wore a long sleeve thermal shirt, jeans and brown leather
boots and carried her
worn
leather jacket with her just in case she needed it.

As she walked, she passed an Italian restaurant, an antique shop, and an overpriced coffee shop.  Eve rarely could bring herself to spend five dollars on a cup of coffee of
any kind.  Even though she had all the money that Michael had left her
in her bank accounts, she was
admittedly cheap when it came to herself. She didn’t believe that there was any point in wasting money on things that she didn’t need.

Du
ring her time of
mourning,
Eve
secluded herself from the world
.  She had no family and Michael’s family was so far away in
California
she didn’t have anyone prodding her to get up each day and do something.
One of her friends from work urged her to seek some sort of therapy, but she found her own form of therapy in the library.
 

The library was part of her personal therapy. She had read close to a hun
dred books in the last year covering the gamut of
romance and suspens
e to thrillers and horror.
 
They were her escape from her own personal demons.

She continued her
trek toward the Sears Tower just to see if anything would peak her curiosity.  The sidewalks were busy as to be expected
.
P
eople
were
coming and going into the tall buildings all around.  She spent the morning
people watching as she walked. This had become a
nother
part of her self-
prescribed therapy
.
Eve dealt with her alonene
ss by listening to others’ lives unfold. I
t made her feel a little better inside when she would remember that she didn’t have some of the problems that they did.

W
ith this exposure,
her
day-to-day
mood remained
upbeat
most
of the time
.
Occasionally, s
he couldn’t help but be sucked into a saddened state when she thought of him, even when she thought of their best moments
together. 
B
ut
,
each
day
had
become sligh
tly easier as time passed.

As th
e
morning turned into the afternoon, she grew bored of the melodramas
surrounding her
and headed for home. Deciding to take a cab, she rode quietly
,
watching.
The
ride home
was peaceful
, no accidents, no one yelling at each other about their driving. She arrived back at the apartment building, paid the cab driver and went inside. 

The lobby had its usual buzz as she passed
over to the elevator and pressed the button to go to the third floor where her apartment was.  As she waited for t
he elevator doors to open Eve sensed
someone
else waiting
behind her
.
Turning as
she stepped into the el
evator, she saw the man she had encountered that morning
. Her eyes caught his
and she smiled at the
glistening brown. He returned the gesture with a full smile, showing two rows of perfectly straight white teeth.
She felt
an electrical current pass through her
and
didn’t recognize the sensation
at first
.
Her stomach tingled in a way that left her slightly nauseated and yet excited too.

It hit her then that she
was attracted to
him.

“Hello,” said the man.
  His deep, smooth voice sent
a chill through her spine that made her
heart pound and
only added to her alerted
senses.

“Hello,” she replied nodding toward him.  He stepped into the elevator and turned to face the doors. Standing at an angle behind her as the doors shut she felt as if he were still staring at her.  Eve pressed the third floor button and turned slightly toward the man.

“What floor?” she asked out of common courtesy.

“Three please.”

Eve stepped back so t
hat they were side by side. She could tell at this proximity that h
e stood about six-foot three and had lean
muscle to his frame. H
er curiosity tempted her beyond reasoning as she addressed him.

“Are you visiting someone on the third floor?”
The conversation gave her the opportunity to look at his handsome face again. She imagined skimming her fingers down his jaw.

“No, actually I just moved in.”
He replied firmly. She recognized his curtness, but didn’t care and continued.

“Oh, I didn’t know that there was a vacancy.  Which apartment?”
This was news to her, but it showed how secluded she lived.

“Three-
ten
.
”
He looked
ahead at the
elevator
door
.
He must be too good to give her the time of day.

Smug bastard. Two can play at that game.

“Really? Well I gu
ess we’re neighbors, I’m in 308.
”
The stranger said noth
ing more to her as t
hey arrived at their destination
.

“Hmph,” Eve snorted. How fucking rude!

T
he man waited
for her t
o exit first as the doors opened.
  She nodded and
stormed
down the hall to her door.
Eve entered her apartment and locked the door as usual. 

“I don’t know what was so hard about that. I was just trying to make a
conversation. Sheesh!” Eve spoke
to herself as she stepped into her small studio apartment.
 
It suited her well s
ince she had no
significant other, no pets, and no c
hildren that required more
space.  T
he
small sofa
was more than enough for her to kick back and watch TV from. The
only other furniture in the apartment
was her king size bed and a chair.
I
t had been
their
bed and it was
his
chair. 

As she took a seat on the sofa and turned on the
TV,
she thought for a
moment about the man next door. While he had pissed her off, she still thought of his pale skin.
Glancing down at her arms
,
she thought she
was pail
,
but he clearly had her beat in that department.  However, it was also so smooth, not a flaw she recalled. 

His crisply pressed clothes look
ed expensive and that intrigued her. She wondered what he did for a living. The things she
thought of amused even her…

Finally, she gave the remote a rest as she watched the news, but h
er thoughts flickered back and fo
rth between the TV
and this new neighbor.
Strangely
, s
he
thought of him as
mysterious,
as if
he
had something to hide
.  Maybe this would be her long awaited adventure.  Then she brought herself back to reality recognizing that he was just something new in her overactive and lonely imaginatio
n.

****

Adam
slammed the back of his head against the door to the apartment. The brief moments he had spent on the elevator with Eve had almost
unmanned him. The past year had been a challenge to say the least, but now, now he didn’t know if he could maintain his anonymity.

This entire time he had watched her from a distance, but the scent of her in the elevator made him want to stop the elevator and fuck her right there on the floor.
His lascivious thoughts were magnified by his frustrations and in reality he wanted to savor her.
Imagining
tasting ever
y
inch of her and then
taking
her
in the elevator
, consumed his thoughts.

Adam couldn’t believe where his mind kept taking him.
Letting out a sigh, he walked into the small apartment and dropped his
keys, phone and wallet on the kitchen counter. What he wouldn’t give to just get drunk and let the world fade away even if it was only for a little while.
Opening the refrigerator
,
he found a bottle of water and a
half-gallon
of orange juice. Neither of those would suffice, but he didn’t have any choice.

Adam grabbed the juice and took a swig as he remembered the last time he had consumed more than a couple drinks. It made him smile even though he had nearly gotten his ass kicked.

He had just got
ten
home from the hospital and was still pissing blood from his injuries and
for some stupid reason he
thought
he could
dr
i
nk the pain away. After drinking most of a bottle of
Patron Tequila he passed out. No surprise ther
e, but when his friend
, Charlie, found him the next day he thought Charlie would kill him.

“You dumbass. Are you trying to kill yourself?
Here! If you want to do it, take my gun and off yourself now so I don’t have to come by another day and be surprised to find your dead corpse lying in the floor.”
Adam hadn’t been trying to kill himself, but for some reason he thought himself to be indestructible, even after being shot seven times. He still
did not
know what possessed him to
do that, because he knew better.

Adam placed the cap back on the orange juice and dropped it back in the refrigerator.
His stomach growled, but he didn’t have any food in the apartment. He didn’t have any furniture either. That was being delivered tomorrow and it irritated him, because he had given explicit instructions for the bed and chair to be delivered the day before. Alas, the usual screw up happened with the furniture company and the dates
were
switched. At least he had clean clothes and his laptop.

He still needed food, so Adam grabbed his laptop and ordered a pizza from Giordano’s. As far as he was concerned they made the best pies in Chicago.
That would get him through the
night, but he really did need to have some groceries delivered.

Adam went to take a hot show
er before the pizza arrived.
He hadn’t realized how tense his muscles
were until they were relaxed. Dressed in a pair of flannel pants
and t-shirt
, Adam
sat cross-legge
d on the floor to check email.