Weapons of Mass Distraction (32 page)

“Take off your dresses!” yelled another male voice.

“Shoot them!” screamed the woman.

“Make up your minds!” yelled Lily.

“Maybe we should take off the dresses,” I suggested softly. We were frozen to the spot. Too scared to move, too incensed to want to stand still. Plus, one of the gang really wanted to shoot us, and I suspected the others weren’t too far behind. “It’s hard to run and hide while we’re wearing these.”

Lily looked appalled at hearing that. “No way! I paid for this dress. It comes with me.”

“We need to go,” said another man, his gun pointed at my chest while he spoke to the woman, who was clearly the leader. She replied in their language and he shrugged. “Let’s forget the dresses. We have enough and the ship is departing soon. If we don’t get the container loaded, they’ll leave without us.”

Again, the woman spoke rapidly. Again, he simply shrugged, turning to the others who also gave disinterested shrugs. I had the awful feeling something was decided and it wasn’t to release us.

“You,” said the woman, advancing closer. “Get in a container.”

“Are you kidding me?” said Lily. “We just got out of one.”

“You’re not coming with us,” the woman explained. “You get in empty container. I can’t sell dresses that smell of American corpses.” She fired a shot into the ground a few inches from Lily’s feet and Lily shuffled backwards.

“I’m a little bit Irish,” I said, holding my thumb and forefinger up. The woman turned the gun on me and I edged backwards too. It was bad enough that we were backed into a corner, but as I glanced over my shoulder, and saw the dark depths of the empty container, my stomach flipped. So what if the container wasn’t scheduled for loading on this particular ship? It was going somewhere eventually. Or nowhere. I didn’t fancy the chances of anyone looking for us. All Maddox had was the number of the container holding the dresses. A quick glance at this container showed me the numbers weren’t sequential. We’d be dead before they found us.

“We have to run,” I murmured to Lily. “We cannot get into that container. If we do, we’re toast.”

Lily hitched up her skirts and nodded. “What’s the plan?”

“You go left, I’ll go right.”

She straightened up and fixed me with an incredulous look. “That’s it? You couldn’t come up with something better?” The woman yelled at us, interrupting our quiet, but tense conversation, and we edged back a little more, stalling for more time while we still could.

“Um… then run. Run really, really fast.” When unarmed, outnumbered, or utterly unable to fight back, and/or wearing a really fabulous dress, sometimes running is simply the best policy.

“Can’t you ninja-kick them? Then we could tie them up.”

“Are you kidding me? All of them? Despite there being five of them and me, with only two legs, I am not a ninja!”

“Fine,” agreed Lily, reluctantly, “We’ll run.”

“On three. One, t… Lily!” I yelled just as Lily ran left and a bullet exploded, hitting the container behind the gang. Someone yelled, “Police! You’re surrounded!”

Raising his weapon, our captor returned fire. There was nothing else to do, but run for it, so I grabbed my skirts and ran to the right. Behind us, the shouting started, then the bullets, flying to my left and right until I was around the corner. The shooting continued, but as I pressed against the sides of the container, I realized they were no longer being fired at us. I edged quickly away as a stream of SWAT moved past me, their weapons raised. One waved at me. I waved back, simply because it was polite and I didn’t want to be rude, even under pressure. Plus, from what I could see of his jaw, I was pretty sure we dated briefly. Terrific kisser. The things he could do with a… where was I? Oh yeah. Time to run!

“Police! Put your weapons down!”

I plastered my hands to my sides. The SWAT team rushed forwards, and suddenly, I was alone again in the dark and cold. I knew I should have grabbed the faux fur stole when I had the chance. As the last man passed, I paused briefly to think about my options. There was no way on this earth that I would go backwards, amidst the gunfire that seemed to be subsiding against shouts of “Get down!” and “Throw down your weapons!” No, I did not want to attend that show. I didn’t even care that much anymore who came to save us. All I wanted to do was find Lily, get in my car, and go home. I longed to make a hot chocolate and hide under my covers, pretending none of this ever happened.

My plan set, I edged along the container, letting my fingers trail across the corrugated surface. “Lily?” I whispered. “Lily?” I continued my progress, weaving around the container and onto the next, then the next, and the next. There was no sign of Lily. With my heart falling, and the moonlight slipping behind the clouds, I had to concede defeat. I could search all night and not find her in this maze. If I were really lucky, I might even manage not to fall into the docks.

Another thought occurred to me. What if I couldn’t find Lily because she was hurt? What if she were bleeding somewhere in her beautiful white gown? What if she thought I abandoned her?

“Liiiiily!” I wailed as I turned around and edged my way backwards. “Lily? Lily? Can you hear me? Lily?” I crashed into something hard. I tried to skirt around it, but the something hard placed two massive hands around my waist. I screamed and one of the hands landed on my mouth.

“Lexi?” said the oversized object. “Lexi! Stop screaming!”

“Umfugalumph!”

“What?”

“Umfugal…” The hand dropped from my mouth. I squinted upwards, but couldn’t make out much more than a mouth and the whites of eyes. Not that I needed any visual. I knew that voice. “Maddox? What are you doing here?”

“Came to save you, of course.”

“How dare you! I don’t need saving!”

“Um…” Maddox paused, at a loss. “You seemed lost.”

“Did not!”

“Where are you?”

“In a shipping yard.”

“Can you narrow it down?”

“To?”

“To exactly where you are?” Maddox asked, a hint of amusement rising in his voice.

There was a long pause during which, I’m sure, we both wondered how I was going to regain my wounded pride. Eventually, I said, “Maddox, are you lost?”

Maddox tutted before grabbing me by the hand. “This way.”

“If you insist.”

“I know you’re lost…”

“Let’s not dwell on it. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“Funny story,” said Maddox. A beam flashed onto the floor and whirled a couple of times. Our footsteps followed in its wake as Maddox guided me forwards. “The burglary squad was looking into a series of thefts from bridal stores and have been watching other local stores in hope of catching the thieves. They got really interested after they noticed a car consistently outside another bridal store. So they started watching it. Can you guess who that car belongs to?”

I had an uncomfortable feeling that I could, but I hated to ruin Maddox’s fun story. “Go on,” I whispered into the dark as we turned a corner.

“It was a turquoise blue Mini owned by none other than Lily Shuler!” Maddox announced like I just won a prize on a game show. “Anyway, some of my colleagues noticed the driver in a VW, the same night that store got hit. The VW, with two female occupants, took off after the van and ended up here.”

“They followed us?”

“Lucky, huh?”

“They shot at us!”

“There was only the two of them. They waited for backup!”

“Were you guys on a donut break or something? They wanted to throw our bodies in the docks.”

“The SWAT team would never have let that happen. They had money on you getting out of it before they got here anyway.”

“Really? Awww.” Warmth hit me, dead center, in the chest. It was nice someone believed in us. “How come you’re here?” I asked. For him to have arrived so quickly, he had to have been here before I even sent that text.

“I tagged along for funsies the moment I knew you were involved after your plate was called in. When I got your text, I figured you’d be pleased to see me.”

I punched him lightly in the chest. Yes, I was pleased to see him. We were quiet for a few moments, simply following the flashlight’s beam, while I thought back to all the things that Maddox called fun. To be honest, tagging along after Lily and me, in the hope of a shootout, wasn’t too far off base. It was exactly the sort of thing Maddox liked to do.

“Did you find Lily?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She said you were responsible for the two of you getting out of there.”

I smiled. “Kind of.”

“You were.” Maddox gave my hand a squeeze and I squeezed it back. His palm was warm, dry, and very comforting in the dark.

“You know we had nothing to do with the robbery, right? I took Perfect Brides on as a case and Lily was doing our surveillance,” I added, just in case the burglary team wanted to look at Lily and me a little more closely. Come to think of it, now that Jord was interested in a job on their squad, maybe we could put in a good word? Or maybe it was better if we didn’t interfere at all.

“Figured that out already.”

“Oh.”

“Lily wearing a wedding dress wasn’t much of a clue,” Maddox continued. “It was actually a little incriminating, but she won’t take it off. It’s pretty. Good job Jord isn’t here. Bad luck, you know.”

“You call him seeing her in the dress bad luck after everything we’ve been through tonight?”

“Yep.” The flashlight’s beam scanned over me. “Are you wearing a wedding dress too?”

“No!” I exclaimed, following with a mumbled, “it’s my bridesmaid dress.”

“I can’t really see, but it looks cute.”

“I was hoping for sexy.”

“That too.”

“Thank you for coming to find me.”

Maddox squeezed my hand again. “Anytime,” he said. “So… holding hands in the dark, huh? Lots different from the last time.”

Last time we held hands in the dark, it was on a date and I remembered what a beautiful evening it was. I wondered if he wanted me to remember that, how happy we were while dating, or if he was just trying to distract me. “I wish things were different,” he said with a sigh.

I didn’t reply to that, because what could I say? If I agreed and wished things were different, I wouldn’t have Solomon. If I wished things had remained exactly as they were, did that mean I never cared for Maddox enough? I was left with the revelation that “what ifs” didn’t exist. My time with Maddox was ruined and that was that. So, when Maddox stopped and turned towards me, letting his hand alight on my cheek while his thumb stroked its way across my jaw, I knew the right thing to do.

“You are absolutely in my heart, Adam, you have to know that, but I’m not going to act on anything. I saw a future with you once, and now… now, I don’t. I hate saying it, but it’s true.” I choked the words out before I lost my nerve, even though I knew I was hurting him, which was the last thing I wanted to do. “But I don’t mind one bit saying I see a future with Solomon,” I finished.

“You know, that’s okay.” Maddox’s thumb brushed my cheekbone. “We’re still friends, Lexi. Always. In some ways, what you just said makes everything easier.”

I stepped away, breaking the closeness between us. “How’d that interview go? The one you were all dressed up for?” I asked, just to be conversational as we stepped around a container and into the light.

“Tell you later,” Maddox answered as we looked around the same clearing I escaped from only minutes before. The thieves were all on their knees, their hands behind their backs and judging by their stiff shoulders, all were handcuffed. SWAT surrounded them, but that didn’t stop Lily from getting in the middle of them, walking in short strides in front of their faces. As I got closer, I could hear her lecturing them on how mean they were to steal wedding dresses and destroy people’s dreams. One of the gang was weeping silently, but the others looked bored.

Maddox dropped my hand. I turned to ask Maddox what he wanted to tell me, but he was already walking away. When I called his name, he turned, smiled, waved, and continued walking. A little part of me knew whatever was between Adam Maddox and me was irretrievably lost. That was something for me to think about later. I couldn’t dwell on it, or my sudden melancholy again, when I had to make absolutely sure Lily was okay.

“Lily?” I called as I moved towards my best friend.

She wheeled around and threw out her arms. “Lexi, I was so worried about you! I couldn’t find you. Then Bryce said he saw you—” She waved at a SWAT guy - how she could tell them apart, I had no clue — and he waved back “—and then Maddox got here and then… You’re okay!” She stepped closer and reached out to me. I held my arms up to hug her, but instead of hugging me, she dived at my dress, smoothing out the pleats. “Oh, thank God! It would have been hell to camouflage bullet holes in this sheer material. See what you could have done?” she yelled, turning on one heel to face the burglars again. She pointed to my dress. “Bad people! Bad! Selfish!” She turned back to me. “Let’s get it dry cleaned anyway.”

“What’s going on here?” I asked, turning in half circles to look at all the people gathered nearby us. There were local police and SWAT surrounding the gang, who remained on their knees, the focus of it all.

“It’s utterly amazeballs! We cracked an international crime syndicate!” Lily pointed at the open shipping container. “There are hundreds of dresses in that one alone. They think there’re lots more containers with dresses from all over the state. The dresses were being shipped somewhere in Europe, then sold on the black market. They would have made a fortune and we stopped them! Cool, huh?”

“Very. You know what’s an even cooler idea?”

“Taking on another case? Opening our own agency? Happy hour at my bar?”

“Going home.”

Lily nodded as if I just said something incredibly wise. She gathered her skirt in her hands and I hooked my arm through hers. “Let’s vamoose.”

We didn’t go home right away. Instead, I called Sharon and asked to meet her at the wedding boutique. As it turned out, she was already there, talking to a police officer who was taking her statement. By the time we arrived, he was gone and Sharon was sitting on her cashier’s chair in the middle of the debris.