Act V (6 page)

None of that surprised anyone,
especially not Dan. But he had been hurt. So had Gloria who had
married Hamilton at about the same time Dan had joined the company.
They had become reacquainted and had fallen into the comfortable
companionship that sometimes happens between old flames. Dan knew
their spark had never quite died out after high school, but had
enough respect for his own wife and his older brother to let the
past be the past. However, after Hamilton’s death, Gloria and
newly-divorced Dan had turned to each other for comfort. They had
avoided the natural attraction for a while, knowing what people
would say. After four months of seeing each other only at family
gatherings, however, Dan and Gloria had decided to renew the high
school romance and had been married less than a year later. Dan
knew that some things were inevitable. Marrying Gloria had been
written in the stars, something neither of them would regret, even
if it did give the town gossips more fodder.

The doorbell rang, startling Dan into a
fully upright sitting position. He folded the paper onto the end
table and walked to the front door. Through the peep hole, he
viewed a face, smiling, and vaguely familiar, topped with a blue
baseball cap showing the Itza Pizza logo. Dan undid the latch and
pulled the door open enough to allow his face and shoulders
through. “Sorry man, I didn’t order a pizza.”

“
You didn’t?” He shuffled
one hand into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper.
After fumbling with it for a few seconds, he thrust the box in
Dan’s direction. “Could you hold this for a second?”

Dan automatically took the box.
“Sure.”

“
This isn’t 1412 Hickory
Bridge Rd.?”

“
Yes, but…”

“
Look,” He shoved the paper
under Dan’s nose. “Isn’t this your address?”

“
Well, yes, but…”

Before Dan could register the movement,
the hand holding the paper pressed forward sharply and Dan felt a
surge of electricity enter his body. He convulsed and his knees
collapsed, leaving him prostrate on the floor looking up into the
face of the pizza delivery guy who, now without his baseball cap,
became all too familiar. Not that it mattered now. Dan couldn’t get
his tongue and lips to move together to form the words of
recognition.

“
Let’s make tracks now,
Dan,” said the delivery guy, tugging in a large bag and closing the
door to lock out the rest of the world. “We’ve got quite a lot to
do in the next couple of hours.” Then something very hard connected
with Dan’s head.

*****

“
Brice, my buddy, you have
got to get a life.” Addison was talking through a mouth full of
something. “I haven’t thought about that goofy white woman since I
left the station. If you had a wife and three or four kids to keep
you busy, you wouldn’t be driving through the rich neighborhoods on
a wild goose chase. You’d be home, maybe even gettin’ lucky
and…”

“
I’ve done the marriage
thing, Addy.” Brice wedged the phone between his ear and one
shoulder while he reached into the fridge for bologna and cheese.
“Can we get back to the point?”

“
Whatever you say there,
Lone Wolf.”

Brice ignored that. “I drove through
the neighborhood several times, but I didn’t see anything unusual.
I don’t think it would hurt for us to check it out again for the
next few nights.”

“
If I go along with this,
will you at least consider dating one of the women Laney wants to
set you up with? And I don’t mean no one night stand neither Brice.
I mean at least go out with her twice before you dump
her.”

“
Why is this so important to
you?”

“
I’m just lookin’ out for
ya. Besides, you need a distraction. You work too hard, and as a
result, so do I.”

“
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Addison.”

*****

Before stepping inside, he covered his
hair with a shower cap, snapped on the surgical gloves he had
tossed into a pocket, dragged the still-twitching form of Danning
to the study and tugged until he had him sitting at least partly
upright in the wingback chair. He planned to be extra careful even
though he knew they’d never find DNA on file for him. There had
never been anything in his past that required DNA.

Not that this was his first time around
this particular block. He’d killed before. At the age of 14, he’d
become totally immersed in Kristal Harper. Kristal was the most
beautiful girl he’d ever seen, long ebony hair with soft waves,
dark eyes, flawless skin. She was amazing. To top it off, she was
nice to him…Star Wars geek that he was. He’d always been a loner
and had only a few casual friends. If Kristal was his friend. he
could even tolerate the cruelty of Roman Stanford Roman was one of
several bullies who made it his personal mission to make his life
unbearable. Roman picked on everything about him from the fact that
he didn’t make the track team to where his latest zit had landed.
Worst of all was that Roman liked Kristal. It didn’t really matter
if Kristal liked him, as far as Roman was concerned, she was
his.

But Kristal was kind
to
him
and didn’t
show any signs of really liking Roman. “I like that shirt,” she’d
smile and laugh when she passed him in the hall. Or, “Great hair
cut!” He was already half in love with her by the time he realized
that she did that with everybody. She was just naturally friendly.
When he got a note in his locker asking him to meet her after
school in the courtyard between the 7
^th
and 8
^th
grade halls, he was in
heaven. What could she want? Was she going to try and talk to him,
maybe ask him to a ballgame?

He had combed his hair and checked his
clothes before going out to meet her. He even picked a small, pink
blossom off of an azalea bush with the thought that she might like
that. But when he got there, Kristal wasn’t standing in the
courtyard; instead, it was Roman and all his thug buddies. “Who you
waiting for, my man…a girl maybe, Kristal maybe? Stay away from
her,” Roman told him with a shove. “She’s mine.” Then the truth
dawned on him. Roman had planted the note in his locker and waited
for him to walk into the trap, like an idiot. Roman and his crew
beat him up and left him with a broken arm, a bloody nose and the
note and blossom sitting on his chest.

Two weeks later, Roman died when rat
poison, a lot of it, got mixed into his food. Maybe nobody could
really believe that anyone would want to poison a 14-year-old or
maybe nobody liked Roman enough to care. Either way, after a brief
investigation, it was ruled an accidental death. That was one of
the happiest days of his young life.

*****

He shook himself back to his present,
he had no time to reminisce now, and went to the kitchen to search
the cabinets until he found one stacked with crystal wine stems.
Grabbing one, he started to fill it with water, but then
inspiration flooded him. Creative as always, he ran downstairs into
the wine-cellar. He had known from the Danning family history that
there would be one. He knew little about wines, but chose a red one
and ran back up to find Claude “Dan” Danning beginning to stir just
a bit.

It took him a few minutes to prepare
everything and by the time he reached into his bag and withdrew the
lovely sword and a very large hammer, Danning was opening his eyes.
“Perfect timing, Claude,” he smiled, placing the long sword tip
against Danning’s stomach. “I wouldn’t want you to miss any of
this.”

*****

Scooter, the Siamese cat, watched as
Gabrielle Richardson grabbed her overnight bag and her purse. Gabby
checked to make sure all the money was there. It was-all five
hundred dollars. It seemed like a lot but she knew it wouldn’t take
them far. She and Kenny had been putting up a little every week
from their paychecks and they had enough. She’d already used her
mama’s Visa for the tickets, and they were set to go. She pulled
out her cell phone and punched the speed dial. It only rang
once.

“
Hey, Gabby. Are you
ready?”

“
Yeah, don’t come to the
house though. They might hear you. Just meet me at the corner where
the Quick Mart used to be, beside the old pharmacy.”

“
I love you, Babe. See you
in a few.” Then he was gone.

Gabby rubbed the back of the cat’s
head, tossed the purse and the bag over her shoulder and walked
downstairs. She placed a carefully folded note on the kitchen
table, then without making a sound, opened the porch door. It was
the only one in the house that didn’t squeak. Sliding through and
closing the door behind her, she said goodbye to her old life and
ran to the corner.

*****

Glynnis pulled a defeated Carl out of
the tub and wrapped him as tightly as his wiggling body would
allow, in an old towel. Her shirt was wringing wet. Her bra was
saturated. Her shorts were drenched from waist to cuff, and so was
her underwear. “I should send you to the groomer for a bath, but
they’d probably send you back, or charge me double.” She rubbed his
fur until he was reasonably dry and released him from the bondage
of the towel. Glynnis was rewarded with a furious shake from the
dog spraying her with whatever she had missed with the towel.
“Thanks.”

Carl wagged his backside in response
and left the bathroom. Glynnis headed for the laundry room and
pulled a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from the clean basket. Those
clothes had never quite made it into her drawers and closet since
she’d washed them last week, or was it the week before? Maybe next
time. She stripped off the soaked shorts, tank, and underwear right
there in the laundry room and tossed them into the washer. Then she
pulled on the clean shorts and t-shirt without bothering with bra
and panties. Nobody would be here to see her anyway. When the shirt
was halfway over her face, the phone rang. “Dammit,” she groaned,
“it never fails.”

Tugging the cotton top into place,
Glynnis raced across the laundry room, almost falling over the
filled basket, and into the den, trying to remember where she’d
left the phone. She grabbed it off the end table just as her
answering machine picked up and she heard her own voice cheerfully
requesting that the caller leave a message. “Hello, hello…sorry
just wait a second.” She fast-walked into the bedroom, tapped the
button on the machine and the recording shut off. “Sorry, couldn’t
reach the phone in time,” she mumbled into the receiver, feeling
her cheeks flush.

The voice on the other end only made
them redder. “Hey, Glynn. How’s it going?”

She didn’t speak for a moment. She’d
known he would call after her conversation with her mother, but did
it have to be this soon? Why hadn’t she checked the caller ID?
“Hey, Dorsey.” Her voice was as clipped and unwelcoming as she
could make it.

“
Oh, Glynn, I’ve missed your
voice.” His deep baritone was sleepy and sluggish, and made her
shake down to her core.

She was torn between hanging up and
begging him to come over. And she hated herself for it. “Dorsey,”
she managed as flatly as possible, “are you drunk?”

“
Good to talk to you,
too!”

“
Well?”

“
I’ve only had a little.”
Glynnis could hear fumbling on the other end of the line. It
sounded like the phone had dropped. More fumbling, then, “Oh dang.
Um sorry, Glynn.”

“
Dorsey, maybe you
should…”

“
I miss you. I just thought
maybe you’d want to go get some coffee or something.” He was using
his injured lover voice now. Trouble. “I hope I didn’t take you
away from anything, and I’m sorry about the short notice
but…”

“
Dorsey, it’s 11 p.m. and
you’re drunk.” Then she felt just a bit of remorse. She’d spent a
year of her life engaged to this man, the least she could do was be
courteous. “Look, I just finished bathing the dog, and I’m going to
bed to read. If you want to talk to me, you can reach me at the
theatre during business hours.” Oh no, why had she said that? That
implied that she
wanted
to see him. “On second thought, don’t call me at all, here or
there.”

“
Aw, come on, Glynn, you
never go to bed before midnight. Just give me…”

“
A chance? Why? Never mind.
I don’t want to know.”

“
Glynnis, just listen for a
second. I lost my job and just wanted to talk to
somebody.”

Glynnis took a breath, feeling unwanted
sympathy wash over her. “You just got that job right after we…what
happened?”

“
I lost my temper
and…”

“
And you said something you
shouldn’t have.”

“
That’s about
it.”

“
I’m guessing you said it to
the wrong person.”

“
Yeah, my boss.”

Remorse ran all over her but
she pushed it away. “Dorsey, I’m really sorry. Look, why don’t you
go to the office tomorrow, apologize to the guy and do some damage
control. I’d have coffee with you or even invite you over to cry on
my shoulder, but I’m exhausted.”
Plus I
know where this would end up and I’m not going back there.
“Are you going to be okay?”