Crash Into You

Copyright

Copyright © 2014
by Catherine Meredith All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

One

The VIP lounge was upstairs, set off to the side from the main floor, guarded by a thick-necked bouncer with a shaved head.   Loud hip-hop music pulsed through the pleasantly dim interior where gauzy pink and gold curtains swayed with the air of the room while monied twenty-somethings danced and writhed in cigarette smoke diced up by lasers.    

             
From the bar, Seth scanned the lounge, checking out the players.   Hot girls in tiny skirts and sky-high heels, showing off shapely legs shook their hips and threw their head backs, flaunting enhanced cleavage busting out of skimpy tank-tops.   Model types. Paid girls and party girls, female bait that encouraged big bar tabs.   A bottle blond with a killer figure glanced at him over her shoulder.  His gaze slid from the generous curve of her ass barely covered in a clingy lurid purple dress up to her face, all wide eyes and glossy pink lips.   Damn, it had been a long time since a woman looked at him like that, with open interest and frank sexuality.   Aimee certainly didn’t look at him like that anymore – if she ever had.  The thought of his live-in girlfriend deflated the semi he’d been sporting.   

             
The girls on the side were just fun.  A way to blow off steam.   Not that girls like the ones posing and preening in the VIP room would actually give him the time of day.  Still, he enjoyed thinking about it while he waited for Carlos.

             
Seth glanced at his watch.   Be there at nine sharp, Carlos said.   It was now just past ten with no sign of him.   Seth was anxious to leave.   He didn’t like Amy being home alone too long.

             
The door opened and two massive Mexicans breezed inside, both built like refrigerators, wearing dark suits and gold watches.  Their presence was so powerful it took a moment for Seth to realize Carlos was standing in front of them.  He was smaller, about five eight, a buck fifty.   You’d think the leader of one of the cruelest gangs on the eastern seaboard would be a big, hulking guy, but he wasn’t.   Without mass, he used other ways to intimidate.   His legacy for viciousness was unsurpassed.  

             
Seth sized him up, cop to thug.  Carlos had tattoos, hundreds of them, but unlike most of the other members of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang, he declined to have them applied to his face.  Still, under the collar of his shirt, a black knife tip could be seen crawling up one side his neck.  The other side was decorated with the head of a snake, its mouth open as if to sink its fangs into Carlos’s jaw.

             
“You find the place all right?” Carlos asked.  

             
He hadn’t, in fact.  It was located in a part of Tacoma Park he rarely ventured into, even when he had been a patrol officer.   Without waiting for an answer Carlos hinked his head, indicating Seth should follow.  Seth grabbed his half-empty bottle and followed him to a sitting area.   Carlos sat down and sprawled, taking up as much as space as possible with his legs open, his arms along the back of the sofa.  His protection stood off the side, not too close; they didn’t want to obscure Carlos’ view of the ladies.

             
“I got the stuff you wanted,” Carlos said.

             
Seth had been a cop for a long time.  He knew how these things worked.  He wasn’t going to start asking detailed questions about how it was done because the guy might be wired.  Doubtful, but possible.  He just nodded.  “Great.”

“The pictures of the commish are in the locker at the
bus station.   I want my money.”  His dead shark eyes left no room for doubt that he was in no way fucking around about that.

             
“I have it for you,” Seth said.  “How about an exchange tomorrow?”

             
Carlos eyed him coldly.  “Six hundred thousand in cash.  You got it all?”

             
“Yes.”

             
His black eyes narrowed to slits, designed to intimidate.  Except it didn’t stop at intimidation with Carlos: the threat was very real.  Carlos was not just mean, he was evil.  MS 13 members flaunted all the cartoonish icons of evil: devil’s horns and 666, but Carlos, perhaps more than most, had integrated the essence of evil: he enjoyed murder and torture.   Babies, kids, women, didn’t matter.  He relished every opportunity to flaunt his power.

             
“Bring it tomorrow at the Wendy’s in Tacoma Park.  I’ll give you the key then.  You fuck me, I have people who will kill you,” Carlos said.  It was an unnecessary threat.  Of course he had people who would kill Seth or anyone else who double-crossed him. But Carlos needn’t have worried; Seth had no plans to double-cross him.  He smiled calmly.

             
“What time?”

             
“Eleven at night.”

             
He’d have to leave Amy alone again, but it wouldn’t take long.  Thirty minutes, tops.

             
Business concluded for the evening, Carlos sat back and signaled to one of the refrigerators.    The larger one walked over to a group of ladies, said a few words, and they looked over, smiling.

             
Seth got up.   “Don’t fuck me over either,” he said.  He wasn’t used to threatening Carlos, but it needed to be said.  For his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

             
Carlos flashed a smile that signaled he was the man, he had it all under control.

Two

Seth parked the Jeep at the curb in front of his pale-blue row house on Ontario Street in the trendy but little too "diverse" neighborhood of Adams Morgan.   Seth was inordinately proud of the house.   It made him look rich.   Very soon it would be more than a façade.  He would actually
be
rich
.    Knowing just how soon that day would be gave him a little punch of secret happiness. 

             
It was late and the interior lights were illuminated in the windows of all three stories, exactly as he instructed Aimee.  Burglars were less likely to rob a home that looked busy, so when she was alone, she was to leave all the lights blazing, the windows and curtains closed.   If anyone knocked on the door, she was not to answer it.   If anyone called, she was to let it roll to voicemail, and if it was someone she wanted to talk to, she could call them back. 

As S
eth walked up the flagstone path to the front door, the neighbor stepped outside with his small dog.  Couple of fags lived next door.   He tried to avoid them as much as possible.

             
Bryan waved while his dog sniffed at the grass.  “Evening, Seth.”

             
Seth muttered a greeting and trotted up three quick steps to the door.  As soon as he put the key in the lock, he knew something was wrong.  The tumbler didn’t retract the deadbolt.   Amy knew that she was to lock the door while she was at home.   Just the deadbolt, not the chain.

             
Seth glanced back at Bryan while his dog peed on the mailbox.   “Hey,” he said, walking down the steps to the sidewalk.   “You see anything strange today?”

             
In full cop mode, Seth noticed Bryan’s lips tighten, an almost imperceptible wince.   “You know something?  You see somebody come up to my house today?”

             
“No,” Bryan replied evenly.  “I just got home myself a little while ago.  Why?  Is everything okay?”

             
“Yeah,” Seth grunted, already turning to walk back to the front door.

He
removed his service weapon from his waistband, where he’d kept it while meeting with Carlos.   As he slowly parted the door from the jamb, possible scenarios tumbled through his mind, the most logical being that the house had been burgled.   Or maybe Carlos’s goons had been here to find the money before the exchange.   He wouldn’t put it past the little criminal, but from the hallway everything looked normal.

             
“Aimee?  Where are you?”

There was no reply.  No sound of her in the house either.  Seth
dropped his equipment bag from work on the sofa and proceeded deeper into the house. Nothing looked obviously out of place.   Upstairs, he searched the bedrooms, finding everything tidy and normal except that Aimee wasn't here.   He tucked the weapon into the waistband of his jeans as he made his way back to the kitchen.  It was possible she ran to the store for something.   She was like that – inefficient, forgetful.   He could not count the number of times he’d given her a list of things to buy, and she still forgot half of them.   

             
In the kitchen, he looked for a note but didn’t find one. He was hungry; he hadn’t eaten dinner, having gone directly to the club after his shift.   Annoyed that Aimee wasn’t at home to do it for him, he yanked open the fridge to get some mustard and deli turkey for a sandwich, and noticed that the gallon of the milk was almost empty.   Yeah, she was definitely at the store.

             
He stood at the sink and wolfed down the sandwich, wondering when she was going to get back.  The thought of Aimee hadn't excited him at the club with all the chesty blonds to look at but now that he was home, and the adrenaline was wearing off, he’d like a little fooling around.   Bedding Aimee was usually more trouble than it was worth because she was frigid, but he felt like he had reason to celebrate tonight.   He shut his eyes for a moment, imagining the police commissioner receiving the message that he was being blackmailed.   That was going to be so sweet.  At last, his career was going to get some firepower.

             
But where the hell was Aimee?   He’d been home thirty minutes already and she wasn’t back yet. Frustrated, he dug his cell phone from his pocket and dialed her number.  It rolled to voicemail.   What the hell?  She knew she was to have her phone on at all times.

             
“Ames, it’s me.   Call me immediately.”

             
He set the phone on the counter and in the periphery of his vision, noted a fluttery little movement on the glossy mahogany table of the formal dining room.  A tinge of apprehension began to form behind his ribcage.  He turned, staring at the object on the table.  There was something ominous about it.  Slowly Seth walked toward it.  The movement was a red blinking light on Aimee’s phone, indicating she’d received a voicemail from Seth.

             
What. The. Actual. Fuck.

             
The volume was off and the log of incoming calls was listed only his number.   The outgoing call log was almost the same, with one exception: her sister in Portland, Oregon.   Aimee had called Kimberly twice, once last night and once this afternoon at 2:07.  Just about the time Seth left for work.

             
The first inkling that her absence was serious – not an errand, maybe not temporary - began to set in.   He calmly placed the phone back on the table, and shut his eyes.  He suddenly knew what had happened.  Knew it in his soul, in his bones, and felt it like he’d been kicked in the balls.   He pivoted out of the dining room and ran through the house, up the stairs, taking two at a time, to his office – the one place Amy was not to step foot inside.  It was his sanctuary, his domain.

             
He paused in the doorway, his heart thudding in his ears. The white cardboard bankers box where he kept Carlos’s money was still exactly where he left it.
Please God. 
He wasn’t sure where the words came from or really even to whom they were directed; he was not a religious person, but from the farthest shadows of his imagination, he could sense damnation rippling out before him.  He approached it like it was a box of hell.  He placed his hands on the cardboard lid, then opened it.