The Proviso (61 page)

“Tell me about that night.”

Her eyes opened slowly and she saw that they were
pulling into their driveway. Her mouth twitched in thought and she
released a great puff of air. She didn’t have to be told
which
night he wanted to know about; in fact, it surprised
her that he hadn’t asked earlier. She’d never told anyone about it
because she hadn’t had to.

“All right,” she murmured as he turned off the car,
“but I’m going to take a shower first. I need to relax. It’s late
and this isn’t going to be easy for me.”

He nodded and they went into the house. She spent
her time in the shower ordering her thoughts, trying to wash away
the damage, the blood, before she spilled it again in the telling.
She slowly dressed in a set of white cotton men’s style pajamas and
wrapped her wet hair up in a towel. Bryce waited for her when she
emerged from the bathroom, lounging in a club chair in the sitting
area of their bedroom and reading a book. He’d changed into his
preferred at-home attire: denim shorts.

Sitting across from him, she looked left out the
window without seeing anything, wondering what he’d think of her
once she’d told him the nitty gritty. She drew a deep breath and
began. “Four years ago, I was working at a bookstore on the Plaza.
Two guys came after me with guns and I . . . ” She shrugged.
“Killed them.”

* * * * *

53:
47TH & BROADWAY

G
iselle stood in the breezeway of the bookstore
holding the door open, waiting for her boss, a late-middle-aged
woman with a completely reasonable fear of walking to her car late
at night. Once they had sandwiched themselves between the inner and
outer sets of locked doors, Giselle bent to dig in her
backpack.

“
That’s just unreal,” Judy muttered as she
watched Giselle perform the same ritual she performed every night
they closed together: Ripping the Velcro. Wrapping the wide elastic
bands tight around each thigh. Checking to make sure rounds were
chambered.

Giselle chuckled as she stuck one Glock in each
holster. “You know what they say. Better to have and not need than
to need and not have.”

Judy snorted. “I s’pose you’re right. I needed those
last summer and didn’t have.”

“
I’m sorry, Judy,” Giselle murmured. Finished
with her task, she straightened and shrugged into her backpack and
Judy unlocked the outer doors. Giselle preceded her out into the
oppressive heat and humidity of a July night in Kansas City. “I do
appreciate your understanding about this.”

“
Opinions change once you’ve been assaulted. I
just don’t want to get dragged into—” She waved a hand toward
Giselle’s legs and shuddered. “Whatever it is you’re involved
in.”

Giselle chuckled. “I’d tell you the story, but you
wouldn’t believe a word of it.”

Judy laughed, and with the snick of the lock and the
arming of the security system, they set out toward Judy’s car.
Giselle walked on the outside of the sidewalk and at Judy’s pace.
By the end of a twelve-hour shift, Judy could barely make the two
blocks to her parking spot.

“
Judy,” Giselle said gently, “maybe it’s time for
you to find something different to do.”

“
Ah, I can’t, Giselle. I’m trapped by my salary
and benefits. I couldn’t make this kind of money anywhere else and
I have to have health insurance.”

Giselle said nothing; she certainly knew what it
meant to be overeducated, overqualified, underemployed, and with
few immediate options. She laughed wryly. “I’m a Post-hole Digger,
working second shift as a clerk at a bookstore.”

“
Mmmm, I know what you mean. PhDs in literature
don’t leave you a lot of choices if you won’t head straight back
into academia.”

“
I would, but the publishing part gives me
hives.”

“
Same here.”

Giselle’s humor faded and the familiar melancholy of
all she had lost overcame her, interrupted when Judy gasped.
Giselle glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”

Judy gestured weakly ahead, her body stiff with
fright. Two men sprinted toward them and Giselle said, “Judy,
you’ve met them. They’re my cous—”

Tingle.

Giselle whirled, whipping her Glocks up out of their
holsters and into her grip.

There, a man crossing the street and striding
purposefully toward her, his hand behind his back to pull out a
weapon.

“
Don’t even think about it,” Giselle snarled,
both guns pointed at his chest; he stopped short in surprise. A
dark figure to her right caught her attention. She snapped that gun
in his direction. One gun in each hand, she stood for a
microsecond, her arms outstretched, her feet spread wide, instantly
calculating distance and height. She saw a flash out of the corner
of her eye and pulled both triggers.

She hit the ground conscious, but twisting and in
agony. She took in the whole scene, dissociated and watching the
aftermath of what she had done as if in a dream. Two men, dead. By
her hand. It had taken only a second, possibly three, from the time
she’d turned to the time she’d pulled the triggers to the time
she’d gotten blown off her feet.

Somewhere behind her, her terrified boss cowered and
sobbed at the base of a wall.

Somewhere above her, a bullet had embedded itself in
the tree trunk behind Giselle, probably the same one that had bored
through her shoulder.

Somewhere beside her, Knox flipped open his cell
phone and called 911.

In front of her, Sebastian ripped off his tee shirt,
dropped to his knees, and frantically wrapped the fabric around her
shoulder, held it tight, made her hurt worse. She groaned.

“
C’mon, Giz,” he murmured when she couldn’t hold
her eyelids open anymore. “Stay with me, baby. C’mon. Hey, do you
remember that kid who bet long odds on the wildcard spot for the
’83 NFL playoffs and couldn’t pay up?”

Yeah, that wasn’t something she was going to forget.
Ever.

Knox now squatted behind her, working to get another
wad of cloth between her right hip and the sidewalk. She grimaced
when he lifted her and whimpered when he gently settled her weight
back onto that hip.

“
What happened to him, Giselle?” Knox asked,
stroking her hair.

Sebastian took a baseball bat to his knees.

“
What? I didn’t hear you. Talk, Giselle. Stay
with us.”

“
S’b’s’n broke legs,” she whispered, her teeth
beginning to chatter. “Cold.”

“
Shit, she’s going into shock,” Sebastian
muttered, “and so’s her boss. Knox, go see if she’s hurt.” Giselle
missed the warmth of Knox’s body behind her, his hand in her hair.
“How much did he owe me on that bet, Giz?”

Ten thousand dollars.

“
What?”

She swallowed. She could barely move her mouth. “Ten
K.”

Sirens wailed through the night, coming closer and
closer. She still couldn’t open her eyes, though tears began to
leak out.

“
Hurts.”

“
I know, princess. Stay with me now. We’ll get
you to the hospital, get you warm. What was my most outrageous vig
ever?”

A hundred and seventy-five percent on three
days.

“
C’mon, Giz, talk to me. What’s the
answer?”

“
Uhnse’nfye, f’ree.”

“
Right. Good.”

She had a vague awareness of the sound of an
ambulance parking and people rushing, but underneath, she heard
Knox hiss,

“
Shit. Fen was watching.”

She felt Sebastian start. “What?”

“
Look. That’s his Alfa. He was up on the garage
roof. He must have seen the whole thing.”

I’m gonna kill him.

“
Don’t say that again, Giz,” Sebastian whispered
in her ear just as the paramedics shooed him away from her. “At
least not where some random cop can hear you.”

She was covered with a blanket, lifted onto a
gurney, raised into the air, wheeled to the ambulance, slid inside
with a thump or two.

“
Do you guys want to go with her?”

“
Yes,” they answered simultaneously.

“
Oh, no, you don’t, Hilliard,” barked an
unfamiliar voice from far away. “You’re staying right here and help
me sort this shit out.”

“
Yeah, and you— Get rid of the piece. No firearms
in the bus.”

She opened her eyes enough to see Sebastian sitting
near and he picked up her hand again. She had never seen his
handsome face so . . . not handsome. Old. Haggard. Like Uncle
Charlie.

“
Jooey?” she whispered.

“
She’s fine,” Sebastian murmured, his voice
tight. “Scared. In shock, like you.”

He’s taken everything I have away from me,
Sebastian.

“
Not important right now, Giz. Concentrate on
getting through this. Just think, you’ll have some nifty new scars
to brag about later on.”

Oh, that’s true.

“
She’s still got a slug in her hip,” said another
voice. “She’s going to have to have surgery to get it out.”

Sebastian said nothing else, but squeezed her hand.
It was a fast trip to Truman Medical Center’s emergency room—

—
and an equally fast trip to the Jackson County
prosecutor’s office once she was discharged three days later.
Executive AP Wells had denied Knox’s request to take her there
himself, so she was cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car,
her hands in front of her only because her arm was in a
sling.

The prosecutor was in court, so Wells took it upon
himself to put them in a conference room and annoy the hell out of
Knox. In the presence of two other APs, he began to run down what
Giselle would be charged with. She only watched and listened with
detachment, half asleep, too drugged with pain medication to speak
and too tired to care. She’d take a jail cell cot at this point if
it meant a few hours of sleep.

Finally, Knox said, his voice as hard as she’d ever
heard it, “If you charge her, I’ll defend her and I’m quite sure
that’s the last thing you want.”

Two of the APs in the room reared back, away from
Knox, but the executive’s face lit up with the scent of
challenge.

Even in her dazed state, she understood what a
political nightmare that could turn into: the elected prosecutor of
one county representing a criminal defendant in a neighboring
county.

Knox leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I get it now.
You want to make your name on me. Okay. I’ll play that game with
you and I’ll even play it on your terms. But. Think of it,” he
said. “Beatrix Fucking Kiddo. Bet you got a hard-on looking at the
pictures and thinking about what she must’ve looked like that
night. Lemme tell ya, she was hot.
I
got a hard-on watching
her whip out those big guns and pull the triggers. And now that
she’s survived two gunshot wounds, think what a jury will do when I
get finished drawing the whole picture for them in Technicolor—the
men’ll come in their jeans and the women’ll all start carrying
Glocks on their thighs.”

The EAP reddened and gulped. Knox laughed
wickedly.

“
Wells!” barked a man from the doorway. “What the
hell is wrong with you? I specifically told you I’d handle this
personally. Get out.”

So. This was the prosecutor. He came in and shook
Knox’s hand like the old buddy he apparently was and sat, flipping
the file open on the table to read it. His remaining two APs
watched their boss warily for a long few minutes.

“
Okay. She can go.”

“
Owe you, Kevin.”

“
Save it.” He slid a look at the two APs and they
left at a jerk of his head. Once the door had closed, the
prosecutor looked at Giselle and said, “You managed to get a couple
of thugs I’ve been trying to put away for three years now.”

Knox fell back in his chair laughing. Giselle felt
about as much satisfaction as she could muster, given her
condition.

“
Miss Cox, you’ll need to stick around town until
the investigation’s wrapped up—” He speared Knox with a glance and
Knox nodded his acceptance of the responsibility. “—but otherwise,
you’re free to go. I don’t expect we’ll find anything different
from what your boss told us.”

“
Giz,” Sebastian said the minute Knox brought her
home, “don’t do anything. Let me take care of him my way.”

She said nothing for a moment, then whispered, “I’m
tired and I hurt.”

Knox herded her into her bedroom and carefully
undressed her, then turned her bed down and helped her maneuver
into a comfortable position. Sebastian raided the Den of Iniquity
for extra pillows. Knox brought her a glass of water. “More,” she
said once she’d finished that. He looked at her for a moment before
coming back with two fresh liter bottles. She finished off one
completely.

“
I want my mom,” she finally whispered, tears
welling in her eyes and running down her cheeks. He finished
tucking her in then and she closed her eyes.

“
She’ll be home from Alaska tomorrow. We’re going
to tell her you got caught in a drive-by.”

“
Judy?”

“
I got her a job up in the county clerk’s office.
Pay’s not quite as good but the hours and benefits are better and
it’s a desk job.”

“
My guns?”

“
Still in the property room at KCPD. I’ll go pick
them up this afternoon.”

“
My job? Hospital bills?”

“
I have a line on a couple of jobs for you.
Fen’ll take care of your medical bills and he put you on OKH’s
health insurance.”

“
That’s so fucked up,” she sighed and fell
asleep.

*

Silence.

Giselle stared at her bare feet, which she’d propped
up on the broad ottoman between her chair and Bryce’s, wondering
what he must be thinking, not daring to look at him, afraid of what
she would read in his face. It was one thing for him to know “one
gun in each hand,” to see and love her scars, but quite another for
him to hear details.