Tomahawk (5 page)

Chapter 4

"Just one bed please," Tonya whispered to the lady behind the counter at the hotel.  The lady, based on her name tag, was named Sophia. She looked Tonya over. 

"And how long will you be staying with us?" She looked at her credit card and smiled.  "Ms. Irvine."

"Two nights."

Sophia looked around the empty foyer of the hotel.  "Ms. Irvine, um...your money is no good here.  I know that you wanted a single bed, but I just upgraded you to a suite." 

Tonya looked at her in confusion. "That won't be necessary.  I can stay in the single bed and pay for it."

"Ms. Irvine."  Sophia took a deep breath.  "I've been where you are at and I prayed that someone would have helped me."

Tonya had no idea what she was talking about until she caught her reflection in the mirror behind the counter.  Tonya looked like death.  She had taken an oversized sweater and tennis shoes.  The bruises were getting worse, not better. And she was keeping her arm close to her.  This woman thought she was running away from an abusive boyfriend or husband.  "Ma'am, it's not what you think."

"You don't have to explain.  I will keep your credit card on file.  Unfortunately, if you want room service, I will have to charge it to the room, okay?"  Sophia handed her the license and credit card back.  "If you need anything, please give a call at the front desk."  She gave her the room key with a smile.

"Thank you."  Tonya flung her purse over her shoulder and tried to ignore the stares when she arrived at the elevator.  Her left leg, as hard as she tried, dragged behind her.

Finally, making it to her room, she collapsed on the bed.  Her tennis shoes fell off her feet without her trying.  Face down in the comforter, she felt like the past 12 hours were a living nightmare.  She was fully aware that she was alone in the suite, but she was still ashamed to cry.  That girl had her pegged all wrong. Tonya had no idea why this had happened to her.

Why hadn't I changed my contact information?
 she thought as the tears fell. She knew that living in DC that one day that she and Vic were going to run into each other, but not like this.  The last time she saw him, she was faking strength-bravado.  The love she felt for him was thrown back at her like a brick to the face.  He was hateful and cruel.  She hadn't thought about him in a while. Now she remembered everything.  How he would touch her and everything would come to life.  How they would laugh at the stupidest things.  Vic was the only man that she ever known completely, in a way.  Well, in the beginning.  They were that couple.  So everyone thought.  They weren't lovey dovey and making goo goo eyes at each other, making everyone want to throw up.  It was deeper than that. They were a team, so she thought.

Tonya remembered walking out of the house. Vic was two steps behind her.  Damn near throwing her out. She vowed that she would never give herself away to another man again.  Never love someone that deep. It took her months to repair the damage.  Then the baby.

She curled herself into a ball and cried, recalling the pain that she felt in her lower stomach.  She pressed on to work, remembering the fear in the eyes of her school kids as her legs gave out and she hit the floor.  Having emergency surgery.  It seemed that Vic was finding subtle ways to kill her.  Inside she knew that this happened to women every day, but it just fueled the hate she had for him.  His baby nearly ripped her apart. Vic took her heart and took the option of having children.

The news was devastating.  She hadn't even known she was pregnant, and then finding out that she was and that she may never have children was just another act of cruelty from the man that she thought she would love for the rest of her life.

His words, "I'm trying."  Ran through her head before she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

"What the hell do you mean she's gone?"  I had a fist full of Drew's shirt.

The big man just put his head down and shrugged.  "Mel and I got back and she was gone."

"It's not his fault. I was here with her and then she vanished. I don't know," Ryan said with his hands out.

I turned his attention back to my brother.  "Damn, Ryan your only job was to sit here and you couldn't do that."

Stone leaned against the entrance to the kitchen.  "She probably heard Mel talking mess about her and she bolted."  Ryan pointed at Melissa.

"Don't turn this on me.  Your girlfriend just about got me killed."  Melissa shot back.

"What the hell is going on?"  I said eyeing everyone in the room.

"I was hoping that you all would tell me."  Stone pushed off the wall and walked into the kitchen. "There is something that this girl isn't telling all of you.
"
 
They all turned and looked at him.  "Now don't let me be the one to get in between a family quarrel.  If anything turns up, let me know, and I will do the same.  I will get an APB out on Ms. Irvine, but do yourselves a favor and sit tight." 

I heard the detective curse as he walked out of my house for the umpteenth time today.  Where the hell could she be?

Melissa put her hand on my shoulder.  "Look, Vic I'm sorry.  I was just scared is all.  I didn't mean for her to hear us--"

"You mean you!"  Ryan shouted.  "You can be such a kid sometimes.  Everything has to be all about you."  Ryan looked over to me.  "Tony is a good person. No one deserves what happened to her."

Covering up a yawn, Drew said, "Look we are all tired.  This is personal for some of us."  Looking over to Melissa who narrowed her eyes at him.  "Being at each other's throats is not helping Tonya.  Vic do you have any idea where she would go?"

Maybe five years ago I would have some sort of clue.  I shook my head.  "Heaven only knows right now."

Pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes.  "I'll check her credit and debit cards.  She couldn't have gotten that far."

"Hell, we don't know how long she's been gone."  Ryan gave Melissa a cold look that she tried to ignore.

The three sat in the kitchen not saying a word.  Just the sound of Melissa pounding the keyboard.  "She's at the Worthington.  Looks like she just ordered some food."

I didn't want to show my excitement.  "Ryan and I will go and get her.  Drew, Melissa, you two stay here and do what you do best."

"What?  Me working and Drew watching?"

Ryan put on his seatbelt.  "What if she doesn't want to come back?  Vic, maybe she wants to sort this thing out on her own. You can't force her."

I'd thought of that and a ton of different scenarios ran across my mind every which a way by the time we got in the car.  What if she didn't want to come back?  Ryan was right. I couldn't just pull her out of the hotel by her hair.  "I guess if she doesn't want to come with us. We’ll have to stay with her."

"Come on."

"That's all I got.  Someone wants to kill her and that's not going to happen."  I was tired of talking about it.  Five years ago this wouldn't have happened.  All this time I thought I was keeping her safe, keeping her away from the things that I done.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  Right now she would be having what she would call her lazy Saturday.  She'd walk around in my shirt and make breakfast.  I would have to go to work and she would say she was going out.  Then I would beg her to stay. I wanted her to be home when I got there.  Just the thought of her not being there made me sick to my stomach.

She would call herself Rapunzel. I kept her in a fortress. I was the only one that had the key.  It stung a little bit, but I knew that I kept her safe.

Ryan hit the end button on his cell phone call from Melissa who'd got into the hotel's system.  They walked right past the front desk right to the 9th floor.  "Mel is still fired up about the bomb.  She thinks that Tonya is hiding something."

What the hell could she be hiding from me or us for that matter?  "Well, Mel is okay, so she shouldn't be worrying about that."

Ryan shrugged as he got of the elevator.  "True, she thinks that we should be looking at our victim first and not the perpetuator."  I ignored him as we stood in front of Tonya's hotel door. "Should we knock?"

I gave my brother a look.  "We aren't going to kick the door in."  I knocked.  We heard movement on the other side of the door.  "Tonya, it’s me and Ryan. Open the door."  I looked at my brother whose jaw was clenched.  He took a step back.  I warned him as he brought his leg up to kick in the door. "Don't you dare." 

The door opened a crack.  I put my hand on my weapon and walked in.  Tonya walked back to the bed and sat.  "What was I thinking. I should have known you two would find me."

Chapter 5

Pulling his t-shirt off his head to step into the shower,  Brian Battle thought about her.  What he told the last officer wasn't completely true about the day that he met her.  True, he was at the school to talk to the students about the dangers of drugs and gangs.  The thing about being lost was a total work of fiction.  He sat in the principal’s office before the assembly.  Then he saw her. Tonya wasn't the type of woman that he would go for. She was too short.  He liked them tall and preferably blonde.  She walked in the small office and gave him a quick glance and smile.  Not like how other women did.  They would see him and their eyes would bug out and turn away rapidly.  She treated him just like any other person on the street.
"Hi, I'm Brian.  I'll be speaking here at the school today,"  He had said.

She never looked away or became suddenly shy or blushed.  "Good for you."  Pulling her hand from him and continuing her conversation with the school receptionist.  Tonya left him standing there like a fool in front of the whole office.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I didn't get your name."

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't give it."  She smiled up at him.  "Now if you would excuse me, I need to go back to my class before recess ends."  She didn't even care that he had noticed her rolling her eyes at the receptionist.

He couldn't help but follow her.  Stepping in front of her in the hallway.  "I'm not trying to bug you but--"

"Then don't," said and side-stepped him.

"Can I try to get to know you?  Whoever he was. He’s not me."

That made her stop dead in her tracks. Brian wiped the smile from his face before she could turn completely around.  "Sir--"

"Brian."  Smiling.

"Mr. Brian, I try my best not to entertain foolishness.  You don't know me."  His mouth opened to speak.  She lifted one pointer finger to stop him.  "Frankly, I don't want you to take the time in you trying to get to know me.  So again, your insult was childish and as you can see--" She shot her arms out wide and looked from side to side.  "I'm surrounded by children.  So, let's end this conversation."  She smiled and her modest heels clicked down the hall.  He knew that he had to have her.

Weeks went by of Brian coming to the school with flowers and candies.  She wouldn't budge.  Until he found his opening.  Brian had spent more time at Woodmont Elementary than most of the teachers.  Every year, the students would pick a different charity. And by the grace of God, Tonya's class got to pick.  That year the charity was breast cancer.  Whoever donated the most would win an all-expense paid dinner at a local restaurant. Brian dropped a cashier's check of one million dollars.  And that was his and Tonya's first date.

That was seven months ago.  Brian stepped out of the shower and dried off.  Who said that retirement was a time for you to relax?  How could he?  The woman that he loved was hurting.  The first cop that came said that she was safe and that he would tell her to contact Brian when she was ready. Brian’s mouth went dry when the cop made small implications that he may be a suspect in this.  He had hurt women in the past, no doubt.  Maybe emotionally, but never under any circumstances physically.  Bastard. 

Granted things between him and Tonya weren't perfect, but whose relationship really was?  He longed to tell her that he loved her, but she never said it first.  He was never insecure with women. Being a pro athlete, he didn't have to do anything but stand there and the majority of women would come to him.  He had to work for her.  It would be dishonest to say that she didn't appreciate the work that he'd done.  He'd never dealt with a woman that had her own.  Most of them were looking for someone to take care of them.  Tonya, at times acted as if she just wanted him around, but never really needed him.  It bothered him when he bought her jewelry and she would just leave it back at his place.  When he would call her on it, she would say, “I’m a kindergarten teacher. This tennis bracelet is going to be messed up with glue and dirt."  She was right, but how else was he supposed to show his love?

There was always a little piece of her that she wouldn't let him see.  A piece that he wanted to at least take a peek at.  Her heart was guarded.  Brian always felt she must have been hurt in the past by someone that she would never talk about.   He wanted to ask but he knew in doing so she may ask about his past conquests.  There were too many to name, so he stayed quiet. 

Tonya was good to him the best way that she knew how, he guessed.  He never caught her in a lie. She was always where she said she would be.  In the whole relationship, he had only stepped out on her once.  It was a random girl.  He had gone back to his home town in Tennessee to visit his family.  He had practically begged Tonya to come with him.  In his heart, he knew that she was making excuses not to come.  Meeting up with his home boys at their favorite bar, he was growing more and more frustrated with the relationship.  His friends didn't make it any better.  "If you say this girl is really the one, why won't she come down and let us see her."  Marcus slurred over his fourth beer.  "I'm just saying.  Does she have something to hide?"

Brian knew she held a lot of things close to the vest, but was she seeing someone on the side?  The drinks fueled his anger as he pulled that night's lucky winner back to his hotel room.  The next morning, after kicking what's her name out, Tonya called.  "Hey, didn't hear from you last night. Hope you are having fun with your family and friends." 

Her voice was soft, not a trace of deceit in it.  He told her that he was at a friend’s house and got drunk and went to sleep.  He apologized for not calling.  No other woman had made him feel this guilty without knowing his guilty deed. 

Now, as he sat on the bed, he reached into his bedside table and pulled out the purple box.  He gave her the ring six months ago in front of his parents and a few close friends.  She covered her mouth in surprise and smiled and told him yes.  But her eyes screamed out no.

After every guest had went home and it was just the two of them there.  She grabbed him by the collar and made love to him right there in the kitchen.

Brian had sex in every known place to man, but her loving making was borderline carnal. They had been intimate before on several occasions, but this time she acted like a woman with savage need.  And he loved every bit of it.

Looking back on it, he would have taken mediocre sex to keep her.  That was the last time the two of them slept together.  The next morning he woke up and she was gone.  On the kitchen table was a note and the ring laying in the center of it, saying that she needed some time and the relationship was going too fast and that she was sorry.

Pain wasn't a word that held meaning.  He prayed that she would feel pain like this.  Brian shook his head and looked at the ceiling.  "Not like this, God," he whispered.

"You should pray."

Brain was on his feet. There, with one foot in his bedroom, stood a man.  Average height and build.  Brian felt pure rage crawl up his spine.  He lunged at him.  The man smirked and let the linebacker run him over.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?!"  He screamed.  Looking down at the man, Brian had a tight grip on his throat.  "Answer me!"

The intruder wiggled his neck under his grip to speak.  "Killing you."

Brian heard the snap.  He didn't know where it had come from but he was sure he heard it.  Taking a look down at the intruder, he smiled up at him.  Then the splash of wet heat was on him, surrounding him.  Rolling off the intruder, back on his knees, there was a hole in the center of his chest.  "What?"

He looked back at the man in his house who had gathered himself in a sitting position on the floor. The man was holding a handle that looked familiar.

It was getting harder to breath.  Touching his chest he felt the end of something metal.  Brian scrambled to pull it out.  His hands were too slick with his own blood to retrieve the end of the knife.

He began to sweat trying to pull the knife out.  "It's too deep and plus you've started to panic.  You'll die before you get your hands on it," the intruder said.

For a moment, Brian wanted to forget the knife and kill him with his bare hands, but his own survival was crucial.  The intruder stood over him. "Now let me tell you all the things that I've done today."  Brian barely listened as he struggled to get a grip.  "You know that you are running out of time, so I will make it quick.  I'll tell you about your girlfriend. I'm sorry--I mean your ex-girlfriend.”  The intruder picking up the engagement ring off the bed and rolled it around in his hand.  “She and I had a lot of fun last night. I wish you could have been there.  But I'm sure that the two of you will meet up again somewhere in the great beyond."

The intruder went into great detail of what he would call his 'adventures' of the last several hours.  Then he told Brian about how everything would conclude and by the time he got to the end of his story.  Brian had been dead for over an hour.

"So Drew--"

"Don't say another damn word.  You've already fucked up enough for the day.  Just do what Vic says."  Drew’s upper body inside the refrigerator. 

Melissa covered her face and leaned back into the chair.  "I'm sorry, okay!" she yelled.

Popping Vic’s leftovers into the microwave, Drew gave her a stern look.  The team had only been together for less than four years.  He disagreed with Victor in having a woman on the team.  "They're too emotionally involved."  He had told him.  "Women are smart no doubt, but do we really need someone with a heart?"

After departing the secret service for reasons that weren't his own, following his friend to develop this team of mercenaries wasn't something that Drew would be shy about.  "As long as we are getting rid of bad people and the government is funding, I'm cool with it."  That was the way that he accepted Vic's offer. 

Andrew Roberts wasn't a man for talking or thinking too much outside the box.  He had been military just like the others, but unlike Vic he had never given orders but received them.  And like a good solider, he executed those orders with precision and without mercy.  Drew didn’t claim his family, so the team had become his.  The second youngest next to Melissa, Victor was more like a father to him than his very own.  So Tonya was a mother to him.  "You shouldn't be telling me sorry. You should be telling Tonya," he said while shoveling a fork full of spaghetti in his mouth.

Tonya had a way of making every person that she was around feel--for lack of a better word--good.  The day that he met her, Drew and Vic were still working for the Secret Service.  Vic was starry eyed when he talked about her and Vic was never starry eyed for any woman.  Drew knew that she must be special.  That spring day Vic's phone rang, Drew remembered him looking at the caller ID screen and a smile stretched across Vic's face.  "Hello, beautiful," he said. Drew rolled his eyes.  "You okay....all right me and my friend Drew will be there in a second."

"What was that about?"  Drew asked.

"Looks, like Tony's got a flat tire and you are coming with me to meet her."  His friend, who was his superior, wasn't giving him a hard demand, but a simple request.

Vic raced to the car, as if the woman was being kidnapped and all Drew could do was follow.  It was the middle of the day. It was a Monday Drew would never forget.  He recalled that Vic saying something about her being a school teacher, so they parked the unmarked car in the parking lot and entered the school through the back door.  "Shouldn't she be outside waiting for you?"  Drew said wondering what was up with the urgency.

"She's probably in her class. School is about to let out."  Vic was now in a slow jog to her classroom.

Vic knocked lightly on the classroom door.  The door was decorated with little hands with children's names on them and above the door it read MS. IRVINE'S & FRIENDS.  With another hand right under her name.  This was just as small as the other little hands plastered on the door.

When opening the door, Vic gave him a little smirk.  Drew didn't know whether to smile back or grab his gun.  "Finally, you two made it," a small black woman said.  "Thought you two would miss your own party."  She winked at the both of them.

Drew entered the class and there sat 20 kids, eyes wide and mouths pulled back to their ears smiling.  "Party?" Drew said.

"Yes."  She looked up at him.  "Young ladies and young gentlemen.  These are the men that I've been telling you all about.  These are the men that keep our president and the First Family safe."  Twenty oohs and ahhs flooded the room.  "These men are brave. They put their lives on the line to keep other people from getting hurt."  Her voice was so smooth and light.  She could read him the phone book and he would have hung on to every word.  "Plus, today is one of these brave men's birthday.  Now come on and sing it."