Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) (4 page)

I STARED AT THE sky, its color making it a riverbed overrun with salmon. The punishing rain of earlier in the day had subsided. The sun had actually made an appearance and was now receding. A couple lay on a brown blanket covered in white and gray cat fur, snuggling together, talking in whispers, laughing at one another’s oft-repeated stories. My hand pushed the empty swing in the gazebo. The swing itself was light, and the humming of the chain that held it in place soothed me in a way I can’t adequately explain. The rain had subsided, as I’ve said, but the smell of it was still heavy in the air. At my back, I heard the sound of heels on the wood steps of the gazebo.

Then I smelled coconut.

Felt a shadow cover me.

“Why are you here?” I asked without turning.

“I owe you an apology.”

I turned to her then, my eyes narrowed. “Is that so…Nevada?”

She shivered, hugged herself, nodded. “Yes. I lied about my name. You’d been following me all day. I didn’t know what to do. You can’t possibly blame me for that. Can you?”

“Lovely apology,” I said, and turned back to the empty swing, gave it a push.

“I’m sorry, Shell.”

 “Thanks. You can go now,” I said.

“There are four parks within a five mile radius of the Farmer’s Market. Despite the odds, I happened by all three of the others before I found my way to this one.”

“Stay away from Atlantic City,” I said.

Nevada bit her lip. “I want you, Shell,” she whispered in a jazz singer’s rasp. “I might as well be truthful about it. And that’s not a good thing, wanting someone like I want you. This is reckless.”

“Just go, Nevada.”

“I can’t, Shell. You should understand that. Just like you couldn’t
not
follow me today.”

I stopped pushing the swing, my sigh like air whooshing from a pierced tire. “Your man—”

“Isn’t here,” she said.

“I’m supposed to approve of that answer?”

“I don’t know, Shell.” She inched close, tried to touch my arm. I shifted away. That didn’t deter her in the least. “Daniel’s out somewhere, working as usual. Or so he says. And I don’t care one way or the other. I’m here with you. If that bothers you I can leave.”

“It bothers me,” I said.

“Try not to let it,” she said, “For the night.”

“Another bad answer, Nevada.”

“Please.”

“What if I want beyond the night?”

“Show me,” she whispered.

“You’re a movable piece? You can come off of Daniel’s board?”

“That’s possible.”

“This is wrong. Even I have parameters.” I’d taken Taj from another man and a man had taken her from me in turn. Over the years I’d learned that karma was as insistent as violence.

She nodded. “You’re right. It is wrong. I should go.”

She prepared to leave. I reached for her, secured her wrist, pulled her indecently close to me. Rolled her sleeve up again, touched her bruise with two gentle fingers. Bent and moved her arm to my lips. Kissed her feverish skin. Several soft and tender pecks. We watched each other for a beat. And sinned in our minds. Sin always began there.

“Why am I allowing this?” she asked helplessly as I tended to her bruise.

I was more concerned with the sin in my mind than her question.

Rather than trouble myself for an answer I leaned forward until our lips touched.

Her tongue tasted like mint.

She broke our very first kiss, sighed. Her gray eyes watched me intently. “I must be out of my mind.”

I said, “I don’t detect any diminished acuity.”

She smiled. “So full of surprises. I could listen to you talk all day. You’re so damn sexy. Dangerous and mysterious, too.”

“Ditto.”

“Me?” She pointed at herself, a coy schoolgirl’s smile on her lips.

“Yes, you,” I said.

She gazed toward the couple lying on the brown blanket. “Two dangerous and mysterious souls intersecting. That’s us.”

“Can it last beyond the night?” I wondered.

“Been with Daniel for two years,” she said.

“It’s been good?”

“I’d rather not answer that.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m not reckless, Shell.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Never?”

“Never,” she said. “What about you?”

I thought of Taj. The
intensity
of my feelings for her. Feelings that overwhelmed me from the very beginning. “Never,” I told Nevada, adding another blanket to our bed of lies.

She smiled. “I suppose you must have a special place in my heart now.”

“Daniel already has that,” I replied.

A shadow fell across her face. “We’ve talked about marriage, Daniel and I.”

“You’d be a lovely bride.”

“Lovely.” She snickered. “Just so lovely.”

“Nevada—”

“I’d have to be very careful with you, Shell. Being with Daniel requires no care. It’s tough at times, for certain, but… You’re obviously a hard man. Just being around you is probably risky. What do you do for a living?”

Jacoby Wilder. High school teammate, college roommate. I’d been the best man at his wedding. He’d been the most important of six that carried my mother’s casket. Later his own casket would come.

Veronica.

Ericka.

“You’re right,” I told Nevada.

“What?”

“Just being around me is risky.”

I hadn’t answered her question: What do you do for a living? Most would’ve sought further clarification, would’ve left me standing there if I didn’t provide it. Nevada simply nodded. Good thing. Explaining the intricacies of being a killer-for-hire has never suited me.

“I’m thinking you should be fed with a long-handled spoon,” Nevada whispered after a moment.

“Haven’t heard that one,” I said. “How’s that for a catchy slogan. I have to get some new business cards printed.”

“I’m not reckless, Shell.”

“So you’ve said. I’m inclined to think otherwise.”

She attempted to slap me, a harbinger of things to come, I suppose.

I took her offending hand, gripped it at the wrist, pulled her close to me again, mashed my lips against hers, and eased my tongue into her receptive mouth. “You can have me, any way you want, Shell,” she said, breathless, as I broke the kiss a beat later.

“I know.”

“You’re arrogant.”

I shook my head. “I recognize fate.”

“I’m doing this. But it can’t be good.”

“I disagree. It is good, Nevada.”

TWO

I WAS WRONG. IT wasn’t good.

A NAKED WOMAN SLEPT in my bed, her perfectly round breasts exposed above a thin white sheet that rose no farther than her waist, her nipples like ripe blackberries, her brown skin tinged with shades of red courtesy of a Cherokee leaf somewhere on her family oak. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, framing her lovely face. Her breathing was new-blacktop smooth in sleep. Altogether different than the deep-throated moans that had come from her when we’d made love earlier in the night. I thought of us lying together, just minutes before, my arm around her, her head resting on my chest, the fog of her breath warming my skin. She’d been a vigorous lover. The sex was more than spectacular. Despite that, the OneRepublic ringtone sounding from my cell phone had made me slide from her embrace and out of bed like a thief in the night.

“Apologize”, Nevada’s own personal ringtone.

“Dashiell?” she said in my ear.

The trees had shed their leaves several times since that first meeting in the Farmer’s Market. Since I’d stalked Nevada Barnes for the better part of a day. Then stole her away from her abusive lover.

During the course of the years since that introduction, Nevada’s voice had completely changed for me. No longer did it tickle my ears. No longer was it ice-cold lemonade. It had turned into lukewarm, liquid Drano, instead. A harsh sentiment, I know, but right as rain.

“Dashiell?”

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“What?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You’re being immature, Dashiell.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Okay, okay,
Shell
.”

“Better.”

“Childish,” she said.

“What do you want, Nevada? Something wrong with the water heater again?”

I was little more than a landlord and my past lover little more than a tenant. The home in which she lived didn’t have a paper trail that would lead back to either of us. Still, it was clearly mine and I insisted she live in it, even after our breakup. I’d walked in dangerous circles and had enemies at every turn. Because of this, it wasn’t in Nevada’s best interest to live in the place that actually had her name on the lease.

“If you’re going to hold my living here over my head, I can always move back to my place, Dashiell?”

“Didn’t I say not to call me that?”

“Oh my goodness…” She sighed into the receiver. “I’m trying. Give me a break.”

“Nevada’s trying,” I said. “Somebody alert Congress.”

“You’re whispering,” she noted. “I take it you’re not alone.”

“That’s a condition I try to avoid. You know this.”

“That I do, Shell. That I do.”

Weary is the best way to describe her voice. As though her back was ready to give out from the immense weight of whatever she’d been carrying. She filled the next twenty seconds with silence. I closed my eyes, squeezed them and willed away a cluster headache. Nevada had a way of working herself into my marrow. I hated her for that. I loved her for it, as well. Our relationship was more complex and difficult to understand than I would ever be comfortable with. Discomfort made me a hard man to deal with.

“Are we going to be like this forever?” she said.

“Probably,” I said. “I’d imagine so.”

“Been through a lot with you, babe,” she said.
Babe
. As if we were still in a place where that was appropriate. I let it go, said, “And vice versa. What’s the point, Nevada?”

I’m certain she nodded. That’s how it was with us. I could feel her energy, could interpret her movements, even over the phone line. Fiber optics posed no problem. Nevada could do the same with me. Secrets didn’t stay secrets long where we were concerned.

“The courtesy of a return call would have been much appreciated,” she said.

I didn’t reply.

“That’s the least I’d expect from you.”

I didn’t reply to that, either.

“The past three days I’ve left you somewhere around four messages, Shell. Obviously something important has been on my mind.”

“Seven in two,” I said.

“What?”

“Seven messages, two days.”

She sighed. “Seven in two, then. I stand corrected.”

“Now you’ve got me. What did you need?”

The naked woman in my bed shifted but didn’t awaken. Still, I padded away from her, across the pile carpet, then outside on the hotel balcony. The night had cooled what had been a hot day. The jet black sky was salted with stars. I didn’t bother making a wish. In the distance were sights I could see and others I couldn’t but knew were out there somewhere. Parrot Jungle. The Metrozoo. Vizcaya, an Italian Renaissance-style villa.

“What’s all that noise?” Nevada asked. “Where are you?”

“Miami.”

She sighed. “No doubt with some nearly anonymous woman. Some things never change.”

“Thank God for small miracles.”

“You disgust me, Shell.”

“Glad to hear it. Now get to the point, Nevada. Refrigerator on the blink? You spilled wine on the carpet and need the stain cleaned? Quickly state your reason for the calls. In three seconds I’m hanging up.” Fever ticked through my blood like a worm. I started a countdown, “One, two…”

“May first is—”

“Coming up,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m aware. You and I just happen to be using the same calendar.”

“Were you planning on—”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I was going to ask,” she said.

“Whatever it was,” I said, “the answer is no.”

“Bitterness will kill you.”

“As will a million other things. Hypertension, cancer…love.”

I threw that last bit in as an afterthought. That fooled neither of us.

“I wish things could be different between us, Shell.”

“Nevada wishes,” I said. “Somebody get the President on the line.”

She said, “There’s a verse in the Bible that says to forgive seven times seventy.”

“You’re quoting the Bible now?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of that.

“I’m trying to evolve, to grow.”

“Quite a project,” I said. “Good luck with that.”

“You’re not being very nice.”

“That’s good to know.”

“I have another verse for you,” she said, undaunted. “First Corinthians, thirteenth chapter. They call it the love chapter.”

Love is patient. Love is kind. Keeps no record of wrongs.

I knew it well enough. But I’d still prove a poor proselytizer.

“Are you familiar with it?” Nevada asked.

“No.”

“Read it sometime. I’ve tried to measure up to its standard.”

“You’ve failed,” I said. “Miserably.”

“Yes. I failed. I’m not alone.”

“Anything else, Nevada?”

“Hold on. Don’t hang up…”

Her voice faded. I heard faint sounds in the background of the line. She was quickly up and walking across the linoleum in her kitchen. Barefoot, her footfalls a soft slap to my face. Then the thick carpet of the living room swallowed the noise of her steps. She rushed past the television, what sounded like a cooking show playing, and moved down the hall and stopped at the second door on the left. The Serenity Prayer, set in a gold-painted wood frame covered in layers of dust, hung on two nails embedded in the wall between the bathroom and bedroom. It took two nails to hold it straight. I’d put it up
. ‘Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace’
went one of the lines. I don’t think Nevada or I ever fully understood the words. We’d certainly lived our lives as though we hadn’t.