Protection for Hire (26 page)

C
harles had come home early … he didn’t know why. Pain and torture? Stupidity?

But all he found was an empty house and a still-warm pot of creole, sans shrimp, on the stove, which was thankfully turned off. Where was everyone?

He reached for his phone to call Mama when he heard Eddie’s key unlocking the front door.

“Mama and company are on their way to Tessa’s mom’s house in San Jose,” Eddie said by way of a greeting as soon as Charles opened the door. He waggled his cell phone. “I just got off the phone with her. But Mama says I can eat —”

It was a bare blur of movement behind Eddie, but it caught Charles’s eye. He glanced over his brother’s shoulder.

A hulking Asian man ran up and slammed a meaty forearm into the back of Eddie’s head. He stumbled forward into Charles, and the two of them staggered into the house.

The Chinese Hulk strode into the foyer, followed by a slender Asian man who looked like a whip of licorice — dressed all in black, narrow body, narrow face, long arms and legs. Licorice Whip immediately grabbed Charles by his shirt front and
dragged him into the kitchen, where he threw him against the corner of the cooking island in the center of the room.

The edge of the counter hit him above his ear. Pain arced across his vision. He fell to his knees at the base of the cooking island. His palm flattened against the cold tile, and then he saw drops of blood falling down.

He registered movement to his left. The Chinese Hulk had thrown Eddie to the floor next to Charles. There was a darkening bruise over his right eye.

He let them lie there, towering over them. Charles dimly heard Licorice Whip heading up the stairs.

They were looking for Elizabeth.

But they weren’t here.

What had made Tessa take Elizabeth and Daniel and Mama with her to San Jose? Thank God. Thank God. Or else they would have been here.

What was the use of having a security alarm when these two men had been able to muscle their way in through the front door with nothing more than a heavy hand and good timing?

Licorice Whip ran down the stairs and entered the kitchen. He immediately reached down and grabbed Charles’s right hand.

Charles fought him, but the pain of the gash in his head made him dizzy. Licorice Whip put a hand to Charles’s right shoulder and twisted his arm sharply so that Charles’s hand lay palm side up on top of the cooking island’s countertop. He tried to rise, but Licorice Whip’s hand leveraged on his shoulder kept him completely immobile, at his feet.

“Elizabeth St. Amant.” Licorice Whip had only a trace of an accent. “Where is she?”

“Shopping,” Charles ground out.

Licorice Whip grabbed Charles’s pinky and broke it.

Charles shouted out. It felt like an awl pounded into his hand, even though he knew it was only his pinky bone.

Only.

“Where is she?”

Charles hesitated this time rather than simply snapping out where Licorice Whip could stick it. The pain radiated down his arm from his hand like his blood had turned to battery acid.

Licorice Whip wrapped his fingers around Charles’s right ring finger. “Where is she?”

“Federal prosecutors,” he gasped. “Putting you away for life.”

He broke his ring finger.

Charles hadn’t thought it could hurt more, but this felt like a sledgehammer turning his finger into powder with one blow. He screamed.

Licorice Whip started speaking to the Hulk in rapid Chinese. The Hulk pulled out his cell phone and dialed even as Licorice Whip continued talking. Charles heard the words “San Jose.”

Oh no. They’d figured out where they were. Or were they simply going to pick up Tessa’s family so they would have leverage and make her turn Elizabeth over to them?

The Hulk got off the phone, then gave Charles a nasty smile. “They’re already —”

But suddenly Eddie swept a leg out, making the Hulk’s legs fly out from under him, toppling him to the ground. In a second Eddie was on top of him, looking like an ant trying to crawl up a molehill. The man twisted and grabbed at his brother, and the two rolled across the kitchen floor.

But … no. Eddie had managed to trap the man’s mutton-sized arm and watermelon-shaped head between his legs. One of Eddie’s feet hooked under his other knee, and the Hulk’s shoulder pressed against his jaw with the pressure. The Hulk flailed
his arms, kicked with his legs, but couldn’t escape Eddie’s hold on him.

Licorice Whip’s hold on Charles loosened.

Charles jerked himself upright and swung a left hook into the skinny jaw.

His knuckles crunched like he’d hit a concrete wall, and for a moment he wondered if they were broken too. Spit flew from Licorice Whip’s slack mouth as the blow sent his head flying sideways. Even as he fell to the ground, his eyes rolled back, showing the whites.

Charles curled his body inward, cupping both hands close to him, but unable to ease the throbbing pain. Yeah, his right hand definitely hurt more than his knuckles.

Eddie unlocked his legs, and the Chinese Hulk fell back onto the tile floor, unconscious. “Whoa. That really worked.”

“What was that?” The question came out a little louder than a moan.

“Triangle choke.”

Maybe that mixed martial arts stuff was useful after all. Then again, he doubted most MMA fighters ever had to contend with a home invasion.

“Quick, get the large zip ties from the garage and tie these guys up. I’d do it, but …” He held up his swollen right hand.

In minutes, Eddie had tied their wrists together behind them, and then used rope to tie their ankles to their wrists in a hog tie.

“You have to call the police. Not just to come here, but tell them to send cars to Tessa’s mom’s house.”

“You think they sent more guys there?” Eddie stumbled to the phone on the kitchen wall.

“I heard him say ‘San Jose.’” His stomach heaved, and he wondered if he was going to cast up his accounts.

“Well, they’re definitely not going to a Sharks game.”

While Eddie called the police, Charles twisted his less-injured left hand around and dug his cell phone out of his pants pocket. His fingers shook as he brought up Tessa’s mom’s house address. He shoved the phone toward Eddie as he told the officers about being invaded by two men, and how they’d tied them up.

“The men mentioned this address.” Eddie rattled off the Lancaster address as he read it from Charles’s phone. “They’re friends of ours. You’ve got to send police cars there right away.”

Charles grabbed his phone and dialed Mama’s number. He’d barely put it against his ear when it went straight to voice mail.

His stomach became a wadded up piece of paper, pressed tighter and tighter into a hard ball. He tried again, but the same thing happened.

He called Tessa, but it also went to voice mail. He searched his address book and found Tessa’s mom’s home phone number, but the operator’s voice immediately came on: “The number you have dialed is unavailable. Please check the number and dial again.”

What? Unavailable?

Was that what happened when a telephone line was cut?

The police arrived within five minutes, and as soon as they saw the two men on the floor of the kitchen, the officers seemed to recognize them.

“Did you send officers to that address?” Charles demanded, even before they tried to call a paramedic. “They mentioned this address.” He showed them his cell phone. “We tried calling, but the line is suddenly disconnected.”

One of the officers immediately took Charles’s cell phone showing the Lancasters’ home address and went to make sure a car had been dispatched there.

The next few minutes were tense. Eddie and Charles answered
questions, trying to be calm, but all the while they exchanged flickering glances, taut and razor sharp. Mama. What had happened to Mama?

One of the officers came up to them with a cell phone. “We called the San Jose PD, but apparently your friends had already called 9-1-1. They’re okay now. She wants to speak to you.” He handed Charles the phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh thank goodness you’re safe,” Mama said. Her voice had never sounded sweeter to his ear.

He released a breath in a huge whoosh, unaware he’d been holding it. “Mama, you’re all right?”

“We’re fine.”

They were okay. Tessa had kept them safe.

“Well, except for Tessa.”

It was almost as painful as getting his finger broken. “Tessa? Is she all right?”

“She was trying to protect us.” Mama’s voice wobbled. “There was so much blood. Thank goodness the police brought an ambulance with them.”

“Mama,
what happened?
”

“She was shot, Charles. The ambulance just took her away. We don’t know what’s going to happen to her.”

Everything was annoyingly white.

What about ecru instead? Or a nice, cheerful lime green? No, that might be pukey. Okay, how about robin’s egg blue?

All this white was burning holes in her eyes. And they weren’t even open.

“Tessa.”

She shook her head slowly. No Tessa here. She went to Disneyland. No, not Disneyland. How about the Bahamas?

“Tessa.”

The voice was deep, caressing. It made her insides mushy. Or, her insides would be mushy if they didn’t feel like she was birthing a dump truck.

The voice made her crack open an eyelid.

Charles.

The mahogany color hadn’t come out of his curls entirely, so they were oak brown rather than golden brown. His blue-green eyes swam above her. Now blue-green would be a nice color instead of all this white.

His hand cupped her face. That felt nice. Maybe he’d kiss her.

The white was too bright. It caused pain to lance through her head, down her limbs, settling into a raging fire in her abdomen.

And in a flash, it all came back to her.

She looked into his beautiful eyes, reminded herself that they were deceitful.

And she turned her head away from him.

She felt his hand fall away from her face. Her cheek became colder than liquid nitrogen.

The white was finally starting to dim, and the pain was starting to dull. Darker, darker.

Darkest.

She awoke to more darn white.

Oh, and pain. In. Every. Single. Cell. In. Her. Body. “Just shoot me now,” she groaned.

“You already were,” a deep voice rumbled.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Mom said, and she appeared beside Tessa’s bed, face concerned and relieved at the same time. And next to her …

“Uncle.”

It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to
think
. She even felt little pulses of pain through her veins that coincided with the
beep … beep
of the heart rate monitor.

“Am I going to die?” she asked.

“No.” And then Mom did something really freaky-weird — she smiled at Tessa. “The doctor said you did perfectly in surgery.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“That’s what happens when you try to converse with a bullet,” Uncle Teruo said.

“Ha, ha, very funny. Oh, hey, now I have a bullet wound just like yours.”

“Not just like mine.” His lip twitched. “I have a cooler scar.”

“But I fought off two guys and I didn’t have a gun.”

“If you want to count stupidity the same as bravery …”

“I was brave. I took a bullet for someone.” She had to pause while the pain roared for a second. “I don’t think I want to do that again anytime soon.”

“Yes, you took a bullet for your family.” He took her hand, squeezing it lightly. “And I … I can do no less.”

What did that mean? But when she tried to understand it, there was that pain again, blanketing her entire head as if her skull was on fire. Maybe it was on fire. She could smell something burning.

“I will see you later,” he said. And then he was gone.

Mom did another psycho-bat thing and took Tessa’s hand in a gentle caress. She stroked the back of her hand over and over again.

“What happened when I got shot?” Tessa asked.

“Alicia cried.”

“She
did
?”

“Well, she also said, ‘You moron, I can’t protect us!’”

“Ah, okay. That sounds more like Alicia.”

“And then we heard sirens.”