Sacrifice:The Shenkar War (3 page)

             
Liam just stared, mouth half open, not knowing what to say. Sarah’s concern showed even more.

             
“
Are you okay? Are you in shock? Maybe you should sit down or something. I am not sure what to do with people who are suffering from shock.”

             
She was starting to look like she was going to cry. Maybe that was the reason Liam suddenly found his tongue, although what came out wasn’t what he had meant to say.

             
“
God, you’re beautiful,” he said quietly, then sucked in his breath. His eyes went wide and he could feel his face warm from his embarrassment over what he just said.

             
But all Sarah did was flash a sexy smile that made him weak in the knees before she spoke.

             
“
Thanks, you are not so bad yourself. So it is safe to say that you are not hurt?”

             
“
Uh . . . oh yes, I am fine. Are you okay?” he stammered out.

             
“
Yes, although with this accident, I am going to lose my license once the police get here and give me a ticket.”

             
Liam couldn’t help but laugh, and he laughed even harder at the look of shock mixed with the beginnings of indignation on Sarah’s face.

             
“
Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, but I hate to break it to you: I
am
a police officer.”

             
If he had thought Sarah couldn’t look any worse, he was wrong. She looked like she had just heard that her dog had died. Well, he couldn’t have such a beautiful face looking so downtrodden.

             
“
How about we don’t involve the police in this?” Liam said.

             
Sarah looked up with a slight smile, and then her face fell again slightly.

             
“
I couldn’t ask you to do that; it wouldn’t be right, as it was all my fault”

             
Although she didn’t look much like she wanted to do what was right. She stood there, staring at her feet (he noticed she had very cute feet). He turned and walked to the back of his Jeep and looked at the bumper. There was barely a scratch. He turned back to her and smiled.

             
“
Look, there’s barely a scratch, so I really don’t see any need to call the police. If anything, you would just cause me more harm from all my fellow officers harassing me about the beautiful girl who hit my new Jeep.”

             
Sarah’s face showed a slight smile as she looked at Liam.
              “
Well, okay, but can I at least buy you dinner to make up for it?”

             
And the rest was history. They were married in less than a year, and she was soon pregnant with his son. He had a wonderful life. Then the bird flu had taken it all away. Now they were both dead, along with his father, two sisters, and three brothers. He had tried to immerse himself in his work, but his fellow officers weren’t fooled. After failing a mandatory psych evaluation, he was told to take a leave of absence until such time as he could perform his duties.

             
That had been a year and three months ago. Now his life consisted of waking every morning angry that he had not managed to drink himself to death the night before. Every night was the same: come home, get something to eat, then drink until he passed out. Then in the morning he would wake up, place his gun to his head, and try as he might to end his life.

             
He had a part-time job at a local electronics store to pass the time. He didn’t need the money--far from it, in fact, as he had received a check for one million dollars from a life insurance policy on his wife. Every day he was going through the motions of life, not really seeing a future. Well, that was what he told himself, at least. He knew all too well that there were always possibilities in life. His plan was to not allow anything into his life that he would care for that could hurt him in the end. His mother was always telling him he should never let go of the memory of his lost wife, yet he should allow love back into his life--and she always knew the perfect girl.

             
After showering and getting dressed, Liam grabbed an energy drink. He hated coffee, never could stand it, so his morning ritual included an energy drink along with a breakfast Hot Pocket. After finishing his breakfast, he grabbed his motorcycle keys and left to go to the electronics store.
He loved the freedom of riding a motorcycle--nothing around you except the fresh air. Revving the engine, Liam sped off to work.

Elliot Hospital, ER

             
Evan sat up in his hospital bed, rubbing his throat. Oh, how it was sore. Induced vomiting was not what Evan had planned for the previous evening, but his nosy neighbor had changed that. Evan had finally had enough of his life and had downed a bottle of sleeping pills to solve the problem. Life just wasn’t worth the aggravation and heartache ever since he had lost his love, Christine, and his entire family to the bird flu--so many people lost to that horror, and Evan felt that he really wasn’t contributing anything worthwhile to society anyway.

Finally making the gruesome decision had been rather easy, and even though he would be letting his best friend Liam down, he figured that Liam would understand
--he hoped, anyway. However, Evan hadn’t realized the damn old woman who lived in the next apartment building over had a perfect view of his living room through his doors to his balcony. She had witnessed him downing the pills, then promptly had called 911. The last thing he remembered was drifting off to sleep, thinking,
Finally I am free.
And then he was waking up in the emergency room as he vomited into a bucket.

             
Looking up at the sound of the curtain to his bed being pulled back, he saw a nurse enter.

             
“
Feeling better, Mr. Maxis?” she said flatly yet not rudely.

             
“
Not really, but what should I expect for what I did?” Evan said in a croaky voice.

             
The nurse checked Evan’s pulse and then wrote upon a clipboard she had.

             
“
Are the police still out there?” Evan asked.

             
“
No, Mr. Maxis. They have been ordered to leave.”

             
“
Ordered to leave? By whom?” Evan asked incredulously.

             
“
I didn’t ask, but as soon as I am done in here, you will find out.”

             
Once the nurse finished up, she pulled back the curtain, exited, and two men in suits entered. The man on the left held up an identification wallet, showing him to be FBI.

             
“
Hello, Mr. Maxis . . . I am agent Mark Tennas. Please get your clothes and come with us.”

             
“
Where to?” Evan asked suspiciously. “Am I under arrest?”

             
“
No, Mr. Maxis, you are not under arrest. I am not at liberty to say what this is about, but I am under orders to deliver you, so please get dressed.”

             
Evan shrugged, grabbed his clothes, and dressed. Well, at least he wasn’t going to jail, so it didn’t seem that it could get any worse. Evan followed the two agents out of the emergency room to a waiting car and got in.

Carl’s Electronics

             
Parking the motorcycle besides the building, Liam dismounted and walked to the front door to unlock it. But before he could unlock the door, he turned at the sound of a car pulling up. Liam’s stomach twisted at the sight of the driver.

             
While he might have sworn off caring for anyone after Sarah’s death, he had recently realized that he had failed. The cause of the failure was a twenty-one-year-old girl named Leah, a college student who was stunningly beautiful in every way possible. She was five foot zero inches, 98 pounds of pure beauty, from her straight shoulder-length brown hair, her green eyes with those long eyelashes, and full lips that you just wanted to kiss for hours on end. With a perfect tanned body, on a one-to-ten scale, she was an eleven. He had watched guys come into the electronics store and trip over each other just to get a look at her. It was hilarious. When the store was busy, anyone working with Leah had their line usually full of mostly female customers, while about 90 percent of the males would wait in Leah’s line, even if the other line didn’t have anyone in it.

             
He figured he wasn’t in love with her; she didn’t even think of him that way. Why would she? For starters, he was thirty-seven years old--sixteen years difference. He was way too old for her. Secondly, he just wasn’t her type--he imagined a different sort of guy she would go for. He didn’t think himself unattractive; he simply saw himself as average, that was all. He was six foot one, 188 pounds, with black hair and blue eyes, and he was in good shape, considering he didn’t do much in the way of exercise except for playing ice hockey a couple of times during the week and beach volleyball on weekends with friends.

             
He just didn’t see himself as a guy she would go for, which he actually thought was good since he already felt guilty for caring for someone when his wife was dead. He felt he was somehow betraying her, yet he knew that was stupid for him to feel, knew Sarah would have wanted him to be happy. As for Leah, he thought it odd that they got along so well; he didn’t understand why she liked to hang out with him. They went to dinner occasionally, saw movies, or even hung out at his apartment where he made her dinner.

             
They had struck up a friendship when she had discovered Liam had lost loved ones to the bird flu. Leah was writing a paper of the effects of close losses from the flu and how people were dealing with it. So they started meeting up to discuss what he went through and how he was dealing with it. He would tell her about his wife, son, and those family members he lost, and when not speaking of those things, they talked of stuff they liked, guys she dated, and so on.

             
Something he couldn’t understand was how she didn’t have a boyfriend. She claimed that she just couldn’t find the right guy, that they just were not nice like Liam. She often joked that she should just date Liam but then would always add in how her family would kill her and how she would be throwing away her college education by getting involved with someone almost old enough to be her dad. They already felt that her hanging out with Liam was inappropriate. In any case, Leah wasn’t a blind girl, so she had to know Liam was attracted to her. Yet while she was flirtatious with him, she also made it plain that she wasn’t attracted to him in that way--or that’s the way he interpreted it.

After parking her car, Leah got out and started walking toward Liam, smiling as she went.

             
“
Liam! I didn’t know you were opening today.”

             
“
Yeah, Mike asked me if I could yesterday; apparently, he has his kid’s parent–teacher conference this morning. What are you doing here? Don’t you have class this morning?”

             
“
I did have class, but it was canceled. No idea why . . . in fact, all classes have been canceled until further notice. It’s really weird. Soldiers from the National Guard are all over the city . . . didn’t you notice?”

             
“
National Guard? Never even noticed, but you know me, I tend to get lost in thought. So what brings you here, then? It’s a nice day out--figured you would head to the beach.”

             
“
I forgot my cell phone here last night when I worked, so I figured I would stop by and pick it up.”

             
Liam unlocked the door and held it open for Leah to walk through. Following in behind her, he couldn’t help look at her from behind. Today, she was wearing a tight blue tank top with a short skirt that hugged her bottom so very nicely. After entering, he walked over to the alarm keypad, punched in the deactivation code, then went about getting everything ready for opening. After several minutes, he became aware of someone watching him and turned to see Leah looking at him.

             
“
What?” Liam asked suspiciously.

             
Leah smiled, but then her face became more serious, a slight look of concern on it.

             
“
Are you all right? You looked tired.”

             
Sighing, Liam continued to go about opening the store. But after a few minutes, he turned to Leah.