Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) (19 page)

Jack’s message
had Carrie terrified, given the guy was the most laid-back employee they had.
He never let anything bother him. Consequently, when she received the message
—
SOS Come ASAP.
Bring police. Barred the system door with two desks
—
she feared the
troops had rioted. However, she also knew the police wouldn’t arrive in a
timely manner unless she could articulate exactly why they should come, which
unfortunately, Jack had not shared. As she neared the office, a sense of
extreme danger overcame her. She looked up and stared in confusion as a filing
cabinet stuck its head out her office window.

It’s not
peeking out to admire the scenery, someone is pushing it,
the rational part
of her brain screamed.

Her focus went
to the sidewalk below. Almost fifteen people hung about in front of the coffee
shop, chatting with friends, enjoying their morning java before going to work.

“Get off the
sidewalk!” she screamed. Carrie swatted the air, trying to shoo them like
large, uncooperative flies.

A few people
glanced at her, but no one moved.

Desperate, she
rushed toward them. “Bomb! Get off the sidewalk! Bomb!”

The sidewalk
emptied a few seconds before a metal filing cabinet crashed onto the sidewalk,
sending shards of broken concrete and steel in all directions. She turned away
from the explosion, crouching down, her hands covering her head. Once pieces of
metal and concrete stopped flying past her, she dialed 911.

“Please help,
someone is throwing file cabinets from the fifth floor.”

Another crash
blasted behind her and she scurried behind a car. She breathlessly gave the
address.

“Ma’am we’re
getting reports of bombs going off at that location. You need to leave the area
at once.”

“It’s not
bombs. It’s file cabinets.”

“Ma’am, leave
the area now! The bomb squad is on their way.”

“But it’s not
bombs. I just need a riot squad to quell our employees.” She screamed as
another filing cabinet crashed close by.

“Ma’am you
need to leave ground zero now!”

Why did she
ever call out ‘bomb’? Now they’d send little robots and bomb-sniffing dogs when
a riot squad in full gear and a ton of mace would do a better job. Maybe stun
guns…yes, stun guns would be a fair payment for destroying months of her hard
filing work. She peeked around the edge of the car at the mass of client data fluttering
about.

Trent would
kill somebody—probably her—if his clients’ data fell into criminal hands.

* * *

Sam knew women
claimed the ability to enjoy multiple orgasms, but Dawn was the first woman
he’d met who could walk the walk. He’d just brought his barmaid to her third
quivering delight when his phone rang. Again.

Only this time
it rang in three short bursts, then three long, and then three short, a ring
tone only Mars or Joey could trigger.

Dawn raised
her head and pushed him back. “Your phone just declared an SOS.”

Groaning, he
pulled out of her. “Sorry, but I have to get this.”

He rolled off
the bed and snared his pants, searching for his phone. Extracting it, he
flipped it open. “This better be real.”

Mars’ tense
voice replied, “You have to get to the office. The radio says it’s a bomb
attack. Master Trent ran after Miss Carrie five minutes ago.”

“Where did she
go?”

“To the
office!”

He’d never
heard Mars yell before. That worried him. His friend had a sixth sense for
trouble. That’s what had made him such a good captain in the army and such a
fearsome butler in real life—if serving the rich had any connection to ‘real
life.’

He grabbed his
pants and tugged them on.

“Something
happen?” Dawn sat up, pulling her teddy over her firm breasts.

He leaned over
and kissed her. “Bomb. I may be short one master.” He grabbed his shirt and
started out the door, then turned around, stealing one more kiss. “You working
today? For me?”

“Eight to
close,” she stammered.

“I’ll try to
stop by. If I can’t, I’ll call you.”

“Go!” she
insisted.

He got all the
way to his car when he realized he’d left his gun and holster. He turned around
and ran back to the building, crashing into a very familiar body in the lobby,
wearing nothing but a robe and her teddy.

She handed him
a bag. “You forgot something.”

He peeked into
the bag to make she wasn’t sending him off with breakfast. Upon verifying his
Glock nestled inside, he kissed Dawn, justifying the time wasted by the minute
she saved him by retrieving his gun.

“Go!” she
insisted.

He tugged her
robe tight around her. Giving her one more quick kiss, he ran from the
apartment lobby and jumped into the limo. He threw his ‘use only in emergency’
blue light on the top of the car and zoomed off, even as he dialed Joey’s
number.

Joey answered,
“Yo, bro. I’m getting a promotion for catching the Brooklyn Rapist.”

“Great. What
do you know about the bomb?”

“Sure you
don’t want to be a cop? Because you seem to wanna solve crimes.”

“Do you know
anything or not?”

“I’m at ground
zero, waiting for the bomb squad to arrive. It’s not a conventional bomb. To be
honest, it looks like they dropped file cabinets from a fifth story window of
Lancaster Chairs.”

“Shit, that’s
my boss.”

“Master
Trent?”

“Yeah. He and
a young woman half his size should be somewhere about.”

“We’ve pushed
everyone back.”

“Not these two
you didn’t. I’ve got the blue light you gave me. I’m going to bully my way
through. Will you cover me?”

“Yeah, tell
them you’re a UW specialist.”

“Wanna tell me
what UW stands for?”

“Unorthodox
weapons.”

Sam laughed,
even though he found nothing funny about the situation. Humor at inappropriate
moments had kept them sane during the Iraq war when every inch of road they
traveled could have been their last. Captain Mars had drummed into their heads
to always watch each other’s back, which meant everyone in their squad came
home alive. They still watched each other’s back.

“Have you
penetrated the building yet?”

“No. We have
to wait for the bomb squad.”

“What exactly
do you expect robots and dogs to do against falling file cabinets?”

Joey laughed.
“Other than thinking ‘Oh no, not again!’ as they get crushed? Not a thing.”
However, we have protocols now. Common sense doesn’t even make the list
anymore.”

Sam loved the
way cars moved to the side of the road to let him pass. Now if only the freak’n
pedestrians would be so obliging. Ten blocks before his destination, he came to
a road block with two police cars and four cops waving people off. One cop
pointed at him and motioned him in, while two of the cops moved the plastic
barrier so he could pass.

“Thanks for
the light by-the-way. These guys waved me straight through.”

“We’ve got
people flying in from all over the country. It’s a blue light special day.”

“You need out-of-state
experts for filing cabinets?”

“Homeland
security called them in. Evidently, our specialists aren’t good enough to
inspect UWs.”

Even with the
blue light, Sam had to abandon his car and run the last three blocks. When he
arrived, he stopped and took in the eerily desolate block. To see a street in
bustling New York without a person on it chilled him to his bones.

“You can’t be
here, sir,” an officer barked.

“I’m a UW
expert.”

“Bomb squad
hasn’t cleared the scene yet. Can I see your ID?”

Crap! Sam
continued to search the area for his friend. The cop would arrest him if he
didn’t come up with a distraction soon. “Do you know where Joey Pascal is?”

His demeanor
softened. “Joey? He’s handling…Never mind, he’s coming over.”

Sam turned in
the direction the cop pointed and smiled in relief. Joey ran the whole way.
“Found my UW expert. Thanks, Frank.”

The cop
smiled. “Not a problem,
Detective
Pascal.”

Joey smiled.
“Don’t call me that ‘til it’s official. And don’t call me that afterward
either. To you, I’m always Joey.”

Joey grabbed
Sam’s arm and led him to the barriers.

Sam stared up
at the building. “I’ve got to get inside.”

“No, you
don’t. I just talked to the guys who got here first. A young girl was wandering
about, picking up papers in the bomb wreckage when a man wearing dark glasses,
a wide-rimmed gangster hat, and some sort of white mask, grabbed her by the
waist and pulled her away seconds before another file cabinet dropped.”

Sam’s stomach
roiled. “Are they okay? Can I see them?” While he’d never admit it to another
soul, he was worried about the two dolts.

“They weren’t
harmed, but the cops arrested them both. Not sure why.”

“Probably didn’t
get along with ‘Master Trent’.”

Joey chuckled.
“Check Precinct 5. If they aren’t there, call around. Protocol doesn’t allow me
to use my radio for unnecessary calls during a Level Red emergency.”

“Red…Twin
Towers was a Red. These are filing cabinets!”

Joey shrugged.
“Clearly someone overreacted, but I’m not breaking protocol and ruining my new
promotion you worked so hard to get me.”

Sam chuckled.
“I better find Master Trent. He’ll no doubt want me to drive him home.”

When Trent
refused to speak without his attorney, the keystone cops tossed him into a jail
cell with possibly the same people Sam almost ran down two days ago.

He met their
feral glares with his own, ready to take on any or all of them. In fact, he
welcomed the chance to release the fury inside him. Seeing Carrie almost
crushed by his file cabinet had traumatized him. Then idiots arrested him for
saving her life—insanity! They should’ve stormed the building and shot the
lunatics inside, but no, they attacked the hero of the day.

“Yo man,
what’s your deal?” a kid, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, challenged.

Trent pointed
a finger at him. “Say one more word and I’ll rip you apart, limb from limb.”

The coward ducked
behind a huge man. Trent glared at the seven-foot giant, more than willing to
take his rage out on the guy.

The man raised
two meaty paws in a gesture of non-aggression, so Trent turned his challenge to
the other five men in the cell. They dropped their heads, refusing to make eye
contact.

With no one to
fight, he paced his cage like an enraged lion. A justifiably enraged lion
.
What was Carrie thinking?
A cabinet had come within seconds of flattening
her.

She knew how
many file cabinets they had. Did she really think after tossing three cabinets,
they would allow the other two to have a nice day in the office?

He had no
doubt all five had ended their useful lives on the sidewalk by now. Probably
her chair, as well.

So why in any
rational world would the police arrest him for saving her life? It made no
sense at all. And why did they keep going on about bombs?

He’d saved his
EA’s life. His lunatic employees had tossed cabinets from the window. However,
his interrogator didn’t want to hear about any of that. They wanted to talk
about bombs and his disguise.

He blamed his
gangster hat. Clearly, it triggered some negative reaction in policemen. No
doubt their DNA carried a fear of the hats from coppers who’d battled Pretty
Boyd Floyd and others gangsters.

That’s what
comes from the sons of cops becoming cops themselves. They genetically pass
down their fear of hats, causing them to behave in irrational ways. A law
should prohibit multiple generations of a family going into law enforcement.

An eternity of
pacing later, a cop arrived, followed by Trent’s lawyer, David Sedita.

“It’s about
time!”

The moment the
jail door opened, Trent stormed out and passed his lawyer. He tried to leave
the jail, but the door further down wouldn’t open, thus he had no choice but to
wait for the jailer slowly meandering toward him.

“How’s
Carrie?” Trent asked his lawyer as they waited. No doubt frightened. Had to be.
One moment she was picking up papers without a care in the world, the next, grabbed
by the waist and slammed into a car.

“Carrie?”
David asked.

Trent’s rage
battered against his brain, trying to take control, but he couldn’t let it. If
he did, he’d probably kill every person in this cellblock.

“Yes, my EA.”

His lawyer
shook his head as if he had no clue who he meant.

“When I
finally received my one phone call, do you remember what I said?”

“You said
you’d been arrested and to get you out. Then you hung up without telling me the
precinct, which meant I spent the next half-hour locating you.”

“No! I said, ‘
we’ve
been arrested and get
us
out.”

The guard
finally arrived and took his sweet time opening the door. Trent glared at the
man. “I’ll be sure to let my ninety-year old doorman know when he gets a little
slower, he can apply for your job.”

David yanked
him by the arm and pulled him away from the jailor. “They haven’t dropped the
charges. One wrong move and you’ll lose the bail I just worked so hard to get.”

“I saved my
EA’s life! How hard could it possibly be to get bail for saving a person’s
life?”

“That sounds
like a delightfully simple task. Unfortunately, the serious list of crimes you’re
facing didn’t mention saving a life,” David snapped.

“I have no
idea what the charges are. They clearly didn’t like my hat or the bandage on my
broken nose, but to the best of my knowledge we don’t have style laws.” By his
last comment, he was screaming in rage.

David
tightened his grip on Trent’s arm. “Will you use your inside voice?”

“This is my
inside voice. You have no idea how angry I am. To add to all the other
stupidities of this day, I discover you failed to do your job. Now find my EA
and get her released!”

David stood
rigid in quiet fury for a long moment. Trent expected him to quit but, to his
surprise, the man turned and stormed into the police station’s inner sanctum.

Sick of the
place, Trent headed outside, hoping to God he could calm down once away from
the police station.

A gentle
breeze tickled his skin and a bright sun warmed the faint chill of the day, but
it didn’t calm his temper. Nothing would do that until he had Carrie safe in
his arms. He only hoped when the moment came, he didn’t ring her neck for
causing this debacle.