Guardian's Joy #3 (7 page)

“What do you two want?” she asked
suspiciously.

“Jeeze, Col,” Dov looked hurt, “We do
something nice for the pretty lady and this is what we get for it.
Not even a simple thank you.”

She looked at the computer screen plastered
with documents and the pile of papers beside it. She sighed.

“Thank you,” she said with exaggerated
politeness. “Now, what do you want? I really don’t have time to
play your games. I’m sor…, no, I’m not sorry. I have bills to pay,
orders to fill and a distributor that’s not fulfilling his
contract. The logo is blurred on five thousand t-shirts and I’ll be
up ‘til all hours of the morning because half the people we deal
with are human. While I’m thrilled that
Demon Destroyer
is
selling beyond our wildest dreams, it’s going to be the death of
me. I’m in over my head.”

Hope picked up the sandwich, eyed it
miserably, and set it back on the plate. She looked as if she might
cry.

“Sorry.” Dov looked genuinely concerned. “Can
we help?”

Hope smiled sadly. “No, and now I am sorry.
It’s not your fault. Faith sleeps through the day now, but she’s
also awake most of the night. She gets agitated, panicky when she’s
left alone, but she becomes hysterical if I try to get her out of
the room. Nico helps, Manon and Grace have been wonderful and
Broadbent has been a godsend, but the responsibility is mine.” She
straightened her shoulders and shook off the mood. “Shame on me for
whining. I have my sister back and I should be grateful. What was
it you wanted me to do?”

“No, no. We can ask Grace. You’ve got enough
on your plate,” Col said, feeling guilty for adding to her
problems.

Hope took a bite of sandwich and waved her
hand. “It’s okay,” she said when she swallowed. “I guess I just
needed to vent. You two have done a lot for me. What can I do for
you?”

“We can take some hours with Faith,” Dov
offered. “I can play checkers with her.”

“She can’t do that yet. She has to be told
what to do.”

“It’ll be like old times then. When we were
kids and Col wouldn’t play with me, I used to play with
myself.”

Col snorted a laugh. “By yourself, dumb ass.
With yourself is what you used to do in the bathroom when Mom
wasn’t home.”

“Shut up. You know what I meant. Besides, you
used to do it, too.”

“Boys!”

“Sorry, Hope.”

Hope raised her eyes to heaven. “What did you
need? I really am very busy.”

“It’s not for us. It’s for Nardo, but you’ve
got enough to do and…”

“What does he need?”

“He needs to find that woman from the other
night. He’s been trying to get fingerprints off that jacket, thinks
he can run them through hijacked data bases and find out who she
is. He has no idea what he’s doing. You can read about a lot of
stuff on the internet, but it doesn’t mean you can do it.” Dov
pointed to the remaining sandwich. “You gonna eat that?”

Hope grabbed the plate. “Yes I’m going to eat
that. You made it for me.” She popped a pickle into her mouth. “I
don’t see how I can help. I don’t know anything about
fingerprinting except what I’ve seen on television.”

Col waved his hands. “We don’t want any help
with that. We’ve got a better idea, but we need someone who can
sound like a real professional on the phone. Like you do when
you’re taking care of
Destroyer
business.” He told her what
they wanted.

“Have you talked to Nardo about this?”

Dov looked at his twin and shrugged. “Nah, we
tried and got flipped off for our efforts. You can’t talk to him
about this. The guy’s obsessed.”

Chapter 8

JJ opened her eyes and the room began to
spin. The coffee table loomed and receded. Her stomach rolled and
shifted and she had to close her eyes to keep the nausea at bay.
After breathing deeply and swallowing hard several times, she
managed to shift her body slightly so she could lift herself up to
a sitting position. Her stomach rolled and spasmed again and she
fought the heaves that brought bitter bile into her throat. Pain
flared at the base of her spine, shooting up through the muscles of
her back, and she forgot her heaving stomach. She stiffened against
the assault until it became a dull and bearable throb. She reached
around to rub the spot. Her shirt felt sticky and stiff.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

There was a thought after that, but it faded
away before she could fully grasp it and chasing the elusive thread
through the fog of her mind took too much effort anyway. She took
two pills from the saucer on the table and wondered vaguely about
how they got there and was even more surprised to find the water
jug empty when it slipped from her bandaged paws and fell to its
side. She was pretty sure she’d just filled it, but maybe… That
thought trailed away, too.

She was hot and sticky and hurting and her
mouth felt like a desert floor and she knew there was something she
should do about that but it was all too much to think about right
now. She’d take care of it later. She fell to her side along the
edge of the sofa, missed the pillow and winced when her head
thumped against the arm. The blow was mild, yet it set off a
pounding in her skull.

Sleep was what she needed; sleep and maybe
dreams of a tall, sexy guy with strong hands that made her heart
race and fangs that fascinated more than frightened. She smiled at
the thought and felt her lips crack.

She winced again when the weight of her hips
and legs pulled her from the sofa and she fell heavily to the
floor, but she didn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t. Worry and fear
flitted through her head and disappeared into the haze.

It was all too much.

*****

Two nights passed before they could put their
plan into action. It took Hope a few more phone calls than
anticipated to piece together the bits of information she gathered,
but it was worth the wait.

“Okay, so what exactly is the mission here?”
Col flipped through several stations until he found his current
favorite. “It’s not like we can knock her over the head and drag
her back to the House.”

“Information. We got a name. We got an
address. Now we find out who she is, what she does and who she’s
doing.” Dov flipped on the blinker of the Escalade and took a right
while Col shook his head and wrinkled his nose.

“We’re not doing any Peeping Tom shit.”

Dov put his hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.
How could you even think it,” he asked innocently and then he
laughed. “Actually, that was the plan, but if you’re going to get
all morally righteous on me… Ah, forget it. We’re just going to
check the place out to get some idea of where she works, where she
goes and who she goes with. That way, we can arrange for Nardo to
meet her.”

“Well aren’t you Little Miss Matchmaker.”

“Hell no. Nardo’s going ape-shit over this
piece. You see how he is. The only cure for that is to boink her
and get it out of his system. We’re doing this to keep our man from
taking the fall.”

“Taking the fall for what?”

“Not for what, into what. Taking the fall
into l-o-o-ove, bro.” He glanced over to make sure Col was paying
attention. “We’ve already taken the pledge, no little roses
decorating our lilies and Broadbent’s never going to get trapped.
Who’d have him? The poor guy can’t even speak normal English. It’s
always that hoity-toity poufy stuff. Now, Nardo is another story.
He says that mating shit isn’t for him, but he’s in his late
forties and that’s when the itch first strikes. I know. I’ve
studied this shit so I can be prepared.”

He eased the SUV into an open slot at the
curb across the street and a few doors down from the darkened
house.

“Hah! The only thing you’ve ever studied is
the food on your plate. Why should I care if Nardo bites the
bullet? Didn’t hurt Canaan or Nico.”

“You don’t see it, do you? Man, and people
think I‘m the dumb one.”

Dov reached into the paper bag at Col’s feet
and pulled out two containers of coffee, passing one to his twin.
He popped the little white tab and took two sips before continuing
his explanation.

“Hang up your coat. Put your boots away. Wipe
up your mess when you wash your knives in my sink,” he mimicked.
“Gracie moves in and now we can’t throw our stuff where we want to.
Our giant, house sized man cave has been reduced to the little back
room in the new section.” He pointed with his cup for emphasis.
“Manon moves in with Otto and we’ve got flowers growing in the
alley for cripe’s sake. She thinks our manners need polishing so we
have to do the formal dinner shit once a month. Hope moves in and
we have to clean up our acts even more. No rude gestures. No foul
language. I’m telling you, Col, another female moves in and we’ll
have fucking little lace hankies stuffed up our sleeves and ballet
lessons every Wednesday.”

He went back to rummaging in the bag and came
up with two powdered donuts. He measured them against each other
and passed the smaller one to his brother.

“Thanks.” Col took a generous bite and said
around a mouthful of donut, “So you’re saying you don’t like
wearing clean clothes and matching socks and you’d rather go back
to eating pizza four nights a week instead of pot roast and pork
chops.” He swallowed the lump of donut. “And I don’t know what’s so
bad about Manon wanting to spruce up the neighborhood and dressing
up once a month isn’t going to kill us. Grace goes all out on the
food and you told me you liked those jackets and silk shirts Nico
had his tailor make for us. And Hope’s coming along. Look what
she’s done for the business and she’s not nearly as tight assed
about bad language as she used to be and you know she’s right. Our
vocabularies are pretty limited. I like the changes and I like the
women. I thought you did, too.”

“I do. I do. I love them and I wouldn’t get
rid of any of them, but enough is enough. We need to keep things in
balance here, man, or we’ll be overrun. This cure isn’t just for
Nardo, it’s for us all.”

“Not sure how you think sex’ll fix it.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about this.
The way I figure it, it wasn’t sex that snagged Canaan and Nico. It
was no sex. It was the continuous hard-on they had for their women,
like having an itch on your balls that you can’t scratch ‘cause
you’re in a public place. It makes the itch so bad you can’t stop
thinking about it and the next thing you know, your nuts are
driving you nuts.”

Col cocked his head and thought about it.
“Never thought of it that way. You might be right.” He pulled out a
deck of cards and began to shuffle keeping one eye on the still
dark house. “Nardo seemed pretty sure she broke something. Maybe
she’s staying with friends or family until she heals.”

They played cards for an hour, talked,
listened to the radio and finally sat in mind numbing boredom. No
one arrived or departed and the house was still dark. Col finally
lost patience.

“Stay here. I’m going to look around.”

He was back a few minutes later. “Car’s in
the driveway, the kitchen looks like a bomb hit it and there’s a
cat howling and scratching at the window.”

“What about the rest of the house?”

“I only looked through the window in the
kitchen door…”

“So what’s…?”

“Shut up and listen,” Col snapped, “I think
something’s wrong. That kitchen didn’t feel right and there’s a gun
laying on the counter, a gun and one of those little folders some
cops carry their badges in. Nardo’s lady is a cop or she lives with
a cop. Doesn’t matter. Either way, that piece shouldn’t be out on
the counter. Something’s not right. I think we need to check it
out.”

“Hey, I would’ve done that right off, but
no-o-o, you had to accuse me of being a Peeping Tom.” At Col’s
look, Dov backed up a step and held up his hands. “Okay! Okay! No
need to get pissy. How’re we getting in?”

“Window pane in the back door. There’s a
skeleton key in the inside lock. No electronics.” Col jogged up the
driveway with Dov on his heels.

“Not very bright for a cop. Crappy lock on
the door, plenty of cover from neighbors.”

“Nice ride.” Dov stopped to check out the
car. He cupped his fingers over his eyes and leaned into the glass.
“Black on black, V-8, 5-speed manual.” He nodded his approval.

Col was already up on the small covered back
porch. With a sharp jab of his elbow, he broke a pane of glass in
the door, reached through and turned the old key. The door swung
open with a loud creak. He grabbed the knob, paused to listen and
jolted back when a furry yellow streak passed through his legs and
out into the darkness.

“Guess the cat wanted out,” Dov snickered
behind him.

“Sh-h-h.” Col pointed to his ear.

There it was again, a low moan coming from
beyond the swinging door leading from the kitchen to the rest of
the house. They tip-toed through, avoiding the plastic bits and
pieces of cereal that littered the floor, easing the door open into
a dining room separated from the living room by two floor to
ceiling pillars flanked by open bookcases.

A clear view to the front of the house showed
them the back of the sofa, an empty, comfortable looking chair, a
television and a couple of tables with lamps.

At first, the room appeared empty, but a few
steps more brought the coffee table into view and another faint
moan told them they were not alone. Three steps more and they saw
the woman lying on her side on the floor between the table and the
sofa, partially covered with an afghan. Her hair was damp and her
face was flushed with a feverish sheen. Her teeth chattered and her
fingers worked unsuccessfully to pull the knitted blanket to her
shoulders.

While Col turned on the lights, Dov shoved
the table out of the way and knelt beside her. He took in the right
hand cast and the left hand bandaging and began to run his hands
along her neck and over her head. He felt her brow and lifted her
fluttering eyelids.