Illusion of Luck (12 page)

The only weakness in his plan was the
possibility he might not have enough time to get away with Cynthia
before Greg returned.

He walked out of the stairwell into the
fourth floor hallway. He could still hear the shower.

A young couple came out their door.

Larry walked to the nearby vending machines
and pretended to be checking out the beverages options.

The couple stepped into the elevator.

Come on, thought Larry. Hurry up,
Cynthia.

Then he heard the TV come on. He rushed to
the door and knocked. He heard Cynthia hook the privacy latch.

She opened the door just a crack.

“
Yes?”

“
Cynthia? Cynthia
Blockerman?”

“
Yes?”

“
I
knew
it was you when I saw you
walk through the lobby. I heard you were getting
married.”

“
And who are
you?”

“
Larry. Larry Luzor from
high school. Remember me?”

“
Uh…”

“
You know—‘Lucky
Larry.’”

“
Oh, yeah. Well, Larry it’s
great to see you, but it’s very late, and I
am
on my honeymoon,
so—“

“
I understand. And I hated
to bother you, but I have a wedding present for you.”

“
A wedding
present?”

“
Yeah. It’s just something I
bought downstairs in the gift shop.”

Cynthia closed the door, unhooked the latch,
and opened the door.

Larry handed her a small gift box.

“
You shouldn’t have. But
thank you so much.” She started to close the door.

“
Would you mind opening it?
I want to make sure you like it.”

“
Uh, okay.” She removed the
lid. “Oh, it’s a watch.” A very ugly, bulky watch, she
thought.

“
It’s kinda big—but it’s got
tons of cool features.”

“
I see. Yes, it’s very nice.
Thank you.”

“
Would you mind trying it
on?”

“
Well, I—“

“—
let me hold the box for
you.”

Cynthia was losing her patience. “Okay, but
then—“

“—
then I’ll go. I’m sorry
for being a pest. I just want to make sure it fits.”

She fastened the metal band and held out her
wrist. “It fits just fine.”

Larry reached into his pocket and took out a
small black plastic object. He pushed the button on the side of
it.

A tiny red LED on the face of the watch lit
up.

“
What’s that? What did you
just do?”

Larry whispered, “Don’t take off the
watch.”

“
What?” Cynthia was
frightened and confused.

Larry pushed her back, stepped inside, and
closed the door.

“
The watch is now armed.
There’s a small amount of plastic explosive in it.” He flipped
open the lid of the remote, exposing a red button, “And if I push
this button—“

“—
don’t!”

He flipped the cover back to
closed position. “It’s not enough to
kill
you, but it would probably
blow your hand off.”

“
Why are you doing this to
me?”

“
No time for talk right now.
We’re leaving. Throw on some clothes, grab your things and let’s
go. If we can get out of here before Greg comes back I won’t have
to kill him. And, by the way, if you try to take the watch off, it
will automatically detonate.”

Cynthia put on shorts, a shirt, and running
shoes.

“
Take all of your
stuff.”

She put everything in her bag, and he rushed
her out the door and down the hallway to the stairs. Just as they
were entering the stairwell, they heard the elevator ding.

“
Hurry,” said
Larry.

Chapter
16

Greg stepped out of the elevator. He had
waited in the lobby until his patience ran out. Then he had gone
out to the parking lot to look at the Bonneville. It didn’t have a
scratch on it.

He was relieved that his car
was okay, but irritated that somebody would pick this night,
of all nights
, to
pull such a prank. He took out his key card.

His cell rang. It was Sandy.

“
That was not cool,
Man.”

“
What?”

“
Didn’t you call our room 10
or 15 minutes ago, disguising your voice?”

“
No. That wasn’t
me.”

“
Well, that’s weird. Some
guy told me he bumped into my car, and asked me to meet him in the
lobby. But he never showed. So, I figured it was you, playing a
trick on me. I couldn’t think of anybody else who would do
it.”

“
I’m serious, Man—it was not
me. Are y’all okay?”

“
Yeah, we
will
be. If people
will just leave us alone.”

“
So, Cynthia’s
okay?”

Greg opened the door. “Sure. Why wouldn’t
she be?”

“
Okay. I just wanted to make
sure.”

“
What made you think
something was wrong?” He walked to the open bathroom door looking
for Cynthia. She was not there.

“
It’s a long story. I’ll
tell you about it after the honeymoon. Y’all have a great time. I
promise not to bother any more, Buddy.”

“
Wait. Cynthia’s not
here.”

“
Well, maybe she went down
the hall to get a candy bar or something.”

“
I don’t see any of her
clothes. And her overnight is bag is gone.”

“
Uh-oh.”

“
What do you know about
this, Sandy? Tell me what’s going on.”

“
It’s just a hunch, really.
And it’s complicated. Just hang tough, Buddy. We’ll be there in
twenty minutes.”

“
We? Who’s with
you?”

“
Uh, her name is Rebecca. I
met her tonight at the wedding.”

Greg didn’t know any Rebeccas. “Okay…”

“
Another long story. See you
soon.”

“
Okay. Bye.”

Greg knew it had been too good to be true.
He didn’t deserve Cynthia. She must have finally come to her
senses.

Then he remembered the anonymous call on the
night of the wedding rehearsal.

She’ll rip your heart out, Man.

He sat on the edge of the bed, dizzy and
heartbroken.

*********

Larry knew he couldn’t go back to his house
in Plano or to the cabin on Lake Texoma. By now, the police might
suspect his ex-wife had been murdered. If so, they would come
around asking all kinds of questions. And he certainly didn’t want
to be bothered—now that he was finally reunited with the true love
of his life.

He looked away from the road to see her
pretty face in the moonlight. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed
of this, Cynthia.”

“
What do you plan to do with
me?”

“
What do you
think?”

She was afraid to answer.

“
Live happily ever after,”
he said.

“
With a woman you abducted
on her wedding night?”

“
I got there just in the
nick of time. I
saved
you.”

This guy is seriously deranged, thought
Cynthia.

“
You made sweet love to me
every night in high school.”

“
I never even went out with
you.”

“
Every night you slipped
into my bed and had sex with me. We did it over and over
again—until we both passed out from exhaustion.”

“
Larry, you’ve got quite an
imagination.”

“
Yes, I do. But I knew it
would all come true one day. I knew you wanted me as much as I
wanted you. I just needed to get up the nerve to ask you
out.”

“
But you never
did.”

“
No. And it’s my greatest
regret. You were so cute in your little cheerleader
outfit.”

Then she realized. “You’re the one who sent
me those weird emails.”

He seemed hurt. “You thought they were
weird? What about my poem? I wrote you a nice poem.”

A
creepy
poem, she
thought.

Your beautiful smile, your silky red
hair,
At the edge of the field, you were always there.
Rooting me on to unimaginable glory,
Inspiring my heart in a hero’s story.

But now I’m alone and longing for you,
So, flip up your skirt like you used to do.
Jump into the air and I’ll catch my hottie;
I’ll rip off your clothes and have sex with your body.

“
If you wanted to date me,
why didn’t you just call me up?
This
is certainly not the way to
a woman’s heart.”

“
I was afraid you would
reject me.”

You were so right, she thought.

“
But I knew
this
would work. I
knew my luck would come through for me.”

“
You call this
luck?
”

“
Sure. I’ve always been
lucky. That’s why they call me ‘Lucky Larry.’”

“
Wait. Now I remember.
Everybody started calling you that after you made the big play in
that game against the Lobos.”

“
That’s right! I won the
game.”

“
And you were lucky to even
be
in
the
game, if I remember correctly. Coach hardly ever gave you any
playing time.”

“
That’s right. If Coach
hadn’t put me in for that last play we would have lost.”

“
But didn’t he
have
to put you in
the game? A bunch of the players suddenly came down with diarrhea,
didn’t they?”

“
I don’t
remember…”

“
Yeah, that’s right. They
said you brought brownies to the locker room. And all the players
who ate them got sick. That wasn’t luck.”

“
I didn’t make them sick.
That’s not true.”

“
Yeah. And you were wide
open in the end zone because everybody knew you were a lousy
player. But nobody else was open, and the clock had run out. So,
Tony threw the ball to you, and it bounced off your helmet, and you
fumbled around with it for while before you finally fell to the
ground.
That
part was luck. The Longview coach claimed you didn’t have
possession. But the ref said you did. There again—pretty lucky, I
guess. Or did you poison the ref too?”

“
No, My Dear. You’re only
half right. I
was
lucky to be put in the game. And coach
was
lucky he had the good sense
to
put
me in
the game. And, I’ll admit, I made a lucky catch. And that’s how I
became ‘Lucky Larry.’ I wasn’t
my
fault seven players got sick
that night.”

Cynthia realized she was being foolish. It
was not a good idea to argue with this wacko. He could blow off her
hand with the push of a button.

And clearly, he was crazy enough to do
it.

**********

Greg had been sitting on the bed, staring at
the wall ever since he hung up with Sandy.

There was a knock at the door.

He opened it and saw Sandy and some woman
holding a briefcase.

“
Hey, Man. You
okay?”

Greg looked pitiful. “No.”

Sandy gave him a big hug. “I’m sorry,
Buddy.”

“
Come on in.”

“
This is Rebecca Ranghorn. I
met her tonight at the reception and we just kinda hit it off.” He
smiled at her.

Rebecca shook Greg’s hand. “Glad to meet
you.”

She must be an old friend of Cynthia’s,
thought Greg. “So, what’s going on, Sandy? What do you know about
this?”

“
Well, Rebecca was on her
way home when her car broke down. So, I gave her a ride. And she
was telling me that she thought you and Cynthia might be in danger.
It all sounded crazy, but it was bugging the heck out of me, so I
called you.”

“
I’m sorry I didn’t say
something sooner,” said Rebecca. “But it was just a hunch. And you
would have thought I was nuts.”

Greg knew she was right.

“
My best friend was murdered
Thursday night,” she said.

“
Oh, I’m so sorry,” said
Greg.

“
Thanks. We were law
partners. And I believe that the man who killed her is writing a
book about it on the internet. And in the book, he talked about a
redheaded woman he was obsessed with, and that she was getting
married on Saturday.”

Greg listened in disbelief.

Rebecca went on. “So, I searched the web
looking for all women who were getting married today in Texas who
also happened to have red hair. The only one I found was
Cynthia.”

“
Oh, no.”

Sandy jumped in. “But the good news is that
this guy will probably write about whatever he’s doing. So, we’re
hoping the book will lead us right to him.”

“
Well, have you checked? Has
he written anything else?”

“
We don’t know. But Rebecca
has her laptop.”