Jesse (17 page)

“I did something very naughty today. After
I shot Patty’s Petal’s and killed her I went to the hospital. But I went to the
wrong one. They were mean to me too.” She thought about the woman who’d told
her that she would have to leave, that no one by the name she was looking for
was there. “I didn’t know you had to have full names. And I was about to tell
her that I’d shot the bitch, I should be able to see her, when I saw a cop
coming down the hall. I didn’t like that.”

The cop hadn’t even looked her way, but
she knew that could have been his trick to make her think it. And she was sure
that the girl, Joey somebody, was in that hospital. Why would they take her all
the way across town to one that Sondra didn’t go to?

“I have to leave here soon too. I have
to get back out on the market. Do you know how many houses I’ve missed being
cooped up in here? At least thirty. I’ve been here for a month and all that
money is going to the new girl Jezebel.”

Sondra knew her name wasn’t Jezebel, but
since she’d never bothered to learn her name she called her what she thought
she was. A jezebel just like that Joey somebody was. She rolled to her back,
using Clint as a pillow.

“You should have brought more cash with
you, dummy. I had to pick up things to wrap you up in and you didn’t have any
cash. Not enough anyway. I had to use my credit card.” She remembered the small
bit of fear she’d felt when the card had to be run through three times. “For a
second there, I thought somebody had canceled it, but she said it was only a
power surge or some bullshit. She probably made that up. I thought about
killing her, but there were just too many witnesses.” She giggled again, louder
this time. “I wonder what she would have said if she’d known that she had a
killer in her line. Probably would have crapped herself. I would have laughed
my ass off if she had.”

Sondra sat up on her knees and looked at
the mess he’d made. Reaching for the plastic shower curtains she’d gotten, she
opened them up. It was going to take at least two, she thought. He was a big
man. She picked up his dick with the point of the knife and put it in the used
wrapper the curtain had come in. She’d thought about putting it in his mouth,
but decided he’d enjoy that too much and simply put it in his hand after she
rolled him into the curtain.

Blood was everywhere. Not that she
cared. It wasn’t as if she was going to take him out and bury him in it. She
was doing this so he wouldn’t stink. She had no idea how long a body could go
without smelling everything up, but she was sure it couldn’t be very long. When
she’d gotten him where she’d wanted him she opened the tape and began wrapping
the edges up and over him. Just as she’d thought, too big for just one.

After securing the tape over his chest
and arms she moved down his legs. They were covered pretty well, but she still
had to get him covered. She was just getting the second curtain open when a car
door slammed outside her room. She waited for several seconds and when they
didn’t pound on her door demanding that she come out with her hands in the air
she knew she was okay.

After nearly four hours of wrestling
with the dead man Sondra was covered in blood and sweat. She felt…sexy, she
supposed. All covered in blood; hair, clothes, even her feet were red stained. She
stood up and had to grab onto the dresser. She had a wave of dizziness wash
over her so quickly it was hold on or fall. She tried to think if she’d eaten
dinner or not when she realized she didn’t remember eating breakfast or lunch
either. Looking down at herself, she realized that to go out she’d have to
clean up. She headed to the small shower.

The streets were almost deserted this
time of night, she realized. Sondra had looked at her watch before leaving the
hotel and saw that it was well after midnight. Still, being alone didn’t bother
her so much anymore. She liked her own company.

There was a problem, though. She had
very little money and what little there was had Clint’s blood on it. She was
standing next to an ATM when she realized she still had her card. They may have
frozen her accounts, but they hadn’t taken her card. Walking up to the machine,
she put her card in and followed the instructions.

When it asked her to wait, she looked
around. This wasn’t the greatest neighborhood in the world and she stepped
closer to the light that shone down on her from the building. When the machine
made a noise she turned to it.

 “Access denied. Any questions, please
contact your local banker.” She pushed the exit button only to have it repeat
its previous message. It wouldn’t give her card back to her. Stomping to the
front of the bank, which was dark, she pounded on the door. “Hello? I need to
talk to my local banker. And your retarded machine took my card and won’t give
it back.” Cupping her hand over the glass, she tried to see if anyone was in
there and couldn’t. “Damn it, I want my card back. It’s a gold card and I want
it back. You can’t keep my card from me.”

She huffed her way back to the ATM and
was mad that someone else was there. She watched as the person put in their
card, punched in their numbers, and was rewarded with a handful of cash. Sondra
walked up behind the woman.

“Excuse me, the machine there took my
card and I think you have the money I was supposed to get.” She smiled at the
woman, who looked at her as if she had several heads. “If you’ll just hand it
over I’ll tell them in the morning about the mistake and you’ll probably be
rewarded for helping me out.”

“Fuck off. This is my money. I’m not
giving you shit.” The woman started back toward what Sondra assumed was her
car. There wasn’t any way she was leaving without her money, so she tried
again.

“I said that’s my money. I haven’t eaten
all day, and now that Clint can’t go out and shop for me, I have to do it
myself. So if you’ll just—”

“I said to fuck off. You want money?
Then I suggest you go find someone who gives a fuck. I don’t.” The woman turned
her back to Sondra again and that pissed her off.

Sondra hadn’t realized she brought the
knife with her that she’d killed Clint with until she had it in her hand. The
first time she brought it down into the woman who’d stolen her money she’d been
surprised at how easily it slipped through her throat. By the time she’d
stabbed the woman several times she knew that she was enjoying herself too
much. Falling off the now dead thief, Sondra took the woman’s purse and left
the area. She was all the way back to her hotel before she realized that she’d
seen several flashing lights not unlike those on a camera.

There hadn’t been anyone around, she was
sure of that. And if the dead woman had taken pictures…well, there wasn’t any
way she’d been able to do that. She’d killed her, and now she had money to eat
with. She opened the wallet first then, finding nothing, began to look through
the entire bag. Nothing. Finally, in a fit of rage, she dumped the contents on
the bed and found that, somehow, the woman had stolen from her again.

Sondra gathered everything up. She was
going back to teach the stupid woman a lesson. But it was no longer a woman
lying dead; now there were blue and red lights, yellow tape, and more cops than
she’d seen in her life. Hiding in the shadows, she watched them. One of them
looked like he was putting something in a smallish bag and Sondra knew it was a
phone. She made her way back to the hotel, clutching the bag to her chest,
wondering how the woman had betrayed her yet again.

“I don’t like thieves, and I hate liars.
She was both. How could she do that?” Sondra asked no one. “I have to find out
who she told I did it.”

~~~

“She won’t let any of us in to talk to
her. I tried to tell her it’ll be better in the morning, but she just won’t—”

“I’ll talk to her.” Jesse looked at
Josephine’s door then back at the nurse. “Did she eat anything for dinner?”

“Not much. She was…well, after you all
left she was quiet for a bit, but then when Molly went in to check her vitals
she was sobbing. That new girl we hired suggested we give you a call. Won’t do
her much good to cry like she is.”

Jesse wondered if the new girl was the
agent, but didn’t say anything.

“You going to go in?”

She’d made it sound like he was going
behind enemy lines and he might not make it out again. Actually, he thought
that might be fitting. Going to the door after reassuring her that they’d be
fine, he went to the door. He could hear her crying and it hurt his heart.

The room was dark, but the light from
the bathroom gave him just enough to see that Josephine was huddled in the bed.
He cleared his throat when he started taking off his coat. This was going to be
hard, he realized. Harder than his first case when he’d thrown up for over an
hour before session was called.

“What are you doing here? I thought I
told you to go away. I don’t want you around here anymore.” Her voice sounded
watery and hurt. He tried to ignore how much it hurt him to hear her throw him
out again.

“The news said it was going to be
beautiful tomorrow. I can’t believe that. It’s kinda cold out even for this
time of year.” Small talk. He should be good at that. “I’ll have to pull out
the winter suits if this keeps up.”

“Well bully for you. I bet you have a
whole closet of winter suits, as well as every season there is. Am I going to
have to call security to have your ass thrown out?”

“They work for me, so they won’t do it. I
do have a lot of suits. I wonder why that is. I don’t wear more than a dozen of
them.” He sat down to pull off his boots after removing both his coat and his
suit jacket. “But shoes…I’ve never been a big shoe collector. My brother is. Curtis.
I wonder how he explained to his wife why he had so many.”

As his second boot hit the floor he
stood up and looked at her. She’d turned on the light now, the upper one, so
she was cast in shadows. But he could see that she’d been crying and he hated
it.

“How do they work for you? This is the
hospital. You don’t own this building too, do you? I wouldn’t be…what are you
doing now?” Her voice had lost its watery quality and was now squeaky with
surprise.

He hid his face while he fussed with his
belt. “I’m getting ready for bed. I don’t know what to do with my wallet, do
you?” She didn’t answer, and he pulled his belt off and tossed it toward the chair.
Pulling out his wallet, he put it under her pillow and watched her swallow three
times as he tried to find the perfect place. “That should do it. Now, would you
prefer me with our without my boxers?”

“You get dressed right now. I don’t know
what you’re trying to pull, but you are not getting in this bed. I’m here and,
in case it escaped your notice, I’m hurt.”

“Well of course you’re hurt. If you
weren’t we’d be at my house and in my bed. None of this trying to find a place
to hide my wallet.” He undid his top button of his pants and then started to
unbutton his shirt. He’d long since taken his tie off before getting here
tonight. “Plus, my bed is much bigger. And probably much softer.” He pressed on
the bed nearest her bottom and nodded. “Much.”

“I said you had to…to leave here. Please
don’t…you…you should…Jesse, don’t do this.” He stopped at midway on his shirt. “You
have to leave here. You might get…what if that person comes here?”

Jesse finished getting his shirt off in
record time and slipped out of his pants. Before she could move away from him,
whether that was her intention or not, he got into the bed with her and pulled
her into his arms. “No one is coming here, love. Not tonight. There are too
many people out there to protect us.” She was stiff in his arms, but he didn’t
let her go. “Did you know that my mother is worried about you? She told me
tonight that I should come here and see that you had everything you needed. I
told her that I would. You don’t want me to get into trouble with my mom, do
you?”

She pulled back and looked at him. He
let her to a point, but he didn’t let her go completely. “You’re afraid of your
mother. Big bad Jesse Hunter is afraid of his mommy.”

He grinned and pulled her back into his
arms. “Of course I am. And she’s well aware of it.” He held her for several
minutes. She laughed at him for a minute then sighed heavily. He wanted to ask
her what was wrong and he wanted to tell her that he was sorry. He didn’t
because he didn’t want to upset her again. When she relaxed he held her tighter
and, when he realized she was asleep, he could have danced a jig. Instead, he
pulled the blankets tighter around them and closed his eyes. As he drifted off
to sleep he knew that this was the place he wanted to spend the rest of his
life. Right here, holding this woman in his arms.

Chapter 16

She didn’t know what had awakened her
and she tried to snuggle deeper into the blankets to hide from it. When
something hit her hard, she cried out.

“You slut.” Joey saw the woman there,
but couldn’t believe her eyes. “You simply will spread your legs for whatever
comes around you, won’t you? Get out of that bed and get your bottom home right
now.”

“Grandmother?” Joey looked around for
Jesse and saw his jacket and coat lying on the chair. “What did you do with
Jesse?”

“So that’s his name, is it? Probably
some lowlife that will knock you up and leave you at the first chance he gets. I
thought I told you to do something.” She raised the cane again and Joey
flinched away. When it didn’t hit her, she peeked around her arm to see Jesse
standing there holding it from hitting her.