Bad Boy Next Door (A Romantic Suspense)(4)

Down here it’s all bare concrete and harsh florescent lighting. I blink a few times as I walk out into the hallway, and stop. I’m feeling pretty hazy, and my leg is damp with blood. I’m bleeding elsewhere, too. I keep forgetting. A touch to my coat sleeve and it comes away red, soaked through the fabric.

Fuck.

I swipe my hand down my side and start following the glowing red exit signs, hoping the exit will be in the garage. When I finally shove the door open and lurch out into the light, it’s like two hot pokers in my eyes. There are f*cking cameras everywhere. No hiding this.

Stumbling, I leave bloodied handprints on my way down to the car, thankful I parked it on the ground floor, and slink behind the wheel. I have a first-aid kid in the glove box. I yank it out, sweep it open over the seat, and use the dull-tipped safety scissors to cut open my pant leg and peel away the blood-soaked towel.

It’s not a deep cut, but it’s a nice long gash and it needs stitches. For now all I can do is grit my teeth and put some field-dress bandages over it, to pinch the flesh closed. If that bitch had hit an artery there, I’d be dead already. Once that’s done I wrap it up tight and cut and tear away my jacket and sleeves, and shove my gun under the seat, and bandage up my arms in a hurry.

Goddamn, I’m a mess. I look like I’m a cow that got lost at a hamburger convention. She landed a cut on my face, and I didn’t even feel it until I saw the drying blood on my cheek. Not a bad cut, though.

Fuck me, what if she put poison on the blades?

There’s a ragged ligature mark around my neck, too. I look like death warmed over.

Once I get the car started I jab the call button on the steering wheel with my finger, and shout my way through the tedious commands to make a phone call through the car’s speakers.

“Dale,” I bellow.

“Dialing,” the cheery lady robot voice says back.

It rings five f*cking times before he picks up.

“Quent?” he says. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“Me either. I’m hurt and shit’s gone south. I’m on my way to you.”

He swallows. “Yeah, alright.”

I drive. Slowly, carefully, methodically. I use my goddamn blinkers, I’m careful as hell of red-light cameras, and I keep it five under the speed limit, forcing my eyes open as I drive. The sun is too goddamn bright and my leg is on fire.

Not far now.

Traffic is on my side, which is great, because I would be dead if it wasn’t.

Dale’s place is in a seedier part of Philadelphia, on the edge of Chinatown where it blurs into a less savory place. Located in a triangular two-story block building topped with concertina wire, he’s got a garage in the back, facing a power substation. I wheel the car around the back and tap the horn, and the heavy garage door rumbles up, opening a great black mouth.

I let the car roll inside and remember at the last second what brakes are for, and manage to stop before crashing into the far wall. I manage to get the car in park and get the door open before I collapse rather heavily onto the concrete floor, and hear Dale calling my name.

Next thing I know I’m lying on his couch. There’s whole blood in a bag on an IV stand next to me and I’m too stiff to move. He’s got me down to my skivvies, and as I sit up I notice that he’s doing something interesting to my leg involving a really big, hooked needle.

“Don’t move.”

For a dumpy, five-foot-six guy who looks like the poster child for computer-science classes, Dale has something of an air of command about him. I flop back against the arm of the couch and wince every time I feel the needle slide into my flesh and the thread draw the wound tight. He takes his freaking time before finally wrapping a clean bandage around my leg.

We’re in his living room slash office, a utilitarian space with concrete walls, used couches, shelves and shelves of gear, computers, and enough firepower to overthrow the Bolivian government. Harsh lamps burn at my eyes when I lie back, so I drape my bandaged arm over my face.

“What the f*ck happened, Quent?”

I wince at another stitch. “I met the contact at the hotel. The contact sucked my dick, then tried to kill me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Tried to strangle me with a bondage rope, then went Benihana special on me.”

“I’d say so. You’re a lucky man, Quent. So she sucked your dick.”

“She tried to kill me afterward.”

“Still counts, man.”

I start to sit up, only to fall back.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“Yeah, so,” he says, rising. He presses his glasses up his nose. “They tried to kill you. What’s the story on that?”

“I don’t know,” I lie.

It was because the girl looked at me. She had green eyes, full of fear, and resignation. It’s come to this. I’m next.

“When they try to kill you, that usually means unsatisfied customer.”

“Yeah.”

“You have a reputation, man.”

“Yeah. She said she’d be coming after me again.”

Dale sputters. “Jesus, Quent. You didn’t finish her off?”

“No.”

Dale gives me that look and shrugs his round shoulders. “Fine, whatever. Even if you had it wouldn’t take them long to figure out something went wrong. You’ve just given yourself less time to get gone before they come after you.”