for thewritinggame's five card draw prompt
TITLE: Untitled #2
AUTHOR: amy-vic
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 3875
FEEDBACK: On || FEEDBACK TYPE: Tactful or Nice crit, please.
WARNING: none
SUMMARY: Like they say, you can’t hide from your past. Except, sometimes you can.
PROMPTS: sanity, breakdown, adaptation
A/N: This hasn’t been beta’d, nor is it complete. There’s going to be more of this story, I just, ah, don’t know when it will happen. Hopefully soon?
In my line of work, knives are commonplace. Rope, duct tape, blindfolds, handcuffs; I deal with this on a daily basis. But guns...guns are different.
So when this guy stands up to meet me and I catch a glimpse of his holster as he buttons his jacket closed, I know this isn’t going to be a standard appointment. I just hope he’s a cop, and not connected.
Don’t get me wrong, even if he is with the Mob, I’ll still work with him. Money’s money, and these outfits don’t pay for themselves. (Even if I do get a great discount, on account of the tailor, a sweet girl over in Dorchester named Emily, being a twice-a-week client.)
Becky, our receptionist, spoke to this guy on the phone two days ago when he booked this appointment, which means I know a little bit about what he wanted as opposed to the walk-ins we get occasionally. Even so, I like to sit all my clients down in the living room for a cup of coffee and negotiations regardless of how often we’ve worked together, so this guy won’t be any different.
Which is exactly what I figured, right up until I introduced myself as Rebecca (which of course, it not my real name-my name’s Alex-but I’ve had my share of stalker types, so I keep work and home separate). He looked me in the eye, gave me a solid handshake, and said, "Yes, ma’am, you surely are," in an accent so Texan that I just about had it narrowed down to the city he was born in by the time he finished telling me that his name was Andrew Baylor, and if there was somewhere more private we could talk, he’d appreciate it.
I’ve been doing this job for nearly seven years, and not much shocks me any more. But the calm, businesslike way he said that-like he wasn’t about to take off his shirt and let me stick clamps on his nipples-really freaked me out, and I don’t think I covered that fact as well as I could have. My hand didn’t shake when I poured our coffee, but I sloshed quite a bit on my own hand when I turned and put the pot back on the counter.
I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I turned around, and when I did I saw that Baylor had unbuttoned his jacket and shifted his weight in the chair so that the side of his coat fell open and the butt of the gun tucked into the holster wasn’t so much showing as it was on display. I was starting to get a not-good feeling about this whole thing, and the look on my face must have said as much, because he kept both his hands flat on the table, tilted his head towards the gun and apologized that the handgun was clearly making me uncomfortable. “It’s for work, and I’m required to carry it on me at all times.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot. I couldn’t figure out why this particular weapon had me so twitchy. I’d grown up around all manner of guns, from the rifles my sister and I used to strap to our saddles when we went riding in case we came across deer or trouble, to the shotgun our daddy had hanging over the front door, to the heirloom silver-handled derringer my grandmother slipped into my hand as I came downstairs on the night of my senior prom (“Just in case a swift kick doesn’t work, dear”). If he put it out on the table, I bet I could strip and re-assemble it. “No, the gun isn’t bothering me, it was just unexpected. Now, can you tell me more about what you’d like to accomplish here today?”
He started to answer, but one of the house slaves appeared in the doorway then, and he cut himself off, clearly not expecting the sight. The slave didn’t say anything, just dropped to the floor with her arms clasped behind her back like she’d been taught. The tiny bell on her collar jingled as her knees hit the thick carpet, and I raised a finger to Baylor. “I’m sorry, would you excuse me for just one second?”
He nodded, still staring. I imagine he doesn’t see too many people wearing nothing but black PVC ribbon and a pair of stilettos. “Sure, yeah.”
I walked over to the girl and held out my hand when she moved to kiss my shoes. She was new, just started here two months back, and while I appreciated that she was grasping the rules, Baylor was still paying for his time. I didn’t want to waste more of it that I had to. “Yes, girl, what is it?”
“Mistress, would you permit me to assist you?” She kept her head and back straight but looked down at the floor. “If your guest wishes it, of course.”
I turned to look at Baylor; he’d stopped staring so intently at the girl, and had his hand on his jacket again to cover the gun. He looked like the last thing on earth he wanted was for an audience, and managed to shake his head when I asked him if he’d like the girl to accompany us. “Well, ma’am,” he said, “would it be possible for her to…stand watch over the door, to ensure us our privacy?”
“Of course,” I said. We get requests like that three or four times a week. If nothing else, it’s a nice balance from the people who want the slaves to act as a footstool or, with one client last week, stand in the corner of the room and recite Shakespeare. A discreet glance at the clock shows that we’ve been sitting here for nearly twenty-five minutes, and Baylor was only booked in for two hours. I always like to take my time getting to know new clients before we jump into the actual play time, but I don’t like for the negotiations to take more than half an hour; people get antsy and tense and eager to get on with it, so it usually ends up that that don’t have a good time, which means they don’t feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth. That, more often that not, keeps them from coming back a second time. “Let’s get started then, shall we?”
I knew something was wrong when I showed him into the playroom, closed the door, and turned around to find him simply standing in the middle of the room, hands loosely at his sides, looking at me. Directly in the eye.
The only clients that look me in the eye do so in order to get punished, and they always have a sort of…twinkle in their eye when they do it, like they’re going to enjoy the punishment. But Baylor was looking at me almost like he was upset about it. It didn’t make any sense, and it made my earlier jumpy feelings get even jumpier.
I took a breath and was about to ask him how he wanted to start when he said something that just about stopped my heart.
“Alexandra Miller, we need to talk.”
I take a step back, which won’t make a difference if he just up and shoots me, but I’ve gotta try, and I bump into a little side table. Something falls over and hits my hand; it’s a short, fat candle in a pretty metal holder. I never really played baseball as a kid, but maybe I could get lucky and crack this guy in the head, maybe stun him for a few seconds while I get out of the room.
My fingers are digging into the wax when Baylor says to me, “I’m not going to hurt you, Miss Miller. I really do just want to talk.”
“Who are you?” I ask, because this isn’t making any sense at all. If he’s with the Mob, I’d either be dead already or tied up and gagged before the torture starts, and if he’s a cop, why didn’t he just come out and say so half an hour ago?
He’s still standing in the middle of the room, but now he raises his hands, slowly, out in front of himself. It doesn’t feel like I flinch when he takes a step forward, but I must have. “My name is Andrew Baylor, and I’m a U.S. Marshall. You’re in some trouble, and I’m here to help you out of it.”
“Bullshit.”
Baylor takes another slow step, this time to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. He takes hold of the side of his jacket with his thumb and forefinger, pulling it out from his body. “I’m guessing you don’t have a cell phone on you now, right? I’m going to reach into my left pocket and get mine. In the contact list, there’s a number for a guy named John Gibbons; he’s my boss. Give him a call, get him to vouch for me.”
As fucking if I’m just going to believe this, how dumb does this guy think I am? But Baylor’s phone is also a smartphone, so eleven seconds of Googling later, I realize that he’s telling the truth, at least about this Gibbons guy. “I call this number, is this guy gonna answer his phone, am I getting his assistant, or is it going straight to voicemail?” I ask. I’m not wild about cold-calling people, and avoid it whenever possible.
Baylor checks his watch. “He’ll be back from lunch by now, so you won’t get the machine. If a woman answers, that’s his assistant, Grace.” He sits down in the chair, resting his hands squarely on the arms, and leans his head back like he’s taking a nap. I can tell he’s wide awake, though; I pace back and forth while I speak to Grace, and behind his eyelids, he tracks me every time I turn and start a new line.
A few minutes later, I end the call and hold out the phone. Baylor takes it without opening his eyes. “So, you believe me yet?”
“You are exactly who you say you are, Mr. Baylor, congratulations,” I say. My hands itch to hold something, be doing something, so I take up a length of cotton rope from the desk drawer and start twisting it, looping it around my fingers. “But that doesn’t explain your line about me being in trouble. I haven’t done anything wrong. And even if I had, why the hell is a United States Marshall here instead of just a regular cop?”
“Okay, first, please call me Andrew,” he says, “and secondly, I know you didn’t do anything wrong. Let me rephrase it: you’re in danger, and I’m here to help you out of it.”
Danger. What? I mean, sure, okay, the fact that I send people home with the occasional welt or bruise does lead to me getting angry (and in one case last month, obscene) and threatening phone calls. But it’s certainly never been anything serious enough to warrant the U.S. Marshalls getting involved. Most of the stuff is just cranks, or frustrated husbands or girlfriends feeling like I’m moving in on their turf; the small stuff, I just ignore, and for the rest, I’ve got a couple good friends with the Boston Police Department, and I let them handle it.
The most danger I’ve been in all week was when I overslept on Tuesday morning, and had to come into work without stopping for coffee first. And that wasn’t even me in danger, that was everyone else between me and the Starbucks run that Emily took as soon as I walked in the front door.
Bayl-no, Andrew, stands up and waves a hand at the chair. “You might want to sit while I run this down for you.”
I debate with myself for a moment but finally decide, fuck it. But I keep the rope with me. I wave one of the ends at him as he takes up my former place on the pacing line, and he waits until I nod before he starts speaking. “Go on then, Marshall.”
Andrew Baylor then proceeds to tell me every single important detail about my life, starting with the fact that I was born at home because my father was out branding new cattle (my mother delivered so quickly, there wasn’t time to do much but call my grandmother in from where she was hanging clean sheets on the line), the time I was thrown from my horse when I was six and my mother thought for sure I was dead (I was unconscious for three hours, woke up, drank a glass of water, and then demanded to be let back out to give the horse an apple so he’d know I wasn’t mad at him for throwing me), and the fact that I have a little round scar on the inside of my left wrist from when I got too curious about our ranch’s branding iron. No one aside from my family and the doctor who checked me over that afternoon knows about this scar; I always cover it with long sleeves, my watch, or a thick cuff.
Halfway through his recital of my high school SAT scores, I cut Andrew off. “Fine, you’ve made your point, someone’s paying way too much attention to my life. Which, yes, is really fucking creepy-excuse my language-and invasive, but I still don’t understand how this has me in actual danger. I haven’t gotten any threats like this, so what gives?”
Andrew doesn’t say anything for a moment, so I jump in, try to fill the silence by ticking possibilities off on my fingers. I start with my index finger, which I point at him, out of habit, like he’s a dog that refuses to come when he’s called. “Okay, well, it’s not my family, because…they’re my family, and we’re way too straightforward to not just come out and say what’s on our minds.” Middle finger up, but I keep it tight in next to my index finger, so it doesn’t give the impression that I’m giving him the finger. “I have several clients whose partners hate me because of what I do, but I keep my work life and my personal life so separate there’s almost no way they could connect the two.”
I stand up and walk to the little fridge in the corner and get a bottle of water. I don’t turn around while I drink half of it, but Andrew waits until I’ve capped the bottle and am rolling it between my hands to quietly say, “Alexandra, Brady Hayes is getting out of prison in three weeks, and we’re pretty sure he’s coming after you.”
Brady Hayes.
The water bottle crackles in my hands as I clench it, but only for a second, because then it’s bouncing off my boot and rolling down beside the fridge. I don’t move to pick it up.
“Brady Hayes,” I say. It feels like I’m not saying anything out loud, like it’s all inside my skull, but Andrew nods slowly. I can’t feel my face, and I reach up and pinch the end of my nose between my thumb and index finger, feel hot air on my palm as I breathe out hard. “That has to be a mistake.”
Andrew nods again and steps over to me. He kneels down to rescue the water bottle, then stands up and looks me in the eye. “Alexandra, it’s the same guy, it’s Brady Hayes. I’m sorry.”
“Stop calling me Alexandra, I feel like I’m five years old; just call me Alex. And you already said that I didn’t do anything wrong.” Everything suddenly has big grey blotches on it, and my head is pounding like I’ve just done eight shots of vodka. Brady Hayes is getting out, Brady Hayes is getting out, Brady Hayes is getting out runs through my head in a screaming neon loop.
Andrew takes me by the elbows and sits me down in the nearest chair, lightly putting a hand on the back of my head. “Here, sit down,” he says, making sure I’m sitting and not about to just tip sideways and fall out of the chair before he stands up and goes to the door. I call his name, because there’s no way I want anyone else in here right now, but he waves me off. “It’s okay, trust me.”
He opens the door and I can’t hear what he says, but then all of a sudden, the house slave from earlier walks in. Andrew doesn’t say anything as the girl comes over and kneels in front of me. We’re pretty much eye to eye, and I have to dig in my brain to remember her name. It takes me a few seconds, but it comes: Michelle.
She has her hands resting in front of her, and she hesitates a moment before touching my knee. She has a bit of PVC ribbon wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet, and it’s cool where it contacts my skin. “I need to tell you something, and you need to listen to it, okay? Do you remember the day a couple of weeks ago when we all had drinks after work, and I told you that I started working here because I’d quit my job waiting tables and wanted something more fun?” She watches my face, and it feels like I nod, so she continues. “I haven’t waited tables since I was in college, Alex. I’m with the Marshalls. Andrew and I work together.”
I take a deep breath, then another, and some of the colour comes back into the room. I sit back in the chair, close my eyes, and when I open them, nothing’s spotty. I stand up, rescue the bottle of water and drink the rest of it, and grab a little handful of tangerine sections from the container I keep in the fridge in case someone needs a pick-me-up during a scene. Neither Andrew nor Michelle say anything until I start walking towards the door, and then Michelle pipes up. “Alex, I don’t think it’s a good-“
I turn around, and gesture vaguely around the room with the last piece of fruit. “I have two more clients today, and I need Emily to cancel them. Then I’m going to make us a pot of coffee, come back here and change my clothes. If you want to change into something less…” Another wave, this time indicating Michelle’s body, “tape-y, please do. I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”
Michelle shakes her head. “I think changing into jeans would raise eyebrows, so it’s best I stay like this.” She goes over to a tall cabinet I keep costume pieces in, digs around in the back, and comes up with a robe, though. It’s thin and short, but after seeing her in nothing more than basically a g-string and pasties all day, it’s modest. “Besides, you’ve seen me naked, and it’s not like I have anything to hide.”
Andy looks her up and down, like he’s appraising a fine piece of jewellery, and grins. “Mouse, you don’t have anywhere to hide anything in that outfit. Hell, it’s not even an outfit, it’s office supplies.”
“Oh, bite me,” she says. Then she realizes where she is, that I’m still in the room, and grins. “Um. Not like that.”
If these two haven’t slept together (and in fact, my money’s on them having dated, probably during or just after college), I give it two weeks before they’re tearing each others clothes off. A month, tops.
Thankfully, I don’t pass anyone in the halls except for a couple of house slaves, so I don’t have to speak to anyone until I get to Emily’s office, at the front of the house. She’s on the phone with her back turned, and she spins around as soon as she hears me come in. She must be in the middle of her call, but she takes one look at my face, says, “I’m sorry, Jeff, a minor emergency’s just come up, I’m gonna have to call you back,” and drops the phone on the desk. “Alex,” she hisses, looking over my shoulder to make sure there aren’t clients within earshot, “are you okay? You look like you’re about to throw up, and I haven’t seen you sick since that time you got food poisoning.”
“I’m not sick, but something’s come up. Can you call Chris and Scott, reschedule them in a couple of days?”
Emily is already flipping through the appointment book. We have a computer, of course, but she likes the feel of paper under her fingers. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem. There have been a couple cancellations-Jen’s kids came home from school with chicken pox, so she’s pushed back her appointment two weeks, and Daniel called because he’s extending his trip to Vegas over the weekend-so I can have the next few days cleared for you in no time. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just some family stuff, I’m sure it’ll all work out fine,” I say. The word family sticks in my throat like a stone. “You’re the best, Em, thanks.”
“I’m awesome, I know,” she says, and we both laugh. It’s a nice break from the noise in my head, and I head to the kitchen feeling slightly less insane and all over the place than I did ten minutes ago.
Making coffee is good, because it gives me something to do other than focus on the fact that Brady Hayes, the man who made my life a living hell for so long and tried to kill me (more than once), is getting out of prison so soon. There’s coffee to measure, mugs to choose, and spoons to get out of the drawer; soon, I have it all arranged on a wooden tray, and I carry it back to my play room carefully.
“Okay,” I say once we all have mugs in our hands, “tell me where I’m being hidden, so that miserable piece of shit Brady Hayes can’t get to me.”
Andrew and Michelle exchange a look. They try to hide it, but I’ve been doing this job far too long, and have gotten really good at reading people’s faces. (You’ve got somebody gagged, you have to be able to tell the “god, yes, do that again” grimace from the, “I’m getting a leg cramp” grimace.) “Why would you think you’re going anywhere?” Michelle says after a moment.
“Because you’re United States Marshalls, not regular cops, and I have watched movies before,” I say. “And while I know that staying here and waiting for Brady to come after me would make it a whole lot easier for me to just kill his murderous ass like I should have done eight years ago, I doubt you’re going to let me do that. Am I right?”
Andrew nods, but he’s hiding a smirk behind the rim of his coffee cup. No doubt he, too, wants to see Brady lying in a puddle of his own blood.
“So, I’m right,” I say. “Now tell me how this is gonna work.”
AUTHOR: amy-vic
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 3875
FEEDBACK: On || FEEDBACK TYPE: Tactful or Nice crit, please.
WARNING: none
SUMMARY: Like they say, you can’t hide from your past. Except, sometimes you can.
PROMPTS: sanity, breakdown, adaptation
A/N: This hasn’t been beta’d, nor is it complete. There’s going to be more of this story, I just, ah, don’t know when it will happen. Hopefully soon?
In my line of work, knives are commonplace. Rope, duct tape, blindfolds, handcuffs; I deal with this on a daily basis. But guns...guns are different.
So when this guy stands up to meet me and I catch a glimpse of his holster as he buttons his jacket closed, I know this isn’t going to be a standard appointment. I just hope he’s a cop, and not connected.
Don’t get me wrong, even if he is with the Mob, I’ll still work with him. Money’s money, and these outfits don’t pay for themselves. (Even if I do get a great discount, on account of the tailor, a sweet girl over in Dorchester named Emily, being a twice-a-week client.)
Becky, our receptionist, spoke to this guy on the phone two days ago when he booked this appointment, which means I know a little bit about what he wanted as opposed to the walk-ins we get occasionally. Even so, I like to sit all my clients down in the living room for a cup of coffee and negotiations regardless of how often we’ve worked together, so this guy won’t be any different.
Which is exactly what I figured, right up until I introduced myself as Rebecca (which of course, it not my real name-my name’s Alex-but I’ve had my share of stalker types, so I keep work and home separate). He looked me in the eye, gave me a solid handshake, and said, "Yes, ma’am, you surely are," in an accent so Texan that I just about had it narrowed down to the city he was born in by the time he finished telling me that his name was Andrew Baylor, and if there was somewhere more private we could talk, he’d appreciate it.
I’ve been doing this job for nearly seven years, and not much shocks me any more. But the calm, businesslike way he said that-like he wasn’t about to take off his shirt and let me stick clamps on his nipples-really freaked me out, and I don’t think I covered that fact as well as I could have. My hand didn’t shake when I poured our coffee, but I sloshed quite a bit on my own hand when I turned and put the pot back on the counter.
I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I turned around, and when I did I saw that Baylor had unbuttoned his jacket and shifted his weight in the chair so that the side of his coat fell open and the butt of the gun tucked into the holster wasn’t so much showing as it was on display. I was starting to get a not-good feeling about this whole thing, and the look on my face must have said as much, because he kept both his hands flat on the table, tilted his head towards the gun and apologized that the handgun was clearly making me uncomfortable. “It’s for work, and I’m required to carry it on me at all times.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot. I couldn’t figure out why this particular weapon had me so twitchy. I’d grown up around all manner of guns, from the rifles my sister and I used to strap to our saddles when we went riding in case we came across deer or trouble, to the shotgun our daddy had hanging over the front door, to the heirloom silver-handled derringer my grandmother slipped into my hand as I came downstairs on the night of my senior prom (“Just in case a swift kick doesn’t work, dear”). If he put it out on the table, I bet I could strip and re-assemble it. “No, the gun isn’t bothering me, it was just unexpected. Now, can you tell me more about what you’d like to accomplish here today?”
He started to answer, but one of the house slaves appeared in the doorway then, and he cut himself off, clearly not expecting the sight. The slave didn’t say anything, just dropped to the floor with her arms clasped behind her back like she’d been taught. The tiny bell on her collar jingled as her knees hit the thick carpet, and I raised a finger to Baylor. “I’m sorry, would you excuse me for just one second?”
He nodded, still staring. I imagine he doesn’t see too many people wearing nothing but black PVC ribbon and a pair of stilettos. “Sure, yeah.”
I walked over to the girl and held out my hand when she moved to kiss my shoes. She was new, just started here two months back, and while I appreciated that she was grasping the rules, Baylor was still paying for his time. I didn’t want to waste more of it that I had to. “Yes, girl, what is it?”
“Mistress, would you permit me to assist you?” She kept her head and back straight but looked down at the floor. “If your guest wishes it, of course.”
I turned to look at Baylor; he’d stopped staring so intently at the girl, and had his hand on his jacket again to cover the gun. He looked like the last thing on earth he wanted was for an audience, and managed to shake his head when I asked him if he’d like the girl to accompany us. “Well, ma’am,” he said, “would it be possible for her to…stand watch over the door, to ensure us our privacy?”
“Of course,” I said. We get requests like that three or four times a week. If nothing else, it’s a nice balance from the people who want the slaves to act as a footstool or, with one client last week, stand in the corner of the room and recite Shakespeare. A discreet glance at the clock shows that we’ve been sitting here for nearly twenty-five minutes, and Baylor was only booked in for two hours. I always like to take my time getting to know new clients before we jump into the actual play time, but I don’t like for the negotiations to take more than half an hour; people get antsy and tense and eager to get on with it, so it usually ends up that that don’t have a good time, which means they don’t feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth. That, more often that not, keeps them from coming back a second time. “Let’s get started then, shall we?”
I knew something was wrong when I showed him into the playroom, closed the door, and turned around to find him simply standing in the middle of the room, hands loosely at his sides, looking at me. Directly in the eye.
The only clients that look me in the eye do so in order to get punished, and they always have a sort of…twinkle in their eye when they do it, like they’re going to enjoy the punishment. But Baylor was looking at me almost like he was upset about it. It didn’t make any sense, and it made my earlier jumpy feelings get even jumpier.
I took a breath and was about to ask him how he wanted to start when he said something that just about stopped my heart.
“Alexandra Miller, we need to talk.”
I take a step back, which won’t make a difference if he just up and shoots me, but I’ve gotta try, and I bump into a little side table. Something falls over and hits my hand; it’s a short, fat candle in a pretty metal holder. I never really played baseball as a kid, but maybe I could get lucky and crack this guy in the head, maybe stun him for a few seconds while I get out of the room.
My fingers are digging into the wax when Baylor says to me, “I’m not going to hurt you, Miss Miller. I really do just want to talk.”
“Who are you?” I ask, because this isn’t making any sense at all. If he’s with the Mob, I’d either be dead already or tied up and gagged before the torture starts, and if he’s a cop, why didn’t he just come out and say so half an hour ago?
He’s still standing in the middle of the room, but now he raises his hands, slowly, out in front of himself. It doesn’t feel like I flinch when he takes a step forward, but I must have. “My name is Andrew Baylor, and I’m a U.S. Marshall. You’re in some trouble, and I’m here to help you out of it.”
“Bullshit.”
Baylor takes another slow step, this time to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. He takes hold of the side of his jacket with his thumb and forefinger, pulling it out from his body. “I’m guessing you don’t have a cell phone on you now, right? I’m going to reach into my left pocket and get mine. In the contact list, there’s a number for a guy named John Gibbons; he’s my boss. Give him a call, get him to vouch for me.”
As fucking if I’m just going to believe this, how dumb does this guy think I am? But Baylor’s phone is also a smartphone, so eleven seconds of Googling later, I realize that he’s telling the truth, at least about this Gibbons guy. “I call this number, is this guy gonna answer his phone, am I getting his assistant, or is it going straight to voicemail?” I ask. I’m not wild about cold-calling people, and avoid it whenever possible.
Baylor checks his watch. “He’ll be back from lunch by now, so you won’t get the machine. If a woman answers, that’s his assistant, Grace.” He sits down in the chair, resting his hands squarely on the arms, and leans his head back like he’s taking a nap. I can tell he’s wide awake, though; I pace back and forth while I speak to Grace, and behind his eyelids, he tracks me every time I turn and start a new line.
A few minutes later, I end the call and hold out the phone. Baylor takes it without opening his eyes. “So, you believe me yet?”
“You are exactly who you say you are, Mr. Baylor, congratulations,” I say. My hands itch to hold something, be doing something, so I take up a length of cotton rope from the desk drawer and start twisting it, looping it around my fingers. “But that doesn’t explain your line about me being in trouble. I haven’t done anything wrong. And even if I had, why the hell is a United States Marshall here instead of just a regular cop?”
“Okay, first, please call me Andrew,” he says, “and secondly, I know you didn’t do anything wrong. Let me rephrase it: you’re in danger, and I’m here to help you out of it.”
Danger. What? I mean, sure, okay, the fact that I send people home with the occasional welt or bruise does lead to me getting angry (and in one case last month, obscene) and threatening phone calls. But it’s certainly never been anything serious enough to warrant the U.S. Marshalls getting involved. Most of the stuff is just cranks, or frustrated husbands or girlfriends feeling like I’m moving in on their turf; the small stuff, I just ignore, and for the rest, I’ve got a couple good friends with the Boston Police Department, and I let them handle it.
The most danger I’ve been in all week was when I overslept on Tuesday morning, and had to come into work without stopping for coffee first. And that wasn’t even me in danger, that was everyone else between me and the Starbucks run that Emily took as soon as I walked in the front door.
Bayl-no, Andrew, stands up and waves a hand at the chair. “You might want to sit while I run this down for you.”
I debate with myself for a moment but finally decide, fuck it. But I keep the rope with me. I wave one of the ends at him as he takes up my former place on the pacing line, and he waits until I nod before he starts speaking. “Go on then, Marshall.”
Andrew Baylor then proceeds to tell me every single important detail about my life, starting with the fact that I was born at home because my father was out branding new cattle (my mother delivered so quickly, there wasn’t time to do much but call my grandmother in from where she was hanging clean sheets on the line), the time I was thrown from my horse when I was six and my mother thought for sure I was dead (I was unconscious for three hours, woke up, drank a glass of water, and then demanded to be let back out to give the horse an apple so he’d know I wasn’t mad at him for throwing me), and the fact that I have a little round scar on the inside of my left wrist from when I got too curious about our ranch’s branding iron. No one aside from my family and the doctor who checked me over that afternoon knows about this scar; I always cover it with long sleeves, my watch, or a thick cuff.
Halfway through his recital of my high school SAT scores, I cut Andrew off. “Fine, you’ve made your point, someone’s paying way too much attention to my life. Which, yes, is really fucking creepy-excuse my language-and invasive, but I still don’t understand how this has me in actual danger. I haven’t gotten any threats like this, so what gives?”
Andrew doesn’t say anything for a moment, so I jump in, try to fill the silence by ticking possibilities off on my fingers. I start with my index finger, which I point at him, out of habit, like he’s a dog that refuses to come when he’s called. “Okay, well, it’s not my family, because…they’re my family, and we’re way too straightforward to not just come out and say what’s on our minds.” Middle finger up, but I keep it tight in next to my index finger, so it doesn’t give the impression that I’m giving him the finger. “I have several clients whose partners hate me because of what I do, but I keep my work life and my personal life so separate there’s almost no way they could connect the two.”
I stand up and walk to the little fridge in the corner and get a bottle of water. I don’t turn around while I drink half of it, but Andrew waits until I’ve capped the bottle and am rolling it between my hands to quietly say, “Alexandra, Brady Hayes is getting out of prison in three weeks, and we’re pretty sure he’s coming after you.”
Brady Hayes.
The water bottle crackles in my hands as I clench it, but only for a second, because then it’s bouncing off my boot and rolling down beside the fridge. I don’t move to pick it up.
“Brady Hayes,” I say. It feels like I’m not saying anything out loud, like it’s all inside my skull, but Andrew nods slowly. I can’t feel my face, and I reach up and pinch the end of my nose between my thumb and index finger, feel hot air on my palm as I breathe out hard. “That has to be a mistake.”
Andrew nods again and steps over to me. He kneels down to rescue the water bottle, then stands up and looks me in the eye. “Alexandra, it’s the same guy, it’s Brady Hayes. I’m sorry.”
“Stop calling me Alexandra, I feel like I’m five years old; just call me Alex. And you already said that I didn’t do anything wrong.” Everything suddenly has big grey blotches on it, and my head is pounding like I’ve just done eight shots of vodka. Brady Hayes is getting out, Brady Hayes is getting out, Brady Hayes is getting out runs through my head in a screaming neon loop.
Andrew takes me by the elbows and sits me down in the nearest chair, lightly putting a hand on the back of my head. “Here, sit down,” he says, making sure I’m sitting and not about to just tip sideways and fall out of the chair before he stands up and goes to the door. I call his name, because there’s no way I want anyone else in here right now, but he waves me off. “It’s okay, trust me.”
He opens the door and I can’t hear what he says, but then all of a sudden, the house slave from earlier walks in. Andrew doesn’t say anything as the girl comes over and kneels in front of me. We’re pretty much eye to eye, and I have to dig in my brain to remember her name. It takes me a few seconds, but it comes: Michelle.
She has her hands resting in front of her, and she hesitates a moment before touching my knee. She has a bit of PVC ribbon wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet, and it’s cool where it contacts my skin. “I need to tell you something, and you need to listen to it, okay? Do you remember the day a couple of weeks ago when we all had drinks after work, and I told you that I started working here because I’d quit my job waiting tables and wanted something more fun?” She watches my face, and it feels like I nod, so she continues. “I haven’t waited tables since I was in college, Alex. I’m with the Marshalls. Andrew and I work together.”
I take a deep breath, then another, and some of the colour comes back into the room. I sit back in the chair, close my eyes, and when I open them, nothing’s spotty. I stand up, rescue the bottle of water and drink the rest of it, and grab a little handful of tangerine sections from the container I keep in the fridge in case someone needs a pick-me-up during a scene. Neither Andrew nor Michelle say anything until I start walking towards the door, and then Michelle pipes up. “Alex, I don’t think it’s a good-“
I turn around, and gesture vaguely around the room with the last piece of fruit. “I have two more clients today, and I need Emily to cancel them. Then I’m going to make us a pot of coffee, come back here and change my clothes. If you want to change into something less…” Another wave, this time indicating Michelle’s body, “tape-y, please do. I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”
Michelle shakes her head. “I think changing into jeans would raise eyebrows, so it’s best I stay like this.” She goes over to a tall cabinet I keep costume pieces in, digs around in the back, and comes up with a robe, though. It’s thin and short, but after seeing her in nothing more than basically a g-string and pasties all day, it’s modest. “Besides, you’ve seen me naked, and it’s not like I have anything to hide.”
Andy looks her up and down, like he’s appraising a fine piece of jewellery, and grins. “Mouse, you don’t have anywhere to hide anything in that outfit. Hell, it’s not even an outfit, it’s office supplies.”
“Oh, bite me,” she says. Then she realizes where she is, that I’m still in the room, and grins. “Um. Not like that.”
If these two haven’t slept together (and in fact, my money’s on them having dated, probably during or just after college), I give it two weeks before they’re tearing each others clothes off. A month, tops.
Thankfully, I don’t pass anyone in the halls except for a couple of house slaves, so I don’t have to speak to anyone until I get to Emily’s office, at the front of the house. She’s on the phone with her back turned, and she spins around as soon as she hears me come in. She must be in the middle of her call, but she takes one look at my face, says, “I’m sorry, Jeff, a minor emergency’s just come up, I’m gonna have to call you back,” and drops the phone on the desk. “Alex,” she hisses, looking over my shoulder to make sure there aren’t clients within earshot, “are you okay? You look like you’re about to throw up, and I haven’t seen you sick since that time you got food poisoning.”
“I’m not sick, but something’s come up. Can you call Chris and Scott, reschedule them in a couple of days?”
Emily is already flipping through the appointment book. We have a computer, of course, but she likes the feel of paper under her fingers. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem. There have been a couple cancellations-Jen’s kids came home from school with chicken pox, so she’s pushed back her appointment two weeks, and Daniel called because he’s extending his trip to Vegas over the weekend-so I can have the next few days cleared for you in no time. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just some family stuff, I’m sure it’ll all work out fine,” I say. The word family sticks in my throat like a stone. “You’re the best, Em, thanks.”
“I’m awesome, I know,” she says, and we both laugh. It’s a nice break from the noise in my head, and I head to the kitchen feeling slightly less insane and all over the place than I did ten minutes ago.
Making coffee is good, because it gives me something to do other than focus on the fact that Brady Hayes, the man who made my life a living hell for so long and tried to kill me (more than once), is getting out of prison so soon. There’s coffee to measure, mugs to choose, and spoons to get out of the drawer; soon, I have it all arranged on a wooden tray, and I carry it back to my play room carefully.
“Okay,” I say once we all have mugs in our hands, “tell me where I’m being hidden, so that miserable piece of shit Brady Hayes can’t get to me.”
Andrew and Michelle exchange a look. They try to hide it, but I’ve been doing this job far too long, and have gotten really good at reading people’s faces. (You’ve got somebody gagged, you have to be able to tell the “god, yes, do that again” grimace from the, “I’m getting a leg cramp” grimace.) “Why would you think you’re going anywhere?” Michelle says after a moment.
“Because you’re United States Marshalls, not regular cops, and I have watched movies before,” I say. “And while I know that staying here and waiting for Brady to come after me would make it a whole lot easier for me to just kill his murderous ass like I should have done eight years ago, I doubt you’re going to let me do that. Am I right?”
Andrew nods, but he’s hiding a smirk behind the rim of his coffee cup. No doubt he, too, wants to see Brady lying in a puddle of his own blood.
“So, I’m right,” I say. “Now tell me how this is gonna work.”