What Hurts the Most: An engrossing, heart-stopping thriller (7th Street Crew Book 1), Page 2

  “So, you’re firing me, is that it?” I ask, while my blood is boiling in my veins. What the hell is this?

  “We’re letting you go, yes.”

  “You can’t do that, Markus, come on. Just because of this?”

  He leans over his desk and gives me that look that I have come to know so well in my five years as a reporter for The New York Times.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “I’m being fired for writing the paper’s most read article in the past five years?”

  Markus sighs. “Don’t put up a fight, will you? Just accept it. You violated the rules, sweetheart.”

  Don’t you sweetheart me, you pig!

  “I don’t make the rules, Mary. The big guys upstairs make the decisions and it says here that we have to let you go for violating the normal editing process.”

  I squint my eyes. I can’t believe this. “I did what?”

  “You printed the story without having a second set of eyes on it first. The article offended some people, and, well…”

  He pauses. I scoff. He is such a sell-out. Just because my article didn’t sit well with some people, some influential people, he is letting me go? They want to fire me for some rule bullshit?

  “Brian saw it,” I say. “He read it and approved it.”

  “The rules say two editors,” he says. “On a story like this, this controversial, you need two editors to approve it, not just one.”

  “That’s BS and you know it, goddammit, Markus. I never even heard about this rule. What about Brian?”

  “We’re letting him go as well.”

  “You can’t do that! The man just had another kid.”

  Markus shrugs. “That’s not really my problem, is it? Brian knew better. He’s been with us for fifteen years.”

  “It was late, Markus. We had less than five minutes to deadline. There was no time to get another approval. If we’d waited for another editor, the story wouldn’t have run, and you wouldn’t have sold a record number of newspapers that day. The article went viral online. All over the world. Everyone was talking about it. And this is how you thank me?”

  I rise from the chair and grab my leather jacket. “Well, suit yourself. It’s your loss. I don’t need you or this paper.”

  I leave, slamming the door, but it doesn’t make me feel as good as I thought it would. I pack my things in that little brown box that they always do in the movies and grab it under my arm before I leave in the elevator. On the bottom floor, I hand in my ID card to the guard in the lobby and Johnson looks at me with his mouth turned downwards.

  “We’ll miss you, Miss Mary,” he says.

  “I’ll miss you too, Johnson,” I say, and walk out the glass doors, into the streets of New York without a clue as to what I am going to do. Living in Manhattan isn’t cheap. Living in Manhattan with a nine-year old son, as a single mom isn’t cheap at all. The cost for a private school alone is over the roof.

  I whistle for a cab, and before I finally get one, it starts to rain, and I get soaked. I have him drive me back to my apartment and I let myself inside. Snowflake, my white Goldendoodle is waiting on the other side of the door, jumping me when I enter. He licks me in my face and whimpers from having missed me since I left just this morning. I sit down on my knees and pet him till he calms down. I can’t help smiling when I am with him. I can’t feel sad for long when he’s around. It’s simply not possible. He looks at me with those deep brown eyes.

  “We’ll be alright, won’t we, Snowflake? I’m sure we will. We don’t need them, no we don’t.”

  Chapter Four

  September 2015

  “Do you come here often?”

  Liz Hester stares at the man who has approached her in the bar at Lou’s Blues in Indialantic. It is Friday night and she was bored at the base, so she and her friends decided to go out and get a beer.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  The guy smiles. He is a surfer-type with long greasy hair under his cap, a nice tan, and not too much between the ears. The kind of guy who opens each sentence with dude, even when speaking to a girl.

  “It was the best I could come up with.”

  “You do realize that I am thirty-eight and you’re at least fifteen years younger, right?”

  Kim comes up behind her. She is wearing her blue ASU—army service uniform—like Liz. They are both decorated with several medals. Liz’s includes the Purple Heart, given to her when she was shot during her service in Afghanistan. Took a bullet straight to her shoulder. The best part was, she took it for one of her friends. She took it for Britney, who is also with them this night, hanging out with some guy further down the bar. They are friends through thick and thin. Will lay down their lives for one another.

  Liz’s eyes meet those of Jamie’s across the bar. She smiles and nods in the direction of the guy that Liz is talking to. Liz smiles and nods too. There is no need for them to speak; they know what she is saying.

  He’s the one.

  “So, tell me, what’s your name?” Liz asks the guy. She is all of a sudden flirtatious, smiling and touching his arm gently. Kim giggles behind her, but the guy doesn’t notice.

  “I’m Billy. My friends call me Billy the Kid.”

  “Well, you are just a kid, aren’t you?” she says, purring like a cat, leaning in over the bar.

  The guy lifts his cap a little, then puts it back on. “You sure are a lot of woman.”

  Liz knows his type. He is one of those who gets aroused just by looking at a woman in uniform. She has met her share of those types. They are a lot of fun to play with.

  “Well, maybe I can make a man of you,” she whispers, leaning very close to his face.

  The guy laughs goofily. “You sure can,” he says and gives her an elevator look. “I sure wouldn’t mind that. I got an anaconda in my pants you can ride if you like.”

  Liz laughs lightly, and then looks at Jamie again, letting her know he has taken the bait.

  “Well, why don’t you—Billy the Kid—meet me outside in the parking lot in say—five minutes?”

  Billy laughs again. “Dude! Whoa, sure!”

  Billy taps the bar counter twice, not knowing exactly what to do with himself, then lifts his cap once again and wipes sweat off his forehead. He has nice eyes, Liz thinks, and he is quite handsome.

  As stupid as they get, though.

  He leaves her, shooting a finger-gun at her and winking at the same time. The girls approach Liz, moving like cats sliding across the floor. Liz finishes her drink while the four of them stick their heads together.

  “Ready for some fun?” she asks.

  They don’t say anything. They don’t have to.

  Chapter Five

  September 2015

  She waits for him by the car. Smoking a cigarette, she leans against it, blowing out smoke when she spots him come out of the bar and walk towards her. Seeing the goofy grin on his face makes her smile even wider.

  “Hey there, baby,” Billy says and walks up to her. “I have to say, I wasn’t sure you would even be here. A nice lady like you with a guy like me? You’re a wild cat, aren’t you?”

  Liz chuckles and blows smoke in his face. “I sure am.”

  Billy the Kid moves his body in anticipation. His crotch can’t keep still. He is already hard.

  What a sucker.

  He looks around with a sniffle. “So, where do you want to go? To the beach? Or do you…wanna do it right here…?” he places a hand next to her on the car. “Up against this baby, huh?”

  Liz laughs again, then leans closer to him till her mouth is on his ear. “You’re just full of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “What?” he asks with another goofy grin.

  “Did you really think you were going to get lucky with me? With this?” She says and points up and down her body.

  The grin is wiped off his face. Finally.

  “What is this?” he asks, his face in a frown. “Were you just leading me on? Wh
at a cunt!” He spits out the last word. He probably means it as an insult, but Liz just smiles from ear to ear as her friends slowly approach from all sides, surrounding Billy. When he realizes, he tries to back out, but walks into Jamie and steps on her black shoes.

  “Hey, those are brand new! Dammit!”

  Jamie pushes him in the back forcefully and he is now in the hands of Britney. Britney is smaller than the others, but by far the strongest. She clenches her fist and slams it into his face. The blow breaks his nose on the spot and he falls backwards to the asphalt, blood running from it.

  “What the…what…who are you?” Billy asks, disoriented, looking from woman to woman.

  “We like to call ourselves the Fast and the Furious,” Liz says.

  “Yeah, cause I’m fast,” Kim says and kicks Billy in the crotch. He lets out a loud moan in pain.

  The sound is almost arousing to Liz.

  “And I’m furious,” she says, grabbing him by the hair and pulling his head back. She looks him in the eyes. She loves watching them squirm, the little suckers. Just like she loved it back in Afghan when she interrogated the Haji.

  Haji is the name they call anyone of Arab decent, or even of a brownish skin tone. She remembers vividly the first time they brought one in. It was the day after she had lost a good friend to an IED, a roadside bomb that detonated and killed everyone in the truck in front of her. They searched for those suckers all night, and finally, the next morning they brought in three. Boy, she kicked that sucker till he could no longer move. Hell, they all did it. All of them let out their frustrations. Losing three good soldiers like that made them furious. Liz was still furious. Well, to be frank, she has been furious all of her life.

  Everybody around her knows that.

  Liz laughs when she hears Billy’s whimper, then uses two fingers to poke his eyes forcefully. Billy screams.

  “My eyes, my eyes!”

  Liz lets go of his hair and looks at her girls. They are all about to burst in anticipation. She opens the door to the car, where Jamie has placed a couple of bottles of vodka to keep them going all night. She lets out a loud howl like a wolf, the girls chiming in, then lifts Billy the Kid up and throws him in the back of the Jeep.

  Chapter Six

  February 1977

  When Penelope and Peter get married, she is already showing. It is no longer a secret to the people at the wedding, even though her mother does all she can to disguise it by buying a big dress. By the time of the wedding, Penelope has grown into it and her stomach fills it out completely. Peter’s mother tells her she looks radiant and gorgeous, but Penelope’s own mother hates the fact that people will talk about the marriage as a necessity, or the right thing to do, and their daughter as only getting married because she is pregnant. Because she has to.

  But that is just the way it is, and no one cares less about what people think than Penelope and Peter. They are happy and looking forward to becoming parents more than anything.

  Soon after the wedding, the bank approves a loan for them and they buy their dream house in Cocoa Beach. As a young lawyer who has just been made partner, Peter is doing well, and even though it is one of the most expensive locations in Cocoa Beach, Penelope doesn’t have to work anymore. She quits her job as a secretary and wants to focus on her family and later charity work. It is the kind of life they have both dreamed of, and no one is more thrilled to see it come true than Penelope.

  “I can’t wait to become a family,” she says, when Peter is done fixing up the nursery and shows it to her.

  Seeing how beautiful he has decorated it makes her cry, and she holds a hand to her ready-to-burst stomach. Only two more weeks till she will hold her baby. Only two more weeks.

  She can hardly wait.

  Peter is going to be a wonderful father; she just knows he will. He has such a kind and gentle personality. She has done right in choosing him. She knows she has. This is going to be a perfect little family. Penelope already knows she wants lots of children. At least two, maximum four. She herself comes from a family of four children. Four girls, to be exact. There was a brother, but he died at an early age after a long illness. Being the oldest, Penelope took care of him, and it was devastating for her when he passed away. It is a sorrow she can never get rid of, and often she blames herself for not being able to cure him. Later in life, she played with the idea of becoming a doctor, but she never had the grades for it.

  Peter, on the other hand, is an only child. His mother has spoiled his socks off all of his life. She still does every now and then. And she still treats him like a child sometimes. It makes Penelope laugh out loud when she spit-washes him or corrects his tie. But she is nice, Peter’s mom. She has always loved Penelope, and there is nothing bad to be said about her.

  It was always the plan that Peter would follow in his father’s footsteps and go to law school, and so he did. He met Penelope right after he passed the bar and started working at the small law firm in Rockledge where she was a secretary. Soon he moved on to a bigger firm and now he had made partner.

  Peter’s career exploded within a few years, and now he is talking about going into real estate as well. He has so many plans for their future, and she knows he will always take care of them. She is never going to want for anything.

  Two weeks later, her water breaks. Penelope is standing in the kitchen admiring the new tiles they have put in, with a coffee cup in her hand. The water soaks her dress and the floor beneath her. Penelope gasps and reaches for the phone. She calls Peter at the office.

  “This is it,” she says, with a mixture of excitement and fright in her voice. “Our baby is coming, Peter. Our baby is coming!”

  “I…I’ll be right there.”

  Peter stumbles over himself on his way out of the office and the secretary has to yell at him to come back because he has forgotten his car keys.

  Peter rushes her to the hospital, where the contractions soon take over and after a tough struggle and fourteen hours of labor, she is finally holding her baby girl in her arms.

  “Look at her, Peter,” she says through tears. “I…I simply can’t stop looking at her. I am so happy, Peter. You made me so happy, thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Chapter Seven

  September 2015

  I spend the evening feeling sorry for myself. I cook chicken in green curry, my favorite dish these days, and sulk in front of the TV watching back-to-back episodes of Friends with Snowflake and my son Salter next to me.

  “They can’t fire you!” Salter exclaimed, when I told him as soon as he got home from school. He knew something was wrong as soon as he saw that I’d made hot cocoa for the both of us and put marshmallows in it.

  That is kind of my thing. Whenever I have bad news, I prepare hot cocoa with marshmallows. I have also baked cookies. That is another diversion of mine. Nothing keeps me as distracted as baking or cooking.

  “You’re the best damn reporter they have!”

  “I am, but there’s no need to curse,” I say.

  I enjoy spending the rest of the evening with the loves of my life, both of them, and decide to not wonder about my future until the next day. Salter is so loving and caring towards me and keeps asking me if there is anything he can do for me, to make me feel better.

  “Just stay here in my arms,” I say and pull him closer.

  He has reached the age where he still enjoys my affectionate hugs and holding him close, but lately he has begun to find them annoying from time to time, especially when it is in front of his friends.

  I named him Salter because I have been a surfer all of my life, growing up in Cocoa Beach, and so is his dad. Salter means derived from salt. We believed he was born of our love for the ocean. How foolish and young we were back then.

  It feels like a lifetime ago.

  “So, what do we do now?” Salter finally asks when the episode where Phoebe fights with a fire alarm is over.

  I take in a deep breath. I know he has to wonder. I do too, but I tr
y not to think about it. Mostly to make sure he isn’t affected by it.

  “I mean, now that you don’t have a job?” he continues. “Can we still live in this apartment?”

  “I have to be honest with you, kiddo,” I say. “I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to happen. I am not sure any newspaper will have me after this. I pissed off some pretty influential people.”

  “That’s stupid,” he says. “They’re all stupid. Your article had more views than anyone’s.”

  “I know, but that isn’t always enough, buddy.”

  I sigh, hoping I don’t have to go into details, when suddenly my phone rings. I let go of Salter and lean over to pick it up from the coffee table. My heart drops when I see the name on the display.

  It’s my dad.

  “It’s Mary,” I say, my heart throbbing in my throat. I haven’t spoken to my dad in at least a year. He never calls me.

  “Mary.” His voice is heavy. Something is definitely going on.

  “What’s wrong, Dad? Are you sick?”

  “No. It’s not me. It’s your brother.”

  I swallow hard. My brother is the only family member I still have regular contact with. I love the little bastard, even if he is fifteen years younger than me.

  “Blake? What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s bad, Mary. He’s been arrested.”

  Arrested?!?

  “What? Why…for what…what’s going on, Dad?”

  My father sighs from the other end of the line. “For murder. He’s been arrested for murder.”

  Chapter Eight

  September 2015

  They take him for a ride. Billy the Kid is crying in the back when the girls take him first to the Super Wal-Mart in Merritt Island that is open 24/7. Placing a knife to his back, they walk through the store and pull bottles of wine, gin, and tequila from the shelves. They even find a fishing pole that they think could be fun to buy. Along with some chips Jamie wants, and sugarcoated donuts. Kim has a craving for cheesecake while Britney wants chocolate. And loads of it. Liz holds the knife in Billy’s back and asks them to throw in some Choco-mint ice cream for her. Then she grabs a bottle of drain cleaner. They tell Billy to take out his wallet and pay for everything.