T. Bunn - Winner Take All

Kirsten clenched both her hands to the wrist and forearm and took as much of her weight as she could. She might as well have been holding a roof brace. She nodded.

“Okay, here’s the deal. You made yourself busy asking questions and causing problems. Nod that you’re still listening. See how easy it is? Now nod again, and show me you’re gonna be leaving tomorrow. Good. Nod once more. We’ve got us a promise, right? You’re nodding ’cause you don’t ever want to know what kinda pain I can cause you if I want.”

The next car illuminated their monochrome grove. The man’s second hand released her elbow and flashed a blade before her eyes. “Some pains, they stay around for what seems like forever.” He moved the blade back and forth, like a barber ready to probe and shave. “They’re there every time you look at yourself in the mirror. You think maybe I oughtta show you what I mean, make sure you don’t ever forget our little talk?”

A woman’s voice called from down the path, “Ms. Stansted?”

The man froze.

Footsteps scrunched back down the gravel walk, and the singer called out, “Kirsten?”

The man held the blade up before Kirsten’s eyes, a warning.

Footsteps came farther back down the path. “Are you there?”

Kirsten lifted both feet off the ground, nauseated by the man’s stink and that flashing blade. But the fear of having the singer move away and leave her there alone was far greater. She cocked her ankles so as to sharpen the edge of her heels, and drove them like dual spikes into his ankle.

The man grunted softly, the sound scalding her ear. The blade wavered slightly. She ducked her chin down as far as it would go. Her senses were filled with the man’s oily stench. She fought down a rising gorge and opened her mouth so wide she heard her bones grind against the pressure of his grip.

“Kirsten? Are you-”

She wedged her chin down, fitting her mouth about the width of his wrist. Then she bit down with every shred of force in her entire body.

The man bellowed.

Somewhere out in the distance, a woman screamed in response.

Kirsten hung on to his arm like a leech. She beat her elbows back against the solid rock of his chest and hammered down with her heels a second time. And ground her teeth deeper.

Something sliced her at the hairline, not a strike so much as a flash of light deep inside her skull. There were more shouts now, and she was pounding his leg and ankle and biting so hard she felt nothing else, heard nothing, not even the muffled screams choking her own throat.

There was the sound of people rushing into the trees. The man ripped his arm free and flung her to the earth.

“She’s over here!”

Kirsten fell to all fours. Hands reached down for her, then backed off as she squeezed her body like a fist in the effort to be sick, to rid herself of the stench and all that had just happened.

“She’s bleeding! Somebody get a towel!”

A hand touched the point below her ear where she could sense the wetness, and there came a searing pain. But with it was the relief of knowing it was over.

As she rose from the earth, Kirsten grabbed several leaves and stuffed them into her own mouth. The sweet earthy grit did much to cleanse away the taste of that man.

“Kirsten, I don’t like this. Not at all.”

It was approaching midnight, two hours since the police had driven her back to the hotel. But the residual fear would not let her be still. Kirsten cradled the phone with her shoulder and continued to pack. “Could we move beyond this, please? Erin is going to New York. I intend to follow her.”

“The woman had someone attack you tonight and-”

“Marcus, I didn’t tell you about this so you could use it like a club. I told you because I felt you should know what happened.”

When Marcus had answered the phone and heard her voice, he had sounded so delighted, so open, so eager . Kirsten had retreated instinctively, watching herself cut him off and hating the weakness. But she was powerless to do otherwise. Even so, to hear him respond with his own curt professional tone hurt far worse than her neck’s throbbing.

“I don’t understand why you’re so determined.”

Kirsten pressed down the clothes into her suitcase, punching them in time to her words. “What has hiding brought except misery and lies upon lies?”

“Are we talking about the case here?”

She did say what she was thinking, that her own internal fight was so tightly interwoven now, she could not halt one without retreating from the other. “This is important, Marcus.”

His capitulation came in the form of a sigh. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

She straightened and traced the bandage covering the nine stitches running along the base of her skull. Although the doctor had shaved her hairline slightly higher, the hair’s trailing edge remained long enough to cover the scar. The local anesthetic was beginning to wear off, and the residual fear throbbed with her pain. “Just tell me what to do.”

“All right. First off, you’ll need to go to the Manhattan offices of the INS. Speak with their staff attorney and request that they issue a detaining order against Erin. The child has U.S. citizenship, she’s been abducted, the mother has failed to appear as the court instructed. INS should be willing to help. Do you know where Erin is staying?”

“I’ll try to find out.”

“Don’t go there yourself, Kirsten.”

“Is that all you want me to do?”

“Call me with your hotel. I’ll have the name of a local attorney. Give him the casework I fax you and the INS detaining order if you can get one. He should take all this to the district court and request the local police take Erin into custody. Am I talking too fast?”

“No. Go on.”

“The attorney will request the court’s assistance based on the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This says that each state agrees to recognize and enforce the rulings of other states’ courts. The judge will do what’s called domesticating the judgment, which means the local sheriff is then required to enforce the order.”

“All right. I’ve got that.”

The silence was cut by a series of staccato pulses, as though the distance was magnified by their quarrel. Marcus said quietly, “This is not what I had been hoping we’d be talking about.”

Kirsten was clenched by a sudden desire to reveal her feelings, to confess her need for this man. “I have to go.”

She slammed down the phone with the force of all the rage she felt against herself. She sat there for what seemed like hours, warring with her own burning urge to lift the receiver and call him back, the only outer sign her tight gasping breaths.

When the phone rang, she jerked her hand away from the sudden heat. But it was only the detective. “I am in the lobby,” he barked. “You will please come down?”

The German detective was so furious he stalked the empty hotel bar like a gray-suited beast. “This is not how it is done.”

Kirsten touched the bandage. She had decided not to take any painkillers. The cut throbbed with exquisite precision. “You don’t believe me?”

“Of course I accept this. But not coming from a company like Steinhauser. Even if they were not behind the attack, they should have seen it and stopped it.” He glared at her as though it was her fault the codes had been broken. “This is not cowboy land. We do not carry guns at our hips. We do not draw and shoot the first chance we get. We do not attack our suspects in dark corners.”

Kirsten felt the night’s grainy quality deep in her bones. “You’ll put a bodyguard on me?”

“Of course. But it is too late now, yes?”