Bray Array: The Ultimate Erotic Short Story Collection 19

She was grateful when the proprietor of the coffee house set a cup and saucer down and topped it with a delicious smelling ground roast. She lifted a hand to stop him but the man poured the rich Brazilian liquid to the brim.

“Sir-, I don’t-“ she started.

The man cut her off. “At this hour of night, we serve our guests free,” the coffee shop owner said. He pointed to a sign over a novelty jukebox stating the same. Wilhemina smiled, weary. The coffee shop owner leaned forward.

“Anything you want, it’s on the house,” he said.

Hair stringy, clothes too big a fit, Wilhemina knew she must look a fright. She ran a hand through her hair and it tangled when it struck her ring.

“Thank you,” Wilhemina said to the man.

“I’ve been there,” he said with a wink.

Wilhemina let the sorrow flood in. It washed over her and sank into an ache in her heart. She had set out to find the woman who had started the morbid chain of death and circumstance. The only way she could do was to hide under the radar and live deep undercover.

The coffee shop owner sat a plate of steaming bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast, topped off with another round of dark brew. Wilhemina looked up at him again, thankful. The man floored her with the sweetest smile.

Like another man she’d met had…

***

He was close. Damn close.

Nate had trailed the data down to Chicago. There was no question the body that struck into the ravine was Leigh Marley. After Wilhemina had confided in him she had a past, he had understood the sadness that sometimes flickered behind her eyes. She always smiled — God, he loved her for that — but her eyes were more cornflower than just blue. A blue he wanted to fall into for the rest of his life.

She had told him she worked as an assistant to an investigator in Philadelphia. Her prowess with paperwork and undeniable athleticism won her assignments no one else could close. Before the two of them met she had helped a girl escape an abusive relationship. The girl matriculated at the prominent university and Wilhemina was sure she had secured the girl’s chance to live her life anew.

Wilhemina didn’t establish a new identity for her. That much was clear. The records from three precincts and stations across three counties pulled up zip with any noticeable changes in Leigh Marley’s routine. His fed contact confirmed the same. Except when she dropped enrollment and about the same frame of time ‘Leigh’ had begun making purchases and renting a small motel room not far from Chicago. Nate realized Wilhemina was Leigh.

Except Leigh Mina Marley was now six feet under, and Nate didn’t give a crap load what the theorists said about Quarks. In his world, no two objects could occupy the same space, and he didn’t give a screw about parallel dimensions. Someone had taken care of Leigh and anyone she was connected to after being helped by Wilhemina.

Nate pulled around to a garage a block from the coffee house. He’d called in his badge at the precinct before leaving for Chicago. If he was right, Wilhemina wasn’t Mina, which meant she was in for the heroic fight of her life.

There was so much he wanted to tell her, share with her. And they had a date to keep he wasn’t about to let her get out from under…

***

“Take it, take it all,” the coffee house owner said.

He stared down the barrel of a gun and glanced at Wilhemina.

“I don’t need your frickin’ money. Don’t look this way. I told you!” the attacker whined.

The man looked down at the gun.

“Much better,” she said. “You,” she nodded to Wilhemina. “Get up.”

Wilhemina looked at the coffee house owner. They would have made great old acquaintances any another time. They shared a glance.

“I said, get up !” the woman screamed.

Wilhemina tried to hit the send button at the PC at the Internet station. The woman spun her around. “Out,” she said.

Wilhemina nodded at the shop owner and blinked two times. The man saw her point two fingers at the computer. The man looked back at Wilhemina and blinked twice. Good, Wilhemina thought. He got the message.

The woman shoved her outside into the pelting rain. It was icy but Wilhemina saw it as a sign, a comfort of a kind that said everything would be all right. She hadn’t eaten for days except for the kindness of the coffee shop proprietor and everything she had done to protect Leigh Marley, Oren Victor and the people in Leigh’s trajectory looked like it had all been done for nothing. She scoffed. Fine P.I. Indeed. She’d never make in the field, she realized.

“What are you snickering at?” the woman said. Her gun was trained on Wilhemina. Funny how everyone she seemed to come into contact with had a troubled past or knew how to wield a firearm, she thought.

The woman pushed Wilhemina taking her to the park. She shoved Wilhemina under the bridge. The rain made seeing anything except what was right in front either of them hopeless. The angry woman aimed at Wilhemina’s throat.

“So what..? No final request?” Wilhemina managed over the clacks of rain.

“Greener pastures,” the female officer from the eatery in Philly sneered.

***

The coffee house owner’s expression drummed fear in Nate’s heart. He tore into the shop asking for information and the man took him to the PC. He gave the description of two women to Nate and tapped the space bar on the computer keyboard. Nate read the sentence on a text file left on the desktop background…

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. — W.P.”

The coffee house wrung his hands. “What’s it mean?” he said.

Nate backpedaled to the front door. “Call the police. Give them this,” Nate said tossing his license to him.

The man looked at the swinging door. “But what does it mean?” he yelled out.

Nate ran through the rain, searching. His training didn’t disappoint. He made out the park and tore toward it at breakneck speed. He saw the bridge and two figures beneath and leapt a Bogart. He had one chance, more than the suspect would have when he was through.

***

“Don’t look at me like that… with your sanctimonious air, Cover Girl. You think you’re highfalutin and special, don’t you?” the female cop said.

Wilhemina had her eyes on the gun.

“Don’t you?” the cop repeated.

Wilhemina was still.

“Answer me!” the cop said.

“She can’t-“ Nate yelled. “She is a bit distracted,” he said.

Nate’s gun was poised straight at her. “It’s over Luz,” he said.

Officer Luz Gerald turned the gun into a standoff.

“No… I kill her and then, I kill you !” Luz said.

“Nate?” Wilhemina said. She could barely see through the darkness under the bridge and the pounding rain made hearing that much more difficult.

“Shut up,” Luz instructed Wilhemina.

“Wilhemina, you okay?” Nate called out.

“Shut your hole!” Luz yelled. “This is how it’s going to go. Her first,” Luz nodded to Wilhemina. “You last,” she finished.

“No! It’s me you want,” Nate yelled.

“I did,” Officer Luz said. She turned her gun off Wilhemina then she closed in on Nate, slowly.

“We can talk about it,” Nate said.

“You kidding me? Talk?” “I spent an eternity being everything for you. The conversations, the meetings in secret… I just knew what we had was Paradise. But then you got on the down low. Didn’t you?

“No, Luz,” Nate said.

“Didn’t you! I should have seen it coming. But I see you now…” Luz snapped.

“Why?” Wilhemina shouted.

“What, you haven’t figured it out? Investigator ‘Prince’,” Luz mocked. “I knew about you the minute Nate left,” she said.