CHAPTER 17
The sign said I was entering the Good Shepherd Cemetery. I had just passed the brownish structure of the Catholic Church, a white monument of mother Teresa was placed in between the thuya trees. Those had always freaked me out, especially in the middle of the night. Yes. The most terrifying things around the churches and cemeteries were the monuments which were dreadfully illuminated by the rays of moon.
My ankle length leather boots were sinking in the freshly mown grass and I spotted a couple dressed in black just a hundred feet away. I recognized the shaggy head immediately. He was soothingly embracing the mourning blonde. I hid in the shade of one of the few trees they had around here. Michelle had buried her head in Duke’s chest and he was soothingly caressing her back with his strong hand in return.
A dull ache took over my chest. I didn’t understand it. Why was he here when he obviously didn’t care for her? Or did he? No. A person who cared for particular someone would never go sleeping around. His gentle lips pressed against her forehead. The same gentle lips I had kissed a good while ago. The same gentle lips I wanted to feel again. Finally I had realized it, I had fallen for Duke and I had fallen hard.
The afternoon sun was soothingly kissing my skin. This was the first time when I was actually going to get paid for stalking. Life gets better by each passing day. I smiled through the aching chest. I bent down and picked up a purple flower from the flowerbed right beside me. As I did that, I spotted a build standing on the small hill surrounded by bushes. It was another hundred feet from where Duke and Michelle were standing. I nipped off another flower and went across the cemetery, being careful not to let Duke and Michelle spot me. It seemed they were too deep in each other’s clamps they wouldn’t even notice me if I was standing right next to them.
Bastards.
I looked to the east and saw a guy in a black suit and then again at the guy on the hill. Two of them? The one strolling around the rows of monuments looked more relaxed while the one on the hill was leaning against the tree, looking over the whole cemetery. I took a good distance from the both guys. It was hard to guess who was after Duke if there was a person who was after him at all.
I was moving slowly, as if I was here to visit a long lost friend or family member, but honestly, every time I sniffed on the flowers I was carrying, I measured my way towards the hill. Something drew me to the guy. He was standing in the shade and felt familiar. I was in a rather comfy spot to see a little something on what sun was throwing it rays. It illuminated a metallic piece inside his jacket and I immediately could tell he possessed a gun. It was hard to mess it with anything else, years of practice indeed made perfect. I specialized in guns while somebody else specialized in explosives, but in the end, we all knew what to do even with the simplest piece of wiring.
I bent over a grave, placing two fingertips to my lips and later on the monument. I knew he was watching me, but little did he know I was watching him too. Since when I was a baby sitter? Since I find out I had a heart. I realized I had brought flowers to some Brent Smith who died twenty years ago. The grave looked kind of sad, it seemed no one had brought him flowers in a long time.
"I hope your afterlife is less lonely than your grave, dude." I raised my eyes to look over Duke. He was already leaving with Michelle’s arm in his elbow. Okay, I had to admit, this was kind of boring. I started to miss my inner voice, at least it kept me entertained from time to time.
"If I didn’t know I would think you have feelings for him…" I turned my head to see the person who addressed me. Maddox’s slender built was coming down the hill. No. It couldn’t be.
"Please say the whole band isn’t caught up in this mess…" He smiled and looked somewhere behind me, so did I and saw Duke and Michelle going through the gate. I stood up, ready to go after them, but Maddox stopped me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
"Relax… No matter how much of a bitch Michelle is, she would never hurt Duke." Was this the more mature version of Madd that was standing in front of me, ‘cause last time I saw him, he was running around in a red bra. You have to understand my confusion.
"Well… That’s relaxing…" I rolled my eyes, rubbing my forearm as I felt a cool breeze. It started to get chilly. "But why are you here?"
"Before I start answering, I have to ask you something very important," I raised my eyebrow, not really being sure what to expect from him. He was almost as crazy as I was when I was on a killing spree and that was like… schizophrenia in reverse. "Are you still mad about the bra?" I rolled my eyes sighing heavily.
"Do I look like I give a damn about some bra? The underwear was there just to hide the ammunition boxes." At least something went right that day.
"I know, I noticed it and decided to distract Chris and Duke." So he knew all along? Well that was a painful arrow to the knee. Was there a single person left who was not hiding information from me? I supposed not. "Cookie?" He pulled a pack of Chips Ahoy from his pocket and threw a chocolate crisp cookie in his mouth.
"I don’t-"
"Eat junk food… I know. " He interrupted, forcing a smile out of me, "Just try them, they’re fucking delicious!" Hesitantly I reached for the package and laid my fingers on the cookie. "Now bring it to your lips and bite a big chunk." I did as he said and I had to say, it really was something. Someone remind me, why didn’t I eat sweets? Too high insulin levels, idiot! Oh thank god, I already started to miss you my dear. "A delicious motherfucker isn’t it?"
"Madd, please tell me you are the only one…" I was not sure if he worked for Trent so I couldn’t just spill it like I did with my little secret and Brian. I’ve gotten smarter. Just a tad, but smarter. We slowly moved for the gate.
"Besides Shadows and me there’s nobody else. At least nobody I know of." He took another cookie, placing it between his lips. "Spoon full of Maddox helps the world go down…" He turned to face me with a smile and a full mouth. I laughed.
"How long both you and Trent have been doing this?" He shrugged his shoulders as we passed the other guy in the black suit. Maddox ran into him, later on apologizing.
"As far as I can remember ourselves. I’ve been his right hand since we graduated high school." We were almost at the gate when I looked over my shoulder to see the guy falling to the ground.
"So then there’s nobody above Trent?" I looked down on Madd’s arm to see him holding a syringe. The corners of my lips raised in to a smile when he wiped the syringe from his fingerprints and carelessly threw it away.
"Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t." He grinned and we walked outside the cemetery. So he couldn’t tell me. Why such a sudden interest in the matter, Morrison? It wasn’t like it would change anything. I would still receive a job and I would still do it. "Come on, shorty, let’s move. I’d be thrilled to chat with the fucking cops, but we have a party to attend." Jimmy walked up to a ’67 Chevy. "I mean we could always throw a party at the cemetery, but Big T would get upset."
"Party?" No, that was not the right question, I was meant to ask- shorty? Just because he was taller than me, that didn’t mean he was allowed to call me a shorty. Other people had feelings you know.
"A barbeque party at Shads’." He smiled widely. There was a freaking funeral maybe an hour ago and Trent was throwing a party. Wasn’t he a sweetheart? Even my fake joy disappeared when I understood who was going to be there. Before getting in the shiny black car, I felt my phone vibrate in the back of my shorts. It was a text message. From Duke. My eyebrows shot up.
Be at Trent’s. Need to talk.
Somehow it felt like the things he was going to tell me would be as painful as a man telling his wife he wants a divorce after a forty year marriage. I assumed it was painful. Didn’t know, had never been married for forty years, in fact, had never been married at all. I shoved the phone back in my pocket and hopped in.
"Madd, can we not go?" I whined as soon as the car started to move, he looked amusedly at me.
"There hasn’t been a single party I had missed in my life. If somebody shot me, I would still manage to go." We turned on the Beach Boulevard and he looked in the rearview mirror.
"I haven’t been home for days. I’m stinky."
"You’ll take a shower at Trent’s. I doubt he would be against a naked chick in his shower." It seemed there was no way to reason with him. "Especially if it’s you." I noticed a grin on his face and decided to ignore the last remark. I didn’t even want to know.
"Fine. Can you let me out here? I’ll go home and you can go to Trent’s." I looked outside the driver’s window and saw the pier. My apartment was just a few blocks away.
"No, can’t do. Consider this as a job where your objective is to drink a shit load of liquor and have a fucking good time." He looked at me and I fell deeper in the seat, fighting the urge to jump out of the moving car. "I’ll pay you."