Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

corner. “I hid it in the shrubbery behind the station’s dumpster. Now please let Jeannie go.”
    “It better be there.”
    “See for yourself.” I hung up.
    Immediately a dialogue erupted in the living room. One man asked if they should take Jeannie. The other said not to be stupid. The TV switched off, keys jingled, and the front door thumped closed. It was 8:20.
    The man who stayed to baby-sit told Jeannie it was his lucky day. I cracked the closet door open to hear better.
    “Thanks to your friend, we got some alone time, beautiful. A chance for some fun.”
    A car door thudded in the carport below us. An engine started.
    “I bet the
only
time you have
that
kind of fun is when you’re alone,” Jeannie said.
    I crawled out of the closet toward the window and parted the curtains slightly. The sedan reversed down the drive. I squinted at its front plate and flipped open Kurt’s phone.
    “A drunk keeps circling the Shell station,” I told the 9-1-1 operator. She took my description of the car and its tag number. I figured the cops and Trish’s minion would pull up to the station around the same time. Even if my idea didn’t work, at least he was out of the house.
    “Get off…Hey! Get the hell off me!” Jeannie yelled on the other side of the office door. She thudded into the wall. I scanned the office for something to use as a weapon and grabbed a brass paperweight shaped like a cube.
    On the other side of the door, Jeannie’s protests grew muffled and more distant as he pushed her down the hall, toward the bedroom.
    I opened the door. She was kicking and squirming on Kosh’s bed, pinned beneath a stocky man in a sweater and jeans. All I could see of her were flailing legs. I hurried toward them, ready to drive the paperweight into his skull.
    When I got to the doorway, Jeannie spotted me, but her attacker’s face was buried in her neck. His hand was already inside her blouse. He pulled it free and reached between her legs. I showed Jeannie the paperweight in my hand. She pointed toward the dresser. The pervert had set down his gun.
    I tossed the paperweight toward Jeannie’s open hand and grabbed the gun.
    “Get the hell off her.”
    The man whirled, and Jeannie hammered him in the face with the brass weight.
    He yelled and reached for his forehead. Blood streaked down the back of his hand. Jeannie shoved out from under him. She drove the weight into his crotch and he doubled over.
    “You goddamn son of a—” she blasted him in the side of the head, “—
bitch
!”
    She hurried toward me, pulling at her blouse until it covered her again. I kept the gun pointed at the bloody figure writhing on the bed and told Jeannie to go in the office and bring my bag.
    “Get your own bag,” she said, taking the gun from me. I was afraid to let it go, but I did. It wasn’t the time to argue.
    “You wanted to get naked so bad? Get naked now!” She pointed the gun at her attacker. “Do it.”
    I went back to the office closet.
    “Start with your pants,” Jeannie ordered behind me.
    I grabbed the bag with Trish’s money and took the laptop off the desk.
    When I got back, the man was halfway out of his jeans.
    “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    “Next, the tightie whities, and make it fast, you little bastard.”
    I tugged her arm, but it was as if I weren’t there.
    “Come on. You couldn’t wait to take them off a minute ago.”
    “Let’s go,” I said again.
    She bristled. I wondered if she’d shoot him down naked, right there. His nose, mouth, and cheek were wet with blood and Kosh’s expensive silk charmeuse bedding was stained now too. He pulled down his underwear like she said, exposing himself.
    Jeannie laughed. “How can he show that thing around?” she asked me. “Take off your ugly sweater and get off the bed.”
    I whispered. “What are you doing?”
    She ignored me.
    Completely naked, he slid off the bed and looked at us. His torso and thighs were white, untouched by sun. Blood from his face dripped onto what little chest hair he had. He was still wearing socks.
    Jeannie said it was time to go.
    We backed out of the hallway and she kept the gun pointed at the naked, bloody guy as he emerged and shuffled to the living room.
    “Go out on the porch,” Jeannie said, “way over there, on the left.” She indicated the corner of the porch furthest away from the front door.
    “Lady, I’m naked.”
    “Asshole, I know.”
    She fluttered her hand toward the door as if