Chapter 10

Body of Work

by David Smith

While the “boys” were in the house, I had time to toss this crazy day around in my mind. Was it really just a few hours ago that I woke up in Ollie’s bed on the verge of betraying him. Betraying him was such a benign way to say that I had screwed him, helped kidnapped him, subsequently rescued him, only to kill him all in the course of a few hours. Now, that’s a day’s work.

My earlier meltdown was out of character. Don’t really know what could have caused that! It was just a typical murder-my-lover-in-the-nude type of day. Truthfully, he really sucked as a lover, but that shouldn’t get you killed. Otherwise, I would have racked up quite a body count by now.

What the Hell?

I was stunned to see Steve’s buddies come out of the safe house. They were not supposed to come out.

When Steve told me that Ollie’s body was gone, I was further staggered.

“What do you mean the body is gone? That is just stupid,” I said mustering as much bravado as I could. For the life of me—well, that may be an unfortunate choice of words—I had no idea what happened to the body. Dad must have changed the plan.

“Let me show you,” I said quickly, as I bolted from the car and headed for the house. Safe house, indeed. It couldn’t keep a dead body safe.

As I pushed open the door, I made as much noise as I could hoping that Dad or his team were still in the building--as was the original plan. While slightly skeptical that they were still there, I had to trust Dad.

I charged through the house with the grace of an overweight squash player making as much noise as reasonable. I continued to hold out hope that Dudley-Do-Right would rescue Nell, but if not, this Nell would have to get to the weapons closet. I worked over in my mind how best to get to the pantry where the weapons were hidden.

Despite knowing what they had said, I was still stunned when I got to the bathroom. Clearly there was no body, but as I took in the scene, I could appreciate that whoever had cleaned up had done so quickly. My David Bruce Pinot, or what was left of it, was still on the counter next to the tub. Not being one to waste a good Pinot, I walked over and drained the glass.

Pointedly, I held the glass out to Steve. “This is my glass of wine! I left it here after Ollie sort of passed away.”

“Cute. Then where is his glass?”

“He left it in the kitchen where he drank it.” With that, I charged out of the bathroom and down the hall to the kitchen, praying that the wine, the glass, or Dudley would be there.

Empty. No wine. No glass. Sadly, no Dudley to rescue me either. Hayden, you are in deep shit. I blustered around the kitchen acting as if this whole thing was preposterous, and in the process, worked my way over toward the pantry.

I was just a step away from the weapons cache when Steve pulled his own gun and shouted for me to “Stop!”

I have never been great at taking orders, so I paused for half-a-beat, mentally said screw it, and ripped open the door to the pantry, and pulled it shut behind me. Just as I reached the weapons and grabbed myself a Glock, I heard an explosion behind me and saw a flash of light under the door. After a very short pause, gunfire erupted. I noticed with a certain degree of self-interest that none of the bullets were focused on the pantry.

Shooting gave way to shouting, and the resulting cacophony of voices gave me hope that the worst was over. I may have great legs, but at the moment they were quite wobbly. My Glock and I eased toward the pantry door.

A first glance showed bodies down and pools of blood ruining the shine on the hardwood floors. The two bodies closest to the pantry were Steve’s buddies. Gathering my courage, I eased further out into the kitchen and saw my father with his gun trained steadily on Steve, who was kneeling on the floor holding a bloody shoulder. He wouldn’t be playing squash any time soon. But then neither would his buddies.

“Dad? Can you explain what is going on?” I asked with no little amount of attitude. I had been a teenager once, so Dad was used to it.

“Yes, Hayden, I can explain. Let me get this cleaned up first.”

“Dad! Now!” Ok, in some ways I never stopped being a teenager.

Dad got one of his men to keep an eye, and a gun, on Steve, and instructed another to get one of the company doctors over to Tarrytown right away. Dad then nudged me out of the room and onto the screened-in porch at the back of the house.

“There was a slight change in plans.”

“You don’t say! What the hell happened?”

“Well, Hayden, half of the team that was supposed to be here before you arrived was in an accident on the Cross Bronx. I didn’t think we had enough men to assure that we could take out those two, keep Steve alive, and most importantly protect you. We decided to make sure we could draw them all into the house before we made our move. We decided to make them hunt for the body. There wasn’t a safe way to update you since you were with them. You did great by the way.”

“So where is Ollie?”

“Basement.”

“Ok. Are you going to show him to Steve so that he knows that he is dead?”

“Yes, let’s do that now. And hopefully, he will lead us to his boss, the person who was controlling Jean-Luc. We need to find that person.”

Dad and I led Steve carefully down the stairs to the basement. There, propped up in the corner was Ollie. I fought down the bile that gorged up into my throat. Ollie was definitely dead. Cold. Blue. The odd angle of his legs indicated that he was still in rigor. Yup, no doubt about it. I did a good job of killing him. Really, he wasn’t that bad of a lover.

____________________

An hour north of Montreal, the middle-aged blonde walked slowly through the Disney-like village of Mont Tremblant. The cool mountain air always helped her to think and clear her mind. The loss of Jean-Luc was especially difficult for her—professionally and personally. She did not believe that he had a heart attack. She suspected that Jack had something to do with it. She also suspected that Jack was the reason the rest of her team had not made contact in hours.

She paused at a little walk up shop, picked up an order of poutine, and sat at the base of the ski slopes. As she ate the purely Quebecoise concoction of pomme frites, soft cheese, and gravy, she watched the hikers making their way down the hill in the darkening twilight.

Settling on a difficult decision, she reached for her phone and dialed a long forgotten number. The distant ring ended with a crisp voice mail message. She hesitated, and then plunged forward. She had no choice.

“Hayden…”

David Smith is a Long Island-exiled Medical Device executive of questionable humor and talent, whose unrestrained passion for Chardonnay and San Francisco is only surpassed by his love of the Michigan State Spartans.