Meet Cute
Chapter 10
Turning to Raymond, Jimmy asked. "What is Naval Intelligence doing investigating bank robberies anyway?"
"I wasn't investigating the bank robberies, you halfwit. I'm Annie's son!"
Annie's.
Realizing just whose grave he had just dug, reaching for his gun, Jimmy turned to face Mr. Kaplan, but he was already too late. She was already swinging the shovel he had just used to dig his own grave.
OOO
Raymond watched her with suspicion as she approached him.
A little too calm and collected for someone who had just bashed another person's brains in, she informed him. "Bending to untie you isn't going to be an option."
She stuck the blade of the shovel into the ground next to him and stayed there leaning on it. He wasn't sure if she was leaning on the shovel to keep it steady for him as he rubbed his bindings against the edge of the shovel to fray them or if she was leaning against the shovel to keep herself upright.
Once he had the ropes frayed enough that he could just pull them apart, taking the shovel with her, she returned to leaning against her tree. Hands free, Raymond scrambled to get the rest of the ropes off of his feet.
Raymond rubbed his wrists to try to get rid of the numbness in his hands. He told her. "If you're expecting a thank you, you can forget it."
She had other expectations of him. "Climb down there. Get his gun and finish him off with it."
She must have reopened her wound when she swung the shovel. With her cardigan open, he could see the blood spreading on her blouse like a flower blossoming in time lapse photography.
He doubted she had another good swing in her, but Raymond wasn't taking any chances. He grabbed the shovel out of her hand and threw it in before climbing down.
Getting the gun, he stuffed it into the waistband of his pants and keeping his eyes on her, started to try to get himself back out.
He had one foot on solid ground when she pointed out his oversight. "The shovel."
Raymond grimaced and dropped back in.
"Shoot him."
Not trusting her enough to turn and thereby take his eyes off of her, he just pointed the gun behind him and fired off a round in the direction of the possibly, probably already dead man without taking aim.
"Double tap"
"He's dead."
She repeated herself. "Double tap!"
"Are you always this bossy?"
She frowned and from the pocket of her long sweater pulled out a hitherto unknown gun of her own. She fired at him twice.
As he was ducking down, Raymond got off a round in her direction.
It was only as the shovel glanced off of him fairly harmlessly that Raymond realized that she hadn't been aiming at him. This time Jimmy was really down for the count with his face now something that only a mother could love, but no mother should ever have to see.
She hadn't been firing at him. She had been firing at the guy standing behind him swinging the shovel at him, but ...
The hell with it – Raymond didn't care.
Standing back up, he saw that he had managed to wing her with his earlier shot. He quickly took aim at her and pulled the trigger. He pulled the trigger again and again, but it just clicked again and again – empty.
"Oh come on! What kind of idiot doesn't keep his gun fully loaded?" Raymond balked ducking back down and blindly hurling the gun in her general direction.
When he finally peered back up over the top of the grave, holding out the hand that had been in her other pocket, she showed him the missing bullets.
"Get out of there and start filling in the hole."
OOO
Everything looked the same here. Trees, trees, and more trees.
Pretending to take a break from filling in the hole, Raymond leaned against a tree and used the shovel to notch the tree closest to the body.
He eyed the densely populated forest. If he zigzagged ...
She knew what he was thinking. "You can try it, but I wouldn't recommend it."
Raymond thought of Jimmy and the two very closely spaced together shots Kate had put into him.
She appeared to be thinking along different lines. "Pick the right direction and you can be back to the car in five minutes and the main road in another ten. Pick the wrong direction and you could be walking for miles and miles. I know the right direction."
"Of course you do." Raymond looked back at her with a glare.
She had one hand pressed against her side trying to stem the blood loss. The other hand held the gun she kept pointed in his direction.
He told her. "Anyone with a gun that size is overcompensating for a lack of something."
She offered an alternative suggestion. "Or they stole it from someone with much larger hands."
OOO
Back at the car, she put the tail of her blouse between her teeth to hold it up and out of the way as she stitched herself back up with one hand and kept the gun in the other trained on him. He should have offered to help her but he didn't and she didn't ask. Instead, he derived some odd sense of satisfaction watching her struggle.
"That's going to leave a nice scar." He pointed out gleefully.
She didn't say anything.
The arm wound she just wrapped before handing him the first aid kit to put back in the glove box.
"I could drive." Raymond offered. "That would leave you both hands to use to threaten me with your gun instead of one hand to hold the gun and the other hand to hold the wheel, work the shift and the blinker."
Ignoring his offer, she started the car.
As he reached to buckle his seat belt, she stopped him. "No seat belt for you."
"What if we get into an accident?"
She assured him. "We won't as long as you don't try to grab the wheel to cause one so you can get the gun."
"I'm a little unclear here." Raymond admitted. "You didn't kill me in the woods, but you are pointing a gun at me."
"You did just try to kill me in the woods so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit cautious until we get back to civilization."
Once back in civilization, she stopped in front of a bakery.
"What are we doing here? Meeting more of your friends here for you to kill?"
"We shouldn't return to the house empty handed."
Raymond spread his hands in a what gives motion.
"Annie will be home by now. She's going to wonder where we were. Why we left the house. As I mentioned earlier, I don't really see a need to mention any of this to her."
To Raymond's look of confusion, she added. "She knows about the bank robberies and the fake kidnappings. She doesn't know about some of the side projects."
"Are you coming in?"
"No."
"So … what's to stop me from getting out of the car and just walking away?"
"From walking away? Nothing. From driving away …"
Patting his pockets to check for his keys, he realized the watch his wife had given him for his birthday had gone missing as well. He'd never liked the watch. "You little pickpocket!"
She offered nothing in return.
"What am I suppose to get?"
"I don't care."
Getting back into the car with the white bakery box tied up with baker's twine, he found his car keys waiting for him in the empty ashtray.
"Cannolis." He informed her. "Somehow it seemed appropriate."
She just gave him her patented glare and started to drive.
As they approached the house, Raymond noticed several extra cars were parked in the driveway. More spilled out into the street in front of the house. A sandy haired man was out on the front steps with a cigarette.
Kate slowed, but she didn't stop.
As she kept going Raymond pointed out. "Maybe you really shouldn't be driving. That was your house."
She didn't respond. She just turned the corner, went down a few houses, and put the car in park.
A minute later the cigarette smoking man came into sight. Approaching on foot, he glanced behind before rounding the corner.
"How bad is it?" Kate asked him as he leaned in her open car window.
He reached through and offered his hand to Raymond. "I'm Sam. I'm guessing you must be Raymond. You're shorter than I thought you would be."
"I'm sitting down." Raymond protested.
Sam shrugged. To Kate he added. "Pretty bad. She tried calling the house from her book club to check on you. You didn't answer. So she came home early. You weren't here. Jimmy wasn't picking up. She couldn't get a hold of him. Annie panicked. She called everyone and everywhere she could think of."
Sam appeared to have saved the best for last. "Kate, she was worried. Really worried. She called Dom. She told him everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything."
Closing her eyes, Kate leaned her head back with a sigh.
tbc