CHAPTER 11

Seven hours later, Gillian and Torres were counting more of the money that had trickled in.

Torres frowned and then broke out into a smile. "I'm coming up with an extra five thousand…"

Gillian was recounting her stacks and nodded but kept going. She picked up the last bundle and looked at Torres. "I'm done…so this whole stack is what's left, and this totals five thousand?"

Torres nodded. "If I counted right it does…"

Gillian continued counting while Torres carefully placed the money for Alec's debt into a cardboard box.

Gillian nodded in agreement as she waved the money. "Yeah, this is extra."

"Lightman's out collecting the last of it, I'll give him a call and let him know," Torres said as she walked out and headed towards the lab.

Gillian put the extra money in the safe then looked at the box Torres had packed the money in. An idea popped instantly into her head and she frowned. She sat down on Cal's chair and stared at the box as she carefully considered her options. As she thought about the whole scenario, she remembered Alec's face when she went to identify his body and she grew increasingly angry again. Impulsively, she reached for the box and took it to her office, then crammed it into a large bag and started for the front door.

"I'll be back in a couple minutes, Heidi, I'm just going to out to get an orange slushy."

Torres was making coffee and overheard the comment and quickly dismissed it while Heidi nodded distractedly as she answered the phone.

Twenty minutes later, Cal walked into the lab. "Hey, where's Foster?"

Torres and Loker looked up from the video they were reviewing. Loker shrugged as Torres frowned distractedly. "Her office probably?"

"No…that's why I came in here."

"Then I have no idea."

Cal frowned. "When was the last time you saw her?"

Loker looked up again. "Um…this morning, when I was getting coffee."

Cal looked at Torres expectantly.

"Um...right before I called you to tell you we had enough money. She left to go get an orange slushy."

"In February?" Cal questioned as Torres' face fell in realization. "Bloody hell!" Cal exclaimed as he raced to his office hoping he was wrong. He quickly opened his safe and saw the small stack of money inside then turned to face Torres who had come in behind him. "Please tell me you have the rest of the money?"

"No, Foster was putting it away when I said I was going to call you."

Cal raced from the room and out to his car then barreled across town as he called Ben for back up.

Meanwhile, Gillian had walked into Luciano's Tavern. Several heads turned to watch her progress as she wove her way to the back towards the man who was clearly the most important person in the bar.

From their stations against the wall, his bodyguards pushed off and stepped closer to his side.

The man called Tiny from the day before sneered as he came over from the bar. "I wouldn't get any closer if I were you."

"Why? Do your friends beat up women as well?" she said bravely as she looked around the room.

The older man in back laughed aloud at her bravery as he motioned to a chair. "Dr. Foster, please come join me."

Gillian blinked in surprise as she stepped over and sat down. "You know who I am?"

"Of course," he looked over at a bodyguard. "Get Dr. Foster a glass of scotch on the rocks."

Gillian eyed him warily as she waited. She wondered how he knew so much about her. The bodyguard handed her a drink and she took a sip then blinked in surprise at the smoothness. She knew instantly that it was one of the more expensive brands and nodded her thanks to her host.

"You know who I am?" she asked as she looked at him pointedly and waved the glass holding her drink. "And what I drink."

The man frowned. "I didn't…it was until after your husband's unfortunate death that my organization first learned about you."

"So then you must have discovered that Alec was in fact my ex husband?"

"I learned that Alec had family."

"Family?" Gillian chuckled derisively. "Or people that you could bully to extract payment from?" The man's eyes darkened with anger but Gillian was unable to see it and continued her rant. "Did you also discover that Alec only had elderly parents who were in no position to pay off this kind of debt? What were your plans for them? Beat up the old woman sitting with her walker that she needs to use because of her recent hip replacement or her loving husband who is still recovering from open heart surgery six months ago?! Maybe it was his sister with four little kids that barely has enough money to feed them because her husband is in the service in Iraq?"

"Alec Foster ran up quite a debt to my organization. I needed that debt paid off." The man said flatly.

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you shouldn't allow your customers to get so far in debt? Don't you have any responsibility in that?"

"It's not my fault he was an addict!"

"It's your garbage that's for sale out on the streets!" Gillian snapped back.

"And your husband who wanted that garbage! Your husband who wanted so badly to escape his miserable life, he sold his soul to the devil!"

"And you're the devil!" Gillian gasped as she slammed her hand on the table, clearly exasperated.

"Your husband was a loser!" Tiny spat out as he stepped forward.

"He was weak!" Gillian countered. "He needed help!"

The leader of the group from the day before walked into the bar and quickly over to where they were sitting. "Dr. Foster?" He said in surprise.

The older man looked at his son. "Vince, son, you said Dr. Lightman was coming here today to pay off Foster's debt instead I find I'm here entertaining Alec's lovely widow."

Vince heard the anger in his father's voice and swallowed hard. "Dad, Lightman assured me he was coming."

Gillian had also heard the anger in the man's voice and the worry in his son's face and she looked over at him. "Vince is right, Dr. Lightman was supposed to come here but I wanted to come and see my husband's murderer face to face."

"I never laid a hand on your husband," the man said flatly.

"No," Gillian said as she nodded towards Tiny. "Instead you ordered one of your thugs to do it."

Tiny quickly grabbed Gillian's arm as she gasped in fear. "Just give me the order to take care of this one too, boss! At least this time, I'll enjoy it!"

Gillian's arm was yanked hard when Tiny suddenly flew back against the wall. As blood poured from his broken nose, he looked with surprise at the figure standing behind her.

Cal stood there holding his own hand as he looked at Tiny menacingly. "I told you not to lay a hand on her!"

"Jimmy!" the older man suddenly sang out surprisingly as he stood to greet the man that had just taken out his biggest bodyguard.

Cal frowned as he flexed his hand. It was hurting from the punch he just gave but he extended it anyway. "Sal."

"What are you doing here?!" Sal asked as he nodded towards another bodyguard "Bring Jimmy here a scotch!"

The bodyguard quickly came back with a glass. "Good to see you Jimmy," he greeted.

"Hey, John," Cal smiled weakly at the man. "How's your game coming along?"

"Beat Tiny last week in Texas Hold Em."

"Good for you!" Cal grinned.

"You're Jimmy the Mouth?" Vince took a seat next to Cal who nodded at the question in Vince's eyes.

"Yeah…," Cal began as he looked at Sal. "My real name is Cal Lightman. Dr. Foster here is my partner."

Sal laughed aloud as he shook his head in disbelief. "Wow, it's a damn, small world."

Vince chuckled as he shook his head. "Who would have thought that Cal Lightman was Jimmy the Mouth?!"

Sal grew serious as he moved closer to talk to Cal. "I'm sorry about this whole nasty affair. If I had known Dr. Foster was acquainted with you, I would have come to you and handled this differently."

Cal nodded. "I appreciate that."

Sal sat back in his seat and held his hands close to his chest. "That said; you know I can't let it get out that an addict owed me and I couldn't collect on that debt."

"I know," Cal grimaced.

"So you understand my position?"

"Yeah, Sal, I get it."

"No hard feelings?"

Gillian frowned as she looked at Cal angrily. "Did either of you notice that I'm still sitting here?"

Cal shot her a warning look as Sal blinked in surprise. "She's a feisty one, Jimmy, how do you control her?"

Cal laughed as he took Gillian's hand and squeezed it, hoping she was going to read him correctly. "I can't…At's why I'm gonna marry her instead and see if that'll tame her up a bit."

Sal laughed aloud. "Good luck with that! It never worked for my Maria!"

Vince slapped him on the back as well. "Congrats! You're a lucky man, she's a looker!"

Cal wagged his eyebrows. "You have no idea how lucky I am!"

At Cal's warning look, Gillian sat quietly and took a moment to think about what just happened. She realized that Sal was growing steadily angry with her and she was getting in too deep but she wasn't able to stop the angry words from coming out. She admitted that once again, Cal had stepped in and diffused the situation. She glanced at Tiny who just managed to stop the blood from flowing from his broken nose then looked down to see Cal's hand was red and swollen from where he had punched Tiny. She blinked in surprise when she heard Cal mention that they were going to get married. She could tell he was still worried. He was probably hoping that the news she actually belonged to him would be enough for these men to allow her to walk away without being hurt. Understanding the huge mistake she had made, she leaned back in her chair and opened her bag to take out the box of money. "Cal, can we wrap this up? I'm really tired," she whispered.

At the appearance of the cardboard box, Sal's bodyguards instantly stepped forward and were all business once again.

Cal looked at Gillian and realized she had understood the importance of what was happening. He nodded at her and took the box from her lap and handed it to the closest bodyguard. "Will you check this for me, John?"

John waited until Sal nodded his approval and then the other three bodyguards stood by as he opened the box. John nodded and Vince knew the box contained the money.

"Count it," Sal said instantly.

Vince stood and he and John counted through the stacks.

"It's all here, Dad."

Sal looked apologetically back at Cal. "Business…"

Cal shrugged his acquiescence. "It's over with, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Its okay if I take the little woman with me then?" Cal grinned as he stood.

"Please," Sal nodded as he leaned forward conspiratorially. "She kind of scares me…"

"Really?" Cal laughed aloud and extended his hand as he leaned forward. "Tell you the truth; she petrifies the hell out of me!"

Gillian stood by Cal's side and slipped her arm through his.

Sal stood and reached his hand out to Gillian. "Dr. Foster, I know you don't believe me but I want you to know that I really am sorry."

Gillian heard the tone in his voice and read his face and realized the man really was sorry. Deep down, she knew that the fault of all of this truly lay with Alec. She took a deep breath and shook Sal's hand. "Thank you."

Cal placed a hand on the small of her back to guide her out. As they made their way through the tables, he reached for her hand to lead her from the bar. Once they were outside, he dropped her hand and looked around. "Where are you parked?" he asked quietly.

"I took a cab," Gillian admitted softly as she realized he was barely holding onto his anger.

Cal led her to his car and made sure she was seated before he walked around and got in. They drove in silence back to the Lightman Group.

Gillian's mind raced with ways to apologize to him. Their positions were normally reversed and Cal was usually the one who needed to apologize to her. Now, Gillian finally understood how he felt when everything she could think of to say to him seemed inadequate.

"Cal?"

"Not now, Foster…"

He had distanced himself from her once again. They parked and once they were inside, Cal walked silently to his office. Gillian sighed and walked into the lab.

Torres and Loker looked up expectantly.

"Hi," Gillian smiled weakly.

"How'd it go?" Loker wondered.

"It's over with."

"Good," Torres smiled.

"Yeah, I just wanted to come in here and thank both of you. None of this could have happened without your help."

"I don't know about that," Torres started. "Lightman worked like eighteen… nineteen hours a day to see this through…"

Loker laughed. "Yeah, we all know how much he hates these kinds of cases. He must have been miserable this whole time but he was obsessed with getting enough money to bail Alec out."

Torres had watched the play of emotions across Gillian's face and realized Loker said too much. She tapped him on the arm. "Hey, it's getting late and we're heading out unless you need us for something else…"

Gillian shook her head. "No, thanks again, I'll see you Monday…enjoy your weekend."