PART 3

PART 3

When I pulled into the lot, Max was waiting. He was all in black. Even his car was black – a mercedes with enough antennae on it to reach his origins.

Parking several spaces away so my exhaust wouldn't tarnish his finish I asked if he owned the car. He gave me a look that said 'As if anyone else would own this car' and said, "Life's been good to me." His eyes then slid to the Nova. "Nice paint job."

I grimaced and Max nodded towards Michael's apartment. "Doesn't look like Guerin's home, so we'll have to do the unguided tour."

"Is that illegal?"

"Hell no. Bounty hunters don't need a search warrant babe."

Max and I crossed the lot and walked through the breezeway to Michael's apartment. We got to Michael's door and Max slid his palm across the lock. The door clicked open.

"I could never do stuff like that."

"So you do other stuff, like you just ask the super for a key." Duh.

Michael's apartment was relatively clean and sparsely furnished. Max and I searched through the rooms one by one. As I searched I imagined Michael at home in his apartment, tossing his key onto the kitchen counter, kicking off his shoes – it was easy to imagine.

In his bedroom there was an old drawing pad that poked out from under his bed. As I searched the pages it became clear – I didn't really know Michael, only the physical Michael and what had hurt all these years was the fact that I hadn't been given the chance to know the other Michael.

Opening Michael's dresser I came upon another sketch pad, with drawings of two huge green eyes, there were dozens of drawings of them, all the same, sparkling green eyes, full of emotion, textural and expressive.

They seized my heart.

No face, just eyes, the remembrance of a memory?

Max luckily diverted me from my next progressional thought.

"Nothing here," Max said. I wandered back into the lounge-room to find Max hovered over Michael's answering machine.

Max pushed the playback button. "Hi Mickey G," a female voice cooed. "This is Courtney. Give me a call back." Beep. "Michael, it's Courtney Banks again. Are you there? Guess not. I call back would be good." Beep.

Max turned the machine over and copied the security code and special message code. "You take these numbers and you can access his messages from an outside phone. Maybe something useful will turn up."

We checked all the rooms again. Nothing useful. No pictures of Isabel or anyone besides family, no personal pads other then the sketch pad which I had told myself had only accidentally fallen into my shoulder bag.

"This place is clean," Max said. He lifted a set of keys from a small hook on the kitchen wall and dropped them into my hand. "Hang on to these. So if you want to come back, no sense bothering the super. Guerin won't be back, looks to me like he took everything he needed."

"So babe, now what's your plan?" Max asked outside Michael's apartment.

My eyes flickered to Michael's new red and gold Jeep Cherokee. "Guess I'll keep searching."

Driving Michael's car was great. It had new car smell; a smell I hadn't smelt in awhile, it also had a car phone. While I'm at it I mo'swell run up Michael's phone bill.

I called Kyle. "Did you catch Guerin?"

"No, but I've confiscated his car."

"Has it got a sun roof?"

I rolled my eyes skyward. "No sun roof."

"Bummer," Kyle answered.

"Kyle I need a favour…"

"Oh boy."

"I just need some cash, maybe an advanced on the Guerin fee…"

"DeLuca." Kyle sighed. I knew I was pushing it and Kyle knew it too, his voice had held warning.

"I made sooooo much progress today though." I exaggerated.

"How much?"

"I have a plan."

"Oh boy."

I told Kyle my recently formed plan about luring Michael out with his car, getting him edgy, ready to make a mistake.

"Nice plan babe," Kyle said somewhat impressed. "But Guerin doesn't make mistakes, he won't care about his wheels."

Kyle didn't know Michael Guerin as well as I thought he had.

"Trust me, I know how to piss Guerin off."

Silence, Kyle was thinking.

"I'll advance you $100."

Perfect. "Thanks Kyle…"

"Wait a minute. There's a catch."

I waited… "If you haven't caught Guerin in a week, you give up the case."

Bastard. "Deal." I lied.

I drove around for awhile after I had disconnected with Kyle.

I searched, well cruised around listening to Michael's Metallica CD, and doing a bit of air punching for two hours, this was a rocking car.

No blue vans.

Fine, I'm going home.

A faded blue van caught my eye on the other side of the intersection.

The car had four antennae's.

A lot of equipment for a shoddy old van…

I squinted at the driver, shadowy behind tinted glass and an eerie feeling crept along the nape of my neck. The lights turned green and cars moved through the intersection and the van rolled by.

My heart jumped out of my throat as I saw Michael Guerin gaping at me in astonishment behind the wheel.

In theory, I should have been pleased to make contact, but the instant reality had caused an anxiety attack. I was good at fantasising about Michael's recovery. I wasn't so confident when it came to actually pulling it off.

Brakes squealed behind me and in my rearview mirror I saw the van jump the curb to complete a mid-block U-turn.

I'd expected he'd come after me. I hadn't expected him to do it with such speed. Michael was six cars back when I stopped for a light. I saw the driver's door open, saw Michael get out of the van and start running towards me. He was almost on me when we all moved forward and he was forced to go back to the van.

I left-turned towards the police station when the car phone chirped. It was Michael and he didn't sound happy. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he yelled.

"I'm going to the police station. You're more than welcome to follow me." A pretty ballsy reply, considering I was about to drop the phone in terror.

"THAT'S MY CAR YOU'RE DRIVING!"

"Mmmmm. Well. I've commandeered it."

"You've WHAT?"

I flipped the switch and shut the phone off before the conversation deteriorated into death threats.

The van disappeared from my sight two blocks from the station. I drove around some more but there was no sign of the van. That didn't mean much. Michael could be driving whatever now. Michael was however giving me the courtesy of not being obvious. That meant he took me moderately seriously. It was a cheery thought that prompted me to rise to the occasion with a plan. Go home, park the car, wait in the bushes with my heavy duty pepper spray and then zap him with my stun gun when he tried to reclaim his car.

I sat in the bushes and tried to define Michael and my relationship. After two hours I figured the Crashdown and the Jetta incident pretty much summed it up. Lustful insanity.

After another hour of waiting I thought thinking about Michael was detrimental to my health so taking the distributor cap off the car I hid it in the bushes where I had been hiding and went up to my apartment.

In the shower I was distracted by a blur of colour on the other side of the translucent, soap-slicked shower curtain. The blur moved and my heart momentarily stopped dead in my chest.

Someone was in my bathroom.

The shock was numbing but my insides rolled.

Pierce.

The intruder crossed the room in two strides and ripped the shower curtain off the rod with such force the plastic loops at the top popped off and scattered. I screamed and blindly threw the shampoo bottle.

It wasn't Pierce. It was Michael Guerin, who had a welt forming on his forehead where the bottle had made contact and he was beyond angry. Fine by me. I was spoiling for a fight. I was furious that he'd violated my privacy and I was panicked because I was butt-naked.

Under the right circumstances naked was fine.

Standing in front of a fully clothed Michael while dripping wet was however stuff nightmares were made of.

I shut the water off and grabbed at a towel, but Michael slapped my hand away and threw the towel onto the floor behind him.

"Give me that towel." I demanded.

"Not until we've gotten a few things straightened out."

As a kid, Michael had been out of control. I'd reached the conclusion that as an adult Michael had control in spades. Temper was still there, but the amount of violence displayed was tightly calculated. It wasn't difficult to envision Michael killing, but I found myself agreeing with Max and Alex Whitman – the grown-up Michael was not stupid and impulsive.

He was wearing a black rain-drenched T-shirt and jeans. His hair wet. His mouth hard and unsmiling. "Where's my distributor cap?"

When in doubt, always take the offensive. "If you don't get out of my bathroom I'll start screaming."

"It's one o'clock in the morning. Scream away."

I stood my ground and scowled at him. It was my best effort at defiance.

"I'm going to ask you one more time…"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Listen Cupcake, I'll tear this place apart if I have to."

"I'm not your cupcake."

"Why me?" he asked. "What did I do to deserve this?"

I raised an eyebrow.

Michael sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I know." He took my shoulder bag from the floor and poured the contents to the floor. Picking up the cuffs he took a step forward. "Give me your wrist."

"Pervert."

"You wish." Before I had a chance to move away he flicked the cuff out and clicked it onto my right wrist, locking the remaining steel bracelet onto the shower curtain rod. Michael stepped back and looked at me, doing a whole body scan. "You want to tell me where the cap is?"

I froze, unable to believe what just happened.

"Wonderful," Michael said. "Do the silent thing. You can hang there forever for all I care."

Michael stormed out of the bathroom without giving me a second glance and I heard him methodically moving through my apartment. There were sporadic patches of quiet, followed by mutterings.

After what seemed like ages Michael appeared in the bathroom doorway.

"Well?" I snapped, "now what?"

He indolently leaned against the frame. "Just came back to take another look." A grin surfaced at the corners of his mouth as his eyes locked halfway down my chest. "Cold?"

He was going to pay for this. "Go to hell."

The grin widened. "You're lucky I'm such a gentleman. There are individuals out there who'd take advantage of a woman in your situation." He shifted off the doorjamb. "It's been a pleasure honey."

"You're not leaving, are you? What about me? What about the handcuffs?"

He stepped in to the kitchen and returned with my portable phone. "I'm sure you'll think of something," Michael said. "Call the police, hell, call the fucking marines!"

"I'm naked!"

He smiled doing another full body scan, winked and walked out the door.

Bastard!

Who to call?

Someone with a key… no one had a key but my mother (mental cringe), okay then, someone that could get into a locked apartment without a key… Max.

Shit.

I held the phone and dialed. Michael would die for this!

"Speak."

"Max?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Maria Deluca, I have a problem."

Two beats went by and I could feel him coming alert, sitting up in bed, his eyes suddenly awake. "What's the problem?"

"I'm handcuffed to my shower curtain rod, and I need someone to open the cuffs."

I heard a disconnect - He didn't believe me! I called again. "What?"

"Don't hang up, I'm serious Max."

"Ring the cops, they love rescue shit."

"I'm sort of naked."

"Heh, heh, heh."

"It's not funny! Michael broke into my apartment while I was in the shower and the prick handcuffed me to the shower rod."

"You gotta love the guy."

I'd been standing in the tub for what seemed like hours when I heard my front door open and close; Max appeared in the doorway.

I was too relieved to be embarrassed. "I appreciate this Max."

Max smiled. "Didn't want to miss seeing you chained up and naked."

"The keys are in the mess on the floor."

Max found the keys and let me loose. "You and Guerin got something kinky going on?"

"Remember when you gave me his keys this afternoon?"

"Un huh."

"I sort of borrowed his car."

"Borrowed?"

"Commandeered, actually."

Max smiled and handed me a towel. "He understand about commandeering?"

"Not really. Anyway I removed the distributor cap as a safety precaution."

"I'm betting that was the part that went over big."

I walked out of the bathroom and surveyed my messed apartment. I needed to do something that would piss Michael off further, push his buttons. "I need to install an alarm system in his car."

Max laughed soft and low in his chest. "An alarm system. Guerin'll love that."

I padded past him and into my bedroom to exchange the towel for a robe. "You want a number of a good alarm garage?" He asked.

My sleep was deep and dreamless, and I might have slept forever if it weren't for the relentless pounding on my door. I picked my pepper spray off the dressing table incase it was Pierce and dragged myself to look in the peephole.

Alex Whitman looked back at me.

He was in uniform and holding a doughnut bag. I opened the door and sniffed the air like a hound. "Yum." I breathed realising I was finally going to get breakfast.

"Hello to you too," Alex said squeezing past me. "Where's your furniture?"

I narrowed my eyes and Alex chuckled giving me the doughnut bag.

We were good enough friends that we didn't have to talk while we ate. After the doughnuts Alex sipped his coffee and said. "You're prime conversation in Roswell these days. The boys even have a pool going on when you'll get boinked by Guerin."

"How will they know when I'm boinked?" I asked through clenched teeth, not looking at Alex incase I kill him with my eyeballs that were going to pop out of my head.

"They figure you'll quit the case when you get boinked. The winning time is actually when you quit the case."

"You in the pool?" I asked, this time looking directly at him, not really caring if I killed him with my eyeballs.

"Nope. Guerin nailed you in high school. I don't think you'd let a second boinking go to your head."

I nodded in agreement.

When we were kids Alex lived two houses down from me. All his life he'd wanted to be a cop and marry Liz. Now he was a cop and his desire for Liz had already ended in high school when they kissed and were both really grossed out. Alex was a good guy; he enjoyed responding to emergencies, being first on a scene. He was papa bear, really good at comforting people all the while staying real, natural.

"I've got some information for you," he said after a while. "I went to the Crashdown last night for a drink with Liz and Gus Moss was there. Moss if the PC working on the Topolsky case."

"PC?"

"Plainclothesman, detective."

"What did he say?"

"He confirmed that Isabel was an informant. Moss let slip that Guerin had a card on her."

"A card?"

"She would give him information on bad alien/human relations. Informants are kept secret."

"Maybe the killing ties in to something Guerin had been working on."

"Could be. Could also be that it didn't have anything to do with work at all. I understand Isabel's very beautiful."

"And she's still missing?"

"Yeah," Alex glanced at his watch and stood. "I gotta go."

"Thanks for the doughnuts and info."

Alex paused in the hallway. "You need money?"

"I'm doing okay." Thanks to Kyle.

Alex gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "If you feel you're in over your head, you can tell me, I'll support you."

"You mean you'll go and enter the boinking pool."

Alex gave a chuckle. "That's my tiger."

He then left and I felt tears pool behind my eyes. Friendship chokes me up, especially Alex's. In Roswell you only ever have a few friends and so the one's that you make when you're young are friends for life.

Tbc…