CHAPTER ELEVEN: MARY, MARY
In a small shabby motel room located somewhere in the valley, the outside world had ceased to exist.
From the cheap radio that the motel provided, left on and forgotten in the events that had followed Anthony's return, a familiar song began to play, queued up by the deejay as a top forty request.
Dylan Sanders lay on her side, her good side, eyes fluttering closed in lazy satisfaction, pillowed on her cheek by a lean, muscular bicep. The arm that cushioned her wrapped delicately around her body, fluttering fingers skimming her shoulder and skin below.
His other hand was being particularly naughty. Anthony seemed to have an obsession for skin – almost as feral as his obsession with hair, and in his position, warm, naked body spooned into hers, his free hand gently caressed her left breast, tickling, teasing.
Dylan didn't move, much. She squirmed under the attention, but Anthony, ever faithful in his obsession, currently had his face buried in the nape of her neck, tenderly brushing lips and raking teeth against the hair there, breathing in her scent, and blowing his sighs against her skin – tingling against her.
The attention created the purr that made her smile, arch against him, and push back further, covering his palm with hers, lifting it to her mouth and gently biting down on his fingers affectionately.
Anthony was lost in her. His fingers brushed along her lips, calloused but surprisingly smooth, and still, his mouth sucking wet circles gently on her neck and shoulders sent small, painful shudders through her body.
She was dangerously close to falling asleep, the satiation and release she had experienced not twenty minutes ago (twice) had exhausted her body, and buried her mind in a cloud. It was a blissful, wonderful feeling – as if there was nothing that needed to exist but being here, with a man, who – miracle of all miracles – liked to cuddle.
His hand, deliberately, left her breast to paint a trail downward, rubbing gently at her curls underneath her stomach, teasing...
"Anthony," she groaned, arching against him as she laughed helplessly, weakly. "I don't think my ribs can take it without at least a little break."
He shifted slightly, and suddenly she was plundered in another kiss, hard and wet and demanding. When he released her, she knew she must have looked like some fiery titan, red curls tangled and wild against the sheets, lazy-eyed.
But his fingers went further, and she lost her focus as her neck fell against him, cheek scraping his as she gasped.
His hair, soft and smooth once released from the shellacked gel he was such a fan of, tickled her chin, and since it was tickling that started this whole thing, she didn't mind one bit.
He held her roughly to him, as if afraid that any second she could disappear. His palm spread broad against her arm, trapping her chest between his torso and his forearm. And still, he rubbed, mouth buried in her neck, a throbbing hardness teasing her from behind.
It was slow, but relentless. Her ribs were unwelcome participants, but in this position, they moved as little as possible, providing only sharp distractions when she was forced to take a quick, heady gasp in.
He pumped against her, always focused, always in control – and Dylan...
Dylan was a mess.
A quivering, jellied, wild, wanton mess.
When it happened for the third time, it wasn't hard and careening out of control, like the first one, or a fall from the precipice while she was still winded and recovering, like the second.
It was a warm flood, gently drowning her in every possible sensation – an eruption that melted her against him.
She gasped slightly, eyes closing as lips brushed her forehead, her eyes, her lips.
The radio creaked, and suddenly she gave a small, weak laugh.
Eyes fluttered to find him staring at her curiously, and she explained with a soft smile, "The song. You hate this song."
He listened, squinting toward the radio as Three Doors Down crowed from the radio.
"I think it's pretty," she whispered, stretching as well as she could against his walled embrace. "I like what it says..."
'So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong, hold me when I'm scared, and love me when I'm gone-'
She wasn't sure, but as she drifted off to sleep, she could have sworn he was listening.
'-Everything I am, and everything in me – wants to be the one you wanted me to be. I'll never let you down, even if I could, give up everything if only for your good. So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong, if you hold me when I'm scared, you won't always be there, so love me when I'm gone.'
'Love me when I'm gone'.
--
Alex Munday had slept maybe three hours the entire night.
The shadows under her eyes, she knew, must have been huge and monstrous.
Her lipstick had long since rubbed off, and her hair, a dirty, sweaty mass, had never been so close to being chopped off.
But she didn't move, shifting only once to recross her legs and reaching for another pile of notes sitting in the chair beside her.
The hospital coffee was crap and cold, but Alex downed it in one grimace, putting it back on the dresser beside the bed, switching it for a pen.
Quickly, she took a quick glance at Jason. He wrinkled his nose, eyes closed as he shifted over, wincing.
She frowned slightly, running down her page of video tape logs before speaking up. "Do you need another pain killer?"
"Huh, what?" Jason's eyes shot open, seconds after, she supposed, he remembered he was supposed to be asleep, and closed them immediately.
She smirked, tapping at the papers with her pen as she regarded him. "Jason, you can open your eyes. You've been awake for the past hour."
He squinted his eyes open, looking almost sheepish. "How did you know? I'm a good actor."
"You're a great actor," she corrected gently, pushing aside her paperwork to rise out of her chair and gently straighten his pillow, smoothing his sheet over the bed. "But you also snore when you're asleep – and you can't fake that."
He blinked, caught in his guilt, stunned into silence. "So, wait a minute," he said, processing the information. "You've known all along when I wasn't asleep?"
She smiled, gently flicking bangs out of his forehead. "I figured when you wanted to talk you would."
His deep brown eyes had always had a curious effect on her, a melting inside that she could never quite explain. That, coupled with his little boy smile, were dangerous tools, and judging from the room, piled high with gifts, balloons and flowers until it resembled some sort of chaotic forest, many fans agreed.
"Yeah," he said finally. She smiled back briefly, straightening to pour him a glass of water from the pitcher by his bed. "So... I'm glad you're here, Alex," he ventured.
She froze slightly, turning to give him an uncharacteristic awkward smile. "Jason... I'll always be here."
He took the glass thoughtfully, looking almost insecure as he sipped. "I wish I could believe that."
It was easier, right now, to ignore the comment than to try to prove it, and Alex, usually never lazy, opted to change the subject.
"So, have they assigned you guards at all?" she asked. "I checked with the nurse, and she said that the last guard left his shift about midnight. I haven't seen anyone come in since."
Jason shrugged, fingering along the rim of the glass. "It's that police lady. She really sucks. Says something about me not being a target or something – resources needed other places."
"Not needed?" Alex repeated, disbelief freezing her features. "Jason – you were almost a victim of the Celebrity Sniper- that we haven't caught."
"Thank you!" he said, hand up in ecstatic agreement before he winced, holding his side. "That's what I said! She's stupid! Come to think of it – she was the lady in charge of the funeral thing, too."
Alex blinked. "What?"
Jason grimaced, obviously annoyed at the whole thing. "Yeah! There were no cops around, none at all. She sent them all away! I saw her talking to this guy, she wanted them all out of there! I mean, I just played a cop in my last movie, I know a little about the process, and that was just a bonehead thing to do-"
Alex felt the world sink further into her, trapping her in breathless anticipation. "Jason, what was her name?"
"Huh?"
"The cop, Jason- her name?"
"Oh..." he squinted, trying to remember, "I would watch out for her, Alex, she was in here, asking these questions... Uh... Mary... Mary Bug-"
"Mary Briggs?" she finished quickly.
"Yeah! That's it!"
"Oh, God." The papers flew, and a startled Jason stared as Alex began to gather them quickly, stuffing them without order into her briefcase. "Jason – I have to go. I'm going to call and make sure you get a guard here, okay? But I gotta go-"
"Hey, Alex!"
With a quick lunge, she planted a firm, distracted kiss on his lips.
In the next second, Alex was out the door.
--
Natalie looked homely, gross, and somewhat plain.
She didn't mind at all.
The thick glasses obscured the blue of her irises, and in reality, they gave her a bit of a headache, but she didn't mind that either.
Instead, the goofy grin and wild ragged blonde of a wig made people want to look the other way instead of directly at her, exactly what Natalie wanted.
A foot away from the door of the Morgue Coroner, Natalie's cellphone began to beep.
Without missing a step, Natalie swept right by the door, casually nodding to a passerby and answering the phone.
"Hello?"
"Natalie, it's Alex."
"Alex!" Natalie managed another smile to another doctor, whose gaze flickered suspiciously at her badge before moving on. "Not a good time, babe!"
"Mary's a rat."
"Pardon?"
"Mary Briggs? Our stoic bitch cop lady? She's working for the sniper. Or something. She's setting it up!"
Natalie blinked. "Wait, are you sure?"
"Yes! I don't have the particulars right now, but I'm on my way to the lab to grab the tapes. I'm going to trace a few things. I could use an extra set of eyes."
Natalie considered. Backing against the wall, she began to move once again toward the coroner's office. "I'm at the Morgue right now. I was just going to grab some extra reports on Sandy – see what the Coroner had to say about time of death, and what kind of blade and what not – I hacked into Jason's account at the FBI, and Alex-"
"What?" she whispered.
"It wasn't the same gun that shot the other two."
"Are you sure?"
"As sure as you can put the sure in surely."
Alex was quiet for one fate filled second. "Be careful," she clipped. "Meet me back at the lab as soon as you can."
"Yes," Natalie confirmed. "Hopefully we'll start to get some answers instead of just raising more questions."
She snapped the phone closed, and in the same movement, slipped a hand around the knob, opened the door, and slipped inside.
Slipping her cellphone into the white medical labcoat, Natalie finally got a look at what a Lab Coroner's office looked like.
"Huh," she said, taking a step forward. "This is... cheery."
Pictures and movie posters were plastered along the walls, every inch covered.
"Movie fan," she muttered, eyeing the powers. ME-1, Chosen, Simple Things...
"Yes. Originally he got into the coroner gig because he was doing research for a screenplay," interrupted a voice, tinged with annoyance.
Natalie glanced back, and found a tall figure glowering from the doorway.
"He ended up sticking around," Mary Briggs continued. "Natalie."
"Ms. Briggs," Natalie answered, a trifle uneasy. Mary blocked the exit, and Natalie, caught in the office of a guy who examined dead bodies for a living, wasn't exactly comfortable.
Mary took in her disguise, an amused smirk floating on her features. "Not really your look, is it?"
"Actually, I kinda like it," Natalie said. Giving up the pretense, she pushed off the wig, massaging at her golden blonde strands underneath until they fell down suitably over her shoulders.
Mary's lips quirked, before they straightened into that ever familiar glare. "What are you doing here, Natalie?"
"My job," she answered easily.
Mary took that in. She pursed her lips, kicking the door closed behind her. "You should be keeping people alive, not scoping out information on the ones already dead."
"Any forensics expert knows the clues are already on the dead," Natalie quoted. "There's no need to pressure the living."
"Really," Mary said. "Because I happen to get my results much better the other way." Natalie's eyes narrowed. Her fingers pulled into a fist as Mary reached into her blazer.
Could she outrun a bullet? Not in here. There was no room to jump-
Mary pulled out her hand quickly, revealing what appeared to be a harmless newspaper.
"Go back to heaven, Nat," Mary said crisply. "The Angels have officially been offed my case."
She slapped the newspaper into Natalie's palms, creating a sting against her skin.
Without a word, Natalie snapped it open, glancing at the headline, and the picture underneath it.
"Hollywood Detective may have ties to Celebrity Sniper," she read.
Dylan's face stared grimly at her from the photo.
Oh, God.
Mary snatched the paper from her hands, eyebrow rising.
"Where is she?"
--
In her sleep, she had shifted from her side to her stomach. Her arm, unguarded, had moved directly under her ribcage, creating a dull throb that spiked her senses.
She awoke with a gasp of pain.
She also woke up alone.
The radio, tinny and annoying, was blasting a weird song that appeared to be hip-hop, but seemed to be coming from Jewel.
The comforter, long ago discarded, lay in a tumbled heap at the bottom of the bed, dangerously close to slipping over. Dylan, naked under the sheet, couldn't move much. Her ribs, grown cold and stiff in her sleep, creaked their good-afternoon.
Still, the sunlight flashed through the creaks in the cheap curtains at a very bare right side of the bed.
"Anthony?"
Dylan's alert state, so different from the blissful mood in which she had fallen asleep, was slowly beginning to pound in with a small jolt of panic.
Her eyes swept the room, quickly accounting for what they had brought in.
Everything was here but Anthony's clothes.
She swallowed, gaze roaming further, and found the Thin Man's cane, resting neatly on the pillow, just above where she was sleeping.
She glared at it. "That better mean you're coming back, jerk," she muttered, sucking in a gasp of pain.
Whatever she had expected as a morning after, this was decidedly not it.
Not that it mattered. Dylan expected that she would probably be pissed as a wild cat in heat when he finally made his appearance again, but at the moment, she was too resigned to care.
It had been a nutty, crazy, three days, and she had gotten three of the greatest orgasms of her life out of it.
She'd only kill him if he managed to kill someone else while he was gone.
The dingy shower looked especially enticing, and since she remembered distinctly some shampoo and conditioner in Anthony's bag from his little shopping spree, there seemed like no better way to kill the time.
She... uh... really needed a shower.
The door rapped, loud and hard, as she managed to push herself up.
Dylan considered, glaring at the door, wrapping the sheet around herself.
"Where's the do-not-disturb sign when you need it?" she muttered.
More than likely, it was the motel manager. Dylan distinctly remembered saying they'd pay for the night, and one look at the clock told her it was after twelve.
The door shook again under the heavy knocking.
"Okay!" she snapped. "Geez." Grabbing her wallet, and pulling out a forty, she headed to the doorway, wrapping the sheet further around her, and twisting the knob. "Fine, fine! I know we're la..."
Dylan trailed off, throat going dry at a look at her new guest.
Mary Briggs smiled, holding up a white sheet of paper with a very official seal on it. "Dylan Sanders? Got a warrant for your arrest."
--
Alex's Mercedes swerved into the curb with a screech.
Quickly, she unbuckled her seatbelt, gathering her papers and running on the cement, heedless of the possible torture on her heels.
She was distracted, frantically looking through her notes as she preformed the eye scan and the hand print, pushing open the door, and stepping inside, never looking where she was going until she stepped into the ballistics room.
Once inside, she finally got a good look.
The lab desk, the one remaining standing after Dylan and The Thin Man's flight, the one holding the proof of the Thin Man's guilt, was completely destroyed. The computer was now in two pieces, and it appeared Alex, steps faltering in the middle of the room, was standing on a piece of the monitor.
The acrid smell of smoke littered the air.
Alex's papers dropped to the floor.
She swallowed hard, palm spreading into a knife lunge as she jerked behind her – to the corner she had neglected to check before she entered.
And there he stood, moving slowly around her, taking another drag from the long white cigarette that seemed to be his very world.
Alex stepped off the glass, moving with him, watching carefully.
"Where's Dylan?" she asked. "She know you're here?"
He paused in his taste of nicotine, taking a moment to drop the cigarette on the floor, rub it out politely on the floor, before he pounced.
She caught the lunge with an upper block, using the moment to twist the arm to her neck and pushing down on the elbow-
He twisted away from the lock before she could break the arm, and immediately delivered a roundhouse that almost knocked her over.
The broken monitor now seemed the least of her problems.
--
"Mind if I come in?" Mary asked.
She looked infuriatingly smug, eyeballing Dylan head to toe before she stepped into the motel room, glancing around.
"Had a late night?" she asked.
"I'm not much of a morning person," Dylan answered stiffly.
"Hmm," Mary responded. Pausing in the center of the room, she zoomed in on the bed. Dylan's heart constricted when she realized where Mary was looking.
The black cane stood out like a roach on the all white of the stained cotton sheets.
"Interesting," Mary said, moving to pluck it from the pillow, twirling it easily in her fingertips. "I once saw one of these. Belonged to this assassin – on the FBI's Most Wanted List now."
"Thanks to you?" Dylan asked flippantly.
Mary grinned. "I don't help the FBI – but if they receive an anonymous tip or two, there isn't much I can do about it."
"I bet," Dylan responded. She couldn't move. Her ribs were now sufficiently warmed up to throb properly, and Dylan, quite immodest last night with Anthony, now cared quite a bit that her clothes had somehow managed to scatter themselves all over the room.
Mary stopped grinning. "Where is he, Dylan."
"I wouldn't know," Dylan answered honestly. "You know men. They come and go as they please."
"Hmm," Mary answered. "Sure. I can believe that. I can believe that the guy you've been running around with, and from the looks of things, have been screwing on the side, would up and leave his cane with you, a possible murder weapon, and never come back."
Dylan said nothing.
Mary regarded her. Without a word, she reached behind her, and plucked out a pair of handcuffs.
"Let's go," she snapped. "I'm not taking the fall for this, and it looks like your boyfriend decided who could."
Dylan's feeling of deja-vu seemed so damned overwhelming, she could envision Eric Knox in Mary's place.
A burst of anger brought her fire back. "Mind if I get dressed first?"
Once again, Mary lingered on her body, in such a way that Dylan instinctively pulled the covers closer around her.
"Why would you wanna cover that body up?" Mary said, cocking her head. "I'd be proud of it."
"You always want what you can't have," Dylan answered easily. "Like, say my clothes?"
Mary smiled, eyeing the room, and landing on an object that was scattered next to the open box of cigarettes. Her smile froze.
"Hey..." Coming forward, she plucked Dylan's lighter from the table, flipping it open, and sparking the tip, observing the flame. "So now your boy is a thief too? This is stolen property. Mine in fact. It was a gift from a friend."
The lighter, Dylan's lighter, went into Mary's pocket.
Dylan was unfazed by Mary's smug smile. Instead, her mouth opened, and a sharp gasp nearly caused her ribs to crack.
In that second, she knew exactly who Mary had gotten the lighter from.
--
Alex wasn't answering her phone.
Natalie nearly crashed into a little black BMW on her way to the lab, frantically dialing. In her fanatical movements, the little earpiece slipped out of her ear twice, and the third time it landed in her lap, she gave up, dropping the phone onto the car seat and pushing hard on the accelerator.
Alex's Mercedes was already there, parked about ten feet from a black car she dimly recognized, but didn't really care to remember where.
Slipping outside, she slammed the car door closed, dialing one more time and holding the phone to her ear.
It rang and rang.
"Dammit, Alex!" she snapped. "Where are you?"
A crash from above her made her jerk her gaze to the windows of the laboratory.
Eyes widened to the width of small moons, Natalie's jaw dropped as two figures hurtled through the glass, landing in a rolling thud two feet from her.
She blinked. "Oh. There you are."
Alex managed to kick her way free, wiping a smidgen of blood from her lip while The Thin Man snarled at her from his crouched position, resembling a tiger ready to pounce.
"Natalie?"
"Alex!" Natalie said, fumbling with her phone as she tried to put it away. "I was trying to call you-"
And there they went again.
Alex, amazingly active on her very high heels, actually used them against him, burying the pointy stiletto into his tummy, making him grunt with pain.
She did, however, get a smack in her face that sent her reeling as her reward.
Natalie watched for a second, before she tried again. "Listen-"
"Grab me!"
Alex came whirling at her, and instinctively, Natalie snapped onto Alex's hand, twirling her automatically, enabling the smaller Asian girl to gain the momentum she needed for the kick at the Thin Man's chest.
It worked remarkably well.
Unfortunately, that pissed off The Thin Man, and by default, included Natalie into the fight – an unintentional mistake.
"Guys!" She ducked a fist, teetering back. "I really-" Swish- "Need to talk-" She swept The Thin Man's feet, knocking him briefly to the ground. "To you!"
"Natalie! A little busy here!" Alex snapped, brushing the hair from her face frantically. "Can't it wait?"
The Thin Man screeched, attacked, and Natalie's concentration was broken when she now had to move as quickly as she could to avoid getting pummeled by his fists.
"Ow! I think I broke a nail," she managed, in a short second where his attention was on Alex.
"NAT!"
It was becoming a tiresome cycle – The Thin Man advancing, Alex blocking, Natalie trying to talk, and getting continually interrupted to fight when the Thin Man advanced, and Alex blocked, and Natalie tried to talk-
She was done with it.
"ALLRIGHT! ENOUGH!" The shouted bark had done its work. Suddenly, Natalie was in the middle, hands outstretched to ward off both fighters. "ENOUGH! THIS STOPS RIGHT NOW."
Alex blinked, frozen in mid kick, leg splayed out uncomfortably above her face.
The Thin Man looked equally befuddled. He craned his neck, keeping his hand up uncertainly.
"Uh... Natalie?"
"LISTEN! BOTH OF YOU!" Natalie was, by now, breathless, and it took her a couple gasps to get her sentences even. "Dylan! I mean – Mary, I ran into Mary 'the Bitch' Briggs! Dylan's in trouble! Mary was in the coroner's office, and Dylan's wanted – and they couldn't find out where she is-"
"Nat- slow down! What happened!?" Alex said, foot coming down.
The Thin Man blinked.
"They're AFTER her!" Natalie finally managed. She waved emphatically to both her friend and her enemy, their common interest now giving her their unfocused attention. "Mary's after Dylan! While I was there with her, she got a call from a uniform, who saw the THIN MAN leaving the Motel 66 off of Fair Oaks in the Valley. They're on their way now!"
Alex's eyes widened. "Oh, God-"
The Thin Man's face revealed nothing, but his figure returned to his perfect posture. Without a word, he straightened his suit, swept back his hair, and motioned with a jerk to his car.
Natalie watched in gaped astonishment as he opened the passenger car door, and waited with ill disguised impatience.
When they continued to stand there, he huffed and came forward.
Natalie was too stunned to argue when he grabbed them both by the elbows, pushing them in the direction of the car.
"Uh..." Alex gave her a wide-eyed, boggled gaze. "I guess he's driving?"
End chapter