Nigel Hess was dead.
That raping, stealing con-artist bastard was dead on the floor of his expensive hotel suite and she, Fiona was clutching the murder weapon to her naked chest.
He was dead.
Fiona wasted a whole minute staring at the man; watching him cough up blood. Watching as he made weak, futile grabs for her and the gun she'd taken from him. Watching the life drain from him as his eyes rolled back into his head and his hands fell limp. She'd killed him, like she'd killed so many others before. But that was different, wasn't it? She was so used to setting people up to die, sticking them in a room filled with C4 and watched their deaths from a distance. Leaving no trace of Fiona Glennanne behind.
Nigel Hess was personal.
He hadn't been 10 minutes ago. Personal for Michael perhaps; men stealing the life savings from single mothers were always personal to Michael. But to Fiona he'd just been some scumbag. Some ass who she'd felt no pity toward when Michael had told her to plant incriminating evidence in his hotel room. But still just one of many scumbags they bamboozled and framed all the time. Just a piece of their game-board; all the same, all forgettable and easily put away when Fiona was done playing.
Now this piece was covered in blood...as well as so much of Fi's own DNA.
Shit.
Shit!
One minute was too long. Fiona leapt to her feet and slipped back into her white mini-dress. Her insides turned to acid when she looked at her stained underwear, but she slipped them back on to. It really wouldn't do if blood stained the back of her dress. It would make everything so much more difficult to conceal. Just to be doubly careful she tip-toed around Hess's body to the toilet, grabbing the toilet paper by the very tip and ripping a few pieces off carefully, she folded them up and stuck them in the back of her underwear to soak up a bit of the fluid.
She was pretty damn certain that she was screwed already, her bodily fluids were all over Hess and some of the floor, but at least she was sure that she hadn't touched anything else in the bathroom besides one drawer handle. She quickly wiped the handle down with a leftover bit of toilet paper and tossed it in the toilet to dissolve in the water.
That wouldn't be enough though. She needed to call Michael. He was all ready to carry out his part of the plan. By now she had already planted the plane ticket by Hess's bedside table, his suitcase was open on his bed and she had just been making the finishing touches to his room when Hess had interrupted her. To his partner it would seem pretty clear that he was running with THEIR money. Taking their equal share of the loot to some exotic location.
Michael would have already tipped the man off of his partner's plan. Who knew what was taking him so long to storm into Hess's room and see for himself the extent of his "best friends" betrayal.
Hess's phone continued to ring.
There was a loud banging on the door of the hotel room as an angry male voice shouted "Nigel! Hess, you son of a bitch, open up!"
Fiona was trapped. She didn't have time to call Michael or Sam. She didn't have time to do anything. She was in a hotel room 10 stories up and there was a madman out for revenge banging on the door looking for the man she'd just shot and killed in the bathroom.
Shit shit shit.
Fiona looked in the bathroom mirror using her fingers to comb back her hair so it seemed mussed in a way that didn't scream "I've been violated" quite so obviously.
She grabbed a bathrobe from the closet and yelled "I swear to Christ, Jimmie if this is another one of your goddamned gambling buddies!" as she fixed the chain-lock across the door and pulled it open with a huff of anger.
"Well, what the hell do you want?" Fiona glared at the man in the hallway as he eyed her with suspicion.
"Where's Nigel?" He demanded
"Who the hell is Nigel?" Fiona pushed her hair back from her face and fixed the man with an equally suspicious glare, "Look guy, I don't know who you're after…but my husband and I checked in this morning and we're the only ones here. Now we've got plans for tonight and I was just about to take a nap, so if you'd please leave us the hell alone" she tried to push the door closed, but the man stopped it with his hand.
"Nigel!" He called pass her into the room, "If this is one of your fucking tricks! This bitch isn't duping me, you've got 10 seconds to get your ass out of that room or I'm kicking down the fucking door!"
"You've got the wrong room asshole!" Fiona tried again to shut the door, but she didn't have the strength. This guy was going to kick in the door and that would be it for her. Either he'd discover the body and kill her himself, or she'd be forced to shoot him as well and try to make an escape down 10 stories of Hotel room stairs, passing dozens of gawking patrons, several security camera's and leaving a broken hotel room door, two bodies and who knows how much DNA evidence behind her.
"If you don't leave now I'm calling the cops." She threatened, but even she could tell that her voice didn't hold much weight any longer. He looked unimpressed and continued to scan the sliver of room he could see above her head. Fiona closed her eyes and breathed deep…there had to be something that she hadn't thought of yet. Some way to get out of this that she just hadn't considered. She had just opened her mouth to speak again when a voice came booming down the hallway.
"What the HELL are you doing with my wife!"
Sam's voice. Thank God.
"Jimmie!" she yelled at him, slipping easily and quickly back into character, "This asshole won't leave me alone, I was trying to sleep"
Sam stopped in front of the man, matching him for height and anger. He carried an ice bucket and was brandishing it like a weapon, ice flying everywhere.
"Look man, I won't pretend this is the first time I've come home to a man leaving Terri's room; but I'll be DAMNED if I let it happen during MY VACATION. Now SCRAM!"
The man looked from Sam, redfaced and looking lethal with his iron bucket, to Fiona, hair still mussed and breathing heavily. He seemed to consider the options for a couple seconds before his face turned to one of rage and he swore loudly,
"That SONOFABITCH musta left this morning." He let out another string of expletives before turning and stomping down the hallway. Fiona almost collapsed against the doorframe, leaning her head against it for a second before turning toward Sam an offering him a weak as hell grin, "Thanks Jimmie"
"Any time, Fi, now you wanna let me in and explain what the hell you're still doing here?"
Fiona stayed with her head leaned against the doorframe. Her eyes closed for a few seconds as she breathed in once…twice. At her third exhale she opened her eyes and saw Sam's confusion had made almost a complete transformation to outright alarm.
"Fi…are you gonna tell me what happened, or should I call Mike?"
Fiona closed the door in Sam's face, unlocked the chain and opened it to allow him entrance. He stepped past Fiona, sparing her one last worried glance before looking around the hotel room in confusion, everything was in place exactly where they'd planned. His eyes landed on the closed bathroom door and he turned back to Fiona with a raised eyebrow. Before he could say anything Fiona closed the front door and slid down it to sit on the floor, knees hugged against her body. She looked up at Sam for a few seconds before looking down at her hands and finally getting out the words she'd been trying to find a way around saying.
"Call Michael"