Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (22 page)

Jeff was confused that Patricia had brought home a friend from bunko night. He was more confused when Patricia had the three of us sit down on love seats and started chatting about her drinking. The hard thing for him to understand was how Patricia could be unhappy with all that he provided for her. I’ve never been in a long-term relationship, much less a marriage, but I’m guessing Jeff needs to learn something about his wife’s needs. I’m not making excuses for Patricia hitting singles’ bars, but he was clueless—and that’s a red flag. Maybe he was so busy providing for her that he was too tired and preoccupied to notice her.

It took a couple hours, but Patricia finally croaked out that her life hadn’t been right since her dad died. “We disagreed and fought over everything. I couldn’t do anything right. I’m not sure I even loved him. But he was my dad. And when he died, there was no way to make anything right. When my mom looks at me, she tells me she loves me, but I get the feeling she blames me in part for his death. She said he was going to talk to me and apologize for some things. I don’t know how true that was. I suspect maybe she wanted me to feel better about him and me. But it made me feel worse. I had no intention of ever talking to him again.”

Heavy stuff. Jeff had stopped talking by then. He just watched and listened with a slack jaw. I can’t remember much of anything I said to her. When we walked to the front door I was shocked when she hugged me and thanked me for everything I did for her. What did I do besides listen? I hugged her back and did the only thing I could think of—I did what Jimmy would do. I held hands with both of them and prayed for Jeff and Patricia. I’m not sure what Jeff thought about that, but he thanked me and there might have even been a tear in his eye. Patricia started blubbering again and held on to my neck for another five minutes.

That poor sound technician. Just thinking about it again gives me a new headache.

I’m not sure if attending AA meetings is going to help us find a killer. But it did allow me to meet someone I could help. That’s a good feeling. Although Walter’s wife still hasn’t taken him back.

Dear God, help Walter meet somebody that can help him, too.

33

MY HANDS ARE on my knees and I’m breathing hard after a tough workout. That’s when it happens.

He comes in fast, quiet, and furious. Within a nanosecond of sensing someone behind me, he has his arms around me in a ferocious bear hug. I am going to stomp on the inside of his foot, but in a flash he lifts me just high enough to get my feet off the ground but not high enough for me to kick back and up toward his crotch. I am too slow anyway. In a single move he stutter-steps and loops a leg forward and trips me.

I am still thinking clearly on the way down and try to snap my head back and catch him on the bridge of his nose. He seems to be waiting for that move and I miss him. I’m relieved my head doesn’t hit hard when we land on the ground. The fall still hurts like crazy and I can barely breathe with his arms wrapped around me in a vise-like grip . . . and that’s before he digs his chin in the center of my trapezium muscle. In spite of myself, I cry out when he digs into the sensitive nerve cluster. I buck and thrash, trying to create space so I can squirm forward and out of his suffocating hug. His chin in my back keeps me pinned close to the ground. His hug keeps me from using my hands. I know I have to think of something quick or I will be utterly helpless in a matter of seconds—if I’m not already.

I try the head-snap again. Not even close to the mark. Did he just laugh?

I inch my knees forward with every fiber of strength I can muster to see if I can edge out of his hold. This guy is strong. He puts more weight on me. I am seeing stars. His 200 pounds (and some change) are now doing most of the work of keeping me pinned down as he slides his right forearm up to the side of my neck. I’m pretty sure he is looking for my carotid artery to apply a sleeper hold. I am about to panic. He is planning to take me as a prisoner. I flail and try to muster a scream.

A whistle blows and my attacker immediately lets go. I roll over, gasping for air.

“Conner, you are not on top of your game,” Soto says. I glance from him to my “attacker,” Soto’s trainee, Timmy. He’s even bigger than I thought.

My breath is too ragged to say anything. Just as well. He’s right. I haven’t been back in my hand-to-hand combat sessions with Barry Soto, a CPD fight trainer, for at least two months. He’s the best. Every chance he gets, he reminds me that what we see in the movies isn’t the way fights really happen. They end up on the ground.
Always.
Fights always get your knees dirty. Either someone gets shot or knifed and goes down to stay—or two assailants engage and end up punching or kicking or wrestling each other until they are off their feet. Then the best grappler wins. Better know what you’re doing if you want to survive. There’s a reason high school and college wrestlers dominate in the MMA—mixed martial arts—pay-per-view fights. Violent stuff I’ve only watched a few times for training purposes—but they are definitely reflective of how mean real-life fights can be. I’ve investigated the aftermath of more than a few of them.

“Where you been?” Soto asks.

“Busy. Too busy.”

“Too busy to stay in shape?”

“Hey,” I snap back. “I’m in shape.”

“I don’t care what you look like in your bikini,” he answers back with a sneer. “I want you to be in the kind of shape that keeps you alive.”

“I’m not sure I believe you,” I return. “Felt more like you were trying to have your goon kill me.”

“May feel that way to you, but if it was the truth,” Soto responds, “you’d be dead right now. Timmy’s pretty good at that.”

“Wow. Where’s the love, Mr. Barry?”

I can’t help it. If I met someone on the force when I was a kid tagging along behind my dad, they’ve got a title in front of one of their names. Sergeant. Lieutenant. Captain. Mr.

“Hey, princess, you said you wanted a tough, no-holds-barred workout, and that’s what I gave you.”

He gives me a friendly squeeze on the shoulder and laughs. Soto is probably sixty years old but he makes most of us look like softies. He’s old-school. Very few weights, but tons of push-ups, lunges, and pull-ups and about a hundred isometric and plyometric floor and step exercises designed to torture and humble. I do Pilates with a work-out DVD or at Planet Fitness every now and then. Whoever thinks they’ve discovered some new training technique never read the old Charles Atlas books and definitely hasn’t been under the tutelage of Barry Soto.

He believes that all you need for a good workout is a floor and gravity. A wall can be a nice addition. A bar or punching bag is pure luxury. Bring your own towel.

He’s probably not five foot six, but I’ve seen him put guys that are thirty years younger and fifty pounds heavier flat on their back on a mat before they know what hit them. He’s probably pushing a hundred and eighty pounds. I doubt he has a thirty-inch waist. Lots of muscle and lots of hair—except on his completely bald dome.

“By the way, have you met Timmy?” he asks enthusiastically, nodding to my attacker.

“Once or twice. Three times, now.”

Timmy laughs and Soto smiles. Then his face drops into a frown.

“Hey, Kristen, seriously, you need to spend more time over here. People talk to me. I know you’re into the serious stuff that’s out there, and I want to be able to take at least a little credit for keeping you alive. I owe that to your dad.”

• • •

I’ve showered, changed back into work clothes, and am getting ready to walk out the door of the gym and grab a sub on the first floor that I’ll eat at my cubicle. Soto and Timmy have put me through a grueling combat workout with a focus on handwork. Soto’s given me a pair of old-fashioned spring-loaded handgrips to use at my desk three or four times a day. He thinks I’m out of fighting shape. And I have to admit, I can feel muscles in my abs and legs that I forgot I had.

“You know researchers have found that gripping exercises lower blood pressure,” Soto said as I tucked them in my purse. Do I look like I have high blood pressure?

As I walk out the gym door, I about bump into Timmy.

“Sorry about that,” I say as I move to my left to walk around him.

He slides to his right and blocks my path. Does Mr. Barry have more of a workout planned for me?

I move right and he slides left.
Okay.
“How about a little dinner tonight?” he asks. “I promise to be more gentle.”

Timmy doesn’t mess around with small talk. He’d have been a real hit in the Stone Age. Club a woman on the head and drag her back to his cave for dinner by candlelight. “Sorry, I have plans tonight,” I answer. Dell has taught me to be clear.

Can’t misunderstand that.

“Then how about tomorrow night?”

Okay. Maybe you can.

Were I to say yes, I’m guessing he’d pick me up by vine and we’d swing to his home in the trees and among the apes. “I really can’t, Timmy.”

“Are you already seeing somebody?”

This guy is not subtle.

“Well, yes, I kind of am.”

“‘Kind of ’ doesn’t sound real serious to me. Why don’t you think about it and give me a call if you change your mind.” He hands me his business card, like I don’t know where to find him. I’m flabbergasted. I say nothing, move to my left, and finally unimpeded, head down the hall to the main atrium of our precinct. I feel his eyes on me the whole way. Yuck.

If I was faster on my feet I would have asked him if he was best friends with another deaf man I know named Dell.

• • •

I get the roasted turkey breast on whole wheat with tomatoes, lettuce, lots of onion—doesn’t matter, I don’t have a date tonight—pickles, banana peppers, cucumber, spinach, and spicy mustard. I skip the chips for a cellophane bag filled with exactly seven dried-out carrots. I pull a twenty-four-ounce bottled water out of a cooler. I’ve got a lot of extra change in my wallet and decide to get rid of it. I don’t think the cashier or the thirty people behind me like it.

I still feel a little shaky from the workout, but eschew the elevator and jog up the five flights of stairs. On the way up I feel a pang of guilt about Dell. Not so much that I forbade him to come to Kendra’s birthday party, but that I just used him to get rid of someone I don’t want to go out with. I’ve been honest with Dell from day one, and this is the first time that I feel like I’ve used him.

A folder is sitting on my chair with a sticky note on it.

Need to see you ASAP! – Reynolds

There’s ASAP and then there’s
ASAP.
Which one is this? More to the point, do I or don’t I eat my sandwich first?

I wolf down my sandwich, clean off my hands with a wet wipe that I keep in my desk drawer, and then head toward the small conference room he and Van Guten use as a temporary office when they’re slumming it and work out of our precinct. Two cubicles away I stop. I can taste the onion big time. I go back and pop a tiny breath mint in my mouth. My sinuses are instantly cleared. I crunch it and it is gone in a heartbeat. I shake two more from the container, vow not to chew, and walk toward Reynolds’ work area. I stop again. I forgot the folder. How hard can I make this?

Finally, I’m at his door, everything in order. “You wanted to see me, Major?”

“Call me Austin.”

“Yes, sir,” I say with a salute. If he was up until the wee hours last night on my account, it doesn’t show. He looks as together and handsome as he always does.

“Hey, sorry to just leave you a file and note on your desk but you weren’t around and I wanted to make sure I got your attention.”

“No big biggie. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Austin?”

“No, my name is Kristen.”

“Cute. You going to call me Austin?”

“I’ll have to think that one over. So what have you got for me?”

“An invite for dinner on Friday night.”

“Is this an official powwow?”

“Nope. An old-fashioned date.”

I’m stunned for a second. First Timmy, now the major? Did I put on some sort of male-attracting pheromone perfume this morning? It’s working. “You know what, Major Reynolds? I’m going to have to get back to you on that one, too.”

“If it’d make it easier for you to come up with an affirmative answer,” he replies with a grin, “we could call this an official powwow.”

I look at him closely, pondering. Square jaw. Brown hair parted on the side. Wide shoulders—and not just because of the cut of his suit coat. White straight teeth—but not whitened and polished to an exaggerated brilliance like Warren. I have to admit, Major Reynolds is a looker. And to my surprise, he’s noticed me enough to ask me on a date. Is this a good idea?

“I’m still going to have to get back to you.”

“Okay,” he said with his head tilted and eyes squinted, the kind of expression on his face usually reserved for studying exotic animals at the zoo. I guess he doesn’t get turned down very often.

“What about the file you left?”

“I think that’s just my expense accounts from the last month. I needed a prop. My visit to your cubicle generated a lot of interest.”