Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) Read online

  She glanced up at me briefly, then made a move to slide past. If I’d stepped a foot to the right she could have eased by without hindrance. I moved a foot to the left instead. That got me more than a brief glance from her. She eyed me for several beats through those big boxy shades. I needed to see her eyes. Only then would I know how to proceed.

  “Excuse me,” she said, motioning with her hands for me to step aside.

  I didn’t speak in turn, or move.

  “I’d just like to scoot by you,” she said. “Could you move aside?”

  “I’d like to have a word with you,” I replied, wholly ignoring her plea. My voice had the disembodied tone of the recorded voices you heard on subway cars in New York.

  “Uh-uh. No, no, no. You need to just move. Now step aside.” She then glanced at the digital screen on the cell phone in her hand, and frowned at whatever it was she saw.

  “Just a word or two and I’ll leave you be,” I persisted. Telling her I also needed to see her eyes would’ve probably frightened her so I left that part out. I could be prudent.

  “You need to just move,” she repeated, firmer.

  “It’s not going to kill you to speak with me for a moment,” I said, truly wanting to believe my own words.

  “I don’t know that,” she replied.

  She left it at that as something unsaid passed between us.

  I needed to see her eyes. Only then would I know how to proceed.

  I was so focused on that need I didn’t immediately realize she was speaking again.

  “…saw you at the CVS before I came here,” she said, her jacket material bunching against the swell of her breasts with each harmonious word. “And then again outside as I crossed the street. Now you’re in here. Why have you been following me? Tell me that.”

  Apparently I was more transparent than I thought myself to be. One of the men responsible for Veronica and Ericka’s deaths had told me as much right before I killed him.

  I’d have to work on it.

  “Take off your shades,” I said, unfazed. “I don’t like speaking to anyone without being able to look at their eyes.”

  “What? Are you out of your mind?” An earthquake promptly passed through her. It moved her forward a foot. The aftershocks would have her outside of the Farmer’s Market and back in her vehicle frowning at her cell phone.

  But again I stepped in her path. “This doesn’t have to be painful,” I said.

  “Painful?” she nearly shouted.

  “Figure of speech,” I explained. “This can be a pleasant exchange.”

  “You’re about to have yourself a serious problem, sir.”

  Sir. Polite. I didn’t deserve that.

  I nodded but said, “Please. Take off your shades. I need to see your eyes.”

  Her nostrils flared as she barely controlled her anger. “Are you crazy? I can’t believe you’re serious right now.” Each word augmented her ire. “You are absolutely incredible. Take off your shades. Let’s see your eyes.”

  That deadened my batteries.

  She moved forward in a blur, into my personal space, and reached up for my face before I could effectively respond. “Come on. Let’s see your eyes, Mr. Stalker.”

  My attempt to ward her off was awkward at best. She knocked my black Aviator sunglasses lopsided on my face. Everything wrong came in to focus at once. She frowned, took inventory of it all. My right eye, exposed from behind lopsided Aviators, was marred by a crimson-colored clot and deep tissue bruises the color of ink that had settled in the eyelid and around the base of the eye. The knuckles on my right hand—the ungloved one—seen when I raised it to straighten my Aviators, were swollen to three times their normal size. My size thirteen feet, which were bare except for black slippers made from corduroy, were soaked through, like my shirt, with rainwater. It didn’t take the mind capacity of a Hewlett-Packard to compute the trouble I clearly represented. She glanced from my hand to my eyes to my feet, then all three again in quick succession. “Slippers,” was the only word she could manage.

  “I drive in them,” I said.

  “And walk around in the pouring rain?”

  “Not usually,” I admitted.

  “But…”

  “I was in a hurry. Didn’t think about switching to my shoes. They’re in my SUV.”

  She shuddered, let her gaze fall on my swollen knuckles again. “You need medical attention.”

  “I think I’ll tough it out,” I replied. “If worse comes to worse I know where the CVS is.” That’s the very moment when most people would have cracked a smile. I didn’t.

  “You’ve been following me for awhile,” she said.

  “I have.”

  “This is all so scary. I’m a second from yelling out for help.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “I have Mace spray,” she warned, while tugging at the strap of her pocketbook.

  “That could do you some good,” I said, and nodded. “That’s if you can get to it.”

  She frowned, probably wondering if I were serious.

  Partly.

  “If you want your wick lit I’m not the one,” she said.

  “I’d just like to see your eyes. Then we’ll take it from there.”

  She snapped her fingers across my field of vision. “Hello. What isn’t clicking in your head? You’ve been following me…like some stalker. Now you’re calmly asking to see my eyes? And I’m supposed to just…what? You really do need some medical attention. I’d talk to someone about your mental problems, as well. Just some advice.”

  I only heard one thing in her little eruption: Like some stalker. Progress had been made. Apparently I’d graduated in her opinion. Like a stalker, but not the genuine article.

  “I’m fine,” I told her.

  “Far from it,” she replied. “No matter what you say.”

  I stood mute, with no argument readily available. I’d lived a profligate life.

  “This is stupid. Let me get by,” she said.

  “No.”

  She searched the market, for someone, anyone, to assist her. A quick head count revealed eleven other people besides us in the store. None of them were remotely close to my size. And not one of them seemed even vaguely familiar with violence of any sort. The same couldn’t be said of me. She sighed in defeat, and then looked at me again.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “It is,” I agreed.

  We stood like that for a few beats.

  Then I said, “BagelMasters.”

  I’m sure her eyes widened under the big boxy shades.

  “I was there,” she said, “just this morning.”

  Before the CVS.

  I nodded in response.

  “You’ve been following me longer than I realized.”

  “There’s something about a woman in distress that pulls me in,” I said.

  “I’m sure you’ve caused quite a few women distress.”

  It was easier for her to say that than acknowledge what I’d seen at the bagel store.

  She’d sat at a table, alone, off in the corner, tapping her foot and bouncing her leg, staring at the parking lot outside. Her eyes were covered with those big boxy sunglasses. She was doing her best to appear normal, to feel normal, too, I would guess. If I were less perceptive, I wouldn’t have spotted her.

  I said, “Pretty animated conversation out in the parking lot before you started picking at your bagel. Somebody was really causing you some anguish. Some distress.”

  She glanced at her cell phone.

  “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I said.

  “Why would I do that?” she wanted to know.

  “Look me in the eyes and ask again,” I said. “Without hiding behind those shades.”

  “I’m not hiding behind anything,” she whispered.

  “It’s easy enough to disprove. Let me see your eyes.”

  “You’re manipulative.”

  I gave her a slight smile and no words. Manipulativ
e, without a doubt.

  Her shoulders sagged and she removed the shades, slowly.

  I’d expected them to enhance her beauty. But I wasn’t prepared for just how stunning they actually were, even with the discoloration from a recent black eye not completely faded away, even with copious makeup in that area doing little to cover up her lover’s cruelty and disregard for her worth. Nothing could ever diminish her eyes. They called to mind flower petals, the ocean, and the sun at varying times of the day. They completely shifted the balance in our exchange. Even now, recounting it all, I’m not ashamed to admit it.

  I managed to ask, “What color are they?”

  “They’ve been confused for blue, green, violet,” she said. “They’re actually gray.”

  “Okay.”

  “You made me bend. Happy now?”

  “I see we have something in common,” I said, glancing at her compromised eye.

  “You’re cruel.”

  “Your eyes are lovely,” I replied.

  “Lovely?” She snickered. “You are just full of surprises. Do you bake and garden, too?”

  “My chicken francaise would call up emotions in you that you didn’t even know existed. And I wouldn’t disrespect someone of your magnitude with a bouquet of roses.” I smirked and shook my head. “Totally lacking in creativity. Rather an arrangement of calla lilies or orchids.”

  She literally swallowed my words.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen shoulders so wide. You’re big.”

  “I’ve seen bigger.”

  “How tall are you?”

  “Tall enough,” I said.

  Her head-to-toe appraisal wasn’t subtle. I noticed the rise and fall of her chest.

  “I have to be very careful,” she explained to me, and by reflex, I would guess, she squinted her damaged eye.

  That gesture saddened me and endeared me to her all in the same breath.

  I said, “Careful is good. You should take your time to learn someone.”

  “Why do you want to learn me?” she asked.

  That was hard to answer. In a matter of minutes it had changed.

  “At first I thought you might help me,” I said.

  “At first?”

  I nodded. “But now I realize I might be able to help you, too.”

  “I scratch your back and you scratch mine?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” she said.

  An understatement.

  Two women who’d helped me were dead now. Brutal deaths, too. Decapitated.

  “What’s your name?” I asked to redirect my thoughts.

  She shook her head, touched her neck.

  I continued watching her. My glare had shrunk men twice her size, made their lips tremble and their bladders weaken. I had no plans of backing down. Probably the wrong tact but my nature was ignorant of any other approach. I wanted her name. Needed it.

  “Carmen,” she finally muttered.

  “Carmen,” I repeated, trying it out on my tongue. “I think I like that.”

  “My mother was big on Dorothy Dandridge,” she offered.

  “Carmen Jones. Movie adapted from the George Bizet opera. Otto Preminger directed.”

  “Every fool with an Internet connection and Wikipedia saved in their Favorites thinks they’re a genius.”

  “Don’t be cruel, Carmen,” I said. “I mean you no harm. Dorothy Dandridge was lovely. Your mother was wise to name you after her. The name suits you perfectly.”

  “My mother was wise. Very. Wiser than I’ve ever been. Always could sniff out a problem before it became one.” A slight chill only she could feel shook her frame. “She was right about every man I ever dated. ‘That one’s no good for you…Carmen.’ ‘That one has potential but something’s still off about him.’ I miss her wisdom. Miss her.”

  I said, “My condolences,” and added, “I’m very sorry.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with it. Ovarian…”

  “Still,” I said.

  Her gray eyes regarded me differently; they softened. “It’s been almost four years already.”

  I nodded empathetically. All I could do. And more than I normally would do.

  She took a couple of deep breaths. “They say that time heals all wounds,” she said. “I’d have to say that’s an awfully terrible lie. A very big one. It doesn’t heal. Nope.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, Carmen.”

  “Tell me about what happened to you,” she said. “Your eye? Your hand?”

  “Less than what happened to the other guy,” I said. “Just collateral damage.”

  “Why did you follow me today?”

  “Had to,” I said.

  “Had to?”

  “Yes.”

  Refrigerated air kicked around the green odor of vegetables and the orange and red and yellow odors of fruits. The rain outside increased and battered the fogged windows that fronted the Farmer’s Market. Lightning barked. Bone-colored slashes of it punctured the sky turned cobalt by the storm. Terrible weather made for a terrible mood.

  Usually.

  “What’s your name?” Carmen asked me.

  A Mexican family of four squabbled in soft Spanish by a stand of yams priced three for three dollars. The Farmer’s Market had a simple layout, comprised of just five somewhat narrow aisles. And signs similar to the one by the yams, constructed of cardboard with prices handwritten on them in black Magic Marker, were situated up and down each aisle by the other fruits and vegetables. Dead bulbs were in several overhead lighting fixtures. The market was darker than it needed to be. I fought against the natural urge of my mood to inch toward a similar darkness. The weather and the market were conspiring against me, but for the first time in a long while I had an ally. Carmen’s voice delighted my ears.

  “Not nice for you to force me to share,” she was saying, “while you go on keeping secrets.”

  I looked down at the fine-looking woman with skin the color of beef gravy and unexpected gray eyes. Some things you couldn’t run from no matter how hard you tried. Experience had taught me this very hard lesson. “Shell,” I said, struggling to swallow the syllable while wondering if she knew Henry Heimlich’s Maneuver.

  “You have a last name, Shell?”

  “I do,” I admitted.

  “Care to share?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Shell, man of a million secrets.” Her voice eased me from the dark days gone by.

  I looked at her, saw confusion and fear and sadness in her eyes. A gumbo of emotions spooned out for me to digest. I hardened my heart for her next response. Experience had taught me what it would be: a tight smile, then a hasty retreat, frantic looks over her shoulder to see if I were pursuing her. That was the typical response. Apparently Carmen wasn’t typical, though. She didn’t move in any discernible way.

  “I imagine being with you would be…difficult,” she said.

  Difficult. Nice way to put it.

  “That’s true,” I said without feeling.

  “You plan to harm me?” she asked, her gray eyes showing concern.

  “No,” I said with even less feeling.

  “This is all so very crazy. You promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “You need medical attention, Shell.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, either way, you’re not.”

  I thought about my eye, my right hand, my waterlogged feet. I didn’t sigh but I did frown as she dished out a slight smile. I rubbed the arm she would’ve touched then if this were a scene in a movie or a novel. The muscle in the forearm throbbed. “No, I guess I’m not okay. But I can be.”

  She realized the implication of my words. “I’m not the answer to anyone’s problems, Shell. Too many of my own. I’m more trouble than I’m worth. Trust me.”

  “Don’t underestimate your medicinal capabilities.”

  “Canabis
is medicinal. I’m just a woman with a boat-load of issues.”

  “I want to know all about you,” I said.

  “You need medical attention, Shell.”

  “I need you.”

  She sighed. “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What you said earlier…’bout my mother…that was very nice of you. I want you to know it means something.”

  I nodded bravely, tried not to think of the dreams that haunted me, awake as well as asleep. “I’m glad.”

  “You’re very tender. I bet most people never get to realize that.”

  What found my face wasn’t a smile per se, my mood was too dark for that, but it came from the same place.

  Carmen flipped her long black hair, rolled tension out of her neck.

  “Looks like you’ve got some stress,” I said.

  “Loads.”

  “Massage would take care of that.”

  “Are you offering, Shell-no-last-name-given?”

  My name was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on her lips.

  I held up my gloved left hand, flexed the fingers in the leather, the gesture the A to her Q.

  “Don’t tease me,” she said. “I’d do naked cartwheels in Times Square for a massage.”

  “I don’t tease, Carmen. And New York’s less than an hour drive.”

  She eyed me. After a moment of reflection she said, “You seem to be very intense.”

  Intense. The kindest description ever attributed to me. I wished I deserved it.

  “Very,” I said.

  She nodded, bit her lip. “That’s fine. That’s okay. I don’t mind intensity.”

  Doing her best to convince herself. I didn’t have a suitable reply. My intensity could only look attractive from a distance.

  “What’s happening here?” she said.

  I knew what she meant. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d like to find out.”

  “I need to walk away, Shell. That’d be the wise thing.”

  “Probably would.”

  “Yet I’m not moving.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “What is?”

  “This,” she said. “This.”

  “Somebody have a claim on you?”

  “Claim?” She said it in a tone that backed me up.

  “Are you involved with anyone?” I rephrased even though claim was the appropriate word.