Hard Play Read online

  Dalton leaned forward. His lips were inches from hers. He sucked in through his nose, consuming the breath that escape her red lips, then pulled back with a jerk of his head.

  “Get in the truck,” he breathed, holding the passenger door open.

  Amy dabbed at the blood smear above her eye, pausing before she lifted herself into his truck.

  Dalton reiterated in a growl, “Get in the truck.”

  With her hands on the door and the armrest, Amy lifted herself into the cab of the truck. She paid no attention to her rising skirt or her flashing panties. She didn’t care that his nose was again only inches from her crotch as she adjusted herself, shifting into the bead-covered seat and leaning back.

  Dalton slammed the door as soon as her legs were tucked beneath the dash. Coming around to the other side, Dalton climbed behind the wheel.

  “You’re going to help me,” he whispered.

  His breath filled the cab with an acidic burn, a chemical sting, but it didn’t bother Amy. Her hands moved to her breasts, cupping and releasing them as though she’d just discovered their purpose. She said nothing and only smiled back at Dalton, completely submissive to his requests.

  “Glove box,” Dalton said as he tore a corner of tissue from the box between the seats.

  Amy clicked open the latch before her.

  “Give me the bag,” he demanded.

  She handed him a small Ziploc that glistened and sparkled like sugar beneath the tiny light bulb in the glove box. Tearing into it, Dalton pinched a bit of the powder between his fingers and shoved it into the paper in his hands. Crumpling it all into a small ball, he tossed it in his mouth, leaned back his head and choked it down in heavy dry heaves. Once it made its way through his throat, Dalton turned the key and the truck roared to life.

  It wasn’t long before they had wound through the city, got off the 101 Freeway and headed north on Topanga. Dalton turned onto Oxnard and into an unlit office complex. Hopping over speed bumps and careening through the roundabout at the end of the drive, Dalton turned right at the empty fountain—a boulder and horseshoe that doubled as a terrible work of art—and disappeared into the subterranean lot beside the building.

  The substructure was cavernous and dark. Cutting across rows of empty spaces and bouncing over concrete block, Dalton backed his truck against the delivery bay. Killing the hum of the engine, he laid on the horn. The lot echoed with the grimy, electric cry of amplified piezoelectric as his door flew open and Dalton got out. He walked to the end of his truck and waited in front of the rolls of steel that made up the back door. Stilling his shaking hand, he gripped the ivory of his pistol. His jaw shifted from side to side and beads of sweat formed along his brow as his fingers tightened around the gun.

  Jangling chains began behind the door. The foot of the bay twitched and lurched upward, revealing a pair of black, scuffed work boots. As the door rose, gray slacks then a utility belt revealed themselves.

  As the small golden security star appeared, a voice called through the opening, “Office park is closed. No after-hours deliveries.”

  Dalton drew his pistol and fired into the torso in front of him. The shot resounded through the tunnels of the basement, echoing off the walls of the lot as the security guard’s gut burst open, spraying the ground in crimson as he fell to the floor.

  “Amy,” Dalton called, motioning with his gun as he stepped over the bleeding pile. “Come now.”

  The passenger door of his Silverado swung open and Van’s slender, ivory legs shot onto the pavement. She sauntered over to Dalton, swaying her hips and running her hands through her hair.

  “I feel great,” she breathed through a crooked smile.

  Dalton ignored the provocative sways of her hips, the long, rubbing motions of her hands, gliding up and down her body and tossing her hair this way and that.

  Pointing at the truck’s bed, he growled, “Start unloading, Amy. Be very, very careful.”

  Ripping back the tarp, Amy revealed the stacks of clay bricks layered in the truck. Climbing in, she began removing them and laying them in piles on the ground. Steadily, she lifted herself in and out of the truck with brick after brick. As she worked, bending and stretching, her skirt rode up her thighs until it was but a belt of fabric around her waist. She bent this way and that, her slender, bare legs stretched up to her hips and only thin cotton panties covered her lower half.

  It wasn’t long before sweat began dripping down her chest and under her arms. It beaded behind her ears, sliding down her neck and pooling above her collar bone. She wiped at the cut above her eye, cleaning away the salty burn. Her thin, white blouse was wet and sticking to her arms and her short-cropped blazer was getting in the way. Amy cast off her jacket and threw her blouse to the ground. It wasn’t going to stop her. She unstrapped her bra and let it fall. She continued unloading the contents of Dalton’s truck now in nothing but her underwear and the thin black strip above her hips.

  Dalton appeared in the doorway as she finished. His eyes were big black buttons and his hair was hanging with sweat. He watched with a grin as his thin, leggy and nearly naked subordinate climbed from the bed of his truck and stood before him. The cotton on her slender hips was see-through with perspiration and Dalton showed no shame in staring.

  “Give me your clothes,” he breathed. “And your things from the truck.”

  Amy obeyed, stepping out of her remaining garments and handing them to Dalton. She bent over without regard for her naked skin and picked up her blazer and blouse, handing them over with a smile. She pranced her creamy body over to the cab of the truck and stretched herself into the back seat, emerging with the vials, the samples, the evidence and her purse; the red light was still flickering from the voicemail she’d missed at the lab, but it didn’t catch her eye. She gave the pile to her boss.

  He took them and pointed to the gray bricks, commanding, “A few of those as well.”

  Carrying all of Amy’s items and a black satchel he’d taken from the truck, Dalton led her naked body through the maze of dark hallways and to the service elevator. Amy moved into the corner. The stack of clay bricks in her arms was the only thing hiding her fair skin from view. She flashed an empty smile at Dalton as he pressed the button. They rode the metal box up until it chimed and the doors whispered open into the empty, column-lined lobby of the ground floor.

  “Get over here,” Dalton said as he pointed to the stair case in the corner. “The scopolamine should be wearing off soon.”

  “Okay,” Amy chirped as she sauntered to the stairs.

  Setting down the bricks beside her, she took a seat on the third step and looked to Dalton for further instruction. He came and sat beside her, opening his satchel and setting it by her feet. He pulled from the black bag a handful of brass and aluminum electrodes, a handful of wire and a roll of duct tape. Taking a brick off the ground, he held it in one hand and jammed an electrode into the clay with his other, then another. Then he pulled out a small black, plastic box and tore a piece of tape, adhering the box to the brick. Dalton’s hand shook and his body rocked back and forth as Amy watched him wire the electrodes into the piece of plastic. With a flip of a hidden switch, the black plastic blinked to life and red numbers appeared on its face. It was a clock and it immediately began counting backward.

  “Stand up,” Dalton said.

  Amy stood and held her arms up high over her head. Her narrow waist was at its thinnest when she stood like this.

  “Step down. Turn around,” he added.

  Her breasts swung as she stepped down the two stairs and turned to face Dalton.

  He stood and tore tape from the roll, it crackled and popped as he wrapped it around Amy’s waist.

  “Hold this,” he said as he handed her the armed brick of plastic explosive.

  Amy obliged, hugging it tight to her chest as Dalton wrapped layer after layer of tape, crisscrossing it in a vest around her body, affixing the block of clay to her naked chest.

  “What
is it?” she asked absently. “It smells like molding clay.”

  “It’s an explosive, Amy. It’ll go off in four hours and you’ll be dead.”

  “Oh, okay, Jim,” she replied in the same empty, hollow tone. “What now?”

  “We need to get rid of some things now, Amy. Come with me.”

  She followed Dalton into the back of the lobby where he had filled a trash can with the vials, the samples and her clothes.

  “Where’s your phone?” he asked. “I need to call my daughter.”

  She extended one, long finger, pointing down into the trashcan.

  He paused as he bent over, adding, “Did you know I have a daughter, Amy? I do. Had a wife too.”

  She shook her head.

  Dalton reached in and rummaged through the pile with no concern for the broken glass or urine samples. Clasping the phone in his hand, he stood and pointed all around the room.

  “These people took her from me,” he growled.

  Then he turned the phone over, laughing at the flashing missed call from Frank Black.

  “What now, Jim?” Amy asked as she folded her arms, holding the explosive against her chest.

  “Now you help me put the rest of these up. At least until you stop helping me.” He pointed to the stack of bricks. “But my daughter should be here by then.”

  As he punched numbers into the phone, he doused the trash bin in lighter fluid. Then he flipped a match into the bucket and the contents burst into flames. Fire danced and popped and jumped, exaggerating Amy’s long legs and the curves of her body and the hard edges of the tape and the clay box on her chest as her shadow twisted along the walls. Smoke wafted up into the high ceilings of the front lobby. Charbroiled cotton and seared wool filled the room. As Dalton went to work on more bricks of clay, Amy’s naked body glistened in the glow of her burning clothes, her disintegrating proof, and her smoldering identity.

  She grinned into the flames.

  Chapter 17

  The moon sat high in the sky outside Chad’s hospital room, its light spilling through the windows and mixing with the dim glow of artificial light. The monitors flashed and beeped steady signs of life as Frank sat with his legs crossed in the corner. Beneath the heavy scent of disinfectant and latex, you could smell the smoke and cedar still lingering on Frank’s jacket. Cafeteria meatloaf heavy with ketchup wafted in the air. Listening to the steady rhythm of Chad’s ventilator pumping his chest up and down, Frank stared into the neatly tucked sheets on the bed, watching the motionless limbs of Chad Campbell. He waited quietly, his handcuffs dangling from his fingers, clicking and clanging in time with the sounds of the machines.

  The noises in the hall had died. The nurses shuffling back and forth, the gurneys squeaking against the tile, the wobbly wheel of the dinner cart as it went from room to room, had all calmed in the hours since Frank had arrived. Even the flutters of conversation had begun to die down as the visiting hours came to a close.

  The minute hand crept around the clock, its ticking booming over the rasp of the ventilator and the clang of his cuffs. As the long hand reached for the X, the door to the room creaked open. Frank stayed still as he watched Felicia Berry creep into the room. Raspberry and citrus filled the room. She tiptoed, trying as best she could to keep her stilettos from cracking against the floor. Her hips swayed to and fro as she lifted and dropped her feet with care. Frank shook his head at the tight curves of her denim-clad ass as it shifted back and forth in the seat of her jeans.

  Frank said nothing as she stepped between him and Chad. She leaned across the bed, stretching her body as she checked the beating waves of his EKG and the electric impulses on the EEG. Confirming he was still a vegetable with a swat on the cheek and a kiss on the lips, her hand darted for the cord.

  At that, Frank hopped to his feet.

  Standing right behind her, he whispered into her hair, “I don’t think so, Miss Dalton.”

  Before she could turn, he slapped his hand around Felicia’s arm. The cuff clicked as it locked around her thin wrist.

  She bolted around, but Frank held the other end of the cuffs with a firm grip, pulling her arm around her body as she turned.

  “What the fuck, Frank?” she snarled into his face.

  He slapped the other wrist into the cuffs and grabbed her by the shoulders. Tugging and pushing on her body, he forced her into his seat in the corner.

  “Sit down,” Frank growled.

  With one last push, her body collapsed beneath her, sending her into the straight-backed gray chair. Her cell phone popped out of her back pocket and clattered to the floor. Felicia’s head hung low to her chest, her loose curls covering her pouty face and wondrous eyes, brushing at the valley between her breasts. The cuffs kept her wrists close in her lap, forcing her cleavage together, deepening the valley and pushing the milky mounds of flesh from her low-cut tank.

  “I know what you’re up to,” Frank breathed down on her.

  She looked up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know about Johnson and Allen and Campbell,” he said, pointing at the body on the bed.

  Then he added, “I know about you and your dad.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Felicia snapped.

  She tried to jump from the chair, but Frank forced her back down with a shove.

  “I know this is because your mom died,” he said.

  She scoffed and slapped at her knee with her cuffed hands.

  “Didn’t think you’d remember,” she said.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t,” Frank seethed. “I read the file.”

  “But I...”

  “You what? Broke into my place? Stole your mother’s case files and wrote up a phony day-planner?”

  Felicia smiled. Her plastic smile taunted him.

  Tugging on the chains of the cuffs and pulling her to her feet, Frank quipped, “I keep copies.”

  She breathed into his face, “I underestimated you, Black. Me and my dad. We would’ve had you if you weren’t such a drunk. That’s the only reason you’re not dead right now.”

  Frank pushed her back into her seat. He leaned back against the hospital bed and crossed one leg over the other.

  Scrutinizing her, he said, “I know you’re hurt, but that’s no excuse to go around hurting other people.”

  “Like you?”

  “No, Doll,” Frank growled. “What you did isn’t what I do.”

  “Whatever, Frank. At least I’m helping my dad.”

  “Cute,” Frank cracked. “Very cute.”

  Felicia’s hands darted forward, cupping Frank’s manhood.

  “Come on,” she said as she rubbed her palms up and down his zipper. “You sure you don’t want to let me go? I’ll make you see heaven.”

  Before Frank could remark, Felicia’s phone buzzed against the tile. Its face lit and a number Frank recognized darted across the screen. He slapped Felicia’s groping hands from his dick and scooped the device from the floor.

  “Van. It’s Black,” Frank said into the mouthpiece. “I have Felicia.”

  “Well then, Mr. Black,” a low raspy voice purred across the line. “It would appear we’ve reached an impasse.”

  “Who is this?” Frank snarled. “Dalton?”

  Felicia jumped to her feet at the name. Smirking with salvation, she tossed her hands up and down, shaking and jangling her restraints. Frank reached one hand forward. Grimacing, he palmed her forehead and pressed her back into her seat.

  Even through miles of telephone line, satellite relays and digital crossovers, Frank could still hear Dalton’s teeth as they ground away beneath his swaying jaw.

  “Indeed it is, Mr. Black,” the phone purred. “And I believe you have something that is mine.”

  “Fuck you, Jim,” Frank barked. “Felicia’s going to prison and you’re next.”

  There was a long minute in which the only sound on the line was Dalton’s heavy breathing and the slow but steady degeneration of his
molars. Then Dalton shouted, his voice crackled and popped in the phone’s tiny speaker.

  “This is my game!” he roared. “My games. My rules, Mr. Black. I’ll kill her right now.”

  “Wrong,” Frank hissed.

  His voice was rough and gravelly. He stared down at Felicia. She quivered beneath his gaze as his eyes flared up with anger. The lines in Frank’s face deepened as he tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes. He bent forward and yanked her up by her wrists.

  “It’s my game,” he barked into the mouthpiece, holding Felicia by her hair. “You hurt her and I kill your daughter.”

  Frank shoved the phone into Felicia’s face and said, “Say hello to Daddy.”

  She tried to mumble something but the glass screen pressed her lips too tightly to move. Frank returned the phone to his cheek and yanked back on her hair, causing her to yip loud enough for Dalton to hear it.

  “You wouldn’t,” Dalton cracked. “You’re the good guy.”

  Frank’s hand moved from her hair to her neck. He curled his fingers ’til he could feel the fibers of her tendons. Then he squeezed a little harder. Her breaths rasped beneath the pressure. Her eyes begged him to stop but her lips deceived her, twisting into a distorted smile. He eased her to her knees by her throat and with a smug decisiveness, Frank answered Dalton.

  “It’s all relative, Jim,” he said.

  “But you were a cop,” Dalton disputed. His panic growing more and more evident with each word. “Oath of Honor and all that shit.”

  “Not for a long time,” Frank growled as he peered down on Felicia, his hand tightening around her neck.

  “I could crush her trachea right now,” he hissed across the line. “We trade. We play by my rules and no one gets hurt. Okay?”

  Felicia whimpered as the thick fingers closed around her neck, pinching her veins and restricting the flow of blood to her head. Her face went white as her lips spread wide, gasping at any bit of air they could get.