I noticed that my palms were sweating as I gripped the door handle. Nervously, I pulled the door open and stepped into what was a surprisingly bright, modern and busy establishment. I took another step and heard a chair to my left scrape along the tiled floor, almost like fingernails on a blackboard, only much louder. I turned to look in that direction. I saw a flash and felt a very hot, heavy object smash into my chest.

I staggered backward, but remained standing as I struggled to understand the situation in which I was now immersed. I recognized Harold Blake’s scowling face over the barrel of a handgun he held pointed at my chest. It was obvious from the size of the bore that he was packing something considerably bigger than the .22 caliber I had expected.

He shouted at me, but I was unable to understand it due to the ringing in my ears. While I couldn’t actually understand him, I could easily decipher his intentions. It was apparent that he had become completely unhinged. He raised the gun slightly higher and took a step closer to me as a nasty grin spread across his face.

Then it disappeared. Not just his grin, but his entire face.

“Jesus, Dave, you’ve been shot!” Les Williams observed as he hurried over and carefully lowered me into a convenient chair.

Les was the husband of my wife’s cousin. He was a detective with the local police force and a pretty good guy. I liked him even better now, since Harold Blake was supine on the floor with his eyes opened but not registering anything. Les was a big guy and he had really planted a right cross into Blake’s ugly mug.

Les began grabbing paper napkins and holding them to my chest as he yelled for the bartender to call for an ambulance. I was feeling pretty light headed. My ass began to slide from the wooden chair. A man who had moved next to Les grabbed me under my armpits and gently lowered me to the floor.

I heard Les speak softly to the other man. “That damned ambulance had better get here pretty quick or they’ll be taking Dave straight to the morgue.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” was all I could manage before I passed out.

At some point, I began to awaken. I didn’t have any difficulty identifying the smells and sounds of a hospital. I was drowsy as all hell and my chest ached like nothing I had ever experienced. I could hear voices, so I decided to keep my eyes closed and listen to what was being said.

“Mother, who the hell is that goddamned Harold Blake?” my daughter, Serena demanded. “I know he works in your company, but why did he shoot Dad? Have you or Dad had trouble with him?”

“He’s been pestering me since my trip to the seminar in Las Vegas two weeks ago,” Shannon, my loving wife, replied. “I never realized he was so unstable.”

“That wasn’t much of an explanation,” Serena shot back. “Why was he bothering you after your trip? You told me you had a great time with Janice Long and the new girl in accounting. Why the hell did this miserable bastard shoot Dad? There’s a lot you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?

“Are you having an affair with that asshole? Are you cheating on Dad? Tell me you’re not sleeping with that miserable creep!”

As I lay in the bed listening, I very much hoped that Serena was referring to Blake and not me. Still, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Shannon asked Serena which creep she was talking about.

“Of course not!” Shannon insisted. “Blake wound up at the seminar when Bill Lane’s wife became so ill that Bill couldn’t attend. Blake replaced him. I didn’t even know he was in Vegas until I got back home.”

“If you didn’t know he was there, why did he start pestering you? What did he want?”

“He wanted me to sleep with him. He was trying to blackmail me and I refused to go along with it,” Shannon responded.

“Mom, your obtuse responses are really starting to piss me off! Everything you tell me creates more questions, the answers to which I shouldn’t have to drag out of you.

“Dad’s lying in this hospital bed after having a .38 slug dug out of his chest. It barely missed his heart and did manage to nick a lung. He was shot by a work associate of yours, who you now claim was trying to blackmail you for sex, but you fail to mention the answers to all of the questions that seem quite obvious to me. Why, where, when, who, how and what the fuck?”

“Mrs. Grant? My associate and I would like to ask you a few questions about this afternoon’s incident. Could you come with us, please?” a firm female voice asked. “We need to take your statement so we can get to the bottom of this shooting.”

“I hope the police have better luck than I just did,” muttered Serena under her breath as I heard a door close. “Dad, please tell me you’re going to be okay. Mom and I’d be lost without you.”

I carefully opened one eye ever so slightly to see that Serena was alone with her face in her hands. It looked like she was trying to hold back her tears.

“I’ll be better as soon as I’m able,” I croaked out much to Serena’s surprise and relief.

“Dad! You’re awake. They told us that you were doing fine and were out of danger. They let Mom and me sit by your bed and wait for the anesthesia to wear off. I promised to let the nurse know as soon as you woke up.”

With that, Serena jumped up and left the room only to return in a minute or so. Behind her was a middle aged nurse with a smile. She gave me some ice to slurp on while she quickly checked me for obvious issues.

“I’ll tell the doctor that you’re awake and talking, Mr. Grant. It’s good to see you feeling better. You’ll be going home in no time.” With that, she left the room.

“Can you remember what happened?” Serena asked. “Are you in much pain?”

“Some bastard shot me. It hurts like hell,” I replied. “My question to you is why did that prick try to kill me?”

“No one knows, Dad. The police are investigating it. They’re talking to Mom right now,” Serena stated. “Did you ever have any trouble with Harold Blake?

“Harold Blake?” I repeated. “I saw him once at a work function of your mother’s. I don’t think I ever spoke to him. He shot me?”

“He shot you in the chest with a .38 Special. The bullet missed your heart but did graze a lung. He was going to shoot you a second time but luckily, Les Williams was sitting at the bar. He knocked Blake into the middle of next week before he could pull the trigger again. You were lucky that Les was there.”

“Yeah, I’m lucky as all hell,” I sarcastically agreed. “Was your mother upset when she heard that I’d been shot?”

“Are you kidding? She was a wreck. I had to drive her here while she cried all the way,” Serena answered. “Why would you ask that? You know Mom loves you. Is there something going on I don’t know about?”

“There seems to be a lot going on that neither of us know about,” was my reply. “The obvious question is this: Why did that asshole try to kill me? A close second and almost as important is also obvious. Does your mother have anything to do with the reason that prick shot me?”

“She insisted that he was trying to blackmail her for sex,” Serena stated. “She neglected to mention what he held over her to cause him to think she’d give in to him.”

“I don’t have to tell you that if your mother’s been stepping out on me, I’ll dump her so fast her head will be spinning. I’ve been faithful our entire marriage and won’t tolerate your mother taking a stroll on the wild side.”

“You’ve never made any secret of your feelings about fidelity, Dad. Mom knows how you feel and I don’t think she’d ever cheat on you. You know how great Mom still looks. She’d never be with a creep like Harold Blake if she did decide to partake in some strange.”

“If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a piss-poor job,” I retorted. “Your mom may be a fox, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for her to cheat on me if she finds an especially great guy. Marriage doesn’t work that way.”

Serena quickly realized that she had made a gaffe and tried to recover. “I didn’t mean she’d cheat on you with anyone. I was just saying that if she ever did cheat, it would be with someone a lot better than Harold Blake. That’s all I meant”

“Just stop digging, Serena,” I insisted.

“Dave! You’re awake!” Shannon blurted from the doorway. “I was so worried about you!”

“Why worry about me?” I challenged. “One of your workmates shot me with a .38 special. No big deal, depending on his reason for trying to off me, of course.”

Shannon was shocked by my words. She stopped moving toward my bed and began sobbing.

“He shot you because I told him that you’d kick his ass if he kept bothering me. He has some videos of me in compromising positions. He thought I’d sleep with him rather than let him show you the videos. That was when I stupidly threatened him with a serious ass kicking from you, Dave.

“I didn’t realize how unstable he was. He told me that if you came after him, he’d shoot you,” Shannon revealed. “He said he had a permit to carry a weapon and he’d use it if you so much as looked at him cross-eyed.”

“Did he tell you he had a .38 Special? That’s a pretty damn powerful weapon, especially within ten feet,” I explained tersely.

“At first he said he had a .22 Ruger. I laughed at him. I said you’d shove that cap gun up his ass if he ever pulled it on you,” Shannon admitted. “Apparently he bought the .38 as soon as his waiting period was over.”

“Let me see if I have this straight. This crazy bastard tells you that he’ll shoot me with his .22 if I approach him for any reason. That prompts you to tell him his gun is too ineffective to take me down, so he takes your advice seriously and secures a bigger gun?

“Why would you threaten him without telling me about it? Why did you urge him to get a bigger gun?” I seethed.

“The police just asked me the same thing,” Shannon acknowledged. “I was trying to dissuade him from harming you. I thought by telling him how big and tough you are, he’d back down. I wasn’t expecting him to buy a bigger gun. You know I’d never deliberately provoke someone into shooting you.”

“Yet, you did exactly that, Mom,” Serena broke in. “You still haven’t told us what incriminating videos he had in his possession and how he came by them. What the hell did you do, Mom?”

“The new girl who went to the seminar with us is younger and a lot more of a free spirit than Janice and I. It was really hot in Vegas and she had friends who were members of a private club. She kept asking us to go with her to the club. One of the perks was use of a beautiful Olympic size swimming pool.”

“I’m not going to ask any more questions, Mom,” Serena stated. “Obviously, there’s a lot more to the story.”

“It was a private club where members and guests went naked, or at least topless. I’m embarrassed to admit Janice and I agreed to go after our seminar finished for the day. We were pretty nervous at first, but after half an hour or so, it felt natural to be topless in front of other people.

“I didn’t know it, but Harold Blake had a friend in the club. There were rules against taking pictures and videos, but he obviously broke those rules. He sneaked videos of Janice and me topless. When we returned from Vegas he emailed me copies and said he’d send them to Dave, Mom and Dad and anyone else he could get addresses for. Janice said he did the same thing to her.

“He wrote the email so it sounded like we had sex several times in Vegas. He just wanted more of the same. That kept me from showing it to you, Dave. I was afraid that you’d think it was true. It wasn’t. I’d never cheat on you!”

I was flabbergasted at Shannon’s explanation of the events in Vegas that led up to me being shot. How could I have been so naïve? Sweat began dripping from my forehead.

“I have to ask you both to leave,” declared a tall stranger as he entered the room. “I allowed you to sit with your husband and father thinking he’d awaken to friendly faces. I didn’t expect to find him as stressed as he is at the moment. If his recovery goes like I feel it will, you’ll be able to take him home in a day or two. It was fortunate that the bullet followed the path it did.”

“Of course, Doctor Raines,” replied Serena as she stood and guided her mother to the door.

The guy who apparently was a doctor examined my wound, but I fell asleep before he completed his survey.

The next time I woke up, a police officer and a man in civilian clothes were in the room. The police officer nodded when he saw me open my eyes.

“Mr. Bell? I’m Officer Hastings and this is Detective Allen. We have a few questions we’d like to ask you about the events that led up to you requiring surgery. Do you feel well enough to talk to us? We’ll try to be brief.”

“I really don’t know much, but I’ll answer your questions the best I can,” I replied.

“Perhaps it would be faster if you just tell us what happened,” Detective Allen suggested.

I proceeded to tell them what I could remember from the time I opened the door to the pub to the time I awoke in a hospital bed.

“Had you ever interacted with Harold Blake before he shot you?” asked the detective.

When I shook my head he then asked, “Did you read the emails he sent to your wife? She told us you weren’t computer savvy and didn’t even know her password.”

This detective was making it easy for me with the softballs he was lobbing over the plate.

“Shannon was correct. I’m not good with computers and she’s never told me any of her passwords. Did he email something that indicated he was going to shoot me?”

“I really can’t discuss what we’ve learned so far. We’re just trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together,” Allen responded before asking a few more questions about any interactions I ever had with Blake.

I told him that I had seen him once at one of Shannon’s company events and never spoke to him. Shannon had never mentioned his name, to my recollection. They seemed satisfied and soon left me alone with my thoughts.

I had really fucked this up! That was apparent. Shannon said she never slept with the bastard and I believed her. She seldom lied, especially about anything major, and she had ‘tells’ that let me know if she was stretching the truth. She didn’t exhibit them when she explained to Serena and me about Blake wanting a piece of her ass.