Chapter 24

"How did this happen?" David said to Nora as he rushed to his office.

"I don't know. I said my colleague screwed up, but I could be wrong about that. Peck is armed, and he fired on the assault team."

"I'm in my office now," David said as he locked the door. "I'll phase out and fix this right now."

He ended the call, sat in his executive chair, and his consciousness left his body, connecting with Peck.

The violent pimp had a gun pressed against a girl's head. Another girl lay on the floor, bleeding. Her chest moved, though, David noticed. She wasn't dead. Bella, David thought. The wounded girl bleeding on the floor was named Bella, Eileen's friend, the one he told Eileen he'd try to place in protective custody in a foster home.

The other girl cowering in a corner was Alice, the troublemaker who enjoyed watching Peck inflicting pain on the other girls. David couldn't remember the name of the girl under Peck's gun.

Only a split-second went by after David connected with Peck before David took action. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and jerked it straight up. It went off, but the girl it had been pressed against wasn't harmed. She screamed, twisted out of Peck's grasp, and fainted. Before David tore the gun out of Peck's hand, it went off again, the bullet slamming into the wall inches from Alice's head.

Fuck this, David thought, dropped the gun to the floor, and fashioned four large fists. Two of them pummeled Peck's face; the other two pounded his stomach. A constructed invisible boot kicked the pimp in the balls.

Busy with Peck, David didn't notice Alice pick up the weapon and point it at Peck. The explosion when Alice pulled the trigger caught David's attention, though. The bullet struck Peck in the neck. Blood spurted three feet, maybe farther, and Peck crumpled to the floor.

Astonished by spurting blood, David was a split-second late when he tried to stop Alice. She stuck the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. A pink mist exploded out the back of her head, and her body fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Fuck, David muttered silently and opened the door to the room. A burly man wearing body armor rushed by him, or more accurately, through him, and then another, but their weapons weren't needed. Paramedics were needed for Bella, though, and the girl who had fainted would need more than medical care. She'd looked death in the face, and it was ugly. She'd see that face in nightmares for years to come, David predicted.

David swooped down next to Bella and let out a girlish groan, which prompted an immediate response from one of the members of the assault team.

"One of the girls is alive!" the behemoth bellowed.

The other girl took that moment to groan and open her terrified eyes.

"Make that two of them! Send in the paramedics!"

David returned to his body, called his wife, and gave her a detailed account of what he'd done and witnessed.

"Will Bella be all right?" Nora said.

"Don't know. I knew you'd be anxious, so I returned to my body to inform you what happened. I'll phase out in a few moments and check on Bella, the other girl, too. Alice surprised me, Nora. I didn't expect..." He groaned. "I'm just no good at this level of violence. Gotta go." He hung up, quickly found a toilet, and threw up.

An hour later, Bella died on the operating table.

David called Dorothy Hummel, dialing the number of the cell phone that Flint had given her.

"Did Eileen tell you about James Peck, Dorothy?" David said.

"Yes. It is her understanding that that monster would be arrested today."

"He's dead." David went on to tell Dorothy what happened, minimizing the gory detail. "Would you break the news to Eileen? I'm not sure, but I think Bella was her friend, and plan on one more day at the hotel with her. If Bella was a friend, your daughter will need you. Besides, Flint wasn't able to arrange your disappearance as quickly as we thought."

Later, Rima was not pleased with David's progress, but then Rima didn't know why David had so much difficulty concentrating on Arabic. Horrendous images from sudden violent death kept intruding on his mind.

Shortly after Rima left, Nora stepped into David's office three hours before her normal arrival time from work.

"Pack a bag, buster, we're flying to the lake," Nora said.

"Can't," David said. "Gotta work on that tender offer. We're presenting it to the Johnson board day after tomorrow."

"Have you given the lawyers all relevant information?"

"Yes, but..."

"Is Grace involved in the preparation of the offer?"

"Yes, but..."

"David, you need a day off. To start with, you look like shit."

"Thanks a bunch, just what I needed."

Nora laughed. "Flint and Darla will be flying with us, so..."

"Flint is supposed to arrange for Dorothy Hummel's disappearance," David said.

"That's arranged."

"But..."

"He told you he needed another day to give you a day off, numbskull."

"What about my mother and Joe?"

"Carol's feeling poorly. She begged off. Joe won't go unless your mother goes." Nora grinned. "I have your mother's permission to bring Flint into our group ahead of her."

"What's wrong with Mom?" he said, suddenly worried about her.

"She's in her late forties. She's pregnant. It might just be that she doesn't feel like being jostled around in an airplane and on a boat. It's just for tonight, David. We'll fly back late tomorrow afternoon after spending the day on the lake. Come on. I'll pack while you pack. We leave in thirty minutes. Flint called the airport. Your Cessna will be fueled and ready to fly when we get there, and what's more you can relax on the flight. Flint will do the flying, not you."

"The stars are the streetlights of eternity," David said as he gazed at the dazzling night sky. "I didn't make that up. I read it somewhere, sometime."

The four of them were stretched out on their backs on mats on the bow of David's Searay Sports Cruiser. They were naked and had just clamored up out of the water after a night swim.

"Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but that doesn't stop a wise man from trying," Nora said and squeezed David's hand with hers. "Harry Anderson wrote those words."

"Who's Harry Anderson?" David asked.

"An actor, I think, or a magician," Nora said.

"Both," Flint said. "He was on the sitcom, Night Court, I think." He paused and said, "The stars lie in such apparent confusion." He snorted. "That's a part of a quote, the only part I remember. I remember it because it's accurate."

"Edmond Burke wrote those words," Darla said. "Besides, the stars lie in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary occasion to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity."

"I like David's quote," Flint said. "Streetlights of eternity. Yeah, I like that. A simple statement for a complex concept. Each light is a different past, going back to eternity."

Nora turned and kissed Flint's shoulder and said, "Darla picked the right guy, Flint." She turned and moved her upper torso over him, dragging her naked breasts across his chest, and kissed his lips. "I think you should fuck me, right here, right now," she said with a throaty voice and kissed him again, but with more passion. "Is he hard, Darla?"

"Lemme check," Darla said. "Half-hard," she said moments later. "But rising to the occasion. I'm giving him a hand."

"What about you?" Flint said to Nora. "Are you wet?"

"Lemme check," David said. "Half-wet, which I'm remedying."

"Flint's hard now," Darla said.

"And Nora's sopping," David said. "Her little nubbin is peeking out from under its hood."

"Cover me, Flint," Nora said, pulling at his shoulders. "Cover me and fuck me."

Flint rolled between her legs, and Darla settled Flint's cock in Nora's cunt. Flint pushed and entered her.

"You can let loose, now, Darla," Flint said.

"Shucks," Darla said as she retracted her hand, but not before she gave Nora's clit an enthusiastic rubbing.

Flint pushed again and bottomed out.

"Ah," Nora said, drawing out the word to express the pleasure she felt.

David and Darla watched as Flint moved over Nora. She matched his thrusts with her ratcheting hips. They moved with fluid grace, flowing toward and away from each other as if with one mind.

"My guy is fucking your gal," Darla said to David.

"Yes he is," David said. "They look good together."

"Yes they do," Darla said. "Nibble on your gal's left nipple; I'll suck on her right."

"An order I'll happily obey," David said, but his lips did a dance down his wife's sensuous neck before they did any nibbling.

"That's lovely," Nora gushed as she rotated her hips to meet Flint's driving cock. "You know what this means, don't you, Flint?"

"What," he grunted.

"This means that you are now part of our group. This means we can fuck anytime the urge strikes us, just us, or with David or Darla or Joe or Carol. Fair warning. You're new and novel. I plan to fuck you a lot. I adore fucking. While in college, I was a slut. I fucked and fucked and fucked, not because I lacked self-esteem, but because I adored fucking."

"Jesus!" Flint gushed.

"Oh, Darla, he's good!" Nora exclaimed. "He's got the motion. He hits my clit going in and coming out. Perfect!"

"Fuck her, Flint. Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her," Darla breathed. "Are you hard, David?"

"Tempered steel comes to mind," David said.

"Goody," Darla said and scrambled over Flint and Nora. She straddled her brother, waved his cock through her cunt and took him fully inside her with one bounce. "Ah," she said, stretching out the expression of delight.