Chapter 14

Red and Cheryl slipped Faye out while we were cleaning up and changing for dinner and drove her to within a block of home -- which got her in the door, as she was not immediately recognized by the paparazzi while walking up the sidewalk. We watched on drone feeds as she skittered up the front walk and through the door ahead of the quickest of the bunch and popped inside.

At that point, she got a hug from Roger, who asked, "Well? Did you accomplish anything?"

Faye sighed. "Scott wouldn't make any promises, but he said I'm in the running. I guess that's as good as I can ask for."

"Well, he's no fool -- I know he knows you would be valuable to him -- we spoke of it. Just bide your time, I guess, and with any luck, things will go your way."

Faye eyed him. "I think I owe you something, after what I did out there."

Roger sighed. "Don't bother -- I can't perform at all at this point. I don't think it would even be pleasant. Perhaps we could cuddle a bit at bedtime -- that's about all I think I can handle."

Rachel looked like she was about to cry, and I felt bad for her. I waved her off -- she didn't need her nose rubbed in this.

But Faye turned her attention elsewhere at that point, so Rachel didn't leave. "What about Nick and Elise?"

Roger shrugged. "At first, I was concerned -- Nick seemed to be pressing pretty hard -- but Elise is responding well..." The couple was on the couch -- and Elise was cuddled up, naked. "I don't think she has a home to go to at this point," he added.

Faye made a face. "Well, she won't need a bedroom, and even if she did Rachel won't be using hers again..." Roger just nodded.

"I can't fault Rachel's taste in men," Roger muttered. "She has better sense than I do." Rachel grinned from ear to ear at THAT! Faye nodded agreement and headed for the kitchen to see about dinner, and we turned our attention back to preparations to go out.

Andressino's had seen two shootings -- we went in prepared to be targets for the third. The girls dressed in highly revealing outfits, as usual, and we had Mike and Alisha keeping an eye on things, but we were all alert, too -- we were VERY visible these days, and if we were going to draw fire, it could come at any time. We played and cut up, but someone was always out of it, watching the feeds and our surroundings -- and it cooled things and interfered with dinner.

Naturally, nothing happened. Nothing happened at the dance club, either -- I don't even think we were recognized; it was just too crowded. We headed home about midnight and I was happy to hit the room with just my two girls in tow. I gave Shannon some serious attention -- a long, gentle, romantic session that ended passionately with me pouring a flood of little wigglers into her while she wailed my name, then drifted off, satiated and exhausted while Rachel tugged me into the other bedroom and asked for a similar tryst. Fortunately, my augmentation left me well able to bring both of them to rapture multiple times. When I had ridden Rachel to exhaustion, we decided that it might be nice for Shannon if I was there when she woke up, so we both went back to the king bed and snuggled up to her.

Saturday morning breakfast saw the three of us, Red, and Cheryl at another restaurant that had the distinction of being a crime scene -- but again, we saw no repetition of the event. I was beginning to wonder if we'd really flushed all of the local threats -- God knew we'd made ourselves highly visible. We wandered around downtown -- afoot, mostly -- and went back to that place that bothered me for lunch.

About halfway through lunch, the reason our ESP was pinging became evident when the manager and a couple of other people collared one of the waiters and put him on the street for skimming the till. They'd been watching him for days, apparently. Red quietly asked the owner if he wanted to press charges, but he didn't, so we left it alone.

That afternoon, we did more tourism and more shopping. Rachel suggested that we get more blatant -- she wanted to get naked and prance around on a leash -- but we considered that to be much too obvious. Red felt -- and I agreed -- that we were notorious enough.

We did dinner at a place at the top of the hit list, and dancing after at a club that was rowdy in the first place and had seen an incident in the second -- and got no bites. Based upon the way things were going, it looked like we were wasting our time, so we agreed to meet at the police station Monday morning and close up shop.

We were all a little depressed at our failure, so Rachel and Shannon and I just cuddled up and slept that night; we had a fairly early wake-up for Sunday morning breakfast with Rachel's family.

Sunday morning breakfast at the Mercers was a full-up 'big event.' We got in the Escalade about seven-thirty and led a little convoy of newsies and paparazzi around for a few minutes, and then went to Rachel's -- which thrilled the newsies to death, no doubt. But we ignored them and went inside and sat down to a major spread of food and family hospitality. This was Rachel's big goodbye, so we had to sit through all kinds of reminiscences and the girls all had to hang on one another and cry (I couldn't figure that one out, since Faye was probably going with us, but, hey... ). Somebody fished out the scrapbooks and the photo albums and they had video of Rachel and Shannon at the Prom (they'd gone together, unable to get dates -- young guys are SOOO stupid... ).

Around eleven, it seemed like we'd gotten past the whole thing and were in sustainment -- we could leave anytime, even though nobody had any plans, and we would be covered. Roger hopped up and said, "I think I'm going to run out for a newspaper and a couple of things to keep us going." He shook my hand and said, "I'm proud to know you and I know Rachel is in good hands." Faye hadn't been discussed -- for all I knew, someone would decide for us to hang in for another two weeks, so it could wait while Rachel had her moment. Roger hugged Rachel and told her to take care of me -- and did the same to Shannon, patted Nick on the shoulder and kissed Elise on the cheek before giving Faye a hug and bussing her on the mouth and saying, "Need anything?"

"Butter, maybe?" Faye replied.

"I'll see what I can do," he told her, and hit the door, waving jauntily.

He never came back.

Twenty minutes later, I was wondering how far away the convenience store was, but no one else seemed concerned, so I shrugged it off. But just under an hour later, the police were at the door.

"Mrs. Mercer? Mrs. Faye Mercer?" the cop asked.

"Yes..." Faye began to look worried.

"Can we step inside?" Newsies were all over the place out front.

"Certainly..." Faye backed up.

"Ma'am, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your husband's car hit a bridge abutment off the access road to 695. He didn't survive."

Faye gasped -- well, we all did, actually -- and Nick and I stepped up when it became apparent that she wasn't any too steady on her feet. Rachel wailed, "DADDY!" but she saved me from having to choose between herself and her mother by running into my arms. I had three women in a moment or two, since Roger had been the closest thing to a father Shannon had -- fortunately, she was narrow and could find a hole. Nick stood by with Elise, cuddling her while everybody worked through the initial shock.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the cop said, more or less embarrassed.

After a few minutes while everyone worked through things, the cop asked Faye to go down to the morgue and identify Roger. I told him we would follow him in the Escalade if he would give us an escort. He pulled in another car and we went in convoy.

It was Roger, all right. The coroner said, "He died instantly of massive head trauma -- but his body was riddled with cancer -- did you know that?"

Faye nodded. "We suspected. He was just getting ready to go get looked at -- things weren't right."

"I think he had a seizure," the coroner said. "He bit through his tongue, maybe before the impact. I'm ruling the death an accident." Faye just nodded, but when we were back in the Escalade, she said, "I'm not sure -- are you?" She didn't say what she wasn't sure about -- which was a good idea -- but everyone in the vehicle knew.

<The evidence is inconclusive, > the AI told me, back-channel. <There was a probe on surveillance, and video seems to indicate that Roger Mercer bent forward and stopped actively controlling the vehicle moments before the impact, but whether it was voluntary or not is unclear.>

"The AI isn't sure, either," I told Faye shortly. "It doesn't matter, does it?"

"No." She shook her head.

We went back to the house. The newsies were all over it, but had the sense not to be all over us. They got something from a bridge camera that was just as inconclusive -- and they weren't looking for foul play. As the day slid into evening, Rachel decided that she wanted to spend the night with her mother, so Shannon and I went back to the hotel and checked out. We had a team transport in to remove the surveillance gear from the two suites before we arrived, and I carried a transporter and a case of probes with me when we left -- everything else was cleaned up. I was told that there was no problem in delaying our transport for the funeral arrangements, since it had been on a flexible schedule in the first place.

Rachel slept with her mother for mutual comfort and I stayed out of the master suite -- it just wasn't right. Shannon and I slept together in Rachel's bed and we had sex -- but it was comfort sex, quiet and soft, but urgent -- an affirmation of life kind of thing. Nick and Elise woke us up around two -- one of the down-sides of enhanced hearing -- and I sent one of the probes I'd released to keep an eye on things into Nick's room to find Elise riding him slowly, cuddled up close, murmuring things like, "It'll be all right" and "I love you, Baby" and caressing his face and neck. Shannon put on her glasses and in a couple of minutes she climbed on me the same way, taking my cock inside her, then took them off and tucked her face into my neck and ground her pelvis against mine. I let Elise and Nick alone, too, and concentrated on my woman, but we both heard it when Nick took over and started pounding into her -- the fleshy slaps and Elise's soft cries were unmistakable -- and Shannon sped up and got more urgent with me as a result. When she went into orgasm, I rolled us over and took over, still tight and close, only my hips rocking, while she kissed and sucked and nibbled at my neck, and when she clenched and gasped in release a second time, I let go in her. After a minute or two, I rolled us back over so Shannon was on top and we went back to sleep, listening to Elise croon softly to Nick in the aftermath of their joining. Elise was shaping up, I figured, as I drifted off.