Game Over! (Parker & Knight Book 3) (2 page)

Heather kissed him.

“Oh thank you for this baby, but there’s a chance I won’t be able to go.”

“Why? You won’t have school then,”

“No, but remember that I applied for that research project? If I’m chosen as an assistant than I’ll be too busy to get away.”

Parker hung his head.

“I’d forgotten about that, but maybe the start date will be pushed back again.”

“Or maybe I won’t be chosen to participate. I’ve made it past the first two rounds of applications, but there are still twelve of us hoping for three positions.”

“You’ll get it, and when you do, we’ll hold off on the trip. I know how important this is to you.”

“Important? Oh my God, it would be like a dream come true. Not only would I gain experience, but the position comes with paid tuition.”

“Great, then you can quit
Taggart’s.
”

Heather made a face.

“You hate it that I work there, don’t you?”

“A little, I mean you’re working for Tim Hearn and my ex-wife. Those are the last people I want you working for.”

“I know, but I really need the money.”

“I could help out.”

“I’m not taking your money, besides, you’re a cop; I know they don’t pay you a fortune.”

“That’s for sure, but the offer stands, and I still have a little money saved.”

Heather grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.

“Enough talk,”

Parker lifted the cover and looked beneath it at the silk nightie Heather was wearing.

He then sighed while giving her a look of disappointment.

“What’s that sigh for?”

“I was hoping you’d wear your uniform to bed.”

Heather laughed.

“Oh, do you fantasize about that?”

“Actually, all my fantasies involve you being naked.”

Heather slipped out of the nightie.

“Well then, you’re in luck,”

T
wo weeks later,
Taggart’s
was still bustling with activity when Heather walked in to begin her shift.

The bartender called her over to talk.

“Hi Jerry, what’s up?”

“The boss lady wants to see you; she’s back in the office.”

“Mrs. Hearn? Did she say why?”

“Nope, she just told me to send you back there.”

“All right, thanks,”

She entered the kitchen and was greeted by several people, most of whom she had worked with for years.

Heather walked toward the office with a growing feeling of dread. She knew that Rachel didn’t like her, and that despite her recent marriage, she still had a thing for Parker. There was also a rumor floating around that Rachel wanted to fire her, but that Timothy Hearn wouldn’t let her.

Heather didn’t know if that was true, but as she knocked on the office door, she began to wonder if she were about to be let go.

“Come in.”

Heather stepped inside and found Rachel sitting on the right at a large desk, while on the left was a long sofa and a coffee table.

During the renovation, Patrick Taggart’s old office was converted into a pantry while a new addition was built on to add a proper office. The space wasn’t very big, but it did contain enough room for a small bathroom and a tiny kitchen set-up. It also had a separate entrance so that the Hearns didn’t have to maneuver their way through the kitchen to enter it.

As Heather walked closer to the desk, she noticed the room had a clean smell to it, an odor of newness, of beginnings.
How ironic,
Heather thought, when she figured her time at
Taggart’s
was about to come to an end.

“You wanted to see me Mrs. Hearn?”

Rachel stared up at her, and then smiled.

“Hello Heather, how are you?”

“I’m good, and you?”

Rachel sent her a smile with a bit of mirth in it and Heather’s heart sank. Not only was she about to be fired, but the woman was going to enjoy doing it.

“I am doing very well, thank you, but it’s come to my attention that you’re not happy here.”

“What do you mean?”

Rachel rose from behind the desk and Heather noticed that she was wearing a polo shirt that had the name
Taggart’s
embroidered on one side. The shirt was tight and along with the designer jeans she was wearing, Heather could tell that Rachel had a very good figure.

Rachel stood before her, looking up slightly, as Heather stood a few inches taller. That’s when Heather spotted the barrettes in Rachel’s blond hair. She wore a large, silver, horseshoe-shaped barrette on each side, and they sparkled under the ceiling lights.

“I understand that you and the other waitresses are unhappy with the new uniforms?”

“Oh, well, yes,” Heather looked down at herself. “They are a bit... immodest?”

Rachel smiled.

“Actually, I would say that it makes you look like a slut.”

Heather saw the glee in Rachel’s eyes as the last word left her mouth, but she kept silent, wondering what was coming next.

Rachel pointed to herself.

“The shirt I have on will be the new uniform top. I expect they’ll be delivered sometime this week.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely, we’ll also begin selling them at the bar. As I explained to my husband, the name
Taggart’s
means something around here, and I intend to market it fully.”

“These new shirts will be for everyone, even the waitresses?” Heather asked.

“Yes, does that please you?”

“Yes, and thank you,”

Rachel smiled, as if at a private joke.

“It’s the least I can do.”

“What do you mean?”

Rachel waved the question away.

“Nevermind, and please pass the word along to the other waitresses.”

“I will, is there anything else?”

“No, oh, but you are working until closing, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good, now please start your shift,” Rachel said, and again Heather saw the private smile.

As she opened the door to leave the office, Tim Hearn appeared, his eyes went directly to Heather’s cleavage.

“Oh, how I am going to miss these uniforms.”

“Hello Mr. Hearn,”

“Heather, please, call me Tim,”

“All right, but if you’ll excuse me I have to begin work.”

“Right, I’ll see you around,”

Heather squeezed past Hearn and went to her locker, where she grabbed an order book and her work apron. As she walked out into the bar and began taking orders from a table of six, she remembered Rachel’s wry little smile, and for some reason, it gnawed at her.

***

H
earn shut the door and sighed.

“I cannot believe that girl is wasting herself on that loser ex-husband of yours.”

“Oh don’t worry, that will be ending soon,”

“How do you know?”

Rachel smiled.

“Because I have a plan, and when I’m through she’ll want nothing to do with him.”

Hearn studied her for a moment.

“Why are you trying to break them up? You still want him don’t you?”

“We’ve been married for less than a year and I know that you’ve already strayed several times, so don’t preach to me. We both know that we’re not good at monogamy.”

“Parker may sleep with you, but he’ll never take you back.”

“I know that, and I’m very happy being your wife, I just can’t stand seeing him with that girl.”

Hearn walked over and sat on the edge of the desk.

“This plan of yours will really break them up?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me help you with it,”

“Why?”

“Well, the poor girl will need someone to console her, won’t she?”

“Yes she will, and if it’s you, Rick will be less inclined to ever take her back, so yes, you can help.”

“So, when does this plan of yours begin?”

Rachel stood and placed her arms around Hearn’s neck.

“I’ve already planted the first seed.”

***

N
ico ran a hand through his hair as he looked at himself in the mirror. The man that looked back was barely recognizable.

His long silken hair was dull and half its normal length, having only eight months to grow back after the operation to remove the .32 slug that had penetrated his skull. He was skinnier than he’d been in years and looked as if he aged a decade, but at least he was alive.

He had no memory of the shooting, and couldn’t believe that he had nearly been turned into worm food by a ninety-nine-year-old man. He scowled, while thinking that if the old bastard hadn’t died of a heart attack that he would have killed him.

A lot had changed during the eight months he was in the coma. One of his girlfriends had moved away, taking his daughter with her, and he had no idea where she had gone. The mother of his other daughter had taken up with the man who owned the bodega in her neighborhood, a huge man who was an ex-wrestler. She was six months pregnant with the man’s child and said he treated her better than Nico ever had.

Learning of the death of his son’s mother shook him. Of the three women he had impregnated, she was the only one he ever had feelings for. She had overdosed on heroin, and his son was now in foster care.

It seemed to Nico as if the whole world had changed while he slept.
Dos
, the leader of a gang called
Muerte Soldados
or Death Soldiers, had been murdered by a rival gang, and the
Muerte Soldados
were no more, as their territory had been swallowed up.

Nico had grown up in that gang and the loss of it hurt deeply. It had been the closet thing he had to a family.

He limped back over to the chair in his cheap motel room, his left side noticeably weaker than his right. While in the hospital, he had heard the nurses talking about the re-opening of
Taggart’s
, and Timothy Hearn didn’t know it yet, but he was soon getting a new partner.

He picked up a five-pound dumbbell and began strengthening his left arm. Five pounds was pathetic, but even it was a strain. The bullet to the right side of his brain had rendered the left side of his body nearly unresponsive, and the months in bed had withered the rest of him.

They had given him a cane at the hospital, but Nico hated it, and preferred to walk with a limp, even though it left him looking more infirmed than the cane would have.

Someone knocked on the door. He placed the dumbbell out of sight at the side of the chair and looked through the peephole.

When he remembered who it was he was looking at, he smiled.

They never forget.

He opened the door and stared at the woman. She was good-looking, black, but her skin was so light that at their first meeting Nico had thought she was Hispanic. He knew who she was, but gazed at her in confusion anyway. The doctors must have told her that his memory was still foggy from his injury, and so he acted as if he couldn’t place her.

“Who are you?”

“Mr. Umbria, my name is Detective Knight; do you remember me, sir?”

Nico shook his head.

“I remember a big guy with dark hair, but I don’t remember his name.”

“His name was Detective Parker, he’s my partner. May I come in, sir?”

Nico let her in and waited, normally he liked sparring with cops, but he really was not himself and didn’t trust what he might say.

“We questioned you in connection with the murder of Charles Woolley.”

“Woolley?”

“Yes sir,”

Nico shrugged. The doctors told him that he could expect not to remember much of his recent past, and Woolley was a good part of his past to forget.

“I don’t remember him, but I really don’t remember much of anything that happened around the time I was injured.”

“I see.” Knight said, and Nico could tell that she was suspicious.

Nico lay on the bed and rested his head against the pillow.

“I need to sleep; can we talk some other time?”

Knight smiled at him.

“Oh we definitely will, get better Mr. Umbria,”

Nico watched her go, liking her rear nearly as much as her front. He closed his eyes and mumbled.

“Oh, I’ll get better, count on it, cop,”

***

R
achel walked over to the bar as Heather was picking up a drink order, and Heather saw that she was fiddling with one of the silver barrettes in her hair.

“Jerry, I’m going out for a while, and I may not be back before closing,”

“Yes ma’am, we’ll handle things,”

Rachel turned to stare at Heather, a smile playing on her lips.

Heather looked back at her. “Can I help you, Mrs. Hearn?”

“No.”

“All right... um, Jerry I need a Sea Breeze and a Kamikaze.”

“Coming up,”

Rachel took out her cell phone and paused by the door. When Heather finished delivering her drink order to the table, she saw that Rachel was still watching her, but now she also seemed to be discussing her with whoever was on the other end of the phone, and finding it all amusing as she laughed in a giggle. Just as Heather disappeared into the kitchen to pick up an order, she heard Rachel utter the words, “...absolutely clueless....”

When she came back out to the bar with her order, she saw that Rachel was gone, but she thought about what had just happened long after she left.

F
or the second time that day, Heather found herself called to the office; however, this time the request came from Mr. Hearn.

After knocking and being told to enter, Hearn walked over and shut the door.

“Hello Heather,”

“Mr. Hearn,”

“Why don’t we sit on the sofa and talk?”

Hearn sat down and Heather took a seat on his right. He was staring at her chest, as he always did, and she could smell a strong scent of liquor on his breath.

“You wanted to see me?”

Hearn smiled. “Who wouldn’t, you’re very beautiful,”

“Um, Mr. Hearn, I probably should be getting back out to the bar.”

“My wife went out earlier; do you know where she went?”

“No sir.”

“I do, and it’s not the first time she’s gone there.”

“Gone where?”

“Your boyfriend’s house,”

Heather shook her head.

“Rick isn’t sleeping with your wife.”

Hearn took a long swallow from a glass containing amber fluid; he then looked at Heather and shrugged.