Killer Kisses (3 page)

His piggy eyes narrowed and his nose glowed like a hot coal.

“At least when I wake up in the morning, I’m not
ugly
!”

“B-b-bastard!”

Greeley whirled on Simon.

“Well, if it ain’t Stutterin’ Simon. Here to see your ugly girlfriend? Don’t worry. I was just leaving.” He stumbled down the hall.

For once, Polly was relieved Simon didn’t make eye contact.

“Thank you, Simon.” Hot tears of humiliation spilled down her cheeks. “I’m afraid when I leave in the morning. And I’m terrified when I come home. The police said there was nothing I could do.”

“C-call me.” Simon looked at the ceiling. “I’ll l-look out for G-Greeley.”

“Brilliant! I’ll call from outside to make sure the coast is clear. If only there was some way I could make the bastard pay for terrorizing me and my cats.”

And if only I were your girlfriend
, she thought.

~*~

In the following weeks, Polly racked her brains for a solution. What could she do? If only her mother were still alive.
Mom would have never gone without a fight
, Polly thought. She’d taken care of her helpless baby and stood up for her beliefs. It hadn’t been easy, but nothing worth doing was ever easy, her mother had always said. It was time for Polly to stand up for her helpless creatures. But how?

As she had done each day after her confrontation with the obnoxious landlord, Polly called Simon when she rounded the corner to her apartment building.“Is he around?”

“N-no sign of him,” he said. Barking erupted in the background as he spoke.

“What is that?” Polly asked, walking and talking on the cell while juggling bags of homework.

“N-new d-dog in the b-building, I guess.”

“Jeez, it sounds like a wolf!”

Simon laughed and said, “W-wait till G-Greeley hears him!”

“Maybe it’ll distract him from my cats.” She said good-bye and climbed the stairs to the building.

Simon was waiting by her door. “N-n-need help?”

“Thanks,” Polly said. She offered him a tote bag and placed the key in the lock. Simon’s hand touched her, and a spark of static electricity popped.

“Youch!”

He dropped the bag, and grabbed her hand, looking at it intently. “D-did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m more startled than hurt,” she said with a little laugh. “I’m fine.”

Waves of warmth rushed from her hand up her arm, to her neck, and face. She could feel herself taking quick, shallow breaths, the butterflies somersaulting in her stomach.

He reached up, placed his fingertips on her cheek, looked directly into her eyes, and said, “Y-you sure?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Better than fine. I’m, I’m—wonderful.”

He touched her hair and whispered, “I l-l-love the way your curls b--bounce when you m-m-move.”

“Simon, I--- “

“There she is!” Greeley screamed from the end of the hall. “Kill her cats!”

A frenzy of barking erupted in the hallway and echoed off the hard walls. It sounded like a pack of wild dogs racing toward Polly. As she whirled to face the attack, Simon leapt in front of her.

“No!” Simon shouted at the approaching gray blur. “No!”

The dog came to a halt in front of Simon and gave a deep throaty growl.

“Simon, no!” Polly cried.

“Sit!”

The dog sat down with a loud thump.

“Lie down!”

The gray creature flopped to the floor.

Greeley lumbered toward them, nose bright red, breathing labored. He shook his fist at the dog. “I told you to
kill her cats
, you moron!”

Simon knelt down and whispered in the creature’s big floppy ear.

The dog rolled over on his back and whimpered.

Polly could have sworn the dog was apologizing.

“Dammit,” Greeley shouted. “Do what I tell you to do!”

The dog ignored Greeley, and began licking Simon’s hand.

Polly moved closer to Simon, placed her hands on his shoulders, and said, “I don’t think he’s your dog, Mr. Greeley. I think he belongs to Simon now.” She pulled out her cell phone. “If you don’t leave us alone, I’m calling the police and telling them what you did.”

Greeley’s face turned beet red. He sputtered and spat out a particularly vile curse, and stomped away.

“Good r-riddance.” Simon rose and turned to face Polly.

Before he could say another word, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and it felt like she was home. “You could have been killed,” she said and choked back tears.

He shrugged. “D-d-dogs like me.”

Polly pulled back and looked down at the dog. The tamed canine yawned, thumped his stub of a tail, and looked up at Simon with adoration. She knew the feeling.

~* ~

At eleven in the morning on the date of her eviction, after everything was in place, Polly Griggs made a few phone calls. An hour later, curious onlookers craned their necks, shook their heads, and thronged in front of the apartment building.

It was a blustery gray day. Polly dressed in a black down coat, a dark green hat and matching scarf and mittens, faced them all.

“Ms. Griggs, there’s gotta be a better solution than this,” a red-faced police officer said.

“Polly, what made you decide to chain yourself to the fence around this apartment building?” An attractive brunette television reporter held a microphone out to Polly, trolling for sound bites.

“I want to protest how the world treats people who love their pets. My only sin was that I cared for too many unwanted cats. Their only sin was that they were old, blind, crippled, and tossed aside.”

All the cats were in double-occupancy, towel-bundled carriers at her feet, labeled with their names. A yowling, meowing, howling din came forth from under the covers. Each cat carrier had a sign on it that said, “Homeless, thanks to Mr. Greeley.” And each cat carrier was chained to the fence.

Polly heard Greeley cursing and saw him pushing his way to the front of the crowd.

“I got a call to bring my tools,” he said to the police officer. He stopped at the sight of Polly, the cat carriers, the signs, and the chains. “You
bitch
! You can’t do this to me!” His nose was bright red, as he ran at her, raised a bolt cutter on high, and struck her.

The police mobbed him before he could hit her again.

Cuffed and pushed into a cruiser, he was still screaming about “the ugly bitch” and “her damn cats” as he was driven away.

Bright red blood trickled into her eye as the police officer keyed his radio. “Get an EMT here
now
!”

She struggled to remain conscious, but she felt so tired. Her head dropped onto her chest. There was a dull roar, then a murmur. She opened her eyes and thought she saw the sea of people part in front of her as if she were in a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

Then Simon was in front of her, calling her name. “Polly!” He grabbed her mittened hands. “Polly, can you hear me?”

She nodded, thinking it was a dream—he wasn’t stuttering.

“Look!” He pointed at a group of young people standing behind him. An older, gray-haired woman stood in their midst. “They’re from my speech class. That’s my professor.”

Polly stared at him, head throbbing, struggling to understand.

“You told me to talk to her, remember? She said I should speak on something that I’m passionate about.”

Polly could feel a warm trickle on her chin as she gazed into his beautiful, sky-blue eyes.

An EMT pulled her hat off, put a bandage on her head, and called for a gurney.

Simon tightened his grip on her hands.

“I’m passionate about you, Polly. I gave the whole speech about you and your cats.”

She looked past him at the crowd, then back again at Simon, confused. She heard metal crunching and the clank of chains falling on the sidewalk. “Wh-wh-what…?”

“I was so inspired by you—I forgot to stutter! And they were so moved by my speech, they’re here to adopt the cats. Every single blind, old, crippled cat will have a good home.”

His classmates began to gather up the carriers. She heard them discussing where they’d meet to divvy up the cats.

Not my babies! No, no, no, no….

“Not Tiny Tim. Not Tabbish. Too old.” She struggled to get the words out. Soon, she’d have no one left in her life.

“Don’t worry, Polly. I’ll get them,” Simon vowed. “We’ll find a new place to live, with some of the cats and the dog, away from this bully.”

She shook her head, weeping, struggling to believe his words, afraid that Simon would disappear into the crowd with her cats, leaving her all alone.

He leaned down, kissed a tear off her cheek and whispered, “I love you, Polly Griggs. Do you hear me? I love you, and I’m never letting you go.”

Shocked, Polly stared into his beautiful eyes, and all she could do was stutter, "Wh-wh-what?"

At her cute new stutter, Simon rolled his eyes and shook his head with a smile.”Oh, boy.”

Hot Lips: The Lake Placid Cure

~*~

Sandra Blake Radcliff climbed out of her Toyota Highlander Hybrid, while a star-studded sky and a full moon shone over the quiet village of Scarsdale, New York. Her shoes crunched as she walked across the snow and ice-encrusted parking lot behind the converted Victorian home, and climbed the steps to the law offices of “Big” Jim Radcliff. Despite having been sent home by her husband earlier in the day to get some rest, she’d decided to get up and go back into the office.

Pre-trial jitters, she thought.
One more look at the files, then home to bed.
Despite all her work at prepping their client's daughter, a teenager with nails bitten to the quick, Sandra worried the kid would fall to pieces under cross-examination. The father, claimed he'd been at home with his daughter, watching television the night of his ex-wife’s murder. Sandra's gut told her the client was lying, a concern she had shared with her husband. As a defense attorney, Jim was obligated to defend the man to the best of his ability—but he didn’t need to be blind-sided.

He had listened to her, nodded and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.”

But the nagging concern that something wasn’t quite right in the case forced her out of bed and back to the office.

The building was dark, the back door locked. Had Jim gone to his club for a nightcap? As she entered the foyer, a distant
thumping sound came from the direction of her husband’s office followed by a loud groan. Visions of her spouse being beaten and struggling for his life raced through her head. Had a homicide victim’s family member, enraged by a not guilty verdict, finally gotten revenge?

“Jim!” She raced down the short hallway to his office, threw open the door, and froze. The dim light from the computer screen clearly outlined the appalling scene.

A naked, thirty-something, visibly pregnant blonde sat on a man’s lap, facing the door, her mouth an “O” of surprise. “Oh, my God! It’s your wife!” Her partner's face, contorted with shock, rested on her shoulder.

Sandra flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights. “Not again,” she said exhausted by his constant philandering. “What’s this make? Bimbo number fifteen?”

Red-faced and short of breath her husband
said, “What are you doing here?”

“Working.” She turned her attention to the bimbo.
“
Strange to see you here, Ms. Cain. Or should I call you Assistant District Attorney, since you’re supposed to be preparing to prosecute our client?”

The woman jumped up, attempting to cover herself while struggling to pull on her panties.

“It’s not what you think,” Jim
said in a tone usually reserved for hostile witnesses.

Sandra pointed at his crotch. “I’d say I have a smoking gun right here--so to speak.”

He jumped up, grabbing a file folder to cover himself.

“This is a new low, even for you," she snarled. "Now I understand why you weren’t worried about this case. But, please, do go on, oh great defense counsel. Try to talk your way out of this one.”

“Candi’s the real deal.”

“Your first name is Candi?” Sandra asked the now weeping younger woman. “What were your parents thinking?”

“Leave her alone!” Jim shouted, reaching for the other woman’s hand.

With Candi at his side, Sandra had a sudden mental image of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden. An irresistible urge to giggle overwhelmed her.

“I love her.”

Sandra stopped and stared. “What did you say?”

“I love her. She’s carrying my baby. We’re getting married.”