The Boss Lady (5 page)

“Kelly.” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“I’m here. I’m at the door. Open the door.”

I was standing there staring at the door under the stairs. My heart was beating fast as I waited and watched the door knob twist. I was holding my breath. As soon as I saw Kelly’s face I took a breath. Oh, her face was wet she is crying. I scooped her up in my arms and moved to the front door.

Kelly dropped her cell phone on the floor.
It crashed to the ground but I didn’t care because I had her and she was safe.

“Sir
, sir, are you still here.” The operator said.

Oh I had my cell. I forgot. I pulled it to my ear but keep Kelly in my arms. “Yeah, I got her.
We’re leaving the house.”

“Get out the house. The police are on the way.”

As soon as I moved to go to the door I saw him running down the stairs.
He probably saw my truck in the driveway from the upstairs window.

I locked eyes with the guy. He had brown eyes and a
brown goatee over skin much paler then mine. His head was covered with a hood, a black hood. He was wearing a black pullover hoodie. I had no choose but to put Kelly down on her feet. He was coming right toward us.

He was in front of me in a millisecond. I was standing in between him and freedom I was blocking the door.
He was my height maybe an inch or two shorter. He was smaller than me in stature but he had the upper hand. He had a knife. A hunting knife that was bigger than your average switchblade. I saw it in his right hand. He brandished the blade like it was a mighty sword. Something fierce and predatory turned on my fight button.

Kelly was a few f
eet away and my thoughts were only of keeping her safe. As soon as the hooded man jabbed forward with his blade I moved out of the way. His blade punctured the air. I tried to grab his wrist and twist the blade from his grasp. I missed his wrist and he careened into my chest knocking me over on my back. I kicked his leg and pulled him down to the hardwood with me. We wrestled on the floor as I tried to stop him from stabbing me. This guy was like a mad dog in his rambunctious attempts to slay me.

Our brawl seemed to go on forever. He was stabbing at the air and the blade would barely miss me. He swiped at me again and plunged the blade into my shoulder. Shit it hurt! He fucking cut me! Fuck!

As he pulled the blade from my shoulder I punched him in the face. He stumbled backwards and into the foyer. I climbed to my feet and turned to catch him as he ran out the front door. I chased him down the front steps through the grass to the sidewalk and a few houses down until I stopped myself.

My hand reached up to my shoulder and the blood was gushing. I applied pressure and started jogging back to the house. When I got to the house
Kelly was standing in the doorway.

I walked inside the house with Kelly
at my side. She grabbed my hand and she was hysterical. She is a little girl. She’s upset where I am thoroughly pissed off.

T
wo cop squad cars pulled up blocking my truck in the driveway. I left the door open for them but I went straight to the den and sat down on the couch. The police officers entered the house with their guns drawn.

It took minutes for everything to get sorted out but a few of them left after I gave them a description of the assailant.
Kelly only left my sight briefly as an officer escorted her upstairs to get me a towel for my bleeding shoulder.

CHAPTER FOUR

In a thunderous flash Nicole rushed in. She was panicked and I melted with empathy because I knew precisely what that feeling was like. Thinking something terrible has happened to your kid
is painful. Kelly is alive. Hailey is dead. I pray Nicole never feels the loss of a child.

I was sitting on the couch and there was a bloody towel pressed into my shoulder. I was holding
one of her expensive bath towels on my oozing stab wound. Kelly was burrowed so close to me I could only hold the towel partially over my bloody wound.

Nicole loo
ked at me and then down at her daughter. Kelly’s little face was pressed into my tattooed bicep. She had her little painted fingers curled around my arm muscles. I could see that Nicole was seriously confused. I couldn’t really blame her. The scene looked weird. There were police everywhere and her daughter was leaning on me. She hadn’t seen me in four weeks and here I was sitting on her couch, injured, next to her frightened daughter.

As soon as Kelly saw her mother she jumped to her feet. Nicole was standing over me and hugging her daughter. Nicole lifted Kelly off her feet and held her in a tight embrace.

I stood but I wasn’t sure why. Nicole was tearing up. I looked away. I felt like I was intruding. The moment seemed to be private.

“Excuse me sir,” I turned to the sound of the female patrol officer. “You really need to go to the hospital.”

“Okay yeah.” I wasn’t really in much pain. The adrenaline rush from fighting off the attacker had numbed me. Sure he stabbed me in my shoulder but the pain wasn’t that bad. Even though I was gushing blood I didn’t feel like the stab was that deep.

“There’s an ambulance out here
Mr. Hamilton.”

“Okay,
I can drive myself to emergency.” I declared.

“Sir you have lost a lot of blood. You could pass out at the wheel.
You driving yourself is not an option.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“The detectives will question you again at the hospital once we get you patched up.” I went to f
ollow the officer out of the den.

“No, no, no!”
Little Kelly yelled out and drew all of our attention to her. Nicole sat her daughter down on her feet. “Mr. Lukas, I’m coming to the hospital with you.”

I was speechless or maybe just a little too l
ight headed to respond. Kelly ran up to me and grabbed my hand. That’s when teary-eyed Nicole disappeared and Miss Nevels the devil reappeared. Her eyes were burning me like hot coals.

“I remember you Lukas. What were you doing here?”

Shit! I can’t really explain. “I was ah--” Her strict authoritarian tone had me flustered.

“The police said you fought off some guy that was trying to break in. Why were you here?”

“Mom, I called him when I saw the man trying to get inside the house.”

“You called him?”

“Yeah he works close by. I knew he would come if I called. He got here before the police.”

I hadn’t figured out what I was going to say so I was listening.
Then finally some words came to me.

“I called the police on three way
as soon as Kelly called me. I jumped in my truck and rushed over here. The back door was open. I came in and saw the guy. I fought with him and he pulled a knife out and stabbed me in the shoulder.” I looked down at my bloody shoulder. It was like I needed proof to show Miss Nevels that I was telling the truth. Her glare was intimidating.

“Sir, we really need to get you to the hospital.” The officer said. “Mam, a detective will talk to you and fill you in on all the details. We have officers out canvassing the neighborhood looking for this guy. We have a pretty good description.

“Mom, I want to go the hospital with Mr. Lukas.”

“Mam
, you can meet Mr. Hamilton at Good Samaritan. That’s where the ambulance is taking him.”

Nicole didn’t say a word to me or the officer. She just looked a little relieved, pissed and shocked.

“Mom, let’s go.” Kelly released my hand to grab her mother’s.

Shit. I winced. That’s when I felt the sharp pain. If the intruder hit an artery I could just bleed to death. That wouldn’t be so bad would it? Shit! Kelly may be hurt if I die. I’m her friend. I think she
’s a little attached to me in some weird way.

“Mam, it’s not a problem. The detectives can fill you in at the hospital. They still want to question Mr. Hamilton and your daughter.”

The pain was taking a toll on me. I walked from the room. I changed my mind about bleeding to death. The female officer followed me to the foyer and out the door.

There was an ambulance waiting outside an
d there was a paramedic posted by the front door. He started touching me as soon as I stepped outside the front door. He helped me to the ambulance and there was another paramedic there waiting at the back of the ambulance with the door open. I stepped in and I was feeling at little dizzy. I closed my eyes and let the experts do their job.

Things were a
little fuzzy after that. I woke up in a hospital bed. I opened my eyes to Kelly asleep in a lounge chair at the far side of the private room.

Nicole walked into my view. Her lips were curled up. “Fina
lly you decided to wake up. The doctor said you lost a lot of blood.”

My mouth was dry. “I was stabbed.” I remembered that much.

“Yeah, you were stabbed in my house. I don’t even know you. Was I supposed to call someone for you?”

“No.”

“I would have called your job but you own the company so I wasn’t sure.”

“Calling no one was good.” My shoulder was numb.

“They drugged you for the pain.”

“I remember that. I pulled my hospital gown down at the shoulder. I glanced at my bandaged shoulder. I have twenty-five stitches.”

“Yes Mr. Lukas, the blade nicked a vein and that’s why you loss so much blood.” She rolled her eyes. She called me Mr. Lukas.

Now I
remember. Things were clearing up in my mind. I glanced over at Kelly asleep in the chair.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Forever, she didn’t want to leave you.” Nicole twisted her lips.

“Did I bleed on your couch?” Stupid thing to ask but I remember the fit she through over a little scratch on her hardwood floor.

“I’m sure you did. There was blood on the couch and my floor and the walls.”

“Maybe next tim
e I could just bleed out and die somewhere on your front lawn.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I’m not sure why you’re so mean to me. Are you just a mean person in general?”

“No
, I’m not mean in general. I’m just a suspicious person.”

“Suspicious of me?”

“And your motives.”

“I don’t have any ulterior motives. What you see is what you get.”

“I saw a tattoo that said you were crazy.”

How did she see my
mi vida loco
tattoo? “I’m not crazy.”

“I
heard Kelly’s side of the story. Now I want to hear yours, explain yourself.”

“Explain what?”
I sat up in the bed with my back against the one shallow pillow. Shit, my shoulder is stiff.

“Why the hell were you in my house?”

“Kelly called me when she heard the burglar.”

“Huh, you really are going to play dumb. I will punch you in your shoulder.”

“Why?” I was confused or maybe still doped up.

“I know you been inside my house multiple times when I wasn’t there.”

“Yeah.”

“You put my daughter’s TV up on the wall.”

“Kelly’s grandmother said I could. She called me and--”

“I know. I talke
d to my mother and she said you were hanging around the entire weekend she was there. She said you were fixing things. She also said you were in my kitchen cooking meals with her and Kelly the weekend I went to Japan.”

“Y
our mother was there. She asked me to do some things around the house. I only did a few things. I did what she asked me.”

“Oh you’re such a gentleman.”

“Not really, I cut the grass and stuff like that. It wasn’t a big deal.” Why was I on the defense? I hadn’t did anything wrong. I saved her daughter’s life and she was interrogating me like I was a criminal.

“That’s my house.”

Yeah I know. “Okay.”

“My mother said you took her and Kelly to the movies.”

“Yeah, it was rated PG.”

“Why are you hanging
out with my kid and my mother?”

“
I’m not.”

“You’re lying. I know you’ve been to my house to see my kid. She told me she talks to you on the phone every day
after school. I looked in her cell phone. She calls you and you call her. Don’t lie to me.”

“I haven’t lied about anything.”

“No, you’re up to something.”

“Nicole Nevels, I have been stabbed. Is there any way you could cut me a brea
k?”

“Yeah uh-huh.” She crossed her arms under her breasts. I licked my lips. She didn’t see me.

“Kelly calls me sometimes. It’s not a big deal. I know her father is not in her life.”

“Yeah and that’s my business.”

“I know it is but when she called I wasn’t going to just blow her off. I would never ignore a kid.”