Al spent most of Monday worrying about whether or not HR would find out about his arrest, and then being disappointed when nobody from HR called him by the end of the day. He supposed the police didn't feel the need to call his employer and tell on him.
Modo, on the other hand, didn't waste any time calling him. In the aftermath of the accident, the arrest and the tow, he hadn't returned the car before the booking ended, and they were none too pleased to discover the car had been in an accident with a police cruiser, after a high speed police chase, and he'd neglected to call them and report it. Parvati, with whom he remembered speaking the time he'd been looking for the car Rachel had booked, and who'd been so sympathetic, now stiffly informed him that his account was being suspended pending the resolution of his appearance in court; if he received jail time or had his license revoked, that would be it. Even if they decided not to revoke his membership, there would still be some hefty fines to pay before he would be square with them again and, to his dismay, Rachel wasn't allowed to book either because he was the member and she was the secondary driver. He felt wretched, but he didn't think he would have done anything differently.
By the end of the day, he was thoroughly depressed, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and huddle under the covers. Just as he was about to leave work, however, his phone rang. It was Rachel. "Hi, honey," he said. "I'm just leaving work now."
"Al," Rachel said, "I'm still at work too."
"Oh, okay," he said. "Are you going to be a while? Should I start dinner?"
"Um, could you actually come over here?"
Al was confused. "You mean, go to Justiciar?"
"Yes. Lauren is here with me. We'd like to talk to you about something."
Al stood blinking rapidly as he listened to his wife. This was not how she talked at all. The tone of her voice, too, signalled something was wrong. "What's going on?" he asked.
"We'll tell you when you get here."
Al wondered why she would want him to go over there. She never had before. Oddly, the memory of last night came to him, when Lauren had been driving them back from Aldergrove, and Rachel had consented to them getting together again, and Al had met Lauren's bright eyes in the rear view mirror. He wondered for a millisecond if Rachel was inviting him over for just that, a wild romp in Lauren's office, which apparently had been the scene of her and Rachel's trysts before Lauren confessed their affair to him. He dismissed that possibility; why not just take the fun to their apartment? It would be more comfortable there, and more private.
"You and Lauren are there together," he said. "In Lauren's office?"
"Yes."
Suddenly he had a thought. "Are you on speakerphone?" He quickly added, "It feels tinny on my end of the line," just in case someone was listening and they wondered why he asked that question.
"No," she said.
"Is there someone else in the office with you?"
"Yes." Flat, toneless, matter-of-fact.
"Should I call the police?"
"Yes."
Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought. "I will, and I'll be there right away."
"See you soon." How Rachel remained so calm and emotionless right now Al couldn't fathom, but it was probably what saved her, because she wasn't letting on to whoever was there with her and Lauren that she'd alerted him to a potentially dangerous situation.
Al hung up and just ran. He didn't sign out, didn't grab his jacket, or his backpack, just made sure he had his phone, wallet and keys, and bolted, stunning other VPL employees in the halls as he weaved around them on the way to the doors.
As he emerged from the loading bay on to Hamilton Street, he dialled 911. As he ran, the phone took an infuriatingly long time to connect. Finally, the dispatcher came on the line. "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"
"I'm calling to report a potential hostage situation at the office of Justiciar Security and Investigative Services," he said, breath coming out in puffs like a steam engine as he weaved around slower pedestrians on the sidewalk. He rattled off the address. "Send police, quickly! My wife and my friend are in trouble."
"Sir, may I have your name, please?" the dispatcher asked.
"Yes, my name is Alistair Mackenzie. The Vancouver Police Department has an open file on a couple of crimes committed against me, against my wife, Rachel, and against Lauren Hasegawa, my friend, as well as against her husband, Joe DiTomaso. I think one of the suspects in these crimes currently has Rachel and Lauren hostage, as they both work at Justiciar." Al wasn't sure at all if this was true, but it was the simplest explanation that would get them going. "If you need more confirmation, contact Detectives Parsons and Reynolds, who have been investigating these crimes."
"Mr. Mackenzie, we're sending police units to that building now. Please stay on the line. Where are you at the moment?"
"I'm heading over there too. I think the hostage taker wants me there for some reason. Rachel called me to come over, I think at the hostage taker's instruction. I was able to ask her, without alerting the hostage taker, whether or not she was in trouble, and if I should call the police."
"Mr. Mackenzie, do not go in the building, I repeat, do not enter a dangerous situation if there are hostages involved."
"I can't do that! That's my wife inside! My friend!"
"I understand that, Mr. Mackenzie, but have you considered that the hostage taker is simply waiting for you to get there before they proceed to do harm to all three of you?"
It had. Of course it had. "Nevertheless," he said, his lungs straining from sprinting and talking at the same time. He was vaguely aware he'd zoomed into an intersection just as the light was turning red, and a car turning left narrowly missed him and blared its horn. "I can't wait outside while my wife and friend are in danger. What if this person kills them anyway? What if this person kills them because I didn't go there? I couldn't live with myself if I knew that."
Suddenly another voice replaced the dispatcher. "Mr. Mackenzie, this is Detective Parsons, I've been patched in by the dispatcher and have been listening to your conversation for the past ten seconds. I advise you not to go in that building if you believe Rachel and Lauren are in a hostage situation. If you do that we'll have three hostages to worry about instead of two."
Al thought about what he said as he neared the building on Beatty Street that housed the firm. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I have to."
He hung up just as Parsons called out his name again. He reached the front door and ran up the stairs to the second floor where the firm was. He found the glass door that marked the entrance to the firm and tugged on it, finding it locked. He pulled and pulled again. No luck. Vainly he searched for a rock just like he did when he broke Danny Trybek's window, but the hallway was free of any objects that could be used for the purpose, and anyway the glass was far too thick; the firm was meant to be open, airy and bright, at least in the entrance and lobby. Offices might be behind closed doors, but the initial impression was meant to be welcoming. He didn't see any of them in the lobby; Rachel mentioned they were in Lauren's office.
He did spot an intercom next to the door, as well as an RFID card reader just like at his work. Perhaps clients or workers could let themselves in this way after hours. He pressed the button for the intercom.
After a second, Rachel's voice said, "Al?"
"Yes, it's me."
"Come on in."
The door buzzed, and he rushed inside, knowing he could very well be running to his death, but he couldn't let Rachel and Lauren die without him, if that was what the hostage taker meant for them. He couldn't live without either of them; he'd been serious when he'd had that chat with Rachel on the taxi ride home from the hospital. He wouldn't go on knowing she was gone, and he owed it to Joe and their kids to ensure Lauren was safe too.
Eventually he found Lauren's office. It was the only one with an open door. Rachel and Lauren sat in chairs facing the desk, Lauren's desk, he assumed, although he'd never been in her office before. Ralph Rose sat at the desk, and a handgun sat on top of the desk within easy reach.
"Good of you to join us," Ralph said. "We've been eagerly awaiting you."
Al looked at the gun, then at Ralph, and then at Rachel and Lauren, who stared straight ahead, struggling to keep their composure. He looked back at Ralph. "What is this?"
"Pull up a chair. We'll have a chat."
Al looked around the room. "I don't see any other chairs."
"Grab one from out in the cubicles."
Al grabbed one from a desk at which someone's computer had a screensaver of a beautiful white fluffy cat, and pictures of a wife and children pinned to the fabric of the cubicle wall. He wheeled it in and sat himself between Rachel and Lauren, making them move over to accommodate him. He wanted to be able to place himself in front of one or the other if Ralph decided to pick up his gun and start shooting. Not that he thought he would be fast enough to do that, but he needed to communicate bodily that he was there for both of them, and put his hands on both their legs in reassurance.
"How sweet," Ralph said. "Keep them there. It lets me see your hands at all times."
"I have no weapon," Al said. "I had no idea I'd need one."
"Good. We're just talking. No need for anything to get out of hand."
"If we're just talking, why is there a gun on the table? Do private investigators even get to have guns? Don't you need to be a sworn peace officer to get one?"
Ralph just shrugged. "Do you want to answer that, Lauren?"
"P.I.s are private citizens like anyone else," Lauren replied matter-of-factly. "They have to be licensed and their firearms registered and locked away. They're not allowed to carry one while doing their work. And it certainly shouldn't be sitting on a desk, loaded... it is loaded, isn't it? We haven't established that yet."
"Oh, yes, it is. I could be lying, of course, but is that something you really want to test?"
"I might," Lauren countered. "Lying comes naturally to you, Ralph. You've been lying to me since the day I met you."
"Wait, what do you mean?" Rachel asked.
"Well, maybe not lying," Lauren said. "More like, holding something back. See, when I first got hired on here, I didn't know when I met Ralph that I'd met him before."
"So you were looking at the yearbook," Ralph said, shaking his head. "I should have taken that out of my office a long time ago."
"I never got to look in your desk drawers, though," she said. "Was there something even more incriminating in there?"
"Actually, no, I really was worried you'd seen the yearbook."
"I don't understand, what's so incriminating about a yearbook?" Al asked.
"Nothing in itself," Lauren said, shrugging. "The only two people who would see anything significant in it are Ralph and I." She turned back to Ralph. "So... what? Were you just nursing some creepy obsession with me all these years?"
"Wait, you two knew each other in high school?" Rachel asked.
"You told me once, Rachel, that Ralph told you his legal name was Randolph. When I was in high school, this was after you and Al were gone, a guy named Randy leered at me every day at the lockers."
"I didn't know how to approach you," Ralph said. "I was trying to figure out a way to talk to you without sounding like a total idiot. I kept freezing, so all I could do was stare at you."
"I call bullshit on that. Your note told me everything I needed to know about you."
Ralph blinked in surprise. "What note?"
"Come on, you know the note. Don't make me say it out loud."
"I really am mystified, Lauren. I didn't leave a note. I remember the one you left me though. I was duly chastened, and there went any future effort to talk to you."
"You don't remember writing I have yellow fever?"
Ralph grimaced, and Al could tell he really was dismayed by what she'd said. "That really wasn't me. I didn't have some weird Asian obsession. I was attracted to you for other reasons, I don't know, I just thought you looked sad and scared all the time, and I wanted to introduce myself and maybe be your friend. Sure I would have liked more, but I couldn't even get a hello out of my mouth."
"I could tell you wanted more. You were practically undressing me with your eyes, and I noticed my initials as one of the girls you wanted to go with in your graduation blurb."
He blushed. He actually blushed.
"So, that note really wasn't you?" Lauren asked.
He shook his head.
"Well, it's not like there weren't other jerky guys tormenting me in high school," Lauren said, sighing. "Still, you were a creep, and I was afraid of going to my locker every day thinking you might be there."
"I'm truly sorry for that," he said. "Scaring you was the last thing I wanted to do."
"It's hard for me to think you're sincere when you have a gun pointed at us."
"It's not pointed at you, it's just on the table."
"Not at first."
"I just needed you to sit and talk. I needed to explain myself after everything that's happened. It's just gotten all out of hand, and I don't know how to fix it."
Al wasn't sure how long they would just be talking once the police announced their presence; they had to be outside the building, at least. "How has it gotten out of hand?" he asked. "Is everyone else in the office gone? Or are there bodies in other offices that I haven't seen?"
"Don't be dramatic," Ralph said. "I'm not a crazy mass shooter. I sent everyone else home a little early but didn't tell these two about it. I needed to talk to them alone, and you too, I'm sorry to say, since I had to involve you in this situation, which I'll explain shortly."
"So, when we met in the work world," Lauren said, returning to the subject of Lauren and Ralph, and Al wondered if this was a strategy of hers, "you must have thought you'd struck gold, especially when I'd completely forgotten I'd met you before. Maybe I'd just wanted to forget you and everyone who made my life hell in high school, or you just looked different, the glasses, the change in hair style. I think you gained some weight and wore different clothes."
"Marriage agreed with me," he said. "Liz was one of the other names next to yours, I don't know if you realized that; she went by Elizabeth back at Endub. To my great fortune, I didn't strike out with her. I really am a good guy, and she could see it. Reuniting with you was a chance to reintroduce myself to you and have you think well of me, just like Liz does. I thought we could start over."
"We did. And I did think well of you. I liked you a lot. So what the fuck is this? Does Liz know you're doing this?"
He shook his head. "It might be hard for you to believe, but this has nothing at all to do with the past. I'm perfectly happy leaving high school in the dust bin of history. It wasn't such a great time for me either."
"Aw," Lauren said, pouting. "Did you get bullied too? Did the girls not like you?"
Al gently squeezed her leg and raised his eyebrows at her. He couldn't believe she was provoking him. None of them could reach that gun before Ralph did.
Oddly, though, Ralph looked relaxed and congenial, not at all close to snapping. "It doesn't matter now," he said. "That was a long time ago. My problems are much more recent than that."
Lauren took a deep breath and said, "So, what does Carrie MacDougall have on you?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "You always were the best investigator in this firm. Maybe Gary Somers was better in his day, before he stepped back and became just a name on the incorporation papers. You have such a natural ability to sniff out the truth of the matter, and your memory is... well, it usually is... sharp as a knife."
"She was the one who called that morning you found me in your office."
He nodded. "The stupid bitch wasn't supposed to call the firm."
"Only your personal cell phone."
"Right."
"Notice I didn't contradict you for calling her a bitch. She is. Stupid, though, I'm not sure about."
"I guess it depends on how you define smart. Carrie MacDougall isn't book smart, but she does possess a low cunning, an ability to see opportunities and exploit weaknesses to get what she wants. She's like one of those vampires in the movies, the ones that have lived thousands of years, they see and know everything. I think it's her old money nature, even if she doesn't have the money to match her place in society anymore. She still has the connections, the friends in high places and the tools she can use that can make life a living hell for someone she doesn't like."
Lauren nodded as if this was no surprise to her at all. "So, what was your weakness? And what did she want from you?"
He chose not to answer that. Instead, he said, "It was never supposed to involve you, you know. We had a perfectly good arrangement going for years. Then something changed, and she went full evil Bond villain on me and demanded one more thing from me, and I had no choice but to do it."
"What the fuck?" Rachel asked.
"Let me guess," Lauren said. "The subdivision. She saw Joe was one of the builders, she remembered what he did to her husband, she flew into a rage that he was once again complicating her life because she was against that development, and she decided to get some revenge. But how did that involve you? I thought it was just some other guys in the area that didn't want the development to go in."
"You think I'm her only henchman? There are many strands to her web, and she'll pull whichever ones suit her at the time. I didn't know much about what was supposed to happen in Aldergrove, just that it was happening that night."
"The night of the party, when you drugged my drink and Al's drink. Is that why you brought Al here, so you can apologize to him too?"
Ralph stared at them, saying nothing.
"I think I get it now," Lauren said. "Carrie MacDougall hasn't forgiven me for exposing her husband as a rapist and causing her to lose most of her divorce money. She gets her revenge on both Joe and me by staging two separate incidents on the same night. She gets you to drug me, the same thing her husband did to those poor women, and take pictures of me in a compromising position with Al, which you then try to send to Rachel's and Joe's phones while they're out there, getting themselves roughed up and left in the middle of nowhere. I don't think they were meant to die, just be injured and brought low, and when they eventually recovered and saw the incriminating photos, there would go our marriages too, ended in divorce just like poor Carrie MacDougall's."
Ralph paled and said to Rachel, "You were never meant to be out there. I like you a lot, Rachel, I never wanted you to get hurt! It was supposed to be his brother. Why didn't he go with his brother? It was his stupid dog, wasn't it?"
"Who saw them bury the dog?" Al asked out of curiosity. "I can't believe this woman would be snooping around in the middle of the night in some out-of-the-way woodland."
"One of her cronies out there. She used that as the lure to get them out there."
Al was confused about something else. "Wait, if Rachel wasn't supposed to go out there, how would you have done what you did if she remained in the apartment?"
Ralph actually looked sheepish. "I would have eventually spiked her drink too, and let her sleep while it happened, then let her wake up and find the two of you that way in person."
Rachel shook her head in disbelief. "You must be one desperate man to be willing to go to such lengths."
Ralph didn't answer her.
"But it worked out better for you in the end," Rachel said, "because you were just so willing to look after Al and Lauren and make sure they didn't get sick, and I never suspected any ill intentions on your part. Maybe I should have suspected something when you sent your wife home so you could stay there alone with them, but I just thought you were being a good husband by not making her stay."
"You know you fucked up on the photo, right?" Lauren asked.
"What do you mean?" Ralph asked.
"You wanted to send it to Joe and Rachel, right? It didn't send. Al's phone didn't have its data on."
Ralph blinked in surprise. "Fuck."
"Anyway, Al showed me the picture," Rachel said.
"What?!" Ralph was gobsmacked. "Why?"
"They knew they were drugged. They knew they wouldn't have done that if they were in their right minds. Al trusted me enough to show it to me and deal with the blowback if it came. Of course, this was after I'd finally come home after being beaten and left in the middle of nowhere, thankful that someone finally pulled over for us and drove us to VGH. Maybe I was a little tenderized and vulnerable, and just so happy to see him again, but I chose to believe and forgive him."
Ralph gaped at them for a full minute. Lauren chimed in, "So, contrary to Carrie MacDougall's orders, neither of our marriages has suffered an iota after that incident. Aside from making Al and me go running all over the place to find them, and nearly losing our shit when we saw them so hurt, we haven't suffered all that much. But here's something I want to know: why we're here now with a gun on the desk between us. Did Mr. Speares maybe call Carrie MacDougall sometime between last night and today, and tell her he'd been arrested? Maybe they had a discussion about how close the authorities were getting, and thought they should talk to you about it?"
Ralph shook his head. "I have no idea who Mr. Speares is, and nobody called me. But that is concerning, although there's nothing connecting me to that incident out there."
"I think the police are getting close to you, though. I think when they took DNA from everyone they had to be on to something. Did you do something more than just position Al and me on that bed and take a picture?"
Al gasped as the implication hit. "You fucking bastard," he breathed, ready to spring over the desk and throttle him. "What did you do to her?"
"The police took the sheets for testing," Lauren said, and Al could see she was struggling to hold back tears of rage. "Maybe you used a condom, but they'll find something. A stray pubic hair, for example. And condoms aren't a fail safe. You'll always leave a tiny bit of fluid behind. And hey, there was blood on the sheet, maybe they matched that to you. I saw the scratch Samson left on your hand. Did he fly at you because you were a stranger in the bedroom where he was hiding?"
He shook his head in befuddlement. "I didn't..."
"Yeah, you think you're such a good guy? We were passed out, both of us. I could tell I'd had penetration, but Al couldn't have had sex with me that night. So, did you rape me before or after you positioned us and took that picture?"
Al looked at Lauren, stricken. How was she even functioning with this knowledge? How long had she suspected? How could Al even think he was a good guy if the thought had never entered his mind that, instead of the two of them having unremembered sex with an unknown person taking a picture, she'd actually been raped by the unknown person?
"No... I..." Ralph looked like he might faint.
"Come on, Randy," Lauren goaded. "You think you would have been able to resist getting some of what you wanted ever since high school while you were doing your blackmailer's bidding?"
"Don't call me that!" he warned, suddenly angry, his hand inching toward the gun.
"You know what? I don't even care," Lauren said.
"Lauren, he raped you!" Rachel shrieked, as tears ran down her cheeks. "How can you not be furious?!"
Lauren shrugged. "I don't remember a thing, so the sting isn't as bad. And anyway, I'm sure it would be just as unmemorable if I'd been awake for it. I bet you unloaded within seconds, so it was just as well I was limp and lifeless for the ordeal." She sighed. "Poor Liz. Sex must be so unfulfilling for her--"
"Fuck you!" he shouted, suddenly standing, and Al tensed in his chair, ready to spring in any direction.
"There's Randy," Lauren said, almost relishing the man's rage. "What's next for you, Randy? Rape not good enough for you? Are you graduating to murder now? Do you think you're really going to get away with it?"
As if on cue, a loud banging sounded on the glass outer wall. "Vancouver police!" someone shouted. "Everybody come out with your hands up!"
Ralph looked like a cornered animal, looking at them, looking at the gun.
"Before you decide to either shoot us or give yourself up," Lauren said, "Tell me what she has on you. Did she go through her husband's things and maybe discover he had a partner in his conquests? Did she use that to blackmail you? You must have been shitting your pants when she first hired us to investigate her husband, wondering what we'd turn up, unable to intervene and risk giving yourself away. Were you just doing to me what you've done to the other women in those pictures?"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" he screamed, hands over his ears as he shook his head, like something was burrowing inside his brain.
Al squeezed Rachel's leg and signalled with his chin out the door, hoping she would get it and run to let the police in. She shook her head, unwilling to leave either of them. He hoped the police brought a battering ram.
"You haven't changed at all, have you," Lauren continued, and now tears were running down her cheeks. "If one of our coworkers didn't secretly send me a picture of you spiking a drink at the party, I would have never even suspected you had anything to do with it. You were my friend! At least I thought you were! But now I know you've always been a predator. I bet I was just a training run in high school. Did you find out how to drug women in college? Maybe a frat party while no one was looking? Those things are just training grounds for rapists, I bet it was easy."
He recoiled as if slapped. Meanwhile, a louder pounding rang out through the office.
"They're coming, you fuck," Lauren growled. "Better decide what you want to do."
He looked like a deer frozen in the headlights. Al thought he might have just enough time to spring across the desk at him, or at least grab the gun and keep it out of his hand.
Then, as if Al were watching from ten feet above himself, Ralph snatched the gun. Al didn't even have time to decide which woman to defend, Rachel or Lauren, much less actually put himself in front of them.
It didn't matter. Ralph didn't turn the gun on them.
He put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. It was the loudest thing Al had ever heard, louder even than the car accident that took the life of Rachel's ex-husband.
Al watched, helpless, as the man's blood and brain matter sprayed against the wall and ceiling behind him, and the man himself crumpled to the floor behind the desk. He was only vaguely aware Rachel had fled the office, making an animal noise that was a mix of horror and grief.
"Al?"
He thought he heard his name, but his ears were ringing and it sounded muffled.
"Al?"
He blinked, fell back into his body and turned to Lauren.
"Al?" she asked, her stunned face wet with tears, and a few drops of blood. "Are you okay?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He looked himself over, turning his hands this way and that, and determined he was physically all right, except that he had a few drops of blood and... something else... on him.
"Yeah. I think so," he said. "Are you okay?"
She nodded. "I'm happy he's dead," she said in a dull voice that worried him. "I'm not supposed to say that but I am. He raped me, and the fucker chose the easy way out, but I'm glad I didn't have to testify against him."
"That's... completely understandable," he said, but he felt like he was saying it from the bottom of a well. He was in shock. He had to be. His hands and feet felt numb. His head felt heavy. "I think, uh, I think we need to clean ourselves... we have his... stuff... on us."
She nodded absently, just as the police stormed into the office like an invading army, all body armour, helmets and scary assault weapons, ordering everyone to get to the ground. Al followed orders robotically, feeling his hands being cuffed behind his back for the second time in as many days.
When he and Lauren were helped back to their feet, Al saw Parsons and Reynolds entering the office. It was starting to get crowded. Parsons saw Al's face, looked behind the desk, saw what was left of Ralph Rose, and said, "Fuck."
Later, they found themselves outside the building, sitting on the bumper of an ambulance, huddled under thermal blankets to ward off shock. Rachel and Lauren sat on either side of him, heads resting on his shoulders, and Al felt too tired to even speak.
"I'm sorry I ran," Rachel said.
"Huh?" he asked.
"I ran when Ralph shot himself. I couldn't take it. I abandoned you and Lauren. I'm sorry."
"You let the police in," Lauren said. "You actually did the most to help."
Al felt Rachel shaking her head on his shoulder. "I was just running. I just happened to open the door to the police because I was heading that way. Luckily they caught me and calmed me down, or I would have never stopped running. Maybe I would have run into the street and got hit by a car."
"Don't talk like that," he said, but with no energy behind it. He could see himself doing the exact same thing. Hadn't he nearly been hit by a car coming here?
"Lauren!" A man's voice shouted from a distance away. They all looked up and saw Joe, Sunny and Tej approaching them. Lauren had summoned the wherewithal to phone Joe and tell him what had happened, after they'd told Parsons, Reynolds and the coroner their story, over and over again. Al was surprised and touched that Tej was here too; she must have wanted to come and see if they were okay. She really was a member of the LSDC.
It took a few minutes to convince the police and paramedics hovering around them that they were friends and family of the victims and should be let through to see them. Lauren offered her arms to Joe like a child, and he lifted her up and held her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder. Sunny and Tej watched them for a while, then turned to Al and Rachel. "How are you two?" Sunny asked.
"Oh, you know, been better," Rachel said.
"So... Ralph... Lauren's partner... he shot himself?"
"Yup."
"I'm so sorry you had to witness that," Tej said. "Have the police offered counselling?"
"They have, actually," Al said. "I think I'll be taking them up on it, but I'm really hoping someone will give us drugs to help us sleep tonight, because I won't be able to get that image out of my head."
He looked at Lauren, still in Joe's arms, almost limp, as if she'd fallen asleep, but her eyes were open and watching them. "I'm pretty sure Lauren saved us tonight," he said.
"What?" Sunny asked.
"Rachel and I had pretty much frozen. Lauren, on the other hand, pushed ahead, goading him, accusing him, riling him up, risking her own life in the process. She confronted him with all his crimes, and he knew he was going to be arrested and go to jail for a long time. I think he thought he only had one option left."
"But you must have called the police," Lauren said with a weak smile. "When Rachel called you, you must have been able to figure out we were in trouble just from what Rachel said and called the police. Ralph was listening quite intently for any cues; he might have shot either of us if we'd warned you. So, really, you helped just as much as I did."
Al shrugged. "Rachel just sounded weird. Something in the way she spoke, and her tone of voice. It was so formal. No endearments, no shitting around, it wasn't like her at all. I had a feeling something was up, and luckily Rachel didn't let on to Ralph when I suggested calling the police."
"So you all worked together without knowing it," Joe said.
Al looked at Rachel, then at Lauren, and then to Joe and Sunny. "I guess we did."
"That's some LSDC ingenuity right there," Tej said.
Everyone shifted awkwardly. It wasn't that they didn't appreciate Tej's effort to identify with them and lighten the mood, but it came a little too soon after the three of them had had pieces of skull and brain tissue tweezed out of their clothes by police forensics technicians.
Al did his best to smile at her, though, because he liked her and wanted to show her he was grateful for the compliment. "We were lucky, though. It could have gone so much worse than it did."
Suddenly a cry rang out further down the street, a wail of such grief and despair that it chilled Al to the bone. They all turned to see the authorities attempting to comfort Liz, Ralph's wife. The poor woman. She probably knew none of Ralph's problems, not about the blackmail, or what he'd done to Al and Lauren, and now she was being confronted with the fact that her husband had taken his own life and she would never know why.
"Oh, poor Liz," Lauren said, voicing Al's own thoughts. "I guess for her it can't be any worse."
Thanks for reading this far! If you like what you just read, hit the "Vote" button to send this title up the ranks, and leave a comment. To see what passes for happily ever after for Al, Rachel and Lauren, click on "Continue reading."