Sunny's phone rang around midnight. Tej cracked her eyes open and noticed the time on the digital alarm clock. Who in the world was calling at this hour?
"This is Sunny Parhar," he said a little blearily, but still using his professional greeting, as sometimes his clients called with an emergency involving child custody or domestic violence. She hoped he wouldn't have to suddenly rush out to help a client.
He listened for a second, then sat up, suddenly alert. "Joe? What is it?"
Tej felt a guilty thrill hearing Joe's name, remembering her exertions with him last Saturday, but if he was calling at midnight then it wasn't a social call.
"Holy shit," Sunny breathed. "Is everyone okay?"
"What is it?" Tej whisper shouted, but Sunny held up a hand to tell her to hold on.
"Jesus, she did?" Sunny exclaimed, his lip curling in a smile.
Suddenly Tej's phone rang. What was happening tonight? She answered before all the ringing phones woke up the rest of the family.
"This is Tej Parhar," she said.
"Tej, it's Rachel."
Now she was the one to sit up sharply. "Rachel, are you okay?"
"No. Al's in the hospital again."
"What?! Aren't you in Kelowna?" she asked at the same time she heard Sunny say, "Oh, shit, Manny's in Kelowna with Agnes."
"Yeah, Kelowna General Hospital. He was stabbed."
"What?! Oh, my God, is he okay?" she asked as she heard Sunny say, "Don't worry, I'll call him for you." He looked at her in concern, having just heard what she said.
"They had him in surgery and they say they stopped the bleeding, but they had to give him a couple of transfusions," Rachel said. "His cousins raced to the hospital behind us, and they all donated blood in case he shared their blood type."
"Who stabbed him? And why?" Tej asked, thinking, poor Al. Sunny's eyes widened in alarm when he heard her.
"One of two men associated with the Mercers. Bodyguards, whatever you want to call them. One might have been their driver. Al was trying to get Agnes and Emma away in a taxi. He'd put himself between them and the two men, and had actually managed to stab one of them in the hand with a piece of glass he'd recovered from his wine glass being broken earlier, before he was stabbed himself. Luckily the police had just arrived to give Agnes protection, and they arrested the two men." Rachel sniffled and said. "Agnes told me the part about the glass. He was so brave, and I wasn't even there to help, I was back at the event enjoying ice wine."
"Rachel, if you'd been there you might have been stabbed, too, don't beat yourself up about it. Wait, if the Mercers' bodyguards or driver was there, does that mean they were?"
"Yeah, they were there celebrating the engagement of their daughter to the son of Al's cousin, can you believe it? They were taken by the police once it was discovered the two men acted on John Mercer's orders to detain Agnes before she left. I don't know what kind of charges they'll face, or how quickly they'll make bail, but they're not getting away scot-free."
"That's so crazy," Tej breathed. "Why is it everywhere you go, one of you winds up injured?"
"I know, right? It makes you never want to leave your house. It's too bad, really, because otherwise I enjoyed the evening. The ice wine was sublime, sweet and smooth, and you could barely tell it was booze."
"I wouldn't know," Tej said miserably, wondering not for the first time how bad it would be if she tried drinking once. Then again, one time might turn into more. Once you pop, you can't stop, wasn't that the jingle for something? That adage had certainly applied to the one time she'd made love to a man who wasn't her husband. She'd popped at least three times with Joe, and to her dismay she couldn't stop thinking about doing it with him again. Maybe that was why breaking any vows, marriage or otherwise, was so dangerous. It wasn't the one time you cheated that ruined things; it was the fact that once you cheated the first time, every time you cheated after got easier and easier, until you had nothing recognizable as a marriage, or a faith, anymore. "So," she said, "Are you all staying up there until he recovers?"
"I don't know, honestly," Rachel said. "I haven't thought that far ahead. Emma, Agnes and I are all here at the hospital, but I think Agnes should go back to her kids at the hotel, they're probably missing her."
"Who's looking after them?"
"Mandeep Randhawa, he came up here with Agnes to be with her while the prosecutors interviewed her. Maybe her testimony will be what finally brings the Mercers to justice."
"Oh, about Manny," Tej said. "Joe's on the phone with Sunny right now, and he needs to talk to Manny for some reason."
"Jesus, did something happen to them too?" Rachel cried. "I tried calling Lauren before, but she wasn't answering her phone."
"I'll tell Sunny to tell Joe to call you," she said louder than she needed to, grabbing Sunny's arm to bring her point home to him, because it sounded like he was ending his call.
"God, I hope they're okay at least. That creep from last night showed up at the house in Queensborough, and Joanie was there."
"What?!" Tej blurted. "How do you know?"
"Agnes talked to the guy on her front door camera, it feeds to her phone. She had no idea who the hell he was, and she was miffed at Joanie for bringing his tracking device to the house."
"I'd be pissed too. What if this guy did something bad?"
"Well, if Joe's asking for a lawyer, maybe Joanie did something bad to him."
"Let's hope."
Rachel chuckled and said, "Okay, I'll let you go."
"Thanks for calling, Rachel, even if it was bad news."
"I just needed to talk to my friends at home."
"I'm sending good thoughts for Al's speedy recovery."
"Thanks babe. Goodnight."
She hung up, and Tej looked at Sunny, who was on the phone with Mandeep Randhawa now. "That's right," Sunny said. "Lauren helped stop the home invaders, but her choice of weapon has gotten her in a bit of trouble."
Lauren was the one in trouble? How was she even there? Tej waited patiently for Sunny to end his call, but inside she was screaming in frustration.
"Wait, you still have the children with you?" Sunny asked. "Where's Agnes? Is she okay?" He listened for a moment and whipped around to look at Tej with wide eyes. "Jesus. Okay, I'll talk to Tej, I think Rachel called her."
He hung up a minute later and stared open-mouthed at Tej. "What the fuck happened tonight?"
"You first. What happened to Lauren?"
"It's a bit of a mess," Sunny said. "I'm a little distressed Manny's in the Okanagan and not here. Lauren isn't entirely off the hook."
"You said she helped stop some home invaders?"
"The police are still confirming the identities of the two guys, but they did threaten Joanie at home, and they did want to know where Agnes was. They'd apparently just found out Agnes was in the same room as John Mercer when our creep from last night showed up at the house too. He forced his way in, and one of the original two just shot him in the face."
"Holy shit," Tej breathed. "When I was talking to Rachel she said the guy had showed up, because Agnes was talking to him at the front door through her phone. But he's dead?"
Sunny nodded, looking numb. "Yes. It's horrible."
Tej looked into his eyes and said, "Did we do the wrong thing Friday night? We kind of orchestrated this man's death."
"No," Sunny said firmly. "We can't blame ourselves for a chain of events that we couldn't have predicted."
"Joanie didn't have to keep the guy's tracking device and bring it to the house in Queensborough."
"How could she have known he would have showed up the next day? His car had been stolen. Plus, how was she to know the guys who blew up Patrick's truck would strike that night?"
Tej thought about it for a minute. "My guess is they've been watching the house for days, waiting for the police to finish taking evidence, waiting for Agnes to take up residence. Maybe they saw Agnes' car parked there and thought she was home. I guess the police must not have been watching the house tonight because Agnes was in Kelowna." She sighed in frustration. "If they were, though, why didn't I spot them? I was doing my own surveillance on the house."
Sunny shrugged. "Maybe they were there when you weren't. You couldn't be there twenty-four seven."
"I guess."
Sunny's face softened. "It was a series of unlucky coincidences, that's all. Ultimately, the guy from Friday night didn't have to go to the house. He was there without an invitation. I don't want to say he got what he deserved, but he's not innocent either."
"So, why's Lauren in trouble?" Tej asked.
"She used her sword on one of the home invaders."
Tej gaped at him. "Her sword?!"
Sunny nodded. "The police aren't buying her story about why she had it with her. There's a very fine line, apparently, between helping stop a home invader and assault. A lot of it has to do with what you use and how it came to be in your hand."
"Did Joe say why she had it with her?"
"It was in her car. She was taking it home to assist her daughter in giving a presentation on her Japanese heritage. Her dad was supposed to go with Naomi to school and tell his Internment story. The sword was just to be a prop, a trophy of the war in which his dad fought for Canada. It was never supposed to come out of its scabbard."
Tej shook her head in disbelief. "Still, that was some luck that she had it."
"Actually, no," Sunny said. "She also had her pepper spray, which she could have used instead with less consequence, and the police also discovered the little illegal zapper she had in her purse. That might compound her trouble. It didn't help that her partner in crime, retired Detective Rhodes, planned their little caper with her. He's in worse trouble for having his gun in his pocket."
"The guy who lived down there?" Tej said. "The one who was talking to Detectives Tracey and Goncalves that time when they were interviewing us about Jordan's disappearance?"
"Yeah, apparently since then he's been performing a one-man neighbourhood watch with his service weapon. Lauren found him on the street when they both heard the gun shot that killed our creep from last night, and they both coordinated a break in on the house. Both home invaders had guns, Tej, and one of them had his pointed at Joanie's head. Lauren was under the bed, and she sliced his achilles tendons with her sword, which made him stumble and lose control of his gun, and then Rhodes shot the other before he could react. It was crazy, and all three of them could have been killed tonight."
"But now the heroes are in trouble?" Tej said in indignation. "That's ass backwards!"
"I know, but, you know, rule of law, and all that."
"Maybe if the police had gotten there in time instead of arresting everyone after, they wouldn't have had to do what they did. They should have been watching that house tonight."
"I know. It's a mess. Maybe Agnes shouldn't have parked her car at the house. Maybe Joanie shouldn't have stayed there tonight. Maybe she shouldn't have brought the tracking device there. Maybe, maybe, maybe." He sighed. "If Manny can't make it back by the time Lauren needs to go into the station and be formally interviewed, I'll find another colleague to help. Now, tell me about Kelowna."
Tej told him everything Rachel told her. "How bad was Al hurt?" Sunny asked. "Is he going to be all right?"
"He did lose a lot of blood, Rachel said, but they were able to stop the bleeding."
"I wish I could go to the hospital and see him."
"I know."
"And once again, you and I are left out of the intrigue."
Tej nodded, but she was secretly glad they hadn't been involved this time. Sunny's shoulder had only just healed from his gunshot wound, and that had been a clean through and through with, miraculously, no bones broken, and Tej was sure he would have gone and gotten himself wounded or worse this time. Defending his client, Sunny would have been stabbed like Al had or, had he gone to the house in Queensborough to help Joanie, he would have been shot by the home invaders. He just didn't have Lauren's stealth, her ability to hide under a bed with ease, or her confidence with a samurai sword to know she could cut two achilles tendons with just enough force to do the job and not be noticed.
"What now?" she asked.
"I think we just have to wait until later today to do something. We can't go to Kelowna, and Joe and Lauren and the family are going home for now, to get some much needed sleep, which I suppose we need too, although I don't know how I can sleep right now."
"Let's see them tomorrow, or should I say today, later, after Gurdwara. That should give them enough time to get settled and ready to figure things out."
He sighed and nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure I'll be staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night. Poor Al."
She wrapped her arms around him and drew him close. "Maybe," she said, kissing his neck, "I can help you burn off some nervous energy so you can sleep."
His body responded the way she hoped it would, but he said, "And you? Will I be helping you too?"
"Of course you will!" she said, amazed he even had to ask. "You're going to make me come before you finish, buddy. You don't get to leave me hanging."
"Will I make you come, though? Am I enough for you after you had...?"
She sighed in frustration, because she was already raring to go. "Do you want to talk about this now? Really?"
"I'm sorry."
"Do I ask you about how it was making love to two beautiful women, and I know they're beautiful because I've been naked with them too? Don't you think I'm jealous of you too?"
He sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. Although I did love watching Rachel fingering you from behind, making you come in front of me."
"Yup, that was pretty awesome, especially when you were both working on me. You know, Sunny, it's not just a penis that can give a woman pleasure, right?"
"But does mine--"
"Yes! Of course it does! And anyway, Joe..." She tried not to think about how easily he lifted her, the overwhelmingly masculine act making her wet all on its own. "He was an apparatus to me; I had to do the work because he was too large to be on top. I like when you make love to me, Sunny, because we can move together, and you're better at kissing me and doing things to my body that make me hum like a live wire." She kissed him hard and said, "I would always choose you over him."
Now he responded the way she wanted him to, and as he loomed over her, hair loose, making him look like the warrior prince she wanted him to be, he undressed her a little at a time, and she was itching for him to go faster, but he had to ruin the momentum by asking, "So... if it ever came up that we could do this with them again, you with Joe..."
"And you with Lauren this time? Because you didn't get to fuck her?" Her sexual frustration was quickly morphing into anger. "Are you saying you want to?"
He sighed and shook his head. "Once was enough. Sometimes a fantasy needs to stay a fantasy. And you?"
She hoped he didn't see any difference in her face, because inside she was already missing the feel of Joe inside her. "Yeah," she said. "Once was enough."
Now he was ready to go, finally, and Tej's irritation morphed back into lust for the man she'd been married to for more than twenty years. They fucked with an urgency she hadn't known in a long time and, with her legs wrapped around his waist, it was so different than it was with Joe, because she felt safe in his embrace, and that safety made her loosen and abandon herself to her body's sensations, but memories of Joe filling her to the brim kept intruding, so she went all in and let them intrude on her lovemaking with her husband, and she imagined both of them inside her at the same time, and when she came she tightened herself around him, making him stutter in his thrusting as an animal noise left her lips, so alien to her that Sunny actually paused and said, "Are you all right?"
"Yes!" she panted. "I just came harder than I think I ever have! Please, keep going!"
He smiled at that, his manhood reconfirmed as she knew it would be, and not long after he finished, and she lay entwined with him, sleepy and content, and fell back asleep within minutes.
Later in the afternoon, she sat facing the man who was in her head at the same time as her husband was between her legs, and she squirmed a little at the memory of her mental adultery, but Joe wasn't paying attention to her, and it was a little irritating. Hadn't their time together meant anything to him? Maybe he couldn't acknowledge her because Lauren was almost in his lap, and they were on speakerphone with Manny about her situation. That had to be it. They were in Joe and Lauren's living room while their kids hung out downstairs in what used to be the rec room but was now a small sitting room with a TV. Logan, to her surprise, was sitting with them, probably because he was older than the other kids and didn't have much in common with them.
"And is Sergeant Mara corroborating your story, Lauren?" Manny asked from where he was, still in Kelowna, probably.
"She is," Lauren said. "She's currently in Langley being debriefed by her superiors; last night was a failure of the two police departments, New West and the RCMP, to cover the house, and they want to get her statement, probably to exonerate them for not watching it while Joanie was there."
"So, Lauren, did you call the police as soon as you thought Joanie was in danger?" Manny asked.
"I did. I guess I was quicker to get there, and luckily I ran into Rhodes, but to tell you the truth I would have gone in by myself if I hadn't."
"She saved Joanie's life," Joe said, squeezing her close to him. "She's the hero here."
"I'd like to talk to Sergeant Mara later, if I can," Manny said, "Just to hear it from her."
"She's coming back here to stay the night, since the police are at the house in Queensborough at the moment. We'll get her to call you."
"Very good. I should be flying home soon, once Agnes is ready. She doesn't want to leave Al's side, but her children need her, and she shouldn't stay any longer in the Mercers' territory than she needs to. We've seen in both cases the lengths that family will go to to get what they want."
"When Agnes was talking to the prosecutors," Lauren said, "Did they indicate whether they were closing in on them?"
"They didn't, but the fact that they brought her up here speaks volumes, and the fallout from last night is going to tighten the noose around their operation. Still, it is a large family, and they might not all be arrested, and one or more of them might want to retaliate for last night. It's best if we leave soon."
"What about Al, though?" Lauren said. "Are you just going to leave him there? Rachel and Emma too?"
"Can you take Emma home with you, at least?" Logan asked, obviously worried for his sister.
"Police are guarding his room at the hospital," Manny said. "They'll guard Rachel and Emma's room at the hotel as well. If Agnes and her kids leave, that will be three fewer people to guard."
"I wish we could go to Kelowna," Lauren said, and Tej was surprised to see tears running down her cheeks. "They need us."
"I understand your concern," Manny said. "He hasn't lacked for visitors, though. His cousins have rotated being there, and they've been a real support to Rachel and Emma."
"That's a blessing at least," Sunny said. "For only knowing him a couple of months, that family of his has stepped up when it counted."
"Once I'm back, Lauren, I'll go with you to talk to the police," Manny said.
"Thank you so much," Lauren said. "We'll let you go, you probably need to rest."
"Yes, it's been a trying night and morning. Take care."
Once he hung up, Lauren wiped her eyes and said, "Poor Al. He keeps getting hurt."
"I'm sure Rachel will stay in touch with you," Tej said. "She'll let you know how he's doing."
"He's a hero too, if he was protecting Agnes and Emma from those goons," Joe said.
Lauren turned to him and said, "That's a big compliment coming from you."
Joe shrugged. "It's just a fact."
"So, Joanie's staying here tonight?" Tej asked.
Joe nodded. "It's safer for her if she's not alone, at least until Agnes comes back. She can stay in the downstairs bedroom while Al and Rachel are out."
"I take it this means you're back in her good graces?" she said before she could think. There was her irrational jealousy of Joanie rearing its ugly head again, and it would get her in trouble one day.
Everyone looked to Tej with raised eyebrows. Lauren looked at Logan and then turned back to her. "I don't think we ever really stopped being friends," she said diplomatically, lumping herself into the ambiguous you.
"How do you and Sunny feel about staying for dinner?" Joe asked, and she had a feeling he was changing the subject to dispel the awkwardness.
"Sounds good," Sunny said. "How about we buy takeout, our treat?"
"I would appreciate not having to cook," Lauren said, "but you're in our house, we'll buy."
"No, I insist, really," Sunny said. "You've been through enough lately. And anyway, this way Tej and I get a fighting chance of getting a veggie dish we can enjoy."
They all laughed politely and agreed to let Sunny order.
Thanks for reading this far! We're beginning to wrap things up with this book, but I didn't want to lose track of what might happen to everyone's relationships after the main intrigue was over. If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about police procedure and prosecution, leave a comment and let me know; I strive for authenticity.
To see how Al's doing after being stabbed, click on "Continue reading."