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#Post#: 2947--------------------------------------------------
Haunted by the Past - Chapter 18 - Home Movies
DIR By: RampageSports
Date: March 6, 2016, 10:53 am
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Author's Note: The Spenser, Hawk and Susan Silverman characters
belong to mystery novelist Robert B. Parker. Mr. Parker is one
of my favorite authors, and his work is a major influence on the
the way I write. Whether I even come close to mimicking his
style is open to considerable debate, but I have chosen to use
his characters in this story as something of an homage. My goal
is to handle them as lightly as possible and to maintain them as
Mr. Parker created them. Any failure on that front is
completely my own.
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Haunted by the Past - Chapter 18 - Home Movies
The first sign of trouble came when I arrived the next morning
to find the building locked and empty. Danni usually gets in
earlier than I do, simply because geography gives her a head
start. On the other hand, the difference between her travel
time and mine is less than twenty minutes. So, it doesn't take
much to push her arrival time past my own.
She arrived about a half-hour later, with Hawk in tow. Just
from her appearance, it was clear the delay was due to more than
an extra tap or two on the snooze button.
Her hair was pulled back in a loose, messy ponytail gathered
high on her head. Her outfit consisted of basic shades of grey
and black — no doubt selected deliberately to make matching
nearly automatically — and it looked like it had been put on by
a blind person. Her blouse was loose and slightly askew, as if
she'd managed to get it on, but couldn't muster the energy to
straighten it out. Her eyelids looked like they were
permanently stuck at half-mast, and she was walking like a
zombie — her right arm bent up in front of her, coffee cup in
hand.
I've seen Danni in a variety of different states. Formal,
casual, jeans and sneakers... whatever. Aside from the sweaty,
spent look she works hard to earn in the cage, she is the
mistress of effortless perfection.
Now, she literally looked like something the wind blew in.
"Whaa-at the hell happened to you? I asked.
She stood in front of my guest chair and let gravity do the
rest... dropping like a rag doll, legs and arms flopping
independently.
Not a drop of coffee spilled, though.
"Something is wrong with my alarm system," she said. "It must
have gone off six times, last night."
My antennae went up immediately.
"Is everything alright?" I asked urgently.
She shrugged.
"Hawk checked each time. He didn't find anything."
I looked to Hawk.
"No one tried to get into that house last night," he said
definitively.
"Then what happened?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "The alarm company is coming out
today. Spenser will be there."
I'm not sure if Danni noticed, but Hawk's accent had
disappeared.
I noticed, and I eyed him warily because I knew what the change
meant.
"I'm sure it was just a problem with the system," Danni said
dismissively.
I kept my eyes on Hawk... waiting to hear his take.
"We'll know more later," he said. "Until then, we will be more
cautious."
"You follow me everywhere I go," Danni protested. "How much
more cautious can we get?"
Neither Hawk nor I so much as cracked a smile.
Hawk's job was to protect Danni, and he always takes his job
seriously.
As for me, after days of a whole lot of nothing, something had
now happened that brought all of the fears I'd tamped down
rushing back to just under the surface.
I held on Hawk for another beat, then stood and picked up a pile
of miscellaneous paperwork from the left side of my desk. I
carried it to the other side of my chair and dropped it
unceremoniously to the floor.
I turned and met Danni's confused expression.
"That's your spot for today," I said, nodding toward the newly
emptied end of the desk.
Her eyebrow went up.
"Are you kidding?"
"No," I said as I nudged my laptop to the right to create a
little more space.
Danni turned to Hawk, then back to me.
"You don't think you're being a little dramatic?" she asked.
"Probably," I said, "but do me a favor and humor me."
She continued to eye me as if I were a little bit deranged.
Well, more than usual, I suppose.
"I think you're nuts," she said finally, "but okay."
She got herself squared away pretty quickly. My desk is open on
both sides, so we were able to gain space by sitting in opposite
directions. Before long, we were both busy with our own work,
and the strangeness of the situation faded away.
Hawk, meanwhile, had commandeered one of my guest chairs and set
it just outside my office door. He then split his time between
the chair and his favorite position holding up my wall.
An hour or so later, Steph came by with the injury reports and
training schedules for the upcoming event. She never said a
word about the seating arrangement or Hawk's presence. Just
handed over the reports and assumed her spot against the
bookcase.
Danni and I each grabbed a report and looked it over. After a
moment or so, I became acutely aware of Hawk standing silent and
emotionless against one wall as Steph seemed quietly
disinterested against the other. My eyes traveled back and
forth between them several times as I absorbed the similarities.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.
I caught Danni's attention, then nodded toward the the other
two.
She looked over one shoulder at Hawk then observed Steph over
the other. She didn't immediately pick up on my meaning, so she
shot me a confused looked. I nodded again, and she turned
around completely and took a harder look. This time it clicked.
She did the same repeated back and forth I had done a few times,
then spun back to me.
"I honestly don't know what to say."
"I don't think words can begin to describe what we have seen," I
said.
"Could you two stop f*cking around and finish so I can get on
with my life?" Steph said.
We finished with the reports. After a few minutes of
discussion, Steph headed off to the training area. It was time
for Danni's morning session with Amanda, so she followed along.
With the two of us separated, Hawk sought out the best spot to
defend us both at once — a quest that put him back in the lobby.
Nearly two hours later, Spenser arrived. His expression was
gaunt and serious, and he didn't even have a lame wise crack to
lob my way.
Translation: He came bearing bad news.
"What is it?" I asked.
He lowered himself into a chair.
"Miss Harris should be here for this."
I could have called the training floor and had Danni sent over,
but those repressed worries of mine were right there now...
waiting for the chance to grab hold of me. I had no patience
for any sort of delay.
"She's training. We can bring her up to speed later. Now, what
is it?"
From his pocket, he produced a tiny flash drive and handed it to
me without a word.
I plugged it into my computer and took a look at the contents.
It contained only a single video file, which I opened.
Hawk made his way into the office just as my media player
finished loading.
The footage was dark, and I couldn't immediately tell what I was
looking at. After a few moments, I figured out it was an open
field. More study revealed a line of trees on the left of the
screen and a structure that appeared to be a house — Danni's
house, no doubt — on the right.
Putting the pieces together, I realized I was looking at
security footage. The camera appeared to be mounted near the
front of the house, looking back onto the lawn on the left side.
The video ran for just over a minute and absolutely nothing
happened.
"The first alarm occurred at 11:43 PM last night," Spenser said.
Almost the moment he finished his sentence, the video showed a
figure emerge from the tree line. I glanced at the time stamp
in the lower right corner.
11:43
The figure crossed the strip of lawn quickly and purposefully,
his features shrouded in darkness. He went directly to the side
window of the house and tried to open it.
Immediately, the lawn was bathed in light, and for just an
instant, the figure was clearly visible. He swiftly scurried
back into the tree line and disappeared.
There was no sound on the video, but it was obvious that Danni's
alarm system had been tripped at the same time the lights
snapped on. Within thirty seconds, Hawk strode into the frame,
gun in hand. He surveyed the scene, then disappeared behind the
house. Within a minute, he was back, moving more deliberately
this time. He stopped and looked at the window for a moment,
then continued on.
Hawk spoke up and answered my question before I asked it.
"I didn't see anything because there was nothing to see," he
said. "No markings or signs that anyone had tried to force
their way in."
I stayed quiet and kept my eyes on the video. There was a quick
cut, and then the scene was dark again. I glanced at the the
corner to see that the video had jumped ahead to 1:17 AM.
"The second alarm sounded at 1:18," Spenser said.
Sure enough, the figure reappeared within a minute, and the
whole scene played out in an almost identical fashion.
After the action concluded, the video jumped ahead to 3:02.
Spenser skipped the narration, because the story was the same.
This time, I stopped the video just after the lights snapped
on... the figure clearly visible.
Height wise, he looked to be about five-nine or five-ten. He
wasn't overweight, but he was thick and broad, which put his
weight around two twenty-five or so. In his sneakers, jeans and
dark winter coat, he was not dressed for burglary. I skipped
ahead a few frames to get a good look at his face. No stranger
to a computer, I knew how to use the video software to magnify
the image. Clearly, Danni hadn't skimped on her security, as
the quality of the video was excellent. His eyes — small and
dark — were clearly visible. His face, too, seemed small — much
too narrow for his broad frame. His features looked compressed
and pinched in toward his nose. His lips were pressed tightly
together, which further accentuated the look.
Give him some whiskers, and he'd have looked like a giant rat.
"Who is he?" I asked darkly.
"I don't have a name," Spenser said, "but I've seen him at the
club. When Powers comes and goes, this guy is with him."
My suspicion confirmed, I could feel my emotions condense into a
small, cold stone in the pit of my stomach.
"If he wasn't breaking in, what was he doing?" I asked without
taking my eyes from the screen.
I was making no effort to disguise the rage that was building in
me, and I was sure Spenser and Hawk could hear it. They didn't
seem to know quite what to do with it, though.
"We think setting off the alarm was his only goal," Spenser
said.
I nodded once, slowly and deliberately.
There were only two reasons I could think of for such behavior.
Either Rat Face was an adolescent moron who thought he was cool,
or he was trying to intimidate the homeowner. And I didn't have
to think too long to decide which motivation I believed was at
play, in this case.
King was f*cking with Danni. The one thing I had been most
concerned with. The one thing I simply would not allow.
I closed the video and snatched the drive from the front of the
machine. I yanked open my desk drawer, threw the tiny device in
and slammed it shut.
Then I stood and pulled my jacket and purse from the coat stand.
"Where are you going?" Spenser asked.
"Trenton," I said as I stormed out of the office.
"Hey, wait a second," he called after me.
I ignored him and kept walking toward the front door. The
patience I'd shown in responding to Steph the previous day was
gone. She had been right. It was time to go confront the
problem.
And maybe snap it's slimy little neck while I was at it.
"Richelle, STOP!" Spenser said, as he and Hawk emerged from the
office behind me.
I turned and looked at him.
"Why?" I asked angrily.
He gave me a disbelieving look.
"You don't think maybe this is a bad idea?"
"No," I said. "We want to know what Powers is up to. I'm going
to go ask him."
"And you think he's just going to tell you?"
"Can't hurt to try."
"Actually, I think it can. There's a good chance he wants you
dead."
"If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it by now."
"What's going on?" Danni asked, as she emerged from the training
area — hair still damp from her post-workout shower.
Spenser looked at me and I thrust my hand out disgustedly.
"Go ahead. Tell her."
He recounted for her what the video had shown. She listened
silently, and I watched the sad reality weigh her down, bit by
bit.
Each bit served as fuel for the flames of my anger.
When the story finished, Danni patiently and methodically
digested what she'd just heard. Then, her eyes narrowed on me.
"Where the hell are you going?" she asked.
"To see an old friend," I said.
She nodded lightly, and I readied myself for the expected
argument. Which is why I was so unprepared when she didn't
protest.
"I'm coming with you," she said.
People talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn't
have to wait, because the shoe had just hit me right between the
eyes.
Just a few minutes ago, Spenser had been trying to impress upon
me the reasons my plan was a bad one. Now, I had to impress
those reasons and more upon Danni, all while maintaining my
original position for myself.
Needless to say, I didn't have much success.
"Not a chance in hell," I said, "Powers sent a man to terrorize
you. Now you're going to just walk in and offer yourself to
him?"
"Isn't this the same man who wants you dead?" she asked. "You
don't seem to have a problem walking in there."
"If he was going to kill me, he'd have done it already."
"Ah, yes. It must be wonderful to know everything, the way you
do."
"F*ck off, Danni."
"Kiss my ass," she said. "By the way, since you're so well
informed, then tell me what he does want if he's not here to
kill you?"
"I don't know yet," I said. "That's what I intend to find out."
"And you think he's just going to tell you? If that's the case,
then what the f*ck have we been waiting for? You should have
dropped in on him weeks ago."
"I already had this lecture from him," I said, pointing to
Spenser, who was strangely silent as he and Hawk took in the
festivities.
"Oh, I see," Danni said, "and did he tell you you were a f*cking
idiot, too?"
"I don't have to take this sh*t, and I don't have to explain
myself," I said.
"You don't think maybe getting you to walk right into his lap
might be part of his plan?" she continued.
"Look," I shouted, "I'm going and you're not, and I don't give a
f*ck if you like it!"
She stared defiantly at me, but said nothing.
"As for you two," I said to the men, "feel free to come, or
don't. But, if you want to stop me, you're going to have to
shoot me."
I spun on my heel, steamed out the door and got in my car.
Danni was the first one out behind me, and I could see her
standing in front of the building as I backed out. She made no
effort to stop me... just stood there with her hands on her hips
and watched me drive away.
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Character Reference
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Richelle_100x120.jpg
Name: Richelle Winterfeld
Nickname(s):
Background: Owner of the RSI stable, former underground fighter
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Danni_100x120.jpg
Name: Danneel Harris
Nickname(s): Danni
Background: RSI stable leader, reigning DEF welterweight
champion
HTML https://aade768506dacb303a01a361d3dc0d27209a5ec4.googledrive.com/host/0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMXhVcF82aG5SXzA/Stephanie_100x120.jpg
Name: Stephanie McMahon
Nickname(s): Steph
Background: RSI's fighter development coordinator, reigning SCQ
super heavyweight champion
[img]
HTML https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=0Bz8YsEjMxOhMMGpJdTNkc1RnSHc[/img]
Name: Amanda Seyfried
Nickname(s): Mandy
Background: ESL welterweight contender
#Post#: 2951--------------------------------------------------
Re: Haunted by the Past - Chapter 18 - Home Movies
DIR By: Dragons Den
Date: March 7, 2016, 6:22 pm
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Oh shit! Richelle's had it. I don't know whether to wish good
luck to her, or Powers, lol. Shit is about to go dowwwwn.
Top work, Richelle, looking forward to more!
#Post#: 2952--------------------------------------------------
Re: Haunted by the Past - Chapter 18 - Home Movies
DIR By: RampageSports
Date: March 8, 2016, 6:51 am
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Ha-ha! No doubt about it. Richelle's snapped and lost her
mind. :-\
BTW, I'm annoyed with myself... life overtook me last night, and
I fell asleep before I got the chance to read the latest
installment of the story you and Becca have going. Now, I have
to wait another whole day. >:(
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