Page 99 of Boss

“Can we talk now?” Reese asked.

The roads weren’t cleared of stalled cars; however, salt trucks had effectively melted the ice. She stared out the window wanting the long drive to come to an end.

“So your name is Kassidy?”

She didn't answer.

“Is it true? Were you working for the E.P.U. the entire time? Stealing for them? Is that how all this started?”

“Who told you that your boyfriend Dale?” Kassidy countered.

“This is fucking serious! I hope you know that you aren't the victim here. That dead man is because of you. All of this is because of you,” Reese said.

“I know and I'll have to live with that,” Kassidy wiped her tears. She saw two men die and nothing she could do or say would ever erase the horror or shock.

“I'm sorry. I just, don't understand how things got his far out of hand. I'm sorry,” Reese said.

They drove the rest of the way in silence when Reese turned up the radio, and Kassidy was able to slip into her pain in silence while listening to rhythm and blues. The confession she gave the cops left out many details of her time trapped on that ranch. Especially the most intimate of moments shared with Tarek. She couldn’t explain her actions to herself. At that very moment she felt conflict, guilt, and a deep nagging sense of worry over his well-being. Did he get the medical attention he needed? Would he be arrested and charged with Daniel and Cash’s murder? Will she? She knew Reese had many questions to feed back the answers to the Marshalls. She couldn’t trust her.

They arrived at her townhome. A dark SUV pulled up in her driveway behind Reese’s car. Kassidy turned around and looked back at the truck. Alarmed, she gripped the side arm rest of the door.

“Who the hell are they?”

“Security firm that works for the Marshalls. They want to protect you and Tarek until the company sorts this thing out.”

“And you don’t find it odd that after everything I’ve done, the Marshalls want to protect me?”

“Well, let’s see, I don’t know what you have done because you won’t tell me.”

“I can’t trust these people.”

“Why? Why!” Reese shouted at her.

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“If it weren’t for the Marshalls you’d be in jail now. Show at least a little gratitude.” Reese got out of the car. She walked around the front of her vehicle and came over to Kassidy’s side of the car. She opened the door but Kassidy didn’t move. Reese extended a hand. Kassidy wiped away her tears and let her help. She had to walk on her toes because her feet hurt. When she struggled on the ice slick pavement, Reese helped her. They got to the front door and Kassidy dug in her purse for the key. Finding it she opened it and let them both inside.

Kassidy went to her kitchen and opened her Crockpot. She pulled out the gun one of her last boyfriends had gifted her for her eighteenth birthday. She’d never fired it not once. And it wasn’t registered. She didn’t like guns unlike nearly every woman, man, and child in Texas who all owned a firearm, and knew how to operate them. She limped out of the kitchen with it in her hand. Reese looked at the gun and then her.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Kassidy told her. “I’ll need you to help me with my feet, and then we’ll talk. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Kassidy. I’m on your side.”

“Yeah right,” she mumbled. Kassidy dragged her weary body up the stairs into her bedroom, and closed the door. She shed Tarek’s clothes. She walked into her bathroom naked. She sat on the closed toilet lid and removed one sock. Tears quickly sprung to her eyes when the bloody tissue came off with the sock. She then did the same to the other. She turned on the shower and stepped in. At first, the water sprayed over her bone weary body like a thousand ice crystals. She withstood the shock of the cool rivulets. Blood and dirt rinsed down the drain. And then the water warmed and Kassidy closed her eyes. Like a video on rewind, every gentle, pleasant, scary, horrific memory flashed underneath her closed lids. The one that kept looping on replay was the death of Daniel. His head exploded. Not before she saw the wild panic in his eyes. Who in the Marshall family had turned her friend against her? When had they done it? And what could they possibly have on Daniel to make him homicidal? She eased down the wall of the shower and sat on the tile floor. She drew her knees up to her chest and cried against them as the water cascaded all over her. Daniel was dead. If she hadn’t taken on the Marshalls none of this would have happened and for what? To avenge a woman named Clarissa that she only knew as a child? To atone for being the only survivor the night of the horrible accident that wiped out her family? If she had just did as Daniel asked and not got on that plane with Tarek in Chicago none of this would have happened.

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