R.I.P (Part II)
Laurel Quinn felt the world around her slow down as she ran into the Emergency Room lobby of the San New General Hospital.
The only sound she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat racing. With each beat it felt like little daggers stabbing her chest violently. She felt sick, sad and worst of all, she felt hopeless. For the first time in three years Laurel Quinn, ‘Crisis Manager To The Stars’-felt vulnerable, weak and hopeless, something she never thought she’d feel again.
She approached the ‘Nurse’s Station’ getting the attention of a nurse in pink and white scrubs. “Hello. My name is Laurel and I got a call that my-my brother was shot and he was rushed here.”
The nurse nodded her head seeing how distraught Laurel was and she rushed over to the keyboard of her computer and typed in a few letters looking at the screen. She read the screen and looked at her, “We received six patients with gunshot wounds. What is your brother’s name?”
“Jace. J-a-c-e. He was emancipated when he was sixteen and left the house years ago. He threatened he was going to change his last name but I’m afraid I don’t know what it is.”
The nurse absorbed the information she was given and she typed in a few more letters in the keyboard. “I’m afraid we have no patient by that name, ma’am. Maybe you’re in the wrong hospital.”
“Please. Just check again. He is twenty six years old, he has brown curly hair, dark brown eyes. He is very sassy and smart. He thinks he’s funny at times but he really isn’t and-“ At this point Laurel felt her emotions get the best of her. Her voice was cracking as she started to tear up remembering how much she appreciated the crazy Private Investigator and even after helping her find David and digging into some of her life events, he never once passed judgment on her. He accepted her and she accepted him. She saw him as a friend, a friend that she didn’t want to lose.
The nurse felt sympathy for the woman and she shook her head slowly. “I can’t give out more information than that. I’m sorry but your brother isn’t here.”
The Crisis Manager thanked the woman and nervously turned away from the nurse’s station and tried to make sense of everything Tony told her on the phone. All he said was Jace was shot and they were currently heading to the San New General Hospital, which was exactly where Laurel was standing.
She looked over toward the elevators and saw Tony walking out. He had on a pair of blue hospital scrubs as if he was a nurse leaving his shift at the ER. He was walking slower than usual. He looked as if a vampire sucked out all of his energy.
“Tony.” Laurel walked over to him passing by a few patients seeking and needing medical attention. He heard her voice and stopped walking slowly turning around to face her.
She noticed his eyes were bloodshot red and filled with tears. Looking down at his hands she saw they were covered with dried blood. “H-How is he?”
“The doctors were able to retrieve the bullets out of him. They were two. One in his chest and another in his…um...st-stomach.” His speech was slow, his energy low and his voice cracked with every word that came out of his mouth.
“Oh my God. Is he alright?”
Tony nodded his head at her words. “……..He’s dead. He died on the operating table.”
Laurel felt her heart sink to her stomach and Tony could no longer hold onto his emotions. He dropped to his knees but not long before Laurel grabbed his shoulders and dropped down slowly with him.
The entire Emergency Room froze in shock and sadness as Tony’s cries of pain and grief echoed through every room in the ER. Laurel rubbed his back slowly. “Let it out. Let it out.”
A few tears rolled down her cheeks and she closed her eyes holding in her grief of losing the only person outside of Publicity!, she ever considered a genuine friend.
Nine Hours Later (5:18pm):
Laurel walked out of her bedroom slowly closing the door behind her. She was finally able to get Tony to sleep. It wasn’t easy losing someone- she knew firsthand about that- but Tony wasn’t a man known to wear his heart on his sleeves so seeing him like this was worrisome for her.
Her and Jace were close as friends could possibly get without revealing too much about their past, she never knew his real name and he never knew where she lived. It wasn’t because they didn’t trust each other because they did, it was because they both knew some secrets had to be kept and they respected each other for that reason.
There was a knock on the door which caught Laurel off guard because she didn’t remember inviting anyone over. Fear was something Laurel never believed in, she walked over toward the door and opened it.
Standing in the doorway was Slinky who shook his head. “You didn’t even waste three seconds to look through the peek hole to see who I was. Are ya trying to get yourself killed?”
Laurel rolled her eyes at him clearly not in the mood to deal with any of his shenanigans-especially not today. “How’s Andrew Garfieldson?” Slinky asked stepping inside of the apartment placing another toothpick inside of his mouth.
The Crisis Manager rolled her eyes closing the door and she turned to face him. “His name is Tony and he’s not doing so well, he just lost his boyfriend so please try to be respectful- I know it’s hard to do since they didn’t teach you that in the swamp you crawled out of. Now, did you get the surveillance tape?”
Slinky nodded his head and he pulled out a cellphone from the inside of his large tuxedo and swiped the screen unlocking it. “Just press play. The video is all queued up.”
Laurel took the phone from his hand and tapped the screen causing the video to play. In the video a person wearing a hood walked over to apartment 6C and rang the doorbell. The mysterious person took out a small handgun from a messenger bag that was slung over their right shoulder and they waited patiently for the person to answer the door. After thirty seconds the door opened and the figure fired their gun twice before turning around to run away.
Laurel paused the video and tried to calm down her nerves. It was a tough pill to swallow watching the last seconds of Jace before he was innocently gunned down. She looked at the paused frame and noticed the gunman’s face was visible. She zoomed in and the person’s face became clearer, the image showed a young woman with blonde hair, porcelain like skin and pink lipstick on her lips.
“Lola?”
The name caused Slinky to lower his eyebrows at her and he glanced at the screen. “You know her?”
“Unfortunately. She was a client of mine. Very unstable.” Laurel had no idea why Lola would shoot Jace considering they never met before-at least not to the Crisis Manager’s recollection.
Slinky glanced back at Laurel as he took his phone from her hands, “You need to get back to packing. I understand you want to play mother to Andrew-I mean Tony, but it won’t be of much use to him if you’re dead.” The greasy man opened the apartment door and turned around to face her as he stepped backward exiting the apartment. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t do anything stupid and do not go anywhere.”
Laurel pushed the door closed and she let out a sigh of frustration as she combed her right hand through her Auburn colored hair. Too much was happening, too many questions were being raised and not even answers. She turned around and flinched as she saw Tony standing in the middle of her living room.
“Lola killed Jace?” Laurel was shocked at the question because she left Tony sound asleep in the bedroom and after the emotional day he had, she assumed he was sleeping with ease.
Unfortunately, she was wrong. Tony was asleep until he heard the knocking on the door and he shot open his eyes reliving the moment where Jace was killed by someone knocking on his door. He got off the bed and snuck into the hallway where he heard the entire conversation between Laurel and Slinky.
As much as the Crisis Manager wanted to lie and make it seem like he was just hearing things and none of it was true, but it was useless. She slowly walked over to him speaking in a calm tone. “Tony you need to rest. You ne
ed some sleep and you can’t get that if-“
“DID LOLA KILL JACE?!” He shouted angrily causing Laurel to flinch. She nodded her head slowly and he clenched his jaws together. He grabbed his coat off of Laurel’s couch and stormed toward the door.
“No, no! You are not going to find her! Tony, you have gone this far without killing anyone. You and I both know how dangerous you are. If you kill now you will not be able to stop.”
The words rang in his head and he stopped walking. There was nothing else worth caring for, nothing else worth admiring. “I have gone this far being me because of Jace. He wasn’t just-…he was someone that I loved because he listened. He made me feel human, he made me forget all about my past.”
Laurel understood the feeling. She thought she had found the same thing in her ex-husband David but that clearly was proved to be untrue as she learned the hard way.
There was a silence in the room as she tried to find out what to say next, however Tony already had his mind set and he dashed toward the door opening it.
“If you leave this apartment you will no longer be employed at Publicity!. I will fire you with no hesitation.”
Tony stood in between the threshold contemplating his next his move. He had enjoyed working with Laurel, meeting the diverse clienteles, putting his skills to great use and living a life he actually enjoyed living. Just like a glass vase dropping off the Empire State Building, his hopes were destroyed the second Jace took his last breath on the operating table.
He looked over his shoulder at Laurel, “Then consider the door closing as my resignation letter.”
Without a second thought Tony left the apartment closing the door behind him.
“Dammit!” Laurel kicked the coffee table in frustration causing it to turn over. The sound of her cellphone ringing caused her to curse at the entire day and how everything was turning out. She rushed over to her black designer purse and took out her phone quickly answering it. “Quinn!”
“Hey Ms. Quinn it’s Justin Austin. I just wanted to see if you were close by. I’m at your office to pick up the mail.”
‘Shit!’ Laurel thought to herself remembering how she volunteered to pick up all his fan mail while he was away with family. “That’s right. Is it possible you could pick it up tomorrow? Today isn’t really ideal.”
“I wish I could Ms. Quinn. Unfortunately, I’m leaving to New York City for six months. I was cast as Captain Canary.”
Laurel let out a surprised gasp-she didn’t mean it- but as his Crisis Manager she wanted to react as if she cared. “That is amazing congratulations. I- I’m home right now but I’ll swing by in five minutes. Just let me fix myself up.”
“No problem. I’ll see you when you get here.”
Laurel hung up the cellphone and looked at the apartment door hoping that Tony changed his mind and would reenter, but he wasn’t on the other side, he wasn’t coming back and his mind was made up.
She took in a deep breath and exhaled. She turned on the heels of her feet and walked into her bedroom to get dressed and head back to the office.
Forty Six Minutes Later:
Laurel didn’t bother steaming one of her many designer dresses for a short meeting nor did she have the energy to match everything together. Instead she wore a pair of black slacks, a white blouse under the black trench coat and of course a pair of black stiletto shoes. She stepped off the elevator on the third floor and the clanking of her heels caused Justin Austin to look away from his phone and glance at the woman approaching him.
“I am so sorry I’m late. I forgot today was New Year’s Eve and the traffic is crazy with everyone heading to the Tania to watch the ball drop.”
Justin kindly dismissed her words, “Oh nonsense. Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault I should’ve called earlier to remind you. I can’t expect a business woman like yourself to wait for little old me.” He was sweet and kind but Laurel wasn’t in the right head space to even think of more compliments to describe him. She took out a set of keys from her purse and unlocked the office door.
Justin Austin was twenty three years old and famously known throughout the city for his kindness, sweet smile, his big heart and of course his impeccable acting talents which was the reason he was cast as the lead on the teen drama ‘2Heart1Love’, a show that never seemed interesting to Laurel but the teenagers all around the city seemed to enjoy it. His face was on lunchboxes, pillowcases, shirts, pants, boxers, panties, posters, billboards, notebooks, folders etc. He was a huge star that never once let the fame get to his head. Unfortunately nude pictures and videos of him were leaked to the public in a cyber-attack that only took seconds to destroy his career.
The studio bosses at the show’s network didn’t show any support to Justin, instead they swiftly fired him and are looking for another actor to recast him with on the show- a move that will ultimately cause the demise of ‘2Hearts1Love’.
“So Captain Canary? That is a huge deal.” Laurel said as she finally unlocked the door and opened it. Once the door opened the lights throughout the office automatically turned on-something that Tony installed. It did come in handy for security reasons and it also made opening Publicity!, early in the morning a whole lot easier. She walked over to Tony’s desk and pointed to a purple plastic crate that contained more than six hundred envelopes of various sizes.
“That was all from these past three weeks.” She was going to pick the box up but the tall young man grabbed it for her and picked it up with ease. “Wow, someone has been drinking his milk.” She said smirking.
“Oh no Ms. Quinn. My agent has me on a strict gym regime for this role. I can’t blame him though, this has always been a dream of mine. Thanks again for everything. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here…I would’ve…well you know.”
Laurel did know. When the pictures leaked online Justin hit a deep dark depression and his agent worried that he was going to inflict self-harm on himself, which was why he quickly hired Laurel Quinn to fix the situation and she did just that.
“You are a very talented and generous young man and in this Industry that is very hard to find. Now you make sure you write to each and every fan that wrote you a letter and good luck on your new role, Captain Canary.”
Justin bowed at her tightly holding the crate full of letters, parcels and drawings and she smiled at him. He turned around leaving the office, he decided the stairs was a better option since it could help more with his training for the block buster role.
Laurel watched as the stair case door closed and she quickly picked up Tony’s office phone and dialed a few numbers on the number pad. She placed the earpiece on her right ear and listened as the other line rang a few times then went straight to voicemail.
“’Ello, you just reached Tony’s phone. I’m not bloody here so leave a message or not I don’t care.” A few seconds later there was a ‘Beep!’
“Tony it’s Laurel…I don’t know where you’re at right now but you need to think about what you’re going to do. I know you’re hurting now I do, but so am I. Jace wasn’t just a P.I who worked downstairs he was my friend. He was-“
“Hang up the bloody phone Quinn.” A voice said causing Laurel to turn around. Standing in the doorway of Publicity! was Tony.
“Tony…please tell me you didn’t- you didn’t…find her.”
He nodded his head slowly, “Oh I found her. She rented a room at the Culprite Motel Downtown. I was able to track her using a facial recognition program by analyzing every security camera in the streets. She told me everything.”
Laurel’s eyebrows lowered at his words. She watched as he slowly walked into the waiting area of Publicity!, “What do you mean ‘everything’?”
“She told me she was behind the deaths of Darlene, Mark, Jordan and-Jace.”
“She’s T.S.K?”
Tony shook his head and his gaze dropped down to his feet as he continued speaking. “She isn’t part of the real Star Katchers. She used their name so they could take
the blame but the real group are just bloody lonely, desperate teenage hackers who were rejected by their theater club. The police are making their way to three of their houses now.”
“But, why did she kill-“
“She killed Darlene because she believed the host wanted Damian. She then killed Mark because he said if she slept with him he would cast her as a lead in a new film. She slept with the bloke only to end up not being casted. She killed Jordan because in her eyes he betrayed her by creating the illusion her and Damian were dating and shattering her expectations…and she killed Jace by accident. Apparently she thought you and I were dating so when Jace opened the door she shot him thinking he was you.”
Everything was starting to make sense. Each letter certain actors received were vague in descriptions, they had no real proof but figured because this was Hollywood each actor had something to hide; but Lola was actually going to kill Laurel? The Crisis Manager didn’t do anything except tell her the truth. She supplied gasoline to the flames of their perfect illusion and she never once exposed the truth; but there was another question that lurked in the back of Laurel’s mind like Jack The Ripper lurking in the shadows. She straightened her posture and took a hard gulp scared of the answer.
“Tony, where is she?”
“I didn’t kill her. I recorded the conversation and sent it to the police. They came in and arrested her.”
Laurel let out a deep sigh of relief, she even found herself smiling at his words. Before she could say anything he interrupted her. “I wanted to choke her until I crushed her windpipes, I wanted to throw her out of the window and watched as she painted the cement with her blood…but I didn’t touch her. I didn’t restrain myself for you and I certainly as Hell didn’t do it for me. I did it for Jace. It’s what he would’ve wanted. He always said deep down I was a good man. I thought he just wanted to get inside of my pants.” He chuckled softly remembering the first time he and Jace formally met. In his mind that was an episode that replayed daily.
“I loved him Quinn…I honestly would’ve given up everything I had here if it meant I could be with him.”
“I know.” She replied. “He felt the same about you.”
Tony gave her a nod and he unzipped his coat, took it off and threw it on the chair behind his desk. “I’m going downstairs to Jace’s office. I gave him a picture for Christmas and I want to get it before the bloody movers collect his things.”
“Do you-want my help?”
“No.” Tony answered walking over toward the door. “This is something I need to do by myself. But thanks Quinn.”
“No problem.”
He walked out of the office and headed toward the elevator, still on the third floor as if it was waiting for him. Laurel watched him enter and she placed her hands over her mouth thanking every Deity for Tony not harming Lola.
Her attention was diverted to the staircase door opening and Detective Oliver Morales walked out closing the door behind him and he made his way toward the office of Publicity!.
“Detective Morales what are you doing here?” She asked wiping away any tears from her eyes. The Detective noticed her current emotional state.
“Are you okay Ms. Quinn?” He asked passing the threshold of the agency.
“It depends the reason on why you’re here. Did you find Anna?”
The Detective nodded reassuring her that everything was fine. “We found her seconds away from crossing the Canadian border. She had more than eight hundred kilos of Coke in her possession. Unfortunately the interrogation process had to wait because she’s completely useless in her current state. So, we’re just waiting for her to sober up and then we can interrogate her ourselves.”
Laurel had no idea Anna had a drug problem and truthfully she didn’t care, however it did make Anna seem even guiltier and the likely accomplice to have David Jimberman killed.
“So…is that it?” She knew there was more to the investigation but she needed to play dumb in order to be perceived as an innocent bystander in the case.
The handsome Detective nodded his head regretfully. “It appears so Ms. Quinn. I really did have a great time in San New. I had no idea this city grows coffee beans. It’s refreshing to taste real coffee.”
“Oh you have no idea. It’s one of the many reasons why I love it here.”
Detective Morales smiled agreeing with her. For a second Laurel found herself smiling back-not her normal fake smile whenever she wanted to physically assault a client. Why was she smiling? Did she find him funny? No that couldn’t be it. Did she enjoy his presence? That was probably it. But she couldn’t! It would be dangerous for her to even get all giddy around a person within law enforcement.
She needed to change the subject fast before things got even more complicated. “If that is all, I should probably get back to my paperwork.”
Detective Morales’ smiled faded. “Are you seriously working on New Year’s Eve? Don’t you have an assistant who you could dump the work on?”
“Ew, now you’re making me sound like one of those Rich and lazy women who drink wine while their houseboy runs amok.” She smiled warmly at him and he returned the smile back. “No he’s currently- running errands for me and for the record, scandals don’t take holidays. Especially in this industry.”
The Detective understood what she meant, although he couldn’t fathom why she wasn’t throwing a New Year’s Eve party at the office but he wasn’t there to judge and he certainly wasn’t the ‘Party Police’ to care.
He cleared his throat. “I should probably get going before the traffic gets any crazier than it is. Berger County is a two hour drive yet it feels like a lifetime. Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and tell you we caught your ex-husband’s murderer and…yeah. Oh!” He gasped and took out a business card from the inside of his right jeans pocket once again flashing his golden badge. “It’s my card. Just in case you ever decide to call me to touch base. Or if you ever need a Detective to assist with a client.”
Laurel smirked glancing down at the business card in his right hand and he outstretched his arm handing it to her. “That’s so sweet of you Detective Morales-“
“Please Laurel, call me Oliver.”
The Crisis Manager smiled and took the card from his large soft hands and she read the information on it. The card had his name, cellphone number, email address, extension and precinct on it. She tapped the card against her nails and smiled at him. “Will do Dete- I mean Oliver.”
He once again flashed her a smile and he stepped a few inches closer leaning down toward her lips as Laurel watched nervously. There was an undeniable chemistry between the two, while Laurel wanted to fight it because getting involved with anyone-especially a Detective- would be dangerous for both, but she couldn’t fight it. At least not this time.
Fate is a very funny thing, there’s no telling if the person in your life is your enemy, friend or potential lover until it’s too late.
Laurel believed all of the bad things she had done in her life was catching up to her and it was Karma that made sure she would never experience happiness again. Nonetheless Oliver took an interest in her and he was everything she looked for in a man-minus the badge and being a detective.
She leaned in closer staring at his soft luscious lips and she closed her eyes awaiting the inevitable kiss, he placed his right hand on the left side of her neck and pinched a pressure point causing the Crisis Manager to slip into an unconscious state.
Detective Morales caught Laurel before she could fall back and he stared at the beautiful woman unconscious in his arms. The same luscious lips Laurel couldn’t wait to kiss, spread into a sinister smirk. A smirk that revealed his true intentions and it was that same smirk that made it obvious he wasn’t going to leave the city of San New without taking a souvenir; that souvenir was the Crisis Manager, a woman worth $36.8 million.
See? Fate is one cruel son-of-a-gun.
[THE END]
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