Chapter 6 Naomi
Naomi
Tonight, was bingo night for Naomi Lashley.
Sure, she lived in Las Vegas, had lived there all her life, so there were definitely more lucrative games she could play for money.
But bingo was fun and it was affordable.
She didn’t have much and had learned to deal with less after Porter’s death.
But she was content and that was all that mattered.
She wished she could say the same about her only child.
Victoria was even more beautiful today at thirty-three years old than she had been when she was three minutes old. And she was just as stubborn as she’d been when she was three and sat at the kitchen table for the better part of six hours refusing to eat okra.
“I’m not going to play bingo,” Victoria said with exasperation.
Just a few moments ago, she’d come into the dining room—which she kept impeccably clean along with the rest of the house—with a plate of grilled tilapia and macaroni and cheese.
She took a seat at the table and blessed her food, obviously prepared to eat.
Which meant, she had no plans to leave the house tonight.
“I have briefs to read and motions to review,” Victoria continued. “I don’t have time to sit with you and Bobby Witkee while you battle it out at bingo.”
“Bobby never beats me,” Naomi replied holding her head high and reaching over to pinch off a piece of fish. Sticking it into her mouth she moaned. “You’re getting better, this is good. And Bobby cheats, the lying fart.”
“Really, Mama? You were a teacher for thirty years, that’s the best insult you could come up with while I’m eating?”
“I wanted to say something else but I thought I was being tactful. You work too much,” Naomi said with a wave of her hand.
“There’s no such thing,” Victoria replied. “When you have a job, you do it. Remember you told me that.”
Naomi nodded. She had told her daughter that, the day she graduated from law school. “You also have a life you need to lead and so far, you’re not doing that. What you’re doing is sitting in this house buying shoes like there’s no tomorrow and getting older every day.”
“Mama!” Victoria frowned. “That’s a little rude. Do I remind you how old you are?”
“No. Because no matter how old I am, I’m still your mother. I’ve also had sex in the last century, what about you?”
Victoria
Victoria groaned. Her mother’s candor was unlike any other she’d ever known. Whatever Naomi Lashley thought, she said. Depending on who she was speaking to she would adjust her tone and wording accordingly, but whoever it was would surely get Naomi’s honest opinion.
“Sex is not the answer to everything,” Victoria said with a sigh. She was fairly certain she was correct in that assessment, but she did remember sex as being enjoyable. Sort of. At any rate, she wasn’t going to discuss this with her mother.
Nor was she going to think about how deliberately picky she was about the men in her life because none of them could compare to her father.
Porter Lashley had been everything to not only Victoria, but his wife as well.
The love Victoria had witnessed between her parents was the blueprint for what she wanted in her life.
A soul-searing union, a deep respect and reverence for one another, trust, admiration, loyalty.
She wanted all those things, and so far, she had yet to find a man who could give them to her.
“Maybe not but it’s great recreation,” Naomi said, pulling Victoria from her thoughts. “Why do you think I keep playing bingo with Bobby when I know he cheats?”
Victoria choked, putting her hand over her mouth because she wasn’t sure what she’d put in wouldn’t come flying back out.
Naomi just waved her hand at her again. It was one of her favorite moves, it meant you’re wrong and I’m right, get over it.
Tonight, her mother wore a dark purple, velour jogging suit, crisp white tennis shoes and her freshly dyed auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail that made her look about twenty years younger than she was.
“You keep right on sitting here reading your files and prosecuting your cases while cobwebs grow—”
That was it! Victoria raised a hand. “Enough! Mama, I’m eating.”
“Alright, whatever you say. I’m going,” Naomi continued and stole another piece of Victoria’s fish. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Her mother leaned over to kiss Victoria’s cheek.
“Have a good time,” she told her even though she knew it wasn’t necessary.
Bingo was…probably like sex to Naomi—great recreation.
And on some days, some of those long, dark days, Victoria envied her mother for her vivacious spirit, for her zest for life and her tenacity in living on even after her husband’s death.
“Oh, I will and I’m going to win me some money.”
“If you need anything,” Victoria said, standing from her chair to walk her mother to the door.
Naomi opened the door, then turned to Victoria. “I don’t need anything. And if I did I would get it myself or I would ask my wonderful daughter. Now go eat your food before it gets cold.”
With a nod and a heart full of love Victoria watched her mother move swiftly down the walkway to the little red Prius she’d just bought even though there had been nothing wrong with her old car.
“Sometimes you just need to shake things up,” Naomi had told her when she’d inquired about the new vehicle.
Closing the door Victoria shook her head. Her mother was always shaking things up.
Two hours later Victoria had long since finished her dinner but was still sitting at her dining room table reading the Ramone Vega file.
She’d read this file at least twenty times in the weeks since it had been assigned to her.
But today in court she’d lost two key motions to Helmer and his glamour squad.
The witness that gave her statement two days after the murders was still missing.
City cops had no idea where she was and were reluctant to even consider calling in the FBI.
Alayna Jonas was her name and she was nineteen years old with a three year old daughter who was now being raised by her grandmother.
They hadn’t said it, but the cops figured she was dead. Victoria prayed she wasn’t.
It was almost eleven-thirty when she yawned. Then, only seconds later, yawned again. Four times in immediate succession. Slamming her palms down on the table she sighed. “Alright, I get the message.”
Standing, she didn’t even bother to put the papers back into the file because she’d simply pull them out again in the morning when she had breakfast. She did, however, take her glass and napkin with cookie crumbs on it to the kitchen.
Coming back out she switched off the lights in the dining room and walked through the living room to get to the front door.
She’d just double checked the locks when she heard the glass crashing.
To her credit she didn’t scream—Victoria hated screaming and screeching or any of those overexaggerated reactions to fear.
Instead, she gasped and clutched a hand to her throat.
More glass shattered, scattering across her living room floor as her entire front window caved in.
She took a step thinking to get to either her cell phone she’d forgotten to take out of her purse or the house phone, but the room filled with smoke and coughing was the reaction, even if she didn’t want to adhere to it.
Her eyes watered and she fell to her knees, chest burning with the pain of not getting enough air.
She hacked and crawled, on hands and knees praying she could avoid most of the glass, moving by memory to where she knew her purse was.
Silence seemed to invade the space along with the smoke, but there was no more crashing glass and the lights were still out.
Fumbling, she knocked her purse onto the floor and had to flatten her hand over glass to find the phone that had fallen out.
When it was in her hand, she swiped it on, and dialed 911.
Throat burning, she was just able to give her name and address before she collapsed to the floor, eyes closed, tears streaking her face.
Noah
“A call just came in. Units are heading to Victoria Lashley’s place.
Suspected vandalism,” Noah spoke into the phone as he climbed into his truck.
He wasn’t a beat cop and this wasn’t a homicide.
What he was and was damn proud of was a good detective.
And as such he had a gut feeling this was no suspected vandalism.
Victoria Lashley was in court this morning with a notorious killer.
An attack on her tonight was no coincidence.
“I’ll meet you there,” Ben answered immediately.
Noah figured as much. There was history with Ben and Victoria. Well, not exactly history, more like “the one that got away” syndrome and even if his good friend was great at denying it, Noah had no doubt that Ben would do exactly as he’d said. He would be at Lashley’s place, probably before him.
Ben
She lived in a quaint little house on the corner of Commitment Court in North Las Vegas.
Ben knew because he’d made it a point to know everything there was to know about her.
He called it one of his hobbies, anybody else who’d known would most likely call it stalking.
The drive from his place to hers would normally take about thirty minutes.
Tonight, with the information he’d just received and riding his Ducati 1199 Panigale, it took him fifteen.
He drove with intensity and focus that he only used when he was in the courtroom or the boxing ring.
It gave him a powerful and invincible feeling that couldn’t be matched.
Tonight, as the dry night air whipped over his face and he made that last turn onto her street, he realized he didn’t feel invincible, he felt angry as hell, a rock-like sense of dread settling deep in his stomach.
He had no idea why news of this incident had struck him so hard.
Had no idea why the mere though of Victoria being hurt in any way had him ready to fuck up whoever dared to put a hand on her.
Then, he cursed himself because he wasn’t that oblivious.
Wasn’t that stupid too deny to himself, of all people, what he’d always known.
That there was something about Victoria Lashley.
Something deep and arousing that he hadn’t been able to shake in all the years he’d known her.
Cop cars were already in front of the house along with an ambulance.
As he parked his bike and secured his helmet, he looked up to see a stretcher being pushed through the front door.
He was off the bike and across the lawn in about seven seconds, only to have an officer’s hand clamp tightly on his arm.
“Hold it buddy, this is a crime scene,” the officer said in a gruff, just about rude voice.
Ben jerked his arm away. It wasn’t part of his plan to punch a cop in the face tonight.
There would be repercussions for such an act, but that wasn’t the first reason why he resisted the overwhelming urge to do just that.
No, he was here to make sure Victoria was okay.
And nobody, not even this delusional prick with a badge was going to stop him from doing just that.
“First,” he said, through clenched teeth. “I’m not your buddy. I’m Ben Donovan and I’m here to see Ms. Lashley.”
“I don’t care if you’re the King of fuckin’ England,” the officer said.
“Hall, let him go,” another deep voice ordered from behind Ben the second he was about to say to hell with it and break this fool’s jaw.
“He’s with me,” Noah told the younger, obviously more inexperienced cop who then looked at Ben and took a step back. The rookie’s glare was still lethal, his right hand resting on his gun.
Ben didn’t waste another second with the cops or their egos, he pushed by and had to run a few steps down the walkway as the paramedics pushing the stretcher had it almost to the ambulance. He came up beside it, his breath freezing in his lungs as he caught sight of the blood.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice was thin, a little shaky.
Ben hated how it sounded. Hated seeing the normally sassy and in-charge woman laying still on this stretcher. Her skin pale against the white pillow.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he replied when he’d found enough air to speak.
Her hair was a wispy mess, her eyes swollen, red, tearing. There were flecks of blood on her face and more on her hands and coming through the knees of her sweatpants.
“Why would you have heard about this? About me?” She was obviously in pain as she winched when he touched her face to wipe away a piece of glass.
He cursed at the thought of causing her any more pain. He’d been ready to take on Vega before, but now, at this very moment he wanted the bastard’s head on his desk.
Not wanting to keep her on the street longer, denying her treatment, Ben shook his head. “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked again but he’d already signaled to the paramedics to take her away. He was headed back to his bike when Noah looked up and Ben signaled him over.
“What happened? What do you know?” he asked as he put on his helmet.
“She told the 911 operator, before she dropped the phone that she’d just locked her doors when she heard the window breaking. Tear gas followed and she fell to the floor.”
“Tear gas? Who uses tear gas to break into somebody’s house? And why didn’t they try to come in afterwards?” Ben asked.
Noah nodded toward the house to the left of Victoria’s. “Neighbor heard the noise when he was taking his trash out, said there was a car parked across the street.” Noah took a step closer to Ben and whispered. “A gray Lexus.”
Ben cursed and started his bike. “I’m going to the hospital. Call me when you wrap this up.”
He didn’t wait to hear Noah’s reply.