Got Your Six

Chapter 32

Christina

I can't stop thinking about what might've spooked Calvin enough to want to back out of our plan at the last minute. He's the one that came to me asking for help and then he suddenly wanted to back out. Something just doesn't seem right. Whether he wanted my help or not, I'd still be going to this party tonight. I can't believe he told me to be careful, as if he actually cares about what happens to me. All he cares about is finding the guy that killed his precious baby brother. Well, he was my brother too, but no one even bothered to invite me to his funeral.
Before I can get myself too worked up about the whole situation, I hear a knock coming from my back door. It's four thirty in the afternoon. Who the hell could be knocking on my door right now? I know Gavin said he was sending someone to pick me up but it's a bit early for that, I would think. I get up from the couch and turn off the TV, unsure of who I should be expecting.
"Who is it?" I call out as I make my way through the kitchen towards the door.
There's no response before I reach the door and I decide to just open it anyway. What's the worst that could happen? Calvin coming over to beg me to be careful? What a joke. I open the door to find Olivia standing on the other side next to some chubby guy I've never seen before.
"Hey, what's up?" I ask her, giving the guy next to her a questionable look.
"We're here to take you to Gavin," Olivia tells me.
"Oh, the party, already?" I ask, grabbing my shoes from beside the door.
"Uhh, yeah," Olivia says hesitantly.
"Okay, one sec," I say. I take a few steps back inside and grab my purse off the end of the kitchen counter and then join the pair back at the door. "Let's go," I tell them, closing the door behind me.
The weird guy just stands there until Olivia and I start walking away and then he follows close behind me. Olivia opens the back door to a black SUV parked next to my van and looks back at me.
"How'd you get a handicap license plate?" She asks me with a puzzled look.
"I'm just borrowing the van from a friend. She just asks me to take her places every once in a while, but other than that, she lets me keep it at my place," I inform her.
"Oh, nice," she says and then hops in the front passenger seat while I climb in the back.
The chubby man walks around the vehicle and gets in the drivers seat. After putting the key in the ignition, he looks over to Olivia and just stares at her.
"What's the problem?" I ask, noticing the tension between the two of them.
Olivia turns around in her seat and holds out a piece of black cloth. "We need you to wear this over your head," she says with a sigh.
"What? Are you serious?" I ask with a nervous laugh.
"Yeah," Olivia confirms. "Gavin doesn't want anyone to know the location of the party."
Well this is not looking good for Calvin's sake so far. How am I supposed to tell him where the party is if I can't even see where we're going? I take the cloth from her hand and slip it over my head, making the surrounding world go dark. There's a little sliver of light coming in through the opening of the cloth around my next but it's not much to count for anything.
I can feel the vehicle begin to move a few seconds later and then I hear what sounds like sirens in the distance. For a second, I wonder if they're coming for me. Then I disregard the thought, figuring I haven't done anything recently to draw the attention of the police. The sound of the sirens dies out within a few seconds anyway.
"So, how far is the party?" I ask through the thick black cloth.
Neither one answers my question, which makes me wonder how much this cloth muffles my voice.
"How far is the party?" I ask again, a bit louder this time.
Once again there's no answer. The only response I get is the sound of the radio turning on and the volume getting turned up to an obnoxious level.
The whole situation is beginning to weird me out. Olivia, who is usually pretty talkative around me, is suddenly acting weird and sketchy towards me. Plus, she brought some guy with her that I've never seen before and he hasn't said a single word this whole time. Then, as soon as I get into the vehicle, they tell me to put a bag over my head so I don't know where I'm going. If these people are leading me to my death, then I'm completely fucked.
The car ride seems to go on forever, especially when I can't even look out the window. I felt us stop a few times when we first got going, but those must have just been traffic lights because we got moving again soon after. Now, it feels like we've been going straight for what seems like a really long time, though I have no way to check how long it has actually been. With it being so dark and the ride being so long, I thought I might've fallen asleep by now, but I think my nerves are what's keeping me awake. I've never had to do anything like this to attend one of Gavin's parties so I'm a bit on edge.
I can feel the vehicle slow down and then take a couple left turns, one right after the other, and then we take a quick right turn and come to a stop soon after. At first I assume we've hit another traffic light but then the music cuts out and everything in the vehicle is silent for a few seconds.
"Are we there?" I ask, receiving no answer from either of them, just the sound of two doors opening and then closing.
The fact that neither of them will talk to me, especially Olivia, is really beginning to freak me out. I hear my door open beside me and then feel a hand grab my upper arm. I'm guessing it's the chubby guy grabbing me based on the firmness of the grasp. He helps me out of the vehicle and then I hear the door close behind me.
"Can I take this thing off yet?" I ask. It's clear to me now that we've arrived and I'm really sick of having this thing over my head.
"When we get inside," I hear Olivia say. Her voice sounds like she's standing a few feet away, which just further confirms that it's not her holding onto me.
I walk blindly while the strange man holds onto my arm, directing me where to go. I can hear the sound of passing traffic on a nearby road. I'm sure this has to look suspicious for anyone driving by. Two people escorting someone with a bag over their head into some house. Aren't these guys afraid someone will call the police? Maybe the passing cars just can't see us, who knows. I try to listen for the music but I can't hear anything other than the traffic. In the past, whenever I've come to one of these parties, I'd be able to hear the music long before I even made it inside. Usually it's right when I get out of my car that I can hear it. That's not the case this time.
"Going up some stairs," Olivia warns me.
I can feel the ground beneath me change from uneven dirt to something more solid as I'm guided up a couple concrete steps. The air around me begins to feel a bit warmer and stuffy, making me think we've finally made it inside. Then I hear a door close behind me, making my body jerk. Finally, the cloth over my head is removed and the world around me brightens up again. I squint my eyes at first but that proves to be unnecessary because the light inside the house is dim. It appears to be an older house that was probably abandoned a few years ago.
"Where is everyone else?" I ask hesitantly, unsure of what might happen next.
I'm really beginning to think they've brought me out here to get rid of me. It'd be easy for them. I don't know where I am. I don't even have my purse. Neither of them grabbed it out of the car for me and I was too busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I'm still trying to figure that out.
"There is no party," Olivia says. "Gavin wanted to see you."
Right as she says his name, he come around the corner with a genuine smile on his face.
"Gavin, what the hell is going on?" I ask him, no longer worried so much as I am upset.
"I'm sorry baby. I just have to be careful these days. I have a lot of people looking for me," Gavin says, stepping closer to me. "But you know that."
Gavin leans down and plants a single kiss on my lips and then smiles at me. Olivia and the other guy stand a step behind me on either side, presumably waiting for their next task. To my understanding, they must be Gavin's errand boys. Well, errand boy and girl I guess.
"You guys can leave us," Gavin says, turning his attention to Olivia and his other assistant. "I'd like some time alone with Christina."
The pair slip back out the front door while Gavin takes my hand and guides me through the house. We walk past a staircase and through a dining room that's occupied by an old wooden table covered in cobwebs. The chairs look like they would instantly collapse the moment someone tried to sit it them. He leads me into a bedroom where the door has fallen halfway off its hinges and sits me on the bed, which looks to be the only thing in this whole house that has been cleaned, or at least dusted off.
"I'm sorry again for the way you had to be brought over here," Gavin tells me as he sits next to me on the bed.
"Is there even a party tonight?" I ask him accusingly.
"No, especially not here. I just wanted to see you and find out where we're at with things," he says with a smile.
"Where are we?" I ask him, looking around at the dusty old room.
"My safe house," Gavin informs me. "That's why I had to bring you here the way I did and make sure no one followed you."
"All right, I guess I can forgive you for that," I say with a small smile.
"That's good. I missed you," he says and then leans in to kiss me again, longer this time.
I put my hand around his neck to keep it going for longer but he pulls back, looking me in the eye.
"We can get to the fun stuff later. I want to know where we're at with your brother," Gavin says, leaning back to put a few more inches between us.
"Well, he hasn't been to work all week. I know that much just by swinging by his house every so often. So, if I had to guess, I'd say you got him suspended with your 'Manny Plan'," I tell him. "Which, I gotta say, having Manny turn up dead the morning after he was illegally interrogated by Calvin, was a pretty solid plan. I'm surprised you didn't get Calvin fired for that."
"All I had to do was pin the police against your brother so they wouldn't be working together to find me," Gavin explains to me.
"Yeah, and it worked. I'm going to miss Manny though. He was a nice guy," I say, somewhat disappointed.
"Yeah, he was. That's just business though. I can't let myself get emotionally attached to anyone," he says casually.
That makes me wonder where I stand with him. Would he get rid of me if he had to? Does he already have plans to get rid of me? I force myself to stop thinking about it before I start having a panic attack right in front of him.
"How did Olivia take it?" I ask hesitantly. "She seemed a little off today."
"Yeah, she's still getting over it. She just needs a little more time. I've just been keeping her close in the meantime so I can keep an eye on her," Gavin says, trying his best to sound sympathetic.
"For her safety or yours?" I ask blatantly.
Gavin just grins at me and then changes the subject. "So, what else do you have to tell me about your brother? When are you going to send him my way?"
"Well, I told him I would send him the location of the next party, just like you told me to. So, I told him there was a party tonight after you texted me," I say, thinking he should already know this. After all, it was his plan to begin with.
A creaking sound comes from the ceiling, as if someone is walking around on the floor above us.
"What was that?" I ask, looking up to the ceiling.
"I don't know, probably Cameron's ghost," Gavin says with a laugh.
"That's not funny," I say in my best serious tone.
"You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have joked about that, still too soon," he says, rubbing a hand on my shoulder as if trying to comfort me. "Anyway, have you talked to Calvin since you got here?"
"No, I left my phone in the car," I tell him.
"Oh, good. You won't be needing it anyway," Gavin says.
"Why not?" I ask questionably.
"Because there's been a change of plans," he informs me.
"Okay, well what's the change? What do you want me to tell Calvin?" I ask him, suddenly very confused.
"Nothing, it's better if you don't tell him anything," Gavin says, only confusing me further.
"Okay, well Calvin's probably going to come looking for me if I don't send him a location tonight," I say, trying to make sense of this whole situation.
Gavin asked me to be his inside woman to set up a plan to get rid of Calvin and now I feel like there's something he's not telling me. How am I supposed to help him if he doesn't let me in on the plan?
"Good, that's what I want," Gavin says with a grin. "I want him to find you."
"Find me?" I ask, wanting him to clarify everything for me.
"Yeah," Gavin says, standing up from the bed. He reaches behind his back a pulls out a silver pistol from his waistband, pointing it directly at my head. "It's time to get to the fun part."