“Well then, nutmeg it is. You stay where you are if that’s even possible. I’ll get it. Where do I go?”
“There’s a specialty store on Henry Street, about three blocks up. It has bunches of dried peppers hanging from the awning. You can’t miss it. Get the whole seeds. I like to grate it myself.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Here.” She fished a spare key from a hook on the pantry door and dropped it in his open palm.
He dropped a quick kiss on her lips and headed for the door. “I’ll take Coco. She’s scratching at the door.”
Calliope stood there for a moment and pressed her hand to her mouth. In a strange way that parting kiss had floored her more than the scorching kiss he had delivered the first time. It was intimate in an entirely different way. She imagined that kiss as they parted ways on a street corner or as he left the table at a restaurant to grab drinks at the bar. It was the type of kiss bred from familiarity and reassurance. And she liked it more than she cared to admit.
Tox leashed up Coco and disappeared out the door. She smiled after him and set about cleaning the mess from their baking and settled into her Tox fantasy. A few minutes later, a nondescript sound had her looking up. She was instantly startled from her daydream by the three frighteningly familiar men standing in her kitchen, and a fourth who looked even more menacing than the others.
The one in front who Calliope recognized as the man from the paint company van plucked up the white plastic cylinder Tox had returned. Without looking at it, he banged it on the wooden farm table twice, causing Calliope to jump and tremble. Then he hurled it across the room where it bounced off the wall with a bang and rolled to a stop at the base of the kitchen island.
“Let’s all stay calm.” The man she assumed to be the leader urged Painter-Man to stand down. “Do what you’re told, and you won’t get hurt.”
“What do you want?”
“Unlock your phone.”
“What?”
“Question my instructions again and I’ll cut off your thumb and use it to unlock it myself.” His associate brandished an evil-looking hunting knife.
Calliope unlocked the new iPhone she had purchased to replace the one that had disappeared from her armband the day she was chased by these very men. She spun the device toward them. Painter-Man jerked his head to the side by way of ordering Thug Two to retrieve the phone. After snatching it off the kitchen island, Thug Two opened Calliope’s photos.
“It’s empty.” Thug Two held up the screen showing the boss the empty folder.
“This isn’t the right phone.” The head honcho spun the phone back to her.
“It’s a new phone. I haven’t taken any pictures or downloaded my old ones.”
“Where is the old phone?”
Truth be told, she didn’t exactly know. It had fallen out of her armband at some point during her harrowing run. She flashed for a moment to the suspicious neighbor. He had squeezed her arm right over the phone case as he had walked away. It didn’t really matter at this point. Like Socrates, all she knew was that she knew nothing.
“Danny, I think our girl has too many fingers. They’re distracting her from answering my questions.”
Thug Two, the Danny Thug, nodded. He started walking around the kitchen island toward Calliope. Painter-Man headed the other way to cut her off, tapping the serrated steel blade on the counter in a slow, steady rhythm. Calliope glanced toward the only unguarded exit, and the leader moved to the back of the room to stand by the back door. “You’re not leaving until I get the phone you were using that night. How many pieces you leave in is up to you.”
Thug Three stood at the opening between the kitchen and dining room, a perverse look of excitement on his face as Thug Two grabbed her wrist and pressed her palm to the counter. A scream froze in her throat.
“Wait, wait. Please just give me a second. Take my phone. Take the broken work phone in the junk drawer. Take whatever you want.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
The next sixty seconds were a complete blur.
A black shadow streaked across the floor and felled Thug Two. Calliope watched as Coco, still dragging her leash, latched her fierce jaw around the man’s throat, dripping saliva and growling like a wild beast. The man lay frozen, for fear that any slight movement would cause the dog to complete the bite through his neck.
Thug Three took a step forward to see if he could help his comrade. Unwilling to tangle with the rottweiler, he simply stood and watched. Tox slipped silently through the open pocket doors that separated the dining room from the kitchen and knocked the man unconscious with a vicious blow to the temple. Calliope snatched up her phone and called 911. By the time she looked up, the leader had disappeared out the back door.
Painter-Man came at Tox, and Calliope shouted a warning, but Tox was ready. The knife came around in a swipe at his midsection. Tox dodged it, moving with the motion of the weapon, then spun, and in a series of lightning moves that looked to Calliope like Judo, he peppered the attacker with quick sharp strikes to his eye, his solar plexus, and finally his windpipe. Tox was pure poetry, hitting and retreating like he was moving in fast-motion. The brute dropped the knife and fell to his knees clutching his throat, gasping for breath. Tox kicked him in his stomach and looked at Calliope with a placid expression.
“You, okay?”
Calliope gave him a jerky nod.