Free His Every Desire by Shiloh Walker

gun…hadn’t he?
    Now he was staring down at a pool of blood, at Simmonds’ unmoving body.
    They’d killed Simmonds… Fuckers. They’d pay for that.
    But wasn’t there something he needed to do first?
    A gray cloud rose up and took his mind and for a while, he just drifted. Lost in the fog.
    It was almost peaceful there. Drifting was easy. But it was getting harder.
    People kept intruding.
    There were new voices. New faces.
    “Mr. Grainger, we need to talk to you…answer some questions…know you can hear…”
    “…insane…he’s in a catatonic state…”
    “His eyes are open…he moves…”
    The voices rattled on and on, sometimes making sense, but more often than not, they were just nonsense.
    He couldn’t keep blocking them out.
    Tracy…
    * * * * *
    The alarm went off and Emery woke up, rolled over and smacked it with the palm of her hand. The cell phone on the bedside caught her eye and she sighed, pushing up onto her elbow. Long hair fell into her face and she shoved it back.
    It was phone call day. Every month she called Aleisha. Reaching for the phone, she punched in the number. As it started to ring, she flopped over on her back.
    Three rings, four…five.
    She lowered the phone before the voice mail could pick up and hit the disconnect button.
    That wasn’t right.
    It was early. Eight o’clock. Aleisha wouldn’t be in court yet—just barely in the office. She always kept the cell phone with her. Always.
    Just call later…rolling out of bed, she got up, leaving the cell phone on the bedside table.
    * * * * *
    Damned construction zones. The roads around St. Louis pretty much sucked all the time anyway, but with the road work going on I-64, it was worse.
    Aleisha heard the phone ring and knew who it was. She started to reach for her purse but somebody cut her off and she had to slam on her brakes to keep from rear-ending the bastard.
    Her purse went flying into the floor and she groaned. “Sorry, babe. I’m going to have to call you later.” She had an early meeting anyway that she had to get to.
    She’d call Emery from there.
    “I hate early meetings,” she muttered. Only reason she had agreed to this one was because this asshole had finally agreed to give her client a divorce.
    Slowing down, she hit her blinker and started to try to move over.
    Just as she did, the car in front of her slammed the brakes. Aleisha tried to slow down.
    When the hit came from the back, she didn’t have any place else left to go.
    * * * * *
    Emery tossed the phone down.
    Two days had passed.
    Damn it. Her gut churned with worry. There was a limit to how long she was supposed to wait before she gave up getting hold of Aleisha and started running again.
    She was so tired of running, even though part of her had been terrified of slowing down. But after three years of doing nothing but moving town to town, talking to nobody but her lawyer in hurried conversations, settling down had been heaven.
    Aleisha would tell her if something was wrong. If there was something to worry about.
    And there was nothing to worry about.
    It hadn’t been easy.
    Even being around anybody was enough to make her break out into a sweat. So many times before, she’d made friends only to realize they were people who were on her husband’s payroll.
    People he used to try and trip her up, catch her in nonexistent lies, and spy on her. After a while, she’d just stopped trying to make friends. After so many years of self-imposed solitude, coming out of her shell was almost painful.
    Joel had been her only true friend. And she’d lost him…losing people hurt. She knew that. She’d lost her dad when she was eight. Her mama had been everything to her, then she’d met Vincent. Mama had gotten sick, and weak, but Vincent had assured her that he’d take care of her.
    Yeah, he had. So he could use the dear woman against her.
    And then Joel…but thinking of him hurt.
    But friends. She needed friends…places to hide if she needed to. The