Chapter 17 – Fair Fight

Adeline was the first to arrive at the apartment. She rode the elevator up to the third floor, rushing off the elevator and down the hallway trying to get to the door as quickly as she could. When Mel had called her for the second time that day in tears, she wouldn't tell her what was wrong. She asked, sobbing, if Addy could come over as soon as possible. The way the atmosphere had been surrounding them lately, it worried her that something serious had happened.

She bypassed Lance's door without even thinking twice about it, rushing to the door across the hall from her old apartment. Without bothering to knock, she turned the doorknob to let herself in.

The first thing she was hit with was the smell – the rancid, putrid smell. Her nose twisted up and her already sensitive stomach lurched.

“Oh my God,” she said as her hand immediately went to her nose, trying to shield it from the smell.

The second thing she noticed was that her feet, just inside the door, were standing in some sort of red, slippery mess covering the carpet in front of the door. Seeing it reminded her of the pooled blood at the crime scene from less than two weeks ago.

“Mel!” she yelled, suddenly panicked.

“I'm over here.”

She heard the tearful voice from her left and looked down to see Melissa sitting on the floor, her back leaned against the wall, covered in the same red mess from head to toe.

“Mel, what happened?” she asked as she closed the door and stepped as best as she could over the mess in front of it to walk over to her friend. “And God, what's that smell?”

Instead of answering, Melissa immediately burst into more tears, burying her head in her hands.

“Oh Mel...”

Addy could only carefully step by the mess and lean down to offer her friend comfort. Earlier that afternoon, Melissa had called her in a panic in the midst of the fight with Lance. She had lost her job, and was reduced to tears. Adeline had to talk her down from all of it, and by the time that Melissa was calmed down and she had gone back out to the living room, Lance was long gone.

“Let's get you in the shower and some new clothes,” Addy said to her friend.

After she managed to get a hot shower run for Mel and some clean and comfortable clothes set out for her, she called Chris to come over immediately. She knew that Chris had a soft spot for Mel even if he wouldn't admit it to himself. Melissa needed comfort and the apartment needed cleaned, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to do that herself. She was hardly able to stand the stench of the rotten tomatoes and meat that hung in the air as it was, and she was afraid that if she had to clean it up, she might lose her lunch.

She was opening all the windows in the apartment she could find when Melissa finally came into the living room, clean but still in tears.

“Look at this place,” she cried. “The carpet is ruined. I'll never get my security deposit back on this. My landlord is going to kill me.”

“Don't worry about that right now,” Addy said, moving immediately to the kitchen to pour Melissa a cold glass of water. “Chris is on his way over. He can work on cleaning the carpet. You sit down and try to calm yourself down.”

“Calm down?” Melissa said. “First my job, and now this! Addy, who would have done this? Who would have thought to do this to me?”

As Melissa sat down on the couch and Adeline brought her the glass, she turned toward the door, feeling her breathing become heavy.

“I have a pretty good idea,” she said angrily.

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“Did you see it?”

Lance couldn't help a small smile from crossing his face, watching Justin pump his fists in the air.

“J, I don't know – do you think it was a bit much?”

“Hell no!” Justin said. “Bitch deserved it. Whatever the hell she's up to, we sure knocked her down a few pegs tonight!”

Lance chuckled when Justin pumped his fists in the air again and whooped before holding a palm up to Lance expecting a high-five. Lance reciprocated; he had to admit, watching the whole thing happen in front of him was a small satisfaction to him, knowing that Melissa must have ulterior motives.

It was mean, sure. But it was tame compared to murdering Addy's friend and spending the last month stalking their every move, putting fear into their hearts. Lance only hoped that this would encourage Melissa to stop, and that soon, Abrams would delve deeper into her mysterious life and find something to solve the case and put Melissa away forever.

“Man, I'm pumped,” Justin said. “I could bench press a bus right now.”

“Slow down there, Hulk,” Lance said, chuckling and rolling his eyes slightly.

When he heard a knock on the door, he stood up out of his seat to walk to the door, leaving Justin in the kitchen basking in the glory of his own “cunning mind”. He had barely opened the door when he felt a heavy object hit his chest.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Adeline yelled, wielding her purse in her throwing hand.

He fell back a few steps in shock when she swung again, not having time to shield himself from the attack, this time the purse hitting him in the head.

“Ow! Ad--”

“Don't you dare Ad me,” she snarled, catching him with a look. When Justin made his way into the room hearing the commotion, she turned to him. “Just what the hell is wrong with the two of you?”

Lance wasn't sure what to say, his eyes going to Melissa's door, to Justin, then back to Adeline.

“She's over there bawling,” Adeline said, pointing back to the door across the hallway. “Because you and Justin decided to make asses out of yourselves. Chris has no idea when to shut up, he means no harm. But you two...” She waved her hand in Justin's direction, swinging the purse again, making Lance shy away. “You two have to utterly humiliate her.”

“How do you even know her, Addy?” Lance asked. “I mean, she suddenly moved in from God knows where. You and Chris act like she's the best thing ever. I don't trust her.”

“And because of that, you have to make a total ass out of yourself?” she yelled. “What purpose did this serve? If she is up to something that we don't know about, what did this accomplish? That call I got from her today, Lance? She lost her fucking job. She was in tears. She has no idea how she's going to keep paying for school or her apartment. She doesn't know where she's going to live.”

“Addy...I...” Lance sighed. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not the one you need to say that to,” she said, her tone disappointed.

As the three of them were searching for something to say, Lance's door burst open. Chris, looking fit to kill, pushed past Addy and bypassed Lance, stomping directly to Justin. Before Justin could take two steps back in reaction, Chris's fist was already reared up in mid-flight, connecting with Justin's nose in a split-second.

“You asshole!” he yelled.

Justin had fallen back to the floor on his rear after the hard blow, looking stunned as he held his hand to his nose, blood dripping.

“Chris--”

“Don't, Addy,” Chris said in warning to stop her. “It was all his fucking idea. He needed to be knocked down a notch.”

Chris turned away from Justin as he was still trying to recover from the punch to the face, and looked at Lance.

“The only reason I'm not knocking your ass into the ground right now is because I don't want her to see it,” he said, pointing at Addy before he walked out of the apartment, as mad as he had walked in, slamming the door behind him.

“I've seen you do some horrible things, Lance,” she said, “but this is the worst. I thought you were a better person than this.”

All he could do was look at the ground as she walked out of the apartment after Chris, feeling ashamed of himself.

“Fuck,” Justin said with a groan, looking at the blood covering his hand. “That hurt.”

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When Adeline stepped out of the apartment, Chris was standing in the hallway, pacing back and forth. She could tell that his adrenaline was rushing, especially after having witnessed him knock Justin to the ground and threatening to do the same to Lance.

“I think you broke his nose,” she said.

“Little fucker,” Chris spat. “He deserved it. Who does something like this? I mean we played pranks back when we were touring on the buses, but nothing like this shit.”

“Still got any of those tricks left in you?” she asked.

Chris looked up at her, seeing that she had a coy smile on her face.

“What are you up to, woman?” he asked.

“I'm Lance's fiancee. I know him as well as you boys do, possibly even better. I know his one weakness – but a magician never reveals her secrets.”

He couldn't help but smile.

“Get Mel together. Then both of you meet me at the seafood market downtown in about an hour,” she said. “Don't ask questions. You let me handle this one.”

She shot him one more smile before she turned.

“He wants to fight? Let's make it a fair fight,” she said before she walked away toward the elevator.

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Five days later

“No offense Lance, but I've never had a worse vacation in my life.”

Lance looked back at Justin as they walked out of his apartment building's lobby, chuckling to himself as he saw Justin's bruised, swollen and taped broken nose.

“It's your own fault, you dumbass,” he said as he dragged one of Justin's suitcases at his side. “You and your cunning mind.”

“Thanks for the sympathy.”

“Hey, I've got problems of my own,” he said, moving to the driver's side of his SUV and setting the suitcase on the ground. “Thanks to you, my fiancee is so pissed off at me she'll barely even talk to me. I'd break your nose if it wasn't already broken.”

“Y'all really know how to make a guy feel welcome,” Justin said sarcastically, stepping up beside Lance. “I'm never coming back to New York again.”

“Good,” Lance said, pulling his keys out of his jeans pocket. “You've been here a week and you've brought nothing but trouble. We don't want you anymore.”

Justin stood beside him sulking as Lance pressed the button to unlock the doors to the car, opening the driver's side door while Justin reached for the back passenger side to pile his suitcases in. Lance was about to duck into his seat when the smell hit his nose.

“Jesus Christ, what's that smell?” Justin yelled before Lance could.

They both dropped what they held in their hands, turning away from the car and covering their mouths and noses. Lance coughed and Justin gagged, unable to get the rancid smell out of their noses.

“What'd you leave in your car, man?” Justin said between gags.

“God, nothing!” Lance yelled.

“Smells like something died in there!” Justin said.

It took a few moments for Lance's nostrils to recover from the way the smell hit him, and a few more to get the guts to get anywhere closer to his car. He covered his nose with his gray t-shirt, hoping it would help, and dipped his head into the driver's seat.

It took a few seconds with his breath held for him to find it, sitting right there on his passenger seat.

He pulled out the dead fish first, holding it up and resisting the urge to puke at the smell before dropping it on the ground near Justin, who only further proceeded to cough and gag at the smell. He covered his nose once more with his shirt to dip back in quickly and grab the paper left on the passenger seat.

“Another one?” Justin asked, seeing the paper in his hand.

“I have a feeling it's not from the stalker,” Lance said through his shirt as he read the words on the paper.

Check and mate, baby. Have fun getting the smell of five-day-old rotting sea bass out of your precious Escalade. (See what I did there?)

Kisses, Addy

“Y'all are fucking insane,” Justin said after he finished reading the paper. Steeling himself, he opened the back passenger seat and started throwing his suitcases in, closing it with a slam before rushing over to the front passenger seat. “Get me the hell out of here, I'm over New York.”