“Enough!” Dani glared at her brother. “Seriously? How old are you, David? Katie made a joke. The whole situation is...” She cleared her throat and tried not to laugh “...kind of amusing.” She cleared her throat again. “Sorry Luke wouldn’t let you in.” She couldn’t blame him, though. David was acting like a spoiled rich kid. She turned to the men standing at the door. “We’re going into the library,” she announced.
The two men looked at each other and shrugged; the older one, Stevens, nodded. “Good—see if you can educate the idiot.”
Dani turned to see David’s face burn bright red, his eyes trying to drill a hole in Katie’s head. For her part, she was the one refusing to look at him this time, letting her long hair swing forward, concealing her face from view.
Good grief. Could this get any more childish? “I think... I think I’m in the mood for a little game of chess,” Dani announced slowly and stared at Katie. “I think I recall you being very good at the squeeze play.”
Katie’s head shot up. A squeeze in chess meant losing ground because one was forced to make a move and there were no moves possible any other way.
Dani smiled sweetly, waiting to see if she got the message.
Katie looked over to David and then back to Dani. “Sometimes a double pawn has to make room,” she said carefully, “to protect the king.”
Dani nodded. “But if the queen’s still on the board, though, you don’t need to sacrifice anything. Just set up for the end game.”
Katie nodded slowly and they both looked at David.
“I hate chess,” he mumbled, but got up and followed them to the library. He stomped over to a chair in the corner of the library. “Why isn’t there a TV in this room?”
“We’re in a library, David. Try reading something.” Dani shook her head. “Fine, then, we’ll play, you just watch... the wall.” She turned back to Katie. “It’s easier to use a knight than a pawn anyway.”
Katie stole a glance at David, her eyes filled with something Dani didn’t understand. David was being obtuse and sulking. To tell the truth, even she was getting fed up with his childish attitude. She couldn’t blame Katie for being frustrated, too.
Dani made her way to the chess board in the corner. She glanced up, thinking how far away Luke seemed. Three flights of stairs, and on the other end of the house. He might as well have been on Mars. She ached with missing him.
Still, she took a deep breath and started setting out the pieces. The guards sat down next to the door, the younger not even paying attention. He had his cell phone out and was tapping at the screen as though his life depended on it. Stevens stared at him a minute before finally reaching over and removing the phone from the kid’s hands with a muttered word Dani couldn’t quite hear.
She stared at the phone as he pocketed it. Damn, but she wished she could get a hold of one of those.
“Katie, what happened to your phone?” she asked suddenly.
“I don’t know...” The girl hesitated in setting out her pawns. The pieces were beautifully wrought in metal and glass, each piece a work of art.
Dani nodded. Of course they’d take it. With a sigh, she took the queen from the velvet-lined case that held the pieces when not in use, and cradled it in her hand. She could almost feel her mother’s presence, and savored the warm feeling before reluctantly setting the piece on the board with the rest.
“All right,” she said, surveying the chess board. “Let’s play. David, be good and watch, quietly, please.”
David took a long, exasperated sigh and grabbed at a magazine which he threw aside a moment later, instead staring petulantly at them as they played.
Dani took white. She moved a pawn and looked at David. “So, everyone came running to see you last night?” she asked as though the question were an idle one. Nothing to see here, folks...
“Yes,” David snarled back. His anger was directed at Katie, though, who was pretending that David wasn’t in the room.
“You might be exaggerating. It was probably only a few of them.”
“No!” David snapped back at her. “It wasn’t! I counted. I was standing there with my dick in hand and there were ten—wait, eleven assholes staring at me!”
Eleven. That’s more than I initially thought. Obviously I missed a few faces. So, that means a couple here probably were my father’s men... if they haven’t all left. The rest Benny’s. I figured that even with the half dozen who worked for my father, Benny would have a dozen at most if they’re working in shifts like I thought. Where is he getting them and how is he paying for all that? “I’m sorry that happened to you, David,” she said, sliding a pawn to a new position with the intensity of someone who’d spent hours at a chessboard.
“You’re excused,” he said with mock graciousness, still staring at Katie. Dani looked over to the girl, who had been silent the entire time. Katie had moved a pawn on her side and was waiting for Dani. Her counter-move wasn’t bad. Dani grabbed the pawn on the queen’s rook and slid it forward.
Katie took hers and dropped it in front of Dani’s queen’s pawn. “Your queen is stuck behind the pawn that’s supposed to protect it.”
Dani smiled. She’d always liked Katie. Smart girl. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is keeping the king alive. That’s the game.”
Katie looked up at her sharply. “Maybe. I always thought that the other pieces might object to being expendable, though, don’t you?”
“They don’t have to be killed off to keep the king safe. Sometimes all they have to do is keep the attention on the wrong side of the board.” She moved her bishop and took Katie’s rook.
“While the queen wreaks havoc on the opposition?”
“If the queen’s in position, yes.”
Katie glanced over to the guards. They were almost as bored as David. The younger one had crossed his arms and looked like he was going to sleep. Stevens watched them through half-lidded eyes. Doing his job, but not pleased at baby-sitting duty. She wondered what he would be doing if Benny wasn’t running a lock-up in someone else’s house. “But you have to get her in position. And you have to time it right.”
“True. But if there’s a window, you can get the timing close enough.”
Katie nodded and moved her queen. It sat in the middle of the board, facing Dani’s. Both kings were forgotten as the current battle waged between the queens.
“And if that window shatters,” Dani said, moving her bishop to take Katie’s queen, “then all eyes are on the wrong side of the board.”
Katie sat back. She apparently hadn’t seen the position of the bishop, and had been caught by surprise. “Nice move! You’re right. But the king has a limited amount of room on the board.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Dani corrected her. “All that matters is getting the window shattered so as to redirect attention from the real battle.” She moved the queen again. “Check,” she said, and stretched. “I’ve been locked away for a long time,” she said, yawning. “I need to stretch a little. Hey, do you still play tennis?”
Katie’s head shot up to look at Dani. “Yes.”
“I never learned. I tried once, but David was the tennis player in the family. I was so bad at it, I almost put a serve through the kitchen window.”