Through Fire (Portland, ME #3) (5 page)

So yeah, I am out of sorts.

Dragging my ass over to my parents’ place, for our perfunctory weekly lunch and ballgame, was something I could’ve easily done without today. To top that, Brady was fucking disastrous today: he’s already been sacked three times and we’ve just hit half time. The Giants are wiping the field with them. All is definitely not good in my world.

“Is it work?” Mom voices her concern, as I knew she would when Mark piped up. Mom’s goal in life is to see my brother and me happy.

When we’re not, she feels it as a personal affront, throwing herself with gusto into fixing whatever ails us. Nothing to fix. Just a quiet, short, olive-skinned and dark-haired woman, who suddenly decided to burrow under my skin like a fucking tick.

“No, Mom. Work is fine. I’m just a bit tired.” At her dubious eyebrow lift, I decide to give her enough of the truth to tide her over. “Had a bit of a late night helping out at The Skipper.” Not entirely the truth, but not a lie either, since it had been late when I went to bed, and I had been helping at the pub. “As you know, Gunnar’s spending some time looking after Syd and the new baby, and Dino had some stuff to take care of this weekend.”

“How are Syd and little Caden doing?” My mom jumps on the red herring I threw her way when I mentioned the baby, just like I knew she would.

“They’re fine. Baby is healthy and mom is getting there. She just had a bit of a rough go of it after Caden was born.”

Syd dodged a bullet when they weren’t able to stop the bleeding after she had the baby. They had to rush her into surgery, only hours after the birth. Not that they would’ve necessarily had more kids—Gunnar had been a wreck those last few months, trying to keep Syd off her feet and swore there’d be no more—but to have that choice taken from a woman has to be tough to deal with. Not to mention the fact she was now not only recovering from childbirth, but from major surgery as well.

“Good. That’s good,” Mom mutters. “Emily’s probably been worried sick.”

I roll my eyes at Mark, who is softly chuckling beside me on the couch. Both of us know where this is leading. Emily is Gunnar’s mother and an old friend of my mom’s. Mom never passes up on an opportunity to let my brother and I know how much she envies the woman for having grandchildren. Obviously, neither Mark nor I have produced any offspring, and as Mom points out as regularly as she can get away with, she wants grandbabies of her own.

Mark had come close once, having done the whole marriage thing. However, he lost interest when his wife, at the time, decided she could do better than the moderate salary a police officer brought in and left for greener pastures. Those came in the form of a hospital administrator with a six-figure income.

Of course, I hadn’t even been in the ballpark yet, avoiding the whole committed relationship like the plague. To Mom’s great disappointment.

“You know...” Mom starts, and this time I can’t hold back the chuckle either. She knows we’re onto her when she shoots us both irritated looks. “Well, it would be nice to be able to bounce a grandchild on my knee before all the bounce is gone. At this rate, I’ll be dead and buried before either of you bless me with babies.” She huffs out her displeasure and part of me feels bad for her.

Dad however, who’s been sitting beside me in his recliner, watching half-time commercials with great interest as he sucks back his own brew, has heard enough. “Leave the boys alone, Jane. I told you to look into that volunteer job at the hospital. Lots of babies there need cuddlin’. You can get your fill there.”

This, of course, deteriorates into another common Sunday theme, the bickering parents.

I shoot a glance at Mark, who is rubbing his palm over his forehead. “Come on.” I nudge him. “Let’s grab another beer.” With a little lift of his mouth, he follows me into the kitchen. He knows what’s coming. After pulling two more bottles from the fridge, he follows me through the laundry room off the kitchen into the garage.

“You know I’m an officer of the law, right?” he jokes when I pull a small plastic tub from its hiding place under the workbench. Dad hasn’t been in this garage in probably twenty years, and it’s probably that long we’ve been sneaking in here for a Sunday afternoon toke.

“You know as well as I do, before the end of this year, pot will be legal in Maine. Lighten up,” I mumble as I’m lighting up the joint.

“I know,” he says, accepting the offered blunt and taking a hit. “It’ll be different not having to waste valuable manpower when there’s much more serious stuff out there we should spend our time on.” I’m surprised at the bitter tone in his voice as he hands me the smoke.

“Something going on?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a case that’s messing with my head.”

“Want to talk about it?” I take another hit and offer it back, but he waves it off.

“Nah. Wouldn’t do any good. Humanity sucks, that’s all. Gang shootings. People preying on innocents, making a living off their suffering. It just all makes me sick.” He puts his bottle to his mouth and gulps down his beer.

“Whoa, buddy,” I ease him, when he slams the empty bottle down on the workbench. “What brought this on? I thought you enjoyed being a cop?”

“I do,” he sighs, as he runs a hand over his short-cropped head of hair. “It just gets to me sometimes. Just the other day, I picked up this girl in Harbor View Park. A witness had spotted her being sexually assaulted. We were around the corner, so we took the call, a second unit coming in behind us. They took up chase when two guys came running from the brush.” Mark rubs both hands firmly over his face. “She was just a kid, man. No older than maybe sixteen, if she was a day. Swear to God. Her face covered in blood, tears, snot, fucking jiz.”

“Christ,” I hiss at the image.

“Yeah. But get this, the chick swears up and down the guy was her boyfriend. Even with the witness reporting he saw one guy forcefully holding her head as he was fucking her face. The other threatened him with a knife when he tried to interfere, and told him to get lost. Still the girl won’t press charges. She seems more scared of us than the two thugs we ran off. Next thing I know, an FBI contingent waltzes into the precinct and takes over.” I stay quiet as he reaches over and picks the roach from my fingers, taking the last hit. “Took all of five minutes for them to whisk the kid off to places unknown. But I’m telling you, I can’t get the haunted fear marring her face, as they marched her past me, out of my fucking head. The girl was petrified.” He stubs out the smoke and tosses the butt in the container, hiding it back under the bench.

“Jesus, man, that’s tough.” I clap his shoulder sympathetically, knowing full well it’ll do dick to ease his mind.

“Yeah,” he says, as he opens the door to the laundry room. “Pretty fucked up when dead bodies barely touch you anymore, but the sight of a waif of a girl with dirt and some sick fuck’s cum on her face messes you up.”

The last is mumbled as he walks ahead of me back into the house, but I hear every word. From the slump in his shoulders, it’s obvious the job is getting to him.

From the look Dad shoots in our direction when we sit back down to watch the third quarter, he’s well aware of what we were up to in the garage. Nothing has changed since we were younger; not the parental shake of his head, nor Mom’s soft snoring, having dozed off in her chair.

I sit back, put my feet back on the table and slowly get sucked back into the game. As per usual, with some brilliant passing in the last five minutes, Brady and the Pats pull another squeaker out of their ass.

R
uby

If I had his phone number, I’d cancel tonight.

I hadn’t had much time to think about Tim yesterday. With unusually warm and sunny weather for the time of year, people had taken advantage and flocked to the waterside. A lot of them ended up at The Skipper for a drink or a quick bite. It was busy, even with Dino back in the kitchen for the dinner rush. I felt a huge rush of relief when I saw him sauntering in at three, even though it was clear his mood was dark. For someone so in tune with everyone around him, he’s pretty closed off himself. My friendly, “Is everything alright?” was met with a curt, “Fine.” Obviously not prepared to elaborate, he’d thrown himself into his normal routine, and I tried to avoid the kitchen as much as possible the rest of my shift. None of my business.

Normally I have Sunday nights off, but because of the unexpected crowds, I stayed until after the dinner rush. At a little after nine, Viv finally sent me home. Again.

I didn’t sleep much on Saturday night, despite my leisurely bath, it being a new place with new sounds to get used to and all. But I did enjoy my Sunday morning coffee overlooking the wharf. Enough so, I was looking forward to doing it all again the next morning. Except this time after a good night’s sleep. I was dead on my feet, walking home with my mind zoned out, I hadn’t noticed the guy in the dark SUV when I crossed the parking lot. Not until I heard a car door open and a deep voice say, “Excuse me, miss?” That’s when I started running, ignoring the calls to
stop
behind me. I didn’t stop until I locked the apartment door after me. Panting and panicked, I stayed with my back pressed against the door until I was sure there was no movement outside in the hallway. Then I snuck up to the window, overlooking the wharf. From there I can see most of the parking lot, but there was no sign of the SUV.

A slew of different scenarios went through my mind, none of which were very reassuring. The longer I thought about it, the less likely it seemed I’d been found. Surely he would’ve followed me into the building. Perhaps I was just being paranoid, and the man had simply wanted to ask for directions, or the time, or something. By the time midnight came around, I’d come to the conclusion that I was overreacting and finally crawled into bed, exhausted.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised I’d slept at all, but I did. All night long.

Then tonight’s plans with Tim popped in my head. It followed me into the shower and now, sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar looking out the window, it’s plaguing me still. In my experience, men don’t offer anything unless they want something out of it. Who am I kidding? Men don’t offer help—not to me. Period. So it confuses me that a handsome guy like Tim would suddenly reach out. 

There’s so much about it that concerns me. Not just the idea of being alone with a man—especially
that
man—but the worry he might discover who I am. What I am. I know I worry too much. When I was little, Mamá used to tell me all the time, “
te preocupas demasiado!
” Even as a young girl, I’d always seen the danger in everything. Until as a teenager, the dazzle of a handsome man had blinded me. I shake my head to clear those memories before they have a chance to take root. Too many years gone by and too much time wasted on
what ifs
already. Even though I’d been paying my dues for my mistakes for thirty years, it would never be enough to bring my parents back.

No. Getting too friendly with anyone is too dangerous. The people I work with have stopped trying to get me to join them for social events, knowing I will pass every time. The only time I’ve spent time with anyone from work, outside of the pub, was when Viv showed me the apartment. Other than that, Pam and her girls at the shelter are the only ones I spend any time with. It’s better this way. Better for them, but also better for me.

That’s why this was a bad idea from the beginning.

I reach for the house phone again, thinking I might call Viv to ask for Tim’s number, but at the last minute pull my hand back. I tell myself, calling Viv would likely result in questions, but part of me
wants
to learn to cook. Learn to be independent. At least that’s what I tell myself.

-

I
’m just pulling on my coat, to go wait outside, when a knock at the door freezes me. I was under the assumption Tim would pick me up outside.

The first thing I think is that the guy from the parking lot is back. When the knock comes again, this time followed by Tim’s voice calling my name, I finally move toward the door, taking a quick peek through the peephole in the door. Seeing it’s really him, I slide back both locks that haven’t been opened since I slammed them shut last night.

“Hi.” My voice sounds breathy as I tilt my head back to look up at the towering man.

“Ready?” he says casually, looking very handsome in a charcoal grey overcoat, a hint of a dark suit and grey tie underneath. Thirty years ago, I would’ve swooned at the sight. Nowadays, I seem to prefer a more casual look, especially on him.

He catches me looking him over. “Sorry about the monkey suit.” He shrugs. “I came straight here. Was in meetings all day.” With one hand, he keeps the door open and with the other, he grabs the keys from my hand. Guiding me into the hallway, I’m surprised to find him closing and carefully locking my door before handing me back my keys. “Just making sure your place is safe,” he explains, when he notices my confusion. I’ve never had someone do that before. Not ever.

“Thank you.”

With his hand on my elbow, he walks me to the elevator, where I stop dead in my tracks. He turns to me, a confused look on his face.