Young Squatters (14 page)

***

Harper had just stumbled down the stairs when she heard what sounded like someone smacking a refrigerator door with a leather belt, once, twice, three and four times.  Then the screaming started.  People began pushing and shoving from the living room and kitchen, driving everyone in front of them into the foyer and out through the front door to the yard.  She grabbed hold of the railing.  What in hell was going on?  It was like a stampede, a hundred sweaty horses all trying to squeeze through a barrel.  Where was Bradford?

Now the bodies were coming out of the dining room too.  Everyone was shouting and shoving, people were falling and pushing.  She shoved her way through the mob toward the kitchen.  She turned the corner.  The family room looked empty, except for one man.  He turned to look at her as she stared at him.

He was tall, with receding black hair; pale, sagging face, sunken, hollow-looking eyes, dark-colored windbreaker. He wore a wrinkled polo shirt.  The gun in his hand smoked when he turned it on her.  Some type of word formed at his lips; she could barely make it out, over the chaos.

“Nora,” he said, cocking the gun, aiming it at her head.

Harper was frozen to the spot, mouth agape.  It was Nick, Nick Donnelly.  Had he gone mad?

As Bradford heard Harper scream he jumped up and raced into the room where it was coming from.

“Oh my God, put the gun down,” he said, holding up his hands, trying to calm the man down.  “Look, I’m sure things haven’t come to this.  We can sit down and sort things out like adults.”

Nick’s eyes, bleary and unfocused, took the both of them in.

“Like adults?  You piece of shit.  Fuck you,” he said.  Despite the fact that he was clearly intoxicated, the gun barrel never moved from Harper.

Harper’s eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t panic.  The drugs in her system were still taking effect, calming her.  The barrel of a gun had seemed so forbidding before this.  Her dad used to have a collection of guns and had told her to stay away from the gun safe, telling her about all the horror stories of children who had played with guns and had ended up accidentally shooting themselves or their friends.  The barrel excited her, making her feel that at any moment her life could be over.  Would Bradford cry, if she died?  She was sure he would; he loved her, didn’t he?  What about her mother?  Would her mother take time away from her multitude of boyfriends to come to the funeral that Bradford would surely plan for her, a beautiful funeral at one of those expensive churches?  He would spare no expense for her, of course.

“You took everything I had away from me,” Nick said, speaking to Bradford, his eyes still focused, along with the gun, on the space between Harper’s eyes.  “My job, my house, my family—no, no more.  Do you know how long it took to get all of this, you punk-ass son of a bitch?  Fuck you!” he said, again, taking a few steps toward Harper.  Bradford didn’t move, but put his hands up a little further.

“Nick...”

“Don’t you call me Nick, motherfucker,” Nick snapped.

“Killing her isn’t the answer,” Bradford said.  He didn’t even sound afraid.  Her brave Bradford.

“It’s the answer to everything,” Nick whispered, saying the name of his wife, over and over, like a madman.  Harper was surprised he hadn’t landed in jail like his son yet.  Maybe he was on the run, or something.

“Bradford,” she started.

“Shut the fuck up, you whore!” Nick said, but she didn’t flinch as he stepped even closer.

“Be quiet, baby,” Bradford said, but he didn’t sound worried in the least.  “You just let me take care of this.  Why don’t you just go into all of the rooms and tell everyone the party is over, they need to leave the house.”

“Babe, I’m scared he’s got a gun and he’s pointing it at me,” she said.  Even though she knew she was stating the obvious, she didn’t know how Bradford expected her to just walk away from the situation.  “He looks like a madman.”

“He won’t shoot you,” Bradford said, carefully.

As Nick stood watching the fear on the two kids’ faces--he knew they feared him, even if that Bradford kid didn’t act like it--he started to laugh, the sound maniacal and foreign to even his own ears.

“You thought you could come in here and ruin my life without there being any consequences, did you?  Well, as you can see you were very wrong to think that when you crossed me, weren’t you?”

Bradford was starting to freak out inside, but he didn’t want to show Harper he was scared.

“Now come on, man, if you want to point the gun at anyone, point it at me.  This is my fault; the whole idea was mine, so don’t blame her.”

If Bradford kept this guy talking; he was sure everything would be okay.  After all, someone was bound to call the police and they would come immediately and arrest this man.

“What is your fault and what was your idea?  Come on out with it, I want to hear exactly what you did from your own mouth!”

As Nick prompted Bradford to confess the whole story of everything he had done he felt a sense of pleasure inside.  Even though he had lost everything, he knew he would be able to get it all back and didn’t give up on that.

The police busted through the door, guns drawn.  Nick threw down his own gun, laughing, so hysterically that he hardly knew it was himself.

“That fucker admitted to everything, did you hear that?” he asked them as they cuffed him.

“Yeah, yeah, now…” the police read him his rights.

Nick’s bleary gaze didn’t leave them until he had been escorted from the room.  Harper shivered, the gravity of the situation dawning on her as the drugs began to wear off after such a long night.

“Don’t worry, baby, everything is going to be okay, I promise,” Bradford said to Harper.

“I have the whole thing! I recorded it!” they heard Nick say.  Harper rushed to the window, staring out into the dark night as Nick and the police made their way through the throng of kids, who all watched, shocked at what had just transpired.  “I got his confession on my phone, believe me!”

Oh my God
.  Harper panicked now, more than she had about the gun being in her face.  “Bradford, did you hear that?”

“It won’t stand up in court, I’m telling you.  When someone has an armed gun pointed at their fiancée, you will say anything they want to hear and the police will know that, so don’t worry and trust me.  Now, hurry and help me clean up.  The police will be back here any second to take our testimonies.”

As they rushed to clear the substances and drinks from the rooms, Harper was too troubled to recognize the strange white powder that Bradford swiped into a case, sealing it and hiding it upstairs.

***

A few weeks later Bradford had proved to be right.  The taped evidence had been thrown out by the police as being inadmissible, and Nick was being held in prison after being charged for attempted murder.

“What are you so happy about, babe?” Bradford asked Harper as she lay next to him with a beaming smile on her face.

They finally had some alone time together, now that Bradford was on break from school and hadn’t been out and about with his friends after she had voiced her concerns about her safety, especially after the visit from Nick.

“I’m so happy living in this house and feel so content being with you.  I can’t stop smiling at you,” Harper said before giggling like a little girl.  She was being truthful.  She had never felt so elated, and carefree, in her life.

“Ah thank you, babe.  I told you when we met my aim in life was to make you happy and this is just the start of things to come.”

Bradford had not felt this happy in a long time.  There had been some doubts when they had first moved themselves into this house.  He had kept his doubts to himself though, due to not wanting to make Harper any more scared than she already was.

“Why don’t you freshen yourself up, whilst I make us both a nice healthy breakfast?”

“You’re too good to me, I don’t deserve you,” Harper said to Bradford before getting out of bed and going into the bathroom to take a shower.

***

As Nick lain there in his police cell surrounded by other criminals, he felt scared, really scared.

When he had first met Nora, he’d known she was the woman for him.  When the kids came along he couldn’t have been happier.

The memories he had of the holidays they’d taken together and the fun they’d had on holidays was the best years of his life.

“This is the life, isn’t it, my love?” he could remember asking her, as they sat together in a park on vacation, the summer sun shining high up in the sky.  “The two of us watching our children grow up surrounded by love.  I couldn’t be happier if I tried.”

His words had bought tears to his wife’s eyes who had equally felt just as happy as he did, although he could see a look of concern on her face.

“Oh, Nick! Do you think we’ll still be this happy when we are old and grey?  Will you still hold me in your arms when I’m all wrinkly and old?”

Nick couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his Nora’s mouth.

“Oh love, how can you say things like that?  Of course I’ll still want you when you are older.  Don’t you know you’re the only woman for me, and I’ll never find anyone else who’ll make me as happy as you do?”

***

Nora hugged Nick on the bench where they sat and he realized how lucky he was to have had met her.  He would make sure he never let anything come between them, and do his best by her; to give their kids the best future they could dream of with lots of love and support from him.  As he sat there cuddling his wife and watching from a distance his two children playing on the swings, Nick was blissfully unaware of what the future would hold.  What fate held in store for him and his perfect family, perfect life, perfect job.

Fate had really been a bitch to him and his family.

As Nick’s thoughts came back to the present day he wondered how it had all gone so wrong.  Had something in his life prepared him for this?  Was this supposed to be a lesson, or was it simply the way the stars had been aligned for his life?  He liked to believe in the latter, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Up you go, Nicholas Donnelly.  Sarah House is here to visit you, lucky dog,” the jail cop banged on his cell.

Nick didn’t move, lost in his thoughts.  He had provided for his family and supported his children with their hobbies and after-school activities.  He had provided his wife with everything she had asked for, and she had wanted for nothing.  Yet, here he was lying on a hard bed in a jail cell all alone with his wife filing for a divorce and probably never seeing his children again.

Sitting up quickly, Nick suddenly changed inside.  He was not going to sit feeling sorry for himself anymore.  His wife had not been who he thought she was.  His relatives hadn’t been who they thought they were.  Hell, he hardly even knew his own kids anymore, after what Nora was probably feeding them about him every day.  In all the years they had been married, he had been a good supportive husband, never once being unfaithful, yet, at the first sign of trouble, where had she been?  Not by his side as a loyal wife.  No, she had blamed everything on him and couldn’t cope with them temporarily being poor, and had left him and filed for a divorce.  He had never imagined her being so unfaithful to him, choosing a life of luxury over being a family, her world shattered by the loss of one, materialistic piece of garbage.

“Up you go,” the cop said again, this time a little threatening.

He stood.  He wondered whether she had ever loved him at all.  If it had just been the lifestyle he had provided her with that had been the reason for her being with him.  It didn’t matter now, she had made her decision and he certainly wasn’t going to fight with her anymore.

As the cop led him through the hallway toward Sarah, his one salvation in this world of mishaps, Nick’s mind whirled.

He blamed this Bradford kid for everything and he was going to make it his goal to get out of this place and get him back for ruining his life.  Nick would make a plan.  He would work out exactly how Bradford had got his property and make sure exactly the same thing happened to him, and worse.

Bradford Whitney, or whatever his name truly was, would get what was coming to him.

His days of crime against humanity were numbered, and Nick would be damned if he ever let him get away with it. All his moves against Bradford had failed; it was like he was always a step ahead of him. He was a predator, and a damned good one.  In his game of chess he was a rookie, all his pawns alienated, his knights broken down and his queen separated from him. It was a game of logic and he failed despite his logical appraisal in the firm he no longer controls now. “From a restraining order to an attempted murder charge? How the hell did this shit happen!” he silently muttered in his mind.

He had lost a fight because he was fighting with logic, a logic he thought he had because of his ego. “I am so screwed,” he muttered again.

“No you are not” Sarah objected.

How could she say that, like she had the key to reversing fate? She just gazed at him with an expression void of interpretation. He sought for words to unlock the secret behind her smile, but to no avail.