A Life Rebuilt

by Jean Brashear

Jenna was speechless. “She’s not Freddie’s mother?”

  “No, his mama died, but Freddie does okay, most of the time.”

  “Against a guy like Mako?”

  Beto no longer seemed quite so unconcerned.

  “Would you help me find him? He needs help, Beto, and if he has a six-year-old out there with him, then that’s even more dangerous.”

  “He takes care of Damien. Won’t let no harm come to him.”

  “He’s just a boy. He needs shelter and food and someone to watch over him.”

  “You gonna do that?” Beto asked. “Because he won’t go to any shelter, Miss Jenna. He got—” Beto looked away. “Something happened to him when he was in one.”

  Oh, dear mercy. Jenna’s eyes filled. “Please, help me find him. I swear I’ll figure out a way to keep him safe—to keep both of them safe—but first I have to locate him.” And keep him away from Mako and those of his kind.

  “I don’t know.” Beto’s gaze searched hers. “You don’t understand, Miss Jenna. The system doesn’t work for people like us.”

  She gestured to the house around them. “I’m not the system, Beto, and I do make things work for people I care about.”

  A short nod. “You do that, all right.” Still he pondered for a minute, then exhaled. “I might know a couple of places you could look.”

  “I’m listening.” She touched his arm. “Thank you, Beto.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’m still gonna kick his butt when I see him. You tell him that.”

  * * *

  WHERE SHOULD SHE BEGIN? Beto had told her where Damien’s mother lived, so that was the obvious first step. Freddie was cagey even with his friend, so Beto didn’t know much. He mentioned an abandoned house not far from their school where he’d met Freddie once. There was also a convenience store several blocks from the Marins’ new house where the boys hung out—though Beto, not so much, he admitted ruefully, since his mother kept a tight rein on him. She might be a working mom, but boy, did she have a network, he said.

  Jenna had to grin. Her own mother had the ears of a bat, plus the small town Jenna had grown up in was filled with friends and family of both the MacAllisters and Montalvos. In addition, Diego and Jesse’s grandmother, Mama Lalita, was worshipped by one and all. There wasn’t a soul in the surrounding area she hadn’t helped or healed at one time or another.

  At that moment, she very much wished she could see Mama Lalita again. The woman was about to turn ninety-four, but though her body had slowed and her eyesight had dimmed, her mind was as agile as ever. She wasn’t Jenna’s blood grandmother, but she was definitely the grandmother of her heart. She was the single most comforting presence Jenna had ever known. The little stucco house in which she still lived alone—refusing to move in with Diego and Caroline, who were close by and visited every day—had provided shelter for the bodies, minds and souls of many, many people.

  Roman could use some time with Mama Lalita, too, she thought.

  She had to stop thinking about him, however much she wanted to get to know him better. After all, he’d been very clear with her last night. I don’t want thanks. I don’t want anything. Just leave me the hell alone. All of you.

  She’d give him some space for now, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—abandon Freddie. Not only taking care of himself but a six-year-old? Something had to be done.

  She pulled up to the apartment building where Beto had directed her. Apartment 213. She scanned for the numbers on the doors, but some were missing and others damaged.

  At last she found one on the second floor with the number 3 at the end of a broken tag and knocked.

  No answer.

  She knocked again, feeling foolish that she didn’t know the woman’s name and thus could not call it out.

  “What you want?” said a voice down the walkway. “Who you lookin’ for?” A woman of indeterminate age, weary and worn and slovenly, stood there glaring.

  “I’m looking for Freddie Miller.”

  “He ain’t here.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No, and I don’t care. He nothin’ but trouble.”

  “Are you…” What did she call this woman? “Are you Damien’s mother?”

  “Damien who?” But the furtive darting of her eyes gave her away.

  “I’m not with the authorities,” Jenna reassured her. “I’m only a friend of Freddie’s. I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Said I don’t know where he is and don’t care.”

  “Then may I speak to Damien, please?”

  “No.” Antagonism prickled from her, sharp as porcupine quills. “Who the hell are you?”

  It was difficult to decide how to deal with someone so suspicious. Did she reassure the woman again, or threaten her? What would get Jenna the answers she sought?

  “Look, I’m not here to cause any problems. Freddie has friends who are…worried about him. We simply want to make sure he’s all right.”

  “Ain’t seen him. Don’t want to, neither. Get out.”

  The woman was taller than Jenna, but stringy. Jenna visualized what her mother would do, a woman who kept five large males in place anytime she wanted to. She took a step closer. “I’m not the authorities, but I know plenty of people who are. I am concerned about Damien and Freddie. Do I have to get Child Protective Services involved? Neither boy is of age, and CPS would be happy to start monitoring their welfare.”

  “What you know about anything, white girl? You ain’t been in need once in your whole life. You don’t come here telling me how to take care of my boy. You get your nose the hell out of my business.” Fear and the jitters that probably came from drug use made her wild-eyed.

  “Where is Damien?” Jenna’s tone was quiet but firm.

  “With his dad. Be back in a bit.” But she wouldn’t meet Jenna’s eyes.

  I am going to rescue these children from you, Jenna thought but didn’t say out loud. No telling where the woman would run to or what would happen to Damien if she did.

  “Here is my card,” she said, passing the paper over to the woman. “I would appreciate a call if Freddie comes by, and I would like to speak with Damien as soon as he returns.”

  Jenna didn’t like what she was seeing, and—Roman Gallardo be damned—she was not turning a blind eye one second longer. “Are we clear?” she asked the woman.

  The woman’s mouth pursed, but her eyes darted around. She was likely too high to remember any of this conversation. “We clear,” she said, then turned on her heel and walked back the way she’d come, tearing the card into pieces and tossing them into the air as she did so.

  That went well, Jenna thought, and started dialing her phone. Roman might be right and Freddie would hate her, but she was friends with many people in the child welfare system and knew that while they were very much overworked, they genuinely tried to do the best by their charges. Also, Jenna was a CASA volunteer, trained as a child advocate, so she could see about getting herself appointed to watch over the two boys.

  But first, someone had to find them.

  “Hi, Selma,” she said to the person on the other end. “I have two kids I’m concerned about.”

  And night was on its way.

  She could barely stand the thought of Freddie out there alone.

  * * *

  ROMAN STOOD IN Abuela’s kitchen and tried to visualize it with the speckled Formica removed from the counters, the yellowed linoleum scraped up from the floors, the decrepit stove, ancient refrigerator, aluminum table and chairs all replaced by shiny new furnishings.

  He could knock out that wall to the living room, build a bar with cabinets below. The house would be opened up. Sunshine would pour through a new, larger window over the sink.

  Sunshine could pour into his life.

 
; Hey, Sunshine, good to see you.

  Teo’s greeting was apt.

  Jenna was indeed pure sunshine.

  As long as she stayed away from him.

  That was you? I never got to really thank you.

  I don’t want thanks. I don’t want anything. Just leave me the hell alone. All of you. God in heaven, why had he been so rough on her? She didn’t deserve it. Goodness spilled from her every pore.

  Not that she didn’t have a temper. Oh, yeah. Woman definitely thought her way was always best. Bossy as hell. Nosy. Pushed too hard. Asked too much.

  Go away.

  But even when he wasn’t near her, he couldn’t seem to forget her. Might as well have returned to the job site today.

  And why didn’t you? You know they need your help.

  Because he was tired of being pushed. Of being boxed in by commitments and obligations and worries that only led to bad endings.

  No more.

  Roman Asim, Ahmed had called him—Arabic for protector—after Roman had dispatched two older kids who were beating the boy up over food he’d stolen for himself and his sister. Some protector he’d ended up being. He’d gotten involved, tried to help Ahmed and his sister, but all he’d done was attract the wrath of those already angered by too much foreign interference. Those kids would have been better off if he’d left them alone.

  And he had no business getting involved with these people now. No matter how good it had felt to have a simple goal, like hanging a set of cabinets.

  Like teaching a boy.

  Don’t need your help.

  Freddie was probably right about not taking Roman’s help, but he did need someone’s. Never mind that Roman’s gut said Jenna was coming on too strong, that Freddie would flee rather than be taken to a shelter or put in foster care.

  Damien got no food all day.

  How often did he find himself in charge of his younger brother? Where could they hide from punks like Mako?

  As darkness fell, Roman thought of the two boys alone. Winter was coming.

  Damn it. Might as well admit that he was going out to look for them.

  He glanced back at Abuela’s, and Roman realized that the place was old but it was still his refuge. Cosmetics weren’t important. Abuela and what she’d taught him about compassion was.

  All right, Freddie. He left the house and returned to the garage to change into his running shoes.

  He’d start at the convenience store.

  * * *

  ROMAN HAD BEEN HANGING around the Jiffy Mart so long that the clerk was probably ready to call the cops. Okay, no—not given how many others loitered here.

  So far, no luck. He’d talked to the clerk, asked several customers, but no one remembered Freddie. He had no extraordinary features to identify him, nothing to make him stand out from the twenty other skinny kids Roman had seen coming and going from the store since he’d arrived tonight.

  Roman had started working his way through the clusters of kids in the parking lot, but that was a dicey proposition. Though his hair was longer now and his work clothes were scruffy, he was big, plus his Special Forces training and his experiences in the hellhole of the Middle East had marked him as someone not to be screwed with. Usually he didn’t mind—appreciated that it made people give him distance, in fact—but right now his bearing seemed to scream cop to those gathered just beyond the lights doing drug deals and who knew what else.

  He’d learned a lot about allaying suspicion in his various postings, though, so he approached quietly, hands in plain sight, his manner as low-key and nonthreatening as he could make it.

  It didn’t really help, however. Either none of these losers floating around the edges knew Freddie or they were lying. Regardless, they weren’t talking.

  Until he mentioned Mako. The name generated two reactions: stone silence and furtive looks, or belligerence.

  “What you want with Mako?” one cocky kid—all of eighteen maybe—demanded.

  “Could be I owe him some money,” Roman replied. That usually brought lowlifes out of the woodwork.

  “For what?” The kid scanned him, staring at the multitude of scars on his legs. “You after some cotton?”

  He knew that was one of the street names for the painkiller OxyContin, as well as why the kid had made that assumption. In the beginning, Roman had hated people looking at his scars, but now he didn’t even flinch. He was alive, he had both legs, he could run. His legs might not be pretty, but they served him well.

  So Mako was a drug dealer, in addition to being a thief.

  “Got some dings in the sand pit.” He shrugged. It was hardly his first time undercover, though never in this country.

  The kid and his friend flicked glances back at his damaged legs. “Some kinda shit, huh, man? That had to suck.”

  Punks. They might think their lives were rough, but here they stood with earbuds playing hater rap so loud he could hear the music, with their skivvies hanging out over their jeans, posturing as though they were somebody when good men were dying or coming back without arms and legs and little kids were killed over—

  Stop. He could not go there.

  A negligent lift of his shoulder. “Your man Mako could help?”

  “Maybe. He just got out of lockup yesterday. He not real happy right now.”

  “Yeah,” his buddy snickered. “But he gonna find the white girl who wants to ‘save him.’ She sweet, he say. Cherry-pie ripe. Then he be in a better mood.”

  It was all Roman could do not to grab both of them by the throat. To send a message to Mako to leave Jenna the hell alone.

  But he’d already warned her to be more careful, and she’d promised. She wasn’t a fool, however impulsive she might be or how much of a romantic.

  He wasn’t here as her bodyguard, he was here to find Freddie. Maybe if the boy didn’t have to fear Mako, he’d come out of hiding.

  “So if I want Mako to fix me up, how do I contact him?”

  One of them sneered. “You don’t. He find you. Assumin’ you ain’t a cop.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Don’t know if I believe that.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you believe. I can go to someone else, just as easy.” He started to turn away to keep the bluff going.

  “Hey, now. Tell me what you need and I can get it for you.”

  “And have you cut it and raise the price, too? Uh-uh. I’ll just go somewhere else.”

  The two looked at each other. “So where can he find you?”

  “Here is as good as anyplace.”

  Just then a familiar vehicle pulled into the parking lot.

  No. Not now.

  But indeed, a familiar head of strawberry-blond hair emerged from the car, coupled with—holy hell, where did she get those legs? She wore one of those lady suits with the short, close-fitting jacket and the even shorter tight skirt and sky-high heels…with about a mile and a half of legs he would never have expected from someone that small.

  A piercing whistle came from one of the idiots beside him. “Da-yum! I’d like me a piece of that.”

  Roman barely restrained the fist already forming at his side. “So you’d rather stare at some chick than make your friend some money that you might get a piece of?”

  At last the two returned their attention to him. “Be at the park over on James. Ten tomorrow night.”

  “Got it.” Amateurs and punks, looking to be important. He turned away and let them go while he watched Jenna go inside the store and talk earnestly to the clerk as every male eye inside the place and out was glued to her. Holding on to his temper, reminding himself that at least she wasn’t out in the shadows of the parking lot talking to creeps like the two he’d just met, Roman forced himself to walk slowly inside.

 
But when she nodded at the clerk and handed over her card, he closed the distance between them and spoke from behind her as she headed for the next person she saw.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he all but growled.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JENNA NEARLY JUMPED out of her skin at the sound of his voice. She whirled so fast she lost her balance.

  He steadied her. Roman. But the man in front of her resembled no Roman she’d seen before.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Outside.” He gripped her upper arm, his jaw clenched so tightly she thought he might break it. “Now.”

  “Let go of me. What’s wrong with you?”

  He closed his eyes. “Get in your car and get out of here.”

  “Are you in trouble, Roman?”

  “Jenna.” His voice was impossibly deep and rough. “You have to go.” He glanced out the window, cursed and stepped back behind a row of shelves, pulling her with him.

  “People are starting to stare,” she hissed. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “For the love of—” His eyes bored into hers. “You have to leave. You can’t be seen with me.”

  “I’m not leaving you if you’re in trouble. Do you want me to call the cops?”

  “No!” He exhaled. “Listen, just… Okay, look—get in your car and drive to the barbecue place down the street. Go inside and wait for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you see those two in the hoodies?” he pointed. “They’re friends of Mako’s. They’re wondering if you—” He shook his head. “I’m not going to say it. Just please, Jenna, do as I ask. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t want to leave you. They might hurt you.”

  He snorted. “Babe, I could wipe the floor with them and not break a sweat. Not bragging, just that I could. I have the training and the experience, too. But I’m trying to get information from them and beating the crap out of them won’t accomplish that.”

  “Information on Freddie?”

  He rolled his eyes the way her brothers did when they were praying for patience. “Yes. But the longer I stay in here, the more likely it is that they’ll see us together and that’ll blow my cover. You don’t want to be talking to those punks, I promise you. And you sure don’t want them getting their hands on you.”