by Margaret Kay
Elizabeth too wore a casual dress. Her hair was in a ponytail and she had large sunglasses on her face. Her seat was pulled up close to the steering wheel and raised off the floor. She still looked small. “Hi. I’m glad this worked.”
“Me too,” Kennedy said, fastening her seatbelt. She watched Elizabeth make a point of looking both ways as she put the car in reverse. Then her eyes remained fixed on her backup camera display as she backed out. She went wide into the other lane, but no other car was coming.
“Oh, that wasn’t too good,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll do better in parking lots. But I’ll probably park far out if that’s okay with you.”
“Is this a new car you’re getting used to?” Kennedy asked.
“Yes, and a new license. I never needed to drive before, but Alexander made me get it and has been telling me I need to go out places and practice driving.”
“When did you get your license?” Kennedy asked somewhat surprised.
“About two months ago, right before Olivia was born,” Elizabeth replied, her eyes moving to the rearview mirror, out the front and down at the speedometer.
Now, Kennedy was a bit nervous. She doubted Elizabeth had driven much since getting her license. Weren’t new mothers not allowed to drive for a month or so? “Well, if you need any help, let me know.”
“Thanks. Alexander will be so proud of me that I’ve done this. I’m glad you came out with me. I really didn’t want to go alone.”
“No worries,” Kennedy said. “We’ll do this together. It’ll be fun.” She gave Elizabeth a warm and supportive smile. She seemed nervous about driving and parking in parking lots.
They had a great morning shopping. They went to several home stores. Kennedy picked out colors for rooms, towels for the kitchen and bathroom, even a new comforter for the bed. She took pictures and made lists on her phone of where, what, and price. She did buy paint for the kitchen, deciding on a rich beige to go with the black cabinets. She’d start painting the kitchen right away when she got home. She found some great wine-themed decorations for the walls that would look great too.
“She’s a good baby,” Kennedy said, pointing at Olivia. They sat on the outside patio of a restaurant under an umbrella in one corner. Elizabeth sat facing a brick wall, her back to the other tables. She was getting ready to nurse. She laid a light-weight blanket over the baby and her shoulder.
“She is. We were in Houston visiting Alexander’s family for two weeks and she was so good. I was nervous about it, being in a strange home, worrying she’d keep his parents awake, but she slept well. Of course, his parents made it easy. They are such nice people, welcomed me warmly.”
“I gathered it was the first time you met them?” Kennedy asked.
“It was,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Please don’t judge me too harshly, but Alexander and I weren’t together long before I became pregnant with Olivia. And then he and I separated for a few months, until I realized I was pregnant. I was in Seattle and I had to save the money to travel here to Chicago to tell him, so there was really no time to meet them.”
Kennedy watched the young woman’s face as she spoke. Her eyes pled with Kennedy’s not to criticize her. Like she had the right to judge anyone? “Oh, Elizabeth, I’d never judge you. It’s obvious you and Alexander both love each other. You’re together and both appear very happy. That’s all that matters.”
“We are. God really watched out for us. When I told Alexander I was pregnant, he stepped up right away and asked me to stay with him. It was a rough couple of months, establishing our relationship as husband and wife, but it was so worth it. I feel so fortunate that I have him in my life.”
Kennedy smiled, impressed by Elizabeth’s testimony. It was honest and heartfelt, nothing phony about it. “I hope Gary and I can work out like you and Alexander did. We have a lot of things to work out, but it’s nice seeing a couple that made it.”
“Just keep your heart open. That’s the only advice I can give you. Keep talking and accept the time he can give you. It’s hard when they’re away on a mission. Angel, Sienna, and I hang out a lot when the guys are gone. You’re a part of us now, so we will be here for you too.”
Kennedy felt full of emotion. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” The waitress sat their salads to the table. “So, will you be going back to work, or are you staying home with Olivia?”
“Well, I earned my CNA a few years ago and planned to start an RN program this semester, but I’m delaying it till next fall. I know I won’t want to put Olivia in daycare yet. And when Alexander is home after a mission, I’ll want to be home with him, not at school. Alexander supports me being home full time, so why not?”
Kennedy thought about that for a moment. She wondered if she’d feel the same way, wanting to be home with Gary when he was home. It definitely was something to think about. Maybe, working and taking classes wasn’t such a good idea.
“I’d say if you can afford to and you want to, you should,” Kennedy said. “I have to figure out what I’m going to do. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think I want to be a music teacher at a school.” She dropped her voice down very quiet. “If they can’t build that into my history, I’ll have to go back to school. It’ll probably take a couple years.”
“Have you researched it to know for sure?”
“Garcia still has my computer, so no, I haven’t been able to.” She took a bite, watching Elizabeth, surprised how she comfortably managed to eat while she nursed. It occurred to her that as young as Elizabeth appeared to be, she was very confident and comfortable in her own skin, and much more mature than her years.
“Hopefully he’ll have it back to you soon and then you can really look into it. Until then, I say enjoy the decorating. You’ve got time. It’s already too late to get accepted to a college for this fall semester. You can’t start until the spring semester starts in January and there is enough time to apply and get your transcripts to the schools you might be interested in. The good news is, there are a lot of extension campuses right here in the area.”
As their day out wrapped up and Elizabeth pulled back into Sloan’s driveway, Kennedy smiled at Elizabeth. “Thank you for coming to get me and driving today. I had a good time, and it was good to get to know you better.”
Elizabeth smiled as well. “Thank you for letting me. I look forward to spending more time with you and getting to know you even better, too. I’m home all the time, so please call or text whenever you want to talk. I’d love to come see the place when you’re done decorating and you are welcome to come to our house whenever you want a break from the paint fumes. I know Sienna is already planning a few all-girl, group dinners on nights when Jackson and Alexander can watch the kids. I’m sure we’ll all be getting a text with dates and times to see what will work.”
“That sounds great. I’m looking forward to that too.” Then Kennedy got out of the car and retrieved her bags and the paint can from the rear of the SUV. Peeking over the back seat, she smiled as she viewed the sleeping baby. Boy! She had stepped into a completely different world than she’d been living in. This was a welcomed change.
Tango
The Team arrived in Portland, Maine, welcomed by gray skies and rain. It was a cool seventy degrees, which after the intense heat the Chicago area had all summer, felt refreshing. They were dressed in street clothes.
Their first stop was an industrial park and the small shipping and receiving office front the DEA had set up as their onsite headquarters. It was in the Old Port neighborhood, where the suspected illegal drug lab was located. The industrial park was eight blocks north of the suspected drug house.
“We just don’t have enough for a warrant,” Agent Mills, the lead DEA agent said. “We initially received a tip about the house from a junkie that was arrested, trying to barter his way out of a B and E charge. We’ve had the house under surveillance for a month. And so far, squat. There’s a lot of comings and goings from the house, which is suspicious, but no unusu
al deliveries.”
“When you say comings and goings, how many people are we talking?” Cooper asked.
“Ten men and women, loosely related, siblings, cousins, spouses. And none of them have priors. Even the ownership of the house doesn’t raise any red flags.”
“Was your junkie just trying to get out of his charges by throwing a bullshit lead your way?” Lambchop asked.
Mills shook his head and looked frustrated. “That’s the thing. I don’t think he was. I think this is legit. There is a new brand of heroin laced with fentanyl that just started to hit the streets that is very deadly. We’ve had more OD’s in the last two months than in the entire previous six months.”
“I assume you’ve tailed the people coming and going from that house,” Cooper said.
“Yep, three of them work at bars or food service. I watched one bartender for two days. If he’s dealing at work, he’s the slickest I’ve ever seen,” Mills reported.
“And none of their financials or spending patterns indicate anything suspicious,” Mills’ partner, Rochelle Chavez spoke. “If they’re making it and selling it, they’re the most disciplined group we’ve ever seen, no over-the-top purchases, they all still work normal jobs. No one has even had a day at the ballpark or spa.”
“So, it seems no one is profiting from it, maybe they’re not,” Sloan suggested. “We had a case a year or so ago that a middle-class couple was moving a good volume of heroin. Nothing in their backgrounds to suggest they’d ever been involved in drugs. Turns out, their college aged daughter was being held by the local drug lord. He knew these people would never be suspected, so they held the daughter to force the parents to move their product.”
“Damn,” Chavez swore. “I’ll get back on my computers and look into the extended family, to see if anyone’s missing.”
“The problem is, even if you do find that someone is, the family will never admit to it. They will be so afraid that if they don’t do what they are being ordered to do, their loved one will be killed,” Lambchop said.
“How’d you break that last case?” Chavez asked.
Mother slapped Sloan on the shoulder. “This man right here convinced the father that the girl was never going to be let go and would be killed when they were no longer needed, and that they’d be killed too. We all took turns trying to convince both parents, but Sloan here said something that reached them.”
“If it turns out to be the same situation with this case, we know who to send in to talk with them,” Mills said, his eyes locked on Sloan.
“I hope it isn’t,” Sloan remarked. As far as he knew that girl was still seeing a trauma counselor to get through what had happened to her while that drug lord had her, and the whole family was in WITSEC pending their testimony against the crime organization. Their lives were shot. They’d been prominent members of their community. They had a lot of friends, their own business, and life had been good. Because of the criminals who targeted them, they had to leave everyone they knew behind and were not happy about it.
He hadn’t thought about that case in a long time. It made him think of Kennedy and how different her situation was. She had no one she thought she was leaving behind. He wasn’t sure if that made her situation better, or more pathetic because that was indeed the case. He was just glad she was with him. He still couldn’t get over how excited she was about decorating his place. No, she wouldn’t do well out on her own.
The first three days the team was on site, they watched the cameras that the DEA installed viewing all angles of the target house. They watched the comings and goings of the people involved and followed them to their various jobs and homes. They agreed, the many visits each day that each person paid to the house was very suspicious. No family was that close. They also each carried identical black backpacks, always.
The DEA’s investigation turned up no one missing from the family. The family’s patriarch, the grandfather, Gino Berelli, had died six months prior at the ripe old age of ninety-three. There was nothing suspicious there. The new patriarch of the family it appeared, was Troy Cummings, the owner of the target house, a forty-five-year-old owner of a carwash. His wife Diana appeared to be the most nervous of those being surveilled. Those two would be the first they focused on.
That evening, Madison went to the same yoga class that Diana went to every night at seven o’clock, entering five minutes early and paying her guest fee. She placed a mat a row back from the spot Diana took every night. She watched their target from the second she entered until the moment she left, after Diana made a quick stop in the one room ladies’ room in the yoga studio. Madison exited behind her and walked up the street until Diana got in her car and drove away. Diana Berelli Cummings talked to no one the entire time. She made no suspicious movements.
Sloan followed Diana’s vehicle at a discreet distance. They had a tracker on her car. If she held true to her routine. She’d go straight home.
“I thought for sure she was delivering product to someone,” Madison said. “She came in with that backpack, for no reason. She left it at the side wall with everyone else’s personal belongings. I would have left it locked in the car.”
“And no one else approached the bag?” Cooper asked.
“Negative, Coop. It was in my line of sight the entire time.”
“What the fuck?” Sloan asked through the comms. “I’d say we go with plan B and imitate a mugging to get our hands on one of those bags. I’m with Xena on this one. There was no reason for her to bring that bag into that yoga studio.”
“Could there have been a bag switch in the bathroom?” Cooper asked.
“Well, the lady who went in before her didn’t have a bag, didn’t come out with one either. Obviously, I followed Diana out, so I don’t know if any women after her had a bag. There’s only one single bathroom in that place. Five women were lined up to use it after class.”
“Sounds like tomorrow night you watch that bathroom instead of Diana,” Lambchop interjected.
“Target is still on course for her house,” Sloan reported. “We’re one block away.”
“The others are beginning to converge on the residence. Right on schedule,” Mother broadcast. He and the Birdman had stayed back at the DEA surveillance point. “Eight pm every night, I am not heading over to anyone’s house.” They’d stay for exactly thirty minutes and then everyone would go home for the night.
“I think Sloan has a good plan B. If routine holds tonight, Troy Cummings will go to that seedy bar down on Congress Street. I say we mug him between his car in the back-municipal parking lot and the door to the bar. Let’s see what’s in the bag,” Lambchop suggested.
“Yeah, and I’d like to see his reaction to being mugged,” Sloan chimed in.
“Let’s do it,” Cooper said. “Birdman, you be waiting for him. Mother, you’re backing him up.”
“On it, Coop,” Sherman said, glad to be making a move, finally.
As predicted, the ten-member clan gathered at the Cummings home and then one by one, they left. Troy Cummings was the last to leave, and he did drive directly to the back-municipal parking lot behind that bar. The Birdman was waiting in the shadows behind a dumpster.
After Cummings passed, Sherman slipped out from behind the dumpster, mask over his face, and he shoved Cummings, face first into the brick wall. He grabbed both his wrists and pulled them over his head while his body slammed into Cummings, keeping him secured to the wall. Cummings was a good foot shorter than Sherman and he didn’t have much muscle mass to resist.
After he’d easily secured both the man’s wrists with one of his hands, Sherman drew his gun and pressed it into the man’s side. “Don’t try anything and you won’t get hurt.”
“Okay,” Cummings agreed.
“Keep your hands up,” Sherman ordered. He released the man’s wrists and felt over him. He found a gun in the small of Cummings’ back. “I’ll be relieving you of this.” Then he took the man’s wallet out of his back pocket. He passed ove
r his cell phone in the other pocket. Mother hid nearby and was pairing his phone with Cummings’ phone, so they’d know who he called and what he said after the ‘mugging’.
“Hands down. I’m taking the backpack.”
“No, not the backpack,” Cummings protested.
Sherman shoved the gun barrel harder into Cummings’ ribs. “I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge.”
“If you leave me my backpack, I’ll wait till you’ve maxed out my credit cards before I cancel them as stolen,” Cummings offered.
Sherman laughed. He unzipped the large center compartment of the backpack. Within were bundles of cash completely filling the bag. “Fuck an A,” he said. “My lucky day.” He rezipped it and pulled the bag from Cummings shoulders. Then he pushed Cummings to the ground, his foot planted in the center of the man’s back. “Don’t get up for five minutes and you walk away unhurt. Move at all and I’ll put a round through the back of your head.” Then he soundlessly left the area, the black backpack slung over one shoulder.
