Dark Ages: 2020 (Dark Ages Series Book 1)

by JD Dutra

She clicked off a rerun an episode of Friends and a reporter’s voice boomed louder from the TV with breaking news.

  “Here is your update on the death of John McAdams, the world famous actor and philanthropist, who was found brutally murdered yesterday, along with his wife and four children in their Boston home. According to the police apparently it was a home robbery gone wrong. It’s a sad time for the fans and the Hollywood community as they lose one of their most iconic actors. McAdams had starred in several worldwide best-selling movies such as The Afterlife, The Templars and the blockbuster drama series The Early Christians.”

  Isabella glared at Nathan; he was frozen in shock at the news. The Early Christians was the only TV show they could agree on and would watch together.

  “Wasn’t he one of the guys who everyone thought filmed that conspiracy theory video that went viral?” He asked. “The one of some people meeting in a fancy hotel, talking about some kind of reset of the world?”

  Nathan made a mental note to look into it from his work laptop. The story seemed to cause Isabella to break her silence.

  “I don’t know. I can’t believe this, how terrible. He was only 43, his wife was so beautiful. I loved him in The Templars,” she said, bringing her freshly manicured fingers to her lips.

  They watched the rest of the news item together and then he went to start packing. Isabella continued to stare at the TV but didn’t seem to be seriously watching it.

  “Did they ever find out what happened to Chad?” He asked casually and his wife slowly turned her head towards him, clearly pondering where this was coming from.

  “Why are you bringing him up? It was over a year ago, we talked about him so much already. I thought you’d forgiven me?”

  “I have… I’m just curious,” Nathan said, looking deep into his wife’s blue eyes as he folded a pair of pants.

  “I don’t know. As far as I know he is still missing,” she said dismissively, burying her emotions.

  “I see…” Nathan nodded his head slowly, letting his words trail off, apparently feeling indifferent about her answer.

  “Can you stay for dinner?” Isabella asked, the guilty remembrance of Chad and what she did to Nathan making her give him a peace offering.

  “I’m sorry babe, I can’t, but – again - I promise I’ll take some time off when I get back so we can go away somewhere. Find us a fun place to go okay? Something the girls will like too.”

  Isabella nodded as she stood and switched off the TV. Nathan stole a kiss from her lips and she finally kissed him back, staying in each other’s arms for a few moments before he finished packing his bags. He was so used to doing it and was ready to leave the house in another ten minutes.

  He kissed his little girls goodbye taking his time to hug them tight until they couldn’t take it anymore. His daughters reminded him of why he had to try to still love his wife and couldn’t just divorce her. He loved his little girls too much to put them through a divorce, plus that would add even more time without seeing them in between his work trips.

  Their happiness means more to me than my own.

  Isabella’s adventure with Chad had changed things between Nathan and her. He wanted to hate her and leave her, but in one way, the life he had chosen for himself had put her in the situation that pushed her over the edge.

  On his way out the door, he turned and stared deep into her eyes.

  “Isabella, promise me you’ll be good,” he said. The worried look in his eyes clearly gave her the meaning of his words; the wound she had opened in his heart still hadn’t healed.

  “I promise… Please let that go Nathan. Just forgive me once and for all. You know I’m sorry…”

  “I have… But I just worry,” he said, fear entering his heart again. It was the fear of being cheated on again, the fear of losing his family. It was also the fear of what he would do if either of those things were to happen.

  “Go and come back to me and the girls, I’ll find us a place to go see. When you come back I’d like to really know what you do on your trips. I think it’s time I found out. It would help me cope with your absence. Nathan… I… We really need you here.” There was sincerity in her voice, perhaps she really meant it.

  “Alright. I promise.”

  Isabella kissed him goodbye and as she walked him out to his car she noticed that he hadn’t packed too much, so at least he wouldn’t be gone for months this time. As Nathan drove away she felt so tired of this same sight, this same feeling of a having a hole in her heart that could never be filled. She had gone against her own family’s wishes when she’d married him, cutting ties with them almost completely, and now she and Nathan barely talked.

  She went inside, sat on the couch, and turned her phone on. Once more she downloaded the Facebook app and typed in her secret email address and password to log in. Her heart raced, the feelings of loneliness weakening the grip on her soul. She went to the messages, and found nothing. Danny hadn’t written her in the last two days.

  What was wrong? Why hadn’t he written her? Did she say something during their last encounter? Had he changed his mind? Chad had suddenly vanished from her life too, out of the blue. Nathan, Chad and now Daniel? What was wrong with her? Why was it so hard to find a man who really cared for her, who could put her first all the time?

  She checked Danny’s daughter’s Facebook page, an 18 year old girl. Nothing new had been posted on her wall in the last two days. Was there something wrong with Danny or one of his daughters? Isabella uninstalled the Facebook app, she couldn’t risk Julia grabbing her phone to play a game and seeing something she shouldn’t. She sighed and opened the Kindle app, looking for a new romance novel to read.

  Chapter 3

  Tent City Jail, Phoenix, Arizona

  Tuesday, October 20th, 2020

  2: 02 P.M.

  As he entered the visitation room Daniel Cross held his breath. He gazed intently at the space where he expected someone to already be, trying his best to focus on that instead of on the thick iron fence that separated him from his visitor. The small room had a faint smell of mold and the seats, shaped like giant mushrooms, were made out of a mix of concrete and desert rocks; at least they were on his side. He sat down, wondering what he would say to her, how he would explain himself.

  The afternoon sun was shining through the barred window behind him, and he noticed the shadow of his head, casting a dark, round circle on the flat of the concrete table. He ran a hand over his freshly shaved head; the thick blond hair which he’d worn down to his neckline since he was a teenager was gone.

  “Dad?”

  As she stepped into view, she covered her mouth and just stared at him; it was as if she were suddenly frozen in time. She wanted to ask if he was okay, but there stood a man who was already nothing but the shadow of her father. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was gone, and he was wearing old style inmate clothing, the black and white stripes that had been used by criminals of all kinds over the years. It was the uniform of those who had lost their freedom, and were made fun of in the cartoons she used to like to watch. She simply couldn’t move and tears trickled down from her bright green eyes onto her trembling hand.

  “Hello, Summer. Don’t cry, Sweetie, everything is going to be fine, this isn’t as bad as it looks,” Daniel said, forcing a calming smile onto his lips.

  “This isn’t as bad as it looks? Dad you’re in jail for tax evasion!” She hissed as if they could be overheard, her tears flowing freely now. “I had to abandon my classes at Fresno State and drive all the way over to Phoenix. Then I had to pick up Nick at the child protective services center and he was freaking out!”

  Her father looked as if he might interrupt, but she talked over him.

  “I had to get him ready for school all by myself and our house was a complete mess, tossed by the police or somebody. There wasn’t anything Nick likes to eat in the house and there is a 48 hour shut off notice from the power company on your door. I have no money and the credit cards you g
ave me aren’t working. What am I going to do Dad?”

  With those last words she sounded like hopelessness itself, her voice drowning in soft tears of sadness; she was shaking with fear. As hard as it was, he had to try and appear level-headed.

  “These days it doesn’t take much to end up here. Now sit down, take a deep breath and let’s talk… please, Summer. It’s not really tax evasion why I’m here, but I do need to tell you a few things and we don’t have much time.” He leaned forward, wishing he could hug her, but all he could do was stick his fingers through the small openings in between the iron fence. In some ways Daniel wished he hadn’t protected her so much over the years. Since her mother passed away six years ago giving birth to her brother Nick, he did all he could to keep her from seeing the ugly and painful side of the world.

  Today she was wearing a boy band t-shirt and her makeup was a little off, her mascara streaked like black veins because of her tears. When she finally sat down and touched his fingertips with hers, he noticed her nails were chewed and painted in bright colors; different on each hand.

  He realized her education on the complicated things of life would have to begin immediately.

  “Summer, I’m sorry this happened and I hate to do this to you. You’re going to have to grow up a lot over the next few weeks because I don’t have anyone I can rely on but you, Sweetie. I am so sorry, but everything is going to be fine… I promise.”

  She remained silent and gazed into nothingness and he wasn’t sure if she’d even heard him properly. She let his hand go for a moment to wipe more of her tears away. Once again, Daniel wished his wife were still alive; he probably wouldn’t even be incarcerated if she were. A few moments later, she nodded and squeezed his fingers again through the opening. The force of touch was that of a little girl who was feeling powerless and alone.

  “Alright, tell me what I need to do,” she managed to say. Her voice was still weak, but she looked like she was ready to listen. Daniel continued, doing his best to sound confident and in control, even as his heart hammered inside his chest.

  “First thing, you will have to drop out of college for the rest of the semester. I know you just started, but you will be able to go back in the next semester, I promise. I need you around to do a few things for me, and to take care of your brother. Can you do that?”

  She nodded, the silent tears still rolling down her face and into the concrete table, which absorbed the water like it was sucking the life out of her.

  “I have a few clients who owe me money. You know my email address and password and there is a folder in my laptop with outstanding invoices. You’ll have reach out to them and let them know what’s going on. Ask to be paid in cash. I have a good relationship with them; some of them are my friends. They will give you enough money until I get out of here; there’s over seven thousand dollars in those invoices. The investigators said I couldn’t collect the money that was owed to us, but I need you to get this done as soon as possible. I’ll have to deal with them later, but can you do that for now?”

  She looked at him for a few moments and then nodded.

  “OK Dad, I’ll do it. You said earlier you aren’t here for tax evasion, so tell me why you’re locked up here like some common criminal.”

  She didn’t look like she could handle the truth even though she deserved to know. Her cheeks, still soft with the last remnants of baby fat, made her look exactly the way she did when she was 12 years old. She was just a bit taller now that she had turned 18, but she looked much younger than she really was.

  “I got in the face of one of the officers who was tossing the house, he almost broke Mom’s urn looking for a secret wall or something as stupid. They arrested me for obstruction of justice. The judge gave me 60 days jail time, plus a 5 thousand dollar fine.”

  Summer’s eyes grew large and her heart sank, she knew she couldn’t hold things together for that long.

  “60 Days!” Her voice shook and her eyes were moist with tears again.

  “Calm down Summer, my attorney already filed an appeal; they’ll hear it next week. After my attorney shows proof that I was within the law and that I was scammed, they should set me free and I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Scammed? How?”

  “It started when I had to make some tough business decisions, Summer. The economy is dying and things got to a point in my business where my clients couldn’t afford to pay me a full rate. That meant I didn’t have enough to pay my workers, for my materials, run my business and pay taxes. The market couldn’t bear that cost, so I had two choices. Go out of business or not pay one of those costs in order to stay competitive and earn a living. I chose to pay everything… but the government. I chose to live on the edge instead of giving up and go crawling into some government benefits office, asking for a hand out.”

  Daniel took a deep breath, as if making room in his chest for the pain his decision had brought him and his family. Summer could tell he had so much worry on his mind that she had to calm her fears and stay focused. Her Dad did so much for her and her brother.

  “Dad, if you didn’t have money to pay for my college or buy me all those clothes so I could go there you should’ve told me, I would have understood. I can just skip college, you never went anyway.”

  “Summer, the money I make with my business isn’t much but it’s enough for our needs. Government people call themselves ‘public servants’, but to avoid jail meant putting my servant’s needs before my family’s… and I’ll never do that.”

  “Oh, Dad…” She sighed, wondering if that was worth the price he was paying now.

  “So I used a legal loophole to avoid paying the taxes. You see, when you get a minimum wage job here in Arizona, you need to get paid $8.05 an hour. What gets paid out on a worker's paycheck is more like $ 6 something an hour, since the government makes employers tax employees on the spot. The Government doesn’t stop there, they tax your employer for hiring you too, they call that ‘theft’ Employer’s payroll taxes. So, for a worker to earn $8.05 an hour, the employer has to pay out $11 bucks an hour, the employee nets about $6. After taxes are taken from both sides, who do you think gets the $5 dollar difference?”

  “The government?” his daughter said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “That’s right. The Government. Also those $11 is for payroll and payroll taxes only. Now add on top of that Workman’s Compensation Insurance, liability insurance, bonds, overhead and profit and I’d have to bill $25 an hour to do the landscaping in someone’s garden. That’s something no one in their right mind would ever pay. The market can’t bear that cost. It’s like the Government does this on purpose, they stack up taxes and fees on all kinds of services, so that people who are trying to move up in life can’t do it… or they need to become criminals in order to survive.”

  His daughter closed her eyes, soft tears rolled down her cheek. These grown up problems made her wish she was a child again. Daniel continued.

  “On top of that, money is losing value, it doesn’t buy what it used to. People do not want to work for a net of $6 an hour anymore. I had to let go of my employees and hire subcontractors, folks who were self-employed, small businesses owners, who do all the work themselves. Since they pay their own taxes I didn’t have to pay any payroll tax or Workman’s Compensation Insurance, so I could afford to pay them $9 an hour. I hired better people who got paid more, my clients had a higher quality of service, I made more money, everyone was happy.”

  “So if that’s legal why are you here, Dad?”

  “Some moron convinced me to give him work first, and said he would give me his business documents later. You should take a look at his face, his picture is on my computer, I took one to make him an identification badge… His name is Raymond. At the time I needed someone for a job right away, I could wait a day or two for his paperwork. A day or two turned into five days, seven then ten days. I paid him and I pressed the guy for his documents, he took the cash and he simply disappeared. I left
him messages, texted, and still nothing. A few days later, he comes back with someone from the Labor Commissioner’s office saying I owed him money and that I’d hired him illegally; he was supposed to be an employee, but I hired him as a subcontractor. It was my word against his since I had no documents to prove he wasn’t an employee. The Labor Commissioner investigated, brought in all kinds of agencies, they tossed the house, I got in the agents face, and here I am.”

  “So what can you do now Dad?”

  “This isn’t the first time this dirt bag pulled this scam on an employer; the same guy has done this 5 or 6 times before. My attorney will show old lawsuits he found in the public records when he searched for the employee’s name.”

  “So why would the government make a law that would protect a scam artist?” Asked Summer.

  “Most of these people making the laws haven’t worked a day in their lives in the private sector. They don’t know what it takes to make and keep a customer, to borrow money, pay all the burdens they call taxes and to compete with other people. They get paid to invent ways to steal our money and get away with it. They pass whatever law they want, to appeal to one part of the population or another, without any regard to how that affects the people who work for a living. Thieves can shoot you and run if you don’t give them what they want; the government will incarcerate you and destroy your life if you don’t pay up. How is that for a group of servants? Who serves who?”

  She nodded slowly, her mind putting the pieces together of why her life had suddenly fallen apart. Daniel continued his explanations.

  “We are at the point where Government, who is supposed to be a body of public servants, has become unbearable. Did you know that if the guy who came up with Coca-Cola tried to do that today, the same way they did before, he’d be arrested? He mixed the first batch of Coca-Cola in his home. Now it’s illegal to sell food and drinks you make at home. Did you know you can’t cut hair without a government permit? People can’t make changes to their own homes without the government’s permission. It is even illegal to dumpster dive or collect rain water! Anything a low income person could do to move up in life and take control of their own destiny is regulated, taxed and manipulated by the so-called government!”