CrissCross (Crossroads Book 1)

by Mandie Tepe

“No, I don’t. Why would you think that?”

  “Because Willy said you told her they’re hiring at the station.”

  “I did tell her that. I heard it from one of our church members who’s a dispatcher there.” She studied him. “Mrs. Wilson said she had a young friend who would be interested. Is that you?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Probably.”

  “Are you interested?”

  “I already have a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

  She blinked at him uncertainly and he burst out laughing. After he stopped, he put on his scariest most intense Navy SEAL face and growled, “No, seriously . . . I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

  She stepped back, squeaked, “Well. Good night. Nice to meet you,” and scurried into her apartment.

  He heard her furiously throw the lock to and grinned before spinning on his heel and heading into his own place.

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Jimi turned the corner and crossed the small square landing halfway up the stairs to her apartment. As she took the first step of the upper section, Shad came skulking down. He kept his gaze to his feet, appearing to not even notice her. She knew he did, but this was his way. Maybe he thought it was cool to be the resident angsty emo kid. Jimi thought it was creepy, sensing he made a point to be aware of everything going on in the building while pretending it was all beneath him. She thought of him as The Watcher.

  It appeared he wasn’t going to speak, so she gave him a bright chirpy, “Oh hey, Shad! How you doin’?”

  He continued shuffling down the stairs, sending her a shifty-eyed glance mostly hidden behind the shaggy curtain of straight dark hair over his eyes.

  As soon as he’d passed, she forgot him. She was tired from her long weekend chaperoning the high school youth group kids, and her usual short work day on Monday hadn’t been enough for her to recharge after that crazy weekend. There was always a lot to do on Tuesdays at her office.

  She wished she could hibernate for a quiet evening, but had offered to host a high school youth small group. The couple that usually hosted the group had a sick child and had to cancel. Jimi had offered to do it instead. She’d considered stopping by to pick up snacks at the grocery store, but decided to go the easy route instead and order in pizza.

  Jimi got to the top of the stairs and started toward her door, stopping short when she noticed a small cooler sitting in front of it. While she stood staring down at it in confusion, she noticed a strip of masking tape at the base of the end closest to her. Someone had written Loughlin with a black Sharpie across it.

  “The frogman left it.”

  She jerked her head toward the sound of the raspy voice. It was Roscoe sitting in his canvas chair down the hall.

  “The frogman?” she asked in confusion.

  “The Navy SEAL,” he reiterated.

  “Navy SEAL?” she repeated.

  Roscoe gestured toward the door across from hers, “Chance.”

  She turned her head to look at Chance’s door. He was a Navy SEAL? She didn’t know that. She knew almost nothing about the SEALs, except for what she’d seen in a movie once. A guy she’d dated a few years earlier had taken her to see a movie about Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of a dangerous mission in Afghanistan called Operation Red Wings. The movie, Lone Survivor, was intense . . . even more so because it was based on a true story. She’d meant to read Luttrell’s book after she saw the movie, but she’d never gotten around to it. She was imagining the man she’d met the night before in the same situations the movie depicted and her stomach turned over.

  Roscoe added, “He’s not there. He left the cooler as he headed out for a run.”

  Jimi looked back at Roscoe. “Oh. Okay. Thanks, Roscoe.”

  “Welcome.”

  “How are you doing today?” she asked . . . ever the friendly neighbor.

  “Good, honey. Saw my heart doc today.”

  “Did you? Everything okay there?”

  “Perkin’ along fine,” he grinned.

  “Happy to hear that.” She secured her tote bag more firmly on her shoulder and bent to grab the cooler. “I’m having some of the church kids over tonight, Rosc. They may be noisy for awhile, but they’ll be gone before it gets late.”

  He waved a hand away. “Oh, the young’uns don’t bother me.”

  “Well, they’re teens, and teen girls tend to scream,” she chuckled. “Just a warning, so you won’t think anyone is being attacked. Girl screams generally mean something delightful just happened.”

  “If it gets too delightful, I can always turn my hearing aid down a tick.”

  “Lucky you,” she quipped. “See you later.”

  Once inside with the cooler, she set it down on her dining table and studied it. When she’d first seen it she wondered if it was from Axel replacing her ice cream, but she was fully expecting that he never would. Plus, it was a Yeti cooler and those things were expensive. Axel would only buy the cheapest Walmart coolers even if it meant he had to replace them every year.

  She opened it and found what Axel should have brought. A gallon of banana ice cream. And a note.

  “Jimmy,” it began in distinctive scrawled handwriting that seemed at first glance like it would be illegible, but was actually quite easy to make out. He’d spelled her name wrong, but that was nothing new to her. She read on, “A peace offering. I’m sorry I messed with your head last night with the whole ‘have to kill you’ thing. I meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t cool. You don’t know me well enough for me to joke like that with you. Enjoy the ice cream. We got lucky. It was the last carton in the case.” The note was signed, “CL.”

  She pulled the carton out and studied it before putting it away in her freezer and tucking the note away in her kitchen catch-all drawer among various take-out menus, receipts, owners manuals, half-empty battery packages, and those tiny bits of hardware that accumulated and she could never remember from where. She didn’t stop to wonder why she was keeping the note.

  Jimi moved around her apartment, checking to make sure it was tidy enough for company. It was because she always kept it that way. She closed off the two bedroom doors. After the walk-through she pulled paper plates and napkins out of the tall narrow pantry closet and ran cans of frozen lemonade concentrate under hot water to thaw. As she was shaking up the second jug of the beverage she heard a deep male voice speaking out in the hallway before a door closed. It had to be Chance calling out a greeting to Roscoe. She heard Roscoe’s door closing the very next moment.

  Taking a deep breath she picked up the cooler and moved to the door, pausing to slide her feet into the flip-flops she’d kicked off just inside it. At his door, she paused and knocked. She saw Chance’s fuzzy outline through the small rectangle of frosted tempered glass and assumed he was looking at her through the peephole. Immediately his door popped open.

  He looked yummy. He was sweaty after his run, his loose tank soaked through. The tank was one of those that gaped wide at the neck and under the arms showing his full sleeve tats and elaborate chest piece. She wanted to, but didn’t, examine the artwork closely. What little she did register seemed to be of patriotic themes. He held a stainless steel insulated tumbler full of ice water in his hand. Yeti again. He liked his expensive insulated products.

  “Hey,” he said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Hey. Thank you for the ice cream. You really didn’t need to do that, but it was very nice.”

  “I wanted to. You seemed really freaked out last night after I said what I said.”

  “No, it was fine.” She paused. “It’s J-I-M-I, by the way.”

  “What? Oh! J-I-M-I. Like Hendrix.”

  “Or like Jimi Alexander. That’s me. Although, knowing my pops, it’s probably for Jimi Hendrix . . . only he’s never admitted it.”

  “Sorry about misspelling it,” he winced.


  “No need to be sorry. It’s no big deal.” She paused to study him. “So, Roscoe says you’re a Navy SEAL.”

  “Was. I left the teams a couple years ago.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s . . . that’s very impressive. Thank you for your service.”

  His lips twitched. “You’re welcome,” he commented. It always made him uncomfortable when people said that. He stepped back and motioned her inside.

  She followed him in and wondered why. She’d only meant to come over, thank him and return his Yeti. At that thought she remembered she was still holding it and jerked it toward him.

  “Oh! Here’s your cooler.”

  “Thanks for returning it so quickly,” he said on a weird smile. He took it from her and bent to set it against the wall beside the door.

  Her curiosity got the best of her. “So, if you’re not in the Navy any more, what do you do?”

  “I work for a private military company, so . . . what I do is very similar to what I was doing for the Navy.”

  “You’re a mercenary?” she asked.

  “Let’s not use that word. Mercenary brings to mind someone who will fight for anyone willing to pay. I only work for the U.S. government.”

  “What kinds of things do you do?” she asked. His lips twitched, and she added quickly, “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  “Thanks for not making me say it again,” he teased. “Enough about me. Are you really a church secretary?” he asked, his gaze sweeping over her knee-length blue floral print cotton pencil skirt, blue t-shirt with a stylized white globe printed on the front and her flip-flops.

  “Kind of. I’m actually the receptionist and do some administrative assistance tasks at New Hope Fellowship.”

  He nodded and studied her deep in thought. He knew of the church, but had never been inside it. It was one of the larger non-denominational churches in town. Most of the people he knew growing up that were church people belonged to the big Catholic church. “I just can’t see you as Axel’s first cousin.”

  “I guess what he said was true. I’m the only white sheep in the family,” she said with a wry smile. “I was born to a second-generation member of Vagabonds.” The Vagabonds was the name of a fairly innocuous bike club with chapters throughout the country. There were three chapters in the state of Missouri alone. Their members could be raucous and find trouble on occasion, but they weren’t one of the outlaw clubs most everyone thought of when they imagined a group of bikers.

  “I was acquainted with a Vagabond member when I lived out in Coronado. He owned a dive bar on the beach and served the best steamed crab I’ve ever tasted. So, your grandfather and your dad both—huh? What does your dad do for a living?”

  “He has a landscaping business.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Well . . . he’s not one of those designer landscapers that rich people and corporations hire to create fancy garden spaces. He mows lawns and cuts weeds in the spring and summer, blows leaves in the fall, and removes snow in the winter. And he only does any of that enough to survive on so he can ride out whenever he feels like it.”

  “True biker, then.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you want to sit down? Have something to drink?” he offered.

  “Oh! No . . . I really have to go. I have some youth group kids coming by in a little bit. Maybe I should apologize in advance. They might get loud, but they won’t be staying too late.”

  “They can’t be any louder than Axel when his crew gets going,” Chance laughed.

  “You might be surprised,” she answered.

  Jimi turned toward the door and opened it, startled to see Shad skulking around the top of the staircase. “Oh! Hey again, Shad.”

  Chance had stepped out behind her. “Shad,” he greeted.

  Shad ducked his head as if uncomfortable to see Chance. “Yo.”

  Just then what sounded like a herd of buffalo came thundering up the stairs, chattering voices and laughter overlaying the thundering sound. The group of around a half dozen kids made a beeline for Jimi, chattering away. She shot a look back at him and he saw her mouth form a goodbye before she began shooing the group toward her door.

  One of the girls broke off and approached Shad. “Hey! You’re Shad from computer programming class,” she exclaimed.

  Shad shuffled his feet and nodded.

  “I didn’t know you lived in Jimi’s building. Our youth group is having pizza.” The dark-haired girl called over to Jimi who was standing in her doorway watching them. “Is it okay if Shad joins us?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Jimi answered, her face giving away her trepidation. “Come on in, Shad.”

  Chance watched the whole thing and thought he was probably the only one who noticed Jimi’s uneasiness. Shad looked uneasy too, but after shooting another look at his pretty brunette classmate, he followed her inside Jimi’s place.

  Jimi shrugged at Chance and disappeared inside, shutting the door behind her. Another thundering came up the stairs and three lanky teen boys burst into her place without knocking, as if they felt at home there.

  Chance could see her in the midst of the kids as the door shut again.

  Strawberry blonde. He’d thought she was blonde when he saw her with her hair bundled up the night before, but her hair was both blonde and red. It lay in corkscrew curls down to just past her shoulders. He imagined if it was weighted down with wet, it might reach her shoulder blades. That’s how curly it was.

  CHAPTER 3

  Chance was drifting along on the music floating through the air when an abrupt sharp sound jerked him out of his drift and to a time and place he did not want to revisit. When he jolted back to the present, he found himself on the floor beside his couch scanning for a threat and reaching for the MK 16 SCAR-L that would have been right beside him out in the field. Of course, it wasn’t there where he’d been dozing in his living room.

  He flopped to his back on the floor in relief, lifting his shaking hands to swipe the fine sheen of sweat off his face. As his breathing evened out, he concentrated on the technique he’d found that helped ground him the quickest when he experienced these spells. He focused on his five senses . . . feeling the rough wool of the rug against his bare back . . . smelling the spicy scent of the burritos he’d ordered in lingering in the air . . . tasting the yeasty hoppiness of the beer he’d been sipping as he drifted off . . . zeroing in on the sight of the rough textured plaster of the ceiling . . . and finally listening to the sound of his brother’s soulful voice on the CD from his stereo system. Over that, though, he could hear chattering kids leaving the apartment across the hall as the door opened and shut . . . opened and shut . . . opened and shut.

  That’s what must have jarred him out of his doze. The gathering over at Jimi’s was breaking up. Once he was solidly centered back in the present, he sat up and hoisted himself off the floor. Slumping onto the edge of the couch, he rubbed his face again before picking up the beer bottle and draining it of too-warm beer. He should go on to bed since he was still jetlagged but, after the unwelcome rude awakening, he wasn’t keen to go back to sleep just then.

  Against his better judgment he went to the kitchen, threw the bottle in his recycling bin and grabbed another. As he moved back toward the couch, he listened as the kids continued to leave in clusters. He looked at the clock. Nine-thirty. It was early still.

  Chance dropped onto the couch, twisted the cap off his beer and exchanged that for the remote on the coffee table. He took a slug of beer and aimed the remote to shut off the music and turn on the TV. He surfed the channels to find an old film noir movie he’d seen a dozen times, but never got tired of. Settling onto his back, he realized the hallway noises had stopped and centered all of his attention on the movie and his last beer of the night.

  If he allowed it, he could have self-medicated himself until he passed out. His self-control was better than that these days. After a few bad experiences, he’d learned better. It wasn’t like he had these bo
uts with PTSD often, but they came every once in awhile. Usually when he was over-tired or unsettled.

  He decided to unwind over a couple of movies before going to bed and hopefully sleeping peacefully. That was the plan. And he generally did well when he set mission plans. He was good at it, practiced from his years on SEAL team missions.

  He needed rest because he’d be seeing both parents—although separately—the next day. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but knew it was inevitable, hoping he’d get Parental Mom and Dad. Not Over-Sharing Friends Mom and Dad. River would be there with him and their mother for dinner, so that would be good.

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  “You didn’t have to come over,” Jimi said to her best friend—Isla—as they gathered pizza grease-stained paper plates, some of which held pizza crusts and/or brownie crumbs and smears of fudgy frosting.

  Isla had shown up in the midst of the youth group kids, having heard that Jimi volunteered to host them. She’d arrived with a boatload of frosted brownies she picked up at the grocery store bakery as if she’d gotten a psychic message from Jimi . . . the latter remembering as the first group arrived that she hadn’t planned on dessert and wondering if she could stretch Chance’s gifted ice cream to feed fifteen.

  Isla and Jimi had that kind of relationship. They’d been unlikely besties since middle school, and they usually knew what the other was thinking without saying a word. Their backgrounds were so different, it was a miracle they’d clicked the way they had.

  “Who raises their kid to shove half-eaten pizza under a sofa?” Isla chuckled. She was on her hands and knees, struggling to reach far enough under the couch for a plate that had ended up there. “Oh no,” she exclaimed, plate in hand and pushing to her feet, “there’s a grease stain on the arm of the sofa.”

  Jimi shrugged. “I knew there would be casualties,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. “I’ll figure out a way to get it out.”

  The two women had come from completely different worlds. Isla’s parents owned the largest insurance and financial advisor multi-branched company in the county, staffed with dozens of employees and agents. Isla and her older brother had been raised in a privileged family in a beautiful large home in the best neighborhood in Carrefour. The Cassels owned a boat and a lake house at Lake of the Ozarks and took nice vacations all over the world. She and her brother had the best clothes and received nice new cars when they were old enough to drive. They went to the best universities and both now worked for the family corporation.