The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “I understand. Prick.”

  “You’re a smart man,” the guy said. “I’m going to leave now and I suggest you do the same. There are some very bad people heading in this direction. They will make you think I am an angel in comparison.” He let Sergio go and pushed him away with a heavy shove.

  Sergio staggered forward, coughing, then spun around to look at the guy. Benny looked, too.

  He was gone.

  Benny was never sure what prompted him to move right at that moment. He didn’t even think it through. Sergio wasn’t looking at him right then, and neither were any of the others. They were all gawking at the place where the dude with the sword had been. So he stepped backwards. One quiet pace. Then another. A third, then he turned and started running like the blue-eyed guy was coming for him. For all he knew, he was coming for him. He recalled the man’s words: There are some very bad people heading in this direction. It gave him speed he didn’t know he possessed.

  By ten o’clock the next morning he was on a Greyhound, heading for San Diego, spitting distance from the Mexican border. Considering what happened to most of the others in the park that night, where they lingered to talk over what had happened to Sergio, who had also slipped away into the night, Benny proved to be the smartest one of them all.

  * * * * *

  The restaurant, when Darwin found it, was a surprise. Rather than being the hole-in-the-wall he had been expecting, he discovered that The Ash Tree was a large store-front establishment on Angel Street, with new, dark green awnings over the glass windows, traditional brass curtain rods holding café curtains across the bottom half of the windows, and tubs of flowers on either side of the doors, cascading multi-hued petals down to the sidewalk. More flowers dripped from hanging pots on either end of the awnings. It was a low-key, attractive place and it looked like it had been there for a long time. Years.

  He pushed his way inside. There was a discreet chime somewhere toward the back of the restaurant.

  It was just after three-thirty in the afternoon. He had taken a few hours of personal time in order to come down here and still be home at a reasonable hour. He had also wanted to arrive here more or less at the same time Charlee had been visiting.

  It had been nine days since Lucas had shown up on his doorstep and eight days since the boy had sat at his kitchen table and laid out the whole story, while Darwin had listened, stunned at times and concerned at others.

  Darwin preferred to think things over before he did anything. Time had a way of tempering the strongest situations and a good, long contemplation gave his instincts a chance to sniff things out and come to a decision. Just like any commander in history that he’d ever studied, he preferred to look at the whole view before making up his mind.

  He had already suspected he would be making this call even before Lucas hurried home again to check on Charlee, but he had bided his time. It was a rare day when thinking things through didn’t provide some of the information he needed, but this time around, Darwin had a lot of questions and not too many answers.

  He still would have waited, but Charlee’s situation had hurried him and made it imperative that he stop by today, Monday.

  Inside, the restaurant was as neat and charming as the outside. There was a couple of elderly ladies sitting at one of the tables by the window, where the afternoon sun fell on them. They were gossiping softly, heads together over a pot of coffee and cakes. One of them cackled with laughter as Darwin stepped in the door and it was a merry sound that made him smile.

  There was a small bar at the back of the room, on the right-hand side. In front of the bar was a collection of low tables and big easy chairs, four to each table, their arms butting up against each other. There was a sofa, too.

  Half a dozen leather padded stools were lined up in a regimented row in front of the bar itself, all except one. There was a man sitting on the second last from the curved end of the bar. He had a coffee mug in front of him, and a sheaf of paperwork spread across the bar. He was a big, blond man and when he looked up at Darwin’s entrance, Darwin could see he had very blue eyes.

  A woman stepped out around a flat panel that was clearly hiding the kitchen entrance, for Darwin could just see a sliver of a door behind the panel, slowly swinging back and forth behind her. She walked over to Darwin, her legs swinging with the easy gait of a woman who liked her height (and she’s pretty damned tall). She was dark haired, and Darwin calculated that she was in her late forties.

  She held his gaze as she approached, a small smile building at the corners of her lips. She was wearing one of those rayon dresses that the fashion magazines kept blathering about and seeing it on her, Darwin finally understood the hysteria. It wrapped. It clung and made the most of her figure, which was a curvy mature woman’s shape.

  By the time she stood in front of him, Darwin was feeling the impact of her appearance with an elevated heart rate and the stirring of urges that had been dormant for years.

  Up close, he could see fine lines at her eyes and that her hair had been carefully colored. He took in the tiny hint of soft, pale skin around her jaw, the kind that old people get when their flesh loses the elasticity they’d taken for granted the last five or six decades. He was well acquainted with the sensation and because he had become so preternaturally aware of the signs of aging in his own body, he recognized them in her. Mentally, he pushed her age up into the late fifties or early sixties, but damn, she was a fine-looking woman.

  She smiled at him, her full lips with their soft coral lipstick revealing even white teeth. “Well, hello,” she said. Her voice was exactly right for her, a mellow contralto.

  “Hi,” Darwin offered.

  “I do hope you’re here to enjoy our hospitality.” She raised a brow. “You’ve not dined with us before, have you?”

  The impact of her presence was thrumming through him. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t just sexual. There was a vitality about her that stirred his blood. It was like the day, the week, his life had taken on energy that had long been missing. He pushed out a breath, riding it out. “Actually,” he said regretfully, “I’m pretty sure I’m here to see that man.” He pointed to the blond man at the bar.

  She glanced back over her shoulder toward the bar. “Your regret is mutual,” she told him, looking back at him. “Perhaps I can talk you into sharing a coffee and patisserie once you have finished your business.”

  “You could probably talk me into anything you wanted,” Darwin said, then grimaced. What sort of a jerk-off high school thing to say was that?

  But she merely smiled again, a very knowing, understanding smile. “Let’s start with coffee.” She waved him toward the bar, with a gesture that told him he should go ahead, then turned and walked back into the kitchen. Her rear view was as enticing as the front. He loved that her hair hung past her shoulder blades in silky waves. After fifty, most women seemed to think it was the law that they chop off their hair to somewhere around their ears, which he thought was a crying shame. Men had had it good in Victorian times, which was probably the last time a woman kept her hair at waist length for her entire life.

  He walked over to the bar. Strand, if it was Asher Strand, sat watching him, his pen resting on top of the paperwork. He had guessed that Darwin was here for him and was waiting for him. He held the coffee mug now and it looked like a miniature in his big hand.

  Darwin walked right up to him. “You’re Asher Strand, I guess.”

  Strand swapped the mug over to the other hand and held out his right one. “You have the advantage of me.”

  It was an oddly old-fashioned thing to say, Darwin reflected as he automatically stuck out his hand, gripped Strand’s and shook. There was strength in the man’s grip, but he wasn’t trying to impress anyone. The grip remained firm and that was all. “Darwin Baxter,” he told him.

  Strand’s brow lifted. “Ah…” he said, and pointed to the stool behind Darwin.

  Darwin sat on it and kept his feet on the floor, his legs stretched o
ut. He was tall, but not nearly as tall as Strand and now he was standing next to him, he could see that Lucas hadn’t exaggerated the shoulders. He realized he was keeping his legs stretched out to make himself look taller. It was the old male instinct to show up the competition and he mentally sighed at himself for letting the man intimidate him.

  But damn it, he was as fine a specimen in his way as the lovely hostess had been, only quite a bit younger. And while he was immune to it, Darwin could still feel the same vitality and aliveness in the man that the hostess had radiated with such impact.

  “You know my name,” Darwin said. “Someone has been talking about me.”

  Strand nodded. “Charlee. Given what happened last week, I imagine you’re here to talk about that and about her. I must admit, I was expecting one of her parents to appear. Her father, most likely.”

  “He’s sick,” Darwin said shortly. “Charlee hasn’t figured that out yet, but it’s serious. I’m surprised he has the energy to complete a shift. He’s got a job on the docks and that’s back-breaking work even for a healthy young guy like yourself.” He stopped himself from saying anything else, like his suspicions that Montgomery was not just sick but dying, and the only thing keeping him heading off to work each day was the fact that in that family of four, he was the only one bringing in any sort of income. Darwin also didn’t speak of his worry about what would happen to those two kids when Montgomery got too sick to work.

  Strand nodded. “I had my suspicions, from what Charlee has said about life at home. Is he dying?” he asked, the blue eyes holding Darwin’s gaze steadily.

  Darwin pulled in a breath, riding out his surprise. “I think so,” he admitted reluctantly.

  Strand absorbed that with a thoughtful, sober nod. “So…Darwin Baxter. Charlee has told me quite a bit about you. I envy you your profession, by the way.”

  Darwin rolled his eyes as the truth dawned on him. “You’re the history nut,” he said, feeling slightly stupid. He hadn’t put it together until this very moment. “She let me think you were a kid at school.”

  “Charlee does know how to be discreet,” Strand agreed. “But I’m sure that now you know who I am, you have a lot of questions.” He hesitated. “Is Charlee alright? I haven’t seen her for over a week and she used to stop by every afternoon after school, like clockwork.”

  “She stopped here?” Darwin asked, looking around.

  Strand nodded. “She would collect leftovers from our chef, for her pet stray. A dog she called Chocolate. That was how we met. The local gang leader hurt the dog and I stepped in and chatted with them.”

  The ‘local gang’ he was talking about were the Lords. Lucas had filled Darwin in on the Lords and their reputation, and Darwin had heard plenty about them himself. Strand spoke very casually about dealing with them, but Darwin suspected it hadn’t been simply a matter of chatting with them at all.

  “Did you ‘talk’ with them last week, too?” Darwin asked curiously.

  “I did. They have a new leader, one who didn’t understand the rules I laid out last year. I think he’s got it straight now.”

  “Rules?” Darwin prompted. Strand’s quiet assurance was almost unnerving. Darwin would have hesitated to tell that pack of hyenas the time of day, but he spoke of laying down rules like it was a chess match.

  “One rule, really.” Strand shrugged. “They’re to stay away from Charlee and her family. And her friends.” He smiled briefly, then looked toward the kitchen door. “Ylva, are you there?” he called, raising his voice a little.

  After a few seconds, Darwin heard the kitchen door swing. Ylva appeared once more and Darwin stared unabashedly as she walked in that loose, easy swinging way toward them. “Asher,” she acknowledged. “Would you like more coffee?”

  “Always,” he told her. “I want you to meet Darwin Baxter. He’s been tutoring Charlee for a few years.”

  “Darwin, yes of course,” Ylva said and held out her hand. Darwin was still getting used to the idea of shaking women’s hands, but he didn’t have any trouble shaking hers. She made it seem quite natural. Her grip was surprisingly firm. Lots of women didn’t understand how to shake hands properly, but she did. Then her soft hand slid out of his. “Charlee has spoken about you many times,” she added.

  “To you, too?”

  “Ylva is my business manager,” Strand said.

  “Charlee visited every day after school,” Ylva explained. She nodded toward the table. “She would stop by for scraps for Chocolate each day and sit and have tea with us. Usually around this time, too. I have just poured a fresh pot of tea, as it happens. The habit has become ingrained now. Would you join us?”

  “I guess...yes. Thanks.” He didn’t like tea all that much, but sitting and talking to Ylva would make up for it. Plus he could grill Strand more.

  Ylva smiled, like his agreement had overjoyed her. “I’ll go and get the tea,” she said and hurried away.

  Strand stood up. “We usually sit at that table there.” He nodded toward a small round table on the edge of the sea of white tablecloths.

  “You do own this place, then,” Darwin observed, standing up. “Charlee didn’t seem to know, exactly.”

  “I don’t like talking about myself all that much.” He shuffled the papers together and left them in a nearly-neat pile, then walked over to the table. He waited until Darwin had caught up before sitting down.

  “You seem to be making an exception for me,” Darwin said, pulling out a chair.

  “You came here for answers, didn’t you?”

  “I was expecting to have to drag them out of you,” Darwin admitted.

  Asher smiled. “You were braced for what? Some sort of monster?”

  Darwin couldn’t find a decent answer to that, because even though he hadn’t quite categorized it that bluntly, he had built a picture in his mind of some sleazy asshole who (go on, admit it, even if it’s just to yourself) liked children a bit too much. He had heard stories about such men before, always whispered and alluded to.

  “How on earth did you meet Charlee?” Darwin asked, steering the conversation away. How they met was the key to it all. It would explain a lot.

  “I have an apartment in the Bronx,” Asher said, surprising the hell out of Darwin.

  “Why would you live up there, when your business is in lower Manhattan?”

  “This isn’t my only business,” Strand said, surprising him again. “I like the Bronx. I like the suburban feel. There’s more green, growing things up there.”

  “Christ, one of the biggest patches of green in the world is right down here,” Darwin said dryly.

  Strand smiled. “It costs millions for an apartment that looks at Central Park. I could probably stretch myself financially to pay for one, but why would I when a penthouse apartment in the Bronx, overlooking a park, costs a fraction of that?”

  “You’re not in love with Manhattan, then?” Darwin asked curiously, for almost every New Yorker he knew either paid through the nose for their Manhattan address or dreamed about one day being able to afford one.

  “Not enough to pay the rent they charge here. My friends know where to find me.”

  Ylva emerged once more, pushing a trolley that had a fat white china teapot, cups and saucers, milk, sugar and spoons, and a plate of croissants on it.

  “I was walking home from the subway one evening,” Strand continued. “I heard a dog howling from inside an alley and it sounded like it was in severe pain. I went into the alley and found Charlee confronting a few of the gang members. That’s when I stepped in and sorted it out.”

  “You’re a dog lover?”

  “I own a dog.”

  “What breed?”

  “Heinz variety,” Strand said and grinned. “He was a stray, just like Chocolate was. I’ve had him for five years now. He guards my apartment when I’m not there.”

  Ylva was transferring the tea and things to the table. She gave a small laugh. “Torger is the ugliest dog I’ve ever met, but he
is very well behaved.”

  “There’s some boxer in him,” Strand said, setting out the cups for Ylva to pour. “He’s got the pushed-in nose. It makes him look fierce, but I suspect he’d rather lick people to death.”

  “You’re not married, Mr. Strand?” The picture Strand was painting was that of a man wrapped up in business concerns, with no time left over for a life, so it didn’t surprise him when Strand shook his head.

  “Call me Asher,” he said. “I don’t do well in the relationship game.”

  Ylva pressed her lips together and picked up the teapot. Darwin knew that she could probably tell a tale or two about Strand’s relationships, but she was as discreet as Charlee seemed to have been.

  Darwin glanced around the restaurant once more. The two old ladies had left and they were the only ones in it. “Business seems a bit slow,” he remarked. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “This is the lull between storms,” Ylva said. “We have a very healthy lunch trade and the evenings are always busy. This is Monday, too. Mondays are the slowest days of the week. You should come for dinner on Saturday, Mr. Baxter. But book ahead. There’s usually no tables to spare after six p.m.”

  “If he’s Asher, I’m Darwin,” Darwin said.

  “And I’m Ylva.” She pushed a teacup in front of him and poured a second.

  “Charlee came for tea?” Darwin asked.

  “She really came for the food for Chocolate, but she stayed for tea. In winter, we fed her pancakes, too. Our chef, Pierre, took a liking to her, but he didn’t like how thin she was.” Ylva passed the second cup to Asher and began pouring the third. “Charlee would have been upset if she thought she was taking perfectly good food, so Pierre let her think they were leftovers from the lunch rush that no one wanted.” She settled the cup in front of her and didn’t reach for either the sugar or the cream. “I was careful about not letting Charlee see a lunch menu, which doesn’t have pancakes on it.”

  Darwin dropped two lumps of sugar into his and stirred, thinking. It all sounded perfectly innocent. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Charlee being some sort of charity project, which was what they were saying in a roundabout way, but he was enough of a realist to acknowledge that Charlee probably qualified for assistance in a ton of different ways. She just didn’t know it herself and had too much pride to ever accept pure charity, so these kindly people had found a way to help her that didn’t destroy her self-esteem at the same time. He couldn’t help but like them for that.