by Mary May
Klara closed her eyes in disappointment. “That’s ok, do you happen to know which foster family he went to? You said you would be able to arrange visits for me.”
Klara waited, hoping he would tell her some good news.
“Actually I do, I’m just waiting to hear from the judge.” He would bet she was sitting there chewing her bottom lip with worry.
“Do you think he will say its ok for me to visit Matthew?”
Alec smiled when he knew his guess was right. “Absolutely. He is an old friend of my granddad’s and he owes us a few favors. It shouldn’t be more than a couple more days. So have you found another job yet?” No sooner than the words were out of his mouth Alec wished he could grab them and stuff them back down his throat. Why had he asked that? He wanted to hear that she had a new job so he wouldn’t worry as much, but this was a taboo topic with her at best.
Sure enough her voice iced over like an arctic glacier. “Yes, actually I have. Do you mind calling me when you hear from the judge?” After he had assured her he would call the minute he heard from Judge Miles, she hung up. Smacking his hand to his forehead he leaned back in his chair, calling himself all kinds of a fool. He was a Harvard graduate had graduated in the top two percent of his class. He had handled high profile cases without a chance of winning and he had come out on top like a champ! So why when it came to Klara Dawn Martin did every brain cell he had cease to function? He was glad she had found another place of employment. He really hoped, for the health of his heart, that it was more suitable than the last one. If he had another out of his mind reaction like the last one, he would be the one needing a lawyer. He picked up the sheath of papers on his desk and flipped through the pictures and notes that the doctors had taken of Matthew’s injuries. While they were all superficial it still enraged him that a grown man would put his hands on a child like this. According to the doctor’s report Marcus did this pretty regularly, judging from the old scars and fading bruises. What really blew his mind was the fact that after all the abuse the child had suffered at the hands of his father he still cried for him and wanted to go home. He personally thought there was an extra hot spot in hell for people that intentionally harmed children.
He knew he had a rock solid case against Marcus Kelley for the removal of his parental rights, but what he didn’t have was a good place to send the child afterwards. Even after an extensive search he was unable to locate either the mother or any other family members. Picking up another photo of Matthew he felt a curious tugging in his heart. He wanted to make this child’s world better the same way he wanted to make Klara’s better. He never would consider himself to be a bleeding heart. He thought he was a decent enough person, but no one could say he was known for his charitable giving or donating his time or money to the less fortunate. He had never noticed them before. He felt like a blindfold had been lifted off his eyes because ever since Klara had come into his life, he did see them now, and they were everywhere. He felt humbled by Matthew, because that could have been him if his grandparents had not stepped forward and taken him in. They didn’t have to; they were well on in age and had raised their children, but they didn’t hesitate. He remembered being terrified the day he first met them…
“Alec, these are your grandparents, your mommy’s mom and dad. They have come to take you home to live with them; isn’t that nice?” Alec eyed the elderly couple that was smiling at him nervously with outright hostility. He didn’t need any old people taking him anywhere! He had a home with his mom and dad and they would be back real soon. They always were. “Alec, remember I told you that your mom and dad wouldn’t be back for a very long time? They did some bad things and now they have to go away and pay for it. You have to go with your grandparents.” The social worker Mrs. Lamone was trying hard to get him to warm up to his grandparents, but she was wasting her time. Alec was determined to hate them.
“Here, let’s just get him in the car. I’m sure in enough time he will come around. Where are his things?” His grandfather gathered up his small bag of belongings and they all walked to his limo. That had made Alec’s eyes go wide when he saw the mile-long shining black car.
“Is this your car?” he asked in a hushed whisper. His grandfather motioned for the driver to load his bag into the truck, but Alec ran and grabbed it. “Ok, son, you can keep it with you if you want, and, yes, this is my car. Do you like it?”
Shrugging his shoulders and trying to look bored, Alec answered, “It’s ok, I’ve seen better.” Then he climbed in the car and scooted as far away as he could get from them. The ride home was mostly silent. His grandmother tried to get him to talk to her, but he gave short one word answers when he answered at all.
His grandfather hugged her close when she started to cry. “It’s ok, Amelia; let’s just give him time. He will come around, you mark my words.”
The first two months he gave them pure hell. He didn’t understand why they didn’t just send him back. That was his goal. It wasn’t until his grandfather jerked him up one day after he had screamed hateful things at his grandmother. Alec thought he was about to get a beating but he just held him tightly to his chest. He actually felt safe for the first time in his life, and all the tears of rage and fear came pouring out. He cried for over an hour, and his grandfather took it all. After that, things got a lot better. He was able to attend school and he got used to his life being in a regular routine. He came to adore his grandparents and secretly hoped that his parents never came back for him. As the years rocked on, he actually forgot about his parents unless someone brought them up. Then one day when he was about thirteen a letter came for him in the mail from his mother. It was sloppy and didn’t make much sense, but essentially she was asking for him to come back.
Terrified that his grandparents would make him go live with her, he tore up the letter and didn’t tell them what it said. A month after the letter came, his mother showed up at door. Her hair was bleached too white with dark roots showing at the crown of her head. Her makeup was dark and garish and she was barely dressed. Alec cringed and pulled back when she hugged him too tight and placed wet slobbery kisses on his face. She smelled like cheap perfume and stale beer.
“Oh, look how big you are and so handsome! Did you miss your mommy? I bet you did, didn’t you?”
He pushed until she let go of him. “No, I didn’t miss you. I’m not going with you. This is my home and if you make me go with you I will run away!”
His grandfather smacked the floor hard with his cane. “Boy, that’s your mama you’re talking to. You better keep a respectful tongue in your mouth, you hear me?” Alec turned tear-filled eyes on his grandfather, the man that meant the world to him, and pleaded with him not to send him away. “No one is going to make you do anything; your mama is just wanting to see her son. Can you understand that?” Looking back at his mother, Alec saw past the exterior and finally saw the woman with a broken heart.
Amber Adams was at one time an honor student with a bright future. She had all the advantages her father’s wealth could provide for her, but it couldn’t buy her a stronger backbone to say no to the town’s biggest drug dealer. Amber couldn’t see just how beautiful she really was unless she was seriously high. Bobby Turner played on that weakness and in her senior year he had gotten her hooked on various kinds of drugs and she was pregnant. He then convinced her to run away with him to Seattle. Abraham had turned the local police station upside down trying to get them to help locate his daughter, but because she was eighteen and of legal age to leave home, they refused to help. He had hired private detectives and they searched for three years, but they finally just told him she was either dead or she really just didn’t want to be found. His wife finally had to convince him to let her go.
“Abraham, we have to trust in God to watch over her when we can’t. We must have faith!” Alec remembered his grandfather telling him that was the hardest thing he had ever done. Six years after she left, they received a collect phone call from a prison in Seattle, W
ashington. Amber told them everything. They were on a plane that night to come get their grandson.
His mother had stayed for a week that time then one night she didn’t come home. She didn’t show up the following day or the next. Abraham was putting on his jacket to go to the police station again when once more Amelia stopped him. “We can’t keep chasing after her. She has to decide when she wants to come home for good; we can’t make that decision for her.” That was the last time any of them had seen her. He wondered if she had gotten back with his dad or if she was even still alive.
Chapter 14
Matthew sat on the couch staring at the TV. He wanted to go home so bad that he felt sick to his stomach. The family that he was staying with was nice and their house was really nice, but somehow it felt cold all the time. He couldn’t seem to get warm no matter how many blankets he had. The Walcott’s didn’t have any children; they had said that Mrs. Walcott couldn’t have any for some reason. He really hoped they didn’t want him for their child. He couldn’t say that he missed his dad; what he missed was being somewhere familiar. He thought about the lady that had brought him the soup and then had played with him in the hall. He wished she would come back; he really liked her. She made him feel warm…
Klara had been on tender hooks for three days waiting for the call from Alec saying she could finally see Matthew. When it finally came, she was overjoyed. She didn’t know why she had such a connection to the little boy. Oh, she knew what Ben would say, that she was finding a replacement for Joshua, but no one could ever replace her precious little boy, not even Matthew. She was just drawn to him because his life was so tragic and heartbreaking. She ran the brush through her hair one last time and grabbed her purse to run downstairs to wait for Alec to pick her up. As she was closing the door, she heard her home phone ring. She ran over and grabbed it up “Hello?” Once again there was no reply but she could hear traffic in the background. She walked over to her window overlooking the street and looked out from behind the curtain. There on the corner was the man in the gray hoodie. He raised his head and saluted her. Quickly pulling away she asked. “Who is this? What do you want?”
All she got for her questions was a cryptic reply. “Soon, pretty Klara…soon.” Then she heard a soft click as the line was disconnected.
Her heart pounding in her chest, she replaced the receiver in the cradle and then looked again out the window. Of course the man was gone. She looked up and down the street but he had vanished just like before. Oh, God, what was all of this about? Marcus really was going to get even with her for having him arrested. She was lost deep in thought over what she should do when a pounding on her front door nearly caused her heart to stop! Looking around her apartment for a weapon, she grabbed the rolling pin again and cautiously approached the door. She looked through the peephole, but she didn’t see anyone. Her heart rate tripled and she fought to remain calm. “Ok, he couldn’t have made it up here that fast.” She reassured herself.
Then she watched in horror as the door knob started to slowly turn. Her fear tasted like old copper pennies in her mouth when she realized the door wasn’t locked! She had left it unlocked when she came back to answer the phone! Oh, no, this is what he meant by soon; he had lured her back in with the phone call and someone else was waiting to get her! With a short yelp she fell against the door twisting the lock then the dead bolt. The blood was roaring in her ears so bad she almost didn’t hear Alec swear when she slammed the door on his fingers. Relief flooded her body so quickly when she realized it was Alec that she felt light headed. She quickly unlocked the door and swung it open to find him with his finger stuck in his mouth. “Um… ouch? What was that all about? Why are you so white and why are carrying the rolling pin again? Klara, what’s going on?” She would rather face a pit of rattlesnakes than tell him she was in trouble again, but she also knew when she was in over her head. She walked back and placed the rolling pin on the table. Alec followed her, his brows drawn together in a scowl.
“What has you scared enough to brandish your rolling pin?” In as few words as possible she told Alec what happened, both today and the other day with the phone calls. He got up and walked quickly to the window, jerked open the curtains then he scanned the street below, but of course there wasn’t any man in a gray hoodie. “Why didn’t you call me the first time? I told you that it wasn’t safe for you to stay here! What will it take for you to admit that? What if it wasn’t me outside your door?”
Klara whirled around throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t know! I don’t know, ok? Do you honestly expect an answer from me or are these questions hypothetical?”
Swearing under his breath, Alec paced the floor then he walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know you are frightened right now.”
Klara laughed mockingly. “Frightened? Spiders frighten me, Alec. That just scared the holy hell out of me. Big difference.”
He rubbed her shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry.”
She eased out from under his hands and walked back to the window to close the curtains. “That’s twice that you have said you were sorry. What exactly are you sorry for?”
Alec looked at her perplexed. “What?”
She turned around to face him. “You have apologized twice in the last three minutes. I just asked what you were sorry for.”
Now it was his turn to throw his hands in the air. “I don’t know, for some creep scaring you. For your life being miserable. For whatever part I play in making it miserable. Take your pick.” He pulled out his cell and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” She asked.
He silenced her with a raised finger. “Yes, this is Alec Adams I need to speak with Officer Willis, please.” Klara listened as the Alec she knew disappeared and the formidable lawyer Alec Adams took over. He grilled the officer over the coals so hard that she actually felt sorry for the guy. By the time he hung up the phone, she actually felt a little bit intimidated by him. He jerked his eyes back toward her and she jumped in her seat. Alec didn’t even noticed as he grabbed a notebook off her desk and started making notes.
“I need times and dates of each occurrence.” Klara looked at him blankly still thrown off by his sudden personality change.
“Huh?” Tapping his pen on the desk, he frowned at her even harder. “The phone calls? I need the dates and approximate times for each occurrence.”
The light dawning, she nodded her head. “Oh, ok, right. Ummm well… today is the fifth of August and it happened about ten minutes ago.” She got up and looked at the calendar. “The other phone call was on the second of August and I would guess around two forty five maybe?”
He nodded as he wrote down the times and dates. “Have you told anyone else? Someone that can verify the first phone call?”
She sat back down at the table “Verify? Are you saying you don’t believe me?” For some reason that really hurt to think that he didn’t.
He shook his head as he continued to write down who knew what on his paper. “No, I believe you; I just need any witnesses or anyone you may have told as further evidence.” He shook her head as she played with the plastic rose that sat on her table. “I haven’t told anyone except you.” He leaned back in his chair with a look of deep concentration on his face. She could practically see his mind work as he turned over everything she had told him. “Can you think of anything else out of the ordinary? Anything strange or something that just didn’t feel right? Can you give me any kind of a description of the guy in the hoodie?”
Klara thought for a minute. “No, I can’t really give a description; he was too far away. He did seem to be broad at the shoulder and lean in the hips. Oh, and he was a white male. I saw his hand when he saluted me. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more than that. Nothing else has happened just the phone calls.” She paused for a moment. “Alec?”
He raised his head and looked at her. “What?”
She was almost afraid to ask him, but she desperately wanted to s
ee Matthew. “Are we still going to go see Matthew today?” She asked softly. For the second time that day she saw him change before her eyes. Gone was the hard eyed legal-minded lawyer, and in his place was the softer, more approachable Alec that she knew. She nearly sighed in relief.
“Of course, I’m sorry. We can talk about this after you see him.” Then he grinned at her. “That makes apology number three. I don’t think I have ever said I’m sorry so much in one day. You may want to mark your calendar.”
On the drive over to see Matthew, Klara was nervous. She didn’t know why, except that maybe he wouldn’t want to see her. She was the one that got his dad thrown in jail and now had him living with strangers. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that he probably hated her.
“Don’t worry, he wants to see you. Mrs. Walcott said he has been asking about you.”
Turning to look at him in surprise she asked, “How did you know that was what I was thinking about? Do they teach mind reading in law school?”
Alec smiled. “Almost, they teach you to read facial expressions. But I wouldn’t need to spend six years in school to read you. You have the most expressive face I have ever seen. I strongly suggest that you don’t ever consider becoming a professional poker player.”
Klara laughed quietly. “That’s what my daddy used to say, too. He taught me to play poker, but he stopped playing with me because he could read my hand by my face. I tried wearing sunglasses but it was hopeless.”
Alec chuckled. “Maybe a full face shield would help, but then you still have to watch your breathing.”
“My breathing? You’re not serious?” Alec nodded as he kept his eyes on the road before him while keeping an eye on the traffic behind him as well. He hadn’t seen his shadow in a few days so he wondered what Clarissa was up to.
“Yes, dead serious. When you’re angry, your breathing is shallow and fast. When you’re excited, your breathing is deep and fast. When you’re sad, it’s long deep breaths. When…”
