Rainey with a Chance of Hale (A Rainey Bell Thriller Book 6)

by R. E. Bradshaw

  “Watch my back,” Rainey whispered as she passed Danny.

  Rainey glanced back over her shoulder at the dad, who was still ranting at the official. Some parents were a bit too invested in their kid’s sports activities. This guy apparently fit the mold. Rainey decided to focus on her own child and hope the red-faced man would calm down soon.

  Rainey watched Weather stomp behind her mother, arms crossed, untied ribbon trailing from her hair. A trained behaviorist, Rainey had interviewed many criminals, but her own child presented her biggest challenge to date. By the time they sat down in the grass, Weather’s bottom lip stuck out like a diving board, and her attitude had worsened.

  Katie said to the steaming little being, “Weather, we can’t let you play with the others if you continue hitting.”

  “Nee Nee hits bad people.”

  The feelings evoked by Katie’s expression when she locked eyes with Rainey felt like condemnation with a bit of self-righteousness on the side.

  “Well, Rainey Blue, I’m leaving this to you,” she said. She stood and patted Weather on the head. “Honey, Nee Nee is going to explain her behavior to you. I’m going to go watch your brothers. I love you. No more hitting, okay?”

  “Okay, Mommy,” Weather said, now wearing an absolutely angelic smile.

  Once Katie cleared the area, Rainey said, “Hey, you. What’s up with throwing me under the bus?”

  “I can’t throw you, Nee Nee. You’re too heavy.”

  “That’s true. Anyway, when have you seen me hit people?”

  “On the punching bag. You pretend to hit bad people. When you are mad, you hit them harder.”

  Rainey recalled Weather asking who she was talking to when she said, “Take that,” after a long session on the heavy bag. She had responded to Weather’s inquiry, “Bad people,” without giving it much thought. That should never be the case when dealing with Weather. A lesson Rainey repeatedly learned with her baby girl.

  “You are very observant for a five-year-old, young lady, and smarter than the average bear.”

  “I’m not a bear,” Weather said, giggling.

  Rainey snatched the child into her arms and snuggled her through that smelly kid odor.

  “Pew, you stink like a dirty kid.”

  “I am a dirty kid,” Weather said, soaking up the hugs and one on one time each child craved.

  As parents of triplets, they did their best to give them individualized attention every day. Rainey loved the uniqueness of her children, each with their distinct gifts and issues. Mack was a natural athlete. His only fears seemed to revolve around being left alone, a remnant from an unfortunate trauma while bearing witness to his Aunt Wendy’s kidnapping. Rainey marveled at the core strength and agility the biggest of her boys possessed. He loved gymnastics class and the climbing wall. She assumed he’d climb mountains some day. Katie recently caught him attempting to scale the brick wall around the yard. They now regretted the design decision of roughly finished bricks jutting out randomly along the otherwise toehold-lacking surface. Mack’s parental challenge required they try to instill some caution without dampening his sense of adventure.

  Timothy, with a slighter build, ran like the wind, but he was not much of a sports enthusiast. He tumbled, played soccer and basketball, and was generally good at all three, but he only participated because his siblings did. Timothy’s passions lay in the world of insects and animals. He also loved music and could plunk out tunes of his own making on the piano. It was not Mozart, but it didn’t give Rainey a headache the non-musical triplets did when they banged on the keys. Timothy was the quiet, shy, introspective one of the three. He loved everyone, but his love for his dog surpassed all others. The parental challenge with him involved not allowing his siblings’ huge personalities to overshadow Timothy’s more Zen existence.

  Weather was, as Danny described her, the mastermind. This little person had intrigued Rainey since she discovered her daughter’s manipulative powers within days of her birth. Katie’s mini-me sized up situations and people quickly. Rainey often watched Weather work the crowd at family gatherings. Though her challenges were many, focused in the right places, this girl child’s self-confidence and unbending-will would resist anyone throwing up barriers to her goals.

  Pound for pound, Weather was also the most gifted athlete in the bunch. Quick, with extraordinary hand-eye coordination for her age group, Weather loved to play all kinds of sports. Her issues with organized team activities stemmed from a competitive streak that clouded her judgment at times. It bothered Katie more than Rainey, who saw her daughter’s desire to win as a positive trait that needed honing. Rainey had worked in an extremely competitive field, especially for women. She was sure Weather’s rejection of defeat would be a future asset, and her willingness to fight was not such a bad thing either.

  “Look, I know getting knocked down isn’t fun, but you can’t hit players for trying to get the ball from you.”

  “Can you pinch them?” Weather asked.

  “No, honey. You aren’t supposed to intentionally hurt players.”

  “Then he should have a red card too. He pinched me, and it hurt. He did it two times.”

  Weather yanked up her shirt, exposing her torso. Rainey saw two small, but intensely black and blue bruises on her daughter’s side.

  “Is that why you hit him?” Rainey asked, already rising to her feet.

  “Yes. He isn’t supposed to do that, and it hurt.”

  From the color of the bruising, Rainey was sure it had hurt. Impressed with Weather’s instinct to fight back rather than cry and run to find her mother, Rainey lifted the child into her arms.

  “I’m sorry that happened, honey. If any player does something like this, please come tell Wendy or me. What he did was wrong, but you still cannot hit anyone during the games.”

  “But he pinched me hard,” Weather argued.

  “Your coach and the officials are in charge of making sure he doesn’t pinch you. You have to tell them so they can do their jobs.”

  “Okay, Nee Nee.”

  “If those kids weren’t raised by dykes, maybe they’d learn some manners.”

  The raging father of the offending pincher was closing fast on Rainey and Weather. Rainey put her daughter on the ground and whispered in her ear, “Run to Danny.” She could see Danny heading her way. He extended his arms and collected Weather up from the ground. By this time, a large part of the Bell-Meyers entourage watched the angry dad close on her position.

  Rainey turned to face the much larger man with the red face and fire in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

  The man barged into her space, breathing down on her like a predatory animal. “That little miniature dyke better keep her hands to herself.”

  Weather was correct. Her Nee Nee did want to hit the bad man. Instead, she said, “Sir, this escalation isn’t necessary, nor is it appropriate in front of all these children. If you’d care to walk over to the picnic area and have a calm discussion, I’d be happy to accompany you.”

  The man stepped closer, glared down at her, and uttered his threat, “I’ll whip her ass and yours too if she touches my kid again.”

  Every fiber of Rainey’s being wanted to leg whip this guy to the ground, twist his arm behind his back, and put a knee on his spine, while she whispered in his ear about the ass kicking he was about to receive. She resisted, but she didn’t back down either.

  “Sir, my child has deep black bruises where your son pinched her. Now, kids will be kids. I’ve dealt with my child’s reactionary behavior to your son’s assault. If you remind him that pinching isn’t part of the game, I think we’re done here.”

  This guy was in such a rage, he wasn’t listening to Rainey. He glared at her and inched forward, puffing out his chest.

  “They shouldn’t let you people near kids anyway,” he thundered. “I can’t wait ‘til they start lining you up for the ovens.”

  In her peripheral vision,
Rainey saw Danny give Weather to Katie and begin walking toward them. Rainey held her hand out by her hip, signaling Danny to stop. She did not back away from the threatening man. She leaned even closer. So close, she could see his nose hairs.

  She said in a calm, quiet voice, “Sir, I just finished talking to my child about the proper way to evaluate and react to a threat. Maybe you could do with some risk assessment training yourself.”

  “That’s not a threat. It’s a promise I voted for, and I aim to see they keep it. You sick fucks need to be eradicated from society.”

  Rainey smiled up at the seething man. “You have failed to assess the danger you are in currently.”

  The man raised his voice even louder, as he was now drawing more attention to the standoff. “Oh, I’m in danger, am I? What, are the politically correct homo police going to come tell me to leave the faggots alone?”

  Rainey lowered her voice even more. “Sir, I’m not going to get into a physical confrontation with you over a child’s soccer game. What I will do is a favor for you.” She turned and pointed at Danny whom Cathleen had now joined. “See those two, they are federal agents. See that woman over there that looks like a younger version of me, she’s a deputy sheriff. I’m retired FBI. If you put your hands on me now, I’m sure they will be happy to testify to the Justice Department about your hate crime. Go home, sir. Cool off. And gain some perspective.”

  “Oh, so I’ve run up on one of Killary’s nasty women. You go high, I’ll go low, cunt. Trump’s in office now. There’s no such thing as a hate crime.”

  Slowly, Rainey became aware that the game had stopped and a crowd of people closed in on her and the fuming man. She heard one voice say, “No hate, not here,” and then another. Soon an entire chorus encircled them with chants of “No hate, not here.” People stepped close and then in between Rainey and Mr. Make America Great Again, creating a barrier of chanters.

  “No hate, not here.”

  Not finding any supporters, the man backed away slowly. The chanters followed him all the way to the parking lot. His discomfort was evident when he drove away leaving his son on the sidelines crying. Rainey held her breath, as she watched Katie and Weather walk toward the boy. Weather spoke to him and gave him a hug.

  Danny was suddenly at Rainey’s side. “Now, that gives us hope for the future.”

  Rainey laughed, “Which part? Me not taking him down right here in front of all these people and the kids, or Weather playing peacemaker?”

  Danny chuckled. “I’d say it’s a little bit of both.”

  Katie waited for an adult to claim the child before she returned with Weather. Halfway to where Rainey stood, Katie was joined by a woman she obviously knew. Rainey watched their greeting out of habit. When a stranger bee-lined for someone she loved, it drew her attention. Katie silenced any warning bells when she gave the woman a hug. Still, it felt odd to see someone in big sunglasses on an overcast day. Befitting the remainder of her bohemian Hollywood starlet incognito-style, an oversized scarf covered her head and draped casually over her shoulders. One lone brunette curl graced her forehead.

  Katie introduced the woman as they walked up. “Rainey, this is Ann Burke, with Tiny Hart Living.”

  Rainey recognized the name from emails exchanged with the contractor Katie hired to design and build four tiny houses for the women’s shelter. Katie hoped to buy more land and open more spaces for women and children needing safe and affordable housing. This was Katie’s project and she’d tackled it almost entirely on her own. Rainey had been involved only so far as to address some safety concerns about egress and bullet resistance. After all, these women were fleeing dangerous domestic violence situations. Bullets could definitely be in play. As one of the women at the shelter said while looking over the plans, “Man, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Unless that’s armor plating, I’m not locking myself in there with him out here shooting through the walls.”

  Ann wafted forward bringing with her the scents of burning sage and essential oils. Her voice floated smooth like old whiskey, deep and raspy, when she extended her hand to Rainey.

  “Oh, I just add the finishing touches. My husband, Hart—that’s his name—does the contractor part. He really does ‘put a lot of heart in our tiny homes.’ “ Ann put air quotation marks around the slogan.

  Rainey remembered seeing that phrase on the emails she exchanged with Hart Burke, Ann’s husband.

  Ann grabbed Rainey’s hand and patted it, while saying, “I feel like I should know you, with all the emailing back and forth. It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Rainey, even if it is surrounded by so much negative energy. That man is a highly unpleasant entity.”

  Rainey agreed, “Yes, he is.”

  “Are you coming with us to procure oddities and art that speaks to women?” Ann asked.

  Katie answered for Rainey, “No, sadly my justice warrior has an interview with an inmate up at Butner.”

  Rainey was thinking she wouldn’t be going to procure anything today. Given her choice, she’d be relaxing on a couch watching games featuring the last eight teams standing in the NCAA basketball tournament.

  “Oh, that sounds interesting. Exploring the criminal mind. Oddities of a different sort, I suppose,” Ann said.

  Rainey chuckled at Ann’s eccentric wit and responded, “You could say that.”

  Ann finally let go of Rainey’s hand, as she said, “Well, I am looking forward to you seeing the houses. Your contributions to safety will go in all of our homes from now on.”

  Rainey smiled at Ann and said, “That’s good to hear. Multiple egresses from what amounts to a large box are important. Keeping people out is great, but getting out when they want to keep you in is imperative as well.”

  Before Ann could comment, Wendy walked up leading her nephews. “Well, they called the game.” She bumped into Rainey, like the little sister she was. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “He was a bad man, Wendy,” Weather said, “but Nee Nee did not hit him. She used her words.” She looked up at Rainey beaming and giving her the thumbs up. “Good job, Nee Nee.”

  “Thank you, honey. Weather, show Wendy where that boy pinched you,” Rainey said.

  Weather pulled her shirt up to proudly show off her wounds, explaining, “He said he was sorry. I said I was sorry too.”

  Rainey smiled at Weather. “That is great. Good job.”

  Katie laughed. “They’ll probably end up dating, and this will all be some funny story we tell to embarrass them.”

  Rainey wasn’t amused at the prospects of the kid’s dad ever being a part of their lives. She shook off the thought and said to Wendy, “I told her to bring it to your attention if that happens again.”

  Wendy bent to kiss Weather’s cheek. “I got your back, kid.”

  Weather ran off to chase her brothers.

  Rainey said to Wendy, “I’d appreciate it if you told the officials about the pinching. Just so they’re aware of her motivation to react. I don’t want her reputation to get out of hand at age five.”

  Wendy laughed. “I will, but I don’t think any scouts were in the stands today.”

  Rainey shook her head. “Smartass.”

  Katie slid her arm around Rainey’s waist.

  Rainey asked, “Did she show you those pinches?”

  “Yes, and she’s done worse to her brothers, so don’t reward her too much with sympathy.” Katie rose on her tiptoes to kiss Rainey’s cheek. “Okay, mom is taking the kids to her house. Cathleen, Ann, and I are going shopping for tiny house accessories. We’ll see you late this evening, right?”

  “Probably. I can’t really give you a time.”

  Katie smiled and gave Rainey a peck on the lips.

  “I’ll see you when I see you then. You be safe, Rainey Blue Bell.”

  Rainey smiled and hugged Katie close, saying, “Always.”

  13

  March 25, 2017

  Old Oxford Road

  Butner Federal
Correctional Complex

  Butner, NC

  All prisons have one thing in common. If observed from a satellite image, even when the fences are impossible to see, it is still easy to ascertain where the boundaries are. The same primordial desire for freedom that pushes an animal to walk a recognizable path around the perimeter of its pen drives humans around the prison yard. Geronimo walked a shallow ditch into the hard clay of the enclosure where he spent his final days. The drive for freedom lives in all the creatures on the earth, even those that should never experience it again.

  Rainey turned off the longleaf pine-lined Old Oxford Road into the crown jewel of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. During World War II, Camp Butner had been a US Army installation situated on the dividing line between the North Carolina counties of Durham and Granville. Mostly a training facility and hospital, part of the camp had been used to hold German prisoners of war. Today, another type of prisoner accommodation replaced part of old Camp Butner—the Butner Federal Correctional Complex. With three institutions housing low to medium security inmates and an additional medical facility handling all security levels, the inmate population ranged from those in need of special medical care to the extremely mentally disturbed.

  Home of the largest medical facility in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Butner handled a comprehensive array of medical problems, specializing in oncology and behavioral science. John Hinckley, Jr. spent time in Butner. The prison is home to Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff and probably will be for the remainder of his days. Frank Calabrese, Jr., hit man for the Chicago Outfit Mafia, died in Butner. Some, like Russell Weston, Jr., responsible for the US Capital shooting in 1998, judged too mentally ill for trial and too dangerous for the street remain incarcerated at Butner on an indefinite basis. On this cloudy Saturday afternoon, an inmate waited for his scheduled visitors in the oncology wing.

  Rainey and Danny made their way down the glaringly white hallway of the medical center, guided by a uniformed correctional officer. The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers walked the halls in uniforms resembling those of the US Navy, white shirts, and dark pants, with rank epaulets on their shoulders and chests full of ribbons. These healthcare and medical personnel were members of one of the lesser known of the seven uniformed services of the United States. Nurses passed dressed in the official uniform, only gave away their professions with a belt of accessories at their waists.