by Pj Fiala
Gunnar’s hands shook slightly and he quickly set the bowls on the counter. Running his hands down his face and hooking them at the back of his neck, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, Emma was watching him.
“Do you know what he was there to talk to her about?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Do you know what he was there to talk to her about?”
Emma plopped a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at Gunnar.
“What’s going on?”
Gunnar grabbed the bowls from the counter and brushed past Emma. Sitting in a chair at the table, he poured some of the grain and granola cereal into his bowl and began busying himself.
“Morning,” JT said as he sauntered into the kitchen.
“Morning,” Emma said, her eyes never leaving Gunnar.
She walked to the table and stood in front of him. “What’s going on, Gunnar?”
JT turned and watched them while Emma stared Gunnar down.
“Nothing. I just don’t want that bastard anywhere near you. It’s weird, isn't it? Him showing up at the very office you work at?”
“I thought so, too. I’m going to do some snooping today to see what the appointment was about. Chery went right to her office and closed the door without saying a word to me yesterday. It’s not that unusual I guess, but still, it’s weird.”
“Who are you guys talking about anyway?” JT plopped down into a chair and began making his breakfast.
*****
Pulling into the parking lot at work, Emma took a deep breath and let it whoosh out of her before opening the car door. She was dying to know who that guy was. Gunnar acted unusual about him today and that set her nerves on edge and she was starting to get a bit pissed.
Walking into her office, she noticed Chery’s office door was closed and she could hear her in there talking. Shaking her head and twisting her lips in a grimace, Emma flipped on her light and put her purse into her bottom drawer, booted up her computer, and stretched her neck as the tension had begun to creep in.
“Emma, I need you to run some documents to a client’s house. She’s not able to come into the office and we need these Estate Planning documents signed and brought back here. You can take the office car, since it’s office business.”
Emma looked up at Chery. Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t even heard her walk in. Looking at the envelope Chery was handing her, she responded. “Okay. Do I need to make an appointment?”
“No. You can go over right now, then come right back here with these. Don’t open the envelope.” Chery laid a set of keys on the desktop as her eyes shrunk, it seemed anyway, and reminded Emma of a beady-eyed rat. And then talking to her as if she couldn’t be trusted. Pfft.
“No problem. I think I can manage.” Snark was apparent in Emma’s tone.
With a huff, Chery turned and stalked out of the office, walked across the hall and closed her door.
“Whatever,” Emma muttered. The sooner she left here, the better. Note to self: resumes need to be sent out tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gunnar walked up the sidewalk of the house his biological father had lived in for about a year and most likely died in. Keith had moved away when Gunnar was younger and only came back when he had gotten sick. Gunnar didn’t even know where his father and half-siblings had lived. But what he did know was, he had to stop this bullshit before things went too far. When Emma told him Kevin had been at the office yesterday, after Gunnar told him to stay away from her, he almost lost his shit.
He firmly rapped on the door two times and waited for someone to open it. Checking that all of his gear was where he wanted it, he resumed what he hoped was a menacing stance. A younger version of his sister Molly opened the door and stood stock still staring at him. Long dark hair, the same color as Molly’s, flowed over her shoulder, and blue eyes that matched hers stared back at him. She was tiny, only about five foot one and thin, almost too thin. He held her gaze as he took in his youngest sister. Well, that he knew of, anyway. His father wasn’t known for his fidelity.
Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m Gunnar.”
The girl flung the door open and threw herself in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. At a loss for what to do, Gunnar wrapped his arms gingerly around her and hugged her back. His body began shaking, his emotions scrambled like eggs.
She whispered in his ear, “I’m so glad to meet you. Mom said you’d help us. Thank you.”
Snapping to attention, Gunnar pulled her away from him and set her on the ground. He cleared his throat again and said, “I need to speak to your mom and brother.”
“I’m Kelly, by the way. I’m the youngest. Come on in.” She took Gunnar’s hand and walked into the house towing Gunnar behind her. As they entered the living room, things looked just as they had yesterday. Kelly pointed to the chair that Gunnar had previously perched on and said, “I’ll go and get Mom.” She smiled brightly and walked into the kitchen.
Gunnar stood where he was. He had no intention of getting cozy with these people. He just wanted them to leave him and his family alone.
“Gunnar, thank you for coming back so soon. Kevin will be out of the shower shortly. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No.” Gunnar tilted his head from side to side to ease the tension as he crossed his arms over his chest. Kelly smiled from ear to ear and stared at Gunnar from the sofa. Dianna stammered a bit, then finally said, “Would you at least sit down?”
“No. I’m not here to visit. I’m here to make sure you people understand that when I told you to stay away from Emma, I meant it.” Taking a breath to gain a bit more control, he continued. “Kevin showed up at her office yesterday afternoon.”
Dianna’s eyes grew large and she began shaking her head.
“What of it? I had business there.”
Gunnar whipped around to see Kevin, fresh from the shower, though still looking dumpy and disgusting, standing in the door to the living room. He mimicked Gunnar’s stance by crossing his flabby arms, trying to look tough. He only succeeded in looking…laughable.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
Kevin laughed. “You afraid she’s going to dump you for a better man?”
Gunnar sneered, “Hardly. First of all, when she knows you torched her sister’s house, you’ll do well to not be anywhere near her.”
Kelly sucked in a deep breath. “Kevin. You didn’t.”
“Shut up, shithead. Stay out of this,” Kevin growled.
“Kevin. That’s enough. Stop talking to her like that.” Dianna raised her voice.
“Quit babying her. She’s fucking twenty-one years old. Christ, Ma.”
“Language!” Dianna yelled.
“Fuck. This sucks.” Kevin looked at his mom and sister then turned a scowl at Gunnar. “I’ll tell you how this works, pretty boy. You bring that box of pictures back here and no one gets hurt. Simple. End of story. You want me gone?” Raising his voice to a yell he said, “Bring the fucking pictures!” emphasizing every word with a pointing finger.
Losing his patience with this piece of crap, Gunnar took two giant steps to Kevin, reared back, and landed a right punch on his jaw. The crack sounded throughout the room and almost as if in slow motion, Kevin flew back against the wall and then slid down. His eyes were dazed, a trickle of blood began running down his lip, and his head bounced off the wall a couple of times. Gunnar watched him slump over. Kelly began wailing.
Dianna yelled. “Gunnar, stop!”
Gunnar turned his head to see Dianna coming toward him, her hands out. He stepped back quickly and she stopped.
Softly she said, “We just need the pictures back. That’s all.” Tears formed in her eyes and then began running in streaks down her cheeks.
“Why?” Gunnar’s voice was tight.
“I can’t.” Dianna swallowed.
“It’s the only way I’ll turn them over. I want to know why they’re so fucking i
mportant. You gave them to me in the first place. Now you want them back. Why?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sitting in the car, torn between hurt and anger, Emma watched as a pretty woman flung herself at Gunnar and how he hugged her. Taking his hand, she led him into her home. Mysterious phone calls, weird behavior, he was his father’s son. What were the friggin odds that she’d have to deliver documents to Gunnar’s mistress’s house? Even bigger odds were that they would be here at the same time. The universe must be looking out for her to put them in the same place at the same time. Again. The first two times had seemed magical. This time was a horror.
Sucking in a deep breath and holding it in for a few beats, she slowly let the air deflate her lungs.
“Time to get this over with,” she said into thin air.
She grabbed the envelope with the documents she needed to get signed and set her spine so rigid as she walked the house-length to the driveway which she followed to the front door. Another deep breath and she knocked on the door. Not sure who would open the door and bracing herself for seeing Gunnar with his mistress. Or was Emma the mistress? Well, it didn’t matter. What mattered was facing this bullshit and moving on. Again.
It felt like she stood there for several long minutes, but surely not. Her knees were locked to stop the shaking and her palms were sweaty. She was getting a doozy of a headache from the rigidness in her back. This was beyond nerve-racking. She hadn’t had to walk in on Greg and his floozy.
Hearing the knock on the door, Gunnar’s head snapped to the door.
“You have someone else coming to threaten me today?”
Dianna’s eyes wide, her head shaking furiously. “No. No one. I swear.”
Gunnar jerked the door open and stood with a wild look in his eye, his jaw was clenched so tight he thought it would break.
Emma could see his chest heaving from exertion or surprise.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was sharp and it sliced through the thick air easily.
“What are YOU doing here is the better question!” Emma lifted her chin just a bit higher. Her eyes bore into his, and at that moment, she dared him to piss her off just a little bit more.
“Excuse me? How is that a better question? What the fuck are you doing here, Emma?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m not here to cheat on you, that’s for damn sure.”
Clenching and unclenching his hands, Gunnar moved to step outside. Emma stepped back to allow him out of the house.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Why in the hell would you think I was here to cheat?”
“Really?” Now she was pissed. “I saw you with her. I saw you hug that…that woman, and then she led you in the house and you were holding hands. And. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Why aren’t you at work?”
Her voice raised, her temper let loose. “I. Am. At. Work. I’m delivering papers to Mrs. Simpson.”
Raking his hands back through his now loose hair, Gunnar turned to look into the living room. He stepped back in and looked Dianna in the eye. “That true? Did you make up some flimsy excuse to get her here with phony documents so you could do something to her?”
Emma was incensed. She pushed past Gunnar to step into the house only to stop short when she saw the gross man who had been following her on the sofa. His jaw was red, smeared blood marred his lips, his eyes looked dazed, and he was rubbing the back of his head. An older woman stood alongside, and Gunnar’s ‘friend’ was sitting next to him on the sofa. All eyes were trained on Emma. Emma slightly shook her head to break the confusion loose.
Gunnar put his arm on her shoulders. Emma tried shrugging him off but he held fast.
Emma heard him take a deep breath and she could feel the tension in the way he held his arm around her. She could feel his body vibrate, his control so tightly leashed he was straining against it.
“Answer me.”
Emma flinched at the tone he used. Dianna did, too, and Emma watched her stammer, opening then closing her mouth to say something, but words would not come out.
“Kelly? Tell me what’s going on.”
“Mom said you’d help us. Then you left yesterday and you were mad and said you wouldn’t and we needed you to help us.” She broke down crying.
“You weren’t here. How the hell do you know what I said or didn’t say?”
Sniffling and swiping at the tears welling in her eyes, she looked into Gunnar’s eyes. That’s when Emma saw it. They looked similar. Oh. My. God. Kelly looks like…Molly. Emma twisted her head to look at Gunnar, his jaw as tight and twitching, his back was rigid and the expression he wore was almost violent.
“I asked when I came home from school. I go to the technical college and I had class. I couldn’t miss again. But I was so excited to get home and find out if you were going to help us, but Kevin said you wouldn’t. He said you were a…”
She swallowed and looked over at Kevin, who was starting to regain his senses. He leaned forward to stand, but Kelly pulled him back by grabbing his shirt.
“He said I was a what?” Gunnar clipped.
Her lip slightly trembling Kelly tossed back her hair, straightened her back, facing her very angry half-brother. “He said you were an asshole.”
Emma raised her brows and slowly turned her head to look at Gunnar. To her surprise, he threw his head back and laughed. He laughed. If she weren’t so confused right now, she would simply stand there and watch the beauty that was Gunnar. But before she could say anything at all, Gunnar stopped laughing and sternly looked at Dianna.
“You better speak now or we’re leaving. I want to know how you got Chery Treklin to work with you to get Emma here. I’ll deal with her later. I want to know why those pictures are so important that you would burn a house down to set a tone.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emma jerked her head back. She slowly turned her head to look at Kevin. Her eyes narrowed and she took a step forward before Gunnar pulled her back to him.
Stopping to look each one of them in the eye, he finished his commandment. “If I don’t get the answers from you, we will be leaving right this minute and going to the police department with everything we know. Got it?”
“Did that son of a bitch burn Ashley’s house down?” Emma’s eyes were huge in her head, her voice cracking, her lips quivering and then thinning as she stared at Kevin.
“I’ll kill you if you did that. Did you?” Gunnar held Emma tight to his side. When Kevin only sneered, she raised her voice. “Did you, you bastard?” Trying again to take a step forward only to be pulled into Gunnar’s side, she huffed out a breath and tried twisting in his arms.
“Christ, you two are pathetic. None of this would‘ave happened if pretty boy here would’ave just given us the fucking box.” He ended in a yell.
“For the record,” Dianna said taking a step toward them, “he didn’t burn the house down.” She swallowed. “We used the fact that the house burned down as a way to get you here. By making you think Kevin did it, so you would be scared for Emma’s life and come to talk to us. You had been ignoring our calls and not coming when we asked you.” She looked back at Kevin. “We needed you to think we did it.”
“How do I know that’s true? You’ve just admitted to lying. Why should I believe you?”
“Can we…can we just sit down and talk about this? Please.” Dianna pointed to the chairs across the room. She walked in front of Kevin and Kelly and sat on the sofa putting Kelly in between her and Kevin. Gunnar took Emma’s hand and walked over to the chair he had sat in yesterday and motioned for her to sit down. He stood next to her, touched the front pocket of his Rolling Thunder shirt, rubbed his chin, then tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans.
“Gunnar, why don’t you take a seat in Keith’s chair?”
Gunnar quickly glanced at the chair, still showing the imprint where Keith had spent so much time. “No. Thanks.”
Shifti
ng his weight from side to side, clearly showing his agitation, Dianna began.
“We didn’t…Kevin didn’t burn down Emma’s house.” She quickly glanced at Emma, her lips quivered as she tried to be strong and not cry. “We needed you to think we did, because you weren’t coming over when we asked. Kevin followed you around a bit, and…” Looking over at Kevin and back at Gunnar, she finished. “He wasn’t very good at it. More than anything, he seemed to have put you on edge. He’s not his father’s son.”
Kevin quickly sat forward and then abruptly stopped, closed his eyes, and grabbed his head with both hands. Slowly sitting back on the sofa he glared at his mother.
“Why was he following us? Why not just touch base? Or ask Connor to intervene and ask for you?”
“Look, Gunnar, we’re in a bit of trouble here and we need those pictures back. Keith was mixed up with some shady characters and I think the pictures we need to keep them at bay is in that box.”
Gunnar ran his fingers over his cheeks, clenched and unclenched his jaw a couple of times, then tucked his thumbs into his pockets.
“What pictures? I’ve looked at them over and over and I couldn’t find anything nefarious or ominous. They’re old pictures of my mom, Molly’s mom and Keith with various people. So, you’ll have to be more specific.”
Dianna looked at her children, nodded once, and then turned back to Gunnar. She let out a deeply held breath.
“Keith was involved with the Bambino crime family in Chicago. He was small-time, very small-time, and only couriered for them or drove one of their trucks from the trucking company, from time to time to pay the bills. It started before you were born. Keith met Carmine Bambino when they were both sixteen. They were just chums with some mutual acquaintances. Then one day, Carmine needed something delivered and told Keith he’d pay him a thousand dollars to deliver it. Back then a thousand dollars was like the lottery.”
Dianna straightened her shoulders and stretched her back. “Keith did good and didn’t say anything to anyone and Carmine liked that. Soon, Carmine would call a bit more often. Keith was beguiled by the money and he liked the fact that people with money liked and trusted him. He didn’t have that with his family. It was addicting to him. Then Joci got pregnant and he started to question whether it was right to have a child and doing the things he was doing. Joci was stable and smart and he thought she’d catch on eventually and he’d have to quit. When he told Carmine, it didn’t go well. Then, Carmine offered him ten thousand dollars to run another delivery. Keith thought he’d deliver for Carmine one more time and he’d be set with a bit of cash. By this time Tori was also pregnant.”
