Signed, Sealed, Delivered ... I'm Yours

by Naleighna Kai

“I don’t want to talk! I said I didn’t want to talk to anyone,” she snapped. “My sister called you, not me. I’ll go down to the station tomorrow to give a statement.”

  “A lot of opportunity might be lost between now and then,” the blond said. “We need your cooperation while the incident is fresh in your mind. Are you hurt?”

  “No … I … no … it’s just that they…took all my stuff. I … I thought they were going to kill me.” That reminder brought on a new wave of body-wracking sobs.

  “Can you give us a moment?” Dark Eyes said to his partner before stepping into her room—uninvited—and closing the door behind him. Stupefied, Tenley could only stare at him.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” he said in a tone that told her he would not tolerate resistance. “What happened?”

  Tenley took a deep breath and steadied her nerves as her memory sifted through what happened. She couldn’t find the words to recount the event out loud, but her mind replayed it in vivid detail …

  “Excuse me Ma’am,” said the young man cradling a baby in one arm. Nearby stood a woman, who Tenley assumed was his wife. “I hate to bother you, but can you point out Sweet’s Bakery?”

  Hastily, she had thrown some directions at them, but they seemed perplexed, as if they couldn’t understand her instructions. They again begged her pardon, but could she walk with them a few steps and point out the building, for they had been long on their feet and needed to get home? The baby was tired.

  Against her better judgment—Tenley knew her neighborhood, knew that the entire city of Chicago had exploded in summer violence, and knew that her little area on the west side in Sowell Gardens had not been spared—she slung her purse high onto her shoulder, gathered her bags as best she could, and led the couple back the way she had come. She stopped half a block from Sweet’s.

  “It’s there,” Tenley said, nodding toward the bakery’s lighted sign. “I would walk you to the door, but as you can see my hands are full—” She caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye and found herself pushed into a nearby alley with a pistol pressed into her breasts.

  They took everything. Her purse with her cell phone and bus pass in it, watch, rings, earrings, her bags containing all of Lacy’s party favors, her pride, her confidence, her hopes that their Neighborhood Watch program could protect the residents of Sowell Gardens—all of it gone.

  She had handed it over, as nice as you please, because the man that asked was holding a gun. In her hysteria, she hadn’t even committed their faces to memory, and she had dared not scream with that cold barrel burning a tattoo through her blouse.

  When she parted her mouth to speak but no words would come out, Dark Eyes took a seat on her bed. “I want you to hear something. Come sit.”

  Tenley followed him, docile as a puppy, and sat beside him.

  Kyle removed his two-way radio from his duty belt and held it between them. Reports of one crime after another were transmitted, including a shooting on Clyde Avenue, a missing persons report, and a sexual assault over on Tulle Street.

  “Yesterday we found a young woman about your age raped, beaten to death, and jammed into a dumpster,” he said, looking into her eyes. “You had some stuff taken. Stuff can be replaced. You have no idea how lucky you are to have walked away from an armed robbery.” He reached over to wipe the tears trailing down her cheeks. “Now, you pull yourself together, ma’am. Thank whatever power you believe in and help us get these creeps off the streets.”

  Tenley processed his words and anger shot through her as she trained a steely gaze on him.

  “So sorry I was only mugged, officer!” Tenley snapped, placing a hand over her chest. “Perhaps next time, I’ll offer up my heart to be cut out!”

  “Hey, hey,” Kyle cooed as he closed his hand over hers. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean…”

  “Even stone wears out, dammit!” Hiccupping through tears, Tenley was vaguely aware of his fingers twining through hers.

  Isn’t there something inappropriate about this?

  “Can I, for once, worry about me and not the rest of the world? Can I feel just a tiny bit sorry for myself for a moment?” In spite of her anguish, the power and confidence flowing from him to her seemed to stiffen her spine and stem the flow of her tears.

  “How could I have been so insensitive?” Kyle squeezed her clasped hand and shook it, an encouraging gesture that spoke to his sincerity and made her feel that he was in her corner. “You’ll have to excuse me. I tend to think in terms of blood and guts.” He gave her hand one last squeeze and let it go. Losing his hand was like losing the comfort of a warm wool blanket on a wintry Chicago night. “But I meant what I said,” Kyle continued. “So many worse things could have happened … could still happen to someone else by the same attacker. I need you to draw on all of your strength and help us get these guys.”

  He was right. What had she been preaching to her neighbors? The code of silence had to end. They all had to become snitches and let these criminals know that Sowell would fight. There was something calming about Kyle that gave her strength. Tenley closed her eyes to steady herself.

  She had just come out of Sweet’s Bakery when they approached her. They must have been following her, waiting until she’d turned the corner to pose the question that ended in this life-altering, traumatic experience. They had done this before, and they would do it again.

  Tenley didn’t know how to feel, but this realization was like a bucket of ice water being chucked at her face. They chose the wrong victim this time.

  She looked into Kyle’s dark eyes and told all that her memory could summon.

  Chapter 3

  The next evening, Kyle stood in the back of the room listening to the volley of arguments being shot back and forth between Lonnie Lyman and the Sowell residents.

  “All right, hold on! Hold On!” Lonnie shouted so that his voice carried to the rear of Sowell’s community center. “Everyone can’t talk at once, and no yelling out!”

  Tenley’s plight brought the neighborhood out in force. The residents packed the room to capacity. Kyle had gotten wind of the emergency meeting from an informant who was checking out leads on the man who had robbed Tenley and the woman who had served as his accomplice.

  “Let’s hear from my man, Slade,” Lonnie said, gesturing to a sandy-haired man with a scar the length of his cheek. “He’s head of the Block Captains. Slade?”

  Slade shifted from his position amongst a knot of young men standing off to the side of the room and made his way to the podium, edging Lonnie aside.

  “We need more Block Captains,” Slade said. “Henry Fallow went off to school, and Daniel Simmons has been sick the last couple weeks. There were no citizen patrols on that block, even though the attack on Tenley happened at the tail end of the rush hour.” His gaze swept across the people in the room. “And where are the cops? How many requests have we made to have an officer at one of our meetings?”

  “The police don’t care about Sowell Gardens,” Lonnie said, a trace of menace creeping into his voice. “And the sooner we make ourselves believe that, the sooner we get about the business of protecting our own.”

  Murmurs of discord erupted in the room, and disorder threatened before Lonnie shouted them down. “Those creeps pushed a gun into my sister’s chest and fled on foot!” he said. “It’s an outrage; it’s—”

  “Excuse me.”

  A collection of heads turned to the back of the room where Kyle stood watching with an expression of mild annoyance. It made sense that Tenley wouldn’t know him out of uniform. Still, he had to tamp down his disappointment at seeing no recognition in her gaze.

  Apparently, Lonnie hadn’t recognized him either, as he made no attempt to subdue the room or filter the on-going conversations for Kyle’s sake.

  Lonnie turned thunderous eyes onto the interloper, before quickly reining himself in. “Sorry, Sir, I have the floor.” His eyebrows drew in. “Hey, are you new to the area? I don’t recall
seeing you around.”

  “Just passing through,” Kyle replied. “Mind if I take the floor for a bit?”

  “What’s your angle?” Lonnie asked, but Kyle was already making long, heavy strides toward the front. Front, back, wherever he stood, Kyle seemed to command attention as though he were standing in the center of the room.

  “I applaud your efforts,” Kyle said to the group. “The power of citizens united can’t be measured. The Neighborhood Watch program is the most successful anti-crime initiative in the country.”

  “I know you …” Lonnie’s eyes glittered with shards of ice. “You’re that puppet-cop they sent to interrogate my sister. So, did you find the man who robbed her, puppet-cop?”

  “I’m sorry that the Police Department hasn’t responded to your needs in a timely fashion,” Kyle continued without even a glance at Lonnie. “And I know you don’t want to hear about budget cuts and drained resources …” Kyle raised his voice, hoping to be heard over the explosion of griping and grumbling. “But I’m here in an off-duty capacity to assure you that I will personally get a crime prevention officer out here to talk with you and to help train you.”

  “Yeah right,” someone shouted, which caused others to bark and bray.

  “In the meantime,” Kyle continued as if their words were mere chatter. “There are things we can be doing on our own to combat this crime frenzy.”

  “We?” Lonnie sauntered closer to Kyle until they were face to face. “You didn’t answer my question, puppet-cop.”

  “My name is Kyle Stanton.” He extended his hand to Lonnie, who ignored it completely.

  “I didn’t ask you your name,” Lonnie snapped, moving forward so they stood roughly a nose apart. “I asked if you’ve caught the man, or have you been riding around eating donuts like every other useless pig?”

  Kyle returned Lonnie’s gaze in a lingering, unspoken threat before pressing on. “First off, I’ll get you a map of your neighborhood and order a security inspection. It’ll help us identify and address areas of weakness.” He gestured to a flyer in the hand of the woman to his right. “Those are interesting—they got all of you to show up for this meeting—but I can advise you on how to make them pop more. We can use more lighting in that alley and the surrounding area where Ms. Lyman was attacked. I’ll get you a contact at the City…”

  “Are you gonna answer his question?”

  Kyle didn’t catch the identity of the speaker because he had been regarding Tenley, but he did determine that the voice came from his left, and turned his head in that direction. “We didn’t have a lot of information to go on. Ms. Lyman was upset and didn’t get a good enough look at the perpetrators, but we’re talking to possible witnesses in the area.” He paused as if expecting another question. “I know you’ve heard it before, but we really are doing all we can.”

  A profane word erupted from somewhere in the back of the room.

  “Give me a list of your neighbors, including owners of your local businesses, like Sweet’s, and we’ll get notices out soliciting participation and pledging our support.”

  Several members of the audience had the nerve to laugh. Undeterred, Kyle added, “I don’t know what kind of budget you’re working with, but we can help you get decals, posters and signs. You can use your cell phones in a phone tagging system to alert each other about suspicious or criminal activity. And—”

  “We’ve had enough of your yammering,” Lonnie cut in. “Two of our young men were snuffed out last year, one felled by a bullet from one of you puppet’s stinking gun. You haven’t brought either of those perpetrators to justice. Why should we believe you’re even trying to nab this one?”

  Finally, Kyle turned to Lonnie. Maintaining the appearance of a control he did not feel, he said, “We lost a cop in Sowell last year, too. He was hard-working, respected and”—he inhaled—“deeply … loved.”

  “Well, that’s really unfortunate,” Lonnie snarled. “But until you have something important to say, like maybe that one of you ‘puppets of Mayor Powell’”—he crooked his fingers in a gesture of quotation—“have actually nailed somebody, your time on the floor in this meeting is over. You can tell your Chief that we’ll get our own justice.”

  Kyle’s face hardened when the crowd cheered and hurled insults at him. He tried to let it wash over him, but he was used to talking to people who actually cared about what he had to say. “Do not attempt to apprehend any person committing a crime or even to investigate suspicious activity!”

  “Do not attempt to tell us how to protect Sowell Gardens. Tell your mayor we’re on to him!” Lonnie turned to his audience. “Thanks for coming, folks. This meeting is adjourned.”

  “Wait—” Kyle called out to the dispersing crowd as they ambled away, overlapping their questions with their comments. Defeated, he stood shaking his head and moved to follow them out. Then he noticed Tenley standing beside him.

  “I’m sorry for my brother’s behavior,” she said.

  “You’re not your brother.”

  “He has so much pressure on him,” she said, her eyes wide and troubled. “He’s been looking for work for years and … nothing. He’s just trying to be useful. He loves Sowell, and he’s a brilliant guy.” As she spoke, her fingers played with the buttons on her blouse. “We grew up in Sowell. We can’t just abandon it. And Lonnie needs someplace to aim all that pent up frustration and intelligence.”

  Kyle dug up a smile. “You don’t have to explain. I’ve seen a million Lonnies.”

  “What’re you doing here in the first place?”

  “Word spreads quickly here, and your flyers are everywhere.” Keenly aware of what lay sealed beneath her buttons, Kyle focused his gaze onto her face. “I decided to stop by and offer my assistance … and check up on you.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Tenley glanced back at the dwindling crowd. “I’m fine.”

  “I want you to know that I’m requesting more of a law enforcement presence in Sowell.”

  She shrugged as if his words were of no importance, and that bothered him more than a little bit. “I appreciate that, but don’t trouble yourself. It may be too late for a relationship between Sowell and the police.” Lonnie calling out her name made her look around again. “Look, I have to go.”

  “Hey, you okay getting back and forth to work?” Kyle asked. “I understand you don’t have a car. If you’re at all apprehensive, I get off at five o’clock. I could wait for you at the bus stop and see you safely home.”

  “Every day?”

  He nodded.

  When Tenley laughed, Kyle got a pleasant, flighty sensation. “I’m here to serve …” he smiled an invitation and saw uncertainty in her sparkling brown eyes, “and protect.”

  “Tenley!” Lonnie had returned and was now glaring at the two of them from the exit.

  “I should be going too,” Kyle said. Only, he stood there a moment longer, held in place by the questions in her eyes. “I’ll see you around,” his mouth said.

  Soon, his heart added.

  Chapter 4

  Tenley stepped off the bus, lifted her chin, and began the four-block walk to the house. She kept her purse clutched underneath her arm and a can of mace at the ready within the vise-like grip of her palm.

  “Hey.”

  “Ah!” Tenley screamed and swung the mace two-handed—the way she’d seen shooters handle guns on television.

  “Whoa, point that someplace else!” Kyle said, holding his hands up to ward off the attack. “It’s only me, Kyle.”

  “Oh, my!” She exhaled as the cold knot of fear in her chest began to thaw. “I could’ve blasted your eyes out with this! I didn’t recognize you.”

  “I’m off the clock,” he said, sidestepping to allow a swell of pedestrians to pass between them. “I changed at the station. Thought it’d be better without the uniform.”

  “What would be better?”

  “I waited to drive you home … like we discussed. Is my Sonata okay?”

>   Half a dozen emotions went through her mind before she settled on amusement. “I don’t recall saying I needed your escort, Officer.”

  “Well then, I’m begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said, giving her a mock bow. “And my name is Kyle, not Officer. I’ve already taken the liberties of calling you Tenley.”

  “I noticed,” she shot back, feigning disapproval. “It happens when folks are impressed with their own authority.”

  “Ouch!” Kyle rubbed the area over his heart. “You got some salve in that purse to put on my self-esteem? It just took a hit.”

  They both broke into laughter at that.

  “I only live a few blocks away,” Tenley said, nodding in the direction of the cluster of homes in the distance. “On Laurel.”

  “I came there to talk to you, remember?” he said. “Many crimes happen within a mile of a person’s home.”

  The reminder sent a streak of discomfort up Tenley’s spine.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, no. It’s fine,” she said. “But let’s walk. We’ll—take the scenic route.”

  She led Kyle around the corner and through the park. They walked in silence as children sprouted underfoot like weeds, laughing and chasing one another through grass and debris.

  “I love your hair.”

  “Thanks,” Tenley said, raking her fingers through her newly short-cropped tresses. She had been so emotional since the incident. Cutting off her hair seemed a perfect first response. Changing her daily route had been the second.

  “It showcases your beautiful brown eyes.”

  “Kyle!”

  “And your beautiful brown skin.”

  She chuckled. “I don’t think we want to go there …”

  “Why not?” he exclaimed. “You single?”

  “No … not really.” Tenley tried hard to keep her gaze away from the muscles in his chest, which were moving underneath his sports shirt. “Let’s see … I’m tethered to my mother, my brother, my sister … oh, and two children.”

  “Hmmm. I see.”