by Julia Derek
* * *
Chapter 27
“I just found out that I have a job interview with a computer company at two today,” Kate said to Trevor, whom she had just called. It was nine in the morning. “I know this is out of the blue, but is there any chance you could come over and babysit Luis and Anna while I go to the interview? It’s a Jewish holiday today, so Luis is not in kindergarten. I totally understand if you can’t, but I thought I should still check. My mom and Joanna can’t do it, and I can’t get hold of the nanny I usually use.”
“I’m so glad you called me, Kate,” Trevor replied warmly. “Of course I’ll come and take care of the kids for you so you can go to the interview! You know I work from home, so it’s really no problem and I love your kids. How long do you need me to stay with them?”
“Really, you can do it? Wow, you’re the best! Thank you so much. I would just need you for a couple of hours.”
“Okay. When exactly do you need me to be there?”
“Do you think you could be here at one forty? The company is less than a ten-minute cab ride away, but I want to leave early in case there’s lots of traffic. You never know with this city.”
“I’ll be there at one thirty. How’s that?”
“Oh, that would be great. Are you sure you’re okay doing this for me on such short notice? I feel bad now putting you on the spot.”
“Kate, please. Of course I’m okay with it. I’m glad to be of help.”
She sighed happily, thinking about how lucky she was that she had kept this man in her life after all. He was just so incredibly nice. What would she have done without him? They exchanged a few more words before they hung up.
As Kate stood up and went out to the hallway, heading for the bathroom where she would take a shower, she bumped into her son. Luis was coming out of the kitchen.
“Who did you speak to, Mommy?” he asked, stopping in front of her.
“I spoke to Uncle Trevor,” she answered, caressing her son’s soft head. “He’ll come over here in a few hours to be with you and Anna while Mommy goes to her interview for the job at the computer company.”
Luis threw up his arms in the air and swung them around. “Yay! Uncle Trevor will come and play with me again! Woo-hoo! Can we have ice cream, too?”
Kate smiled at her adorable little son and said in her most stern voice, “Only if you promise me you’ll behave.”
“Ice cream, yay!!” Not seeming like he had understood that her response had been a condition, not a green light, Luis took off and ran around in circles, waving his hands happily. Anna came out of the kitchen then, spotting Luis’s happy dance and joining in the way she always did when her brother was jumping around.
“Yay! Ice cream!” little Anna called out, waving her hands in the air as well.
Kate couldn’t help but laugh at her kids’ rambunctious outburst. Controlling herself, however, she called out to Luis to remember what she had told him; he could only have ice cream if he promised to behave himself when Uncle Trevor was there. And that went for Anna as well.
Hearing her this time around, Luis calmed down surprisingly fast, and so did Anna, who was mostly looking confused now. Luis came up to Kate and pulled her hand, his face suddenly serious. “Mommy, what does AB mean?”
Kate frowned at Luis as she put away the sock she had just picked up from the floor. “AB?” She shrugged. “That can mean a lot of things. Why do you ask that?”
“Uncle Trevor had AB written on his arm,” Luis replied breathlessly. “In one of those shamrocks that they have on St. Pattie’s Day.”
“He had it written on his arm?” She stared at her son for a moment, then it suddenly became clear to her what he must have meant. He must be referring to a tattoo on Trevor’s arm.
“You mean that he had a tattoo that said AB on his arm, don’t you?” she asked him to confirm.
“What is a tattoo?” he asked in response.
“That’s when someone gets a permanent picture or words or numbers written on their skin,” she explained. “It sounds like that’s what you meant. Where exactly did you see the AB on Trevor’s arm?”
The boy pointed at a place near his elbow on his left lower arm.
“Hmm,” Kate said and nodded. “Well, I don’t know what the AB stands for,” she told him. “I’ll ask him about it later, though, and then we’ll know. Mommy needs to go take a shower now. Can you take care of your little sister while I’m in the shower? I’m keeping the door to the bathroom open in case you need anything, okay?”
“Can we watch cartoons?” Luis wanted to know.
“Yes. Why don’t you put on the TV and do that and make sure Anna is with you at all times?”
“Okay!” Luis shouted, having already forgotten what he had asked her about as he dashed off to the living room, Anna setting after him on her stubby legs.
Kate watched them as Luis turned on the TV. The two of them plopped down on the fluffy, green rug, eyes glued to the screen that was already set to the Cartoon Network. Pepe the cat came to join them, sitting down in between them. Kate turned around and continued into the bathroom, as always not feeling one hundred percent comfortable leaving the kids unsupervised. It didn’t matter that she would be able to hear them from the bathroom and they could come see her if needed.
She would be sure to take a very quick shower.
She walked into the bathroom, switched on the shower, and began removing the bathrobe she had put on when she woke up. She thought about what her son had asked her. So Trevor had a tattoo on his arm? That was kind of weird given how conservative he seemed. He would be about the last person she would picture having tattoos on his skin. Diego, on the other hand, had had quite a few tattoos, and now she knew that pretty much all of them had originally been gang tattoos that he had altered to keep his secret. When she first got to know him, she had found her dead husband’s tattoos a bit scary, but she had quickly gotten used to them and thought them sexy instead. After what Trevor had revealed to her in regards to what he knew of Diego, this cruel, violent Diego who’d been part of who he was, a side she’d fortunately never gotten to see, she was back to finding all his tattoos scary.
Her heart squeezed at the image of Diego that had materialized in her head. She had yet to fully accept who he had really been. She allowed herself to think about him a couple more seconds, then she pushed away the image and thought of Trevor’s tattoo again. The only thing she could think of that a shamrock with the letters AB signified was that Trevor had something to do with Ireland. Maybe he was Irish by descent? Even if his last name was Cook, which didn’t sound particularly Irish but instead English to her. Maybe his mother had been Irish? She nodded to herself. Yes, that was probably it.
As she stepped into the steaming shower, she thought about the fact that she had never seen Trevor without a long-sleeved shirt on. They had never gotten very far during the brief time they were dating. Was it possible that he had more tattoos on his body? She supposed that it was, even though she had a hard time picturing it. Well, she thought as she lathered up her body. She would start by asking him what the shamrock with the AB stood for when she saw him next. Surely, it had something to do with his heritage.
* * *
Chapter 28
As Wil entered the long prison yard and approached the group seated on benches in the far-right corner, a group she had been told by Gene was the Aryan Brotherhood, she could see heads turning in her direction and feel the prisoners’ watchful eyes on her. One after the other, the many men turned to look at her as she continued walking toward the ABs.
Despite all her years on the force and having dealt with lots of hardened criminals, it still made her more nervous than she liked to admit to herself walking amongst all these men. Most of them wouldn’t think twice about raping and killing her. As Larry had already pointed out, it wasn’t often they got a chance to lay eyes on a young woman, and she could feel the hunger for her in the way they were gawking at her. It was as though they were devouring her
with their eyes, and it made her skin crawl. But she knew she couldn’t let them see what effect they had on her; it would only make them stare more.
She was very glad that she wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup today, not even mascara, and that her short, blond hair was messy and kind of greasy. The shapeless overcoat and the baggy jeans and manly boots had also been a good choice for this occasion. The less attractive she could make herself, the better.
The catcalls and leering sounds came anyway of course. It was enough that she was a young female who looked even younger than she was, nearly jailbait. She ignored all of them completely, looking straight ahead at her goal.
After what felt like an eternity, she reached the three men who sat on the lower part of the wooden picnic table in a corner of the fenced-in prison yard. Four other men sat behind them on the tabletop. While they all had grim looks on their faces, the guy in the middle on the lower part—a man with a brown handlebar mustache and slicked-back hair—seemed somehow more approachable. About forty-five years old, he was lean and strong-looking with tattoos coming out of the orange prison jumpsuit he and most other inmates were wearing. In the outer corner beneath his left eye, a tiny swastika was tattooed.
He also seemed to be the one the other men looked up to, judging from the way they were all seated around him and throwing glances in his direction.
When Wil stopped before him, he smiled at her. She couldn’t help but note that he was rather handsome. “You coming here to see me, miss?” he asked in a smooth, slow voice, his blue eyes glittering flirtatiously. Unashamedly, he adjusted his privates as he held her gaze.
“Yes,” she said, deciding that she might as well play along. “I’m a friend of Mary Lou Dalton, who is the mother of Pete Dalton. She died a short while ago from natural causes and I need to get in touch with Pete. It’s very important. Mary Lou gave me a letter that I promised I would give to her son. I was told you know where I can find him.”
The man studied her for a long moment. Then he chuckled and spit on the ground, the saliva ending up right in front of Wil’s feet. “You’re a friend of Mary Lou’s, huh?” he said. There was a distinct edge to his voice. A razor sharp edge. “If you’re a friend of Mary Lou’s, you know where Pete Dalton is. She knows where he is.”
“Well, I’m not a close friend,” Wil said quickly, glad that her gun was in her hip holster. She wouldn’t hesitate to use it if she had to. “Maybe I should have said ‘acquaintance’ instead. I only knew her for a day when I came over to her house to drop off a package from the hardware store with items she had ordered. She looked a little pale when I rang the doorbell, so I asked her if she was okay. She clearly wasn’t, because she stumbled and fell on top of me. I got worried, so I helped her into the house. I wanted to stay with her for a while to be sure she really was okay. As we sat there, she asked me if I wanted to have some coffee and cake. I accepted her offer, and listened to her as she started to talk about her son. She needed him to get this letter here.”
Wil waved the fake letter in her hand to indicate what she was talking about. “Right as she was about to serve me coffee, she fell apart on the kitchen floor. She was having a second heart attack, I later found out. And this one was fatal unfortunately. I felt so bad for not getting her help right away that now I’ve taken it upon myself to find her son and give him this letter. Pete’s old teacher told me that my best bet to find Pete was if I spoke to people in the Aryan Brotherhood, since Pete is a member of the AB. So I came here and asked to talk to you.”
The man cracked his knuckles as he kept staring at her when she had finished talking. Finally, he said, “Wow, that’s quite some story. Too bad I know that it can’t be true.”
“It is true,” Wil protested, trying her best to look offended. “Why would I make up something like that?”
He gave a lopsided little smile. “I’m sure you have your reasons. Well, if you give me that letter, I’ll make sure that Pete Dalton will get it. Eventually.” He extended a wide hand toward her. His palm had a big, nasty scar on it. It looked like it might be from a bad burn.
She pretended like she didn’t notice his hand; she was not about to let him see that only blank papers were in the envelope. “So you do know Pete then?”
“Of course I know Pete Dalton. He was a great man.”
“Where can I find him?”
“In Heaven. Pete is dead and has been for the last several years and his mother was well aware of this. This is why I know you’re lying to me. You’re damn lucky there are lots of guards watching us right now, and that I’m up for parole in a few days, or I would have killed you with my bare hands myself. But first I would have raped you, and then let my friends here have a taste of you when I was done.”
Against her will, Wil felt a chill rushing over her skin. The seven men in front of her were undressing her with their eyes in a way that made her feel completely naked. They looked like starved animals, eager to throw themselves at her, tear her apart. She quickly reminded herself that she mustn’t show just how much they were getting to her. But even as she made her expression neutral, she couldn’t help but toss a glance in the direction of the watch tower immediately above them and was relieved when she spotted the guards there closely watching what was going on in the corner. She let out a quiet breath.
Thankfully, there was no point for Wil to keep up this charade any longer, so she turned around and left the men, heading back toward Gene. The big, silent guard was waiting for her like he had promised on the inside of the chain-link fence. More catcalls and leering eyes followed her as she picked up her pace. It took all she had not to start actually running. She couldn’t wait to get away from all these creeps, but she refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing this.
“Did you get what you wanted?” the burly prison guard asked as she got to him at last.
“No, I can’t say that I did,” she replied curtly.
He took her back down to the entrance area where the same black woman sat behind the front desk.
“Everything went okay?” she asked as they showed up.
“Yeah, but unfortunately the man I was looking for is dead,” Wil answered.
“Oh,” the other woman said. “Well, I doubt that he’ll be missed by many.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Wil replied. If only he hadn’t been their best lead in the case, she would have been pretty glad the world was rid of another lowlife racist gangbanger. But now what would they do?
* * *
Chapter 29
When the doorbell to Kate’s apartment rang at one twenty-seven in the afternoon, Luis shot to his feet and so did his sister. The boy yelled “Uncle Trevor is here!” and ran to the front door, Anna following him like a loyal little dog.
“Settle down, guys!” Kate called after them as she put on her second earring. “Remember what I told you before? You need to behave when Mommy’s gone or there won’t be any ice cream.”
But her words fell on deaf ears and the kids continued wildly running toward the hallway. Shaking her head, she walked after them. She hushed them at the same time as she put her hand on the doorknob. Only when they had calmed down a little, she turned it. As the door swung open, it revealed a smiling Trevor wearing a black jacket over a brown cashmere sweater and jeans. He was holding a grocery bag in one of his hands.
“Trevor!” Luis and Anna yelled out in unison and rushed up to the tall man, hugging his legs like two little tree huggers, refusing to let go. Kate opened her mouth to admonish them, but changed her mind at the last second.
“Hi, kids,” Trevor said and patted the two kids on their heads, ruffling Luis’s black locks. “What a nice welcome, you guys.”
He winked at Kate, who was standing in the doorway, watching the spectacle unfold.
“You look nice, Kate,” he said, taking her in from top to toe, then leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said and began prying the kids’ arms from the man
’s long legs. It took considerable effort, but eventually she managed to set him free. “Thank you so much for coming, Trevor. You don’t know how much this means to me. I was really in a bind.”
“You can make it up to me by having dinner with me soon again,” Trevor said and gazed at her warmly.
“I’d love to,” Kate replied and smiled brightly at the handsome, blond man. Her eyes went to the grocery bag still in his hand. “What did you bring?” She had a feeling she already knew the answer to her question.
He held up the white bag in the air. “Chocolate ice cream.”
“Yay!!” Luis yelled and clapped his hands excitedly, Anna automatically doing the same.
Kate couldn’t help but chuckle a little, then said in a mock reproachable tone, “You’ll spoil them rotten.”
“As I said, after what they’ve been through, they could use some spoiling,” he whispered at her, careful not to draw the kids’ attention.
She felt a pang of sorrow in her chest that she instantly wiped away; there was no time to be sad even for a second. She stepped aside so he could enter the apartment, then put on a coat and stuck her feet into a pair of nude pumps. Tossing a glance in the hallway mirror to check her hair and makeup, she grabbed her purse from the table under the mirror. Trevor had taken the kids by the hand and they were dragging him into the living room. She could hear Luis chattering away, and Anna’s pearly giggle.
“Remember what I said, Luis,” she called out after them. “You better behave now that Mommy’s gone. Don’t give Uncle Trevor a hard time.” She was a little worried that Luis would; the boy had extreme amounts of energy even for someone his age.
“Don’t worry, Kate,” Trevor called back. “We will be fine. Good luck on the interview. I hope you get the job.”
“Thank you,” Kate responded. “I do too.” It would be her sixth interview in the last seven days, and she really needed to get started working soon as she was running out of savings. This position, an executive assistant one with great benefits, looked very promising. They had been eager to see her, and she hadn’t wanted to let them down when they called to see if she could come in today. Thanks to Trevor, she hadn’t had to. “I’ll back as soon as I can. Probably in no more than two hours.”
