No Unturned Stone

by David James Warren

  He stepped inside. Glanced at the dining room.

  “Painting.”

  “Good color choice.”

  “I knew you’d like it.”

  No comment there. She gestured to the sofa. “Want a beer?”

  His gaze went to her bottle, sitting on the table, then he shook his head. “Water.”

  Huh. She went to the kitchen.

  He followed her, and the sense of him in her space, this man who embodied both mystery and the eerie aura of home sneaked under her skin and stayed there.

  She didn’t hate it, or the way his presence made every cell in her body buzz.

  He was a handsome man, even in his untucked state.

  Oh, for Pete’s sake, calm down.

  She filled the glass with ice, then water and handed it to him. He drank it down and set it on the counter.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  He shook his head.

  Right. “Want something to eat?”

  “If I eat, I’ll just…no.” His gaze had gone to a picture on her counter and he seemed fixed on it.

  “That was taken a month ago, during my Dad’s annual birthday party.”

  “Yeah,” he said, like he knew about it. Maybe he did because the event was sort of legendary in the force. A big blowout every year on the lake.

  He’d been in the hospital during the party this year.

  Rembrandt turned away from the picture and looked out to the backyard. “Samson has started on your deck.”

  Last time he’d been here, Sams was working on the kitchen tile. “He pulled in Asher to help.”

  “How is he?”

  “Sams?”

  “Asher. Did he get into any trouble sneaking back into the house?”

  Ah, Rembrandt was referring to last month’s sneak and grab of Asher to do some hacking into a database of coffee distributors. “No,” she said and walked back into the dining room to grab her beer. “He seems to know the ropes. Has a ladder right outside his window, if that isn’t obvious. But my dad seems to have rules only for his daughter. Even if she is twenty-six and can fend for herself.”

  Right then, Mariah Carey came on the radio, singing Always Be My Baby, and Rembrandt looked at her, his expression almost stripped, and raw.

  “Are you all right?” She walked over to turn off the radio—

  “Leave it,” Rem said quietly, his voice a low rumble. He leaned against her door frame, his hands in his pockets. He wore a five o’clock grizzle on his chin, his hair roughed up. And despite his youth, his gaze held something deeper, an appreciation, maybe, in his deep blue eyes. It sent a dark simmer under her skin. “You have paint on your chin.”

  She touched her face.

  “I got it.” He came over and used his thumb to wipe it away. Then he cleaned it on his already stained shirt.

  “Rem—whose blood is that?”

  “It’s the brother of a drug lord named Hassan Abdilhali.”

  “What happened?” She touched his arm—oh, he had a nice bicep there.

  He took a breath and moved away from her, something terrible in his eyes.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Sorry.” He made a face, that hand behind his neck again. “I probably shouldn’t have come here. I just…I’ll go.”

  He headed toward the front door.

  She caught him at the door, shutting it on him. “I’m glad you came by. Sit down and tell me what happened.”

  She took his hand and urged him toward her stairs. Sat on them. Patted the space next to her.

  After a moment, he sank down to join her. Then he pressed his hands to his face and didn’t speak for a long moment.

  She hadn’t known him long, but she understood the non-verbal language of a man trying to process tragedy. Or worse, the bone-shaking terror of a near-miss.

  Something bad, very bad, had gone down.

  Her heartbeat filled the silence.

  Finally, “I thought I’d fixed it, Eve. I really thought…” Rembrandt sighed, looked at her, and she jolted at the wetness in his eyes. “I just…I don’t want to…” He swallowed again. “You have to believe that I really thought I could fix this. That I could keep your Dad safe—”

  “My dad?” She stilled. “What about my dad?”

  “He’s fine.” Rembrandt held up his hands. “He’s just fine. In fact...” He winced, then met her eyes again. “He saved my life.”

  Oh Rem. She longed to touch him, and then couldn’t stop herself from pressing her hand to his chest. “Tell me,” she said softly.

  He didn’t want to—she could tell by the way he closed his eyes, looked away, then back at her, so much torture in his gaze.

  But she didn’t remove her hand, and held herself back from letting him off the hook. Added, “Please.”

  His voice turned low. “We were on a stakeout. Your dad wired up an informant, and sent him in, looking for information on a gang leader—Abdilhali. Suddenly, everything went south. We heard a gunshot and I took after Abdilhali. Chased him through a warehouse, came out the other side and that’s when your dad showed up. He blew a hole through his brother, Faheem Abdilhali.”

  “Faheem had the drop on you?”

  “Yes. Your dad shot him center mass, a second before he would have taken me out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He swallowed. Nodded. “I’m just—”

  “Freaked out.”

  He blinked. “I—”

  She didn’t know why, but she had the sense that the unflappable Rembrandt Stone was unraveling before her eyes.

  She framed his face with her hands. Met those blue eyes. So many layers, but she focused on the place inside that was the cop, the guy who put himself out there for people, for justice. The guy who didn’t think about himself until it was too late. “You’re okay, Rem. You’re safe. Just breathe.”

  He stared at her.

  And then, he kissed her. A full on, no hesitation kiss, as if he was starving and she was the nourishment he needed. He clasped his hands on either side of her head, drinking her in, and shoot, the man was dangerously intoxicating, the taste of him, reckless and yes, intense.

  Oh, she liked intense way too much.

  She fisted her hand into his shirt and pulled him closer, his heart pounding against her touch. He smelled of the night, the slightest layer of sweat, and not a little coffee and yes, he maybe even scared her a little, but she didn’t hate it.

  Not at all. Something about this man ignited places inside her that she never knew existed. And this—this—was what no one knew about Rembrandt Stone. The man wore his heart on the outside of his body, intense, yes, but had the kind of passion that told her that when he was in, he was all in.

  Then, just like that, he pulled away, staring into her gaze, breathing hard. “Sorry. I just…I just…”

  “Shh. Calm down, Rembrandt. I don’t hear anyone shouting stop.”

  He raised an eyebrow then, his eyes widening. “Right.” He scooted away. “Maybe you should. You barely know me, Eve.”

  Funny, the way he said, it sounded like he knew her, however.

  “I know you’re a good man. A man who is committed to justice and that when I’m with you, I feel safe.”

  His jaw tightened and he looked away again. Ran his thumb under his eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay.” She touched his shoulder.

  “No, it’s not.” He turned back to her.

  Oh. Right. “I’ll bet my dad is foaming at the mouth.”

  “It’s not pretty. He thinks I screwed up his operation. That Hassan is going to pack up and move, and it’ll take months to find him again and set up another possible sting. But that’s not the worst—”

  “You need to back out of the party tomorrow night.” She got it, really. “You’re probably right.”

  His mouth opened. “No, I mean—yes, you’re dad is there, but—I need to be there.”

  “Rem, I think maybe we need to rethink that. I mean, I want
you to join us, but after tonight—”

  “I’m going to your party, Eve.”

  Really.

  He held up a hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He sighed. “I think your dad is in danger.”

  She frowned.

  “Hassan will retaliate. And, I think he’ll try to murder your father.”

  She froze. “Does he know my father is the one who killed his brother?”

  Rembrandt stilled, as if considering her words. Then, “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe Hassan didn’t see it. And no one else was around...”

  “Then he doesn’t know who pulled the trigger.”

  He looked at her and one side of his mouth tweaked up. “No, he doesn’t. You’re right.” He blew out a breath. “Huh.”

  He started for the door.

  “Rem!”

  He stopped, his hand on the knob, and turned at her voice.

  “You don’t have to protect me,” she said.

  The look he gave her undid her, reached right in and took a hold of her heart, pulling it from her body. “Yes, I do, Eve. Because if I lose you, I lose everything.”

  The way he said it was as if he’d felt that way for ages.

  And then he left.

  She sank down on the step, her heart thundering.

  The man simply didn’t play fair.

  15

  You can’t win against time. Booker is in my head as I stare at my ceiling of my one-bedroom, third floor apartment. The orange glow of the sunrise is barely glinting my windowsill and the wind teases the blinds, smacking them against the screen.

  I can smell rain.

  I was here three days ago, in my time, and then the place was fairly immaculate, given my bachelorhood status.

  When I arrived last night, the tiny vintage apartment looked like it had been hit by my college self, with a couple empty pizza boxes on the table and more than a few socks balled up and thrown at the television set, a stained white t-shirt hanging on a radiator.

  I spent a few minutes tidying up for the young man inside me who seems to be having a hard time getting back on his feet. Take out the trash, wash the dishes, throw the clothes into the wash.

  If I’m going to rewrite my life, I should do it in clean duds.

  Mostly I had to work out of my system the desperate urge to return to Eve’s house, to find myself again on the stairs, kissing the woman who still believes in me.

  I admit to losing a piece of myself, holding onto Eve as if she belonged to me—and enjoying way too much the fact she seemed to want me, too. She is young and compassionate and I’m a jerk because someday she’s going to sit on a picnic table and tell me it hurts her too much to love me.

  Yeah, that thought was in my head, too, as she kissed me. And maybe I dove in because I wanted to expunge that impulse from her thoughts.

  Then she said the thing that turned me cold. “He doesn’t know who pulled the trigger.”

  No. Hassan might not know it was Danny who shot his brother.

  He might even think it was me.

  It was that thought that drove me out of her house to my tiny apartment. It settled in a dark and jagged place in my brain. Itched at my attempts at sleep.

  What if I screw up, do something stupid here and die? Do I just vanish? Clearly if Art is right, and I’m overwriting time, then yes. Finito. I’m just a memory in Eve’s rear-view mirror.

  Ashley never exists.

  But that’s not why I can’t sleep. Well, not the only reason.

  I keep running the fight with Booker through my head. The real fight we had in my very real past three years ago before I quit the force.

  The night I watched Jimmy Williams get gunned down by a fifteen-year-old gang member in an ambush…twenty years from now.

  He was one year from retirement, left behind two teenage children, and seeing his wife at his funeral made me return to the station and turn in my badge.

  Yes, just like that. Ashely was four and I was shaken to the bone.

  Booker tried to talk me out of it in a heated, you’re-a-cop-for-life argument. How being a cop is more than a job. It’s a responsibility, a calling.

  That it was in my soul.

  Maybe. But I had a family, a life.

  Had being the key word for me, pounding in my brain as I tossed the night away.

  I had a life.

  And I came here knowing I would do anything to get them back.

  But again, not if I’m dead.

  The sound of the gunshot in the parking lot is also ricocheting in my head, along with the odor of blood on my hands, and the cold slick of horror that if Danny had listened to me, I would be dead.

  I break out in a cold sweat every time that thought passes over me.

  So, there’s a crowd of voices in my brain, and needless to say I don’t sleep well.

  When dawn breaks through the high transom windows in my bedroom, I get up and take this body out for a run around the lake.

  Might as well enjoy it while I can.

  The run airs out my brain too, and I’m not quite so edgy as I climb up the three flights and enter my newly cleaned apartment.

  Listen, I mutter to myself. No one died yesterday.

  And no one is going to die today.

  And as long as I save Danny and Asher, and manage not to get myself killed, everything will be just fine.

  My machine is blinking and I retrieve my messages as I strip off my shirt and stick my head in my fridge, searching for sustenance.

  Two cans of beer and a piece of moldy cheese sit forlornly in my fridge. I hadn’t realized that I had such serious issues with eating healthy.

  “Rembrandt, this is Mom.”

  Oh, boy. I throw out the beers and the cheese and close the fridge. I haven’t talked to Mom—well, maybe I have, but you know what I mean—since the police found my brother’s body a month ago. I left this time almost immediately after solving the cold case last time—and that realization hits me. Timing.

  What if I save Danny and Asher’s life and never find Gretta’s killer?

  “Aunt Joann and Uncle Bert have stopped by, and we’re all having brunch this morning,” my mother says from the machine.

  My mother’s sister and her husband. Nice, God-fearing folks from Brainerd. I have a couple fond memories of ice-fishing with Uncle Bert. I check the freezer and find a burrito. It’s icy around the edges, having had a long quiet life behind the ice trays.

  “We’re hoping you can stop by and join us. I haven’t seen you in weeks, not since the hospital…” She pauses, and I still.

  They must have come to the hospital to visit me after the stabbing. Or maybe…what if, despite all I did, she still had her stroke? I can’t remember now, my memory foggy and I close the freezer door in a rush of fear.

  “I hope you’re feeling better. I…we miss you.”

  The message ends and I stare at the machine.

  They miss me? This is new. After Mikey vanished, life simply halted while my parents searched, grieved, searched, grieved more…an endless cycle that I eventually stepped out of and watched.

  They never really noticed my absence.

  Not that I blamed them. No one actually pointed any fingers at me, at the fact that we were out biking together, me, the older brother, and Mikey, three years younger, struggling to catch up to me.

  Then he was gone, and you know the rest.

  Probably I need to check in with my family and see what damage I’ve done to them. See what I can do to fix it.

  You can’t win against time.

  Yeah, yeah I heard you.

  I shower and dress, pulling on a pair of clean jeans—thank you fresh laundry—my favorite band t-shirt, a relic I picked up while attending a Journey concert, slip on my Cons and I’m out the door.

  I’ve forgotten, really, the ebullient sense of youth, how it fills your pores and makes you believe you’re invincible. Maybe the young me is in here somewhere, because my panic from Eve’s words last night has d
issolved.

  Journey reminds me to keep the faith as I crank Don’t Stop Believin’ and I take Highway 7 out to Waconia, a small town about thirty minutes from the city. My parents live on a small hobby farm, with a barn my father uses for his vintage car repair. My 1988 Porsche sits under a tarp, waiting for a rebuilt carburetor and a number of other problems, and I suddenly miss it.

  Truth is, I kept the car at the farm as an excuse to see my parents. I would come out to work on the car mostly when Eve and I were in our off-again moments and it became a time when my father and I talked about everything that didn’t matter, but of course it seriously mattered.

  Because at least we were talking.

  Now, as I pull up to the yellow, two story house with black shutters, the grass is mowed, the front garden has been weeded, the rose bushes cut back and red geraniums spill out of planters on the wide porch.

  The place looks downright cheery.

  I pull in next to a dirty caravan with a Brainerd International Raceway sticker on the back window.

  By the time I climb out, my mother has emerged onto the porch.

  The sight of her causes me to brace my hand against the roof of the Camaro. Mom?

  She’s wearing a pair of jeans, a sleeveless shirt and flip flops. She’s lost weight. Put on makeup. Her dark red hair is down around her face and she’s sporting a tan.

  My mother hasn’t worn makeup since she attended my high school graduation.

  More importantly, she’s smiling. “Rembrandt!” She holds open her arms and I resist the urge to look around, maybe to spot another version of myself who she’s excited to see.

  She comes off the porch and her arms circle my neck before I know what to do. “You got my message!”

  She feels strong and bright and radiating an energy that stirs up Booker’s words. This…gift…is to help give people closure. To let them live in peace.

  Peace. Maybe that’s what it is. A release of the lethal, dark grip of living in limbo.

  I hug her back and she gives me a kiss and yes, maybe Booker is right. This might be enough.

  Might.

  “Your uncle and aunt are inside, but your father is in the barn. I think he’s working on your car.” She pats my cheek. “Go say hi.”