by Beth Rhodes
She rolled her eyes. “I work a good ten hours, usually more, on one piece. I have to pay for the materials. Those were the best deals any skater got three years ago. But now, with my name out there a little more, I do the same job, and I get eight times what I made on the first design.”
He didn’t seem surprised, and she guessed her background check revealed all sorts of stuff about her, her business, and her family.
“You said you knew Janice before?”
“We competed together, sometimes using the same rinks for practice. And we were friends.”
He nodded, smartly keeping his silence, as he rounded the truck and opened her door.
“Just because people don’t warm up to your over-protective vibe doesn’t mean they have evil intentions.”
“Maybe.”
Liz pulled her keys from her bag and led the way to the front door. The storefront stood silent, empty, quiet. Dead. A shiver ran through her. She knew, behind her, Tan was still scanning the area. She forced herself forward and keyed open the front door. Entering behind her, he closed the door, locked it, and latched the chain across the jamb. The jangle set nerves fluttering through her stomach. Would she ever feel completely safe here again?
“Look Liz.” Tan texted away on his phone and glanced up at her. “If we’re going out of town, I need to run over to my mom’s and get everyone settled. Let them know I’ll be gone. Check in.” He ran his fingers over his screen for another moment and then looked up, dropping his phone into his pocket at the same time.
She sighed. “Bobby this time?” she asked, knowing there would be someone.
“Craig.” But he looked torn about it. “You could come with me.”
“Let me stay here and pack up.” Her workroom stood as usual, almost as if it had never been destroyed. She touched her jaw; her face remembered the truth. “By the time you get back, I’ll be ready to go. We can get pizza for dinner. And then, with this trip to Washington DC, I’ll probably get some sewing done tonight before we leave.”
“Okay. I’d like to leave first thing in the morning.”
Liz dug under her table for a work bag. “I’m going to take the Expo pieces as well as Stephanie’s costume with me. There seems to be downtime at the most unexpected moments, and I can’t keep waiting for things to get better.” She glanced around. Fear couldn’t stop her this time if she wanted to succeed. “Maggie photographs for me, and if I can get these costumes done in the next week, I’ll take them over to her.”
Up to the top of the stairs, she tromped and then stopped. She looked around, the white cabinets, the cheap silver hardware of the handles. The table, with its splash of red was the only piece of her in this place. She thought of the dull gray sofa in the living room. And then she thought of how Tan’s place had hugged her. “I’m sorry kitchen,” she said.
The quiet settled her. The familiar scent washed over her. And even though the realization she was holding back struck her as sad, she did love it here. And she’d been holding back. Why?
Tan came up behind her. “You often talk to your apartment?”
“Nope.” She shrugged. “Never had the chance to miss it, I guess.”
Opening the fridge, she reached in for the container of iced tea and set it on the counter.
“I get that,” he said. “It’s nice to have a place to come home to, even if it is less than ideal. Even in the early days of my military career, when my mom was struggling and my brother was being a pain in everyone’s rear… It was home.” The light in his eyes sparked with unbelief, as if shocked he’d spoken so much.
“Wow. Three whole sentences about you and your life that has nothing to do with the job.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. Then obviously shaking off the uncomfortable feeling, he stood straight and gave her one of those direct, piercing gazes of his. The one that said, you can’t get to me.
And she grinned, because she was really starting to like his big, confident personality as a cover for something softer on the inside.
“Do you need help? Or are you going to stand here in the kitchen while your stuff packs itself?”
She chuckled at his attempt to cover up his sentimental side. “You go when Craig gets here. I’ll be ready when you get back.” She hurried down the hall, not wanting to break the easy-going atmosphere they’d maintained since leaving her dad’s. “Hey,” she turned back to him. “Before you go, in the closet off the living room is a big Rubbermaid bin. Would you pull it down? It’s—” she raised a hand over her head as if measuring, “it’s up high.”
“Sure.”
In her room, she packed a bag, including a few more items for the trip to DC.
Today had been weird. Starting with that god-awful nightmare…and finishing with the even odder, unexplainable tension between Tancredo and Janice.
She paused before leaving the room, found herself staring at the spartan existence she’d created here. As much as she thought she loved this place, she hadn’t truly transferred her passions into living. Flipping the switch, she plunged the room into darkness.
“I’m sorry bedroom,” she whispered.
***
“Would you tell Malcolm I need him to text me the current address for Gabriel?”
Josie slid her glasses down her nose and looked up at him. “Broke your hand?”
“Please? I have to drive over to my mother’s. I don’t want to text and drive, and once I get there, I’ll be knee deep in whatever family stuff is going down. Please, I’ll owe you,” he begged.
“Hm. You’ll owe me.” She nodded. “I’ll be thinking on that one.”
“Thank you,” he said as he hurried out the door. “Thank you!”
The tickets weren’t as early as he’d wanted them, so they’d be working against the clock once they got to DC.
Alone, he might have spent more time there, but he knew Liz had a client to see first thing on Monday, so one night was all they could afford.
Pulling up to his mom’s, he was glad to find the car in the driveway.
He knocked before opening the door and the noise of a vacuum filled the air. He stuck his head into the living room and found An cleaning. He waved to get her attention, and she shut the vacuum down. “Tancredo. Hi.”
“Hey, sis. How’s it going?”
“It’s going cleaning,” she answered with a grin.
“Is Mom here?”
She pointed toward the kitchen. “Been in the kitchen and the basement all day, moving stuff around, packing stuff, running stuff over to Goodwill.” An rolled her eyes. “She’s very busy making the world a better place today.”
“Looks like you both are then,” he said, pointing to the vacuum.
“Tan? Is that you?”
Tan followed the sound of his mom’s voice to the back of the house and found the door to the basement open. The hint of cleaning solution wafted up with her as she came through the doorway and shut it behind her.
“You’re cleaning?”
“It’s time, son.”
He lifted a brow, watched her shoulders go back and her chin lift.
“For what?”
“To clean up. To put the past behind us.”
He frowned, though, as a waft of bourbon cut through the bleach cleaner. He looked around and found the place in order. Which was unusual if she was drinking again. Or, at least, that’s how he remembered life with their good friend Bourbon.
But he remembered her the week before, tipsing down his stairs. He couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head. She was acting like she was turning a new leaf. But there was still an underlying uncertainty in Tan’s gut. He wanted to believe her, believe what he was seeing.
“I’m glad Mom. It’s especially good for Andrea to have some backup. She still thinks about what happened too much.”
She came over and patted his cheek. And there was the bourbon. “You’re a good boy, Tancredo.”
“I have to take a quick trip up nor
th tomorrow. I’ll only be gone for one night.” He leaned up against the clean counter. “And I’ll have my phone, if you need anything.”
“You leaving with her?”
“Her.” He kept his voice calm even as the edge to her question rubbed him the wrong way. “My client,” he confirmed.
“You like her,” she asked, studying him with an all-knowing motherly gaze that would catch him and his brother every time.
But he shook his head. “No. She’s a client.”
“This one is different for you. I can tell.” His mom opened the cabinet under the sink and rummaged through the cleaners until she found the Comet and stood back up. “She’s not like us.”
“Not many are, Mom.”
“Don’t be smart with me, boy.”
He bit his tongue. “Sorry. I mean that in the best way. We’re different—proud—”
“Hardworking.”
“Yes,” he agreed and then reached for her in a way he hadn’t in a long time. “What happened to Thomas was out of the ordinary. It’s not going to happen to me.” Because I’m not a delinquent, not doing drugs, and not fucking anyone who looks at me cross-eyed. Unfair jackassery. “Thomas was messed up. Remember? He’d made some bad friends and then made some bad decisions. He was half to blame for what happened.”
His mom sniffed but, for the first in a long time, didn’t argue, she only sighed. Then rested her head on his shoulder. “Even after all that time, though…and he could have done his time and gotten out.”
“He lost hope.” Which was the worst part of it all. He’d taken his own life while incarcerated. No one had been able to get to him. He kissed her temple. “I gotta go. Chin up, okay Mom? You know I’ll be fine. Just…don’t do anything crazy. It’s really great you’re choosing to fix things around here. We gotta keep moving forward.”
She squeezed his arm as he made off.
“See ya later, An!”
His sister waved as she pushed the vacuum but didn’t stop.
And he left with a smile on his face, relieved that things were getting better.
For so long, he’d cut himself off from people and life. He’d been unable to predict how his home life would affect anyone he befriended or dated. After all this time…
Did he actually have a chance to open his life to someone else?
To Liz?
~ 21 ~
When the woman saw Claire, she bit her lip and hesitated, her wheelbarrow rolling to a stop in front of her.
“Heavy,” she whispered, her heart pounding. She wanted more this time. She wanted to feel the satisfaction she’d had with the first. Taking care of rich girls who thought they could ruin a man’s life by accusing him of bad things. There had to be an end to all the wrongs.
She would be that end.
It was time for Claire to pay, no matter how fat she’d gotten. She walked the rest of the way down the street with her wheelbarrow, all the time watching the girl get out of the car.
Reaching the driveway, she slowed again. The sun had set, leaving the glow of early evening on the verge of faded. Even though all was quiet in the neighborhood, a buzz in the air made her want to look over her shoulder. A cold breeze touched the back of her neck, making her shiver.
The wheelbarrow took a bump in the sidewalk with a creak, and Claire straightened and peered into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
No hesitation.
The woman rounded the end of the car, picked up the tire iron, and slammed down on the woman’s head.
Claire groaned, stumbled and swung clumsily at her, clipping her in the shoulder.
She leaned back. She swung again, one solid thwak, and the woman fell into the wheelbarrow. Perfect. A laugh escaped. She couldn’t have planned better.
This was definitely better, and it was very important to improve. If she wanted to make a difference, she would have to rid the world of the lowest form of deceiver—tramps, whores.
“You might need to go on a diet,” she muttered as she wheeled Claire back to her special spot. “Good thing I’m strong. Always been strong. Had to be strong.”
The basement had a door, like that Wizard of Oz movie. She lifted one side and rested it against the metal railing at the top of the steps. Then she lined the wheelbarrow up with the opening and lifted the back legs from the ground. “Come on, now. In you go.”
Claire moaned, but the stairwell swallowed her sound as she tumbled to the bottom.
“There.” She closed it up and secured it with the two by four. She’d have to get another one of those, for just in case. Nail it across the top where a few of the boards were loose.
A job well done.
Tomorrow morning, the real work would begin.
***
His place was only deceptively small, and when he carried her bin through the living room and through a door opposite the kitchen, Liz laughed out loud. “I thought there was another bathroom through there.”
Tan grunted in reply, his entire demeanor somewhat closed off and…weird. He was being weird. Like he was thinking too much and she wondered what he was thinking about.
She took her stuff down the hall to the second bedroom and dropped her small duffel and the wheeled luggage for the trip inside the door. She didn’t bother unpacking and instead made her way to the kitchen where she poked around until she found the coffee and filters. Making a pot, she pulled a mug from the cabinet above and then went in search of sugar.
Tan came up behind her and reached over her head to the top shelf and grabbed the small paper bag of white sugar.
“What? No sugar bowl?” she teased.
“Sorry, Princess. You’ll have to make do.” But the way he said it, for the first time since they’d met, didn’t sound disdainful. And he set the bag in front of her on the counter and put a hand on her shoulder, too.
Her breath hitched, stopping in her throat. She looked up at him and he smiled down into her face. “You okay?” he asked. But he hadn’t moved away either, and she had a funny feeling something had happened to change what was going on between them.
“I’m fine. What’s going on with you?”
He hemmed…hummed. “I went to my mom’s.”
“Oh, how is she? How’s An? I really want to get her over here and show her my stuff. I know not all girls are into glitter and beads and sequins. She might actually hate it, I guess, but maybe she doesn’t…” Why was she babbling? “She probably likes sports and wouldn’t be caught dead in fuschia—”
“She’ll like it,” he interrupted. “She’s girly, too. Although she loves baseball, like crazy. Thomas played—” He stopped then started again. “My brother. He played in high school for a few years, and she was always his biggest fan.”
Liz tilted her head and studied him. He didn’t sound resentful or angsty, only matter-of-fact, but something in the way he said it made her think there was more there. “What made him so great?”
“He was just…a people person. Everyone loved him. He could make you believe anything and seduce you into thinking he never did anything wrong.” Tan pulled a mug down and set it in front of himself. “He smiled a lot.”
“What happened?” she asked, never having heard the full story. Obviously, his brother’s death played a huge part in his life. She understood how an event could mark a life. She had been young, but her mother’s death changed her forever.
His phone rang, and he almost ignored it but after a slight hesitation checked the screen before saying, “It’s actually a long story.” Then he held up his finger.
Back in isolation mode.
But she was learning to treasure the little bits of himself he handed to her.
Her heart, being so close to this line of investment, scared her. Not like someone out to get her scared her, but in a way, investing her heart and being as close to wanting something she hadn’t had since Gabriel… Shit.
His coffee pot beeped, and absently, she poured a mug for herself and set the glass carafe back on the hot
plate.
Tan had disappeared with the phone call.
She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Time to get something done.
“Trip’s off,” Tan said as he walked back in from the living room.
She stood up straight, her hands dropping to her side. “What?”
“Gabriel’s not in DC, hasn’t been for three weeks.”
“But—” Shock electrified her nerves, made her unable to even form a sentence without severe concentration. “What about his father? Where is he?”
“He’s here, has been since two days after Gabriel was released. Apparently, Gabriel tried to get a transfer, but after visiting his dad, decided to bring him down to Raleigh instead of wait for the paperwork to go through.”
“But the police would know. They would have had to report it to the parole officer.” She clutched her hands in front of her. “Doesn’t he have some kind of ankle bracelet tracker thingy? I mean, he isn’t out and about all on his own, is he?”
Tan reached around her and took the coffee pot from behind her back to pour himself a cup. He opened the paper sack of sugar and spooned some into his cup. “He has to check in with the parole officer, yes. But after the paperwork started, there’s some story that after he got back into town, he called his parole officer, checked in, but the paperwork never made it up the line.”
“Paperwork.” The shock was wearing and the disbelief was taking over. “He’s been free in Raleigh for three weeks because of paperwork? Do I need to mention the break in at the shop? The game? That woman who died? Jiminy Cricket. Who said?”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Who said he’s not up in DC where the police think he is?”
“Malcolm,” he answered. “He’s been tracking what the police are coming up with and then he decided—on a whim—to do a search for the father. And he found the inconsistency.”
“On a whim.” She spoke, knowing the disbelief rang loud and clear, but the fear was even worse, so if she could just play it cool. “Wow, we’re going on whims now?”
