The Fear In Her Eyes
By Grant McKenzie
OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR
Writing as Grant McKenzie
Port of Sorrow
K.A.R.M.A.
Switch
No Cry For Help
Speak The Dead
The Fear In Her Eyes
The Butcher’s Apron
Writing as m.c. grant
Angel With A Bullet
Devil With A Gun
Beauty With A Bomb
Find Grant McKenzie at: http://grantmckenzie.net
This is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The Fear In Her Eyes
Copyright © 2014 by Grant McKenzie
http://grantmckenzie.net
All rights reserved.
A Famous Book
Victoria, BC
First U.S. Edition by Polis Books NY
First Printing 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9920016-1-2
To Karen & Kailey
Who take the fear from my eyes
and replace it with love
1
The death threat wasn’t the worst part of Ian Quinn’s day.
Sitting on a wooden bench anchored to a slab of cement on the fringe of a public playground, Ian was grateful for the few faint rays that pierced a rolling blanket of swollen gray overhead. The cracks in the clouds appeared to be widening, offering promise of a brighter afternoon.
Not that it mattered to the children. For the most part, they were all giggles and smiles as they scampered over playground apparatus that Ian barely recognized from his own childhood. Today’s high-tech equipment made him wonder if he had grown up in a third world country—all sharp angles, lead-based paint, hard metals, and wood.
Now jungle gyms were made from composite plastic and high-tension nylon rope that resembled giant, organic spiderwebs; slides twisted into full spirals; and instead of climbing an old iron ladder to reach the top, slippery surfaces sprouted from the turrets of fairy tale castles or the portholes of abstract pirate ships. Even the swings had changed in just the last few years. Finger-pinching chain had been shrink-wrapped in protective plastic or replaced with some form of industrial bungee cord to make them bounce—as if swinging by itself wasn’t exciting enough.
Emily, always a daredevil, would have loved it.
“Push me, daddy. Higher, higher.” Her giggle had wings.
The only child who wasn’t smiling was Ian’s client. Thomas “Tommy” Douglas was a serious five-year-old with sorrowful, chestnut-brown eyes and a mop of hair so thick and curly he could make a Portuguese water dog jealous.
Tommy played in the dirt. Only it wasn’t dirt. The entire surface of the playground had been covered in rubber crumbs made from recycled tires to better absorb the inevitable stumbles of clumsy and rambunctious children.
The crumbs fascinated Tommy. He would search through them and lift individual scraps up to the light, turning each black gnarl until it formed a shape that pleased him. When one caught him by surprise—whether it formed the sinewy shape of a winged dragon or a three-legged circus elephant—he would show it to his father and await an appropriate response.
His father was patient, sitting beside his son in the rubber dirt with no thought to the creases or oily stains that might seep into the trousers of his buy-one-get-one suit. His thin, tooth-worn lips never failed to widen in genuine delight when his son held up his newest find.
“Tractor,” said Tommy, holding a misshapen rubber crumb aloft.
“John Deere by the look of it,” said his father. “Who’s driving?”
Tommy crunched up his face in concentration before answering. “A parrot. But it only has one wing.”
“Makes sense,” said his father. “Can’t fly if it only has one wing. Luckily it found a tractor to drive instead.”
The boy nodded in agreement with his father’s logic and returned to picking through the dirt in search of more treasure.
Ian kept his distance, noticing that the boy only occasionally glanced over to make sure he was still there, still watching.
The boy’s mother had really done a number on him. Her hatred for the father had leeched into the boy’s psyche, making him paranoid about being left alone. The father had to fight in court to be allowed visitation rights, and the mother had only relented if the Portland-based organization that Ian worked for, Children First, supervised the visits.
Ian felt sorry for the father. In all his time spent with the man, he had shown nothing but love and concern for his son. But even this morning, before picking the boy up at his mother’s home to bring him to the park for a weekly two-hour lunchtime visit, the mother’s lawyer had called to say she had information the father had booked a flight to visit relatives in Brazil, and she was concerned he might try to take the boy with him.
Ian hadn’t tried to tell the lawyer that he felt her fears were unfounded, that despite her client’s bitterness over the carnal betrayal of their marriage, her lousy husband was actually a good father. Ian knew his opinions didn’t matter and weren’t appreciated. His job was to be ever watchful and keep his client—the child—safe.
When Ian’s cell phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket without taking his eyes off Tommy. The corner of the boy’s mouth had twitched in the first subtle appearance of a smile when his father asked him if the blackened crumb in his hand was a rabbit in a clown suit or a shark wearing a top hat.
Lifting the phone to his ear, Ian assumed the caller was his boss, Linda McCabe. In the last year, few others ever called. Ian said, “The sun is threatening to break through. Could become a nice day.”
“You’re dead fuckin’ meat!” snarled a male voice.
“Excuse me?” Ian pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced at the caller ID. Unknown. “I think you have the wrong number.”
“Don’t be stupid, Quinn. You’re goin’ down. You’re fuckin’ dead, you hear?”
“Who is this?”
The man’s laugh was more snort than chuckle; his voice rough and throaty, as if he had been gargling nails. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
The line went dead.
Ian squeezed the phone, taking a moment to compose himself and shake off the electric jitter of shock. His hand trembled slightly as he relaxed his grip and slipped the phone back into his pocket. In his line of work, he understood that stress, frustration, and anger could make people believe he was the enemy rather than their own abusive track records.
So long as that rage wasn’t aimed at his clients, the children, he could handle it.
He knew he should report the threat to the police, just to be safe, but when he glanced over at the playground, Tommy was gone.
Ian shot to his feet, the blood draining from his face.
No, no, no! He couldn’t let this happen. He had only taken his eyes off the boy for a second. He glanced toward the nearby parking lot, trying to remember what type of car the father drove. A Lexus, maybe, or was it a Honda? Silver or gray?
He saw an older model Lexus in the front row, separated from the playground by a waist-high chain-link fence. The car’s metallic finish was dulled by city grime and dirty rain. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t be sure.
Ian spun back to the playground and stepped onto the soft crumbs of rubber just as a mop of curly black hair slid into view. Tommy popped out of a translucent plastic tube in the side of a pirate ship at the same time his father walked around the slide and applauded. Tommy wrinkled his nose as though he wasn’t sure if he enjoyed it or not, but then he held out his hands, indicating he wanted to try it a
gain. The father looked over at Ian and beamed with delight.
Ian nodded encouragement and retraced his steps to the bench. His knees buckled with relief when he finally sat down. His heart was hammering inside his chest, and his racing pulse made the large vein in the side of his neck twang like a stand-up bass.
Wiping a hand across his damp forehead, Ian concentrated on his breathing. Slowly, he brought his heartbeat back under control. The ache in his lungs subsided, and the panic that fluttered in his stomach was quelled to a manageable level.
All the time, he kept his eyes on Tommy, never straying, barely blinking.
The thought of losing a child was enough to crack his fragile heart into a thousand jagged pieces.
He wouldn’t let it happen.
Not ever again.
2
Ian tried to side-step the third-degree interrogation from Tommy’s mother when he dropped the boy back at home, but that was as easy as telling a dog not to shed.
At least the kid was bruise and scrape free, the knees of his trousers weren’t torn, and his hair was still a floppy mop of relatively untangled curls—not always an easy assignment with boys.
After delivering his usual monosyllabic answers to her multitude of questions, Ian was finally able to excuse himself. He left the quiet neighborhood of dull beige homes and drove downtown.
The offices of Children First were located in the Pearl District, less than a block from the ornamental gates of Portland’s Chinatown. The ramshackle building had once been home to the irreverent 24-Hour Church of Elvis, a claim to fame that still attracted the odd tourist. Surrounded by street missions and homeless shelters, it wasn’t the most upscale neighborhood, but it was walking distance to the 37-acre waterfront park, street market and Voodoo Doughnut, plus the reasonable rents helped.
Ian parked in a paved lot across the street from Children First, and locked his doors. Decorative red lampposts adorned each corner of the block, and Asian banners fluttered in the breeze as a subtle reminder that English wasn’t the first language of the neighborhood. The banners weren’t necessary, as the various store signs explained it best: wong kee seafood, chen’s good taste, and the hung far low building, to name a few.
Ian crossed the street at the corner and nodded to Elvis Jr., who stood under the crimson lamppost in his gold lamé cape, white jumpsuit, and metallic aviator sunglasses. He was serenading a sprinkling of German tourists with a sweet rendition of “Love Me Tender.” The older Elvis sang it better, but he only worked weekends.
As Ian reached for the door handle that led inside the white and gray stucco building, a rough hand grabbed his arm. Startled, Ian spun to face a grubby man with wild ginger-blond hair and an unkempt beard. The man’s nose and left cheek bore fresh scrapes that glistened moistly amidst the unwashed ash of his flesh. A stench wafted from him as though he had recently fallen into a tub of pickled eggs, stale beer, and vomit.
Ian recoiled and pulled his arm free of the man’s grasp. He knew many of the homeless men and women who shuffled around the neighborhood, and often bought a 50-cent poem off Irish Paul or stopped to chat with Theresa, a gentle First Nations woman who was trying to kick her addiction—but this man was a stranger.
“I got a paper for ya.” The man held up a folded newspaper that looked like it had been rescued from the trash.
“Not interested, thanks,” said Ian. He turned and reached for the door handle, but the man grabbed his arm again. This time, strong fingers and dirty, tooth-bitten nails dug into flesh, igniting pain. Ian’s first thoughts were of the women who worked in the building, and the beggar’s aggression made him angry.
“Ya gotta take it,” insisted the man.
Ian gnashed his teeth and unfurled his lips to show he wasn’t in the mood to be messed with. He yanked his arm free. “Not interested,” he hissed.
When the man took a step back, Ian yanked open the door and disappeared inside. As he climbed the stairs to the second floor, he glanced back and saw the disheveled man looking through the glass, cupping his hands to block the light so he could see the interior better.
His gaze flicked skyward to meet Ian’s. Despite his obvious hard life, his eyes were a surprisingly deep oceanic blue.
Ian suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t just bought the man’s used newspaper. Even if he was only going to spend the dollar on drugs or booze, who was Ian to tell another damaged human being where to find a moment of escape? How many times had he stood on that same precipice, desperate to jump?
The man stepped back from the door and vanished in the shadows of the street as Ian continued up the stairs to the second floor.
IAN ENTERED Children First to be greeted by the ever-present, ever so slightly buck-toothed smile of Jeannie McCabe, his boss’s oldest daughter.
Twenty-four and a proud redhead who loved to wear silk ribbons in her hair, Jeannie was the true heart of the operation. Not the brains, which was her mother’s domain, but definitely its warm chocolaty center. Whenever Ian was feeling troubled about a particularly difficult situation, especially when he felt a child was being put into a no-win situation, Jeannie was always there to offer her often naive but always positive spin.
Whereas Ian often fell into a glass-half-empty view of life, Jeannie always saw it as half full and rising.
“How did it go with Tommy today?” Jeannie asked, her voice alight with genuine interest.
“He’s getting better,” said Ian. “I think if his dad could get the judge to agree to longer visits, it would really help. Every week, the first half hour or so is awkward, but then Tommy starts to warm up and relax.”
“Did you tell the father that?”
Ian’s lips bent at the corners in a small, rare smile. “It might have slipped out.”
Jeannie wrinkled her nose into a pink prune as she tried, and failed, to suppress a piglike snort. “Good for you.”
“It would be good for Tommy,” Ian said. “That’s what matters. His father really loves him, but his mother’s poison is twenty-four seven. ‘Your daddy’s a bastard’ is a tough message to shake off every week.” Ian inclined his chin toward an office in the far corner. “She free?”
“Hold on.” Jeannie lifted the phone and hit a red button. “Ian wants to see you,” she said. “Are you decent?” Jeannie snorted again at her mother’s response and winked at Ian. “Go right in.”
LINDA McCABE looked every inch a successful businesswoman even though Children First barely made enough each year to cover the rent and the salaries of its staff. The demands of the service were such that Linda could easily run a full-time contingent of at least a dozen visitation supervisors, plus her loyal handful of on-call workers. As it was, however, she had to make do with less than half that number, plus a cadre of generous volunteers to help her lowest-income clients.
Despite the obstacles, Linda always dressed to impress, ready at a moment’s notice to entertain the mayor, senator, congressman, governor or any other elected official who could help her cut through the red tape and prove to the various local and state budget committees just how valuable Children First was.
Unfortunately, it took a lot of convincing to explain to those in office how difficult it was for someone making $9.10 an hour to pay for regular supervised visits with his or her children. With money being the biggest hurdle, a lot of times the noncustodial parent simply walked away, leaving their children to disappear into the foster system or to be stuck with only ever knowing one half of their biological roots. Sometimes the children were better off this way. A few of the parents were damaging to their children, but being poor was never the reason why.
Entering the boss’s office, Ian headed straight to the coffeepot that Linda kept on a warming plate beside her overflowing bookcase of bound government studies and sociology textbooks. Before filling his own cup, he held up the glass pot in offering, but Linda indicated she was already topped up.
Ian carried his cup to the desk and sank into a chair facing one of the few
people he considered a friend. Although Linda ran the company, they had started Children First together, with Ian taking a minority stake. This silent partnership allowed him to focus on what he did best, working with clients rather than balance sheets.
Behind the trim and stylish redhead, the wall was made entirely of two-by-one-foot leaded windows that, if they offered a view of anything remotely interesting, could have been spectacular. But at least the windows allowed natural light to flow in—when it wasn’t overcast or raining.
“How did it go this afternoon?” Linda asked after Ian was settled and had tasted his first sip of coffee.
“Good. Tommy seemed less paranoid. He allowed me to stay on the sidelines for most of the visit.”
Linda nodded. “The father’s lawyer called. He’s going to be petitioning the court for longer visits and requested a copy of your latest reports.”
“No problem.”
“The mother’s lawyer called, too.”
“Oh?”
“She wanted to make sure you were taking her worries about the father’s flight risk seriously.”
Ian flashed back to the park, to the moment when he briefly lost track of Tommy. He nodded. “I took it seriously.”
“Good. Anything else on your mind?”
Ian winced. “I received a death threat.”
Linda leaned forward, her face hardening. “From who?”
“Anonymous. Caller ID came up as unknown.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
Ian shook his head. “No.”
“Any ideas?”
“Not really,” Ian said. “I’ll go through my records, see if anyone jumps out.”
“Have you informed the police?”
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