::FORTY THREE::
The soft knock at the back door sounds strange and at first I thought I had to be dreaming. I woke immediately when I heard the door open. It only sounds strange because I’m listening to it from outside. It’s Alvarez, being quiet, but he’s still making sure he makes enough noise to let me know he’s there. My hand soothes over Jeanette’s arm, coming to rest against her hand and tracing over her ring, she hasn’t woken yet; she loves to sleep and I love to watch her. “I put the coffee on; I’ll give you a few minutes to get up.” He’s crouched down by my side, whispering quietly so he won’t wake up ‘Nette.
“Thanks, Alvarez.” We had both slept in, which isn’t too surprising when you think about it; we had slept in every day for a week. Lying curled up behind her, my hand still over hers; it was hard to believe we would have to separate today. How could we just go back to work after everything that had happened? How could I leave her, even for a few hours? I woke her up gently, making sure she stayed covered up. Her hand tangled in mine the moment she stirred. It was strange not to hear the warm metallic click of our rings, a sound I almost miss. I kissed her hand, still warm from where it was nestled at her breasts, before whispering in her ear that Alvarez was here, but not to worry, he was making us coffee.
“We have to go to work, don’t we.” She wasn’t willing to get up just yet, and both of us put off the inevitable for a moment longer. It wasn’t a question she asked, she’s just as reluctant as I am to go back to a ‘normal’ life after our vacation; when we could spend every waking moment with each other.
I hold the blanket for her so she can get dressed and we both end up laughing a little at how silly it must look from outside the tent we’ve made. I don’t worry about getting dressed but just wrap up in the blanket and follow Jeanette into the house. “I’ll be out in…” Jeanette looks over to see how long she’s got before the coffee stops brewing. “…Five minutes.” Alvarez and I look at each other, neither one of us really believing that a woman would only take five minutes to get ready. It’s not lost on Jeanette who smirks as she walks into the bathroom. “Really, five minutes.”
I get dressed and grab everything from the back porch with Alvarez holding the back door for me as I bring everything in, leering at me. “Crazy kids.” I’m actually starting to blush as he says it and laughing it off doesn’t help. Sleeping on the back porch is pretty much kids stuff.
Just under five minutes and Jeanette is out of the bathroom, shaking her head at our mock display of amazement at how fast she was. Time seems to drag as we finish up our coffee and get in the car to drop Jeanette off at work first. It feels like forever and it’s not even eight o’clock yet, how I’m going to get through this day I don’t know.
“I don’t want to leave, ‘Nette.” My fingers played with a strand of still damp hair that had fallen out of the simple ponytail she had her hair in. We kissed on the stairs before the door to the bookshop and I tried to ignore the fact that I would have to leave her for the day.
Her hand covers my heart, her palm caressing before coming to rest. My heart racing at the thought that I have to go. We kiss again, gently this time, both resigned to parting, at least for the moment. “If I know Dan, he won’t keep me long today…” We talked for a few minutes about when we would both get off work before dealing with the inevitable. We’re stalling. “I may even be home before you, Sean.”
Grinning like a fool, I pull her tight to me, the thought of coming home to her already there, curled up reading or something making me feel giddy. “I’d like that. You’ll call me to pick you up if you have to stay later?” It’s still hard to walk back to the car without her but we have to start somewhere. She’ll be at home waiting for me. If Alvarez is talking, I don’t hear a word; I’m too busy watching her as the car pulls into the traffic again, the sunlight catching her ring as she waves to me.
“Sorry, Vetter.” He had a look on his face like he was about to say something, but just shook his head and grinned over at me. “I was going to ride your ass about that, but I just can’t, not today.” Alvarez; ever the romantic. I can see him giving me a lot of leeway.
The news of my engagement is already out by the time we reach the office, with secretaries dropping whatever they were doing at the moment to ask me about it. Alvarez grins at me when I show them the picture of Jeanette and I that we had taken in Seattle at the Space Needle. Somehow, showing her picture and letting other people know that I’m engaged to be married feels like a bigger thing than it would appear. I freeze up again when someone asks me if I’ve set a date but Alvarez intervenes, sending everyone back to whatever they were doing, laughing as he does it. “Damn, Vetter. You know people used to avoid this desk because you looked so serious all the time. Now we’ll never get rid of them.”
“I thought it was your shirts that kept everyone away?” He’s wearing the bright green shirt with pineapples again. His mouth gapes and he clutches his heart in a show of offense and hurt just as Douglas rounds the corner, letting the last of the secretaries past him.
I had met Jack Douglas in passing, when I was first assigned to the office, but had never really been introduced to the man. He has his hand out now as he crosses the distance between us. Strong handshake; there is a lot of ‘Holloway’ about him. Hard and old school, which is in contrast to his face. He can’t be much older than Alvarez and I, or at least he doesn’t look it. His pale eyes and boyish face make him look younger still; there’s an air of JFK about him. You could underestimate him easily until you were up close, shaking his hand. “I hear congratulations are in order, Mr. Vetter.” His voice is clipped and serious with an eastern seaboard accent. When this man was younger I can easily see how Brubaker would have thought he could play him, he looked like he just stepped out of college. His other hand covers mine briefly, a gesture more intimate than a mere handshake. It’s a matter of record what happened to Stacy, and Douglas doesn’t seem like a man that would be surprised or unaware of anything. There’s direct eye contact when he shakes my hand one last time and wishes me and my fiancée the best. I couldn’t help it; I grinned when he said fiancée.
“I’m glad I wore my fresh shorts today, Vetter. I think we just got checked out.” Douglas is already gone when Alvarez turns back to me.
“Is it something we should be worried about?” It’s odd, but there’s a part of me that instinctively liked Douglas. We divide up the stack of paperwork and Alvarez takes another look to make sure we’re alone.
“I don’t think so, Vetter. There’s something else going on here.” He takes one more look at the door, before stashing his files in his desk. He doesn’t say where we’re going, and I don’t ask. We’re leaving to see something he wants me to see or to hear something he doesn’t want anyone else to hear, so I’ll have to wait until we’re gone before he says a word.
We pick up coffee, and drive to a spot on the other side of the University. I try to not think of Jeanette, at work in the bookshop; just on the other side of the campus, but it doesn’t work so well. I turn in my seat to face Alvarez, watching the University entrance. “Douglas has been under a lot of pressure to pull Torres off this case, and he hasn’t done it; I don’t think he will either. You remember what we had talked about once, when all of this first got started?” His voice is quieter than before and now we’re both watching out the window, as if merely to say the words out loud was to call down some doom.
“Internal affairs.” O.P.R. The Office of Professional Responsibility. Having seen dirty agents up close, it’s still a hard thing to say internal affairs and not feel a flicker of disgust and dread. We’re not like everyday citizens, and the OPR can set us up any way it can. Good careers have occasionally been destroyed, and there’s no way to fix them. There’s no way to know an agent wasn’t dirty. Once accused, there’s no way to take it back that will be believed..
“I think Douglas took this to internal affairs, Vetter, but I think he fought to keep Torres, or he wouldn’t help with the investigation. This has gone upstairs already.” Internal affairs could go after Brubaker, even if he was retired. They could chase him to the grave if they wanted to. And we weren’t exactly talking about a rookie agent with a coke habit. This was a senior agent that had his own men killed so that he could steal $270 million in drugs and money. To say nothing of everything else that followed.
“Is Torres internal affairs? Or is Douglas just making sure he keeps the case because he’s Douglas’s rookie?” Another thing about internal affairs, you never know who they are. Is Torres being groomed? Or is he an internal affairs agent in his own right? Is Douglas? I don’t want to think so, not after having met the man. I don’t know if I could look at him the same.
“Torres? I don’t think so, and I did some checking. I think he’s working with internal affairs though, and Douglas is keeping a rein on Torres, but I think it’s for the right reasons; he’s looking out for his rookie. There’s something though, I just can’t figure it out.” Alvarez laughs, but it’s a short cruel laugh, as he continues. “There’s something else I wanted to tell you.” Even out here, far from the office, he does a quick check of the area to make sure we can’t be overheard. “Torres had some trouble with a couple of Brubaker’s guys late last night when Torres was casing the house.”
“Not Rodriguez and Castile….” Brubakers’ two CIA assassins were still in the mix, and the idea of Torres coming across them is cause for concern.
“No, just a few small time soldiers. I don’t know how loyal Rodriguez and Castile are to Brubaker anymore. I don’t really know all of what happened; I just had a really short conversation with Holloway before I came to pick you up this morning. Everything’s heating up real fast, Vetter.” Alvarez takes another sip of his coffee, and turns back to look at me. “Douglas went in personally, in the middle of the night, to get him out.” A senior agent putting himself on the line like that when he could have just called in someone else? His voice goes quiet when he says it, the respect in it clear.
It’s hard to picture Douglas doing that, or it would be if I hadn’t spoken to the man earlier. I don’t know if he went in alone to pull Torres out or not, or if he went in with a team and bright lights and all the firepower he could muster. Having met him, I have the feeling he went in alone, and there would have been more of a buzz at the office if he had gone in under DEA protection. He did go in alone. In the dead of night to get another agent out against who knows what. Alvarez and I don’t need to say it. If Douglas needs our help, he’ll get it, fully.
“So the DEA might really be serious about taking Brubaker out.” We’re both watching the front doors of the University again. There seems to be a lot more students leaving and they’re all walking out towards the road.
“Yeah, Vetter, I think they are. Not only after Brubaker but his whole network, or whatever’s left of it. Only time will tell how far that goes, but I think Vega’s pressing is showing that Brubaker doesn’t have the pull he once did. If he ever really did.” We both open our doors and get out at the same time as students start to run from the building to stand in greater numbers at the side of the road.
My heart jumps in my chest and logical or not the first thought I have is Jeanette, on the other side of the University in the bookstore. Alvarez is closest and asks a student what’s going on. “There’s a fire, that’s all we were told.” Another student, hearing the conversation added, “I heard it was in the journal…”
It’s all she got out before Alvarez cut her off and stood in the relative quiet at the side of the car, with one finger stuck in his ear, on his cellphone. He mouthed the name ‘Holloway’ at me, as I was calling Jeanette. I won’t be able to rest easily until I know that she’s all right. “Sean?” It takes me a moment to catch my breath so my voice won’t break. She’s fine. I’m probably worrying her more by calling her in a panic than anything else.
“I’m…” Deep breath, she’s fine. “There’s a fire in the University, I had to call to make sure you were all right.” I sit against the side of the car as the strength goes out of me all at once. She’s fine.
“Are you okay, Sean?” There’s concern in her voice too; all I did was worry her. I can hear Dan in the background, asking if everything’s okay. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose; I should have waited a few minutes, until I was alright, before I called her. Who am I kidding; I wouldn’t be all right until I heard her voice.
“I’m okay now, ‘Nette. I just needed to know you were okay.” I can almost feel her smile over the phone, and I can hear it in her voice when we say I love you before hanging up.
Alvarez is getting back into the car, after taking a quick look at me. A quick nod is enough to let him know that Jeanette is fine, and then he tells me about his own phone call. “We’re going to meet up with Holloway and Torres, and the reporter. I still don’t have a name for him, Vetter, and you know I’ve been looking.” I try to hide my smirk from him, turning to look out the window. It really gets to him when there’s something he wants to know and he can’t find out what it is. I remember him interrogating me just to get Jeanette’s name, before our first date. The man’s relentless. When there’s something he can’t find out, it really gets under his skin. “Don’t think I don’t see you grinning over there, Vetter. Torres and Holloway haven’t left him since he started publishing that series of articles. That’s probably a good thing, considering someone got close enough to fire up his office.”
We’re pulling up in front of a dilapidated diner in a low rent side of town. Holloway and Torres nod their heads almost imperceptibly in our direction and we join them. They’ve deliberately chosen a table on the patio nearest their car and I know without looking that their car is unlocked, ready to leave in a second, and that both of them are armed. We both nod back as we sit down, Alvarez mutters “Holloway. Torres.” under his breath. I notice that he casts a look at the ‘reporter’, perhaps hoping that his name would be divulged. The reporter isn’t talking, and although I know Alvarez is irritated, his small nod and smile as he turns to face Holloway and Torres shows a begrudging respect as well.
The clipped sharp voice of Holloway cuts through the air, as he opens his pack of cigarettes and takes one out with his lips, and lights it. He doesn’t bother with the modern day niceties of asking if anyone minded if he smoked. I don’t think he would have cared about it, and would have questioned the masculinity of anyone that asked. “So the office is burned. What next.” Anyone else would think the man was simply stating the obvious, but it had to be remembered that Holloway wasn’t always just a cop. I don’t know exactly what he was before this, but I’m guessing some sort of intelligence capacity. The office was burned all right; he wasn’t talking about the fire, he was talking about the office’s use as a place to do business. Everything of use there was gone.
The reporter is agitated, his anger apparent as his palm slams on the table. All his notes were in the office, all the evidence. Alvarez and I shoot a quick look at each other, before we both look to Holloway. We both know that we still have evidence, enough to finish Brubaker, sitting in a safe deposit box, where we have been putting stuff this entire time. Just in case, we said. All three of us also have had dealings with Vega’s man, the man who was to meet with Frank Anderson and who took the mans notes. Notes that he had received from Brubakers son that implicated his father in the 1993 theft and more.
Torres tells the reporter that the notes aren’t going to be a problem, so I’m guessing Holloway has filled him in on that as well. Everyone here seems to be pretty much on the same page. Alvarez gets up as his phone rings, his hand leaning on my shoulder as he gets out of his seat. His words are frozen mid-sentence and his fingers dig nearly painfully into my shoulder. “Is anyone hurt?” Everyone at the table turns to watch Alvarez, as if we believed that if we were quiet enough we could hear the conversation on the other side. His hand relaxes on my shoulder, just as I tense up. Hurt. Who’s hurt? Where? My hands are in fists as I try to control the terrible urge to call Jeanette. I can’t do this every time something happens.
Alvarez listens for another moment, before relating in what can only be described as point form what had happened at the university to the person on the other side of the phone. Torres is out of his seat before Alvarez has even hung up. “Douglas?” Holloway has a hold of Torres before he can overturn the table and draw more attention to us. Alvarez had already told me about Douglas going in to pull Torres out of a situation with Brubakers’ soldiers, so understanding his concern isn’t hard.
Alvarez doesn’t sit down but leans on my shoulder to speak quietly to everyone at the table. “Someone torched a file room in the DEA office.” He squeezes my shoulder when I reacted. I don’t need to ask Alvarez to clarify; the torched files were in the room we had been in once before. Torres is asking about Douglas, even as he flips open his phone to call the man. Alvarez waits until Torres hangs up again and everyone is sitting down before he starts to speak. I’ve never heard the man’s voice so hard. He had joked around about being a bad ass motherfucker, to use his words. Listening to him, there’s no doubt that that’s true. “Brubaker could have gotten anyone to fire up the university room; we’ll likely never find that out.”
“That’s right, there aren’t even any cameras there, the room isn’t even locked…” The reporter adds this quietly, but it isn’t the arson at the university that interests us so much anymore.
Alvarez waits for the reporter to finish before he continues. “The torching of the DEA file room is another matter altogether. Brubaker still has someone on the inside. Douglas called from his car; he’s on the way down to meet with us.” Alvarez and I, Holloway, Torres and the still unnamed reporter. And now Douglas. When this was just Alvarez and I it scared me a lot less, but now the case that was never our case is snowballing out of control. The only official person here at all is Torres.
Douglas pulls his car up through the back alley beside us and we wouldn’t have heard him at all if he hadn’t wanted to be heard. The man walks to the table with a purpose but doesn’t sit down, instead choosing a spot at the end of the table where he can still see the street, watch all of us, and get back to his car if anything goes wrong. Douglas gives the reporter a hard look; he’s the only one at the table who isn’t an agent of some sort. Even if Holloway and Douglas didn’t know each other, there’s no doubt they would recognize enough in each other. Holloway stays. Torres speaks up for the reporter. “He already knows everything we know, from the contents of Brubakers’ safe.” He made a point of adding where the reporter learned it. I don’t believe Douglas would otherwise appreciate someone he thought of as a civilian having knowledge about his case. Like Holloway there is something distinctly military about the man.
He gives a brief nod to Alvarez and I, as if it doesn’t surprise him in the least that he would find us at the bottom of this, despite the fact that we have no ties to the case. He did call Alvarez after all. In what can only be described as a debriefing, he quickly runs down what had happened at the DEA office, ending with, “Brukaker clearly has someone else in the office. Only that one particular file room was targeted.” At this he looks at Alvarez and I again, a hard look. “We’ve been watching that file room for some time, suspecting that Brubaker had someone in the office passing him information.”
Who’s ‘we’, and he’s been watching that file room? Alvarez and I shoot a look at each other, concerned, but Douglas just continues. “We’ve had a hidden camera in that room for a while now. I was concerned when footage showed Mr. Alvarez and Mr. Vetter going directly to that file room, but it struck me as curious that neither of you sought to destroy the file in question, or remove it, only photographing it. It was at that point I began to investigate you, believing that one or both of you could possibly be tied to Brubaker.” Alvarez and I both made moves to get up, the both of us angry at being accused of being tied to the dirty agent. We both sit down again as he raises his hands to placate us both, a silent command to sit down. “Quite clearly, neither one of you had any ties to Brubaker; to the contrary, you both appeared to have taken on this case unofficially. Something I never would have been aware of if not for your photographing of that file. I take it it’s in safe keeping somewhere?” There is an air of humour and begrudging respect in his voice. Like Alvarez, I doubt much gets past Douglas. That we were able to avoid him this long clearly made an impression on the man. It was probably at that point that he did a more in depth study of our personnel files. He knew exactly what congratulating me on my engagement meant to me, and he made a point of doing it personally. I find I like him even more now.
Neither one of us needs to say anything about the question he’s just asked. Douglas already knows we would have secured the photographs somewhere. He may not know where, it’s enough that we did it. He waits until he has our attention again before returning to his debriefing. “The piece of paper was not important.” He gives the both of us a moment. What he’s said is a little startling. A piece of evidence tying Brubaker to the theft of planes for drug running isn’t important? We make a point of not asking questions, and wait for him to finish. Torres hasn’t moved during all of this, and, as Douglas’s rookie, I’m guessing he may know much of this already. Holloway I believe is accustomed to such debriefings, and stays quiet, knowing that all the answers he’s going to be given will be given and nothing more, so it’s best to listen. The reporter has clearly been told in advance that note taking will not be allowed and so he sits silently. “The piece of paper, where I am named as Brubaker’s rookie, in the theft of airplanes which were later used for drug smuggling, could not be used against me because I had made a point of not being Brubaker’s fall guy. The piece of paper was bait, because someone in that office worked for Brubaker. Someone that would want to dig out that very piece of evidence to use against me, so that I would pull Torres off the case. This case went farther than just getting Brubaker, we wanted his whole network of bad DEA agents and that person would show themselves eventually. I went to OPR with what I knew, and we’ve been working the case ever since.”
Douglas didn’t just take the case to internal affairs. Douglas IS internal affairs. Both Alvarez and I are shocked, even Alvarez, who sees plans within plans, had never mentioned that he thought Douglas was with OPR. Torres doesn’t look surprised, and his small head shake when we look at him is enough to convey that he isn’t internal affairs. Holloway remains stoic. As Alvarez has told it the man has had his own troubles with internal affairs.
Douglas gives everyone a moment, his face hardening. There’s no way he doesn’t know what agents think of the OPR. “Brubaker is dirty in the worst way. He’s not an agent that lifted a bag of coke or left a zero off of a report showing how much money he bagged. Those were good agents who died down in Colombia. I was a good agent, and I wasn’t going to take the fall for Brubaker.” He can’t hide the edge of bitterness that creeps into his voice. Sure, you have to choose to go into OPR, but what sort of a choice did he really have? Brubaker could have held that piece of paper over him for the rest of his career, and the longer he stayed quiet about it, the worse it would get. So he chose to go into internal affairs, to be hated by his own men, in order to rid the DEA of a dirty agent. It’s hard to throw out so much prejudice, but I’m willing to try.
“This morning at around nine thirty a secretary entered that file room with a stack of files. We wouldn’t have given it a second thought but the room was engulfed in flame exactly four minutes after she left, and, when we apprehended her, there were traces of accelerant in the file folder that she had brought into the room with her.”
Secretary.
I can hear someone say my name but it’s fuzzy, like listening to a voice from the bottom of a pool. “I showed Jeanette’s picture to a bunch of secretaries this morning, Alvarez.” For me, Alvarez is the only one there, the only one that can possibly understand how I feel right now. “If they’ve linked me to the case….”
“Someone’s watching her Vetter; he’s been keeping an eye on her this entire time.” Alvarez pulls out his cellphone, not bothering to turn away from everyone else at the table. Nothing’s secret anymore. “Obrador. There’s been a development here.” Alvarez quickly runs down what’s happened before getting to why he’s called. “I need you to pick up Jeanette McLean…..No, it’s best if she’s with Vetter, can you drop her off?”
All of us are looking at Alvarez as he hangs up his cell phone. My knuckles are white, my hands in fists at my side as I try to keep control of my temper. It won’t help Jeanette. “Who’s Obrador.” It could barely be called a question, as I struggled to control my voice as well, so that I wouldn’t scream.
Alvarez has a grip of my arm, as he answers, his voice calm, as though he’s trying to soothe an enraged animal. I suppose right now that is pretty close to the truth. “Luis Obrador. Vega’s man. He’s been watching her ever since the shooting of Frank Anderson. I had my own man on it, but Vega had insisted that nothing happen to her, and had Obrador keep an eye on her as well.” The other agents, and Holloway, lean forward at the sound of Vega’s name. He’s not exactly unknown. Holloway had been investigating his own case that wasn’t a case, so he already knew of the shooting of Frank Anderson, so he runs quickly through the case for Torres, Douglas, and lastly, the reporter, about what had happened. “Nothing will happen to Jeanette, Vetter. I give you my word.” My anger collapses; it wasn’t directed at Alvarez anyway, I was just angry and afraid for her. My hand shakes as I take a drink of my now cold coffee.
I ask for a minute so that I can call Jeanette and let her know that someone named Obrador will be picking her up and bringing her here. The sound of fear in her voice wrenches at my heart. It kills me to make her afraid. Dan sounds concerned in the background, and I give her the okay to let him know what’s happening; I’ve put him at risk too. “I’m not afraid, Sean. Do you hear me? I’m not afraid.” She still sounds afraid, but I know how brave she is too. It doesn’t change that I hate that she’s been dragged into this. I hang up the cell phone after telling her that I love her. I’ve never really been one for prayer. Sure I know how, and I was raised as a Catholic but I never gave too much credence to prayer, aside from it making the people I was praying with feel better. My eyes stay closed and I grip the cellphone in my hand, clinging to the sound of her voice, and I pray for her. Please protect my ‘Nette.
Douglas faces Alvarez to ask him if there’s anything he can do; everyone is giving me a bit of space, to give me a chance to pull myself together. Everything has the feel of a deep breath about it, as though we’re all waiting for the next thing to happen. We make our way back to our cars, with Alvarez holding my arm the entire way, as though he isn’t sure if he has to hold me up or keep me from killing someone. Douglas falls back, letting Torres get into the passenger side. He stops just in front of me, and his voice carries more authority than I have heard to date when he begins. “Nothing will happen to your fiancée, Mr Vetter. Nothing.” He takes another moment before continuing, his voice quieter. “You both had Holloway cross paths with Torres, and I don’t believe it was solely to feed him the information you wanted him to have. I believe that you both did so to protect him. That won’t be forgotten. Anything, any action, I will go to any lengths to see to it that no harm comes to your fiancée, Mr Vetter. I too give you my word.” With that he turns on his heel and gets into his car.
Holloway and the reporter have already pulled out, so it’s harder to flag them down when the next call comes in, but they stop all the same. Douglas and Torres, right behind us in their car, get out when Alvarez stops. Everything stops, while Alvarez talks on his cell phone, his hand held up to silence us so we don’t all start talking at once. He listens in absolute silence for a few moments before his phone clicks closed, a sound we can hear clearly, as we wait on his next word.
“That was Obrador.” I can feel myself going pale, a cold clammy feeling that has me shiver despite the heat of a mid August afternoon. Douglas is out of the car and reaches me first, with Alvarez a step behind him. On any other day I’d feel ridiculous, having two men rushing to keep me from what? Fainting? Alvarez’s face is hard and ruthless; I’ve never seen him like that before. “She’s all right, Vetter.” There is absolutely no doubt in his voice. In my head I see Obrador; I hadn’t known the man’s name before, standing by Jeanette, calling for help when Anderson was shot. Vega had sworn that she wouldn’t be hurt, and I have to trust him. I have to. “Obrador and another of Vega’s soldiers were keeping an eye on the Allerton woman when the call came in. Obrador left to pick up Jeanette, and I guess Allerton saw her chance. The soldier never saw it coming; Allerton knocked him cold with a desk lamp and took his gun.” No wonder he never saw it coming. Mrs. Allerton was the last person someone would expect to be violent. To look at her that is. When you knew that she had lost her daughter, and how, that changed everything.
“When he came to, he called Obrador, to tell him what had happened, and that Allerton was not only loose, but armed. He also mentioned that Allerton had been watching the news when it happened. Brubaker intends to fight the charges being pressed by Allerton, and he intends to do it publicly. He arranged a press conference on the steps of the court, with his lawyer and as many news contacts as he could muster. Obrador is trying to get there to stop her, but didn’t want to leave Jeanette, and didn’t think he’d have time to drop her off first.” This was quickly spiraling out of control. My Jeanette was getting stuck in the middle of this despite everything I had tried to do to prevent just that. Allerton would end up going to prison and that bastard Brubaker would probably walk.
“You two, you’re riding with us.” Douglas doesn’t even stay to watch to see if we’re going to follow or not; he wasn’t asking us, he was telling us. Torres unlocks the doors when we’re close enough. If he’s at all rattled by any of this, he doesn’t show it.
“We are way out of our fucking pay grade here, Vetter, and sticking with those two.” He jabs his finger in the direction of the car. “It’s the only way out now. We ride with them until we can get Jeanette out.”
Jeanette. Just the sound of her name has a terrifying calm wash over me. I had panicked. I had nearly fainted. All of that was done. My life was over before I met her; I was dead in every way that mattered. Jeanette is my light and my life, my only reason to live. The image is so clear; slipping the ring on her finger. If Jeanette should be hurt, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill everyone involved with it. I would kill everyone they knew. It should shock me how easily that thought sat with me, but it doesn’t.
Alvarez takes one look at me sitting beside him in the back seat before he tells Douglas to get to the courthouse. Fast. I don’t want to think of what Alvarez saw in me. I don’t want to think about it myself.
The steps of the courthouse are a chaos as we drive by, looking out our windows like anyone else would. Alvarez is holding me with a death grip while handing his phone to Torres, the only person with his hands free, and telling him the number to dial. Whatever was going to happen here has already happened; the steps are awash in police, their guns drawn. An ambulance pulls up to the curb and medics jump out of the back. I’ve seen enough pictures of Brubaker to know that it’s him, in a pool of blood at the bottom of the steps. There’s no way to know if he’s dead or not, and no one in the car is making a move at stopping but just ambling through the knot of cars, like every other gawker so we don’t stand out.
Douglas’ face is as hard as stone in the front seat. He may have made it his job to hunt Brubaker, but he wanted to see the man tried in court, not shot on the court steps. He was his partner at one time. I try to feel something, anything, but all I can think of is Jeanette. Alvarez tightens his grip on my arm as I lean forward, my voice so cold I barely recognize it as my own. “Obrador?” If Obrador is on the phone, I want to talk to him right now, I don’t care who else thinks they have protocol. This isn’t a case anymore, not if Brubakers’ dead. I reach out and take the phone from Torres in mid sentence. “Obrador…”
The sound of a woman crying in the background has my head explode in a fire of killing rage, until all I can choke out is her name. He doesn’t answer, there’s just rustling and the sounds of the sobs, the hysteria, growing louder. My teeth clench so tightly it feels like they will shatter from the pressure. “Sean?”
The crying in the background hasn’t let up. It’s not her. She sounds a little frightened, but she’s not crying. If anything, she sounds almost eerily calm, as though she’s forcing herself to be that way. Her name is a whisper on my lips that I have no idea if she can hear or not. That she says my name again tells me she hasn’t. She sounds less calm the second time.
“I’m right here, ‘Nette.” My head rests on the seat in front of me, every ounce of strength gone; I lean my hand in front of me to keep from slumping. “Are you hurt, ‘Nette?” I fight against the blackness, the mindless killing rage, that had flooded me before. My beautiful Jeanette would never see me like that, would never hear my voice like that.
“I’m not hurt, Sean. I need…” she turns to Obrador who must be driving, and can barely hear over the cries of ‘I killed him, I killed him’, she asks where he intends to let her out. “I’m going to need you to pick me up at the border, Sean, can you do that?” The crying has gotten closer again. ‘I thought killing him would make it hurt less but it doesn’t, oh God, I killed him.’ Jeanette shushes the crying woman, whose cries grow muffled, dissolving into sobs. I can see Jeanette clear as day. She would be in the backseat of the car, most likely with a disconsolate Mrs. Allerton, who has just realized that killing Brubaker was never going to bring her little girl back. Jeanette, who had lost a little girl of her own, was comforting her. That’s why she sounded so strangely calm, she was trying to be strong for someone else, and I was falling apart, worried about her.
“You’re okay?” I hate how small my voice sounds. I could care less what anyone in the car thinks of me breaking down, but I hate that Jeanette will hear. My head drops a little more, resting heavily into the seat in front as my voice drops to a whisper. “I just need to know you’re okay…”
Somewhere in the past few minutes Alvarez has lessened his grip on my arm, he’s no longer trying to keep me in the car to stop me from killing somebody, he’s just holding onto me. I don’t care what anyone thinks about that either. She tells me that she’s okay, and that she loves me, that everything will be all right, that she’s okay; before she hands the phone back to Obrador so that he can give better directions. Vega had a contingency plan to get Obrador out if anything went wrong. Guards would be bribed at the border and the car would slip through into Mexico, where a small plane would be waiting to take him back to Colombia. Upon hearing about the shooting, Vega had Obrador bring Mrs. Allerton with him; to get her out of the country, rather than have her spend her life in prison for Brubakers’ murder. Obrador tells me where he can stop and meet up with us before he crosses the border. I don’t want to hang up, I want him to hand the phone back to Jeanette so that I can hear her voice the rest of the way, but I say nothing. Just click the phone shut and hand it back to Alvarez, telling Douglas where we can meet up with Obrador and Jeanette, and sink back into the seat.
No one says anything to me. The car speeds up, and Douglas takes the car fast over back roads. I’m praying again, my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose. Alvarez still hasn’t let go of me. He keeps telling me she’s fine, that she’s going to be all right, that Obrador wouldn’t let anything happen to her. His words have me thinking of Jeanette, comforting Mrs. Allerton as they drove towards the border with Mexico.
I knew this day would last forever. It’s not even four o’clock yet; if Dan had let her go early, she would be curling up, maybe on the back porch with a book, waiting for me. I want more than anything else for this to be done, this stupid fucking case that wasn’t even our case to begin with, so that I could be with my ‘Nette. That’s all I want, is Jeanette. I close my eyes again; the low scrub bushes are a blur as Douglas flies over the back roads. It’s all too slow, so slow.
The numbers on the cellphone blur up before I finish dialing the number. I have to call Dan and let him know that she’s all right. Obrador would have taken her out quickly and he wouldn’t know if she was okay. A stab of shame rips through me at the sound of his voice. I had said I would never hurt her. He doesn’t blame me, and there is no accusation in his voice. Just relief that she would be okay.
I’m out of the car before it’s even stopped with Alvarez still holding onto my arm. Douglas gets out but stands close to the door, with the engine running. Obrador looks as hard as he did the first time I set eyes on him. He hasn’t gotten out of the car but is waiting with the engine idling in the relative shade of some scrub bushes on the shoulder of the road.
I want to just pull Jeanette out of the car and take her away from all of this but the moment my hand touches her back, and she turns to look at me, I know that I can’t just do that. She’s stroking over Mrs. Allerton’s back and rocking her ever so gently, like you would with a crying child. Mrs. Allerton is covered in blood from what was clearly a kill shot at very close range. My beautiful Jeanette is covered too, but she doesn’t care, she just keeps shushing her, telling her she’ll be all right. Little by little she untangles herself from the other woman who keeps repeating that she thought it would hurt less if she killed him. Jeanette reaches in and in a voice barely over a whisper tells her; “It never stops hurting, but the hurt changes, Vivian, and you can let go, in time.”
I can’t pull her, even if I want to, but once she gets untangled from Mrs. Allerton, she throws herself into my arms. Her voice whimpers my name, her trembling beginning the moment she touched me. My own voice breaks, echoing hers. For those few moments nothing else exists, just her. We’re both comforting each other until at the end, when we can’t speak any more, I bury my nose in her hair, closing my eyes, and letting the scent of her fill me. Her face presses to my neck and I know she’s doing the same. There are no words that will do.
Alvarez thanks Obrador, and both Jeanette and I turn to do the same, before he drives off, to cross the border. I won’t let Jeanette sit beside me but keep her curled in my lap, I won’t let her go, I can’t. Alvarez has let go of my arm, but only so he can hold onto Jeanette as well. If he was anyone else it would make me furious to have them touch her, but it’s Alvarez, and he cares for her too. I look over her shoulder at him. Douglas may have read my files, maybe he told Torres, but no one else in this car, no one other than Alvarez, knows what I feel right now. I reach over to pull Alvarez into a hug. It’s awkward because Jeanette is still in my lap; maybe it’s just better because she is, as all three of us share a hug holding Jeanette between us.
Torres turned around and started to mention something about paperwork. “No.” Alvarez and I, and Douglas, in a quieter voice, all said no at the same time. Douglas turns to Torres, looking at him once to ensure he has his attention before turning back to the road. “This case is over, Torres, and they were never in it in the first place. It’s done. We can’t talk ab….”
Torres starts to argue, mentioning the length of time and everything that’s happened. Douglas stops him there, his voice cold and rational. “And what exactly has happened, Torres?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, as he hadn’t asked a question in the first place. “Obrador is a soldier for Vega, a man who runs one of the largest cartels in Colombia. A woman who was in his care killed Brubaker, and we abetted in her escaping the country. An agent’s fiancée was with them at the time. It ends with Brubaker, or we’ll be lying about this for the rest of our lives.” He gives Torres a hard look. “Do you really want this hanging over your head, Torres? Because if you think there are parts of this case you can continue with and parts you can hide, you’re fooling yourself.” He turns back to pay attention to his driving. “This might have been better if it was never investigated at all.” Douglas looks at Alvarez and I in the rearview mirror.” At least not officially. Sometimes things take care of themselves….Where do we drop you off?”
Alvarez kissed Jeanette on the cheek and hugged me hard again, slapping my back hard enough to hurt. He backs up a step to pat me on the cheek, and we both let out the breath we had been holding. “It’s over, Vetter.”
I let out a shaky laugh that’s a hair’s breadth away from hysteria. “Nothing but paperwork tomorrow, Alvarez.” I offered him a ride back to his car but he just looked at Jeanette and leered at me, before he got back into the car with Douglas and Torres.
I’m home with her, finally home with her. I hug her tight to me, picking her up off the ground and letting out a soft groan as she wraps her legs around my waist before I walk through our house and out onto the back porch. It’s not even suppertime and this is already the longest day of my life.
I ease her down when we’re both standing on the back porch. All I want to do is fall to my knees and bury my face in her belly, to try to wash this day away in the scent of her skin and the wet heat of her. But I don’t, not yet.
People have been asking me since they found out I had proposed to her if I had set a date yet. I didn’t know what to say, every time someone asked I froze up. Not anymore. If I could marry her tonight, I would do it. In a heartbeat I would do it.
My voice shakes when I finally gather up what I want to, need to, say to her. It doesn’t shake with nerves, as it did when I had asked her to marry me. It shakes with absolute conviction; I have never meant anything more than this, to be here with her. “I don’t want to wait, Jeanette. I’m so scared to rush you, but I don’t want to wait.” My voice breaks, and my hands cup her face to hold her to me. Her dark eyes glisten and her pulse races against my fingertips. “Life is too short; it’s just so fucking short, ‘Nette.” I blink away my own tears, at the sight of one tear slipping past her lashes and down her cheek. “I didn’t say anything about a date. I want to be married to you now. Not in a month or a year, but now. Not some time in the future. If it were possible to marry you tonight, I would do it, because I want you to be my wife. If I could set a date to marry you next week?…..” I can’t continue; I want to, I just can’t, it’s far too hard to breathe.
Her hand covers my chest, to feel my heart racing, before her hands slip up over my neck to cup my face. Her hands are shaking even more than mine. “Yes, Sean. In my heart we already are. We have been.”
We have been. We’ve been married all this time, in every way that counted. Not because we’ve made love or for any of the other things people tell themselves but because since we’ve met there’s been no one else. Only each other. “How?…”
It’s not so much a question as a quiet whisper, her head tilting to the side as she looks at me. I rest my forehead against hers as I start to laugh. “I’ll call Alvarez….” The sound of our laughter washes everything else away.
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