“Hello, Charlie. Sit down, I already made you a plate.” Serena said, beaming with a lovely smile.
“Thanks, Serena.”
“Where have you been, lately? Too busy wooing all the girls to stop in and say hi?” She asked with a mischievous grin. Al had obviously told her about Denise. She set a glass of orange juice down in front of him and pinched his cheek.
“No. Just working a lot, I guess.” He answered, suddenly feeling very tired.
“Something wrong?” Al asked. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
Charlie told them everything that happened to him that morning. Both of them were in shock. At one point, Charlie mentioned that David should probably not hear the rest of the story and Serena hustled him out in front of the television before Charlie got to the gory details. He stuck with his story about the girl using a lighter to burn down the house.
“Oh, baby.” Serena said. “I’m so sorry.” She wrapped him in a giant hug that pressed her ample bosom to the side of his face. It was meant to be motherly, but left Charlie slightly aroused and feeling guilty about it.
“Yeah, man.” Al said. “That sucks. LT Johnson can be such a dick.”
“Alberto Juan Carlos Vasquez! Watch your language!” Serena yelled and then sat up quickly as though she had thought of something. “You know what you need, Charlie? You need a strong Latino woman to keep you headed in the right direction.” She accentuated the remark with a poke to the end of his nose with one well-manicured finger.
Al gave her a sour look. “Aye, Mama! Not the thing about your sister again.”
“My sister’s a good, Christian woman, Poppy!” She shook the spatula she had been using all morning at Al. “And another thing,” She lit into a barrage of Spanish that Charlie couldn’t understand but didn’t need to. Her body language said it all.
Al hollered back with his own retinue of Spanish and Serena stormed out of the kitchen.
“I didn’t come over here to start a fight, Al.”
“Fight? Oh, Homes. That wasn’t a fight. She’ll be back here in two minutes and it’ll be like nothing happened.” He said with a chuckle.
“So what’s so bad about Serena’s sister?” Charlie whispered, leaning a little closer to his friend.
“Oh, man. She’s good looking. Like a tinier version of Serena. But she’s loco, Homes. Trust me. You don’t want none of that.”
Just like Al said, Serena swooped back into the kitchen a few minutes later with her usual grace, as though nothing had happened. “Someday, you’ll have to meet my sister, Charlie.” She patted him on the shoulder and shot a playful look at Al, letting him know they weren’t done with their discussion on the subject. “You look tired, baby. I already turned down the covers on the guest room bed. Why don’t you go lie down? I don’t want you driving home like that. You’ll fall asleep at the wheel and kill yourself.”
He knew better than to argue. He thanked Serena for the breakfast and shuffled off to the guest room. It wasn’t the first time he had come over after work and slept in their extra bed. Sleep was drawing at the corners of his eyes and he was finding even walking a difficult chore at that moment. Charlie collapsed on the bed and barely had the energy to kick his shoes off. His right eyelid was seized by tiny fingers and lifted open rather roughly. He could see David’s smiling face. He had just recently lost his two front teeth. “Uncle Charlie. When you wake up, we can play Madden. I bet I can beat you.”
“David, leave Uncle Charlie alone. Let him sleep.” Came Serena’s voice from the kitchen. David let his eyelid go with a wet plop and shuffled out of the room with a giggle.
Charlie let a smile cross his lips and pulled the covers up under his chin. Even an ex-special ops, hard-nosed cop liked to be taken care of once in a while.
Chapter 2
Magdalena Stone stared at the beautiful young woman in the mirror. Her hazel eyes were rimmed with red from crying. As hard as she tried not to, she still cried from time to time. The last few weeks had been some of the most trying times in her young life.
“C’mon Maggie. Get a hold of yourself.” She said in her very proper British accent. She splashed a little water on her face and dabbed it with a towel. The thick black curls in her hair seemed to bounce a little more. The combination of her father’s ebony skin and her mother’s Egyptian ecru tones had given her a beautiful pastel brown complexion. She had her mother’s slender facial features and high cheek bones that her past boyfriends all said made her look exotic, but she had trouble seeing herself as anything more than a puffer fish with all the crying she had been doing lately.
She went back to her office and plopped down on the chair at her desk. She picked up the small picture of her parents and cupped it in her hand. She had just found it hiding in the back of one of her desk drawers and the unexpected sight of their smiling faces had brought on another bout of tears. They looked so young. She traced the outline of her mother’s jaw with one longing fingertip then opened the drawer and laid it inside, slamming it shut with more force than she meant to. She suddenly felt guilty, like she had slammed her bedroom door shut in their faces in some teenage tantrum. She eased the drawer open one more time to look at their smiling faces. She smiled back and then pushed the drawer closed again. She put her elbow on the top of her desk and rested her forehead in the palm of her hand until a cold muzzle nudged her arm.
She didn’t usually come down to the office on Sundays, but they were monitoring four animals over the weekend. Two dogs were in for neutering, one cat with an intestinal fungus, and one humongous Mastiff mix that a police officer brought in yesterday. The same Mastiff, aptly named Tank, that was currently staring her in the face. He was eye level with her even though he sat back on his haunches and she had her computer chair raised as high as it would go.
“How you doin’, big fella?” She asked him and his tail made a swishing noise on the smooth floor. “Your eyes are the same color as mine.” She scratched his chest and his back leg became a hard rhythmic whump, whump, whump, on the white linoleum. She knelt down next to him and began to peel off the bandages she had applied to the gashes in his side. She let out a whistle when the wound was fully exposed. It had taken her forty-nine stitches to get the gashes to close up. But more disturbing than that was the pattern they made. The four gashes fanned out proportionately to each other, like they had been inflicted by some giant cat. She spread her fingers over the gashes and her hand lined up closely with the wounds. “What on earth could have done this? Or more importantly, what in Wisconsin could have done this?” She cleaned up the wounds and put a fresh bandage on, then chided the big animal. “Now don’t monkey with this bandage or I’ll have to put the cone on you.” She tapped him on the nose and frowned down at him, but he just stared at her while his tail wagged. He began to pant and a large dollop of saliva fell from his jowls. She couldn’t help but smile. There was something about giant dogs that melted people’s hearts.
“Let’s get you back in your cage. I have to call Officer Cutter and give him an update on you.” She said to the dog, shooing him towards the kennel room, to which, he bounded happily. Once the dog was secure in his kennel, she went to the front desk and sifted through a small stack of papers next to the computer. She wasn’t surprised to find Officer Cutter’s information still sitting in the “unentered” pile of paperwork. The new girl that worked the desk, Daphne, wasn’t catching on to her job as well as Maggie had hoped. But what Daphne lacked in office skills, she made up for in exuberance.
She found Officer Cutter’s information and dialed his number. He answered. “Hello?”
“Officer Cutter?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Dr. Stone, from the vet’s office.”
“Yeah, the dog. How is he doing?”
“He’s doing well. He had a few gashes that required some stitches, though. I’d like to keep him here for a few more days to make sure they don’t get infected. Is there any more information on what attacked him?”
Officer Cutter paused. “Well, it’s… No, we don’t know exactly what attacked him. We have a theory. Rather, I have a theory, but it’s still a part of the investigation.”
“I see. Well, as his doctor, I should be privy to any information that might hinder his well-being.”
“Hmm. You make a good point. Do you want to meet me for lunch?” He hesitated a little before blurting out. “To talk about the dog, I mean.”
“Mr. Cutter…”
“Charlie, please.” He interrupted. “Call me Charlie.”
“Okay, Charlie.” No! She thought. I’m not supposed to be going out with my patients’ owners! But to her horror she was saying, “But it’s nearly one o’clock. I think we’ve missed lunch.”
“What? Really? Sorry, I work third shift so my internal clock is a bit messed up. Dinner then?”
I shouldn’t. “Okay. When?” What am I doing? I don’t even know him!
“My schedule recently opened up so I’m available anytime. Tonight? Say, six? I could pick you up.”
“That’d be fine. You can pick me up at the vet’s office.”
“The vet’s office? Really?”
“Yes, I live in the loft apartment above it.” She couldn’t believe she was agreeing to this. Her mother would never approve. Good thing her mother wasn’t around to say so. She felt a stab of guilt for feeling that way. Was it wrong to feel giddy about going out on a date when her mother was only three weeks past? But that was when she realized that she was excited. It had been a long time since she had been excited about meeting a man.
“Okay, great! I’ll pick you up around six, then.”
“Sounds good. Six o’clock it is.” They said their goodbyes and Maggie hung up the phone. Wow. She thought. I’ve got a date!
She stood up at the front desk in shock. She could hardly believe what just happened. I’ve got a date. She thought again. “I can’t do this. Not now. I’m not ready.” She picked up the phone and started to redial Charlie’s number, then stopped. “No. I can do this. I need to do this.” She hung up the phone and went back to the kennels.
She finished checking on all the patients and she still had lots of time to kill. She went to the back of the office and walked up the flight of steps to her loft, closing the big, heavy, metal fire door behind her. She had gotten a nice deal on the lease when she started her practice five years ago. The building’s owner was retired and didn’t need the income from the lease so he let her have it for a steal. The best part was that she saved tons of money on gas by living directly above the office. And it was so convenient for situations, although not typical, where she had to go into the office on a Sunday.
The inside of her little loft apartment was perfect for her. It was a cozy place. Where she entered from the stairwell, she walked into the kitchen, separated from the rest of the apartment by a half-wall where the sink, dishwasher and some cabinets were housed. Just a few feet past the kitchen on the wall to her right was the small freight elevator she had used to move in her furniture, another convenience that she loved about the place. On the front wall of the loft were four windows that overlooked the street below. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the windows now and cascading over her living room and nearing the end of her queen-size bed tucked in the far corner.
She glanced at her watch. Only two-thirty. She had plenty of time to exercise and read some of her book. Heck, she had time to put together a model airplane if she were so inclined. She went to her dresser and pulled out a pair of running pants, then stopped to look at the picture of her mother sitting on her dresser. “Don’t worry, Mum. I’ll be alright. And if you could see him, you’d probably think he was worth a shot anyway. He’s pretty cute.” She smiled at the picture and for just one fleeting moment, felt her mother’s arms wrapped around her.
A few hours later she found herself rapt in the classic female struggle - what to wear on the date? It was five-thirty and she was still standing in front of her full length mirror in her bra and panties and dangling various articles of clothing in front of her before throwing them disgustedly on the bed and reaching for something else. She thought about wearing her sexy black dress with the knee-high boots, which she heard on good authority, drove men wild, but she thought that would be too much for a first date. Especially since she didn’t even know where they were going. She finally settled on a light turquoise blouse with her skinny jeans, the ones that showed off her butt better, and a pair of toed high-heels. She admired herself in the mirror for a moment before deciding that she had chosen the right outfit, then nodded. “You clean up alright, Maggie Stone.” She said to herself. She added some earrings, a bracelet, and gave her crucifix a little kiss, the last thing her father ever gave her, before clasping it around her neck. Luckily, she always wore her makeup the same way and had become rather adept at applying it with little time to spare.
She slipped her arms into a light jacket. March in Wisconsin was typically February – Part Two, but they were experiencing an unusually warm stretch of spring-like weather. She was standing outside the office, just locking the doors when she heard the throaty rumble of a big engine pull up behind her. She smiled and turned around to see an old, rusty Camaro and her smile faded a bit until Charlie hopped out of the front seat and waved.
She waved and went to the door of the car but he ran around to open it for her before she could get near the handle. And who says chivalry is dead? She thought with a grin as he closed the car door behind her. When he got in on the other side, she decided to give him a little good-natured ribbing. “So, are we going to get there in one piece?” She asked him.
He chuckled. “What, the Bomb? Don’t worry. She’s not all that pretty anymore, but she’ll get us where we’re going.”
He wasn’t sure what she liked so he had made reservations at four different restaurants, which she thought was sweet of him. They finally agreed on Chinese cuisine and a few minutes later, were seated in a bustling establishment with a very dark and mysterious ambience. They had ordered some drinks and were watching the servers rush from one table to the next, their arms laden with dishes of every size. Neither of them knew just what to say. They were clearly both nervous.
“So, can I ask you something?” Charlie started out.
“Of course.”
“How did you come to America? I mean, you’re British, right?”
“I was born in England, yes. My mother and I moved here after I finished university. I was twenty-two, then.”
“What about your father?”
“My father was a preacher from Uganda. He was murdered by a warlord named Pierre Conto. And my mother passed away a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s alright. Of course, you didn’t know.”
“Did they catch this, Conto?”
“Oh, no. Absolutely not. The bastard is alive and doing well. My faith says I need to forgive him, but I’m finding that difficult even after all these years. The U.S. government won’t bother with Conto because Africa has nothing our economy needs. And no one in Uganda dares to go near him.” She stopped for a moment, losing her train of thought and then decided on a whim, that if she spilled everything tonight and Charlie still wanted to get to know her better, maybe he really was worth it. “When I was fourteen, my father left to go do some missionary work. I begged him to take me, but he refused. The fact is, he saved my life by not taking me. He wanted to bring the word of Jesus to his home village in Uganda. When he got there, he found out that this warlord, Pierre Conto, was stealing children from their families. Conto and his men would sneak into the villages at night and take the sleeping children right out of their own homes. The boys, he turned into killers, soldiers. The girls were made into sex slaves. My father found out about him and tried to hide the children in a church he and the other missionaries had built. When Conto found out, he was furious. He took the children and then herded my father and the rest of the missionaries into the
church, barred the doors, and set it on fire.” Charlie looked white as a sheet. She hoped she hadn’t gone too far. She could tell her eyes were rimmed with tears but she steeled herself. She grabbed the nearest napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this.”
“No, it’s okay. I was the one that asked. Are you going to be okay?” He asked, handing her another napkin.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It actually feels good to tell someone about it. For so long, I only had my mum. Now she’s gone, too.”
“I lost my father about a year ago. My mom passed away giving birth to me.” He said. “Maybe we’re not so different after all.”
Charlie didn’t say much for a while. They both sat quietly, contemplating. Then he said, “And after all that, you still believe?” He pointed to the crucifix around her neck.
“Of course, don’t you?”
“I thought I did. Maybe I still do. I don’t know.”
“Why?” She asked. “What happened to you?” She was genuinely concerned. His face was starting to contort, like he was holding back some awful pain. She wanted to understand. “You used to believe and now you don’t? Why?”
Charlie took a deep breath and explained. “I was in Afghanistan in two-thousand two. I was embedded with my Special Forces unit, working with locals to root out Taliban cells. One day, this little boy comes up to me and he’s got a cleft palate and a cleft lip. You know what that is? The birth defect where the upper palate of their mouth has a bend in it and it makes the upper lip stick up?” She nodded. “Of course, you know what it is, you’re a doctor.” He shook his head and continued. “Anyway, this kid, Rafi is his name, comes up to me and starts eyeing up my candy bar. I gave him some food and suddenly we’re attached at the hip. He follows me around all day and he starts calling me Missa Charlie.” He smiles for a moment. “He couldn’t say, Mister Charlie. You know, in our country, a cleft palate is an easy fix. One simple operation. But in their culture, people with cleft palates are considered affronts to Allah, abominations. They are totally ostracized from society. Even their own families rarely want anything to do with them. I mean, I think I was the first person to ever show that little boy any kindness. So, I go back to our camp and I grab this old soccer ball that one of the guys found in an abandoned village and I give it to Rafi. We’re sitting in the middle of the village kicking this old soccer ball around and another kid shows up and starts kicking it with us. Then another, and another. Before I know it, there are a dozen kids all playing with that soccer ball, and best of all, they’re including Rafi in the game. He gave me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. That was one of the best days of my life.” Charlie smiles and takes a sip of his beer, but when he sets it back down, the smile is already gone. “The next day, I’m walking through the village square and it’s busy. The busiest and most dangerous time of day. We’re doing a routine walk-through with five of my guys and a few of the local militia we were training at the time. From a shop about a hundred feet away, Rafi comes running towards us. He’s yelling, ‘Missa Charlie! Missa Charlie!’ He got about twenty yards from me before two guys from the militia grabbed him. He’s yelling to me with tears running down his face and the militia guys are yelling at him, and I’m yelling for them to let him go, and then…” He trailed off and cleared his throat. He took a long slug from his beer and slapped it down on the table.
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