by Ana Ban
My life before my parents died was not exactly conducive to hobbies, but I didn’t want to bring that up right now. And since I’d been working from the time I was 14, I hadn’t had much time since to figure out what I liked to do for fun.
“There might be something.”
Dr. Engel was quiet for a moment before asking, “If you’re not sure what you’re interested in, I can give you a copy of the local paper. There are always classes and group get togethers, you never know what might strike your interest.”
“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll give it a shot.”
Sitting on my couch, feet curled beneath me, I examined the paper Dr. Engel had given me. Arts and crafts? No thanks. Photography? Not my thing. Cooking classes? I laughed aloud.
Finally, towards the bottom of the page, I spotted a 4-week class on Morse Code. I couldn’t imagine there’d be much interest in learning such an outdated skill, but it grabbed my attention. It could be fun, and possibly useful in my line of work. There was an online enrollment, so before I could chicken out, I pulled out my laptop and signed myself up.
Flipping through the rest of the paper, I spotted an ad for self-defense classes. Though I’d taken several classes with the force, it might be fun to enroll in a class outside of work. Since my laptop was still sitting beside me, I did a quick internet search and perused the many dojos available. I ruled out the kickboxing classes, Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu, along with any that were geared toward mixed martial arts fighting. While all those were a good workout, and I knew bits and pieces of them from the training I’d done, they weren’t as practical for me.
Kickboxing was an awesome workout, but there really wasn’t hand to hand combat, no sparring. Taekwondo was also a good workout, and great for flexibility, but impractical for real life situations. Jiu-Jitsu focused on ground fighting, which was great to know how to get out of, but I’d learned, as a smaller female, that it was always better to stay on my feet. The same problem came up in mixed martial arts; while there were a lot of talented people in those fights, they always took it to the ground.
That left me with a Krav Maga school, a Kenpo school, and a Muay Thai school. All three offered a free introductory lesson, and I noted the times of each class. Might as well try them all, since I had nothing better to do with my time.
With a sigh, I stood and began my nightly cleaning ritual. Though I’d never been a messy person, I’d discovered a whole new level of OCD since being demoted.
My apartment was on the top floor of a two-story brick building; there were four apartments on my floor, and four on the main floor. It was a quiet building on a quiet street, which suited me just fine. There were times I’d thought about buying a house, but the upkeep and maintenance was not something I had the time, or patience, for.
My apartment had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and combination living-dining-kitchen. The furniture was a hodgepodge of hand me downs and thrift store finds. I didn’t care much for decorating, and as long as it was comfortable, I also didn’t care what my furnishings looked like. Since I rarely had guests, and up until a few weeks ago I barely spent time here, my little apartment worked just fine.
Dishes were done, coffee was prepped to begin brewing for the next morning, floors were swept and pillows fluffed. Pulling on my rubber gloves, I began scrubbing down all the counters in the kitchen. The second bedroom, which I used as an office, was the most organized it had ever been, due to the lack of paperwork I brought home nowadays.
Once I’d made my way through each room, I stopped in the bathroom in my bedroom, staring at the tub. It had been a long time since I’d made up a bath and allowed myself to relax.
Inspired, I dug out a couple of candles and bubble bath I’d received in a Christmas gift basket. Once the water was running, I turned on some soothing music before slipping into the hot, soapy liquid.
Though it would have been nice to have a book to read, I decided instead to work on relaxation techniques. First, I focused on my breathing, bringing in air deep through my nose, pushing it down into my lower abdomen before releasing it out of my mouth. Once I’d taken several deep breaths, I picked a body part to relax one at a time, until my whole body felt light and buoyant.
It wasn’t an easy thing for me to shut off my brain, but between the rigorous cleaning and utter relaxation, I was soon fast asleep.
The bed I lay in was soft and warm, feeling like I was floating on a cloud. When my eyes opened, I expected there to be darkness, but there was a white-yellow glow, similar to the hour of sunset. It was the soft light of a dream.
In my comfort, I had yet to notice the arm of steel wrapped around my waist, or the hard length of a body beside me. Instead of feeling trapped, I felt secure.
“Stay with me,” a voice whispered, flowing in gentle waves across my skin. “We belong together.”
“I’m right here,” I murmured back. Though my eyes were open, I couldn’t make out the line of his face or the color of his eyes. He was as indistinct and fuzzy as the filtered light.
His hands began stroking along my skin, awakening in me feelings I had long since buried. The rough pads of his fingers sent tingles to my core.
“Don’t you want this? Don’t you want me?” The voice spoke again; it was as familiar as a memory.
“Yes,” I gave in. “I want you, Donovan.”
Sitting up with a start, cool water sluicing off my skin, I placed a hand over my racing heart. Now where had that come from?
Shaking my head to clear the haziness of the dream, I toweled off and drained the now cold water from the tub. Grabbing the bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet, I slipped one out and cut it in half, as Dr. Engel had instructed. If taking medication was the only way to sleep a dreamless sleep, the trade-off might be worth it.
After changing into comfortable pajamas, I slid into bed, unable to fully shake the vividly real feeling of being wrapped in Donovan’s arms.
Chapter 6
Arriving early for my first Morse Code class, I parked in front of the community center and had a moment of doubt. I wasn’t what one would call a ‘joiner,’ and starting something new like this, with people I didn’t know, was mildly terrifying.
Shaking myself out of the uncertainty, I forced myself to open the car door and walk inside. I’d only been to the community center one other time, when one of the women on the force had a baby shower here, and wasn’t very familiar with it. The main room held display cases of items from Baltimore’s history, like a mini-museum. I found a helpful clerk at an information desk, and she pointed me to the right room.
When I walked in, I was the first to arrive. I was surprised to see a telegraph sitting in the center of the main table. Walking closer to get a better look, I jumped slightly when a voice interrupted my inspection.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A man who looked to be in his 80’s spoke in an amazingly strong voice.
“It is,” I told him, then extended a hand. “I’m Mia.”
“Nice to meet you,” he returned the gesture. “I’m Max, I’ll be the instructor for this class.”
“How many people are you expecting?” I asked.
“Three, besides you. We’ve got a few minutes, make yourself comfortable.”
I chose a chair and pulled out my notebook. Max wrote on the chalkboard and was just finishing when two more people came in, an older couple who introduced themselves as Jim and Patti. They were overly chatty, which worked well for me as long as I didn’t have to talk back.
The last person arrived just as Max was beginning, a quiet teenager named Ron. It was interesting to see someone so young take a class like this, and it didn’t take long for Patti to ask him about it.
“I’m doing a class project on the telegraph,” he told us. “We had to pick a specific invention and how it shaped the era it’s from.”
“Well, you came to the right place,” Max told him proudly. “I was a communications officer in World War II, so I have firsthand experience using such
a fine machine.”
Max gestured towards the telegraph sitting in the room, and began to point out the different parts. He was extremely knowledgeable, and the four of us in class were held at rapt attention.
“Did you know that the first telegraph message sent by Morse went from Washington DC to right here in Baltimore?” Max asked us. Only Ron nodded. “In 1844, he sent the message ‘What hath God wrought?’”
Pulling papers from a stack on the table, Max handed each of us a copy of the Morse alphabet. Written out as it was on the paper, there was a pretty pattern to the dots and dashes.
“This is the alphabet and numeric system Morse came up with to transmit over his telegraph. On the machine, each dot is a tap, each dash is a tap that is held down for three times as long as a dot. Each dot or dash is followed by a silence equal to a dot, each letter is separated by a silence the same length as a dash, while each word is separated by a silence the length of seven dots. That can be confusing until you hear it. Let me demonstrate with my name.”
Max then tapped on the table to demonstrate, spelling out his full name, Max Hoyt.
“Do you all hear the pattern?” He asked. We nodded. “Great,” he continued. “Take a few minutes to practice your own names, then we’ll all have a listen.”
We all began to tap out patterns on the table.
Dash, dash. Dot, dot. Dot, Dash.
Mia.
This was fun. Working on my last name next, it took a bit longer to get the hang of. Gonzalez sure had a lot of letters in it.
After several minutes of watching us, Max interrupted our practice. “All right, now, each of you will take a turn. For those just listening, your job is to figure out each other’s last names. Any volunteers to go first?”
Ron volunteered, then began his tapping. It was a lot more difficult to interpret than I’d imagined it would be.
“Mia? What did you get for his last name?”
“I got Carey.”
Patti and Jim put in their guesses, each coming up with something different than me.
“You’re all pretty close. It’s Casey,” Ron told us.
I went next, and Jim was able to get my last name correct. When we had all gone, we had a new appreciation for the secretive language.
“I’d like you all to practice the alphabet for the next class, and we’ll try it out on this beauty,” Max told us, resting a hand on the telegraph. “Thank you all for coming.”
Shaking Max’s hand before I left, I walked out as a loose group with Patti, Jim and Ron. Patti and Jim chattered at us while we walked, and I found myself giving them a polite smile and a wave before escaping into my car. Overall, I’d thoroughly enjoyed the class. Tomorrow was my first trial at a martial arts class, with the other two trials set up later this week. I was looking forward to having something to devote my time to again.
“You’ve done well in your sessions so far,” Dr. Engel commended me. “For your next two sessions, I’d like to go through some testing with you.”
“What kind of testing?” I asked, wary.
“Word association, ink dot, others of the same sort.”
“Psych evals?” I raised a brow. “Is that normal?”
“’Normal’ is not a word I prefer to use,” Dr. Engel hedged. “But yes, after eight sessions I like to take my patient through these to see where their mental state is at.”
“All right,” I said, still skeptical. “If I pass, does that mean I can be done with therapy?”
She quirked a smile, the first sense of humor I’d witnessed. “It’s a good start,” she told me.
“I’m game,” I told her, settling in for the first round of tests.
We went through a good 20 minutes of Dr. Engel holding up papers, murmuring over my answers and jotting down notes. For my part, I attempted to keep my answers as dull as possible.
The last ten minutes were word associations. I never could quite figure out why doctors believed they could see into a person’s psyche just based on the words they used, but I played along. Most of my answers related to police work. Instead of writing notes for this test, Dr. Engel had asked to record this portion as my answers needed to be quick and she didn’t want to interrupt by having to write anything down.
“You’ve done well today,” Dr. Engel congratulated me.
Shrugging, I responded, “I didn’t really do anything.”
To that she only smiled, a bit condescendingly I thought.
My life was becoming an easy routine of work, therapy, martial arts classes and cleaning. Alec and I still had dinner about once a week, but conversation was difficult since we couldn’t talk about his cases. It quickly dawned on me that, without work, I was a bit of a boring person.
After taking the three trial martial arts classes, I’d decided to go with the Krav Maga school. I’d enjoyed all the classes I took, but I was looking to focus on uneven pairings- three on one, or more than that, instead of just the classic one on one- and that instructor seemed the most accommodating.
On my last Morse Code class, Max had been able to get a hold of two telegraph machines, and we split up into two groups, sitting in separate classrooms to send messages to each other.
Patti and I teamed up against Jim and Ron, a classic battle of the sexes. Though each team made a few mistakes, I felt pretty confident with the skills I’d learned.
“Is everything all right?” Max asked me as I was packing up to leave.
It startled me, and I thought about my response before speaking. “I’ve really enjoyed the class, Max. Thank you. I suppose I’m just a little sad it’s over.”
He grinned then, taking my hand between both of his. “I’ll be doing another course in the summer. You can always sign up again.”
“I just might,” I smiled back.
Chapter 7
“I need you to find out what you can on this case,” the chief dropped a thick file onto my desk. “I’d like the results sent directly to me.”
“Sure thing,” I answered him, flipping it open to reveal the contents.
It had been five months since I’d begun desk duty, and though I wasn’t charged by it the same way I was by field work, I was proficient. As I immersed myself in the report, I became completely engrossed in the mysterious circumstances surrounding a missing shipment. Pulling up the search engine on my computer, I typed in a few keywords and clicked through the results.
With a gut feeling there was much more to the story then was in these papers, I grabbed the file, and, going against my direct orders, walked out to my car.
It was the first case to come across my desk that had really piqued my interest. Though I was asked to strictly do research, it just wasn’t in me to leave this alone. As I parked my car, I argued with myself over what I was doing, but whatever drive I’d always had to get to the bottom of cases was taking over now.
Brentwood Industries was a shell company for the DeLuca brothers. They owned a shipping yard adjacent to the Marina Terminal. It was out of the central precinct, but then again, I wasn’t here to make an arrest.
The shipping yard had tall gates surrounding the facilities. Several low buildings sprawled across the landscape, looking completely benign with their dreary sidings. Parking near as I could without raising suspicion, I gazed out across the yard and waited for some kind of activity.
Pulling the thick file from the passenger seat into my lap, I read it while keeping one eye beyond the fences. Alec and I had had several run-ins with the DeLuca family, though we’d never chased them directly. I’d nicknamed them the crème-de-la-creeps.
Anthony DeLuca, who went by Tony, was the oldest brother of four. Down the line was Alfonso who went by Al, Enrico who went by Ricky, and the baby Marco. Tony was, for all intents and purposes, the leader of the group. Al was the enforcer, Ricky was the brains and Marco was a womanizing wild card.
More often than not, it seemed the brothers were covering up a stunt pulled by the youngest of the family. They were the crueles
t criminals I’d come across in my time on the force. The De Luca family was one of the longest standing crime families in the area. They had ties going back to the days of prohibition, and in my time on the force, some of the most gruesome sights I’d seen had been directly related to the brothers.
It seemed that their business had expanded, and I was determined to find out what was going on behind those gates. Scouting the perimeter for security cameras, I drew a crude map on a blank piece of paper and worked out a point of entry. My goal was the largest building on the property, which had several windows just above my sight level. Luckily, someone had been kind enough to leave some crates stacked against the wall, which would give me the height I needed to see in.
The yard seemed unusually empty for the daytime, and though it was a welcoming sight, I knew it would be better to wait until night. Shifting my car into gear, I glanced at the clock. I’d be early to my therapy session if I left now. Then, I’d go home to prep for my night’s activities.
“I’d like to revisit your childhood,” Dr. Engel leaned forward, watching me intently once I was seated in her office. “I know you felt resistant before, but I believe it’s important in order to understand your sleeping difficulties.”
“You’ve read my file. There’s not much more to tell.”
“I’d still like to hear it from you.”
Crossing my arms, I glared at the doctor. “What do you want to hear? That my dad was a bastard who liked his beer and cocaine? That he’d beat me and my mom whenever the mood struck? That he put me in the hospital four times before I was 7 years old?”
Dr. Engel stayed quiet, waiting for me to continue.
In a calmer voice, I did just that. “I went to school every day with bruises. Some of my teachers cared enough to ask, but I always came up with an excuse, which I’m sure now, looking back, that they saw right through. I was terrified of being at home, but when I stayed away it was so much worse for me, my mom. There were many days where I thought he’d kill her, or me, or both.”