Fort Lupton

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “O’Malley,” Aden said.

  “Him,” the officer said. His voice dropped to a whisper. In the chaos of the police, ambulances, and now a news helicopter, Aden had to lean in. “There’s so much money in this thing. Your kids, your wife, fucked it up for a lot of people. We think . . .”

  “I hear you,” Aden said.

  “The chief is on it,” the officer said. “He’s gonna see it right, but . . .”

  “I will take care of my family,” Aden said.

  “Any guy who’d total his car to catch a shooter . . .” the officer nodded. “You’re not without friends.”

  The officer pushed his business card at Aden and walked away. Aden jogged over to Noelle.

  “Daddy!” Noelle said from the gurney. “You’re bleeding! Daddy!”

  Aden held out his arms. She leaned forward and began to sob.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Friday night — 11:22 p.m.

  Sandy pressed open the door to the closest Catholic church to Denver Health Hospital — Mother of God on the corner of Logan Street and Speer Boulevard. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from this old church, certainly not the grandeur of the Basilica she usually went to on Colfax. She stepped inside and sighed at the simple beauty of this tiny chapel. She curtsied and moved up the center aisle to the front. She turned right at the front row and fell to her knees.

  “I’ve never asked for an easy life,” Sandy whispered. “Never.”

  She swallowed hard against her strong feelings.

  “I’ve never asked for help or begged for mercy,” Sandy whispered. “Never.”

  A single tear made its way down her cheek.

  “I know how lucky I am,” Sandy whispered. “I do. I am grateful every single day!”

  Her voice rose with her emotions. She took a moment to push her emotions away.

  “I just . . .” Sandy whispered.

  She looked up at the small pulpit and statue of the crucifixion of Christ.

  “How much more can I take?” Her voice came out in a ragged sob.

  Crying, she fled the chapel and raced to her car. She’d been so desperate for relief that she’d parked in the dark parking lot. Her senses heightened, she knew someone was there. She ran to that stupid car that Aden made her buy and dropped the keys. Unable to see through the flood of tears, she patted around for the keys. Her right hand found them and she stood up.

  A strong presence covered her hand, and she looked up.

  “Tanesha,” Sandy said as an exhale.

  She threw herself at her friend. She felt a hand on her back and turned to see Jill. Heather was standing next to Tanesha.

  “How did you find me?” Sandy managed to say.

  She turned to hug Jill.

  “Fairy magic,” Tanesha said.

  “Really?” Sandy asked. “Fin?”

  “He’s on the Isle of Man,” Tanesha said. “Abi had to retreat to the fairy kingdom to survive her wound. He left with her.”

  “But has school school!” Sandy said.

  “Fairy magic,” Heather said.

  Sandy hugged Heather. Recovering herself, Sandy wiped her face with her hands.

  “How is Blane?” Sandy asked Heather.

  “He’s fine,” Heather said. “Before you ask, the twins are fine, as are Paddie and Katy. Tanesha is going to take notes for Fin.”

  “Jabari was inside when the action happened,” Jill said. “He’s kind of disappointed.”

  Sandy coughed and snorted her laugh. The women watched her.

  “I want to get really drunk,” Sandy said. “High. I want to have meaningless sex with a stranger. I want to . . .”

  “Leave this life for the old awful,” Heather said.

  “The old awful was a lot simpler,” Tanesha said.

  “I knew who I was,” Jill said.

  “I knew who I was,” Sandy repeated with a nod.

  “How about some ice cream and a hot bath?” Jill asked.

  “Jer’s staying with Jabari tonight,” Tanesha said. “We can have the run of our house.”

  “What about Mack and the twins and Tink and Rachel and the rest of my kids and . . .?” Sandy started.

  “Noelle’s in the hospital for the night,” Tanesha said. “Charlie too.”

  “And the rest are fine,” Heather said. “Well cared for by a fairy princess and the rest of our family.”

  “You’re not fine,” Jill said in an even tone.

  Surprised, Sandy’s head jerked to look at her best friend. Jill nodded. Sandy stared straight ahead.

  “I don’t know how much more I can take,” Sandy said.

  “We know,” Tanesha said. “Come on.”

  Tanesha took the keys from Sandy. She led her around the car and made her get in.

  “Ice cream first,” Heather said.

  “Follow you to Liks,” Tanesha said.

  Heather waved, and Tanesha got into Sandy’s car.

  “I can’t do this,” Sandy said.

  “I know,” Tanesha said and started the car.

  They drove a few moments in silence.

  “I can’t,” Sandy said.

  “I know,” Tanesha said. “But you’re going to do it anyway.”

  Sandy fell silent.

  “I can’t do it,” Sandy said with a sigh. “But you’re right. I’m going to anyway.”

  “Yes, you are,” Tanesha said. “Yes, you are.”

  Chapter Three hundred and eighteen

  Totaled

  Saturday morning — 10:17 a.m.

  “Is Sandy okay?” Jacob asked.

  “Not really,” Aden said. “Listen, you don’t have to stay.”

  Jacob smiled at him and pulled the truck into the parking lot of the Denver sheriff’s impound.

  “No, really,” Aden said. “I know you’re stretched, and I really appreciate your help with the kids last night.”

  “Will you just relax?” Jacob asked. “I’m here. I’ll wait with you for the insurance appraiser, and we’ll head back when we’re done.”

  “I don’t . . .”

  “Everything is fine,” Jacob said in an exasperated voice. “What the hell is going on?”

  Aden undid his safety belt and got out of the truck. Shaking his head, Jacob followed him out of the truck. Jacob grabbed a folded cotton tarp from the bed of the truck.

  “What is going on?” Jacob asked as they walked toward the small cinderblock building.

  “The car is totaled,” Aden said. “Frame’s bent.”

  “You don’t . . .”

  “I worked in a body shop when I was a kid.”

  “So you’ll get a new car,” Jacob said.

  “Can’t afford it,” Aden said.

  “The insurance . . .” Jacob started.

  He held the door open, and Aden went through. Aden checked in at the desk, and they took seats on the metal folding chairs around the edge of the small waiting room.

  “We dropped comprehensive coverage when Lipson lost the state contracts,” Aden said. “It’s six years old. Not terribly old for a Saab, but we’ve put a lot of miles on it. Hell, the company isn’t even around anymore.”

  Jacob nodded.

  “I can’t take a company truck,” Aden said. “With all the smaller jobs, they’re used every single day. We’re lucky we invested in buying the fleet of trucks, because we’d be screwed now.”

  “Val and Mike leave today,” Jacob said. “I’d have to ask Mike, but I’d bet you could drive his Bronco.”

  “No airbags,” Aden said. “I’m not taking my kids anywhere near that deathtrap.”

  Jacob grinned at Aden, who sniffed back at him.

  “What about the other car?” Jacob asked.

  “That’s Sandy’s car,” Aden said.

  “She hates that car,” Jacob said. “I’d bet it’s not too manly for you. Plus, it has airbags everywhere.”

  Aden didn’t respond. From the extent of the sour look on Aden’s face, Jacob deduced that this was the to
pic Aden and Sandy had been quietly arguing about this morning. Jacob ran his shoulder into Aden’s, and Aden looked at him. Jacob grinned.

  “What’s going on, really?” Jacob asked.

  “I promised her a better life,” Aden said.

  Jacob nodded.

  “That’s it?” Aden asked. “You’re not going to give me sage advice. Tell me how everything will work out and I should just have faith?”

  “Nah,” Jacob said. “You know all that stuff.”

  “I didn’t think, you know,” Aden said. He lifted his cut eyebrow and then grimaced at the pain. “I saw the guy shoot the gun and I acted. Just like Charlie didn’t think when he went to help those girls. Just like Noelle didn’t think when she agreed to testify in those trials. We did the right thing and . . .”

  Aden gestured around him.

  “Here I sit,” Aden said. “The guys who raped the girls, sold their tapes, and all that crap, they are . . .”

  “In prison,” Jacob said. “And the guy who shot at Noelle? He’s dead.”

  Aden scowled. The door to the impound office opened and the insurance inspector came in carrying a clipboard. He shook Aden and Jacob’s hands before going up to the desk. They waited a few minutes before a sheriff arrived to take them onto the lot. They had to walk about half a mile to Aden’s Saab. The insurance agent began immediately circling the car and writing things down on his clipboard.

  “You can get your stuff out of the car,” the sheriff said. “We won’t release the car until the case is resolved.”

  “Thank you,” Aden said, and shook the young officer’s hand.

  Jacob laid the tarp on the ground while Aden opened the trunk. Jacob started pulling stuff out of trunk. Aden slipped through the broken back seat window to get stuff out of the back seat. He added the stuff from the backseat to the tarp. The agent opened the front driver’s side door and tried the engine. Miraculously, it turned over. The agent made a note and continued around the vehicle.

  When Jacob finished the trunk, he went to the front seat and took stuff out of the glove box. The agent helped Aden out of the backseat of the car and then stepped away to make notes. Aden joined Jacob at the front of the car.

  “Kids,” Aden said. “There’s crap everywhere.”

  “Always,” Jacob said.

  He gave Aden the registration and his insurance card from the glove box. Aden leaned down to pick up an aluminum water bottle.

  “How many bottles do you need in a car?” Aden asked.

  “Nine so far,” Jacob said with a smile.

  “Kids,” Aden muttered, and went back to the pile of stuff from the car.

  After a few minutes, the insurance agent came over to talk to Aden. Jacob got up from the front seat to hear what the agent had to say. By the time he got there, Aden and the agent were shaking hands.

  “Mr. Marlowe.” The agent shook Jacob’s hand and walked off toward the office.

  “What did he say?” Jacob asked.

  “Totaled,” Aden said. “The engine looks all right, which it should, since we take good care of it. But the body’s shot, frame’s bent.”

  Aden shook his head.

  “We’ll tow it to the garage,” Jacob said. “Mike can take a look at it. He knows every mechanic in town.”

  “Mike’s on his way to LA,” Aden said.

  “What’s the rush?” Jacob asked. “We won’t be able to get the car for at least a month, probably more like six months.”

  Aden gave him an exasperated look and went back to sorting out the stuff from the car. After a few minutes, he gave up. He and Jacob tied the corners of the tarp together. Like Atlas, Aden hefted the tarp bundle onto his back. Jacob followed him in amused silence.

  At the truck, Aden hefted the bundle into the bed of the truck and got into the passenger seat.

  “So what’s really going on?” Jacob asked.

  “Just doesn’t seem fair,” Aden said.

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Charlie, Noelle, Ivy,” Aden said. “My car. We have to absorb the consequences of this whole thing. That’s not to mention those poor girls and their families. God, the girls who killed themselves . . . We carry the load of this perversion while the men who . . . They get away.”

  Jacob started the truck, and they headed out onto York Boulevard.

  “You don’t have anything to say?” Aden asked.

  “I spent a lot of years dancing with the seductress ‘not fair’,” Jacob said. “There isn’t anything I can say to thwart her. And certainly, you’ve had more than your fair share of difficulties.”

  They drove in silence for a while before Jacob decided to say something else.

  “I gave up my whole life to the ‘unfairs,’” Jacob said. “I could have lured Jill away from Trevor but I was too caught up in the ‘unfairs’. I could have this life, the one I have right now, if I’d only acted instead of . . .”

  “Dancing with a seductress,” Aden said.

  “Exactly,” Jacob said. “You want to give up all that you have for that shit?”

  “No,” Aden said. “But . . .”

  “That doesn’t make it fair,” Jacob said. “Sure.”

  Jacob snorted a laugh.

  “What?” Aden asked.

  “My mom used to say that maybe a little unfairness is the cost of having so much bounty,” Jacob said. “It’s taken me all this time to actually see what she means.”

  “What does she mean?”

  “She means that dealing with the unfair things is part of having so much — healthy kids, Jill, the Castle, this business, two hands that work, a mind that can think, hot water.” Jacob nodded.

  “Clean toilets,” Aden said with a grin.

  “Make your own list.” Jacob grinned, and Aden laughed.

  Jacob pulled into the Lipson Construction parking lot.

  “I don’t need the truck,” Jacob said. “Why don’t you take this stuff home? Sandy’s there picking up some things for Noelle and Charlie.”

  “She is?”

  “She is,” Jacob said. “Maybe you guys can talk.”

  “You sure?” Aden asked.

  “I can get a ride from Dad or Tres,” Jacob said. “Ask Sandy about Mike’s Bronco.”

  Aden nodded. Jacob stopped the truck and got out. Aden went around to the driver’s seat. Jacob waved and went into the building. For a moment, Aden thought about what Jacob had said.

  Shaking his head at himself, he put the truck in gear and headed toward the Castle.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Saturday morning — 11:37 a.m.

  Sandy was standing in the middle of her bedroom wondering if she should do laundry. As she’d done three or four times already, she went to her dresser drawer and peered at her underwear. She walked back to the bag on the bed.

  Valerie was leaving today and doing her last loads of laundry. Of course, there was a laundry room at the Malibu house, but the washers weren’t as big or as nice as the industrial washers they had here. Sandy tipped her head to the side and tried to listen for the sound of the household water.

  “Washer’s still on,” Sandy said out loud.

  If she spent another night at the hospital, she would need . . . She went back to her dresser drawer to look and then back to the bag.

  “Valerie said she’d let me squeeze in a load,” Sandy said out loud.

  She walked to the window and opened the curtain to looked out. Mike was standing on the grass with a shovel in his hand. The winter had been warm enough that he thought he could turn over the beds now to help out Jacob and Aden later in the season. Mike was laughing at something Delphie said. Sandy flicked the curtain closed.

  She went back to her dresser drawer.

  “Whatcha looking for?” Aden asked.

  Sandy yelped with surprise and spun around. Aden was standing at the door. She gave him an annoyed shake of her head and went to the bed to look in the duffle bag.

  “I’ve watched you do that a couple times,” Ad
en said.

  “Do what?”

  “Look in your drawer and then look in the bag,” Aden said. “It’s not in there.”

  “What’s not?”

  “A solution,” Aden said.

  “I’m looking for underwear, you jerk,” Sandy said.

  “Mmm,” Aden said.

  He sat down on the bed next to her duffle bag. She scowled at him and went to look in her drawer. After another look in the bag, she dropped down on the bed. They sat in silence with the duffle bag between them.

  “Moving out?” Aden asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out what I need for another night in that fucking hospital,” Sandy said.

  “Mmm,” Aden said.

  “Yeah, thanks for being so helpful,” Sandy said.

  “What help do you need?” Aden asked.

  She gave him an indignant look and went to her dresser drawer. He got up and shoved the drawer closed. She spun around to look at him.

  “Yes, I closed the goddamn dresser drawer,” Aden said. “It’s not in there!”

  “My underwear?” Sandy asked. “It is too in there! Where else would it be?”

  Despite himself, Aden chuckled. She gave him a sour look and plopped back down on the bed. They sat in heavy silence. The household water turned on and off, indicating that the washing machines were still going. Outside the window, Mike yelled something at Delphie, and she laughed. The silence got heavier.

  “It’s too much,” Aden said.

  “You think?” Sandy’s voice was so bitter that his head jerked to look at her. “I assume you’re home to tell me that your car, one of our only assets, is totaled.”

  “It’s totaled,” Aden said.

  “Of course it is.” Sandy got up from where she sat and started toward the bathroom.

  “Jake said that we could drive Mike’s Bronco,” Aden said. “I told him . . .”

  “That’s nice of him,” Sandy said. She crossed her arms and turned back to him. “I don’t know what we would do if we weren’t living here. We just paid off my hospital bill. Now we have Charlie’s bill. This is Noelle’s second bill in less than a year.”

  She looked down at the ground.

  “I need to work more,” Sandy said. “We should sell my condo. We . . .”

  He got up and put his arms around her. She didn’t move to hold him back. Out of nowhere, a sob came out of her mouth. She pushed him away.