Isabel's Run

by M. D. Grayson

  Chapter 31

  MY MOM AND dad saw the news coverage that evening, and before we’d even left the hospital, my phone started ringing. They were worried about me—I had to work hard to convince my mom that I was alright. In the end, we agreed to move my birthday dinner to the following week. I needed a little downtime. I’m lucky. I have people who care—always have. I thought about this in contrast to poor Isabel. Obviously, not everyone’s as fortunate as I’ve been.

  Toni stayed with me at my apartment that night after we left the hospital. We didn’t do much of anything—mostly just talked a little, drank a few beers, listened to music, and watched the boats out on the lake. Except for talking about our concern for Isabel, the other events of the day never even came up. But the quiet, the relaxation were just what I needed as I came to grips with the shooting of Donnie Martin. She stayed with me that night and held me tight, all night long.

  The next day, Saturday, June 16, was my birthday. Right after my run, we packed the Jeep and hit the road early. We took the Edmonds-Kingston ferry and then shot across Highway 3 until it ran into US 101. We turned north and drove all the way around past Port Angeles. We found a quiet spot on the north shore of Lake Crescent in the Olympic National Park, where I set us up a little camp. We fixed lunch, and then I played guitar and fished the rest of the day. Toni kicked back and read a book until she got tired of that, and then she came and sat by me and watched me catch the same three little trout over and over.

  We didn’t say much—just relaxed. We were content to simply listen to the sounds of nature on the lake, punctuated by the occasional whizzz of my spinning reel.

  Talk about therapeutic. I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate turning thirty.

  By Sunday morning, thanks to the combination of Toni’s quiet nurturing and the majestic setting, most of the damage to my soul was healed. Donnie Martin’s shooting was safely tucked away in its proper place—sad, but necessary. Our thoughts and prayers were for Isabel. We packed up and hit the road after lunch and made it home by five.

  Then, she left.

  Not permanently, but she left. She went back to her apartment, and I went home to mine. After spending the past sixty hours with her, there was only one word to describe things around my place without her.

  Empty.

  * * * *

  “Good morning, everyone,” I said Monday at eight o’clock. “Hope you all had a great weekend.”

  We were assembled in the conference room for our staff meeting. Toni sat in her customary spot—at the opposite end of the table. She was completely dazzling this morning. She wore a long, pleated bright-yellow skirt with a royal blue sleeveless top that showed her tattoos in their full glory. Her four-inch heels made her almost as tall as me. She wore a deep-blue eye shadow that complemented her sparkling eyes. On each ear were three stud earrings—she didn’t wear any nose piercings today (sometimes she does). She was simply stunning. She could stop an Amtrak train today.

  “Very nice weekend, indeed,” Richard said. “Maria and I took the ferry to Bainbridge. We had a pleasant Saturday afternoon on Main Street. What about you two?”

  “We spent Saturday at Lake Crescent,” I said.

  “I watched Danny fish,” Toni said.

  “Sounds enjoyable,” Richard said. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or a touch sarcastic.

  Toni cocked her head and thought for a second. “Actually, it was.”

  Cool.

  “We stayed home and kicked back,” Doc said.

  I nodded. “Good deal. Where’s Kenny?” I asked. His customary chair across from Doc was empty.

  “I’m here,” Kenny said, smiling, as he entered the conference room. He was carrying a pink box. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped off at Top Pot and got some donuts.”

  Toni beamed. “Kenny!” she said, “Top Pot! What a nice thing to do. Did you get apple fritters?”

  Kenny stopped, and the smile left his face. “I—I—,” I thought he was going to say, “I forgot,” when he suddenly smiled again. “Of course I did,” he said. “Gotcha!”

  I don’t eat donuts, which is fine since Toni can eat enough for both of us. She loves apple fritters. She works out at the gym or at the Krav Maga studio three or four nights a week to maintain her conditioning and her figure. She waited eagerly as Kenny went to his seat and set the box on the table.

  He reached to open the box when Toni suddenly said, “I’ll get it.” She shot out her hand and slid the box in front of her.

  “Well, you don’t have to be pushy about it,” Kenny said, giving in.

  Toni smiled as she unlatched the box and flipped the lid open, and then all hell broke loose.

  Toni screamed and pushed back from the table so fast that her chair fell over backward when she stood up. She knocked her teacup over, and it spilled on the table and dripped onto the floor. I was sitting at the other end of the conference table and couldn’t see what was happening, so I jumped up as well. I could feel the adrenalin surging through my body. I moved to the side so that I could see over the lid into the box of donuts. At that moment, an enormous, black, hairy tarantula stepped gracefully across the top of an apple fritter to the edge of the box and stopped. It waved an arm in Toni’s direction as it looked for a place to take another step.

  “Oh my God!” Toni said. Her eyes were wide open—she had a look of abject horror on her pale face as she stared at the spider. She tried to retreat further from the table, but her chair was blocking her way.

  “What the—?” I started to say, when Kenny suddenly burst out laughing.

  I looked at him, then at the spider, then back at him.

  Toni glanced quickly at Kenny, then looked back at the spider, which was still in the same position, waving at her, apparently unable to figure out how to get down from the top of the box to the table.

  “Did you—?” Toni sputtered.

  Kenny laughed hysterically, nodding his head up and down. “I got you!” he managed to say, tears starting to run down his face.

  “You got me?” she asked, incredulously. “You got me? You put a spider in the donuts?”

  Kenny was still nodding. “I did,” he managed to say, stopping his laughing long enough to answer. “Still want an apple fritter?” He started laughing uncontrollably again. He was barely able to stand.

  I looked over at Doc. He was doing his best not to laugh, but he looked like he was about to blow any second. Even Richard was chuckling to himself.

  I relaxed and shook my head and started to laugh.

  “You little bastard,” Toni said, regaining her senses, the start of a smile on her face.

  “I got you,” Kenny said.

  Toni kept a wary eye on the spider, but she nodded. “Okay,” she said, nodding slowly. “You win. This one.”

  “What do you mean ‘this one’?” Kenny said. “I owed you. Now we’re even.”

  Toni looked at him. “You think?”

  “Yeah, we’re even.”

  She smiled a wicked, nasty smile that probably should have scared him. “You’re right,” she said, with false sweetness. “We are even.” She looked up at him. “And you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Uh-oh for you, dude,” Doc said to Kenny. “I told you she’d be pissed—payback’s a bitch.”

  I smiled. “What are you going to do with that thing now?” I asked.

  Doc reached over and placed his hand flat in front of the spider. The tarantula, looking like he’d been standing on a curb waiting for a taxi, immediately stepped aboard.

  “Eeww!” Toni said.

  “Guess he’s tired of donuts,” Doc said. He looked at Kenny. “You still got the cage in your office?”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s get this crap cleaned up, and we’ll try this again at 8:15.”

  * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, the spider was safely back in his cage in Doc’s office. Turns out he belonged to one of Pri’s nephews. Doc had been babysitting when Kenny c
ame over and was inspired by the possibilities. He actually paid fifty dollars to rent the spider.

  We reassembled back in the conference room, where Toni had cleaned everything up.

  “That was fun,” I said, smiling, after we were all seated.

  “Oh, bucket loads,” Toni said. “Good prank.” Kenny wore a smug smile, satisfied with himself.

  “We all done with the fun and games? Okay. Moving on to business,” I said. As soon as I had everyone’s attention, I started. “First off, I checked this morning before I came in. No news on Isabel. She’s still listed in critical condition in ICU.”

  “Do they know what the problem is?” Kenny asked.

  “They say her miscarriage led to an infection. Her body reacted badly to the infection, and it triggered a condition called sepsis. Sepsis is apparently very serious.”

  Doc said, “Pri says that with sepsis, it might take a week or maybe more before they’ll even know for sure if she can pull through. Even then, she could be hospitalized for maybe a month.”

  “Well, say your prayers for her,” I said. “Isabel’s been through too much as it is.”

  We spent the rest of the meeting outlining our duties and roles in the upcoming Ferguson and Sons surveillance job. The retainer check had arrived in the mail over the weekend—just in time to keep me from having to dip into the reserves. We were scheduled to begin installing hidden cameras later that evening. It would be nice to have things back to normal.

  * * * *

  After the meeting, I called Toni into my office. I closed the door when she came in.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, smiling, as we sat down. “Am I getting fired?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  “What? You didn’t get your fill of me over the weekend?” she asked.

  I smiled and shook my head. “No. How ’bout you? You sick of me yet?”

  “You kidding? I can barely stand you.”

  I smiled. “You look really pretty today.”

  She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. She paused and then said, “Just today?”

  “Let me rephrase. You look beautiful. Every day.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  I continued. “Yesterday, when I got home, I had the chance to do some thinking,” I said.

  “In addition to all the other thinking you did over the weekend,” Toni said.

  “Will you stop and let me finish?”

  “Sorry.”

  I looked at her. “I was with you all weekend long and an hour after you’d left, I found myself missing you.”

  “Go figure,” she said.

  “Exactly. So I started asking myself ‘what’s up with that?’ See, whenever I’ve been with someone in the past, and I knew that they’d be leaving soon—well, that was pretty much a good thing. A relief. I’m a pretty private guy, and I like my space. Now, though, with you—I’m to the point where just knowing you’re going to be leaving—like yesterday afternoon—well, it really sucks. And you actually leaving—like last night—well, that’s even worse. I don’t like it.”

  She smiled. “So you’re saying you like me?”

  “No,” I said. I stood up and walked over to her. “I’m saying it took us five years to get together. Silly me. But it’s only taken me three months to realize that I’ve fallen in love with you. I’m flat crazy about you, Toni. And I think I’m getting more that way every day. That’s it.”

  She smiled and stood up. “So you’re saying—”

  “I love you, Toni.”

  She looked at me, and her eyes started to moisten. Then she smiled. “Me, too,” she said, quietly. “I love you, too, Danny Logan.”

  I stepped forward and took her in my arms. We hugged for a solid minute, saying nothing. Then I pushed back just far enough to kiss her softly.

  “Wait,” I said after a few seconds. “I’m not done. I wanted to give you a present.”

  “A present?” she said, sniffling, “This is good. Presents are good.”

  I turned and picked up a small box on my desk. I handed it to her.

  “Whoa. What’s this?” she asked, looking at me warily.

  “Open it and find out.”

  She fiddled with the lid, got it off, and then pulled out a shiny gold key. She held it up, knowing immediately what it was.

  “When you’re over at my place,” I said, “I don’t want to have to suddenly start worrying anymore about you leaving to go home. I want you to already be home. Us—together.”

  She looked at me. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I am definitely ready. I want you to move in with me. I want us to be together.”

  She was quiet for several seconds. Then she said, “I’ve been thinking about this, too. Maybe you’d better sit back down.”

  Oh, shit. That didn’t sound good. Could I have misjudged this thing really badly? I took a seat.

  “Here’s the deal,” she said. “Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want to live together, at least not for real, unless we’re married. And—before you get alarmed,” she said, “this is not a ploy to get you to propose." She smiled. "Believe me, we’re not ready to get married. Maybe sometime in the future, but not today.”

  I hadn’t even thought about marriage. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d thought about it a little. Then, I had started feeling overwhelmed, so I'd come up with a brilliant solution–I decided not to think about it anymore. And now, maybe Toni was right. As usual. Maybe it was still be too early. Things were already moving fast between us. Maybe moving in together now would be too fast.

  “Besides–I like my independence,” she continued. “I’m not saying I don’t enjoy my time with you—I love it, actually, but I don’t know if I’m ready to totally give my independence up yet. Obviously, I’m not seeing anyone else. But I don’t want to screw this up between us, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “So,” she said, “I have a counterproposal for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll keep your key,” she said. “And I’ll put it on my ring. But I’m not going to move in with you. At least not formally. I’m going to keep my apartment. That way, I can always tell myself that we don’t live together. At least technically, anyway. Case anyone asks, you live on Lake Union—I live in Fremont. If you piss me off—just in case—then I’ll still have somewhere to go. Separate.”

  I started to talk, but she cut me off.

  “But I will start moving some things over. This afternoon. And I will start staying with you at your place. At least some of the time. How’s that?”

  I was sitting down, and still, my head was spinning. The first thing I felt was immense relief—relief that she wasn’t flat-out turning me down like I’d started to think. And on the heels of that relief, I felt elation. My heart soared. Toni Blair was going to start moving in with me. I smiled. “I can live with that,” I said. Part-time Toni is better than no Toni at all.

  She smiled back at me. “Deal, then.”

  We both stood up and stepped toward each other. I took her in my arms and held her tightly. “Besides,” she said, “the view at your apartment’s a lot better than the view at mine.”

  She was looking over my shoulder, out the window. “The lake is nice,” I said.

  She smiled and leaned back so that she could kiss me. “I’m not talking about the lake, you big dope. I’m talking about you.”

  Epilogue

  Sunday, August 19, 2012

  10:45 a.m.

  THE CONGREGATION AT the Twenty-Third Street Baptist Church spoke quietly to each other as they waited for the sermon to begin. They fanned themselves with hymnals and church bulletins in an effort to keep cool. The church’s ancient air conditioner was working hard, but it was questionable as to whether the air conditioner actually conditioned the air or had given up at some point and simply acted as a large, somewhat noisy fan. But even if it didn’t work well, it was worth a
try, since even at the early hour, it was already in the low eighties outside. The people crowded inside needed all the help they could get.

  A tall, thin, distinguished-looking black man approached the lectern. He wore a simple black Geneva gown over a blue long-sleeved shirt with a black tie. He was a handsome man, middle-aged with tinges of gray beginning to show in his short hair. Already, his face glistened with sweat. When he stepped up and gripped the lectern, the church became quiet except for the rumble of the air conditioner and the ruffle of the handheld fans. “Thank you all for coming together on this fine Sunday morning,” Reverend Arthur Jenkins said as he looked out across his congregation.

  “You all know why we’re here today.” His deep baritone voice, though not raised, reached into the furthest recesses of the old church. “There’s an ugliness in our community—a sin that is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Right here, not one-quarter mile from the doors of this blessed church, there are young boys growing up without moms, growing up without dads, growing up without the guidance and moral structure that any small child needs to mature into a righteous man in the eyes of the Almighty. Some of these people are known to have committed some of the most heinous, the most brutal, the most depraved crimes imaginable. Brothers and sisters, these men are literally stealing innocent young children from our community and placing them in servitude to the depraved lust of grown men. They’re taking these innocent children, enslaving them, plying them with drugs, and turning them out onto the street as prostitutes for their own financial benefit.” Reverend Art’s voice began to rise now. “They use these children up, they chew them up, and when they’re finished with them, why, they toss them out just like day-old trash. No second thoughts.” He looked around at the members of his congregation. “And just what do you suppose happens then? What happens to a fifteen-year-old girl who’s been made to be a prostitute for four years—who’s been made to have sexual relations with thousands of men in that period of time? What happens to that girl then?”

  He paused. “Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you all a story this morning. It’s a story about a girl named Isabel Delgado who went through this very experience. When the men—men from right here in this area—when those who held her decided it was time for her to go sell her body for them—well, she didn’t go along. No. She revolted. God gave her the strength to say, ‘No, I will not!’” His voice thundered across the church. He paused for several seconds, and then he continued, “Now you must understand, brothers and sisters, that Isabel was sixteen when this happened to her—she was older than the children these men normally like to work with. Yes, even though Isabel may have been small of stature, she was tall in self-conviction. Isabel had courage. She told these men no. So they decided to teach her a lesson. These degenerate men took turns raping her. When they’d had their fill, they started in on beating her. They beat her half to death with a hose. They hit her so hard that they broke her arm. But that wasn’t enough, no! Then, they kicked her. The animals!” He was nearly yelling now. “These animals kicked that girl so hard they ruptured her spleen. They kicked her so hard that they killed the child that she was carrying from a previous rape! Sixteen years old and they beat her so bad, she had a miscarriage! When they were finished, when they’d had enough, they locked her in a basement and decided that since she still wouldn’t agree to do what they wanted, they’d just go ahead and sell her. Sell her! Brothers and sisters, I thought slavery been dead and gone for 150 years!”