The 8 Mistakes of Amy Maxwell

by Heather Balog

  “We did live across the street, but as you may have noticed, we weren’t too social. We tried to avoid being in public too much, but we had to maintain the impression of a nice, quiet elderly couple. We were friendly enough, but didn’t get involved with the people on our block.

  “Anyway, Mary and I were agents and had been friends for many years, both of us widowed, so we were the perfect candidates for the sting operation,” Walter continues.

  “What sting operation?” I ask incredulously. A sting operation on our block? Seriously?

  “You have to have an operation when you get stung by a bee?” Allie asks, equally disbelievingly. “I didn’t know that. Mom, why didn’t you tell me that?”

  Oh, my dear dumb child… I pat her head and roll my eyes at Walter.

  Walter smiles weakly, removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing. “I guess there is no harm in telling you this since our cover is already blown.” He pushes his glasses back up on his nose and leans in towards us. “We suspect that there’s a mafia member living on Hartford Ave. He is the leader of the drug ring that we’ve been trying to take down for several years. Been dealing exclusively to high school and middle school kids. Up until this morning, we weren’t sure if we were correct. After the hit on Mary, we are certain.”

  I gasp, unable to control myself. Holy crap. It is about drugs!

  “Who is it?” I question, not sure I wanted to know as I immediately begin scrolling through my mind’s neighborhood rolodex for possibilities.

  Eddie, the senile, retired bus driver who went out to the store in his underwear last week? Yeah, no, couldn’t be Eddie. Bill, the tax accountant who got out the yard stick to place his garbage cans equidistant to the curbs? Hmmm, probably not him. Fred, the butcher who screamed at his wife on the front lawn last month and threw a steak at her? Oh, yes, it definitely had to be Fred.

  “That’s so cool! Who is it?” Allie perks up.

  “It is so not cool, Allie!” I correct. The kid has watched Goodfellas with Roger too many times. “There’s a murderer living on our block. That is really not cool.”

  Allie shrugs. “I still want to know who it is.”

  Walter shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that. It’s confidential information and we haven’t caught the suspect yet. As Jason says, we can’t do anything to compromise the case.”

  “We’re stuck on a mountaintop a bazillion miles from anyone. My phone is dead and even if it wasn’t or I had the charger with me, there’s probably no chance in hell I am going to get a signal. You’re probably not going to let us go home until after the guy is caught and hauled off to jail and it will be splashed all over the front of the newspapers by that point in time, so tell me, what difference does it make if you tell us or not?” Allie remarks pointedly.

  Walter isn’t budging. “Nope. Not going to tell you so you might as well get ready for bed.”

  Grumbling, Allie and I rise to our feet. We trudge down the hall before I realize something and turned back to Walter who now is sitting at the breakfast nook. Jason hasn’t lifted his head up, so I don’t know if he is still crying or not. “Go ahead,” I tell Allie, pointing towards the bedrooms.

  She shakes her head vehemently. “No friggin’ way. I’m staying with you. I’m not going into that room alone. What if there’s an ax murderer behind the door? Waiting to drag me into the woods and chop me into teeny tiny pieces?” Ugh, not this again.

  Figuring that this is not the time to argue with my teenager, I sigh and pad back down towards the kitchen. Allie joins Sean in the living room where he is now sitting on the couch, staring at his shoelaces, sans expression. They look even smaller than their thirteen and fourteen years sitting there next to each other. Walter and Jason are still at the table, heads huddled closely together. They seem to be deep in discussion.

  I step into the kitchenette and stand in front of the nook, hands on my hips. The men glance up when they see my shadow fall across the table.

  Walter looks sad, the kind of sad you might see if your cat got hit by a car. But Jason is clearly falling apart. His face is blotchy, his nose reddened and possibly runny. He wipes the underside with the back of his hand. No matter how long I lived with Roger or had two gross little boys, I can never get used to that. I shudder before speaking.

  “Listen, I need to know one more thing…”

  Jason sighs. “Mrs. Maxwell-”

  “Amy,” I correct him.

  “What?” he replies, furrowing his brow.

  “Call me Amy. If we’re going to be stuck together for God knows how long, it’s ridiculous for you to keep calling me Mrs. Maxwell.” Jason nervously runs his fingers through his hair. I notice a small clump interwoven in his fingers. Maybe the idea of being stuck with me till the end of time is torture to him. “Besides, we’re neighbors anyway. Well, I guess we’re neighbors until you figure out who the neighborhood criminal is.”

  Jason nods. “Yeah. I’m sure we will be getting another assignment after that.”

  “Which is exactly why I’m wondering…who are you exactly?” I raise my eyebrow. “You’re not Walter’s son. Walter’s not Mary’s husband. So who are you? And,” I glance over towards the couch as I lean in to whisper. “Who is Sean?”

  Nobody is who they claim to be, so what are a bunch of undercover agents doing with a fourteen year old autistic child? If he is in fact, autistic. Shit, for all I knew, he could be a twenty-two year old undercover college student. Hell, the kid was big enough and he looks like he shaves.

  Jason glances at Walter nervously. Walter shrugs and remarks, “Hey she’s involved whether we like it or not. Can’t really leave her in the dark.”

  Sweat is beading around Jason’s hairline as he runs his fingers through his thick hair again. I know it sounds crazy, but I am actually getting a little giddy from making him so uncomfortable. It seems like I have the upper hand in this conversation, even though that probably isn’t true.

  “Mary really was my mother. I was never married to Stacey, Sean’s mother. She was actually an FBI agent with whom my mother got really close to. She lived next door to my mom for about three years, but since I was busy with work, I didn’t often get to visit Mom. I usually came by for holidays and Mother’s Day, but I’m ashamed to admit, I didn’t see her as much as I should have.

  “All that changed one day when I stopped over in the middle of the week because I was working in the area. That’s when I met Stacey Sanders and I fell madly in love with her. Sean was nine at the time and becoming a real handful because he was almost bigger than her. Sean would go into violent rages and become uncontrollable, hitting her and cursing at her. Stacey even had to call the police once when he threw a chair at her and ran out of the house. She was terrified that he would get kidnapped or hit by a car. She was always worried about him; never herself. His deadbeat father had disappeared long before he was born and Stacey didn’t have any family nearby to help her with Sean which is probably why she connected so much with my mother.”

  Jason glances up at me, lids brimming over with tears. I can’t take my eyes off of him; this child he is describing seems nothing like the mild mannered Sean who is sitting in the next room.

  “Mom had taken Sean and Stacey under her wing. I found myself visiting even more often and Stacey and I ended up dating. I moved in with them soon after, selling my condo. We were going to get married. I was going to adopt Sean. He had calmed down tremendously since I moved in.” Jason just shrugs. “Maybe half of his problem was just the fact he needed a male role model in his life.

  “So one day, three years ago tomorrow, believe it or not, I got a call from my supervisor that he needed me downtown in his office immediately. He didn’t say what it was about, so I assumed I had a new case. I remember it was an unseasonably warm Indian summer day and I had been jogging in the park. I normally would have gone home to change first, but I didn’t because he had sounded urgent. So I rushed to work instead of stopping home. A
nd the boss did have a new case for me, so I didn’t go home until later that evening when I got the phone call.”

  Jason pauses in his tale and swallows hard. He lightly touches his hand to his forehead. “I always wonder what would have happened if my boss hadn’t called me; if I had gone home after my run. Or if I hadn’t gone for a run at all. I know in my heart it probably never would have changed anything, but I always wonder-” His voice breaks off; he is swallowing more now in attempts to control his sobs. Walter is obviously uncomfortable as he clumsily pats him on the back. I shuffle my feet, not sure if I should try to comfort Jason or if he would rather that I don’t acknowledge his grief. Finally, Jason waves Walter away.

  “Stacey had been working in the backyard where she had made a small garden. She loved that garden, she said it gave her so much peace from her life that she worked on it every day, rain or shine. That day she must have been weeding because they found the pile of weeds next to her. Shot in the head. She had worked on a particularly gruesome case many years ago. Serial killer she had put away for 113 years. The wife of that guy was distraught. She had been hysterical in court; screamed she couldn’t live without her man. Didn’t care he was a criminal mastermind who would have killed her too. The woman found out where Stacey lived. She waited till nobody else was home and shot Stacey and then killed herself.”

  Jason’s face is blotchy from emotion and tears; his hands shaking. I am silently hoping that is the end of his story, but he continues on.

  “Thank God Sean wasn’t home. I was so worried about him and the trauma he might endure that we moved out of that house. Stacey had recently named me as Sean’s guardian in her will, so without another parent or family to contest that, he came to live with me. I’m in the process of formally adopting him.

  “Mom moved out of her own house shortly afterwards. Stacey had been like a daughter to her and she said it broke her heart every time she looked into the backyard where the garden used to be. Mom was so shaken up and distraught, she felt the only thing that would cure her was throwing herself into her work. Despite being almost 60 years old, she requested a long term assignment. She thought if she kept busy with work, she would forget about Stacey.

  “The agency balked at that idea. Mary was at retirement age, not the type of person to put on such an assignment. In fact, she hadn’t been on a long term assignment in years. They actually were pushing her to retire, but Mom was a stubborn woman and she refused. But then, this case fell into their laps and she was perfect for it.” Jason jerks a thumb towards Walter. “They paired her with Walter, they decided to call themselves the Sanders in honor of Stacey, and the rest is history.” He shrugs again, a scowl on his face replacing the sadness.

  I feel like I need to sit down. This is all an overwhelming amount of information to process in one night. I grab one of the remaining stools and hop onto it, staring at Jason before I speak. And all I can manage to mutter is, “Wow.”

  Allie pipes up with, “But how did you end up living there? I mean, I get you’re DEA, but it wasn’t your case. It was your mother’s.” She is standing behind my stool, leaning her elbows on the counter. Oh, that was true. Smart kid I have there. I thought she was in the other room, though…

  “Anyway, I was assigned to the case too at my request. I was only supposed to stop in and do ‘son-like’ things, visit and stuff like that but I was nervous about the assignment. Mom was 60 years old and essentially living with a stranger.” He gives Walter a sheepish look. “Sorry. It wasn’t you. Just the whole case freaked me out.”

  Walter throws his hands up, almost in defeat. “Hey, I can’t blame you. You didn’t know me from Adam. Even though Mary and I were colleagues for years and we have to endure intense security scrutiny on this job, you never know. I applaud you, son, for taking charge.”

  “Thanks,” Jason remarks with a shy grin. I can tell he is pleased by Walter’s approval. I wonder what had happened to his own father. Was he an agent, too? Jason said Mary was a widow; did his father get killed? I can’t help wondering if Walter had been like a father figure to him in the few months that they were living together.

  “When they thought they had a break in the case, I moved in. The agency didn’t know about Sean living there, so we kept him kind of hidden, home schooling him and everything until the day he got out and wandered over to your house.”

  Ooo, so that’s why we never saw him until Colt’s party. It makes sense now!

  “After that, the cat was out of the bag and we had to incorporate him into our cover, officially enrolling him in school and all. The DEA flipped out as you can imagine, but I wasn’t about to abandon my mother.”

  His face clouded. “But in the long run, it didn’t accomplish what I had set out to do in the first place; protect my mother.” His voice drops to a low and raspy octave. “I failed my mother, just like I failed Stacey.”

  “Stacey wasn’t your fault,” I interject, realizing I shouldn’t have said anything as soon as the words escaped. Shut up, Amy. You didn’t know Stacey and you barely know Jason. “I’m sorry,” I apologize immediately.

  “It’s fine. I know that I am probably the reason my mother got killed,” Jason replies with a shrug. Walter stands and places both hands on Jason’s shoulders.

  “Stop it, son. Your mother knew what she was getting into. She wanted to take the risk. Hell, she welcomed it. She was a very strong willed woman. I may not have been your mother’s husband, but I certainly got to know her in the few months we lived together.” Walter adds a chuckle that causes Jason to whip his head around and glower at the older man. “Oh, not like that,” Walter stammers when he realizes what he has implied. “We were friends. Very good friends and nothing more. I will miss her tremendously.” He squeezes Jason’s shoulders affectionately.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Sean getting up from his spot on the couch. He ambles over to the table where Jason and Walter are and timidly places his hand on Jason’s shoulder. Jason turns his head towards Sean, offering him a grateful smile, placing his own hand on top of Sean’s and they remain still, no words escaping from any of them.

  I back away slowly from this family who is not really a family but still seemed to support each other more than my own family did. I wished I knew what I was doing wrong and what they had done right.

  ~FOURTEEN~

  Jason is smiling down at me when I wake up; the sun is streaming in the dirty windows.

  “Hi,” he says with a charming smile that causes my insides to melt like a crayon left on the sidewalk on a hot summer day.

  My mouth feels dry and cottony, as if I drank too much the night before and I find that I can’t speak as I struggle to sit up. In Jason’s hand a bottle of Perrier appears.

  “You look like you could use some water,” he purrs as he holds the bottle up. He twists off the cap and hands it to me with the same adorable grin. God, how he makes his dimples dance! So tantalizing!

  “How did you sleep?” he asks while lovingly stroking my hair. I am paralyzed in awe of this gorgeous man.

  “Um, I slept well,” I manage to stammer, remembering correct grammar. Oh, how my mother would be so proud of me!

  “They caught the suspect,” he whispers as he sits on the bed and leans closer to my ear, his warm breath causing a chill to rip through my body. “He’s in custody.”

  “Oh, that’s excellent,” I manage to respond in a raspy voice. Water. I need water. I take another sip of water to lubricate my parched throat.

  “I’ve sent everyone else home,” Jason murmurs, practically nuzzling my ear. My overtired body trembles with desire, energizing my limbs. I can feel stirrings in regions that haven’t felt such sensations in four years.

  “Oh,” I reply, trying to prevent my voice from squeaking. “Everyone?”

  Jason nods as he cups my face in his hands and stares lovingly into my eyes. I feel as if I can see into the depths of his broken and damaged heart and soul through his eyes. “We’re all alone. It�
��s a rainy day, too. You know what rainy days are good for? Staying in bed…all day.”

  “Alone?” I repeat in disbelief. I haven’t been alone in ages. I’m not sure I even know what alone is anymore. And what would one do if they find themselves “alone” with a handsome, mysterious neighbor who isn’t really a neighbor but an undercover agent who fights the bad guys?

  “Yes,” Jason says as his hand brushes the side of my face from the top of my cheekbone down to my chin. “Alone. Together.” He leans in and his lips touch mine-

  “Amy!” Jason is standing over my bed wearing a scowl. “Are you getting up at some point today?”

  I struggle to sit up, my eyes bleary and my head foggy. I glance around the room and discover that Allie is not sleeping in the twin sized bed next to me and the cabin is quiet except for the sound of rain pounding on the roof. And Jason.

  Gone is the soft and vulnerable Jason that revealed himself last night. In his place is a hardened looking man taping his foot and glaring down at me, causing me to think I may have dreamt up his tears the previous evening.

  “I need you to get up and keep an eye on the kids. Walter and I are being debriefed this afternoon so we are going to be gone for a while and I want to make sure that you-”

  My throat is scratchy, but I manage to sputter, “You’re leaving us here? Alone in the woods? With no cell phone?”

  Jason shakes his head. “You’ll be fine. The perps aren’t after you and Allie, or Sean.”

  “Oh really? Then why did we have to be dragged all the way up here then?” I snap as I leap from the bed, forgetting that I have been sleeping in a tee shirt and my underwear. I had tried to fall asleep completely clothed and I just couldn’t, so I ended up peeling off my jeans around 3 am after tossing and turning, worried and appalled about the whole situation.

  Jason’s eyes widen and his head jerks back in surprise at my attire. Mortified, I rip the top sheet off the bed and wrap it around my lower body; my face feeling like it was going to burn off from the heat of my blushing. Jason appears to be averting his eyes as I struggle with the sheet and try to remember what I had wanted to say. Shit, this is embarrassing.