Chuck called Tommy while Dickie called Bobby it was decided to all meet up at Tommy’s house. So they loaded up and took off on the bikes. After meeting up with the other two couples the four bikes took off together. The night sky was beautiful and Becca enjoyed it even more since the other women were along and enjoying it as much as she was.
After they rode around for a while they stopped off at a small diner for some coffee and dessert for Lilly. As they entered the restaurant Becca listened to a voice mail message from Carmen.
“I dropped off some of the paperwork you requested on Charles Reynolds with Richard Long’s neighbor. It is in a sealed envelope and I will let you know when we have everything else on him ready,” the message stated.
She should be working but was having too much fun and decided to enjoy the rest of the evening instead. She could start again in the morning by going over the documents on Chuck. The time passed all too quickly as it often did whenever she was with the other ladies in this group. They were a family… a unique one… but a family none the less.
After leaving the diner they all rode together for a ways before people started to break off and head their own directions toward home. Watching each couple together on their bike seemed to say something about the relationship of the rider and passenger.
Bobby truly looked like a biker between his size and his dark looks and Lilly seemed to be the light… a contrast to him. Dana had swept her long hair around her neck and tucked it in to her jacket and was snuggled up as close to Tommy as possible with her hands in the pockets of his jacket. Meredith and Chuck appeared to having the time of their lives… occasionally Meredith would lean up and kiss Chuck’s neck and they would both smile.
She was pressed up against Dickie who occasionally would let go of one of the handle bars and rub or pat her leg. She was almost fifty years old and it felt like she was just now starting to live. It was amazing what a new perspective could do. She would miss this feeling when she returned to New York, but was still glad she had experienced it.
When they finally got back Dickie walked over to the neighbors and retrieved her delivery and promised to look at the car the next morning. Then he brought in the envelope and set it on the couch before heading out to the garage to pull his bike inside. She decided to call her brother back.
“You ready to come home?” Greg said upon picking up the call.
“Actually, no I’m not. I have a bunch of stuff going on down here at the moment with cases and I need to finish up some loose ends before I can come back but I am so glad you got him,” she replied.
“We actually busted him right here in New York… he must have run off after seeing what Dickie did to his friend. He’s claiming he’s been in New York the whole time and the threats he made to you back then were the words of an angry young man, not who he is now,” Greg said.
“However, he has no alibi for the day you received the photograph. Being picked up on a probation violation won’t help his case either,” Greg said with a smile in his voice. “Oh and what happened to ‘I’m not working on any cases’?” he mimicked.
“Well… it’s just stuff for the guys at the shop mostly,” she said.
“Whenever you get ready to head back give me a call and I’ll pick you up at the airport,” Greg offered and then said his goodbyes and hung up.
When Dickie returned from the garage she said, “They caught Roger… Greg has him in custody.”
He looked relieved for a few seconds but then his smile disappeared and he said, “I guess you will be anxious to get back home now.”
As unnerving as it had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, or at least for Roger to make an actual attempt on her life, it had given her an opportunity to really enjoy herself. Here in Dickie’s home she’d felt safe, even despite the break in.
He had proven he was capable of protecting her by showing up at the door to the bedroom just as the man had finished tying her up and ordering her to be quiet. In those brief moments before Dickie arrived she had been concerned that the stranger would kill him.
Then he had displayed the set of skills Chuck had described and within seconds had the man incapacitated.
Yes, she did feel safe around Dickie, but she also felt adored, cherished, respected and especially sexy. When she did return to New York she would be going back to her hectic schedule and overwhelming caseload of high dollar court battles. She would be returning to her life of solitude and loneliness and in all honesty really wasn’t looking forward to it.
He hadn’t ever spoken of what their relationship would entail once Roger was no longer a threat and she had never asked. Did she want more than just a casual friendship with benefits? They were polar opposites.
He was laid back, jovial and kind hearted, while she was motivated, slightly bitchy and the wall built from distrust around her heart might never come completely down. He deserved someone as high on life as he was and it was doubtful she would fit that bill for any length of time.
“I suppose that I am in some ways,” she said. “In other ways not so much, but I do have some things I have to finish up down here before I head back. I could get a hotel now though since the threat is gone.”
He approached where she stood and gently held her upper arms in his hands and said, “Will you stay with me until you have to go back? I think I’ve done well… haven’t been in your way too much.”
She felt her heart breaking a little at his words but she had known this day would come. The smart thing to do would be to go now and begin letting the part of her heart that had been exposed to him heal, but his eyes would not allow it.
“I’d like that,” she heard herself say.
He smiled and said, “I’m glad to hear that because your self-defense training isn’t done yet. Hitting a man in the balls is effective if you can pull it off, but that is rarely the case or there would be a lot less victims in this world.”
With that he reached out and gently ran his fingers from her chin down her neck. There he extended them to wrap around her throat as an attacker would and backed her slowly toward the wall that was a couple of steps behind her.
His blue eyes gazed at her and though this had been one of Brian’s favorite ways to control her, she wasn’t afraid. This was a lesson she needed to learn. How to break free… how not to be a victim of fear. His grip was gentle and his eyes never left hers.
“What will you do Becca? How can you escape?” he whispered.
Instinct brought her knee up but he guarded himself with his leg. Shaking his head no at her, he reached down and took her right hand and made a fist without using her index and middle finger. Then he guided the two fingers to his trachea.
“Hit here firmly and he will choke and bend forward,” he said imitating the movement.
“Then you hit hard with your other fist in the same area and then kick him away,” he said, taking her left hand and forcing her to make a fist which he then brought slowly to his neck demonstrating where to hit.
“Then you run and you scream. Use that fear as a weapon toward your attacker rather than as a hindrance to you. If you listen to the fear it will tell you how to survive… sometimes that means fighting back and sometimes it means submitting. Let your fear guide you, not consume you,” he finished quietly.
He made her practice the move a few times before finally capturing her lips with his own and whispering, “Enough fighting… let’s make up now.”
The following morning she was awakened with a kiss on the lips. Opening her eyes she noticed he was up and dressed already… for work. Now that the threat to her safety was over it only made sense for him to go back to his regular routine. He set a cup of coffee on the nightstand near the bed within her reach.
“I need to go into the shop today. I’ll take the bike so you can have my car for the day but I need a favor in exchange,” he said.
“Sure,” she said, sitting up against the headboard.
“I want you to run to the carpet store a
t the edge of town and pick out some carpet you think will look nice for the girls. Something neutral that will match anything and that can be installed in the whole house except for the bathroom and kitchen,” he said.
“I have already called them with the measurements they need. I just need you to pick something you think would look nice.”
“Okay,” she replied.
“I also want you to try to walk for an hour today. I wish I could go with you but if I leave the guys without supervision for too long, it’s usually not pleasant. Lilly even called and offered to set up a workspace for you in her office,” he laughed.
“I can manage that too,” she smiled as he handed her the coffee mug before leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
“I’ll see you tonight then,” he said and then stood and made his way to the door.
After she sat and drank the cup of coffee he had provided, she showered, got dressed and went to the kitchen. Making herself some toast and refilling her coffee, she then sat at the table with the envelope on Chuck.
“When the department comes up off of the information on Mr. Reynolds, I advise you to pay special attention to his medical records.”
What would she find in the file that would be helpful in locating any of his living relatives? A part of her dreaded digging into the young man’s history. Even though it was her job to delve into his past, he had become a friend over the past few months and she did not want to see him hurt.
Taking out a pen and a paper, she opened the folder to find a certified copy of his birth certificate. The birth mother was in fact listed as Amber Reynolds. The father was listed as unknown. Though it was a dead end, it was one she expected. Having prepared herself not to discount any detail she read the certificate in its entirety.
Setting the birth certificate aside she found a copy of his shot records and again read the entire list of vaccinations, including the dates for each, until she saw it. A few moments passed while her brain tried to understand what it was she was seeing. His first set of shots was given when he was 2 months old but the date shown was in November. If his birthday was in November then he couldn’t have been 2 months old.
Laying the shot record aside, she went back to the birth certificate and looked at the date which showed September rather than November as the month of birth. The birth certificate and shot record matched but the knowledge of when his birthday was didn’t.
Resisting the urge to call him and verify when his birthday was, she laid both things aside. A typed report followed the birth certificate with his social security card paper-clipped to the front.
Reading through the report it indicated he was given over to the department in March of the year following his birth by a man who said he was not the baby’s father. The man had provided a copy of the death certificate for Amber Reynolds along with the child’s birth certificate and shot record. The man indicated that the mother had been seeing another man prior to meeting him.
The document went on to say that the baby was average length and weight and appeared to be in good health. Adoption proceedings could not be started until an exhaustive search was made for any biological living relatives.
The brief report created more questions than answers, beginning with the man who turned Chuck into the department. Was he the same man Dickie had beaten up?
Looking at the notes on her pad of paper, she began doing the math. If Chuck had been born at the end of September rather than in November, then Amber would have conceived around Christmas of the previous year.
Dickie said he had spent the holidays with Amber. Unless Amber had been sleeping with both Dickie and the other man during that timeframe, it was possible that Dickie was Chuck’s father!
Though her heart was sick at the thought of what that would do to his relationship with Chuck, her mind couldn’t seem to keep from thinking of the similarities between the two of them that were now so apparent.
They were both big men, with broad shoulders and were similar in size and body shape. Though Chuck had blonde hair rather than dark hair like Dickie, he had blue eyes… almost the exact same color as Dickie’s.
Chuck had never said anything to her about his feelings regarding his biological parents other than to say if they hadn’t wanted him back then… then he didn’t want them now.
In this case, one biological parent was dead and that she could provide proof of. What she could not prove without a doubt was who his other biological parent was.
As much as she wanted to share this information with Dickie, she wanted to be sure before opening up both him and Chuck to heartache over that which couldn’t be changed.
She could get Chuck to submit blood work by telling him that she may have located his father and that she wanted DNA verification before indicating who the man was. What she couldn’t do was get Dickie to submit for DNA testing without him knowing why.
Then there was the thought that if she was able to get the DNA test done, what would happen if the test came back showing Dickie wasn’t his father. It would effectively put her back to square one with attempting to find Chuck’s biological father.
She couldn’t help but wonder that if the woman had cheated on Dickie with another man, wasn’t it also possible that she cheated on the other man as well? It wasn’t like she could ask the woman who had fathered her son. She was dead.
After finding an online DNA testing facility she called and was directed to a nearby clinic that could collect the DNA samples and submit it to the center for testing. Picking up her cell phone she called Chuck.
“I want you to go to the clinic near the hospital and have a DNA sample collected. I will then have the clinic send the collection to another facility for testing,” she said when he picked up.
“So you found them, huh?” he asked.
“Not yet. I just wanted to get the ball rolling for when I do find them. So when you have some time, go ahead and go down there. I will have my office request the results be faxed to me, so make sure you sign off on all the documents they provide to you at the clinic,” she said.
“You’re the boss,” he replied. “I’ll try and leave out of here early enough to get over there before they close.”
After hanging up with Chuck she called her office and had one of the paralegals draft a document requesting the results be faxed to her. Then she had that document faxed to the clinic so that Chuck could sign it when he went in for testing.
Looking at the clock she realized that she needed to get to the carpet store and after finding Dickie’s keys she headed out. She knew she was avoiding having to tell Dickie her suspicions but her heart wondered if he would be more devastated if Chuck were his son or if he wasn’t.
His strong sense of responsibility would leave him hurt that he hadn’t been able to provide Chuck with a better childhood. If Chuck wasn’t his son would she have raised his hopes up for nothing? This case was different than most of her cases since she genuinely cared about the results because she cared about both individuals involved.
As she pulled into the parking lot of the carpet store and got out of the car, she felt the sensation that she had felt so many times over the past couple of weeks… like she was being watched. She shook the feeling away. Roger was in custody now… and in New York… she was once again safe.
She spent the better part of an hour looking at the different styles and colors of carpet. After finally selecting some carpeting that best matched Dickie’s request, she decided she would head back to his house and get in her hour walk before he got home. Upon exiting the carpet store she noticed that both front tires on Dickie’s car were flat. Shit! Had she ran over something?
Pulling out her cell phone she called him. “I need your help,” she said when he answered. “I must have ran over something in the parking lot of the carpet store… both of the front tires are flat and there is only one spare.”
“I’m on my way, Speed Racer,” he replied with a smile in his voice.
Chapter Nine
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br /> She waited inside the store until Dickie pulled up outside in the tow truck. God help her but she couldn’t stop watching him as he got out of the truck and went over to inspect the car. He moved like a lion, graceful but with purpose and like he could pounce at any moment.
Shaking away her thoughts she went outside. She would have his undivided attention for a few minutes while he changed the tires. Now was as good a time as any to talk to him about Chuck.
Standing beneath the awning that stretched the length of the building, she watched as he got out a jack and a lug wrench and headed over to the car.
“Sorry about this… I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember hitting anything or driving over anything unsafe,” she said guiltily.
“Don’t lie to me, woman, you’ve been out burning rubber, haven’t ya?” he said with one of his devilish grins.
“Yes… drag racing is just one of my many talents,” she replied sarcastically.
“I will give you that… you are one talented woman… at many things,” he said with a smile and a wink.
With that he went back to the truck, pulled out a couple of tires and then rolled them over to lean them against the car.
“I, uh… I looked over some of the information I received on Chuck,” she said.
“Anything good?” he asked as he pulled a couple of weighted wedges out of the truck and put them under the back tires.
“Edna said that Chuck’s birthday is at the end of November, is that correct?” she asked.
“Yea, why?” he asked as he knelt down and slid the jack under the car.
“They sent a certified copy of his birth certificate and according to that he was born September 28th, not November 28th,” she said softly.
She knew the minute his mind followed down the same path hers had when she’d first seen the date on the birth certificate. His body stiffened and all movement stopped.
She wasn’t good at being supportive or helping someone deal with their emotions. She was no Dana by any means, but she knew he needed support. Walking over to where he was crouched down next to the flat tire, she placed her hand on his shoulder.
Long Ride (Riding with Honor) Page 10