Guardian

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Guardian

  By

  Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Copyright ( c ) Madris DePasture writing as Kaitlyn O’Connor February 2021

  Cover Art by Jenny Dixon

  Smashwords Edition

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Marilyn had chewed the fledgling nails off of three fingers and started on the fourth before the receptionist called her, directing her to the office belonging to the detective she’d been assigned to speak to. She jumped guiltily when the cop behind the desk barked her name and tore a cuticle. Ignoring the pain, she bounded out of her seat and dropped her purse on the floor. It took her ten minutes to scoop up the collection it held; receipts, pens, pencils, her wallet, tissues, a couple of screws, the leftovers from her lunch, half a candy bar from snack break, and store coupons—hair brush, lip balm and hair tie.

  A roach crawled out, as well, and she hurriedly stomped it with her shoe and flicked it under the chair she’d been sitting in.

  She was going to have a ‘word’ with her landlord, she thought, angry and embarrassed and wondering who might have noticed.

  She was already thoroughly rattled and she hadn’t even talked to anybody! Her cheeks were cherry red when she straightened at last and moved to the door. It was locked and that flustered her more.

  Absolutely nothing was going the way she’d envisioned it in her mind when she’d decided it was her civic duty to report the strange goings on in her apartment building, specifically the very odd behavior of one of the tenants on her floor. But the longer she’d sat waiting, the less convinced she was that she actually was doing the right thing.

  She’d reached the point, in fact, where she had almost convinced herself to get up and leave without saying anything at all, except she wasn’t sure they’d just let her walk out when she’d already asked to talk to a detective. “Uh … I’m sorry … uh … which door?”

  He buzzed it to let her in and she hurriedly grabbed the pull to stop the buzzing, snatching it open.

  She paused again when she’d entered the hallway behind it. “Uh … I’m sorry. What’s the detective’s …?”

  “Dilliard.”

  Nodding a little jerkily, beginning to deeply regret the impulse that had prompted her visit to the local police station, she headed down the hallway, checking the doors as she passed—shoulders hunched, elbows clamped at her waist, her purse secured on her crossed arms.

  Every room was filled with busy people, or at least people trying to look busy whether they were or not. The noise level was … uncomfortable.

  But then again, her own workplace was as quiet as a tomb.

  The door was standing ajar when she reached the detective’s office. She paused and rapped her knuckles on the door molding.

  A stout man of indeterminate years turned his head, frowning at her. “Ms. …uh … Carter?” he inquired after he’d found a piece of paper and read it.

  His chair squawked as he pushed it back and stood up. It was a rolling chair so it was either the age of the chair or the weight of the man that suggested it might fall apart at any time.

  Marilyn tripped over something as she surged forward.

  She paused and scanned the floor a little distractedly.

  She had to suppose it was the ‘invisible’ bump she kept tripping over for the floor looked perfectly smooth.

  Or her shoe had ‘grabbed’ just to make her look clumsy and stupid.

  “Have a seat,” the man said, pointing to a straight backed chair squeezed between the front of his desk and the wall. “What can I help you with today, Ms … uh ….” He paused, rifling through the papers on his desk. “Carter?”

  He couldn’t remember a name that simple? Or he was just trying to make her feel inconsequential?

  Marilyn perched on the edge of the chair, miserably uncomfortable now that she was faced with the actuality of the meeting she had envisioned. It didn’t feel ‘right’. She didn’t feel righteous. Faced with his cool, impersonal politeness and what felt like a complete lack of interest in the business that had brought her, the urge to flee churned in her belly and made her hands and feet cold and clammy with nerves.

  What if this ruined the poor man’s life and he hadn’t done anything at all? What if he just seemed suspicious to her because he was a little strange? “I … uh … Well. You know they say if you see something, say something?” she finished in a rush.

  Something flickered in his beady eyes. “You witnessed something?” he asked sharply.

  Marilyn forced a nervous laugh, struggling with her fluctuating color. “Oh … om … not anything specific. I just thought ….”

  Now she could see skepticism in the man’s expression. He sat back and dragged out a note pad and a pen. “Let me just get a little information from you. Full name?”

  Marilyn blinked at him, wondering uneasily why he needed her name. She wasn’t reporting herself! “Marilyn Elizabeth Carter,” she said finally.

  “And this report is about something you saw?”

  Dismay flickered through Marilyn, but she felt compelled, now, to answer the best she could—and also to throw in a caveat to absolve herself of guilt and make her neighbor look innocent or at least less guilty than she’d thought he was. “I didn’t actually see anything. That’s why I came here—because I thought he might be up to something and that y’all would want to check it out. It’s my neighbor. Well, one of my neighbors. I live in an apartment building. And, actually he’s just on the same floor so I don’t know if you’d really call that a neighbor.”

  The detective stared at her, tapping his pen. “So … you saw your neighbor doing something?”

  “Oh it was nothing like that.”

  He tilted his head. “What was it like then, Ms. Carter?”

  There was just a touch of impatience in his voice now.

  The urge to leap to her feet and run assailed, Marilyn. She didn’t because she was afraid they would chase her—like a dog was prone to if you were stupid enough to run—and she was pretty sure her legs wouldn’t hold out if she was chased.

  She clutched her purse a little tighter, struggling. She thought she had rehearsed it all in her mind so that she could tell it in a clear and concise and easily understandable way. But she was so nervous she couldn’t seem to gather her thoughts or put them in any kind of order. “I just … get this feeling that something isn’t quite right about him.”

  “So … it’s a man? A young man? Old man? White, black, Hispanic?” he asked briskly.

  Marilyn felt her face redden. Her belly knotted. Abruptly, this seemed like a really, really bad idea. “Well, I … uh … I don’t want to cause him any trouble if he hasn’t done anything.”

  She could see the detective was struggling with his patience.

  “But you think he might? Well, I need a description if we’re to check this out. Unless you have a name?”

  She did, but she wasn’t about to give him that! “He’s … uh … white, I think. He could be Hispanic. Well … no, probably not. He’s very tall. And they usually aren’t—not this tall anyway. Black hair.”

  “Eyes? You get close enough to see his eye color?”

  Marilyn was appalled at that suggestion. “I couldn’t tell you if I had. He always wears sunglasses. Always. That’s one of the weird things that makes me uneasy.”

  He toyed with his pen. “What do you do for a living?”

  Marilyn was taken aback. The question seemed totally off subject. “I�
��m a librarian. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m just trying to get a little information here. Do you live alone?”

  Marilyn gaped at him in disbelief and dawning resentment. “I don’t see that that has any relevance,” she responded tightly.

  “I was just wondering if you lived alone and that played into your being uneasy about him—maybe looks you’d encountered? Maybe something he said? Or something like that. As for the glasses, well a lot of people wear sunglasses, Ms. Carter. I don’t really see that as suspicious behavior.”

  Marilyn’s lips tightened. It was getting harder and harder to recall the points she had planned to make and she really, really didn’t like the direction he was taking with his questions. It sounded an awful lot like he was questioning her veracity to say nothing of her mental state. Thankfully, though, his comment about suspicious behavior triggered some of her memories. “That’s just it. He behaves suspiciously. It’s nothing you can really put your finger on, but … it just seems to me that he must be up to something. He … well, it’s almost like he’d trying to disguise himself.”

  “With the sunglasses?”

  Marilyn felt her face turn red again, but she was on a roll now. “He dresses like a … well, I’d say a geek. But he doesn’t come across as a geek to me. And there’s the sunglasses. And he never seems to work, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem with money. He’s always having people over. Now, does that sound like a geek to you? I mean, they’re usually loners, right?”

  Like her. Absolutely zero people in her circle.

  The detective nodded and doodled on his pad. “So he looks like a geek and he has friends and he wears sunglasses all the time? Anything more specific?”

  “That’s the point! He is drop dead gorgeous! He looks like a movie star gorgeous and I just don’t see him as a geek.”

  The cop stared at her for a long moment and finally nodded and got up. “Alright then. I think I have enough here to get started Ms. Carter. I’ll check it out and see what I can find out and check back with you later if I need anything else from you.”

  He had helped her from her seat and ushered her out the door and closed it behind her before she could gather her wits about her to ask questions.

  She had left the police station and was halfway down the stairs outside before it dawned on her that she hadn’t given him any real information at all! She hadn’t told him where she worked or the name or address of the apartment building or given him a contact number.

  Of course, there weren’t that many libraries ….

  He thought she was just a kook!

  A lonely woman looking for attention!

  She was embarrassed and angry when that occurred to her, but realized with some dudgeon that she should have expected to be dismissed out of hand by that kind Neanderthal male!

  She had instincts, damn it! And they were telling her something was just plain ‘off’ about the guy.

  Much good it had done to go talk to the cops about her worries!

  See something say something my ass! Like they listened when you tried to!

  And for his information she was not lonely and she didn’t need this kind of attention!

  Didn’t he get that she was scared? That she thought her neighbor was up to something nefarious? If he was, then he could blow up half the city before the stupid detective figured out he was running a terrorist cell!

  Not that honestly thought he was.

  He was drop dead gorgeous, but he was very exotic looking.

  She hadn’t gotten a good enough look at him—though god knew she had tried to without him knowing she was—to decide whether he was white or Hispanic or middle eastern, but the impression she’d gotten said ‘exotic or other’, not white.

  He had blue black hair. She hadn’t seen hair that dark on very many people at all.

  He was tan, or brown—but not very dark—tan enough to be ‘white with good tan’.

  She supposed he could be black or mixed. His hair didn’t look like a black person’s hair, though. It was more like Asian—board straight and silky looking.

  But he was really, really tall and she hadn’t seen a lot of very tall Hispanics or Asians.

  That said black or white.

  Maybe he was like German? Or Russian?

  She bet that was it! Russian. A Russian mobster!

  He even had a teeny tiny bit of an accent that she hadn’t been able to place.

  She frowned after a few moments, reluctant to give up on the terrorist scenario so easily—at least not entirely even though she had been far from convinced that was what he was up to.

  She’d thought he might be building bombs—which was what had her so unnerved about him being around and had inspired her to talk to the police about the vibes she was getting.

  She was obliged to admit, though, that he looked more like a Russian than a middle easterner.

  And she didn’t think they ‘did’ terrorist groups. They were generally plain old, scary crooks.

  * * * *

  Detective Roddy left his cubicle, stuck his head in the door of his partner’s office and grinned when Dillard glanced around and then chuckled at his expression. “You think you got enough to investigate the weird neighbor posing as a geek?”

  Dillard snorted. Tearing off the sheet of paper he’d been doodling on, he wadded it up and tossed it toward the trash.

  He missed. By the number of paper wads around it, he hadn’t perfected the shot yet. “Fruit cake,” he said succinctly. “Total kook. Which is a damned shame if you ask me. That was a fine looking woman. I always did have a thing for redheads.”

  Roddy’s brows shot to his hairline. “Seriously? You ain’t messing with me?”

  Dillard grinned. “Seriously kooky. Still a fine looking piece, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t get a good look,” Roddy admitted, his expression and tone relaying his disappointment. “You need to watch what you say, though, ‘cause if it gets back to your old lady she’ll de-ball you.”

  Warming to his theme, Dillard ignored the comment about his wife. “A real lady, too. Can’t remember the last time I saw a woman with that much class in this place.”

  Roddy was intrigued. “You think she’s rich?”

  Dillard gave him a sour look. “Not shopping at Cheap-mart. I said class—highly educated—like a teacher, you know. All prim and proper.”

  “Damn,” Roddy muttered. “And nutty as a fruit cake. What a shame! I thought I heard her say something about library?”

  Dillard nodded. “Say’s she’s a librarian.”

  “So, you thinking she’s just invented the whole suspicion thing to entertain herself?”

  Dillard shrugged, but he frowned thoughtfully. “Why would a woman like that, librarian or not, have to invent something to entertain herself? I mean, if she was old and single I could see it.”

  “I don’t know,” Roddy said and shrugged himself. “I didn’t catch the whole tale. Did she actually give you anything to work with? You want me to check it out?”

  “Not a lot.” Dillard shook his head. “I have a duty to check it out, but I’m betting its nothing.”

  “How you going to do that?”

  Dillard thought it over. “She said she was a librarian. How many libraries could there be?”

  Roddy grinned. “Careful. If you’ve got a mind to check her out your old lady might get wind of it. And then you’ll be up shit creek.”

  Chapter Two

  The more Marilyn thought about the incident at the police station, the guiltier she felt and the more embarrassed and anxious she became.

  She’d ratted on her neighbor because she thought he might be up to something and she didn’t know that he’d done anything at all.

  In vain she kept reminding herself that he had behaved in a suspicious way or it would never have occurred to her to do anything like that. And that the government had harped on ‘see something, say something’ to stop violence and lawlessn
ess and terrorism until they had eroded her confidence in her judgment. And then she reminded herself that they weren’t going to just walk up and arrest him because of something she’d said. Clearly, they hadn’t believed a word of it. They probably wouldn’t even investigate.

  It was along about that time that it dawned on her that she hadn’t actually given them any information. Nothing they could use to track her, she didn’t think.

  Except her name.

  God! Why had she given her name? She could have reported anonymously!

  By phone, stupid, she chastised herself, wishing she’d done that instead, but the only landline she knew of was in the library where she worked and she was afraid they’d trace the call.

  She should have known she didn’t have the skill, or the sneakiness, to carry off something like this, she thought irritably.

  And it was about that time that she slammed into something she was sure shouldn’t have been there because she was on the sidewalk—slammed into something and bounced back and was grabbed.

  Someone.

  It was a body—a person—she’d run in to, she realized when the shock lifted enough for it to filter into her brain that it was hard but yielding and warm. “Oh my god!” she gasped, struggling to regain her balance and stepping all over the feet in the process. “Sorry, sorry!”

  Whoever it was stepped back the third time she stepped on his feet and, since she hadn’t regained her balance, she shifted forward and wallowed her face all over his chest and belly as gravity took over.

  Thankfully, he grabbed her upper arms and set her away before she face planted his gentile region.

  Marilyn looked up to see who she’d wallowed all over and discovered it was her neighbor.

  The one she’d just narced on.

  She felt her jaw go slack—mostly at his proximity because he really was drop dead gorgeous. That wasn’t just imagination.

  But also because she’d just narced on him and guilt sent her shocked mind into a spiral. “Oh! I am … I am so sorry,” she stammered. “You should have looked where …. I mean I should have. Excuse me. Pardon me.”