“Hey,” came a groggy-sounding voice. “It’s Kurt.”
“Kurt . . .”
“Yeah. Clara?”
“Yeah?”
Another long pause. She imagined him leaning against the glass in some dirty calling booth.
“Hey,” he said.
“Yeah, hi.” She sighed. “Hi, Kurt.”
“Did you get my message?”
“I did.”
“Oh, okay, good. How are you?”
“What do you want?”
“Just . . . like . . .” He cleared his throat, and then began a hacking cough. He was a smoker, too. Apparently he’d kept it up in prison. He could afford smokes but not child support. “Is this an okay time?” he asked.
“To be quite honest with you, Kurt, I don’t think any time will be okay.”
“I know you feel that way.”
“What? Yes, I damn well feel that way.”
“I know, but, I just think it’s important.”
“I know you think it’s important.”
“It’s important that we at least, try, you know, just to be civil. I’ve changed a lot.”
“I bet.”
“I really . . .” he sighed into the phone. “I’ve really done a lot of thinking. So much thinking. It’s all you can really do here.”
“Why couldn’t you do any of that before?”
“You’re allowed to bring up the past.”
“Of course I’m fucking allowed.”
“I mean, as part of the process, you should bring up anything that hurt you and—”
“No. No, Kurt. You should bring it up. With all that thinking, you should be able to figure out the whens, whys, and hows of just how badly you fucked everything up. That’s your responsibility. To apologize. Aside from that, I have nothing to say to you.”
“You’re totally allowed to feel like that.”
Clara looked at the door handle again, “You’re right, I am. I’m totally allowed.”
There was another long pause.
“I have nothing to talk to you about,” Clara said. “And I don’t owe you any updates on Molly.”
The next pause was filled with a tiny whimpering sound on Kurt’s end. And then a sniffle. He was crying. And it made no difference to how Clara felt.
“But more importantly,” she said. “I’m fucking busy right now. If you want to talk, email me. They taught you that in prison, right? They taught you to type?” She held the phone away for a second, needing to take some deep breaths before she spewed more of the same. It wasn’t helpful, even in this circumstance.
“Kurt, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.”
She ended the call and looked back to her panacea, a discount smoke shop.
7
Sam
His plan was to hang around the D.A.’s office all day, an attempt to avoid the college, and the protests, and the mayhem. But he had a sneaking suspicion that trouble was about to find him. A moment earlier, Sam had turned his car radio to a local news broadcast describing the burning of a New Orleans Islamic Center. It happened in the early morning hours. A horrific act that made national news. A hate crime with no suspects identified. No leads. And most likely, no end in sight for the subsequent protests.
When the broadcast ended, Sam slammed his steering wheel in frustration.
Fucking idiots . . .
Some troglodyte with half a brain must have thought he was making a statement against the refugee crisis. A “you’re not welcome” sign spelled in flames. And considering the current political tension of New Orleans, let alone the whole country, those flames would no doubt spread and inflame reactions from the opposite camp, the kind of people he and Dave had tried avoiding. Now this was something worth protesting over. There were solid arguments on both sides of the refugee influx, but this, the destruction of a religious site, could be supported by no one but the worst kind of bigots.
Sam had heard it all before, the clichés of racist and intolerant white folk. But so far, having mixed it up in quiet a few different cultures and communities in New Orleans, he’d found that those stereotypes were wholly inaccurate. In contrast to what the media said, everyone here just got along. He could feel it on a surface level, a street level, the way people interacted in grocery checkout lines, the politeness extended across racial and religious lines. Everyday circumstances and every day people. Everyone, Americans.
It almost seemed naive. But if anyone could identity a false front, it would be Sam. He could strip away all the outward signs, the forced mannerisms, the bullshit. And still, after stripping that all away, the racism he’d heard about was surprisingly difficult to find.
But there was nothing confusing about a burnt-down Islamic center. And it cast some doubt into his initial assumptions about the people he’d been living amidst for the last month.
So where were all these racists? Were they living outside the city, in the quiet backwaters? He hadn’t gone out that way yet. He likely wouldn’t get the chance. He would just be happy to close everything out again and focus on Clara. It was his way of shutting off the world, including Jackson and DARC Ops, and especially Washington D.C. It wasn’t a very patriotic thing to do, of course. Especially with the current domestic tensions, and whatever Jackson would suggest they focus on as the next foreign threat. But damn it, Sam was on vacation. He had convinced himself of it last night after walking Dave back to his office. He would have to stop wasting time. This whole time in New Orleans he had been half-working and half-vacationing. It was time to decide one or the other.
Sam plugged in his Bluetooth and drew up Clara’s name on his phone’s contact list. Before calling, he checked the road ahead. All clear. Maybe he should pull over somewhere, even while talking hands-free. Just the fact that he was talking to her would eliminate about two thirds of his capacity to concentrate on the road. It was hazardous enough driving while thinking about her. Hearing her voice might bring a whole new level of over stimulation, enough that he might forget to keep his eyes open before drifting silently into the opposite lane.
He brought himself out of her fog just in time to realize he’d missed his turn for the government buildings near town hall. It proved his point about him with Clara on the brain. No one was safe on the road when that happened.
Sam looped around with three left-hand turns, finally meeting up with his road, a main artery that brought traffic into the downtown sector. It was normally very busy. But today, this artery was completely clogged. Bumper to bumper for as far as he could see.
His wait at the back of the line began patiently enough, until he was no longer at the back. Several rows of cars had pulled up behind him. It happened so quickly, getting wholly submersed in the traffic jam.
He rolled down his window and the honking grew louder. He heard voices, too, the drivers around him, cursing. But there was something else. Something familiar, like what he’d heard back at the campus.
Sam called for the attention of a pedestrian walking the opposite direction on the sidewalk next to him. “What the hell’s going on up there? Accident?”
“No. On purpose.”
“What?”
“They’re blocking the lane. They’re protesting what that asshole did to the mosque this morning.”
Of course . . . Of course . . . A few minutes ago he was in full support of such a reaction. But now he was caught in the middle of it.
Sam steered left, carefully edging out of his parking space in the middle of the road before throttling up and squealing the tires in a loud and smoky u-turn. With the window still down, he could hear a few cheers of appreciation for his act of defiance. Maybe it would be the start of a new movement. The motorist uprising, all of them perhaps following in his blazed path. But when Sam looked in his rearview, everyone else had remained pinned in a long line of wait.
After a few more turns—blind guesses, really—Sam found an alternative route with fewer cars and far fewer protesters. And then he made the call.
“Hey, you,” he said, cool and casual. He hoped, anyway.
“Sam.”
“What are you doing?”
“Just trying to inhale lunch,” Clara said.
“Not just a cigarette?”
She laughed. “Come on. I mean lunch. Food.”
“Should I call later? I don’t want to—”
“No, no. Let’s talk.”
“Okay.” He felt better instantly. The traffic and the protesters and the mosque no longer existed. “So what’s for lunch?”
“Uhh . . .” She sounded almost a little nervous. “It’s actually my take-home from the restaurant the other night.”
“Oh, nice. You get my shrimp? I snuck it in when you weren’t looking.”
Clara laughed. “I saw that. How generous.”
“I figured I’d give you a little love note.”
“Love note, eh?”
“Well, uh . . .” He didn’t mean for it to come off like that. Suddenly his cool demeanor began faltering. And she was laughing again. “An affection note,” he said. But it sounded so fucking bland.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “Well, in that case, I accept . . . your affection.”
He thought of the other ways that she had accepted it, especially their time on the bench afterward, his mouth on her neck. His cock hardened and he had to adjust his sitting position, squirming in his chair.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m glad.”
She chuckled softly over the phone.
He’d better pull over.
“So how’s your day going?” she asked.
He quickly adjusted himself and then grabbed the wheel, taking a deep breath while looking for somewhere sensible to park.
“Sam?”
“I have to say, my day got off to a strange start.”
“Mine, too.”
“Oh?”
“Hey, uh, Sam? I actually don’t have that much time, but uh . . .” He heard her breathing again, it almost sounded like her mouth was pressed against the phone. What was she doing?
It was turning him on.
“I was wondering,” she said. “If we can maybe meet up tonight? Just something real casual. I was just . . . I’d really like to see you.”
He sat in his car, in the parking lot of the post office, trying to keep his heart rate down while trying not to scream yes into the phone.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I’d love to.”
“If you want, I was thinking we could have a little dinner here. Maybe watch a movie?”
He was so glad to hear that.
“Sam?”
“Clara, that sounds like perfect.”
She laughed. “Yeah?”
“It’s just what I needed.”
“Yeah, me, too. And Molly’s been asking about you.”
“Really?” He found it a little hard to believe, though it was nice she’d said it.
“Yeah,” Clara said. “She’s been wanting me to bring over more of my friends lately. But I can’t think of anyone else but you. Even though she said she doesn’t care for anyone from court.”
Sam laughed. “Well I’m not really from court. I’m from Washington.” He expected to hear a laugh at that, or something. But Clara had gone silent. “So, uh . . .”
“She’ll be sad when you go back.”
“I know,” Sam said. “I’m working on it.”
“Good. In the meantime, can you be here at seven?”
8
Clara
Seven p.m. couldn’t come fast enough. Her day at court had begun to drag as if time had slowed down immediately after her call with Sam. But she deserved it. Her sense of time was relative to how hard she was thinking. A day of routine robotic typing meant she could zone out to the extent that it was an almost out-of-body-experience. And those were the kind of days that flew by. But give her brain a chance to actually think—or, in this case, obsess about someone—and the clock just couldn’t move quickly enough. It was even a short work day for her. Supposedly.
On the bright side, she hadn’t worked any spousal abuse or child custody cases today. And she’d heard nothing further from Kurt. That, in addition to how her day would wrap up—hopefully wrapped up in Sam—had the makings of a very happy Clara. She just hoped that Molly would feel the same way.
They had met just once, Molly literally running into him at the courthouse. She seemed to really love that. Molly that day had been her typical Tasmanian devil self. But that all seemed to end after Sam. The girl had really taken to him. As much as Clara had dissuaded her from talking to strangers, it was, even at the time, oddly heartwarming. Looking back on it, it was hard to believe he’d ever been a stranger.
“Remember your friend from the courthouse?” Clara asked her on their car ride home from school.
Molly didn’t seem to remember. She wore a sour expression, her thinking face, but even that couldn’t produce the answer. She was likely tracing back through her memories in search of someone her age, not a thirty-seven-year-old criminologist.
“Remember the man you ran into because you were running like a crazy person?”
She thought for a minute, and then burst out laughing.
“Yeah? You remember him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, he’s coming over tonight for dinner.” Clara wasn’t sure what to expect. Probably one of Molly’s patented non-reactions. “What do you think about that?”
She seemed to be thinking long and hard.
“Molly?”
“What’s for dinner?”
That was probably the best reaction. They drove the rest of the way arguing about what Molly did or didn’t learn at school today.
What was for dinner hardly mattered for Molly. She was having the grownup salmon and asparagus, but homemade mac and cheese. It was only right to give her an extra treat, seeing as how Mommy would be getting hers, with any luck. Clara put the mac in the oven, set the rice cooker, and cleared everything off the dining room table before cleaning the living room, and eventually the bathroom, and still found time to finagle Molly into picking up her room and then even taking an early shower. To Clara’s surprise, it took hardly any finagling at all. Maybe Mommy’s good energy was contagious. It might have helped that Molly, the Cancerian, was naturally super empathic. She seemed to be able to read her mother’s energy, even her thoughts. Mommy’s little human lie-detector. It had gotten Clara into trouble a few times.
After the finishing touches on both dinners, the kitchen itself, and on Molly’s knotted, entangled hair, the scene was set for a highly anticipated, yet slightly nervy dinner date. It was the first time Sam came to her house, and the ramifications of this “next step” made her almost painfully nervous. Perhaps it was that, or the fact that she’d been working so hard to make the night perfect, that vanquished her appetite.
Another factor was the ring of her doorbell.
Clara froze up at the sound of it, the digital chime ricocheting inside her skull with the rest of the last-minute concerns of dinner prep, Molly prep, and her own distinct lack of prep for what had become the most highly anticipated blackened salmon dinner of her life.
“Molly,” she cried from the kitchen. “He’s here.”
There was the sound of little steps pounding down the stairs, and then a little voice. “I know. Can I get it?”
Clara liked the idea of Molly being the first to greet him at the door. It seemed cute, until she thought of Kurt. She didn’t want to take even the slightest chance that he’d somehow traveled directly from prison to arrive at her door. His pattern of behavior thus far, the increasing encroachments into her life, seemed to dictate that there would ultimately be more. Clara had been preparing herself for it, to expect the unexpected. But it was 7 p.m. It was date night. And it would be Sam. Kurt would stay far away tonight if he wasn’t looking to be abused himself.
She thought of Sam standing at the door, his body taking up the door frame. Although he had the fashion
sense and etiquette of a tenured professor, underneath that soft exterior of genteel studiousness was the hardened body of a warrior. Their relationship was new, but he’d already shown he would go to war for her, whether that war was Kurt, or anyone or anything else. He’d even told her the name of a friend who might be able to help with the psycho ex situation.
Yes, it would be Sam at the door. Standing there, waiting.
Shit, answer the door!
“I got it,” Clara called out to Molly. She walked toward the door, taking deep, even breaths, and making sure on her way past that she hadn’t left any underwear lying on the floor and Molly’s collection of five million trading cards had been cleared away. Being sure to actually unlock the deadbolt before trying uselessly to open the door like the some nervous, bumbling idiot. Being sure that her smile didn’t look like that of an insane person.
When she finally pulled it open, all of her sureties imploded into themselves, and she was left with one big gaping hole of uncertainty. Did she look okay? Was her hair okay? Was she sweaty from the last-minute housework? Was her face too greasy from that kitchen work? Sam moved in swiftly and wrapped his arms around her, and there was nothing left to think or worry about.
They pulled apart. God. He was also handsome, but he’d put in extra effort tonight. Hair neatly cropped, his usual stubble now growing into a full and incredibly sexy beard. The growing heat in his eyes was reflected by the porch lamplight.
Clara stared. She kept him out there until finally saying in one big giggling jumble, “Oh, yes, please, come in.”
And he came in, smiling broadly but saying nothing. Was he nervous, too?
“So here it is,” she said, waving an arm at the recently picked-up house. “My humble abode.”
“Not so humble,” he said, looking around. “It’s fantastic. Are those Monets?” He was looking at her prints, Morning on the Seine, Chairing Cross Bridge. She was glad he knew about them, that he could even say something about how much he liked impressionism. They must have had so much in common that was yet to be discovered.
Dark Threat - A DARC Ops Christmas Novel Page 5