All Things Hidden

by Judy Candis

  A surge of righteous victory flushed through her. Of course, others were certainly involved, but for now, one was better than none.

  Well, at least for you, Mr. Tattoo, your days of raving madness and murder are over, she thought as she closed her eyes, sucked in her breath and stood up straight. Watching the man literally growl at them as Grant slapped steel handcuffs on him, she knew she’d do everything within her power to make sure this man was buried under the jail. She suspected his lawyers would go first for an insanity plea and if that didn’t work, then try for a life sentence, since the death penalty was alive and well in the state of Florida.

  Grant turned to her, and turned ashen when he noticed the blood on her clothing. He was at her side before she could utter a word.

  “Dear Jesus, you’ve been shot!”

  “It’s a flesh wound; I’m okay. Hey, we’ve got our man.”

  “Well, we’ve got somebody. Let’s get you in the car while I call in.”

  Grant put his arms around her to assist her, and she smiled at him. She didn’t want assistance, but liked the idea of this man’s arms around her.

  Once she was seated in the passenger side of the car, Grant grabbed the man and shoved him toward the vehicle, the sun’s glare glinting off their suspect’s nearly bald head. The foul words pouring from his mouth made it difficult for Jael not to reach for her nightstick inside the car and smash him over the head.

  “You’re digging yourself a deeper hole with every word you say,” Grant told him right after reading the Miranda rights.

  “You niggers have no idea who you’re messing with! You’re just monkeys in uniform, and this is way from over.” He laughed a madman’s laugh, and Jael felt the evilness of it crawl over her skin. She suddenly didn’t want to be confined in the same vehicle with this fiend.

  As Grant roughly tossed him into the backseat, the man continued with his vile threats, shoving his head out the car door at Grant with an ugly grin on his face.

  “Enjoy yourselves now, coons, because this will be the last time you get to play hotshots. We’re everywhere, you know. And when you mess with a Lone Wolf, you mess with the entire Klan!”

  Jael tried to ignore him, but his next words brought out the mean side in her.

  “All your little nigger girls and boys will soon know that white power is supreme!”

  Before she could stop herself, Jael reached over her seat and landed a karate chop at the nape of his neck with her good arm. The man slumped backward and dropped his head on the backseat. Instantly Jael was appalled by her actions. Nothing had ever made her strike out so.

  “I was just about to take that pleasure myself,” Grant said as he slammed the door shut.

  “A little something I picked up from one of Ramon’s karate classes,” she said sheepishly, with a shrug of her good shoulder as she fell backward against the cushion of the front seat. She was still fuming at the man’s words, and at herself for responding to them with such violence.

  Grant gave her a look Jael couldn’t decipher, but there was nothing “brotherly” about it. Her heart went racing again, and this time over something much better than chasing down a thug. The distant sound of approaching sirens broke the moment.

  “After the boys take over here, you and I are going to the hospital to get that wound cleaned up. Capisce?”

  “Yes sa, boss.”

  “Okay, glad we’ve got that straight. And later, how about dinner after we book this villain?”

  Jael looked up at Grant as he stood over her in the car’s doorway. He looked a bit flushed, but his eyes were bright from the exertion—which only made him look finer, if that were possible.

  “My son will be waiting for me after work. I have to get home.” Then, as an afterthought, and forgetting all about her wound, she added, “How about you come to my house and I cook us a nice meal.”

  “It depends on what the doctors say.”

  Just out of sight over the crest of the field behind the barn, the engine of a lone black vehicle started up and pulled off in the opposite direction, dust following in its wake. The real war had just begun.

  Chapter

  22

  A wounded officer at St. Joseph’s Hospital garnished swift and immediate attention. She’d been in and out of the emergency room in less than an hour, allowing her plenty of time to keep things under control back at the station.

  By 4:30 P.M. the ecstatic buzz at the station had finally subsided into a reasonably calm hum. However, for hours after Jael and Grant had returned from the hospital to book their suspect for the alleged murders of three people, she couldn’t hear a coherent word through all the loud speculating comments.

  “It just seems so unreal,” Tammy kept saying to anyone within earshot. “I mean, you know they’re out there, but white supremacists on a murder spree right here in Dadesville?”

  “When they call themselves a ‘secret society,’ they sure mean it,” another added.

  The local press was all over the building, and everyone knew it wouldn’t be long before media vultures from around the country poured into town to cover the story. For this to have happened in a small town like Dadesville, it was bigger than the Waco fiasco and nearly as shocking as the Oklahoma bombing or the attack on the Twin Towers.

  Only Gwen Hayes from the Florida Sentinel was given the chance to talk exclusively to Jael and Grant, and even she was provided only limited bits of information. No one was allowed to speak with the alleged murderer, now identified as Whitman James Upton, thirty-two, married with two kids and employed at the Budget Air-Conditioning Company.

  Jael knew she needed to be as careful as possible about how they proceeded from here. It seemed Upton wasn’t as big a fool as he looked. Though he freely spewed foul words of hatred and white power, he never actually admitted to having any knowledge of the murders. He simply expressed his joy at having some of the scum of the earth removed, a feeling, Jael figured, many other people would probably experience as well, but wouldn’t admit to.

  Grant spent a little over forty-five minutes in confined quarters, questioning Upton right after booking him. Jael spent the time going over the entire incident with Captain Slater, who eventually went out to the barn himself before giving the press a full accounting.

  By now the entire police force was crawling all over the barn, confiscating weapons and collecting any evidence that could be used to seal the case against Upton.

  On her way back to the squad room, Jael saw a figure cautiously stepping out of the Captain’s office. She was about to call out to him, then realized it was not the Captain but Billups. What was he doing coming out of the Captain’s office when the Captain was out at the barn? And why was he rushing away in such a hurry, his head ducked low between his shoulders?

  Putting the man out of her mind, she continued on with her own tasks.

  After much paperwork and numerous slaps on the back for her bravery—gently, of course, in consideration of her wounded arm—Jael looked up to see Grant standing over her.

  “Ready to leave? It’s been a long day, and I can’t say I remember seeing you eat or drink anything since we met.” His smile was warm and caring.

  “I was ready four hours ago,” Jael answered, closing the open file on her desk and pushing it aside. Shoving back in her chair, she returned Grant’s hardy smile before rising. “Let’s hit it.”

  “Why don’t we stop and pick something up. I know you have to be too tired to cook after all this. And your bad shoulder may not be up to it.”

  Jael warmed even more to Grant, witnessing his consideration. During all the excitement, her little dabs of admiration had remained where they belonged—under control. “My shoulder’s okay, but I’ll admit I’m a little work-weary. My son would love it if I swung by the Golden Arches and picked up some Micky D’s, but I feel like I haven’t eaten a real meal in days.”

  “So what do you have a taste for? Chinese?”

  “Heck, that goes right through you. I n
eed something that’ll stick to the ribs.”

  “Italian?”

  “How about I call this place I know and they’ll have it ready by the time we get there. They make great hot wings and fries. They also have Philly cheese steaks and gyros.”

  “Sounds good and greasy to me. Let’s go.”

  After picking up three “greasy” bags of hot food, Jael and Grant headed to her house, Grant behind the wheel again. Little of the conversation touched on the arrest and foul character of their captive, as if they were putting off that unpleasantness until they had a full stomach. They were both just thankful Upton was off the streets before there were any more deaths.

  “You certainly make a great FBI agent, if I didn’t get to say so before. I didn’t know they taught you guys how to fly,” Jael teased.

  “Fly? I was flying?”

  “Airborne right through the barn door when Upton tried to take off.”

  “Oh then, yeah, well, we usually keep those kinds of strategic maneuvers in reserve,” Grant said with a laugh, adding, “You didn’t do so bad yourself.”

  “Yeah, like how I stayed on the ground most of the entire capture.” Jael felt comfortable with the light banter and with this man she barely knew. “After we’ve stuffed our faces with food, I’d like it if you’d hang around for a while and tell me why you decided to become a federal agent in the first place.”

  “Not much to tell; I can give it all to you in a nutshell before we make it to your house.”

  Jael wasn’t sure if this was his polite way of saying he had no plans of hanging around any longer than necessary, but at least she did learn a little more about him, while her stomach growled as the mouthwatering scents rose from the bags on her lap.

  “I believe certain things are instilled in us as toddlers,” Grant began. “I always loved playing cops and robbers, shoot-’em-up. Even in hide-and-seek, when most kids liked to hide, I had more fun figuring out where they were hiding. And in any game where one side battled against the other, there was something about getting the bad guy that always appealed to me.”

  Jael nodded in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  When she added nothing further, Grant continued. “By the time I reached high school I was fascinated by the criminal mind, and when a recruiter from the police academy spoke on Career Day, I was bought and sold. I signed up to join the academy immediately following college. While a handful of my friends went off to get their master’s, others into the service, and others just didn’t care, I thought I had a jump on them all, because I would be making money in my field in less than a year and have the rest of my life to advance. I eventually went to graduate school to study criminal law. One path led to another, as they say, and here I am.” Grant stopped and gave Jael an enthused stare. “What about you?”

  “Pretty much the same story for me, just a couple of unforeseen twists.”

  Grant raised a “come on now” eyebrow, and Jael tilted her head and pursed her lips.

  “Okay, maybe one day I’ll tell you all about it, but right now, we’re two doors from my house, and I’m hungry, starved for a hug from my son, and I want to kick off these shoes.”

  Grant laughed, and darn it, Jael thought, if it didn’t just tickle her insides. She really needed some food—she was feeling silly.

  When Jael slipped her key into the front door and they stepped inside, no one was there to meet her. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. She could hear the crowd roaring and the even louder announcer’s voice coming down the short hall from the TV.

  “Follow me,” she told Grant, who’d taken the bags from her outside the car.

  As they passed the kitchen divider, Jael pointed for Grant to place the bags on top as she kept on into the den. Both Ramon and Terrell were less than a good foot away from the TV screen, watching the WWF.

  “Uh, excuse me, guys, but I’m home.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, Ms. Jael.” The two boys spoke in unison, neither turning to look her way.

  “Okay, boys, let’s mind our manners. I have company, and it’s polite to show some home training, you know.”

  Ramon was the first to reluctantly turn around, Terrell following suit milliseconds after him. Blank stares suddenly replaced the noninterested greeting about to pass across their lips. Their mouths gaped open and their eyes became huge round circles. Terrell was the first to speak.

  “THE ROCK!”

  Ramon spoke in more of a whispered awe: “The Rock.”

  Jael couldn’t help erupting in a loud burst of laughter. “Sorry, guys, not your hero, but certainly mine for today. Please meet FBI Agent Eric Grant.”

  Ramon jumped to his feet. “Wow, did anyone ever tell you you look just like The Rock on WWF?”

  “All the time,” Grant admitted, joining in on the fun. “I had a great career before that guy got famous. I’m thinking about either having plastic surgery or becoming a professional wrestler.”

  “You’ve got the muscles for it,” Terrell said, moving up to Grant and openly checking out the well-defined physique under the agent’s suit. “And I believe they pay a whole lot more than the FBI.”

  “You’ve piqued my interest,” Grant said, smiling and slapping Terrell on the shoulder in a manly gesture. “I think I’d better look into it.”

  “Okay, okay,” Jael interjected. “I know you guys are hungry, and Agent Grant is staying for dinner, so let’s start the routine.”

  “Just call me Grant,” he told the boys, and they both gave him broad smiles.

  “Okay, Mr. Grant,” Ramon said. “Make yourself at home. We’ll see about getting dinner out in a sec.”

  The boys bounced into the kitchen, stealing peeks over their shoulders at Grant. They laid out the food from the various bags, whispering between themselves as they pulled out paper plates, glasses, forks and the necessary condiments for the meal.

  “You can wash your hands in the bathroom by the den. Just make yourself at home,” Jael offered, then quickly turned her head to keep from staring as Grant eased out of his jacket and headed for the door she’d pointed to.

  In the kitchen the boys were busy yakking about their new hero discovery while haphazardly placing the items out on the table.

  “Mom, did you see all those muscles?” an excited Ramon asked.

  Jael was grateful that her shoulder pain was minimal, thanks to 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, and that her bandages, concealed as they were under her clothing, would not alarm the boys. But she wasn’t grateful for the question. Not wanting to admit to her own overwhelming admiration of Grant, she sidestepped the truth by saying, “Pay attention to what you’re doing with that ice bowl, Ramon,” as she washed her hands over the sink. She sent up a quick prayer of forgiveness to justify the wave of longing that attacked her flesh again so unexpectedly. But then, the Lord expected her to appreciate His awesome handiwork, didn’t He?

  “But did you notice how much he looked like The Rock when you first met him? And why is he here with you anyway?”

  Jael sighed: the innocent inquisitiveness of youth. “He’s here to help out on the case I’m working on. He’s from out of town, so I thought it would be a nice gesture to invite him to have dinner with us.”

  Ramon tilted his head sideways. “Okaaay.”

  Jael chose to ignore her son’s suspicious nature and took a plate, placing wings, fries and a slice of the Philly cheese steak on it. The boys had already set two-liter bottles of Sprite, Big Red, and Caffeine Free Pepsi on the table with a bowl of ice.

  Jael filled her glass with the cold crystal cubes and was about to sit down when Grant reentered the kitchen.

  “Here, Mr. Grant, sit by me,” Ramon offered.

  “Thanks, Ramon.” Grant fell right into the swing of things, as if this was the way he’d eaten all his life. He piled his plate high with fries and wings, adding the other half of the cheese steak to it and pouring Big Red into his glass of ice.

  “Mom
says you’re working on a case with her. It must be pretty special if the FBI is involved. Is it about all those dealers being offed?”

  “Ramon, you know we don’t discuss stuff like that. Eat your food and behave.”

  “What’s it like being a special agent?” Terrell asked around a mouthful of food.

  “Terrell, can we chew our food first?” Jael fussed.

  “Oh, yes ma’am.”

  “What’s it like?” Ramon prompted.

  “It’s nothing like the things you see in the movies,” Grant said between huge bites of cheese steak. He wasn’t letting the day’s excitement curb his appetite. “It’s a lot of paperwork, research and long boring interviews.”

  “Have you ever had to participate in a stakeout or shoot-out?” Ramon asked, clearly not believing Grant’s story.

  “I’ve survived one or two such assignments. But there’s a lot of training you have to go through before ever landing an actual case to work on. And you have to have certain skills to fire a weapon, and spend hours learning warlike techniques.”

  The questions went on for much of the meal, as Jael admired Grant’s gentle way with the boys. He never bragged or pretended to be a hero, but didn’t minimize what the boys wanted to hear. He served up just enough excitement and logic to keep them interested and on the edge of their seats.

  Soon, it was time for Terrell to jump on his bike and head home and for Ramon to take his bath and get ready for bed. Terrell complied with little apparent reluctance, while Ramon put on a real show to stay up a little longer.