“I’m sure we can fix your bunny,” Rio offered, straightening to his full height. “Repack the stuffing and make it as good as…it was, with just a couple of stitches.”
But Zee’s sister didn’t seem upset by what had happened to her childhood toy. No, she was staring at whatever it was in her hand.
“It’s a key,” she murmured, turning to look where Zee stood. “Some kind of a key.”
And immediately he remembered the look on his father’s face the last time he and Vonnie were sent up into the attic. ‘This is important, Zee. Keep Mr. Buttons and the locket with you and your sister. But stay up there. No matter what you hear, son, you stay hidden and keep our girl quiet.’
With ice creeping into his veins, Zee went to where Vonnie sat on the floor. Holding her palm up so he could see, his eyes encountered a small brass key. Smaller than any kind he’d ever seen. And it was stamped with some letters.
“What does FBG mean?”
Vonnie blinked and looked to Rio, who had taken a position by her side. “First Bank of Grantham?”
Oh shit.
At Rio’s guess, Zee knew what it was, what the key was and didn’t waste any time in educating the other two in the room. “It’s for a safe deposit box. For their safe deposit box.”
Just like that all the fun they’d created, the laughter they’d shared to force the dark feelings out and away, was back.
And the specter of his parents, of what had been done to them returned.
*.*.*.*.*
Entering the hallowed halls of the bank, found me nervous and clutching the tiny key in a sweaty palm, even though both Rio and my brother had each given me a pep talk before Zee and I left the house. I was both hopeful and scared by what we might find, of what my parents thought was important enough to keep tucked away at the bank.
“This way, darlin’,” Zee said, holding my elbow and steering me towards a desk tucked into a corner and emblazoned with a plaque that read, ‘Mrs. Washington’. “Excuse me, we’re here to see about a safe deposit box?”
The African-American woman smiled and opened a drawer. “Please, have a seat. You’ll just need to fill out a few forms and make payment, then—”
“No, no,” I managed to interject. “My brother and I aren’t here to get a safe deposit box. We’re here to claim one.”
A tiny frown creased her beautiful features before smoothing out. “I see. Do you have your key with you?”
I have to admit, it was hard to let go of the tiny piece of brass and relinquish it to her care, but I finally managed to do it after Zee gave me a nod of encouragement.
Turning the key towards the windows, Mrs. Washington narrowed her eyes to better read the tiny numbers on the back before handing it back. Then settling her hands on her computer’s keyboard, she started clicking away. “I’ll need to see some ID’s as well.”
Both Zee and I got out our wallets and removed our driver’s licenses, but stopped when she let out a small harrumph. “This is…different. The records show the box in question was opened quite some time ago. And there’s been no activity for it in…” her finger slid along the screen as if to hold her place as her dark brown eyes came back to us. “In more than twenty-three years.”
“But it’s still there, right?” Leave it to Zee to get to the bottom of things while I was still struggling with her one-word summation of ‘different’. “Active and all?”
“Yes, it’s still an active account.” I heard a ‘but’ in her voice although she never actually said it. “Paid up through the year 2020. However, with no record of access in more than twenty years, it’s highly usual for someone to—”
“Ma’am? The box belonged to our parents, who were murdered a long time ago,” Zee interrupted and I could’ve hugged him for having the wits to explain our situation to a stranger so succinctly. “We just found out about the box and are trying to determine if there’s anything in it that will both help the still active police investigation as well as give us more information about them.”
The softening of her eyes and jaw, gave me an indication of how Zee’s words were received and I reached for his hand with renewed hope. “Just let me run this by Mr. Jamison, the bank’s president, to make sure I get this right. Must dot all the ‘I’s’ and cross the ‘T’s’, you know.”
“We appreciate any help you can give, Ms. Washington.” And meant it, when I finally added my two cents.
She pressed another couple of keys before taking our IDs and standing. “I’ll be just a minute.”
I was a bundle of nerves as she walked away and Zee must’ve felt it because he reached for my hand. “It’ll be okay, darlin’. I have an ace up my sleeve if Jamison gives us any guff about getting in the box.”
Opening my mouth to ask for the particulars of his claim, I immediately shut it when Mrs. Washington returned, her face carefully blank. “Mr. Jamison would like to see you.”
Erm…what?
Why would we need to meet with the president of the bank in order to claim what was rightly ours? But I didn’t express my concern as Zee and I followed the woman to another portion of the ornate bank, a much quieter place than the front lobby. And were met by a bald, older man who didn’t even stand when we were ushered into his ostentatiously appointed office.
He did, however, manage to cement my fears with his first words. “Layton Jamison. And as the president of FBG I demand to know why you are just now requesting to access the contents of box 392.”
But Zee wasn’t as intimidated as I was, choosing instead to take the higher road by shoving his hand across the desk while saying, “Zion and Veronica James, Mr. Jamison.”
The man had no choice but to shake Zee’s hand or appear ungracious, then turned to me. I held back my grimace at his wet fish-like handshake before lowering my butt to the chair behind me without waiting for him to offer.
I heard Zee go through our story again, but didn’t really pay attention as I watched Jamison’s reactions, the quivering of his jowls when he questioned Zee again and again as if to refute our rightful claim. That was until the wind-bag pronounced sentence on us with a loud and resounding, “No.”
In a quieter voice, which started after his glare swept over the two of us, he continued. “Although your identification seems to be in order, I cannot and will not be able to allow you into the vault. I’m denying you access. And as such, must ask you to surrender your key.”
I blinked as my heart took on a new booming rhythm. But my brother just smiled and sat back in his chair, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. “Was warned you might want to play it that way. So I retained Sam Mackenzie as our attorney. Seems he reads the laws a bit different than you and told me to call him if you tried to pull any shit to prevent us access.”
My eyes went back to Jamison only to see all the color leave his face while his slimy tongue appeared as he licked his thick lips. “Now see here—”
“Let’s just get him on the phone, shall we?” Zee’s face never lost its pleasant expression as he pulled his cell from his pocket and pressed a couple of buttons. “Sam? Zee James. Yeah, me and Vonnie are at the bank and Jamison ain’t playing nice. Really? Okay. Yep. I’ll put him on.”
Jamison’s eyes rounded and he stared at the outstretched phone as if it was a deadly snake. “Sam says he wants to talk to you.”
I tuned out the quiet sound of Jamison’s voice and looked to my brother who gave me a reassuring wink. All the while wondering if his ability to appear calm in the face of adversity was an inherited trait…and if so, when it was gonna show up in me.
When the call was completed and the phone returned, Jamison’s attitude changed from one of I-hold-all-the-cards to one of grudging acceptance. “Fine. You can access the box. I’ll have my secretary show you the way. But it must be noted, we are cancelling it and any accounts you may have with us as of today. And all prepayments remaining will be returned to you in two weeks. Give Doris your address before leaving.”
Nob
ody spoke as Jamison’s secretary, the Doris he’d spoken of, lead us down the stairs and into a caged area. Both Zee and I filled out and signed a document before she led us to the farthest wall and stuck her key in one of the locks on the tiny, mail receptacle-looking thing. One of many that lined the room.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she whispered without any expression which seemed weird because of how wired I felt when I passed our key to Zee. And I knew he was going through something similar by the way his fingers shook as he inserted the tiny bit of brass into the other lock.
I held my breath as he pulled the whole drawer out and placed it on the table, which seemed situated expressly for that purpose.
Our eyes caught and held, while prickles of sweat began to itch as I considered what we might find inside the steel case.
Would it be money? More jewelry? Or something more mundane, like birth documents or maybe a land deed?
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to open it, afraid of what it might contain and didn’t realize I’d communicated that to Zee by clutching his forearm. But he countered that fear by simply putting his hand on mine. “We gotta know, Sis. We gotta at least look at what they wanted us to find.”
Taking a deep breath, I lifted the heavy lid and stared inside not understanding what first met my eyes. Shaking my head in order to concentrate, I looked back down and noted the contents again before Zee began removing them into small stacks on the tabletop.
Two VHS tapes in boxes, a stack of old-fashioned pictures, and a small thick book of some sort came out first. Then it was a stack of papers my brother unfolded one at a time, reading each before handing them off to me. My father’s discharge papers from the Marines, copies of their marriage certificate and social security cards as well as both Zee and my birth certificates.
At the end, at the very bottom of the steel case were two wrapped stacks of one hundred dollar bills, scrawled with ‘Zee’ on one mustard color strap and ‘Ronnie’ on the other. Our names handwritten over the ‘$10,000’ printed on the band holding the greenbacks together.
Lifting his tortured face to mine, Zee and I stared at each other. “Guess that’s all there is, baby girl. All we’ve got left of them.”
And if my heart hadn’t broken in all the hours before, the finality of his words would’ve done it.
Because he was right.
Those small stacks of things were all we had left of the people who’d given us life, and by Zee’s account, love.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rio’s eyes were just closing, replete in their latest sexy end-of-the-day play, when Vonnie shifted, moving so her head pointed up his way.
“Wasn’t that something, honey? I mean, all those photos of the kids, the vids of those dudes and my Dad’s journal?” Christ, he could tell from the excited tone she used, his girl was still riding the high of what the contents of safe deposit box contained. And wasn’t ready for sleep in any way, shape or form.
And he couldn’t fault her, because what her parents had captured on film and documented in a journal was pretty frickin’ awesome. Citing names, dates and times—capturing their opinions and thoughts of all that’d gone on under their roof was damning and would sure as shit see someone behind bars.
But Patel had said it best when he’d arrived with Bell and Trusdale. Summed up the situation in a way that brought a self-satisfied and proud smile to each the James sibling’s faces. “A lot of people are gonna sleep a hell of a lot better when this comes out. Both the former kids as well as their families.”
Yeah, to single-handedly break up a child-trafficking ring was a big, fucking deal. And do to it in the aftermath of the horror of a dual murder? Pure beauty.
“Sure was, princess,” Rio replied on a yawn, wondering how he could get her to chill enough so she would sleep. Even PK seemed restless, moving from one side of the bed to the other, tucking herself into the crook of a knee here or the contour of an ankle there. Between the two of them, Rio briefly considered grabbing his pillow in order to take to the couch and find his rest there. “Pretty frickin’ cool.”
“Did I tell you about the money? About how they left me and Zee those stacks of cash?”
Only about thirty-seven frickin’ times, but Rio knew better than to say that bit out loud. Instead he managed to agree, even through his jaw-cracking yawn, “yeah, spitfire. Way cool about the green.”
“Patel said he’d talk to the press and tell them what heroes my parents were in documenting it all.” She took in a deep breath, her succulent tits boring deeper into his side. “Heroes. Isn’t that something?”
He wanted to remind her he’d been in the room when she and Zee showed up at Black Ice and began to reveal all the stuff the safe deposit box contained. Had been there when Max’s mom, Maggie, brought in an old VCR and Ryker connected it up so they could watch the videos, stamped with the date and time. Which corresponded to the journal Vonnie’s dad had scribbled in, filling in the blanks not covered by the recordings.
Of being there when Patel and his men arrived and the tapes were replayed again, giving him a chance to see Zee as a young boy doing boy shit while Vonnie grew from a baby to a into-everything toddler. The only bright spots in the otherwise dismal portions of the unknown children being shuffled around.
But Rio just didn’t have the energy. And as he closed his eyes, his mind turned one of those scenes into something else. Into a dream where an agate-eyed, little girl with bouncing strawberry-red curls ran to him, hands raised as she giggled up at him. “Love you, Rio.”
“Love you too, princess.” Whether it was real or simply just a momentary image his mind had built on didn’t matter. Because it felt real, felt as true as the naked woman cuddled into his side.
And Rio thankfully fell into the void of quiet between the sound of her voice and the darkness drawing him down with a sigh.
*.*.*.*.*
Del took the weekend off, avoiding Anton’s calls as he let his ankle heal. Only leaving the couch to fetch another bottle of bourbon and to scrounge up a pad of paper and a pen.
And it had taken him all weekend to write down all he wanted to say, worrying over certain words and phrases as he struggled to get it all out of his system. To create an insurance policy of sorts in case Anton got to him sooner rather than later.
From the ever-increasing voicemails though, he was counting on the former.
Anton was mad.
As in nuclear at Del’s defection.
But it couldn’t be helped. After that last job, the one that’d found him injured and unable to obtain any kind of medical assistance, Del was done. And had known it the moment his eyes saw the red streaks on his skin, the ones leading away from the deepest of the punctures.
Yeah, the fucking mutt had got him. Got him good.
Maybe to the point of blood poisoning.
Because he was running a fever, that much Del knew. And people died from dog bites, didn’t they?
He didn’t even have aspirin or hydrogen peroxide, for fuck’s sake. Stuff which could save his life. Or at least make him feel better.
Glancing at the stack of handwritten pages on the floor, Del reviewed his plans. Step one was to mail the letter to his cousin in Boise. One not involved in anything to do with Serbian mobs or crazy councilmen. The only person he knew who was a straight arrow and could set things to right if anything happened to him.
Step two was to pack his clothes and the shoebox full of bucks before hitting the road, although he still hadn’t decided if he was gonna head to Vegas or Phoenix since both were good choices in his opinion. Places where he could reinvent himself yet again and live out the rest of his remaining years in relative peace.
Step three would be to dump his cheap cellphone so Anton couldn’t find him. Yeah, that was the ticket in ripping him away from the crazy fuck who’d stolen a lot of years and self respect from one Manfred Delmar Jones. But that’d all be in the rearview just as soon as Del hit the road.
A smart plan that
began on Monday morning, the moment he’d opened his eyes. Ignoring his hangover and the protests of his ankle, Del packed his shit in the duffle he’d saved. And was amazed his belongings didn’t even fill it half-way. Was his life really that small, that insignificant he had only a third of what he’d arrived with, way back when?
Removing his apartment key from its ring, Del looked around the room, at the shabby furnishings and promised himself he’d do better going forward. Be a better man, someone he could be proud of again. Maybe even find himself a steady girl who could cook and wasn’t against providing the occasional blow-job.
Yeah, he’d do whatever it took to get out from Anton’s thumb and stand on his own two legs.
And as he made his way slowly out to his truck, limping and groaning as his ankle kicked up a fuss, Del realized a new emotion was coating his insides. One he could only name as pride.
Pride in telling Anton he was done being his lackey.
Pride he was finally taking control of his own life.
Nothing but pride as he did what he should’ve done fucking years ago.
But all of that blew up, exploded all to hell and beyond. Covering him in the shit he’d participated in, been fucking ordered to do in his years of being Anton’s minder.
And all because he’d gone to the goddamn post office.
The post office, for Christ’s sake!
Standing in line, inching his way forward as he gratefully clutched at each metal post designating where he was supposed to stand as he waited. Letting his eyes roam over the crowd of people, hearing snippets of conversations which had nothing to do with nothing. Eyeing the decorations on the walls that begged him to buy commemorative stamps, consider different envelopes and packing material available for purchase.
Then there were the ‘wanted’ posters, push-pinned into a large corkboard on the far wall. And held a paper with his mug-shot, a much younger him staring back but bracketed with a cartoony kind of photo seriously close to what he looked like now.
Accompanied by the words, “Person of Interest” stamped in bold, red letters at the top, big as you please.
Vonnie: Book Two of Broken Girls Series Page 25