by Mike Faricy
“Let’s get the hero undressed,” someone said and then they left to help the guy still up by my porch.
“A cake? Someone is stupid enough to do something nice for you and you decide it would be a good idea to create a statewide incident?” Aaron asked.
“Statewide?”
“Did you miss the news crews? We’ll be sure to mention your name when we tell them it was an idiotic false alarm. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about the explosion at the hotel, three people dead, that’s what I was thinking.”
“A cake, God help us,” Aaron said and walked off.
Heidi arrived just as the bomb disposal truck headed down the street. They confiscated the cake she left for me, it turned out to be chocolate and I figured they’d have the thing devoured in the next fifteen minutes. One of the news vans was still parked down the block giving what looked like a live broadcast, probably telling everyone in their listening area that I was a complete idiot.
“My God, are you okay?” Heidi asked then gave me a big hug and a long, hard kiss.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll live, but I’m more than a little stressed out.”
“I know just the thing for that,” she said and flared her eyes as we walked inside and I locked the door.
The End
Thanks for taking the time to read Double Trouble. If you enjoyed Dev’s adventure please tell 2-300 of your closest friends. Then, if you really enjoyed the story, please take a moment, click on the appropriate link and leave a review, even if it’s just a sentence or two it really helps. Thanks,
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Mike Faricy
Yellow Ribbon
Published by Credit River Publishing 2015
Copyright Mike Faricy 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior and express permission of the copyright owner.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ASIN# B00UTKEUC0
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their help & support:
Special thanks to Donna, Elizabeth, Julie, Steve and Roy for their hard work, cheerful patience and positive feedback. I would like to thank family and friends for their encouragement and unqualified support. Special thanks to Maggie, Jed, Schatz, Pat, Av, Emily and Pat, for not rolling their eyes, at least when I was there. Most of all, to my wife Teresa, whose belief, support and inspiration has, from day one, never waned.
To Teresa
“That’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot!”
Mike Faricy
Yellow Ribbon
Chapter One
I’d been up with Heidi until almost sunrise. Not a complaint by the way, more like bragging. Every so often she gets this insatiable hormonal swing that might last about twenty-four hours, it was incredible … if you could survive. Then, while recovering on my couch at home I got the call to come over and join the girls. A call? Let’s be honest, it was a plea, begging, how could I refuse? It was just that after the previous night of virtually no sleep I was really running on empty.
I arrived at their town-home late in the afternoon. The rooms had all been painted in the past year. I knew because I’d done the work, then been paid by way of some great dinners. The place was spotless, nice furniture, not necessarily expensive, but nice all the same and certainly not threadbare.
The girls and I settled into the living room, the drapes were pulled, it was very private. At first we just talked and watched a little TV. Then we ate a simple dinner in the living room, occasionally glancing at the TV, but really just involved in casual conversation and catching up. One thing seemed to lead to another and now, once I finished the last of my beer, it would be time for me to join them. From where I was sitting I could hear the laughter.
They’d been in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes chatting away while waiting for me. There were two of them. Sisters. Beautiful. A blonde and a redhead, Emma and Ava. I kept getting them mixed up, I always did, screwing up who was who. Not that they seemed to be bothered. On the contrary, they seemed to think it was kind of funny. They’d both claim to be the other which didn’t help in solving any of my confusion.
“You called me that the last time, I already told you, I’m Emma,” the redhead said with a straight face.
“Dev?” the blonde would ask. “How come you always call us by the wrong name?”
Occasionally one of them called out to me from the bathroom and told me to hurry up or asked me when I was going to come in and join them. I remained on the couch, still trying to recharge my batteries from my Heidi marathon.
I finally figured I’d left them alone long enough. I rolled my shoulders a couple of times, then turned my head from side to side cracking my neck, getting ready to face the music and not really sure how I was going to handle both of them. I set my empty beer bottle on the living room carpet next to the couch where we’d been playing around earlier. I took a deep breath, steadied myself and began to head down the hallway approaching the bathroom door with a fair degree of caution.
The door was half open and as I drew closer I could hear the two of them in there whispering, giggling, and making plans while sitting in the Jacuzzi. Light from the half dozen scented candles they’d insisted on lighting flickered out the bathroom doorway and into the hall.
“What’s taking him so long?”
“I don’t know, he’s always late.”
“He better get here pretty soon.”
“Let’s splash him when he comes.”
“We can hide under the bubbles and he won’t see us.”
“Yeah, and then we’ll splash him.”
That seemed to get them going all over again and they started laughing and splashing one another as I tiptoed toward the door.
“Are you two ready for me?” I called from the hallway.
That brought on squeals of delight and they both screamed, “Hurry up, Dev. Hurry up.”
As I slowly opened the door I gave an evil sort of laugh which brought on a series of shrieks and they slid down in the Jacuzzi beneath about a foot of bubbles until just their heads were exposed.
“You promised you’d get in with us,” Emma screamed, or was it Ava? I had them mixed up again, anyway it was the blonde.
“Yeah, Dev, come on, you said you would,” the redhead pleaded then splashed some water and blew a handful of bubbles toward me.
“All I know is, I promised your mom you’d have a bath and be in bed before she got home from her class,” I said.
They scooted over to the far side of the Jacuzzi shrieking, and then the two of them started kicking and splashing.
“Come on, now who’s gonna be first?” I said and grabbed a thick white towel from the rack on the opposite wall. The floor was already under about a half inch of water from all their splashing.
“Me, me.”
“No, that’s not fair let me, it’s my turn, you always get to be first, Emma. It’s my turn.”
“I get to go first because I’m the oldest, and that makes me the boss.”
That seemed to click something in my brain and I repeated, Emma, oldest, blonde, to myself a half-dozen times. Then I spread my arms, holding the thick bath towel and shaking it from side to side.
“Okay, now we’ve got two towels. How about both of you getting out at the same time and then everyone can be first? How does that sound?”
That brought on more shrieks and giggles as they hurried to climb out over the slippery edge of the Jacuzzi, in the process spilling a couple gallons of water across the white he
xagonal tiles of the bathroom floor. A wave of water and bath bubbles washed over my shoes.
“Careful now, we don’t want anyone slipping and falling. Take your time this floor is wet and slippery.”
Of course they completely ignored my wise advice. I threw the towel over blonde, five-year-old Emma’s head. Then I reached back and grabbed the towel for Ava. In the process I lowered my knee and the leg of my jeans dipped into the water pooled on the bathroom floor. I wrapped the towel around little four-year-old Ava as she stood there shivering.
“Come on, now. We’ll dry off in your bedroom where it’s nice and warm and then you can both get into jammies.”
“I get to pick the story, I know which one to get,” Emma shouted and then dashed out of the bathroom.
“No me, it’s my turn tonight. Don’t pick the one I want, Emma. You can’t,” little Ava shouted as she started to take off in hot pursuit. She slipped on the floor. Fortunately, I somehow managed to catch her as she fell. She missed the edge of the Jacuzzi with her forehead by just a fraction of an inch. She giggled as I caught her, like her near death accident was all just a big game. I hoisted her up on my shoulder and we followed Emma into their bedroom.
“You can’t pick my book, Emma,” Ava reminded as we stepped into the bedroom.
“I going to pick an even better one,” Emma said.
“What one? What one are you picking?”
“You can both pick a book, but before we pick books we need to have pajamas on first.”
Who knew slipping a little flannel nightie on could take the better part of ten minutes? Probably most moms, but I sure didn’t have a clue. Once the nighties were on, we had to go into the kitchen so they could each have a sip of water. I said no to another cookie, but then decided all three of us could probably do with one, I snuck a second when the girls weren’t looking. They picked out their books, said their prayer’s including one for me, gave kisses all around, and finally snuggled under the covers.
“Read mine first, read mine,” Emma said just as the doorbell rang.
“No me, read mine first,” Ava said and then made a face at her sister.
The doorbell rang a second time and I muttered to myself wondering who it could be as I left the bedroom to answer the door.
A fat guy with dark, curly hair was standing at the door, his back was to me and he looked like he was scanning the street. My first thought was he must be a neighbor because he was just wearing shirt sleeves and it was fairly cool for an early October evening. As I opened the door he turned toward me, a look of shocked surprise washed across his face the moment he saw me.
“Oh, sorry, I was looking for Isabella, does she still live here?” he asked then sort of leaned to the side to look past me and check out the living room.
“Yeah, she does,” I said. My initial impression was I didn’t like this guy.
“Well then, who the hell are you?”
“Carlos, mommy said you weren’t supposed to come back to our house, ever again. You were bad, Carlos, very bad, and you’re not supposed to be here,” Emma said from somewhere behind me.
I turned to look at a very angry, red faced Emma just as little Ava peeked out from behind her older sister with a wide-eyed stare. A second later I saw stars when he blindsided me.
Based on the way my face looked once I came to, he landed a few more punches before he was finished.
The front door was open, the girls were gone, I could only see out of one eye, my lips were swollen, I tasted blood, had one hell of a headache, and Isabella was just pulling up in front.
Chapter Two
“I’d say you have a slight to moderate concussion,” the paramedic said. I was sitting on the couch holding a gelled ice pack to the side of my throbbing head. He was kneeling on the floor next to me and in the process of taking a blood pressure cuff off my arm.
As he spoke, he carefully folded the blood pressure cuff and placed it back into a blue case with a red cross on the front.
“At least your nose doesn’t seem to be broken, that swelling around the eye should go down in the next thirty-six hours. Maybe keep it iced off and on for the next day or two and that will help. I’d stay away from spicy foods for the next couple of days with those lips,” he laughed. “How’s the breathing, any troubles with that nose?”
“You mean can I? Through my nose? Yeah, it’ll be okay, I guess. Just trying to clear my head is all, still kind of dizzy, things are sort of spinning.”
There had to be a half dozen cops in the small townhouse. I could see Isabella at her dining room table occasionally glancing over at me. She was red-eyed, crying, and nodding to some guy in a suit and tie seated across the table from her. He was typing on a notebook of some sort. What looked like a cellphone sat on the table between the two of them, I guessed it was probably recording their conversation. Isabella was nodding then biting her lower lip. She did not look happy.
It was dark outside, but at least two more police officers were out front, apparently walking back and forth across the front yard with flashlights. A couple of red and blue lights were flashing on top of squad cars out in the street. The lights were shining through the windows, bouncing off the living room walls and in general adding to my pounding headache.
“I don’t think we’ll need to transport you, well unless you want us to. But, if I were you, I’d think about going down to the ER and getting checked out. Maybe have somebody drive you down there, preferably tonight. If you don’t go down tonight, I’d certainly get in there tomorrow, just to play it safe.”
“Thanks,” I said nodding slowly while my head continued to throb, having no intention of going to the ER either tonight or tomorrow.
“I really think you should, sir,” he said reading my mind.
“Appreciate the advice. Mind if I go over and join them at the table. I’m sure they’d like to ask me the same questions a few more times.”
“Yeah, sure, we’re done here, just take it easy the next couple of days, you got pretty banged up. It looks pretty shitty, but you’re awfully lucky, it doesn’t seem to be as bad as it looks.”
“Thanks for checking me out,” I said then groaned to my feet and took some unsteady steps toward the crowd gathered around the dining room table. I slowly approached, then ran my hand across Isabella’s shoulder as I sat down in the chair next to her. She gave my hand a quick squeeze, glanced over at me and tears immediately started running down her cheeks.
With the mascara and eyeshadow pooled around her eyes she looked like she’d gone twelve rounds with someone a lot larger than her demure little frame. Her always perfect dark hair seemed limp and bedraggled. There was a pile of Kleenex on the table in front of her and she held more in her hand.
“Oh, Dev,” she said and sniffled when she looked at me then put her hand up to gently touch the side of my face.
I reflexively jerked my head back which got things really spinning and I had to grab onto the edge of the table and close my good eye for a long moment until things settled down.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and started crying again.
A couple of the uniform cops and the suit at the table looked over at me. My wobbly entrance into the dining room was not exactly the sort of thing that would instill confidence.
“I know you’re not at your best, Mr. Haskell. Maybe just rest for a minute or two and think if there’s anything else you can add to your previous statement?” the suit said. He looked to be about forty and gave the immediate impression he was not someone to be trifled with. He had dark hair, shaved along the sides up to where a part would normally be, the hair was immediately longer and combed over on the top of his head. He had big, solid looking hands like he had done labor or maybe farm work early on. He had introduced himself to me earlier, but with all the spinning and the fireworks going off in my head I couldn’t remember his name.
I began to shake my head indicating I didn’t want to wait and my skull immediately felt like it was going to explode. I
waited a few seconds for the fireworks to stop inside then said, “I don’t think I can add anything else, it all happened so fast. It couldn’t have been a minute, maybe more like just a few seconds. I don’t know what he hit me with, his fists, a bottle, I just don’t know. Like I said, I thought he was a neighbor, you know, because he was just in shirt sleeves.”
“Mister O’Kelly?”
“Who?”
“Mister O’Kelly, Carlos O’Kelly was the man who assaulted you,” The suit looked over at Isabella as she nodded.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, matter of fact, Emma called him that, Carlos. Said he was bad and wasn’t supposed to be here. I turned around to look at her for half a second and then the lights went out. I didn’t know his last name. Like I said, I figured he must have just run over from next door.”
“And you were babysitting the little girls?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you done that before?”
“Yeah, but just once or twice in a pinch,” I said glancing over at Isabella. That started things spinning again and I took a couple of deep breaths before proceeding. “I’ve known Isabella since we were in high school. Her husband, Danny and I were pals. I guess the sitter canceled for tonight.” I was going to look over at Isabella, but decided to just hold my head still.
“Like I said before,” Isabella jumped in. “She called about a half hour before I was supposed to leave and said she had the flu. That’s really the last thing we needed here, flu. So, it was such short notice I couldn’t think of who to call, so I called Dev. The girls know him and he ran right over, it was just going to be for a few hours, not late, it’s only a two-hour class. We usually meet for about thirty minutes before class for a coffee and a quick review.”