by Eden Rose
“You almost got fucking arrested?”
Garrett’s blunt voice shocks me and I rock back in Liz’s arms and look over at my brother who has his arms crossed and he looks pissed. Definitely pissed off at me!
“Uh, well…” I start to say and then start laughing through the tears.
“Fuck my life! You have become insane. What part of your brother being a cop is so hard for you to understand?”
“Sorry,” I say and then hang my head. I’m feeling ashamed because my brother found out about what I was doing. It’s crazy to think this way, but I don’t want my brother knowing that I’m having sex.
Finally after a few seconds of silence, I get up and go up to my room on the second floor. I need to be by myself so I can work this out.
*
I’m pinned to the car with someone yelling at me continuously. I don’t know why they are yelling at me but they are getting louder and louder.
“You fucking whore! I can’t believe you would just fuck anything that moved.”
A scream wakes me up and I sit straight up in bed trying to catch my breath. What the fuck was that? Even though I was lucid in my dream, I couldn’t make out if the voice was a female or a male. God damn it.
The note that I received yesterday from that mystery person is glaring at me from the side table. I’m trying to scan my mind to see if the handwriting is something that I recognize but I can’t for the life of me remember who wrote like that.
Why would someone threaten me? The worst part about the notes is I have no idea why they are being sent to me. What could I do to stop them? If I don’t know what they are talking about then I don’t know what to do.
I begin to shiver a little in bed and look towards my door to make sure that it’s shut. I went right to bed after talking to Garrett and Liz. I didn’t even bother to shower because I wanted to smell like Damien’s cologne as much as possible.
Now that his scent is starting to fade, I feel dirty for not showering. Fuck! I roll out of bed and strip out of the clothes that I was wearing yesterday and climb into the shower. After turning the water as hot as I could stand it, I step into the spray and begin to wash my body.
The person that is sending me the notes is trying to tell me that it’s something about Baron . What they are trying to say, I don’t know. What could my brother have gotten himself into? He had a wife and twin girls. A decorated military background and was a great cop. Who would have something on him?
I don’t even know.
But I have a feeling that I’m about to find out soon. There’s no way that the person who is sending me these notes is going to let me stay quiet for this long.
As I’m climbing out of the shower, I dry off and begin to wrack my brain about what this person could have on my brother.
I need to go to their house and look through some of his stuff to see what they have.
*
Since there is no way that I wouldn’t be able to tell my best friend what I’m going to do, I inform her about everything. She’s quick in getting up and getting dressed to come with me.
At first, Liz was asking me a bunch of questions, but I knew she would be. “Why didn’t you tell me about these notes earlier?”
We are spread out in my bed with the shoebox of notes between us. There’s a whole shoebox worth of notes written in the same hand as the last one. “I didn’t want to worry you or Garrett about it.”
Audrey, time's running out and I'm getting impatient. You better pull up your end of the bargain or I’m singing to the cops.
These videos are sure something fun to look at. I wonder who else would want to look at them.
I wonder what the cops would say when they find out that one of their officers committed war crimes… Should I find out?
Eenie, meenie, minie, moe… Which one of these videos should I show?
Are you going to stop being a little fucking bitch and give me the money?
You have one week to give me the money that I requested or I’m ratting to the cops. Your choice.
She looks pissed off at first and I can hear her bird yelling in her room.
“Davey, what the fuck?” Davey yells.
No matter how long I’ve lived with them, that damn bird still scares me everytime. “Your bird is fucking scary!”
Liz starts giggling and rolling off of my bed to walk into her room. When she’s back, she has her bird on her shoulder and he’s singing some weird song. “Tell Aunty Audrey that you’re not scary.”
He rocks back and forth on her shoulder and then squeaks out his reply. “Bitch!”
It was the comedy relief that I needed from feeling sorry about myself the past two days. “Your damn bird!”
She starts laughing harder and then holds out her arm so the bird could walk down her arm to her hand. My cat, Miss Meow, starts walking out from under the bed and then hisses at Davey. “You better get him out of here before Fat Cat attacks him!”
Miss Meow has gotten fatter since we moved over here. The house is surrounded by woods and I know that she’s loving the mice that she gets to hunt. She’s pretty good at it and I stopped screaming when she brings them to my pillow and drops them on it.
I lean over and pick her up. She rests and nestles against my neck and then begins to purr loudly. “I know, sweetie. That bird is annoying!” I yell out so Liz could hear me as she puts her bird away.
“Fuck you! You need me more than I need you today. Let’s go to Jerry’s and see what we can find.”
Damien
It’s been a whole day and Audrey hasn’t tried calling me to tell me that she’s sorry for everything that she has said to me. Why the fuck am I over here waiting for this woman? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that over the past five years, I haven’t forgotten about her. That she’s still on my mind after all of this time.
Even though she’s grown softer and her curves are more defined with softness, I still find her to be the most attractive woman in the world.
We need to have a conversation about what happened all of those years ago. I’m not sure if I’m the one that keeps initiating the mind blowing sex or if it’s her. Maybe we both don’t want to know the truth while at the same time, want it.
I roll out of bed and get dressed for work. My practice is thriving and I need to get my shit together to go to work.
I start flicking through my calendar as I wait for my coffee to brew and notice that I have five appointments today and three check ups to do. Shit. It’s going to be busy today.
After the first sip of coffee, I look at my phone messages to see if Audrey has texted me or anything and I’m not at all shocked to see that she hasn’t.
What the fuck is going through her mind to make her so cold towards me? I’ve tried apologizing and she doesn’t listen.
The drive to work is quick and fast and I’m now already halfway through my day. The patients are annoying and asking a lot of questions regarding the fact that I keep telling them certain drinks aren’t good for their teeth.
It’s already after five when my door opens to my office and I’m staring at a pissed off Garrett. “What the fuck did you do?” He demands and marches over towards me.
I blink a few times and then stand up to face him. “What are you talking about?” I honestly can only think that he’s talking about Audrey but that’s none of his business. What happens between us has to do with us. Not him. “Are you talking about Audrey?” I demand.
He shakes his head. Standing toe to toe with him, I notice that we’re the same height and the same weight. The fight could be completely fair but I don’t know if that’s why he’s here.
“I’m talking about Liz. What you do with my baby sister… Well, that’s between you guys. In theory, I should say. I still want to fuck your world up for what happened five years ago, though.”
I begin shaking my head. “I didn’t do shit with your wife.”
His eyes and nose begin to flare and I see that he’s barely holding on right
now. “No! Liz, the Liz that you fucked while she was dating me.”
“I didn’t do anything to that bitch. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in over five years. Look, it’s been a hard day and I don’t want to talk about that bitch. What are you doing here?”
Garrett shakes a letter in his hand and then thrusts it into my face. “She’s threatening my sister about something that she shouldn’t be threatening her about. I want to know what the fuck she knows!”
I read the note and begin to shiver. The truth is, after she started to do heroin and the other drugs that she could get her hands on, she became more dangerous. I don’t know what she could do but I know that she doesn’t feel remorse like others do.
Listen, bitch. You need to start following directions. I want you to get me that money and I won’t tell everyone what I know. I want fifty grand in all unmarked bills delivered to my house by the end of the week. Trust me, you don’t want people to know what I know!
“You think Liz sent this to my woman?” I demand and hold the note in my hand. “Did you get a handwriting analysis done on it? Are you sure it’s her handwriting?”
Even as I ask, I already know the truth. This is Liz’s handwriting. I can tell by the loops and curls in the letters that it’s hers.
He rolls his eyes and then pushes his chest out more. “Of course I know it’s hers. What do you think? I’m stupid?”
I swallow back a chuckle and look at him clearly. “What do you want from me, Garrett?”
“I want you to come back to Baron’s house right now and sit down and talk to my wife and sister and I. We need to find Liz before she does something stupid.”
Audrey
Jerry’s waiting for us at the front door and opens it up to the chaotic mess inside her house. There’s toys and clothes scattered around and she looks as if she hasn’t slept in a while.
“Hey, sweetie,” I whisper and hug her. I know that she’s having a tough time with everything that happened with my brother and I’m guessing that’s why she hasn’t been sleeping.
Liz embraces her too, and I’m guessing it’s strange for the both of them sometimes. I didn’t know that Liz was bisexual until Baron introduced me to Jerry and Liz was holding her hand as well. I can see why they liked each other though, they are both beautiful.
“Hey, baby,” Liz whispers to Jerry and hugs her extra hard.
Jerry pushes us away and leads us inside the house to see the girls sprawled out on the floor with their tablets. “Hey, girls!” I say to them and they both poke their heads up to look at us.
“Aun’ Aud! Aun’ Liz!” They both yell and come running over to us to give us hugs.
The twins are beautiful just like their mother is with red hair and pale skin with brown eyes to match. Cammie and Cayla are going to be heartbreakers when they get older.
“What are you guys doing here?” Jerry asks as she walks into the kitchen and comes back out with a bottle of wine.
I eye the bottle and then look at her cautiously. It’s not a good thing for her to be drinking so early in the day but due to what just happened, I guess she needs it. I don’t want her girls to grow up thinking that drinking is okay when you’re sad.
Liz sits next to the girls playing on their tablets and then says: “We need to look through Baron’s office. We really don’t have anymore information than that. But we need to look.”
Everyone that knew my brother knew that he had an office that he kept private. A lot of what he kept in there had to do with the military and what he did in it. I’ve never gone through it in a show of respect for my brother. I’m not sure if Jerry had ever gone through it either.
Jerry nods her head and then points down the hall to where the office is. “Make sure you close the door when you are done. I don’t want it open.”
“Mommy, I miss daddy,” Cayla says and crawls over to Jerry.
“Me, too, mommy.”
My heart breaks for them even more. Of course I miss Baron because he’s my brother and was a wonderful person, but it’s more than that for them. This was their dad that they lost and they won’t be able to get to know him for what he was. He was the silliest man ever. He was the most generous one as well. Those girls had a fantastic dad that was taken away from them way too early.
The door opens and it’s almost as if I’m walking through an alternate universe. I can just imagine Baron leaning over his desk going over notes from his latest mission or something. My brother was always secretive.
A thin level of dust is covering the tops of his desk and cabinets from lack of use. I feel the sudden urge to clean up the mess in here but I don’t want to step on Jerry’s toes. She’s such a strong woman and I don’t want her to think that I’m belittling her.
Agh!
“Well, I guess I will work on this side and see what there is and you work on that side?” Liz says as she points to where she’s talking about.
I shrug and nod and begin to go through the boxes that are next to the desk.
Three hours later and we have gone through every box and still haven’t found anything incriminating. I look in the closet in Baron’s office and think to myself that would be where he would keep something secretive.
Quickly, I stand up and walk over there and open the sliding doors. There’s four boxes that are neatly stacked next to a filing cabinet. Where would he keep something private that someone would want to blackmail him on? In a locked box, right?
“Liz! I think I found something,” I say over the sound of the radio that we have playing in the room.
“Shit!” She yells as she trips over something running over to me. When she stands back up, she’s rubbing her knees. “God damn boxes! Who made such a fucking mess?” She says scoldingly.
I roll my eyes and point to her side of the mess. “Uh, you did, bitch.”
“What did you find?” Liz asks and ignores my comment about her being a bitch.
I pull a locked box out of the corner next to the filing cabinet and shake it a little to see what’s in there. It’s rattling against the metal of the box. “Uh, any idea how to open this?” I ask.
“Maybe Jerry will know?” Liz says as she raises her eyebrows up and down. I know that she’s still into Jerry even though they stopped seeing each other when Liz and Garrett got together. Or at least that is what I’m lead to believe.
I wink at her and tilt my head to the side. “How about you go ask her?” It’s a question but it’s more of a stern suggestion.
“Jerry, can you come in here?”
Within seconds, Jerry’s walking into the office and she does a double take at the mess that we’ve made. “I love you girls, but you are cleaning this shit up. You know that right?”
Liz and I both wave our hands in the air and then point to the box. “Do you have keys for that?” I ask her.
She’s looking around and makes a stink face. “Why have you destroyed his office?” Her voice cracks a little as she looks down on the floor.
“Look, there’s something in here that someone knows about that is trying to get us in trouble,” Liz explains.
I’m surprised that she said us because it’s only me who is getting these notes and I’m getting worried that I’m going to keep getting them. I don’t have the type of money that they are asking for nor do I have the resources to get it.
“Yeah, I have the key on my keychain. I have never been through anything in here so I don’t know what he could have in there.” She leaves before we can respond and then comes back with her keys.
I take them from her and open the box in question. The only thing that is in here is a thumb drive stick. I hold it up and raise my eyebrows in asking the girls what they think.
“Stick it into the computer?” I ask and look around to see if I can see one.
“The girls have mine. Let me go grab it,” Jerry answers and goes to run after her computer.
When she’s back, we all look at the computer and I can tell that we are all nervous to
find out what is on it. While the contents on the thumb drive load up, we wait.
Instantly, the computer screen is bombarded by pictures and videos of things that are way above my pay grade. “What the fuck is this?” I demand as I watch my easy going brother do things that I never thought he would do.
“We need to call Garrett,” Liz says as she watches the videos light up.
Garrett
Getting the call from my sister and my wife that I needed to rush over to Jerry’s house made me nervous. I knew that there had to be something going on that they wanted to go to her house.
Ever since the murder of Baron, none of us had wanted to go to his house to look at his wife and girls that reflect him so much. I drive over there quickly, and am met by Cammie and Cayla that are playing outside running around like crazy little people. The girls look so much like Baron and Jerry it’s ridiculous. It’s almost as if Baron and Jerry squashed their faces together and then photocopied it on their twins’ faces.