Reed

by Mariska Hutchence

  An hour ticks by. Marisela is still out and I’m still staring out the window through the drawn blinds, having pulled the chair up close. Finally, the moment comes. I can see the car pulling back up the drive. A plan’s been forming, and it’s even dumber than the last one. As it approaches, I double-check the keys in my hand before going back and locking the door to the bedroom Marisela is in. She’s starting to show some signs of waking up. I consider gagging her, but there’s no time, so I head to the empty garage.

  I wait until I hear the front door unlocking before I head out the back, circling quickly to the front. When I hear the door slam, I’m only six steps from the car. It’s unlocked, and the key slides into the ignition at the same time my body slides into the seat.

  “This works, or you’re fucked, Reed.” I say as I turn the key.

  The engine comes to life and I throw it in reverse. I’m barely into the hard, braking turn when the first gunshots come, taking out the passenger rear window. I glance into the mirror and see Duke. It’s like a movie; that dour face, the fedora, smoke still coming from the barrel as I floor it.

  I’m only on the road for ten minutes, unsure what to do when I realize.

  “You’re an idiot, Reed.” I say aloud as I pass the ‘Leaving Sault Saint Marie’ sign. Below those words; ‘Michigan’. Shit. I got turned around in the water and ended up swimming to the American side of the lake. Dumbass.

  “Fuck it.” I say, taking Marisela’s phone out of my pocket. “Time to get some shit and get moving.” I unlock the phone, shaking my head that her passcode hasn’t changed. I pull up the map to Milwaukee. Maybe the Southern border is a better option for me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thursday Morning – Des

  So, I’m having a little more sympathy for suspects that are forced to spend the night in the interrogation room this morning. My body aches from what little sleep I’ve managed to get. I want to be that sunny, optimistic person, but that’s really not me and even that person would be pretty depressed at the moment. There’s a little bit, though. A little part of me that is at least happy that I gave it a shot and didn’t settle for a life that would have eventually have dragged me down.

  I can hear the door unlocking. Cisneros.

  “Morning, Chief.” I say, trying to be unflappable. It’s only working on the exterior, though.

  “Let’s make this easy.” He says, pulling up into the chair across from me. “Tell me everything, including where Reed Calhoun is and where he’s going.”

  “I don’t know where he is.” It’s the truth and I know that he’s seeing that.

  “Where’s he headed, Des?”

  “I don’t know.” I say, but I can see that’s not going to fly. “He’s supposed to contact me.”

  I think that it’s the moment when Cisneros finally realized I’m all in with this. I can’t really hide it.

  “You know this isn’t going to work out, Des, right?” He says, sighing.

  Suddenly I decide that I don’t want to be Natalie Desjardins, Special Agent anymore. “I tried.” I say, feeling the tears welling in my eyes, willing them not to fall. “I’ll always have that.”

  The two of us stare across the table for a few minutes, and I’ve finally given up on trying to figure out what he’s thinking. I don’t really care anymore. I’m just thinking about Reed and the future I had hoped we’d have. A tear finally runs down my cheek.

  Cisneros looks like he’s about to break the silence when the door comes open and Ellis motions for him to come out. Once again, I’m alone in the room, but it only lasts about ten minutes this time.

  “Well, it’s settled.” He says, sitting back in his chair. There’s a silence, so I sigh to give him the nudge to continue. “Calhoun’s in custody, so we don’t need you on that. Right now you need to give us anything we can use that will make them go easier on you, Des. It’s important.”

  My heart is sinking in a freefall I would have never thought imaginable a month ago and I don’t trust myself to speak.

  “Shit, Des. You’re going to go away for a long time. Any information you have on Calhoun and the rest of the syndicate will help me put in a good word for you. Fuck, he’s already talking about you.”

  I want to kick myself. I squeeze my eyes closed, forcing out the last tears that now wouldn’t have fallen by themselves. Agent Desjardins is back. It’s right out of the goddamn playbook, I think. Though I’ve only known him for a short time, my faith is with Reed.

  “I’d like to see a lawyer before I answer any more questions.” I say, steeling my words.

  Thoughts run through my mind. What do they really have on me, anyway? Everyone in law enforcement knows there’s a huge gap between what you know and what you can manage to secure a conviction for. Reed’s escape? I can’t think of any evidence for that. Trying to fly to Guatemala? Not a crime.

  “I’m sorry Des. I can’t help you if you don’t help me out, here.” It’s a bluff and I know it. He probably knows that I’m aware of it, but I can’t be sure.

  My continued silence results in him leaving the interrogation room, uncharacteristically slamming the door.

  Reed’s fine, I think. Right?

  ___

  It takes an hour but my hunch is right. Cisneros is back.

  “I pulled some strings and convinced the higher-ups that the normal routines aren’t going to work on you.” He says, putting a folder down on the desk.

  “I’m a little offended that you thought they would.” I say, but I know he’s got some other tricks up his sleeve. “What’s in the folder, Alex?”

  “Full immunity.”

  “For?”

  “Helping us bring in Reed Calhoun.”

  I give him a nasty look and his eyes can’t stay with mine. “Look, Des. It’s all I’ve got. You bring in Calhoun and there’s no prosecution. You’ll be out of the Bureau, scot-free. If not that, you’re headed to a Federal facility in the morning. It is what it is.”

  “I’ll bring him in.” I say with a straight face. The words taste like acid in my mouth. “I need a computer.”

  Cisneros stares at me as if deciding if I’m bluffing or not. I hope my own face is as mysterious as his can be sometimes. “Let’s go to your office.”

  “I still have an office?”

  “Shut up, Des.” Cisneros says as he unlocks one of the cuffs.

  As Cisneros marches me to my old office, I’m trying to come up with a plan. If they want me to communicate with Reed, that’s fine by me. It doesn’t mean that all of that communication has to be out in the open, does it? I just need to come up with some way of telling him that he needs to keep running and hopefully he won’t try to do anything foolish to get me out of here.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday Morning – Reed

  I know I’m taking a risk, but I’ve got to get online. There may be a message from Des and I don’t want to miss it. This lack of communication is killing me inside. This trip back to Milwaukee wasn’t part of the original plan, but it is now. The whole thing with Duke and Marisela has me a little bit hostile, but I’m trying to control it. Getting out of control is the last thing that I need right now, if I want to be with her.

  Even though it’s the reason I’m there, the message on the forum surprises me nonetheless. It’s a personal message, rather than a post. I pull it up and it doesn’t really help my mood. She’s basically the FBI agent again, giving me an offer to turn myself in for the promise of light prosecution if I assist in bringing down the organization. It’s not hard for me to figure out that she’s in trouble. Not a kind word, nothing. She’s communicating her situation perfectly by not really communicating with me at all.

  “Shit, Des.” I say under my breath, low enough so the other patrons of the fast food restaurant probably won’t hear it. “I know what you want from me, but I can’t do that. Anything else, sure.”

  It would be easy to have read her message and feel that she was playing me all along, that
her feelings had changed, but the night we spent together makes that impossible for me. I hit the reply button and essentially tell her, and whoever else will be reading, that I’ll have to think about it for a while. I add ‘I love you’ to the end, but only verbally.

  As I submit the message, I see that I have one new unread message, so I click through to it, thinking I just need to clear it from having read Des’ last one. The message from Marisela shocks me even more.

  K, Reed. Got it. Sometimes you’ve got to just tie up loose ends and move on with your life, right? Goes both ways.

  I read the words over and over again, trying to coax more meaning out of it, but only one interpretation really fits. I close out the connection and shove the laptop back into my bag, feeling my hands shaking a little bit. The last swallow of the mediocre coffee does little to calm them down.

  ___

  The bus pulls off again in a choking haze of diesel smoke and once again I’m alone at the bus stop as the departing passengers go about their separate ways, to their separate lives. I wouldn’t mind living one of those lives, I think, but the thought is always that I’d be living that life without Des.

  I pull the hoodie a little tighter over my head, keeping my eyes down, but still on the building across the street and the road passing in front of it. I don’t even know for sure that Des is in there, but I’m looking for some sort of sign, some shred of opportunity. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, I continue to scan the lot, the road, the front door, all while those other lives start building up around me again; in anticipation of the next bus.

  The white SUV catches my eye and thinking about it, I can’t tell if it’s just the second time I’ve seen it or if it’s been by multiple times. The only thing that caught my eye in the first place was that it was moving a little slower than the rest of the traffic. The windows are too dark to see who is inside, but my mind fills in the blanks for me. For the first time in hours, I get up from the bus stop, just as it’s rolling in once again.

  Sitting in the car just off the street, I’m no longer watching the door or the parking lot. Des is in there, she just has to be, but I’m not going to learn anything from there. This time, I’m just waiting for the SUV to come by again, spending the other cycles of my thoughts on the office itself. There’s little chance they would have repaired their security holes, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t taken steps to counter them. Really, the last thing I can imagine doing is storming the place and busting her out. Still, I play through each step of that possibility.

  The impromptu gunfight in my head is interrupted by my target passing by, even slower this time. I put the car in drive only when they’re almost ready to turn the corner. I want to follow, but the last thing I need is to be seen. Tailing someone is a lot more boring than it is on the television; though it’s actually a lot easier. If the person doesn’t really actively expect that they’re being followed, it’s pretty simple to stay off their radar. When they pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, I take a loop around the block.

  Pulling back in, I park at the far end and give it a minute, making sure they’re not going to finally exit the vehicle right as I’m passing it. Hoodie drawn tight again, I make my way in, trying to scan the tables without moving my head too much. They’re at a booth. Marisela and Gray, both tucking into breakfast.

  There’s nothing like the feeling of ordering food from a smiling, semi-flirting teenager when there’s a couple twenty feet away that would likely be happy to take the risk of murdering you right in the restaurant; crowds be damned. I carry my tray, feeling like a dead-man-walking, heading down the aisle of booths, a short frosted-glass divider the only thing separating me from my potential killers.

  I slide into the booth, actually feeling their presence on the other side of the tacky wood paneled divider.

  “He wants in on this personally.” I hear Gray say. Their voices are hushed, but audible.

  I hear some papers rustling. “That’s fine by me, but this is personal, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, you need to be careful with that shit, Sela. When shit gets too personal, people start making mistakes.”

  “Fuck that, Gray.” Marisela says, and I can hear the hushed fire in her voice. “This isn’t just about me.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll have it cleaned up before morning and then we’ll be off on the next run. Voss is already a little pissed at the delay.”

  “Voss can go fuck himself.” Marisela says, but then her anger subsides a bit. “It is nice down there, though. Might be like a vacation after this.”

  I hear Gray laugh, a deep rumble. “I know this little club you’ll love. It’ll make you forget about all of this.”

  More paper crumpling, then Marisela again. “Shit, Gray, you going to take all day? I want to look at the back a little more, maybe get out and walk around a bit.”

  I lower my head, bringing the untouched sandwich to my lips as I see the silhouette on the other side of the frosted glass stand. I just catch that raven hair before I pull my eyes away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thursday Afternoon – Des

  “Well, we’ve got a bite, thanks to you, Des.” Cisneros says as he comes back into the interrogation room. He seems to be in a much better mood. “He logged into the website to read your message and we’ve got a trace.”

  I knew that would happen, but it was a calculated risk. Reed is probably out of the country by now anyway, and the information won’t help them too much.

  “Hell, I’m pulling Ellis and Dawkins back down from Duluth, but I’ve got eyes out, even from the MPD.”

  “What’s the MPD got to do with it?” I ask, but my heart’s already sinking from the truth.

  “He logged into the website from a burger joint less than two miles from here.” Cisneros says, smiling. “MPD is already pulling the surveillance videos so we can get confirmation and a vehicle description. You’ll be a free woman by nightfall, Des. I’m sorry for the games, but you know how it is. The immunity is real.”

  Immunity is the last thing that I want but the only thing I’m dealing with right now is trying to hold myself together. Shit, are we just going to go back and forth rescuing each other forever and never really get to be together? God damn macho bullshit, I think, cursing Reed though I know he only wants the same thing that I do. I wouldn’t let him rot either, but I can’t see any way forward for him.

  Hell, even our one way of communicating is compromised now. Cisneros made sure that I gave him the username and password, even going so far as to type them in himself to verify that the information was valid. The thing that bugs me though is that his presence in town couldn’t be directly tied to my message as there wasn’t enough time. He was here already, and that doesn’t fit with the plans we had made.

  “Thanks, Chief.” I say as he’s starting to leave. “I’m sorry about all this, you know.” It’s the truth.

  He turns and looks at me, this time I can see the compassion in those worn-out eyes. “I know Des.” He says. “I’m sorry I didn’t push you to the counselor sooner.”

  The door clicks shut and once again I’m alone; but at least I’m no longer handcuffed to the table. That says something, at least.

  Boredom usually sends a person into their own mind, and that’s where I’m at.

  ___

  Reed has acquiesced to watching a ‘chick flick’ with me. He didn’t put up too much of a fight, really, and it’s making me smile. There’s a scene where the hero finally professes his love to the heroine and it makes me feel like a little girl. I look over, tears in my eyes; and he’s watching me.

  “What?” I say, a little defensively, wiping away a tear.

  “Nothing.” He says, and it irks me.

  “What, you don’t find that incredibly romantic?”

  He looks to the screen, then back at me. “Of course I do.” He says.

  “There’s a but in there.” I say, and his lip turns up a little in a short-lived smile. />
  “I guess it’s just…” He pauses, but I know my expression is telling him to spit it out. “These movies give unrealistic expectations. I mean, hell, even if I have feelings as strong as that, I don’t have a team of writers that can spend a week coming up with the perfect line to make you swoon.”

  “Make me swoon?” I ask.

  “Make the girl swoon.” Reed corrects himself. “I mean, women complain about porn all the time, right?”

  “What does porn have anything to do with this?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Unrealistic expectations.” He answers right back. “I hear left and right how porn gives men unrealistic expectations about how a woman is supposed to perform in the bedroom, but at the same time I hear women asking why men can’t be as romantic as they are in the movies. It’s all just fiction and acting.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t believe in romance?” My sappy feelings have withered.

  “Are you saying that there’s no hot, kinky sex going on?”

  It takes me a second, but I laugh. “No, touché. I guess I just never really thought of it that way before.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a team of writers. Hell, I’d probably do just fine with the ladies.”

  Reed’s face and his words hit me and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed him putting himself down when it comes to the opposite sex. The part that gets me, though, is that I don’t get it. God, aside from the fact that he’s absolutely gorgeous, he’s kind, thoughtful, and caring, but it’s far from my place to tell him that, or even give him any comfort. The final credits are rolling by, and I don’t want it to be over. I find myself wondering if that thought relates to the movie, but I’m not entirely sure.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thursday Night – Reed