by C. D. Gill
The intense relief that washed over him as Reggie left was quickly curbed by the presence of two uniformed officers hiking their heavy belts up over their paunches outside the cruiser in the front. They glanced down the sidewalk but back up at his office door.
Now was not the time for this. He muttered an expletive. They could be here for any number of reasons. He could slip out back and claim to have not seen them.
The knock at the door came too soon. Criminals ran. He had nothing to ashamed of. He hoped. Swinging the door open, he greeted them.
“Good afternoon, officers. Can I help you?”
One nodded. “You Alexander Reinerman, owner of Reclaim That?”
“Yes, sir.” He motioned for them to come in.
“I’m Officer Barley and this is Officer Calfi. Someone broke into and vandalized the Newmans Men’s Mission over in Lakewood last night,” Officer Barley said.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Xander murmured, nothing to do with his current issues.
Officer Calfi stuck a picture out. “You happen to recognize anyone in this picture?”
The photo was a pixelated shot of the tops of two heads covered in knit caps. Their clothes were dark except for the very clear Reclaim That long-sleeved t-shirt they both wore. None of their dark skin was exposed except portions of their face and neck.
Xander shook his head. “I did a few workshops at the mission with my non-profit The Upcycled Life over the past three months. I have lists of the attendees, but that might not provide you any insight. T-shirts are easy to pass along. The only help I can give you is that I only give those shirts out to people who have sold something on my Reclaim That website. I have a list of those people and their contact information if that might help you.”
Officer Barley leveled a squinted stare at him. “Criminals can be thoughtless, but their matching t-shirts being the only identifying article of clothing seems deliberate. Can you think of anyone who would be trying to send you a message, Mr. Reinerman?”
He swallowed. “Like an actual message?” He had about point two seconds to decide if he was going to involve the police.
Officer Barley widened his stance. “You could say that.”
Officer Calfi pushed another photo toward him. The spray-painted message said, “Give us what the doctor ordered.”
The doctor? Now he really didn’t know who they meant. And he, for sure, would end up dead in their territory.
“Want to tell us why these guys who we suspect are members of a Denver gang are trying to get in touch with you?” Officer Barley asked.
“Over the past few weeks, I’ve been receiving anonymous messages saying that I’m a target for someone and to not let them get me alone. I disregarded them at first as pranks, but then last night a man tackled me in the parking lot of George’s, held a gun to my head, and told me to tell him where the hard drive was. He was so sure I knew.” Xander scrubbed his eyes that burned with a lack of sleep.
Officer Calfi folded his arms. “And you didn’t report this, why?”
“This seemed very obviously about something that happened in prison. There wasn’t an actual crime. Just a threat about something they thought I knew from my time in prison. What are the cops going to do about it?”
Officer Barley grunted. “Well, there’s a crime involving this homeless shelter and it seems someone else wants to know what you know, so the police are involved whether we can do anything or not.”
“Now you can make sure I don’t turn up dead for something I don’t have any clue about.” He was needling these guys, but he also did want them to look out for him if they were going to mess around in his business.
Calfi raised his eyebrows. “Give us all your contact information and we’ll be in touch. We’ll need for you to stay in the area so we can call you into the station for more questions when they come up.”
Reassuring.
They turned to leave his office.
A niggling thought wormed its way to the surface. “Hey, do you guys have any information on Jerry Sorentino? It’d be really helpful in keeping me alive a little longer.”
Barley jotted the name down. “We don’t, but we’ll look into it. Thanks for the lead.”
As they ducked into their cruiser casually, Xander bent over his knees. All the air in the room had gone out with them. More than one group of what looked like gangs was after him. An explanatory note from his anonymous overseer sure would be nice right about now—a clue of some sort to keep him from reliving the hell he experienced in prison of trying not to get killed for no good reason.
He regained control and locked up the office. By the time he set the door alarm at the house, he had just enough energy to stuff some food in his mouth and fall into his bed. In his dreams, wave after wave of criminals came after him. He narrowly escaped.
In a panicked sweat, he woke up. “Give us what the doctor ordered.” His thoughts raced. He hadn’t seen any doctor but Ed, his mom’s psychologist, which had been highly coincidental. The prison infirmary had checked on him once or twice the whole time he’d been there.
Except when he’d been sliced open from armpit to hip about to be gutted like an animal.
One minute he was in the prison yard enjoying the fresh air, back to the fence as far away from the staked-out groupings of the prison gangs as he could be. Then something outside the fence drew his attention away from carefully watching the orchestrated dance. Suddenly, he was pinned on the ground by heavy hands and sharp knees, the guys on top of him shouting about invasions and tyranny.
Bodies bounced against each other.
Shouting.
Screaming.
A blistering pain that made him blackout.
That’s when the panic attacks started in earnest.
The infirmary staff stitched him up to save his life, but the pain of being sliced open and stitched back together blinded his other senses, scattering his memories. Had he been conscious? When he came around, he was in the infirmary for all of an hour or two before they discharged him to sleep on his wooden plank of a cell bed, bandaged and sore.
His fingers followed the line of his scar, still puckered at the top. His journals were filled with triggers and thoughts surrounding the attack but he’d never made sense of it. Why had he been sliced open in broad daylight? Who had stopped them from finishing the job? Why his side and not his vital organs if they wanted to kill him so badly?
“Never take your eye off the ball,” Jerry had said in his attempts to relate prison yard politics to a soccer field so Xander would understand.
Jerry would have been able to read the situation like a book, explaining the synchronized movements of the gangs in the yard or deciphering the micrography he’d received on a “kite” from another cell. But Xander had received about two years of education from Jerry before losing his information source completely and attempting to survive on his own.
He hadn’t joined any of the gangs, citing his religion—one of the few exceptions the gangs would make. He didn’t hide a cell phone in his rectum or razors in his upper lips. Perhaps he’d brought the violence on himself, or—the way he saw it—he avoided the trading of his soul and the additional violence that came from a prison gang. In a way, he’d suffered without the protection of others, but he’d survived, though not without scars.
Hauling himself from his bed, he showered and ate again. The house was so quiet without Gia he couldn’t stand it. The life she gave everything with her presence empowered a room. His chest ached from missing her. When he dialed her number, it went straight to voicemail. The distance felt too great between them.
So he grabbed an apple for the road and went back to the office.
Mindlessly, he packed together the kids’ kits he’d designed until he ran out of the supplies he’d gotten for them. His computer sat, taunting him. Surely, there were answers in the depths of the internet for his predicament, but he didn’t even know where to start. He was the cartoon staring up at the piano fal
ling on his head. And he hated it.
Chapter 13
It was Saturday, but that did not stop Gia from copying the new plans she’d finished late last night and sending them over to the rest of her team. They wouldn’t see them until Monday which gave her too much time to second-guess her decision. Drawing up a completely new revision of the outdoor space was a huge gamble so late in the game, especially since they’d already approved most of the last set she’d had them look at.
She blew out a breath.
Her nerves needed a diversion. Downstairs, her family loudly breakfasted in several different rooms. She parked herself at the breakfast bar next to Uncle Ronaldo, three pages deep into a newspaper.
“What do you hear from that man of yours?” he rumbled.
“He was out with his brother last night. Said he’d call me sometime today to catch up,” she said. He’d better block out a chunk of time, because she had things to talk about.
Uncle Ronaldo turned the page. “Are you going to tell him about the dead animals with your name on it?”
Her name on it? That was a tidbit Andy failed to mention yesterday during their escape from the office. Her fingers pressed into her eyes. “I’d be upset if something like that happened to him and he didn’t mention it to me. It might have him on the next flight down here to save the day though.”
“I thought women loved it when men dropped everything for them.” Uncle Ronaldo moved his paper to the side, frowning. “What do women want?”
Her superstar uncle, a professional futbol player for Brazil, who’d had countless women vying for his attention over the years was asking her about what women wanted? She burst out laughing.
He scrunched his face. “Were you being facetious?” He turned the page. “I don’t get kids’ humor these days.”
“No.” She sighed. “He just has a lot going on and can’t get away right now. And, frustratingly, there isn’t anything any of us can do to fix this. Andy and Amos are professionals at this and haven’t managed to crack it yet.”
“Well, he obviously loves you, so keep him updated. Nothing puts the brakes on a long-distance relationship faster than not sharing your day-to-day with each other. Trust him to not overreact.”
She didn’t know what to trust anymore. It took her a minute to notice the moms huddled in the corner of the kitchen, whispering. Dread sank from her heart all the way through to her stomach.
She called over to them. “What is it, Ma? Bad news?”
Ma glanced at her and offered her a worried smile, then looked behind Gia to the family room where Cara, Breno, and Antia worked on a puzzle. Ma motioned Gia into the group.
“Joey called. He was robbed at knife point in Portugal. They took his credit card, cash, and passport. Thankfully, he’s unharmed.” Ma leaned in. “Cara doesn’t know and I don’t think that she should. It’d just make her more depressed.”
Neves crossed her arms. “Antia and Sara say she’s never around. She says she will meet them, but flakes out.”
“I’ve been thinking about setting up a girls’ night. Sounds like tonight needs to be the night.” Gia bit her lip. Wonder how much notice Andy needed to work an evening shift. “She hasn’t really seemed to want to let me in on how she’s feeling. I’m not sure I can help her.”
Judita rubbed Gia’s arm, the warm touch a comfort. “She may not need help. She may want you there, sitting with her in her grief and happiness. You can’t understand entirely what she’s going through having lost both parents too early, but you can listen. Having you be fully present can be the best show of love.”
Girls’ night, it was. Maybe a few bowls of queso and chips would loosen Cara up.
As Gia walked over to make herself a plate for breakfast, the realization hit her. She’d never truly believed that being there was enough for her family, not deep down. Love had a price tag, a to-do list attached to it.
That was why she’d always lugged around the endlessly heavy guilt, wasn’t it?
Something inside pushed her to try to fix the situation. It’s all she’d ever done. That wouldn’t change overnight.
She yanked out her phone to text Andy about him watchdogging their girls’ night. Then she took her plate over to where her cousins hunched over the puzzle table.
“Cara. Antia. Girls’ night. Tonight. 6:30.”
Breno walked to the top of the basement stairs. “Girls are out. TVs are ours tonight, brothers.”
Shouted cheers echoed up the stairwell. Breno smirked. “Have a nice time, ladies.”
Antia snorted. “Like you guys haven’t been dominating the TVs and game consoles every night.”
Cara smiled at Breno’s offense. “Too easy a target,” she murmured. “I can’t come tonight, but you girls have a great time.”
“No, no. You can’t back out. Antia and Sara leave a few days after the holidays. This is our only chance.” Gia wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but she was desperate to keep Cara on the hook.
Antia threw a grape from her plate at Cara. “No back outs. Family first.”
Cara’s argument scrolled across her face. Gia cocked her hip and the protest died on Cara’s lips. “Okay. Family first.”
“Good. You can wear something from my closet so you don’t have to go home.” Gia planned on keeping her busy as much of today as possible so Cara’s disappearing act didn’t get center stage tonight.
When Cara focused on the puzzle again, Gia motioned to Antia and mouthed, “Watch her.”
Antia nodded.
A few minutes later, Gia’s phone vibrated.
Andy’s text read, Name the time and place.
Gia replied, The house at 6:00. We’ll leave at 6:30. She didn’t have any good ideas for what they would do yet, but she had the day to think about it.
Roger, was his reply.
She spent the rest of the morning moving from room to room to interact with her family. The moms and cousins especially seemed keen to engage Cara, keeping her nearby so she didn’t take off. Their love for her was on full display as they laughed and teased with her.
During their late lunch as Gia sat back soaking in the loud and hilarious conversations around her that she understood what Judita meant. None of these people had to do anything for her to love them. Their presence was a comfort and being themselves was enough for her.
With lunch cleaned up and Cara fully engrossed in trying to beat Silva in interactive tennis, Gia sneaked away to the library to call Xander.
His face popped up on her screen with the biggest smile she’d seen from him in a while. Her doubts about them vanished.
“Hey, baby. It’s so good to see your face,” Xander said. “How are you? And I want the truth.” His tender expression made her heart ache.
His probing opened the dam. The last day and a half of stress and the inspiration that came from it flooded out in one long story. “And tonight, we’re taking Cara out to see if that helps her open up. I’ve been so busy finishing Joey’s project that I haven’t had as much time with her as I’ve wanted and I’m trying not to blame myself for her distance, but…”
“You do.”
The defeat came out in a huff. “Yeah.”
“I do it, too.” His voice was soft, his expression vulnerable. “It feels impossible to accept being pushed away by family when you were raised believing family is everything.”
This was why she loved this man. No judgment. No lecture. No solution to fix something she barely understood. Just understanding.
“I’ll let you know how tonight goes. Now, you tell me what is happening with you.”
Xander ran his hand through his hair, creating the disheveled look that had her humming in pleasure. “Well, things have gotten a little…dicey recently.”
His tone set off warning bells. “How so?”
Her panic grew as he relayed the alarming train of events.
“Xander, call Daddy. See if he can contact the private detectives from Denver he used to use for you or at
least get you some security. What if someone gets pissed enough to pull the trigger?” Her voice pitched higher as she went. Flashbacks to his body in the ER bed earlier in the year had her heart pounding in her ears. She’d barely known him then, but even Joey had seen right through her concern to her growing attraction to Xander.
His lips lifted in a tired smile. “I’ll keep it in mind, baby. I have to play this right or I’m going to be inviting more trouble.”
“Or dead.”
He wiped his hand over his face, his tone resigned. “I can’t afford private security or a private detective right now. And I’m not going to ask your parents to foot the bill.”
The arguments built in her mind ready to blast him for his stubborn hypocrisy. If she’d done the same thing, he’d lose his mind.
“I thought about not telling you, because I didn’t want to worry you. But you deserve to know. You’re the love of my life and I want you to share all your news with me, too.”
Uncle Ronaldo’s words from that morning smacked her in the face. She trusted Xander to not overreact and here she was about to bodyslam him with her frustration. Daddy couldn’t be the savior for Xander’s every problem or hers.
Her boiling anger reduced to a simmer. “Just don’t let your pride keep you from getting help. I’ll pay for it or loan you the money for you to pay back, if you think it’s taking charity. Whatever keeps you alive so I can love you longer.”
He tilted his head. His handsome face lifted in a huge grin. “Babe, that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
She huffed at him, not ready to forgive his stubbornness yet. But when he raved about her new design for the hotel’s outdoor space, she eased up on him. The long distance was driving her mad, intensifying all her emotions but especially the bad ones.
They were saying their goodbyes when a flash of movement out the window caught her eye.
Cara was sneaking to her car.
“Gotta go.” Gia hit End and sprinted outside, barefoot. “Where are you going?”