True Valor

by Jax Hunter

What the hell was he thinking? Now that he sat in the parking lot of Julie’s apartment complex, Nic couldn’t even fathom what kind of plan he had for when he got here. Yeah, like he’d just walk up to her door, try the knob, open it, and there would sit her mail and...

  What an idiot!

  Nic banged his head against the steering wheel. Julie’s keys, both to her apartment and to her mailbox were likely sitting in her backpack on the floor of the bedroom in her parent’s house. Damn it.

  Nic wasn’t a criminal, had never picked a lock in his life. And he wasn’t a cop. He was a paramedic that jumped out of perfectly good airplanes.

  He needed Cruz. Cruz was a juvie in an adult body.

  Attempting to jimmy the lock in the complex hallway, or even taking off the doorknob, would attract all kinds of attention. But what kind of story could he use to get the super to open her door? “Excuse me, sir. I’m Julie Galloway’s boyfriend from Boston. Julie is in a coma in the hospital, and I came to get her favorite fuzzy slippers ...”

  Great.

  He found the right apartment on the second floor. Just for kicks, he tried the doorknob.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It was unlocked.

  Nic retreated enough to recheck the apartment number. Affirmative. It was the one Cruz gave him.

  Remembering the door to the cabin, he stood with his back to the wall, and ever so gently pushed until the door stood all the way open. Then he peered around the corner into the apartment.

  Completely trashed. The furniture was in place but drawers lay helter skelter and there were papers strewn from one side of the room to the other. Nic walked slowly inside and pushed the door closed with his elbow.

  Mental note: wipe off the outside doorknob.

  The couch pillows tipped at interesting angles. Her books lay on the floor. Nic walked to the desk and turned the computer on. Dollars to donuts, there’d be nothing there. Finding the mailbox key would be a major undertaking.

  While the computer booted, he looked in her bedroom. The bedding had been stripped from the bed, and the drawers emptied. Nic pushed certain thoughts from his mind as he passed a pile of lacy underwear in assorted colors. So many colors. He brought his focus back to the task at hand, walking out of the bedroom.

  A glance through Julie’s email confirmed his expectations. Nothing there.

  He surveyed the disaster area before him. Where would Julie keep the key to the mailbox? With her car keys, which, no doubt were in her backpack. In a kitchen drawer?

  As he looked for conspicuous places, he wandered through the living room, nudging things out of the way with his foot. Catalogs, everything from Victoria’s Secret—holy crap—he’d better not go there—to Cabela’s were scattered on the floor.

  That’s when he saw the key rack. Right there by the door. The most logical place. Duh. Nic snagged the keys from the ring, stuck his head out the door to make sure the coast was clear, and went in search of the mailboxes.

  He found them at the end of the hallway just past the stairs. If he’d seen them on the way to Julie’s apartment, they hadn’t registered in his brain. The stress of playing spy must have stricken him blind. Again checking for unwanted company in the hallway, Nic stuck the key in and opened the door. So much mail was crammed in the box there wasn’t any breathing room left. As if mail needed breathing room. Nic shook his head at the thought while he tugged out the mail, spilling half of it on the floor.

  He scooped it up and headed outside. He’d had quite enough of this cloak and dagger stuff and just wanted to get the hell out of there. As an afterthought, though, he did concede to going back and locking Julie’s door, knowing without the key, he likely couldn’t get back in. The hardware store didn’t sell lock-picking sets that he could remember. He walked back to the car, his arms full of what was mostly junk mail.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter,” he muttered thinking again of the catalog he’d seen upstairs.

  Credit card applications and more catalogs, several supermarket ads and whatnot, but no letters from Julie’s dad. There was a card indicating there was more mail at the post office, but Nic was certain that they’d require ID to prove he was Julie Galloway before allowing him to pick it up.

  Nic looked at his watch and headed out of the parking lot. Eleven ten. Too early for lunch? Never too early to eat. He breathed a sigh of relief as city blocks clicked by with no flashing lights in his rear view mirror. He’d driven for four freakin’ hours to get here for nothing.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

  There could be a letter from Julie’s dad being held hostage at the damned at the post office—a letter revealing all the secrets.

  He pulled the car into the lot at another pancake place. Not the same one as this morning. This one had more than just pancakes. He could eat a big burger. Cheese, extra onions, no mayo. Double fries. It started to sleet as the waitress brought his food.

  Dipping a fry in ketchup, Nic’s heart gave a lurch, thinking of Julie. He just wanted to get back to her. Even if he couldn’t go see her, at least not without some good excuse, he would at least be close. That was enough reason for him to wolf down his food and get on the road again.

  Nic was past tired, by a long shot, when he pulled up to his motel room. The light was on in his room. It wasn’t until the door was half open that he realized the maid probably hadn’t left it on. And it was completely careless to be walking in like he was.

  The TV was on too.

  He reached for the 9MM at his back. Damn it. It was still in the car. Another poor decision. He was losing it.

  Nic slowed his entrance, throwing the door open and backing around the corner. Without a weapon, he could only peek around and into the room quickly, hoping the intruder wouldn’t cap him. What kind of intruder would be watching TV while lying in wait?

  Applause? Someone was clapping. He took the peek, still cautious.

  “Nicely done, D.”

  Cruz. What the hell was he doing here? There he sat, though, on the bed, pillows stacked behind him, legs stretched out before him. He stopped clapping, but his electric grin remained.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Watching TV.”

  “In my room.”

  “It was paid for. I told the manager I was your cousin from Hollywood and would have told him the story I’d concocted but he didn’t give a rat’s ass and handed me the key. Took all the fun out of it.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Cruz snorted. “I’m here to see Julie, of course.”

  Nic was too bushed to make sense of this. He waved off any further conversation.

  “Tell me in the morning,” he said before crashing on the vacant bed. Fully clothed, he succumbed to sleep.

  Light filtered in from mesh-covered slits high up where the wall met the ceiling. Julie had survived her third night in Hotel California. It was Sunday—visiting day. Oh boy. Who would come to visit?

  At this point, she found herself almost wishing for another cellmate. The “female pod” as her new home was called, consisted of a cinder block room that measured about twenty feet by fifteen, that is if Julie’s measured steps were a foot apiece. One wall was taken up by two sets of metal bunk beds, hers the only one with a mattress. There was a round concrete table with concrete chairs attached to the floor. A shower and a small door-less room with a toilet and sink completed the accommodations.

  A television hung from the wall almost at ceiling height. If you watched too much TV while sitting on the bed, you got an awful crick in your neck. The best position for watching TV was lying on the bunk.

  The jailers, on the whole, were a friendly bunch. It was about half and half male and female. In conversation with one of them, Julie learned there were six men in the “male pod.” One of the jailers, a girl named Liz, often pulled up a chair outside the wire mesh gate and kept Julie company. She made sure that Julie had all the books she wanted, even bringing one of her favorites from home.

  The clock, like
everything else in the room that wasn’t nailed down, high up on the wall, said it was seven fifteen. Julie could get up and do nothing or stay in bed and do nothing. The only thing on TV on a Sunday would be preachers or cartoons, maybe an infomercial telling you that you, too, can earn a bazillion dollars in buying and selling real estate. Someone would be bringing breakfast about eight. She’d stay in bed till then.

  When Nic woke up at eight, Cruz was gone. If the other bed hadn’t been slept in, he would have thought he had hallucinated his friend last night. Not only that, but you could almost always tell when Cruz was around because of the obscenely expensive cologne he wore, a lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous leftover from his youth. There was no sign of Eric at the moment, so Nic threw off the covers, swung his feet to the floor and, peeling off the clothes he’d worn to bed, headed for the shower.

  The intercom crackled to life, making Julie jump. “Miss Galloway,” a male voice said, “you have a visitor.”

  “A visitor?” Julie replied to the voice, even though she wasn’t at the box, pushing the button. She launched off the cot and did just that.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Whoever it was on the other end was certainly polite.

  “Who is it?” Who, indeed? The only person that knew she was here was Nic, and he’d put her here. Surely he wouldn’t be visiting now, would he? The idea both infuriated and warmed her.

  “Your fiancé, ma’am.”

  Chapter Sixteen