Broken Seed

by R J Machado De Quevedo

  Another moment of silence followed. I could hear her pacing.

  “Yes, I called my Grandpa earlier this morning. He’s working on trying to have Dwayne’s early release stopped, but they may not make it in time. If that happens, we need this backup plan firmly in place. Her safety may depend on it, Brad,” she spoke urgently, then paused to let him speak.

  “Of course I believe he’ll come after her. I know this man. He’s evil and he thinks the law doesn’t apply to him,” she answered.

  Silence.

  “No. I can’t let you do that, Bradley. You aren’t supposed to act without a direct order. You know we aren’t supposed to use our training and resources for personal matters. You could compromise your placement. The agency needs you right now. I need you right now. If it was that easy, I’d have finished it myself,” she said even quieter.

  What was that about? I wasn’t following the conversation anymore. What agency? Finished how?

  “Brad…Can you help us?” she said and paused again for his response. Then, I heard her make an exasperated sound.

  “No, not that kind of help, Bradley. Behave. I meant, can you talk to your sister and see how we can get a NCO today? Before noon, preferably,” Elisabeth said, a slight edge of tiredness to her voice now.

  “Thank you, Brad. I appreciate anything you can do... within reason,” she added quickly and was quiet once more.

  “Do you think she can call me directly?” Elisabeth asked hopefully, then remained quiet for a brief moment.

  “Okay. Please give her my cell number. I’ll let Melanie know when to run over to the courthouse,” she said, sounding relieved.

  Silence followed for about two minutes.

  “Yes, she’s still going to class and going to do her normal activities today,” Elisabeth said a little impatiently.

  More silence.

  “We’re not going to let him scare her into hiding. No one has the right and if I—” she said with a snarl and was cut off.

  “Bradley Wayne Carter. So help me—” she hissed.

  Interesting. I had never heard her talk to him like that before. He was saying something that was ticking her off. Or maybe it was the content of the conversation. I knew it wasn’t exactly a jolly one.

  “I rarely leave the house without it, Brad. Not since the last briefing. Escalation of the primary threat is imminent, remember?” she said, quieter now.

  I heard the undeniably familiar sound of a magazine being inserted into her Smith & Wesson M&P Compact 9-mm. automatic pistol. I heard her pull back the slide. The distinguishable scraping of metal and click sent a shiver down my spine. I felt a knot form in my stomach. I’d seen her put her S&W in a holster at the small of her back or inside the front of her jeans before when we were going out to the range to practice shooting, but I didn’t think she carried it all the time. That wasn’t allowed of college professors, was it?

  “Bradley, can we talk more in my office after first class this morning? Further discussion would be reckless,” she said. “All right. See you later. And thank you again.”

  I gently closed my bedroom door and leaned against it breathing a little heavy. And I thought I was the only one in the house with secrets. What was that about?

  I fought my pulse to stay steady. I didn’t want to overreact here. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation. After all, I hadn’t been privy to the entire conversation, only Elisabeth’s half. But what agency? Take care of what on her own by now? My father? And why load the gun? Why chamber a bullet unless she expected to have to use it? Did she think she could go kill him and get away with it?

  God, please don’t let that be what she’s thinking right now. I don’t think I could physically stop her if she’d made up her mind to do that. I don’t want my best friend going to jail!

  I closed my eyes and thought as desperately as I could to try and understand. Was there an explanation other than what it sounded like?

  Maybe she was talking about her occasional classified contracts with one of the government agencies? She had mentioned once her professional qualifications made her uniquely qualified to assist them from time to time. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had one of her secretive little trips in over seven months. But what did I know? There had been seminars and conferences she’d speak at and invitations to other universities around the country and some in Europe. Those she always told me about. She’d even leave the fliers or letters from the other universities laying around for me to read if I wanted.

  But when it came to her side contracted work for the CIA, NSA, FBI, military, or even the USCIS, she was never allowed to admit to me what she was actually doing. She’d always find ways to leave me clues or hint to let me know in one way or another roughly how long she’d be gone and where she would be going. Well, at least in the general geographical area.

  A few times since I knew her, I found crumpled-up luggage voucher stubs, plane ticket stubs or receipts of some kind in the washed clothes or on the floor next to her purse. I had always thought she’d done it on purpose as a way to tell me where she’d gone without breaking confidentiality or violating her security clearance. I never admitted to her I’d seen them and I had never asked about them. I had simply thrown them away in her little bedroom trash can, so she’d know I’d found them. I knew better than to ask her about classified contracts and trips, and she knew better than to tell me.

  Oh, I had itched with the desire to know. I was only human. Especially since some of the stubs I found were to countries abroad. Over the past five years we had lived together, I had found several for countries like London, Ethiopia, Greece, Israel, and Jordan. I had resigned myself to believe she might have started off where she’d said she was going but, somehow, had been redirected or instructed to another final destination. Either way, she had always come home in one piece and that was what was most important.

  My trailing thoughts lead me back to the question at hand. Was one of the CIA, NSA, FBI, or USCIS “the agency” she was talking about with Bradley? Did sweet and humble Bradley Wayne Carter do consulting work with them too? If he did, that would be news to me.

  “Ah!” I shook my head and stepped away from the door.

  Should I confront her? Tell her I had heard and demand an explanation? Would she be upset or answer my questions?

  I paced the room, rubbing my face and finally stopped by the window to open it back up and look down at the slowly waking street below. Mr. Montgomery from two houses down was pulling out of his garage to leave for work. His little four-year-old daughter came running after him, and he stopped his Mercedes. He got out of his car, leaving the engine running and stepped around the open car door to swoop her up and toss her up in the air. He pulled her in tight and gave her a big hug and a kiss. Then, he set her down and sent her off running back into the garage.

  I smiled at their morning ritual. It was a foreign concept to me to have chased after my father knowing I’d be gathered up in his loving and tender arms. I spent most of my life trying to run from or avoiding my father as best I could. That little girl was so lucky. She had no idea yet how blessed she was.

  “Melanie?” Elisabeth said from behind me.

  I jumped and turned to look at her. “Oh! You scared me, Liz,” I said, the smile sliding off my face like melted butter on hot bread. “I didn’t hear the door open. It’s so quiet.”

  “Sorry I startled you. You didn’t hear me knocking?” she asked, coming into the room.

  “No. Sorry, I was off in my head,” I said.

  “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to borrow my Smith and Wesson today? I know it isn’t your thing, but if you still insist on going to class, I’d feel better if you had it with you.” She held out the gun to me. It lay innocently secured in its holster.

  I raised my eyebrows at her. She had been loading it for me? I hadn’t really considered that.

  “Hmm.” I shook my head.

  “I already loaded it and chambered a round for you. Just in case yo
u had to use it. Just don’t flash it to anyone, and you have to promise me you’ll leave it in the car when you go into the courthouse today, or you’ll never make it past the security at the front door. That would be bad.” She walked closer to me and held it out.

  “No. No, I couldn’t. I don’t have a license to carry concealed like you do. What if someone saw it by accident? I’d get arrested, then kicked out of school. It isn’t worth it.” I waved my hand as if to ward off the gun.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “Positive. Besides, he’s locked up until noon. If he somehow knows anything else about my life now other than my phone number, he’ll know I go to college and work in a restaurant. I doubt even he is bold enough to come threaten me in public places like that. He was always extremely hush-hush in public. Never wanted to draw attention to himself. Why do you think he had us hidden away in Redding on the bad side of town? No one was watching and no one cared.” I hugged my arms around myself and looked at the gun still held out in her hand.

  Elisabeth lowered the gun and smiled kindly at me. “I knew you wouldn’t want it. But I wanted to offer it anyway on the off chance it’d make you feel better carrying it.” She paused, studying me for a minute.

  “Thanks anyway, Liz. Honest. But I couldn’t. And besides, I have to believe God won’t let anything happen to me so soon after he started me on this amazing journey. There has to be more to my life than running, fear, and violence,” I said, trying to convince myself and her at the same time. But it was true, right?

  “Yes, but God also expects people to be as wise as a serpent,” she said.

  “And as harmless as a dove,” I finished for her.

  She smiled at me wearily. “Oh, okay. No gun for you, then. Gun for me instead. Just be careful today. And wait for my call. I’m going to go jump in the shower now.” She turned and started to walk toward my door, and then she stopped and faced me once again, a slightly curious and appraising look on her face.

  “You didn’t hear me talking to Bradley, did you?” she asked me casually.

  “A bit,” I answered just as casually.

  “Good,” she said, nodding with a small smile. Then she turned and quietly left my room, closing my bedroom door behind me.

  Huh?

  Had she wanted me to hear that conversation like I had always suspected she had wanted me to find those ticket stubs? Was she trying to tell me something about her and Bradley? Why else ask me if I heard and then leave it at that? She didn’t seem alarmed I had admitted to hearing a bit of their conversation. In fact, she had seemed…pleased.

  Mistake

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ahalf hour later, we were both dressed and our breakfast consumed. Our bellies happily satisfied with orange juice, half a banana, raspberry yogurt, and one slice of whole wheat toast. Obviously, Elisabeth had taken the time to fix us a highly nutritious breakfast. If it had been me, I would have settled for a Pop Tart or a Fiber One bar with a big chocolate milk to go. We finished our breakfast at the breakfast nook together and left the house at the same time to go to our separate colleges. Me to learn, her to teach.

  I followed Liz’s new silver Lexus RX-350 in Juju Bee, my little red two-door ninety-four Honda Civic. I noticed she was driving slower than usual as we left the house and made our way down Cobble Field Drive. She turned onto Grand Cru Drive and seemed to be merely coasting. I saw her head shifting from one side of the street to the other, and I felt like a dud. She was looking around observantly at all the people out walking that we drove past and all the cars parked along the curbs. She was still keeping an eye out for unusual activity in case of Jill and her gang. I followed her car with mine leaving a nice gap of four car lengths between us as I also started looking around diligently. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  Finally, we parted ways further down Calvine Road to take our separate routes to class. She merged onto the freeway headed North on Highway 99 and I stayed on Calvine Road to fight the congestion of college traffic and the endless swarm of commuters. I stopped obediently at the red light at Calvine and Bruceville and watched as a group of college students walked across the crosswalk with a hurried purpose.

  I started to think about what I had to do today. Go to my classes, go to court to convince a judge to give me an NCO against my father, attend Liz’s two o’clock class as she had requested, and go to the restaurant to help David clean up. Fun. Fun.

  I sometimes felt pretty frustrated with myself that I was still going to the junior college. But since I hadn’t decided what I wanted to get a degree in yet, why pay the bigger bill? I mean, I was nearly done earning my AA in general education. That would be enough to transfer to Sacramento State University where Elisabeth taught. It would be awesome to take a full semester of one of her classes. But I didn’t want to start paying university prices yet if I didn’t know what area to devote myself to, especially with how expensive a higher education was nowadays. Prices had more than doubled, and it was so depressing. Financial aid was off the table. The college counselor told me that since I wasn’t jobless, pregnant, already a mother, or more than fifty percent minority, I wouldn’t quality. But I hated the idea of going into debt or getting a student loan, so I would have to figure out a way to do it like I had so far.

  I had stuck around Cosumnes River College, the local junior college closest to where we lived, and continued to take classes in a variety of different areas to see what inspired me. The only problem was I was interested in almost everything. Almost all of it inspired me on some level. Learning just plain inspired me. How was I supposed to narrow it down to one area of focus? How could I choose?

  But it wasn’t just what to study that kept me stalled out. It was the money. There were semesters where I could only afford to take two classes. So, I would work at a restaurant and get a second job to save up more money while I attended my classes. Then, after busting my butt for six months, I would quit the second job, keep the restaurant job, and be able to afford a full schedule of classes at the JC for that coming semester.

  I’d been doing this for the last five years. The last two and a half had been at Kate’s Café. The restaurants before Kate’s had been, well, horrible. But it worked out for the most part even though it was a slow way to progress. Elisabeth had offered more than once to help me out, let me have the money to take whatever classes I wanted and buy the new books I needed. But I had refused. I wouldn’t let her pay my way. I’d do it myself. I wouldn’t be a leech on anybody. Not even if they offered me their blood. It wasn’t pride. It was self-respect and a desire to never use anyone. There was a difference.

  I had almost earned one AA out of it. At the end of this semester, I’d have my AA. I knew I would actually graduate with a ton of extra credits since I had taken so many classes outside of the general education requirements, all with the intent to experiment with my interests. But since they weren’t specialized classes for one area of study, they wouldn’t qualify for a second AA on their own.

  I didn’t have any regrets though. I had loved taking all those courses. Truth be told, I had liked almost every class I had ever signed up for. Well, all except the international politics and government class I was struggling in right now, but that was mostly because the teacher didn’t like me. And I couldn’t drop it if I wanted to graduate this year!

  Oh, and there was the figure drawing art class I had dropped out of. Drawing naked people who stood on platforms bending over to stretch just got to me. And not in a good way. It was too embarrassing! Unlike that class, I was particularly enjoying my philosophy class this year. Or was that because David was in that class with me? He did bring a certain unpredictable excitement to the hour and a half class. And I did enjoy the basics of philosophy and how logic, rather than emotion, is used in all its principles and discussions.

  My mind was wandering. Better to wander on the trivial things in my life rather than the life-threatening and hazardous ones. Well, picking a career choice to study wasn
’t exactly trivial. If it was, I would have done it by now. But at least it wasn’t a matter of life or death.

  My first class was an English course, and it seemed to flash by as my mind wandered, despite my efforts to pay attention. My second class today was math, and I sat anxiously, checking my phone every fifteen or twenty minutes or so, afraid I’d miss the call from Elisabeth. I did my best to take notes and engage my brain in the lectures despite the heavier issues weighing on my mind. Thank God, I hadn’t had any assignments due for my Tuesday and Thursday classes to complete over the weekend, or I would have been screwed. I hadn’t even remembered to double-check the syllabuses with everything that had happened.

  Finally, about a quarter past eleven, I got a call from Elisabeth. I quietly dismissed myself from the class taking my back pack with me.

  “Liz, what happened?” I asked as soon as I was outside of the room. I was already heading toward the parking lot.

  “There’s been a…mistake.” Elisabeth said, sounding upset.

  “What kind of mistake?” I asked, stopping dead in my tracks.

  “They already released him! The idiots were ahead of schedule and released him early! Dwayne was picked up by a cab almost right away. He didn’t even wait until noon, the time he told you to come get him.”

  “What! They couldn’t stop it in time?” I shrieked, frantic.

  “No. God, I’m sorry, Mel. My grandfather and Barty managed to get the emergency stay of early release pending further investigation into how Dwayne had illegally obtained and used a cell phone within Folsom Prison. The secondary reason was on the grounds the messages he left for you indicated he intended to do you harm upon his release which would then put him in violation of his parole. They sent an attorney from the Sacramento DA’s office down to deliver the papers to the warden, but when they went to collect the prisoner to question him, they discovered he had already been released before eleven o’clock this morning! The jackasses hadn’t even finished updating their prison records yet! It’s like they all forgot how to do their job. He’s out, Mel! He’s already out!” Elisabeth said, sounding more angry than scared.