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Friday, March 11, 2011

Chapter 4


There was something wrong. The front door wasn’t just ajar and it wasn’t like the place had been tossed.  In fact, as her gaze swept the room, Cody didn’t think that anything was even out of place and yet she felt sure that someone had been here, someone that meant them harm. 

“Stay right here,” she hissed to Becky, putting a hand on each of the child’s shoulders as if she could force her feet to stick to the floor by sheer will. “Don’t move, you understand?” She waited for the little girl to nod, making her bright blonde curls into her eyes before Cody turned and, reaching for the bear spray in her purse, headed down the hall on tip toe. 

The old house creaked and groaned in the wet weather, causing her to jump at every sound, sure that she was going to turn around and find some knife wielding masked boogeyman bearing down on her. She reminded herself to breathe, that passing out before finding the machete carrying psychopath was not going to help keep herself or Becky alive but her heart was racing so hard that she was having trouble catching her breath and she was afraid that she was breathing so loud that whatever shaggy haired drooling nut job was waiting to kill her was going to find her just by following the sound of her wheezing. 

She was debating calling out, doing the old ‘who goes there’ routine, but when she rounded the corner into the kitchen, the room was empty. 

But something was out of place. 

There was an empty glass beside the sink and a ring of water around it. Cody froze and looked around the room. There were no other signs of anyone having been in that room and yet she knew there had. She herself had used a mug with breakfast and Becky’s glasses were plastic. 

“Shit,” she hissed as she pulled her phone from her purse and hit the speed dial the agents had set up. She strode back down the hall and beckoned for Becky to follow her, holding one finger up to her lips signaling for silence. 

“Katie?” Just hearing Agent Roth’s voice made her feel better.

“Someone’s been here, in the house,” she told him as she ushered her niece back outside and towards the car. 

“Someone broke in?” he asked and she was sure she could hear him grabbing keys as he got up from behind some small desk inside a cramped cubicle where pictures of his kids adorned the walls. 

“Obviously. I mean…there’s no sign that anyone did but…someone was definitely in there.” She was beginning to doubt herself as she opened the car door and motioned for Becky to climb inside. 

“Is Cathy there with you?” the agent asked and Cody stopped mid motion before closing the passenger door all the way. 

“No…no and she didn’t show up at the pool either. I thought…maybe she was with you that you guys were on some kind of…special case or something,” she muttered, shutting the door and leaning against it. There was silence on the other end o the line. The kind of silence that suggested Agent Roth was covering the phone with his hand or at least holding it away from his face as he told someone else the news. Cody’s skin crawled. 

“Okay, get out of the house,” the agent instructed her in a tired, resigned sort of voice, “we’ll be right there.”



“I’m not sure that the doc would approve. Watchin’ TV in the dark man? Can’t be good for the noggin.”
Sid didn’t have to look to know who was coming through the door. He’d known when he heard what sounded like a herd of elephants coming up the stairs. 

“Not really watchin’ it honestly,” Sid replied, blinking to bring his tall, gangly blonde teammate into focus. He’d been thinking about Kate and about kissing her, about holding her close and feeling her soft skin beneath his fingertips, exploring her….

“Shit man, are you spacin’ out? Is that one of the uh…one of the symptoms or whatever?”  Jordan asked as he slid over the back of the sofa and promptly took up two thirds of it. Sid pushed the overgrown kid’s feet off of his lap as he shrugged. 

“Just thinking,” Sid sighed, reaching for the remote and turning down the volume. 

“Why?” Jordy asked, digging his fingers into the bowl of mixed nuts on the table and bringing a fist full up to his face. Sid stared at his friend and smiled. The giant had the metabolism of a teenage boy. 

“I met a girl…a woman…whatever,” he muttered, feeling his entire face get hot when a big shit eating grin grew on Jordan’s face. “Don’t...don’t look at me like that. We both know I’m not going to do anything about it.” Jordan sighed and his face fell. 

“Oh yeah. You haven’t been out with us for a bit. I forgot how fucking useless you are.” Jordan grinned while Sid reached over and tossed a handful of nuts at him. Jordan just picked them up off of his chest and popped them in his mouth. “So I thought you were a fucking…whatchamacallit? Invalid, yeah. Where are you meeting chicks? Let me guess, it’s a hot nurse at the hospital, right?”Sid shook his head and then went back to staring off into space.  Now he was picturing Kate in one of those sexy nurse uniforms girls wear on Halloween. 

“She has a kid,” he found himself telling his friend almost like he was thinking out loud. “It’s not her kid. It’s her niece,” he corrected himself as the big blonde forward opened his mouth to speak. He knew what Jordan would say, why get involved with a chick with a kid when there were hundreds of girls with no ties at all absolutely gagging for it. “She doesn’t speak…well hardly ever,” he smiled as he thought about the little girl with the blonde ringlets. 

“So this chick you met has a retarded kid she looks after that’s not hers? Dude….” Sid narrowed his eyes at his friend and shook his head. 

“She’s not retarded, loser,” Sid picked up a pillow and hit his friend as hard as he could. “She’s…I don’t know, shy I guess. Whatever, I like kids.” He’d always thought that he’d like to have a big family, lots of kids, a whole hockey team of his own; his, adopted kids…didn’t matter. 

“Please tell me she’s got tits like a stripper,” Jordan asked hopefully, holding his hands out like he was cupping a pair of triple G’s. Sid shook his head. Jordan didn’t even really care. He wasn’t even a breast man like Max was. He was more of an ass man. Sid liked to think his desires were more; well the words tame and vanilla came to mind. When it came to women, he wasn’t as all about the physical as some of his other teammates seemed to be. 

“She’s…I guess you'd call her…athletic.” Jordan rolled his eyes and shook his shaggy mane. He’d heard it before and Sid knew that he, Max, Kris and TK harbored hope that one day their tightly wound, highly controlled Captain would cut loose and do something crazy, like date a porn star. The thought made him smile. They’d probably have him committed for it too. 

“Well maybe getting laid will be like some kind of magic pill and make you better,” his friend said with an honest look of hope on his face. Sid snorted and then tipped his head back and laughed. “What? It’s possible right?” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Sid grinned and then reached for the remote and turned the volume back up while Jordan grabbed the bowl of nuts and pulled it into his lap and turned his full attention to the screen. 
 

Cody watched the door to the diner, one hand on the can of bear spray in her lap while the nails on her other hand drummed on the table. She gave a quick encouraging smile to her niece who was happily and industriously digging into a banana split, which seemed to be doing the job of distracting her from her Aunt’s anxiety.

The diner was where she’d been told to wait but despite the fact that the place was packed full of students throwing back cheap burgers and fries, Cody had herself convinced that they had been followed and that one of the supposedly innocent looking students in their Penn U shirts, Steelers or Penguins jerseys might pull a gun at any moment and splatter her brains on the wall behind her. 

“Want some?” She was so unused to hearing her voice that Cody didn’t react at first, didn’t realize it was her that was being spoken to. It was only catching the melting ice creams dripping onto the middle of the table out of the corner of her eye that dragged her attention off of the front door of the diner and back to Becky. The little girl was holding up a spoonful of almost entirely liquefied vanilla ice cream, and one of the cherries. 

“Thanks pumpkin,” she grinned, blinking back tears as she realized that Becky had actually spoken directly to her again. Leaning across the table, she sucked the ice cream from the spoon, cherry and all. Becky flashed a huge, honestly happy grin and then went back to scooping the melting ice cream into her own mouth while Cody watched. If anyone tried to hurt her….

Cody’s chest suddenly tightened and eyes welled unexpectedly. Brianna. She hadn’t really given her sister much thought. They hadn’t been close, hadn’t really ever bonded in the way that sisters were supposed to. Hell she hadn’t even got hand me downs, hadn’t had her sister teach her how to put make up on, hadn’t talked about boys. Other than Becka being dropped in her lap, she hadn’t given her older sister’s death much thought. She did now as she watched a line of chocolate sauce dribble down Becky’s chin.

Way to go’, Cody sent up a silent thought to her sister, a sort of thank you for saving the little girl’s life. ‘I’ll do the best I can’, she added, reaching over to wipe the sauce from her niece’s chin. She was just sticking her thumb in her mouth when she remembered the cherry and pulled the tied stem out of her mouth. 

The one thing Bri had taught her to do. Cody grinned as she put the now pretzel shaped stem on the table. 

“Impressive.” Cody looked up to find Agent Roth standing at the end of their table. He looked so completely incongruous to the rest of the crowd in the diner that she laughed as she slid over. She almost expected the theme song from Men in Black to start playing. “It’s all clear,” he began, reaching across the table to take the last cherry that was sitting in a sinking mound of chocolate ice cream. “Agent Keith…Cathy sends her apologies for freaking you out. She’d brought by some books and games for you two and was just getting a drink when she thought she heard someone outside. She went to have a look when a car took off, she followed…. Anyway, turns out it was just kids,” he continued with what Cody assumed was supposed to be a comforting grin. “So you’re good to go back. Unless you want to go to another safe house, which could be arranged though it might take some time,” he added looking down at the phone in his hand like he really didn’t want to use it. 

“No…no, it’s fine,” Cody sighed, taking her other hand off of her can of bear spray for the first time in an hour. “More upheaval isn’t good. She hit another kid in day care with a block,” she added in a whisper with a sideways glance at her niece who had pulled her bowl closer to her and was eyeing the Agent in his black suit with distrust. 

“Well, like I said, I’m sure it’s fine to go back. We’ll step up the drive-bys, have a marked cruiser come by once an hour, just for peace of mind,” he added with a strained sort of smile that clearly said he didn’t think it was necessary but that he was expecting her to argue the point, to be a hysterical little woman. Cody almost felt like arguing, like telling him that they could look after themselves but the bulge under his coat reminded her that he had a gun and all she had to protect herself and her niece was a can of bear spray. 

“Thanks,” she nodded and silently added another item to her shopping list. In the good ‘ol U S of A she could buy a gun at Walmart tomorrow. “And the guy that was hanging around outside of the pool?” she asked, thinking about the way the man’s beady eyes had followed them and the chill she’d got up her spine when she’d seen the flames on the man’s hoodie. 

“Sent an agent by, asked around…,” he shrugged and Cody was certain she saw in his eyes that he did think he was dealing with an over reactive woman prone to fits of hysterics and paranoia. “Keep an eye out. Let us know if you see anything else suspicious but…I’m sure you’re fine. Both of you.” 

Cody didn’t agree but she smiled and nodded anyway. She decided that tomorrow she’d get a gun and the next time she thought she was being watched, she’d stick a magnum in the guy’s ribs and ask her own questions.

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