Chapter 35
“
B
rittany, I'm going to go out for a little while on Saturday,” Dana said.
“You going out with Mr. Gil?”
Dana didn't like the smart-alecky tone in Brittany's voice. She never missed an opportunity to express her unhappiness about Gil ever since it had cost her her best friend. “Who I'm going out with isn't really any of your business,” she snapped. “I'm just giving you a heads-up that Tina will be over to sit with you.”
“You gonna stay out all night?”
“That's
enough,
Brittany.” Dana hadn't spanked Brittany since she was a very little girl, but one more remark like that, and she'd get her face slapped. Brittany knew damn well that their neighbor Tina, a junior in high school, only babysat until midnight. Because of the friction between Brittany and Vanessa, Dana had decided against allowing Gil to pick her up. Brittany considered Gil the reason for the debacle with Vanessa. She definitely wasn't ready to see the two of them together as a couple.
“All right, since you insist on making my life miserable,” Brittany muttered as she tucked her long hair into her swim cap and went out the backdoor to the pool.
Dana rolled her eyes. Although she wanted to convince herself that Brittany was merely being overly dramatic, she knew how important friends were at thirteen years old. She wondered if she'd made a mistake in getting involved with Gil. But how could something that felt so right possibly be wrong?
Brittany rushed back inside. “Mom, come quick! You've got two flat tires!”
Dana followed her outside. Her Camry sat in the driveway right in front of the garage, leaning to the left because its weight on that side rested on its rims. Both tires were completely flat. “Well, that's odd,” she said. “I just had the pressure checked with the oil change I had last week, and I don't remember running over anything that would flatten both tires.” She walked around to the other side of the car. Those tires were fine, and so were those of the yellow Saturn belonging to Jennifer, her college-student tenant.
“Look, Mom,” Brittany said. “There's a big hole in the tire right here. I'll bet there's another one just like it on the other one.”
Dana came back around in time to see Brittany slip her index finger into a gash in the rubber that she estimated was three inches long. Then Brittany moved to the rear tire and found similar damage.
She drew in her breath. “I wonder if any other cars on the block had their tires slashed.” But even as Dana said the words she had a feeling her car would be the only one. Why slash her tires and leave her tenant's wheels unharmed? “I'm going to call the police,” she said.
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“Mrs. Covington, none of your neighbors has been victimized,” the uniformed officer informed her. “That tells us this probably wasn't just a random act of vandalism. Is there someone you suspect might act on a grudge?”
“I can't think of a soul.”
“Where is Mr. Covington, if you don't mind my asking?”
“He's dead,” she said quietly. “He died in an accident over a year ago.”
“I'm sorry. What about work? What type of work do you do?”
“I own a medical-transcription service with two partners who happen to be my best friends. It's an amiable working relationship.”
“Employees? Anybody let go lately?”
“Well yes, but I'm sure she wouldn'tâ”
“We'll need her name and address. What about your social life? Have you recently broken off with someone who didn't take it well?”
“I'm involved with someone, and it's going fine.”
The officer nodded. “You might want to go over every relationship you have. Something might come to you. In the meantime, I'd suggest that you put up some motion detectors throughout your property. They're surprisingly effective against vandalism.”
“So what do we do now, Mom?” Brittany asked after the police left.
Dana sighed. “The first thing I need to do is get new tires. I'll have to get the auto club to tow the car down to Allied. While that's going on, you and I are going to have to rearrange the garage so I can park in there. That's about it. I can't afford to get motion detectors installed right now.”
“What about the patio lights? Can't we use those?”
“Those will disturb Jennifer and our other neighbors. They're meant to be used if we're entertaining after dark, not to stay on all night. That's the nice thing about motion detectors. They'll go on for a minute or two whenever they sense movement. That will alert us that someone is outside.”
“So like when Jennifer gets home at night, lights will come on outside my window?”
“Just for a minute, and then they'll go off. I'm sure you won't be disturbed, Britt. You sleep like a rock. After all, you didn't hear anyone come around last night, did you?”
“I wish Daddy were here. Bad things like this never happened when he was here.”
“Brittany, I know it's hard for you to accept, and God knows you shouldn't have to at your age, but Daddy isn't coming back. We're going to have to get by all by ourselves.”
Brittany's face puddled up. “Sometimes I can't believe I'll never see him again.”
Dana embraced her daughter tightly, her eyes shut. She, too, would give anything to hear her mother's voice one more time. “I know, honey,” she said. “I know.”
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Dana sluggishly moved into a sitting position in the bed. Gil was already getting back into his clothes. They'd just spent their lunch break making love.
No man had set foot in her bedroom since that one time she'd allowed Sean Sizemore to come over, just days before she learned he was seeing her tenant Micheline behind her back. Funny, but even then it hadn't felt right. Maybe in her heart she suspected that Sean didn't belong in her bed. He didn't deserve to be there. But she had no such bad feelings about Gil.
“I don't know what we're going to do,” he said as he tied his tie with swift-moving fingers. “Vanessa cutting off her friendship with Brittany, your still not wanting me to pick you upâ”
She sighed. “Gil, that just can't be helped. I was all for it after I spoke to Brittany about us and she was so receptive. It would be different if Vanessa and Brittany were still friends, but under the circumstances it's like rubbing salt into an open wound. Brittany is hurting over Vanessa, really hurting.” She didn't want to add that Brittany had also experienced a delayed grief reaction as a result of the incident with the car tires. It frightened her daughter to know that someone had crept onto their property just below where she slept and her daddy wasn't there to protect her.
“I've really made a mess of things for you, haven't I?”
Dana didn't know what to say to that. She couldn't deny that her problems with Brittany wouldn't exist if it weren't for Gil. She pulled her T-shirt over her head while she searched for something to say. “She's mad at both of us, you know.”
“I guess she feels that if you and I were to stop seeing each other, Vanessa would be her friend again, just like that.”
“I told her the damage has already been done, but naturally she doesn't believe me.” Dana sighed as she slipped into her cutoffs. “I kept hoping Vanessa would come around, but the longer this goes on the longer it seems like that won't happen.”
“Vanessa doesn't know it, but she's being manipulated by an expert,” Gil said as he ran a comb through his close-cropped sandy hair. “Irene missed her calling. She should have been a lobbyist.”
Dana laughed. “You make me feel good, Gil. Lord knows I don't have much to laugh about these days. This thing with Vanessa and Brittany, my tires, the mailâ”
“What about the mail?” Gil asked abruptly.
“A couple of checks I was expecting from clients didn't come. We use a post office box for our mailing address, but to save time we used my home address on the return envelopes, so checks would come directly here. It's perfectly legal. But the checks never came. Almost twenty-five hundred dollars. I had to ask the clients to stop payment on the originals and issue new ones.”
Gil paced the floor, his hands in his pockets. She looked at him, suddenly worried. “Gil, what's wrong?”
He stood with his back to her. She watched his body language, watched as his head bowed. Clearly he knew something he didn't want to tell her.
She waited patiently, knowing he would tell her eventually.
Finally he turned. “Dana, I've got to tell you this. I think Irene is behind this.”
“Irene?”
“Let me explain. After I moved out I started dating a very nice lady. I didn't hide it, like I had when I was stepping out and still living at home.” He noticed her frown. “I know that it probably wasn't rightâI was technically still married, even though I'd already filed for divorce.
“Anyway, strange things began happening to the woman I was seeing. Her job got calls that suggested she was under some kind of investigation. Somebody threw a brick through her windshield. She received threatening letters.”
“The letters mentioned you?”
“No, my name never came up. If it had, it would have been pretty easy to determine where they were coming from. But I suspected Irene all along, and I had to tell the woman what I thought. She broke up with me.” Gil shrugged. “Nothing was ever proven, but the minute she stopped seeing me, the harassment stopped. So what does that tell you?”
“But how could she have known all of your girlfriend's business? Where she lived, where she worked, all that?”
“Dana, you're being naïve. It's easy. All she had to do was follow me on a Saturday night and see where I went.”
“Gil, come on. You wouldn't notice Irene's car following you, even in the dark?”
“Not if it was a rental. And she probably wasn't directly behind me.”
Dana raised an eyebrow. It all sounded so shady, almost comical, the idea of renting a car and setting out to trail Gil. What did Irene do, put on a tan trench coat and matching fedora, like Sam Spade in the movies? But at the same time it was a little spooky.
“Once she knew my friend's home address,” Gil continued, “all she had to do was wait for her to leave for work and follow her there. I'm not sure how she found out her name, but she did.”
“I don't know what to make of all this, Gil. I mean, if Irene is really behind all this that means she's tampered with my mail, which is a federal offense. And slashing my tires! It sounds like she's already gone off the deep end. Who's to say that she won't come to my door one day with a shotgun and blast me in the face? Or, God forbid, my child?”
“I think I know what's coming next,” he said sadly.
“Gil, much as I care for you, I'm not willing to put my life or Brittany's at risk because Irene can't accept the idea of you being with someone else. If we could prove it was her and have the authorities deal with her, it would be different. I'd feel safe if she were locked up.” Dana studied his face carefully. She feared he wouldn't like the idea of her pressing criminal charges against the mother of his child.
But all Gil did was nod. “That would certainly take care of all my problems. If Irene were in jail, I'd get custody of Vanessa.
“Let's do this,” he suggested. “We won't see each other this weekend. Now that I'm sure this was no random act of vandalism, it would be better if we didn't meet. It might not be safe for you going home.” He saw her wince. “Let me take care of this.”
“What're you going to do?”
“I'm going to put a stop to all this foolishness.” He kissed her quickly. “I've got to run. Come down and put the latch on behind me, all right?”
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As Gil drove back to work he formulated a plan. No way would he allow Irene to destroy what he'd built up with Dana. Not only did he have to stop Irene's harassment, but he had to find a way to get Vanessa and Brittany to reunite. He couldn't call himself a man if he couldn't stop the havoc his ex-wife wreaked on his personal life.
He thought of the frightened look on Dana's face when he suggested she might not be safe after meeting him for a date. He thought of how sad she seemed whenever she talked about how hurt Brittany felt by Vanessa's rejection. He wanted to protect Dana, to make her happy. He'd fallen in love with her.
And, determination burning in him like a raging forest fire, he thought that nothing and no one would make him give her up.