Chapter 53
She’s in their bedroom upstairs when she hears the front door open. Zack’s voice slices through the silence.
“MOM-MEEEEEEEEE!”
Kennedy is taking the stairs as fast as she can without tumbling down. Her heart is spiking. Zack looks up, grin a mile wide as he rushes to meet her, backpack bouncing against his bony shoulders. She takes him in her arms, lifting him up into the air.
“Zack, I missed you sooooooooooooo much! My God, look at you. You’re getting so big!” Kennedy smothers his face with kisses.
“I missed you, too, Mommy. I’m glad I’m home. That bed at Nana’s isn’t as comfortable as mine.”
Kennedy’s eyes brim with tears. She releases her son and stands up, gazing down at Michael. He’s looking good in his jeans, sweater, and boots. Relaxed and confident. She resists the urge to rush down the stairs and into his arms. Instead they make eye contact. He does not turn away. She smiles at him and he nods at her.
“Hi, Michael.”
“Hey, Kennedy.”
The air between them is cool. It is not unexpected, so she doesn’t allow his nonchalant reception to get her down. Kennedy moves to the bottom step as Michael places Zack’s things to the side of the stairs.
“Can I play my Xbox, Mommy, pretty please? It’s been so long. I’m dying here!”
Kennedy glances at her watch and then to her son.
“For a little while. Not too long. We need to get you ready for school in a bit.”
Zack heads toward the family room as Michael clears his throat.
“Zack, come here.”
Zack stops and turns, then returns to where his father is standing.
Michael reaches out his arms, and Zack embraces him.
“Zack, I had a really wonderful time with you. Pop Pop and Nana had fun, too. Remember what I told you. I’ll see you in two days. That’s Friday, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Love you, Zack,” Michael says, kissing the top of his head.
“Love you, too, Dad.” Zack rushes off, leaving Kennedy and Michael alone.
Kennedy stares at Michael. She feels anxiety and anger rising all at once. She glances back nervously into the hallway, then to her husband.
“Can I talk to you?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Let’s go outside. I don’t want Zack to hear us.”
Michael nods as Kennedy turns her head and yells, “Zack, I’ll be right back. Your father and I will be out front talking.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Zack responds from the next room.
Once outside, with the door shut behind them, Kennedy folds her arms across her chest from the deepening cold and her annoyance.
“What’s this about Friday, Michael?”
Michael does not blink.
“I no longer live here, Kennedy. I need to see my son on a regular basis, and he needs to see me. I’ve drafted up a visitation agreement and—”
“Wait a second. Visitation agreement? Isn’t that a bit premature?”
“No, Kennedy, it is not. You and I have separated. We no longer live in the same house. We need to spell out our respective visitations with Zack.”
“Jesus . . .”
Kennedy shakes her head.
Michael stares at her.
She moves closer to her husband.
“Michael, please. Please come back home. This is not the answer. We need to talk about this. We need to talk about what happened.”
Michael backs up.
“No, Kennedy. We’re not doing that right now. What we are going to do is come up with a visitation agreement so I can see my son. I’m proposing that every two days I have him overnight. In other words, he’ll be with me Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday nights. You can have him the remaining days.”
Michael reaches into his back pocket and extracts a folded paper. He unfolds it and hands it to her. Kennedy takes it and reads it.
The draft visitation agreement spells out the schedule for visitation between Michael and Kennedy.
“I’m also proposing how we can handle Christmas and New Year’s. You can get back to me with your comments and we’ll take it from there.”
Kennedy flips to the second page, slowly shaking her head.
“Michael, this is crazy. Do you hear yourself? Baby, can you just talk to me, please? Just give me a chance to explain myself?”
Michael shakes his head firmly.
“No, Kennedy, not now.”
“This is ridiculous! I don’t even know where you live, for God’s sake!”
“All we need to settle on is visitation.” Michael stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Kennedy watches his breath exhale from his nose and mouth. “What I need to do is take some time to figure everything out. And I’m going to take whatever time I need to accomplish that. In the meantime, you and I have nothing to discuss, except where it concerns the health and welfare of our son.”
Kennedy stares at Michael under a deepening sky. The cold air and his harsh words make her shiver. The feeling chills her to the bone. For a moment she says nothing. Then she nods solemnly.
Kennedy sighs heavily.
“All right, Michael.”
Michael turns to go.
“One more thing,” she says, staring at the back of his head as he pauses on the steps.
“There have been some new developments in our case. Umm, we think we’re closer to knowing who is behind all the stuff with the e-mails and our bank account.”
Michael ponders her words for a moment and nods his head, exhaling more breath from his nostrils.
“You can tell me all about it in an e-mail,” he responds before descending the steps slowly to his waiting SUV.
Chapter 54
Friday evening.
Close to seven
PM
.
Joe’s at his desk, finishing up some paperwork.
It’s been a particularly violent week.
The last forty-eight hours have been spent in Washington’s brutal southeast quadrant, Anacostia, knee deep in a drive-by shooting of four unarmed teenagers. The prevailing theory has to do with some gang initiation, but with witnesses unwilling to come forward and talk, the work is slow going. Arrests seem as likely as winning the lottery.
A fax machine on the other side of the station comes to life, screaming like a newborn after its first gulp of air. Someone gets up to check it and yells across the room, over the din of phone and chatter of detectives and belligerent suspects, “Goodman, fax!”
Joe stands, stretches his limbs, and meanders over. He gets to the machine and grabs the first page, scanning the cover sheet.
From Costello, Miami-Dade PD.
11 possibilities
See #5. I think she’s your girl
—Costello.
Joe notes that this is page one of twelve. He checks page two as it finishes printing. A two-by-two DMV photo. The person staring back at him is named Lucy Alvarez. Driver’s license number, name, address, birth date, license expiration date. Sex, height, and weight. Organ donor info. Underneath the info is a phone number written by hand.
Pretty, light-skinned, but definitely not Dawn.
He waits patiently for the next page to print.
Infinity Jackson.
Joe shakes his head.
Why do our people have to name their kids after cars?
If he meets another Porche or Lexus, he’ll pull out his own hair!
Infinity isn’t Dawn.
Joe puts the pages down and crosses the office to the other side. He pours himself a cup of four-hour-old coffee, loads it down with sugar to mask the taste. By the time he’s returned to the fax, the machine’s working on page six. Joe picks up the pages, flipping through.
Delores Childs.
Renee Walker.
Lindsey Rein.
He stops at Lindsey Rein.
The hair is all wrong.
Short, finger-sized curls.
Pretty smile.
Beautiful eyes.
The eyes tell him he’s found her.
He’s almost positive.
Checks her info.
Age: thirty-four.
Address in Mango, Florida. Joe heads over to his desk without waiting for the other pages to complete. He sits down, fingers to his keyboard, calling up Google.
Mango, Florida.
Clicks on the first search return: Google Maps.
A city/town off Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Highway 75.
He zooms out using several clicks of his mouse.
Mango looks like it’s less than ten miles west of Tampa.
Joe stares at the number scrawled underneath her photo.
Picks up the phone and dials the 813 number.
Ringing.
He feels the raised flesh of his scar, fingers brushing against his beard as he waits for the phone to connect.
More rings.
Then voice mail.
Automated female voice.
“You have reached 813 . . .”
Joe leaves a message.
“This is Joe Goodman from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. I am looking for a Lindsey Rein. Please call me as soon as you get this message.” He leaves his cell number and hangs up.
Goes back over to the fax and grabs the remaining pages. Reads them over as he walks back to his desk.
The other ten women—all light-skinned, some black, others Latino or perhaps Middle Eastern.
Back at his desk, he glances at the photo of Lindsey Rein.
Hair different. But the eyes and smile are the same.
Lindsey Rein.
“Gotcha,” Joe mutters to himself. “I think we’ve found our girl.”
Chapter 55
He eases himself inside her and finds heaven.
Joe presses his weight against Tara, kissing her lips softly.
She moans as he hits home.
Finds her chocolate spot and makes his way back home.
It’s close to midnight, and Joe’s making love to his fiancée.
Feels like he hasn’t seen much of her lately, with work being such a bitch.
She’s understanding, though. Which is why he made a special effort to clock out before eleven.
Put work on hold so he can spend time with his woman.
Leave work alone, if just for a little while.
He found her in bed when he came in, lights off and television on, watching reruns of
Law & Order
.
Kissed her on her lips, ran a shower before slipping his nude form underneath the freshly laundered flannel sheets, pushing the remote off the bedspread as he slid between her legs and eased inside her.
Where he found heaven.
They found their groove.
Their rhythm. Their rhyme. Her spot.
That’s when his cell phone began to ring.
Tara’s arms encircle his neck as he moves in and out of her slowly. She is gazing into his eyes when the blaring sound invades the room. The cell is on the nightstand, buzzing around like an insect, causing Joe to miss a beat.
Their beat.
“You better not get that,” she says, reaching down to grab his ass, ensuring he continues to thrust. He does.
But the groove is wrong.
The rhythm is off.
“Joe!” she exclaims, marveling as the head of his member brushes against her engorged clit, making her sing. “Please don’t stop. . . .”
Joe drives home.
Tries to ignore the incessant ringing.
Finally it ceases.
But the rhyme is wrong.
His mind is back on work.
Just like that.
Tried to leave it alone.
But it wouldn’t be left alone.
Joe had made several more phone calls from his desk that evening.
Calls to the Tampa Police Department.
He got the runaround, handed off from one district to the other. Finally, a desk sergeant told him he’d need to contact the Hillsboro County Sheriff’s Office for what he was inquiring about.
He made the call, spoke to a deputy who said it was a busy evening (being it was a Friday) and that someone would be in touch.
That was several hours ago.
Now his cell is ringing, buzzing.
It could be work.
Anacostia drive-by.
Two dead teenagers.
Another on life support. Condition grave.
Could be Kennedy.
Another e-mail.
Incriminating photos.
Funds wired out.
Or the sheriff’s office.
Or Lindsay Rein herself.
Joe tries to clear his head and focus on this sweet spot where he’s burrowed.
Tara pushes him away.
Joe thinks she’s pissed.
But she gets on all fours, ass up high, face pressed into the mattress, the folds between her legs glistening like morning dew.
Joe buries himself inside her, flesh slapping against her ass as he pummels her, fucking her hard, the call quickly forgotten.
Tara is fucking him back.
She’s meeting his thrusts with parries of her own, palms flat on the bed as she bucks her pelvis hard against his big dick, groans muffled by the pillow, beads of sweat tracing around the small of her back.
Tara moans, “Oh my God.”
Her eyes are scrunched tight as her body begins to shiver. A shock wave rockets through her body. Joe feels the tidal wave rolling through as she sings.
They are back to grooving.
Rhythm and rhyming right.
“FUCK!”
He is coming as she hits her high note.
Muscles tight.
Testicles slapping her clit as he offers her a river.
Collapsing then, out of breath, on top of her.
Sweat-sheened, their heartbeats race past the finish line and then begin to slow, lapping around the track, as in victory.
After several minutes of feeling her pulse beat against his own torso, Joe rolls away.
He’s on his back, staring up the ceiling, that post-orgasmic feeling wafting through him when he feels Tara’s eyes upon him.
Joe turns, meets her stare with his own.
“Now you can get the phone,” she says before easing off the bed and sashaying away slow and sensual, sweaty and naked, a sight to behold.