Charged - Book One (15 page)

“Lewis,” she hesitated, “what I do or do not tell you
won’t change anything.”

“So you’re Danel’s companion?” I could hear the
bitterness in my voice.

“More like a defiant daughter,” she said.

This made me smile. I couldn’t help it.

She took a deep breath and looked at me like she was
going to tell me something, but instead she looked away.

I took a couple steps closer and put my hands on her
arms. I wanted to do this since we arrived, in a way that didn’t
resemble the first couple times I touched her. She didn’t object.
Her skin was as soft as a twenty-year-old and I wondered what she
thought about my own weathered hands against it. I slid my hands
down to hers and squeezed gently.

She closed her eyes and squeezed my hands back. She
sighed lightly and tilted her head down laying it on my shoulder.
It was so nice being this close to her. Her hair smelled like
jasmine and lilies. I put my head on her shoulder also, trying to
make the moment last as long as I could. It seemed we stood there
for a while, uninterrupted by anyone or anything.

In this moment, everything seemed to fade. For a
second, I no longer cared about Seattle or the FBI. It wasn’t clear
to me what I could do for her. All I knew was that she was bound to
Danel and it weighed on her. Yet she was with me.

Her body seemed to relax as it pressed up against
mine. I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her neck
softly, just once. This appeared to wake her up and maybe startle
her a little. I was being too forward. She pulled away from me, but
not completely, still holding my hand and smiling. Her face
actually flushed for a moment. I don’t think anyone had kissed her
neck in a while — a long while, if I had to guess.

It had crossed my mind more than once that she may
not be attracted to me, just lonely. And I was just fine with being
friends like I was with Lolita. If I could have her in no other
way, it was enough.

This was a lie. I knew this the second I thought it.
For the life of me, I couldn’t ever remember being so drawn to a
woman. It was like she was radiating pheromones. I found myself
smiling at the thought, because it could be a possibility.

I wanted to pull her close to me and just kiss her
again and again, but I refrained. Then she squeezed my hand softly
and this made me think she wasn’t just lonely. I didn’t approach
this subject; it was too soon. And was I really here for just her?
Just to be with her? This was possible. I found her very
attractive, but I knew I didn’t know her. I felt like I knew her,
but I didn’t.

“I need a drink, Lewis,” she said, smiling.

“Is it after noon?” I said, grinning.

“I’m ninety-seven, Lew, I’m a big girl,” she said
pulling me out of the room.

“No, you’re an old girl,” I said, playfully.

“Oh, you’re funny.”

She punched the code into the panel on the wall and
the door slid shut. I could hear it locking as we walked back down
the corridor.

“I have something for you,” she said, as we passed my
quarters and walked ten more feet to another door, which I assumed,
were her quarters. She was this close the whole time.

She let me in and closed the door behind us. And for
a second, I let my mind drift into the possibilities of being with
her… emotionally… physically.

“Full lights,” she said and the room lit up like it
would have in my old apartment. It took a minute for my eyes to
focus, but it was refreshing to see everything clearly. I
immediately noticed that she was not affected by the light like the
others.

Her suite was larger than mine and a lot neater, too.
The back wall in the living room was lined with books from ceiling
to floor. It was nice to know that we both loved books. There were
biographies, novels, sci-fi and even some comics neatly organized
on the shelving unit. There was also a wood-burning fireplace,
which made me wonder how they vented it from down here and a large
hologram of a waterfall above it. It looked very similar to the
Snoqualmie Falls back in Washington. The hologram hummed with the
sound of the falls hitting the water below.

“Here you go,” she said, handing me a beer.

A cold beer in my hand… I wasn’t sure if I was going
to see that again.

“You have just made my day,” I said, opening it and
taking a large gulp, smiling possibly a little too much.

“There’s more in the fridge.”

“And what will you be drinking?”

“We have our own version of beer,” she said, grabbing
a chilled glass out of the freezer and pouring a bubbly blue
substance in it. After two drinks, she slipped into something
comfortable. Very comfy, actually: a pair of grey sweatpants that
were a little too big, just barely hanging on her hips and a white
ribbed tank top that was a little too small just to torture me. So,
she was very relaxed and I was just slightly wrenched a little
tighter by the bra she was no longer wearing.

She slowly slid into a Queen Anne chair that was
identical to the one in my suite.

“Lewis, are you done being suspicious?” She was
smiling, but I couldn’t tell if she was buzzed or not; her
movements were too graceful.

“I’m not suspicious of you.”

I was now sitting on her sofa in front of the small
fire I started in the fireplace. Next to it, there was a pile of
wood and kindling, so I just couldn’t help myself. The sound of the
wood popping and crackling behind the metal screen was
soothing.

“I wasn’t talking about me.”

Yep, she was bold and honest.

“How exactly am I supposed to feel at home after five
days?” I tried to smile a little when I said this. She wanted
something; I could tell by the look on her face.

“What is it I can do for you?” I said.

“You can take the gun off. I have shown you almost
every inch of this ship. Can you please take it off?” she said,
smiling her playful little smile.

I didn’t know what to think. She said what she meant
and meant what she said and I was almost beside myself. I forgot
she wasn’t really twenty-five and I probably shouldn’t assume she
acts like a twenty-five-year-old or thinks like one. Yes, I
probably spent too much time with Lolita.

I didn’t want to part with my .357 Magnum, but I’d
seen pretty much the whole ship and besides the cutlery in the main
hall, I hadn’t seen one weapon. Well, not one that I could
identify. And I didn’t need to wear it at her place, I knew that.
She probably thought it was rude. Reluctantly, I stood up, pulled
off the grey blazer and took the holster off. I placed both on her
small kitchen table that adjoined the living area. It was off, but
not too far.

“Better?”

“Yes. Anything I can do for you?”

“Yes, actually. Can you put on a real shirt?”

I felt manly in my request as she immediately got up
and pulled over a grey sweatshirt covering the see-through
nipple-baring tank top. And then I wanted to immediately kick
myself for not requesting something else. She let out a slight
laugh as if she knew what I was thinking. Oh boy, I was the only
young and dumb thing in the room. I laughed at myself for a
moment.

“That didn’t work out to my advantage,” I said,
laughing a little.

“No, it didn’t.”

She was laughing at me, at how young I was and it was
reassuring and actually made me feel young.

“Thank you, for the fire.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, still laughing at
myself.

We spent the rest of the evening getting drunk and
pretty much laughing our butts off. We discussed books, childhood
and movies, though our stories were quite different. She had the
same dry wit I did. After about three of her beers, she was relaxed
and almost giddy. Around three in the morning, I stumbled back to
my room and slipped into bed without waking Aaron.

ON THE SEVENTH DAY, she entered my suite with coffee
and bagels and a file in her arms. Aaron was already with Jessica
discovering new things.

“Before I knew you, it was important that I read
this,” she said, handing me a very thick file with my name on it.
She placed everything on the counter and turned to face me.

“Does it really matter?” I said. I knew they had a
file on me, just like the thick file that Danel had slid across the
table to Aaron a week ago and secretly I was dreading it.

“Not to me, but you might want to know what’s in it.
You know where to find me when you’re done. I’m curious if it’s
correct.”

“And if it
is?”             

“It doesn’t change anything for me.”

“Since you read mine, can I read yours?”

She smiled and her eyes grew bright. I don’t know if
she was happy that I was interested or that she would be
interesting.

“Yes, I do have a file, but I must say it doesn’t
read like yours.”

I was certain it didn’t, but I was really hoping that
certain things were not in my file.

She turned and left me with the file, possibly
holding all the ghosts of my past. I didn’t read it immediately. I
had some coffee and a bagel first, knowing this was inevitable.

I flicked the corner of the folder a few times,
trying not to think of the past. When I did open the file, the very
first page was an eight-by-eleven photo of… her. Even after thirty
years, grief rolled inside of me, mingling with the injustice of
losing her. The woman I’d loved the most, the woman I’d found
viciously murdered on our kitchen floor at ten years old, my
mother.

She was beautiful. She had thick, brown, wavy hair.
She was almost six feet tall and a little too thin. She had an
enormous heart, willing to help everyone and anyone she could. She
honestly believed that everyone had something good inside of them.
This was something that I knew wasn’t true. The few years that I
did remember of our lives together, she’d spent helping out others
that never appreciated it. She was generous to a fault.

I didn’t want to remember and I didn’t know why Kye
had given me the file. I closed the cover quickly, trying not to
think about my mother. But the memories came anyway and I felt a
little nauseous as the past pushed forward, as if they had never
faded after all this time.

The clarity was almost surreal; I could see the oak
cabinets in the kitchen, the four-inch ceramic tiles on the floor
and I remembered how they were white in the centers and darkened to
a light tan towards the corners of each one. I could see that curvy
swirl design in each and every corner as her blood spilled over
them, spreading out, consuming their beauty.

When I found her, I was standing next to Richie, my
best friend. I remembered screaming, pulling on her, yelling at her
to wake up. Richie ran out of my house to his, next door. He left
me there, alone. I pushed on her chest trying to make her breathe,
but it only made blood flow from her mouth. I could recall the
jeans and pink shirt she was wearing, covered in blood.

I took a deep breath pushing the memories back. I was
hoping that, after all these years, they wouldn’t be so crisp. I
opened the file again for a visual distraction, quickly turning her
photo over. The file listed her date of birth, her marriage to my
father, her divorce and her death. It also had his name, Isaac
Dietz, the man who murdered her. He stole nothing; he was one of
those crazies and my mother was just one of those people who left
her doors unlocked. It was a senseless crime that could’ve been
avoided if Isaac had the proper medication and treatment. He was a
schizophrenic. Even though Isaac was really sick, they incarcerated
him and he was murdered seventeen days later by some other crazy
that probably also needed medication.

I closed the file again, trying not to miss her. I
closed my eyes and thought that, if Danel had ever actually read
this, he wouldn’t have said, ‘we could use more coverts like you.’
If he had read it at all, he would’ve known what made me what I
was. And that I was the type of person that wouldn’t let Kye be
tied to him forever. No, he didn’t read it.

I wished Kye hadn’t brought me the file. I rubbed out
the water in my eyes with the back of my hand and tried to think
about Kye. Maybe I was missing something that she was trying to
tell me. I gave it some thought and all I could come up with was
that she never had a mother. There was Alma, the only elder mother
on the ship, but she was not Kye’s mother. I was too emotional to
process anything at this point. I wanted to go to Kye, but I didn’t
want to answer any questions, so I pulled the photo of my mother
out of the file and I just sat staring at it. I touched her hair in
the photo and slid my thumb across it and I could remember how
smooth it felt in my hands as a small child.

It seemed like hours passed as I sat paging through
the unimportant parts of the file. Every woman I ever dated and
every criminal I locked up were present and accounted for. It was
strange looking at my life on paper; there were patterns in my life
that I only vaguely recognized before. In a nutshell, my file said
I was married to my job, had commitment issues due to the loss of
my mother. Not what I wanted Kye reading.

Did it say anything good about me? I thought about it
from a different perspective for a moment. Yes, it did. It said I
was hard-working… concerned for the wellbeing of humans and
animals, I guess. Determined. Okay, it wasn’t all bad. But it was
evident that, after my mother died, I really believed I was going
to save every kid on the playground.

The file referenced Richie also. He had it harder
than I did. As the years flew by, he just got caught up in one bad
turn after another. Even when we were kids, he was just a little
off mentally, not like the other kids in class. Not that I could
diagnose anyone, but I thought he was unstable: super-happy one
moment and extremely depressed the next. It was probably best that
my grandmother eventually sold the house and we moved.