Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution (28 page)

Beyond the breakfast bar was an open area which was filled by an oblong wooden table with a dark stain. Six chairs were able to fit comfortably around the table, and it was lit by a four-armed lamp that hung overhead. The table rested on a large brown rug, which sat atop a worn tile floor that spread across the entire room.

“So you’re Eva’s cousin,” Daniel said to Carlos in an attempt to spark conversation.

“Yeah,” Carlos responded simply. “On her mother’s side—the Hamilton’s.”

“So she’s not Mexican, is she?” Jordan inquired. Given the names Stone and Hamilton and Eva’s rather pale complexion, it was not an unreasonable question.

“No,” Carlos chuckled. “My father George—Eva’s uncle—married a Mexican woman. I am half Mexican.”

“Ah,” Jordan replied in understanding.

Carlos was a handsome man for being in his forties. His slightly brown complexion blended well with his dark brown eyes. He had a square jaw and strong cheek bones. His thick, dark hair was pushed back on top of his head, and streaks of grey ran through the sides. He carried a broad frame, and he seemed to be in pretty good shape. He was built like a farmer.

“That’s what makes him so handsome,” Marie added, squeezing his cheek in jest as she sat down at the table with a plate of her own.

Marie was also fairly attractive, in a motherly sort of way. She had a round, rosy face that seemed to never stop glowing, and a smile that stretched out as far as it could go. She had a round button nose, and big, half-moon eyes that were green with little brown speckles. Her hair was a bit out of place, but it shone a beautiful chestnut brown. Daniel also couldn’t help but notice her unavoidably ample bosom and hips that fit tightly into her jeans.

“Do you have any kids?” Jordan asked innocently.

“One,” Carlos replied. He spoke with a deep, very smooth infliction. “After him, Marie wasn’t able to have any more unfortunately—medical reasons—but we had our hands full with Jorge.”

“Jorge?” Daniel repeated.

“Yeah, it was a way to name him after my father but incorporate a Mexican aspect to it,” Carlos explained.

“I like it,” Daniel assured with a smile.

“He’s grown up and out of the house now,” Marie continued. Her voice had a barely detectable scratchiness to it, which was offset by a vague nurturing quality that made Daniel feel instantly comfortable around her. “Went to college at Central Michigan and now he lives down in Grand Rapids. Loves it down there in the city.”

Carlos smiled and rubbed his wife’s back. It was clear they were proud of their boy but that they missed having him around.

Jordan kept the conversation going. “What does he do?”

“He’s a teacher,” Marie answered proudly.

“Oh!” Jordan perked up. “What grade?”

“High School,” Marie replied.

“Oh, I teach fourth…” A dark realization came over Jordan’s face, as she realized for the first time that she would no longer be able to go back to her teaching job in Chicago. For all she knew, she had been working for, or teaching kids whose parents were members of the Birthright. “Or I guess I
was
a fourth-grade teacher.”

Marie and Carlos exchanged a concerned glance next to one another at the table.

“When Eva asked us to put up a couple people in trouble for her we were very skeptical, but when she told us that we’d be paid a thousand dollars a month to give you a room well—we could really use the extra money,” Marie explained. “But I imagine you guys must be in real trouble if the government is willing to pay that much to stick you way out here.”

Daniel stared down at his plate and continued eating while Jordan looked at Marie and nodded glumly.

“It’s been really hard,” she said. “Especially with Christmas and not being able to see our family.” Then Jordan slid her arm over and placed her hand on Daniel’s forearm. He looked up, slightly confused. “But I take a lot of comfort knowing that I’m not in it alone. There’s no one I’d want dealing with me during this impossible situation than this guy.”

Daniel forced a smile as he saw tears begin falling from Jordan’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. He didn’t know what to say. Truthfully, he took no solace in having Jordan there with him. He felt horrible that she had to be a part of this. The only thing he felt was the need to keep her safe and make sure they both got out this. It was his
duty
to her.

He knew that he did care about her though. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have felt so strongly about protecting her. He supposed if there had to be someone else stuck in this mess with him, it might as well be Jordan.

“Well I’m just glad that you two seem like a couple of nice, normal people,” Marie said comfortingly as she stood up from the table and gathered everyone’s plates.

Daniel bit his lip. He wasn’t exactly what you might call a “normal” person, but it was surprisingly nice to be thought of that way again. By the looks of it, Jordan didn’t appear to catch the flaw in Marie’s observation.

“Thank you,” both Daniel and Jordan said as she took their plates.

“We’re equally as pleased at how nice you guys seem,” Daniel added. “Truthfully. And we promise to always respect you and your home. If we’re ever any trouble you just let us know.”

Marie smiled from the kitchen while Carlos remained unsure. Sooner or later Daniel was sure they would start to feel like family.

“So you guys are from Chicago, are ya?” Carlos inquired.

Daniel and Jordan looked at him suspiciously, wondering how he’d known that.

“Eva works out of the Chicago field office,” he explained.

Daniel and Jordan both let out a discreet sigh of relief. Everything seemed to have them on edge these days.

“You didn’t get caught up in the jewelry store robbery a couple weeks ago did you?” Carlos had said it as a complete joke, but Daniel and Jordan couldn’t help but freeze for a moment.

Daniel eventually looked over at Jordan, fighting back a smile as best he could. He waited for her to respond to the question. “I was in the area but fortunately I managed to avoid any trouble.”

Carlos looked back and forth at the pair, suspicious of their reaction to the question. “You aren’t jewel thieves are you?”

Daniel and Jordan both laughed. “I promise you, no,” Jordan assured Carlos, placing her hand on his forearm and shaking it gently.

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Daniel added.

Carlos opened his mouth to follow up with another question, but decided it best not to know too much. Instead he stood up from the table and asked, “Would you like to see the rest of the place?”

The rest of the house was both rustic and elegant at the same time. Outside of the kitchen, wooden floors extended throughout the entire first floor. Just through the open kitchen doorway was a hallway that led back toward the front door. On the left side of the hall was a storage closet, and on the right was a window that looked out over the front porch and the vast fields that led out to the road beyond.

A coat hanger stood next to the front door located directly on your right at the end of the hallway. On the left the house opened up to a large gathering room. The room was filled with antique tables, bookcases, floor lamps, and china cabinets. Clocks, photos, and other art and decoration hung all over the walls. There seemed to be no more space for stuff and yet felt nowhere near cluttered. In the center of the room, four plush chairs surrounded a large, furry rug, which sat in front of a stone fireplace that protruded from the rightmost wall.

Beyond the room with the fireplace and a single step down was a den area. The den was filled with far less décor and seemed to be designed more for entertainment. There was a small brown couch and a loveseat that came together at a one-hundred and forty degree angle at the center of the room. Each was positioned facing a television that was hanging on the right hand wall. A small brown table with a lamp on it separated the two pieces of furniture. Off to the side of the couches, was a large, overly cushioned recliner that was also facing the TV and had its own end table beside it, equipped with three different remote controls.

Underneath the TV was a wood stained cabinet with glass doors, and inside was a DVD player and a gaming console. The cabinet was topped with framed photos of Carlos and Marie’s family.

At the far end of the den was a giant bay window that looked out onto a screened in porch, and beyond it an acre or so of open land, and beyond that the forest. Daniel imagined the view from the porch must have been absolutely exquisite during the spring, summer, and even fall months.

“There’s our very own heard of deer,” Carlos said, pointing to a group of five or six deer out in the field, not too far from the house. In the middle of the group was a large buck. Daniel counted ten points on its antlers.

To the left of the den was a sliding door that led out to the screened in porch, and past that was a half-bathroom. Opposite the sliding door was a wooden door that led down to the basement.

Through the window, Daniel could see a part of the house that protruded outward past the screen porch. It too had a door that connected to the porch, but it didn’t fit in with the plain rectangular shape of the rest of the house.

Carlos noticed Daniel taking notice of the addition. “That’s mine and Marie’s room. We added that on…shoot…twenty years ago now, something like that.”

“Jorge was just a baby,” Marie agreed.

Daniel nodded his head in a way that made him appear interested in the details.

“It connects to the kitchen,” Carlos explained, gesturing with his finger to demonstrate where the connection to the rest of the house was.

Daniel smiled as he and Jordan took another hearty glimpse around the house. He loved it. It was no Benze mansion, but he had no interest in such things. This house was perfect. It was warm and cozy, and although it would never really
be
home, it could very easily feel like one.

Chapter 16

Daniel and Jordan spent most of the winter getting acclimated to what was their new—and hopefully temporary—home. On the surface it seemed that there was little to do during the winter in Northwestern Michigan. Lake effect snow fell almost daily making driving on the two-lane highways a nightmare, and the most of the small towns along the lakeshore depended on summer tourism to survive, meaning most of them shut down during the winter season.

But Michiganders were used to snow, and they knew how to make the most of it. It seemed everyone who lived in the area had a snowmobile, and Carlos was no exception. He had bought a second snowmobile the winter before—a fixer-upper—and had spent all summer getting it ready for the winter. His original intention was for Marie to go out riding with him, but she absolutely refused claiming that she couldn’t stand to spend that much time in the cold and that it scared her trying to go fast enough to keep up with Carlos in the treachery of the forest.

Daniel and Jordan were the benefactors of Marie’s refusal to pilot the snowmobile, as they often took turns driving with the other riding on the back. The repaired snowmobile was an old, scratched up yellow piece of junk that pulled a little to the left and made an awful noise when running at full-throttle, but it was enough to keep up with Carlos’s three-year old royal blue machine when out in the open. On occasion the four of them would go out with Marie riding on the back while Carlos drove, but it never took very long for Marie to get cold and want to return to the warmth of the house.

Daniel had always considered himself a creature that belonged in a warmer climate, but when he got out there on top of the snow, feeling the crisp air pushing his goggles against his face and the adrenaline rush of flying along the forest trails, he seemed to forget all about the temperature.

On more than one occasion Carlos and Daniel would get up at the crack of dawn and go out riding without the women folk. They would go out and ride deep into the forest, trying their best to get lost and find their way back. It was on these occasions that Daniel had felt freer than ever before. Just man, machine, and the wilderness.

Sometimes they would bring along fishing gear, and Carlos would lead him to a small lake a few miles off their property. They would walk out to the center of the lake, drill a hole and drop in a line. Daniel never understood the concept of ice fishing—sitting out in the freezing cold and waiting for a half-frozen fish to bite—but as he sat out on that lake, sipping coffee spiked with Jameson and telling tall tales with Carlos, he had no complaints.

It was also convenient that there was a skiing resort just a dozen or so miles down the road from the house. Daniel and Jordan took a couple trips to Boyne Mountain—Daniel having never skied before in his life and Jordan having only gone twice over five years ago. The first time they went they rented equipment and received lessons, but they found it much more fun to find the nearest bunny hill and try to figure it out for themselves. They fell down a lot, but that only provided them with hours of laughter. After their second time out Jordan wanted to buy her own skis and other gear, but Daniel convinced her that they weren’t going to ski enough for it to be worth spending all of their government stipend on ski equipment.

Carlos was also a fan of ice climbing, and he introduced Daniel to a friend of his named Dan. Dan was a self-certified ice climbing aficionado who had more than enough geared stored up in his house for Daniel to use, and he was more than happy to let him do so.