Law Man

Chapter Twelve That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be

I climbed the stairs to my unit, exhausted not because I’d suffered more emotional turmoil but because it had been a madhouse at Pierson’s Mattress and Bed that day. The bad news was, even after a good night’s sleep, I was exhausted again. The good news was, I’d sold a boatload of beds and mattresses, including two king-size Spring Deluxes. This meant Billy, Billie and I weren’t facing canned soup anytime in the near future and this made me happy even through my exhaustion.

I made it to the top and walked straight to Mitch’s door, lifted my hand to knock but the door was pulled open before my knuckles could meet its surface. My body jolted in surprise and I saw Mitch standing there then my body moved when Mitch leaned in, grasped my hand tight and pulled me inside.

Then he closed the door and turned to me.

This was odd behavior but I didn’t allow it to register because I was too busy looking around his place. What was behind his door was something I’d been curious about (avidly) for a very long time and when my eyes hit his living room, I found the reality of it shocking.

He had fantastic furniture and fantastic taste. I’d worked in a furniture store before I moved to Pierson’s and I knew at a glance that his stuff was the good stuff. As in, the really good stuff. Huge chocolate brown sectional couch that was both comfy-looking and well-made. A mammoth, square ottoman in front of the sectional. A dark wood wall unit that had to weigh a ton and had to have been crafted by a master. It housed his flat screen TV, a bunch of CDs, DVDs and books.

Wow. Mitch always dressed really great and he’d traded up SUVs since he moved in but I thought cops only did okay. His apartment said he did way better than okay.

“Sweetheart,” he called and I tore my eyes off his awesome pad and focused on him.

Then I held my breath at what I saw.

Something was wrong. Not wrong, wrong.

“Billy and Billie?” I whispered.

“They’re good,” Mitch whispered back and I noticed his hand was still holding mine tight.

Uh-oh.

“What’s not good?” I asked, still whispering.

His hand in mine pulled me closer and his other hand lifted to curl around the side of my neck. “The kids and I went out to lunch and then we went to Washington Park. Derek and LaTanya were over at her sister’s place all day. Bray was workin’. Brent was at the clubhouse working out.”

I stared up at him wondering why he was telling me all this.

“And?” I prompted when he stopped speaking.

Mitch didn’t continue for awhile, he just kept studying me. Then he closed his eyes and muttered, “Shit, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Because he was freaking me out, because I had a cousin in jail who was a marked man and because my Mom and Aunt Lulamae were too close for comfort, I moved into him and placed my hand on his chest.

“Just tell me,” I said softly.

He opened his eyes and his hand at my neck gave me a squeeze. “Someone paid a visit while everyone was gone. They broke into your apartment, tossed it and they didn’t go gentle.”

Oh. My. God!

“No,” I whispered.

“I’m afraid so, baby,” he whispered back.

I didn’t know what to make of this. I didn’t even want to think about this. Mom and Aunt Lulamae were crazy and they were mean and they were stupid. They had certain unique skills in all those areas but they tended to come out verbally. That took crazy, mean and stupid to a whole new level.

My hand was released so Mitch could wind his arm around my waist as he called, “Mara, sweetheart, come back to me.”

My eyes focused on him. “How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

“How bad is bad?”

“Shit Mara,” he muttered and my hand slid up his chest to curl around his neck.

“How bad is bad, Mitch?”

His eyes looked deep into mine. “On a scale of one to ten?” I nodded. “Fifteen.”

I couldn’t hold my head up anymore; it dropped and landed on his chest because at the same time he pulled me close now with both his arms around me.

I sucked in deep breaths and tried to process this. I couldn’t process it so I asked, “Did the kids see?”

“When we got back, I saw they left the door ajar. I brought the kids over here and then I went over there. Then I called in some uniforms. They didn’t see but they know somethin’s up. Even Billie’s on guard.”

I nodded, my forehead rolling on his chest. At least this was good. Kind of.

“You and the kids are spending the night here,” he informed me.

I nodded again.

“You need to tell me what you need, sweetheart, so I can go over there and get it.”

At that, I lifted my head. “I’ll go get it.”

“Maybe we should tackle you goin’ over there some other time. When’s your next day off?”

“Tuesday.”

“Then we’ll go over there tomorrow night.”

I stared up at him knowing with grave certainty that it was level fifteen bad if he didn’t want me to see my place until I had time to react to what I saw.

I closed my eyes.

“Honey, tell me what you need,” Mitch urged and I opened my eyes.

“I need to go over there.”

“I’m thinkin’ now’s not good.”

“Mitch, I need to go over there. I can’t go to sleep wondering. I need to know.”

“It’s late, you can know tomorrow.”

“Mitch,” I leaned in and got up on my toes, “please, I need to know.”

He studied me again. Then he muttered, “Fuck, all right. Hang on and I’ll ask Bradon or Brent to come over here in case one of the kids wakes up.”

I nodded and he let me go with one arm to pull his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans.

While he did this I asked, “Where are the kids now?”

He hit some buttons while he answered, “Billie is sleepin’ on the pull out in my second bedroom. Derek and LaTanya had an inflatable mattress and that’s in there too, Billy’s on it.”

I bit my lip as he put his phone to his ear and then said, “Bray? Mitch. Yeah, hey. Can you come over here for a few minutes while I take Mara over to her place to get some of her shit?” He paused then said, “Thanks, man.” Then he flipped his phone shut and shoved it into his back pocket before his arm went back around me.

“This is a new level,” I told him when he did.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“Vandalism,” I explained. “It’s a new level for the Trailer Trash Twins. They’re stupid, crazy and mean but this…” I trailed off and my eyes went to his shoulder.

It dawned on me that I’d been doing this for a while and Mitch hadn’t responded so my eyes slid back to his to see he was staring at me thoughtfully.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” he answered and there was a knock on the door.

Mitch’s arms dropped but he grabbed my hand and walked me to the door. He opened it and Bradon was there, looking worried at the same time looking curious. Mitch guided us out of his way and Bradon walked in.

Bradon was tall, blond, slim and lean and if he wasn’t gay, I’d have a faraway, freakishly shy crush on him too. Since he was an awesome guy, luckily he was gay so he could be my friend.

“Hey honey, how you doin’?” he asked, I tipped my head to the side and felt my lips tremble. “Shit,” Bradon muttered, pulled me away from Mitch and gave me a big hug. I wrapped my arms tight around him and hugged him back. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered in my ear.

“Yeah,” I replied but even I didn’t believe me.

“We know this now, we’ll all keep vigilant. You and those kids’ll be okay,” Bray assured me.

He was tall, slim and lean. Brent was somewhat shorter, bulkier and more muscular. Derek was built tough and strong. All I’d encountered on Mitch was solid, hard muscle. But none of them were ninja masters.

But Mitch had a gun and the training and authority to use it. And I was pretty certain that if the Trailer Trash Twins came calling again, he’d aim to maim rather than take them out in a bloody rampage. I hated them and I had reason to, now a new reason but not a bigger one, but I didn’t want them dead. I was happy with maimed. I focused on that because it made me feel slightly better.

“Thanks,” I whispered to Bray then felt Mitch’s hand warm on my back.

“Let’s get this done, baby,” Mitch said gently.

I pulled away from Bradon and returned the smile he was aiming at me. Mine was wobbly. Then I turned to Mitch and nodded.

“We won’t be long,” Mitch told Bradon as he opened the door.

“Whatever, Mitch, I don’t need to be anywhere,” Bradon replied.

Mitch nodded to him, grabbed my hand and led me out. There was yellow police tape criss-crossing my door that I hadn’t noticed because I hadn’t even looked that way. Something about seeing that tape made all this even more real and I suddenly stopped halfway across the breezeway. The minute I did, Mitch was in my space.

“We should do this tomorrow,” he said.

I tipped my head back, looked at the underside of the roof over the breezeway and sucked in breath. Then I looked at him.

“I’m okay.”

His hand tensed in mine and he muttered, “Survivor.”

Then he led me the rest of the way, dropped my hand, dug some keys out of his pocket and used them on a new bolt and padlock that was on my door because the doorknob and the door around it were busted to oblivion.

Oh boy.

He pushed open the door and used my hand to guide me forward, dropped it and put it in my back to force me down to duck under the criss-cross tape. We walked in and he flipped on the overhead lights.

The instant my eyes saw it, my mind retreated and it didn’t register on me. I saw my sofa and armchair had been slashed, the stuffing everywhere. I saw my television turned over on its face, smashed. Parts of my stereo strewn around the room. CDs, DVDs books from my shelves everywhere, cases broken, discs broken, books torn. I saw everything in my kitchen cupboards was all over the counters and some of it peeking out on the floor at the end of the bar. Broken crockery. Even food.

Holy crap.

I wandered down the hall and reached into the hall bathroom to turn on the light. I didn’t keep much in there but what was in there was all over the place.

I moved to my bedroom and turned on that light. My Spring Deluxe was slashed too. Completely laid to waste. My raspberry sheets and blush comforter cover with its embroidered raspberry flowers with delicate, grass green stems and leaves was shredded, feathers from my duvet and pillows all over the place. My clothes were everywhere, my dresser drawers pulled out and tossed, broken, across the room, their contents tangled with the feathers and shreds of my sheets.

I walked to my bathroom and more of the same. Tampon boxes emptied, tampons all over the sink and floor. The plastic pulled away from toilet paper rolls, the rolls unrolled. Bottles and tubs of my toiletries open, their insides spilling out, mingled with tampons and toilet paper and staining my towels and extra sheets that had been yanked out of my bathroom closet. My medicine cabinet looted. Even my ibuprofen capsules were littered everywhere.

“Mara, sweetheart, just grab what you need and –” I heard Mitch say from close but I moved, drifting out of the room and down the hall where I switched the light on to the kids’ room.

The same there. Their new beds where annihilated. The bedclothes slashed and shredded. Their new and old clothes scattered across the room.

I saw something and walked to it, picking up the remnants of Billie’s new, tiny, pink fluffy teddy bear that Mitch bought her. She loved that thing. It was the nicest toy she owned. She slept with it every night since he gave it to her. Every night. She never let it go even as heavy as she slept.

She never let it go.

Why would Mom and Lulamae do this? Why?

As these things go, whatever fog that had drifted around me cleared and the crushing weight of what I was seeing landed on me.

I needed new everything. The kids did too.

Everything.

Without me telling my body to do it, I folded into a deep, knees-closed squat, my ass to my ankles, my knees in my chest. I wrapped my arms around the back of my head as I pressed my face into my knees, feeling the soft fur of Billie’s decimated teddy bear brushing my cheek.

“Fuck,” I heard Mitch mutter.

I was sobbing into my knees, oblivious to everything but the hatred and ugliness that surrounded me. All that was hideous about the home I grew up in washing through my life, the one I’d worked so hard to build, the one I desperately wanted to give Billy and Billie. As ever, all I knew, all I was, all that was contained in the blood flowing through my veins shredding everything good that I worked so hard to have.

More fool I that I thought I’d ever get away from it, escape it. Ever.

I felt myself moving and then I was in Mitch’s arms. I wound mine around his neck, pressed my face in his throat and sobbed silently against his skin as he carried me through my apartment. I vaguely heard the police tape tearing off the doorframe and we were in the breezeway. Then we were in Mitch’s apartment.

“Oh fuck,” I heard Bray whisper. “That doesn’t look like it went too well.”

I didn’t lift my head and Mitch didn’t pause in walking as I heard him issue orders.

“Go get LaTanya,” Mitch said to Bray. “Mara’ll need stuff for a while. Tell her she needs to be careful about what she touches; she only touches what she’s bringin’ over. Nothin’ else. Can you do that for Mara?”

“Absolutely,” Bradon replied.

Then Mitch was moving funny and I vaguely noticed he was no longer standing but sitting. I was folded in his lap, his arms tight around me. This didn’t register except that I burrowed deeper and held on tighter, pressing my face hard into his neck.

One of his hands started stroking my back. I felt his head tilt down and his lips at my ear.

“It’s okay, baby, everything’s gonna be okay,” he whispered there.

“I wah…worked so hard,” I stammered back.

“I know,” Mitch replied gently.

“I wah…worked so hard to be eh…eh…everything they weren’t. To have duh…decent things around me,” I stuttered into his skin. “Wah…wah…why do they hate me so much? What did I ever do to them except bah…bah…breathe?”

Mitch didn’t respond but he kept his head tilted to me, I could feel his cheek pressed against my hair and I felt his hand moving, warm and soothing on my back. After a while it penetrated that this felt nice and when it did, my tears started to subside.

Mitch heard it and repeated, “Everything’s gonna be okay, Mara.”

I nodded against his neck not believing him for a second.

In a cautious voice, he asked, “Do you have renter’s insurance?”

I blinked at his neck. Then I pulled my face out of it, his head came up and my watery eyes went to his.

“Pardon?”

“Renter’s insurance, baby, do you have it?”

Oh my God! I did! I totally did! I had maximum protection! The insurance guy was in fits of ecstasy when I signed on the dotted line. He said no one opted for my policy. He even told me that although it went against the grain, he advised I didn’t need that much protection. I didn’t care. It was my experience if something bad could happen, it would and I was always planning for that day.

And that day had come.

Relief swept through me so strong, I pulled back from Mitch but only so I could do the exact same thing I did the night before. I placed a hand on either side of his handsome head and pulled his face to me as I leaned and kissed him hard and quick on his mouth.

Then I yanked back and threw both my arms up in the air, smiling big and saying loudly, “I do! I have maximum protection!” I dropped my arms, wrapped my hands around his neck and bent my forehead to touch his, closing my eyes hard and I breathed, “Thank God. I forgot. Thank God.” I opened my eyes and looked into his. “I’m covered. We’re covered. Thank God!”

I watched close up as his fathomless, dark brown eyes smiled. Then I felt close up as his attractive deep voice rumbled, “That’s good, honey.”

Then I realized I was in Detective Mitch Lawson’s lap, my hands curled around his neck and not only had I just kissed him (again), I had my forehead on his.

I jerked back and one second later I found myself on my back in what was a bed, Mitch’s bed, and Mitch’s torso was pinning me to it.

Oh boy.

“Mitch,” I breathed, staring up at him with what I knew were wide eyes.

“You’re on a wicked roller coaster ride, sweetheart, I get that, it sucks and I’m sorry. But I saw it comin’ over you, you were about to close down on me and I’m tellin’ you I’m not gonna let you do that. Not after what you just saw and not after how you reacted and especially not how you came right outta that cocoon and gave me you. For ten minutes I had the real Mara in my arms, her light shining unfiltered all around me. I liked it and I’m not givin’ it back so don’t fuckin’ think you can take it from me.”

My heart started beating double time and I whispered, “Mitch, I can’t –”

“You can, I know you can because you just did,” he cut me off, lifted his hand to frame one side of my face, his thumb sweeping across the wetness still on my cheek. “I do not want to freak you more than you’re freaked and I’ll preface this by sayin’ that whatever is goin’ down I’m in this for the long haul, for you, for those kids, you have my promise on that, sweetheart. But my guess is it wasn’t the Trailer Trash Twins who did that to your place.”

I gasped at this news and he kept talking.

“Someone was lookin’ for somethin’, Mara, somethin’ they want really badly. That wasn’t vandalism. That was desperation.”

And that was when my heart stopped beating double time because it stopped beating altogether.

Finally I forced out a, “What?”

Mitch didn’t repeat himself. Instead he stated, “Seems I’m gonna have to start diggin’ a little deeper into your cousin Bill.”

Oh no. Oh shit. Oh no!

“Was that…” I swallowed, “was that the Russian mob?”

He shook his head. “The Russian mob don’t act desperate. I don’t know what that was and I don’t know who but I’m gonna find out.”

Oh boy. The way he said that made me believe he was going to do it and stop at nothing in order to do it.

“Mitch –”

He kept talking over me. “And while I do that, Mara, I’m keepin’ you safe. I’m keepin’ those kids safe and you don’t have a choice in that, sweetheart. That’s just the way it’s gonna be.”

Oh boy. The way he said that made me believe he was going to do it and stop at nothing to do it.

“I think –” I started.

“No thinking. No discussion. Nothing. Mara, I told you that’s the way it’s gonna be, I mean that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

He stared down at me. I stared up at him. Then I closed my eyes tight and saw flashes of the destruction of my apartment so I opened them fast.

Then I asked quietly, “Do you think we’re, um…unsafe?”

“I don’t give a fuck if you are or you aren’t. You’re gonna be,” he promised.

I stared up at him. He stared down at me.

Then I made a decision because it wasn’t just me I had to protect from the forces outside I had no control over. Forces that could do that to my home which meant they might be forces that could do worse things, such as hurt Billy, Billie or me. And I couldn’t put me protecting myself against all things Detective Mitch Lawson before the safety of Billy and Billie.

So before I could chicken out, I whispered, “Okay.”

Mitch stared down at me. Then his eyes roamed my face while his thumb did another sweep of my cheek.

When they captured mine, they were warm, a whoosh swooped through my belly and he whispered back, “Okay.”