Among the Shrouded, page 11
Her father looked at her indifferently. “I’m sorry. But I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Well, I was. And it got me thinking. Maybe I was right about Thomas after all. Maybe the reason I can’t see his aura is related to him and maybe that reason has absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe I was wrong to have discounted my abilities.”
“Maybe you were,” Rosetti confirmed.
“But,” she continued, “if I was wrong about him then maybe I was right about the commissioner.”
“Aw, Honey, not this again.”
“Yes, Dad, this again. You don’t know what I know. You don’t see what I see. I think it might be worth looking into.”
“Officer Rosetti,” he said, his voice suddenly authoritative so it was clear to her he was no longer addressing her as a parent, “I have been a police officer for thirty one years. I pride myself on the work I’ve done and the work I do every day. Do you think for one minute I would support someone who I thought had any chance of being a less than honorable man?”
She remained silent.
“Do you?” he asked again, his voice rising and his composure crumbling.
“No, Chief.”
“No is right! So I don’t know what you think you’ve seen or what story you’ve concocted in your own mind regarding the commissioner, but I’ve heard the last of it. The commissioner comes highly regarded from the top echelon of the law enforcement community. If he’s good enough for them, he’s good enough for me.”
He paused momentarily. As she stood from her seat and turned to leave the room, Rosetti spoke once more in the same authoritative voice.
“And Mia, as for the lineup guy… stay away from him.”
She left the room without responding. Instead of returning to her office, she headed to the women’s restroom where she braced herself against the aging pedestal sink and gazed into the hazy, patinaed mirror at herself. Although she felt as though she was crumbling from the inside out, she was surprised to see her outward appearance portrayed none of the internal destruction she knew was taking place. Until the recent developments with the commissioner and Thomas, she had always been confident in herself and her abilities. But now, for the first time in her life, she felt the entire foundation of her self-assurance collapsing beneath her. She was hopelessly and desperately alone.
She splashed her face with cool water and dried herself with a paper towel. She wished she could call Chelsea, as what she really needed was a sympathetic ear, but she didn’t want to interrupt her vacation. She considered other people in her life she could turn to and strangely, she found herself thinking of Thomas. In the short span of time she’d known him, she had already begun to feel he would be someone safe to confide in. Unfortunately, after the events of the night before, she now knew that wasn’t actually the case.
Back in her office, she found Jack in the middle of logging evidence into the police database from yet another meth house. He didn’t move his eyes from the computer screen as she entered the room.
“What’s shakin’ bacon?” he asked.
“Not much,” she replied. “Do you want some help?”
“Yeah. Sure. If you read them out to me, I’ll be able to log this stuff faster,” Jack replied. As he handed her the file, he finally looked at her face.
“You’ve been crying,” he said.
“No,” she replied.
“Mia, I grew up in a household of sisters. I’m married to the most emotional woman on the planet. I know when someone’s been crying. You don’t have to talk to me about it, but don’t lie to me and tell me you haven’t been crying.”
“Fine,” she acknowledged. “I’ve been crying. Are you happy now?”
“No. I’m not happy you’ve been crying. But I am happy you aren’t lying to me anymore.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
She began reading out file numbers and their corresponding articles to be categorized in the database. Test tubes, burners, chemical solutions, weapons, meth… the list seemed endless. After twenty minutes of logging, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer.
“I told Thomas about my aura thing and he bailed. I thought he was a good guy, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe the fact he doesn’t have an aura is real. If that’s real, then maybe the commissioner’s dark aura is real too.”
Jack took a deep breath and pushed his chair away from the desk, stretching his back and legs in the process.
“Okay,” he said. “Well, all that sucks. But which part of it has you the most upset?”
She thought for several moments. She knew she should be more upset about the commissioner than she was about Thomas because clearly, the ramifications of having an evil man at the helm of the entire Baltimore City Police Department were huge. However, if she was being honest with herself, losing Thomas was a far more devastating blow.
When she didn’t speak, Jack interjected. “That’s what I thought,” he said.
“What did you think?”
“It’s the guy.”
“So what if it is the guy?”
“Nothing. So what if it is?”
“I just thought he was different. I thought, maybe, just maybe, I’d found someone who might be worth it all. We just clicked together, like puzzle pieces. Or we did, until I told him.”
“He freaked out?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. Big time.”
“Mia, do you remember when you told me about the auras?”
“Yeah.”
“I freaked out.”
“No. You didn’t. You were fine.”
“Mia,” Jack said, “I’m telling you. I freaked out. I didn’t say anything because, well, for better or worse, I was stuck with you for a partner…”
“Hey!” she said, poking him in the arm with a pencil.
“All I mean is that it took me some time to wrap my head around it. Once I saw what you could do and how it worked, it became an easier pill to swallow. And you have to admit, it’s weird, Mia.”
“Yeah. It’s weird I guess.” She drummed the pencil in her hand on the desk. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, give the guy some time. Let him get a hold of it. From his perspective, you went from this nice, normal, girl next door to a carnival attraction in two seconds.”
“Hey! Watch it, Buster!” She paused. “I guess you’re right though,” she relented.
“I know I’m right. I’ve been in his shoes. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but give your lineup guy a break on this one. He does anything else to you, I’ll break his neck, but for this one, I’m on his side.”
“Fine.”
“Now, you wanna talk about the commissioner?”
“No. Not really.”
“Okay then.”
They logged half a dozen articles into the system.
“Do you want to talk about the commissioner?” she asked.
“Honestly?” Jack asked, looking up from the computer screen once again.
“Honestly.”
“No,” he replied.
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because nothing good can come of it. Let’s say you are right, and the guy is rotten to the core. What exactly can we do about it? We can’t cry foul on your hunch. He’d actually have to do something illegal. On the other hand, let’s say you’re wrong and the commissioner is the salt of the earth but you go stirring up rumors he’s a criminal. Then what? Best case, you lose your job. Worst case, you end up in prison for libel.”
“So what should I do? Nothing?”
“Maybe we can just keep our eyes open. See if we notice anything strange going on. Other than that, I think we do nothing,” Jack explained.
“Okay. Then we watch and wait.”
“Watch and wait,” Jack agreed.
“Thanks,” she said.
“For what?”
“For everything.”
CHAPTER
20
THOMAS
His fingers moved across the keys in slow waves of black and white. Without thinking about which notes he was actually playing, his mind was squarely focused on Mia and the bizarre information she had disclosed to him the night before. He didn’t realize his melody was winding its way through the house, into the back hallway and up the stairs. He was unaware it had woken Mildred from her sleep.
She appeared behind him in her robe and slippers and placed her hands gently on his shoulders.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice thick with both worry and fear.
“Nothing,” he responded without removing his fingers from the keys.
“Thomas Pritchett, I have been your mother for eleven years now and in all that time I’ve only heard you play this piece twice before. Once when you arrived and once when Dad died. So when I wake up this morning to this melody again, don’t you tell me nothing’s wrong.”
He stopped playing and turned on the piano bench to face his mother. Although he had always been grateful for her well placed concern, he was, at the moment, unable to explain to her what he was feeling.
“Is this about the girl? Mia? Did the date go poorly?”
He shook his head, upset at himself for being unable to shrug free of his strange connection to her. As much as he had tried throughout the night, he found he was unable to unwind himself from her.
“Thomas?” Mildred said, lifting his face to meet hers.
“The date was good. Great even. She’s an amazing woman. She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s courageous. She’s beautiful.” He stopped, unable to go on.
“It sounds like you are really falling for this girl. So what happened?” Mildred asked, sitting on the bench beside him.
“She’s a fraud.”
“A fraud?”
“Yeah. A fraud. A phony. A liar.”
“What would make you say that?” Mildred asked.
“She told me she can see people’s ‘auras.’ She says when she looks at people she can see if they are good or bad by what kind of light they have around them. It’s so much crap. I don’t know why she would say something like that to me. She’s no better than Madame Freakshow. They’re liars, both of them.”
Mildred was quiet for a moment and he watched as she ran her fingers over the veins in her aging hands. He knew she was choosing her words carefully so as not to upset him. Finally, she spoke, quietly but with unwavering resolve.
“Why do you think she would tell you that?”
“Exactly! Why would she feel the need to lie to me?”
“Has it occurred to you that maybe she’s not lying? Or at the very least, that maybe she believes what she’s saying is true?”
He considered his mother beside him on the bench. He knew she was a religious woman and had always warned him of being wary of those who claimed to have what she called supernatural powers.
“Are you suggesting she can actually tell if someone is good or bad just by looking at them? That’s crazy! I won’t allow people in my life that can’t be trusted. Never again.”
“I’m just saying that it sounds to me like she has no reason to lie to you. That’s all. Nothing more. What do you think she was hoping to gain by telling you about this ability of hers?”
“I don’t know? Maybe she wanted me to think she was special or something.”
“Does that sound like something she would do?”
“No,” he admitted.
“And before this admission of hers, did she give you any reason at all for you to believe she was untrustworthy in any way?” Mildred asked.
“No.”
The two sat in silence for several minutes.
“Faith,” Mildred said finally, “involves believing in things you cannot see. And sometimes it involves believing in people. So until this Mia of yours gives you a reason to believe she is not a trustworthy person, perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“Really?”
“Really. Thomas, you bought a new shirt for this girl for crying out loud. She’s got to be pretty special,” she said, smiling warmly at him. The sincerity of her smile crinkled the skin at the corners of her eyes and lit up her entire face. Slowly, he could feel that she was beginning to tear down his self-made wall.
“She is, Ma. She’s an incredible woman. But why in the world would she go all paranormal on me? You know what my life was like with The Freakshow. I can’t go through that again.”
“So have faith in Mia. She’s not that woman. She’s not. She’s a girl who thinks for whatever reason she can do something that seems improbable but that you have no way of verifying one way or another. So, for now, for argument’s sake, assume she’s telling you the truth.”
“Can I do that?” he asked.
“Can’t you?” Mildred replied.
“Yes,” he answered, surprising himself with his acknowledgement.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he said, standing from the bench and walking toward the steps.
“What are you doing?” Mildred asked.
“If I hurry, I can still make it to work at Belinda’s on time,” he called over his shoulder, taking the steps two at a time. Halfway up he stopped, turned on his heel, and headed back down the steps to where Mildred was still perched on the piano bench. He bent down to give her a hug and placed a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Thanks, Ma,” he said, “you’re the best.”
Mondays were always busy at Belinda’s. He was happy for the distraction the steady flow of patrons provided. He passed from one table to the next, an invisible entity among the customers. As he cleared dishes and swept crumbs from the tables, people would continue their conversations, oblivious to his presence.
He was always amazed by the discussions he was privy to over the course of the years. He had heard women discussing intimate details of their sexual liaisons with men who weren’t their husbands. He heard businessmen discussing illegal stock transactions. He had watched patrons drink from other people’s glasses and steal from their friend’s wallets.
As he was clearing one of the last tables of the afternoon, he noticed a group of unfamiliar men sitting at a four top in the corner of the restaurant. Most of Belinda’s weekday customers were regulars who he knew by face if not by name, so it seemed strange that he had never seen this particular group of men before. They were laughing amongst themselves and had grown increasingly boisterous with each bottle of wine they had uncorked. By the time the bill was paid, he was relieved for the peace that was restored as the last of the men left through the main entrance. He quickly locked the doors behind them and reversed the sign which hung on the glass to ‘closed.’
It was customary for him to finish his assigned closing duties, clock out, and then linger with Belinda and some of the other staff while they prepared the dough for the following day. On this day however, after he’d reset all of the tables for the following morning and emptied the trash, he punched his time card and headed out the door.
The bus ride to the police station would prove to be the longest twenty-five minutes of the day.
CHAPTER
21
KATE
The flight to America was long. And loud. And cold. There was no heating system on board and without their luggage, the three women had only the clothes they were wearing for warmth. Kate eventually convinced the others to risk unbuckling themselves from their seats so they could huddle together on the floor. However, their attempt at using one another’s body heat to stay warm proved to be only moderately successful.
During the course of their ten hour trip, it was as if the girls had established an unspoken pact to ignore the strangeness of their situation. They chose instead to discuss the future their American adventure was going to provide.
“What do you think our apartment will be like?” Lera asked as she rubbed her hands together.
“I saw on an American television show that all of their apartments have stone floors and walls made of marble. And there are crystal chandeliers and huge bathrooms and rooms to put your clothes that you can walk inside! Can you imagine having a whole room just for your clothes?” Anya gushed.
“I can’t imagine having so many clothes that I would need an entire room for them,” she said. “My sisters and I have one wardrobe for all three of us.”
“How many people do you think will be there?” asked Anya. “Do you think it will just be the three of us?”
“That would be nice, but I bet there will be others. I was hoping there would be a few boys,” Lera said smiling.
“Speaking of boys,” Anya added, “what do you think the chances are that I will be able to meet an American boy and secure a green card so I will never have to go back to the Ukraine again?”
“I’d say pretty good if that’s what you want,” she said.
“That’s what I want,” Anya said. “If I never step foot in the Ukraine again, it will be fine with me. My future is in America.”
“Henry and Patrick are expecting us to return home so we can improve our country,” she said. “You won’t be helping your family if you never go back.”
“My family never helped me,” said Anya frankly. “I don’t owe them or the country anything. Everything in my life, I’ve earned on my own.”
“Well, I’ll be going back,” she said. “My sisters and my parents are counting on me. And I owe everything I have to them. So, American boy or not, I’ll be going back home.”
“Me too,” said Lera. “I have three little brothers who need me. My father died six months ago. I was able to finish out this semester because it was already paid for, but without my father’s income, there is no more money for school. There is really no more money for anything. I’m going to save everything I can to send home to them. And please don’t tell, but I won’t be using the money I earn for school. I can’t. Not when my brothers need to eat.”
“I won’t tell,” she said.
“Me neither,” agreed Anya.
The girls struggled to keep warm and leaned against one another for support as the plane sped toward America at forty thousand feet. At some point during the trip, the adrenaline of the day having long since worn off, she found she could no longer keep her eyes open. Mercifully, she drifted off to sleep.
