Chapter Twenty
Once again I was in the interrogation room with Griffin, only this time I was the one with an icepack on my face.
“Do you actually think before you do things?” asked Griffin.
“Usually yes,” I said, touching the icepack against my bruised cheek gingerly. “But lately things seem to be getting away from my control. Is Sean okay?”
“He’s in the other room talking to Ramos.”
Despite the pain I smiled. “That’ll make him happy.”
“Why is that?” Griffin asked.
“He’s a teenage boy and she’s hot.” I lowered my voice. “So what happens now?”
“Well,” said Griffin, “Mendoza is going away for a while. Adam Hendricks has agreed to press charges so he’s going down for kidnapping and assault at least. Sean’s mother and her boyfriend are also pressing charges but we don’t really need them to make the case. Probably just as well as I’m assuming you’re going to press charges against the boyfriend for assault.”
“Hell, yes,” I said.
Griffin nodded approvingly. “Thanks to Sean’s photos and a search we’ve done on Mendoza’s house, he’ll be going down on drugs charges. We’ve also got him on firearms charges. Mendoza’s insisting he didn’t kill Ryan Hendricks, but the situation now gives us enough reason to do a deeper investigation into the tox screen on his body. We can see if there is anything that we don’t know about that’s been injected in Ryan’s system. Lucky for everyone involved, it looks like Mendoza’s Uncle Johnny has decided he’s too much trouble and maybe a stint in jail will do him some good. He’s cutting him loose so there shouldn’t be any threatened reprisals against anyone.”
That was good. I really wanted to keep off the mobster’s radar. My face throbbed.
“Man, this hurts,” I said.
“A hit to the face always does.” Griffin smiled, obviously remembering the one I had given him. I grinned at the memory.
“What’s the smile for?” asked Griffin. I would have thought it looked more like a grimace considering how much my face hurt, but obviously Griffin had a different interpretation.
“I’ve got to say, a couple of years ago I would never have seen this happening to me.”
“Why is that?” asked Griffin.
“Two years ago I was living in the town I was born in. I was engaged to my best friend. I was going to get married, have children and live in that town forever.”
Griffin cocked an eyebrow. “Doesn’t really sound like you.”
“It was back then,” I said reflectively.
“What happened?” asked Griffin.
“I got slapped up the side of the head with a dose of reality,” I said, surprised to find the old note of bitterness in my voice. I really thought I had let it all go, obviously I hadn’t. Griffin just sat there. He didn’t push and I knew if I stopped talking he wouldn’t press me for anymore.
“Paul was my best friend from when we were kids. We got engaged on my twenty first birthday. Paul and our life together was everything to me. I worked in a job I didn’t really enjoy to save money for our future. A couple of years ago we went out with friends one night. I didn’t want to go but it was expected that I would. I wanted to leave after a couple of hours but Paul wanted to stay. One of his friends offered to drive him home so I headed out early. On my way home a car coming the other way swerved and ran right into me. Found out the guy was drunk. I woke up in hospital a week later unable to feel my legs. I had some swelling near my spine. Everyone was hoping it would just be a mild bruising but at that stage no one knew if I was going to walk again. We hoped, but we didn’t know. Paul wasn’t there when I woke up. I asked for him and nobody would give me a direct answer as to where he was. A few days later Paul walked in with some flowers. It was obvious his family had made him come. Everyone left us alone and Paul told me that he was sorry but he didn’t love me enough to be a full time caregiver for a cripple. That was the last I saw of him.”
I looked over at Griffin and he looked angry. “What happened then?”
“I was one of the lucky ones,” I said, smiling. “A few days later I started getting feeling back in my legs. I went into rehab and it took six months of work but I was able to walk again and then run again. While I was in the rehab center I took a good look at my life. I had lived my whole life towards the goal of marrying Paul. I had never actually taken the time to work out what I wanted, except for some silly dreams when I was a kid. That accident gave me the opportunity. I decided I wanted to travel. Took the insurance money from the accident and bought a ticket for London. Got some work there and met Monique, and that is why I am sitting in this interrogation room with an icepack on my face,” I laughed ruefully.
“So this guy, Paul,” Griffin growled, “ever speak to him or hear of him?”
I laughed. “Lord no, he lives in my home town but as far as my family is concerned he is dead to them. They don’t mention his name. I have had no contact with him for two years.”
“Still holding a candle for him?” Griffin asked insistently.
“No, strangely enough I think I grieved more for the life I lost than for him. I trusted him completely and he wasn’t worth that trust. I won’t say I don’t have baggage from that mess but I’m not going to let it stop me living the life I want now.”
A knock interrupted us and a uniformed cop poked his head through the door. “Sorry, Detective, but the old lady is getting a little bit antsy.”
Great, Miss Betsy did not do inactivity well. I passed the icepack to Griffin.
“Thanks for that, I’d better get her and Sean home.”
“What are you going to do with the kid?” Griffin asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “I don’t want him out on the streets and he can’t go back to his mom. I think I’ll talk to Reggie and see what our options are for him.”
“He’s lucky you found him. Not many kids in his position end up with someone who is willing to face down three guns for them.”
I shrugged and headed to where Sean was drooling over Ramos. To give the poor woman credit she seemed to be embarrassed by the obvious adoration from the teenager. Grabbing his arm I dragged him to where Miss Betsy was haranguing some poor cop who looked barely older than Sean.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
“Do you know what this child is trying to do? He is trying to take my gun away from me.”
Personally I was with the cop on this one. The more I saw Miss Betsy’s attitude to that piece of metal, the more I was thinking that separating her from it was a good idea. Griffin came up and tapped the cop on the shoulder.
“That’s okay, Miss Peterman, we’ve checked all your paperwork and it all seems to be in order.”
“Of course it is,” she said indignantly as she was handed her gun.
She then swept out of the station with Sean and me traveling in her wake. The drive back to the apartment complex was silent except for the quiet snores coming from Sean in the backseat. It seemed no matter what happened, a teenage boy could not be denied their sleep.
“So,” said Miss Betsy, “your jerk of a fiancé ran out on you.”
“How did you hear that?” I asked incredulously.
“They let me watch in the two way mirror. I was kind of hoping for a bit more action between you and the hot cop but I heard your story instead. Why did you never tell me about it? I told you everything about my bum of a husband.”
“I don’t know. I think I needed to put it far behind me. I didn’t want to be that person again I guess. I never argued with Paul. Whatever he wanted, I did. I always wanted to keep the peace. When I look back on it I’m not particularly proud of the woman I was. The way I’ve spoken to Griffin, I would never have spoken to Paul like that.”
“Griffin doesn’t seem to mind, seems he likes the way you stand up to him.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said, a slight blush creeping up my ne
ck.
“One thing I will say, the bum hurt you years ago. Don’t let him ruin your future as well, because he will if you let him.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I asked.
“After I kicked out Lester, I was so bitter and hurt. There was a man, a good man who was a friend. I was so full of anger that I missed the opportunity that I could have had with him. Don’t make the same mistake that I did. The best revenge you can get on the bum is to not let him damage you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll try and remember that. If you do see me making that mistake feel free to kick me in the pants and remind me.”
Miss Betsy laughed. “Don’t think that I won’t, missy, don’t think that I won’t.” She was quiet for a moment as if making a decision. “So what are we going to do with the boy?” she asked, nodding her head in Sean’s direction.
“I don’t know. Do you think he could just stay with me for a while?” I asked.
“You don’t really have the room do you? He can’t live on the couch forever.”
“No, I guess not,” I said quietly.
“Don’t you worry about it dearie. Let me think on it for a bit and we’ll work out something.”