Chapter 12

© Copyright 2006 by Elizabeth Delayne



When the phone rang, Gabriel blinked wearily at the clock. It was 3:30 in the morning. He reached for his phone and pushed back his hair as he tossed off the covers and sat up.

“Flynn.”

“It’s Donnagan. We have a break in the Rossi case. I think you may want to come down here.”

Gabriel got dressed as he listened to sketchy details. A man, fitting Rossi’s description had entered the Harris residence just after midnight. The elderly man had gotten out of bed for some water and ended up with a flesh wound from a knife.

The weapon had yet to be confirmed, but preliminary investigation indicated that it was ... or was similar to, the weapon used to stab Nicole.

What Gabriel found interesting is that Rossi made off with over one thousand dollars worth of cash. It fit what Nicole had told him. Her father would have scouted out the house. He would have made sure that such a move as breaking and entering, was worth the risk. He knew the patterns of people, had picked the Harris’s out.

Gabriel would have to ask Nicole how.

He arrived at the residence thirty minutes later. The Harris’s had been taken to the hospital. Gabriel walked the property with his deputy.

Donnagan took him through the back.

“He came through here,” Donnagan twisted the lock that had already been photographed and finger printed. He ran a finger around the edge. “We don’t get this much skill around here. If Harris hadn’t of seen him come through, we wouldn’t have known for sure.”

Gabriel dipped and studied the lock. If he hadn’t known what to look for he would have missed it. The scratches were barely perceptible, but they were there. He’d seen this before—back in New Jersey. Slip in, slip out, and leave people guessing.

Donnagan was right. They didn’t get many professionals down this way.

* * *

The next afternoon, after church, Jason, Nicole and Dusty were invited to the Lewis’s for lunch. Dusty was walking out back with the other two boys. He hadn’t exactly taken to them, but he could communicate with them–and he seemed more at ease then he had been since coming south.

No father looking over his shoulder ready to back hand him.

And hopefully no danger of social services ready to whisk him away.

So he walked with them, dragging his feet through the grass. He pretended to ignore them—just enough to stay in the background of the conversation.

But he was interested. Nicole knew the score enough to understand.

Nicole turned her attention to the Reverend. He looked different, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, barbeque tools of the trade in his hand as he dealt with a myriad of meats on the grill. He wore no collar, no robe, and hadn’t even when he was at church.

“It didn’t look like a church.”

He glanced up at her, not exactly in surprise, and smiled. “No–I don’t guess it does. We got to big for the old building and the old warehouse was just sitting there.”

It hadn’t seemed like a church either–more like a concert or a party.

“You went to the third service.”

Nicole nodded. It had been what Jason called the guitar service. They’d gone because Jason had felt that the music would mean more to Dusty. Or maybe it had been Mrs. Lewis who had made the recommendation. Nicole wasn’t quite sure who understood her younger brother.

But someone had. The service was a bit loud–and Dusty had been enthralled. He’d stopped watching Julie for long periods of time and had just ... watched.

“I should have brought your book back to you. I didn’t think.”

“No bother,” the Reverend said. “It was my son’s ... and he hasn’t been around in a long time to read it.” He glanced over to where Laeton leaned against the deck railing beside Julie. “And today his mind seems to be on other things.”

Nicole smiled a little. Jason and Trisha were sitting to one side with Mrs. Lewis. Laeton was there, and his brother was in the background with one of his friends. The younger boys tended to pester them–it was surreal.

She thought of Narnia, of the children walking through the world of perpetual winter ... walking through the unknown, only to find out they were kings and queens of a distant world.

That, she thought, was surreal.

She looked over and watched as the back gate opened. Gabriel stepped through and lifted a hand to Jason. She felt herself shrink, as if she could retreat. It wasn’t just that he wore his badge, but there was that look in his eyes. Nicole froze.

He’d found her father, she thought.

And then Gabriel turned and looked at her.

No—she realized—it wasn’t over ... but something had happened.

She felt a hand on her back and woodenly allowed herself to be led over to the man who stared at her with the judgmental eyes of a cop.

Jason sat down on the sofa beside Nicole and watched Gabriel as he began to go over the details. Gabriel paced. He fidgeted. Jason knew enough to realize that the unanswered questions were bothering his friend.

Why now?

Where was Joe Rossi?

And Jason’s own question.

How safe was Nicole?

“I went over by your house, thinking you would have been there,” he picked an evidence back up off the table. “I found this on the back porch. On the steps.”

Jason and Gabriel exchanged a worried look. They both knew Joe Rossi could have gotten into the house, bypassed the security. Nicole had done it, and Joe Rossi was more of a professional.

But he’d left what was ever in the bag on the back steps where Nicole was prone to sit. Where she had been sitting last night.

Jason watched as Nicole took the bag. Watched her freeze.

Watched the first traces of panic as her hand shook.

Jason stared at the bag, noticed the locket.

“Can you explain what this means?” Gabriel asked.

Nicole swallowed. “It’s a ... a locket.”

“Mrs. Harris’s locket.”

“I ...” she looked at Jason. He took her hand, held it firm. Her own hand was cold, clammy. “It’s a long story.”

She stared at the locket, lost in thought. Lost, Jason thought.

She looked at Jason, then set the bag down. Away from her, he thought.

“You ... have to understand ... there was a time when I ... when I wanted my father’s love more than anything in the world. I didn’t understand that at the time. But the psychologist at the pen helped me through it. I just ...” she stood, walked toward the window. “I just thought that maybe ... if I did one thing. Just one, he would look at me with pride. Just ... look at me ...”

Jason frowned. She’d needed her father more because he’d left her. Because he’d left her and promised to return.

And hadn’t.

“I remember the first time I got something for him. I got him a wallet with over a hundred dollars. He was so proud of me. He took me down to Benny’s and showed me off to his friends. We paid for our meal with that money. I ... I don’t know what he did with the rest. But I saved the man’s credit cards for a long time. I thought I could pay him back. Then one day I just realized it was hopeless. I would never have the money to pay the man back.”

She wrapped her arms around herself as she stared out the window, and began to rock. “It got worse. I did ... I began to handled bigger jobs. I got good at it. And he was proud of me. I thought he was proud of me.”

“Joe Rossi only thinks of himself,” Jason spat.

“But I wanted out,” she turned to Jason, sought his gaze. “You have to believe that I wanted out.”

Jason held her gaze and nodded. He knew. For as much as she had Joe Rossi in her, she also was blessed with Amelia Rossi.

And Nicole, more then himself, would have remembered her mama.

And of course there were prayers—prayers he thought futile, laying in a dark, smelly room, unable to even help himself.

He’d forgotten that. Forgotten that he’d prayed for her, prayed for her when he was still uncertain who he prayed to.

“And one day I met Sarah ...” Nicole swallowed and blinked back tears. “Sarah Brown. I met her at the library. She loved ... books. She was an elderly woman and her youngest daughter ... Emily ... had recently lost a battle with cancer. She would just sit and talk to me. We got to where we looked for each other when we were at the library. We got to where we went to the library more and more. Then one day she offered her home. She offered to let me live with her and go to school. Then I would have the money to go to school.

“I thought ... I thought it was a way out. She had this big house on Long Island ... so far away from everything I knew. Everything that I had become.

“I never intended to take her money. She offered me a place to stay, where I could go to school. Where I could stay away from the ... old neighborhood. I had these plans. I would get a job, find a place and go get Dusty. Things were fine until ...”

“Until our father found you.”

Jason could see it now. Joe Rossi wouldn’t have been able to resist. Instead of seeing that his daughter had found a way to survive outside the old neighborhood, he would have seen how the situation could benefit himself.

Nicole nodded.

“He showed up one day when I was walking Sarah’s dog in the park. He used Dusty. Talked about how people would never suspect a deaf boy. How he was beginning to work him. It scared me. I had just gone home to see him just that ... that weekend. He was staying with a family friend at the time.”

“But ... but Joe ... he had gone to get Dusty that day, taken him to live with him. Used him to reach me.”

“All I had to do was take the money. Just move her money from one account to another. Strip her of most of her savings ... for Dusty,” she swallowed. “He said he would never bother me again. He would never bother Dusty again. I knew he was lying. I knew. But I hoped ... I just had hope.”

“So you took the lady’s money,” this came from Gabriel.

Nicole nodded. “It seemed so simple ... I had learned to ... compartmentalize my emotions. I learned that in prison to. I just pushed aside the love I felt for Sarah and just ... did. I just ... did it.”

“But your father didn’t leave you alone.”

“He didn’t have to,” Nicole murmured. “As I was leaving Sarah’s house, I took her locket. It had a picture of Emily. She loved that locket ... I didn’t know why I wanted it at the time. I didn’t know why I took it. I just, I had always wanted that locket. I was stupid. Irrational. I just wanted ...”

“To feel loved.”

Nicole nodded.

“And the police found the locket in your belongings when they finally found you.” Jason concluded, remembering the information he’d gathered years ago when he’d tried to look Nicole up.

“They found the locket, but not the money. The prosecution wouldn’t listen about my father. They wanted a deal. Sarah’s health was failing. She couldn’t handle a trial.” Nicole closed her eyes. “She had to sell her beautiful home. Move in with her daughter. The one who’d move away, who’d forgotten her ...”

Gabriel walked over and picked up the bag and stared down at the locket. “So this was a message. He knew how it would hurt you to see it.”

“He wouldn’t think of the hurt,” Jason said as he finally got up, went to Nicole. He put his arm around her, drew her close. “But it was a message. He wants her to know she’ll never get away from him. She’ll never get away from her past.”



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