Chapter 23
© Copyright 2007 by Elizabeth Delayne
I’ve just always wanted you to be my ... my papa.
Joe’s hand shook as he stared through the silence.
“Joe. Mr. Rossi. Joe ...” Julie said softly,” Julie said softly, her calm voice breaking into the rancid heat. She’d noticed something ... seen something oddly wild in his eyes when he’d spoken of his wife.
“ What is it that ... Amelia wanted?”
Joe blinked, turned toward her.
Took his focus off Nicole.
Julie drew in a breath. His eyes were still wild, but not focused on Nicole. She needed to keep his focus off Nicole. There was madness there. Some sick form of desperation.
“You loved her.” Julie continued, in the same low voice. “You love her still. I can see it in your eyes, Joe. Why all this? Why do all this? Go for all this money?”
For a long time he just stared at her, the questions laying between them. Then it was as if he slid back, to some unknown time and place. And he was Joe. Amelia’s Joe.
“Italy.”
“She wanted Italy?”
“She was sick. We ... I told her I would find a way to take her. She would be better then. The Italian countryside would be better for her. The city. It is too ... Dark.”
“You were going to buy her some land in Italy.”
“Somewhere in the country. In Northern Italy. We were going away. I was going to take her. Buy her a piece of land. We were going to go.” His hand dropped a little and Julie’s gaze sharpened. “I’ll buy it and go and she’ll go and we’ll be happy.”
“Amelia’s not here anymore.”
“She’ll be with me. She’ll be there. She wanted to go. We were planning ... I promised ...” his voice broke and she saw what she had expected—the shell of a sad, pitiful old man.
Julie glanced toward Nicole and Trisha, saw that Nicole’s hand was locked with Trisha’s. Nicole’s eyes were on her father, and their were tears in them.
Julie looked away toward the shadows shifting on the open door. Calm, she thought. She would stay calm.
“So all the money, it was for land ... in Italy?”
“It was important to her. She’ll come to me. She’ll be there with me. I promised to take her. She would get better there. She would be ...”
“With money taken from other people? With her children sacrificed?”
“She wanted to go,” his voice cracked, his words coming out as a sob. “It was all she wanted. She was so sick. I wanted to be able to take her. She will be better there.”
“A family. She wanted a family. Her family. Joe,” Julie murmured as she took another step closer. “You can see your Amelia in Nicole. Nicole is part of your Amelia.”
“I ... can’t. She’ll wanted the Italian countryside. My Amelia. She just always wanted to go.”
“You haven’t lost Amelia. She left behind herself, her goodness in her children.”
“We’ll go to Italy,” he said again, his voice hollow as he wept, as if he were fading away. “I’ll take her to Italy. Then she’ll be strong. Then she’ll live long.”
“Joe.”
“She’s dying.”
“Yes,” Julie said.
“She’ll get better in Italy. I can give her that. I will find a way to give her that.”
Julie reached out slowly as his hand relaxed and the gun nearly dropped.
But he didn’t fight her. He didn’t fight. He just fell to his knees and wept.
With the gun in hand, Julie stepped back. She glanced at the shadow on the door and watched as Gabriel stepped in silently with his team behind him. He knelt down behind him and the man did nothing. He was lost.
He seemed so lost.
“All right, Mr. Rossi,” he said as he cuffed the weeping man. “Let’s see if we can get you some help.”
“For Amelia—“
Gabriel glanced at Nicole as he turned the man over to his deputy. “For Amelia.”
He was taken away, still weeping, but not fighting. Gabriel watched him go, then stepped over toward Nicole. Her eyes were sad, aching with love. She still loved him, Julie realized, even ... or maybe especially in his madness.
Julie watched as Gabriel reached up and gently touched Nicole’s cheek. His touch so very gentle. There was a connection there. A connection Julie was glad to see.
“You okay?” he asked.
Nicole nodded, but she didn’t move toward him or away. She just stood there, seeming so ... overwhelmed ... so sad.
Then a sound at the door drew her attention and she looked over as Jason stepped in. Suddenly he was there, his arms wrapping around her and Trisha, drawing them in. He was muttering, but from her position only feet away, Julie couldn’t make out what he said. Still, they fit ... the three of them, turning into each other.
They were a family. Whatever Nicole had wanted, whatever she had come looking for ... this was what she had found. And maybe this was what Jason had been looking for as well. Not a place physically, but a place nonetheless.
And this was not hers.
The feeling swamped her, but only a little. She had her own family, her own place, elsewhere. Nicole and Jason had finally found theirs.
And from the looks of it, noticing the way Gabriel watched, so had Gabriel.
Julie was suddenly tired. The adrenaline she had felt when facing Rossi had faded and left her. Her hands had begun to shake. Whatever she did, whatever she was trained to do ... she’d never faced down a madman with a gun.
Gabriel noticed her watching and motioned her outside. They headed slowly down the stairs as the patrol car with Joe Rossi inside pulled out of the apartment complex. People were standing outside on the small strip of apartment lawn to watch.
Julie only shook her head.
“You okay?” he asked again, this time of her.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“The bravado’s wearing off.”
“Some bravado,” Gabriel murmured as he rubbed his hands over his face. “Goading a man, taking a gun from a man like that? Tell me something,” he turned and started around the side of the apartment, away from the small crowd and growing noise of questions, “What were you thinking?”
“It just seemed ... he seemed close to the edge. He was scared.”
“Joe Rossi, scared... From all the reports it’s not a word I would have pegged him with,” Gabriel said. “And he was. He was so ... fragile. How did you know?”
Julie tucked her hands in her pockets as she fell into step beside him. He was restless, but then so was she. The pace was familiar. Their companionship settled her. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t meant for more.
But this was Gabriel, after all.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was ... familiar. In my line of work, I see it all the time–fear. Kids that are scared. Maybe they can be divided into two types. Those who look at you and fear you because they are backed into a corner and who will fight their way out. And those who are lost. It’s in their eyes. Backed into a corner or not, he was lost. He just looked so lost.”
“So you feel sorry for him?”
Julie took a minute to think about it. “Not for the adult, the father ... but there was something sad about the desperation. The husband. He loved his wife.”
“But not his children,” Gabriel pointed out.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think ... in his own way, he thought he did or might have at one time He lost his focus ... his sense of being, maybe.”
“Apparently he lost his sanity ...”
“Yeah,” Julie agreed, “not that I’m excusing him, but his love, at some point, was poisoned or something. It was probably always too ... selfish. To proud. I imagine he thought of her as his prize, more than a gift ... and then it just ... I don’t know. Maybe it all happened when she got sick. Maybe he was always a little ...”
“Criminal?” Gabriel put in.
“I guess so. Maybe. He had what he wanted and then he lost it. He was poisoned. And you should know...”
“What?”
“Criminal or not, I don’t think Nicole will stop loving him, or needing him. She understands what it means to be lost. Once she gets over the shock, she’s probably going to want to try and help him find his way out of the dark. She won’t give that up. Maybe more now then she ever did before.”
Gabriel thought about it, thought of his own mother. “No ...” he said, “I don’t suppose she will.”
They continued to walk, their pace slow, as they rounded the back side of the apartment complex. Trees loomed around the fence, a dog could be heard barking, the sound mixing with the gentle squeels of childhood play.
An odd sort of sound after facing off with a mad man.
She suddenly had the need to get into her car and drive. Maybe to a mall. Maybe just to walk around. To get lost in the city, in the crowds, into the shops.
Gabriel was different. He had his gardens, his porch rocker, his blue skies. He would probably take a walk tonight and enjoy the sound of silence.
She shook her head.
“I guess I should ask if you’re okay,” Julie said as she stopped and studied him.
“Why?”
“It was Nicole in there with me,” she said. “Don’t think I didn’t know. Don’t think it didn’t occur to me what it would do to you if it all went south. You’ve got her in your heart Gabriel. And yet you stayed back.”
“You seemed to have the situation under control.”
Julie smiled and felt the block fall into place. Their friendship, was there, as strong as it had ever been. “So you trusted me.”
“Sure I did.”
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Not as a girlfriend, not as she would have at one time, but as a friend. As family.
They had been a long way together.
“It’s about time.”
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