A Gift of Time (The Nine Minutes Trilogy Book 3) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Grizz

1988,
Prison, North Florida

It was almost
two o’clock in the morning. Grizz carried
himself in a sure and confident manner through the prison’s dimly lit halls,
not noticing as the janitor and laundry attendant, also inmates, avoided eye
contact with him.

He was the
only man on death row who was given free rein to take a stroll through the
maximum-security prison in the middle of the night. He rarely took advantage of
this privilege during the day. He didn’t like calling attention to himself. But
at night, he needed to get out of his cell. To stretch his legs; try to feel a
little normal. In the short time he’d been here, he’d discovered the library
was his refuge. He usually visited it sometime between eleven and midnight, but
tonight he had been so engrossed in the book he was reading he hadn’t realized
the time. Eleven? Two? It didn’t matter. The room was always empty after hours,
and he liked taking his time perusing the bookshelves. He’d recently discovered
he loved to read. Shit, what else was he going to do in this place? Blue was
handling things on the outside and usually called him or made the trip for a
face to face for any important issues. He had no pending responsibilities, so
he needed an occupation—reading it was.

It was
getting harder and harder to get messages to Blue unnoticed. Even with his
clout, Grizz didn’t like to be obvious about some things. Communicating with
Blue was one of them. Carter would have her animal ministry set up soon enough,
and he would use the dogs to get messages to her, and she would, in turn, get
them anonymously delivered. She was a smart one, and he was glad he’d stepped
in all those years ago and helped her with the man who’d been stalking her.
He’d done it for Kit, not realizing then how useful it would prove to be.

He quietly
let himself in the library and immediately noticed he wasn’t alone. He silently
ducked behind a shelf and peered between them to see another inmate who sat
behind a large glass window in the tiny library office and typed on a computer.
Grizz could hear the keys clacking as the screen illuminated the man’s face.
Grizz looked closer and recognized him as a kid from the chow hall. Grizz
didn’t know his name. “Pretty” is what the other inmates called him. Grizz
could understand why. He had very soft, feminine features. He was tall and slender
and had eyebrows that seemed more naturally arched than most females, and he
had very little, if any, facial hair. He also had a full head of brown hair
that curled on the ends as it framed his youthful face. Yeah, he was a real
beauty by prison standards.

One of
Pretty’s jobs was to stand by the garbage cans to sort and dump the trays after
the inmates were finished and headed out of the chow hall. He never spoke to or
looked anyone in the eye. Grizz wondered what he was in for, and now wondered
what he was doing in the library in the middle of the night. Grizz swiped a
hand over his smooth head, mourning the long locks he’d purposely shaved, then
tugged at his beard. Didn’t matter why the boy was here. After tonight, he
would belong to Grizz.

He left the
library as quietly as he had entered and returned to his cell.

The next
day, Grizz was sitting in the chow hall. It wasn’t his habit to eat with the
general prison population, but he had on a few occasions. Today he used the
time to sit back and observe. It was his prison, his turf, and he liked to
watch, to listen, to be a presence. It didn’t take him long to establish
himself as the penitentiary’s new inmate authority. He sat at a table that was
close to Pretty but kept his back to him. He listened to the comments from the
other inmates as they handed Pretty their trays. Some were engaged in
conversations with each other. Some didn’t say anything. Others used the
opportunity to taunt the young prisoner.

Grizz
observed through his peripheral vision as the line started to build up. It was
time to make himself known. And he wanted an audience.

Purposely,
he went to the back of the line, then wordlessly made his way to the front as
the other men stepped aside and let him pass. As he got to the front, he listened
as two men who hadn’t noticed his approach spoke to Pretty.

“You still
taking care of that rodent you call ‘Buddy’?” One of them, a heavyset
dark-haired guy, leered at Pretty.

No answer.

“Awwww,
Pretty is embarrassed that he doesn’t have any friends, Psycho. He’s like that
weirdo in that movie. What was it called? The one about a kid who fell in love
with a rat.”

There was
some snickering, and Psycho crossed his arms. “Ben. The movie was called Ben.
You sing your little rat buddy lullabies like Michael Jackson did?” He took a
step forward. “You can sing ‘em to me when I get you in the shower later.”

Still no
answer.

Grizz had
heard enough.

“Move the
fuck out of my way,” Grizz said slow and low, shoving the two inmates out of
his path.

Grizz tossed
his tray at Pretty and purposely took his time perusing the young guy from his
head to his feet. He noticed Pretty’s nametag read “Petty.” So that was his
last name. Grizz could understand how it had eventually turned into Pretty.

In a voice
that made it clear there would be no challenges, he said for those within
earshot, “He’s mine now. Only mine.”

Pretty's
face turned pale.

Without
making eye contact with any of them, he headed back to his cell.

Chapter Three

Mimi

1997,
Fort Lauderdale

Mimi sat back
on her bed, the plump pillows cushioning her
against the sturdy headboard.

“Done!” she
exclaimed out loud to herself.

She had just
put the finishing touches on a poem she had written for her parents. They had
an anniversary coming up, and she wanted to surprise them. She had recently
discovered she had a knack for writing, which she loved. Her teacher had
encouraged her after she wrote an essay that focused on a poor migrant family
who’d overcome insurmountable odds and found a new life in the U.S. Mrs. Horan
had been impressed when she’d read the level of detail Mimi delivered in the
essay, and she questioned her about her research. Talking with Mrs. Horan, Mimi
had realized she not only loved writing about the family, but she thrived on
the research, on digging in to find details someone else might’ve missed. Her
teacher suggested she think about going into journalism. “You’re still young
and can change your mind, but when you have a passion for something, it shows
in your work,” her teacher had told her. “I see that passion in you, Mimi.”

Mimi tucked
the poem for her parents into her nightstand drawer, slipped off her bed, and
bent down to pull something from under her mattress. It was her secret journal,
another something she could credit to Mrs. Horan. Earlier in the school year,
Mimi had taken Mrs. Horan’s advice and started writing down her thoughts and
dreams. She even had some short stories in her journal. She was still too shy
to share her words with her family. Her newfound love of writing was her secret.
She was going to present the poem to her parents for their anniversary and
gauge their reaction. She loved and trusted her parents, and even though they
encouraged her in every way possible, she was still not confident enough to
share something she considered so intimate.

Absently,
she tugged at her earring and smiled as she tried to envision their response.
“Mimi, we didn’t know you had this talent in you! Why have you been hiding this
for so long?”

She
daydreamed about what she wanted her parents’ reaction to be, but because she
couldn’t be certain, she decided to keep her journal and her dreams of writing
to herself. At least for now.

She took a
few minutes to write some thoughts down about how excited she was to present
the poem, but she had something else to do. And since she only had the house to
herself for another hour, she had to work fast and make the time count.

She closed
her book and slipped it back between her mattress and box spring, tidied her
bedspread, and walked to her bedroom door. Before opening it, she kissed the
Titanic poster that was hanging on the back.

“When I’m a
famous journalist, Leonardo DiCaprio, you’ll be begging me to interview you!”

And with the
innocence and excitement of a twelve-year-old on the brink of a future with
endless possibilities, she headed for her parents’ bedroom. She had some
research to do.

**********

Inside their darkened bedroom,
she hunted. Where would it be? They had to keep it somewhere, and she’d had no
luck at all going through her father’s office.

She stood in
the center of her parents’ walk-in closet and surveyed the shelves. There were
boxes on each one, but they were labeled neatly with their contents. Not a
single box referred to personal papers or anything similar. Think, Mimi. You
want to be an investigative journalist. Investigate. A marriage certificate is
personal and something to treasure. Where would you keep something you
treasured? Maybe with something else you treasured? She allowed her mind to
wander while she imagined presenting her parents with this special gift and her
poem.

When she’d
noticed a silver-plated teaching certificate on Mrs. Horan’s wall, she’d gotten
the idea to have something made for her parents. Her teacher was only too happy
to help her. She’d saved her allowance and babysitting money for years with the
plan to spend it on something special. Now she knew what it would be. Mrs.
Horan told her the personalized plaque would be expensive, and Mimi was
thrilled to know she had enough to cover it. But she had a hurdle. She had to
bring her parents’ Marriage Certificate to Mrs. Horan so she could have the
plaque made.

Where,
where, where? She came out of the closet and slowly scanned the master bedroom.
Her eyes landed on her mother’s nightstand. A lamp, alarm clock, hand lotion,
and a book. The Bible. Her mother’s most cherished possession. Maybe it was
folded up in the Bible.

She sat on
the edge of the bed as she lovingly ran her hand over the front of the holy
book. She smiled when she saw the initials that had been embossed on the bottom
right-hand corner. G.L.D. They were so small they were barely noticeable and
hard to see against the deep brown leather unless you were looking for them.
She knew the history behind this Bible. Her father had told Mimi how he had presented
it to her mother for her sixteenth birthday and how the printer had made a
mistake. It should have read G.L.L., but Ginny wouldn’t let Tommy have it
replaced back then. Maybe she knew she was going to marry him one day. Mimi
hugged herself. It was fate.

Mimi smiled
as she brought herself back from the romantic memory and softly fanned through
the pages of the Bible. Two cards fell out, each containing Scriptures in
Ginny’s handwriting. She hoped they weren’t marking anyplace special and
returned them to where she guessed they went. She noticed her mother’s neat
handwriting in some of the margins on the pages she was flipping through.
Almost every single page had a notation. She turned back to the beginning and
noticed the first few pages. It was where you could fill in your personal
information. Marriages, births, deaths. She smiled as she saw where her and
Jason’s names had been recorded, along with the day they were born. Her mother
also had notations of when they made First Holy Communion and other important
dates.

Her parents’
names were written in with their wedding date, and beneath it was a verse from
Scripture. It was Matthew 11:25. Maybe it was a Scripture someone had read at
their wedding. Mimi had been to weddings and knew people did that all the time.
A backup plan began to form in her mind in case she wasn’t able to find their
marriage certificate. Maybe she could do something with this Scripture. Surely
they would remember a Scripture that had been read at their wedding. She
quickly flipped to the New Testament and, finding the page she’d been looking
for, read the words out loud: “At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise
and learned, and revealed them to little children.’”

She looked
up from the Bible and was puzzled. What in the world could her parents’
marriage have to do with Jesus telling God about things He’d kept hidden? What
could this Scripture have to do with anything? There was no reference to marriage
that she understood, unless she just wasn’t getting it. She reread the
Scripture slowly and this time noticed some numbers in the margin next to it.
23-07-15. Her eyes darted back and forth from the Scripture to the numbers. The
numbers, the Scripture. The words. One word.

Hidden.

She broke
into a wide grin when she realized what she’d discovered. She couldn’t be
positive until she tried it out, but she was pretty sure she knew what she was
looking at. A lock combination. Or in this case, she hoped, a safe combination.
Was this her mother’s way of remembering the combination to the safe in her
father’s office downstairs? She’d heard her mother claim many times she could
be forgetful. Mimi heard her father telling her mother one time she purposely
forgot about his business dinner because she subconsciously didn’t want to go.
He said something about how she had a mental block about things she didn’t want
to deal with.

Yes, her
mother admittedly had a bad memory, and this was her way of making sure she
didn’t forget the safe combination. Writing the Scripture reference in an
important place in her Bible was her mother’s attempt to not make it obvious,
but Mimi knew. She had a locker at school. She could only hope her father’s
safe worked the same way.

Mimi laid
the cherished book back on the nightstand and made sure everything looked like
she’d found it. Yes, Mimi decided. She would make an excellent investigator.
Maybe I shouldn’t be a journalist. I could probably be a detective or a secret
FBI agent or something.

She strode
to the bedroom door. She still had some time to see if she could get the safe
open. She was certain she would find her parents’ marriage certificate in it.

And because
it probably wasn’t something they looked at often, maybe even never, she could
safely return it without anybody even knowing it was gone.