Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (10 page)

“
You… you can’t keep me
here,” the man sputtered. “I know my rights! Where’s my attorney!?
I want an attorney! Yeah, a court appointed attorney. A
good
court appointed
attorney like… like that Casey Anthony had. And…”

“
Shut the fuck up,” Colin
said.

“
You can’t keep me here,”
the man started again.

“
I can do whatever I want
to you,” Colin said. “You should read your Patriot Act. Kidnapping
is considered an act of Domestic Terrorism. You, your wretched
friends and that evil wife of yours, have been classified terrorist
by the US State Department.”

“
Terrorists!!” the man
tugged against his handcuffed wrists. “You’re the terrorist. You’ve
kidnapped me!”

Colin chuckled. It never ceased to amaze him
how bad people felt so victimized by the consequences of their
actions.

“
You planned and executed
the kidnap of a US Senator’s grandson,” Colin said. “Your
compatriots have already given you up, jerk off. You can deny it if
you want. Go ahead. But remember, you and your buddies have already
been labeled as domestic terrorists. Imagine how that’s gonna look
on a job application.”

The man leaned back in his chair.

“
He’s disabled,” a woman’s
voice came from behind. “Paralyzed from the waist down.”

“
Oh that’s right,” Colin
laughed. “I forgot you were disabled because you’re not. Are
you?”

“
Only a very low person
would mock an injured man such as myself,” the man sniffed at
Colin.

“
Well.” Laughing, Colin
got up from his chair. “I’ll leave you to contemplate your
sins.”

“
Wait!” The man’s face
became a mask of panic and despair. “You can’t leave me here! By
myself!”

“
What did plan for Paddie
Hargreaves?” A big, powerful man, Colin knocked over his wooden
chair with a quick movement toward the man. The man cringed and
shifted away from Colin. “You planned to ‘stick him in a truck
until the little bastard was paid for.’ You didn’t give a crap if
he cried. You didn’t give a crap if he wet himself or went hungry.
Hell, you didn’t even care if he
died
. You think you deserve better
than that!”

“
You have to understand!
They killed
my only
child
! They
killed
my beautiful son! They
stole
my granddaughter.
They…”

“
So your response to that
is to put a four year old child, a
baby
, in a box? To let him beg for
his mother!? Let him cry for his best friend’s help! To cry for his
father to save him? You’d let a small child scratch at the lid of
his coffin while you wait for your payday?”

“
You have to understand…”
the man started again.

“
No, sir,” Colin said.
“You have to understand. You fucked with the wrong
people.”

Colin set his chair on its legs and walked
out of the room.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday afternoon – 4:25 P.M.
Denver, CO

Seth had vomited and had diarrhea. He’d
cried and yelled. He’d hallucinated. And he’d drunk every wicked
concoction Maresol could pack in a glass – beets and spinach juice,
kale and apples and… he had no idea. He’d stopped asking after the
first hour. He didn’t want to know.

His young friends were with him every step
of the way. Ava got sick first. She was so sick he’d called Bumpy
to check her. Just as she was recovering, Dale fell ill. Crying and
begging his dead father to rescue him, Dale spewed from both ends
of his digestive system. When Dale began to recover, Seth became
ill. And for whatever reason, he took Ava and Dale back down with
him. Bumpy arrived to click his tongue at them and leave them to
their suffering.

Poor Maresol had cleaned up after them. Of
course, the entire escapade was her idea. And they had tried to be
tidy. Who knew that garden shower would come in handy? But, like
always, Maresol didn’t deserve the mess she’d gotten. He had to
remember to thank her in some special way.

Seth leaned against the back of the infrared
sauna. He felt as if he’d been wrung like a wet towel. His pain was
less. Maybe. He hadn’t moved much. Ava was asleep against a corner.
Dale was staring off into space.

“
I wanted to ask you,”
Seth’s voice was soft to keep from waking Ava. Her eyes opened to
look at him.

“
After this?” Dale asked.
“I think you know everything there is to know about me.”

Seth nodded. He felt Ava’s eyes scrutinizing
his face.

“
You should ask him,” Ava
said. The heat and juice had worked their magic on Ava’s throat.
Her voice was now deep, clear and melodic.

“
Seth?” Dale
asked.

Embarrassed by Ava’s attention, Seth
shrugged and got up to get a bottle of cold water from the cooler.
He passed bottles to Ava and Dale before sitting down again. The
bell went off and they moved to the hot tub.

“
You were going to ask me
something, Seth,” Dale said.

Seth shrugged and closed his eyes as if he
was going to sleep.

“
He wants to know why you
and I haven’t dated,” Ava said. “And why we aren’t thinking of
dating now. Isn’t that right?”

Seth shrugged. Dale’s eyes flicked from Ava
to Seth and back to Ava.

“
It’s a fair question,”
Ava said. “If that’s what the look means. My father asked Seth if
he thought I’d ‘get together’ with Dale now. And you
said…?”

“
I don’t know,” Seth
said.

Ava’s eyes became slits.

“
What’s wrong with ‘I
don’t know,’” Seth said.

“
You are a very
frustrating man,” Ava shook her head. She gestured toward Dale. “Go
ahead. Answer the old man’s question.”

“
Old man?” Seth
asked.

“
That’s what this is
about,” Ava said. “Seth is such an old guy. He’s old, used up,
wrinkled, and whatever. Why don’t I want a relationship with a
handsome guy who’s my age? I obviously care about Dale. What’s the
problem?

Seth nodded as if she was making his
point.

“
See!” Ava pointed at him.
“This is you being frustrating.”

Seth smiled. She shook her head at him.

“
Let me solve this,” Dale
said. “I think Amelie is an amazing woman. She’s beautiful, funny,
and a great friend. Don’t you think?”

“
She’s wonderful,” Seth
said.

“
Dale and I actually met
first,” Ava said.

“
At a coffee shop,” Dale
said.

“
He was working there,”
Ava said.

“
To meet girls,” Dale
said. “Ava came in for a chai.”

“
Soy Chai latte,” Ava
said.

“
Decaf,” Dale said. “No
caffeine for this body. That’s what she said.”

“
That was before the
police academy,” Ava laughed. “I was much healthier
then.”

“
We talked,” Dale said.
“And right away, I felt this deep connection with her. You’ve
probably noticed that.”

Seth nodded. Ava shook her head at him.

“
Tell him what you
said.”

“
I took her hands,” Dale
said. “And said something like, ‘I don’t know why, but you feel
like the sister I never had.’ And she said…”

“
That’s fun,” Ava said.
“Because you feel like the brother I never had. But more than a
brother…”

“
A close sibling,” Dale
said.

“
Not quite a twin, but
really close,” Ava said.

“
So we agreed to talk
after I got off work,” Dale said.

“
He came over to my
house,” Ava said.

“
I brought wine,” Dale
said. “No beer.”

“
3-2 beer. We weren’t
twenty-one yet,” Ava said. “I bought pizza.”

“
We talked for hours,”
Dale said.

“
Like four,” Ava
said.

Ava gave Dale a soft smile.

“
What happened?” Seth
asked.

“
Beth came home,” Dale’s
eyes filled with tears.

“
And Dale moved in,” Ava
said. “He didn’t go home that night.”

“
That’s fast,” Seth said.
He put a hand on Dale’s shoulder as he cried.

“
He slept on the couch at
first,” Ava said. “But from the moment Beth walked in the door to
the apartment, Dale and Beth were together. They met his Mom like
the next day. Dale’s Mom loved Beth like a daughter. They met her
parents the next weekend. Her parents love Dale like a
son.”

“
And love my Mom,” Dale
said through his tears.

“
It was like a big family
reunion, really,” Ava said. “They didn’t actually, you know, until
a month or so later.”

“
Beth was like that,”
Dale’s unattended tears dropped down his cheeks and wet his lips.
“She’d see a puppy and take him home. Then a month or so later,
she’d meet someone the puppy belonged with and give him to exactly
the right person.”

“
Beth was an angel,” Ava
broke down crying.

“
But she never… never…
gave me away,” Dale said. “And still I lost her.”

With Ava tucked under his arm, and a hand on
Dale’s shoulder, Seth sat like a silent guard in the middle of
their storm of loss. Their sobs lessoned. Their breath evened. But
their eyes and hearts focused on the loss of their beloved
Beth.

“
How do you ever get over
it?” Dale asked.

“
You don’t,” Seth said.
“Ever. You just get used to them being gone. One day and the next…
Time passes and you build experiences without them. But you don’t
stop missing them or loving them. You just grow on. Then one day,
you look up and your life has started again. It’s not better than
it was but it’s not worse either. It’s life.”

They fell silent thinking about what he’d
said. For a while, tears fell from Ava and Dale’s eyes.

“
And still, you miss
them,” Seth said.

And the jets continued to bubble and the egg
timer continued to tick.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday afternoon – 6:25 P.M.
Undisclosed location

“
I really appreciate
this,” Jill said.

With Katy in her arms, Jill stood against
the glass looking at her ex-father-in-law. She and Jacob had flown
home the moment they heard about the plot to kidnap Paddie and
Katy. Of course, Colin didn’t tell her until a full day after his
team had bagged the culprits.

When she’d called Katy
last night, she was excited about the zoo and the splash fountain.
She was excited about staying over with her Auntie Megan and Uncle
Tim. She and her cousins were going to a
real
movie in a
real
movie theater. But the moment
Jill heard about the possible kidnapping, she had to fly to Denver
to see for herself. Of course, she had to track Katy down at
Megan’s house, break up a massive water balloon fight between Katy
and her cousins, and browbeat Katy for a while until she finally
told Jill and Jacob about Paddie almost getting kidnapped. Colin
offered them a chance to see her ex-father-in-law before the police
came to pick him up.

“
This man has been a real
nightmare for us, for Katy in particular,” Jill said. “She’s really
terrified that he’ll steal her away from her happy
life.”

“
My now life,” Katy said
into Jill’s neck.

Colin smiled at the little voice coming out
of the powerful little girl. Nothing delighted him more than seeing
this amazing child being treated just like a child by her Mom and
Dad. No matter what Katy was or wasn’t, she was first their
baby.

“
Her now life,” Jill said.
“Do you want to take a look, Katy?”

Katy nodded into her neck.

“
Should I set you down?”
Jill asked.

Katy shook her head.

“
Ok, I’ll turn around and
you can take a look,” Jill said. “When you’re ready.”

Jill turned her back to the glass.

“
Don’t do anything,” Jacob
said. “I know it’s tempting; it’s tempting for me. But that’s who
he is, not who we are.”

Jill felt more than saw Katy look at
Jacob.

“
He tried to hurt Paddie,”
Katy said.

“
We’ve got this Katy,”
Colin said. “He’s not going to hurt Paddie or anyone ever
again.”

“
I could make that
happen,” Katy looked at Colin with her big sweet round eyes. Even
knowing what she was saying, Colin couldn’t help but smile at the
child.

“
I could make it happen,”
Jacob said. “Easy. And no one would know. They’d think the jerk had
a heart attack or an aneurysm.”

“
So why don’t you?” Katy
asked.

“
Because I’m not a
killer,” Jacob said.

“
But doesn’t that make you
weak?” Katy asked. “The kids at school say nice people are
weak.”

“
Powerful people are nice,
Katy,” Colin said. “Because they know what they can do and choose
not to do it.”

“
You always say that,”
Katy said. “But I still want to.”