No One in the World (20 page)

“Yes,” Cobi said. “Sorry, I hadn't gotten around to telling you about him. I have a twin brother and his name is Eric. He just moved in a few days before you.”

Austen smiled. “Oh. You should introduce us. He looks like a nice guy.”

B
lac reached for his ringing cell phone. He was half asleep, in nothing but white boxer shorts, the bed blankets falling off of him.

He squinted at the screen before he answered it. Private Number.

“Hello?”

There was a moment of silence before a deep, menacing voice said, “Eight days and counting, motherfucker.”

The call was disconnected, but Blac remembered the voice as Rondo's, one of the two men that came by the house the other night. He dropped the phone to the floor, recognizing the scare tactic. It wasn't necessary. There was enough fear in him already. A phone call or two would give him no more motivation than he already had to get that money.

Last night Blac had made progress—a major breakthrough. He was happy about that. So happy that he walked in the door, stripped off his clothes, and made Theresa come like seven times. She was twitching in bed, stuttering like she had Tourette syndrome.

When he got the chance, Blac planned to throw the sex on Cobi the exact same way. After a few rounds of Blac's skillful sex acrobatics, Blac thought, climbing out of bed, slipping on his jeans, and walking out of the small bedroom, Cobi would be whipping out his checkbook and forcing him to take money.

Blac walked through the living room, pulled open the front door of
Theresa's house, stepped out on the porch that was nothing more than a slab of cement, and stretched his arms over his head. The sun was out and there was not a cloud in the sky.

He smiled, thinking about how well things went last night, but he knew he could not rest. Eight days would blow by before he knew it.

Blac pulled the cell phone from his jeans pocket and pulled up his text screen.

HAD A GREAT TIME. THOUGHT ABOUT YOU IN MY DREAMS. LET'S HAVE A DRINK SOMETIME.

Blac sent the text to Cobi but didn't expect a reply right away. He knew Cobi was probably having mixed feelings about the entire situation, considering Blac was his brother's friend, but when he got the text, Blac was sure he would be excited all the same.

Blac slid the phone back into his pocket, then caught sight of the mail sticking out of the small, rusty box hanging from the side of the house.

He grabbed the envelopes, stepped back in the house, and closed the door behind him.

He saw that the address on one of the letters was handwritten, as if by a child.

He looked closer and saw that the return address was from Wisconsin.

Blac carefully tore the letter open. He pulled out the single page and immediately saw that it was written by his nephew.

A wide smile on his face, Blac read the carefully penciled words, some of which had been erased and rewritten.

His nephew told Blac that he missed him and loved him, and whenever he got out of jail, he wanted Blac to visit.

Neither his nephew nor his sister knew when his release date was. Blac had refused to give them his address in prison, telling them to send his mail to Theresa. He knew hearing from them would only make his time harder to do.

At the end of the page, a note was written by Blac's sister. She told him how wonderfully well Johnny was doing in school and that he was on the baseball team. Wanda urged Blac to come to Wisconsin. She had plenty of space in her house, and they would love to have him there to stay.

Blac noticed the envelope contained a picture of his sister and his nephew. They stood arm in arm, both smiling brightly, waving at the camera.

Blac flipped the picture to see handwritten on the back, “We love you! Come home soon!”

He couldn't stop smiling as he walked the letter and the photo over to the fridge, placed them on the door, and held them there with a magnet shaped like a smiling slice of bread.

I
sat at my desk, looking at the letter Eric gave me—the letter that informed him of Jess's intentions to have him stripped of his fatherly rights. I shook my head in disgust as I read the phone number of the law office that was representing her, wondering how she could go through with this.

I held the phone to my ear as it rang, remembering from the picture how adorable my niece was. I knew losing her would just about kill Eric.

“Hello,” I said, after someone on the other end answered the phone. “May I speak to . . .” I looked down at the letter again. “. . . Kenneth Holden.”

The woman on the other end told me that he was out for the afternoon.

I told her who I was, what I was calling about, and that it was imperative that Mr. Holden call me back as soon as possible.

I hung up the phone, feeling helpless, wishing there was something more that I could do. Then I realized there was. I told Eric I was going to get him a job at Winslow, and that's exactly what I planned to do.

It would have to be without Sissy knowing, but I thought I could pull it off.

Paul Jennings immediately came to mind. He managed the records office and was a good guy. I had known him for three years, happily said
hello to him whenever I saw him in the halls. Most important, he worked five floors below Sissy, and I trusted him to keep a secret.

I reached for the phone, preparing to call him, when it rang.

I picked it up. “Yes, Nancy?” I said to my assistant.

“Your sister is on line one, Mr. Winslow.”

“Fine. Put her through.”

“Morning, Cobi,” Sissy said, her voice cheery.

“Sis,” I said, not feeling anything close to how good she sounded.

“Just calling to see how things went the first night with your future wife?”

“That needs to be the second topic of conversation. There's something more important that needs to be addressed, Sissy.”

“Okay, what is it?” Sissy asked, somewhat reluctant.

“You had a conversation with Eric yesterday. What did you say to him?”

“What needed to be said.”

“Sissy, don't play with me. I'm not in the mood. Just answer the question, please.”

“He has to know that we're not just going to sit around here and watch as he takes advantage of you. You're spending money on him, giving him a place to live, and he's walking around thinking he's entitled.”

“Sissy.”

“I don't care what kind of thug he fancies himself to be.”

“Sissy,” I said again.

“He needs to know I'm watching him, and the first wrong moves he makes, I'm putting his ass—”

“Sissy!” I yelled into the phone. “First, how dare you. You're nothing but a hypocrite. How much money are you planning on spending on Austen? She's going to need a car, the dress you're going to buy, the ring, not to mention the wedding. What happens if she annuls the marriage the day after? Who would've been taken advantage of then?”

“She won't do that.”

“You know that for sure?”

“I know women, and I know what position she's in. That's why I chose her. She won't do that. Now you were saying—”

“Second,” I said, “Eric is my brother, and that's my house. I don't need you laying down the law there. Do you understand me?”

“But Cobi—”

“Do you understand, Sissy?”

“Yup. Fine.”

“Good. Now we can move on to topic number two. And the answer is, that woman being in my house doesn't feel right.”

“Really,” Sissy said. “Exactly how are you expecting it to feel? It's going to be awkward at first. Unfortunately, we're going to have to make even more serious moves fast. The public needs to know about you. You have to be seen as a couple. So I need the two of you in my office within the next couple of days so we can go over plans on how to proceed from now until the wedding.”

I didn't say anything.

“Cobi, did you hear me?”

“Yeah, Sissy. We'll be there.”

I hung up the phone, truly feeling this was out of my hands.

I felt my cell phone vibrate in my jacket pocket. I fished it out to see that I had a text message.

It was from Eric's friend, Blac. Against my will, I felt a smile appear as I read the text.

He thought about me in his dreams, huh? That was a line, mad cheesy game if I ever saw it, but it was still nice to know. Considering Tyler's neglect, this was much appreciated.

I moved to respond, thinking that maybe a harmless drink would be nice, then stopped myself. I needed to give that move some thought before I did anything. So instead, I picked up my office phone and made the call to Paul Jennings about getting Eric that job.

E
ric parked the car in the Fifty-third Street Haynes Point parking lot and got out. The day was overcast, but a couple of college kids from the University of Chicago dorm building across the street were tossing a Frisbee in the grass and a few people were walking dogs. Otherwise the park was calm.

Jess had told Eric she would be waiting by the bench just before the bridge that led to the lakeside.

The call had come this morning, waking him out of his sleep.

“Meet me today at eleven-thirty. There's something I have to give you.”

“Where?”

She gave him the location.

“You bringing Maya?”

“Eric, I have to go. I can't talk right now.”

“But you called me. I wanna talk.”

“Just meet me, and I'll tell you everything you need to know.”

Eric stepped out of the parking lot and walked down to the path leading to a grassy area with wooden park benches. There he spotted Jess but saw no sign of his little girl. Instead, Jess was with a tall man wearing slacks and a sport jacket. Jess's back was to Eric. The man was
facing and speaking to her. When Eric walked up, the man's eyes focused on him.

Jess immediately turned around. She wore business clothes: a skirt, jacket, and short heels. “Hello, Eric.”

“Where is Maya?”

“Eric, this is Quentin,” Jess said, gesturing toward the good-looking, clean-shaven, dark-skinned man beside her.

“I don't care who that is,” Eric said, guessing this was a guy Jess had been dealing with and the reason she wouldn't talk about them getting back together. “I want to know where my daughter is.”

“Quentin and I thought it best we not bring her.”

“Jess, what are you doing?” Eric said, taking a step toward her. “What happened to us? We used to love each other, and now—”

“Eric, stop,” Jess said. “That's disrespectful to Quentin.”

“What?” Eric said, angry that she even brought the man to this meeting, but to put him before Eric, the man she had been dealing with for years—the father of her child.

“Jess,” Quentin whispered, but it was loud enough for Eric to hear. “Maybe you two should speak alone. I don't think I should be here.”

“No,” Jess said, grabbing Quentin's arm, then turned back to address Eric. “There's something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

“I want Quentin to adopt Maya. That's why I brought him for you to meet.”

It felt as though Jess punched Eric through the chest, reached in, grabbed his heart, and was trying to rip it out. He felt dizzy all of sudden and took two steps toward them, still not believing what he had just heard. “You don't . . . you don't mean that.”

“Eric, you were in prison most of Maya's life. Biologically, you're her father, but you don't even know her. Quentin does, and he's ready—”

“Ready to take my little girl away from me?” Eric turned and appealed to Quentin, emotion heavy in his voice. “Is that true? You, as a man, who should know what a little girl means to her father—you trying to snatch my child from me? Or is Jess putting you up to it?”

Quentin didn't respond, but Eric believed he saw what could've been sympathy and understanding in his eyes.

“No,” Jess said. “It's what we both want.”

“Well, it ain't gonna happen,” Eric said, shaking his head. “I'm that child's father. You even said it yourself, and you can't do nothing about it.”

“That's why I'm filing to terminate your rights, Eric,” Jess said, digging in her purse and producing an envelope. “The date and place for the hearing is in there.”

A
usten drove out of a Mercedes dealership with a seven-year-old beige Honda Civic that cost eight grand. Sissy had given Austen an allotment of $90,000 and told her to buy something befitting her status as Cobi Winslow's wife.

Julia sat beside Austen, her face screwed up, looking around the tiny cabin. “This looks like the car I drove in college.”

“And that's exactly the way I like it.” Austen smiled, whipping the car into the flow of traffic. “I just had a seventy-thousand-dollar car repossessed. That's not going to happen again.”

“The Winslows aren't going to take your car from you, Austen. If that were the case, why would they have bought it?”

“Whether they take it from me for some reason, or I decide to give it back, either way, I won't miss this little thing.”

“And why would you want to give it back?” Julia asked. “You thinking about backing out on this?”

“I hate to say it, but the thought has crossed my mind,” Austen said, braking at a red light. She turned to Julia. “The upside is, I would have my freedom. The downside, I would still have to pay my mother's mortgage, and I would need to earn money till this housing thing blows over.”

“Yeah,” Julia said. “Money you don't have.”

“Then maybe I should get a job.”

“Girl,” Julia said, “nobody's hiring out there.”

The light turned green. Austen sped the car along, smiled, and said, “We won't know for sure until I try.”