Utopian Day (21 page)

After being tortured by Nick and Mia, they’d shot
him up with some sort of drug and he had passed out. When he woke
up, he was in a hospital in Nevada. After seeing he was conscious,
a nurse had given him a sealed manila envelope with his name on it.
She said that someone had delivered it the day after he had been
admitted and asked her to give it to him when he regained
consciousness.

As he looked through the contents of the envelope,
his heart sank. In it was enough information to convict him as an
accomplice to J.T. Thornbacker in the prison break. As part of the
frame-up, his fingerprints were all over ‘evidence’ that was to be
found by the FBI at a location near the Nevada prison where the
break out occurred. Never mind that it was all fabricated evidence
planted by Nick and company. His career would be ruined in the
process of even trying to prove his innocence.

Of the two locations where evidence had been
planted, the first had nothing tying Silas to the prison break. The
second location, however, did. A note in the envelope said that the
FBI had already received information about the first location,
proving J.T. Thornbacker and company had planned the escape. It
further stated that the information about the existence of the
second location would only be turned in to the FBI if Silas decided
to pursue Nick Bartonovich, J.T. Thornbacker, or anything related
to the Cayman Island heist. The message was clear: leave us alone
or we’ll destroy what is left of your life.

After reviewing the information from a cop’s
perspective, he knew his chances of staying out of prison, should
the FBI ever receive that second tip, were slim to none. There was
enough money in the envelope for him to buy a bus ticket back home
to New York. He went home with his tail between his legs, vowing to
never gamble again.

His resolve to stop gambling lasted about three
months. He kept the losses at a minimum for a while, but one night,
he thought he had a chance to score big again, only to end up a
thousand dollars underwater. He was tapped out. Maggie had told him
that if he lost any more money gambling, that she would leave him,
so he couldn’t tell her. He needed cash fast. Then, later that
week, Silas was cataloging some physical evidence from a small-time
drug bust down at the station and he had an epiphany.

Silas and his partner Dave usually took turns taking
the evidence down to the evidence locker. Today, his partner had a
dentist appointment and had decided to leave before they were done
cataloging the evidence. He’d told Silas to sign his name on all
the necessary documents, because his tooth was killing him and he
had to go to the dentist ASAP. After his partner left, Silas
counted fifteen hundred dollars that they had retrieved from the
perp when they’d busted him. Silas’ partner had no clue how much
money was there. Silas could log $500, pocket the rest, and no one
would ever know. The perp would figure it out, but since it was
drug money and he was a drug dealer, who was going to believe him
over a cop?

Silas checked to make sure no one was paying close
attention to him as he cataloged the evidence. He pretended to
accidentally knock the money onto the floor. When he bent down to
pick it up, he put a thousand dollars in his sock as discretely as
possible before standing back up.

That was the first of many thefts that Silas began
making to cover his gambling habit. He rationalized it in so many
ways. It was drug money, so it was no big deal. He deserved it,
after all – cops were underpaid and performing a public service.
Why should the bad guys make all the money? He was putting these
guys behind bars – shouldn’t that be rewarded?

One day, Silas and his partner were going to stop at
one of their favorite lunch hangouts. Silas parked the car, opened
the door, and was about to get out when Dave put a hand on this
arm.

“
Hey Silas, hold on a minute. I
need to talk to you about something.”

“
Yeah, o.k., what is it?” Silas
said as he turned to his partner.

“
Shut the door,” Dave said,
nodding at the open car door.

“
Sure, Dave,” Silas said,
wondering what was up as he shut the door.

“
Silas, how long have we been
partners?”

“
About ten years now, I think,”
Silas replied, wondering where Dave was headed with
this.

“
Yeah, that’s right, about ten
years,” Dave echoed. “I don’t know how to ask this, Silas, so I’ll
just come out with it. Are you stealing money from the evidence we
turn in?”

Silas felt the blood drain from his face and hoped
that it didn’t show.

“
No, Dave, why would you think
that? I would never do that,” Silas said, trying to sound
indignant.

“
Silas,” Dave continued, “there
was a little over two grand on the perp we arrested on
5
^th
Street about two months ago. I counted it when you
went to take the statement from the shop owner. I signed off on the
evidence because it was your day to write the log and I didn’t
check on it too good, so I didn’t see that you had only put down
about a grand. Later that day, I found a cigarette lighter from the
perp on the floor – you know the one with the skull and cross-bones
case on it? I went down to check the log to see if we had recorded
it and to add it into evidence, and that’s when I saw that the
money was short.”

Silas tried to smile and laugh it off.

“
So I maybe miscounted the
money?”

“
I counted it, Silas. The money’s
missing.”

“
Dave, I didn’t take the money.
There has to be some other explanation,” Silas
protested.

“
Silas, I’ve been counting the
money from the busts we’ve made ever since, when you weren’t
looking. Half of the busts we made whenever you were in charge of
filling out the evidence logs were short.”

Silas slumped back in his chair. He looked down to
the floor. He was busted and he knew it.

“
What are you going to do, Dave?”
he said without looking up.

“
I don’t want you to get busted,
Silas, you’ve been a good partner and a good cop, but I can’t trust
you anymore. I’ll keep my mouth shut if you resign.”

Silas looked up at him in shock.

“
Resign? Dave, I’m just a few
years from retirement. That would ruin me.”

Dave’s face remained stern and un-moving.

“
You should’ve thought of that
before you went on the take. What you did was wrong, Silas. Once we
go there, where’s the line get moved to?”

Silas didn’t answer; he just continued looking at
Dave.

“
You’ve got to the end of the day
to turn in your resignation or I take what I know to IAD. I’ll take
a cab back to the precinct.”

Dave got out of the car and shut the door.

Chapter Thirty-Three

It was 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when Nick’s
cell phone rang next to his bed. He woke up immediately and reached
over for the phone. Calls that came in this early on a weekend were
usually important. Since he and Mia had married, he had begun
instructing all of his business associates not to call until at
least 8:00 a.m. on the weekend.

He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was
Katrina Byers as he made his way into the bathroom and quietly
closed the door so that Mia wouldn’t be disturbed. In fact, he knew
she was already awake. It was an occupational necessity for her
that she was a light sleeper. But Nick liked to provide her with
these small courtesies. It felt good to be looking out for someone
besides himself these days. It was relatively new ground for Nick
Bartonovich.

“
Hello,” Nick answered after he
hit the ‘answer call’ button.

“
Nick, I’m sorry to be calling you
so early on the weekend, I know how you hate that,” she replied.
Katrina Byers was one of Nick’s top CPAs, one who worked
exclusively for him and was immensely valuable to his organization.
If she was calling, it was important.

“
What is it? What has happened?”
he replied.

Nick listened as Katrina detailed the situation for
the next fifteen minutes, asking few questions, just letting
Katrina explain in her usual, very detailed way. When they were
done talking, Nick said that he would call her back within the hour
as he disconnected the call. This was not good news, it was not
good news at all. He looked in the mirror, his mind racing, trying
to decide what the best response to the situation would be.

He walked back into the bedroom and sat down on
Mia’s side of the bed, then began gently stroking her hair. She
opened her eyes and smiled – something she had been doing an
increasing amount of during the past year since they had gotten
married.

“
Mia, darling, we need to talk.
Katrina Byers has just called with some bad news and we need to
decide how to handle it. I’ll make some coffee for us
downstairs.”

He leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead
before leaving to make the coffee.

Downstairs, Nick made the coffee mechanically as he
thought about what he had just been told. When the buzzer on the
coffee maker alerted him that the brewing cycle was completed, he
poured two cups of coffee and took them to the den where Mia was
already waiting. He thought about how many times in the past year
he had enjoyed their morning coffee. How much he loved making Mia’s
coffee just the way she liked it – strong, black, freshly ground
gourmet coffee that they purchased at the organic co-op. But today
was different. Today they had bad news to discuss.

He went into the den area and found Mia sitting on
the couch with her feet curled up underneath her, waiting. She took
the coffee from him and cradled it in her hands, closing her eyes
and inhaling the coffee’s aroma. She waited for Nick to sit down in
his usual chair before she spoke.

“
So what is the matter?” she said
at last.

Nick put his own coffee mug down on the side table,
not really in the mood to drink it.

“
Katrina has gotten considerably
worse. The doctors don’t think she will make it to the end of the
week.”

“
Oh, my God,” Mia
exclaimed.

About six months prior, Katrina had been diagnosed
with renal disease, a.k.a. kidney failure. She had told Nick about
the dialysis treatments she would be taking and how the disease
would affect her work hours. She had been put on the kidney
transplant list and told she had a good chance of getting a
transplant in time, based upon the current stage of the
disease.

Once Katrina began going to dialysis, she needed
someone to watch her daughter Sasha, who was nine, while Katrina
was at the clinic for the lengthy dialysis process. She began
making a short list of people that she trusted who could help with
this task. She had noticed the radical change in Nick since he had
married Mia. He actually smiled in a genuine way now, not in the
sly way he had before, as if he was about to close a business deal.
She’d noticed that Mia had changed, too. She’d seen them together
several times at Nick’s office when she would go by to cover the
quarterly financial reports with Nick, and she had been impressed
with the atmosphere change in the house. It was no longer a hard
business atmosphere… there was love there now. She decided to ask
Nick and Mia if they would be on the rotation to help watch Sasha a
couple of times a month. After Nick and Mia talked it over, they’d
agreed to do it on a trial basis.

Sasha and Mia hit it off almost immediately. Sasha
was into the latest music, and fashions, like most kids – things
Mia was never allowed to participate in when she was Sasha’s age.
Mia began asking questions and showing a genuine interest in what
Sasha was doing. Soon, Mia was downloading the latest music and
taking Sasha shopping. Sasha even helped Mia open up a Facebook
page and they friended each other. It was as if Mia was re-living
her own childhood in a way she had never been allowed to experience
before.

Nick’s affection for Sasha had grown, as well. He
began to accompany Mia and Sasha on some of their shopping trips
and they would all eat lunch together. Once, on the spur of the
moment, Nick suggested they all go out to the horse farm where Nick
and Mia kept their horses, and go for a ride. Sasha’s eyes lit up
like it was Christmas morning. They had a blast and Sasha was
continually asking if they could go back. Nick and Mia enjoyed
these outings so much that, after three months, they had asked
Katrina if they could up the ante and watch Sasha once a week.
Katrina had obliged, glad to be able to rely on them for more help
without feeling like she was imposing.

They had all known the possibility existed that
Katrina wouldn’t get a transplant in time, but no one had seriously
considered it. Mia put her coffee cup down on the table in front of
her.

“
Is there anything we can do to
help?” Mia asked.

“
Actually, there is something
Katrina asked us to do. She asked us to adopt Sasha,” Nick
replied.

Mia inhaled slowly, looking away from Nick at a
painting of a lone ship in the ocean that was hanging on the wall.
She held the breath in as she allowed the words Nick had just
spoken to roll around in her head. Then she looked back at
Nick.

“
What do you want?” she
asked.

“
I want one of my best accountants
and a good friend not to die,” Nick replied seriously. Then he
added, “I’m almost fifty years old, Mia. I’ve never brought up
having kids with you because I thought I was too old. These past
few months spending time with Sasha have been good. She was like
the daughter I never thought I would have. And the three of us
together have such a good time….” He looked Mia in the eyes. “Look,
I don’t want to pressure you into anything, but if you want to do
this, I’m willing to jump off the ledge with you. You know I like a
good rush.”