Young Squatters (16 page)

He was now back to inflict pain on the son of a bitch that had connections to the death of his dear boy. He was now the angel of death, and his wrath was clouding evidence first.

He silently sat behind the driver’s wheel of his car as he carefully observed the happy couples playing with the water sprinklers on the front yard. He had been doing this for days, just for the sake of understanding this Bradford guy.   He smiled a bit, as if he caught a glimpse of his cunning nature. So far he was impressed by how well he covered his tracks. He always had a way of avoiding the mud. Forbes even dared to do some digging into Bradford’s background. His old man was the laziest human being he had ever seen as far as he could tell. He was living off the sweat of a woman; his ex-wife.

As soon as Bradford left the house, he was up on his tail trailing him slowly trying to understand how he survived in the streets. Bradford was organizing another party with his notorious friend, Abe, and he was counting on it as a trap to take him down. His investigation would soon be over and he would gladly make his famous assumption “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”

***

Back at the university, Mr. Steven Birk was not only puzzled, but amazed, by the interest of Colin in the social networking lectures. He was at the top of the class. Bradford was impressed by this and was happy to learn that the young boy had soon learned to let go of the past and focus on his studies.  Colin, however, was perfecting his poker face, not because he wanted to be the top student in the class, but something about social networking fascinated him to a level of unmentionable curiosity. Not even his friend Connor knew about this for he was too good at covering it up.

Nora was no longer feeling at ease in her workplace as the shackles in her life were in complete destruction. Not even the presence of Clara was helping; things were falling apart and she had no control of anything. Ben called her informing her that he would pick up the kids from school that day. “Ben has a good heart,” she thought, but she was never sure what went on inside Belinda’s mind for she was too confident in herself to let anyone in. She only stayed with her because she was her sister.

Colin left school early with the intention of taking care of some personal things.  He was able to talk Ben into buying him a mountain bike. He would no longer need his mother’s assistance to drive him home.  He cycled through the carefully landscape that linked to the brick wall that formed a cocoon around the university property. The cold breeze piercing through his face gave him some time to think as he counted his future steps like a chess master. He was on a mission.  He made several stops at the town center toward the locality of the various cyber cafes. He had managed to interrogate the owners without an I.D. or a badge. He used the excuse of a school project to get the answers to the tough questions. This went on for several hours until he found the specific cyber café he was looking for.

He entered the house and no one seemed to be interested in paying attention to him, and the glow on his face quickly had to adapt. He wanted to shout to them that everything was going to be all right, but he feared counting the chicks before they hatched. The situation at home was not one he could call perfect but he was happy for everything that had prevailed that day and one day they might just be lucky to call their house a home again. All he had to do was wake up in the morning and schedule an appointment with Officer Ryan down at the police station for if it was the law that took their house away he had a way of bending the law to his favor.

***

The house was once again filled to the brim and Harper was becoming tired of the house parties. She could not understand why Bradford could not take them somewhere else or even why he could not host decent parties for that matter. She could not fit in such a crowd for he would never even allow it, so something had to be seriously wrong. The house was supposed to be a home and not where people could crash after being wasted on whatever drinks they had.

Ever since he got the house for her, he never once thought of taking her out to a nice restaurant for dinner or a movie or a picnic. The thought lurked in her mind thinking it was maybe selfish of her to want this.   But if he could afford to host such a huge party, he could take her out. He was clearly hiding something from her and she was too shy to find out what it was.

Bradford was proud of his accomplishments--a beautiful girl to be his life companion, a dream house to share their dreams and now another opportunity to add something into his pocket for their well-beings. He knew he had to be careful as he did not want to ruin this for Harper; he wanted her life to be full of ease with no more struggles. The night was promising and he was sure of scoring big tonight. The DJ let the music absorb the human noises that seemed to dominate the place as everyone began to dance.  Bradford silently carried out his business behind the table with Abe on the lookout as his private eye.

The whole time Forbes was busy stalking the place, dressed as a ordinary person. He surveyed through the crowd of teenagers wasting themselves in the realm of alcohol, but had no time to spare any portions of pity for he was looking for a single target. There he was, lingering in a sense of humor with a proud look on his face about the accomplishments he thought he had managed to safeguard. All he needed was an eye on the operation taking place, and as soon as it happened he had his paparazzi camera in place. He managed to take a few snaps of the deal taking place, and as soon as he thought it was sufficient enough for him it was time to move in for the big kill.

He hurried through the door, but Abe was too quick to notice his face. Forbes drew his revolver, but before he could utter the words
freeze! Police!
Abe snatched the leather bag from Bradford’s possession, and fled through the window. Forbes could not let him get away as he quickly followed his trails\ while firing some warning shots in the air with an attempt of convincing the suspect to a quick surrender.   From the ignored response, Forbes knew a gunshot was a familiar sound to the thug as he quickly slid into the dark night as a result of age disparity between the two. The kid ran with the evidence, but Forbes was not ready to give up, he went back for his friend Bradford who was too willing to be taken in for questioning. He wanted to wipe the smug smile off Bradford’s face, but knew too well the mind game Bradford was playing. It was sickening knowing that he was the reason behind the overdose of his only son and the wreck of a life that it had cost him. Harper was busy crying after seeing Bradford being arrested for she did not understand the situation, although he promised to be back home soon

***

Officer Ryan helped prepare the interrogation room.

“I am telling you sir, I am just a victim here and whatever that guy Abe ran away with is his business.”

“Do not try to be smart with me kid, I do have sufficient evidence to put you away for possession,” Forbes roared.

“I am telling you sir, I am the victim here and if you think you have something against me, I am ready to face the music.” He was too smart for the law and Forbes knew it, the son of a bitch had it all figured out knowing very well any charges against him would not suffice. He might have proven this, but his friend Abe was not so smart and was now a fugitive of the law.

There was no reason to hold Bradford anymore, and all Forbes could do was release him.  He was told not to leave the state.

Bradford left the station with his smile of innocence, but as soon as he was out his facial expression suddenly changed.  Not watching where he was walking, he ran into a telephone pole along the street as he strolled back to
his
house, trying to figure it out.

***

“Who the hell is this guy Forbes and what is his interest in me? Why had he gone through such lengths?” A piece of the puzzle was missing and he was not sure which one. He had to contact his lawyer friend in case he knew anything about him.  Maybe it is Nick trying to settle a score with him, for he was the reason why he is in prison.  He was lucky this time, for if it were not for the bold move of Abe, his life would have momentarily shattered.  He had to be careful now, for his home was under attack. He flipped his phone to leave a voicemail message for his lawyer friend as he reached the doorsteps of
his
house.

***

Colin had finally done it; he managed to put his fingers on it. The I.P. tracker was the one thing stressing him the whole time he sat through the social networking class. Now it was over, and he had to move on to the next phase.   Colin was happy as he had an idea that could not only free his father, but also his home. He was not the ignorant type for he knew his dad and mom were in disagreement, which was not a good thing. He was quiet aware of broken marriages and how it affected the children. He did not want Clara to be in such a predicament, she was too young and innocent; the separation of their parents would only leave her a scar.  That was the predicament and he had to believe in karma or fate to fix the situation.

***

“May I speak to Officer Ryan please?” he politely addressed the young receptionist.

“One moment please,” she responded as she answered another telephone line that was continuously ringing.

Forbes suddenly appeared. “Colin, right?”  He knew very well he was Nick’s son. “Name’s Forbes, I am the one working on your dad’s case.  How may I be of assistance to you, son?”

All along, Colin thought he was the only one concerned with the well-being of his family and here was this Forbes guy, sharing the same common interest with him. He could not be happier.  Perhaps it was karma or fate.

“Sir I believe I have something that will help my family,” Colin started. This was interesting news to Forbes, and he quickly directed him over to his desk as he continued the story. “There is this guy Bradford who has taken over our home with allegations that it was rented to him through some Craigslist site on the Internet. We tried to disapprove his theory to the police, but they stated that he broke no law and he had the right papers. So you see, sir, we are now out of our house and now my dad is in jail because he tried to trick him to an open confession. ”

Before he could go any further with his story, Forbes stopped him. “Okay, son, I understand your concern, so what exactly do you have that we can use to push this case to another level? ”  Colin reached for his backpack and removed a video recording and handed it over to Forbes. “So you see sir, they say that I am the one who used my Gmail account to post the rental ad on Craigslist and received the payments through my PayPal account. But they were wrong and it was this Bradford guy playing some sort of trick on us. I have been taking some social networking classes and it has helped me come to a solution. The post on the Craigslist ad had a time stamp on the date that it was posted and I managed to track the I.P. address of the machine used to a cyber café downtown.” Forbes was confused about the technicalities of the terms used and Colin had to explain further.

“An I.P., sir is an identity of a computer, like a driving license identifies you.  Uniquely. In short, I was able to track the computer used that day, and thankfully enough they had video surveillance, and guess who was caught on camera that specific day and time?  Bradford!”

Forbes spoke out in both amazement and relief. The Bradford kid was not going to see this coming, he was sure of that. Colin had just helped solve the case.  The law would soon bring down Bradford.  He smiled as he watched the tape.

***

The surveillance video caught him in all dimensions known to man. It was no doubt that it was Bradford inside the cyber café committing the crime. “We have him right on the crime scene, son.  I will need the video footage for validity purposes.”

“No problem sir, you can have it for I have another copy at home.”

“You have done a great job son, and one day you will become a brilliant forensic analyst if that is something in line with your interests.”

Colin smiled a smile of appreciation knowing very well he deserved such a compliment.

Forbes had to make sure the tape was legal, as he really had to be sure this time around since the Bradford kid had beaten him in his own game once, and he was not going to let that happen again. He asked Colin to go with him to the cyber café that he used to collect the surveillance footage.

On the way Colin told him how he met Bradford and the friendship ties that led to all this mess. Colin was happy, having met someone who at least understood what he was going through.   Forbes wanted to make sure that no other innocent victim would have to suffer due to the likes of people like Bradford.

The sky was clear, the roads clear, and the sirens of racing police cars were clear of their destination. Forbes was the lead driver as he led his pack toward the capture of a criminal.  Bradford had managed to fool the police once, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again.

The police cars squealed. Forbes led the formation to the house with an arrest warrant in hand as he knocked on the door. “Good afternoon, we are looking for Mr. Bradford.”

Before Harper could even utter a single word he shoved himself inside the house with the warrant in hand. They searched each and every room in the house.

Forbes then asked Harper:  “Where is your boyfriend ?”

“He is my fiancé,” she answered.

“Okay, but we still need to know where he is”

“I do not know sir, he left this morning and I have not seen him since,” she carefully constructed her words so as not to arouse any form of suspicion.

“Okay, do you know when he might be back?”

“I do not know, sir. He is his own time keeper” she insisted.

Forbes sat in a police car to be on the lookout in case Bradford decided to show up.

Harper was scared, not knowing what sort of trouble Bradford got himself into this time. She wanted to call him to deliver a prior update on the situation, but was too afraid of Forbes.  He had his eye on her.

The evening was calm and too quiet than normal for Bradford. He was unsettled, as if something was going to happen, but he could not put his finger on it. “Maybe it’s nothing,” he said to himself as he increased his pace to be home earlier with his fiancé.

As he approached the house, he caught a glimpse of a police car that was surveying his house from a distance, and quickly froze before he could make a full appearance on the scene. Something was clearly wrong.

Harper.  The poor sheep did not know how to survive in the world of wolves. Did he teach her well?   He must have prepared her for the worst.   Abe had managed to disappear, but if he knew what was good for him, he would never show up near this town again.

Maybe Bradford should have considered job searching like Harper wanted him to.  To him jobs were for losers.  He went an extra mile to find a castle for his lovely Harper, and now it was under threat. He feared for Harper; she would have to go back to her abusive environment of her mother and the many boyfriends wanting a piece of both of them. He needed an exit plan.

Forbes patience was coming to an end.  He briefly interrogated Harper about the acquisition of the house through Craigslist, but she was a good student of Bradford’s teachings. She knew very well that she was to play the victim and not the suspect, and that is exactly what she did.

“I am sorry sir, but my husband handled all the paperwork. I am not too familiar with the legal issues, as all I did was take a back seat sir,” she innocently defended herself.

“Your husband acquired this house illegally, and he is a suspect in a very vicious cyber-crime and we will need to bring him in for questioning. As for your current home status, I am sorry to say that you will have to move from the house by morning, as the real owners of this house will be moving back.”

Harper was speechless.  Tears were clouding her eyes.

“Where the hell is Bradford when you need him?” She shouted in her rage.  You promised me Bradford, you promised me a better life away from the hurt and guilt and now you must keep to the end of your bargain.”

By then Forbes was long gone, taking the good news to Nora; a woman whose limits of hope were at its end. He was human, after all, for he gave Harper a night to get her affairs in order for by morning he was sure Nora would beat the sunrise back to her home

***

The night was quiet, and Belinda was late from work again for the second consecutive week. Nora was a brilliant timekeeper as she liked to characterize everyone in her life based on their time and organizational skills. The newly acquired character of Belinda seemed to upset her. She did not know why but she had an idea. They had extended their visit in Belinda’s household for too long and she was beginning to doubt the temporary accommodations.

Belinda was not a heartless person but was slightly upset by Nora’s characterized behavior as she thought of it as too compromising. She did not understand why she had to rely so much on Nick so much,
that good for nothing,
as she liked to refer to him. She should step up like she did and become a fierce goddess like she had managed to prove herself to Ben, making him feel like he was the one that was married to her and not the other way around.

Maybe it was the reason why she stayed out so late after work just trying to avoid some level of confrontation with Nora. She was too frank to everyone and that was why Ben feared her, making him look like a child in front of everyone.

Nora was deep in her thoughts, the thoughts that took her too far away from the painful reality. It was a safe haven for her as she could construct the nature of events only she could control and understand. Before she could drown further, a polite knock on the door was the one thing that brought her back to her senses. Ben was busy on the computer and she saw herself as the only idle suspect at home and therefore had to answer the door.

“Good evening ma’am. Name’s Forbes, and you must be Nora right?  I have been handling your husband’s case and am glad to inform you there is some level of progress on the case.”

The words should have been music to her ears, but she was upset at herself and the Forbes guy. She had no expressive response to the report brought by Forbes but he continued anyway.

“I also have some positive feedback about the situation of your home. I mean your previous residence.”

The report now sounded more like a musical tone to Nora’s ears as she literally dragged Forbes inside the house with words of excitement.

“Please, what news do you have of my home? Have you finally managed to get the intruders out of my house?” she went on.

“Not really ma’am, but the house will be yours by morning. We have to go through some clearance protocol, but be sure to be in your house by sundown tomorrow.”

This was the kind of news Nora wanted to hear, but she could not wait for sundown as she wanted her and her kids to have breakfast in their house since it was the beginning of a kind weekend.

“Oh thank you sir, what a relief this news will be to my kids, and here I thought I was becoming a homeless person.”

“Things in life always have a way of fixing themselves, ma’am.” Forbes tried to comfort her in the glimpse of the excitement. He had solved a piece of the puzzle, but that was not the real deal, for he wanted more. He wanted to take down Bradford for drug charges, but Nora’s family just happened to be in the middle of the mess he was cleaning up.

Colin came through the door and was surprised to see Forbes.

“You have a very bright son, ma’am, as he was able to assist us in resolving the conflict in your case. He provided us with key evidence that was able to alienate the obstacles that were standing in the way of this case.” She even felt more guilt drown inside her. Here her son was working on a solution to bring the family back together when all she did was complain all day long about what Nick did or what he could have done. She felt more of a kid than Colin was because his maturity level toward the situation surpassed hers.  She couldn’t be more proud of him. She informed Colin of her plan to beat the sunrise to their home and that just made the night more interesting for him. They were to be back home by morning, but Nick was not in the picture. Forbes promised her that her husband would be out in no time. The news was comforting and was enough to sleep on that night.

Colin quickly ran up the stairs with the good news to tell Clara.  “We are going home!”

“Now? But it is dark outside!”

“Not now silly, early in the morning. Mom said we’ll have our breakfast there like old times.”

“What about daddy, will we be seeing him any time soon? I really miss him, Colin,” she complained.

“Not to worry.  I miss him too, we all do, and in no time we will be back at our home as one big family.”

Clara was finally satisfied with the response from her big brother and she happily jumped on him for a hug.

***

Nora was busy moving the last of her belongings into the car as she hurried Colin and Clara to be ready. Life was giving control back to her as it had a change of heart. She went back inside to bid farewell to Belinda and Ben.  She had been exiled for six months now from her dear home and this would be the homecoming. Belinda was not only happy for her sister, but relieved.  Ben on the other hand was sad to see them leave; he was so attached to Nora. They had managed to be good friends in ways they both thought could have never been possible. It was time to move on with life but they were still a family and meeting again every once in a while for a get together was never going to be an issue.

Bradford knew he was a wanted man. This Forbes guy had managed to ruin his paradise and he did not know the reason behind his actions. He was a fighter and never backed down from any fight, but now he had to pick his fights carefully. He knew what he was fighting for and at this point all his cards were on the table for Harper. He had made arrangements for a moving van to come for Harper and their things, as he watched from a safe distance.

Harper was struggling to get every of their belongings together before the neighborhood caught a glimpse of her. She knew very well that she should be out of the house before the first ray of sunlight. The neighborhood housewives were another nightmare for her and it would really be a good day if she made it out without one of them realizing her departure.

She had especially made an enemy out of the Parker woman who was recently taking note of each and every move of hers.  They had managed to find out where she went for her internship and almost got her in trouble with her employer, was it not for the fact that he did not prey on gossip like they all did. He was a good man, and she remained with a single month in the company before she could be placed in another job. As she took the last of their belongings to the car, she turned back for a last glance of what could have been her dream home, but the dream was never truly hers. It was a stolen dream and deep inside her heart she must have known something like this was not possible

She turned away from the present memory as she was now determined to walk away from all this and find a safe haven somewhere else, but not sure where. Bradford must have had a plan for her, he was her guardian angel and she had to have some level of faith in him. Before she could fade from the view, Nora’s car was already in sight and she felt energy leave her body. She had to clear from the scene before Nora put her claws on her. To Harper, Nora was the queen of all the deranged women she had met ever since her existence in that house. Nora was quick to unpack her car as she made an approach toward Harper as if to bid her farewell.

“What the hell are you still doing here you whore?” Nora yelled as she tried to keep up with her pace.

Harper could not take it; the scene she was trying so hard to avoid was already in site. She ran screaming at the truck driver to start the vehicle. The neighborhood was slowly adjusting to the current change of events with Millie Parker being the first one to come out of her house.

“You should be in jail; that is where you belong. You just wait until I get my hands on you,” Nora yelled.

“Welcome back neighbor” Millie smiled at the scene Nora had caused as she waved frantically. Nora waved back. She quickly hurried the kids out of the car now remembering and feeling embarrassed due to the scene she had caused. She should have known better how to conduct herself in front of the kids, but they seemed to understand the scenario. They cut her some well-deserved slack.

The lawn was lazily nurtured and Nora compared it to the skills Nick used to keep it nice. The house looked like it was hit by a hurricane.  Nothing was in order. Bottles of alcohol were everywhere in the living room and the trash had not been taken out for days.

“Roaches!” she murmured to herself.

Clara was complaining of the mess in her room.  Colin was not happy about the writings on the wall of his room.  Nora knew very well there would be some fixing to be done in case she ever wanted the house to be like it was.

She was proud of her kids; of how strong they had been throughout the whole ordeal. Colin had been impressive, having brought a great ray of hope back into their lives and she was sure of making it up to him one of the fine days. She searched through the telephone directory and dialed Sarah’s number, hoping she would be willing to come and offer them some assistance. To her surprise, Sarah was busy searching for employment after a previous monthly contract that was terminated. She was more than glad to be rehired by a familiar face for she had run out of alternatives of where to go next.

Sarah arrived only to find them still stacked up with their belongings, as no one was willing to unpack anything until the house was cleaned. Sarah knew exactly where to begin for this was her territory.  Colin and Clara went to the backyard.