The Current Between Us

“I, ah… The storm woke me, and I… Yeah, I shave every day,” Trent said, stumbling on his words. The look on Trent’s face made it clear the question confused him.

“I thought as much,” Gage said. He didn’t stand because he didn’t want to scare Trent away with the solid tent in his pants, but instead lifted the check and both telephone numbers toward Trent who leaned in to take them. Then Gage did the most stupid thing of all, he offered his hand. The handshake they shared caused his heart to slam into his chest and his stomach to flutter, but he squelched it down. This man across from him didn’t want to be interested, and there were plenty more who did. Forcing his thoughts back to the phone call, Gage answered it again before Trent even turned away from him.

****

“Update me,” Gage said as the door closed behind Trent.

“Secure line?” one of Gage’s Mexico leads, Manuel, asked back in a thick Spanish accent.

“It is,” Gage said.

“I’m in,” Manuel said, his normally craggy voice held a hint of excitement.

“In the mission?” Gage asked, wondering if he’d heard the words correctly.

“Yes!” Manuel hissed, clearly proud of the accomplishment.

“Excellent work! Have you made contact?” Gage asked. Could it seriously be this easy?

“No, I will. I’m following him now. It’s too open and unsecure here. I’ve got to watch it, this isn’t making a lot of sense,” Manuel said in a hushed tone.

“Yeah, I’m aware. Keep your guard up. It’s rarely this easy, something isn’t right. And we’re still positive on the ID?” Gage asked. He sat back in his chair, staring off at nothing in his office as he thought over the possibilities.

“Did you see the videos?” Manuel asked? All the exuberance from earlier was gone. From years of working with Manuel, Gage knew the guy didn’t play, he was already strategizing over his next move.

“Yeah,” Gage said.

“Me too, it’s a match, Mr. Synclair, down to the missing finger. I gotta go.” The connection rustled as though Manuel shifted the position of the phone against his face. “They’re on the move.” Manuel disconnected the call.

Gage laid his phone on the desk and sat back again in his chair, this time staring out the glass windows into the gallery. Interesting how his hard-on completely deflated with talk of the loser, Abdulla. Hell, loser wasn’t the right word. Loser gave the guy too much credit. He was garbage. Gage covered lots of terrible people over the last ten years who did lots of dreadful deeds, but this guy was the worst of the worst, and now he’d secured two clear positive IDs on Abdulla in the little rundown, thought-to-be-abandoned convent mission in Mexico. It meant they were truly closing in. Bringing Abdulla to justice would be worth everything it took to get here.

Chapter 5

Trent drove his pickup through the tree-lined street of his neighborhood with the window rolled down, letting the gentle breeze coat his skin and enjoying the golden sunset on that late spring evening. He lived on a street where most of the houses were custom built about thirty years ago. He waved at his neighbors as he turned down the long drive that led to his back yard.

The gate sat pushed open, waiting for his arrival. Both Emalynn and Hunter were playing in their custom built jungle gym with Rhonny sitting in her normal spot on the patio, studying from one of her textbooks. Em saw him first and took off running from the swing set straight to the truck, but Hunter soon overtook her smaller stride. Everything became a race to the little guy. It didn’t matter he beat an almost four-year-old, he loved winning and called it loudly.

“I win! I beat you, Em!” Hunter declared, tagging the truck with his hand while looking over his shoulder at his sister.

“Daddy, I wasn’t racing. He didn’t really beat me,” Em said, finally making it to him as he got out of the truck.

“I know, baby. Hunter’s just at that age,” Trent said, shutting the truck door. Rhonny sat on the porch laughing as he scooped Em up for a big wet kiss on the lips. Hunter wrapped himself around Trent’s leg, giving him a tight hug and Trent reached down to rub his little boy’s head as they began to make their way to the back porch.

“Why do you always say I’m at that age, Daddy?” Hunter asked, walking alongside him.

“I say it because it’s what the parenting books say. At this age, he’ll do this. So I just say it back to you when you do something they say you will do at this age,” Trent said, looking down at Hunter’s upturned face. Both the children looked at him with their huge green eyes that seemed to reach out to his soul. He ran his hand over Hunter’s short, dark hair. From Em’s position in his arms, her soft wavy ash blond curls, wisped around her face and tickled his cheeks. It broke his heart to think about cutting her hair so it grew long, curling down her back.

“Oh, Daddy, did the book say I could do this? Because I learned this at school today,” Hunter said, dropping down to do a very sloppy, but successful front roll in the grass.

“Good job, man. You know, I don’t think it said you could do it until you were seven,” Trent said as Em began bucking in his arms to get down.

“Daddy, I want to do it! Please!” Emalynn dropped straight down, landing on her feet, bending her head down to the concrete driveway.

“Hang on, Em, let me help you. Come to the grass, you’ll hurt your head on the sidewalk.” Trent moved to the yard where they played together until complete darkness, about forty-five minutes later. Em got the hang of the front roll, while Hunter worked on his back rolls and handstands. The whole time Trent spotted them both, making sure neither got hurt. He even executed a couple of sloppy front rolls himself to the excitement of the children.