“Then I’d like to leave,” I answered. My phone was ringing from my pocket, it was Tommy cal
ling.
Tommy
Tia’s phone rang twice and then went to voicemail. Fuck.
I was sitting in the coffee shop across the street from the cop shop. I’d sent Nino away so he and Bee could take their son Joey to T-ball. I called my Pop’s lawyer and left him a voicemail. I called Pop and he said he’d try to find out what was going down. And I sat. And sat.
I texted her,
“I’m in the coffee shop across the street when you’re done. xxx”
An hour passed and I texted her again,
“I’m going home. Call me when you’re done and I’ll come pick you up.”
Two more hours, nothing. No read receipts on my texts. Pop and I talked and he told me that he had word Greg O’Connor had been arrested. I knew there had to be a connection.
“Did you do this to O’Connor, Pop?” I asked.
He was quiet on the other end of the phone.
“Pop?”
“Maybe,” Pop answered.
“Fuck, Pop.” I hung up and hit the wall with my fist. Was Tia gone? Had she been presented with a way to escape me and taken it? No. There was no way. I wanted to believe that what she and I had was real. It felt real. She wouldn’t leave me. Would she?
Tia
For hours they interrogated me, left me waiting in that room, came back and asked the same questions again with different phrasing. They started to talk about the rap sheets of some of the people in Tommy’s father’s “organization” as they called it. They started to talk about murders that they couldn’t pin. They’d said that the Ferrano family was suspected of a lot of different illegal activities. They told me they were even linked with slave trade overseas, with cocaine crops in South America, with mass murder down in Mexico where Earl Johnson, a Ferrano “foot soldier”, was found with a gunshot to the face and three gunshots to his genitals and where a cartel leader had been found decapitated and castrated, his own genitals stuffed in his mouth. I threw up into the waste basket, just some liquid because I hadn’t eaten and of course that made them even more suspicious about whether or not I knew anything about that situation. The cartel’s compound had been found with eight murdered men in addition to Earl and Juan Carlos Castillo. Four women had been set free and had id’d someone matching the description of Tommy Ferrano as having been there with guns, urging them to leave. They said a woman matching my description was reported as being there as well. I shrugged it off saying I hadn’t been to Mexico and didn’t know what they were talking about. There had been no record of Tommy landing there or of him leaving the country but there were eye witness accounts initially but those had since been retracted.
I continued to tell them that I knew nothing about what they were talking about. They started asking me personal questions about Tommy. They asked when his birthday was. I didn’t know the answer to that; we hadn’t gotten there yet but I said March 1st. They told me his birthday was April 5th (I was close. He’d told me that he turned 29 a few months ago when his father bought him the house) and then asked me if I’d think it was strange that two people were engaged but that one didn’t know the other’s date of birth. I shrugged and said he hated birthdays so maybe he lied when he told me his birthday.
They suggested that perhaps I was afraid to reveal that I was really a prisoner, not his live-in girlfriend. I clammed up and told them that they needed to either arrest me or let me leave. That was when the door opened and Susie came in. My social worker. Shit. And then it went on and on with Susie trying to get me to talk.
She sat beside me and put her hand on mine and then asked them to leave us alone for a minute. I hadn’t seen her since my graduation day. She was such a sweet lady, had always been nice to me. I knew we weren’t really alone. It was obvious that they were watching us through the one way glass.
“Tia, they’ve told me that you’re saying that you’re with Tommy Ferrano of your own free will.”
“Yes.” I answered.
“That’s not what I heard; honey, are you scared? You don’t have to be. The police want to help. They can help you. I can help you.”
“I don’t need their help, Susie. I’m fine. I told Rose and Cal I’m fine. I’m telling you, I’m FINE.”
“I’ve known you for over half your life, Tia. Meeting some guy who’s known for being connected, for being the son of a crime Don? Moving in with him and cutting off contact with everyone other than a few quick conversations that are obviously designed to make people THINK you’re okay? Come on! This isn’t you. What’s really going on here?”
I shook my head, “Susie, I’m fine. I love him. He’s not mafia, that’s ridiculous. His father may be, I have no idea. But he’s not. I know nothing. Can I go?” I got to my feet.
“Tia, I’m here to help you. The police are here to help. Let us help you.”
She finally relented, giving me her home phone number and her cell number so that if I needed her, I could reach her.
An hour later, they finally told me I could leave. My cell phone was dead so I couldn’t call Tommy. I called a taxi. I didn’t know what the address of Tommy’s house was. I knew where it was, by intersection, so I guided the cab driver until we pulled up in front of the gate. I paid the driver with my debit card and stepped out in front of the gate and pushed the buzzer. Dex was already opening it to let me in.
“You okay?” he asked, “Need me to pay the cab?”