I was quiet when I walked down the stairs and left the note on the kitchen table. The note was misleading, but it couldn’t be helped. I needed to buy myself some time before she started looking for me. I had nothing but the backpack with some of my old clothes, the backpack where I’d found some kind of device that Gabriel had probably put there at some point without me knowing.
I tossed it down the toilet and flushed. I hope he was listening like in the movies, and I’d just deafened him. It took all my strength not to break the phone he’d given me into a million pieces, but I left it along with everything else he’d given me in the closet where I’m sure they’d be found later. The message was loud and clear. I wanted nothing of what he’d given me.
By the time I got into the Uber, which I’d had pick me up down the street away from the house, I was madder than I’ve ever been in my life. Mad and full of righteous indignation. It was the only way to keep the shakes at bay. The only way I could find to deal with the heartache and pain that threatened to devour me.
GABRIEL
I admit to blanking out on the way up the steps and into the building since I could pretty much guess where this was going, and my mind was rightfully still back in that little grove where I’d last spoken to her. Lance’s words were making me on edge a bit as well. Why did her grandmother have to come get her?
Of course, I expect her to be upset, I’m upset at the situation, but the thought of her hurting so much she had to leave school is making me feel like even more of an asshole than I already do. Whatever this is Pop’s about to do, I want over with, so I can get back to the house and have the twins go look after her.
Levi, the snake charmer, met us inside the doors, and that’s when my focus shifted. Why the heck is Pop bringing him in? Somebody’s feelings are about to get hurt and hurt real bad. “Gabe, Lance, you boys have grown.” Since when? He just saw us a few weeks ago at the twins’ sweet sixteen. I didn’t say a word, though, because he was wearing his yellow tie.
Levi’s ties are a harbinger to whatever mood he’s in. Yellow means he’s not only out for blood, but he pretty much has his prey cornered with no way out, and Pop’s gonna owe him big. Pop taught me all this a while ago, and it’s stuck because of the pure perfidy of the matter. His smile, along with those frat boy looks of his, like he wouldn’t harm a fly, tends to put everyone at ease. At least he’s not wearing the pink one. Sheesh!
We made it to the commissioner’s office, which looked like a completely different place from the rest of the station, almost like we’d made a wrong turn somewhere. Plush carpet and overstuffed leather chairs compared to the cracked linoleum floors and hard plastic chairs on the floor below.
I recognized the commissioner as he stood to his feet behind his desk to greet Pop but could only guess who the room’s other occupant was. From the way Lance tensed up with a sour look on his face, I figured my assumptions were right and shifted my body to put myself between them. That quick, my mind shifted gears.
I’ve been a horrible friend. My boy is going through something, his life’s dream is being threatened, and my selfish ass has only been thinking about myself. Granted, I have all faith that Pop would take care of it, but still. “Commissioner!” Pop’s first power play was to ignore the other man’s outstretched hand before taking a seat.
He motioned for Lance and I to take a seat in the chairs on either side of him, with me being the one closer to Dempsey. Levi didn’t sit. Instead, he opened up his briefcase and withdrew some official-looking documents, which he passed across the desk. “What’s this?” The commissioner accepted them.
“This is what we’re willing to do unless our demands are met. Your subordinate will make a public apology to the young man he harassed and threatened….”
“Harassed? Threatened?” I guess Dempsey isn’t the brightest.
“Shut up, Dempsey!” His boss muzzled him while Levi just gave him a look.
Pop just looked straight ahead, not saying a word, almost as if he wasn’t interested. I knew better. That tic right beneath his ear is a dead giveaway to the fact that he was barely leashed, and it wouldn’t take much to send him over the edge.
“As I was saying,” Levi carried on. “He will make an apology, and then he will be terminated from his post, or we will sue the department for solicitation of a minor in the facilitation of a crime.” Dempsey flew out of his chair. “Solicitation? What the hell are you talking about?”