Chapter 12
1973 Words
Dean walked around a town home and peeked between the planks of the backyard fence. The grass seemed freshly cut and the garden well tended. There were people still living in the house.He brought his phone to his ear, calling Meryl's number. As an automatic message played, he walked back to his car in the driveway.
"Hey, Meryl, this is Dean. I've been trying to contact you about the investigation. I haven't heard from you in a while, so I wanted to make sure you're okay. Call me back when you get this message."
He pressed a button on his key chain and opened his car door, when another vehicle parked by the sidewalk and Chris jumped out of it.
Dean took off his jacket and clenched his fists. He didn't wait for the jackass to attack him. He was ready to end him.
"It seems you have a death wish," Dean ran toward Chris and tackled him onto the ground. He buried his knuckles and elbows onto the man's face.
Chris blocked some of the jabs with his forearms and tried turning his torso to get out from underneath Dean. Seeing that it was impossible, he reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a golden piece, and showed Dean his fingers.
Dean retrieved his elbow and frowned at the sparkling metal.
"This is my wife's ring," he snatched it out Chris's hand and inspected it.
"I took it back from the dumbass who stole it from her," Chris stumbled up. He bent over his knees and rubbed his jaw. "By the time I found him, he'd sold the car. Can we talk like civilized human beings?"
Dean turned the ring. He made sure it was real by checking the engraving on its inner face.
Forever & Ever, Amen. D & A Freeman.
***
Andrew turned to his side in a deep sleep. The breeze from the ceiling fan blew between his toes, making him curl into a fetal position. His mouth opened and drool began to soak his pillowcase.
The discomforting liquid kept him half awake but he was not giving up on sleep, so he kept his eyes close. Then all of his efforts shattered as Egg jumped out of Daniel's bed and began to growl at the door.
"Egg, go back to bed," Daniel sat up and rubbed his eyes.
The dog showed his sharp teeth. Andrew put on his slippers and walked close to the door. Low weak cries vibrated through the wooden panel. He gasped and turned to his brother, looking for confirmation that it wasn't a dream.
"Is that Mom?" Daniel placed his ear on the door.
The boys stared at their angry dog for a second, then torpedoed across the hallway and into their mother's bedroom. A dim light from the kitchen crept into the room, but they still couldn't make what was happening.
Egg jumped on the bed and bit into something.
A man screamed. That's when the boys saw their mother swinging her fists at the body on top of her. The man retaliated and punched her on the face and they both fell onto the floor. Egg barked louder.
"Dan, get his legs," Andrew kicked the r****t on the head.
Daniel held the man's legs together.
"You little shits," they recognized Wayne's voice although they hadn't heard it in a long time.
Allie turned on the bedroom lights. Her shirt was ripped at the front and she pulled up her panties. There was blood on her lips and hand print marks on her thighs. Her nails were bent and brittle.
"Baby, call nine-one-one," she yelled, grabbed her nightlight and smashed it onto Wayne's head.
"Mom, get out of here." Andrew pointed at the hallway as Wayne freed himself from Daniel's grip and stood up.
Allie didn't listen. She would never leave her ten year old babies to fend for themselves. She opened the drawer, scavenging for something sharp.
Daniel's eyes popped out of their sockets, seeing the zipper of his pants open and part of his genitals hanging out.
"Motherfucker!" He kicked him on the center of his growing.
Wayne screamed like a little girl and dug his fingers into the boy's neck.
Seeing this, Andrew jumped on the criminal's back, sending blows to his ears, but he wasn't strong enough to knock him out.
He did not expect, however, his mother to push Wayne's forehead up and hammer a pen into his eyeball.
"Daniel, Daniel!" Allie inspected the boy's neck.
"I'm okay. I'm okay," said Daniel.
"Let's go!" Andrew picked up Egg and they all ran for the door.
As they reached the living room, Wayne called from the bedroom. He raised a handgun and showed them the barrel.
"Allie! I was supposed to take you alive but you gave me no choice." Blood gushed out of his left eye. He rubbed the liquid off his cheek and started laughing.
"Wayne, I know you're angry at me. Please, don't take it on my boys. They have nothing to do with this. Just let them go."
"You know what's funny?" Wayne stopped laughing and placed his finger on the trigger. "Even if you would've married me or married Grayson, you would've still ended up here with a bullet in your—"
A bang in the balcony startled them and Wayne's body was thrown sideways into the kitchen. A pool of blood began to expand under his head, prompting Allie to cover her children's eyes with her chest.
***
The balcony door opened and Chris walked inside with a silver gun in his right hand.
"Piece o' s**t!" Grayson turned on the engine of his car, watching Chris enter the apartment.
He thought of reaching for his gun under his t-shirt, but the neighbors began to gather outside.
"Sorry, cous'. I can't risk losing Kai," he drove out of the condominium slowly to remain incognito.
***
Dean barged through the balcony door with his arms opened.
"Babe!" Allie pointed at Chris.
"It's okay. He's with me," Dean hugged her and both children at the same time. He checked for marks on their bodies.
"Dad, Wayne was all over Mom. He hit her. He hit her hard," Daniel didn't notice he was yelling.
"He grabbed Daniel's neck," said Andrew.
"f**k," the father pressed them against his chest and looked up at Allie. "You're all moving back with me tonight. I won't let you out of my sight. I won't fail you again."
He observed the hand prints between his wife's thighs in horror, but didn't ask about them.
"Hey, can ya'll do me a favor?" He tapped the kids' shoulders.
The twins nodded.
"Grandma is driving over as fast as she can, so Mom needs help packing up everything. Could ya'll get your things ready?"
"Yes, we can do it, right Andrew?"
Andrew nodded. As he and his brother ran toward the hallway, their eyes stared at the bloody kitchen in fear. Chris stood in front of the immobile body, not wanting the kids to see it.
"Oh my God, Dean, the kids will never forget this."
"Sweetheart, we'll get through this. We taught them to be strong. But I need to know, did Wayne...? Did he—"
"No. Look at my nails," she extended her fingers out. Her hands trembling. Blood traced around her nails. One of them had fallen off. "I fought so hard, but our babies saved me. They're just ten years old. I took a pen and I...Do you see the pen in his eyes?"
She began to ramble. "I don't understand anything. Why did Wayne come back? What is Chris doing here?"
"We'll explain everything," said Chris.
Dean kissed the top of her hands and pecked her lips.
"Come on, let's find you a blanket."
***
Allie watched as paramedics closed a bag over Wayne's head. The multicolored lights blinking through the window from the police cars were making her dizzy. She tightened her blanket around her shoulders and turned away from the windows.
Dean jerked his head at Chris and the bald man stood by the couch.
"Allie, this is Saayd Elkhatib. We know him as Chris, but he's actually a CIA agent. He's also Meryl's husband."
"What?" Allie panned back and forth from Dean to Chris.
"Mrs. Freeman, I'm so sorry about everything," Saayd started speaking, "but my wife's been missing for weeks and I was convinced you and Mr. Freeman had something to do with her disappearance."
"Meryl's been kidnapped?" she blinked a few times. "Why would you think we took her? With what motive?"
"When the department gave Nielsen's team the case on Wellington Family Farms, she was the only agent who truly believed in your innocence. Nielsen discarded her opinion because she and Mr. Freeman had had a past, so he tried to get her switched to another case. But my wife fought that with every loophole in the books and Nielsen had no choice but to let her stay."
Detective Nielsen walked into the living room with his hands behind his back.
"Every time we ran into evidence that incriminated you, Mrs. Freeman, Detective Elkhatib would always find another piece of evidence that turned that around. Meryl Elkhatib is so stubborn I had to let her do her own thing. I didn't mind as long as she showed progress."
"So you let her go alone to an assignment and made her keep me out of the loop about where she was going," Saayd gave Nielsen a menacing look.
"Because she wanted that. You know how she is. And don't point fingers at me. I could handcuff you right now for meddling with a case that is completely out of your department," Nielsen shook his index finger at him.
"So what was I going to do? Sit around and wait for you to find my wife. You didn't look for her the day I told you she was missing."
"She was undercover, God damn..." Nielsen fixed his tie. "You know what, my job right now is to find my sgent and bring her home. If you're not going to help, get out the way and let the experts—"
"Experts? I'm CIA mothah fu—" Saayd took a step toward Nielsen.
"But when did you change your mind about us?" Allie raised her voice at the lack of professionalism. However, she couldn't blame Saayd for his anger. He had a thousand intelligence tools available and he still couldn't find his wife.
Nielsen was right to keep him blind about the case. The desperate husband was too emotionally involved.
"I saw the chemical test report on the New Zealand flower," Saayd replied. "That's what gave you the bronchitis. If someone was trying to murder you, it was most likely the same person who took my wife."
"Someone was trying to poison me! It was Wayne, wasn't he?" said Allie.
Dean rubbed Allie's arms.
"Mrs. Freeman, where you aware that the man who attacked you today is Grayson Clarke's cousin?" asked Mr. Nielsen.
"What?" The couple said at the same time.
"After freezing the Lithuanian accounts that Jay Jain had created, we knew some of the numbers weren't adding up. So we figured that someone like Wayne, an accountant, must have known a thing or two about allocating huge amounts of cash. It was also peculiar that we lost all trace of him when Grayson got out of jail. Then, my friends from the TSA called me to tell me that months ago two Lithuanian nationals matching Wayne's and Grayson's description entered the country. We're just not so sure about why they came back. That's when Detective Elkhatib offered to go to a hotel where both men were staying. She interviewed a s*x worker who claimed to have been r***d and beaten by one of them and that was the last I heard of her."
Allie lowered her head while she processed the last hour of her life. She wanted to curl up in bed with her family and fall asleep. The adrenaline dissipated and everything started to ache.
Poor Meryl.
At some point, Allie hated Dean's ex-girlfriend so much, she didn't care to thank her after she learned their relationship had been fake.
She looked at her husband's expression of disbelief. He had as many questions as she had, but they couldn't remain unanswered for Meryl's sake.
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