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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M aybe I haven’t been completely clear about the way things were between Eve and I, the first time through. The fact is that we didn’t exactly hit it off right away. Sure, I brought her coffee, offered to pay for her busted camera, but like I said, I wasn’t all that bright back then and it didn’t occur to me to ask her out for at least two months. And even when that did finally happen, it was just the first step on a long road.

I liked her, sure, but during that season she was trying to track down her father and brother’s murderer, and although we worked together, flirted, downed a few after work beers and occasionally found ourselves folded together on her sofa, we dodged any commitment for a couple of years.

Then came my undercover years, and that’s another story, but it’s hard to love a man you hardly see, and when he does finally turn up, he looks like he’s just escaped from a maximum security prison, and tells tales that are straight out of an FX television series.

Let’s just say that Eve had her reasons for not wanting to tie herself to a guy like me.

And then there was Silas. Always in her ear, whispering that I was trouble. He was probably right, but it didn’t help our relationship.

Eve would argue with me, but I always suspected he was holding a torch for her.

Yet, despite Silas, despite the demons that kept me on the run, Eve and I kept finding each other, drawn by something bigger than ourselves, our fears, insecurities and even vices. We understood each other, more than anyone else in our lives could, and at the end of the day, respected each other.

Eve was my compass, my anchor to a life I desperately longed for, even if I didn’t know it.

I was the gasoline to the fire simmering inside her.

I’d forgotten how dangerous that combination could be until tonight when she stepped up to me, studied me with those luminous hazel-green eyes, holding more promise than she could even imagine, and kissed me.

I tried—really, with everything inside me, you have to know I tried not to kiss her. Because, awkwardly, my Eve, the one I was desperate to get back to, was in my head calling me a cheater. Yeah, I know. Weird. But the truth is, this Eve is not my Eve. Not yet. So maybe I am cheating.

But as her soft lips found mine, her aroma rising around me, everything merged into one succinct emotion. My Eve became now Eve, the gentle curl of her hair falling over my fingers, the taste of her filling every barren crevasse as she kissed me.

How could I not kiss her back? Yeah, I agree, I lost myself there, every thing about her so familiar. It took over and pushed me somewhere I know she wasn’t ready for. God help me, but in that moment, every crazy nuance, every unbelievable event of the past thirty-six hours broke open and for a few sweet moments that ached soul deep, I was home.

I’m still shaking a little, my hands tight on the wheel, the fragrance of Eve still haunting, distracting me as I drive Asher home. The night is thick, my lights peeling back the darkness as we ride down the highway.

Asher says nothing as he sits beside me, tapping his hands on his jeans. I should turn on the radio, something to fill the prickle of silence between us.

I don’t remember Asher at all. From Eve’s stories, he was smart, a little bit of a renegade and her favorite. Wiry, this Asher has Eve’s dark auburn curls, his hair surfer long. Our daughter, Ashley, despite her wispy blonde hair, is his ironic spitting image. Tonight he’s wearing a black Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and high top Cons.

“So, you’re into my sister, huh?” he says into the darkness, apparently not able to stand the void.

Your sister is my entire life. I don’t say that, though. Instead, “I’d appreciate it if you just forgot what you saw tonight. At least for now.” I look at him. “We need to figure things out.”

My own words make me want to wince, the line feeling fresh off the set of Friends. But he lifts a shoulder. “I don’t care. It’s your funeral.”

I frown, but I don’t exactly want to know what he means, so I flip on the radio.

Oh great, a little Bad Company rolls on with “Feel Like Makin’ Love”.

Great.

He’s looked out the window and I think I see a grin.

I flick off the radio and pull onto his street. Stop a few doors down. “Thanks.”

“No problem, dude.” He gets out, slams the door and disappears into the night.

I wait a few minutes, just in case there’s shouting, then head back to Uptown.

I don’t want any more regrets.

My own words are in my head, and I roll down the window, letting the night wind sweep over me, dislodge the carnal desires still stirring inside. I meant it when I said I wish I could do things differently with Eve, get rid of the myriad stops and false starts, but this isn’t quite what I was thinking.

Okay, fine. I admit that’s exactly what I thought for a few minutes there, but now that I’m here , I’m afraid of screwing things up. Again.

And, what I neglected to mention is that time seemed to be looping back around to a familiar song between Eve and me. Late night case, a beer in the kitchen, the sultry summer night wind teasing the curtains at the windows. More than once we let things spill over from the kitchen to her living room, then upstairs to her bedroom.

That’s a couple years away, really, but it started a cycle that we couldn’t break, the hot-cold, on again, off again torrid romance that nearly did us both in. Eventually Ashley arrived. To my great regret, I still had to think about what to do as Eve handed me the little white stick with the plus sign, as if marriage might be a noose that would cut off air to the rest of my life. Practical Eve suggested we didn’t have to be married to make good parents.

But, like I said, Eve is my compass, my anchor, and it took the thought of some other man—and Silas came to mind—raising my daughter, holding the woman I love late at night and the right answer took hold.

I’d like to not have broken Eve’s heart a few go-rounds before Ashley came along.

And okay, I’m a different man now, but like Eve suggested tonight, what if one small change makes everything worse?

What if I screw everything up again…and this time I run out of second, third, even fourteen (I lost count how many times Eve took me back) chances?

My head is pounding, the lateness of the hour, the beer, and even the list tucked into my back pocket of the three coffee shops with the Good Earth brand are aligning to make me want to go to my apartment, pull the covers over my head and wish to wake up. Really wake up and let it all be over.

To be tucked up beside Eve in our fixer upper craftsman, my muse a cement block in my head, our towheaded daughter across the hall wishing for her Gomer.

I’ll live with my nightmares if I can just be assured that I haven’t somehow screwed up everything I already have.

But I have a terrible gut feeling that if I do that, tomorrow I’ll wake up to yet another morning with Burke pounding at my door, eight more lives lost.

I tap my breaks at the light and while I wait, I pull out the list. Like Asher said, three stores, one of them in St. Paul. I know that one is out because I remember the bombing happening on this side of the river.

So, that leaves the other two locations. I glance at the clock—a little before four a.m.

Time enough to do a drive by, see if anything jogs a memory.

I pass Webster with only a glance toward Eve’s house. I can’t see it from here, though, so I don’t know if she’s left a light on.

The thought makes my entire body ache as I turn off highway 7 onto 100 and head south to Bloomington.

The radio is no help to my decision. Aerosmith is singing “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”.

It’s a quick drive on the deserted highway, just a few cars out. I pass a couple of Minneapolis’ finest idling under overpasses, remembering the speed limit these days is 55.

Highway 100 turns into Normandale, which turns into Old Shakopee Road and I head west, the area hazy in my memory. I’m not holding out hope for recognition.

CityPerk is located in a strip mall sandwiched between a Chinese takeout joint and an insurance company. I pull into the parking lot, staring at the green awning, the brick exterior, the metal chairs outside, the folded umbrellas and especially the darkened windows.

Nothing. Not a nudge, not an itch, it’s as if I’ve gone to Taiwan for all the familiarity of the place. (I’ve never been to Taiwan, for those wondering).

The hours say 6 a.m. - 9 p.m.

It occurs to me that maybe I should check in with Burke. So, while I sit there, I call him.

He answers on the first ring, which tells me he’s on the job, and not happy about it. “What?”

“So, no go on Ramses?”

“He’s not here, probably picked up a girl and is getting a good night’s sleep. Which is what I should be doing. Where are you?”

I give him a short rundown of my activities. To his credit, he’s all, ‘uh huh,’ and ‘interesting,’ but when I finish with the fact I’m staking out one of the two locations, he’s silent.

I know there is a why forming in his brain, but he doesn’t want to say it. So I fill in for him. “On the off chance there’s going to be a third bombing, I want to be prepared.”

“You can’t stake out every coffee shop in the city.”

“No,” I say, and I hold in the rest—the fact that if I’m at the right place, at the right time, this all ends. But I do add, “If, by a crazy chance, Ramses isn’t sleeping off a hangover, and is in fact, on his way to deliver bomb number three, I plan to stop him.”

Silence. Then, “Sure.”

I don’t expect that, but maybe Burke is still rattled by the deaths, the terrible task of informing families of the tragedy. It had to bring up his own not-so-quiet demons.

“What’s the other location?”

I turn on my dome light and read the address. “It’s downtown. CityPerk, on 10th Ave. In the warehouse district, by the river.”

“I’ll meet you there if Ramses doesn’t show up by 6 a.m.”

I agree, hang up, and pull out of the lot, back onto Old Shakopee Road, winding my way back to the city. Minneapolis at this time of night has lost its allure. The bars are closed, the streets inhabited by the weary, the homeless and the soused. I take 35W into the city, veer onto 94 and get off on Washington Ave.

The Town Hall Brewery we ate at yesterday is only a couple blocks away, but it suddenly feels like years since I was there with Eve.

Driving southeast would bring me into the University of Minnesota campus and more memories, but I turn northwest, along the river, past the hotels, the warehouses that, over the next twenty years will turn into high-end flats, and finally all the way to 10th Avenue.

The shop is located on a soon-to-be revitalized vintage brick building, just down the road from the Minneapolis Public Works offices and across the street from a vacant warehouse.

I’m starting to get my bearings. Now, and I mean in my now, in the stead of the warehouse stands a five-story parking garage.

I have a feeling I know why.

Because more is coming back to me. The coffee shop is the last in a line of tiny local shops, a florist, a bicycle repair shop, a café, and just down the street, an eclectic gym. They’re all located on the bottom level of a massive, empty warehouse. I’m standing in the middle of time here, that crest of hope that if you build it they will come. I have no doubt some contractor somewhere is drawing out plans for 900 square foot, open-beamed lofts.

I get out and stand under the streetlight, getting a feel for the place. Maybe it’s the darkness, almost like the edge of a dream, but I can almost smell it, the singe of flame against wood, hear the shatter of glass.

I make out faded lettering on the brick above the shops. A store supply center. Store supply means displays, racks and…mannequins.

I see them in memory, just a flash through the back of my mind. Charred, their faces distorted, curled into themselves from the heat. Bodies that lay grotesquely on the pavement, jarring us into panic until we realize the truth.

Bingo.

I was here. I stood outside the rim of fire, watching the water arc, listening to the chaos.

Eight people died. But worse, this time the bomber hadn’t spared the nearby buildings. Whether too enthusiastic, or simply unaware, he’d created a force that leveled almost half this city block.

The reminder turns me ill and I bend over, gripping my knees, my stomach roiling. But it’s empty, save for the beer, so I gulp in breaths and clear my head before I make a fool of myself on the street.

I climb back into my car, sweaty, trembling.

This time, no one will die.

I back up, out of the light, swaddled in the darkness with a good view of the shop, lay my head back on the rest, pin my eyes on the store, and wait.