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W hen they pulled up in front of Kate’s mother’s address, Lilliana looked over at Kate. “Is this the house where she lives?”
“No idea,” Kate muttered. “Last I heard, she was somewhere on the east side.”
“How bad was your life back then?” Lilliana asked.
“Bad, worse.… Nothing quite like a single mom desperate to find a life again, busy off doing other things and blaming her remaining child for what happened to the other one,” Kate explained calmly. “Foster care was a relief in a way. Being an adult has helped give me a slightly different perspective than my childhood version, but not nearly enough.”
“No, of course not,” Rodney agreed. “I can’t imagine.”
“No, especially not if you had two beautiful well-adjusted parents, with the requisite two kids and white picket fence around the perfect little house. That’s something that I never even knew existed until I was an adult. And, even then, really only Simon has made me see that such a scenario really happens for some people.” When Rodney stared at her in obvious surprise, she shrugged. “I’ve spent my entire life not understanding what a family is,” she shared, “and Simon is very much about family.”
“Even though he doesn’t have any?”
“Yeah, even though he doesn’t have any,” she confirmed. “At least he has friends, only now unfortunately some aren’t friends at all.”
“Right,” Rodney whispered. “That was tough on him, wasn’t it?”
“It’s been tough for a long time for both of us,” she admitted, “but we made the best of it because that’s what we do.”
He nodded. Lilliana looked at Kate and added, “Let’s go see what the fuss is all about.”
“Do you want me to come in with you initially,” Kate asked, “or do you want me to come in later?”
Lilliana thought about it and then replied, “Stay in the car for now. We’ll go talk to her, and, if she doesn’t want anything to do with us, or if she’s not forthcoming, I’ll send you a text, asking you to come join us.”
“Will do.” Kate sank back into the car, almost with a sense of relief. As much as she wanted to solve this issue with her brother, the last thing she wanted was to get in contact with her mother. Some people needed to be avoided, and some relationships just needed to not exist. And, for Kate, this was one of them.
Rodney looked at her. “Be prepared. Now that this door is opening, she may want a relationship.”
Kate smirked. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
He winced. Lilliana pulled his arm and said, “Come on. Let’s go see what we can find out.”
Kate watched as the two of them walked up to the front door of the big apartment building, hoping to avoid buzzing in. Just then the door opened, and somebody else walked out. They took the opportunity to step in, which was good because, if Kate’s mom was at home, they would be one step up in terms of catching her by surprise. It was hard for Kate to even remember her mother in many ways.
When they disappeared from view, Kate stared out at the neighborhood. It wasn’t bad. It was a small complex in a poor area of town, but that was okay too. Had her mom married again? That would feel very strange as well. Just the thought of her having remarried, and potentially, God help her, having more kids, was enough to put Kate immediately on the edge of her seat, somehow hoping that her mother wouldn’t even be there to answer the door.
It wasn’t long before Kate got a text from Lilliana, asking her to come up.
She groaned and muttered, “Here we go, for better or for worse, Mom . Let’s have a face-to-face meeting for the first time in…” Kate stopped to think about it and then realized she didn’t have an answer for how long it had been. Forever worked.
And, with that, she strode up to the apartment, where she found Lilliana and Rodney trying to convince somebody to open the door. Kate walked up to it, stuck her face right into the glass window where she could see inside, and yelled, “Open the fucking door, Mom .”
With that came a gasp of shock on the other side. The door suddenly opened, and a hand smacked Kate hard, right in the face.
“You bitch, what the hell are you doing back here again?” her mother yelled.
“Look at that.” Kate gave a hard smile, ignoring the sting on her cheek and the horror on Rodney’s face. “Just think. You wouldn’t open it for the police, but you’ll open it for me. Your heart is getting bigger.”
“I won’t open it for you again. What the hell are you doing, making some complaint against me?”
“No, hardly that,” she said, with a forced smile.
“I know that you aren’t with the police because no way anybody would have hired you. You’re nothing but a loser,” she snapped, glaring at her. “So, what the hell do you want from me?”
Kate turned, looked at Lilliana, and said, “Over to you.” She smiled at the shock on Rodney’s face. “Remember, Rodney, that perfect family with the white picket fence? I didn’t even know it was a thing until I became an adult.” And, with that, she announced to all of them, “I’ll wait out here.”
She turned and took a few steps to leave Lilliana and Rodney there to talk to her mother. Kate was still in the hallway, her eyes closed, as she listened to her mother screeching inside. Kate smiled, reassured that nothing had changed. Her mother was still the same, and Kate had nothing to worry about when seeing her after all. In fact, this was way too entertaining. And, damn it, Kate was glad she’d come.
*
Simon had to admit that he kept one ear tuned to his phone all day. He wasn’t sure what was going on in Kate’s world, but he kept getting a really weird vibe. He wanted to call her and to demand to know what was going on, why he was getting these weird messages. Yet he also knew it wouldn’t be welcomed, and, depending on what she was doing, it could be quite intrusive.
It was damn hard because he wanted answers, but he also knew that she wanted answers too. Of all the people capable of getting answers, Kate was at the top of the list. The woman was dynamite. She was also a bit of a bull in a china shop right now, but that was hardly the point. She was resilient, and, when she got a hold of something, she just wouldn’t let go. And, for all the people who had reasons to be grateful for her, another whole group probably hated her for those same things.
He was all about keeping Kate moving in the right direction, for her own peace of mind. And this case needed to be solved for a very long time. A disappearance from so long ago had all kinds of potential repercussions, and none of them were great. He would do anything he could to help Kate bring this to a peaceful conclusion, regardless of what the outcome was. Having no answers had to be the worst.
With that reminder, he checked his surroundings, closed his eyes, and called out to the ethers, Timmy, your sister Kate is worried about you and wants to hear from you . Simon waited to see if that would work. Then he waited a bit more. Sighing, he vowed to try again. His grandmother connected to the spirit world somehow, so he would too—eventually.
He kept working through the day, going from rehab project to rehab project, even stopping to deal with the pending criminal case regarding Bartlett’s death, fielding several phone calls. That issue finally neared resolution, though he wasn’t looking forward to testifying in the court case against Bartlett’s not-so-lovely wife. However, Simon would do it for Bartlett’s sake. Nobody deserved to be pushed out a window like that.
As Simon walked into the next rehab project, he looked up to see his foreman Joe arguing with someone Simon didn’t recognize. He frowned and walked closer, trying to get the gist of the argument. It very quickly became evident that the quality of the subcontractor’s work wasn’t up to standard. The subcontractor snarled at Joe, telling him that nobody could deliver what the foreman was fighting for.
At that, Simon strode closer. Joe turned to see him and raised both hands, stating, “The quality of the workers is getting worse every year.”
“Maybe,” the subcontractor conceded, “and maybe the employers are just bigger and bigger assholes.”
“What is the issue?” Simon asked, not sure what they were fighting over.
At that, the subcontractor, a welder, kept snapping that what Joe asked for was impossible. Simon eyed the subcontractor, then walked over to the job needing to be done and immediately picked up the welder and donned a shielded welder’s hat and started working. It didn’t take him long to complete the job, all as per the code required and as they needed.
He replaced the equipment, then looked over at the welder and stated, “If you don’t know how to do this, maybe it’s time you went back to school. This is pretty much the standard in our world, and it’s all about quality. We don’t accept any shoddy work, so either pick up your game or get the hell out.” And, with that, Simon turned and walked off. He heard his foreman chortling, but then Joe snapped at the welder.
“That’s the boss. He’s the one who hires. He’s the one who fires. However, in this case, I’ll save him the trouble and just throw your ass out of here.”
Simon had a smile on his face as he made his way back down to the ground floor, then headed across to the coffee shop. He was damn sorry he and Kate weren’t heading out on the boat this weekend. He could really use the time away, especially with Kate. And he knew she could too, but no way she would leave with this Timmy mess going on. If nothing else, she needed some time from the stress and the thought of having to reconnect with her mother. Family could be both good and bad, but, when it came to this shit Kate had for family, the drama was brutal.
Simon kept checking his phone for anything from Kate but found nothing.
When his turn came in the coffee shop line, he quickly ordered, glancing around. How weird that Dr. Burnett was no longer on Simon’s radar, no longer here getting coffee. Dr. Burnett would not be an issue in anybody’s life anymore. And that just brought more reminders of what people were like, the bad people. Between Dr. Burnett, Kate’s mother, Bartlett’s murderous wife, and Simon’s own childhood, it was amazing Simon and Kate had any compassion for the world at all.
It was a pretty messed-up place out there, a case of making the best of what they had. He had sympathy for those who had experienced something great and wonderful but no longer could find it. Whereas he and Kate had never had anything great at all, and never thought something like that was possible. And yet, having found happiness together now, they both paused and wondered if it was even real. Reality was something both of them dealt with in a patently harsh way.
As he picked up his coffee, hoping to go outside and sit for a few minutes, his phone rang. He glanced down, not recognizing the number, and he didn’t answer. When it rang again from a different number, one in his Contacts, he picked up. “What now?” he asked in a brusque tone to the realtor, the obnoxious one who stalked him, trying to get him to work with her.
Ariel snapped, “Why don’t you ever answer my calls?”
“I answered this one. However, if you persist in calling me from a number I don’t know, I won’t answer it,” he stated, a bit more snappish than he intended. “Why can’t you remember that?”
She groaned. “I did. That’s why I called you back.”
“Good. Maybe, at some point in the future, I’ll get you trained.”
Silence came on the other end. Then she snorted. “You’re the only one who can get away with saying that shit.”
“No,” he argued, “it’s not shit. It’s all about managing what is important to me, which is not to be spammed by people who waste my time,” he explained. “I answered this telephone number because I knew who it was. So, if you want to get a hold of me, you’ll play by those rules.”
“So many rules with you, Simon.”
“Maybe. I don’t even know why you need a second phone. That always makes me think of a criminal element,” he snapped into the phone.
She groaned. “I try not to use this phone very much,” she shared. “I’m in the midst of an ugly divorce.”
He winced at that. “I’m sorry to hear that, but, if you don’t clear your new phone number with me, I’m not answering it.”
“The one that you just didn’t answer,” she replied, with a note of humor in her tone, “is my new phone.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” he said. “Now, why are you calling?”
She groaned. “Are you always this snappy?”
“No, not always, as you very well know. Sometimes I’m worse.” She burst out laughing, which tugged a reluctant grin onto his face.
“Fine,” she said, still chortling. “At least you’re honest.”
“Yes, I am definitely honest,” he confirmed. “I presume you have a house you think I might be interested in.”
“A house?” she repeated.
Simon frowned at that because a house was not what he’d been thinking of at all. A property , he clarified, if only in his head.
“A house?” she muttered.
“No, I’m not talking about a house right now,” he stated. “Why did you call?”
“I called because the owners of one of the properties you keep an eye on just dropped the price.”
“Yes, but, if they haven’t dropped it enough, I’m really not interested.”
“You could wait until I tell you what the price is.”
“Maybe you should have led with that then,” he muttered. “What is it?” She named a price several hundred thousand below what they had been asking.
He paused to consider it. “Why are they dropping the price?”
“Because they haven’t gotten any action, just as you predicted.”
“When they’re ready to drop it the next time, call me back,” he said. With that, he ended the call abruptly, a smile on his face for having done so.
It made him feel perverse today, and he would take that. Some days he took his entertainment wherever he could get it. Ariel wasn’t likely to call him back at the moment, but he also couldn’t be too sure. Still, it was fun to see her angle forward on this because he was interested in that building. At least he would be interested in various aspects of the deal. He just wasn’t sure that he was prepared to go for anything even close to that current price. He had to get a few things wrapped up first, money being what it was.
Ariel could play all kinds of games with him, but she always knew the bottom line would be profit for some of these buildings, at least enough to keep his habit for rehabbing old properties out of the red.
The minute he ended up losing money, that was a whole different story. He could afford to lose a little bit, but he couldn’t afford to continue what he was doing and take huge losses. Nobody could. While he was direct with the realtors he voluntarily did business with, he generally didn’t piss them off to the extent that they never called him back. He reserved that for Ariel and other pushy realtors, trying to get his business in all the wrong ways.
After all, they were running a business themselves, and they needed him just as he needed them. Still, Simon tended to keep the unsolicited realtors at arm’s length, and that was the way he chose to handle them. Most of the realtors and sellers out there were decent, but Simon had been taken just enough times that he’d definitely learned his lesson.
He wandered off to his next rehab project, stopping to look over the amount of work done before contacting his foreman, Steven, to let him know that Simon was there.
The foreman came down right away, greeted him with a smile, and noted, “Hey, we’re picking up the pace again.”
“That’s good news,” Simon said, studying him. “What was the holdup?”
“The usual.” Steven shrugged. “Lack of supplies coming in on time, and lack of skilled workers to do the work we need on time.”
That was a never-ending issue. Simon paid good wages to keep good workers, but, with his ever-expanding projects, he was stretching his manpower a little on the thin side. He verbally went through several checks and balances with his foreman, then nodded. “Looks as if you’ve got things well in hand here. I’ll be off then.” And he turned to walk out.
He hadn’t gotten more than a few feet when he felt a blow to his stomach that bent him over from the waist.
His foreman was right there beside him. “Hey, are you okay?”
Simon gasped for breath and slowly straightened, nodding. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Are you sure?” Steven asked. “That looked like somebody sucker punched you a good one.”
Simon stared at him and nodded. “Yeah,…. that’s what it felt like too.” With a grimace, he straightened up more and more, until he stood normally. He took several deep breaths and muttered, “Wow, I haven’t even eaten.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Steven pointed out. “Man, if I don’t eat, my system gets back at me too.”
Simon smiled at him. “Time for my lunch then.”
“Yeah, I would think so. You take care of yourself because, without you, we ain’t got nothing.”
Simon laughed. “Thankfully you’ve still got plenty of things to do.”
“For now, but, if you’re not at the helm, these projects tend to quickly go down the shit-stream,” he shared, with a worried look on his face. “Make sure you look after yourself.”
With that, Simon made his way back down to the ground floor, then headed off to a small park around the corner and just out of sight. Once there, he crashed onto the park bench and swore. “What the hell was that?” he muttered to himself. That was one helluva way to get his attention. He blamed some unruly spirit on the other side.
Simon decided to make contact with that angry spirit. He looked around, closed his eyes, and explained, You can try talking to me first, you know? Violence is not the way to do this .
When no answer came, he opened his eyes, glanced around, and all he saw was a couple older ladies sitting off to the side, talking, plus two teenagers on skateboards, bouncing back and forth off a set of stairs. In other words, everything looked and appeared normal. Yet whatever the hell that blow was, it was not good, and his foreman was correct. Something came out of left field and literally punched him in the gut.
Reminiscing about those kinds of psychic events was enough to make him reconsider what was going on right now around him. He glanced about again, but there was nothing, nobody, no sign of anything being off. And he liked that even less.
Frowning, he stayed where he was for a few minutes and then decided to head to his office and to get some paperwork done. Just as he went to stand up again, a second blow came out of nowhere and dropped him.
Damn. I can’t reach them, and they obviously can’t speak to me either.