Page 14 of Never Without You
She hung up.
I lay the phone on the counter and hopeshe’ll be okay. Then I decide to bake cupcakes.
While I’m whipping up the batter – lemonginger – I wonder if Ross likes desserts and if he has a sweettooth. Then I realize I’ve never gone out with a man who’s in lawenforcement or the military. No reason in particular, but I tend tolike cerebral or artistic men who are invested in collaborativerelationships. A few of them had strong personalities, and I like aman who challenges me, but I don’t want to haggle over every littlething, and I sure as hell couldn’t be with a man who thought hecould tell me what to do.
Ross seems to have collaborative traits. He’scaring and sounds like he’s open to new things. He definitely has astrong personality, is overprotective, and is totally bossy.
Shit.
I’ve got Ross on the brain.
Ross,
How was the falafel place? I meant to tellyou that I use Greek gigantes beans as well as chickpeas in myfalafel. It gives them a greater depth of flavor. There are a fewcultures that use a blend of beans to make their falafel. Which didyou find?
I spoke with my cousin who saw a notpregnant Ziggy a few nights ago. Suffice it to say, Ziggy’s stillangry at us, and shared her displeasure with our cousin. That’llpass, and then a new drama will come up. Ziggy’s cyclical. For thepast five years, we’ve averaged a drama a quarter. Though we’ve hadsome banner years where once a month was happening. Unfortunately,we haven’t had any quiet years.
After my cousin’s call, cupcakes becameimperative. Lemon ginger cake with caramel frosting. After I’ve hada couple – sometimes three, but that’s rare – my craving issatisfied, and I give away the rest. Boo doesn’t understand why hecan’t have the leftover cupcakes, or at least one. He hasn’tgrasped the concept “It’s not good for you.” According to Boo, ifI’m cooking or baking, it’s good for him.
I recommend you watch Good Will Hunting.It’s a really good movie, and the acting is superb.
Almost year-round for flowers is not mychoosing, but nature’s edict. I live in the Northeast, and winterdoesn’t allow for flowering plants, trees, and bushes, especiallywhen we have two feet of snow covering everything for weeks at atime. Conifers are lovely, but a pine cone is not a hydrangea.
Thank you for trying to learn how the girlis doing. I appreciate any effort you make regardless of theoutcome. It would be good to know she’s improving, but I’m guessingthat’s the case since, if things had gone bad, the media would’vebeen all over it.
To answer your last question, what if Iwere?
Flower
Boston, Massachusetts
Ethan
What Are the Odds
Flower’s letter lay on my kitchen counter,and it’d been there for two days. I haven’t gotten to read it yetbecause two minutes after I came home and dropped the mail on thecounter, my phone rang and I was on the move.
One of the members of the Boston PD on theTerrorism Task Force is a female sergeant named Benita. She has anArmy background and has done two tours overseas. One inAfghanistan, the other in Iraq. One look at her and you know she’sa badass through and through. She agreed to be a decoy and has beengoing out to area clubs almost every night with her “friend,”another BPD officer, Shanisha, who usually works vice, but has beenseconded to our team for this operation.
Benita’s thirty-two but can pass for earlytwenties easily. Tall and lean, with long black hair, she’s alooker, no doubt. Shanisha is twenty-eight and looks eighteen.Short, tight ’fro, huge eyes, and a body with more curves than acountry road, she grew up in the projects and does not take shitfrom anybody.
Both women go into the clubs equipped withsophisticated technology. Body cams with audio are part of theirclothing. Each woman agreed to be chipped with a locator. Nofucking way is anybody going to take them, but we’re being extracareful ’cause these guys are off their minds and don’t give a shitwho gets hurt as long as they deliver the goods. Doesn’t seem tomatter if the cargo is damaged in transit.
At each club we’ve placed four team membersinside, always near the exits. Two team members are stationed ineach of the three ordinary-looking cars we have parked around theclub, each car equipped with blackout screening. From the outsideit looks like no one is in the vehicle.
We’ve been at this for weeks. The women goclubbing five nights a week, our people are in place, and we’rethere until after the club closes. Then we do it again the nextnight. Everyone’s on duty, pulling fourteen-hour shifts or longer,except the nights Benita and Shanisha aren’t out in the clubs:Mondays and Tuesdays.
Last night we hit pay dirt.
One of the tactics the women use to lurethese assholes is to leave one of them at the bar while the other“goes to the bathroom.” The team always has eyes on the women, andwhen Shanisha left Benita alone, she was approached by two of theRussians, who placed themselves on either side of her, way tooclose for dudes talking to a girl.
The team reported that Benita had beenapproached, and Shanisha came back with one of our guys on her armhollering to Benita, “Lookie what I got here, sugar. He’s a liveone.” The Russians saw Fernando and took off.
Our guys tracked them out of the club andgave the make and model of their vehicle to our teams in the cars.We followed them to a residence in Melrose and sat on the house.Which is where I am now. Watching no fewer than eleven individualscome and go from the modest middle-class home.
We’ve been able to identify six of them asmembers of the LebedevskyBratva, and some of the guys whowere in the dorm at BU. The other five we’ve ID’d by matching themto their passports. All five entered the country after the roofieincident. Who they really are is unknown at this time, but we’redigging. We figure they’re the replacements sent in afterroofie-ing those two girls went bad. The three men involved in thatclusterfuck are in the wind, probably sent elsewhere or called backto Russia.
Waiting sucks, but is often the mostessential part of what we do while we build our case. We want toget as many of these POS as we can. We want to shut down theLebedevskyBratva’s human trafficking route. Personally –and I know I’m not alone in feeling this way – I’d like to beat theshit out of each of those motherfuckers. But right now, we don’thave any of them engaging in criminal activity.
