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“Not at all. After confirming that it was indeed her letter, we found something else…” A deafening silence suffocated the empty room as Jerry wet his lips for what he was about to say next. "The letter was dated from the late 1890s.” Isabella shot back to her feet, her eyes and mouth wide open. The chair she sat on almost fell over from the force of her abrupt motion. Liam stumbled backwards onto his butt, now seated on the floor.Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!The words kept ringing in her head like an alarm bell. Jerry got up, inching his way toward her. “Isabella, are you alright?” His worry-filled voice tried to calm her down as he approached her, but before he could take another step, a sinister scratching coming from the other side of the apartment door instantly caught his attention. Isabella's mind was in a frenzy while Liam jumped to his feet and stepped in front of her with a clenched fist, placing himself in between her and whatever threat was about to come. Jerry slowly drew his weapon, signaling them to keep quiet. Another ominous scratching assaulted the door, breaking the silence once more, followed by the door knob twisting and twitching and trembling from left to right.
Jerry walked up to the door, pointing his gun at whoever it was on the other side. Isabella clenched her jaw. The sound of her heartbeat was thrashing in her ears. She placed a hand on Liam’s back to feel his warmth. Taking a peek from his side, she inched closer to him, pressing her body behind his. If this turned out to be her last moment, at least she had spent it with him. There couldn't have been a better end to her tragic life than at the side of the man who meant the world to her.
Jerry carefully placed a hand onto the door knob and turned to gesture a silent countdown toward Liam. Liam nodded, signaling back that he was ready.
“If things go bad, I will throw myself onto this guy and you run as fast and as far as you can. You hear me?” Liam whispered to her, but before Isabella got the chance to tell him that she would never just leave him behind, Jerry already swung the door open, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“POLICE! ON THE GROUND! NOW!”
What followed next nobody could have expected in their wildest dreams. Appearing out from the shadow was a crinkly old face, long unkempt hair, thick ragged clothes, and a pair of broken glasses with big eyes peering over them.
“Stop waving that thing at me!” Dan angrily swatted the gun out of her face. She walked past Jerry and stopped in front of Liam. With mouths and eyes wide open, both men were frozen in shock. It took Isabella a moment to realize what was happening and get control over her body back, but she finally ran toward Dan with a big hug.
“Dan! I am so glad to see you!” She threw herself around Dan’s neck. Dan turned her old frowning face into a grandmother's freshly baked smile, but then immediately put her famous poker face back on.
“Alright, alright now, let’s stop with this mushy horseshit,” she said gently and let go of Isabella. Jerry angrily slammed the door shut while Liam was still busy picking up his mouth off the floor.
“Are you out of your God damn mind?! I could have shot you!” he shouted at her, outraged. Dan totally ignored him as if he was some disobedient grandchild and walked into Liam’s kitchen, surveying the countertops for something.
“I agree. What the hell are you doing waving your gun around like a cowboy in the wild west?” she snickered.
Dan was now going through Liam’s cabinets and took out a cup. “She's exactly how I pictured her,” Liam leaned over to Isabella to whisper into her ear. Isabella crossed her arms with a grin.
“You have no idea.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jerry put his gun back into the holster.
“I’m here to warn Isabella about that little dark friend of hers.” She filled the glass with tap water and took one big drink like it was a shot of tequila. “Phew…that’s better. It took me three long damn hours to walk here.”
Isabella gasped. “Did he hurt you?” Dan calmly refilled the glass.
“We didn’t get that far. The friend I stay at saw him lurking behind a light pole when she came back from work. By now that creep must know that you're no longer with me. So, I wanted to see for myself how hard you are to find.” Her gaze shifted to Liam, scanning him from head to toe with laser-like eyes and snickered. “Turns out it’s not hard at all.” Jerry now stepped closer.
“So, you decided it’s a good idea to lead him here? What if he followed you?” he barked at her.
“I’ve lived on the streets for decades. If I don’t want to be followed, I’m not followed. Besides, I’m not the one parking a police car in front for the whole world to see,” Dan said, crossing her arms. Isabella studied her for a brief moment. She looked so different and yet so much the same under her raggedy clothes. Living with her friend had done Dan a lot of good. Her clothes may have been ragged, but they were the best looking ragged clothes you would ever see on Dan. Isabella remembered Jerry once telling her that Dan was one of the few homeless people who chose to live on the streets. Why he didn’t want to reveal. All he said was that it wasn’t his story to tell.
As happy as she was seeing her good friend again, it brought just another set of bad news. It was almost as if her mother had placed a curse on her since birth, oiling the wheel of her misfortune to keep it spinning for eternity.
“So, it’s only a matter of time now until he shows up.” Liam peeked over the window. The side street was eerily empty. Isabella sat back down, worn out of her mind. She felt her throat closing in and dropped her head into her hands, too exhausted to hold it up for another minute.
“Don’t worry, I'll catch that creep,” Jerry said in a comforting voice.
“About God damn time you will,” Dan replied. “I’ve been luring him down to the river park for the past few days now. He has no clue that I’m setting up a trap for him.” Jerry shook his head in anger.
“That’s great Dan, playing Navy CIS again? This isn’t tv, this could be dangerous!” he reprimanded her.
“Couldn’t we wait for him there?” Liam turned to Jerry.
“Am I speaking Chinese? Is anybody actually listening?” Jerry shook his head in disbelief. Isabella ignored him as she had an idea of her own now.
“What a great idea. I could go with Dan, so when he sees me—”
“Absolutely not!” both men echoed in distaste of the idea. Dan shook her head toward them, glaring at them with protruding eyes. “Can we tone down the testosterone in here a bit?”
“Thank you, Dan,” Isabella said, clearly irritated with both of them. She knew they meant well but couldn’t help feel that familiar feeling of being told what to do again. Her whole life she had been controlled by others, had been treated like a complete incompetent. Her life with Dan may have been rough, but at least she was her own woman. Isabella refused to go back into that golden cage—ever!
“I don’t see the problem here. He obviously has no gun, and you'll be right there ready to arrest him.”
