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Chapter Fifteen
Jennie couldn’t get Kane out of her head, and it drove her crazy to think she’d let him take up space after all the years she fought so hard to shut him out. Working more cases than usual, ones uppermost in her mind, usually left little space to think about personal things. Yet, she still felt herself continually going back to the night before.
Heading out to her car to drive home, surprised to see the sun had disappeared, and her smartwatch showed a later hour than most days, she sighed, stretched her neck both ways, and hurried her steps. Once inside the vehicle, she drove out of the parking lot and turned left to head home. Often, the traffic and even the nearby people got very little attention as her mind would be occupied by what happened during work hours. But today, things were different.
Now, all she could think about was the intense teenager who’d destroyed her younger years and had returned to make certain destruction on her present world. Remembering their last time together, she replayed the moments when she’d still been filled with joy. Nestled in her bed the night they’d made love, hugging her pillow, she’d sworn she’d visited heaven earlier.
If anyone had asked, she’d have admitted they’d been the most incredible hours she’d ever spent… with anyone. While they’d picnicked, she and Kane had talked and laughed, teasing each other the way lovers do.
Their emotions had overwhelmed them until their kisses weren’t nearly enough to express their feelings. Making love had been so natural, so intimately perfect, they got carried away.
The second time, their passions had spiraled, and they’d purposely taken the step to be truly together. Which she had believed would last forever. But that’s not the way it had turned out at all.
What made her furious now was that he’d been the one who thought they should hold back, use precautions, and not take any chances. She’d been the one to assure him that her period would be any day and that they would be safe.
She’d wanted him so badly, nothing else seemed to matter. Being a virgin and waiting for the true love of her life had been simple until then. Wanting to share her body, a way to prove her love had mattered more than anything else… more than her beloved baba, her teachings, even her beliefs. Kane was her whole world and showing him how she felt, wanting to please him, had been imperative.
Waking up the next morning, using her phone to reach out, tenderness overcame her, filling every core. Smiling lovingly, she’d called only to get no answer. She’d searched the whole day and the one after that and the weeks following. But she never heard from him again. Then came the terrible day when she couldn’t pretend any longer. Her period hadn’t come.
A horn honking lifted her from her memories and made her pay attention to the road around her. For some reason, she’d driven from Pennsylvania Avenue to downtown, a neighborhood in Redmond known to house a lot of Asian families. This was where the morning incident with Bela Vari and her father had taken place. Normally, Jennie didn’t go home this route but for some reason, that event had stayed with her. Taking this direction must have been an automatic response to that earlier incident.
Because of the uptick in these types of crimes, she couldn’t help but wonder if Asian customs had changed. Did they now deserve the vile repercussions she saw every day? According to all the victims, they were living the same way they always had and hadn’t tried to bring more attention to themselves. She knew without a doubt that something else was at work here… something sinister and unacceptable.
According to the profiler Jennie had called in over one of the more brutal incidents, she remembered his conclusion. According to his analysis, whether these particular victims were doing anything at all mattered little. It was the conception of what their country had done… folks’ biased beliefs that because China had a certain negative influence over their lives, they could inappropriately blame whoever they saw of that nationality.
The problem was that many of the incidents were never reported. Older Asian men wanted to keep attention away from themselves, just live and be left alone. Their women had the same convictions of not reporting acts of violence.
But the younger population was fed up with this dog-like behavior of letting people kick them around and do nothing. Since the staggering numbers of hate crimes had risen to vast numbers, Jennie couldn’t blame them.
Coming to a red light, she checked the pedestrians crossing in front of her. She watched a group of young boys jostle each other, shoving, teasing, and laughing in the way teens often did when they were high on life… or some other type of boost.
She would have kept driving but just then an older Oriental woman stepped out from the curb and one of the boys pushed her so hard she went flying into the oncoming traffic. If it hadn’t been that the vehicle’s brakes were instantaneous, that woman would have been crushed under the wheels.
Pulling over, Jennie ran from her own car to head across to where a crowd had started to gather. Rather than rushing away, the boys were hanging around the edge of the others, still messing around and thinking it all a big joke.
Totally flustered, the woman driver ran to help the terrified Chinese lady to her feet. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. No worry.” The poor woman looked around as if praying someone she knew would suddenly appear to help her.
The driver, trembling with emotion, cried out. “Thank God we just got this new car with automatic brakes, or I’d never have been able to stop in time.” Shaking uncontrollably, tears in her voice, she again questioned, “Are you sure you’re okay? Look, you’re bleeding. Your knees are all cut. Let me take you to the hospital.”
“No. I be okay.”
Hearing those words after stopping for a few seconds to be sure there weren’t any major injuries, furious with the whole senseless incident, Jennie glanced around. She’d witnessed a pointless accident that never needed to happen if not for the behavior of a stupid turd. One who thought the world his oyster, and the law meant for others. Past time for him to learn a lesson.
And she was just the person to make sure he did. Not in the mood to put up with any shit, she walked to where the teens were starting to turn away, bored now that the excitement had started to die down. She called out, “Hey, guys, can I talk with you for a minute?”
Wary but still not sensing any danger, the perpetrator and his three friends stopped. “What’s up, lady?”
Walking close to the bigmouth and poking her finger at him just inches from his chest, she showed her badge and said, “I saw what you did to that poor woman, you little jerk, and I think you owe her an apology before I cuff you and take you in for assault.”
Slapping her hand away instinctively, he didn’t hear everything she said because his arm was now behind his back, and she’d planted his face against the closest brick wall.
When she sensed the others moving closer, she flipped him in front of her, still holding him in her grasp, and warned, “I wouldn’t mess with an agent from the FBI if I were you. Buddy here is under arrest, but I’m sure the officers behind you can make room for everyone if you want to push your luck.”
When they turned to check behind them as she’d expected they would, she removed her weapon and trained it on them as they turned back. “Just messin’ with you. It’s just little old me with a badge, a gun, and a real itchy trigger finger. I suggest you fuck off, and I’ll just take this little scumbag in to be charged.”
Not surprised to see them disappear, she cuffed the boy in her hold and made him walk to the patrol car that had just arrived. “Well, if it isn’t Officer Cooper?”
“We meet again to help clean up another incident, Agent Sarnowski. A pleasure I might add.”
Once she gave them all the information and checked with the victim, Jennie headed home. Her thoughts wouldn’t stop… had she just been in the right place at the right moment. Or were these incidents happening so often that she could have been there anytime and run into a similar occurrence?
Saddened, glad to know she’d be with her own family soon… happy, loving people glad to be with each other, she pulled into the driveway and headed for the house. Before she could get her key in the lock, her baba opened the door with a smile a mile wide and worry in her rheumy eyes. “Come, child. You hungry?”
Lisa lifted the soggy tub of ice cream. “I’m sorry, Baba. I got held up, and it sort of melted.”
“No worries. We drink it. Come eat. I make perogies hot for you now.”
