Chapter 1

It always seems to happen on Sundays. Every time something major or bizarre happens to me it seems to happen on a Sunday morning.

My legs are trembling as I step out of my SUV. Every muscle in my lower body aches. My shoulders ache too.

I’ve been living here in Michigan for just over eighteen months now and I still can’t get over how suddenly the seasons change.

Only a week ago the temperatures were barely in the forties and I was doing most of my runs on my treadmill. Three days ago, we had snow and freezing rain. But today temperatures are in the mid sixties and the sun is beaming. I did my first long run of the year on the trails near our home.

It’s funny how life settles into comfortable patterns. Even as the people in our lives change we still enjoy the same passions and pursuits. But experience teaches us to stay on our guard and to be mindful of our feelings and of small details.

As I walked to my small porch, my heart began to beat faster. The same thing had happened the time before. My heartbeat wasn’t beating faster because of a medical condition; I was in very good physical shape.

My emotions on the other hand were very fragile. Just under two years ago, I’d had a similar feeling as I walked to a different home following a Sunday morning run.

The thumping in my chest reminded me of that never forgotten morning and its aftermath. Shit ... I was still dealing with the aftermath. I still had issues stemming from the events of that week. My entire life changed due to issues that I had nothing to do with.

I still have trust issues and other issues after all this time. It’s a miracle that I not only found love again, but maybe I’m even considering marriage again.

At twenty-six years old, I’ve already had a marriage destroyed and had my heart ripped still beating from my chest by a woman who had sworn in front of God and all our friends to love me forever.

I never want to feel that pain again. I’m not sure I could survive it twice.

So, as I reach for yet another front door, and find it open ... Again ... My rapidly beating heart increases its tempo even more. My palms are sweaty and my run-weakened legs suddenly have a full dose of adrenaline fueled strength.

I hear voices murmuring in the distance. I hear hers and another that sounds familiar although mearly forgotten. I take a deep breath and rush headlong into my kitchen.

As I enter the room I see her. But puzzlingly, she’s alone. She turns and sees me and smiles. That smile ... Shit ... Everything about her takes my breath away.

Aria McCurry is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s tall and slender, with a truly incredible body. Unlike a lot of slender women, Aria has wide hips and a rounded booty that her shorts never seem to be capable of containing.

Her boobs are also slightly bigger than you’d expect on a woman as thin as she is, but neither her large soft breasts or her incredibly long kegs are her best features.

In my opinion, her best features are either her long beautiful red hair or her fiery and expressive green eyes.

I can still remember the first time I looked deeply into those eyes. I was hypnotized by their sheer beauty and how I could read her feelings just from those eyes.

I think that as afraid as I was of being hurt again, I was a little bit in love with her any way. And her words told me exactly how she felt.

“Stop pretending to look at my eyes, you perverted freak,” she yelled. “My tits are down here. Get a good look before the police get here and throw you into jail where you’ll spend the rest of your life as some huge black guy’s bitch.”

What can I say? It wasn’t the most romantic of first meetings but we got better.

“Kevin, Honey I have a surprise for you,” she begins. As always, she’s quicker than I am. She notices with only a glance at my face that something is wrong.

“So, what’s bothering my man on this fine sunny morning?” she smiles. “Did you have a bad run? Do you want Mama to give you a massage?”

“Where’s the guy you were talking to?” I asked.

“Oh, forget about your dad,” she said. “My job is to take care of you.”

“Okay, who the fuck are you cheating on me with?” I hissed.

She flinched from the fury of my question and tone. Then she started laughing. But it was a really pissy laugh. Her anger was as hard as mine.

“I knew this was too good to be true,” she spat. “Are you gonna start hitting me now?”

“Are you gonna start telling me the truth?” I asked.

“Look Doofus,” she said evenly. “Do you remember how hard it was for us to get together? Do you remember how long it took? Do you remember how hard it was for us to trust each other?”

I sighed and nodded. It had taken us months to even sit down together. And more months before our first date.

“Kev ... Don’t mess this up. You’re my guy, Honey. You’re my only guy. You are my one and only chance at happily ever after. I love you Honey. You have no reason to be jealous of anyone. Especially not your own father, Stupid.”

“Aria, I love you too, but my father’s been dead since I was fifteen and my mom died before I turned twenty,” I said.

Her eyes got huge and the tiny brown flecks in those pools of green got bigger as they always did when she was angry. At the same time, the door that opened onto my deck opened.

I turned and saw him standing there. “Hey Kev,” he said. “We have to go back. Resa needs you. You may be her only chance.”

“Who the fuck are you?” spat Aria angrily. “You told me you were his father.”

“I said I was LIKE his father,” he said. “Actually, I’m his father in law. But he’s always been like a son to to me. Kevin does not belong here. This is all a misunderstanding. Kevin belongs back in Grace Lake with all of his freinds and family.”

“I belong here,” I said. “My life is here now.”

“I hate to have to do this Kevin,” he said. He reached into his pocket. I thought he was going to pull out a gun and apparently so did Aria. She stood in front of me.

He pulled out a phone and pushed one button. “He ain’t comin’ willingly.” he said, then put the phone away.

Aria drew her own phone and walked into the other room.

“Are ya sure you don’t want to come home?” he asked.

“Damned sure,” I said. “Have a nice trip!”

He shook his head and started walking towards the front door. “Shouldn’t a’ had ta be this way,” he grumbled. “The boy I knew would a’ come home. Wasn’t no murderer when he he lived in Grace Lake.”

“Who did he murder?” asked Aria in shock.

“My daughter, Theresa,” he grumbled. “He called her Resa. His wife. They were high school sweethearts.”

“When I left Grace Lake, she was still alive,” I said. “She had just gotten home from the hospital. So how did I murder her.”

“Kevin she’s just barely hangin’ on,” he said. “She keeps doing stupid things. You leaving her is killing her. You coming back is her only chance to make it. So, you gotta come back.”

“Bullshit!” said Aria. “He’s not go...”

“This is none of your business, Missy,” hissed Tom, my ex father in law. “As pretty as you are you can find another man. Ya don’t have to be messing around with one that’s already taken.”

“I know he’s already taken,” hissed Aria, right back. “I’m the one who took him. He legally divorced your daughter. I don’t know why and I have no idea what broke them up, but I’ve seen the divorce papers.”

“Divorce papers don’t mean shit,” said Tom. “Theresa never signed them. She tore them up as soon as that uppity yella haired witch gave em to her. And Kevin swore an oath in front of the whole town to love her for better or for worse til death do they part. Now I admit that things couldn’t have been much fuckin’ worse, but he promised.”

“I...” was all I got out before the front door pushed open. And a large figure stepped into my living room.

I was surprised to see a large, balding man push his way into my house. He wore the uniform of the Grace Lake sheriff’s department and he frowned when he saw me.

“Kevin, I hoped that you’d have come home on your own,” he began. “Dammit ... The whole town misses you. We’re all as sorry as hell for what you went through but you never even gave us the chance to make it up to ya. This was all just a cluster fuck ... Excuse my language ma’am. But we just reacted badly. We were all in shock.”

“Yeah ... I’ll bet,” I said.

“Kevin, we all watched Theresa grow up,” he said. “Everybody in the whole town loves her. She’s like everybody’s little girl.”

“So, what the fuck was I?” I asked. “I grew up there too. I lived there for my entire God damned life until I left. I raked leaves and shoveled snow for older people every fall and winter for free. I ran errands and never asked for a God damned thing.

I worked two jobs while going to the local community college and busted my ass taking care of Resa. I worked in the hospital while I was in X-ray school for free. There were nights when I worked in the emergency room alone. They had to have a judge sign off on me doing it because technically it was illegal for a student to...”

“And that’s just it Kevin,” said the Sheriff. “They had to allow it because you were all we had. Do you know that they send people almost a hundred miles to the nearest big city hospital just for X-rays that you used to do there in our hospital? You were supposed to work there Kevin.

I know we didn’t exactly treat you right Kevin. But we’re all sorry. Zack is especially sorry. Did you know that he ended up getting divorced and fired over all of this?”

“Sheriff, how would I know?” I asked. “And if I did know ... Why would I care?”

“We can talk about all of this later,” said Tom. “We need to get our asses on the road.”

Just then we heard a siren and it seemed to stop right in front of my house. Aria smiled and took my arm.

“What the... ?” gushed the Sheriff.

“Shit ... Shit ... Shit!” said Tom. “Why the fuck are the PO lease comin’ here?”

“Probably because I called them,” smirked Aria.

At that moment, we heard a heavy knock at the front door. It was already open so it was obvious that there were people inside.

“Police,” yelled one of the men on the porch.

“Come in,” yelled Aria in her sexiest voice.

Three men came into the house. Two of them, wearing uniforms, had to be vying for the title of largest human being on Earth. The third was an older gray haired black guy wearing a suit.

The two in uniform seemed to be competing to see who could be the most menacing and take up the most space.

The black guy looked around the room in a quick scan. It seemed as if he catalogued every item in the room with one sweep of his eyes.

“Hi Ma’am,” he said. “I’m addressing you because our dispatcher said that the person who put in the call was a female. I’m detective Jackman.”

His voice was smooth with a slight crack to it. When he finished his introduction with his first name Samuel L, it was all I could do not to laugh. I had visions of him listening to John Travolta talking about hamburgers in Europe. If anyone said, “Royale with cheese,” they’d have to scrape me off of the floor.

Detective Jackman quickly homed in on the Sheriff.

“Why didn’t you handle the case, Sir?” he asked. “After all ... Jurisdictional limitations or not, you’re still a brother in blue. All you’d have to do was present yourself at the nearest PD and explain the situation...”

Aria started laughing then. “He can’t,” she laughed.

“You have a beautiful laugh,” said Detective Jackman. “Would you mind telling me why he couldn’t do exactly what I said he should do?”

“I’m not a lawyer,” smiled Aria. “But I’m pretty sure that this is a federal case. I’m also pretty sure it’s a felony. And the Sheriff ... Your uh ... Brother in blue is a part of it. If he went to the PD, he’d be arrested.”

Jackman’s head whipped around like it was mounted on a post. At the same time, the two uniformed cops drew their weapons.

“Officer Kreski, why the HELL are you pointing your weapon at the victims?” screamed Jackman.

One of the cops had his gun aimed at Tom. The other, the one that Samuel L. had called Kreski was aiming his gun at Aria and me.

“Uh ... We needed to cover the entire engagement zone ... SIR,” he screamed. His voice got really loud on the SIR. It made me wonder. Was he screaming,”Sir,” that loudly because he had a lot of respect for Jackman ... Or was it just hard for him to have a black guy as his supervisor so he had to practically spit the word out from between clenched teeth. He continued speaking then.

“Dumbrowski was covering the old gray-haired guy ... SIR. So, I had to cover the other two suspects in order to completely contain the situation ... SIR!”

“Why not cover ... Him?” asked Jackman pointing at the Sheriff.

“Because he’s wearing a uniform ... SIR,” he screamed even louder. “He can’t be a perp. He’s one of us.” Kreski beamed a smile and didn’t lower his gun a fraction of an inch. I was expecting him to click his heel together and yell Hail Hitler at any second.

“Son ... Put the gun down,” said Jackman quietly. Kreski complied reluctantly.

“That’s exactly why I don’t give these guys bullets,” said Jackman to us.

“So ... Sheriff,” he continued. “How much of what the little lady says is true?”

The Sheriff looked down at his boots. “Pretty much all of it,” he said. “But it was mostly a bluff. We was countin’ on Kevin’s inate goodness and compassion to convince him to come with us willingly. We didn’t even cuff him. Tom pretty much just asked him to come back with us. I never said anything along the lines of actually forcin’ him to come with us. We just figured he’d see me and being a law-abiding citizen, he’d come along.”

“And he would a’ too,” spat Tom. “If...”

“Oh, I know this part already,” said Jackman. “This is the part where you pull off your rubber head and start sayin’ shit like, “And he would a’ too ... If it wasn’t for them meddling kids.”

“What kids?” asked Tom. “I was gonna say, “That redheaded Hussy! She’s the one that called the cops on us. And none of this is her business anyway. We was just trying to prevent my son in law from murderin’ my daughter.”

At the sound of the word murder, Officer Kreski drew his weapon and shot at me at least eighteen times. Like Jackman had said ... It was a good thing he didn’t have any bullets.

The sound of the gun clicking over a dozen times with the firing pin hitting only empty chambers still scared the shit out of me.

“Kreski ... What the fuck are you doing?” Shrieked Jackman.

“I’m protecting and serving ... SIR!” yelled Kreski.

“Give me the weapon Kreski ... Now!” said Jackman. He pocketed Kreski’s firearm. Kreski just stood there on the verge of tears, looking at his empty holster.

Jackman looked at Tom and then back at me. “Who did he muder?” he asked.

“He ain’t exactly done it yet,” mumbled Tom. “But he may as well have. He’s a lyin’ weasel with evil intentions. He needs to get that fuckin’ chip off a his shoulder and stop playing the fuckin’ victim.”

“Hmm,” said Jackman. “Lying isn’t actually a crime. If it was I could go straight to Washington and arrest the president and more than half of congress.”

“But,” said Tom. “What about...”

“No Buts,” snapped Jackman. “I’ve got enough to book you two on attempted kidnapping, intimidation, coercion and attempting to transport an individual across state lines. Like that little girl said, that’s a felony.”

“But,” whined the Sheriff. “If I get arrested my career...”

“Again, no buts,” said Jackman. “As a peace officer, you should have thought about that before you allowed this guy to convince you to do something illegal. I don’t know how the law works in Bug Tussle...”

“Grace Lake,” said Tom.

“Wherever,” said Jackman.

“But you don’t,” began Tom.

“Did I not say no buts several times!” asked Jackman angrily. “I don’t want to hear any buts. The next MotherFucker that says but is gettin’ kicked in his. Now let’s all go down to the station and you two can explain all of this to the DA. We’ll let her decide if she wants to prosecute this after somebody tells her what all of this shit is about.”

He turned back to Aria and me. “I need you two to come down to the station with us so if the DA decides to move ahead with the case you can sign the forms to press charges against these two,” he said.

“But I can’t go back to the station without my gun AGAIN,” whined Kreski.

“Somebody tell me that this Son of a bitch didn’t just say But!” screamed Jackman.

About an hour later Aria and I, along with Detective Samuel L Jackman, and the local District Attorney, a striking woman named Elizabeth Morales, sat at a very long table in a conference room.

As we watched Tom and the Sheriff were brought into the room. They both wore leg chains and handcuffs.

“This is bullshit,” screamed Tom. “They had me in a cell with a bunch of fuckin’ criminals.”

The Sheriff seemed to be too embarrassed to speak. He could barely raise his head.

“Okay...” began Ms. Morales. Her voice was rich and sexy sounding with a barely noticeable but extremely attractive accent. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person affected by it. Detective Jackman’s face broke out in a smile for the first time since we met him. It looked almost like his face cracked.

Unfortunately, Aria picked up on the fact that I had noticed it too. “That bitch is old enough to be your mother,” she whispered in my ear. “Is the sound of her crusty old voice really worth you sleeping alone for the next year and a half?”

“No ma’am,” I croaked.

“Mr. Brady, why don’t you begin by telling us your side of the story,” said Ms. Morales. Aria kicked me under the table and gestured with her head towards Detective Jackman.

That was when I noticed it. Ms. Morales, even though she was speaking to my ex father in law, seemed to be directing her words towards Detective Jackman. There was clearly something going on between the two of them.

“This is all just a misunderstandin’. It just got out of hand. It weren’t meant ta’ be this way at all,” said Tom. “I thought I was coming here as a mission of mercy. I had no evil intentions. I really believed that Kev would have wanted to help my daughter. I figured enough time had passed and maybe took the sting out of what he went through.”

“That’s all true!” said the Sheriff.

“So, you didn’t try to coerce Mr. Foster into leaving the state with you?” asked Ms. Morales.

“Coerce is such a nasty word,” smiled Tom. “Let’s use “convince,” instead. Are you a parent ma’am?” he asked.

Aria elbowed me in the ribs as Ms. Morales nervously shook her head. She looked straight at Samuel L as if trying to reassure him.

“That’s a shame,” continued Tom. “Cause if you was, you’d know what I’m going through. I’m having to watch my daughter slowly trying to kill herself over this. So okay ... Maybe I tried to intimidate Kevin into coming back. Maybe I brought the Sheriff along too. But it was with the best of intentions. I’m trying to save a life, a marriage, and the future of my family. So, sue me.”

I could tell Ms. Morales was curious. She looked at me with those huge brown eyes and I could see why Samuel L was so smitten with her. No matter how old she was, she was an extremely pretty woman. But I had an extremely pretty woman of my own and at that moment she was digging her fingernails into my forearm.

“Okay... “ I said. “I’ll tell you the whole story. Aria, Honey ... you don’t have to stay for this...”

Her eyes told me that there was no way she was leaving. I sighed. Maybe it was time she knew anyway. We were very close to getting married anyway so she might as well know. But just as I took a breath to begin my story something odd happened.

Aria’s eyes grew huge and seemed to roll back in her head. She screamed and grabbed both sides of her head. I got up and ran to her. Aria has always been plagued by mind numbing headaches that seemd to strike at random.

I rubbed her temples and got her to calm down. After a few moments, the pain was more manageable. I told Detective Jackson that I needed an hour. He gave it to me. I drove Aria home and gave her a pill so she could sleep until the worst of the pain was over. I got our neighbor Marge to watch over her until I got back.

Then I drove back to the police headquarters. Everyone was waiting for me when I got back. I sat down and began my story as if nothing had happened.

“Like Tom said, I grew up in Grace Lake. It’s a small beautiful town in South Carolina. I loved it there and never planned on leaving.

As a kid, I saw all of the big cities and famous places on TV, but I never dreamed of living anywhere else. Grace Lake was home. I felt as if everyone in the city was one huge family.

Let me give you an example ... Growing up, I played baseball in the summer and ran track in the spring and fall. The track team was a part of the school I attended but the baseball league was part of a regional organization that was independently operated.

My dad died in a car wreck the year I turned fifteen. A job in the local school somehow opened up for my mom who hadn’t taught in years. And that summer, a part time job that paid me enough to pay my baseball fees AND have enough left over to give me some pocket money appeared out of nowhere.

Grace Lake had everything. Beside the generosity of the people there was a beautiful lake and I don’t think there was ever a crime committed there.

Anyway, I’ve known Resa for my whole life. I mean there aren’t that many people in the town so everybody there knows everybody else.

I was always the shy type. But Theresa ... Ho boy she was a firecracker. She was Miss everything. From the first grade, all the way through high school she was probably the most popular girl in the school.

She was in most of the clubs. She participated in every event and contest. She was a cheerleader. She was the Homecoming Queen not once but twice. She could have done it a third time but in our senior year the teachers figured that someone else should have a chance so they made up a rule that the Homecoming Queen and the Prom Queen had to be different people.

And Resa decided that she wanted to be the Prom Queen. Naturally she got it. And even more naturally everyone in town was happy about it. Even the girls she competed with were happy that Resa had won.

Resa went to the prom with not one but two dates. One guy, Morris Hazelnut was the captain of the football team. The other guy Richie Cunningham was the captain of the basketball team. I went to the prom with Rhoda Morgenstern.

The thing I remember most about the prom was that I literally bumped into Resa during a dance. I was dancing with Rhoda and not paying much attention to where I was going.

My left hip, hit Theresa’s left hip and when I turned to see who I’d bumped so I could apologize I realized it was her.

“I’m really sorry Theresa,” I spat quickly. “I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going.”

“Jeezus, Kevin,” she smiled. “It’s just a dance. I’m fine ... you’re fine. It’s okay.”

I just stood there with my mouth open. As she turned to start dancing again she looked at me and something passed between us when our eyes met. She stopped dancing and turned back to me again.

“What?” she smiled.

“Nothing...” I mumbled. She tilted her head and looked at me. She didn’t have to say another word. I was putty in her hands.

“I’m just surprised that you even knew my name,” I said quietly. She laughed and just kept laughing, like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

“Kevin, we’ve been in the same class from kindergarten through high school,” she laughed. “How could I not know your name.” She danced away still laughing.

Even Rhoda was laughing at that. “Kevin, Theresa isn’t like that,” she said. “She’s not uppity or stuck up. That’s why everybody likes her. All of the boys like her because she’s friendly and welcoming, but she’s also nice looking. The girls like her because she’s supportive of everyone and she’s not so pretty that she makes them feel threatened.”

She was right about that. Theresa was short at about five foot one. She had that gymnast’s type of body. She was very curvy with big boobs and a really nice butt. When Theresa did her cheers, even the other team stopped to watch.

Rhoda told me that she was very down to earth and almost never said no to anything. That was why she was on so many committees and clubs. The teachers even used her popularity to get students to sign up for events and activities. They knew that Theresa would volunteer if they asked her, and if Theresa signed up a lot of other students would sign up as well.

I remembered that night forever. It wasn’t so much the prom, or going out with Rhoda; it was speaking to Resa and that look that passed between us.

During the summer following our graduation, I never saw Theresa. It had been three years since my dad had passed. My mom had gotten sick and all I had time to do was work and take care of her.

I did hear about Theresa going to several parties during the summer, but that was a world away from me. I thought about her often, but she too, was a world away.

I guess I was sure that the next thing I’d hear was that Theresa had gotten on the cheer team at some college, or that she’d been seen cheering for some football team on TV.

I was equally sure that in a few years I would hear that Theresa had gotten married or that she’d been part of the team that had discovered the cure for cancer.

So, I moved on with my life. Theresa was a dream, nothing more. We all have them, but they rarely affect our lives. Like I said, from the first second that high school ended, most of our classmates went off to relax and have fun for the summer before going off to college. A few of them were going off to the military or moving away to bigger cities with more opportunities.

And like I said, I didn’t think about Theresa much. I wished her well but I had things to do. Luckily, my mom was off for the summer because she was really sick and gettting worse.

I had several jobs and through them was able to keep the bills paid ... barely, and food on the table. But there wasn’t much money left at the end of the month. My mom’s insurance took care of her medical bills but toward the end of the summer she wasn’t doing any better. In fact, she was getting worse.

She ended up being hospitalized in our town’s small but well-appointed hospital. I spent most of my lunch hours, and free time in her hospital room. They brought in several specialists from larger hospitals but they couldn’t put a finger on exactly what the cause of her illness was.

While at the hospital visiting her one day, I noticed that there were several small repairs that needed to be made and that the trash in the rear of the building was piling up.

One of the nurses told me that Bill Proctor, the hospital’s maintenance man was sick and had been off for a few days. I checked in on my mom, who was sleeping peacefully and then started from the upper floors emptying the trash.

When I finished that, I borrowed a few tools from Bill’s workshop and started fixing some of the small things like door handles that were loose or didn’t work and a supply room door that was jammed shut.

I had just gotten the supply room door open when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I looked up and saw Martin Richards, the director of the hospital. Standing next to him was our town’s mayor, Richard Martin.

“Kevin, what are you doing?” asked the mayor.

“I’m just pitching in while my Mom is asleep,” I said.

“Son, you’ve done more than just pitched in,” said Mr. Richards. “I’m just trying to figure out why. Your mom’s insurance has all of her bills covered.”

“It’s what we do here,” I said. “We all pitch and help when we can.”

They both smiled at me and nodded their heads.

“So, Kevin, which school did you pick?” asked the mayor.

“Oh, I’m not going to school,” I said. “We don’t hav the money for that. But I have jobs to keep the bills paid. And I’m not in a hurry to leave town. I love it here.”

“Kevin can you come and see me when you have time?” asked Mr. Richards.

“Yes sir,” I told him. I went back to work on the supply room door.

It was a couple of days later that I went to see him. We were in his office and I was nervous.

“I didn’t realize at the time that I was doing anything wrong,” I said. “I didn’t know that there were so many different types of trash. But I sorted them and made sure all of the bio-waste and recycleable things were disposed of properly. I also...”

“Kevin do you realize that you had the fourth highest GPA in your graduating class?” he asked. “That’s not considering just this year. Your average was actually down this year. I’m pretty sure that’s due to all of those part time jobs you’ve been working in addition to taking care of your mom.”

“I always try to do my best,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.