What People Really Think of You

Being a crazy author and all, I wonder some of the weirdest things.

For example, I was talking to a friend the other day, and she confessed that she doesn’t feel comfortable trash-talking people. Why? Because she’s afraid she’s somehow butt-dialed them, and they’re listening in on her as she says less-than-flattering things.

I cracked up laughing when she told me that, then explained exactly why I found it so entertaining. You see, I worry about something very similar, except that I’m concerned they can listen in on my conversation without any technological aids.

Ever read C.S. Lewis’ “Voyage of the Dawn Treader?” If so, you should know exactly what I mean. You just never know when someone is flipping through a magic book with eavesdropping spells.

Then again, sometimes you don’t need magic OR technology to know what people are thinking about you. Sometimes it’s just blatantly obvious.

Personally, sometimes? I’d just as soon be left in the dark.

Too bad Rod doesn’t have that option.

1 – Unpleasant orders

  

I

t was not Rodney Andiluigi’s day.

It wasn’t his week either.

And as he held his secondary cell phone to his ear, his heart still racing like he was in a life or death struggle, he was willing to bet things weren’t going to get any better going forward. Not for a while at least.

Worse yet, it was his own damn fault. Lying in his bed at his Baltimore apartment, the covers pulled up far too high on his chest like he was a scared little girl, Rod had to wonder if he’d feel any better if he had someone to blame other than himself.

“Calm down,” Thomas Evans, his former boss and current co-conspirator, had commanded across the line. “Calm down.” As if that was even remotely possible. Still, he tried to pull himself together enough to sound like he wasn’t about to flip his lid at any second.

“Okay.” The two syllables sounded just as panicked to his ears. “What’s the matter?”

“The FBI is taking me into custody in the next hour or two.” Evans somehow sounded both sharp and weary at the same time. “I need you to take Kayla and her friends somewhere that’s not here. Maybe the other side of the country. I don’t know, but someplace that’s safe.”

Rod didn’t know which was worse: the explanation or the accompanying order. Then again, considering how he didn’t respond to the second part, maybe he did have an automatic opinion.

“They’re taking you into custody? Why?”

The second he uttered the question, he realized how dumb it was. There was a whole list of reasons either of them could be arrested for.

“It’s that agent Fullhouse I was talking to before,” Evans went on, adding, “He’s holding off on charging either of us until we talk. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could mean it’s almost over.”

Rod’s stomach didn’t sink any further. That wasn’t physically possible. But his brain did somehow manage to add another set of worries to his already lengthy list.

At six-foot even, with a carefully maintained physique, it wasn’t like he couldn’t take care of himself in a fight. Between his rough upbringing, his years in the Army and a shady post-military career, he had gotten into his fair share of altercations. The thought of throwing down didn’t bother him on most days.

Oftentimes, he relished it.

Prison, however, was a whole different deal. With his temper, he’d end up with a shiv in the side in no time flat. He’d bet on those odds a lot more readily than an FBI agent offering him any kind of deal. Which meant he couldn’t share Evans’ optimism that getting taken into custody wasn’t necessarily a negative.

“So we’re going to jail.”

He stared bleakly at his bicep with its barbed-wire and dog-tags tattoo. The sight didn’t improve his mood, knowing how far he’d fallen from the day he’d gotten that symbol of purpose. Of pride.

He turned away to concentrate on the ceiling.

“Not if we plea bargain.”

Without anything positive to say, Rod let out a heavy breath.

“Keep it together, man.” Evans sounded like the Navy SEAL he had once been. “Do you have a location you could take off to for a while?”

A potential and very viable answer came to him right away, but he didn’t voice it. Going there would mean potentially endangering people he loved, even if it might be the difference between a long and happy existence, and something entirely different.

“Spit it out, Rod.” Evans didn’t sound impatient or angry. Just resolute.

“Yeah,” he said, still not wanting to fully admit it. “I got a place I can go.”

“Kayla and the rest of them too?”

It was official. His life was one giant hell hole. There was no other way to look at the miserable mess he was in.

Knowing full well that it wasn’t worth arguing, he tried to point out the obvious anyway. “She’s not going to want to be around me, you know.”

It was without a doubt true considering how he’d attacked Kayla just a week ago. She had made it very clear both before and after that unfortunate episode that she could barely stand his existence, much less being in an enclosed space with him.

“Better around you than dead,” Evans replied with a brutal amount of logic.

“I’m not sure she’d agree with that assessment,” was his glum but immediate response.

There was a distracted pause on the other end of the conversation. Then, “You’re going to have to make her agree. Don’t be a jerk about it. Just be honest. She’s a smart woman. She’ll do the smart thing.”

Despite how he had tried to treat Kayla, Rod didn’t disagree with Evan’s evaluation. She might have a rather sexy-sounding profession as a nurse, but she wasn’t the simpering sort. If she had been, he might have had a better shot of adding a whole new crime to his already colorful rap sheet. As it was, he was only liable for another count of assault, even if it did have a very unflattering adjective preceding it.

Even so, he wouldn’t put it past her to list him as a greater threat than their mutual antagonist, U.S. Senator Aaron Greyble, who had tried his best to kill her after a kidnapping job gone wrong. All of which Evans knew. But Rod refrained from arguing further, no matter how much he hated the thought of facing Kayla again.

Evans took pity on him, though not too much. “I’ll call her first to give her a head’s up.”

“That might be a good thing.”

Another pause ensued, leaving Rod to foolishly hope his superior was formulating a different plan. Ultimately, there was no such luck.

“Where are you headed to?”

Rod rubbed at his good eye: the one that wasn’t sore from slamming into a concrete floor last night. “New Jersey. To my grandparents’ house in Newark.”

Evans was clearly taken aback. “You sure you want to involve them?”

“My grandfather is in the Mafia,” he explained. “At least I’m pretty sure he is. Can’t say I ever asked.”

“The Mafia? Seriously?” Evans didn’t sound skeptical, only surprised.

“Yeah, turns out they do exist.”

His Jersey accent slipped out as he spoke. It had been a long while since he lived up there, and life in the military had chipped away at most of his non-standard inflections. But it still showed from time to time.

“And he’ll be okay with you bringing in three random strangers?”

“He’ll be fine with it.” Rod knew his grandfather well enough to be certain. That wasn’t what he was worried about.

“Okay.” Now Evans did sound a little incredulous. “Why do you think he’s a mobster?”

The question was a good one, but it had too many answers, so he went with the simplest summary possible. “A lot of reasons. Starting with how many times he’s been taken to court by the federal government. It usually has something to do with taxes. He runs a chain of liquor stores they say he makes too much money off of.”

Rod could practically hear Evans’ brain working that one out. Liquor stores. Tax issues. Italian. New Jersey. Put all four together, and it was close to impossible not to add them up any other way.

But “got it,” was all the man said on that particular matter, moving right along. “Well, give them a call, and I’ll make sure Kayla knows what’s going on.”

“Okay.” Just because he wasn’t arguing further didn’t mean he wasn’t still formulating a few dozen protests in his head.

“Oh, and Rod?”

“Yes?” He couldn’t completely squelch the prayer that maybe there was some silver lining to be seen.

“Delete my wife’s number.”

His hope dropped in humiliating defeat, kayoed in one brutal punch. “Will do.”

Evans hung up without another word.

Rod lay there with the phone still pressed to his ear, trying to process everything he was expected to do on top of everything that had already happened. Combined, it was a lot to handle.

He wondered how long he should wait to give Kayla a call. Then he wondered whether he should call her at all. He did, after all, have her boyfriend and best friend’s numbers too, since they were all technically in league together: the oddest crew ever to form. The idea might have had some cowardly appeal if Cory and Rachel didn’t seem to hate him even more than Kayla did.

His stomach turned at just the thought of dialing her number, much less speaking to her. The whole thing was demeaning to the point of being painful. He still couldn’t completely believe he had talked himself into trying what he’d tried.

When he stopped to analyze it all, which he didn’t like to do since that required remembering in vivid detail what a creep he was, he supposed he’d let himself get caught up in the glamorous idea of being a criminal. There was something appealing in believing that the rules didn’t apply to him. That they were made to be broken by anyone strong enough to do so.

It wasn’t a new concept for him, not when he’d had the alcoholic father and whipped mother that he’d had. Or the Mafioso grandfather, for that matter. And Rod himself had gotten into enough altercations growing up that he understood the concept on a very literal level. Sometimes he had won and sometimes he lost, but he learned the lesson either way.

When he enlisted in the Army, it taught him that strength wasn’t always about mere physical presence. Sometimes it had everything to do with perception and psychology.

His latest employer was the perfect example of that.

Aaron Greyble never got into fistfights himself – except for beating up Kayla that one time, anyway – but he still wielded a hell of a lot of power playing the mind-games he did on anyone he could. The senator said what he wanted to say regardless of whether he was on the record or not, and he managed to do what he wanted to do as well somehow, someway.

It wasn’t too long ago that a female journalist got on his bad side by writing an op-ed blatantly contradicting Greyble’s position on big banks. Furious, he went on to call her a whore on national television, then spun some ridiculous story about the term not being sexist in the context he’d used it in.

He got away with it too. After a few days of trying to tear him apart, the opposition press and politicians gave up and let the story die. Lesser mortals might end up having to at least give a half-hearted apology, but not Greyble. Whether it was underhanded campaigning tactics, blatant intimidation or outright lying, the man hadn’t apologized about anything his entire political career.

At least not to Rod’s knowledge. And Rod had been with him for a long time. Almost from the beginning.

After obeying rulebook after guideline after instruction as a soldier, Rod found it liberating to help his boss get away with so much. The first assignment or two might have been difficult to stomach. But he quickly forgot to think twice about his unethical and sometimes downright illegal behavior, whether passing on bribes or throwing a few punches. It was wickedly fun acting like he was working for his grandfather’s crime syndicate.

Then Zachary Landis, his team leader, fell from a roof, breaking his leg in four different places. Greyble didn’t waste any time with sympathy cards. He had Evans instated as the new security chief in what some could have seen as a suspiciously short amount of time. With the accidents that had occurred to a few of Rod’s other coworkers over the years, it wouldn’t have surprised him at all if Greyble had orchestrated Landis’ mishap in the first place.

For his part, Rod hadn’t minded the guy, but he found himself really enjoying working for Evans. The man was different. Despite the obvious chip on his shoulder, he wasn’t brutal for brutality’s sake. He handled each job he got with precision and results, but he never allowed his three underlings to hurt anyone if there was some other way to accomplish the objective.

Rod may have long-since adopted a different life mantra, but he couldn’t help but respect Evans from the get-go. Just a few weeks into their work relationship, he was sure he’d take a bullet for the man. And he found himself going out of the way to properly execute jobs, not just to Greyble’s satisfaction but to Evans’ approval.

Then the order came down to kidnap Lucy Reckins. Greyble and his political cronies wanted to swing a vote, and Lucy’s father was not cooperating. So they decided to give him proper incentive to see their point of view.

Preparing for his biggest crime to date, Rod had leaned more heavily than normal on his shady Italian heritage. He’d never abducted anyone before, much less a woman, which left him feeling out of his league. It took some serious effort, but he managed to psych himself up until one part of him was honestly envisioning the upcoming endeavor with Hollywood flair.

In that inane lighting, he could see himself emerging as a bad-boy hero type: the kind of character audiences everywhere felt guilty about rooting for, but rooted for nonetheless. That was all despite how his role was to stay behind the wheel.

It shouldn’t have been a shock when reality turned out to be far less appealing. Tense and sure they were going to get caught from the moment they entered Lucy’s neighborhood, he’d felt his entire body relax when he saw Evans and his two teammates leading a very attractive woman toward him.

The relief was practically overwhelming.

By the time they were on the highway, headed back with their unhappy human cargo secured, Rod’s relief transformed into sheer, smug, stupid cockiness. He was once again the master of his criminal world when he used the rearview mirror to shoot a long glance into the middle seat.

There their captive sat, her dirty blond hair disheveled around her face and her brown eyes big and watery. She was huddled into herself as much as her restraints would allow, which wasn’t really all that much.

Her non-form fitting scrubs couldn’t hide how well-rounded she was. Not chunky per se, but curvaceous, unlike the anorexic chicks who walked around thinking they were all that. Rod liked them a little thicker, and their captive was just that: the kind of woman who’d eat more than a salad on a date, but could still look smoking hot in a pair of high heels and a flirty, leg-baring dress.

Something low cut too. She had the chest for it.

She also had a cute face, even with the duct tape covering her lips. All put together, her appearance gave him that adolescent desire to draw attention to himself. Like he was seventeen instead of twenty-seven.

Remembering it now, he fully recognized what an idiot he had been. In the moment though, he felt pretty damn cool when, after Evans tried to calm her down by saying that nobody was going to hurt her “like that,” he made some smartass comment about liking women with a little breadth.

“Prime picking” were his exact words, and Evans had snapped his head off in response.

Technically, Rod hadn’t meant anything much by the comment. Or at least he hadn’t contemplated the idea of following through on his stated interest. Not when the woman in question was clearly not thrilled about being in his company. But the reprimand stung all the same, especially when made in front of a pretty girl; and he supposed he’d started sulking from that point onward. It was a condition that solidified further when Evans had to yell at him twice more on the drive down to D.C.

He resented that. And since he didn’t want to be mad at his team leader – or himself for that matter – he had transferred his irritation to the woman he thought was Lucy Reckins.

Except that she wasn’t Lucy Reckins. She was Kayla Jeateski. They’d kidnapped the wrong person entirely. It wasn’t their fault, but it changed the dynamics of the game nonetheless. So while they went back to collect the real target, Greyble determined that Kayla would have to stay with them until they got things sorted out.

Nobody expected her to be all that appreciative of the arrangement. But in retrospect, neither was Rod. If she hadn’t been around to kidnap in the first place, his life would be a whole lot simpler.

It was a thought he supposed he could still act on two weeks later. No one was holding a gun to his head telling him he had to obey Evans’ directions to get Kayla and company somewhere safe. If anything, it was the exact opposite.

Yet as tempting as that possibility was, it wasn’t an option. Not really. Not when he owed her for all of the danger he was partially or completely responsible for putting her in. There was no way around that fact, no matter how hard he wished otherwise. If he had just kept his imagination to himself down in D.C.

But he hadn’t.

Except for the mad rush of collecting the girls, Rod found the whole kidnapping gig to be mind-numbing, with plenty of downtime and lots of space to think. Contrary to popular belief, thinking wasn’t always a good thing. That was especially true when it centered around attractive women locked up in boss’ basements.

With little to do other than the random patrol or food-run, his brain kept going down to the basement where both girls were being held. Evans wasn’t giving anyone access to the video feed other than Greyble, who wasn’t there half the time anyway. So Rod was left to imagine what the hostages were doing. For all he knew, Kayla was telling Lucy all about how stupid he’d been in the first car ride down.

The thought was irksome, and it got more so after she further exhibited how much she loathed him while they shot the ransom video. Kayla hadn’t come right out and said anything to him that time around, but that didn’t mean she didn’t state her opinion loud and clear.

She was good at that.

Wanting to put her in her place and being bored out of his mind, desperate for something to do to liven things up, he found himself considering something that should have been unimaginable. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it. And the more he wanted it, the more he convinced himself he deserved it. That it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to take it.

Fortunately for everyone involved, his plan backfired, leaving him as the lone individual to get physically hurt. When Kayla and Lucy both objected to his indecent proposal, they’d managed to bring Evans’ wrath – and his Glock – down hard on Rod’s head. He had the fresh scar on his temple to prove it.

Still clutching the phone, he moved his thumb to brush absently against the raised skin there. It was going to be a reminder he wouldn’t ever lose, even if Kayla ever forgave him for his botched plans. Which was looking like it had the same odds as Kevlar against a landmine, despite his best efforts to make it up to her. He had, after all, helped save her life a day or two later, and he was currently doing his best to keep her safe. He’d even gone so far as to man up and apologize to her face, which had been anything but easy.

But she hadn’t accepted, the terror and revulsion in her eyes vivid while he stood in front of her admitting what a mortifying jerk he’d been. She didn’t come right out and tell him to take a long walk off a short pier wearing dried concrete around his ankles. But the expression on her face conveyed the message just fine.

What he didn’t think she understood was that he’d be just as content if he never had to see her again either. He’d be a whole lot happier putting her behind him, not to mention everything else that had happened since she’d come along. Including last night. That was when he got his real payback for everything, getting kidnapped himself and finding out how horrific that lack of control really was.

Getting waterboarded was without a doubt the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Just thinking about it made him feel panicky stretched out in bed the way he was. He’d been lying down when Wisset poured water over his blindfolded face too. Sure, he’d also been nailed into a wooden coffin from toe to chest, so there weren’t that many similarities to be made. Yet he still felt an urgent desire to get up and walk around.

What that was supposed to prove, he had no idea. He only knew he never wanted to feel so helpless again.

Last night’s memories hit him hard anyway, including how Wisset had threatened to torture Evans to death in front of him. Or how he flaunted his knowledge of his captives’ personal lives, such as who Rod was related to, and the fact that Evans’ wife had been raped a year ago.

The latter revelation made Rod feel that much more wretched about the whole Kayla thing.

When Wisset went on to drag him into a side room, Rod was still tasting blood from one too many kidney punches. He was also beginning to wonder whether God was punishing him for all the rotten things he’d done since leaving the Army.

He hadn’t been to Mass since Christmas, and then just because his grandmother insisted. However, that didn’t mean he could escape his Catholic background so easily.

The Hail Mary ran through his head while he fought to control his pain and panic.

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

He knew the possibility that he was, indeed, facing the hour of his death, an impression that grew stronger when Wisset began nailing him into the long, wooden crate.

A few more prayers popped into his head at that: The Lord’s Prayer, Hail Holy Queen, the Memorare. He got through all of those plus several others before Wisset was done securing a baseboard and eight additional planks over him.

Then his captor began describing what he was going to do. Rod knew it was one final psych-out attempt, but it did the trick. While he was forced to listen to Wisset linger over the details, he turned his impeccable memory to a different kind of prayer: The Act of Contrition.

Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. And I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who is all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

He kept repeating the words in his head until Wisset laid a dampened cloth over his face and started pouring the water.

The terror he felt was instantaneous and unfathomable. Calling the experience horrible was like saying a bullet in the gut hurt. And he would know about that kind of thing. He had a scar on his abdomen to prove it.

Rod would have taken a half-dozen more bullets over the simulated sensation of drowning. Hours afterward, he couldn’t be sure whether it was the way he couldn’t breathe or the way he couldn’t see when the water was going to stop that made it so appalling. At the time, he hadn’t been in any frame of mind to think it through, especially with Wisset laughing at him.

Rod knew he started sobbing well before it was over, something he hadn’t done since his mother died when he was fifteen. He was begging for it to stop. Knowing full well that it wouldn’t, he pled anyway.

Shuddering at every fraction of the memory, he swung his legs carefully out of bed. The movement had him wincing at the resulting pain in his side. And when he wiped at his eyes – the one with great care – they were crusted over in the corners and along his lashes: the product of tears and a rotten half-night’s rest.

Rod left his bed a rumpled mess of blankets, his pillows tossed around like he had done battle with them at some point or another.

Out in the kitchen, he made sure to select something other than water, grabbing a beer instead. Considering his already shaky grip on his brain, it probably wasn’t the smart thing to do when he’d have to be on the road shortly.

The road.

Damn it!

Rod threw his bottle against the closed refrigerator door with enough force to shatter it into a dozen chunks and numerous smaller fragments. Brown liquid poured down to slosh onto the floor, fizzing as it did.

He dropped his face into his hands and moaned for so many reasons, the newest one being that he didn’t have a car. Lacey, his 2005 Camaro, was sitting still in that abandoned warehouse parking lot with four flat tires, shot out by that bastard Wisset.

On a normal day, he would be incensed if someone touched his candy-red baby, which his grandfather had given him as a high school graduation present. But in light of recent events, it only made him feel that much more emasculated.

He supposed he could ask Kayla for a lift, but the thought of being in an enclosed space with her and her two friends all the way from Baltimore, Maryland, to Newark, New Jersey, sounded like the worst possible option in front of him. There was simply no way he was going to do that to himself.

Staring at the most recent and least consequential mess he’d made, he thought about ignoring it altogether. But since the alternative was calling Kayla, he sucked it up and cleaned. His kitchen was spotless by the time he was done, and he would have moved on to the rest of the apartment too if he could just push past the knowledge that time was not on his side.

Rod wasn’t quite trembling when he picked up his phone again. There were five numbers listed in the cheap cell, and he had them all memorized. Yet just to buy an extra second or two, he scrolled through the miniscule contacts list to the one and only entry under K.

She picked up on the third ring, sounding uncertain right from the get-go. It was the way she always seemed to sound around him.

“Yes?”

“Kayla?” He didn’t know why he said it like a question when he’d dialed her and it was clearly her voice.

“Yes?” If anything, her tone became more nervous, possibly because he couldn’t project a single ounce of confidence.

“Evans is getting taken in.”

“Taken in?”

He wasn’t the greatest at reading feminine emotions, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t putting her at ease. “The FBI. That agent he was supposed to meet up with the other day? The guy is sending a car to get him, and there’s no telling how it’s going to go.”

“Oh. Yeah. He told me.”

Rod shook his head for no good reason. “Okay. Well. He wants me to get you guys somewhere safe until everything gets sorted out.”

He moved into the bedroom to straighten his sheets after all, filled with the desperate need to do something. Anything to distract himself from the dead silence on the other end.

“Kayla?” He asked tentatively, the cell tucked between his cheek and his shoulder, his hands moving his pillows into place with mindless precision.

“Yeah, he told me that too. Where are we going?” She said the words too calmly now, leaving her tension to echo in his head.

“New Jersey. Is everyone with you?”

“Yes.” She didn’t ask what he meant by “everyone.”

Throw some stuff together and start heading up 95. I’ll text you the address. When can you be on the road?”

“Half an hour.”

“That should be fine. Just try to make it as quick as possible.”

“Okay.” She sounded like she wanted to ask another question.

He waited, one part of him hoping she might offer some word of comfort or even forgiveness. Rod didn’t know why he couldn’t turn off that ridiculous ray of optimism when it had already proved so worthless.

You must really like disappointment. He would have hit himself in the head if not for his shiner on one side and the scar on the other.

“Are you going to be coming too?”

And there it was. Even though he’d expected it, the unrequited longing for absolution twisted in his gut. “Yeah, but I’ll be coming up in my own car. And not for another hour or two.”

“Oh. Okay.”

It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn she breathed easier. Which was anything but a flattering notion.

They hung up after an equally awkward goodbye. At which time, Rod set his phone on the bed, grabbed one of the pillows he'd arranged a minute ago, and pressed it to his face to yell as loudly as he possibly could.