Chapter 12

I woke up with a smile on my face and a girl by my side. I turned to look at her. She looked like Aphrodite, partially covered by the white sheets. Her hair was messy in the right way and her skin looked flawless. She finally woke up and turned to face me, her eyes sparkling. If I might say, it is totally underrated in the movies. I just wished I could have said " Your mother is a dangerous criminal and I need your help to kill her". In reality I said "Hey". I lay in bed, not wanting the moment to end, but my life being what it is, she got a call from her mother. I lay there listening to the rapid Russian backfire between mother and daughter. I understood every word, but I made no comment as she lied to her mother that she was in a hotel. I knew she wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend or anything and I understood it, but deep inside me, it still hurt. It hurt that I couldn't have the girl of my dreams, it hurt that my mother was M.I.A and it hurt that my brother could be a big time traitor. Basically, it hurt that I was alone.

I had to drop her off quickly at a restaurant before her mother got there. Instead of leaving like I had said I was going to, I pulled over a little way down the road and waited for her to come. She arrived in a black Cadillac Escalade with deeply tinted windows, most likely chauffeur driven. I sat in my car with my hand wrapped around my 9mm Beretta PX4 Storm in case of emergency. It was almost too late before I realized that she wasn't about to get out of the car. I quickly took some pictures of the car's license plate before it joined the morning traffic. I couldn't risk following her. She was probably surrounded by several members of her erratic private army. I sped to H.Q to run the plate. Excitement began to well up inside me as the computer compared it to millions of other registered cars in the United States. After what seemed like forever, the results came. Apparently, the plate belonged to a red Toyota Corolla which in turn belonged to an old lady who went by the name Sarah Jenkins.

I managed to get my hands on the address of Sarah and immediately, I was in my car and making my way to Aberdeen where she was supposed to be living. I was pulled over twice for exceeding the speeding limit and a third time after a waitress at Starbucks called the cops on me after I may have intentionally forgotten to pay for my iced coffee. Finally, I arrived in front of a neat blue bungalow with a beautiful garden filled with a vast range of flowers. There was a single golden brown minivan parked in the open garage with a couple of kids bicycles and toys scattered around the driveway. There was music being emitted softly from the house and the shadows of dancing people could be seen through the window panes. I counted up to five hidden cameras before I reached the front door. I was careful not to ring it with my finger so as not to leave a fingerprint behind.

I rang it two more times before a European looking woman came to answer the door with an ugly child in her arm. The child was stuffing its fat face with some sort of pastry. It looked familiar, but I couldn't put my thumb on it. I turned my attention back to her and tried to hide the look of horror on my face. The baby gave me chills. "I'm looking for Sarah Jenkins.". I could see that it was taking her some time to understand what i had just said. I shifted my weight an the doorstep so I could get a view of the inside of the house. There was a huge table with drinks and a large variety of food and a handful of people around it. I heard a man say something in Russian. I was trying to hear more of the conversation when the lady tapped me on the shoulder. She shook her head and said in an unusually thick American accent "She's not here. She died." Before I could ask any more questions, she nudged me out and slammed the door in my face. The ugly child still managed to shoot me a dirty look before the door closed. He was done with his pastry and was now sucking four of his fingers at once.

I returned to my car and sat, holding the steering wheel. I decided that I wanted more answers. I went back to the front door. I hadn't even touched the doorbell when the same woman opened it and was staring at me, obviously frustrated. " I told you, she died." The woman was about to slam the door in my face once again. I stuck my foot out at the last minute, forcing the door to cease movement. " If she's dead, then who are you?." She rolled her eyes at me. " Her daughter." She could have sold it to anyone else, but I didn't believe in happy families and I had overheard someone speaking Russian inside. I decided to go with the flow and see what new information I would uncover. " Oh okay. Who's birthday is it?". She looked at me without emotion and said "My son." She kicked my foot and slammed the door barely a centimetre away from my nose. I looked around me as I walked back to my car. I noticed that the bicycles were new. There was no dirt on the tires or anything. If they were new, then why were they outside lying there haphazardly. The minivan looked used, but there were no bumper stickers or anything to show the presence of at least one child.

I sat back in the car and pulled up Sarah Jenkins' information. She had one son who lived in Iowa, there was no mention of any other children. Her husband passed two years premier and her sister follower about a month after. It said that she was still alive. I thought back to what the man inside had said. 'pereday mne vodku' Pass me the vodka. I checked the date. It was June 12th, Russian national day. Were they illegal immigrants or it was an unlikely coincidence that the real owner of the house had been replaced by a 'family' of Russians and her license plate was the same one Ivanka was using. I went to the office and contacted Sarah Jenkins' son James to ask about his mother. He told me that he hadn't heard from her in nearly a month. I thought hard and remembered a new bed of roses in their garden. If my suspicions were accurate, which I hoped they were not, the dead body of Sarah Jenkins lay underneath. As much as I hated the thought, there was only one way to find out. I had to check.

I hung around H.Q both waiting and dreading nightfall. Sooner than preferred, it came. Slowly but quickly like a cloud. The time had come. There was no way to prepare yourself for something as gruesome and grotesque as that, all you could do was pray for some divine intervention of some sort. I drove as slowly as possible, but eventually I got there. It was 11:53 pm. I mean, could it possibly get any spookier. I ordered a pizza with their address and waited for the delivery guy to come. I felt kind of guilty using him to check for security systems and as a diversion. I waited for him to walk up to the front door and ring the bell before I moved. I crawled stealthily across the grass till I reached the rose bush. The awful smell surrounding the roses was not encouraging at all. If anything it made it worse.

The front door w as opened and a large portion of the front of their house was flooded in yellow light. I froze. The confusion should have been a good enough distraction, but I had forgotten to factor in the light pouring out of the house. I waited for a few minutes after the delivery guy left before pulling myself to my feet and proceeded with the dreadful task at hand. I dug and dug until The shovel made contact with something that was not soil or stone. I began scraping off the soil. To my dismay, I was able to make out the definitions of a nose and cheekbones. I raised my head and looked at the windows instead of what was going on beneath me. It was that simple decision that saved my life. I noticed a moving shadow, just a little darker than the darkness. Someone was there most likely armed and surely looking for my blood. I turned to my left pretending like I was wiping sweat off my face.

He acted faster than I had been prepared for. Before I knew it, he was standing beside me with a gun pressed against my temple. His instructions were simple. "Move and I shoot." The gun was a German Heckler and Koch P7 with a silencer attached to the end. It would take literally a second for the bullet to break through my skull and kill me. I had to be careful. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He brought the phone to his right hand to use his fingerprint to unlock it. I dropped to my knees, smashing the edge of the shovel into his kneecap. The gun went off right before he dropped both the gun and the phone instinctively reaching or his knee. I grabbed both, shoved the phone into my pocket and grabbing the gun. There was a stabbing pain on my ear. As I was getting up, his foot came hurtling into my jaw, dropping me into the grass again. I got up groaning and stood opposite him.

We had both assumed fighting stance, bringing our clenched fists up to our chests and bending our knees slightly. I picked up the gun and detached the silencer. His fist neared my face. I held his wrist, using his own momentum to control him. With his arm fully extended and his elbow locked, I drove the butt of the pistol into his shoulder and fired it twice, beside each of his ears deafening him. I put him in position and placed him in a choke hold. I let go of his unconscious body, handcuffed him to the fence and left, calling the police on my way home.