Sail With Me (14 page)

While John attended college on a full scholarship, he washed dishes and sold newspapers.
 
This was it for him and he knew it.
 
It was the most he could ever hope for.
 
Every Friday he gave half of his meager wages to his mom and used the rest to by booze and cheap women.
 
He became friends with the wrong people and started smoking pot and popping pills.
 
Before he knew it he was breaking into cars and passing counterfeit checks.
 
He seldom got caught, and even then it was just a slap on the wrist.
 
He’d sit in jail for a few nights, John would post his bail and that was it.
 
Maybe do a few hours of community service and make the judge happy.
 
The prisons were overpopulated, filled with real criminals, murderers and rapists. He knew the system saw him as more of a nuisance than a threat to society.
 
That was fine with him, he was petrified of being sent to the state prison anyway.
 
He knew what would happen to a little Asian guy in a place like that and it gave him the creeps.
 

He was secretly elated years later when John confided in him that he was dying from a brain tumor.
 
The thing which had elevated John to a king in his mother’s eyes would now kill him.
 
Joseph felt his luck was changing.
 
He sat with a smile in his heart as he listened to John cry a river.
 
He didn’t want to die.
 
He didn’t want to leave his beloved mother.
 
John knew Joseph was a loser and would never be capable of caring for their mother.
 
Most of all, he didn’t want her to be alone.
 
He told Joseph his plan.

Chapter Nineteen

Delaney and Cecily made sandwiches while Jake and Mike went to get wine.
 
It was nice having another woman to converse with and she quickly learned Cecily was so opposite of her.
 
She had attended art school in New York City where she basically partied and slept with lots of men for four years.
 
She had wild stories of passionate lovers and one-night stands.
 
Delaney couldn’t believe it.
 
She had a vague sense that she had missed out on something.
 
Cecily was such a free spirit.

“How did you and Mike ever meet?”

“Fate.
 
After graduation I took an internship teaching art therapy at a rehabilitation hospital in upstate New York.
 
I worked with new amputees returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
 
Mike was one of my clients and it was horrible.”

Delaney stopped making sandwiches and looked up, “What do you mean horrible, was it depressing?”

“No quite the opposite.
 
From the second we met there was a chemistry between us.
 
I was trying to help him with fine motor skills and all I kept thinking was I wonder what he’s like in bed.
 
The sexual tension was unbelievable, and three days later he asked me out.
 
When I picked him up that night he saw my car and nearly died laughing.
 
He said he never met a woman who was so confident she would drive around with “
If you’re gonna ride my ass at least
pull hair
” stamped to her bumper.
 
From that moment on we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
 
He took me right there in my backseat and again after dinner.
 
The man has the stamina of an Olympic athlete.
 
When he moved back down here to be close to family he asked me to marry him and the rest is history.”

“Wow, that’s some love story, it’s so spontaneous.” Delaney thought for a minute then blurted out, “I slept with Jake the first week we met.
 
And it was wonderful.
 
I feel like I barely know the man but I keep going back for more, he’s addicting.”
 
She studied Cecily’s face to see if she thought any less of her for being so easy.

Cecily started laughing. “That’s great!
 
He’s got a hot body and I bet he knows how to use it.”

“So, I’m wonderfully addicting with a hot body?
 
Go on, I want to hear more.”

Cecily and Delaney turned to see Mike and Jake standing in the doorway.
 
She wanted to crawl under a rock.
 
Mike was laughing and loving every second of this.
 
Cecily pushed him out of the kitchen and into the living room.

She could feel her face redden and resumed making the sandwiches.
 
Suddenly she felt Jake standing behind her, getting as close as he could without touching her.
 
The warmth of his body was like a magnet and she refused to give in.
 
His hot breath on the back of her neck made her shutter and she wanted him to take her from behind right there.
 
She had no idea how he managed to do that to her.
 
He stayed that way for several minutes before wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her towards him.
 
She felt his already familiar hardness pressed against her back as he whispered, “I think you’re wonderfully addicting and have an even hotter body.”
 
She was speechless.

Chapter Twenty

Joseph studied the business card of Special Agent Jake Thrasher and his sidekick Detective Delaney Davenport before crumbling it up and throwing it to the ground.
 
He used his cell and googled her name.
 
Common sense told him the woman would be an easy target.
 
Her address popped up along with her picture.
 
He knew what he had to do.
 
Locking his bedroom door, he shaved off all of his hair and goatee.
 
He admired his new look in the dingy mirror hanging from a rusty nail in the wall.
 
This place was a dump.
 
It smelled like cat pee and the sound of mice scurrying across the floor at night scared him.
 
The bed was a stained thin mattress thrown on the floor and his dresser was a cardboard box with
fragile
stamped on all four sides.
 
A single light bulb hung from the ceiling with a long chain that had a crucifix hanging from it.
 
He changed clothes and pulled the black hood over his head.
 
The loaded gun slipped into the waistband of his pants.
 
He placed a call to Chief O’Malley and explained the situation.
 
He could hear the babbling toddler in the background.
 
After listening to his orders he clicked the cell off and looked around before climbing out the third floor window and going down the fire escape.
 
It was already dark, his preferred time to travel.

Joseph waited at the corner for the New Jersey Transit bus.
 
It was late as usual, and he fidgeted with the change in his pocket for his fair.
 
When it finally arrived he took a seat in the back, isolating himself from the rest of the passengers.
 
Four stops later he got off in Lindenwald and barely caught the train in time heading east towards Atlantic City.
 
He watched the people and was careful to avoid making eye contact, keeping his hand on the gun the whole time.
 

After forty minutes the train pulled into Mullica Township and he got off.
 
He saw the junker car sitting in the lot, just as O’Malley had promised.
 
The keys were under the front seat and after two attempts the engine turned over.
 
His eyes scanned the dash for the fuel gauge.
 
If he was going to kill someone he didn’t want to be running out of gas.
 
Adrenaline ran through his body when he realized she was only two miles away.
 
Joseph sat in the car thinking about how he was going from small time crook and drug addict to becoming a full-fledged cop killer.
 
But what could he do?
 
He had made a deal with Chief O’Malley over a year before.
 
Joseph knew there were people with deep pockets willing to pay top dollar for a newborn baby, especially a boy baby.
 
There was no way he was going to listen to his brother John and just hand over the baby to their mother.
 
What had either of them ever done for him anyway?
 
It was the same day John told him of his brain tumor and plan to kidnap a baby boy from the hospital that Joseph was arrested for drug possession.
 

He was cuffed and leaning on the hood of the car when Chief O’Malley asked what drugs he was taking.
 
Too high on crack to know what he was doing, he told the entire story of kidnapping a newborn boy to the cop.
 
Knowing he promised his brother to deliver the baby to his mother, he went on to say how he devised his own plan to sell the baby on the black market.
 
 

O’Malley thought about the situation he found himself in.
 
He had been with his wife at the doctors when she was diagnosed as having a false pregnancy.
 
The doctor had explained her chances of ever carrying a child full term were none due to her uterus being only a quarter of normal size.
 
Becca wasn’t able to accept this and she was referred to a psychologist to no avail.
 
She told everyone of her pregnancy, that she was having a boy due in July.
 
Not knowing what to do, O’Malley buried himself with work, and even volunteered to work the streets just so he wouldn’t have to deal with a wife who had lost her mind.
 
Seeing this as a once in a lifetime opportunity, he made a deal with Joseph.
 
He would use his authority as Police Chief to keep Joseph out of jail if he would give him the baby.
 
O’Malley threatened him that if he ever told their secret he would make sure he spent his life in prison as some gangbanger’s bitch.
 
After demanding an additional five thousand in cash, Joseph jumped on the offer with visions of crack pipes and hookers dancing in his head.

Chapter Twenty One

It had been years since Delaney had fun like this.
 
Being with friends was a marvelous feeling and it took her mind off of the case for a while.
 
Jake backed the trailer down the boat ramp with Mike’s direction.
 
She and Cecily played with Fetch and chatted about girl things.
 
They would start laughing and the men would look over with curious expressions.
 
She loved this game.
 
Cecily told her about the wedding plans and was asking for suggestions.
 
They talked about hairstyles and lipstick colors, flowers and photographers.
 
Delaney knew it was going to be a fantastic wedding and she felt genuinely happy for her new girlfriend.

They were all on board and Jake had just opened the wine when Delaney realized she forgot the cooler with their sandwiches in the truck.
 
“Let’s do a quick toast then I’ll run up and get the food.”

They all held up their glasses and Jake said, “To new friendships and women with great bodies.
 
I love you all.”
 
They laughed together and drank their wine.
 
Delaney grabbed her Coach bag with the keys inside and leaped to the floating dock.
 
“I’ll be right back,” she yelled and ran up the beach toward the parking lot.
 

Jake checked all his gauges then hoisted the sail.
 
The water was smooth and the breeze was perfect.
 
Fetch was acting anxious and he placed his hand on her head and told her to settle down.
 
Mike and Cecily were already on their second glass of wine and he was hoping she wouldn’t get sea sick.