Shelter (7 page)

             
“Well who is he?”

             
“Salvador,” he snapped. “Let it go. This isn’t happening and I’m not talking about it anymore.”

             
“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” Salvador grumbled. “I won’t tell anyone.” He sounded dejected, sad even, as he picked up his shovel and trudged away.

             
Carlos let out a sigh that left his lungs so empty they ached.
Call me back, Sean,
he prayed.
For the love of God, call me back.

             
But by the time he clocked out that afternoon, his phone was still silent. He stared at the screen the whole ride back to the Good & Green headquarters, willing it to come to life in his hand. But it didn’t. And the fact that no one commented on his bizarre fixation with his cell told him just how distant he’d become in the past couple of months. He’d had friends at work, now he struggled to recall people’s names. In some ways, he wasn’t much better off than Alma.

             
Alma.

             
Just thinking her name warmed him. As he walked across the crushed gravel lot to his car, the collar of his Carhartt jacket popped up against the nip of the wind, he let his worry and stress fall away and concentrated instead on the beautiful brunette who’d be waiting for him when he got home.

             
Fuck Tom Harris. And fuck Sean Taylor. He’d figure it out. Just as soon as he got his hands on Alma again, he’d figure it all out.

7

             
There was a soft knock on his office door and then it swung open, Aisha looking like a mahogany goddess in the threshold. Something about her eyes, though, told Sean this wasn’t business as normal. She had slipped into her role as receptionist with the ease of pulling on a worn-in pair of shoes – Sean had his suspicions that before she’d joined the force, she’d lived a hard life on the other side of the law – but there was a cop’s alertness in the way she glanced at him and then pushed the door all the way open.

             
“Someone to see you, Mr. Taylor,” she said in her usual, bored tone. She ushered in the guest with a flick of a manicured hand and then excused herself silently. She was a good one, Aisha, and when this undercover stint was over, Sean was going to submit a personal recommendation that she be considered for detective.

             
His Sergeant, long-time Atlanta PD veteran Adam Gilbert, looked like he always did: slightly winded and pissed at the world. His suit was a little too large in places, too small in others. The cold had turned his face bright red. He pulled at his tie as he plopped into one of the guest chairs across from Sean, then checked to be sure that the door had been securely latched behind him. “Why the shit did it take me a week to get an ‘appointment’ with one of my own officers?”

             
Sean twitched a false smile. “Business is boomin’, what can I say?”

             
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

             
“And I can’t exactly have a cop come walking in just any old day of the week. Business would be very
not booming
if my clients caught wind of you around here.”

             
“Nobody knows I’m a cop.”

             
“Anyone within ten feet of you can tell you’re a cop. My boys down there,” he said of his security out front, two guys the size of middle linemen with hands like hams, “they know you’re a cop. They just think you’re on the take.”

             
“You’re a cop,” Gilbert reminded, as if he thought Sean had somehow gotten wrapped up in the undercover glitz and had forgotten.

             
“Not when I’m in here,” Sean said. And he wasn’t. He knew he was a good actor – he wouldn’t have made narcotics detective if he hadn’t been – and he certainly wouldn’t have been given this six month undercover assignment. He’d served his time as a beat cop in Tampa, so no one in the Atlanta area knew him as “Detective Taylor.” He was just regular old Sean T from back in high school, who, apparently, didn’t seem out of place selling blow and H.

             
“Captain’s starting to get restless. You’ve been at this six months and so far not one arrest. You’re not even close to an arrest, are you?”

             
“Our target is at the top of the food chain. He’s not gonna go down overnight. Captain knew how tedious this was gonna be before he sent me in.”

             
Gilbert relented with a shrug. “How’s it going with Morales?”

             
“Which one?”

             
“The one who’s not dead.”

             
Sean snorted. “Carlos wants out. He’s come to me a couple of times, says he wants to cut and run. Sam was the one who wanted into dealing; Carlos was just along for the ride.” He shook his head. “Poor kid’s got a guilt complex as big as his stupid heart. He and Sam’s widow? Bangin’.”

             
“Shit.” The sergeant ran a hand over his thinning hair. “We need Morales. He’s our
in
.”

             
Which Sean hated. He’d hoped that, once he’d been transferred to Atlanta, he’d be able to move up to homicide from narcotics. It had quickly become apparent that he would need some sort of big break, a way to prove his value to the Fulton County PD, some way to bump himself up in the eyes of his superiors. When this undercover assignment had come along, he’d leapt at it. It would look good in his jacket in so many ways. Bringing down a corporate drug ring that had evaded police for years? Awesome. But what wasn’t so awesome, he had quickly realized, was that posing as a dealer required a whole lot of law breaking on his part. And he’d been forced to reach out to a friend in order to make the contacts he needed. He’d had to use Sam. And Carlos. And now Sam was dead. Even though the department wanted to sweep it under the rug as random drug war violence, Sean felt physically ill at the notion that he’d gotten his old buddy – a cousin, husband, and expectant father – killed.

             
“Where’s homicide on Sam’s murder?” he asked.

             
Gilbert shrugged again. “Call up Jeffries and ask yourself. That’s not my department.”

             
Sean leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers together as was becoming habit in this new role of his, and fixed his CO with a steady look. “He wasn’t some street rat, Adam.”

             
“What do you want me to do about it? I got my own shit to do.”

             
His frustration was rapidly turning into anger. “If we bring these guys in, don’t we have a right to protect them? Sam and Carlos were
not
dealers.
I
did that.
I
got Sam shot. And now I got a vested interest in makin’ sure Carlos doesn’t get his ass shot too!”

             
Gilbert scowled. “You can not let him walk away. If we don’t bring down - ”

             
“I know,” Sean cut him off with a wave and a sigh.

             
“You’re getting a little too comfortable down here.”

             
He didn’t correct him. Playing a gangster was starting to make him think like one. Maybe even act like one too. Every time he checked in with headquarters, he had to remind himself that he was the subordinate here. That he really wasn’t the boss of anything: not even the streets that he flooded with drugs in the hopes to catch one kingpin. Did the big win make up for all the small losses along the way? Not according to Carlos Morales, he knew.

             
“Look,” Sean started over, making a concerted effort to keep his tone light and pleading. “I think Carlos would be more cooperative if he could get some closure about his cousin. If homicide could wrap up the case - ”

             
“With what evidence?” Gilbert sounded helpless. “The only witness was Carlos, so all we got is your hearsay on the whole thing. And the killer had gloves and a mask. You want us to put an APB on every goddamn thug in the city?”

             
“What about the crime scene unit? They didn’t find anything?”

             
“That building’s crawling with DNA. There’s not a shot in hell of narrowing it down to the shooter.”

             
Sean massaged his forehead. “They make it look so easy on TV, huh?”

             
It was a bad joke, but Gilbert cracked a grin. “They’re a helluva lot prettier than us too.”

             
True on all counts. And maddening.

             
“I wish I had something,” the sergeant relented. “Honest I do, Sean. But this is about bigger fish than Sam Morales.” Sean’s sharp glance had him shaking his head. “Don’t gimme that look. You signed on for this assignment and it’s too late to start pointing fingers now. You’re just as guilty as the rest of us.”

             
“I know. That’s what’s bothering me.”

             
Gilbert didn’t stay much longer, and when Aisha showed him out, Sean sank down in his chair, weary to the bone. Now more than ever, he wished his request to have Sam and Carlos signed on as confidential informants had been given the green light. This would all have been so much easier if the Morales cousins had known that they were working on the right side of the law. As it stood now, the poor shitheads – or, shit
head
, as it were now that Sam was six feet under – stood a good chance of being arrested along with the targets they’d been used to acquire. Sean was convinced there was no way to be a dirty cop in the narcotics division because the whole nature of his job was dirty to the core. Or at least it seemed that way from where he was sitting in his Armani suit.

             
He pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and had a really stupid thought as he withdrew the bottle of Crown Royal he kept there.

             
He might not have made the jump to homicide yet, but he was a detective, wasn’t he? What was wrong with a little old fashioned police work? He was, after all, just looking to bring a criminal to justice, and wasn’t that the whole point of law enforcement?

             
He pressed the buzzer on the intercom on his desk. “Aisha?”

             
Rather than answer, she pushed open the door with a smirk. “What, I’m supposed to be your secretary for real now?”

             
He grinned. “Only if you wanna be.”

             
She rolled her eyes and started to pull the door to.

             
“Hold up, hold up.” He sat forward in his chair. “I just wanted to know when the last time Carlos Morales called.”

             
She pursed her glossed lips, eyes narrowing, and the picture she presented was somewhere between hot club girl and cop, which he found more than a little hot. “This afternoon,” her tone was careful. “He was all upset about something. Frankly, I didn’t like his attitude.”

             
Sean nodded. “Call him back, tell him I’m out of town.”

             
“Out of town?”

             
“Just stall him, alright? I need to think some shit over before I call him back.”

8

              Alma recalled a first of November when she was girl: how she’d woken up in the middle of the night, too much Halloween candy having left her sugar-super-charged and unable to sleep soundly. She’s seen the dials on her clock, had marveled at being awake at three in the morning, and had gone to her window to look out at the world at such a time. The security light had thrown black shadows over the lawn below, spooky and magical all at once. And the picture was separated from her by the misting of frost on the window pane. The first frost. Her bares toes had dug into the carpet, cold. She’d had this sense of winter coming on, had visions of the holidays: Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas trees, cookies and presents and snow flurries, all the splendor of a season designed for the imagination of a child.

             
On this November first, she woke with a stiff neck because she’d spent the night with Carlos in his tiny twin bed, her spine twisted at an odd angle. And there were no prospects of magic or fantasy holiday dinners with her family. There was just weak, autumn sunlight creeping in the windows, and that ever present dread she felt each time she remembered that Sam was no longer alive.

             
But, if she was fair, there were other things too. There was Carlos, who inhaled deeply and shifted onto his side so they were facing each other. “Hey,” he sounded sleepy, though his eyes seemed clear and sharp.

             
She felt a smile tweak her lips. She wasn’t startled anymore when she woke and found herself next to the other Morales cousin. He was not, she now knew, just Sam’s cousin. She had always cared about him, thought of him as family – he
was
family – but mornings like this morning, butterfly wings fluttered in her chest and she found herself struck by what a beautifully imperfect specimen he was. He had stubble on his jaw, shadows under his eyes in the early morning light, but he was sexy. She felt that hot stir of attraction.

             
“You sleep okay?” he asked, but his eyes strayed away from hers, downward, as his hand appeared between them and he pushed the covers down.

             
“Yeah.” She watched him lower the thin strap of the silk camisole she slept in. He pulled it down her arm until he was able to peel the silk from her body, exposing her left breast to the light and cool morning air. Her nipple tightened in the chill, and she knew that was where both their eyes were trained as he ran his finger around the tight, pink bud. He cupped her breast in his hand, molded her.

             
Her breath quickened a bit. She licked her lips as she glanced at his face. As if he could feel her stare, he tilted his head up and kissed her, tongue entering her mouth in a hot, lazy way as he flicked his thumb back and forth across her nipple.

             
Half the time she blamed the warmth that was returning to her heart on raging hormones and the promise of sex. But she wondered, knew really, that it was about more than that. Each night they spent together was bringing them closer and closer together. Three nights before she’d made him dinner. Washed his dishes. She was doing his laundry. She only went back to her place to check that it was still standing and pick up the mail. Thoughts of a job search were being pushed out by thoughts of Carlos’s body on top of hers.

             
His hand moved lower, spanned the tiniest of bumps on her abdomen. She wasn’t really showing, but there was a roundness to her lower belly, one he’d called sexy and had kissed. Then lower, down into the cotton panties she’d worn to bed, stroking her between her legs. It was only a moment before heat turned to raging desire, and his fingers slipped over her now-wet skin.

             
Alma pushed the covers all the way back, sitting up in bed, forcing him to pull his hand back. Carlos grinned and rolled over onto his back, hands finding her hips as she straddled him.

             
She ran her hands up his bare torso. Lightly pinched at his nipples. She dipped low and pressed a kiss over his heart, then took the tip of her tongue on a little trip down through the grooves between his abs.

             
He hardened against her thigh, she could feel it through the thin cotton of his boxers, and the way he palmed her ass and squeezed told her he wanted the game to turn into the real deal.

             
She was happy to oblige, breathless herself. Alma hooked her thumbs in the waistband of his boxers, loving the feel of the baby-soft skin there, and peeled them down, springing his cock free. She fingered her panties to the side, rose up, positioned herself, and slowly lowered down onto him. He stretched her, filled her up. A soft sound escaped her parted lips and she took a moment to adjust, to let her body accommodate him.

             
“You feel so good,” he said in a deep murmur.

             
She pulled down the other strap of her camisole, letting the silky thing slide down around her waist. Then she planted her hands on his chest, arched her back and watched him watch her naked breasts bounce as she lifted her hips and rode up and back on his cock.

             
In a matter of moments, he had his hands locked down hard on her hips and he was pushing her rhythm faster, harder. Her breasts shook. Alma leaned down low, putting them in his face as she bore down on him hard, caught between nausea and delight at how deep he was buried inside her. And then it didn’t matter, because she was going to come, and it was going to leave her knees weak. Carlos squeezed her ass as they raced toward oblivion together.

             
Afterward, because the bed was too narrow for any kind of proper spacing, she lay down on top of him, her face tucked in at the base of his throat. His hands drew lazy patterns on the backs of her thighs. She felt a smile pushing at her lips and asked herself, for the hundredth time, how she could possibly smile given the circumstances.

**

When Carlos stepped into his kitchenette, tucking in his work shirt, the cotton sticking to the dampness on his skin left behind from the shower, he paused a moment to stare at the sight that awaited him. Alma had pulled on one of his t-shirts and it hung down
to mid-thigh on her, swallowed her up. Her hair was a mess, but she was gorgeous anyway, standing at the stove he didn’t know how to turn on, poking at something that hissed and crackled in a skillet with a spatula. He could microwave TV dinners, grill a burger, and make a grilled cheese with a waffle iron, but that was the extent of his culinary skills. Whatever she was making smelled heavenly, and she made such a domestic, wifely picture, that suddenly he felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

             
The dichotomy of guilt and sheer bliss always seemed to have that effect on him. She was both the living incarnation of so many fantasies he’d had about her, about them together, and yet, the whole thing was tainted by the knowledge that Sam had had to die before any of this could happen. And when she came, when her inner muscles fisted around him and she gasped as pleasure rippled through her, he read the same story in her glassy eyes. The moments of ecstasy were only made possible because of grief. And that was why they shuffled along in this strange trance, wrapped up in sex and stolen looks, why it had taken her a week to haltingly admit that she’d lost her job. Why he bit his tongue every time before he could whisper that he loved her. Why they didn’t talk, why Alma was content to live this half-life without her family, without picking up the pieces and moving on. Why they didn’t talk about the baby.

             
He had to do something. If she wouldn’t – couldn’t – then he’d have to step up. Because as she turned toward him and smiled a thin smile, he knew that he wanted these kinds of moments to keep happening, and wanted her smile to be the radiant one he remembered from her childhood.

             
“Smells good,” he said, shaking loose and stepping into the room.

             
Alma tossed him another smile over her shoulder and added a dash of some kind of spice from a little red and white canister into the skillet. “Three cheese omelet. I was gonna add some steak, but, um, you’re fresh out of steak. And most everything else.”

             
“I know,” he said, embarrassed that he hadn’t had some foresight to stock the fridge. Seeing as how he was shacking up with a pregnant girl. He stepped up beside her, hesitated a moment, then hooked his chin over her shoulder and slid an arm around her waist because he was dying to do that.

             
“I can go by the store today.”

             
And wouldn’t that be homey and cozy. He flattened his palm over her belly. “I thought you were gonna shop your resume around today.”

             
“Well, yeah, but I can pick up some food too. Won’t take long.” But he feared that meant she would use the excuse to avoid searching for employment. Again.

             
Not your problem,
he’d told himself before. But wasn’t it? He was supposed to watch out for Alma – and even though that probably didn’t include fucking her – it more than likely encompassed ensuring that she was financially steady on her feet and not struggling with poverty. He himself was by no means about to be evicted, but he didn’t make enough to take care of a woman and a baby…

             
Stop!
He screamed internally. He kept doing that, kept fitting Alma in with the other pieces of his life, kept incorporating her into his imaginary future.

             
His phone rang, and he was thankful for the break from his mental scolding. A quick check of the display showed it was Sean. “I gotta take this,” he said, stepping away from the stove, and Alma, heading back toward the bedroom. He thought her eyes followed him, so he pushed the door to.

             
“Sean.”

             
Noise on the other end of the line indicated that the dealer was driving. “Hear you been trying to get a hole of me.”

             
“About a week now,” he said impatiently.

             
Sean chuckled. “Impatient little shit, ain’t ya? Alright, where are you?”

             
“Home.”

             
“Alone?”

             
“Not exactly…”

             
Sean sighed. “I’m headed up to your neck of the woods anyway. Can you meet me in two hours?”

             
“I’ll make it work.”

**

Something was off with Carlos. As she pushed a cart through Kroger, filling it full of the tasty things she was craving, she chose to worry about her roommate as of the past couple of weeks rather than her own problems. Her problems were monstrous, Carlos’s were puzzling and had captured her attention that morning. It was easier to dwell on another’s strife than her own. Because if she stopped to think about her dead husband, growing belly, current state of unemployment and the rift with her mother, she would become a limp puddle of misery right here in the middle of the grocery store. So instead she tapped her fingernails across the labels of the canned veggies and asked herself why Carlos had been so removed that morning.

The more time she spent with him, the more she saw how unsettled he was. He didn’t push her away, though, quite the opposite. They were not-so-slowly becoming a…couple. Yes, couple. The word put a lump in her throat, but it was true.

“Alma.”

There was a girl her own age carrying a shopping basket, standing in the aisle just a few feet away. Alma had already catalogued her visually – the voluminous waves of honey-blonde hair, the five-foot-nothing pixie frame and great rack – before recognition dawned. She stared at her best friend Caroline Tippins for a good five seconds before she realized that it was in fact Caroline.

“Oh,” she said, startled. “Caro. Um,” she’d forgotten how to do this polite chit-chat thing apparently, “how are you?”

It had always seemed a shame that Caroline wasn’t taller, because her face was model-perfect. Her blue eyes crinkled up at the corners as her expression became somewhat pained. “I’m good.”

There was an awkward pause in which guilt settled over Alma like a lead weight.
How are you?
She hadn’t spoken to the girl in well over a year and that was the best she could come up with?

“I’m really sorry about Sam,” Caroline offered. She sounded sincere, but her tone wasn’t just sad out of sympathy. She had no idea what was appropriate here, much the way Alma didn’t. “I was going to come to the funeral but I wasn’t sure…”

“It’s okay.”

“I sent flowers.”

“You did?”

“The white carnation wreath
.” Caroline fiddled with the buttons on her work shirt. She wore crisp black pants, peep-toe pumps, and a white button-down. The last Alma had heard, she was struggling to graduate from college, but now she obviously had a job somewhere that required professional dress.