Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Scott looked over at Duane as the other man stared into the flames of the small fire. “You okay?” he whispered, not wanting to intrude on his thoughts.
“Yeah,” Duane said as he picked up his beer and took a healthy sip. He continued to stare into the flames, but he also started talking. Scott liked that he looked at him as he asked his question.
“How well did you know about my marriage to Cara?”
“I didn’t.” Scott answered honestly. “I don’t know if you realized this, but Cara didn’t like me, and she was eight years older. If you hadn’t included me in the wedding or reached out to me over the years, I never would have any contact with my sister.”
“That makes sense. I need to tell you a little about what happened early on in our marriage. It’s a little background, context, whatever you want to call it. It all leads up to what happened when you were there when she was arrested.”
“Are you sure you want to tell me?”
“I have to.”
“I understand. I’m ready whenever you are.”
Duane finished his beer and cradled the empty bottle against his stomach, still staring into the flames. “We met in college. Though Cara wasn’t one of the most partying girls, she did her fair share. I, on the other hand, was a bookworm. I was focused on getting my degree, then starting a career.” Duane turned to Scott with a smile. “No offense, but I didn’t want to go into the military, however, I wanted a career in law enforcement. While still in high school, I contacted the FBI and asked what I had to do in order to become an agent. I wanted to work undercover. Don’t ask me why, but that seemed so cool to me. I did everything they told me I had to in order to apply. First, did you know that you can’t get hired to work for them until you’re twenty-three?”
“I did not know that.”
“Yeah, I can see why they would want that, because you would be more mature at twenty-three than you would be at eighteen. Anyway, the downside of that is that it is strongly suggested that you retire at age fifty-seven. I have ten years before that happens, but I can’t remember if I told you earlier or not, but they want me to ride a desk. Depending on my visit here, I might want to retire within the next year and move here.”
“Here to Colorado, or here to Broken?”
“Here to Broken. I’ve already talked with Jake, and he made the suggestion that I talk with Erin to see if she needed me. I talked with her briefly, and she alluded to the fact that she might be looking for a security team.”
“Would you take it?”
“I’m not putting any pressure on you, but my final decision will hinge on you.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because I was married to your sister, and I divorced her. I don’t know how you really feel about having an ex-brother-in-law hanging around.”
“Stop,” Scott said firmly as he held up his hand. “Since you seem to want honesty here, then let me be brutally honest. You are my brother, ex or not. You. Are. My. Brother. You are more family to me than Cara ever was. I have no problem with you working for Erin, or at Broken. Hell, there’s so much work to do around here that it might be days before I see you. It won’t be like we would be in each other’s pockets.” Scott looked at him again, and made sure Duane looked at him as he continued, “In case you didn’t catch it the first couple of times I said it, here it is again. You. Are. My. Brother.”
“Thank you,” Duane said, and had to clear his throat several times before the words would come out.
“Okay, that makes me feel better. Now, Cara was a party girl, but she also did her work. There were several students that would party and blow off classes. Cara seemed to have her shit together, and that was the first thing I admired about her. I know I’m probably flipping back and forth, but that’s the way my thoughts are right now. Anyway, because I couldn’t apply to the FBI until I was twenty-three, and I was a bookworm, I was able to get my Master’s in Criminal Justice in two and a half years. I wanted law enforcement experience so I applied to the local police academy went through it, and was a police officer for two years. During that time, Cara and I started dating, I never asked her to marry me until I was accepted at the academy for the FBI.”
Scott looked at him and his respect for the older man grew. “Go on.”
“I wanted to wait to marry her until I came back from the academy and got my first assignment. Thankfully, I was able to stay in Los Angeles, and it was a whirlwind wedding. She started planning it immediately, I went to the academy, and when I returned, we were married. I had the one-bedroom apartment you visited us in, so we were able to keep that. Life was good. As much as I wanted to go undercover, I knew I had to get some experience under my belt before that happened.
“Anyway, fast forward a couple of years.” Duane looked at Scott with a confused look. “I’m sure you went through it with the military, but I was told to get my affairs in order.”
“Yeah, every time I was deployed. I had to have a physical, updated shots, then I had to go to the base clergy to make sure I was right with God, then to the base JAG officer to update my will, then all my bills had to be paid up-to-date, and then finally, I had to write the letters.” Scott looked up from staring into the flames as he talked and saw the confusion on Duane’s face. “What?”
“What do you mean, ‘update your will’ and ‘write the letters’?”
Scott sighed as he scrubbed his face and shook his head. “Being in the military and doing what I did, there was absolutely no guarantee that I would return in once piece, let alone alive. If I had died when I was captured, then when my body was recovered, my will that I sent to my parents would have been read, and the letters or letter that you wrote to your family. They are kept in your locker so that if your effects have to be returned to the family, the letter is enclosed.”
“Shit, this conversation just went dark. How many times did you do that?”
“A lot. It wasn’t for every single mission, but definitely if we were deployed for longer than a month.”
“What affairs were you told to put in order?”
“Our finances. If I was going undercover, then there would be people that could keep an eye on me, and if need be, I could have been arrested so that I would be removed from any situation. My first three years of undercover work was as a homeless man.”
“Ah, got it, so you could be watched, and pulled if necessary.”
“Correct. Anyway, I hadn’t been given an exact date, but it was in the air, you could feel it.”
“Yeah, it was like that around the base too. We knew something was coming, but didn’t have exact details until the commander told us.”
“Exactly. Anyway, around that time, Cara and I started having a little problem. It wasn’t much, or at least I didn’t think it was. I’m still not sure of everything that all went down at the very end, because I was removed from the situation and went on my first undercover assignment. I was gone for six weeks, and when I returned it was like nothing happened.”
“What did happen? Can you tell me?”
“I can now, since it’s public information now. Anyway, Cara and I both worked when we married. We split the bills fifty-fifty. If we had anything left over after the bills were paid, we contributed to our joint account. We were saving for a house. When I got home in the afternoon after being told to put our affairs in order, the first thing I did was fire up the computer and put everything on auto-pay. The rent, utilities, even the water bill that we only paid every three months. I had just finished when Cara returned.”
“Wait, let me back up. A month before that Cara told me that she wanted to quit her job and become a stay-at-home wife. I told her no. When she got mad, I told her that if she quit her job, then we couldn’t live the life we currently had because all of my money would be going to the bills and we wouldn’t have any extra for going out to dinner, her having her monthly nails done, or her hair. She didn’t agree with me.” Duane shook his head sadly. “What I failed to say was when I put all the bills on auto-pay, I checked the joint account and there was less than five dollars in it. The last time I had checked, there was over ten grand.”
“Holy shit, she stole it?”
“Yes, but I didn’t say anything. I made sure her name wasn’t on my own account, and I made sure that a pass code had to be used to access the bills. When I asked her about the joint account, she only shrugged, then said she deserved it for working. I told her that eight thousand of that was mine. She literally laughed it off, waved her hand in the air and said as her husband, it was my duty to pay for whatever she wanted. I was so pissed I walked out. I didn’t return until after work the next day.”
“Damn, I would have done the same thing. What happened, because I feel something did? Knowing Cara, it was epic.” Scott smirked and Duane tweaked his lips and nodded.
“Oh, it was. I get home, resigned to having a pissed off wife on my hands and don’t know if I would have to defend myself from a physical attack, or flying missiles.”
“Shit, I forgot she was a thrower if she didn’t get her way.”
“Thanks for the heads up, bro,” Duane said on a chuckle as he reached up and rubbed a small scar on the side of his forehead. “For the life of me, until I got this, I could never understand why she had a crystal ashtray when neither of us smoked.” Duane flipped Scott off when he laughed.
“Anyway, I get home and my favorite meal was laid out on a beautifully set table.”
“Cara cooks?” Scott asked in shock of his sister.
Duane smirked. “Nope, she ordered it from my favorite restaurant. She didn’t say anything as we ate, we just talked about non-essential things. After the table was cleared, by her, I might add, she walked away and came back with an envelope. I was hesitant to open it, but I did. Don’t ask me why, but I made sure not to touch the paper.”
“Would that be an FBI thing?”
“As I think back now, I think it was.”
“What did it say?”
“First, as Cara gave me the paper, she said she wasn’t asking for a divorce, but a lawyer friend of hers came up with a compromise of me paying her to be a stay-at-home-wife. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I snorted at her. Before I said anything more, I looked at the paper. I couldn’t help it, I laughed. I mean I laughed so hard and so long my full stomach cramped up and I had to repeatedly wipe my tears.”
“Oh god, now I’m dying to know what it said.”
“The paper was a contract that I would pay her one thousand dollars a week for her to stay home. I looked at her and asked her what she would be doing to earn that money. She asked what I meant. I told her that if she wanted to stay home and I pay her, as well as the bills, what would she bring to the table. She was clueless as to what I was asking. I told her if I had to do it all financially, then she had to clean the house, cook, do dishes, do laundry, make the bed, all that. Scott, the look on her face would say that I kicked a puppy right in front of her. She was so offended that I would even mention it.”
Scott bent over laughing, he waved his hand in front of his face, and apologized. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not a laughing matter, but I’ve seen that look on her face before. It’s a fifty-fifty chance that either World War Ten was coming, or she’d ignore it.”
“You would be correct, with my next words, I think I thwarted the war.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked her to please explain to me how I could pay her one-thousand-dollars a week when I only got paid every two weeks, and when I did get paid, my pay after taxes were a certain amount. To prove my point, I grabbed a pen and wrote on the envelope what I made and the bills that came out of it. You know, rent, utilities, gas and insurance on both vehicles. It turned out that I would have been two hundred dollars in the hole every pay period. I asked her again how I could pay her what she wanted if we still wanted to live where we were.”
“Oh god, I see a train wreck coming. What did she do?” Scott chuckled.
“Nothing, she continued to stare at me, and the numbers, then she gathered the papers stuffed them back in the envelope and walked away. However, two days later, she came back with another contract written up that I could still pay her the desired amount because all the bills would come out of one paycheck and she could have the second one.
“This time, I told her I’d look into it, because something didn’t look right. When she went to bed that night, I grabbed some gloves and studied the papers. The next day, I went into the office with the papers, then went to my boss after the morning briefing. I explained the situation to him, then showed him both contracts. I found the first one in her nightstand.”
“Wow, what did you find out?”
“They called Cara into the office and talked with her. While they were doing that, I was given thirty minutes with her to tell her that I would be going undercover and didn’t know when I’d return.”
“Okay, but why did they call her in?”
“Because she was adamant that it was her lawyer that drew up the papers.”
“Was it?”
“No, it was a college friend of hers that stole letterheads from a law office in the building she worked in and made up the contract. When she signed her name she stated she was a lawyer for that company. And get this, the two different contracts Cara presented me with were from two different offices. They were not the same lawyer.”
“Was the friend a lawyer?”
“Nope, she was a nighttime cleaning lady and had access to the offices to clean. My boss gave Cara the option of going to jail right along with her friend, or take the kindly suggestion of being a supporting wife, stay at her job, and if she wanted extra money, then either get a better job, or a second one. They warned her that she was on their radar and if she messed up again, they would throw the book at her. Oh, and that being married to me was not, I repeat, not, a get out of jail free card.”
The two men sat there staring into the fire, then Scott jerked back. “Holy shit, are you telling me that what I witnessed with Cara coming into your apartment with that guy was her fuck up and the FBI threw the book at her? Is that why she got ten to fifteen years with no early parole? Pardon my crassness, but for fucking the drug dealer?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t just the extramarital affair she was having with him. It turned out that Cara was behind finding the people that would launder the money. She was in deeper than she told me that night. Because I had been out in the streets looking for the dealer, I had to step away as soon as the two of them were dragged out of my apartment. From there, I was called on the carpet, and once they knew I wasn’t involved, I was off the case and they went after Cara and the dealer. Hard, Scott, they went after both of them with guns blazing, figuratively.”
“Damn, please tell me you divorced her?”
“Yes, because of what her charges were, she wasn’t granted bail, and after talking it over with my supervisor, I had her served in jail. I only showed up at her trial when she was sentenced. All her attempts to reach out to me I rebuffed. I wanted nothing to do with her.”
“Neither did I, she tried to reach out to me, but I ignored her. I can understand why you told me this, but why now? Why not over the years?”
Duane looked at Scott and shook his head. “I’m scared.”
“About?”
“I got a call two days ago. Cara Marie Gould Manchester is being released from prison next month on good behavior.”
“Fuck me,” Scott sighed heavily.
“Yeah, me too.” Duane’s tone and facial expression matched Scott’s.