Chapter 10 #3
“I don’t know,” Trent admitted. “I mean, we’ve certainly had cases where kids did work with police officers, but, if you’re not comfortable with that, then it doesn’t have to happen.”
Ricky nodded, then told Naomi, “When you’re done, I’ll take a look at your picture, and then I can see if I have things to change.”
He stated it with such an air of authority that she almost gasped, but Trent grinned broadly. “I think that’s a great idea, buddy.”
*
Trent felt this was so comfortable, so right, with Ricky between them, holding hands with both of them, as the trio walked back toward the apartment.
As they got closer, Trent checked around, but he couldn’t see anything.
Yet his Spidey senses were definitely alive.
As they stepped into the elevator, he suggested, “Why don’t we take the stairs this time? ” So, they all backed right out again.
She narrowed her gaze. “We’re on the penthouse level. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “I do know that.” He looked from her to Ricky, then back at her, motioning her further down the hallway to the stairwell. Trent then asked Ricky, “Have you ever walked up to the apartment?”
Ricky frowned. “Nope. Why would I?” he asked, sounding not at all pleased. “The elevator is working, right?”
“Well, I would like to walk,” Trent declared, “so you can show me where the stairs are.”
Ricky studied Trent for a moment, and then, as if not knowing what to think of it, he added, “Fine, but it’s a lot of steps. You know that, right?”
“I do, and you ate a lot of ice cream,” he reminded him, with a teasing note.
Ricky chuckled and yelled, “Beat you to the top.” With that, they headed to the stairs.
By the time they got to the top, he noticed that Ricky was still going full charge ahead, but Naomi was starting to flag. He smiled and whispered to her, “Thanks for humoring me.”
“If only I understood why,” she muttered, “because absolutely nothing I could come up with made me feel any better.”
He nodded. “I get it. Sometimes we’re just plagued by brains that just won’t stop looking at possibilities.”
She frowned at that. When they got to the apartment, he opened it up, and they stepped inside. She was more than happy to see that everything was okay. “Now,” she began, between huffing and puffing, “I am going to put on a cup of tea and relax. That walk up was tough.”
Ricky was laughing at her. “It was not tough,” he countered, jumping up and down. “It was fun. We should walk more often.”
She rolled her eyes and grimaced. “Sure, we should.”
He laughed at her again. “Sometimes it’s just good to know you can actually do it.”
“Of course I can do it,” she remarked, “but able to do it and wanting to do it are very different things.”
Ricky just smiled and didn’t say a whole lot more.
When the doorbell rang about thirty minutes later, she startled, but then Trent reminded her, “That would be the police artist.”
“Oh, right,” she muttered.
He got up, but Ricky raced ahead and opened the door without giving them a chance to get there. Immediately somebody was pushed inside, and then a second person walked in, holding a gun on the first man.
The first man looked at Trent with misery in his expression.
“Hey, I’m the sketch artist,” he shared, but his tone was grim.
“This guy caught me in the elevator. Apparently, he wants to talk with you guys,” he explained.
“I would be totally okay to not be involved in this conversation, but apparently I’m not to be excluded. ”
She stared at him, then at the man behind him, and shook her head. “I don’t know who you are. What’s this all about?”
He glared at her, waved his weapon around, then shoved the police artist farther inside.
Ricky had backed up until he was completely up against Trent, but, instead of being scared, he looked to be more pissed off and upset than anything.
Naomi took notice of that. The kid could switch on a dime with his reactions. She just never really knew what he would do next, but it was obvious that he did not fully appreciate what was currently going on. Then again, neither did Trent.
He studied the gunman and said, “Presumably they can go sit down.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, they can sit. I need everybody to calm down and relax so I can have a conversation,” he began, his tone almost pleasant.
She just stared at him and repeated, “I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you, so why don’t you tell us what you’re here for, why you’ve come here in this way, and just what you expect to happen?”
He stared back at her and replied, “I expect you guys to answer some questions for me.”
“Really?” Trent asked calmly, knowing that the police artist was equally perturbed by the events and may or may not be police trained.
However, Trent noted that Ricky stared at the gunman with a building fury, suggesting the boy would likely be the one who went off script here.
When he looked over at Naomi, staring at the newcomer with a deepening glare, he realized she could also become a mama grizzly bear very quickly.
Trent addressed her and calmly stated, “Would you please take Ricky and go sit down?” She hesitated, then gave a clipped nod.
With Ricky in tow, protesting the whole way, she turned and headed over to the couch, where they sat down together.
Ricky glared at her and muttered, “We shouldn’t be doing this. ”
“No, maybe not,” she conceded, “but Trent asked us to.” That seemed to flummox Ricky. He turned to Trent and asked, “Are you gonna bop him in the nose?”
The gunman snorted. “Mouthy kid.”
“Just a kid who’s been through a lot already,” Trent corrected him. “He’s not been treated all that well by everyone.” The man eyed him with interest and asked, “Is he the kid who was on board?”
“Yeah, he’s the kid who was on board.”
“Huh.” The gunman turned to study Ricky. “He actually survived, so that says something.”
“It really does say something,” Trent confirmed, his voice deepening. “I presume that’s why you’re here.”
“Well, I’m here about something,” he replied, waving the gun. “The trouble is, they were supposed to get a delivery, and all we saw was the two of them, so I’m here for the package.”
Trent snorted. “Why don’t you ask your cohorts, who are currently being held in jail?”
He shrugged. “I have. It’s their own fault they got caught,” he shared. “They were given orders, … direct orders.” He glanced at all four of them and added, “They didn’t follow through, so what am I supposed to do? They obviously didn’t take care of business.”
“Well, if they had taken care of business,” Trent stated reasonably, “you wouldn’t be here trying to get answers now, would you?”
The gunman stared at him and then shrugged. “Yeah, you could be right, but it still won’t save them.”
Naomi sucked in her breath as if she realized just where they were at, and then the police artist fully realized what kind of a day he had fallen into.
And then there was Ricky, who didn’t yet understand the severity of the situation they were now in.
However, he was a very smart kid and was quickly picking up on the nuances as they played out in front of him.
He wouldn’t stay quiet for long, and, if anything, he would have something completely different to say, and it probably wouldn’t go down well.
Trent looked over at Ricky, saw him glaring at the gunman as Ricky started to understand. Naomi gently placed a finger against his lips. Ricky immediately subsided, but his face had paled, and he now understood that they were truly back in trouble again.
That fact in itself angered Trent like nothing else could have.
That kid had been through so much already, had handled everything like a trooper, and now some asshole had literally barged into Ricky’s home, trying to cause more trouble.
That just wouldn’t fly. Trent turned to the gunman, trying hard to keep his cool. This needed to be resolved—and soon.
“They don’t know anything about a package,” he began. “In case you haven’t got the memo, their number was one that you guys mistook for another one.”
“No,” he argued, “that was the number we were told to use. So, that is not a possibility. If there was a mistake, the package still has to be here … with her.” The gunman faced Trent again. “Somebody here has that package.”
“We don’t have a package,” Naomi retorted. “We were kidnapped and beaten and most of our belongings stolen, except for some clothes. So, we already went through an awful lot. If there had been anything with us, your men already took it.”
Trent continued to gaze at the gunman. “So, if your men don’t have the package, then you have a problem, right? And I suppose that package contained drugs?”
The gunman raised one eyebrow. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Not enough,” he replied, “but the fact that you’re here and that you’re really worried about a package means that the package was something illegal.
And considering that the Coast Guard intervened in the midst of a very large drug-running operation in the last couple days means that you guys were probably part of it. ”
The gunman stared at him and then frowned. “I didn’t hear about the Coast Guard.”
“Then you weren’t listening very well,” Trent snapped, “because it’s all over the news.
It’s one of the reasons why these two didn’t get much help right off the bat because the Coast Guard fleet was dealing with a very large seizure they had picked up.
So, maybe you should be talking to them about your package,” he snidely suggested.
The gunman obviously didn’t like that very much, lifting his gun as if to shoot Trent to make a point, just as a hard knock came on the front door. The gunman froze.
Ricky bolted off the couch and raced to the front door, as the gunman tried to grab him.
“Do not open that door,” he cried out.
Yet Ricky dashed around him and pulled it open as fast as he could.