October 28, 2017
Travis Bartlett, you lying sack of shit. "What's he doing in Delaware?" I asked.
"From the looks of it, a woman named Maya Berg. She's a project manager at a pharmaceutical company in Wilmington. From scanning her social media, it looks like they've been together for a couple of years. He doesn't have any social media accounts under Travis Bartlett, but does have some under Randy Bartlett. According to Facebook, Randy and Maya got engaged two months ago."
Shit. "Anything indicating that Maya might be behind the threats?"
"No. If she knows he's married, she doesn't let on. Her EZ Pass doesn't have her coming to New Jersey in about six months but shows his going to Wilmington regularly. None of her devices come close to the IP addresses behind the threats."
"That leaves Travis. Any sign that she's met his kids?"
"Nope. She talks a lot about being child-free by choice."
He was looking to start over, which meant the threat level of the situation just went up significantly. This wasn't some random nutjob wanting to rattle Tabatha. This was a motivated man.
"How often is he in Delaware with her?" I asked.
"Every couple of weeks. Her Facebook page mentions him travelling for work, so he must be giving her the same line as Tabatha. He never goes anywhere except Delaware or New Jersey unless it's on vacation with one of the women."
I ended the call with Matt and headed back into the house. Tabatha had just plated food for herself and Stephanie and turned when I came in. "Would you like some? It's just lasagna."
"We need to talk. Now," I said, gesturing towards the living room. She asked Stephanie to keep an eye on the kids and followed me.
"You found out Travis is having an affair, didn't you?" I asked her quietly.
She let out a sigh and nodded sheepishly. "Yeah. He used my computer right before he left to check his email when his computer was acting up. I was going through my history to find a site I visited around that time and saw he'd been on a different email provider than he normally uses. I went to it, and he had accidentally saved his login information. I read some of his emails. He's been seeing her since I was pregnant with Abby." Tabatha started crying, biting on her bottom lip to stifle the noise.
"Did you confront him about it when he called?" I asked, pulling a tissue from a nearby box and handing it to her.
She shook her head and dabbed at her eyes. "No. I told him I was still angry that he was willing to leave his family for a month when there was someone out there threatening my life. He told me I was overreacting. I told him he'd better hope it was nothing and that if anything happened to our children, I would hold him responsible."
"He's not in Singapore. He's not even in Asia," I told her. "He doesn't travel for work. He goes to her house in Wilmington and works from his company's office down there." Better to rip the band-aid off. "According to her social media, they recently got engaged."
Tabatha closed her eyes and put a hand to her stomach as more tears fell down her cheeks. "Is she doing this? Or is he trying to make me look unstable so he can get the kids when we get divorced?"
"I think it's him. Either he's looking to get custody, or he's looking for a fresh start. No ex-wife and no kids to hold him back in his new life. It crossed your mind, didn't it? That's why you asked us to prioritize your kids."
Tabatha nodded again and fidgeted with the tissue in her hands. "I didn't want to believe it, but I had to consider the possibility."
"We need to get you three somewhere safe. He knows your routine. He doesn't strike me as the type to do it himself. He'd hire someone, and some of these professionals are very good."
She nodded again. "Yeah, I think you're right."
"Start packing. I want to have you at a safe house as soon as possible."
Tabatha nodded and returned to the kitchen, told the kids to keep eating, and then hurried upstairs. I gave Stephanie an update on the situation, called the control room to send out more men and told the two on the street to be extra alert. I called Rowan to update him on the situation.
"We'll put them on the seventh floor until the Hillyards are out of the safe house," I said.
"That's a problem," he said. "Jill Hillyard called two hours ago to say that there was no water in the house. The water company said there was a major main break down the road. There won't be any water until Monday morning at the earliest, so I moved them to the seventh floor."
Damn. I'd forgotten all about that. There were too many small details to remember from my last life to always keep up. Hotels weren't great options because a security detail stood out and small children were loud. They brought even more attention where it wasn't wanted. I glanced at my watch and saw it was almost six.
"I'll take them to my house until the water main is fixed," I told Rowan. "I want people inside and outside the Bartlett house. I want cameras and mics on around the clock until we figure out what's supposed to happen."
I disconnected with Rowan a few minutes later after laying out the plans and dialed Julio's number. "I need to take a rain check on date night. My client needs to be relocated, and the safe house is out of order until Monday. I'm bringing them home. Do you mind?"
"Nah, that's cool. I'll make sure everything's ready downstairs," he said without a hint of resentment. God, I loved that man.
"I need you to stay here and move around the house," I told Stephanie as we got the kids cleaned up. "I want it to look like Tabatha's home in case someone has a plan. You can go home after she would normally go to bed around ten, just be back by eight tomorrow morning. Everything's on camera. Rowan and Derek will be in here with you, Chet, Lou, Silver, and Johnny will be outside. Just keep the curtains closed so they can't see it isn't actually her and be careful leaving."
"Sounds great. I always love being a sitting duck for an unknown assassination attempt," Stephanie said with a grim smile.
I patted her on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. Keep your gun, phone, and comms on you at all times."
She gave me a mock salute and went back to cleaning up the kitchen. Tabatha came downstairs with a suitcase and a large duffle bag. I carried them through the back yard to the gate and into the grassy area between the houses where utility company trucks could reach the electrical poles that ran between the houses. I'd sent Chet to pull my car around so I could load the suitcases and get the kids' car seats secured before we brought them out.
"Cool car!" Jared yelled when he saw it.
His mother hushed him as she secured Abigail in her seat. "Jared, be quiet. Remember we're playing the quiet game."
"Sorry," Jared whispered. "Am I winning?"
"You bet," I said as I closed his door. "You should sit in the back with them," I told Tabatha. "It's a tight squeeze with the car seats, but the back windows are tinted enough no one can see you. My house is only five minutes away."
"It's fine," she said, crawling across the back to sit in the middle seat.
Jared lost the quiet game spectacularly as he chattered about every car he saw on the road and Abigail started to cry about something. Tabatha was trying to soothe her daughter while simultaneously trying to keep her own composure. I couldn't imagine Julio wanting me dead so he could be with someone else. Tabatha probably would have said the same thing about Travis until a few hours ago.
We arrived at the house a few minutes later, where Julio met us in the garage to help get everything inside. Jared raved about Julio's car and Abigail cried even harder.
"She's getting tired. She's normally in the bath by now," Tabatha said loudly.
We showed Tabatha and the kids down to the basement and made sure they had everything they needed before heading back upstairs. Even with the closed basement door we could hear Abigail's crying.
"Sorry about dinner," I said. "And for breaking the no work on Sundays rule tomorrow."
"I don't mind this kind of thing," Julio said. "It's not like you're just out riding around in a patrol car. This is serious stuff."
I brought him up to speed on everything and he shook his head in disgust. "What a pussy. Just be a real man and leave."
"It's hard telling what he has planned. He isn't supposed to be home for another two weeks. He's going to want it to happen while he's out of town."
"Aren't the cops gonna be suspicious when he tells them he wasn't really in Asia all this time?" Julio asked. "Wilmington's only an hour away. It's not like he couldn't get back here easily enough to kill them."
"I doubt anyone except people close to Tabatha think he's in Asia. His business has a branch in Delaware, so all the travelling he was supposedly doing was really just him working out of the Wilmington office. If his goal is to make her look unstable, then he might be able to convince them that she was delusional thinking that he was travelling the world when he was just in Delaware. Especially if she isn't around to protest."
"That was risky. She could have called his office and found out the truth."
"She has a busy career and two small children. She probably thought she could trust her husband to tell her where he was going for work."
Julio made dinner while I checked in with my staff at the house. Allentown PD had made it clear they didn't care what happened to Tabatha, so I called Morelli to ask if he had any connections within the Monmouth County Sheriff's Department. He did and said he'd get in touch with them. The crying from the basement gradually subsided and we were careful to not make too much noise because the bedroom was directly below the living room. Despite the change in plans, I tried to salvage what I could from the evening. I put my phone away while we ate dinner and talked about things other than work.
"What do you consider your first language?" Julio asked halfway through dinner.
"Spanish."
"Do you think you speak it better than English?"
"No. I'd say they're equal. Why?"
"I'm reading a book on how to raise your kids to speak multiple languages," he said, nodding towards his Kindle on the counter. "Why do you consider Spanish your first language if you've been fluent in both since you were a kid?"
I considered the question as I chewed. "It's emotional. I associate speaking Spanish with my family. It's comforting. What about you?"
"English," Julio said, sounding disappointed. "Mom would try to use some Arabic with us. Jedda and Jeddi would always talk to us in Arabic, but we didn't see them all day every day. Dad would speak Spanish with us sometimes, but he didn't seem to care if we learned it. I worked on learning Arabic because I feel closer to that side of my family. Spanish has always been my weakest language. I'm glad we've always spoken a mixture of Spanish and English. If I didn't know a word in Spanish, it wasn't a big deal because we were always switching back and forth."
Our friend group had used both languages as it grew to include Paolo and Jasmine, who spoke some Spanish, but were using other languages at home. We had continued to speak to one another in a combination of Spanish and English even after all these years, adjusting to solely one language depending on who was around. I hadn't stop to consider it before, but upon reflection I realized that Julio was always more reserved when we were in Spanish-only situations.
"There's different ways to teach kids," Julio continued. "You just have to make sure they have equal exposure. You can either switch back and forth, or you can have each parent stick to a certain language."
"What do you think we should do?" I asked.
"I'm not as fluent in Spanish as you are. It would make more sense for me to use English and you to use Spanish, but then I don't know how I teach them Arabic without confusing the shit out of them," he said, glancing down at the silver bracelet on his wrist that had once belonged to his uncle. "I know it's more important that they speak Spanish, but they'll be a quarter Moroccan, and I want them to know that part of their heritage too. We've already lost a big part of it now that Jedda and Jeddi are gone. Mom was little when she left Morocco but speaks Arabic fluently. The girls never cared to learn it as much as I did, and we usually talk to Mom in English. If we don't pass it along to our kids, it'll be gone."
Faiza had passed away over the summer on the thirty-second anniversary of her son's death. She told Julio the day before she died that she wanted him to take Mohammed's bracelet once she was gone. He had worn the bracelet every day since and I knew he'd wear it every day until he died, passing it along to one of our children to continue the legacy. I realized guiltily that I didn't stop to consider Julio's Moroccan heritage enough because I always thought of him as Latino. I didn't have to worry about my Cuban heritage getting lost within a generation or two. Both sides of my family had lived in Cuba for centuries as part of the pre-Columbian tribes who had been there for the past six thousand years, and later the European colonizers who brought disease and Catholicism to the island, and the enslaved Africans brought over to work on plantations. Then they had found sanctuary in American cities where there were large numbers of Cuban immigrants to continue the connection. Julio didn't have that for his Moroccan side.
"We won't let that happen," I assured him. "We can ask Mariana and Paolo how they do it, since their kids are learning English, Spanish and Italian. And maybe your mother has some ideas."
We finished dinner in silence while I scolded myself. The man had my name tattooed in Arabic on his thigh and a Berber symbol on his chest, and I'd still overlooked that part of him. I felt like a bad husband, though I reminded myself that not always considering part of your spouse's heritage was a significantly less egregious offense than having a years-long affair and potentially planning their murder.
Tabatha came upstairs around eight as we were cleaning up from dinner. She was dressed in sweatpants, a gray Rutgers t-shirt, and slippers, and her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It made her look several years younger.
"Do you want anything to eat?" Julio offered. "We have extra from our dinner."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure if I'll ever feel like eating again. I'm more nauseous now than I was with either pregnancy."
"My men at the house said everything has been quiet," I told her. "A friend from the Trenton Police Department reached out to some contacts in the Monmouth County Sheriff's Department. They said they can't do anything right now without evidence, but to call them immediately if something actionable happens. Three of the men at the house are former law enforcement, so they know how to keep a scene preserved and not screw up a potential case."
Tabatha nodded and thanked Julio when he gave her a bottle of water. She followed us into the living room and sat down in a chair while we took the couch.
"I don't know how I missed it," she said, glancing up at the photos on the wall behind us. "Not the whole I-want-my-family-dead part, but the affair. I'm a small-town attorney. I represent people in divorces and child custody cases all the time. I've seen the evidence of affairs. How did I not see it? Yes, I had this one big case, but it's not like I'm Gloria Allred or Johnnie Cochran out here hitting the news circuit and never home," she let out a nervous laugh and shook her head. "Most of my criminal defense work before now was DUIs, domestic violence, and the occasional hit-and-run. I took this case because I genuinely believed this man had acted in self-defense when everyone else kept telling him to take a plea. I've only ever worked on one other murder trial. I know it kept me busy, but was I so busy I couldn't see my husband was screwing around? All those times he told me he was in Asia or South America he was only an hour away? I feel like an idiot."
"It's always easier to see it when it's happening to someone else," I said. "We get busy, and we want to assume that everything's fine. You have two small children, and an already busy career that was made busier by a high-profile case. You're supposed to be able to trust your husband. The fault lies with him, and him alone."
"Early last year Carlos was opening his office up here and splitting his time between Trenton and Georgia because I was still down there," Julio said when Tabatha didn't look convinced. "It was hard only seeing him on weekends, even though it was just temporary. I'm a recovering alcoholic and had been sober nine years at that point, but I'd been depressed and then my grandfather died. I started drinking again after the funeral, and it was easy to hide because he wasn't home most of the week. When I had to own up to it, he felt responsible because he had assumed I was still sober because he thought he could trust me. That was my fault. I was the one who started drinking again. I was the one who didn't say something when I should have. If Travis was unhappy, he should have said something to you."
Tabatha wiped at a tear on her cheek. "I know the affair started while I was pregnant, but maybe if I hadn't worked the case, he would have ended things. Or I would have seen it."
"Or he would have kept sneaking around and a man who was just defending himself would be a convicted murderer," Julio said. "And if Travis is the one behind all this, then he's a fucking monster who doesn't deserve anyone."
Tabatha nodded slowly and drank some of her water. "Thank you. Even if he isn't behind the threats and there's nothing coming for me, our marriage is still over. Because you're right. If he was unhappy, he should have come to me. But he didn't. He acted like everything was fine. Now he's engaged to someone else. It isn't just sex. It's a whole relationship."
She leaned back in her chair and glanced around the room. "I'm not sure where I thought you would live, but this certainly wasn't it. At minimum I would have thought you'd be in a gated community."
Julio and I laughed. "If he were single, he'd live in an apartment in his office building because he's a workaholic," Julio told her. "I had to keep him on a short leash when we bought this house because he wanted to install a damn panic room. He's lucky I love him enough to look past his paranoia."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Most people would consider my skills a good thing."
Tabatha smiled. "I get it. Being an attorney has its own occupational hazards. What do you do, Julio?"
"I'm in physical therapy, where we help you recover from the aftermath of occupational hazards," he said. That made her laugh, and I was thankful for Julio's efforts to take her mind off the chaos in her life as we continued talking for the next half an hour about things that didn't involve infidelity and murder.
It was three-thirty Monday morning when Tabatha and I pulled up to her house. Rowan had called fifteen minutes earlier to say Tabatha and I needed to come over immediately. Two Monmouth County Sheriff's Department SUVs and an Allentown Police Department car were parked in front of the house, lights off. Rowan, Derek, Stephanie, two deputies and another man in jeans and a t-shirt with a badge on a chain around his neck were standing in the living room in front of the couch where a scrawny, ill-kempt white man in black cargo pants and a black hoodie sat. He looked like he spent most of his time under the influence of something and was probably needing a hit.
"This is our boss, Carlos Manoso," Rowan told the officers. "Deputies Peters and Bellucci, and Chief Jones from Allentown PD."
"Kevin?" Tabatha asked, ignoring the police and looking at the man on the couch.
"Hey, Tabby," the man said sheepishly.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"You know this man?" Jones asked.
"We went to school together. I've helped him out a few times when he's gotten into trouble," she said, her voice distant. "What's going on?"
Jones looked at Kevin and nodded. "I got a call from a guy I know. He said he had a man needin' a job done." Kevin's voice was barely more than a whisper and he stared at the floor as he spoke. "Said it was close by and there was good money in it. I said hell yeah and waited a couple of days to find out what I had to do. My guy brought me an envelope with ten grand, a gun, a cell phone, and instructions. I was supposed to kill the woman and two kids tonight and make it look like she'd done it herself. I was supposed to make sure her prints were all over the cell phone and gun and leave them with her. Once I was done, I was supposed to call her husband's number from her phone to let him know it was done. Then I would leave, and he would call the police a few minutes after I left."
"Oh my God," Tabatha moaned.
"I swear I didn't know it was you at first," Kevin pleaded. "I got fucked up because I needed to work up my nerve, you know? I'm not a monster. Killin' people ain't my style. Especially kids. I wasn't gonna look at the pictures inside until I was ready to go because I didn't want to lose my nerve. But then I saw it was you, and I knew there was no way I could do it. I came to warn you so you could get away. Then I was gettin' the hell out of here with the money."
The room was silent for a moment while we absorbed the information. "What do we do?" Tabatha asked the police officers. "We need to establish that Travis ordered this. And right now, he's with his girlfriend in Delaware. We need people to watch him, we need—"
"I know," Jones said calmly. "I've already been on the phone with the prosecutor. We're going to set up a sting, but we have to do it quickly. His instructions were to get it done before six in the morning."
Tabatha nodded, clearly in shell shock over the situation. "What do I need to do?"
"Do you have your cell phone on you?" She nodded and pulled it out of her pocket.
"Once we have everything set up, we'll have Kevin call Travis and tell him the job's done. Then we'll see what happens and go from there. Our goal is to get him back to New Jersey without him getting suspicious. Once he's across the state line, we'll take him into custody. That's easier than dealing with extradition."
A tech unit showed up forty minutes later with equipment to trace and record the call on Tabatha's phone, followed by the prosecutor. One of the techs started going through the cell phone that Kevin had been given to leave at the scene. On it were the threatening text messages and emails to Tabatha. He wanted it to look like she had been doing this to herself the entire time.
Once the prosecutor gave Kevin a set of instructions on how to respond and everyone ensured their radios and phones were off, he placed the call. The room was silent as he dialed Travis's number.
"It's done," he said calmly.
"All three of them?" I'd never heard Travis Bartlett's voice before, but it reminded me of Orin Carr. Cold, detached, almost inhuman.
"Yep."
"Any sirens yet?"
"Nah. I used pillows on the kids to make it quieter. When do I get the rest of my money?" Kevin asked.
"I'll leave it with Pablo. He'll get it to you. Now get out. I'm going to keep the line open for a few minutes before I call the police. And leave the bedroom door open. She never shut it in case she couldn't hear the kids."
"Okay," Kevin said. He walked across the room to mimic the sound of leaving the room. He sat down and we continued to sit in silence as we heard Travis move around on his end. The call was traced, and the tech indicated the location on his computer. Jones typed out a text message on his phone and a minute later we got a thumbs up. We heard a drawer open and close, the sound of a zipper, and the rustle of clothes as the minutes passed. After four minutes and thirteen seconds, we heard humming. It took me a second to realize it was the Jeopardy! theme song. When it was done, he ended the call.
"Jesus," Deputy Bellucci said as he stared at the phone. "What a cold bastard."
"He was calling from a hotel in downtown Wilmington," Jones said. "It's less than a mile from Maya Berg's house, so Delaware State police left her place and went over there. They just got there and have eyes on his car. They'll follow him to the state line and New Jersey State Police will take over."
"I'm getting Judge Lewis on the phone for the arrest warrant," the prosecutor said as he pulled out his cell phone and left the room. "It'll be done by the time he crosses the state line."
Tabatha was sitting in a chair with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Stephanie had been standing next to her chair and put a hand on Tabatha's shoulders. No one said anything until the tech's computer started making a ringing noise.
"Dispatch is sending his call through. Make some light background noise, but nothing discernible," the tech said. People started milling around the room, mumbling and moving things on the counter.
"Monmouth County Dispatch. What's your emergency?" the young man asked calmly.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! My wife! I was talking to my wife on the phone, and I think she shot herself. Please hurry! We have two little kids." Travis Bartlett was giving an Oscar-winning performance. He had spent a minute working himself up and was barely intelligible.
The dispatcher took the name and address and asked Travis if he was nearby. "I've been in Wilmington for work. I'm on my way home now. I'll be there in an hour. Please hurry!"
"We're sending officers to your house now, sir," the tech said. "I'll have officers call you once they have more information."
The tech ended the call, and the deputies and Jones left to get their vehicles (which had been moved down the road out of sight) to put on a show for the neighbors just in case one of them called Travis in the time it took him to leave his hotel and cross the Delaware River into New Jersey to ask him if he knew why there were cops at his house in the middle of the night. I heard the sirens start a minute later and Jones screeched to a stop in front of the house. He ran inside a few seconds later. The two Sheriff's cars arrived within a couple of minutes, and we all stood around the living room waiting for the next move.
The prosecutor returned after a few minutes. "The warrant is signed and loaded into the system. Once Bartlett crosses the state line, State Police will pull him over and arrest him."
I could see Tabatha visibly trembling. The tech unit started packing up and the deputies conversed in a corner. The prosecutor was still on his phone and Jones knelt down in front of Tabatha.
"I'm sorry we didn't take you seriously," he said.
Tabatha sniffled and sat up to look at him coldly. "Are you really? Or are you just trying to make yourself look better when this hits the papers? Police Chief Ignores Threats on Local Attorney's Life; Later Learns Husband Involved in Murder-For-Hire Plot."
Jones had the decency to look ashamed. "Come on, Tabatha. You know you pissed people off representing that guy. But we'd never really let anything happen to you."
"Who are you trying to convince? Me, or yourself?" she asked in a whisper. She stood up, almost knocking Jones over and headed across the room to me. "Can you ask Julio how the kids are doing?"
"Sure," I said. He answered on the second ring. "Tabatha just wanted to check in on the kids. We'll be here a while longer."
"They're still asleep. I'm down here on the couch in case they wake up," he replied. "How are things going there?"
I gave a nod to indicate they were okay, and she thanked me silently before pacing around the living room.
"We're just waiting for him to cross the state line, then State Police will take him into custody," I continued as I stepped into the kitchen and filled him in on what had gone down. "He hummed the Jeopardy! theme song while he waited to call the cops."
"He hummed after learning his wife and kids are supposed to be dead?"
"I guess ordering a hit on your family can put a song in some people's hearts," I said.
I heard Jones talking in the living room and paused to listen. "State Police have Travis Bartlett in custody," Jones said. "They got him as soon as he got over the bridge. They're bringing him up here for interrogation."
"They got him. We'll probably be back soon."
Everyone sighed in relief and the group began to disperse a few minutes later. It was almost six by the time Tabatha and I arrived back at the house. She had driven her own car back and called her parents on the way to tell them what was happening. She would go to their house in Princeton once the kids were awake.
"Thank you for everything," Tabatha said as we sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Julio. "You saved our lives. Because I don't know that Kevin was telling the truth when he said he came there to warn me. I think he might have gone through with it if I had been there."
It was a chilling, though unsurprising thought. The police had found meth and the related paraphernalia on him when they arrested him. No doubt he would have let himself in, gotten high, and then followed through with murdering a woman and two children. All so her husband could live freely with his new wife.
"We're in agreement that if one of us is unhappy, we'll just leave, right?" I asked Julio that evening as we drove to our make-up date night.
"Definitely. I'll be spending all your money with my next husband and our kids," Julio said. "Speaking of kids, we need to decide what our kid's gonna call us."
"What do you mean?"
"We can't both be Dad because we'll never know who they're talking to," he said. "I was thinking I could be Papa, and you can be Daddy. Because then I get to call you Daddy too."
"You already do that."
"In bed. Now I can use it wherever," he said with a lascivious grin.
I snorted and shook my head. "Fine, just don't expect me to call you Big Papa."
I filled Julio in on the semi-solved mystery of what happened to Fred Shutz. Morelli had texted around noon to say Fred's body had been found in a ditch off Route 1. It looked like a hit-and-run, though how he'd gotten out there when his car had been left in the Burg was still a mystery. He had helped Arnie Mott break the news to the family and had left the Shutz home wondering if one of them could have done it. Given I had no more foresight on the situation, I couldn't rule out the possibility.
"I bet it was the wife," Julio said. "If you were that damn cheap and sleeping around for our entire marriage, I'd kill your ass."
"I thought you said you'd leave if you were unhappy."
"Yeah, if I were unhappy and you hadn't done anything wrong. Being a cheap, cheating bastard is an exception to the rule."
"I'll remember that."
We were going to dinner at a place Julio had called a blue-collar gay bar. A quick Google search had told us blue-collar didn't have any sort of special meaning in the gay community, so it must be where gay men who worked in manual labor met instead of trendy clubs with overpriced drinks and designer clothes. Julio wanted to go because he'd heard from one of his coworkers that the food was good. He said he wasn't worried about being tempted to drink because I'd knock him out if he tried. Cancelling our date last night had meant forfeiting my rights to choose the place, so I went along with it and kept my concerns to myself.
We were three blocks away from the bar when my phone rang, and Stephanie's name appeared on the display in the car. I ignored Julio's annoyed sigh and answered the call.
"I have a little problem," she said. "Remember when you told me to be careful around Morelli because he might want revenge for throwing his clothes out the window?"
"Yes."
"Well, he came over to tell me about Uncle Fred earlier and we—well, you get the idea. We were in the shower and things were going great until he handcuffed me to the shower rod and left. Can you come over and unlock them? The keys are in the doorway, but I can't reach them."
Julio hit the mute button on the call and burst into laughter. I punched him in the arm, waiting a few seconds until he pulled himself together.
"Are you still there?" Stephanie asked. I unmuted the call and gave Julio a look.
"Yes, I'm here. I assume you've already tried MorellI?"
"He isn't answering. If I call my mother, she'll send my father, and I'd rather die than have my father see me naked. And I'd rather not be naked in front of other cops or the firefighters. You've seen me naked before. Please don't make me call 911."
Julio was still stifling his laughter and I turned the corner to head in the direction of her apartment. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
"That's fucking hilarious," Julio said once I ended the call. "She had that coming."
"It's also dangerous. What if there was a fire? Or someone broke in? She's defenseless."
"Please. That woman could survive a war because all the bombs aimed at her would land on someone else. She'd be fine."
I called Morelli's number as we headed toward Stephanie's apartment, but it went straight to voicemail. I'd deal with him later.
I parked in the lot, promised to be right back and headed up to Stephanie's apartment with my lock-picking tools. I let myself in and headed straight for her bathroom.
She was standing in the shower, her free arm wrapped over her breasts and her body twisted sideways in an attempt to hold onto whatever modesty she could muster, and I immediately flashed back to the night she had called me in my last life to relieve her of the same predicament. This was the first time I had encountered a situation with her that was so similar to one from my past. The circumstances were slightly different, but I was still coming to her aid after she'd been left handcuffed to her shower rod by Morelli. I felt like I'd been hit in the head and struggled to keep myself present in the moment while the two scenes seemed to overlap in my mind. I felt like I was glitching and could almost feel the ways my body had been different then. Longer hair, no beard, diamonds in my ears, different clothes, tired from being woken up in the middle of the night.
"Thanks for coming," she said once she saw me. I was still feeling dazed and took an extra second to pick up a towel and look for the key while I pulled myself together. I found the key and handed her the towel while I unlocked the cuff. By the time she was sighing in relief and shaking her numb arm, I'd found my footing again, along with some anger.
"You and Morelli need to be done with this shit," I told her. "I'm not doing this again."
Stephanie seemed taken aback by my tone. "Sorry. I just didn't know who to call that wouldn't make fun of me or gossip about it."
I swallowed and took a breath before speaking. "I'd say you're even now. Either call a truce or stay out of each other's way," I replied, my tone less hostile. "And if you decide to get kinky in the future, use keyless handcuffs."
She nodded sheepishly and color flooded her cheeks. I left the bathroom and raised a hand in acknowledgement as she yelled one last thanks at my retreating back. I took my time leaving the apartment, walking slowly down the stairs to the lobby while I tried to figure out why I felt like this. There had been other times in this life where a situation had gone exactly the way it had last time, and I hadn't been bothered by them. Why was this one different?
I found Morelli leaning against his SUV talking to Julio through the passenger window.
"I was just coming back to let her out," Morelli said. "I was around the corner at the gas station. It's only been twenty minutes."
I didn't say anything as I climbed back in the driver's seat and pulled out of the lot.
"What's wrong with you?" Julio asked.
I shook my head and kept driving. I didn't know how to talk about it with him, mostly because of how much he disliked Stephanie. He wasn't as insecure about my relationship with her as he had once been, but I didn't think it would take much for him to backslide, especially when the situation had involved seeing her naked.
The Foundry was one of four businesses located on the ground floor of a former aluminum can factory. It looked like one of the last places you'd expect to find gay men congregating. There were two separate rooms inside. One contained a long wooden bar stretched along one wall flanked by the kitchen at one end and two high-top tables at the other. An entryway opposite the bar led to a larger room with booths, more high-top tables, a pool table, dart boards, and several televisions around the room tuned into various news and sports channels. It was a typical New Jersey dive bar with the exception that most of the men in the room were sitting closer than usually comfortable for heterosexual men and a few were either holding hands or had their arms over each other's shoulder. We took a seat at one of the high-top tables and pulled menus out of a large metal bucket.
"Now this is my kind of gay bar," Julio said. "I went to one with Kyle in Columbus and I wasn't gay enough for it. People kept talking about RuPaul's Drag Race and going to New York to see Hamilton on Broadway."
"Thank God," I said. "I love you, but I draw the line at musical theatre."
I examined the menu while trying to push thoughts of Stephanie and my last life aside. Date night was meant to spend time with Julio, not dwell on relationship I'd once had with a woman.
A server stopped by the table to take our drink orders and tell us the evening's special (half a rack of ribs and two sides) before checking on other tables. I was trying to decide between ribs and brisket when Julio nudged me.
"The news got ahold of the story already," he said, nodding up at one of the televisions. The sound of was off, but closed captioning was on, and we could read the story they were telling about how the harassment of Tabatha Bartlett had turned out to be her own husband concocting a plot to kill her and their two small children. The news caught footage of Travis Bartlett being led into court where bail was denied and he was taken back to jail to await trial. There was no sign of Tabatha other than old footage of her from the murder trial.
"I get maybe wanting to kill your spouse," Julio said once the segment was over. "But your kids? Goddamn. My dad's a bastard, but I'm pretty sure he'd never try to kill any of us. And look at all the shit we've had to do to have kids. We've spent tens of thousands of dollars getting eggs from my sister, so you could jerk off into a cup, so doctors could put those eggs and sperm together in a fucking lab, then do genetic testing on the ones that made it, and we had to find a woman willing to rent out her uterus, all so we can have one kid. All he had to do was stick his dick in his wife a couple of times and he got two."
"Travis Bartlett clearly had more issues than anyone realized. Healthy people don't do that. And don't tell Kristy she's renting out her uterus to us."
I ended up ordering the ribs and Julio got chicken wings. He talked about work and I did my best to listen and not get distracted by the odd experience I'd had earlier in the evening. He would stay at the nursing home until the end of March, but would be getting on at St. Francis Hospital on PRN status, meaning he would fill in on occasion if they needed help, but he wasn't committed to any schedule. I'd encouraged him to do it to keep his skills up so he could go back to the job if he ever felt like it. He was determined to stay home with our kids until they were in school all day, but I wanted him to know I would support him if he changed his mind later and went back to work full-time. My efforts to get him to work for me hadn't been successful and I'd given up on trying. Not that I wanted both of us risking our lives on the job when we had kids at home, but he would be terrific in sales.
"Are you gonna talk about what was bothering you when we left Stephanie's?" Julio asked once we had our food and had taken a few bites. The rave reviews Julio had heard about the place were true. The food was excellent.
I shook my head. "It's nothing."
"Bullshit. You were all up in your head. What happened?"
I opened my mouth to reiterate that I was fine when I heard a familiar laugh from the other room. I could see into the bar and realized the man sitting at the end by the kitchen looked familiar. I could only see the back of him, but that combined with the laugh left no doubt in my mind.
"That's Anthony Morelli," I said, nodding towards the bar. Julio had his back to it and turned around to look. Anthony was sitting at the bar talking to a redhaired man in a gray sweatshirt and jeans next to him.
"What's he doing here?" Julio asked.
"He tried to tell us he thought he was sort of gay back last year and no one wanted to believe him. Maybe he was telling the truth," I suggested. Anthony had earned his one thousand dollars from me last October by telling everyone at poker he thought he might be 'sort of gay'. No one had bought it, so there hadn't been any sort of extra pay out since he hadn't convinced Julio, which hadn't led to Julio coming to work with me. I could have seen him hanging out at a gay bar last year trying to be more convincing to Julio and earn the extra money, but why now?
Julio snorted. "Yeah, right. He probably just doesn't know this is a gay bar. Or he's studying us like he's Jane Goodall and we're a bunch of damn gorillas."
I laughed and glanced up just in time to see Anthony put a hand on the man's thigh and lean in close to whisper in his ear. "If he's studying us, then he's really getting into it."
Anthony got up first and walked towards the bathrooms. The other guy said something to the bartender, who nodded, and then he also walked back towards the bathrooms. Julio leaned in his chair to see where the guy went. "What the fuck?" he whispered. "You don't think he's gonna fuck that guy, do you?"
"Why else do two men go into the same single-occupant bathroom in a gay bar?" I asked even though I was just as surprised as Julio. "They're either doing each other or lines of coke."
Anthony and the other guy emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later. They were headed back to their seats at the bar when Anthony saw us. I saw the color drain from his face before he plastered on a smile and said something to the redhead before walking over to us.
"What are you guys doing here?" Anthony asked. "I didn't think you two came to the bars."
"We heard this was a blue-collar gay bar with good food," Julio said. "We thought we'd try it out since, you know, we're gay men. What are you doing here?"
Anthony got closer to the table and looked back at the man at the bar. "Look, don't tell the guys I was here, okay? Rich and I work together. A while back he told me that he and his wife are swingers. I mentioned it to Angie, and since I have an issue with fidelity, we thought that might be a good way to keep things fresh, you know?"
"Doesn't swinging usually involve all the partners?" Julio asked.
Color creeped up in Anthony's cheeks. "Yeah, and we all get together once a month or so. And at first it was just us swapping wives, then we convinced the girls to start doing stuff together and they did. They wanted us to do stuff and at first we said no, but then we tried it."
"And now?" I asked.
"We like to see each other sometimes without our wives, okay? Angie's told me she doesn't want me sleeping with other women unless she's there, but she never said anything about men." He tapped the side of his head like it was the most ingenious idea.
"I thought you were just fucking with us when you said you thought you might be sort of gay," Julio said.
"Oh, yeah. I'm not really gay-gay. You know what I mean?" Anthony said quickly. "Just with him. No other guys."
"Uh-huh," I said. "That's what we used to say too. Look at us now. Married with a kid on the way."
Anthony laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "I'm not leaving Angie or anything. This is just fun."
"If you say so," Julio said.
Anthony said goodbye and went back to Rich, who kept looking nervously over his shoulder at us the whole time we'd been talking.
"Son of a bitch," Julio said once Anthony was out of earshot. "He really is sort of gay."
Anthony and Rich left a few minutes later after finishing one last beer. Anthony waved goodbye as he left but paused once he saw Julio turn back to face me.
"You owe me two grand," he mouthed before scurrying away.
"You know what this means, right?" I asked Julio as we finished our meal. "Anthony being gay means you come work for me. Remember?"
Julio opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. "You planned this, didn't you?" he said after a moment.
"How could I have planned it? You didn't tell me where we were going until ten minutes before we left and we've been together this whole time. You'd have seen me calling or texting him."
"Damn it," Julio mumbled. "But we're getting ready to have a kid, so there's no point now. And he's not gay-gay. He's only sort of gay. That doesn't count."
"It sort of counts," I said. "At least let me put you down as a substitute. That way you could work a job with me if you want and we'd have you covered under the company's liability policy. You'll have to do the training, but it'll be easy since you were military. And you're married to the boss."
Julio crossed his arms and considered the empty basket in front of him. "Fine. I'll do it if you'll tell me what was wrong earlier."
I wasn't getting out of this. I glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear our conversation. "That was the first time I've had a situation with Stephanie that was almost exactly like one that happened in my last life. I felt like I was flashing back and forth between then and now. I don't know why it bothered me so much. It's not like this is the first time I've had an experience like that."
I expected an annoyed sigh or some iteration of things like this wouldn't happen if Stephanie weren't such a dumbass. Instead, Julio leaned back in his seat and considered me for a moment. "I think your problem is you're still holding onto a woman that'll never exist. You have this Stephanie around and she's so much like the other one that you can't separate them. It's just like we've talked about with Julie. We're having a kid. It might be a girl, and I think it'd be awesome to name her Julie, and you can be the father to her that you weren't to the other one. But you've got to let her go too. You're never gonna have them back."
The force of his words hit like a train. I'd known all of this intellectually and thought that was what I'd been doing. But hearing Julio say it like that made me realize I'd been going about it in the wrong way. Trying to forget what happened wasn't the solution. I needed to separate my emotions from the memories. I had done it with my military missions, so why couldn't I do it here?
I considered his words that night after we went to bed while I listened to his slow, deep breathing. My guilt over Rachel's death and Julie never existing in this life had made my already complicated feelings about her even more complex. I could have a daughter in this life and name her Julie in honor of her sister in another universe, but she would never be the same child. She had different maternal DNA and would be born in a different time and in different circumstances. She would have different parents and grow up in a different state. It wouldn't be hard to keep them separated, but Stephanie was a different story. She was the same person on a biological level as the woman I'd been with before. She was different in some ways because of the changes I'd made to her life, and the whole point of my work with her had been to improve her circumstances, which meant she would continue to change. But separating her from the other Stephanie was much harder.
I thought about the same period in my last life and what I had been going through. I'd been busy building my business and trying not to think about my feelings for Stephanie, but by spring I'd been so desperate to be with her that I'd made that ridiculous deal with her that we'd spend the night together if she needed my help. And it had been that night that I'd allowed myself to admit that I was in love with her. She'd told me later that she realized she was in love with me when I'd been shot by Scrog in her apartment, which was over a year later. The timeline was screwed up because of the changes I made; not just with the work, but the emotions as well. She was in love with me now. She'd had twelve years to think about the few weeks we'd spent together in college and had longed for what might have been. Then she had stumbled across me by chance and had come to work for me. We spent a significant amount of time together every week and even though I'd been trying to keep some distance between us, she had still fallen for me, all while knowing I'd never be with her. I had wanted her to have those feelings thirteen years ago when I had felt them for her. But I had moved on and now she was the one longing. It seemed like no matter what happened, Stephanie and I would always keep missing each other.
I didn't regret it because I'd found something stronger and deeper with Julio, but I had to admit that my feelings for the other Stephanie were getting in the way of everything else. If I weren't still holding onto them, I wouldn't have any issues being her boss and friend. I wouldn't be on edge around her, worrying that I'd say or do something she would misinterpret. I wouldn't be bothered by Julio's dislike of her, which was probably fueled in part because he could see my internal struggle over my feelings. I was going to be a father in six months' time and I still had to figure out my stuff when it came to Julie Martine before then. I couldn't drag these things into the next chapter of my life. I had to find a way to disentangle my emotional connections to them because Julio and our child deserved to have all of me, not just the scraps left over from loving people who no longer existed.
"I can't sleep so I'm going for a run," I whispered to Julio. I dressed quietly and headed out into the crisp autumn night, where I started preparing mental funerals for Stephanie Plum and Julie Martine.