CHAPTER 28

Kristin unlocked the door to Monica’s apartment with the key that Tess had given her and then the deadbolt before she slowly entered. She managed a tearful smile as her friend’s kitten scampered out of the bedroom at the sound, stopping short to look up at her with large, questioning green eyes that seemed to show a hint of disappointment at her not being Monica.

“It’s okay, Lucy,” She said softly, closing the door behind her and wearily making her way over to the couch in order to sit down. She patted the cushion beside of her and waited until the kitten hesitantly jumped up, falling just short and pulling herself up the rest of the way, causing a small smile to appear on Kristin’s lips as she moved to pet the cat, “I’m sorry I’m not your mommy, but she’ll be home soon and maybe in the meantime, I can sneak you in for a visit. I know she must be missing you.”

Her heart ached at the thought of the little angel who had fallen victim to David’s recent violence on more than one occasion. She would never forget nor forgive the bruises on the young angel’s face the other day that the man she loved had inflicted. Monica had been sent to help David and in return she had only gotten hurt and the reality of it stung terribly.
Leaning back, she closed her eyes, trying to remember better days with David before it had all gone so horribly wrong. She was still unable to fathom that he had shot Monica, that he had planned to shoot Paul, but it had all been all over the news this afternoon. Her only question was why he had left without finishing the job and she was nearly appalled by her own thought process. But then again, David shooting anyone had never been something she thought she would ever be considering at all.

A knock at the door, caused her to look up and she stood to approach it, wondering if maybe Tess or Andrew were here to check on her, “Who is it?” She asked guardedly, hoping it was not the police. She knew she would have to answer questions eventually, she just needed a little time first to get used to the idea of David being a criminal.

“Kris? It’s me. Please, open the door.”

She wanted to tell him no, to tell him to go away, but for some reason, she found her shaking hands unlocking the door and swinging it open. David looked haggard, as if he had aged fifteen years in a day and his eyes held great sorrow. Tears burned in her eyes as she turned and walked back to the couch, her legs suddenly feeling weak and needing to sit down.

David’s eyes followed her as he closed the door and slowly approached her. She had not said a word, but the truth was all there in her eyes and it broke his heart.

“How could you do this?” She whispered accusingly after a long period of silence, “I thought I knew you, David. I mean, I knew things were bad, but for you to shoot Monica? To take money to kill Paul? How could you?”

He dropped to the floor in front of her and hesitantly laid his hands on her knees. He was shaking. He had never felt so afraid and it had nothing to do with the thought of going to jail. That he could handle. Kristin spending the rest of her life hating him, he could not.

“Krissy, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to express what I’m feeling, but I know I have to try. I don’t know what happened or what I was thinking or maybe I do. It just all seems so confusing now, but you were right all along, about everything. About the drinking, about needing to go and talk to Tess at the unemployment office…if I had just done those things…” His eyes filled with tears and his voice became choked.

“What do you want from me, Dave?” She asked softly, her own tears now escaping her eyes, “I don’t even know you anymore. How could you have thought that this was the answer?”

“I don’t know…I don’t know. Mike said that Paul worked for him and that he had become a ‘bad seed’ and needed to be done away with. The money he offered…I thought it could fix things for us and the baby. I was drunk at the time and it seemed like a good idea. Then when I came home and you were gone, all I could think about was that the money could help me to get you back…”

“Don’t you dare put this on me!” She cried out, a sob escaping her, “I left you because I was afraid. You hit Monica and it was only a matter of time before you did the same to me! I had a baby to think about, because you sure weren’t thinking about that!”

“Kristin, that’s all I thought about,” He was pleading now, but he didn’t care. If he wanted nothing else in this world now, he wanted her forgiveness, “I’m not blaming you for anything; I’m just trying to make you understand. I was wrong…I was so wrong and I’m going to turn myself in, but I need for you to try to understand…”

His words stopped her heart. In every possible scenario she had considered, David turning himself into the police had never been one of her options, “You’re turning yourself in?”

“Yes,” He whispered, trying in vain to blink back the tears, “I shot her and I thank your God that He spared her life as I’m not sure I could have lived with any other option. It had to be a miracle, Kris, because she was dying, I know she was. I keep thinking about all the things she had been trying to tell me and at the time, I had found it so annoying, but she was only trying to help me, just like she helped her friend last night. I never meant to shoot her and I was forcing myself to shoot him, but she got in the way. Once I got there, I didn’t know how to go through with it, but it seemed too late for me to turn back. I had already pointed a gun at them…” He ran his hand over his face before he searched her eyes helplessly, “Krissy, if there were any way in this world to take it all back, I would. I would do it in a heartbeat. I’ll go to jail; that’s fine, but I can’t go there knowing that you hate me for the things I have done.”

Her tears were now flowing freely as she saw a remorse and sorrow in his eyes that seemed to go the whole way to his soul, “David, I could never hate you, even if I tried. You’re my husband, for better or for worse, and yes, things have been for worse lately, but I never stopped loving you and praying for you to turn things around,” Her hand trembled as she laid it against his tear streaked face, “And no matter what happens now, I’ll be with you.”

Sobs escaped him as he wrapped his arms around his wife and held her as tightly as he dared, “I’m so sorry, Kris. I’m so sorry, baby. I did everything wrong. For some stupid reason, I thought the answers would come if I could just drink enough, but the answers were always here with you and our baby. Always.”

Kristin closed her eyes as she held onto him, knowing that her prayers had finally been answered. She had her husband back. Before the night was over, she would call the police and no matter what happened, they would face whatever those moments after that held, together.

Paul got the call at 5:48pm, just as he was about to head back to the hospital. David had been spotted going into his old apartment building. The police wanted to know whether they should wait for him or go in on their own. Paul was very emphatic: they were not to move unless David left the apartment. He took the back stairs two at a time, not willing to wait for the elevator, and commandeered one of the agency cars once he hit the underground garage.

Fifteen minutes later he was pulling up across from the apartment building, hands tight on the steering wheel, jaw clenched so tightly the muscle threatened to cramp. He spotted the unmarked police cars easily. The black Crown Victorias were parked one behind the other. Very subtle, he thought. He walked over to the front car and the officer inside rolled down his window.

“You must be Gatlin,” he said. “Detective Wolsk.”

Paul nodded. “Any movement?”

“Nothing. One of the other patrols saw him enter and we’ve been watching all the exits ever since. I’ve got two men positioned behind the building.”

Paul looked over his shoulder at the brick building. Frankly he was surprised that David had come back. He knew the man had money and he figured he would have either hopped the first plane or train out of the city or laid low in some flea-ridden hotel where the staff was good at forgetting a face for a few hundred bucks.

“I want to be with the group that goes in.”

“Not a problem. Had a feeling you might say that,” Wolsk replied. He was fully informed about the victim in this case, and the agent’s relationship to her. “He’s up on the third floor, but the building’s pretty calm. We don’t expect to cause a scene on the way up.”

“Third floor?”

“Yeah. One of the guys followed him in. Said he went to 302.”

Monica’s apartment. Paul’s hands tightened into fists. What the hell was that bastard doing in there?

“Alright, let’s go in now. I want to get this over with.”

The next five minutes passed in a rushed but orderly fashion as the officers made there way inside the building, Paul leading the way up the narrow staircase. His gun was already in his hand and his eyes were set in dark determination. First David, then Mike. He was not going to rest until they were both taken care of, and he didn’t much care if that meant taking them away in a cop car or a body bag.

He nodded to Detective Wolsk, and the man pounded on the door, rattling the little brass numbers that marked it. “David Young! We know you’re in there!”

Inside the apartment Kristin shot up out of her seat, and David pulled her back, not wanting her any closer to the door. He wasn’t surprised to be found, but he had been hoping to have a few more hours with his wife.

“No! Don’t shoot!” Kristin cried out as she broke away from him and ran to the door.

Paul heard her voice and he cursed under his breath before stepping forward and motioning everyone else back.

“Kristin? Kristin, it’s Paul. Get away from the door.”

“Paul! Oh thank God! Paul… he wants to turn himself in… he was going to turn himself in… please don’t let anyone hurt him.” Her thin, pleading voice touched a nerve considering that he had been planning to do much more than hurt David if pushed.

“Kristin, no one’s going to hurt him. Now you need to get in the bedroom. David, if you have any weapons they had better be on the floor, and your hands had better be above your head when we come in!” He tried the door and felt that it was unlocked. Good. Andrew wouldn’t have to put up a new one. “Kristin?” he called out again, and when he got no reply he swung the door open and rushed into the room, quickly followed by Detective Wolsk and two other police officers.

David was standing in the middle of the room, hands linked above his head, and he didn’t move a muscle as the four men surrounded him, guns drawn. The throbbing muscle was back in Paul’s jaw and he roughly grabbed one of David’s arms and swung him around, pushing him into the wall as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on first one wrist and then the other, while the police quickly searched the apartment for any weapons or other evidence. The agent grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around again, slamming him back against the wall and pushing his forearm against his neck. Their faces were only inches apart and Paul stared into David’s eyes. He was almost disappointed to find a look of remorse there. It was the last thing he had been expecting, and somehow it made him even angrier.

“You have no idea how lucky you are that your wife is in the other room,” Paul’s voice was low and threatening. “Because I don’t really care how sorry you are right now. It is not even close to how sorry I want you to be. Not even close. In fact, if you so much as twitch I can’t guarantee that even her presence will be enough to protect you. So go ahead, big man. Try something. They have plenty of hospital beds down at the jail.”

David said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He deserved Paul’s anger. He deserved a lot worse than that.

“C’mon, man. Ease down,” Wolsk placed his hand on Paul’s shoulder. It was safe to say that if David had resisted whatsoever that the police would have been fine with letting Paul take care of him, but at this point the detective knew that anything Paul did he would only live to regret.

Paul let out a disgusted breath and stepped back, letting some of the tension drain from his stiff limbs. Every muscle had been on full alert and they still tingled with adrenaline. “Get him out of my sight. You’ve got the call list from the agency. Run through it and someone from our side’ll be down to question him.”

“You alright Gatlin?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” He turned to go into the bedroom, but stopped himself. “Hold on a second,” he called back to the officers who were leading David out. He shook his head, hardly believing what he was about to do, but he knew it was what Monica would want. He opened the bedroom door and saw Kristin huddled on the bed. “They’re taking him away, Kristin, if you want to say something to him before they do… now’s your chance.”

Kristin’s eyes widened and she jumped off the bed and gave Paul a thankful look as she moved past him and into the living room. Husband and wife spoke in whispers and Paul didn’t even try to catch what they were saying. Somehow, despite everything it looked like they still loved each other. Paul felt his heart constrict. They were in love and they were being separated, but at least they were both still alive.

After his brief walk outside during Paul’s visit, Andrew had returned to Monica’s side and flatly refused to leave it. Even while Monica was napping he remained seated beside her, occasionally drifting off as the lack of sleep finally caught up to him. Tess had finally stopped even trying to get him to lie down. Even she knew when she was fighting a losing battle.

“Should we wake her up for dinner?” Andrew asked as he glanced at his watch. He had no idea where the afternoon had gone. It seemed just moments since he first saw her open her eyes.

“The IV’s giving her what she needs, but why don’t I go check with the nurse,” Tess answered. She had a sneaking suspicion that Andrew just wanted her awake again so that he could verify that she really was all right.

As she left the room Andrew stretched out his hand to gently stroke the little angel’s long hair. “It’s a good thing you’re getting all this rest, Angel,” he whispered, “but I wouldn’t object to hearing the sound of your voice.”

“Really?” the word was barely a whisper. “Even if I’m singing?” she said as her eyes slid open.

Andrew laughed. “You can sing ‘Oh Danny Boy’ anytime, as far as I’m concerned.”

She grinned up at him with a slightly smug expression on her face which only made him laugh more.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up, Monica.”

“No… I think I was ready to wake up,” she said thoughtfully as if trying to assess exactly how she was feeling. She looked around the room. “Is Tess still here?”

“She just stepped out to see if we should wake you for dinner… I guess that’s not really an issue now.”

The door opened and both angels looked up as Tess walked in with a much more somber look than they were expecting.

“What’s wrong?” Monica asked, suddenly worried about the one missing member of their little group: Paul.

“Nothing’s wrong, baby,” Tess said reassuringly. “The radio’s on out there at the nurses’ desk and I just heard the news. They caught David.”

Andrew watched as the flurry of emotions crossed over the little angel’s face at Tess’ news, everything from fear, to relief to remorse. She seemed uncertain as to what to say and finally a single word slipped from her lips, “Where?”

“It seems it was in your apartment, baby. He was there with Kristin. She is kitten sitting for you and the police saw him entering the building.”

Her heart was racing, needing to know that Paul was all right; needing to know that the agent hadn’t hurt David either. And what about Kristin? How had she taken the news and was she okay?

Seeing her heart monitor suddenly seem to fly off the chart, Andrew took her hand and laid his other hand against her cheek, “Angel, you need to calm down,” His voice was stern and he watched her alarmed eyes turn to him.

“But Andrew-.” She stopped mid-question when the door to her room opened and the alarm in her eyes change to relief as tears rushed to them, “Paul…”

The agent could clearly see that she had already heard the news, though he had been hoping that he would be the one to tell her. He wasted no time in getting to her and Andrew moved aside to make room for him.

“You’re okay,” Monica uttered before he could say anything and her words nearly floored him.

“Of course I’m okay,” He replied gently, entwining his fingers through hers, deeply touched by her concern for his safety, though he knew that he really should not be surprised by such things any longer. He could tell that she was ready to burst into helpless tears, so he’d better start explaining and put her mind at ease, “He turned himself in, honey. Kristin was there with him and they seemed to have worked things out between them. He was taken into custody without a fuss,” He knew that would mean a lot to her though he had still wished David had put up some resistance so that he could have beaten him to a pulp for shooting the little angel.

Tess and Andrew watched as the line on the screen began to flow normally once more and they gave a collective quiet sigh of relief. The last thing Monica needed was to get all worked up when her body was trying to heal itself.

“I was worried about you,” She admitted, feeling a bit ashamed of that fact. She knew she had seen remorse on David’s face last night, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from fearing what he might do.

“Well, there is no need for that now,” Paul replied with a small smile, “And I don’t want you worrying about anything other than getting better.”

Monica searched his eyes and a frown formed on her face. Something was greatly troubling him as it was all too clear in his hazel eyes. She looked over at Andrew, her expression pleading, hoping he would understand.

Though he didn’t want to leave her, Andrew too could tell something was on Paul’s mind and he had a feeling that if anyone could get to the bottom of it, Monica could. He was only concerned about her all too fragile health status at the moment though she seemed to be holding her own rather well, “Tess, lets grab some coffee. Paul looks like he could use a cup.”

“Well, the Father gave him two legs,” Tess began, before catching the look in Andrew’s eyes, “and they look tired, so you stay put Paul and we’ll be back in a bit.”

As they departed, she looked back up into Paul’s eyes, “What is it? Something is troubling you.”

He grinned slightly, though the attempt was rather sad as he shook his head, “It’s nothing, Monica, really.”

“No, it is something. Please, let me help.”

“You’ve helped me more than enough,” He argued gently, trying to be careful to not hurt her feelings.

“Paul…”

He sighed, seeing her need to be able to make a difference and to be able to help him. He just wasn’t sure of how to explain, “It’s Lauren,” He began softly and he felt her fingers tighten around his.