|
There was nothing in the world
greater than this. When Jonathon’s hands were on her, there was nothing else.
She felt so free, especially now that they could be alone in her new place. They
could just be together for as long as they liked until life intervened. Sophia
had never felt so alive, and with each breath she took when she was close to
him, she felt more and more vivacious. In those moments she was with him, she
forgot completely about what she had to do each day, and about the lies she had
to tell, even the ones she told to him. Even when he called her by another name,
it didn’t matter. Even asleep, lying next to him, dreaming about him, made
life worth living.
But reality always intervened
at some point. Sophia’s early morning dozing was interrupted by the shrill
ring of her mobile phone, and she reached up to grab it from the bedside table.
“Yeah?” she answered, more
interested in Jonathon nuzzling her neck from behind her than any phone
conversation.
“The new stock is in,”
Frank said to her, their code for a shipment of stolen DVD players.
“Oh man, now? What time is
it?”
“Nearly eight.”
Sophia sighed as she pushed
her body back closer to Jonathon, who was wide awake by now and waiting for her
to get off the phone. She smiled as she felt his lips on her shoulder, and
decided that reality could wait just a little longer.
“Take care of it for me for
a little while. I’ll be there in an hour.” She didn’t even bother waiting
for Frank’s reply, but instead snapped her phone shut, tossed it to the floor
and rolled over into Jonathon’s arms.
Twelve hours later, even
despite all the usual dramas that went on at work with non-paying clients,
misplaced goods and badly organized meetings, Sophia was still feeling the
ecstasy of that morning. It had been like this every day for six months, and she
was sure those around her wondered why. She wasn’t about to tell them about
Jonathon; she never could. Right now she just wanted to keep them in a little
cocoon away from everyone else until it absolutely had to end.
Sophia closed her eyes and saw
him. He put the smile on her face and was the reason she got through each day,
just so she could see him again. Even now as she sat at her usual outdoor table
at the café, she could still feel his hands on her, still feel his lips pressed
up against hers. She opened her eyes, took a deep breath of the night air and
smiled.
She strained the last of her
coffee as Joe, the owner, came out to start packing up the outside tables. She
chatted away to him as he cleared up, but their conversation was cut short as
Benny’s car screeched to a halt in front of the store. Sophia knew something
was up, and jumped straight into his car after a rushed farewell to Joe. As soon
as the door was closed, Benny started off down the street.
“What’s happening?”
“We’ve got problems.
Surveillance problems.”
“The cops are onto us?”
“Looks that way.”
“For what?”
“Stolen goods. The van is
being followed. I told that idiot Gary to keep a lookout, but he was probably
stoned as usual. I keep telling him, you can’t be stoned when you drive the
truck, but he’ll never learn.”
“I told you we should have
gotten rid of that guy ages ago.”
“Well we would of, but
he’s Ricardo’s cousin.”
“The joy of nepotism.”
“Yeah, something like that.
Look, we know where two of the street cops are who have been keeping an eye on
him. Paul’s noticed for a few weeks and followed them a couple of days ago
tailing Gary around in his truck. For now we don’t know who the supervising
officer is on this, so we gotta take these two guys out. That should at least
slow them down for a little while until we know who the detectives are.”
“Man, what’s the point?
Street cops don’t mean anything. Chances are the detectives are watching them
watching us so they can jump us as soon as we hit one of them.”
“Chance we gotta take. I’m
going to drop you off on this corner. Paul is waiting for you. Frank is
following the two guys now. Once they get called out to a domestic or something,
we jump them. Then come down to the bridge and meet me. We may have to lay low
for a couple of days.”
Benny pulled his car up behind
Paul’s on a nondescript suburban street. Sophia got out of Benny’s car and
into Paul’s without a word. Benny sat and waited while Paul and Sophia took
off to where Frank was waiting, then drove off in the other direction. Had you
been watching for that sort of behavior, you would have noticed what was going
on, but no one on the street did. They were all inside going on about their
lives, oblivious to what was happening on the street outside their windows.
Paul and Sophia drove out of
suburbia and into an area not quite so serene. A few more cars lined the streets
and the buildings were higher blocks of apartments. People were scattered around
the neighborhood, but were the type who cared nothing about what was going on
around them. They were either too stoned or too caught up in their own arguments
to care. Paul stopped the car across the road from a large red brick building.
Parked in front of it was a police car, empty since the officers were inside
sorting out a domestic dispute that could be heard from the street. Paul’s
mobile phone went off, and he had a quick conversation that consisted mainly of
“yeah” and “okay” before he hung up and turned to Sophia.
“Frank is in there already.
You wait here; Benny doesn’t want you to be seen on this one. It’ll only
take a minute.”
“Fine. But in and out. If
you can’t get straight to them, get the hell out, and we’ll take care of this
another time.”
“Right.” And with that,
Paul was out of the car and running across the road to the building where their
victims waited, his weapon tucked inside his jacket.
Sophia sat alone in the car,
in a dark street that she would never have been allowed to sit alone in a year
ago. She looked around her at people who didn’t notice her, and hoped that
would be the case in half an hour’s time when more cops arrived.
She looked over at the parked
police car, and Jonathon rapidly entered her mind. She thought of his face, of
his touch, of the way he kissed her.
And then she thought of
something else.
Her eyes opened wide, and in a
split second she had the car door open and was outside, looking across the road
at the patrol car. She had no way of knowing if it was his, but something in her
stomach told her it was.
“No,” she whispered. Then
she jumped as she heard shots ring out. Her blood went cold, and her hands shook.
She wanted to run, but she couldn’t move. Everything around her went blurry, and
she thought she was going to be sick.
She felt a hand on her back,
trying to push her into the car.
“Move, Soph, move!” a
voice screamed at her. She did as she was told, forcing her numb legs to move.
She tried to close the door but couldn’t reach the handle, her hand swiping at
the air. Suddenly it was closed for her, and she felt the banging of other doors
and the car start. The sudden motion of it taking off snapped her awake again.
“Oh no! Jesus, what did you
do?” she screamed.
Paul tried to concentrate on
getting out of the neighborhood at high speed, and now had to deal with a manic
woman sitting beside him. Frank sat in the back with his eyes wide.
“What the hell are you
talking about?” Paul yelled, as he swatted her hands away from him. Sophia
carried on belting him, not caring if her sudden insane violence caused them to
crash.
At last her tears caught up
with her and she could no longer flail her arms, only bring her hands to her
face and wail over and over, “Oh god, what have I done, what have I done…”
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
|
