Page 20 of Anders and the Girl Worth Fighting For
Something must have shone on my face because Anders moved towards me.
“Fuck, Grace, it will be ok.” He kneeled in front of me and grabbed my hands. His thumb rubbed soothing circles on my hand. “You are with me and safe. They can’t get you here. Ok?”
He sat there with me while I quietly freaked out. He didn’t invalidate me, or tell me I was wrong for being worries, that I was paranoid. He didn’t minimize it. He just let me experience it, and more importantly, he sat with me while I did.
When I could breathe properly again, Anders ran his hands along my cheek, brushing away tears I didn’t even know I had shed.
“Do you want me to go over the safety measures we have here? Will that help?” Anders asked after a few moments. He still kneeled before me, his large, calloused hands warm where they held my face, wiping my tears. Grime coated his nails, reminding me he had been in the middle of something when I showed up and dragged him into the chaos of my life.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I meant to say yes, but the apology came out instead. I can’t believe I’ve pulled him into all this. He shouldbe enjoying a quiet life.
“Nothing to be sorry for.” He shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting in a small smile. “Come on. I’ll show you around and then we will look at that note again when you feel safe and calm.”
I nodded and stood with him so he could show me around.
“I have security cameras at the front door and in various corners.” He pointed one out so I could see. “There is almost no inch of this place that isn’t monitored by me. I also have some hidden cameras in the elevator, hall, and garage, though I’d appreciate it if that stayed between us,” he said playfully. I could tell he just wanted to lighten to mood a bit. It worked.
I noticed this place was sparsely furnished, just the couch, a small coffee table, and a chair at the kitchen island. Just one chair.
“No one comes here?” I asked when I noticed the single chair.
“Good observation.” His praise warmed me inside and I knew I would do what I could to hear more. “No. No one comes here. There’s only four people in the world who know about this place, well know who owns it and what it’s for. Lots of people know about the apartment building in the middle of the city.” His smile was easy and infectious as he leaned against the island and chatted with me. “We set it up as a local safe house. Some of us have enemies.”
“Are you part of that some?” I teased him. It was such a weird topic to me, but it helped, so I didn’t let it go.
He laughed deep and loud at my question. I wasn’t sure it was that funny, but the low timbre of his laugh was delicious. “That’s classified.”
“Classified or embarrassing?” I couldn’t help myself. I had to tease him more. He laughed again and the rest of the tension drained from my body.
“Embarrassing is more up Duke’s alley,” he replied.
“So what else have you done to this fortress to keep Duke from having to deal with the consequences of his embarrassing actions?” I asked as I wandered to the window.
“The windows have a tint on them, that’s just the design of the building. You can’t see in here from outside except at night, but we have blinds we can draw for that,” he said as he pushed off the counter to join me at the window.
There was a view of a nearby park and very few other tall buildings in the area to obstruct the city skyline off the one side. Savannah’s skyline wasn’t quite like other cities. No exceptionally tall buildings, but it had its own charm and I could see the afternoon sun reflecting off the river in the distance as the clouds from the earlier rainstorm moved on. His warmth seeped into me as he came to stand beside me. I wanted to lean into that and absorb it all.
“You ready to read that note again?” He asked after a while. His voice was soft, and I realized I had been standing at the window, lost in my own thoughts, for too long. I had relaxed during his tour, so I turned back to him and nodded my head. I wish I could hide from the world up here and pretend that the note didn’t exist at all, but I’d learned you can’t ignore your problems and hope they go away. Time only makes them worse and not better.
“Yes. I’m ready.” I moved back to the couch. I had abandoned the note on the coffee table and picked it up as I sat back down. “Maybe this time, I’ll actually absorb what it said instead of just staring at it in horror.” I tried to joke. It fell flat.
“The handwriting looks atrocious,” Anders said as he sat next to me on the couch and read the note with me, “like a third grader wrote it with their non-dominate hand.”
“It’s possible.,” I said, and I faintly traced the crude lines, “That way we couldn’t know who wrote it.”
“That doesn’t explain the horrible spelling,” he said. He didn’t disagree with my assessment, though. “Are we sure we are reading this right? It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Like the ‘flours’ spelled wrong, ‘you are goon’, they probably meant gone, ‘without the $.’ Which is consistent with the goons,” I giggled a little at this and Anders flashed me a small smile, “Sorry I couldn’t help myself. It’s consistent with what the guys said when they came to your work.”
“Which is what we thought it would be,” I agreed. “‘You half 1 weak.’ Hopefully, that means we have a week and not that we have half of a week. Though, when I say that out loud, it doesn’t make sense. So we have a week to produce some money. Don’t know where or how or who or why.”
“We know they are covering their tracks. The cops couldn’tget anything useful from this. I think they are smarter than their letter implies.”
“What if there is someone pulling the strings, and the guys that showed up at my place are just hired thugs?” I asked, as I picked at invisible lint on my pants, worry gnawing at me. Not just about the letter, but about how speaking up will be taken. Bill hated it when I voiced my ideas. He said they weren’t good and just distracted him from his important work.
“Yes, that’s most likely,” Anders said. I didn’t realize my shoulders were tense until they relaxed at his easy agreement. God, Bill really messed me up.
“What money, though? That’s the part I still don’t get.” I rubbed my neck, a headache building from the stress of the last twenty-four hours. “This isn’t the first time they have mentioned money, but I’m a soon-to-be-divorced receptionist living in a tiny, old studio apartment. I can barely afford the one luxury I let myself have, those flowers that they took. I don’t have any money.”
