From the Devil’s Cradle 3

Jessica jerked awake her cell phone ringing. “Hello”, she managed with a sleepy voice.

“Jess, it’s David at the desk.”

“Yes Sergeant, is something going on?”

“No nothing major, but I have a young man standing here with a bouquet of flowers who is very adamant that he can only release them to you. I offered to take them and send them to you, but he maintains the gentleman was specific and only to deliver them to you.”

Shaking the cobwebs from her head, “Flowers?”

“A rather large bouquet I must say,” the desk sergeant said.

She smiled, sitting up in bed, “I can come get them or he can deliver them here.”

She could barely hear the desk sergeant speaking to delivery person.

“You sure Jess, at your place?

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Ok, I will give him your address.”

“Thanks David.”

“You’re welcome.”

She smiled hanging up the phone. Never once in her life had she been sent flowers by anyone other than her father. Every birthday he had sent her flowers until he passed away.

Had to be Caleb she smiled. Then remembered the dream she had. A young Mexican girl standing on a hill looking at her. She had a big beautiful smile. Jess had asked her name; she just smiled and ran over the hill. Strange, but she needed to hurry to get ready.

She hurried a shower, slipped on some jeans and t shirt, hair dried and up on a ponytail. She’d slept longer than she intended.

Doorbell dinged. Opening the door there stood a young man with a rather large bouquet of fresh spring flowers.

“Ms. Mendez,” he asked?

“That is me,” she said with a big smile.

“Here you go ma’am.”

“How come the fuss of making sure you gave them to me directly?”

“The gentleman who bought them asked to speak to the delivery person. He slipped me three hundred dollars with the instruction to only give them to you.”

“Wow! Three hundred?”

“Yes ma’am. Have a great day.”

“Uh… you to Jessica,” said as the young man trotted off to the delivery van.

Rounding up a vase she had in a cabinet, filled with water, flowers then sat them up on the kitchen bar.

Opening the envelope ‘Lunch Fjui Japanese? 11:30’

She felt the smile on her face, god had she smiled this big ever. It was Caleb she had no doubt. Shit it was almost 11:00. She slipped into a skirt, short heels and nice pink blouse. Fuji wasn’t finest of dining, but it was upscale for sure. Debating she left her hair in a ponytail. Satisfied she looked somewhat attractive she headed out to her car.

Sitting in her car touching up her makeup, adjusting her ponytail. “Breathe Jess,” she said out loud. God she was nervous.

A young Asian woman met her at the entrance, this way please. The girl led her out on the patio where Caleb stood seeing her approach with that smile of his pulling her chair out.

“Thank you,” she smiled sitting.

He sat putting himself under the table and placing the cloth napkin in his lap. He spoke to the girl who nodded at departed the table.

“You speak Japanese,” Jessica asked her shock showing?”

Caleb blushed for the first time she noticed. “I’m sorry, it probably appeared I was showing off. It’s just a sign of respect that I can speak to her in her native tongue.”

“No not at all,” Jessica said, “you are as Kassandra put it last night a most interesting subject.”

Caleb laughed a warm rich laugh and opened the menu, “Have you had lunch here before?”

“No. I’ve never really had any quality Japanese food. What do you recommend?”

“The Geisha Roll is my favorite. Shrimp tempura and spicy crab, wrapped in pink soybean sheet, topped with tuna and avocado and served with spicy mayo and wasabi mayo. The Miso is also as good as most in restaurants in Japan.”

“Come here a lot it seems,” Jessica said.

“I do love this place, I’ve eaten some really bad food in my life, now I wish to enjoy what I like.”

Jessica smiled; “would you be so kind as to order for me then?”

“It would be my pleasure Jessica.”

“You can call me Jess everyone does.”

“As long as that is how you prefer to be addressed.”

She smiled, “of course Caleb you can call me Jess or Jessica either if fine.”

The girl came back to the table. Caleb ordered for them in Japanese.

“I forgot, what would you prefer to drink?”

“What are you having?”

“Water, it’s life’s miracle cure.”

“Same for me then.”

“They made small talk as the meal was served.”

“I assume you partner is not happy right now,” Caleb said.

“Oh? Why?”

“You having lunch with his prime suspect.”

Jessica laughed, “he doesn’t know, and you aren’t a suspect.”

Caleb smiled a knowing smile.

“That is the first time I’ve been able to read you, what is it,” she asked?

“He changed cars and was sitting down the street from my house when I went for my morning run. He parked across the street till I was seated in the patio, now he is up and over on the left watching me.”

“For fucks sake, he’s going to get fired, Jessica said.

“A man makes his own path to the destination that is the end of life.”

“I promise you are not a suspect.”

“I know Jess, if I were you would have never come to lunch.”

She laughed; “I would have wanted to though.”

“You have a lot of questions I can see it in your face.”

“I do, but I know you won’t answer most of them… Or that you can’t answer them.”

“Oh?”

Jessica sipping the Miso, “this is amazing.” Caleb nodded.

“So tell me how a white boy ends up with a mother named Maria Ramos on his birth certificate then later is adopted by a Maria Ramos?”

“It’s a story you probably don’t want to hear Jess.”

“Listen Caleb, I understand there are going to be somethings you either won’t or can’t tell me I get that. If we are going to date, I must know what I can.”

Caleb smiled. “I’d like us to date Jess.”

Jessica looked up, “I can’t believe I said that out loud,” and letting out a nervous laugh.

“Did you mean it?”

“I did, but I don’t know you Caleb.”

“Isn’t dating how you get to know someone?”

Laughing, “it is. This is a date so let’s learn.”

Caleb sighed and laid his napkin on the table, “There was a nurse who worked at ‘Her Mother’s Mercy’ hospital. She had a husband who owned a local mechanic shop. He was an honest and fair man, everyone around brought their cars to him.”

“This nurse was working one April 3rd night when a storm came through. She was outside on a break with a coworker who smoked, even though she did not smoke, she took her break with her friend every night. The storm came up fast, lightning hitting a tree behind where they were at. Both women ran under the edge of the building as wires came down beside the dumpsters sending sparks flying everywhere.”

“They called the maintenance guys who came and made sure the power was off, as they were headed in, the one nurse thought she heard something in the dumpster. Flipping the steel lid up with one of the maintenance guys flashlight in hand she looked and saw a black trash bag move. She said at first, she was scared, but she began to hear cries in the bag.”

“She ripped the bag open and in it lay a baby, he had been recently born and was covered in fluids from birth, the umbilical cord tied around his neck.”

Jessica sat tears rolling down her face.

“Her and her friend ran the baby into the hospital along with the maintenance guys. The baby turned out to be healthy, only a few hours old and it was placed in the maternity ward with all the others.”

“Police found no parents during their investigation and the nurse put her name on the birth certificate a few days later. She chose his name based off one of her favorite people in the Bible that she read every night, and the sparks that had led her to him.”

“Weeks turned into a few months, she spent all of her free time at the hospital taking care of the baby. She began to fight, not physically, with her husband. He did not want to adopt some gringo found in a dumpster. Three years to the day after she found him, her and her husband had a daughter of their own.”

“Social Services eventually came after several months and the baby was taken in. He was put in a foster home, till one day he was brought into the emergency room when he was nine. He’d gotten out and was running down the road, a passerby took him to the hospital seeing the shirtless boy covered in bruises and blood.

That same nurse was on duty upstairs when he was brought in. Her friend in the E.R. called her and she came running to the Emergency Room. The boy had been abused quite badly physically was well as other ways.”

“By now her constant arguing had cost her, her husband and her daughter her father. With no chance to adopt him as a single mother, she took the boy from the hospital after he was cared for during the night.”

“Two days later the police showed up to take the boy. He clung to her crying, terrified so bad the police finally agreed to leave him with her for the night. With help of the hospital director, many doctors, the boys testimony in the judge’s chambers about the abuse, how the foster parents had subjected him to satanic rituals.”

“The police had visited the foster home after he was brought to the E.R. They found the both the both the bed he slept it and the cradle he’d had as a baby had the number of the beast carved into them along with a goats head. There were videos of the boy being used in rituals and being covered in blood while adults laughed.”

“With the boys testimony, that of the police and seeing the boy clinging to her, terrified to part from her, everybody’s account that she was a good Christian woman, the judge signed the papers to make him her son.”

“She’d saved him from the dumpster the day he was born and then 9 years abuse rescuing him from the devil’s cradle… When she needed him to save her, he let her die on the floor of a restaurant while he was in… Well he wasn’t here.”

Jessica had broken down into sobs that wrenched heart and soul so bad, her throat and chest ached.

Caleb reached over with his napkin drying her tears. “I’m sorry Jess, I should have never told you that. I… I’m sorry.”

Jessica got up throwing her arms around his neck crying into the crease it’s crease. By now serval patrons were staring at them.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into him.

“It’s ok doll it all made me who I am, for good or bad it’s who I am. I would not change one minute of what happened if I could.”

Jessica pulled back looking into his eyes through the tears in hers, “How could you endure that if you were given a chance to not?”

“I’d have never met my mother, there was never a woman who loved a child any more than she did me. Her and Lupe showed me what life was, without them I’d never known it. I’d probably ended up dead or worse.”

Jessica now was in his lap, his strong arms comforting her. “What’s worse than death,” she asked?

“Jess… There are things far worse than death.”

“Let me in Caleb, let me all the way in.”

He sighed. Her lips met his, then puulling back, “one day, not today, but let me in.”

Caleb gently kissed her back.

The young lady from the restaurant spoke to him.

“She’s fine, just had an emotional day.”

“Very will sir,” the lady said back in English.

“I want to show you something,” Caleb said.

He leaned forward fishing his wallet out, Jessica still in his lap. I want you to see a picture of them removing an old and tattered photo, “this is Mom and Lupe. “Mom sent it to me, taken on Lupe’s eighteenth birthday.”

Jessica looked and touched it. Then her mind caught up with what she was seeing.

“Oh my god,” she gasp her hand trembling on the photo.

“What Jess?”

“I saw her in my dream last night. I saw Lupe!”

“You what?”

She touched the photo again, “I saw her, in this dress. She stood on a hill looking at me. I asked her name and she giggled and ran over the hill. I also am sure now I heard a girl whisper Caleb in my mind as I drifted off to sleep.”

Caleb smiled at her, “that sounds like something Lupe would have done. There was a hill behind your house she’d run and hide over it when we played hide-n-seek.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy,” Jessica asked looking into his eyes?

“Not one bit. Jess when people die there is an afterlife.”

“I know, how they live determines how they spend it,” she said.

“How they die also determines some things too.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I have never seen them, either of them. But I have felt my mother many, many times. Usually at night as I fall asleep. There are times I’ve woken up… When danger was near, I’d swear I could smell the body powder she wore.”

“Danger?”

“Jess…”

“I know… But can you tell me, were you at least military.”

“I did join the Army when I was eighteen.”

“So, Caleb said changing the direction of the conversation. Do you still want to date someone knowing what you do now and knowing that you don’t know things?”

Jessica pressed her lips to his in response. Pulling back with a smile and eyes red from crying. “Yes. Please don’t think I end up in a man’s lap kissing him after lunch she laughed.”

“Well dang,” Caleb said.

“What?”

“I was planning on trying to take you to lunch every day,” he said with that warm smiled.

Jessica laughed now, his smile and hypnotic eyes lifting her heart.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Jessica can ask me anything. Detective Mendez on the other hand,” he smiled even bigger.

“You butthead,” she laughed.

“Jess you can ask anything just know sometimes I may can either not answer, or you may not like the answer like your question earlier.”

“I understand. I do. Have you… and Kassandra…”

“Never.”

“Oh.”

“I love Kassandra and she does me, it’s like a family love though.”

“Who is her boss?”

“The most powerful woman in the free world.”

Caleb smiled awaiting Jessica to understand what he just said.

Jessica looked at him trying to gage if he was serious then, “Oh!” It dawned on her. “You have met her too?”

“I have. In fact I talked to her last night and she told me to ask you out.”

“What! The…!” She lowered her voice, “The President told you to ask me out?”

Caleb nodded.

“But how does she know me… that you…?”

“Kassandra told her.”

Jessica laughed, “Kassandra was playing match maker with me after you left.”

“Kassandra is a good woman. So you kiss after lunch, do you kiss after dinner too?”

“Maybe.”

“What about if I made you dinner?”

“You cook?” Jessica smiled, “I hardly cook myself.”

“I do and pretty well I think.”

Jessica lowered her lips to his ears, “if you knew what I’d do to you if you made me dinner, you’d think I was a terrible girl.”

He laughed that warm laugh, “If you knew what I’d do you’d think I’m a bad boy.”

She shifted her butt on his lap, “I think I’m starting to feel what you would do,” Jessica smiled causing him to turn blood red.

She laughed, “so I finally got you off your guard.”

“It’s easy to let it down around you Jess.”

She smiled, “What are your plans for the day?”

Jessica’s phone rang, “Excuse me,” she said getting up and sitting back in her chair. “Yes Chief? Rich and I thought so last night too. Ok Chief. Jessica hung up.”

“Trouble?”

“After you left last night another man was found almost identical to the one you were brought in about. Coroner’s report the same.”

“What did the report say Jess?”

“That they both died of severe dehydration. The man last night, his wife had seen him around nine hours earlier when she went to work, and he was fine.”

“I see.” Caleb took his phone out dialing the number from memory.

“Oh, I need your number,” Jessica said winking at him. He smiled as the phone on the other end was answered.

“Hello C.”

“Can you get copies of the coroner’s report for Mr. White and…” he said looking at Jessica?

“Davidson.”

“Davidson. “The COD appears to be the same, just wondering if someone can look at them. Thank you. Caleb laughed; I already did we are at lunch. More laughter. Yes ma’am and he hung up.”

“Kassandra?”

“The one and only,” Caleb said. “She said I better ask you out and I better not screw it up if you said yes.”

Jessica smiled, “I’m glad you did.”

“Me too Jess.”

“Was Kassandra a cop?”

Caleb looked at her, “no… Kassandra is, well a woman of many talents. The most of which is finding people who can do a job nobody else can or will.”

Jessica handed Caleb her phone, “please put your number in. I have a feeling if I asked you, you would not say it out loud.”

Caleb entered his number into her phone smiling.

“You were some kind of spy or something,” Jessica said.

“More like or something.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“Usually a man will ask a woman for her number in return.”

Caleb laughed; “I saw it on the Desk Sergeants call log by the phone.”

“Bullshit.”

Caleb repeated the number he saw on the log by the Desk Sergeant when he’d ask to call him a cab.

Jessica’s jaw dropped open, “I be damn, and you remember it.”

“I kinda have this thing where when I see something, I remember it, especially if it interests me.”

“I noticed you dialed Kassandra. Do you not store numbers in your phone?”

“No. If I were unconscious or something, someone like your partner could unlock my phone with my print and have access to information they don’t need. It has a program that erases the call log as soon as I hang up and deletes text messages as soon as I lock it.”

“So what if something were to happen to you while we were on a date?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know say a car accident.”

Caleb pulled out his phone, Jessica could tell he was sending a text. A few seconds later it vibrated.

Call Kassandra if something happens.

Jessica handed him her phone and he entered the number. “She will handle what happens next and make sure you are taken care of also.”

“Me?”

“Yes it if was a car accident you might need medical treatment, or you maybe witness to any information I say if… I’m well say out of my right mind. Trust me one phone call and you will not get just average hospital treatment either. You might even get a call from some important people checking on you.”

“You mean like the… You know who,” Jessica whispered?

Caleb laughed, “it’s ok to say her name. You said we were now dating yes?”

“Yes,” Jessica smiled.

“Chances are she will want to meet you too.”

“Oh god, I can’t meet the…”

“Sharon,” Caleb said.

“Fuck… you are on a first name basis with her?”

“She insists, not my own doing.”

“I wish I could know what you done that has such a powerful person at you beckon call.”

“Jess, she isn’t at my beckon call, I am at hers. She is… Well my friend. I don’t have many of those. Like Kassandra, her, Steven and Katherine treat me like family.”

“Wow!”

“Not bad for a kid whose mom thought he was garbage and tried to strangle him with his own…” He saw Jessica’s eyes well up again with tears. “I’m sorry baby, I guess it’s old news to me. No tears please, such a beautiful face should never see tears.”

She smiled as one traveled down her cheek. Caleb pulling her face to his and kissed the tear.

“I could get used to you calling me baby,” Jessica sniffled a little.

“I could get used to it also. Ahh I see your partner has given up.”

“Where?”

“Blue SUV.”

“He’s in his own car?” Jessica shook her head, “he’s gonna end up in jail. He just can’t let it go that he doesn’t know who you are.”

“Jess for his own safety I implore you to make him see that he needs to drop this. He’s not just putting his job in jeopardy with this.”

Jessica looked at him and nodded.

“So you ask earlier what my plans are, I have none how about yourself Jess.”

“None really, I was going to lay around today, maybe eat junk food, watch TV and be depressed I had no life.”

Caleb smiled, “if you could do what you wanted today what would it be?”

“Oh you’d think I’m silly.”

“No I would not, tell me. What would Jessica Mendez like to do today.”

“Well there is the hooky carnival around.”

“I saw in the paper, over in Hutto?”

“That’s the one.”

“Well, are you dressed for it?”

“Not really, I’d need shorts and another top and shoes.”

“Tell you what, you go change, I can pick you up or you can meet me at my place, and we will go to the hooky fair.”

Jessica smiled till her cheeks hurt.

“I mean if you want.”

“I want. I will meet you at your place say forty-five minutes.”

“Sounds good.”

“I mean you promised to fix me dinner so we should end up back at your place,” Jessica said giving a sly smile.

A hearty laugh from Caleb, “I most certainly did, and we can decide what’s for dinner and pick it up on the way home and I can fix it.”

Caleb and Jessica had a wonderful time at the fair. Both were acting like lovesick teenagers, Jessica had actually got Caleb to indulge in fair food, his first. He’d never had cotton candy and decided it was his new vice. Never really eating sweets he found he liked it a lot. Caleb’s pitching arm was still good and won her a three-foot teddy bear, she said she would call him Sparky, that made Caleb laugh to tears. Both were so stuffed, they agreed to fix dinner another night. Caleb was almost sure; Jessica was wanting to spend the night and Jessica was sure she was going to.

Pulling up in his drive he sat with the truck running looking at the house. Jessica noticed how his eyes seemed to be searching for something as she talked about what to do their next date.

“Caleb what’s wrong?”

THE END OF CHAPTER THREE