Nick was amazed at how much better his life had become since getting married and adopting Sasha. He now had a purpose beyond himself and he was finding genuine fulfillment in his role as a family man like he had never had before when business was his primary focus. Mia, too, was blossoming into her role as mother and wife. While both Nick and Mia still pursued the business side of their lives, they made the adjustments necessary to make home life a big priority. Life for the Bartonovich family was good.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Laura sat beside Valerie in the crisis center and held her hand as she cried. She had a busted lip and her left eye was almost completely swollen shut. She listened to the story patiently, a variation on a similar theme she had heard a hundred times.
"He saw me in the supermarket and followed me outside. He grabbed me and drug me down an alleyway. He tried to get me to tell him where I'm staying. When I refused, he did this to me."
Valerie paused in telling her story and sobbed before continuing.
"He wants our daughter. He said that he will find out where she goes to school and take her from me." She turned and looked at Laura with a look of desperation in her eyes. "Ms. Laura, I can't let him take my daughter! He was abusing her sexually, and that is why I left him! I can't let him take my daughter!"
"It's going to be o.k., Valerie. We're going to help you, just calm down," Laura replied.
But even as the words came out of her mouth, she wasn't sure how much she believed the words herself. If Valerie's ex had found her in the supermarket, then he was too close to finding out that Valerie was staying here at the crisis center, which was only a few blocks away. Assuming Valerie hadn't been followed back to the center today, it was likely only a matter of time until she was. Laura could feel her blood begin to boil as she thought about her own past experience with sexual abuse, how powerless she had felt, and now to hear that this woman's young daughter had been sexually abused by her ex. It was too much.
She tried to remain calm as she continued. "Valerie, do you have a picture of your ex?"
"Yes, yes I do."
"Good, I want you to go and get it. Then I want you to write down his address where he lives and works. I'm going to call the police and we'll report him."
"O.k., Ms. Laura," Valerie replied, getting up and walking off to her room to get the picture.
Laura called the police and asked them to send someone down so they could report the attack; then she went out back behind the crisis center, and once the door was shut, she let out a scream. "Ahhh!" She turned around and saw a metal trash can and kicked it with the side of her foot. She paced up and down the alleyway for several minutes before finally feeling calm enough to step back inside.
She found Valerie sitting down at a table in the common area, writing down the information Laura had requested on a piece of paper. Laura took it from her and went into the office, making a photocopy of the information and the photograph. She folded the copies and put them in her back pocket before she went back out to where Valerie was sitting. She handed the originals back to Valerie.
"Valerie, hold on to these for when the police get here. You just tell them exactly what you told me. I have to go right now, but I'll be back to check on you later. Just grab one of the other volunteers when the police get here and they will help you with everything. O.k.?"
Valerie nodded her head up and down.
Laura took out her cell phone and punched in the home address of Valerie's ex. It was about five miles from here. If she went on her bicycle, it would take her about twenty minutes. She unlocked the bicycle lock, removed her bike from the bike rack, and began pedaling.
The address was for a second floor apartment. It was a small duplex unit, with one apartment on the bottom floor and the other on the second floor. A stairway led up the exterior of the unit to the second floor apartment door. Laura positioned herself across the street where she would be hidden from view by some shrubbery. She parked her bike out of view and stood behind the plants, watching.
It took about an hour before the police finally came by. They walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. A medium-sized man answered the door. After he had talked with the police for a few minutes, they escorted him down the stairs and put him in the police cruiser.
Laura waited until they were gone before crossing the street and going up the steps to the apartment. She knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer, but no one did. She tried the door and found it locked, so she went back down to her bicycle and rode home.
It was a few days before she found out from Valerie that her ex had been released on bail. Valerie was scared out of her mind that he was going to take her daughter away and hurt her again. Laura tried to comfort her, but she was beside herself. She was still crying when Laura left for the day.
Laura wasn't scheduled to volunteer at the crisis center for a few more days. She went to her apartment, packed a few things in a backpack, and rode her bike back to the apartment where Valerie's ex lived. It was around 6:00 p.m. when she arrived. She hid her bike in the foliage and positioned herself in the same location as before so that she wouldn't be seen.
At about 7:00 p.m., the ex left the apartment. It was a Friday night, and from the way he was dressed, he was going out to party. She waited until he was out of sight before crossing the street and going up the stairs. She knocked on the door just to be sure no one else was home. No one came to the door. She looked around to be certain she wasn't being watched by some nosy neighbor. When she was certain she wasn't being watched, she slipped on some latex gloves and tried the door. It was locked, as expected. She retrieved some lock picking tools from her bag and picked the lock - a handy skill she had picked up in her drug dealing days.
Once inside, she shut the door behind her and locked it. A quick look around the house revealed that this door was the only entrance to the apartment and that no one else was around. She retrieved a black ski mask from the bag and a junior sized baseball bat. She positioned the mask on top of her head so that she could pull it down in a moment's notice, and then she looked for a place to sit where she would not be seen from the outside. Once she was positioned, she waited.
There were some down sides to this plan. If someone else came back with the ex, Laura could be in trouble. In that case, she might need the gun she had brought along that was tucked in the back of her pants. From the looks of this place, though, he wasn't going to bring a girl back here. She supposed he was the type of guy who would convince the girl to go back to her place. That way, if it got rough, he could leave after he smacked her around a bit and she wouldn't know where to find him. Scum. She could hardly wait until he got back.
There were a few false alarms from neighbors coming home or leaving, but Laura's mark finally returned at 1:00 a.m. He was whistling as his foot hit the bottom stair. She pulled down the mask over her face so that he wouldn't be able to identify her later. The door was solid wood and he hadn't left a light on inside when he left, so he wouldn't see Laura until it was too late to do anything about it.
He had just opened the door and reached over to turn on the light when Laura sprang into action. She slammed the big end of the bat hard into his solar plexus, and then she kicked him between the legs. He dropped to his knees and she easily tipped him back out the door and onto the landing with her foot. He lay there in a fetal position on his back, gasping for breath. She stepped across the threshold and took a small can of pepper spray out of her pocket. She aimed it at his face and sprayed it in his eyes. While he was screaming and trying to wipe the pepper spray out of his eyes, she reached down with both hands and rolled him down the stairs as hard as she could. She was pleased to see that he made it all the way to the bottom before he stopped. She quickly gathered her things and walked down the stairs. Laura bent down beside him as he lay there moaning, pointed her phone at him, and hit he 'play' button on the pre-recorded messag
e she had created using an internet app that disguised her voice.
"If you touch Valerie or her daughter again, it will be the last thing you ever do," said the creepy-sounding automated voice.
She quickly crossed the street into the alleyway where her bicycle was hidden, and turned around to make certain she wasn't followed. The whole episode had taken about thirty seconds. As she turned around, she just saw the door begin to open on the bottom apartment as someone came out to see what all the noise was about.
A few days later, she read about the attack in the local paper. The man had apparently sustained a concussion, broken a leg, dislocated his shoulder, and required ten stitches to close a gash in his cheek caused by an exposed nail on the wooden staircase.
"Those darned nails," Laura thought to herself as she smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Silas looked down at the document that had just arrived in the mail. He knew what it was, but forced himself to open it anyway. He had to read it for himself. There was something about reading it in print that seemed to hit him like a ton of bricks. Maggie and Silas were now officially divorced.
Resigning from the force had been a hard blow to Silas. He started drinking heavily. He told Maggie why he had quit - the truth, and she was mad as hell. He swore to get help. He even attended Gambler's Anonymous for a while, but the itch just wouldn't go away. He kept thinking that all he needed was one big score to set things right.
He was making ends meet with private detective and security work, but kept skimming money off of his paycheck to gamble with on the side so that Maggie wouldn't know. They began to have more and more fights over money. There were many times that Maggie would borrow money from her sister to cover the mortgage payment when they couldn't come up with the funds because of his gambling losses. Their marriage continued to disintegrate. Finally, Maggie gave him an ultimatum. Either stop gambling for good, or their marriage was over.
One weekend, Maggie and their son Tommy had gone to visit her sister. An old friend invited Silas over to watch the football game. Once the game was over, the guys wanted to play some cards. Silas knew he should say no, but he stayed. He told himself he would just spend twenty dollars on the game and then bow out for the night if he lost it. He ended up losing one hundred and fifty dollars before the night was over. It was money they had needed for groceries.
Maggie and Tommy returned from their trip and Maggie eventually asked Silas for some money to go to the store and buy the groceries. When he confessed that he had lost the money, she went ballistic. It had been the last straw for Maggie. She took Tommy with her and moved in with her sister that same day.
Silas put the divorce papers down on the kitchen table and poured himself a tall glass of scotch. All of this could have been fixed with money, he told himself. He thought back to when it had all really started to go downhill several years ago, and fixated on the Bartonovich affair as the starting point. The online gambling site must have been rigged, he told himself. How else could the site have won so much money back from him in so little time? That led to the debt that caused him to decide to take the job from Bartonovich in the first place. Since it was Bartonovich's site, Silas reasoned in his inebriated stupor, it was his fault that Silas' marriage had fallen apart. That was the last coherent thought he had before he passed out on the couch.
While he was asleep, he had a dream about the bank in the Caymans where Nick Bartonovich had taken J.T. Thornbacker. In the dream, he saw large bundles of cash fall out of the duffle bag that Nick was carrying out of the bank. He simply walked away without picking the bundles up. Silas ran up and began picking up the cash, stuffing it into his pockets and into his shirt until he couldn't carry anymore.
He had the hangover from hell when he woke up the next morning. He drank two glasses of water, showered, and made himself some strong coffee with two slices of toast on the side. He sat at the breakfast table eating the toast, drinking coffee, and staring at the divorce papers. By the time he had finished his toast and coffee, he had convinced himself of two things. Firstly, if he had enough money, Maggie would take him back and he would have his family again. Secondly, if his money problems had gotten drastically worse because of Nick Bartonovich, then Nick Bartonovich could make those same financial difficulties go away for good.
Silas started spending every spare moment he could researching Nick's businesses and watching his house. He determined he would learn everything he could about the man, find his weakness, and exploit that weakness to score a big pile of cash for himself.
One afternoon as he was watching Nick's house, he saw the girl leave with Mia in a car. He had determined her name was Sasha some weeks before by going through the Bartonovich's discarded trash. He followed the car as inconspicuously as he was able. They left the city and made their way over to Newark, New Jersey. Their first stop was at a florist, where they came out with a bouquet of flowers. From here, they proceeded to Fairmount Cemetery.
Silas pulled into the cemetery behind them, far enough back so as not to be noticed. He followed them until he was forced to turn down one of the side roads to prevent being discovered tailing them. He quickly exited his vehicle, grabbing his binoculars and finding a spot where he could see their car fairly well.
The car stopped. Mia and the girl got out of the car with the flowers and went over to a grave stone. He couldn't make out the name on the grave stone, but the girl appeared to be crying. They stayed a few minutes, the girl put flowers on the grave, and then they got back in the car. Silas pretended to be visiting a nearby grave when they drove by the road where he was positioned. Once they had left the cemetery, Silas got back in his car and drove down to where the girl had put flowers on the grave. It didn't take him long to locate the grave with the particular bouquet he had seen them place. He took out his phone and took a picture of the grave stone before getting back in his car and heading home.
This was something significant. Sasha was the key to Nick Bartonovich's money - he was sure of that. This graveside visit just might be the leverage he needed to turn the key. He didn't know who Katrina Byers was or how she was related to Sasha, but he would find out soon enough. And once he knew, he would be able to exploit that information to achieve his goal. He slept well that night and had the same recurring dream. In the dream, Nick Bartonovich was dropping bundles of cash for him to collect.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It was a beautiful day for sailing. J.T., Laura, and James had taken the sailboat out in the morning. They had been out for around two hours and were about to stop and drop anchor for lunch.
Since starting their new lives in the Cayman Islands, J.T. had developed a passion for sailing. About a year before, he had purchased this thirty-two foot Hunter 326 sailboat. It had one mast with two sails in the classic Bermuda rig style. There were two couches in the main cabin, with a table in the middle, two sleeping areas which were each behind their own bulkhead, a lavatory, and an open galley.
James went below and was beginning to get the meal ready. He had developed into quite an amateur chef and had prepared one of his latest dishes for them to try. Today it was going to be jalape?o Tilapia served over angel-hair pasta with grated Parmesan cheese, accompanied by a white wine.
J.T. was at the wheel and was about to lower the sails and come to a stop. Laura had just come up from the hold after retrieving some sunscreen. She put her sunglasses down on a small seat located at the stern of the boat just behind the wheelhouse. The seat was built into the railing, with the second rail curved out and around the seat to provide back support.
She was just about to put sunscreen on her face when the movement of the boat caused her glasses to slide off of the seat and onto the ledge below, just past the railing at the back of the boat. She put the sunscreen in the cup holder next to the seat and grabbed the railing, stepping over the side of the boat and onto the ledge. As she was reaching for her glass
es the boat hit a wave and lurched to the side, causing Laura to lose her balance. She fell forward, hitting her head on the side of the boat before falling into the water.
"Wow, did you see that wave we just hit?" J.T. said as he turned around to where he thought Laura was sitting. He saw her orange PFD in the water about twenty yards behind the boat, where she was floating face down. He immediately began turning the boat around, heading back in her direction.
"James! Get up here! Laura fell off the boat!" J.T. yelled.
James came rushing up from the galley. "Where is she?!"
By this time, J.T. had succeeded in turning the boat around and was headed straight towards where Laura was floating, still face down in the water.
"Right there!" J.T. exclaimed as he pointed to where she was. "I think she hit her head and got knocked out. I'll pull up alongside and you jump in to get her."
When the boat was close enough, James jumped in and swam over to Laura, immediately flipping her over so that her head was no longer face-down in the water. He began swimming with Laura in tow back to the boat.
"Hang on, Laura! Hang on!" he exclaimed.
J.T. turned the boat back around once more after passing by Laura, dropped the sails, and engaged the motor so that he could come up slowly on his friends. When he got close enough, he tossed out a life preserver. James grabbed on with one arm and held Laura with the other as J.T. hauled them in.
Once they had Laura on the deck, J.T. could see that Laura's lips were blue, indicating she wasn't breathing. He immediately removed her life vest and began performing CPR. After about thirty seconds of CPR, Laura vomited. J.T. rolled her onto her side so that the vomit wouldn't go down her windpipe. Laura began coughing and spitting, gasping for air.