Garcia

I’m going to get a fucking speeding ticket trying to get home. I knew this was a possibility. My brothers got to her before I could find a way to tell her about my past. I’m such a damn fool for not telling her the truth when we first met. She deserved to know what she was getting into. I didn’t give her all the information she needed to make an informed decision about me. I lied by omission and that’s no different than a bold-faced lie.

I pull into the driveway at home and have a sinking feeling when I don’t see a shiny black Bentley or Kimber’s Mazda CX 3 parked anywhere. I jump out of my Rover and run up the steps, the door isn’t locked and just inside on the floor is my gun.

Shit, she must have been really scared to get the gun out of the safe, she’s deathly afraid of it. But seeing it lying on the floor has me in a panic. What happened? Is she okay, is Grayson okay? Fuck. I grab the gun to put it back in the safe and freeze when I feel the full weight of it in my hand. It’s loaded, goddammit, this is all my fault.

I drop the clip out to check that it’s still full and put them both back into the safe and lock it.

“Kimber?” I call out but there is no answer. It’s eerily quiet, too quiet for a house with a baby.

“Baby, are you okay?” I sweep the first level and find nothing, as in nothing. No receiving blankets, no toys, not even a stray sock. Part of me doesn’t want to go upstairs and confirm what I’m beginning to dread but I have to. If she’s gone I need to know right away so I can start looking for her.

I take the stairs three at a time taking turns yelling her name and Grayson’s. Our bedroom looks like it always does, bed made up neatly, everything in its place. Except for the strap of a bra poking out of Kimber’s dresser drawer.

I open it and find two of her perfect neat rows of panties and bras gone. I slam the drawer so hard the mirror attached to the dresser shakes and hits the wall behind it.

She’s gone. I don’t have to look any further to know she’s not coming back for a while, if ever. In the closet a section of her casual clothing is empty and none of her toiletries are in our bathroom. I didn’t need to check but I did to be 100% sure.

Grayson’s room was more disturbing, there was absolutely nothing left in his dresser. All of his diapers and bathing supplies gone, his blankets and stuffed animals stripped away. It’s all very permanent, very final, very unhappily ever after.

After standing in the nursery in shock staring at the nothingness that’s left for too long, I snap to attention and race downstairs and out to the Rover. I’m dialing my phone and pulling out of the driveway when someone bangs on my window.

“Garcia! Hey, open the window!” Tiana yells smacking the palm of her hand on the glass. I press the button to lower the window and start to tell her I’m in a hurry, but I stop when she says she saw Kimber leave.

“Why did Kimber leave? I saw a couple of sketchy guys on your porch earlier and I’m not exaggerating when I say I had my finger poised and ready to dial 911. But they left and a few minutes later, she did, too. It looked like she was leaving for like… well, for a long time.”

“She was, I mean she did, she’s gone. I need to go and find her, I don’t have time to talk.”

Deep frown lines crease her forehead and she narrows her eyes at me. “Is she in danger? Why would she go off without telling you where she was going?”

“I don’t know what happened, did you see if she left alone?”

“Yeah, she did. I came over to try and talk to her but she was really shaken up. I didn’t want her to drive like that but she wouldn’t listen. She kept throwing things into her car and mumbling something about being a mommy now and protecting her baby.”

Great, she thinks she has to protect Grayson from me and I’ve never done a criminal thing in my life.

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, she was in a bad way. Garcia, I’m really worried about her, she shouldn’t be behind the wheel when she’s so upset especially with the baby in the car.”

“I know, I know, I’m going to look for her.”

“I’m going with you,” she runs around the front of my truck and jumps in before I can protest. I press dial and call her mother and peel out of the drive and down the street without knowing where I’m going.

“India? Have you spoken to Kimber?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“We had a misunderstanding, I came home and she’s not here, I thought maybe she would be on her way to your house.”

“I haven’t spoken to her since the day before yesterday. What kind of misunderstanding?” she asks, her voice full of suspicion and concern.

“I can’t explain right now but if she calls or stops by please ask her to call me right away, okay?”

“I don’t like the sounds of this, Julián, where is my grandson?”

“With her, I’m sure he’s safe. She’s just a little upset and I need a chance to explain something to her.”

“Are you messing around on my daughter, Captain Garcia? Because if you are I have a very sharp knife in my kitchen that I can cut your…”

“God no, India, never. I would never step out on Kimber. I love her and Grayson more than anything in the world. This has to do with my family, it’s nothing like that.”

“You had better not be lying to me, I know where you live.”

“No, Ma’am, I swear I’m not lying. I need to go and make some other calls, though.”

“Let me know when you find them.”

“I will.”

We hang up and I listen to Tiana tell Drake she’s with me looking for Kimber and Grayson. She hangs up and asks, “So, where are we going?”

“I don’t know, I thought for sure she would have called her mom but she didn’t. She could still be on her way to her house, though, she’s an hour away.”

“Where else could she have gone?”

I rack my brain trying to think of places she might go. She works from home and she hasn’t been back in North Carolina long. It’s hard to make new friends when you’re stuck at home with a baby all day every day other than the neighbors.

The only other person that she knows is Caleb. I fucking hate the thought of her turning to him at a time like this. He wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of her anger toward me and turn it around to benefit himself.

“I have an idea, I don’t like it but I have to check,” I say and bring up Caleb’s phone number. My thumb hovers over the dial button. I have to plan my next move carefully.

If she hasn’t called him, I’ll be giving him a heads up that she’s upset with me. If she has called him he probably won’t bother answering unless he wants to rub it in my face and I’m pretty sure he’s the type that would love to do that.

I lay the phone down. I’ll wait. I know his address. We can drive past first and see if her car is there, at least. If it isn’t then I’ll call him.

I make a couple of turns and start toward Caleb’s classy upscale neighborhood.

“What happened, Julián? You guys are the perfect couple, everyone says it, I’ve never even seen either of you frown at the other.”

“It’s a long story.”

She raises her eyebrows and looks out the window. “I’m not going anywhere.”

What the hell, I may as well tell her, everybody’s going to find out now anyway.

“I come from a family of criminals. I don’t have anything to do with them so I’ve never talked about it with Kimber.”

She pauses to let that sink in. “What kind of criminals?”

“Bad ones.”

“If you don’t have contact with them and you’re not a criminal then what’s the problem? Wait… were those guys part of your family this morning?”

“Yes, my brothers and who knows what they told her. I’m the only one who didn’t go into the family business and they hate me for it.”

“Oh, shit, this sucks. Did you try calling her?”

Call her? Why didn’t I think of that? She probably won’t answer but I could try, it’s worth a shot.

“No, not yet.”

“Call her, she might be waiting for your side of the story. She seems to be a pretty reasonable woman, maybe she’ll hear you out.”

I dial her number and wait until it rings through to voicemail. “Kimber, call me please. I don’t know what my brothers said to you but I need to explain. I love you. I love Grayson. At least call me and let me know you’re safe, or text, whichever.”

I disconnect the call and glance over at Tiana. She looks so sympathetic and sad, like she just listened to a hopeless plea for a last chance.

Maybe she’s right.

Fuck, how did I mess this up so bad? I was walking on air a couple of weeks ago with a perfect family, great career, and not a care in the world. Now it’s all falling down around me and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Have you tried? Calling her, I mean?” I ask.

“Yes, about a million times. I left messages and texts but nothing.” She looks out the window for a while and I sense she notices the houses are slowly changing from middle-class to upper-middle-class.

“Where are we going again?”

“To her ex-husband’s house.”

She whips her head and looks at me with her wide multicolored eyes. “Why? She would never turn to that piece of shit.”

So she knows about him. Kimber must have really opened up to her, she doesn’t usually like to talk about her failed marriage.

“There have been some changes lately.”

“Like what? You can’t reverse douchebag-ism.”

I like this girl, she tells it how it is. Unfortunately, she might be wrong in this case.

“He is filing for shared custody of Grayson. I think his girlfriend left him and he’s trying to get Kimber back, personally. But he says he was in shock when he found out she was pregnant and made a bad decision.”

“Ha, a bad decision? That’s an understatement!”

“I know, right? He’s been snooping around, showed up at our door one morning wanting to see his son. He didn’t even bother to come and see him when he was born, he didn’t even know his goddamn name.”

Her face is twisted with confusion. “Something isn’t right about that. The way she told the story he was a party animal with a slutty girlfriend who wasn’t interested in being a family man.”

“Yeah, well I guess he’s turning over a new leaf,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

She snorts, “Bullshit. Once a douchebag, always a douchebag.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.