Diamond in the Rough: Chapter 61

John pushed the drawer shut in his desk, and absently drank from the coffee cup next to him.  It was cold, and he grimaced.  Dumping it into the trashcan, he shouted, "Brody!"

The door opened, "You called me?"  Brody said.

"Anything new on that case with Mitch?"

"No.  No one has seen this woman.  It's as if she has faded off the face of the earth."

"Do people really do that?  Maybe she has."

"I don't know but, Boss, she's hard to find, that's for sure."

"We'll go house to house if we have to."

"Given any thought to why someone might erase tapes of visitations?"

"Why, have you?"  He wanted an outside opinion.  Anything.

"Someone didn't want to be seen visiting, or someone didn't want their visitors seen."

"Exactly.  But why?"

It was silent a minute.  Brody said, "A plan?"

"Now you're talking."

***

"You're reading that again."  Blair said.  He had the same book, The Eighfold Path.

"Yep."

"Is it helping?"

"Probably just in distracting me.  Everything set for Christmas?  It's almost here."

"I guess.  I hate to tell you this, but . . ."

"Go ahead,"  he put his book down.  "It's been a long day, and I know nothing can make it worse."

"Dorian and Timothy had a falling out."

He laughed, then, "No!  Really?"  he feigned shock, then, "Actually, that made my whole day."

"Now, Todd, she is my aunt.  I just don't know what we're going to do."

"Invite them all, screw it.  Let them work out their weird shit."

"You think so?"

"Oh, definitely.  Make sure your mother is there, Dorian, Timothy, Sister Rebecca Katherine.  She'll enjoy something lighthearted to manage instead of Bea, at least for a while."

"You called her Bea."

"Well, Bea, Bitsy, Barbara.  I hear the sister call her Bea, I guess it stuck.  I always call her Momma in here,"  he touched his temple.

"You okay?  It was a hard day today, Todd.  Especially for you."

He paused, pushing away the flashes in his head of the hand near the lightbulb in the ceiling with the chain pull.  "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Worried about her?"

"Yeah, I am.  Christmas was always hard for us.  Peter usually found a reason to beat me on Christmas, not sure why, but it seemed like he liked to.  I can count the Christmases he didn't flip out, if that makes it clearer.  That means she's going to struggle with memories like mine.  Who knows what he did to her in private."

"I wish we could do something."

"We are.  We got her to Mountainview, to Ray.  That's all for now."

"I'm sorry we can't be with her this holiday, but maybe next year."

"That's a good goal.  This book here," he said, picking it up, "says we should worry about the moment we are in, not the one next or the one before."

"Okay."  She waited, and in the silence, she smiled at him.  "Does this mean we can't talk about what to do with Timothy and Dorian?"

He put the book back down. "Are they going to have one of those smoosh names that I hate?  Like Timorian, or Dimothy?"

She slapped him with her hand on his shoulder lightly and said, "No, I don't think so."

"Don't put it past Jack." He said.

"What are we going to do about this?"

"Nothing.  Like I said, let them hash their crap out.  Makes for good entertainment.  Beats the Peter Manning special."

She said, "Well, you're definitely right about that.  What do you wish for?"

"At Christmas?"

"Yeah.  What do you dream of?"

"It's simple, isn't it?" he said, and moved her hair away from her face with his first finger.

***

"Come on, let's get this last bit on the tree." Helen said.  

Tina, going into the box and digging down, found the last few ornaments at the bottom.  She reached, but because the box was very tall, she couldn't reach.  Leaning further, she almost toppled over when Anthony came up behind her and grabbed her waist, just in time.  She stood up and said, "Thank you, I don't know what happened there."

"You're just a little too petite for that," he said.

She said, "Didn't you have a court thing, like yesterday or something?"

"Yeah.  I didn't quite get the house back yet, but there's another court date to continue proceedings.  Some paperwork on the part of the state was not in order."

"Oh.  It won't be long then," she said, smiling.

He smiled back.  Helen said, "Hey, Blondie over there, let's finish up.  Tomorrow's Christmas Eve."

Anthony said, "Let me help," and reached down into the box, retrieving the ornaments.

The tree was done, the items for the Christmas Eve dinner were ready, and Tina, somehow, had forgotten about her goal of attaining the Bhadra Diamond, until Anthony said, "What do you wish for this Christmas?"

She thought about it and said, "I don't know.  Should I say what everyone says, 'peace in the world, the love of a good man,' all that kind of thing?"

"If it's true," Anthony said.  

"What about you?"

"My life back.  And peace in the world and the love of a good woman."

She laughed.

***

"Another Christmas in the hole," Mitch's new roommate bellowed.  He was a very tall, very hefty black man who had the habit of spitting.  "Whaddya wish for, Laurence?  Come on, you know you got some little teeny wish in there, some Christmas specialty.  Mines is just plain, straight up ass.  A blonde, with some major front action."

Mitch ignored the man, and turned over in his cot.

He continued, "And some long ass legs."

For some reason, Mitch's mind began to drift to Blair Manning.  It would have been delicious, what he wished he had done to her when he had her in his clutches.  

"And if she has long legs, you know where they'll be.  Right around your back."  His cellmate collapsed onto his cot, and opened a candy bar and started to eat it.  While chewing, he continued to talk, "And then, maybe you can talk her into some kinky stuff."

Mitch finally said, "Can you keep your sexual fantasies to yourself?  I'm a Man of God.  The Messenger."  

The man chuckled.  "You ain't no Man of God if you is in here."

"Can you stifle it?"  Mitch asked again.

The man got quiet, taking his girlie magazine from under his mattress and thumbing through the pages. Mitch went into his own private fantasy; the one where he kidnapped Todd's first born son.  But, of course, first, he had to escape. Then he imagined taking him and holding him hostage, and letting him know what a vile and useless man his father was.  He'd hold him for ransom, in exchange for every cent Manning ever had.  Yes, he wanted the Lord Fortune back.  That was what he wanted most.  But he also loved to imagine different scenes, such as Blair, squirming under him while Todd was bound and gagged, much like he was the day he was put into his father's tomb with his rotting corpse.  Or Starr, being drugged and turned into one of his followers.  He smiled in contentment.

He wanted the Lord money, which he planned to get back.  And, if he took down Manning's family, got a bit of affection from his wife, and brutalized his son along the way, it might not be so bad at all.  

"Merry Christmas, Manning," he said softly.

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