Emmy And Me

Emmy went back to our room and slept on and off for the rest of the day while I took care of business. Jim Turner and I had a meeting with the police detectives in charge of the case in a small conference room there at the hotel. The detectives wanted to speak with Emmy as well, but Jim made it clear that Emmy was recuperating and not available for questions.

The detectives grumbled, but there was really nothing they could do. They couldn’t compel her to speak with them without some sort of legal action, and since she was plainly the victim in all this that simply wasn’t in the cards.

I merely reiterated what I’d said before, adding no new details. The officers pressed me on my use of extreme force, but I pointed out that I was simply defending myself and that I certainly hadn’t initiated the violence. The police detectives didn’t seem satisfied with my answers, but again, plenty of witnesses and bystander videos had all corroborated that we were the victims of a planned ambush with intent to murder us, so really, what could the police do but accept my story?

At the end of the meeting Jim made it clear that I’d be available to answer questions, but the tour was heading to Miami and we wouldn’t be in Atlanta past the next morning. Again, the police didn’t like that, but they couldn’t legally stop us.

“I’m heading back to The City in the morning,” Jim said as we left the meeting. “Tyler will act as local representative and contact for the investigation. He has your number- let me give you his contact card,” Jim said, and we transferred the information to my phone and I set it so it would ring even if the phone was set to silent.

Emmy was asleep when I got back to the room, so I went out into the suite’s sitting room to take care of more communications I had to deal with. I had quite a few emails from my division Heads asking for more information, for starters. For the most part I kept it simple, saying that I needed to be with Emmy for the rest of the tour, which would be four more weeks. If there was anything absolutely crucial that had to be taken care of in person I could fly in for a meeting, but I’d prefer to do everything remotely until we returned to California.

The only one who got any additional information was Nash Greene, since we knew him socially outside of the office. He and his family had been to dinner at our house a few times, and we’d been over to theirs as well, so he knew Angela as a person and not just in the abstract.

After that, I waded into the Saturday drive group chat, scrolling way back to read everything everybody had posted. At the start it was a lot of, “Holy fucking shit! Did you see the news?” and some questions for me, but those mostly faded when it became obvious to the guys that I wasn’t answering my phone. After my post about having some shit to take care of they (again, mostly Jimmy) confidently predicted that shit was going to get very taken care of, permanently. Everybody in the group sent off-chat texts directly to me, asking how I was doing, and how was Emmy holding up and expressing disbelief that Angela was gone. I responded to each of those with a bit more care, since after all, Angela had been a friend to all of them as well.

Andy and Jenna had left a voice mail, so I called Andy rather than texting him.

“Leah, are you O.K.?” Andy demanded the moment he answered the phone. “I heard you got stabbed?”

“Yeah, my upper thigh,” I said. “It hurts, but in the relative scale of things I could complain about, it’s low on the list.”

“How’s Em?” he asked, his voice turning soft. “Will she be alright?”

“Physically she’ll recover, but emotionally… We both really loved Ange so much, you know?” I said, my voice getting a little wobbly.

“God, I can’t even imagine. What an incredibly shitty thing to have happen. When we heard we just couldn’t believe it. Jenna’s a wreck- she’s been crying off and on ever since we heard,” Andy said.

“Yeah, I have, too,” I admitted. “I still can’t…”

“Lee,” Andy said, his voice soft again. "Anything we can do, you know we’re here for you and Em. Seriously. You need us to come to Atlanta to help you guys out or whatever, just say the word and we’re there.”

“Thanks, Andy. I mean it- thanks. You know they’re going to finish the tour, right? Well, I’ve told work that I’m going to stay with Emmy and not come back to LA for another month. Maybe after the tour finishes in Los Angeles we won’t stick around, either, depending on how much peace and quiet we can get.”

“I get that,” Andy agreed. “But still, like I said- if you guys need anything at all… Hey, you know that goes for Dar, too, right? He wanted me to tell you that he has family there in Georgia, and if you need anything at all give him a call and he’ll get you sorted. He said even if it’s just a place to go and be away from reporters or whatever, they’ll do anything they can for you.”

“Darius said that?” I asked, surprised.

“At practice yesterday, well… You know what? It doesn’t matter,” Andy said.

“What?” I pressed.

“Like I said before, a lot of the guys can be real jackasses when it’s just us, you know? Remember how I told you about Case saying stuff about Emmy?”

“I remember,” I told him.

“Well, everybody was talking about the video, you know, and Steve K was saying that now maybe they understood what he’d meant when he said you were not somebody to ever fuck with, right? Well, Darius got really pissed off and started yelling at everybody to shut the fuck up and be respectful. He made it really clear that he took it very personally that they were making light of the brutal murder of one of the nicest people he’s ever known. He said that if any of them had even ever met Angela they would understand why he was so upset- that she was one of the really good ones. He said that if he was there he’d have gladly taken a knife to save her. He said anyone who could call himself a man would do just the same.”

“I’ll give him a call,” I told Andy. “That means a lot that he said that.”

“So, yeah, when he says that his family will do whatever they can, he means it. He thinks of you guys as friends, and to him, that’s important- real important.”

“I’ll call him. Thanks for telling me that. And tell Jenna that- well, I was gonna say that she was Ange’s best friend, you know? But I’m sure Jenna knows that. Just tell her that Emmy and I, we know that Angela wasn’t just taken from us, but from a lot of other people, too. It’s going to be tough facing her parents at the funeral next week.”

“Send me the details,” Andy commanded. “We’ll be there, too.”

“It’s going to be in Colombia,” I objected.

“Doesn’t matter,” Andy said. “We’ll be there.”

I called Darius next. I told him what Andy had said, and he said that his prayers went out to Emmy and me.

“I don’t need to pray for Angela,” he said. “‘Cause I know for a fact she went to Heaven. She’s in a better place now.”

His sincerity, his complete conviction that it was true, brought tears to my eyes even though he meant it to comfort me.

“If anybody gets to go to Heaven,” I agreed, trying to keep my voice from breaking, “It’d be Angela.”

When it came time, I made sure I was there when the hospital discharged Tiny.

“Jeremy, I’m sending you to our house in New York. There’s nobody in Los Angeles, but in New York Luisa will be there to help take care of you until you’re back on your feet,” I explained.

“I don’t need anybody-” Tiny started to protest, but I interrupted.

“Jeremy, you had multiple life-threatening knife wounds. I need you to rest, recover, and get better. It doesn’t matter to me if it takes a month, six months, a year… Whatever. Luisa is a really good person, and while she’s not a nurse, she’s a great cook. Wally can take you to the doctor, things like that. In Los Angeles you’d be all alone, and that isn’t what you need right now. You were strong when we needed you to be, and I’ll forever be grateful for that. It’s no exaggeration to say that you saved Emmy’s life, nearly giving up your own in the process.”

“I would have,” he said.

“I know you would,” I said, resting my hand on his enormous shoulder, diminished by the wheelchair he was sitting in. “And that means everything to me. So now, just rest. Recover as quickly as you can, Jeremy. When you’re healed, I’ll need you covering Emmy’s back again.”

“I hate being useless,” he replied, disconsolate.

“Jeremy- look at me,” I said, lowering myself in front of his chair so we could see eye to eye. “Think long-term. Right now you’re injured, that’s all. Not useless. I need you- Emmy needs you- to recover as completely as you can, so you can resume your duties. I expect you to be there for her for years, you understand me? Taking a few months now to rest and heal up means that you’ll be strong for many years to come. So take the time you need now. Rest, eat well, use the gym to build your strength back up, keep your doctor appointments, and you’ll be back where we need you soon enough.”

“Thank you,” Jeremy said, and I thought I saw his dark eyes growing damp.

“Jeremy, thank you. When it was time, you did what was needed. I couldn’t ask for more.”

After dropping Jeremy off at the FBO at Charlie Brown Field for his flight to Teterboro, I stopped at a florist on the way back to the hotel.

“You’re Emmy Lascaux’s wife, aren’t you?” asked the girl behind the counter.

“Yes,” I responded, not really wanting to get into a conversation about how she’d seen the video.

“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about what happened to you guys,” she said, her voice sympathetic. “I been following Angela on Insta for a while now, and when she posted about being in a relationship with you and Emmy… Well, I just couldn’t believe it, you know? But the pictures… she was so happy, you know? It was obvious. And to think they killed her because she was carryin’ Emmy and you’s baby. What kind of person would even do that?” she asked.

“Evil people, that’s who,” I said. Sure, I appreciated that she saw the loss we’d suffered, but I still wanted to escape with no more discussion.

“They’re sayin’ it was white supremacists that did it. Like, Aryan Brotherhood or whatever,” she said.

“Honestly, I don’t know who they were,” I said, taking the bouquet of roses.

“That just ain’t right,” the girl said. “People should just get along. What’s skin color mean, anyway? It shouldn’t mean anything at all.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” I agreed, sliding out the door before she could add anything else. She meant well, but her sympathy wasn’t what I needed right then.

The next morning Emmy and I (along with our half dozen bodyguards) flew to Miami, Emmy and I avoiding talking about how excited Angela had been to show us the town she’d lived in for three years. The truth is, we were trying to avoid talking about Angela much at all. Sure, we were both thinking about her plenty, but it seemed that we’d unconsciously decided that not talking about her was the best way to prevent breaking into tears- tears that were never far away in any case.

Once we settled into the Marriott and Emmy went to take a nap, Grant called a meeting for our security detail in our suite’s living room. He introduced everybody to everybody else. Of course I knew Eddie, Nick and Mia, but the two ex-Marines were new to me.

“This is Ted Mack and that’s Ron Wright,” Grant said. “Both excellent guys with plenty of time in the Corps’ protective services. Once I get them up to speed they’ll be taking over for me while I go deal with things in Cleveland,” he said.

“How committed are they?” I asked.

“Completely,” Grant said, understanding my question. “I’ve read them in on the current situation, and they’re onboard for future action.”

“Permission to speak?” Ted Mack (the redheaded one) asked.

“There’s no need to be so military,” I assured him.

“Habits,” Ted said with a sheepish smile. “Sergeant Henry was our NCO,” he said, indicating himself and Ron. “Now, in general, you gotta trust your sergeant, right? But with him, it was more than that. So when he reached out and asked if we would work with him again in the civvie world, we both jumped at the chance. When he, uh, indicated that we may get involved in…” he trailed off, looking to Ron for help.

“When Sarge said that we might get in some shit, some real shit, we knew that he wouldn’t be askin’ if it was somethin’ he didn’t think we, well, I guess that we’d be O.K. with, ma’am, if you understand. And we are. O.K. with it, I mean. Once he read us in and we actually met some of the, um, night people, and he told us that there’d be retaliatory action, well, like I said, he called the right guys.”

“Did he explain the restriction against firearms?” I asked.

“He did, ma’am, and while I understand the point, it seems like a real bad idea. We’ve seen the video from Atlanta, and if Sarge had his weapon he could have neutralized all of the attackers quickly,” Ron said.

“That’s true,” I admitted. “But there was a big crowd of innocent bystanders, and there would have been a non-zero chance of civilian casualties for one, and for two, we’d be starting an arms race. Once we started using firearms, then our opponents would, too. If those nine guys had smuggled handguns into the ballpark instead of non-metallic knives, they would have killed us all before we realized we were at risk.”

“Fair point,” Ted admitted.

Turning to Mia, I asked, “You’re carrying, though?”

“Always,” she replied.

“I want you to play the role your dad has been doing. You’ll be part of our entourage, but don’t look like a bodyguard. I want you to stay a few steps away and keep an eye out. Ask your dad what I mean, and how to play it. Ted, Ron, you’ll be working with Eddie and Nick in a more traditional role. I need you to go get some nice suits today to look the part. Grant will take you shopping- he knows what’s required,” I instructed. “By the time we head to the stadium for the show tomorrow you need to look like professional bodyguards.”

When everybody stood to leave, I indicated that Mia should stay.

“Mia, you’re going to be the spotter. That’s your job. You don’t have to get involved any further than identifying potential problems, but if things do go sideways and you get caught up in it, feel free to shoot anybody that needs shooting,” I told her.

“Roger that,” Mia replied.

“Another thing. Once the hornet’s nest calms down and the New York cell goes back to believing that they’ve gotten away with it, we’re going in. I’m going to need you to do double duty on that one. First off, we’ll need you to analyze the traffic in and out of what was it? Thomas Brothers? And let us know when we can catch the most of them in there. Second, when it comes time to kick their door in, I want you on a rooftop or something nearby with your rifle and scope. We’ll need you to keep the location clean.”

Mia nodded, a grim, determined expression. “I read you loud and clear, boss. Loud and clear.”

“Good. Shit is going to get very, very real for these assholes, but first we need to lull them into a false sense of security. I have Michael flooding the Atlanta area with our guys, looking for any signs of who might have been behind the attack. Of course they won’t find anything, but…”

Mia nodded, understanding. “The drawback to letting them have time to themselves is the possibility of another attack, since they didn’t manage to kill Emmy in the last one,” Mia pointed out.

“There is some thinking that the babies might have been the real targets,” I told her, “But you’re right, which is why we need to act as soon as we can. We can’t rush it, though. We need to wait for the right moment, then act decisively. We can’t let any of them slip away.”

“We won’t,” Mia assured me. “We can track them down anywhere in the New York area.”

We didn’t go out that night. We ate at the hotel’s restaurant, which was serviceable, but not great. Emmy was quiet during dinner, and when I asked her about it later before bed she said she was still sore, that’s all, but I didn’t believe that was it. The loss was going to affect her for a very long time- it certainly was affecting me, and I didn’t lose the small life forming inside me, or, to be completely honest, have the mother instinct going off quite as hard, either.

Emmy had built a future with Angela, a future filled with children, and now that had been taken away in a matter of moments. No, she was not O.K., and wouldn’t be for a very long time. I wasn’t O.K., either but my misery was nothing in comparison.

I woke up early the next morning, thanking Ron and Nick for being on guard outside our hotel suite’s door as I made my way to the hotel’s fitness center. I complimented Ron on his new suit, telling him it looked good on him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a grin. “This is the first suit I’ve ever owned- I had to borrow one for my brother’s wedding.”

“When things settle down, we’ll need to get you a couple more, so better get used to wearing it,” I told him, and he swelled up a bit.

“I think I can do that, ma’am.”

“Nick, have you shown him your knife from Japan?” I asked, and Nick smiled, too.

“No, my queen, but now that you mention it, I will,” he said.

“Nick, you and Eddie need to educate Ron and Ted in our ways. These guys are now our brothers in arms, so they need to understand what we’re fighting for,” I told him.

“Yes, my queen. We’ve been doing that. They have both been very… receptive to learning.”

“Excellent,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “I knew I could count on you.”

My workout started with a run on the treadmill. My leg hurt with every step, and as odd as it might sound, I took a certain degree of comfort in that. In fact, I concentrated on the pain as a way to motivate myself to push harder. Of all of us, I’d gotten off the lightest, physically speaking. Even compared to Grant, my injury was fairly trivial. Yes, the stab had been deep, but just in the muscle of my thigh and nowhere near anything any more vital than that. It would heal in time and I’d have no more to show for it than another scar- not even a limp.

Yes, I recognized that focusing on the injury was some sort of self-flagellation to assuage my guilt at not having borne more of the suffering, but whatever. I knew that Papí had been right about survivor’s guilt, but that didn’t magically make it go away.

“If I had only…” was going to haunt me for the rest of my life, and as strange as it is to say it, I embraced that knowledge.

Our whole entourage went to the sound check with Emmy and the rest of the band. Yes, it did look a bit ridiculous to have so many guys looking like Secret Service officers standing around us in a protective cordon, but I don’t think anybody would have questioned it in the slightest after what had happened.

Lee and Jackson both asked Emmy if she was still sure she wanted to perform, and she said that she did, and was ready. She seemed fairly normal during the actual sound check, and when she needed to sing for the mic testing her voice was clear and sure, which seemed to reassure the guys. On the down side, it turned out that Emmy couldn’t stand and hold the weight of her guitar for very long, though, so the roadies had to figure out some sort of stool for Emmy to sit on to play.

‘Won’t be dancing’ came to mind as it became obvious that Emmy had meant that literally, and not metaphorically as I’d understood it. Still, Emmy didn’t waver in her insistence that she was ready and able to play the full set that night, so everybody accepted that she was going to give it her best.