Artifacts Read online

  “Younger or older brother?” Aldric flipped the paper menu open to scan the selections.

  Elliot froze for a second, as though something were wrong. Before Aldric could ask him if he was okay, Elliot drew in a breath, then touched his temples, where he had a few strands of gray. “Younger. Chris is thirty-two, Natty is thirty-four and I’m the old man at forty-something. Do you have any siblings?”

  Aldric decided he’d get the bacon burger and sweet potato fries. He’d never had the latter before. “I have two, like you. Twins. They’re almost twenty years older than me.”

  Elliot’s eyes widened. “That’s two whole decades!”

  “Yeah. I was a surprise,” Aldric muttered. That was a nicer description than his family had called him at times. “Gregory and Simon are forty. I’m twenty-one.” He hoped Elliot wouldn’t ask any more questions about them, or Aldric’s family, period. Hoping to avert such possibilities, Aldric tapped the menu. “Can I get this? The bacon-mushroom burger?”

  “Of course, of course.” Elliot moved back behind the counter and picked up something black. He stuck one finger in a silver ring that had smaller holes in it, and it took Aldric a moment to realize Elliot was using some kind of old phone.

  Aldric had vague memories of his parents having a landline, but by the time he’d been old enough to care about it, they’d had cell phones. Even so, none of the phones Aldric had ever seen had looked like the one Elliot was now speaking into.

  Elliot grinned as if he knew what Aldric was thinking, making Aldric look away and take another drink of his tea. When Elliot had looked at him then, it had occurred to Aldric that his potential boss was not only quite handsome, but very attractive. He’s about the same age as my brothers, so gross. Aldric needed a job more than he needed to get laid, and he’d never been attracted to older men, either—and he wasn’t about to start down that road now.

  Not that Elliot would be interested in someone like him. Even though he’d only spent fifteen minutes in Elliot’s presence, Aldric could already tell that the guy was much classier than he’d ever be. There was also the very real possibility that Elliot wasn’t gay, despite the vibes Aldric was reading. Well, it didn’t matter one way or another.

  Elliot hung up and tapped the black phone. “It’s an ancient rotary phone. My grandparents and parents had these, way back when, although we’d upgraded to a push-button phone by the time I started school. Want to see how it works?”

  Aldric was itching to do just that. “Yeah, I mean, yes, I’d like that.”

  The lesson taught him more than how to dial out on the phone—it taught him that Elliot was a patient and kind man. He encouraged and answered any questions Aldric had, which was freeing in a way that Aldric hadn’t experienced before. The old saying about children being seen but not heard had been a rule in his parents’ home.

  “You have an inquisitive nature and a good brain.” Elliot propped a hip against the counter. “I think you’ll do well here.”

  Aldric blinked in surprise. He was glad he’d set the teacup down, or else he might have dropped it, considering how much his hands trembled. “I have the job?”

  Elliot nodded. “You do.”

  “But…what about references and work history?” Aldric regretted asking as soon as the words were spoken.

  “I like to believe I have excellent judgment when it comes to people,” Elliot said. “Am I wrong in regard to you?”

  Aldric shook his head. “No. It’s just, I don’t know anything about antiques, or what I’ll be doing.”

  “You can learn. Someone gave me a chance a few years ago and made this”—Elliot swept a hand toward the antiques in the shop—“possible. I’m still learning, one might say. That’s one reason I keep alphabetized cards on every item in the store, as well as those in the back. If someone asks about, say, this…” Elliot walked over to the second row of shelves and pointed to a silver tray. “What does it look like to you?”

  Sweat broke out on Aldric’s brow. He knew what the object looked like to him, and it seemed obvious—was Elliot trying to trick him? No, Elliot had been nothing but kind to him. Aldric couldn’t let his own insecurity get the better of him now. “A-a silver tray?”

  Elliot’s smile could have lit up the room. “Yes! So you’d just open the gold-leafed book under the register—go ahead and find it. Open it and look up ‘silver tray’.”

  Aldric did as directed and was delighted to discover that most of the cards also had a small image of the item on the right corner. “It’s an eighteenth-century silver salver.” He read off the rest of the information, relief coursing through him even as he stumbled over some of the words. He could do this job.

  “You won’t be alone in the store often, not at first,” Elliot said. “I’ll be out on the floor with you or, once you’ve been here for a while, in my office. Sometimes I’m away for a day or so, for instance at a fair or auction, or I might have to leave the city, to procure or sell an antique or attend an event, but I close the shop then.”

  Aldric’s excitement fizzled out. “Oh. How…how long would you be gone? How often does that happen?” He’d lose out on work, and if he couldn’t support himself—

  “I’d have you come in and work in the back while I’m gone. There will always be plenty of cleaning that can be done. I’ll show you how to polish silver and clean antiques—the ones that should be cleaned,” Elliot added before the door opened, and a young woman carrying a box entered. “Meredith! You are an angel of mercy.”

  Meredith shook her head, making her brown hair ruffle over her shoulders, and chuckled. “Hardly. I’m just the delivery chick from across the street. Who’s this?”

  “Aldric Beamer, my new employee,” Elliot answered, glancing at Aldric. “Right?”

  “He’s not sure?” Meredith asked before Aldric could answer. She winked at him. “You should work for Mr. Douglas. He’s cool, and I bet he pays well, judging by the tips he gives me.”

  Aldric hadn’t even thought to ask what his wages would be. The whole job-thing had happened so fast it felt like a dream.

  “We haven’t discussed his pay.” Elliot took out his wallet and removed several bills from it. “But, of course, I believe in paying a livable wage.”

  Aldric knew first-hand that minimum wage wasn’t a livable wage. He’d worked just under full-time and had often skipped meals to make rent. More than once, his electricity had been cut off. No fast-food joint he’d worked at had wanted to employ him full-time—that would have meant offering him health insurance. Then things had taken a turn for the worse and he’d found himself unemployed and hovering at the edge of homelessness.

  “Aldric?”

  Aldric lifted his glasses with one hand and rubbed a knuckle of the other into his eye. “Sorry. I sort of drifted off. I promise I won’t do that while I’m on the clock.”

  Elliot held out a box and a drink. “I have utter faith in your ability to work well. Here, take this and head to the back. Second door on the left is my office. We’ll dine in there.”

  “Fancy,” Meredith said, her brown eyes alive with humor. “Nice meeting you, Aldric.”

  “Nice meeting you, too,” he replied, his face heating because he’d mentally checked out in front of her and Elliot.

  He found Elliot’s office and was almost afraid to sit down in the plush leather chairs. The whole room looked like something out of an old-time movie, with its shiny wood surfaces, smooth leather seats and framed black-and-white photos from decades ago on the walls.

  “Have a seat. Well, scoot closer to the desk if you want to use it for a table.” Elliot came around to the other side of his desk and sat, placing his own food on it. “There’s a coaster for your drink in the wood tray to your left.”

  Aldric found the coaster and set his drink and boxed meal down before moving one of the leather chairs closer. “This is a very nice office. Is everything in it antique?”

  Elliot began removing his food from the box it had come in. �
��Yes, except the pens and paper. Although I do have a quill pen!” He pointed at a long white feather. “It’s not quite an antique, but I like it.”

  Aldric took a bite of his burger, and his stomach gave a happy rumble. “This is good,” he muttered after he’d swallowed.

  Elliot grinned. “I’m glad you like it. My salmon smells amazing, as always. Before I start in on it, though, I want to cover salary, hours and health insurance.”

  Aldric almost choked on the sweet potato fry he’d just bitten into. “Health insurance?” No. His ears were playing tricks on him.

  But they weren’t. Elliot explained how he’d make sure Aldric was covered, without a waiting period. Aldric would have a full forty hours a week, would be paid at time and a half for any hours over that, and while he wouldn’t get rich working at Intrinsic Value, he’d earn that much-longed-for livable wage. It seemed too good to be true, and Aldric quickly and gratefully accepted everything he was offered, hoping that nothing happened to make this dream-come-true come crashing down around him.

  Chapter Two

  Officer Darrell Williams stared straight ahead as Sergeant Fuentes spoke…and spoke a little more, then more still. He tried not to catch his partner’s eye, even when Sean O’Hara shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Especially then. It meant Sean would be rolling his eyes and giving a jerk of his red head in their sergeant’s direction.

  “And they say my people have the gift of the gab,” Sean muttered out of the side of his mouth, putting on an Irish lilt he didn’t have in real life.

  Darrell shot a quick look from the corners of his eyes around the substation’s press briefing room to check if anyone else had heard. The detectives wouldn’t have, being on Fuentes’ other side, for all they and uniform were sharing the same stage at the front of the room. The division between the two branches persisted in media conferences as in life. He didn’t begrudge his sergeant, or any of them, their moment in the spotlight. He just wished he didn’t have to be in it too. Especially with the way Fuentes was gearing up for the end of the story.

  “Vigilance, surveillance, perseverance.” Sergeant Fuentes repeated his mantra and nodded at Officer Laurie Strauss to switch to the next slide. This one got a little gasp, mainly from the members of the public who were part of the Civilian Involvement Program, rather than the reporters present, all sitting on the regulation hard plastic chairs. Darrell didn’t look at the screen, instead keeping his gaze directed at the back of the room. At the wall, not at anyone who was attending this for him. It was impossible to do that, because no one was there for him.

  Although he could appreciate Fuentes’ skill in storytelling, making the bust sound dramatic, Darrell tuned out the description of that night. He had no need to hear it—he’d been there. And now, as a result, he was here.

  “Officers O’Hara and Williams are especially commended…”

  Darrell closed his ears more firmly at that, giving a tight nod at the gesture pointing him out as he stood there in all his five-feet-nine crew-cut glory, his arms by his sides, eyes front, face blank, at attention. Sean was no doubt offering up a cheesy grin, mainly to his steady girlfriend, who’d come to watch him today, and on whom he routinely cheated, mainly with Laurie Strauss.

  Darrell was well aware of what he’d done. His job, making sure San Antonio had one less offshoot of the Mexican Mafia running its streets…at least for a while.

  His actions had been simple enough in themselves. As a result of the team’s vigilance and surveillance, to quote their sergeant, not to mention the stake-out, he’d gone into the Casa Hernandez restaurant to serve a minor citation…when the mafia boss had been holding a meeting. The La eMe leader, Ramon ‘Rapido’ Estrada, had ordered his lieutenant Felix ‘El Gato’ to pay Darrell off, then, when Darrell had refused the money, had ordered him to “see him off”, which was when The Cat had gone for his gun. Darrell had beaten him to the draw—his speed was probably the reason he’d been chosen for the assignment. Anyway, it had allowed the SWAT team to storm in.

  Whoops and cheers greeted the footage of the raid. Darrell didn’t join in with them, or grin at his family cheering on his behalf. He couldn’t. None of them, his father or brothers, were among the audience. A small, tight smile took up some room on his face at the adjectives being used to describe his heroism. “Bravery,” he heard. Pity he didn’t agree with it.

  “Officer Williams?” his sergeant said. Or repeated, Darrell realized, when Fuentes raised an eyebrow at him and gave a head tilt at a kid with his hand raised. The Civilian Involvement Program included high school students.

  “Yes.” Darrell pointed at the boy, for him to go ahead and ask his question.

  “So you just walked into that restaurant during that meeting, with a bullshit—”

  “Tyler!” snapped the adult two seats down.

  “Sorry. B…ogus complaint,” the kid continued.

  “Wasn’t b…ogus.” Darrell addressed the boy. “Someone really had parked in front of a fire hydrant.”

  “Okay, and you knew he’d just bribe you?” Tyler asked.

  “Try. Try to bribe me,” Darrell corrected again.

  “Didn’t you think he’d attack you?” asked the girl to Tyler’s left, as if taking up the baton for him. Maybe each kid was only allowed one question and Tyler had already stretched the rules. He looked the sort of kid who considered rules to be flexible.

  “Thought he’d try. I mean, there was a strong possibility of it, when we ran the scenarios, based on—”

  “Vigilance, surveillance,” came from Sean, on a fake cough.

  “Profiles built up of the gang members.” Darrell ignored Sean and indicated the detectives on the low platform, with all their myriad roles and specializations.

  “Attack? That psycho tried to kill you, man!” called another kid, who received a snapped-out, “Diego! You are in a police station!” for his remark. “Sorry. That psycho tried to kill you, Officer.”

  “Again, a possibility.” Darrell stood straighter.

  The girl raised her hand. “Could we see it again?”

  Several voices, teenager and adult, added their support to the request, and this time, when the video—a mix of various cam feeds from the restaurant—ran, Darrell watched too, seeing El Gato fake-telegraph throwing a punch with one hand but really going for his gun with the other, and screen-Darrell pivot, as if attempting to get out of fist range, but really drawing his own weapon, beating the gang member to it.

  They’d learned through surveillance that at those meetings, only the lieutenants carried firearms, with everyone else made to leave theirs on a table at one end of the room, so in theory, the risk of someone firing off a round at him had been minimal—but in practice, any of the gang could have had a gun tucked away and been trigger happy, wanting to get in with the boss. But they hadn’t. Or hadn’t had time. Which amounted to the same thing.

  A shaven-headed guy raised a hand, showing his full tatt sleeve. “Your reaction, that move—that MMA? Or some specific martial art, to get that awareness and speed?”

  Now a smile did cross Darrell’s face, although it was bittersweet. “A mix, yeah, in that I grew up with two brothers, one older, and who both knew as soon as they could talk they wanted to go into the military, like Dad.”

  When the chuckles died down, Fuentes explained, “Officer Williams’ father, Major Williams, is a Silver Star Medal decorated Special Reconnaissance Battlefield Airman of the United States Air Force Special Operations Command, now back here at Lackland AFB after distinguished active service. He designed and still runs the Special Warfare Preparatory Course and the Assessment and Selection Course, training future Special Reconnaissance operators, both sections of which have an attrition rate of almost ninety-five percent.”

  This got applause. “And Officer William’s elder brother is now part of the Special Operations Aviation Regiment,” Fuentes continued. “Who knows what that is?”

  “Night Stalkers!” called the ta
ttooed guy, punching the air, although Fuentes had probably been asking the high schoolers.

  And my younger brother is now at Randolph AFB. Darrell wondered if Fuentes would add that too. If he did, Darrell missed it, because he’d tuned out again.

  “Dazzle. Top brass alert.”

  Darrell snapped to at his partner’s nickname for him and his warning that the captain was there. Sean stood by his side and Captain Miller opposite them, his hand outstretched and his body angled away, so the cameras could get a shot of him shaking hands with and congratulating his two officers.

  “Honey!” Daniela, Sean’s girlfriend, rushed up as soon as Miller moved on, grabbing Sean’s hand. “You looked so good up there!”

  “It’s the uniform.” Darrell gave the standard reply. “Hi, Dani.” He bent down to receive her kiss on the cheek and hoped her perfume, something heavy and floral, didn’t rub off on him.

  Daniela prodded him. “Darrell, there’s no one special here for you? You know, it’s time you came out with me and Sean and one of my girlfriends again. Don’t you think he’d like Ava?” she asked Sean.

  “What’s not to like?” Sean’s reply earned him a slap to his arm. “Darrell?”

  That note to Sean’s voice, that seemed to make the question stretch, or deepen… Was it an invitation? Did Sean want Darrell to talk about why none of the chicas did it for him, why he hadn’t been interested in Madison, the last friend Daniela had rustled up for him, and wouldn’t be into Ava or, in all probability, any girl Daniela or Sean produced? Darrell wished he could. Wished he could talk openly about his sexuality. The thought of telling his father brought a bitter scratch of a laugh to his throat.

  “I have to call Ryan,” he invented. “He couldn’t make it.”

  “Basic training, right.” Daniela nodded. San Antonio was called Military City USA for a reason. She, like everyone who’d grown up there, understood. “Bet he’s proud of his big brother, huh? Like Sean’s are of him?”

  Darrell was lucky—the photographer from the San Antonio Chronicle approached Sean, or actually, Sean and Daniela, for a picture, and saved him answering. Getting into position to show off her best features took all Daniela’s attention, so Darrell slipped out of the room and around a corner, into a quieter spot, away from phones ringing, doors buzzing and keys jingling. He took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts, but didn’t get as far as R for his brother Ryan. His thumb stopped on Mateo, the guy he’d been hooking up with.