The Risk Read online

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “This is the Maricopa County Sherriff’s Office. I have a collect call from…”

  The voice paused a moment.

  “Ronnie Beyers.”

  My brother’s voice came through the robotic voice.

  “Will you accept?” The voice continued.

  I didn’t answer for a moment. The Sherriff’s Office? What in the world was going on?

  “Um, yes…” I said remembering I had to confirm the charges.

  “Proceed.”

  “Ronnie?” I asked. My heart was pushing upwards into my throat almost cutting off my oxygen. I don’t think I’d ever had an actual panic attack before, but this had to be what the beginnings of one felt like. I felt almost crazy for a moment as if I was stepping out of my own head.

  I had to concentrate on taking long, deep breaths.

  “Yeah, sis,” Ronnie said.

  “What the hell is going on? Why are you calling from the Sherriff’s Office?”

  “I’m in jail,” Ronnie replied sheepishly. I’d never heard my loud, boisterous brother sound so small.

  “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “God, I was hoping you would never find out about this,” Ronnie said.

  “About what? What happened?” I repeated impatiently.

  “I’m in a bit of trouble. I accidentally got into a situation with “The Cobras” over a gambling debt I owed. They said if I helped them with this job then they’d wipe the slate clean. They wanted me to carry product to a drug deal. I was just supposed to hold the stuff in case something went wrong. Well, something went wrong. A man was killed. The cops think I acted alone.”

  “What?” My head was exploding now. I was speaking but my voice sounded a million miles away and the room appeared to be on the verge of spinning around me. I felt like I was drowning in air.

  “They tricked me,” Ronnie continued. “A few Cobras came out of nowhere and ambushed this guy, stole his money, and then punched me out before I knew what was happening. When I came back to senses, I was holding the gun, and a much smaller amount of drugs.”

  “Stop speaking,” I said.

  I didn’t want to hear anymore, and especially I wasn’t sure how safe it was for Ronnie to tell me everything over the phone. Was that admissible in court? Was this stuff that could be used against him? I really wished I was a criminal justice major right then instead of psychology.

  “I’m sorry,” Ronnie said. “I should have gone to the cops, but I was worried that “The Cobras” might come after you, or even mom. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “It’s ok,” I said. “We will get through this. Do you have a lawyer?”

  “No,” Ronnie said. “But the public defender is supposed to be pretty good, as far as public defenders go I guess.”

  “It’s ok,” I said. “I’ll call mom and see if she can help us pay for a good attorney.”

  “Ok,” Ronnie said. “Thanks sis.”

  “Until then, do not answer any questions until we get a lawyer there, got it?”

  “Yeah, I will,” Ronnie replied.

  “I’m going to call mom and then I’ll be on my way,” I sai.

  “Great,” Ronnie said.

  He sounded so small, defeated. Not like my brother.

  I disconnected the call and sat there a moment holding it, shaking, on the verge of sobbing. But I had to pull myself together. This wasn’t going to help anything. Falling apart was the worst thing I could do. My mind was still trying to process everything, but I couldn’t remain idle. I had to keep moving forward.

  Grabbing my phone I started to dial my mom, but stopped suddenly. I had to contact her to let her know what happened and to see about getting a good attorney for Robbie, but right now I needed someone with me. I couldn’t go down there alone.

  Instinctively, without thought, I called Joe.

  He calmly listened while I told him everything. His easy going, calm, tough demeanor was exactly what I needed right now. He was concerned and I knew he had to be worried, but his strength was there. He was the kind of guy who never got rattled by anything. I often wished I had that kind of inner strength, and often I thought I did, but at times like this even I needed some extra support.

  And Joe was the perfect person for it.

  He’d been in my mind constantly since the other day. That kiss….wow… I ached to be there again and to feel his lips on me. But I was being careful. I didn’t want to push too fast. I was going to let Joe dictate the pace. It was more fun that way.

  When Joe arrived we called my mother together to tell her what was going on. She was heartbroken of course, but my mother was a strong woman and she pulled herself together enough to get things set up for an attorney who would meet us at the jail. She was going to hop on the next flight out.

  I was looking forward to seeing her. We were going through this together and having that family unity was more important now than ever before. We would have to contact my father of course, but he was in Europe on business. It was tough to say how soon he would be able to come back. Ronnie and my father had been on bad ground ever since the divorce. No matter what, Ronnie would never forgive my father for stepping out on my mother. I never had either, but I’d learned to look past it and try to salvage some relationship with him.

  But it was still hard.

  “It’s going to be ok,” Joe said as we drove down to the sheriff’s office.

  “I wish I had your optimism,” I said.

  “There is nothing you could have done to prevent this and there is no way that we can turn back the hands of time. We just have to deal with what is in front of us. Wishing or worrying about what could have been or what might still be is pointless.”

  I smiled. “How do you always know how to keep things in just the right perspective?”

  Joe laughed. “Oh, I’m not as all together as you might think. Everyone deep down is pretty much the same, but I’ve always felt that how bad things are at any given time is really a reflection of your own frame of mind.”

  “Did you major in philosophy or something?” I teased.

  “No, I’m just a bookworm,” Joe replied. “I guess I’ve always been fascinated by the thoughts of others and the wisdom handed down. So I do read a lot of offbeat things. And yes, I’ve read my share of philosophy.”

  We arrived at the Sheriff’s Station ready to see my brother and meet with his attorney. It all sounded so surreal. How did we ever end up there?

  Sitting in Joe’s truck waiting to go inside I felt my legs weaken as if I wasn’t sure I could actually step out of the truck and make my way inside. The building loomed in front of us like some evil demon that wanted to take my brother away from me forever.

  The tears began to well up in my eyes, but I shut them tightly and forcefully pushed them back as far as I could. I was not going to let Joe see me cry right now. It wasn’t going to solve anything, although it was tempting to elicit some sympathy from Joe’s compassionate embrace.

  “Are you ok?” Joe asked.

  I grunted and replied, “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Somehow I found the courage to exit the truck and begin walking up the steps.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Joe

  “So what am I looking at now?” Ronnie asked.

  I sat there staring in disbelief at what I’d just seen during the preliminary hearing. It was amazing how fast it all seemed to be moving. It waa had been barely a week since Gina and I had first come down to the sheriff’s office to meet with Robbie and his attorney Glenn Goodall, who was supposed to be one of the best.

  Glen looked over at Ronnie and took a deep breath. That did not sound comforting to me.

  “Well, it doesn’t look great,” Glen said. “You were denied bail, which I figured in a violent murder case like this that would be the case, but what concerns me most is the evidence stacked against you.”

  “I didn’t kill that man,” Ronnie pleaded.
“I was set up.”

  “I believe you,” Glen continued. “But what we believe is neither here nor there. In our system it is all about establishing the burden of proof. And right now that is largely leaning against you.”

  Ronnie leaned back and sighed heavily. He was jittery. It was like he was trying his hardest not to just leap out of his skin.

  I glanced over at Gina sitting beside me. She was emotionless. I knew she was on the verge of tears but was putting on a strong front for her brother. Her mother was feeling too ill to be with us today, but she’d finally arrived. Gina had offered her Ronnie’s room, but she’d agreed to stay with her sister Pat instead to give Gina her space. But truthfully, I think she felt that by taking Ronnie’s room it meant he was not coming home.

  “So, what happens next?” I asked. I was getting a bit impatient. Patience has never really been my strong suit.

  “Well, now we go to trial in a month. Hopefully, by then we can find some strong evidence that will help to exonerate you. And pray that we get a jury to sympathize with you.”

  Ronnie stared back in shock and horror. I could see it in his eyes he knew he was never getting out of there and that his life was completely over. He was giving up. I’d never known him to be that guy, but I guess this was just too much for even Ronnie to stand up to.

  I had to wonder if I was in his shoes, would I be doing much better.

  As I drove Gina home she was pretty quiet. I could only imagine what was going through her mind. Probably the same things that were going through my mind, but maybe on a grander scale. Ronnie and I were so close we were like brothers in a lot of ways, but Gina was his actual blood. She was his little sister. After her dad moved out and that relationship was so strained Ronnie became the man of the family in most respects. It had taken Gina a long time to even begin to have a cordial relationship with her father, but I’m not sure that rift, that betrayal he’d enacted on his family would ever be fixed.

  I wanted to talk to her and console her, but I wasn’t sure that any words I said would have really helped. So I let her be in her silence. I tried to focus on other things to keep my mind occupied as I drove, but I couldn’t really. The tension in the air was so thick it was hard to breathe.

  I turned up the air conditioning full blast and took deep, solid breaths enjoying the cool air blowing into my face. Gina seemed relieved by it, too.

  A lot of people thought I was a cold person, because I never let emotions really show through. That was just the way I’d always been. To me becoming emotional and fearful over something was a waste of time. Of course the fear was there, but it was not useful in most situations in modern life. Fear could paralyze you. It would make you fail to act. It was a throwback to our cavemen days where we often had to be on constant lookout to avoid being eaten by some predator.

  That didn’t really hold up in today’s world. When I found myself getting overwhelmed with emotions, I took a step back and just looked at everything logically and rationally. It was often the best way. Sometimes you had to take emotion off the table. Except anger. Anger could be much more useful at times. But even that would often lead to the wrong outcome.

  It was crazy to think how everything really came together inside the kickboxing ring. It was the perfect example of our primal nature at its best.

  “I keep replaying everything in my head,” Gina said when we arrived back at Ronnie’s place. “You know, just watching my brother there in front of the judge. God, that judge… how smug and self-righteous can you be? He almost smirked when he denied bail. He loved it.”

  I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a couple glasses from the small liquor cabinet Ronnie had in the corner of his living room. I poured a double for me and for Gina. She was going to need it from the sound of things.

  She took the whiskey and sipped it slowly, only making the sour face on the first sip. I loved a woman who could handle the good stuff.

  “The lawyer thinks he’s lost,” Gina said.

  “He didn’t actually say that,” I replied. “He only said that right now it doesn’t look good. But things can change.”

  “Right,” Gina replied. “This community hates my brother. They’ve always looked down on him as a hothead loser.”

  I nodded as I contemplated. She wasn’t totally wrong. When Ronnie was a teenager he was a crazed hothead, much more than he was now. He was in drag races constantly, fighting all the time, and going down a bad path.

  Oddly enough, his parents’ divorce pulled a lot of that rebelliousness out of him. He felt he had to grow up and be the man. And I respected him for doing so.

  “Thinking that way isn’t helping anything,” I said.

  “I know,” Gina replied.

  “Look, we have a month. Glen is a good attorney, one of the best around. I know your father is throwing some serious cash at him to get him to take this case. He usually takes much higher profile stuff than this.”

  “My father… wow, I haven’t even seen him or talked to him since this started. He is still in Europe doing business. Sometimes I miss when he used to be just an everyday guy. I guess he took his mid-life crisis to a whole other level.”

  I had to agree with Gina on this one. After the divorce her father had started getting heavy into real estate and then branching into international real estate.

  “Well, maybe this is his way of helping,” I said. “Do you think that Ronnie would want him here, even during a time like this?”

  Gina finished off her whiskey. “No, I guess not.”

  I hated seeing her this way. She was so broken-hearted, so depressed. And she had every right to be. The future was very uncertain for her, her brother, and her whole family. I wished there was more I could do, but under the circumstances the best thing to do was wait and regroup in the morning.

  Gina laid her head down on the kitchen table in front of her.

  “I just want it all to be over,” she said. “I just want everything to turn out ok. Until I know for sure, I don’t know how I can deal with the pressure.”

  “You just have to take it day by day,” I said. “Stressing yourself out to the max is not the answer here.”

  “What if we can’t find a way to prove Ronnie’s innocence?” Gina asked. “I’ve never felt so out of control before. I feel like I’m just falling down a black hole.”

  I sauntered over to Gina and laid my hands on her shoulders. She was almost trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was just from the emotions of what she was going through or if it was the fact that I was touching her. Her soft, sweet skin felt so good beneath my hands. She was so precious to me. I had thought of literally nothing else since she came back into town.

  And now she was scared, petrified even, and I felt there might not be anything I could do to actually ease that pain away. But I could try at least.

  That was all I could do. Try.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gina

  His hands felt so good on my shoulders. I leaned backwards sinking into his touch. Oh, I needed this right now. It was the perfect thing.

  It had been the day from hell and I was a blubbering mess of emotions. I knew I was sounding whiny and needy, qualities I hated to see in anyone, especially myself, but I couldn’t hold it back. The world seemed hell-bent on destroying everything in my life and I was at my wit’s end.

  But Joe was there. He had been there from the beginning of this madness. Joe had been there to listen to me, he’d been there to comfort me, he’d been there to wipe away my tears, and still look at me as if I was the most beautiful woman on earth. I wasn’t sure I could have made it as far as I did without his help.

  “It’s all going to be ok,” Joe whispered in my ear.

  His voice was warm, deep, and so seductive. I knew that I was vulnerable right then, but I was not too vulnerable to know exactly what I wanted and precisely what I needed then. And I was not ashamed about giving in and just letting things go.

  I’d dreamt of this moment for so long, but
this was no dream. This was real. And it was happening at the right moment for me, for us.

  I moaned softly as I leaned back into Joe’s kneading fingers. His hands were strong, masculine. His fingers were thick and pushing into my skin with expertise and a deeper knowledge of who I was.

  Soon, I felt his lips brushing against my skin on the back of my neck, softly, so softly…

  I moaned again this time, the sound moving slowly out of my lungs and into my barely opened mouth. Again he kissed my neck, inching downwards, moving steadily towards the bottom of my neck before finding the jugular and moving back up towards the top with small sweet kisses, each more angelic than the one before.

  My lust was burning hot now. I was getting so wet, my panties clinging to my body, practically entering my private crevice. My nipples were so hard now. They were begging to be touched, to be suckled, and to be made love to by this man I was falling harder for every single day.

  As if reading my mind Joe’s hands were on my breasts now, fondling, massaging them over my thin blouse. His large hands cradled my tits now, almost overflowing me. But an obstacle was still standing in his way. Sensing this he removed one hand, went behind my back, and with one quick pluck of his finger unhooked my bra strap and pulled my bra down under my shirt as I shifted my arms to facilitate the movement. The bra dropped to the floor gracefully.

  Joe went back to work now, this time his hands moved under the blouse to have full access to me. His meaty fingers were practically worshipping my breasts now, kneading them, almost molding them into the objects of desire he wanted most. My large, hard, nipples slipped between his masculine fingers and back again repeatedly. Joe was playing with them, almost mimicking the penetration I’d dreamt of so many times.

  I was getting so worked up. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to continue this without climaxing all over the place. I wanted him so badly. It was beyond just want at this point. It was a vital need. I could not wait another moment for him to bend me over and do me hard.

  Quickly I ripped my blouse off my body to allow Joe full reign to my naked torso. His hands continued to massage my breasts. I loved it when he squeezed them firmly and then released slowly, easing the pressure. He was teasing me so much.