CHAPTER TWO
The Third Option
Carefully I made my way down the darkened stairs from the apartment I rented above the diner. It was early, but I hadn’t slept. All night I had wrestled with what to do.
At one moment on the verge of throwing my clothes in a suitcase and buying a bus ticket to the next moment contemplating the notion of staying on in Saloosa and gambling on Caleb not turning me in. I had warred back and forth between the two all night.
I liked Saloosa. More importantly, I liked the people and for the most part they liked me.
I’d never had it so good. Sure, I didn’t have much, but in other ways I had more than I’d ever dreamed possible.
I had respectability. I had people who valued my opinion and wanted my input.
In general, I had value that had nothing to do with what my body could be used for. I didn’t want to give up this life I had discovered in America.
The choice, though really wasn’t mine. It was Caleb’s.
Then somewhere in the night something had come over me. It was hard to explain, but the reality of a third option occurred to me.
It perhaps more than any was the scariest of all. To even contemplate it made me see how much of a person I had grown to be.
I’d struggled for hours, but finally a decision had been reached. It was going to be option three, but I was going to need help.
A lot of help and I only knew one person that fit the bill. My eyes lifted from the sidewalk, I had been traveling down to the little building that served as the county police headquarters as well as the local jail.
Caleb deserved more, but in a county that only had one town to speak of there wasn’t much need for anything more. Gathering my courage I eased off the sidewalk and up to the front door.
Quietly I entered almost hoping not to be noticed. The receptionist and dispatcher all-in-one, a woman I knew simply as Janet, popped her head around a corner and gazed at me in surprise.
I barely knew the woman, but her reaction was as if I was related to her. “Darling, whatever is wrong? Sonya, I……”
“It’s okay, Janet. I’ll take care of it.” A deeper voice intoned and Janet’s already startled eyes went to Caleb, who had materialized in a nearby doorway.
He motioned with one hand and with a quiver running down my spine I approached. This was his domain and I felt utterly crushed by the authority that he wielded within it.
If he knew my name, then he knew other things too. Things that I had hoped to forever bury.
As I eased by him I suddenly realized that I was crying. Somehow knowing that he was the one of all the people in town that knew about my past hurt me the most.
I slipped past his big form and seeing a chair before an impressive desk, I sat down in it as Caleb whispered something to Janet. A little time passed by and then I felt him near.
A cup of coffee came into my blurred field of view. I didn’t want it.
Two large and very articulated hands that had the power to both create and crush gently lifted mine out of my lap and formed them around the mug of coffee. The coffee cup felt incredibly warm against the iciness of my fingers.
Suddenly I intensely wanted it, if for nothing else but its heat. The dominating shadow that had been held over me moved until he was there across from me sitting at his desk.
I dared a look across its wooden plane to look into his eyes. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but what I saw was utterly captivating.
His face was entirely sincere and his voice more gentle than I’d ever heard it except when he was dealing with children as he said, “Thank you for coming. I know it wasn’t easy. I…. what would you like me to call you?”
“Anya.” I whispered before wiping briefly at my eyes with one hand.
I couldn’t meet his gaze as I whispered, “How long have you known about me?”
“About a week after you came to town.”
Startled, my gaze flew up to his. I couldn’t breathe.
He had known for so long?
He was the one then to look down as he shrugged his broad shoulders, “I didn’t see you as a threat. I monitored you for a while and I came to see that you were a very good fit for this town even though you were here under false pretenses of identity. Given that there’s no warrant out for you I didn’t feel that you needed to be disturbed.”
Still shaken by the knowledge that he had known about me for all this time I asked, “And what has changed to make you confront me now?”
“The man you got your fake identity off of got himself picked up last week in a sting operation. In an effort to save himself time in prison he’s basically ratted on his entire clientele you being one of them. Being here illegally they dispatched an ICE agent to look into it. He happens to be a friend of mine. I convinced him to let me handle it and give you a chance to turn yourself in.”
I stared at him speechless and then as more tears began to rain down my face I emotionally asked, “Wasn’t that dangerous for you? I mean I could’ve hopped on a bus this morning!”
“You could have, but you didn’t. I’ve been praying all night that you’d do the right thing.”
I looked away from him as tears fell harder. Did he have any idea how close I’d come to fleeing?
He’d prayed for me? I’d known him to be a man of faith, but I had never expected that he would pray for me.
In my own eyes, I was largely without the value required to warrant being prayed for. The only value of note worthiness that had ever been assigned to me in life was what I had built for myself these past two years and now it was all gone.
My life was over!
Quickly I fumbled to set the coffee on his desk before I spilled it on his carpet. I spilled some on it anyway.
Shaking my head violently, as I stood up and turned toward the door, I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay!”
The door was before me and the allure of freedom beyond it was powerful, but even more powerfully came the voice of authority from behind me that said, “Anya, sit back down.”
It was supremely odd how fast I found myself complying. A soft wail of emotion ripped out of me then and I crammed my eyes shut as nightmares came spiraling in like demons to haunt me.
They weren’t really nightmares though, they were memories. I felt him then.
Blinking through tears I saw him on his knees before me. It seemed very strange to see him on his knees and then before I could think about it any longer his large powerful hands were holding my face.
Shocked, I stared into his eyes, as it felt like my whole system calmed at the experience of his touch upon me. Seeing that he had my attention he spoke slowly and with deep measure, “Anya, everything is going to be fine. I promise you.”
Staring into his warm eyes filled now with the passion to comfort me, I bitterly said in return, “You don’t know that! If I’m sent back to Russia I am worse than dead! It is not the same here in America! You do not know what you have! I…… I have nothing!”
His gaze remained fixed on me and with a steady resolve, he said, “You’re wrong. You have me and I’m not the only one. You are a good woman Anya and while others in town don’t know your past it really doesn’t matter, because you are who you are now and that is all that matters.”
“Everything here is lie! I hate lie! I hate this fear of people knowing! Yet I don’t want to die.”
His grip on my face tightened and with it so did his intensity. Dizzily I listened even as his fire burned me, “Anya, you are not going back to Russia.”
“How you….” His thumbs moved to still my lips briefly and feeling very overwhelmed by his presence I stopped talking.
After a long moment in which he somehow made me believe in the impossible his thumbs moved away and I said, “I not go back to Russia?”
He gave a firm nod of affirmation. He was crazy, but I did nothing to tell him so, because right now I needed to believe that he was right.
My hands rose up to grip over his wrists and emotionally I admitted, “I’m scared.”
“I know that honey, but I’m going to keep you safe.”
I didn’t doubt that he’d try, but there were too many things out of his limited scope of control as a small-town sheriff that he could promise me. His gaze seemed to read my mind and with firmness, he said, “Anya, do you trust me?”
I nodded as much as his hands upon my head would allow.
“Then believe everything that I’ve told you.”
“I…. I don’t have faith like you. God does not know me.”
“That will change. Do you believe me?”
I stared at him for a long moment. Strangely, I did believe him and the only reason for it was just because he’d said it would be so.
“Will you let me handle everything?”
“Please.” I whispered softly.
His warm hands left my face then and I mourned the loss of them as he rose up and left the room. I heard him talking outside the office and then he was back in the room and leading me out to his cruiser parked in the street.
He seated me in the passenger seat and then together we drove as in a daze, I watched the miles go by outside. I don’t know how long it had been before he pulled up before a very federal looking building in a town that had to be hours away even as it felt as if it had only been a few moments.
We were separated then and I was left in a barren looking interrogation room. About an hour later a man stepped into the room.
His gaze moved over me curiously. Sitting down, he affably asked, “You are Anya Brezinski?”
“Yes Sir.”
“You entered the country illegally.”
“Yes Sir.”
“You’re the subject of an investigation overseas in the death of a Russian mob boss it would seem.”
My throat constricting I said, “Yes Sir,” then added, “I killed him.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“He was hurting someone I cared about. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted him to stop. I hit him too hard. He fell. There was blood. I…. I didn’t know what to do. I went to get my friend up, but she… she… she…” My lips stopped moving altogether.
“She was already dead.” The agent finished for me and emotionally I nodded as I saw the whole bloody scene play over again within my head.
“What did you do then?”
“I ran. I…. I survived.”
“And found your way to North America across an ocean and then up through Mexico.”
I nodded my head in acceptance of the facts. Desperately then I said, “I… I have been a different person here. I do nothing wrong. I want to do good and be here legal, but if I use my name they will find me and….and the man I kill….he have a big family. In Russia….”
“Spare me the details Anya I think I can guess.”
Looking up I said brokenly, “I want to stay in this country. I made a mistake how I enter and stay here till now. I am very sorry. Please…. I do not want to go back to Russia.”
“Who said anything about sending you back to Russia?”
I blinked. Had I heard him right?
He opened the folder before him on the table and took out a series of stapled together papers. All I could see were signatures.
“Do you know what these are?”
I shook my head no.
“These are the signatures of almost an entire town full of individuals that in the matter of the course of a few hours have taken it upon themselves while you were driving down here to all sign a statement saying that they vouch for you. I just got the fax a half hour ago. If they’d had more time every living creature in the town down to house pets would have a paw sign on here.”
I gazed from him and then to the papers back and forth repetitively.
“Anya I can only imagine what you faced in getting here. You did it the wrong way, but these people are enough for me to see that you’ve been living here in such a way that many full-blooded Americans could only hope to aspire to. In short, I am waiving all charges.”
“What?” I squeaked out in a whisper.
“And that’s not all. We need to get you legal and while we’re at it, let's pick a last name that won’t tick off any Russian mob radars.”
“You can do that?”
“Not typically, but well, a lot of strings have been pulled on your behalf and I feel entirely inclined to go along with the flow. Now you can keep your first name if you want, but let’s go for something a lot different for your last name. Any ideas?”
My gaze came to his as my mind spelled out a picture over and over again. Caleb had done this.
Yes everyone in town had helped, but more than the opinions of the residents of a small town had been brought to bear today. He’d kept his promise to me.
The man across the table was looking at me expectantly and my lips came unglued and I told him the last name that I wanted.
He blinked and then smiled, “I think that can be arranged.”
He stood up and said, “Alright, you hang tight and in a couple of hours you’ll be able to say you're here legally.”
“Will I be able to get a driver’s license?” I asked in wonder.
He smiled, “Give me about an hour and I’ll have you one that you can take with you.”