#the mentalist

snowflurryflake:

What if Jane feigns his own death after the explosion? He sees or hears Lisbon’s crying for him, but he’s too overwhelmed and too scared all of a sudden that he just disappears. He flees to Mexico and leaves Lisbon wondering whether he is indeed dead…

harmonyinsnow:

my tv guide says that the mentalist is on at 10:30 next sunday and whenever that happens, it almost always gets pushed back at least another 15 minutes cuz of football…THAT MEANS I HAFTA WAIT EVEN LONGER THAN USUAL AND THAT’S GONNA BE HARDER NOW THAT I’VE SEEN THAT EXTENDED PROMO AHHHHHHHH

AS IF WE DIDNT HAVE TO WAIT LONG ENOUGH ALREADY

FOOTBALL, YOU U DO DIS TO ME?!

They say that love is blind

and I know this to be true

Especially when it comes to

Pedro and all of you.

Say it all that you want

About that cutie patootie

but that mother fucker

ain’t got no booty.

Taglist: @zeldasayer,@beskars,@coolmaybelateruniverse,@the-feckless-wonder,@pascalisthepunkest,@mandoandyodito,@randomness501,@fioccodineveautunnale ,@ahopelessromanticwritersworld,@lilkermit14,@tortles,@buckysalefty  , @steeeeeeeviebb

thethoughtsfromthreeam:

Pairing:Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)

Warnings:Panic Attack

A/N:  Happy fall y’all!  Still a little stuck on this story - trying to get where I’m at to where I want it to be is proving to be a royal jackass pain, I swear.  But, here is another chapter and I hate to end it the way I did, but, oh well!  Chapter 9 is in the works!

Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tag List:

@zeldasayer,@beskars,@coolmaybelateruniverse,@the-feckless-wonder,@pascalisthepunkest,@mandoandyodito,@randomness501,@fioccodineveautunnale ,@ahopelessromanticwritersworld,@lilkermit14,@tortles,@buckysalefty​  [please message me to be added or subtracted]

[PART 1]  [PART 2]  [PART 3]  [PART 4]  [PART 5]  [PART 6] [PART 7]

Part 8 –Fate is not the Answer, it is Merely the Key

“Welcome back, agent!”  Marquetta’s voice rang across the lobby in welcome and as Pike ambled over to the welcome desk, he was awashed with the same sensation that he had the day before – a sense of coming home.  For all the places he lived and worked in his career, nowhere had ever felt like this before. Strange.

“What can we do for you today?”  The young woman’s voice cut through his thoughts and he felt a little chagrined to be caught daydreaming on the job.  He straightened his shoulders and flashed a smile at her.  It took everything in Marquetta to not swoon on the spot.  Lord was he a handsome man.

“I’m sorry to come by unannounced, it’s becoming a bad habit. But I need a few things from Ms. Carter that I forgot to retrieve yesterday.  Is she around?”  

“She is, why don’t you go on up.  She was in her office last time I called up and that was about, oh… ten minutes ago.”

“Thanks!”  Marcus waved at her as he walked towards the stairs and he could feel the woman’s stare burning a hole through the seat of his pants and he couldn’t help but smile. She was not subtle at all and it did stoke his ego a bit, but all it did was amuse him rather than push him to ask her out like it would have in the past.  Strange.

-*-

Rosemary never liked complete silence, something about it unnerved her and she became known for playing music wherever she was.  The rest of the staff had gotten used to it, not blinking an eye if she was one day playing sea shanties while pulling items from the vaults for research or hearing AC/DC float out of her office while she pounded out grant narratives.

In the aftermath of the break-in, she chose to work in silence.  It was a non-verbal way of blaming herself for what had happened - deep down she believed that if she hadn’t played music, she probably would have heard her attackers coming.  Helen eventually said something in passing about the lack of music and within days, the director smiled to herself when the strains of Heart were heard coming from Rosemary’s office.

The swinging sounds of the Andrews Sisters filled the workroom as Rosemary worked on repairing the Austrian crystal damaged during the attack. Despite their destruction of the workroom, very few pieces had been outright damaged, with the crystal taking the brunt of it.  She avoided the repair job over the last few weeks, not wanting to see such a visual reminder of her assault.  But something Amy had mentioned in passing made her think that if she repaired the glass, then maybe something that had broken inside of her would be fixed, too.

Carefully, she wrapped a piece of painter’s tape to hold in place the piece she just glued, smoothing down the edges.  As she sat back to view her handy work, a strong knock came at the door.  Everything in Rosemary paused, blood suddenly roaring in her ears.  She whipped around and her guest could see the barely disguised panic on her face.

Pike stopped immediately, raising his hands, and murmuring that it was just him.  Not realizing she was breathing heavily, Rosemary continued to grip the workbench edge as the panic cascaded over her.  The agent remained calm, using a low tone as he voiced his apologies while slowly stepping towards her.  When she felt his warm palm on her shoulder and the other on her wrist, she finally took a deep breath and looked into his eyes.

How kind they are, she thought.  And that feeling from yesterday – the one of safety – washed over her, leaving no room for the panic to grip her tight.  Her body began to relax, and she started to breathe normally again. He could tell when she was coming back to him and he gently smiled and nodded.  She let out a shaky breath and nodded back, forcing a small smile on her face. A small voice in her head said she should be embarrassed for reacting that way, but the sheer kindness and understanding she saw on his face shut out such negativity.

“Agent Pike!  Back so soon?”  She tried to add some lightness to her voice that she didn’t really feel.  He bowed his head with a small smile, his hands still on her body while his thumbs rubbing small circles of comfort into her skin.

“Yes, I’m sorry.  I really should have called ahead of time.  I didn’t mean to scare you.”  He sighed and shook his head as he silently berated himself.  He should have known better.

“No, don’t apologize, you didn’t know.”  She tried to continue, but his hand gently tightened on her wrist and she stopped.

“I do.  You’ve been through enough without me stirring up painful memories for you. Hurting you is the last thing I’d want to do.”  They stared at each other for a beat before she nodded, and her smile finally reached her eyes.

“Okay.  What can I help you with?”  He smiled in relief.

“I wanted to get copies of your files on The Cornucopia so we could flesh out our case.  Would that be possible?”

“Absolutely. Follow me.”  Rosemary moved to get up and Pike moved back, already missing the heat of her skin under his palms.  He clutched them into a quick fist before relaxing them as the pleasure of touching her skittered through his body.  He hoped she didn’t notice as he turned to follow her, his long legs keeping perfect stride with hers as they walked towards her office.

“Question Agent Pike.”  She slowed down and waved him into her office.  He bowed his head as he walked past her.  Banana sat up on the couch, his tail wagging quickly at the sight of his new friend and both laughed.  Pike bent over to give the dog a friendly scratch behind the ears as he responded.

“Go ahead.”  

“Since our records are now wrong, can I get a copy of the piece’s history so I can have the most updated version?  I’d like for it to be as correct as possible.”

“Sure, I understand.”

“Great!”  Rosemary smiled at him again as she walked around her desk to her filing cabinet, pulling open a drawer and shifting through the files.  As she thumbed through them, Pike placed his briefcase on her desk, watching her out of the corner of his eye. While most of the panic had left, he could still see tenseness in her shoulders that wasn’t there before.  He internally sighed, mad at himself for being so stupid.

When she withdrew the correct file, she began pulling off paperclips so it could be fed through the copier faster.  When she looked towards him, she noticed the file in his hand, and she reached out to take it.  Rosemary wasn’t expecting it to be so heavy and she bungled a bit before the file folder slipped from her hands and everything spilled out onto her desk.  A high pitched ‘oh shit’ left her mouth before she realized it and immediately began to clean up the mess she made.

As she fumbled with the papers, Pike leaned to help her, feeling his ears grow warm with each brush of her fingers against his.  He cleared his throat as he assembled the case report back in order, shuffling the papers to hide his attraction to her.  She had been focused on cleaning up the case photos when she suddenly stopped, standing stock still.

The agent noted her change and realize the tenseness he observed before was still there, but it felt different as she stared intently at a photo in her hand. He dropped his head to try and look her in the eye when he asked her if anything was wrong.  When she looked at him, his breath stuttered in chest – her eyes were sparkling in excitement, something he had yet to see from her and the sheer joy of that look rendered him mute.

“Agent Pike, does that report say anything about who rescued the statue in 1946?”  Her voice seemed to vibrate with excitement, and he could feel it seep into his bones as he shook his head no.  “Okay, do you believe in fate, the universe, coincidences?  Any of that?”

“Sometimes, I suppose.  Why do you ask?”

With glee, Rosemary flipped around the photo she had been looking at, a modern scan of a black and white image.  The glossiness made it hard to see, but when she angled her wrist, he realized it was a photo of the Monument Men team that had recovered The Cornucopia and the other pieces stolen from the Luxembourg ducal family.  But he was confused still, the feeling clearly etched on his face and she giggled.  Actually giggled.

“My dear agent,” She pointed to a tall man with a hauntingly familiar smile on his face that stood out against his shorter, more sober-faced fellow soldiers.  “meet George Carter, US Army Captain and an original member of the Monument Men team during the War. That’s my grandfather holding The Cornucopia.”

Pike’s eyes shot up to look at Rosemary and she laughed again.  He turned to glance at her wall, realizing he had been looking at a picture of the same man yesterday.  The photo was almost similar, except George stood next to a large painting.  He wondered if they were from around the same time or if one was older than the other. He turned back to Rosemary.

“I don’t know what this means exactly, but it looks like when it comes to rescuing The Cornucopia, the Carters have this handled.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning that I firmly believe you’ll find the piece and bring it home. Wherever that may be.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

—***—

Three weeks later

The chill of the blustery November day was seeping into Rosemary’s bones and she shivered as she trudged up to the backdoor of the house.  Her fingers fumbled with the key to unlock the house and when the door finally swung open, she stumbled backwards as Banana rushed through the house to his bed near the heat register in the living room.

“Thank you, my ever-loving companion!”  She called out to the dog as she took off her coat and scarf.  The Home was toasty, but the chill of the kitchen tile still crept though her socks as she toed off her shoes.  Padding over to the fridge, she pulled out some milk for her favorite hot cocoa and before she could pull out the saucepan, her phone began to ring.  Noting it was Fern’s ringtone, she immediately answered it.

“Hey Ferny Fern, what’s up?”

“I got great news!  The probate cleared today!”

“What?!  So soon?” Rosemary set the milk jug on the counter and began to dance through the kitchen in joy.

“I know, I wasn’t expecting to be so quick, but I was told everything was in such neat order that it was quote one of the easiest probates I’ve cleared unquote.”

“So, does this mean what I think it means?”

“It means you’re free and clear just to live your life and run your new business.”  Fern’s smile was evident through the phone as much as Rosemary’s heavy breath from her celebratory dance party.

“Okay, I’m going to celebrate.  What are you doing tonight?”

“Winston is back in town from that conference he went to, so we’re having dinner.”

“Sure, who’s on the menu first, you or him?”  There was no hiding the cheeky grin in Rosemary’s voice as she poured milk into the saucepan and turned up the heat.

“Quiet.”  Fern huffed over phone.  “Lunch on Saturday instead?”

“Maybe dinner, let’s see what Amy and Tina think.”

The two women chatted a little longer before hanging up and Rosemary grinned at nothing as her milk began to heat up.  What a weight off her shoulders.

—***—

“Rosemary!”  Amy stood in the open foyer and smiled as her friend entered the First Bank of Saugatuck and quickly walked over to give her a hug. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Yeah.”  Rosemary nodded, a small lump forming in her throat and she took a deep breath.  Amy squeezed her hand and after a moment, she nodded to continue.

“Let’s go to my office and get you squared away.  Do you have the paperwork?”

“Do you think Fern would let me leave the house to do any of this without it?”

“Fair enough.”  The two women laughed as they sat down and for the next hour, Robert Lancaster ceased to exist on paper at the place he banked at for over twenty years.  As they finished up, Rosemary snapped her fingers as a thought crossed her mind.

“I brought the safety deposit box keys, too.  Can I get into those today?”

“Yep, let’s head over to the vault.”  Rosemary handed over the keys as she followed Amy into the vault where she stopped to match the numbers in her hand with those in front of her.  After a few beats, Amy found all three boxes, none in sequential order.  After inserting the keys into the locks, she turned to her friend and smile.

“There you go.  Hope he left you something good!”  Amy kissed Rosemary on the cheek as she left to attend another meeting.  Taking another deep breath, Rosemary turned to the boxes and opened the one closest to her.  Pulling out the box, she set it on the table and lifted the lid, revealing an according file folder.  Propping it upright, she peeked inside and saw what looked like documents and photos, piquing her interest.

She set the folder aside as she went to pull out drawer number two, which like the first one had been the biggest size Robert could get.  As she opened it, she could hear rattling inside the box and her curiosity grew bigger.  Lifting the lid gently, she found a box that had deteriorated with age and what looked like several religious artifacts strewn about inside.  She gently lifted them out and laid them on the table, eyeing them carefully.

In the last box, smaller than the others, was a worn book, its leather binding split and faded ribbon tied around it.  Stuck under the small length of cloth was a much newer envelope with her name on it and a wave of sadness washed through Rosemary when she recognized Robert’s distinctive block writing.  Pulling it out, she held it against her chest and closed her eyes a moment. Letting the wave pass, she sat the item down with the others and put the boxes back into their homes.

She turned and looked at the table, knowing they were the key to Robert’s past – the one before Saugatuck.  She pulled out a chair and sat down, gently removing the letter and opening it.  She noted the date he wrote it was only a few days after his diagnosis.  Taking a deep breath, she began to read with her eyes growing bigger as she skimmed each line.

My dear Rosie,

I’m sorry I’ve left you behind.  I thought we would have had more years together but apparently the Lord has decided that wasn’t in His plans.  I am already missing you terribly even though I know you’ll be with me to the end.

I made you my heir years ago, but while I had no qualms giving you the house, the store, and my earnings.  I have not been able to give you the story of me, the real me.  I am a coward for keeping it from you until after I die, but I feel this is the best way to protect you from my past so you can live your future.

These boxes, now yours, contain all that is left of who I was am - Anatoli Choryni.  My life in the Ukrainian mafia seems more like a dream I keep struggling to remember. Since my early childhood, I knew nothing but mafiya life – starting as a little gofer for my dyad’ko who was a muscle man and growing into my role as hitman and later underboss.

I did an amazing number of bad things to people thinking I was making my neighborhood a better place, saving it from the encroachment of whatever group was our enemy at the time.  Yet when I reached such an exalted status, I knew that I was becoming jaded with my work.

You cannot just leave the mob, however.  Not when it had been your whole life like it had been for me.  But, when I saw one of my underlings murder a woman in cold blood, I knew I could no longer stay.  You want to kill a man who cheated you?  Go ahead.  You want to torture your Russian enemy?  That’s fine. But you never, ever hurt women and children.  Never. I made that clear to my men, to Bernard when he rose to power after his father died.

But the lifeless eyes of that woman haunted me, and I knew.  I knew then, Rosie, that I had to flee.  I planned it so meticulously – draining my accounts slowly, hoarding money in my bed like my babyusa used to do in the old days under Stalin.  I hoarded my papers, my faith, the evidence of my crimes for months on end.

Then one day, I did it.  I faked my death and fled.  First north to Wisconsin and then east to Michigan before landing in New York City. There I hid for a full year before I went and legally changed my name.  I left the city and took up as a clerk for a bookstore in some small town in Pennsylvania.  I stayed there for two years and when it looked like I had no one on my tail, I came to Saugatuck.

I started the store and the rest is history.  And by now, if you’re reading this, my probate has cleared, and you probably learned I was clean and easy.  Everything is legal, I made sure of it for my own safety and then for you after you came into my life.  And if the person reading this isn’t Rosie, then well, I’m not as smart as I’d like to think I am.

I was not a good man, I did terrible things, but I hope I eased the red in my life book some with all the good I did after I came to Michigan. I’ll find out when my last breath leaves me, but until then, I will spend my last months embracing our friendship. You have never left me before and I know you won’t leave me now.

And because of that I owed all of this to you.  My life story.

Ya tebe lyublyu, Rosie.

Robert

“What the fuck…”

—***—

Translations:

mafiya - Mafia

dyad’ko - Uncle

babyusa - Grandmother

Ya tebe lyublyu  - I love you

Reblogging the most recent chapter because I have nothing new to add yet. Life is super busy at work and I’m finishing up major responsibilities for a board I’ll be leaving soon, so not as much writing time as before.

I think I liked quarantine only because I got a lot of writing done.

I’ll try to get something to you next week!

Pairing:Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)

Warnings:Panic Attack

A/N:  Happy fall y’all!  Still a little stuck on this story - trying to get where I’m at to where I want it to be is proving to be a royal jackass pain, I swear.  But, here is another chapter and I hate to end it the way I did, but, oh well!  Chapter 9 is in the works!

Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tag List:

@zeldasayer,@beskars,@coolmaybelateruniverse,@the-feckless-wonder,@pascalisthepunkest,@mandoandyodito,@randomness501,@fioccodineveautunnale ,@ahopelessromanticwritersworld,@lilkermit14,@tortles,@buckysalefty​  [please message me to be added or subtracted]

[PART 1]  [PART 2]  [PART 3]  [PART 4]  [PART 5]  [PART 6] [PART 7]

Part 8 –Fate is not the Answer, it is Merely the Key

“Welcome back, agent!”  Marquetta’s voice rang across the lobby in welcome and as Pike ambled over to the welcome desk, he was awashed with the same sensation that he had the day before – a sense of coming home.  For all the places he lived and worked in his career, nowhere had ever felt like this before. Strange.

“What can we do for you today?”  The young woman’s voice cut through his thoughts and he felt a little chagrined to be caught daydreaming on the job.  He straightened his shoulders and flashed a smile at her.  It took everything in Marquetta to not swoon on the spot.  Lord was he a handsome man.

“I’m sorry to come by unannounced, it’s becoming a bad habit. But I need a few things from Ms. Carter that I forgot to retrieve yesterday.  Is she around?”  

“She is, why don’t you go on up.  She was in her office last time I called up and that was about, oh… ten minutes ago.”

“Thanks!”  Marcus waved at her as he walked towards the stairs and he could feel the woman’s stare burning a hole through the seat of his pants and he couldn’t help but smile. She was not subtle at all and it did stoke his ego a bit, but all it did was amuse him rather than push him to ask her out like it would have in the past.  Strange.

-*-

Rosemary never liked complete silence, something about it unnerved her and she became known for playing music wherever she was.  The rest of the staff had gotten used to it, not blinking an eye if she was one day playing sea shanties while pulling items from the vaults for research or hearing AC/DC float out of her office while she pounded out grant narratives.

In the aftermath of the break-in, she chose to work in silence.  It was a non-verbal way of blaming herself for what had happened - deep down she believed that if she hadn’t played music, she probably would have heard her attackers coming.  Helen eventually said something in passing about the lack of music and within days, the director smiled to herself when the strains of Heart were heard coming from Rosemary’s office.

The swinging sounds of the Andrews Sisters filled the workroom as Rosemary worked on repairing the Austrian crystal damaged during the attack. Despite their destruction of the workroom, very few pieces had been outright damaged, with the crystal taking the brunt of it.  She avoided the repair job over the last few weeks, not wanting to see such a visual reminder of her assault.  But something Amy had mentioned in passing made her think that if she repaired the glass, then maybe something that had broken inside of her would be fixed, too.

Carefully, she wrapped a piece of painter’s tape to hold in place the piece she just glued, smoothing down the edges.  As she sat back to view her handy work, a strong knock came at the door.  Everything in Rosemary paused, blood suddenly roaring in her ears.  She whipped around and her guest could see the barely disguised panic on her face.

Pike stopped immediately, raising his hands, and murmuring that it was just him.  Not realizing she was breathing heavily, Rosemary continued to grip the workbench edge as the panic cascaded over her.  The agent remained calm, using a low tone as he voiced his apologies while slowly stepping towards her.  When she felt his warm palm on her shoulder and the other on her wrist, she finally took a deep breath and looked into his eyes.

How kind they are, she thought.  And that feeling from yesterday – the one of safety – washed over her, leaving no room for the panic to grip her tight.  Her body began to relax, and she started to breathe normally again. He could tell when she was coming back to him and he gently smiled and nodded.  She let out a shaky breath and nodded back, forcing a small smile on her face. A small voice in her head said she should be embarrassed for reacting that way, but the sheer kindness and understanding she saw on his face shut out such negativity.

“Agent Pike!  Back so soon?”  She tried to add some lightness to her voice that she didn’t really feel.  He bowed his head with a small smile, his hands still on her body while his thumbs rubbing small circles of comfort into her skin.

“Yes, I’m sorry.  I really should have called ahead of time.  I didn’t mean to scare you.”  He sighed and shook his head as he silently berated himself.  He should have known better.

“No, don’t apologize, you didn’t know.”  She tried to continue, but his hand gently tightened on her wrist and she stopped.

“I do.  You’ve been through enough without me stirring up painful memories for you. Hurting you is the last thing I’d want to do.”  They stared at each other for a beat before she nodded, and her smile finally reached her eyes.

“Okay.  What can I help you with?”  He smiled in relief.

“I wanted to get copies of your files on The Cornucopia so we could flesh out our case.  Would that be possible?”

“Absolutely. Follow me.”  Rosemary moved to get up and Pike moved back, already missing the heat of her skin under his palms.  He clutched them into a quick fist before relaxing them as the pleasure of touching her skittered through his body.  He hoped she didn’t notice as he turned to follow her, his long legs keeping perfect stride with hers as they walked towards her office.

“Question Agent Pike.”  She slowed down and waved him into her office.  He bowed his head as he walked past her.  Banana sat up on the couch, his tail wagging quickly at the sight of his new friend and both laughed.  Pike bent over to give the dog a friendly scratch behind the ears as he responded.

“Go ahead.”  

“Since our records are now wrong, can I get a copy of the piece’s history so I can have the most updated version?  I’d like for it to be as correct as possible.”

“Sure, I understand.”

“Great!”  Rosemary smiled at him again as she walked around her desk to her filing cabinet, pulling open a drawer and shifting through the files.  As she thumbed through them, Pike placed his briefcase on her desk, watching her out of the corner of his eye. While most of the panic had left, he could still see tenseness in her shoulders that wasn’t there before.  He internally sighed, mad at himself for being so stupid.

When she withdrew the correct file, she began pulling off paperclips so it could be fed through the copier faster.  When she looked towards him, she noticed the file in his hand, and she reached out to take it.  Rosemary wasn’t expecting it to be so heavy and she bungled a bit before the file folder slipped from her hands and everything spilled out onto her desk.  A high pitched ‘oh shit’ left her mouth before she realized it and immediately began to clean up the mess she made.

As she fumbled with the papers, Pike leaned to help her, feeling his ears grow warm with each brush of her fingers against his.  He cleared his throat as he assembled the case report back in order, shuffling the papers to hide his attraction to her.  She had been focused on cleaning up the case photos when she suddenly stopped, standing stock still.

The agent noted her change and realize the tenseness he observed before was still there, but it felt different as she stared intently at a photo in her hand. He dropped his head to try and look her in the eye when he asked her if anything was wrong.  When she looked at him, his breath stuttered in chest – her eyes were sparkling in excitement, something he had yet to see from her and the sheer joy of that look rendered him mute.

“Agent Pike, does that report say anything about who rescued the statue in 1946?”  Her voice seemed to vibrate with excitement, and he could feel it seep into his bones as he shook his head no.  “Okay, do you believe in fate, the universe, coincidences?  Any of that?”

“Sometimes, I suppose.  Why do you ask?”

With glee, Rosemary flipped around the photo she had been looking at, a modern scan of a black and white image.  The glossiness made it hard to see, but when she angled her wrist, he realized it was a photo of the Monument Men team that had recovered The Cornucopia and the other pieces stolen from the Luxembourg ducal family.  But he was confused still, the feeling clearly etched on his face and she giggled.  Actually giggled.

“My dear agent,” She pointed to a tall man with a hauntingly familiar smile on his face that stood out against his shorter, more sober-faced fellow soldiers.  “meet George Carter, US Army Captain and an original member of the Monument Men team during the War. That’s my grandfather holding The Cornucopia.”

Pike’s eyes shot up to look at Rosemary and she laughed again.  He turned to glance at her wall, realizing he had been looking at a picture of the same man yesterday.  The photo was almost similar, except George stood next to a large painting.  He wondered if they were from around the same time or if one was older than the other. He turned back to Rosemary.

“I don’t know what this means exactly, but it looks like when it comes to rescuing The Cornucopia, the Carters have this handled.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning that I firmly believe you’ll find the piece and bring it home. Wherever that may be.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

—***—

Three weeks later

The chill of the blustery November day was seeping into Rosemary’s bones and she shivered as she trudged up to the backdoor of the house.  Her fingers fumbled with the key to unlock the house and when the door finally swung open, she stumbled backwards as Banana rushed through the house to his bed near the heat register in the living room.

“Thank you, my ever-loving companion!”  She called out to the dog as she took off her coat and scarf.  The Home was toasty, but the chill of the kitchen tile still crept though her socks as she toed off her shoes.  Padding over to the fridge, she pulled out some milk for her favorite hot cocoa and before she could pull out the saucepan, her phone began to ring.  Noting it was Fern’s ringtone, she immediately answered it.

“Hey Ferny Fern, what’s up?”

“I got great news!  The probate cleared today!”

“What?!  So soon?” Rosemary set the milk jug on the counter and began to dance through the kitchen in joy.

“I know, I wasn’t expecting to be so quick, but I was told everything was in such neat order that it was quote one of the easiest probates I’ve cleared unquote.”

“So, does this mean what I think it means?”

“It means you’re free and clear just to live your life and run your new business.”  Fern’s smile was evident through the phone as much as Rosemary’s heavy breath from her celebratory dance party.

“Okay, I’m going to celebrate.  What are you doing tonight?”

“Winston is back in town from that conference he went to, so we’re having dinner.”

“Sure, who’s on the menu first, you or him?”  There was no hiding the cheeky grin in Rosemary’s voice as she poured milk into the saucepan and turned up the heat.

“Quiet.”  Fern huffed over phone.  “Lunch on Saturday instead?”

“Maybe dinner, let’s see what Amy and Tina think.”

The two women chatted a little longer before hanging up and Rosemary grinned at nothing as her milk began to heat up.  What a weight off her shoulders.

—***—

“Rosemary!”  Amy stood in the open foyer and smiled as her friend entered the First Bank of Saugatuck and quickly walked over to give her a hug. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Yeah.”  Rosemary nodded, a small lump forming in her throat and she took a deep breath.  Amy squeezed her hand and after a moment, she nodded to continue.

“Let’s go to my office and get you squared away.  Do you have the paperwork?”

“Do you think Fern would let me leave the house to do any of this without it?”

“Fair enough.”  The two women laughed as they sat down and for the next hour, Robert Lancaster ceased to exist on paper at the place he banked at for over twenty years.  As they finished up, Rosemary snapped her fingers as a thought crossed her mind.

“I brought the safety deposit box keys, too.  Can I get into those today?”

“Yep, let’s head over to the vault.”  Rosemary handed over the keys as she followed Amy into the vault where she stopped to match the numbers in her hand with those in front of her.  After a few beats, Amy found all three boxes, none in sequential order.  After inserting the keys into the locks, she turned to her friend and smile.

“There you go.  Hope he left you something good!”  Amy kissed Rosemary on the cheek as she left to attend another meeting.  Taking another deep breath, Rosemary turned to the boxes and opened the one closest to her.  Pulling out the box, she set it on the table and lifted the lid, revealing an according file folder.  Propping it upright, she peeked inside and saw what looked like documents and photos, piquing her interest.

She set the folder aside as she went to pull out drawer number two, which like the first one had been the biggest size Robert could get.  As she opened it, she could hear rattling inside the box and her curiosity grew bigger.  Lifting the lid gently, she found a box that had deteriorated with age and what looked like several religious artifacts strewn about inside.  She gently lifted them out and laid them on the table, eyeing them carefully.

In the last box, smaller than the others, was a worn book, its leather binding split and faded ribbon tied around it.  Stuck under the small length of cloth was a much newer envelope with her name on it and a wave of sadness washed through Rosemary when she recognized Robert’s distinctive block writing.  Pulling it out, she held it against her chest and closed her eyes a moment. Letting the wave pass, she sat the item down with the others and put the boxes back into their homes.

She turned and looked at the table, knowing they were the key to Robert’s past – the one before Saugatuck.  She pulled out a chair and sat down, gently removing the letter and opening it.  She noted the date he wrote it was only a few days after his diagnosis.  Taking a deep breath, she began to read with her eyes growing bigger as she skimmed each line.

My dear Rosie,

I’m sorry I’ve left you behind.  I thought we would have had more years together but apparently the Lord has decided that wasn’t in His plans.  I am already missing you terribly even though I know you’ll be with me to the end.

I made you my heir years ago, but while I had no qualms giving you the house, the store, and my earnings.  I have not been able to give you the story of me, the real me.  I am a coward for keeping it from you until after I die, but I feel this is the best way to protect you from my past so you can live your future.

These boxes, now yours, contain all that is left of who I was am - Anatoli Choryni.  My life in the Ukrainian mafia seems more like a dream I keep struggling to remember. Since my early childhood, I knew nothing but mafiya life – starting as a little gofer for my dyad’ko who was a muscle man and growing into my role as hitman and later underboss.

I did an amazing number of bad things to people thinking I was making my neighborhood a better place, saving it from the encroachment of whatever group was our enemy at the time.  Yet when I reached such an exalted status, I knew that I was becoming jaded with my work.

You cannot just leave the mob, however.  Not when it had been your whole life like it had been for me.  But, when I saw one of my underlings murder a woman in cold blood, I knew I could no longer stay.  You want to kill a man who cheated you?  Go ahead.  You want to torture your Russian enemy?  That’s fine. But you never, ever hurt women and children.  Never. I made that clear to my men, to Bernard when he rose to power after his father died.

But the lifeless eyes of that woman haunted me, and I knew.  I knew then, Rosie, that I had to flee.  I planned it so meticulously – draining my accounts slowly, hoarding money in my bed like my babyusa used to do in the old days under Stalin.  I hoarded my papers, my faith, the evidence of my crimes for months on end.

Then one day, I did it.  I faked my death and fled.  First north to Wisconsin and then east to Michigan before landing in New York City. There I hid for a full year before I went and legally changed my name.  I left the city and took up as a clerk for a bookstore in some small town in Pennsylvania.  I stayed there for two years and when it looked like I had no one on my tail, I came to Saugatuck.

I started the store and the rest is history.  And by now, if you’re reading this, my probate has cleared, and you probably learned I was clean and easy.  Everything is legal, I made sure of it for my own safety and then for you after you came into my life.  And if the person reading this isn’t Rosie, then well, I’m not as smart as I’d like to think I am.

I was not a good man, I did terrible things, but I hope I eased the red in my life book some with all the good I did after I came to Michigan. I’ll find out when my last breath leaves me, but until then, I will spend my last months embracing our friendship. You have never left me before and I know you won’t leave me now.

And because of that I owed all of this to you.  My life story.

Ya tebe lyublyu, Rosie.

Robert

“What the fuck…”

—***—

Translations:

mafiya - Mafia

dyad’ko - Uncle

babyusa - Grandmother

Ya tebe lyublyu  - I love you