Neighborhood (eBook)

Chapter
Two

Zachary Chambers—Zack to everyone he introduced himself to—kept walking toward his neighbors’ driveway, the Thomases’ mail in hand. It was an inevitable annoyance of suburban life that mail was occasionally delivered to the wrong address, but it felt like it had been happening more frequently. Maybe a sign of societal decay? As goes the Post Office, so goes the world.

The cool fall late afternoon felt refreshing, and he inhaled deeply as the Amazon van turned the corner onto his street. Another sign of societal decay, for sure.

As the driver approached, Chloe Thomas shot down her driveway toward the street, triggering alarms inside Zack’s calculating mind. An old habit, he took a mental snapshot instantaneously—Chloe on the scooter, the boys on bikes, the distracted driver—and he realized the imminent danger. Oh no.

He dropped the mail and broke into a sprint. The Thomases’ driveway was only twenty feet away, and he prayed he’d started running in time.

A woman’s screams assaulted his ears, but he blocked it out, focusing on his objective—the girl.

The Amazon van kept coming, its driver distracted by the boys on bicycles. Zack ran straight toward it, engaged in a game of chicken, man versus vehicle, with Chloe Thomas stuck in the middle.

Chloe shot out into the street as the driver finally spotted her, and he slammed on his brakes.

Zack reached her a split-second before the skidding van and hooked her with his right arm around her waist as he turned toward the curve. With the van looming like a monster right next to him, he wrapped Chloe in his arms as she shrieked, and launched the two of them into the air. As they sailed over the curb and toward the Thomases’ lawn, Zack rotated his body so that his back was to the ground. His feet cleared the curb as he watched the Amazon van slide across the space he and Chloe had occupied a moment ago. He smiled to himself in relief, at least until his back slammed onto the grass, expelling his breath, and slid to a stop, Chloe secure in his arms.

He looked down at the adorable girl, who seemed to be taking it all in stride, and he felt his breath come back, inhaling deeply, which seemed to amuse Chloe, who smiled up at him.

Sherry Thomas was screaming, even as Zack asked Chloe, “Are you okay? Sorry about that.”

“Can we do that again?”

Zack sat up and placed Chloe on the ground next to him. “Maybe another time. That was exciting enough for one day.”

Sherry Thomas reached her daughter and wrapped her up with both arms, shouting at the African American Amazon driver, who now stood on the street, concern written all over his face. “How could you not see her? She was on the driveway!”

“It was the boys on the bikes. He got distracted by them as they approached him. I’m sure he was just being careful,” Zack stated, intentionally calm, momentarily ignoring the driver. He stood up, ignoring also the dull pain in his lower back.

Zack’s presence seemed to calm her, and she shifted her eyes from the driver to him. Sherry paused, exhaled, and said, “Thank you, Zack. Thank God you were there.”

“Thank the Postal Service. I was bringing you some mail that got delivered to us by accident.” Zack turned to the driver, whom he found staring at him in an unusual way, as if assessing him with a purpose. The driver was no older than thirty, clean cut, light-skinned, with a short, faded haircut. His deep brown eyes shone with alertness and intelligence, more so than the last Amazon guy we had in here.

For two weeks during the summer, an Amazon driver had terrorized the residents, delivering his packages as if the neighborhood were his personal raceway. Several families had captured his aggressive driving maneuvers on camera, but it wasn’t until an executive who lived on another street had nearly lost his son when the driver had tried to pass a car doing the speed limit on the traffic circle. The driver hadn’t seen the boy on the bike, and he’d missed him by inches, causing the boy to crash into the grassy hub. Unfortunately for the driver, another resident had captured in HD the entire ordeal on the latest iPhone. Several phone calls to Amazon had ultimately landed on the desk of one of the executive customer service representatives at Amazon headquarters. One of the homeowners had even emailed Jeff Bezos at jeff@amazon.com, his publicly available email. He hadn’t responded—“Probably too busy dealing with a mistress and a divorce,” Zack had commented at the time—but the video had sealed the deal, and the driver was gone within days. There’d been no issues since, but Zack understood why Sherry was quick to react the way she had.

“Am I right about what happened?” Zack asked directly but without accusation in his tone.

“I swear to God, I didn’t see her. I wasn’t speeding. I know what happened over the summer with the other driver.” And he did, as it had been included in the target-package brief on Hidden Refuge that each team member had received. “Just like you said, I got distracted by the kids on bikes as they passed me. I only took my eyes off the road for a split second, just to make sure they didn’t swerve toward me. It’s happened before.” He turned to the girl and her mother. “I’m so, so sorry. It won’t happen again. I swear.”

The young, fit man’s apology seemed sincere, and Zack watched as Sherry softened. But there was something about it that felt calculated, as if he knew the right words to say. Stop it, Zack. You’re being paranoid, even for you. Yet he couldn’t shake the sensation, even as he spoke.

“What’s your name?”

The driver turned back to Zack. “Aaron. Why? Are you going to report me to Amazon? I really need this job, sir,” he pleaded.

Zack hesitated. His instincts were almost always right. They had to be because of what he did, who he was, but this was just a kid doing his job, wasn’t it?

“Okay, then, Aaron. No. I’m not going to call Amazon. This seems like it was an honest mistake. Just be as careful as possible. While we might have nice homes and things, all of that is replaceable—but our kids aren’t. You know what I mean?”

The man calling himself Aaron did know what the stranger meant. He’d felt that way about his little brother before the army, before the streets of Chicago had stolen him from those that had loved him. But you can’t keep the streets on a leash, not always. “I understand. Believe me,” he said, thoughts of his brother adding a level of sincerity to his voice that he knew was unmistakable.

“Good. Now, let me help Mrs. Thomas and young Chloe, and you can finish today’s run. Have a good one—and be safe,” Zack said, clapped Aaron on the shoulder, and bent down to pick up Chloe’s scooter as her mother lifted her from the grass.

“Thanks, Zack,” Sherry said, moving off the grass to her driveway. “How are Steph and the kids?”

“They’re good. Unfortunately for me, they left me alone and went to Steph’s sister’s place down in Richmond. It’s my fault, though,” Zack said, and laughed as he followed Sherry up the driveway. “I told her I had some work to do this weekend, and she told me she was leaving me . . . to visit her sister.”

“Ha! That woman is never leaving you, nor you her. While we all have families here, Zack, you have a very happy one, and everyone knows it. I might be a little jealous, in fact.”

While she wasn’t flirting with him exactly, it wasn’t totally innocent. Sherry was an extremely fit brunette with blue eyes who loved her Peloton bike, and it showed. At five feet eleven inches, Zack was a trim, fit man who used the gym in his basement on a regular basis, ate well, and ran when he could. The dad bod was for those with excuses, of which he had none. His brown hair was worn longer on the top, combed up slightly, and short on the sides. His eyes were a deep, dark blue, completing the profile of a handsome man who looked like a daytime soap opera star. He was aware of the impact he had on women, but he was deeply in love with his wife and his kids, and while he appreciated the comment, it had no real impact on him.

“Chad might be too, if you keep talking like that,” Zack said, and put the scooter down. “I’m glad you’re okay, Chloe,” he said to the five-year-old little girl and ruffled her black hair. “I’m sure you’ll be stopping and looking both ways from now on, won’t you?”

The girl only smiled up at him. Zack had a way with almost all children, which endeared him to their mothers—a fact of which he was also acutely aware.

“Oh. She’ll be all right. Kids usually are.”

“I dropped the mail back there. I’ll grab it and put it in your mailbox.”

“Sounds good. Thanks again. And I’ll definitely see you around.”

See you around. It sounded so innocuous, but still....