the haven: adagio chapter 3

saga/title/fandom: Adagio chapter 3 (A Man Apart)

rating/genre: (NC-17) - Romance/Crime Drama

warnings: het, language, violence, and graphic sexual content

summary: Officer Sean Vetter, formerly of the DEA, tries to rebuild his life in Chicago after losing his wife in a botched assassination attempt on his own life. Joining the Chicago Special Tactics Unit, Vetter’s bitterness toward life and sullen determination not to care for anyone makes him a nightmare of potential partners, until a stubborn Irish woman named Kate Shea decides she isn’t going to let Vetter chase her away – from his career or his life. (Sean/OFC)

comments/disclaimers: My summary and first chapter pretty well give away the plot of the movie, so if you haven't seen it yet you might want to wait to read this until you have. FEEDBACK: Two conditions: Please talk to me, not at me; Please do not rewrite my stuff and send it to me the way you would do it. Otherwise have at it. Thanks. ARCHIVE: A qualified yes – I would not like the story to appear anywhere else without the person discussing it with me first. NOTES: The story does involve a stalker. Also, there is some violence stemming from Vetter and Kate’s jobs as undercover officers. NOTE II: There is some Russian used in the story but I try to explain it unless it explains itself.

CHAPTER THREE

For the next three nights the pattern of the first continued. Vetter arrived, Kate met him in front of the precinct, they moved silently to her car or his truck and spent the next eight hours exchanging the bare minimum of conversation. She thought she detected a slight softening in his manner as their assignment continued but did not feel bold enough to try to engage him in conversation. At least it hadn’t rained again.

Kafelnikov did not change his behavior, either. By the time Kate and Vetter arrived each night he was meeting with the same two men and sleeping at his office after the Russians departed in the early hours of the morning. The check on the license plates of the men’s cars revealed them to be Sergei Mokolov and Andres Chiuk, two well known supposedly legitimate businessmen from Chicago’s Russian community. Neither man had so much as a traffic ticket on their record. Kate considered that an indication that they might possibly be working with Kafelnikov without knowing he dealt in arms. Vetter considered it solid proof that they were in the trade with the Russian.

Kate sat behind the wheel of the Hyundai. Vetter kept to himself on his side of the car, still dressed in the obligatory fatigue jacket and dark glasses. An hour passed. At 1:15 Kate’s cell phone rang. She picked it up. At the voice on the other end Vetter saw out of the corner of his eye that she grew alarmed.

"Is something wrong with Katie?" he heard her ask anxiously. She calmed after a moment, then continued, "Please don’t call me at this time of the morning if it isn’t an emergency…Of course I’ll take her, you know that. Bring her by the apartment at six o’clock Friday…You bring her by, Brie…Shit. All right, but she is not coming in. I’ll be out front waiting for them…Yeah, I know. Goodbye."

She flipped the cell closed and, lost in thought, sat with it poised against her lips. Although he did not want to be drawn into whatever problem she just faced Vetter found himself unable to look away from the expression of discomfort on her face.

"My ex," she suddenly said, putting the phone away. "He’s going out of town on business and wants me to take our daughter for the weekend."

"You have a kid," Vetter said.

She could not keep the smile from her face. "Kathleen Rose Quinn," she announced proudly. "Katie. She’s seven and smart as a fox. Brie would rather leave her with me than Chelsea."

"Chelsea?"

"The twenty-two year-old he screwed around with during our marriage and dumped me for. She may be a good fuck but she’s a lousy mother," Kate stated.

"Shitty way to behave," Vetter allowed.

"Yeah, well, I think Brie missed the "thou shalt not commit adultery" lesson in Sunday school. At least he’s a good father. He loves Katie. He’s not a total waste of flesh. Close, but not quite."

Vetter looked forward. "Stupid to get married and sleep around," he remarked. "There’s no point in it."

"That’s an unusual attitude for a man."

"Don’t judge every man by your ex. We’re not all shits."

"Pardon me if I don’t jump on the bandwagon here, Vetter, but I have a little trouble believing in the idea that the Y-chromosome isn’t a built-in recipe for unfaithful husbands. It happened to me and too many of my friends for me to believe otherwise," she said.

"I never would have slept around on Stacey," he said, in a voice so quiet Kate barely heard it.

She started to make a smart-assed remark, remembered his situation, caught herself. "I’m sorry," she said. "You’re right. Not all men can’t be trusted. The wound’s still fresh: I let it bleed sometimes. Just ignore me when I start to feel sorry for myself. I’ll get over it soon enough." She paused for a moment before continuing, "Sometimes I think Brie actually did me a favor by cheating on me."

"How so?"

"Things were wrong between us a long time before he started sleeping with Chelsea. It’s a pretty stereotyped scenario: wealthy, successful 40-some year-old man gets worried about dying, has an affair with his social-climber secretary with a perky young body, leaves the wife behind. After Katie was born I could see him starting to feel like his life was going by him. I knew then we weren’t going to make it, but until I actually caught him with her I didn’t have the guts to leave him. So in the end I think it worked out for the best," she said.

"You’re a lot more forgiving than I would be," Vetter said.

She shrugged. "I had two choices: move on or let that silicon-implanted bitch ruin my life. I chose to move on. Haven’t pulled it off completely yet but I will. And she hates me because she thinks I have, which frankly thrills the hell out of me."

"What about your ex? What does he think about you getting over him?"

"He’s worried that I will."

"So you aren’t."

She shrugged again. "Not that it matters. Anyway, I like being a free woman. I had to sublimate myself a lot when I was married. Brie has a very strong personality and it was hard to hold out for what I wanted."

"That doesn’t seem like you," he allowed.

"I know. That’s the damnedest part of all of it. When I married him I was the same person I am now: nobody fucked with me. Okay, maybe I was a little less cynical, but I was just as determined to be myself. The longer I stayed married to him the less capable of that I became. It was like he just took me over and rearranged me to suit himself," she said. "Hell, maybe I’m not being fair to him. God knows I’m not the easiest person in the world to live with."

"Okay, that I believe," he said.

She caught a hint of a smile on his face. She didn’t mind.

"Brie’s really not a bad guy. I’m angry with him for screwing around on me and breaking our vows but overall he’s a good person. Sometimes I even think he regrets letting Chelsea get her hooks in him. If he wasn’t so damned proud I think he’d divorce her but he can’t admit he was wrong to marry her," she said.

"She wants his money," Vetter guessed.

"As much as she can get. He was at least smart enough to insist she sign a pre-nup. If not for that she’d have cleaned him out and gone after somebody as beautiful and shallow as she is." She sighed quietly. "It’s really hard for a woman to get old. We look around and see all these beautiful young women with the kind of bodies that we used to have and it stings."

"You look pretty good," he said. "How old are you? Thirty-two?"

"Thirty-two? Man, I have to keep you on my Christmas card list. I’ll be forty in a month, Vetter."

For the first time since losing his temper on their first shift he did not keep a reign on his emotions. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Not at all. June 9th I cross the Great Divide to old age. But thanks for giving me another eight years. I appreciate it," she said.

"I never would have guessed you’re that old."

"So how old are you?"

"Thirty-six in July."

"Pup."

"I don’t feel like a pup," he confessed. "When I wake up I’d swear parts of me belong in a retirement home."

She laughed. "I know. Sometimes when we’re playing outside Katie gives me what she calls "old lady breaks". The sad part is, I need them."

He turned his head to look at her. "So what’s your daughter like?" he asked.

"She’s a spectacular kid. I know every parent says that but she really is special. All the school tests indicate that she’s well in the gifted range and only going to get smarter. I seriously believe that someday she’ll rule the world," Kate remarked. "From a video monitor, of course."

"The divorce must have been hard on her," he said.

"Brie and I were always very careful to be honest with her about what was going on in the marriage, so when it finally came time to tell her we were splitting up she took it surprisingly well. We both told her it didn’t mean we didn’t love her or that we hated each other; you know, all the stuff you’re supposed to say. At the end all she did was ask how far we would be living from Brie. When I told her just a couple of miles, she said, ‘Well, it isn’t a very big divorce.’ Five years old and that’s what she told us. Some kid I have," she said fondly. She sat silently looking at him, as if expecting him to say something particular. When he didn’t she said, "You’re not going to ask why I don’t have custody?"

He shrugged. "Not my business."

"You’re certainly different from the rest of the world. Usually as soon as somebody learns I don’t have custody of Katie they automatically assume I must be some kind of terrible mother, a child beater or a junkie or something. It never occurs to anyone that I gave my daughter up because it was better for her," she said.

"You seem like you’d be a good mother," Vetter remarked.

"Thanks. I am; I’m a damn good mother. But you know how this job goes. Thursday you’re pulling an all night surveillance on some Russian arms dealer and Friday afternoon you’re going in as part of a SWAT team on a hostage situation. Shift work is so unfair to kids. I decided it would be better for Katie to live with Brie than spend half her time with a sitter so I signed her over to him. Hardest thing I ever did but it was right," she said.

"Maybe you’ll be able to work out a different situation someday," he said.

"The only reason I’d consider trying to regain at least partial custody would be if I had a man in my life I could rely on to take care of Katie when I wasn’t around. So she’ll always be with Brie. But he’s great about making sure that I see her so that’ll be all right."

"Stacey always hated my shift work too, but she never said anything. She wasn’t the type to complain. God, the things she put up with because of me. Sometimes I think about that and I’m amazed that she didn’t kick my ass out the door six months after we met," he said.

"How did you meet her?" Kate asked.

She held her breath after the question because she did not know how Vetter would respond to it. People in the CSTU said he never talked about his wife and it would be courting disaster to ask about her. But for some reason Kate couldn’t keep from wanting to know about Vetter’s wife once he mentioned her.

"I was fifteen," he said, so suddenly that it startled Kate. "I was into some pretty heavy shit: drugs, gangbanging, street fights. A real bad ass, or so I thought. Then one night I’m walking past St. Aidan’s when a group of girls comes out. They take one look at me and boom, they run back inside the church because they’re afraid of me. Except for one, this little brunette with the most beautiful eyes. She sees my colors, knows what I am, but it doesn’t matter to her. She walks right up to me and asks me my name. I think I ought to make some smart-ass reply but I see those eyes and I can’t do it, so I just tell her: ‘Sean’. She says it’s a nice name and asks me if I’m Catholic. And I can’t remember. Honest to God, I couldn’t remember anything once I looked at her. Finally I nod, like an utter moron, and she smiles and asks me to Mass on Sunday. And even as I’m telling myself to blow off the invitation I know I’ll be there because she’ll be there. From then on I gave myself over to her completely. As soon as I could I married her."

"That’s a great story," Kate said softly. "She sounds like a remarkable person."

"Everybody loved Stacey. She never saw the bad in anyone. I’d come home after some day of carnage on a job thinking the world was a horrible place and after five minutes she’d have me as much in love with life as she was. And with her," he said quietly.

Kate sensed that Vetter had gone as far into his memories of Stacey as he could so she said quickly, "It’s funny how much this job chips away at your belief in humanity and just before you go completely over the edge into total cynicism someone comes along and reminds you that life is what you make it. I don’t know. Maybe St. Jude really is the patron saint of policemen." When she saw his confused expression she added, "Irish Catholic."

"Roman. My mother is Sicilian," he said.

"So what nationality is Vetter?"

"German."

"You’re half-Sicilian and half-German and you end up with a good Irish name like Sean. How’d that happen?"

He managed a smile. "My mom had a serious thing for Sean Connery. She saw "Dr. No" and decided if she ever had a son he was going to be named Sean. So I’m actually named after a Scotsman."

"God, "Dr. No" is the one with the spider in it," Kate said. "I hate that movie. Any movie where the spider gets its own music is a bad idea."

"That’s a pretty stereotyped girl fear," he told her. "I thought you’d be afraid of something like not being able to drive 140 down the middle of Lake Shore Drive."

"Well, that too," she replied, grinning.

He laughed. The sound rang through the car with a joyousness that surprised her. Nice laugh, she thought. I wonder if I’ll ever get to hear it again.

A realization suddenly crept over her. She considered it as possibly a delusion but no, it was true. She looked at Vetter quizzically, the way a puppy might when it hears something it doesn’t understand.

"Hey, Vetter, did we just have a civilized conversation?" she asked.

He paused, nodded. "I think we did."

"How’d that happen?"

"I don’t know. I’m surprised too."

"It’s okay. I mean, I liked it," she said. "Did you?"

"It was all right."

"So maybe – so maybe we should try having some more."

He turned to look at her. "We don’t want to ruin our reputations," he said.

"We don’t have to tell anybody."

"I guess not. Yeah, okay. If either of us want to talk about something we can do that," he allowed

They parted at the station after exchanging goodbyes for the first time. Kate watched Vetter walk to his truck, dark glasses in place, fatigue jacket making him seem bigger than he really was. When he passed her as he drove off he gave a brief wave.

She drove home through the early rush hour traffic humming to herself. She owned a house off a quiet street on the north side, one of the long, narrow houses so common to Chicago, the kind with a gate and a garden out front that looked slightly incongruous in the city. She checked the mailbox without realizing that she did so as she left the night before. Four steps up to the porch – it needed sweeping – and inside the etched glass door with its Celtic knot work design. Sunlight cut a pattern into the small table by the living room window. She started some eggs and toast. She wouldn’t be back at work until Monday and tonight Katie would come to stay with her. Maybe she could sleep until then.

Vetter climbed the three flights of stairs to his small apartment. He lived in an old building in a bad neighborhood but he liked the solitude the place offered. The fights of the couple directly below him were muffled enough by the thick floor that he rarely even paid attention to them. Every now and then he listened long enough to try and determine their ethnicity but so far he hadn’t managed to place the thick Slavic accents. No one in the building kept a name on his mailbox so that avenue was useless. He opened a beer and sat down on the ragged sofa. When he worked nights he tried to hold out as long as possible before going to bed so his chances of sleeping were better. He dreamed less often of Stacey now but still if he wasn’t exhausted when he fell asleep he sometimes woke up after a few hours because of a nightmare. Usually Stacey reached out to him begging her to help her but just before he reached her the bullet shattered her temple and she fell into an abyss. Sometimes he got close enough to touch her before she died but he never saved her. He suddenly thought of Kate. Maybe she was all right after all. Bitter, yes, but then she had reason given what her husband did to her. He realized for the first time talking to her during their shift that all those hard edges of hers hid a woman who experienced tremendous passions. The job was tough and to do it a person needed to keep a tight lid on what went on inside or he’d end up dead before the day was out. Vetter understood that better than anyone. Kate was different off the job; she had to be. He envied her.


home          prior chapter          next chapter          fiction gateway