Page 25 of Stone Blind

Yield chuffed a bit. “Aren’t you clever? You still didn’t answer my question about the family.”

Helen turned in her seat to stare at his profile. In some ways, Yield was a handsome man. He also wore a plastic ring on his left finger. At some point, he’d had a kid in the truck and she spotted the candy wrapper in the tray from a sweet treat she didn’t see the man eating nor enjoying. There was also mud in the vehicle on the floor mat of the back seat where she placed her bag. The dried mud was caked in the form of a circle which more than likely came off a cleat. The man had at least two kids, and one played either soccer or football. She would use that to shut him the hell up.

“At the end of the shift, Mr. Yield, we all want to come home to family, and I want to learn, and be of use so that I can go home to mine,” she said softly. “You and I have no need to get personal. I gave you enough information to add two and two and arrive at a reasonable conclusion. Can you leave it there?”

“Consider it left,” he said. “What if I decide when we get there to leave you?”

“Naw, you wouldn’t,” she said. “Your kids love you, and to do something like that, you wouldn’t be okay with them finding out their Daddy did a horrid thing.”

“Well shit,” he said. “I’m not sure if I like you, and I don’t feel like you’re a threat, but you are. You’re kind of fucking scary.”

“Kind of?” Helen said, flashing him a smile. “How far is this warehouse and do you have any weapons under the seat in the corral just in case shit gets sticky?”

Helen knew about the under-the-seat storage. She knew about Gabriel. She was in a relationship with the Whinny himself, Mustang, which connected her to Slow, which also connected her to Gabriel. There were a lot of connections and he wasn’t sure how she was plugged into the Technician universe, but she made him nervous.

Mr. Yield wasn’t certain if the nervousness came from fear or excitement. That in itself worried also him. He didn’t get excited often, but he was eager to find out how her mind was going to work this tracking bit, nearly, almost, but not quite, making him smile.

Chapter 8- Spoor

Helen located three medium sized neighborhood stores near the warehouse where the boy Kendrick was found. The inventory in the store didn’t match the neighborhood, which, had it not been there, would have made the area a food desert. As she and Yield walked the sidewalk, the people they encountered didn’t appear to have the type of skin which screamed nourishment of healthy fruits and veggies.

“These people don’t look like the type to consume high end bottled water,” Helen noted. “This is the store they used to bring in food and water for the kids and clients.”

“You might be right,” Yield said, following Helen into the store.

“Baby,” she said to Yield, who looked around to see who she was talking to, realized it was him, and he smiled, a soft smile that came from a place of honesty, making Helen laugh. “See, this is what happens when you’re together too long and take advantage of the other person just being there all the damned time. So, I say again, Baby, can you grab us a case of this water. I sure as heck didn’t expect to find it here.”

The woman behind the counter watched Helen closely. Helen leaned forward whispering, “The man has a GPS, and still won’t take directions from the voice in the box because it’s a woman. Now here we are in the middle of somewhere we don’t need to be, and he is shocked that I called him baby instead of dumbass.”

“I heard that,” Yield said as the woman behind the counter laughed.

She immediately took a liking to Helen, and out of nowhere, began to talk. “Yeah, if you take two cases or more, I will do a buy one-get one kind of sale for you. Anything else in here you want, I will do the same.”

Helen was quick to say, “Yeah, the neighborhood doesn’t look like it can support what you’re stocking on the shelves.”

“We’re moving to a new location,” the lady volunteered. “I got a new store over on Wabash, down in the old district. The more I can sell means the less I need to pack up and take to the new shop.”

“Seems to me,” Helen said, “that the moving might cost you less in boxes and weight but will cost more in having to buy all over again to fill the new shelves. I know, my Granddad, owned a local little corner store back in Jersey. The cost of items in a jar, versus plastic, he nearly went broke when he had to replace it after a drunk ran into the front of his store. He had insurance too.”

The woman was dressed down in jeans and a bulky jacket, which caught Yield’s eye, in the way it hung from her body. The outer garment wasn’t designed for a concealed carry, and the woman had a gun under the jacket. Helen was still chatting away like a bored housewife who had found someone new to hear about her favorite recipe on clam chowder. She turned to where Yield stood in the store, calling out to him.

“Baby, we’re taking two cases of the water, a jar of those peaches, and ooh, those crunchy dill spears. I like that brand,” she said to Yield.

He held up his hand, waving at her as if he’d heard it all before, going to the counter and pulling off everything she said. She’d asked him to grab the brands for a reason. In the vehicle, she’d tell him why; thus far, she’d been on the money with her assessment. However, he nearly dropped the jar of peacheswhen the woman behind the counter said something he was surprised to hear.

“Our owner, he has three of these stores in town,” the woman said. “The stuff he has us stock is mainly just for him and his friends and the parties he throws. You know, private parties his wife knows nothing about. The store is just a front if you ask me.”

“Shut up!” Helen said, laughing. “Honey, I know what you’re talking about. Mr. Man over there has fishing gear and heads out to “fish” every third weekend but is never smart enough to at least buy some fish when he comes back home. He is either the world’s worst fisher man or he’s just trying to get away from me and the kids. The stuff men do to get away from us...I tell you.”

“Girl, some of these parties, we have delivered champagne, and one time, I kid you not, tins of caviar,” she said, laughing. “Whoever he’s cheating with is eating good. You need anything else?”

“Naw, we’re good. Baby, you want some of these granola bars?”

“The ones with the chocolate,” Yield said as Helen pulled out a few bills to pay for the items in cash.

“Thank you so much for your help, Tana,” Helen said, reading the woman’s name tag.

“Actually, my name is not Tana, but Rochelle. The name tag belongs to the young lady who stocks the shelves,” the woman said.

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