Grab (4 page)

“Jordan!” Simon bellowed from his office down the hall. Gritting his teeth together so hard his jaw hurt, Jordan got up and went to figure out what the hell he wanted.

“Yes, Sir?” Knocking at the doorframe, Jordan went in and sat across the massive desk from his boss, who looked incongruous sitting in his leather seat wearing gym clothes and a dark expression.

He turned the monitor toward him. “Are these good pictures? Would you accuse your husband of cheating on you if this was your evidence?” Simon’s face was etched with barely-restrained anger, ready to blow.

Looking at the pictures, Jordan shrugged. He could see the clothes, but admittedly, they were shitty pictures. Feeling a bit sheepish for his arrogance not thirty seconds ago, he muttered, “No, Sir. I wouldn’t.” He’d cut the fucking heads off. You couldn’t tell shit from the pictures.

Simon laced his fingers behind his head, and leaning back in his chair, his face softened. “I know you don’t want to be doing this, but I can’t give you another job until you finish this one satisfactorily. You’ve got to get this picture for this client first. She wants
undeniable
proof. It’s a legal thing, you must understand.”

“Yes, Sir. I understand.” He understood he was stuck for at least another week.
Fuck.

“In the meantime, I need you to help Ryan with this one.” Tossing a file across his desk to Jordan, Simon sat up in his chair with a squeak. “Now, get the hell out of here.”

“Yes, Sir.” Jordan grabbed the file and went into the office he shared with Ryan. At his desk shoved in a corner, he glanced through the file, feeling his excitement build. This was closer to what he wanted.

It was a missing girl, whose father had hired Pierce Securities. He was working with Ryan on this one, which was fine. Ryan was cool. The police had run into a whole bunch of nothing, and the case had come to a stand-still.

The girl, Misty Walker, was taken from her apartment—a lousy one like his own—in the middle of the night two weeks ago. Her door had been forced open, and there were signs of a struggle, but the assailant had worn gloves. No prints. No blood. It happened on a Friday night, so the neighbors hadn’t heard anything unusual or they were all passed out. That was all the cops had.

It was Jordan’s and Ryan’s now. As far as he was concerned, he had a week before he had to go watch the asshole outside his motel again on Wednesday, so Jordan had until then to find Misty.

He would do this. He would prove himself.

Mia woke up to an annoying buzz in her ear and the worst case of cotton mouth she’d ever had. She tried to swallow, but her tongue had gained twenty pounds overnight, and the bile rising in the back of her throat tasted like limes. Bring on the memory of Jordan’s tongue.

And his hands.

And the heat in his eyes as they’d teased each other into oblivion.

The buzzing of her phone brought her back to the present with a groan. It was a good thing her phone was by her ear; she had to go to work in two hours, and all she wanted to do was ignore this call and go back to sleep.

But when she looked at the number, she knew she needed to wake up.

“Hey, Mom,” she gritted out as she swung her legs over the side of her bed.

“Did you work late last night?”

“Double.” Her mom didn’t need to know about all the drinking she’d done afterward. “How’s Rose?” Her sister was fifteen and the reason Mia worked so much. She didn’t need double shifts to afford this hell hole of a room. She needed them so her sister could come live with her instead of all the hovels of the world. A summer in a third world country to see how the other half lived was one thing, living there so her mom could get laid was another.

Her mother sighed—a long, drawn out, put-upon sigh. “She’s miserable here. I just don’t know what to do.” Well, Mia’s answer was obvious, but she didn’t say anything to her mom. They’d already had that fight.

“Where’s here? Where are you now?”

“Haiti. Paul wanted to see if we could help the earthquake victims.”

Mia didn’t think Haiti was the place for Rose. It was fine if her mother wanted to go follow another man around the world to help the world’s downtrodden, but for her to drag Rose around with her was unconscionable. She wasn’t even in school. Diane was ‘homeschooling’ her, but Mia knew as much as anyone Diane was not the best person to handle a child’s education. She hadn’t even been available enough for Mia to make sure
she
went to school, much less teach a child what she needed to know for an adequate education.

So Mia was trying to bring Rose home to live with her. She almost had enough money saved up for a bigger apartment and was trying not to think about all the other expenses involved with taking care of her sister. Her only saving thought was her mother wouldn’t be in Haiti long. Soon enough, they’d be on the road to someplace else, or Diane would be finished with this man.

Mia’s mom was a serial bride. That’s what Mia called her. She had been married seven times. When the last husband hadn’t worked out, Diane had turned to church, for some reason, and become ‘saved,’ whatever the hell that meant. She met a man who supposedly traveled the world, looking for ways to do God’s work, and Diane had been following him ever since, dragging Rose along beside her.

Mia had tried to stop it then, but Diane was insistent, and they’d fought. It wasn’t pretty, but it was done. Diane saw her error now that it was too late, and she seemed just as eager for Mia to take Rose as anybody.

“Do you know how much longer it will be? Paul says she won’t behave for him, either
.” Can’t you just be a mother for once and not let your vagina rule your thoughts?
“And I can’t teach my class with her in tow if she won’t behave for me.”

“Your class?” Mia asked for clarification, dreading the answer. She dragged herself into a sitting position and felt the pounding in her head intensify.

“I’m helping the women here make a living with their skills. You know, jewelry-making and such.”

But they’d already had that argument, too. As far as Mia knew, Paul and her mother hadn’t had sex, although she found that highly unlikely. But he was a ‘Man Of God’ and all, so it was possible. Her mother had seemed to turn a new leaf, until she took Rose with her.

The whole situation was laughable, if Rose hadn’t been there. The fact that Diane was working with the women to help them create a sustainable living, when she herself had gone through nothing but a series of sugar daddies her entire adult life, was something Mia wished she could see. Like a plane crash.

She threw her legs over the edge of the bed, willing them to function, even though the remnants of tequila were still coursing through her blood stream. Still legally drunk, Mia probably smelled like a damn still. “It’s going to be another month or two, Mom. I’ll try to get a plane ticket to fly her out by March, but that’s the best I can do.”
And I’ll try to do better than that.
“She’ll probably have to redo a year of school, but it could always be worse.”

“Yeah.” Diane was quiet a while, and Mia managed to stumble into the kitchen for a glass of water while she waited for her mother to say something else. As she gulped down the liquid, easing her parched mouth, her mom took a ragged breath. “I wish I had been different for you girls.”

Putting the glass down, Mia’s shock kept her silent. Her mother had never once admitted she’d been wrong in her choices as a parent. “Paul has helped me see some errors I may have made with you two.”

“Wow, Mom.”

“I know.”

Okay, so maybe Paul wasn’t so bad if he was helping her to realize she was a shitty mother. Guilt hit her at the thought, and Mia mentally apologized. She was alive, and for all her mother’s flaws, she’d managed to keep her in the alive condition, so there was that.

“I’ll do my best to get her out of there. Y’all may want to pass the hat around the congregation once or twice to help out,” Mia said, half-joking. It would be cool if her mother could actually help her out financially if Mia was going to help raise her other child. Although, she’d do it alone if she had to.

Her thoughts wandered to Jordan, unbidden, and the image of them living together and raising Rose flashed through her head. She squashed the thought almost as soon as it came to her. That was not a possibility. Ever. They were just having sex.

Well, not really, but whatever.

“Is Rose around? Can I talk to her before I go to work?”

“Sure, hang on.”

Her sister sounded sullen when she got on the phone, and Mia hated it. Her heart hurt to hear her voice sound that way.

“Hey,” Mia offered. “Are they feeding you anything good?”

“No. God, all they eat here is rice and grass and stuff. It’s so gross. I can’t wait to go back to civilization.”

“I know, honey. I’m trying. It’s still going to be a couple of months, though. Apartments here are really expensive.”

“Anything would be better than a tent, Mia. Please. I don’t even have TV here. Anywhere. Like,
nobody
has TV. It’s crazy.”

Mia smiled. She didn’t have TV, either, and that wasn’t on her list of things to have before she brought Rose home, but she wasn’t about to spill the beans on that.

“Just hang in there and think of all the cool stories you’ll be able to tell kids here about the awesome places you lived while you traveled the world. You’re getting to do things other fifteen-year-olds haven’t. Just keep remembering that, okay?”

After hanging up with her sister, Mia tried to follow her own advice. Instead of being mad at her mother for flying off half-cocked, she should be glad her sister got these cool experiences. Except she wasn’t sure they were really all that cool.

Misty, the barista, wasn’t working out for him any more than Evelyn had. Mike was more than a little upset about that. Neither of them had reacted the way he wanted, and while he’d gotten a little carried away with Evelyn, God rest her soul, Misty was faring better. But he didn’t like her much.

Mike stepped out of the shower, his fair skin ruddy with the heat and scrubbing, and began toweling himself dry. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he walked out into the bedroom, where Misty was tied to his bed, looking too scared.

“You don’t understand, Misty. I don’t want to hurt you,” he offered with a weak smile as he sat on the edge of the bed. The smile disappeared when Misty started muttering angry sounds from behind the gag. That was the reason for the gag. If she’d be nice, he’d take it off, but she wouldn’t. Evelyn had made him mad, and he’d done more than he planned with her, but he’d be better with Misty.

Mike put a restraining hand on her leg, and Misty quieted. That was better. Maybe he needed to utilize more touch, to make her realize he wasn’t going to hurt her. He was already planning to take the next step in showing her how compatible they could be tonight.

She wasn’t working out, but he didn’t want to hurt her, either. He needed to keep trying to make her see.

He deserved it. Everyone deserved a little happiness.

Mike had really thought Evelyn was it. She was his soul mate. He’d spent years watching her, waiting for her to see it, too. When he’d finally given up on Evelyn seeing him with her own eyes, he’d approached her, then he’d taken her.

His plan was to show her what life with him would be like. Since the dawning of time, couples had been matched together and learned to love each other. He just knew Evelyn would be like that with him, she just had never thought to look at Mike that way.

Unfortunately, things hadn’t worked out with Evelyn, but Mike used her as a learning experience. He decided Evelyn probably knew him too well. He needed someone who didn’t know him well at all.

Like Misty.

They’d been getting to know each other. Mike read to her from Evelyn’s books, talked to her, fed her, and tonight, he would make love to her. The only problem was, Mike didn’t care much for her. She wasn’t giving him much of a chance, and that was sad because it only meant if she didn’t change for him, he would have to get rid of her, too.

Another learning experience.