When It Rains... (7 page)

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Authors: Angie Daniels

BOOK: When It Rains...
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Dory McDonald looked up from her computer to find her boss standing over her desk wearing a Cardinalsbaseball cap, a tattered T-shirt, and a faded pair of jeans spattered with paint. “I'm almost afraid to ask what you've been doing today.”
Looking up from the pile of mail he was thumbing through, Jay smirked. “Terraine conned my ass into helping him paint my niece's nursery.”
Dory's eyes were wide with delight. “Sasha's havin' a girl?”
“That's what her doctor says.” Jay tucked the mail under his arm and headed toward his office door, locatedbehind Dory's desk. “Let's hope they haven't made a mistake.”
Dory twirled around in the swivel chair. “Why's that?”
“Sasha'll go off.” Jay was shaking with amusement. He knew from experience that once his sister-in-law set her mind to something, it was next to impossible to change it.
Jay took a seat in his chair and set the mail on the corner of his desk to go through later, then reached for the stack of pink message slips sitting on top of his phone. Kendra had already called twice this morning. Damn! She'd been calling him for three days, and there was no point putting the shit off any longer. They needed to talk. Soon.
“Where's Chad?” he said. Chad Hamilton was the firm's most promising investigator. As a former St. Louis police officer, he was thorough, reminding Jay of himself.
“He's in his office,” Dory said, closer than before.
Jay glanced up to find Dory leaning against his door frame.
“I think he's interviewing another missin' person's case,” she added.
Jay frowned. “Shit. That's just what we need.” Chad had been reassigned to handle all missing persons—one thing Jay preferred not to do. Most of them were due to broken homes or sexual abuse cases. Things that pulled at his heartstrings.
“I'm on my way out to lunch, you want anything?” Dory moved toward his desk, carrying a straw purse over her shoulder.
Looking up at her friendly, light brown eyes, Jay smiled. Dory had been twenty-one when he first met her. She'd just given birth to a son and was desperate for a job. Responding to an ad he'd run in the newspaper, she arrived at his office looking like a straight-up hoochie in a skintight, lime-green dress with white platform shoes. Dory had very limited skills, but was willing to learn. She had pleaded with Jay for a chance. Jay saw something in her that he hadn't found in any of his other candidates. Determination. He hired her on the spot, and not once had he regretted his decision. Two years later, she stood before him dressed appropriately in a gray turtleneck sweater dress, her jet-black hair pulled back neatly with a hair clip.
“Yeah, grab me two cheeseburgers and a large fry.” Jay reached into his pocket, pulled out several bills, and handed them to her.
Unzipping a side compartment, she slipped the money in her purse. “You're gonna clog your arteries,” she scolded. The health-conscious Dory was planning on picking up a salad for herself.
“Yeah, but at least I'll die happy,” he joked.
After Dory departed, Jay laced his fingers behind his head. Rocking in his brown swivel chair, he allowed his eyes to travel across the parade of framed news clippingsand awards that adorned the walls. Fifteen years of accumulation. He sighed as his mind filtered back to thoughts of self-worth. There was proof right in front of his face that his career meant something. The numberof cases his firm had been successful at solving was a phenomenon in itself. Yet it still wasn't enough.
He needed something more.
Jay heard heavy footsteps moving across the floor outside his office. Looking up, he watched a rugged ebony man stroll through his door. He reared back in his chair and propped his feet on the end of his desk. “What's up?”
Chad pulled a chair away from a small conference table in the corner. Planting the chair in front of Jay's desk, he straddled it with his large legs and rested his arms against the back. “I just had an interestin' interview.”He lowered a thin manila folder onto the desk.
“How so?”
“I met with this fine-ass widow who is certain her husband's still alive.”
Jay's eyes sparkled with interest. “How's that possible?”
“Check this shit out. She was in Kansas City for a conference over the weekend and says she saw her husbandcoming out of a restaurant with another lady.”
Jay's brow quirked. “Why didn't she just go over and ask him?”
“She tried, but the brotha pulled off in a Benz before she could stop him.”
Jay reached for the file labeled
Jocelyn Price
, and without looking at Chad, asked, “Do you think she's a crackpot?”
“Naw,” Chad said, and smiled. “She's a pediatrician.”Rubbing a hand across his chin, he added, “With a nice body.”
Jay opened the file. “You never could resist.”
Chad flashed him a pearly-white smile. “One of the pleasures of being single.”
Jay looked up to see the man's walnut eyes sparkling with mischief. Chad loved beautiful women in all shapes and sizes. Commitment was impossible. He believedthere were too many options. Only a damn fool would settle for just one chip when he could have the entire bag. As active as Chad's personal life was, Jay was amazed at the time and dedication he was able to put into his cases.
Breezing through his notes, Jay read that J.W. Price had died a year before in an automobile accident, his body burned beyond recognition. “So, I guess you want to take on this case?”
Chad raised a hand and ran it across the ten jet-black cornrows his younger sister had braided the night before.“I do. For more reasons than one.”
“No doubt,” Jay replied in a dry tone.
“Actually, man, I think you should take it.”
“Why me?” He closed the file and placed it on the corner of his desk.
“Shit, man. I already have a heavy caseload. Tyler and Paul also.” They were the operatives responsible for all the grunt work.
Jay dropped his feet to the floor and, turning in his chair, quickly logged on to his computer. Dory input all cases into a database, and each was flagged active until solved.
Jay whistled. There were over thirty active cases. “Fuck! When did all this happen?”
“Since your black ass left town.”
“Naw. They weren't in here on Monday.” The day after he returned from Memphis he had dropped by the office. There had only been twelve active cases then.
“That's 'cause I asked Dory not to enter them until you were officially back in the office. I knew if you saw them as soon as you got back, you wouldn't have taken a few days off.”
Jay smirked. “You think you know me well.”
“I do. It's like looking at a mirror image of myself.”
Jay agreed ... except that Jay had changed in one aspect. “Leave the file,” he said. “I'll look at it tonight.”
“I thought you'd say that.” Chad rubbed his hand across his goatee. “Did I mention she's fine?”
“Yeah, you did.” Jay frowned. “But unlike you, I don't mix business with pleasure.”
“Since when?” Chad looked at him with surprise.
“Since I realized there are other pleasures in life.”
Chad chuckled. “That bullet did more damage to your ass than I imagined.” But he had the perfect cure for his boss—fine-ass Dr. Jocelyn Price.
 
 
“So, how did it go?” Mercedes asked when her boss returned to the shop later that afternoon. The snow had stopped falling. Honey's cheeks were rosy from the cold wind, but an excited light was in her eyes.
“I got the loan,” she announced.
“Yes!” Candy exclaimed.
“Hell yeah!” Mercedes and all her other staff—Aisha, Sonya, Terry, and Peaches—chimed in from their workstations.
“I can begin construction as soon as the permit is ready.” Honey frowned, then mumbled, “That is ... as soon as I can find my brotha's worthless ass.”
Mercedes stopped applying styling gel to a customer'shair long enough to point toward the back of the building. “Speak of the devil, Rashad's in your office.”
Honey's eyes widened with delight. She quickly removedher jacket and headed toward the rear. Entering her private office, she found him sitting behind her desk on the phone.
“Get off my phone,” she mouthed while trying to keep a straight face. Her recent good fortune kept her from truly getting an attitude. However, after her last encounter with one of her brother's women—who took it upon herself to dial star-sixty-nine to find out what number Rashad was calling from, then bark, “Who da hell is dis?”—Honey had banned him from using her office telephone.
Rashad dropped his brand-new Jordans from the edge of her desk and put a fingertip to his full lips, signaling for her to be silent. Honey, in turn, propped a hand on her hip, then pressed her lips tight with false annoyance and tried to disguise her admiration.
Both of her brothers were fine, but Rashad had always been the looker. While Honey inherited petite features like her mother, Rashad took after their no-good-ass father,with a tough, stocky build and broad shoulders that filled his green and white jogging suit. His complexion was similar to his sister's, and also considered “high yellow.”He had sandy brown hair that was startling against his fair skin, and eyes so gray they were often mistaken for contacts. With large fingers wrapped around the receiver,he ran his tongue across thick, sensual lips surroundedby a carefully trimmed goatee.
“Boo, I'll holla at you tonight,” he whispered into the receiver, trying to keep his sister from overhearing.
Honey, finding his discomfort amusing, suppressed a chuckle and edged across the desk.
Giving her an annoyed look, Rashad swiveled the chair away from her outstretched ear and told the unseencaller, “All right, baby, later.” Turning back around, he hung up the receiver, leaned back, and grumbled, “Damn! Can't a brotha have privacy?” Then his face melted into a buttery smile.
Honey clicked her teeth, resisting a grin. “Not in my office you can't. Out of my seat,” she said, pointing her thumb at the door.
Rashad pushed out of the chair, surging to his full height of six feet, and perched his hip on the end of her desk.
“I haven't heard from your ass in almost two weeks.” Honey rose on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek, then stood back with arms folded beneath her breasts. “Whatcha been up to?” When younger, she often felt like the big sister, especially when Rashad worried their mother about his whereabouts.
Rashad smiled and tilted his head, then said, “You know I'm always doing a lil' somethin' somethin'.”
Honey pursed her lips before replying, “Uh-huh. That's what I'm afraid of.” Suddenly, that little
somethin'
caught her attention. She leaned forward to take a closer look. “Is that another gold tooth?”
Rashad nodded with pride. There wasn't much he could get past his little sister. Widening his smile, he gave Honey a clear view of all three gold crowns dominatingthe front of his mouth.
Honey groaned at the gold open-faced heart that added to his collection and walked around her desk, shaking her head. St. Louis had the reputation of being the gold-tooth capital of the Midwest. With Rashad, Mercedes, half of their clients, and the cashiers at Church's Chicken, she could no longer argue the statistic.“You look straight-up ghetto,” she said.
He waved a dismissive hand at his sister's disapproval. “Damn, sis. I thought you'd be happy to see a nigga.” Pulling a stick of chewing gum from his pocket, Rashad quickly stuffed it into his mouth. When she chose to roll her eyes instead of commenting, he decided to change the subject. “How'd it go at the bank?”
Lowering into her chair, Honey nodded, amazed that he had remembered, but she found herself often surprisedby her unpredictable brother. “It's on like popcorn.I got the loan.”
Even though her face was unchanged, he heard the excitement in her voice. “All right, lil' sis!” Rashad gave her a high five, then slapped his palms together roughly as if they were on fire. “Shit, I knew my hands were burnin' for some reason. So when do we get down to business?”
“I'll get the check on Tuesday.” Honey leaned forwardin her chair and pointed a stern finger at him. “But let me tell you something, Rashad Dante Love ...” She narrowed her eyes. “I'm not putting up with any of your shit.”
Rashad sucked his teeth. “Girl, puhleeze.”
“Don't ‘girl, puhleeze' me!” She planted both hands on the desk and rose out of her chair. “If you're gonna do this job for me, you're gonna have to forget I'm your sister and think of me as one of your clients.”

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