Yield to Love (5 page)

Gator followed at a discreet distance
behind. When Marlowe approached the front door with its red peeling
paint, she let out a deep breath. Okay, this was it.

She tried the rusted door handle, but it was
locked.

“
Allow me,” Gator said,
sidling up to her.

She watched as he withdrew a credit card
from his back pocket and slid it along the interior doorframe.
Seconds later, she heard a click, and then the door popped
open.

She turned to him with pursed lips. “I’m
afraid to ask where you learned that.”

“
Trust me. You don’t want
to know.” He grinned. “I’ll be right outside if you need
me.”

Her heart thundered as she entered the small
house. A musty smell hit her, making her cover her nose and mouth
with one hand. She made it several feet before she was stopped in
her tracks. She gasped aloud. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The
place was littered from floor to ceiling with…stuff. That was the
best way Marlowe could describe the mess. She’d heard of people
collecting things, but this was ridiculous.

Trash. Boxes. Liquor bottles. Soda pop cans.
Beer cans. At first she thought Reesa might have been in the
process of moving, but when she looked through some of the boxes,
there was no rhyme or reason. Rusted tools. Appliances.
Knickknacks. Papers. Books. Old shoes. Clothes everywhere. Piled on
the floor. Piled on the raggedy furniture. Well, she assumed it was
old and raggedy. With so much junk covering every square inch, she
could only see the scratched legs and exposed stuffing. Everything
was either broken or in a state of repair.

She made her way to the kitchen. The
cabinets were crammed with more junk. Every nook and cranny held
something. Rows of empty Mayonnaise jars with the labels still on
them took up every inch of counter space. Oversized bags of dog
food and empty cans of cat food were stacked along one wall.

Oh God. I hope there are
no cats in here
!

Cats made her wheeze. She patted her purse
to feel the reassuring lump of her inhaler.

She retreated, making her way through the
hallway, squeezing past a narrow opening of more boxes and trash.
In one of the bedrooms, she rummaged through a closet with the
doors removed. There were more plastic bags filled with old, musty
clothes. She pulled a stack of boxes from the closet’s top shelf
and rifled through the contents. She didn’t know what she was
looking for. She only knew most people kept important information
in the backs of their closets. She figured Reesa was no exception.
She was right.

A purple and pink scrapbook caught her
eye.

“
Property of LaReesa
Wilson,” she read aloud. Marlowe thumbed through the oversized
book. There were pictures of Candace, Ronnie, and her as babies.
Marlowe smiled. They were all so sweet and innocent back then. She
flipped through more pages to find photos of her mother in high
school. She was wearing a cheerleading outfit. Beneath one of the
photos, someone had scrawled, ‘I’m a normal girl with normal
dreams.’

Following that page were poems written in
the same script. Marlowe choked back the sudden emotion lodged in
her chest. No matter who her mother turned out to be, she hadn’t
started out that way. She had dreams. She had goals.

Marlowe was so absorbed in reading the book,
she was startled when her cell phone rang.

“
Hello?” she
answered.

“
Just checking to see if
you’re still alive,” Roque said. “It’s been thirty minutes since
you went in.”

“
Oh, I didn’t
realize.”

“
Do you know how much
longer you’re going to be?”

“
You can leave. I’ll take
a taxi back home.”

“
Sweetheart, I’d bet my
pension no taxi is coming to this part of town.”

Marlowe scowled. “Maybe if you’d let me
drive my own car as I’d planned, I wouldn’t have to worry about
that.”

“
Well, I’m here. I won’t
leave you stranded.”

“
I’ll call Toye to come
pick me up. This is gonna take more time than I
thought.”

“
What exactly are you
doing in there?”

“
I need time to go through
all of my mother’s things.”

“
How much
time?”

“
I don’t know. From the
looks of things, it appears that my mother was a
hoarder.”

Roque sat across from three rich and
powerful men at the bar of the Plaza Hotel. Two of the men were
high rollers who’d inherited the generational wealth of their
great-grandfather, Reginald Crowne. Patrick and Leonidas Crowne
were savvy businessmen in their own right. The gray-haired
billionaires were fraternal twins who shared everything, including
(allegedly) the same mistress. Roque found that peculiar, but it
was none of his concern. As long as they held up their end of the
contract, they could screw Lady Gaga for all he cared.

The third man at the table was Quentin
Renaud, a trust fund baby who worked with the Crowne crew on a
variety of projects. Roque didn’t care for the snotty-nosed
upstart, but nothing was ever personal in business. Quentin was a
minor irritation compared with some of the shit he’d had to put up
with over the years in this business.

Patrick sipped from his tumbler of Maker’s
Mark. “How are things going with retail condominiums?” he asked
Roque.

“
Well,” Roque answered. “I
feel confident I’ll be able to secure the last property
today.”

“
You mean you haven’t done
so already? What are you waiting for?”

“
Precisely,” Leonidas cut
in. “Put the charm on her.”

He really wasn’t that confident now that
he’d spoken with Marlowe and she’d told him her mother was a
hoarder. He’d been floored by the news, which hit closer to home
than Marlowe could have imagined. Roque could only guess how long
it would take to go through all that stuff.

Quentin spoke up. “Who needs charm when
money will work just as well?”

“
She’s got money of her
own,” Roque informed them. “She’d not chomping at the bit to
sell.”

“
Wow,” Quentin
interjected. “I figured these row house heirs would be happy for
any handout.”

Roque tried to ignore the snide remark. Rich
folks like Quentin would never know how the other half lived. But
Roque knew. He’d scratched his way up from the rest of the bottom
feeders to get here. And he’d done it honestly. “Some things are
more important than money, Quentin.”

Quentin nearly sputtered, almost choking on
his sip of scotch. “Like what?” he demanded.

“
Dignity and
integrity.”

“
Hell, those can be bought
for a price.”

“
Yes,” Leonidas agreed.
“Don’t you forget that, Roque. Every man has his price.”

That might be true, but Marlowe Jones was a
woman. And what a woman she was! He still recalled looking at her
ass when she sashayed up the sidewalk to the house. He’d tried to
look away. Tried to ignore the tightening bulge in his pants. He’d
chalked it up to the fact that he was a man and she was female. It
was basic instinct, nothing else. He was definitely not attracted
to that spit fire. He could only imagine how she’d be in bed.
Issuing orders like a drill sergeant.

‘
Move left! Move
right!’

‘
Go harder! Go
deeper!’

‘
Drop to your knees and
give me twenty licks!’

He loosened the suddenly snug tie at his
throat, and squeezed his eyes shut for a minute. No, he would not
conjure up that last image. He must be insane to even think of her
that way.

“
So, then,” Patrick blew
his erotic fantasy to smithereens, “we’ll be hearing from you
tomorrow, I trust?”

Roque nodded. “Yes.”

“
Good. I don’t think I
need to remind you how important this deal is. Your firm will be
partners with us. We’re all going to be rich.”

Leonidas guffawed. “We’re already rich,
brother.”

Patrick smiled in return. “Well, filthy
rich.”

It wasn’t so much the money for Roque. It
was more of the challenge. And right now, there was only one
challenge in his way. Marlowe Jones.

Roque waited on the valet to pull his
Mercedes around to the front of the hotel. He had to get home. Jade
would be waiting with her companion. Really, the woman was just a
glorified nanny, but Jade hated it when he called her that. Jade
created the role, companion. It made sense. She was too old for a
nanny and too troublesome for a sitter. Jade’s companion, was a
young woman, nineteen years of age. She was a tomboy who could
handle Jade and all of her pets.

Roque’s attention was diverted from his
daughter when his cell phone rang. He smiled when he saw Gator’s
number on the caller ID. Finally. He’d been waiting for his call
ever since he’d left him with Marlowe this morning. He’d called
Brett to come pick him up and left Marlowe with Gator. He knew
Gator could handle himself in any situation.

“
Talk to me,” Roque
ordered.

“
It’s bad,” Gator replied.
“You can barely walk in there.”

“
Damn.”

“
She says she’s gonna need
at least a few weeks to go through it all.”

“
I don’t have a few
weeks.”

“
I don’t think she cares.
She’s pretty choked up about finding all that shit in there. I
don’t think she and her mama parted on the best of
terms.”

Roque passed a hand through his hair. What
else could go wrong with this? This was supposed to have been an
easy deal. “I should have known Marlowe ‘High Maintenance’ Jones
was going to be trouble from the beginning.”

“
Maybe you should call her
and express your condolences.”

He had a deadline and he would not be put
off by some sentimental woman. “Are you telling me how to run my
business, Gator?”

“
Nope. Just thought you
might want to act like a human for once.”

No, he didn’t. Humans got hurt. Humans were
infallible. He wanted to take care of business. And he planned to
do just that.

“
It’s obvious Ms. Jones
needs some help,” Roque said. “So, I’m going to give it to
her.”

“
Uh oh. I don’t like that
tone.”

“
Standby for further
orders, Gator. I may need you later.”

“
Roger that.”

Roque clenched his jaw. It seemed lately all
he did was make phone calls to get shit done. He hung up with Gator
and called Brett again.

“
Yes, sir,” Brett
answered.

“
Have you ever seen the
show,
Hoarders
?”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Find me a local company
that hauls away large amounts of trash and personal
belongings.”

“
Will these items be
resold?”

“
How the hell should I
know?”

“
I’m asking because I’ll
have to give them further instructions on how to dispose of the
items.”

Roque hadn’t thought of that. “Have them
taken to a goddamn landfill for all I care.”

“
Yes, sir. And where would
you like the items picked up from?”

Now, that was easy to answer. “319 Club
Lane.”

###

“
I cannot believe your
mother had so much junk.”

Marlowe and Toye were standing in Reesa’s
old bedroom sorting through boxes of old clothes, linens, and
stuffed animals. After yesterday’s trip to the house, Marlowe had
confided in Toye about Reesa’s obvious hoarding obsession. Toye had
agreed to come back with her today. Probably more out of nosiness
than compassion. But Marlowe was glad Toye drove her Lexus SUV just
in case she had to take anything back with her. Judging from the
crap in these boxes, it seemed highly unlikely Marlowe would be
taking anything back but a staph infection. They’d been here for
hours and they hadn’t put a dent in this mess.

“
Thanks for coming with
me,” she told Toye.

“
Girl, you know I wouldn’t
miss a chance to see what Reesa was up to. But damn, I had no idea
she was a pack rat. When you said she had mountains of stuff, I
didn’t take it literally.” Toye held up a pair of thigh high boots.
“Your mama never did have any fashion sense.”

Marlowe frowned. “Those must have been from
her biker days.”

“
Yeah, right. Usually, she
wore as little clothing as possible.”

“
I’m finding out my mother
had many sides to her.”

“
None of them good.
“

Marlowe was starting to get annoyed by
Toye’s negative comments. It was one thing for her to think poorly
of her own mother. Quite another for Toye to voice it in such a
hostile manner. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring her
cousin.

“
I beg to differ,” Marlowe
said. “There was an innocence about her. But it was
shattered.”

“
Well, she was no saint.
Don’t forget that.”

Marlowe glared at her. “How could I forget?
You won’t let me.”

Toye’s eyes grew wide. “Why are you trippin’
on me?”

“
Why are you ragging on my
mother?”

“
I’m only stating what
everybody already knows. She was a ho. My mama was one too. You
don’t see me getting all teary-eyed over her.”