by Jada Cox
“Good luck with that,” she said, beginning to turn toward her front door.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and watched her walk toward the door. She had a delicious walk. I smiled to myself. I couldn’t pursue her like I had with other women in the past. No, this required a more delicate approach. She wasn’t like other women, and I had the fleeting thought that I wanted something more from her than I did from other women. I wanted to be more for her than I had been with others.
I averted my eyes from her ass and looked at the ground, telling myself that I would be a gentleman. I was just turning to walk away when I noticed the sticker on her car.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “One thing.”
She turned and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, her house keys in her hand.
“I noticed this sticker here. JC Detectives?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“I was just wondering if you knew if they were hiring. I’m looking for a security job.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “You just bought that house, and you’re looking to become security detail?”
I shrugged. “Keeps me from getting bored. So, do you know if they’re taking on security staff?”
“No,” she said flatly. “They’re not.”
She unlocked her door and went inside, leaving me in the driveway.
I climbed out of my sleeping bag on the floor of my bedroom. The guys were right. We definitely needed furniture. Sleeping on the ground in the woods was one thing. The dirt was at least a little more willing to form to the shape of your body. But waking up on a hardwood surface every morning was going to make me feel my age.
My room was one of four on the top floor, and in the corner of the house. I woke up to one of the best views I could imagine: the beginnings of the Chattahoochee National Forest north of the house. The little neighboring town was on one of the foothills, and the positioning of this house was simply spectacular. From ceiling to floor, there was nothing but window. Another, narrower window joined it at the corner of the room, suggesting that you could walk straight out of the room into the trees. I would have to remember to install a deck out there at some point. It would make for an excellent take-off point, if it would hold my Dragon’s weight.
I stretched my stiffness out, moving my neck, my shoulders, and my hips, and doing a few toe touches to wake me up if nothing else, before heading into my little bathroom. That was the trade-off. I got the room with the great view, but I also got the only one that came with a shower instead of having a hot tub in it. I felt like I came out on top with that one.
I put on some jeans and tucked my phone inside my pocket before I made my way downstairs. I could hear the coffee percolating even before I got to the kitchen.
“Dain’s on his way into town to get groceries,” Wyatt said, passing me a cup of black coffee.
“Sugar?” I asked, trying if I could smell it in the brew.
Wyatt shook his head. “Not ‘til Dain gets back.”
I sipped at the bitter black liquid. “At least we have this.” I reached over and took my laptop off the kitchen counter and tucked it under my arm. “Anyone else awake?”
“Ain’t nobody here but us chickens,” Wyatt said. “They must be sleeping hard.”
“It was hard sleeping, that’s for sure,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said raising my mug. “I’m going to look into an interior decorator and look for some work. I’ll look into getting internet and cable set up, too.”
It was going to be a humid day, but there was still some cool to the air. It was perfect weather to enjoy coffee in the morning. I could get used to living in Georgia. At least, I would need to. We had just bought an extraordinarily priced house, after all.
I sat on the deck on dirty boards, making a note to myself to get a pressure washer for it, my feet planted on the steps. I wiggled my phone out of my pocket and turned the hotspot on before turning my computer on. Getting internet taken care of had been easy. I shot off a few emails to potential decorators and while I was at it, ordered some inflatable beds for us. Who knew that buying a house meant buying stuff to go into the house as well? I supposed most people didn’t have to deal with that. Most people didn’t live the nomad life.
I had just finished my coffee when I got around to looking up local security jobs in the area. I had a quick look at my resume before I sent it off to a few prospects before I remembered to check out the place on Violet’s car. What was it called?
“JC Detectives,” I muttered as the name came back to me. There was no email address, but there was a phone number to call. I punched it into my phone and waited.
“JC Detectives, Janet speaking. How can we help you today?” the voice on the other end said.
“Uh, yeah, I was just looking for your Human Resources department.”
I could hear a muffled exasperated sigh before the cheery voice returned. “I can handle any of your Human Resources needs,” she said.
“Alright,” I replied. “I was just wondering if you had any need for security detail. I’m looking for some work.”
“Let me have a look for you,” she said. I could hear her fingers at work as she typed away. “It looks like we do have an opening. Do you have any experience mister …?”
“Parker,” I said. “Malcolm Parker. And yes, I have plenty of experience.”
“Wonderful. Did you want to come in for an interview today?”
“I can do that,” I replied.
She finalized the time with me before clicking off the phone. An interview. For the first time in over fifteen years, I had an interview. I hadn’t the faintest idea how to do one of those anymore.
Chapter 4 - Violet
I sat on the kitchen counter, bowl in hand, granola and yogurt filling it, as I stared mindlessly out of the window. I just couldn’t get myself together yet. It was on days like today that I wished I drank coffee, though I was glad I didn’t as a whole. I always got the jitters in the worst way, and the crash was never worth it in the end. No, I was far too sensitive to caffeine to include it in my life. But still, after nights when I had been tossing and turning and unable to sleep, I needed some kind of boost. I’d sprinkled a few chocolate chips in my breakfast to see if that would do the trick, but other than making it completely delicious, it was doing nothing for my mental cobwebs.
I was spacing out, thinking about my new case. There was a lot to it, and for the first time since I became a detective, I was beginning to doubt my skills. Deep down, I knew that I was capable of handling it, but there was that part of me that was afraid, wondering if I really could manage it. When I’d been in the police force, I’d at least had a team working with me. I had people I could delegate tasks to, that I could rely on.
It’s not that bad, I told myself. It’s just like tailing cheaters, but it’s someone higher up the food chain.
Except he wasn’t just someone with a better job. He was someone who had power. He was a banker. He had access to a lot of money, and if he was laundering it, there had to be something more to it. There had to be a pretty good reason he was involved in this activity. And he must be getting a pretty good cut to make it happen, too. He wasn’t exactly tight on cash, himself.
I sighed. I recognized that voice of reason, the element of doubt in my skillset. It wasn’t my own voice. It was the collective voice of my four brothers. They always believed in me, that was true, but they also believed that they needed to be there for me at the first sign of trouble. I had never once asked them to do it, but they were always there, protecting me, making sure that nothing happened to their baby sister.
I grew up in a small town in Alaska. It was pretty easy to get into the police department there, and I did it pretty young, too. But the whole time I was there, my brothers were undermining me, always going to the chief to ask him not to put me on any dangerous cases, not to send me out at night to house calls in case it was more than ju
st a domestic abuse case. They only saw me as vulnerable, no matter how well I held my own. It didn’t matter that I liked to go camping by myself; it didn’t matter that I could hunt with the rest of them and had even managed to take down a moose at one point. They only saw me as their only sister, and the baby, at that.
I loved my brothers, but I knew that I was never going to advance in my career if I stayed near them. I knew that I had to get out of Alaska if I was going to have any chance at making detective. So I applied to a job in Atlanta, caught a flight there, and went on to become a detective. And now, my career had landed me in a private detective agency, away from my brothers’ eyes, away from the police department’s eyes, and under my own scrutiny. Here I sat, so many years later, still hearing their words of doubt in my ears.
I finished my granola and hopped off the counter, putting my bowl in the sink. I turned the tap on and was letting the bowl fill with water when I saw him. The new neighbor, Malcolm, I thought he said his name was. He was walking his bike up the drive that went alongside his house and down. I was almost certain that Mr. Bernard had said they had an underground garage. Why was he walking his bike instead of just riding it out?
He parked it when he got to the flat surface before running back to the front door. Clearly, he had forgotten something.
His movements were like a dance. Everything about him was painfully good-looking. He wore the same white shirt or, at least, a similar white shirt to the one I had seen him in when we first met, those muscles of his stretching it tight and bulging out of the sleeves, his tanned skin popping against the light color of his shirt.
Why did I have to turn that guy down, again? I asked myself. I didn’t have to date the guy, just maybe have some fun with him …
No, he was my new neighbor, and I couldn’t be doing complicated things with someone just two doors down from mine, let alone with a biker. And if I was going to do anything with someone so nearby, it would have to be more serious than play, if for no other reason to avoid those embarrassing moments when we crossed each other’s paths after seeing each other naked.
I had made the right call. At least, that was what I was telling myself. But watching him pop back out of the house again, swing his leg over his motorcycle with ease, and buckle his helmet under his chin made me question what I thought was “right.”
I didn’t realize that I had been nibbling my bottom lip as I watched him or that I was leaning over the sink toward the window until I went to turn the faucet off and turned the tap the wrong way. The water jetted out of the nozzle at full blast, splashing into the bowl and up to my chest and face.
“Fuck!” I swore, turning the sink off and backing away, dripping. “Shit, fuck, damn.”
I began unbuttoning my shirt and running upstairs to get a new one. I was going to have to pull one from the laundry basket, which I hated doing. I quickly rummaged, found the least worn-looking shirt, and pulled it on, buttoning it up while examining my makeup in the mirror. Other than looking pissed off and flustered, I was alright.
And I needed to leave.
I had a focus for the day. I had read through and collected all the data I could from the given reports and information, as well as done as much cyber sleuthing as I could on Rowe. Today’s plan was to know where he was going to be at approximately what time so I could make sure I was there to keep an eye on him.
The documents hadn’t given much information on the places he visited. Just a few of the martini bars he liked to go to and a strip club he was known to spend his hard-earned money at, but little else.
I was excited to begin tailing. It was something I hadn’t been too shabby at back in the day. The only problem was that my orange car stuck out like a sore thumb. Whenever I planned to follow Rowe in my car, I was going to need to rent a car or see if I could team up with someone else, though that wasn’t going to happen. This case was my chance to show what I was made of. This was my time to shine, and I was not about to share that light with anyone else unless absolutely necessary.
I parked my car, pulled my visor down and looked myself straight in the eye. “You deserve this case,” I told myself. “You are smart, talented, and tough as nails. This agency is lucky to have the likes of Detective Hill to take down this sonofabitch. You deserve this case.” I stared myself down until I went beyond believing my words, until I knew what I was saying was true, before I let myself get out of the car.
I scanned my badge into the building and just about dropped my travel mug when I saw Malcolm sitting in the waiting room, one leg stretched out in front of him, leaning his elbow casually on the arm of the chair, reading the Scientific American.
“You’ve got to be joking,” I said.
Malcolm looked up, his dark eyes meeting mine and a smile stretching across his face. “Good morning.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Reading the Scientific American,” he said, holding up the magazine. “I was reading People, but half the pages were torn out.”
“No, I mean, what are you doing here?” I hissed at him.
“Oh, right,” he said. “That security job you said JC Detectives wasn’t hiring for? I interviewed for it and got it. I’m on security detail, just waiting here for the official intro.”
“Really?” When I had told him that we weren’t hiring, it was mostly to keep him out of the office. But I actually, genuinely didn’t think we were hiring, never mind for security. Since when did the company shell out for muscle?
“Really, really,” he said. “So. You work here too?”
“Detective Hill,” I said, waving my clearance badge. “And I have to get to work.”
“I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” he said as I scanned my badge once again to get into the office area.
“So it would seem,” I replied as the door closed behind me.
I scanned the empty office before I leaned against the door, flustered all over again. That guy was going to be a distraction for me, I could already tell. I fanned my face for a moment before I went on to the kitchen station for hot water for my tea. Janet was already there, a big smile on her face. She had been waiting for me, and I could almost guess what she wanted to talk to me about. Something about the new hire, perhaps.
“Have you seen that hunk of man out there?” she said, almost bursting before she could get the words out.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, more than seen him.”
“What does that mean?” She eyed me scandalously.
“He’s my new neighbor, believe it or not,” I said, pulling the lid off my travel mug.
“Get out. Really?”
“Really, really,” I said, cringing as I realized I was repeating Malcolm’s response.
“You get to look at that all day?”
“Not ‘that,’” I corrected. “He’s a human being. Also, I don’t get to look at him all day. I just sometimes see him when he’s coming home or leaving the house.”
“If I lived next to him, I would know exactly when he left the house,” Janet said. “And I would be ready on my porch with a glass of wine.”
“Okay, now you’re sounding gross,” I said, simpering.
“Did you tell him to apply here?”
“I actually told him the exact opposite,” I said. “I told him we weren’t hiring and not to look us up.”
“Why on earth would you do that?” she asked, putting her hand on my forearm as if she needed steadying.
I sighed, then laughed a little at the absurdity. “Because I think he was hitting on me the other day.”
“You’re not making sense here, honey,” Janet said.
“I can’t date a guy like that. And I can’t have fun with my neighbor. It’d make it weird. So, I turned him down.”
“But have you seen him?” Janet repeated breathlessly.
I laughed. “Believe you me, I have seen him. But I need to focus on work, and I need to not get myself into something just because a guy looks like—like—”
>
“Like he would be delicious dipped in chocolate,” Janet supplied in complete seriousness. “Lady, you need to examine your values in life.”
“That may be true,” I said, picking up my travel mug, “but what I need to do is get to work. Try not to drool on him, will you?”
“No promises,” Janet replied as I waved, walking to my desk.
This week was going to be hard. I was going to have a hard enough time knowing he was in the building without Janet wanting to slobber all over him, and then tell me that she was slobbering all over him. Attractive men had come into the office before, and like a cat in heat without any real gumption to do anything about it, Janet would swoon over them. I wouldn’t hear the end of it until she either found out they were married or gay or until they finished their work in the building.
Meanwhile, I wanted to do my best to forget he was working for the agency. If I could spray myself with my cereal bowl while I thought about him, who knew what else I might get sprayed with.
The good news, at least, was that he worked in security, which was well out of my department and my floor even. Security was nicely tucked away on the second floor, where I didn’t have to see or think about any of them. That was a happy mercy to me. Not just because Malcolm was now a part of that team, but because there was something about it that just felt a little bit overly protective, which made me think of my brothers. A well-intended department that, when employed, had the potential to be problematic to a case.
So long as Janet could keep her mouth shut, it was very likely that I would forget completely that Malcolm worked for JC Detectives.
I set to work on the file at my desk, taking notes and brainstorming my plan of action. My tea had gone cold by the time Don’s voice interrupted me, making me startle.
“A little jumpy there,” he said. “You sure you can handle this case?”
I tried my best to hide the glower aimed in his direction, but I was almost certain I failed. “I’m just fine with this case,” I said through clenched teeth.