Welcome to Blissville

by Walker, Aimee Nicole

  “You can ask,” Josh replied cautiously.

  “Will you please not tell anyone about my… gift?”

  “That I can guarantee,” he said.

  “Good,” I said in relief. “I don’t do parlor tricks. I take my abilities seriously, and I use them to help people, not hurt them.” I wanted to take the opportunity to assure him that I wasn’t there to cause trouble in his life.

  “I understand. I doubt the rest of the group will whip out their phones and search your name as we did, but I do advise you make up a believable excuse as to why you moved to Blissville,” Josh sagely replied. “It’s a nice town and all, but rarely do people move here unless it’s work-related.”

  I thought about it for a few seconds then asked, “What do you think they’d find acceptable? Honestly, I’m out of my league here. I don’t know why I’m in Blissville beyond the fact that I knew I was needed.”

  Josh narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down. “How about a writer? Maybe you moved here to do research on small towns for a series you’re writing. They may not drill you down as to exactly how or why you picked Blissville, but have an answer ready if they do. My friends have an attention to detail like you won’t believe.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” I remarked. “Thanks for the advice. You know,” I said after a brief pause, “it’s not far off the mark. Right now, I’m just jotting things down in a journal, but I have tossed around the idea of publishing a book about my experiences.”

  “Can I ask you something, Emory? You can say no, but I need complete honesty if you’re willing to answer my question.”

  “Ask away.” I had an idea of what he wanted to ask, and I had no problem answering it.

  “Will you share with me exactly what you saw to make you move here in the house behind mine?”

  “Honestly, Josh, it was a vision of a piece of mail with my name and the Blissville address on it. Nothing else. It was the oddest thing to ever occur to me. I ignored it for a few weeks until I started to see the vision daily. I knew it was time to pack up and move here to find out what was waiting for me.”

  “Do your visions ever help you prevent crimes or do you only help solve them after they’re committed?” Josh asked me.

  “That’s two questions,” I replied jokingly.

  “You’re right. I apologize.”

  “Don’t apologize, Josh. I was only teasing you.” I blew out a long breath then said, “I’ve worked in both situations, but the majority have been the latter scenario you described.” I had hoped my answer would ease his concern a little, but it was obvious by his tense posture that he was still worried about my appearance in Blissville. I hated that I’d upset him so much, but leaving town wasn’t an option until I figured out why River sent me here.

  “Well,” Josh said, ready to end the conversation and move on with his day, “you know where I live if you feel like having company.”

  “Will there be an Easter egg hunt?”

  “No,” Josh answered with a laugh. “Deal breaker?”

  “Nah,” I replied good-naturedly. “I’ll see you around. Perhaps on Sunday.”

  “See you, Emory.”

  Josh and I continued on our original paths, which took us in opposite directions. We must have had similar strides because we reached our driveways at the same time. I had returned Josh’s wave before I headed inside. I went straight upstairs to shower off the sweat and tried to come up with something to do with my time while I waited for cosmic answers to appear, but my mind kept straying to the conversation I had with Memphis. My mother said hello, and she missed me. Did I dare hope that was the case? Did I even care?

  I shut the water off a little more forcefully than it required and was glad I didn’t snap the faucet with my hand. I gritted my teeth in frustration as I dried off and got dressed. I knew it was a mistake to call my mother, but I would drive myself crazy if I didn’t.

  I was surprised when she answered the phone on the second ring instead of letting it go to voicemail. Then I heard the voice on the other end and knew why. “Hello,” Tamara, my mother’s longtime personal assistant said. “It’s good to hear your voice. Let me get Audrey on the line for you.” Instead of muting the phone, Tamara covered it with her hand when she informed my mother that I was calling her. Unfortunately, she must’ve forgotten that the speaker was at the bottom of the phone. I heard my mother’s voice loud and clear.

  “He always calls at the worst possible times.” I imagined she was dramatically rolling her eyes like she was prone to do. “Tamara, please tell him that I’ll call him later.” There wasn’t an ounce of excitement or affection in her voice. Missed me? No, something else was going on. Too bad for her that I wasn’t giving her a chance to tell me. I hung up before Tamara came back on the phone.

  My mother’s behavior wasn’t anything new; she’d acted that way my entire life. She never wanted anything to do with me, preferring to let nannies oversee my day-to-day activities. Audrey McIntire-Whelan was perfectly happy with a quick goodnight at bedtime, if I got that, until she saw that I had developed a close relationship with a nanny. My mother didn’t want me, but she wanted all of my affection aimed at her at the moments she chose to enter my life. When that didn’t happen immediately, the nanny was fired and a new one took over. My mom would insert herself into my life, giving me hope that she finally wanted to spend time with me and that I was worthy of her love until she either got bored or figured she had solidified her position in my life. The pattern repeated itself through several nannies until I was wise enough to catch on to the game.

  River was the one person my mother couldn’t run off, and I had refused to allow her to ruin the beautiful love I’d found with him. I don’t know why I’d held false hope that my mother had changed her ways after all this time. I shook my head in disgust. I had thought that moving to Blissville would bring meaningful changes to my life, but I learned that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

  A few days later, I learned that my suspicion about Detective Wyatt was correct. He was like a bulldog with a bone in his mouth and wasn’t going to give up until he solved my brother’s case. I wasn’t involved in Nate’s death and didn’t fear anything the detective had to say to me, but I was still surprised when he contacted me directly rather than go through my attorney like I’d instructed him.

  It was ironic that a shower was also involved the second time Detective Wyatt reached out to me. Except, the shower was in my dreams, and he had joined me. My ringing cell phone woke me before I got to the good parts. I was irritated about missing out on that delectable fantasy of running soapy hands all over that body and pissed at myself for not silencing my phone.

  I debated whether I should listen to the message or just call Rick to let him know the detective was harassing me. A surprising thought tickled the back of my brain. The sexy detective didn’t have to be my enemy. In fact, we both had the same goal, so why not find out what he wanted?

  I played back the voicemail message without further hesitation. “Mr. Silver, this is Detective Wyatt with the Greater Cincinnati Task Force.” I wasn’t aware that the task force had a name, but that wasn’t what struck me. It was the deep timbre of the detective’s voice, and it momentarily distracted me from the reason for his call. “It’s very important that I speak to you about your brother’s case.” The detective rattled off his cell phone number and asked me to call him at my earliest convenience.

  His firm, urgent tone caused my heart to flare with hope. Could there be a crack in the case? There would never be a more convenient time like the present to find justice for my brother. The only inconvenient thing was the semi-erection the detective gave me. I’d learned long ago to ignore those types of urges.

  “You rang, Detective,” I said into the phone once he answered. I sounded equal parts sleepy and horny.

  “I’m sorry that I woke you, Mr. Silver. There’s been a development in your brother’s case, and I need your help.”

 
“Are you serious?” I asked, suddenly feeling alert. “Um, give me an hour to wake up and get my crap together. Where do you want to meet me?”

  “You name the place and time, and we’ll meet you,” he said.

  “We?”

  “Yes, you met my partner,” Detective Wyatt reminded me. His partner was a wisecracker at my office but said very little at the precinct so I’d temporarily forgotten about him.

  “Oh.” I sounded disappointed. Perhaps I was confusing reality with my dreams, or maybe I wanted to push the sexy man to see how far he’d go. “I was hoping you were coming alone.” I wouldn’t classify my tone as seductive, but I was positive it got my point across.

  “Not going to happen,” Detective Wyatt said firmly. “Dorchester and I will meet you. When and where?” he asked me.

  I let out a dissatisfied sigh and said, “Four o’clock in my office. I’ll even wear clothes this time.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t happen. Why didn’t Detective Wyatt call Rick? Should I call Rick and ask him to be present? Was the detective as good in bed as the vibes he emitted? Yeah, sex is never far from a guy’s mind. My thoughts spun in a hundred different directions and made me feel like someone had scrambled my brains. That thought reminded me of the way Nate loved ketchup on his scrambled eggs and my grossed-out response that it looked like brains.

  The pain in my chest, whenever I thought about my brother, hadn’t lessened since the day Rick notified me of his death. Nate and I had tried to cram the forty years we missed with one another into the seven months we’d had together. It wasn’t enough time, and I didn’t get to know all the things I wanted to know about him. It was a hard blow that was a hundred times more painful than any injury I received in battle or on a mission. I learned that scars on hearts remained open long after the ones on our bodies healed.

  Instead of moping around in bed, I got dressed and worked out in Nate’s—my—gym. The detective’s crack about me living in my brother’s house was spot-on because Nate had left his estate to me, but I did not take over his bedroom. I did buy out his silent partner in the club as soon as I could because Marlon Bandowe was a coward undeserving of my brother’s affections and I wouldn’t waste a second of my time looking at him.

  Running Nate’s business was never one of my goals, but my brother loved his club. Selling it didn’t seem right to me either. It no longer mattered what I wanted, because it was mine, and I would keep it running successfully to honor my brother. I knew nothing about the kind of club my brother operated because my preferred haunts offered more debauchery, but Corbin Bouchard, my best friend, black ops brother, and owner of Voodoo in New Orleans assured me that a club is a club and offered his assistance.

  “Good accounting, reliable employees, and sticking to your club rules are critical whether your patrons just like to dance to the latest hip hop single or they like to get tied down and fucked in the center of the room for everyone to see,” Corbin had said.

  God, how I missed the freedom I had found in those private rooms at Voodoo. I wasn’t a man who needed to pay expensive club memberships to find sex, but I wanted it that way. Everyone there knew to follow the rules, or they were not-so-kindly escorted to the door. “Rule number one is to never have sex with an employee,” he’d warned me. Well, I fucked that all to hell—literally and figuratively. Luckily, Alexander wasn’t behaving weirdly around me or in front of the other employees. I might’ve caught a wistful gleam in his eyes a few times, but he never acted on it. I hoped it stayed that way.

  I felt almost human after I completed my daily ritual of work out, shower, and jerk off. I had several hours left before I had to meet the detectives at the club, so I made a hearty breakfast and worked in my home office. The biggest piece of advice Corbin gave me was to install software that allowed me to keep track of my inventory and money instead of relying on my employees or accountant. “They smell fresh blood in the water and think it would be easy to skim a little off the top or take a bottle of hooch without you knowing it. No, sir, that’s not how you run a business.”

  I’d diligently tracked every aspect of the business using the software that Corbin suggested, and I’d never had a single incident raise a red flag, but something about the inventory didn’t add up. I went back through the trends and flow from the previous week, and my suspicion rose even more.

  “It’ll start with a few bottles of inexpensive liquor because they think that’ll fly under the radar. Next thing you know, the top shelf liquor is going out quicker, and the incoming money doesn’t match. That’s why I use a system where my bartenders enter the booze used for each drink, and it generates what the sales should be that night. If it doesn’t match up, I start knocking heads together until I either get them to quit being lazy and enter shit correctly, or I find the thief.” I had a feeling that anyone who stole from Corbin didn’t forget the lesson he gave them. The story went that Corbin’s family had ties to a French Quarter mafia; it was a rumor that he’d neither confirm nor deny.

  Someone was either incompetently entering sales and liquor use, or one of my employees was stealing cash or liquor, possibly both. It was not a trend I would allow to continue. It appeared that I would need to have a mandatory staff meeting after I met with Detectives Wyatt and Dorchester. I sent an email to my club manager, Michelle, and told her that all hands needed to be on deck no later than five o’clock for an important meeting. If an employee couldn’t make the meeting on short notice, then they were required to check in with me personally later that evening. I might not have had mafia blood running through my veins, but I wasn’t a person anyone would want to fuck over.

  “Come in,” I said after someone knocked on my office door.

  Alexander opened the door and popped his head inside. “Detectives Wyatt and Dorchester are here to see you, Mr. Silver. They said they have an appointment.” He sounded and looked nervous. Why? Was it because the police were there or was he hiding something else? The discrepancy between the liquor and cash flow didn’t show up until after I fucked him. Was he trying to fuck me over or did he think his sexy, tight ass could save him if I discovered what he’d done?

  I didn’t give away any of my thoughts when I looked at Alexander. I simply nodded and said, “Thank you, Alexander. I am expecting them.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  The detectives nodded cordially at Alexander before he shut the door then focused on me. I couldn’t get a read on their moods, and I wasn’t sure if they were going to tell me good news or bad.

  “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Detective Wyatt said, extending his hand toward me. Detective Wyatt had made it clear that he was not available, so I didn’t attempt any coy tricks when I shook his hand.

  “It sounded urgent, and I must say that I was pleased that you turned to me for help instead of accusing me of killing my brother.” I held up my hand when Detective Wyatt started to speak. “I know that you’re just doing your job, Detective. I’m trained in interviewing… suspects.” My time in black ops was completely classified, but the man wasn’t stupid. He’d already realized that my sudden appearance in New Orleans was fishy. Funny how the government didn’t mind me sticking my body out for them, but when it came to retiring, they barely gave me sufficient credentials to rent an apartment. Jonathon Black became Jonathon Silver—new name, new life. Too bad it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. “Tell me how I can help you catch my brother’s killer.”

  “What can you tell us about Nate’s involvement in the planning of a casino?”

  “Nate said that he’d attended a few meetings and was definitely interested in pursuing the idea. Do you think that had something to do with my brother’s death?” I asked.

  “It’s very likely,” Detective Wyatt replied then told me about the previous attempt to build the casino in Carter County where Nate had died and what little he knew about Lawrence Robertson’s death and how similar it was to Nate’s
and someone named Owen Smithson.

  Owen Smithson? The name didn’t ring a bell, and it was the first time someone mentioned the name in connection with Nate. Instead of interrupting the sexy detective, I let him continue.

  “In Mr. Robertson’s belongings, we found notes from the meetings he attended, and he used initials to identify the others involved. This morning, we met with his attorney who represented him at all the meetings, and he identified the names of the people who represented the casino developer,” Detective Wyatt said.

  “And?”

  “There’s one person we can connect to both Nate and Lawrence Robertson,” Detective Dorchester said.

  “Who?”

  “Rick Spizer,” the detectives said at once.

  I flinched in my chair like one of them reached across my desk and slapped me. I would’ve been less surprised if they had. There was no one in the world that Nate trusted more than Rick Spizer. There had to be a mistake. “Rick? You think Rick was involved in killing Nate, Smithson, and this Robertson guy?” I asked in disbelief. If they were right, Rick was the connection between Nate and Robertson at least.

  “He at least knows more than he’s letting on,” Detective Wyatt told me. “I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.”

  “I don’t either,” I replied absently while my mind tried to find ways to exonerate Rick because it was too much for me to believe that he harmed Nate. “Put a wire on me.”

  “Excuse me?” Detective Wyatt asked.

  “Put a wire on me and send me in to talk to him,” I repeated. “I can get him to talk.”

  “He’s your attorney,” Detective Dorchester said. “There’s a close line we’re straddling if he does say something incriminating.”

  “Not if we have a warrant,” Detective Wyatt said to his partner. “We’d need to find a judge we can trust, preferably one with a clerk that doesn’t have a big mouth.”