by Lori Power
Despite the extraordinary day, she regretted how she fell right into his arms—again. For the second time.
Shaking her head and sitting up straight to rid herself of the unproductive line of thought, Lorna pulled her list of questions for June up on the screen. The list was growing.
Her phone rang, and she addressed several questions from a client before returning to her e-mails. It’s no use. She flexed her fingers before picking up her phone to check for texts or messages from unknown callers.
Disappointment reined. Nothing. Not too timid to call, she simply did not have a phone number or address for Mitch. He was like a phantom, an apparition who appeared back into her life only to disappear again. Oh God, let me not have to go through the heart-ache again. She slammed her fist on the desk, rage sprouted sweat on her brow. Fucking guy; I believed him.
Lorna set down her phone, noticing Tia, paused on the threshold outside her office. “Hey, you okay? Too much sun this weekend painting the fence?”
With effort, Lorna flattened her hands on the table top and forced a smile. “Yeah, maybe. Trying to get things ready for Kris’s big day. You’re going to bring Hillary, right?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Tia’s daughter was a year older than Kris, but they got along amazingly well. “Good; the more the merrier.”
“I can’t believe Kris will be four next week. Well, come to that, I can’t believe Hillary will be starting school next year,” Tia said lying a stack of papers for signature on Lorna’s desk. “They grow so fast.” With her chin, she motioned to the files, her smooth brow pinched in question. “Here are the contracts for Aqua Oil. As an official client, does this mean June will be easier to deal with now—or worse?”
“Oh, let’s pray for better, please. Especially with the list of questions I need answered,” Lorna flipped through the first couple of printed pages. “However, she was downright friendly when we got together last.”
“No way.” Tia lifted her hand to her face dramatically. In mock horror, she altered her voice. “Say it ain’t so! You mean she may have a heart after all?” She laughed, picking up the paperwork in Lorna’s out-tray. “She said you’re going to northern British Columbia with the camera crew to film the pipeline opening and start an environmentally friendly campaign?”
“Yes,” Lorna agreed, starting to sign her name to the flagged pages. “The commercial was in our original proposal. I’ll need you all over the Twitter lines that day as I have expanded our global approach to blast the social media scene,” she said, pausing to check a line in the document she was signing. “Did she indicate a date? Pray it’s after the party. I don’t want to have to try to get around her, and I am not going anytime before Kris’ party.”
Tia pulled out her note pad. “June indicated the twenty-fourth would work best. Next week, Wednesday.”
Lorna dropped her pen and threw her hands in the air in jubilation. “All right. Things are finally moving in our favor. I was almost expecting her to say this week.”
Energized, Lorna pulled up her calendar. “Okay then. Let’s book the camera crew. We’ll fly on Tuesday. In the morning. That way we can accommodate any delays. But don’t book the flight until everything else is confirmed. Get me a meeting with June this week so I can go through what we’ll do on-site and get the scripts ready. I’ll leave my list of questions behind at the meeting. What am I missing?” She altered her gaze from her monitor to her assistant, who scribbled on her iPad syncing notes.
Tia’s finger pushed the screen up and then down. “Same production company we used for Sinclair?”
“Yes,” Lorna nodded. “Oh, and let’s make sure to send a note off to Tim with the details once June gives the go.”
“Good thinking,” Tia agreed. “Mr. Fong likes to be on top of the details. Maybe he doesn’t trust June.”
“Or he’s anal,” Lorna laughed. “Definitely a controlling man, for sure.”
A grin lifted the edges of Tia’s long mouth. “He is a details kinda guy.”
“You’re so much more politically correct than I am. Okay, see if we can’t pull Tim into this meeting as well.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Tia said, her smile deepening her dimples as she left Lorna’s office.
Focused, Lorna managed to keep Mitch from her mind until the drive home, and she saw the flashing lights of a police car. Why did he seek me out after all this time? He could have left well enough alone. By the time she got home, even Kris’s happy chatter couldn’t seem to pull her out of her mood.
“Did things not work out between you and Mitch?” Mariam asked, filling Kris’s milk cup.
“Mitchell, Nana.”
“Oh, yes,” Mariam smiled, her round face flushed with the heat of the day. “Mitchell.”
Her smile turned pained as she regarded at Lorna. “Oh, dear. And I so liked him.”
“So did I,” Lorna replied, putting on a brave face.
“Me, too,” the child agreed, reaching for more ketchup, a pout casting his bottom lip into prominent position.
“Enough ketchup for one meal.” Lorna kissed the top of his silky head and stood to replace the ketchup in the fridge.
“Oh, Nana?”
“No Nana,” Mariam said, her gazed fastened on Lorna. “Listen to your mama.”
When supper ended and Kris left to play with his toys, Mariam spoke up again. “What happened, dear?”
“I’d rather not talk about it just now, Ma.”
“You’d rather never talk about anything,” the older woman admonished lovingly, running a light hand down Lorna’s arm. “Someday you may find it will do you some good to talk.”
“Aw, Ma, it’s not like that.” Lorna paused, glimpsing the pity on Mariam’s face. “Really, it’s not. I genuinely don’t know what’s going on. We had a wonderful day, for how long it lasted anyway. Then he got a call and poof, he was gone. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Well, he is a police officer, you know. He could be working.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But 24-7? He could call or something, couldn’t he?”
“It’s a modern age; you could call him.” Mariam turned to load the dishes in the dishwasher while Lorna rinsed and passed them to her.
“I can’t,” Lorna began.
“You could.”
“No, really, Ma. I can’t—”
“Why ever not?” Mariam lifted her green eyes to Lorna’s in question.
Lorna lowered her eyes, embarrassed, busying herself with wiping down the counter. “I don’t have his number. I don’t even know where he lives,” she said, lifting her hand, wringing the dishcloth in despair. “Now, it’s been too long and—”
“Nonsense,” Mariam straightened and pierced her with a solid look, hands on her hips. “What’s the use of that golly web if you don’t use it?”
Lorna suffered the urge to smile. “You mean Google?”
“Yeah, the web stuff where everybody can find everybody else.”
Later, working in her den, editing the mock-up pages for a client’s website, Lorna contemplated Mariam’s advise and using her skills to locate Mitch. She could do it, easily. But she refrained. Her quick, surface internet search pulled up nothing, and she declined to go deeper. He was an undercover cop after all, and if he didn’t want to be found and she found him, her past would quickly come back to haunt her. Lorna strove to close the mental lid on the buried, sealed youth file and put that part of her life behind her. If Mitch wanted her to contact him, he would have given her his number.
“Goddamnit to hell. This is stupid,” she muttered, setting her laptop away from her on the tidy desk. Kris was long since asleep, and Lorna could hardly glance at her bed without imagining Mitch in it. Even the chair she sat in now played home to his bare bottom and she squirmed. She stood so suddenly her chair wheeled back to bump the bookshelf. “Why the hell did you come back into my life if you were only going to disappear?”
She had been better off nursing
her ill-conceived anger than to wonder what turned him off. Was I too needy? Appeared too eager? She closed the lid of the computer. The glow from the monitor where his name was typed in the search engine had seemed to look at her with accusation.
Standing just inside her doorway, undressing, looking back towards her den, her nipples tingled and her insides throbbed, remembering Mitch sitting naked at her desk. His wide shoulders, sinewy with toned muscles, gloried over a length of back tapered to well-sculpted buttocks. Releasing her hair from its tight confine, Lorna shook her head, running a hand through the thick strands, massaging her scalp. This won’t do, she thought, turning to her ensuite bathroom to brush her teeth with a vengeance.
***
Seated across the street, Mitch watched the fair head bob in and out of his line of sight in the upper window. For a long time, there was just the glow from a computer monitor lighting the small den where she worked in the evenings. Now there was only the occasional appearance of her shadow in motion to let him know she was still up. How he craved to climb the trellis and sneak in to simply hold her in his arms again.
At that moment, Boulet’s warning flashed; His job or his dick.
Mitch couldn’t wrap his head around Lorna being involved. Granted, some things didn’t add up, but did that mean she was involved with the Fongs?
The quiet neighborhood had settled down for the evening, preparing for slumber. Kids on bikes had long since returned to their homes. A teenage couple strolled past and paused under a tree to engage in some heavy petting. Mitch smiled when a front porch light flashed and the parent appeared in the doorway and kids broke apart.
Soon, even the occasional yap from a dog seemed too tired for much effort. The blanket night descended bringing along the canopy of stars. This is normal life, Mitch reflected. He watched the lights go out in Lorna’s house, feeling like every kind of heel for cutting off all contact.
Aching to knock on her door, Mitch eased out of the unmarked cruiser to stretch his legs. He shut the passenger door with a barely audible click. He ran the palms of his hands along the tops of his pants, breathing in the fresh scent of lilac from a nearby bush. Luke had been assigned by Boulet to partner Mitch in his surveillance. Make sure I follow orders, more like. Since their last encounter, their friendship had been strained.
Luke remained inside the unmarked cruiser with all windows down. His pale face lurked like a ghost in the dark surroundings.
Mitch shrugged his shoulders and glanced through the window at his redheaded partner. Doesn’t matter. Luke’s my friend and I know his motives are sound—even if they are on the wrong track.
“Nice neighborhood,” Luke said quietly from inside, sipping coffee from his travel mug. “Very suburbia. Trendy. I can’t afford this end of town on my salary.”
Mitch chose not to respond to the barb. Anything he may say would only sound defensive. Since opening a file on Lorna, more and more questions from the team arose. For every reasonable response, there were double the number of new queries. Where’d she get the money to start her business? No outstanding loans. Who owns a business these days but doesn’t owe the bank? Dig back through bank records and note she received a large lump of cash at the tender age of twenty-one. Where’d that come from? And from whom? The money sat for a while; then she purchased this house—cash—hired an investment company for the remainder. Couple of years later, she drew on the investment to start U.
Mitch stared unseeing at the two-storey house, remembering the day’s conversation. “Seems there’s a small loan outstanding on the Lincoln, though,” Jordan reported while they sat in the working boardroom. “Probably necessary to establish a credit rating. All credit cards and there are only two—a Visa and an American Express, Gold card no less—are paid in full each month. No balances carried forward.”
Hank barreled into the room, sheaves of paper crimped in his large grip. “Man, how much does this lady earn?” he asked, throwing the files on the table to add notes to the filling whiteboard at the far end of the room. In no time at all, the team had filled the space with pictures and information on what they knew of Lorna Tymchuk to date. “Only two cards? No store cards? The wife’s got a card for every place she has ever shopped and one for any place she plans to shop. I’d likely have to win the lottery to get any of them to zero.”
Jordan glanced over his shoulder from the computer station and across the small aisle with a hesitant smile. “Just opening the corporate bank statements.”
“How many bank accounts?” Mitch asked, feeling pressure to participate, fearing he’d be kicked off the investigation for breach.
Mitch watched the back of the young man’s head as he nodded but said nothing in response. Jordan’s thin fingers flew across the computer keys as though he were playing the piano at a concert. Still Mitch waited.
“Looks like six. Not unusual, really. Two corporates, one chequing, one investment. There’s a savings accounts—personal, and another one held under her name—but the account is sub-listed under a Kris Cobalt. A minor. Then the usual personal chequing and a Banking One account.”
“Kris is her son,” Mitch supplied in flat tones, getting up to stare at the whiteboard. He hated this. She didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. This invasion of privacy. His hands were tied and he didn’t know how to get the knots undone.
“Still looking for financial statements?” Jordan turned to question the two men, both standing at the board, seeming to ponder the situation.
“Yup,” Hank replied, taping a picture of Lorna coming out of her office building that very afternoon. The wind had captured a blonde lock from the tight coiffure she wrestled her hair into each day. Clenching and unclenching his fingers into fists, he longed to be the one to brush the lock of hair back into place. Neat and orderly best described Lorna. Mob pawn did not.
Jordan relayed the salary information while Mitch focused on the picture of the hearse he had been driving the fateful day of their accidental meeting. The smashed-in passenger door, sprayed with some red paint from the large Chevy rental truck.
Hank’s meaty finger intercepted his line of sight. “I know, right?” he questioned, not looking for an answer. “Doesn’t make sense, a classy broad driving a big pickup—a dually no less.”
Mitch bristled, forcibly unclenching his fists. This was the way they always talked, but still, the words stung. “She’s no broad,” he said, his voice a low growl in his throat.
“What?” Hank turned distracted eyes in Mitch’s direction, his wide brows rising up in question. “Gal like that comes into town and gets a racy car. Red, yes, but not a big truck. A hatchback, at the very least. That truck rammed you, and she wouldn’t have felt a thing.”
“I wasn’t rammed,” Mitch reminded him, striving to control his rising temper. “I ran the stop sign. The accident was my fault.”
“Ain’t no coincidences. You guys ain’t seen one another in what, five years, you said? Then all of a sudden in a completely different city, she’s there just when the show goes to production.” Hank pinned up another picture of Veronique. “Woman rats you out to the local yokels even though your own mother wouldn’t have recognized you. Then this little gal…” Hank stroked the picture of Veronique with his index finger. “Starts calling you on your phone. A new cell issued when you returned. No sir, ain’t no coincidence.”
“So what do we have here?” Luke’s voice, spoken softly in the still night, brought Mitch back to the present. His hands reached for the hood of the car as his balance faltered.
“Threads,” Mitch said, turning his head slightly. “Chief said we had threads, and I agree.”
“Like?” Luke prompted.
“The car, the license…”
“A stupid move, by the way.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Mitch bent to peer in at his partner. “I didn’t recognize her.” Mitch was getting tired of explaining his actions from a chaotic day. “She’s—”
“Not involved.” Luke huf
fed out the window. “Yeah, heard that already. But Jesus, man, no matter how you feel about her…”
“What?” Mitch straightened to stare back towards Lorna’s two-storey.
Luke hummed knowingly. “Yeah, I’ve known you a long time and have never seen you like this over a lady.”
“She is that.” Mitch’s gaze stroked the length of the house. “A lady.”
“I get it.” Luke’s arm came to rest on the windowsill and he leaned out into the balmy evening air. “Hell, even from watching her the last two days, you can see she’s got something about her. Raising a kid, taking care of her mother, running a successful business. But, Mitch, man, you’re gonna have to face it, whether intentional or not, she’s either the link or the reason…”
Mitch’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Taking it out, he nodded at Luke before touching the screen.
“Morgan,” he said with an expectation of knowing what was coming.
“Michael?”
Veronique’s voice was soft, sorrowful. “Mitch Morgan here,” he said, lengthening the call, hoping to get a trace.
“Michael? Stop.” Her tone pleaded. “They’re dead, Michael. They’re all dead.”
Mitch faced Luke through the window. Luke listened in on the conversation on a separate set, his brow crinkled, and Mitch decided against continuing the pretense. “Vonnie?”
“I can’t believe they’re dead, Michael.”
“Who’s dead, Vonnie?” He softened his voice to a warm caress, encouraging her to continue. Needing to find out her information. “Tell me.”
“All of them, Michael. Daddy, Serge…”
His stomach clenched. The recently released criminals are dead? “How? When?” Mitch cut in, moving his finger in a circular motion, holding his thumb and baby finger unnecessarily against his ear for Luke to call depot and get confirmation. “Are you okay? Are you in hiding?”