Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “This problem I’ve come to discuss—it’s a very delicate matter,” she told Ric in her hint-of-Southern-honey voice, focusing now on her hands, clasped demurely in her lap. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer at least the illusion of privacy.”

  And instead of giving the woman his usual speech about how Annie was an essential part of his team, how she’d be taking the notes that she’d type up for him later, Ric gave Annie a dismissing nod.

  So Annie had left.

  Twenty-seven and a half minutes later—not that she’d been counting seconds—he’d buzzed her back into his office.

  Where Lillian was using a rhinestone-studded compact mirror to reapply her bloodred lipstick.

  She smacked her perfect lips together, murmuring “I can’t thank you enough.” She leaned forward in her copious sincerity, which gave her captive audience—Ric, seated behind his desk—a perfect view of that world-class cleavage.

  The woman’s lack of subtlety was audacious, and again Annie almost laughed out loud.

  She coughed instead, covering her mouth with her fist.

  Ric shot her a glance—amazing that he could drag his gaze away from the hypnotic feast of plenty in front of him. He politely rose as Lillian, too, ascended from her seat.

  Her every movement was graceful, fluid, hinting of perfectly choreographed sex.

  “We’ve already discussed payment,” Ric told Annie as he handed her a file marked Lavelle in his ridiculously messy handwriting. “And I’ve taken her contact information.”

  She bet he had.

  There was nothing to do then but show the woman to the door.

  But Lillian Lavelle was not to be hurried. Annie felt like a Mack truck next to her as she swayed her way out of Ric’s office.

  Always observant, Ric was paying close attention—no doubt in an attempt to solve the mystery of exactly how Ms. Lavelle could be forty-something years old, yet still have such a freakishly perfect ass.

  As Annie watched, the older woman turned to give Ric one last smile before she left his line of sight.

  She then sped up, thank God, leaving only a trace of her perfume in the outer office as the front door closed behind her. Pierre had lifted his head as she’d passed his dog bed, and he now watched Annie, his brown eyes anxious.

  “It’s all right, puppy boy,” she told him. “The mean lady is gone.”

  With a sigh, he settled back down. All was right in his world.

  Annie lowered the temperature on the window air conditioner, making it kick on, getting the air moving as she took the file to the receptionist’s desk.

  “She was…rather dramatic,” Ric said, and she glanced up to see him in his favorite position—leaning against the door frame, thumbs in the front pockets of his faded jeans, left foot crossed over his right.

  “Was she?” Annie asked, forcing herself to look down at the file folder, scanning the ridiculously sparse notes he’d taken during their twenty-seven-minute interview.

  The case was a relatively easy one. A simple locate-the-whereabouts of Lillian’s deceased daughter’s former roommate, Brenda Quinn. Brenda most likely wasn’t trying to stay hidden. She’d merely dropped out of Lillian’s life, leaving no forwarding address, when Lillian’s daughter, Marcy, had died. According to Ric’s chicken-scratches, the client had made several cursory searches via the Internet, and come up cold.

  She’d given them a photo of two young women on what looked to be the local public beach, out on Siesta Key. They were both in their early twenties, dressed in bathing-suit tops and shorts, hair pulled back into ponytails. Both were pretty—one dark, one fair. They were mugging for the camera, looking over their shoulders, showing off what looked to be matching tattoos—some mystical-looking Chinese characters that probably said kick me—on the small of their backs.

  “Which one is Brenda?” Annie asked.

  “On the left,” Ric told her. “The blonde.”

  Annie looked at the photo more closely, trying to see any trace of Lillian in her dark-haired daughter’s face. Maybe a little around the mouth and chin…

  As for the blonde, she had another tattoo on her right arm—three intricately drawn, intertwined calligraphy-style letters—a G, a B, and a J.

  According to Ric’s notes, Marcy had died just about eighteen months ago. And okay, the final comment he’d scribbled was daughter dead from drug overdose. That had to suck.

  But then Annie spotted the rate of pay for which Ric had agreed to take this case. “A hundred dollars a day? Are you out of your mind?”

  He turned and went back into his office, obviously unable to meet her accusing stare. “Her daughter’s dead, she’s on a limited budget, it’s going to take me fifteen minutes on the Internet to find Brenda…”

  Annie followed him. She’d spent some time over the past week that she’d been here trying to talk him into taking her on as a partner—paying her with a percentage of the money that she helped him bring in. Currently, she was on salary, and aside from that reward he’d gotten along with the excess blood in his urine, he hadn’t earned nearly a quarter as much as he’d paid her last week.

  “I’m not sure this is going to work,” she told him now. “This partnership thing. But you probably have more experience than I do. So maybe you can tell me, how exactly would you give me a percentage of a blow job?”

  Ric looked up from straightening the papers and files on his desk and laughed. And then he stopped laughing. “You don’t really think…?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes for a basic locate-the-whereabouts interview…?”

  It was possible that she’d rendered him speechless.

  “It complicates things,” Annie told him, perching on the edge of his desk. “I mean, if we’re partners and you get a blow job, what do I get?”

  “I didn’t get a…She didn’t…I wouldn’t…” Ric was actually flustered, but then he laughed his exasperation as he shooed her off his desk and sat down in his chair. He adjusted his computer monitor and pulled his keyboard drawer out. “What kind of scumbag do you think I am?”

  “The male kind?” Annie countered, sinking into the seat that Lillian Lavelle had recently occupied.

  “And, by the way, this partnership,” Ric pointed out, literally, with a finger in her direction. “You’re right. It’s not going to work. Because it’s not going to happen.”

  “Well, duh,” Annie said. “Because the blow-job thing’s a deal breaker. I mean, unless you can guarantee that every time you get one, I get one, too…Although I’m not sure exactly how to work that into the contract. If the party of the first part receives fellatio, then the party of the second part—”

  “Not funny.”

  “Yeah, actually it is,” she countered. “You’re laughing.”

  He tried to stop. “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “I’m laughing,” he practically shouted at her, “because I can’t believe we’re having a conversation about…this.”

  “I can’t help but notice,” she said, keeping her voice a normal volume, “that you haven’t actually denied it. There’s been a lot of blustering and outrage, but—”

  “I assure you that I have never had sex of any kind as payment offered for services rendered. Not with Lillian Lavelle or with anyone else.” There was a dangerously hot glint in his eyes as he looked at her. “Although if you really do want me to pay you that way…”

  The Annie she’d been ten years ago would have flushed with embarrassment at that heat, even though she was well aware it was meaningless. Ric looked at all women like that. With genuine appreciation. Regardless of the woman’s shape or size or age.

  Yeah, Ric Alvarado didn’t just look at women. He smoldered at them.

  The Annie of ten years ago would’ve rolled her own eyes and backed away. Even the Annie of last year would have mumbled that he was a jerk, before slinking to her desk.

  But the Annie that she was today was braver. Bolder. She’d stared down death, s
o she could certainly hold this mere mortal’s gaze.

  And, in fact, he looked away first, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead, muttering something in Spanish. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her, back to English as he glanced at her through his fingers. “I’m sorry. It was improper. Look, it’s going to take both of us some time. To establish an appropriate employer/employee relationship.”

  “But see, we wouldn’t have to,” Annie pointed out, “if we were partners—”

  “Stop.”

  And there they sat, on opposite sides of his big wooden desk. Staring at each other. Ric was studying her face, as if trying to read her mind. He finally spoke. “You really thought that I would…do that with a client, with you in the outer office, on the other side of that door?”

  It was entirely possible that she’d not only offended him, but also hurt his feelings. Except this was Ric Alvarado, Annie reminded herself. Unless he’d radically changed since he was in high school…“It’s been years since we’ve spent time together,” she told him. “I don’t really know you, you know, as an adult, any more than you know me.”

  “I haven’t changed that much,” Ric protested.

  Yeah, that was what she was afraid of. “I’ve changed a lot,” she countered.

  He nodded. “I kind of noticed.” He pulled his computer keyboard even closer to him. “I should get to work.”

  “May I ask one more question?”

  “Yeah,” he said, even though his body language screamed no.

  “Why did Lillian—who’s basically robbing you by getting you to agree to take her case for a hundred dollars a day. A woman with shoes like those is not on a limited budget, by the way—”

  “One more question?” he reminded her.

  “Why do you suppose this client wanted me to think that she’d paid the other part of her bill with her mouth?” Annie flipped through the file to the final page—a photocopy of both Lillian’s driver’s license and her credit card. Her date of birth was…“Her elderly mouth.”

  “She’s not that old.”

  “Born in ’60. That makes her…forty-seven.”

  “Fifty’s the new thirty,” he pointed out. “And she was…extremely well maintained. Prototypical MILF.” At her blank look, he added, “Like Stiffler’s mom? From American Pie. You know, a mother I’d love to…” He left the F to Annie’s imagination.

  “Ew.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t make up the acronym.”

  “But you used it.” She caught herself. “Sorry. She just…creeped me out. Everything she did seemed…calculated.”

  “Yeah,” Ric agreed. “And I think you’re right. After you came back into the room, she turned her volume up to about thirteen. I noticed it, too.”

  “It feels to me as if she enjoys screwing with people,” Annie said. “And call me crazy, but it seems to be pretty rudimentary deductive reasoning that if she’s screwing with me, she’s probably screwing with you, too. Although, with you, she might give literally a try, along with the figurative stuff.”

  “I’ll consider myself warned,” he told her, trying not to smile but failing.

  And yeah, it was a stupid thing to have said—warning him that Lillian wanted to jump his bones, like that was something out of the ordinary. It was probably rare for Ric to meet a female client who didn’t want to get naked with him.

  “If I come off sounding judgmental,” Annie tried to apologize, “I don’t mean to. If you really want to let Lillian use you shamelessly, it’s not my place to criticize or disapprove.”

  Ric laughed. “Yeah, that didn’t sound judgmental at all.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, rolling her eyes. “If you want to be a dog, you go be a dog, Ick-Ray. I don’t want my presence here to cramp your style.”

  “For your information,” he told her quietly, “I don’t have sex—of any kind—with women I’ve only known for twenty-seven minutes. I prefer more meaningful relationships.”

  And okay. This time, she looked away first. This time, she couldn’t speak past the sudden dryness in her throat.

  He wasn’t done. “But it’s not my intention to cramp your style, either. I’m, um, aware of, um…Well, I’m just…glad you came home to Sarasota even though your mom and Bruce aren’t here anymore and…My year wasn’t half as rough as yours, but…I’m glad you’re here.”

  Annie couldn’t keep tears from flooding her eyes. “I’m glad I’m here, too,” she said, forcing them back. “I just wish…Well, you know what I wish.”

  Ric nodded. “You’ve communicated that effectively over the past week.”

  She actually managed a smile. Stood up. “I’ll let you get to it. Finding Brenda Quinn.” She pulled the door shut behind her, but then stopped. Looked back at him. “How long will it take? You said…fifteen minutes?”

  “Give or take a few.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “It will. Believe me. This is not going to be a difficult one.”

  Annie nodded. “But if it does turn out to be difficult…Will you let me ride along when you go out to look for her?”

  Ric sat there, behind his desk, his face expressionless. “If I let you ride along,” he finally said, “will you promise never to discuss blow jobs with me again?”

  Annie laughed. “I promise.” She shut his door behind her.

  It was just shy of two hours after that, after finding nothing on Brenda Quinn except cold information—the most recent dated eighteen months ago—that Ric had actually let Annie drive. He didn’t want to get dog hair in his car. Not that Pierre shedded. His poodle genes were dominant.

  The more traditional, feet-on-the-street, Q&A method of sleuthing had finally brought them to Screech’s, where Brenda had worked as an exotic dancer as recently as one month ago.

  And so it was thus, with the help of Saint Lillian of the Over-Endowed sparking that remarkable conversation in which Ric had confessed he was glad she was here, Annie was in Screech’s right now, showing him that she was capable of being more than a mere office assistant.

  True, she hadn’t worked as a police officer, or even a security guard. Her total law enforcement background was limited to the shelves of books she’d recently read, and to a handful of courses she’d taken in college. But she’d always been a detail person, noticing things, remembering what she’d seen or heard or read. She was smart and a quick learner.

  She wanted—badly—to work not for this man, but with him. Although, truth be told, as the clock ticked closer to the end of her two weeks of notice, Annie found herself coming up with excuses to stay—even if he didn’t immediately see the light.

  Because as much as she bitched about sitting behind a desk, she actually liked spending time in Ric’s little office, provided Ric was there, too. She particularly liked the way he smelled, but okay, he was Ric, for the love of God. She was the kid sister he’d never had. Plus, he had a girlfriend.

  Some blonde who lived in Ohio, and came into town twice a year on vacation.

  Funny, though, how her name hadn’t come up during their blow-job conversation. As in, Gee, Annie, I would never cheat on my perfect blond girlfriend from Ohio by messing around with a client.

  “Can I help you?” The woman who was approaching Annie from the back of Screech’s was clearly management. A few major clues were that she was in her sixties, and unlike most of the other women in the room, she had all of her clothes on.

  What kind of woman would choose to manage a strip club over, say, a Bath & Body Works? Aside from a heavy smoker with perfume allergies?

  Maybe a woman who’d started as a dancer herself to feed her kids when her husband bailed—maybe she would go on to manage this type of place. Or a woman who believed fiercely in the importance of her own independence…

  Or maybe she was just a woman who didn’t care what happened, as long as she got her share of the pie.

  While Annie wouldn’t have chosen to come here for dinner, the food that wen
t past her on heavily laden trays looked and smelled good. And the tables and floors were clean.

  Someone in here obviously cared about some things.

  So Annie took a gamble. She held out her hand. “Hi. My name’s Louellen Jones. I work for a local private investigator. He hired me as his assistant, and I thought he meant assistant assistant, but I’m really just his secretary. This is my big chance to impress him, so I’m hoping you can help me…”

  Robin’s sister, Jane, always got a little crazy when her husband went, in macho-SEAL-lingo, wheels up. All of SEAL Team Sixteen had gone overseas this time, their destination kept secret even from their long-suffering wives.

  Janey was pretty convinced that her husband was heading to Afghanistan, where support from the other branches of the military was not always available, thanks to the unending fiasco in Iraq. She was never a happy camper when Cosmo was gone, but this time she was even less happy.

  Robin sat in his sister’s kitchen, watching her go through contortions to find child care for tonight for his nephew, Billy, who sat in his high chair, happily drooling on a tray filled with Cheerios, chewing his own tiny fist.

  Jane was a movie producer, and tonight she was being given an award by the director’s guild. It was some kind of Important Women in Hollywood thing that she really couldn’t miss. But Cosmo’s mom, who lived not too far away in Laguna Beach and usually sat for Billy, had tickets to a touring-company production of Aïda.

  “I don’t have to go,” Robin told her as she scrolled through the address book on her cell phone. “I can stay with Bill.”

  Jane looked surprised. “You were planning to go?” she asked. “I thought you were still doing press junkets for Riptide.”

  “No,” he told her. “I’m done. We did the last of this round before noon. I actually have a night off. Tomorrow, I start the film-festival appearances. It’s crazy, but a lot of them picked us for their lineup.”

  “That’s because you’re good. Even when you sell out and do a popcorn movie.” She went back to searching through her address book.