Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “Emmy,” Jason said. He sat down next to me. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I’m not saying I’m blaming myself for her disappearance. But who else am I supposed to blame for the fact that I feel like my sister is basically a stranger? That I don’t know anything at all about her life? That I have to go talk to sleazy club owners to try to figure anything out?” A lump started to form in my throat and I blinked, not wanting to cry. But the whole situation suddenly seemed so overwhelming, and so sad, that it didn’t matter how furiously I tried to hold back the tears, my vision blurred and they started to slide down the sides of my face. “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping at my eyes, right as a big, hiccupping sob escaped. Great. Now I was bawling my eyes out in front of a guy I barely even knew.

  His hand went to my shoulder, his touch tentative. I turned and leaned into him without really thinking about it, and he put his arm around my shoulders. He said shh, and his deep voice was comforting, a vibration I felt through his chest. He smelled good, like cedar, as I buried my face against his neck. The tears had slowed, but not quite stopped. I tried to take a deep breath, which came in raggedy, but luckily the sobs seemed to have let up. I lifted my head and wiped at my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Everything just feels totally overwhelming. I wonder if I’m just doing this stuff because it makes me feel like I’m making a difference, but really it’s not making any difference at all.”

  “You don’t have to do this yourself,” he said. “I want to help you. I know that it must seem incredibly overwhelming.”

  We looked at each other. Our faces were so close, it would be so easy for me to just lean over and kiss him. I wanted to, I realized. I wanted to really badly, but at the same time I was very aware that my face was still damp from tears and there was probably snot running out of my nose and I probably looked about as unattractive as I possibly could. I pulled back, sliding out from under his arm.

  “Listen,” he said. “You need to take your mind off of this a little bit, okay? I’m not saying forget about it, but in a situation like this, if it’s all you focus on, you’re going to end up going crazy. You need to shift your focus every once in a while, just to get a break. Just to let your brain have some downtime. And you might feel guilty about it at first, like you’re wasting your time, but really what you’re doing is a good thing because you’ll be all the more focused when you get back to it.”

  “I know,” I said. “That makes sense. I’m just not sure I know how to do that right now.”

  “I think I have an idea. You hungry?”

  I was; I couldn’t remember the last thing I’d had to eat. Food was not really a priority right now. “Yeah,” I said. “A little bit.”

  “Then let’s go. And for the next hour and a half, two hours, you’re just going to try to enjoy yourself and not think about anything else, okay? And there’s nothing wrong with that. In the end, I think it’s just going to help you be more clear and focused about everything. Okay?”

  I nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

  ***

  He took me to a Peruvian restaurant, a place that I’d never been to before, never even heard of—though that really wasn’t much of a stretch seeing as there were a ton of restaurants in San Francisco that I didn’t know about. Isa, on the other hand, had probably been to every restaurant in the city at least once.

  “This place has great ceviche,” Jason said. “Among other things.”

  It was a small, intimate little restaurant, no more than eight or nine tables, tops. There was a bar with a few people sitting at it, and each table had a single tea light flickering in the middle.

  Since I had no experience with Peruvian food, I let Jason order. We both got a glass of wine, tuna ceviche, and lamb osso bucco, which our waitress said was big enough to share. She gave Jason a big smile as she took our menus, and I realized that anytime I was out with him, women were always smiling at him and trying to get his attention.

  “You do realize that women are hitting on you all the time?” I said, swallowing a big mouthful of wine. I’d been thinking that thought but hadn’t actually planned to say it out loud.

  He gave me an amused look. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, it is. I don’t know if you realize that or not.”

  “I don’t even notice, to be honest.”

  “How could you not?”

  He shrugged. “I try to be nice to people.”

  I smiled and took another sip of my wine. “I know. I like that about you.” I was only two sips in but I could already feel a warmness spreading to my cheeks, could feel the way it was loosening me up a little, making it just that much easier to laugh, to say something I might not normally. I barely ever drank, and that was probably about to get very apparent. But before I could say anything else, I realized I knew the person who was about to walk through the door.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  Jason turned. “What?”

  “It’s my best friend, Carolyn. She’s coming in. I was talking to her on my way down here and she asked me if I wanted to do dinner tonight, but I said no. Shoot. What are the chances of running into her like this?”

  Because the place was so small, there was no way I could hide. I immediately felt bad thinking that I should be hiding from my friend, anyway. So I smiled and waved, and she did a double take, then waved back and slowly made her way over.

  “Well, fancy running into you like this,” she said, her gaze going to Jason. She held her hand out. “I’m Carolyn,” she said.

  He stood up and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. My name’s Jason.”

  “After we talked,” Carolyn said, looking back over at me, “I realized that I was dying for some ceviche, and this place has the best ceviche I think I’ve ever had. So I figured it was worth the drive down.”

  “You’re here by yourself?” Jason said. “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Oh, no, no; I’m not trying to crash any dates.”

  “This isn’t a date,” I said quickly.

  Carolyn raised an eyebrow, surveyed the tea light on the table, the way it tossed its gentle glow on the single red rose in a vase. Okay, so even I had to admit that it might’ve looked like a date to the casual onlooker, but it wasn’t. This was just about getting our minds off of things for a little while.

  “You know,” Carolyn said, “when Emmy told me she had met you, I swore that your name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t figure out from where. And now that I’m actually able to put a face to the name, you really do look familiar—have we met somewhere before?”

  Jason’s expression was hard to read, but he suddenly did seem to be a bit uncomfortable. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I do work security, though, so maybe we saw each other at an event?”

  Carolyn pressed her lips together so they formed a thin line. “Hmm. Maybe,” she said.

  If she’d been a little closer to me, I would have nudged her with my foot to get her to stop her line of questioning. I didn’t know why she was so hung up on the fact that his name sounded familiar and that she was certain she knew him from somewhere. Suddenly, though, it occurred to me—they’d slept together. Carolyn had gone through a phase where she’d used Tinder and Craigslist for casual sex. She’d meet a guy, hook up with him once—and only once—and then never talk to him again. I’d been kind of horrified when she regaled me with stories of her escapades, but at the same time, it sounded kind of exciting and fun—the sort of thing that guys do to women all the time. I looked at Jason. Had he been one of the nameless guys she’d brought to some hotel and had sex with?

  “Anyway,” Carolyn was saying, “I’m going to go sit at the bar and have some ceviche. It was nice to meet you,” she said to Jason. “Enjoy your dinner. I’ll give you a call soon, Emmy.”

  I didn’t protest or insist that she sit with us; my mind was running wild, picturing the two of them together. If that was the case, did that mean Jason engaged in casual sex a lot? Wa
s he that sort of person? He gave me a small smile when he saw me looking at him.

  “Your friend doesn’t want to sit with us?” he asked.

  “I guess not.” Carolyn had made her way over to the bar and was talking with the bartender. “Do you guys know each other from somewhere?”

  Again, the uncomfortable look on his face.

  “You can tell me,” I said. “It’s totally fine.”

  Though, as I said it, I did have a sinking feeling. I didn’t want to hear him say that he’d slept with Carolyn, even if it had just been a one-night thing. It shouldn’t matter, I thought. It shouldn’t matter who he’s slept with because you’re not dating him and the past is the past. You went on those dates with Silas.

  And I knew that it really shouldn’t matter who Jason had dated, or was dating, except that there really was a part of me that was falling for him, despite knowing that was the last thing I should be doing right now.

  “I don’t know her,” he said. “I’d remember someone like that.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I decided not to ask. “Well, she seems to think she knows you from somewhere. I don’t know; maybe she’s confused. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

  But it was hard not to at least think about it, especially with Carolyn sitting right over there, now drinking a martini. Her back was to me, and it just felt like the weirdest thing. We’d come down here so I could try to get my mind off of things and think about something else, but now what I was thinking about didn’t really seem any better than everything that had been stressing me out before.

  “You okay?” Jason said.

  “Yeah,” I said. I picked up my glass and took a sip, crunching on an ice cube. I welcomed the shock of cold against my teeth. “Everything just seems so weird lately—why shouldn’t going out to a restaurant, too?”

  “I was hoping it would be more relaxing than weird. We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

  “Well, we already ordered.”

  “We could take it to go.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We can stay.”

  But this nice, quiet dinner that I thought we were going to have suddenly felt awkward; I couldn’t just pretend that my best friend wasn’t sitting over at the bar, basically ignoring us.

  It was slightly easier to do when the food arrived. I’d had sushi before, but never ceviche. The infusion of lime and cilantro with the dark-pink flesh of the tuna all but melted in my mouth, sending delicious pulses of sensation along the sides of my tongue.

  “Wow,” I said, swallowing. “That’s amazing!”

  “Told you it was good,” Jason said, taking a bite from his own bowl. “This place is one of my favorites.”

  “Do you go out to a lot of restaurants?”

  “Not lately,” he said. “I used to go out a lot more. But this is one place I’ll always come back to. What about you? Do you have a favorite place?”

  “I really don’t go out to eat that much,” I said, and then I laughed, because it suddenly seemed hilarious how much of a shut-in I was. I might not be as bad as my mother, but I certainly wasn’t going to win any extrovert-of-the-year awards. “There’s a couple of places I like, but I don’t know if I have a favorite. I have a café I like to go to near my house.”

  “Yeah? Maybe you’ll have to take me there sometime.”

  I was trying to scrape the last bits of tuna and cilantro from the bottom of the bowl when Carolyn approached. I set my fork down. “Hey.”

  “I’m going to get going,” she said. “Just wanted to say bye before I headed out. It was nice to meet you,” she said to Jason.

  “You, too.”

  “Emmy, I’ll give you a call.” She let her gaze linger on Jason for a second before she turned and walked out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said once she was gone. “I’m not sure why she’s being like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like...” I let my voice trail off. I couldn’t tell if Jason was playing dumb or if he really didn’t notice that Carolyn was being a little strange. “Never mind,” I said. “I just want to enjoy the rest of this food.”

  He winked as he took his last bite of ceviche, and I had a feeling that he had just been playing dumb, but hadn’t wanted to bring it up because we were supposed to be out here enjoying ourselves.

  And it was easier to enjoy things once Carolyn was gone, so long as I didn’t give too much thought to the fact that I was glad my best friend had left. What kind of friend feels like that? a nagging little voice in the back of my mind insisted.

  When we were finished with dinner, we left the restaurant and walked back up to Jason’s apartment. I could tell that he was thinking of asking if I wanted to come up, and though part of me really did want to, I told him that I needed to get home because it was getting late.

  “I had a really good time at the restaurant tonight,” I said. “It felt good to get my mind off of things for a little while.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.” He smiled and reached out, gently tucking a few blowing strands of hair behind my ear. I could feel the heat emanating from his fingertips.

  Neither of us said anything. A couple walked by us, arms around each other, giggling at some private joke. All I had to do now was hold his gaze and maybe tilt my head back a little and I knew he would kiss me; I knew that was all it would take. My whole body tingled.

  But if I let him kiss me, what would that lead to? Nothing that I should be doing right now, no matter how badly I might’ve wanted to. Still, that tension between us was undeniable, almost dense enough to reach out and grasp it.

  “Thank you again,” I said quickly, taking a step back, as if that might actually do something to quell my desire.

  “Of course,” he said. “Drive safe, okay?”

  “I will.”

  He closed the distance between us and gave me a quick hug, but pulled away before I was even really able to register what was happening. I hurried into my car, feeling my face flush. It took every ounce of my strength not to get back out, jump into his arms, and tell him to take me upstairs immediately.

  Chapter 11

  Jason

  “You’ve seemed distracted lately,” Drew said. He’d come into my office and sat down in the chair next to my desk, legs outstretched, a casual posture that did not quite match the expression on his face. He didn’t say it accusingly, just more like he was making an observation, though one that he thought might potentially amount to something more. “You’ve been thinking about this whole thing with Isa, haven’t you?”

  “It’s been on my mind,” I said. I still hadn’t mentioned Emmy to any of them, but I decided I would now; I didn’t want him to think that I was trying to hide anything. “Her sister’s been trying to find answers, and I’m helping her out.”

  “Sister? I didn’t realize you knew her sister. I didn’t know she had a sister.”

  “A twin, actually. Her name’s Emmy. And I didn’t know about her either until I happened to run into her on Sunday down at Heathens. I had tried to go home and get some rest like you said, but... there was no way in hell I was going to be able to get any sleep.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t able to get much either. It’s baffling, I admit it. But I guess that shit just happens sometimes. People go missing and you never hear from them again.”

  I knew he was talking about his sister.

  “And it sucks,” he said. “The not knowing. It could just about kill a person. So I get what you’re doing. I know that you feel partially responsible because of the timing with everything, but let me ask you this—if Cole had been the last person to see her, would you be telling him that he should feel guilty over it?”

  “No,” I said. “Though I know he would.”

  “Okay, that was a bad example. Lena, then. If it had been Lena?”

  “Well, we both know she wouldn’t feel guilty over something like that anyway.”

  He threw up his hands. �
�You know what I mean, man. If it was me, then. You’d be telling me the exact same thing—that I shouldn’t feel responsible for it. The same thing I’m telling you. But it’s hard for you to understand that because you’ve always been way too hard on yourself.”

  “I’m trying to work on that.”

  “Good,” he said, nodding. “How’s that proposal coming along?”

  I gestured to the computer screen. “Trying to get some more work done on it right now. I should have it wrapped up soon so Lena and I can go over it.”

  He nodded again and stood up. “Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  I didn’t get back to it right away, though; I looked at my phone, half-expecting (and hoping) that there would be a text from Emmy. No new notifications. I shifted in my chair and brought my hand down to my crotch, trying to adjust myself. I was half-hard just thinking about her, which was understandable but not necessarily what I wanted. Or was it? Everything with Emmy felt so natural; just being around her felt so good. But I wondered if this was going in a direction that maybe it shouldn’t.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts. I needed to focus on work right now. I put my phone on silent, turned it over so it was face down, and tried to get back to the proposal.

  Chapter 12

  Emmy

  It was difficult to focus on work, but I did manage to get the final illustration done for the fourth book of Sushi and Sake. I sent it off and hoped that there wouldn’t need to be any revisions, or, if there were, that they’d be minor ones. I had a set of greeting cards I could work on, but they were for a set of winter solstice cards and the deadline wasn’t for a couple of months. Since I rarely went out and did anything extravagant, I had managed to save a decent amount of money, and now that the Sushi and Sake book was done, I could take some time to focus on trying to find Isa.

  I spent the rest of the morning reading her journal. Most of the entries were short, sometimes just a sentence or two; sometimes she’d go a week or longer without writing anything. There was repeated mention of some guy that she never named, though it was hard to tell what their relationship was.