by Ladew, Lisa
"She was always ... fragile, my mom. She had a stillbirth when I was ten and she just never recovered from it. I never heard her say another word."
Mica gasped, holding a hand to her mouth. "How awful. I'm so sorry."
"It was hard," Knox said, his voice even and relaxed. He pulled his first bowl of soup towards him and ate a spoonful. Mica stared at hers, realizing she wasn't hungry anymore.
Knox raised an eyebrow at her and kept eating. "Dad put her in a kind of nursing home when I was sixteen. I fought him on it but she does seem happier there than anywhere else. All us boys go visit her every Sunday, like church. She laughs silently and smiles when she sees us and hugs and kisses us, which she never did when she was still at home."
Mica warmed her hands on her soup bowl and her hunger came rushing back. She took an experimental sip. Delicious! "I never read anything about your mom, Knox, I never knew."
"Dad knows how to keep things hush hush. Besides, most of it happened before he was ever infamous."
Mica smiled at that great description of Felix Rosesson. She'd seen his infomercials on in the middle of the night many times, hawking panic rooms to the middle class, promising no money down and easy credit terms.
She remembered something she had read once. "Isn't your mom wealthy on her own?"
"Her parents have money, but they never gave her any of it, holding it over her head, saying they'd give her millions if she would just leave my dad, but she never would."
Mica spoke softly, feeling like they were in dangerous territory. "They don't like your dad?"
"No, they hated him. Always did. They died last year, and as soon as they did, Dad divorced my mom on reason of insanity and moved his girlfriend into the house. I'm considering fighting him in court for control of Mom's parent's estate. I don't want it, but I sure as hell don't think Dad should get it. I think it should go in a fund for Mom, in case she ever decides she wants to buy anything and he should never get any of it. His lawyers have convinced him that since they had no prenup, he should get half of it free and clear."
"Why didn't he just stay married to her? Then he could have done whatever he wanted with it right?"
Knox blanched and his voice finally became bitter. "I think he's about to get married again. Or maybe he already married her and didn't tell anyone."
They ate in silence for several minutes, Mica trying to digest what Knox had shared. She knew who her was. Darcia Murray, Felix Rosesson's girlfriend who was the same age as his oldest son.
Mica grimaced, wondering about a thirty-year-old woman who dated a sixty-four-year-old man. He was a handsome older man, for sure, but still so much older.
"Isn't your mom a lot younger than your dad too?"
"Mom's forty-eight. Dad's sixty-four."
Knox finished his soup and started on his second bowl, placing the empty bowl perfectly behind the first. Mica's thoughts turned to closer matters.
"So what now?" she asked Knox.
"Now we sleep. Or not," he said winking at her.
Mica felt her blood heat up but there was something she wanted to talk about first. "What about Bailey?"
"The cops are looking for him. They'll call me immediately if they find him. Daxton is going to pull some guys for our own investigation in the morning. For you and I, it's a waiting game for at least a few days. We just need to see what happens."
"I've been thinking about something he said."
"About your father paying him money?"
Mica nodded, a lump in her throat. She didn't know what it was from, she'd never known her father, never wanted to she'd always thought. Her mother had said he was a bad man. But if he was so bad, why had she slept with him at least once?
Mica thought back to Bailey's exact words. It's going to kill your father when I tell him his little girl was just a whore all along, and that he paid me all that money for nothing.
"Why would my father pay Bailey money? And what did it have to do with me?" she asked, surprised to hear her voice weak and a little shaky. She wouldn't have expected this to bother her so much.
Knox took her hand. "It sounds like Bailey and your dad go way back. That's how your mom knew him when he showed up at Karen's house."
Mica stared at him, knowing he was right. Feeling the rest of that tale pushing its way out of her, wanting to be heard.
And loving him, just a little bit for remembering each detail of her sad, pathetic story.
Chapter 9
Knox
Knox cleaned up the soup bowls, then dug under the sink for food for the dogs. He'd leave bowls in the kitchen and they could eat whenever they got hungry, since they'd be patrolling once he and Mica went to sleep. Tiny and Lulu were siblings and his favorite dogs that his father owned. Knox had gotten to help train them when they were only a few months old and he often borrowed them from his dad when he needed dogs for something, or when he was lonely. He remembered little Tiny, actually starting out as the runt of the litter, but still such a fluffy, white butterball. When he had a family of his own, he would try to buy Tiny and Lulu from his dad.
As Knox worked he thought hard about what Mica had brought up. If no one was able to find Bailey, tracking down her father might be the next logical step. The father might have some idea where Bailey was staying or what his plans were. What would that do to Mica though? Knox quirked his lips, knowing it could be a good thing or an awful thing for her life. Knox got the feeling that even if it was a bad thing, she'd like to know, like to at least get to choose to close that door or leave it open.
Knox turned back to the table where Mica was still sitting, drinking the peppermint tea he'd made her. Her blonde hair curled around her shoulders and touched the table, making his mouth water. She was better than any food, any drink, any liquor.
He walked to her, his cock twitching and hardening, intent on pulling her out of that booth and bending her over the kitchen table, but what she said next stopped him cold.
"I stole my name from a dead girl," she said, her eyes shining with held-back tears.
Later, he told his cock, even as it ignored him.
Knox slid into the booth next to her again and held her hand, silently inviting her to open up.
"You wanted to know what I did after I left the train that night, and that's what I did."
Knox stayed silent, thinking it was the best way to let her tell the story in her own way. Once this was out, there'd be no more secrets between them.
Well, maybe a few more secrets.
Mica took a deep shuddery breath and began to talk.
"You asked me not to leave the room, and I told you I wouldn't. You probably believed me because you knew what a horrible liar I was. But I coached myself while you were working. I knew I'd have to tell you some sort of a lie. I could tell you weren't going to just let me go, but I didn't think you could help me. I thought my only chance was to make a break for it in a city as large as Chicago, a place where Bailey wouldn't expect me to go. I was scared for you too, Knox," she said, touching his face. "I didn't want to get you involved in Bailey's craziness." She dropped her hand and stared at him with her sad eyes. "I also thought you wouldn't want me anymore if you knew the truth. All the truth." Knox tried to refute that, but Mica shook her head, cutting him off. "I know Knox, I know now that wouldn't have changed your mind, but I was young and naive and I thought something was wrong with me then."
Knox grabbed up the hand she'd touched his face with and held it to her lips. "No baby, it wasn't you. It was always Bailey. You were just doing the best you could."
She nodded forlornly, but wouldn't look him in the eye. After a moment, she went on.
"As the train was slowing, you had to go. I waited just inside the door to your room until the train stopped and then I ran to the doors. I just walked away, praying you wouldn't see me. I can still remember thinking every cop and security guard would stop me. I walked through the terminal and out onto the street. I still had Bailey's money in my shoe and it made
me think I could at least get a hotel room for a night or two if things got bad. I had no I.D., no nothing, but I prayed I could find something. I walked for miles, occasionally jogging over several streets, worried that you were following me. I stopped at a sandwich shop to get lunch and right there, on the counter, was a flyer for a women's shelter in the neighborhood. They let abused women and their children sleep there at night. I still had the bruises around my torso from the rope he had tied me to the wheelchair with so went to the place and asked for a bed. I spun them a huge story and told them the guy had burned all my identification. They let me stay there every night as long as I was in by seven at night and out by seven in the morning."
Mica took a deep breath and kept talking. Knox drug his thumb across her palm, thinking of how it must have been for her.
"It was impossible to get a job without a driver's license, but I had no way to get one. I would leave every day and wander around the streets, trying to work up the nerve to go in and apply, and every time I did they turned me out cold. Someone told me about a hotel that hired illegal immigrants and paid them cash so after about a week I ended up there. They paid ten dollars a day for about six hours of work. It was the worst deal in the world, but all I could get so I did it. I showed up every day like the other women and started socking more money away in my shoe. I ended up going out and buying a flat pack that goes around your waist, under your clothes, and I carried every penny I owned in that little bag. I worked that way for months, finally finding a guy that could make me a fake I.D. and get me a social security number. He wanted two thousand dollars for it though, so I just kept working, not sure how I would carry two thousand dollars in my little pack. I would eat cans of beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, work for my ten dollars, and go sleep at the shelter."
"The shelter hosted self-defense classes for women and I went to all of them, learning a ton of things about how to defend myself. It never made me feel better about Bailey, but I did feel better about walking around in Chicago. One day I met a girl in one of the classes. She was eighteen like me and had a huge, puffy black eye. It looked like it hurt so bad. She never said anything to anyone, but every time I saw her in class I tried to talk to her. She was fascinating to me. Very pretty, with huge soulful eyes that just looked right through you, know what I mean? Something always drew me to her. I just wanted to know more about her. I guess I was desperate for a friend and she seemed harmless. I started buying packs of gum, tiny candies, stuff like that, and bringing them to class, offering them to her, just hoping she would open up to me. One day she did and we became friends. She slept at the shelter too, but somehow I'd never seen her before. There was a common room but I never went in it. I always went straight to my bed and read the books or magazines they left out for us, or slept—so I'd never seen her, but once we started talking we sought each other out to share a room. Either she'd wait at the door for me or I'd wait for her and we'd go in together so we got assigned to the same room. They were nothing more than a closet really with two cots in them, but they were way better than sleeping on the streets, so we didn't care."
Knox watched Mica's face carefully. Her lips were twisting as she tried not to cry. His heart broke for her as a young girl, so scared and alone, and obviously about to lose her one friend.
"Instead of reading, we would talk until lights out. We pushed our cots next to each other and whispered about our dreams, our plans, our horrors. She told me she was an orphan and had no family in her whole life. She'd been raised in foster families until she was sixteen, then she'd been at a home for troubled foster kids who kept getting kicked out of their homes. She said she never knew what happened to her parents. Her case worker told her the only thing that was in her file was the date she had entered the system. She'd been three days old. Her birth certificate named her mother as Jane Doe, and there was no father on it."
Tears began to drip steadily down Mica's face as she recalled her friend's hurt and pain. Knox pulled her into his arms where she kept talking.
"When she was in the home, she'd started going out with a boy, another kid in the system. Eventually, he'd started hitting her. The home had tried to send her to juvenile detention and she'd run away and lived on the streets until she was eighteen and she'd been able to get into the shelters. Her birthday was the same day as mine. I remember her laughing about that and saying we even looked alike, and if I needed to, I could borrow her driver's license to get a job, since I didn't have one."
Knox could feel Mica's hot tears against his chest. He ran a hand down her hair, over and over again, trying to soothe, her, trying to take it all away.
"A week later she was dead. We talked all evening as usual, and I never knew she was planning anything. But when I woke up in the morning she had overdosed on something and stopped breathing in her sleep. I could tell right away that something awful had happened because she had vomit all down the front of her and on her pillow. I ran to her and tilted her head back, listening for breathing, but there was none. And I knew she was dead. I could just see it in the color of her face. I stared at her for a long time, just feeling bad for my friend, wishing she had said something to me. I tried to hold her hand but there was something already there. It was an envelope with my name on it. I shoved it into my pocket and started screaming for staff. They came running and called the police and eventually her body was removed. No one ever questioned me about anything. I had to stalk the morgue for a month to find out what would happen to her body. Finally, a guy there took pity on me and said it would be cremated with no marker or anything to show she'd ever even been alive. I tried to give him all the money I had for a memorial stone or something but he said it wasn't enough. He told me where they buried remains of people who couldn't pay, and once I had money, I had a headstone made for her and had it put in the memorial gardens. I go back once a year."
Mica's head drooped farther and she sobbed, hard enough to make Knox's heart break for her. He kissed her hair and ran his hands over her shoulders until her tears dried up.
Mica wiped her eyes with her napkin. "You know what was in the envelope, right?"
Chapter 10
Knox
Knox spoke without thinking. He had at least this part figured out.
"Her driver's license."
Mica nodded. "Her driver's license, her birth certificate, and her social security card. Plus a note. It only had three words on it. Sorry. Love you."
Knox held Mica in silence for a long time. "So she was Mica Nichols?"
Mica raised her eyes to him, pure fear stamped across her features. "Yes," she whispered, waiting for his response.
Knox cradled her face in his hands. "Baby, I don't blame you, not for a second. You did what you had to do. You didn't hurt her. She wanted you to have it. She wanted to help you."
Relief filled Mica's face and more tears followed. Knox held her close. He meant what he'd said, every word.
Mica talked into his chest. "I've thought about it a hundred times over the years. Should I change my name? Should I admit what I did and take my old name back, even if it means I go to jail? What's right? What do I owe society? What do I owe Mica? But I've never been able to make the first move. It's haunted me for longer than you can imagine. But I guess it's time to make a decision now that Bailey has found me. I don't have a reason to hide behind the name anymore."
Knox pulled her face up again. "You don't owe anyone anything. Do you like the name?"
Mica nodded, wiping away another tear.
"Then keep it. It suits you. Your friend wanted you to have it and you don't ever have to tell anyone. If circumstances had been different, you never would have done it. That's what happens, Mica. Life takes you prisoner and forces your hand. But don't ever think you have to pay for it. You don't."
Mica nodded and smiled at him.
A question popped into Knox's mind that would get her off the subject and hopefully get her talking about happier things. "How did you meet Ruth?"
&nbs
p; "You know about Ruth?"
"I looked you up before I came over to your house the first time. She just gave you the company?"
Mica smiled then. "That's a crazy story, but then all the stories that Ruth is involved in are crazy."
She focused on Knox, her blue eye calling to him first, then her green. He looked at them both, alternately, not sure which he loved more.
"One day at work I had just finished a room and I was heading to the next one when a guy with no shirt on came running out of one of the rooms at the far end of the hall. A woman followed him, screaming at him. It was Ruth. When she saw me she yelled at me to stop him, that he had just stolen all the money in her purse, plus her credit cards. I acted without thinking. I shoved my cleaning cart in front of him as he ran and he went sprawling, knocking the whole thing over. Ruth jumped on top of him and tore all of her stuff out of his pockets. He grabbed her and pulled her hair, then slapped her across the face and called her a whole string of swear words. She slapped him back and he jumped up, then pulled his arm back to punch her. I sprayed him in the face with window cleaner and he took off, screaming."
"Ruth thanked me and helped me right my cart, but my boss showed up and fired me on the spot. She was a sixty-year-old lady who always wore a bun in her hair and who probably should have been a nun. She said I shouldn't have done that to a customer. Ruth chewed her out, saying he wasn't a customer, she was the customer and he had just been some guy she picked up at a bar and normally she had better judgment about who was a criminal and who wasn't. My boss was horrified and looked at Ruth like she was some sort of a devil, then she ordered me out of the hotel at once. I left, not feeling too bad. I had Mica's I.D. by that time but I hadn't had the guts to use it. Now I knew I would be forced to and that made me excited in an awful way. I knew I could finally get paid a decent wage and maybe I could even find a place to live."