“You knew? You never said anything.”
His eyes were as cold as ever. “I did not feel like it had any bearing on your work here.”
“I handle immense amounts of money. Obviously I mishandled some.”
He settled back in his chair. “People have pasts Ms. Holt. If I fired every single person who had done something wrong in their lives, especially as youngsters, I would have a staff of five people, and none of them would be particularly interesting.” His lips actually twitched into a semblance of a smile.
“I…I see.” She did not.
Dunning leaned forward, his elbows resting on his desk’s surface and he said, “Let me ask you something Ms. Holt, why did you not just take the money and run? You could have.”
“I worked too hard to get here,” she said simply.
“That is about how I figured it. Go to work.”
The interview was over. She was off the hook and her life could go back to being just what it had been. Only, she was no longer certain she wanted that.
Jenna went to her office and stood there, staring out at the magnificent skyline. It was a view some people would have killed for, and some people had. She had worked for nearly a decade for this, and she had wanted it badly enough to sacrifice everything for it.
She had wanted it, but she did not want it anymore.
She did not want the long hours, the lack of personal life, the stress of working eighteen hour days, she did not want to live in a city she never got to appreciate because she was always on her way to or from work and either too busy or too tired.
She did not want to lose Blake, and the magical thing that they had found. She wanted more out of her life than this job.
Was she losing her mind? She leaned against the windows, placing her fingertips and the tip of her nose on the cool glass, This high up the buildings always swayed slightly, and she closed her eyes, letting her body feel that gentle rocking rhythm.
A long time ago a girl named Kendall had wanted to be so many different things, but then Jenna had sprung up in her place and Jena had wanted one thing—success.
She had found out that the financial world was a good place to make money and a name for herself and she had dived into that, studying economics and math and accounting the way other girls at the juvenile detention center studied the magazines that they got from the ratty library.
But what had she really wanted to do? She could not remember. All those dreams that Kendall had owned had been hidden away so completely that they were forever gone from Jenna’s mind. She stared out at the cityscape, and let herself mourn for the girl she had been and then, she let her go.
There was no going back, but there was no longer a need to hide her past. The person who loved her knew about it and accepted her anyway. She had been living under the shadow of that fear for so many years she had had no idea how dark it was until she had released it and seen the light beyond it.
She was no longer Kendall, but she was no longer wholly Jenna Holt either. She was a new woman, trembling like a chrysalis as she stood on the verge of the biggest decision of her life. A whoop of laughter pealed from her mouth and she turned to her desk, neatly stacked away all of her files and took her few personal possessions: a pretty landscape she had framed and put on her desk in lieu of a photograph of her family, and a pen set she had received as a birthday gift, and put them into her handbag.
Nothing else was hers; it all belonged to the company, to the woman who had let life slide past while she hid out in what she thought was safety and success but had really been nothing more than a prison of its own sort.
She wrote her resignation and took it Dunning. She laid it neatly on his desk and he looked up at her, his cold eyes betraying nothing—she doubted that he had very much left inside to betray at that point anyway. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She was.
“I see. I will have your severance package arranged and the papers couriered over to your home by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Thank you.” She stood there, wishing there was more to say to a man she had worked with for nearly a decade. There should have been, but there was not—and that was part of the reason why she was leaving.
“Good luck.”
“You too,” she left, heading down the hallway to the elevators and trying not to look into the offices she passed along the way. She barely knew any of the people in there, except in passing, and that was sad too. She should have reached out more, spoken more, fostered more friendships despite the harsh rules of the company.
She got into the elevator and waited for it to take her to the street. The foyer echoed coldly and the people behind the desk gave her their bland smiles, everything about the place felt foreign and off-kilter, like it was a place she had once known that had changed during an absence on her part.
She had changed, and she knew it. She hit the sidewalk, her face breaking out into a happy grin as she headed for Midtown and Blake’s offices. The tourists bustled around her, the street vendors sang out and she stopped to grab a pretzel with plenty of mustard and an icy soda.
She hummed as her heels clicked along the street and she drew nearer to Blake’s office. The future was uncertain, but for the first time in her life that did not frighten her. She knew what she wanted, and she was willing to let things happen as they would, to let go to cede control to whatever forces surrounded her.
She walked into the building he housed his offices in, checked the directory and took the elevator up. She was met by a reception room that was plain and unassuming and the smell of coffee brewing. A nervous looking women sat on a chair, clutching her handbag tightly and staring off into the distance. Blake stuck his head out the door, spotted Jenna and said, “Hello, can you give me a few minutes?”
She waved the last chunk of her pretzel at him and said, “No problem.”
There was a desk in the reception area but it seemed to be unmanned. She went over and sat in it, not thinking, just wanting a place to set her soda down. The front door of the office opened and a man steamed in, his face red with rage and his entire portly body quivering.
“I want to hire you.”
Jenna blinked up at him, the bite of pretzel still in her mouth. She hastily chewed and swallowed, “I’m sorry…”
“”Do not tell me you cannot take my case on. Get your boss out here right now. I hear he is the best there is and I want to hire him.” His voice carried a thick accent and that accent just got thicker the more agitated he became. “Go on, go get your boss, this is urgent!”
Her boss? Jenna hid a smile, “I am sorry but he is with a client at the moment.”
“Yeah, well, this is more important.”
“I am sure Sir, why don’t you have a seat?”
Loud sobs broke out from behind Blake’s door and Jenna gave the man in front of her a wide smile. “Please, do sit down. Would you like some coffee?”
“You don’t look like a secretary,” he said doubtfully.
“I am not,” she admitted.
“Are you a private dick, too?”
Private dick? Did he mean detective? Laughter rose up, she squelched it before answering, “No, I’m not.”
More sobs sounded from Blake’s office then the door burst open and the woman appeared, clutching her bag with one hand and a file with the other. She ran out, slamming the door behind her and Blake looked at the man standing in front of the desk Jenna sat at.
“Can I help you?”
“I sure hope so. I need real help. Not like my wife is cheating help—she would never have done that—and if she were still here she would tell you he same about me. I need help finding something; it is more precious than I can say.”
“Take a breath,” Blake advised, “And start at the beginning.”
“My name is Louis Atmore. I came all the way up here from Alabama to find my granddaughter. She…well she came up here because this fella blew through town; it was one of those modeling outfits you see all the time
on TV.
“They showed up at the mall, looking for talent, and Kelly, well she was wild to see if she could do it. We got custody of her on account of her folks being…my son was never that responsible. That is a shame but anyway, ever since my wife died Kelly has been a little wild, and so I said no. I could not really stop her though, she is nineteen.
“I was worried about it because she got into some trouble a while back—drugs but just pot, not the hard stuff, but I was afraid she might let a bad influence get her into more trouble and that man, he was a bad influence if you catch my drift. Anyway no matter what I said off she went to the mall and next thing you know she is gone. Her suitcase and all the money I had in the house were all she took with her…”
“Mr. Atmore, your money has probably long been spent,” Blake advised.
“You want Kelly back,” Jenna said.
“Yes, Ma’am. She called me yesterday afternoon crying. She’s in trouble, that man has an agency all right but it ain’t for models, least not the kind she thought he meant. He got the phone from her before she could tell me anything else and honestly, the police are not much help.”
Blake looked at Jenna. “I quit my job,” she said evenly.
Mister Atmore said, “Does that mean you won’t help me?”
Blake began to smile. This was what he really wanted to do with his life, he did not want to work cases like the one he had just sent out of his office in tears—a Park Avenue wife looking to get higher alimony by proving her husband had been unfaithful—he wanted to do some good in the world. “I think that means we can help you.’
“I got a thousand bucks. I know that ain’t much. I heard you are really expensive…”
“I think two hundred will cover it,” Blake said gently. “Now why don’t you start telling us about Kelly and her phone call to you?”
* * * *
A few hours later the couple walked into a police station, Blake wanted to talk to a friend there and when he spotted the man he knew something was wrong. “Blake, just the man I wanted to see. Is this Jenna Holt?”
“Yes, I’m Jenna Holt.” What was going on? Fear fluttered in her belly, had Dunning decided to press charges against her for some reason after all?
“Blake, do you still have a permit to carry?”
What was he talking about? Jenna stared at Blake, whose face had grown dark. “Yes, but you know I don’t.”
“You might want to.”
“What is it, Bates?”
“Kevin Dean has still not been captured, and Yancey escaped from lockup. We figure someone got him out by bailing out a name on the roster and having that guy trade off with him. He has a vendetta, Blake, and we all know how Dean can be when he feels like he has been crossed. Internal Affairs is after him and Yancey, but they are together and they are a deadly team.”
Blake hated guns but he knew he had to get one. He had Jenna to protect. “I have my old pistol. I’ll carry it. I need to know what you know about this modeling agency that bills itself as Jeweled Style.”
“That gang? They practically kidnap small town girls and feed them to the pimps here in the city.” Bates gave them some more information and when they left, instead of walking, Blake hailed a cab. Jenna saw the way he looked around him, scanning the area before he helped her into it.
Jenna said. “Tell me why it is my life is in danger. I am helping you to look for a girl who may have been taken in by a pimp’s hustle and yet I feel safer and more alive than I ever have in my entire life. And in love with my job.”
He smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling and a lock of his raven hair tumbling across his high forehead. “Just the job?” he teased. “I’m hurt, really I am.”
“No, not just the job,” Jenna said. “I am madly in love with you too.”
“And I am in love with you,” he said before bestowing a fiery kiss on her mouth. Jenna closed her eyes and let that kiss take her with him. Who would have thought an encounter with a sexy stranger in an elevator would have turned her whole life so upside down in such wonderful and exciting ways?
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