Players: Bad Boy Romance

by Amy Faye

  He closes his eyes for a long minute. No response. When Mitch does that, he's angry. It's hard to say for sure, but Anna gets the impression that the detective is angry, too.

  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

  "Don't be sorry," he says. His voice is straining to sound calm. She's used to listening for that. She's used to the sound of it. She's good at it.

  "I didn't mean to upset you."

  "Oh, don't worry about that. You didn't upset me at all."

  He turns the key in the ignition and the car gets itself started. Anna knows better than to press her luck. Whatever is upsetting him, if she asks more than once or twice, it's going to go badly for her.

  She'll find out when he wants her to find out, or she won't find out at all. Mitchell hated it when she pressed him on things, and there's no way she's going to forget those lessons.

  That's how you end up in trouble, and she doesn't want to get in trouble again.

  Chapter Eight

  Detective Josh Meadows swallows his frustration. The pictures on his desk are just as useless as he thought they would be. Just as useless. Just like that god damned interview.

  What he wouldn't give for just five minutes with that son of a bitch Queen in a dark alley. Maybe he wouldn't find out a thing. They say torture doesn't work, beatings don't do anything at all.

  But that's not totally true, either way, because they do one thing. They're still a beating, and that bastard has one coming to him. Josh keeps his hands tight. No problem. He's got everything under control.

  Another night passes. He should be asleep. He should have been asleep hours ago. But he isn't, and he's not going to be any time soon.

  He still needs to interview the parents. It's already occurred to him that he didn't get the friends name in that interview. A stupid slip-up. A stupid slip-up caused by his own frustration. At least he didn't ruin the fucking case for himself.

  He takes a deep breath and pours another two fingers of amber-colored whiskey. It doesn't taste like much of anything going down. Not after the last four.

  "What the fuck am I missing?"

  The evidence is right there. Or, it should be. But there's nothing that means anything. A few hair and fiber samples. Likely human hair. A DNA test might confirm that they're from Queen.

  He'd say, and he has every right to say, that they're from before. He's been in the apartment before, hair moves around. No big deal. It proves nothing.

  The parents might have come back, but if they did, it was late. It wouldn't be the first case of a couple new grandparents deciding that their precious grand-baby isn't being watched adequately.

  They take it 'for the child's protection' and never give a second thought to the fact that what they're doing is a big no-no. The list of suspects is agonizingly short.

  There's always the possibility that Anna herself is responsible. It twists Josh up inside. The idea is disgusting, disturbing. There are plenty of ways it could have happened. The baby gets sick and passes on, maybe.

  She can't handle it, and… the tumbling his stomach does at the thought of it stops him pursuing the thought further. She's not off the suspect list yet, and that's all he needs to know about it.

  Why would some random son of a bitch come in the house, though? Why? There's no money to be had. None at all. Queen isn't interested in the kid. Doesn't know the name. Doesn't know the gender.

  He swallows the rest of his glass. He should be done for the night. He should go to bed. He should have gone to bed five glasses ago.

  The bottle turns over, instead, pouring out the last little bit that he'd had left in the cabinet. He lets it sit in his mouth for a second, trying to get a little taste out of his numbed tongue before he swallows.

  What is he missing? There must be something that's going to be the step forward. Something that's going to turn the case around.

  He looks at the pictures. Something he's missing. There's gotta be.

  Detective Josh Meadows jerks awake from a dream that fades quickly. He's happier when it's gone, but the phone is still ringing in his pocket. He pushes himself up straight on the sofa and pulls the phone out.

  "Detective Meadows, who is this?"

  "Detective? This is Mr. Morrow, you spoke with my client yesterday about a child being kidnapped?"

  The lawyer. Okay.

  "Yes."

  "I think you should come over at your earliest possible convenience. We've just received a very disturbing letter, and we wanted to call you right away."

  "How did you get this number, by the way?"

  "Your chief. I called, and he said you were on the case, gave me your number."

  Josh made a note to have a word about personal space. Then again, when it came to Al Queen's boy, sometimes boundaries got pushed.

  "I'll be right there."

  The alarm is screaming in the other room, and for all that Josh knows, it has been for the past two hours, which sounds about right looking at the clock on his phone.

  He pushes himself up from the sofa seat, ignoring the splitting headache. Eventually, at some point, he'll have to find himself some painkillers. But for now, he's got to get that ear-splitting noise gone, or it's going to drive him fucking insane.

  Very disturbing letter, huh?

  Well, it's not exactly what he wanted. What he'd wanted was something that would tie everything up nice and easy. Something like a gift-wrapped package, containing a bouncing baby girl and labeled 'Care of The Kidnapper, Mitch Queen.'

  But there's no use in assuming who it is. The guy's a real hot-head and no damn good. That doesn't mean, though, that he's an outright criminal. Not until Josh can prove it, that is. Then, it's not slander—you can't slander someone with the truth, after all.

  Meadows slaps the button to turn off the infernal racket. Infernal racket that will probably get him a noise complaint from the landlord. He strips his clothes off and applies deodorant liberally.

  Then the new clothes go on. He should shower, but that's assuming a hell of a lot about the amount of time he's got on his hands that isn't a safe assumption in the least bit.

  He's in the car five minutes later. He has to adjust the pistol on his hip not to jab into his side as he slides into the car.

  The guy at the gate isn't the same guy. If anything, the two are practically opposites. Nobody could possibly mistake one for the other, if they'd seen them both. The guy at the door, though, is unmistakably the same fellow.

  Without Anna here, he's all frowns. "This way," he says. Surly.

  Josh follows him inside. They go the same route. But he's not exactly a guest inside the house, so he gets the chaperone routine.

  There are three inside, this time. The first two, the detective recognizes from having seen them the day before. The third, he recognizes from having seen several more times than that. From having seen him a thousand times if he's seen him once.

  "Mr. Queen. Detective Meadows. It's a pleasure to meet you." Josh feels like it's tactful not to keep his opinions to himself. In fact, to keep them about as quiet as he possibly can. It's easier that way.

  The elder Mr. Queen is a big man. At least as big as the bruiser they've got outside, a veritable bear of a man. He doesn't smile at the detective. He's not a man of smiles.

  "Mr. Meadows. You made good time in getting here."

  "Your attorney sounded very concerned, on the phone."

  "Yes, he did. And for good reason."

  Josh enters the room a little further. Sitting on the table is a letter. It's not comprised of chopped-up newspaper, like in the movies. Someone typed it out on a computer, and then they printed it off.

  It's black and white. You could print one of these off at your local library if you were worried that someone would figure out that you are the only one on your street that owned some kind of fancy one-of-a-kind printer.

  Meadows doesn't take the time to read it carefully. He'll read it over and over again, over the coming weeks. But it doesn't take much skimmi
ng to know what it says.

  It says, we have your kid, and we want you to pay us a big sum of money to get him back. Don't call us, we'll call you. No signature. Would have been all too convenient, wouldn't it?

  What it does have, on the other hand, is a black-inked stamp of a baby's foot pressed into the bottom of the page. It's too soon to say for sure, since he doesn't have one prepared, but it's easy to believe that Anna Witt would be able to easily identify that as Ava Witt's footprint.

  Which is to say that someone found money in the case, which opens up a whole world of possibilities.

  Chapter Nine

  Anna puts the phone down. There's been a development. She's not sure how she's supposed to feel about any of this. More than anything, it would be nicer to have someone tell her what she's supposed to do, how she's supposed to feel.

  They're not going to do that for her. There's nobody who knows her the way that Mitch knew her. There's nobody who knows that she can get a little loopy sometimes, that she gets weird ideas in her head.

  But Mitchell, he always corrected her. It was usually alright if she was on her own, of course. It was little things. Nothing major. Nothing that bad. But there was always the worry, always the fear, that it could turn into something bigger.

  Was she supposed to be happy that someone said they'd kidnapped Ava? That she got some confirmation that she wasn't crazy?

  It should have driven her insane with grief. But the truth was, now that she at least knew, for sure, that someone had her…

  As long as Ava wasn't hurt, it didn't matter how hard she had to work, how long she was going to be in debt. As long as Ava was alright. She'd work something out with the kidnappers, if Mitchell didn't want to have anything to do with it.

  Maybe they wouldn't get all the money that they wanted, but they'd get something. She wasn't going to let her baby get hurt. She couldn't.

  A knock at the door. It seems like they're coming constantly, now. It will be the police again. It's always the police. They've been here four or five times, now. Different groups of them.

  None of them were that handsome detective, though. Some of them didn't even introduce themselves, just came at her with a 'Howdy, ma'am, do you mind if we take some pictures' or 'We need to check for any hair samples.'

  Her head was spinning. Why couldn't they just go away? She should be able to have at least a second's peace in her worry. Right?

  She opens the door. A tall man stands at the door. He's wearing a light-brown suit, and he smells a little more strongly today of the scent that she noticed yesterday.

  "Detective Meadows."

  "Have you heard?"

  "About the letter?"

  The detective nods. Anna has to keep herself from smiling. She shouldn't be happy just because she gets to feel helpful. "Yeah. They told me."

  "They?"

  "Mitch's dad called me."

  "Personally?"

  "Well, sure." He'd called plenty of times, in the past. Way back. A couple of days after the break-up. To make sure there weren't any hard feelings.

  How could there possibly be hard feelings? She wasn't exactly in a position to have any hard feelings about any of it. She was just some nobody, and they were, you know. They were the Queens. There's no comparison to be made.

  She'd told him so, and he must have believed her, because he didn't call again.

  "Do you have a copy of the birth certificate?"

  "Yeah," she says. "Right here."

  There's a white sheet of paper on the previously clean table, right where she left it. Anna wonders if he noticed that she cleaned up as best she could without disturbing the bedroom. She wonders, if he does notice, whether or not he's happy about it.

  "Thank you," he says. He looks it over quickly, without commenting. "This is a photocopy? Or do I need to get this back to you?"

  Anna bites her lip. He's not going to be mad, is he?

  Before she answers he waves his hand. "I'll get this copied and bring it back, don't worry about it."

  He's starting to read her face, starting to know how to act. It's a strange comfort. Here he is, almost a total stranger, and she's leaning on him like this. It feels weird. Almost wrong. But at the same time, that doesn't mean that she's capable of stopping, even if she wanted to.

  Anna sticks to the walls and waits for him to tell her what he wants her to do next. She watches that pretty, dark-featured face of his. She shouldn't be thinking the thoughts that she's thinking right this second.

  It's easy to fall for a pretty face like that. It's easy to think about yourself with a person like that. No doubt, he's already dating someone. He's not wearing a ring, though, so he's not married.

  That's the sort of thing that you get used to noticing, at parties full of fancy people. Whether or not they're married, right off the bat. It can get real embarrassing if you get onto the wrong subject.

  Detective Meadows looks up at her, and for a moment, the look in his eyes makes her shiver. She doesn't need to be told what it means when a man looks at a woman like that.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, he's got the mask of professionalism back on. "Thank you very much, you've been a big help."

  "Is there anything else I can do? Coffee? Water?"

  He takes a breath and shakes his head. "No, but thank you for the offer. I shouldn't."

  "Okay. I understand."

  She understands very well. He's busy. He's important. Police detectives have important jobs, and they don't have time to waste drinking a woman's coffee, or sitting and chatting. Not when they're on the job.

  "Anna, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

  Her face brightens. "Sure."

  "I don't want you to get offended, so you don't have to answer if you don't want to, alright?"

  "Don't worry about that. I won't get offended."

  "How did Mitch treat you? Did he treat you real good?"

  She doesn't know the answer that he wants. She can see in his eyes that he doesn't like Mitchell. She doesn't know why. Mitch was real good at getting people to like him. He's a charming guy. Smiles a lot at people.

  He wasn't smiling yesterday, though.

  "Well, sure, he treated me fine."

  "Is that the truth, Anna? Did he treat you just fine? No complaints, not ever?"

  What does he want her to say? She doesn't like it when there's no right answers. It makes life hard. It makes life scary. She doesn't like hard, and she sure as hell doesn't like scary.

  "I'm sorry, was that wrong?"

  His eyes close. Is he angry with her for something?

  "No. I'm sorry. Forget I said anything."

  He's upset. He's hiding it real well. Anna can usually tell, when someone's hiding their anger. Especially, she thinks sadly, when it's anger directed at her. But this time, she really can't tell at all.

  Which is almost upsetting. She should be able to see it. She should.

  But he must be upset, because every other thing he's doing is exactly what Mitch does—did—when he was upset with her. When he was upset with her, and she was going to be in trouble when they got back to the house.

  Anna didn't know when the trouble was going to spring on her this time. She was already at home, and there wasn't going to be any time that she was more private than she was right now.

  Which made her even more worried. After all, if she doesn't know when it's coming, how's she supposed to know what to do to keep him calm?

  Her body starts to react to the thought of calming Mitch down. There was one thing, one way that had always worked with him. She wouldn't mind doing that with the detective—angry or not.

  She dismisses the thought. That's not going to happen, she tells herself. Her mind listens. her mind knows that it's not going to go there.

  The warmth between her thighs, on the other hand, isn't listening at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Josh Meadows looks the note over for the twelfth time today. They're supposed to call tonight with more info
rmation. Usually they try to pull a bunch of shit about 'don't go to the cops.'

  Well, it's too late for that. They must have realized it, too, because there's nothing about it. Josh figures that means he's welcome to his copy, and he's welcome to be there when the call comes in some time around ten thirty.

  He was going to be there anyways, but now the caller is going to be assuming that he'll be there. No surprises on either side, hopefully.

  Kidnapping is pretty serious. The good news is, it's pretty rare. Most of them are simple, too. Mom and dad were fighting. Dad took the kids, and mom's not too happy about it. She knows he's got 'em. You just have to go find them and get it.

  There's a mom and a dad here. Mom and dad aren't too happy with each other, and now mom's kid is gone.

  But there are complications here, things that make the usual suspects seem strange. Why would he take a kid he's never expressed any interest in at all? It defies common sense.

  On the other hand, everything about the case does. The one piece of good news was being able to talk to the mom and dad. Lana and Joe Witt were nice folks. They had been out for the day because it was a little vacation. They went across the river and hit a casino.

  They made a little money—they joked that they weren't going to share any of it with Josh, no matter how cute he was. He'd smiled at the joke, made a note of where they went, what they played, and set that information aside.

  He could have one of his guys go look into it. There would be video. They could still have done it, but there was no reason to suspect that they had wondered off with some kid, hidden him, and then proceeded to gamble for a long day.

  Professionally, they owned the apartment complex, so if Josh had any questions, they're usually there, and if they're not there, then the manager of the place can get them on the phone for him. They'd really appreciate updates.

  So that, at least so far, appeared to be a dead end, which was a god damned shame, because it would have been much more convenient if they'd confessed to the whole thing.