Knox

by Lisa Ladew

  “You saw him do it?”

  “No, I didn’t, but who else would do it? I—”

  Sgt. Powell held up her hand again. “Fast forward to the train. What’s the problem with it?”

  Mica turned around and shook the door to her building. “This door is locked. He shouldn’t have been able to get into my building. He left another train at my house in Seattle earlier. He’s trying to scare me. He’s extorting me. For all I know he could be in my apartment right now waiting for me.”

  Sgt. Powell pressed her lips together like she very much doubted it. She nodded at her partner. “Check with the neighbors. See if anyone saw anything” She looked at Mica and nodded her head to the door. “Let’s go see.”

  Mica breathed a sigh of relief. Now they were getting somewhere. She unlocked the foyer door and led Sgt. Powell up the stairs, then opened the door to her apartment and stepped back.

  Sgt. Powell strolled in, her right hand relaxed, resting on the butt of her gun. Her head swiveled right and left. “Turn on the lights,” she told Mica over her shoulder.

  Mica stepped through the doorway and snapped on the lights, then tried to look every way at once. The large apartment seemed completely normal. And empty.

  Mica directed Sgt. Powell through every room, where they poked into closets and under beds. Finally satisfied that the apartment was empty, Mica led the officer into her kitchen. “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked in a small voice. She was beginning to feel stupid.

  Don’t you do that! her mind snapped at her. He was in the building! He was in your house! You had every right to call the cops!

  “No, thank you.” Sgt. Powell sighed. “Look Miss…”

  “Nichols,” Mica supplied, knowing what was coming.

  “Miss Nichols. What do you think this guy wants from you?”

  “Money,” Mica whispered, knowing that wasn’t all he wanted.

  Sgt. Powell nodded. “And you say you’ve already got a case going with the Seattle PD?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can do for you. I can talk to your neighbors, see if they saw anything, see if one of them let him into the building. I can fingerprint that little train. I can call whoever is working on your case in Seattle and give them this update. I can maybe make a harassment charge since the guy called you a bitch. But that’s it. Unless he stole a key or picked the lock downstairs he hasn’t really done anything illegal.”

  Mica nodded. She knew that. The officer in Seattle had told her the same thing. Dick was smart. He knew how to skate that line.

  “What is the name of the officer in Seattle who took your case up there?”

  “Dunway,” Mica said softly, wondering how she was ever going to be able to sleep again.

  “Dunway.” Sgt. Powell nodded as she wrote the name down in her notebook. A knock on the door startled Mica and she turned toward it. “I’ll get it,” the police sergeant said.

  She walked to the door and Mica saw it was only the other cop. They had a short discussion and then Sgt. Powell returned to Mica. “He says no one saw anything or let anyone into the building, but your upstairs neighbor isn’t home, so we’ll have to try back later.”

  Mica nodded, hopelessness spreading through her.

  Sgt. Powell held out a card. “Here’s my card. Call 911 if he shows up here tonight. I’ll get this information to Dunway asap.”

  “Thank you,” Mica said, ready to just be alone already. She showed the officers to the door and double locked it, then stared at it, not feeling any safer at all.

  Mica looked around her living room. She didn’t know what she wanted, other than to feel safe again. Her eyes settled on a dining room chair. She grabbed it, and dragged it to the front door, then wedged it under the doorknob. It was rudimentary, but it did make her feel a tiny bit safer. At least she would hear it if someone tried to get in.

  Mica walked over to the large bay window at the front of her large living room. She checked all the locks, then pressed her faced up against the glass, looking out. She was on the second floor. He’d need a ladder to get up here. Someone would surely see that, no matter what time he tried it. She thought she was safe. She hoped.

  Mica dropped onto her couch and tried not to cry. Tears wouldn’t help her. She didn’t know what would, but she knew it wasn’t tears.

  A buzzing sound across the room startled her, making her cry out. Her phone! Mica crossed the room to her purse and pulled it out, wondering who would be calling her at almost 1:00 in the morning.

  Her phone glowed, showing a text from Justin.

  Just checking on you. Did you get there ok?

  Mica stared at the message, and this time she wasn’t able to hold the tears back. At least someone cared about her. One soul on the planet would miss her if something happened to her.

  She stared at the screen until it darkened and cried out the frustrations and fears of the day. She hated what was happening to her. Hated being made to feel like a scared, lonely, helpless child again.

  The phone rang in her hand and she jumped again, then wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve. Justin calling. She didn’t want to answer it because she didn’t know what she could possibly tell him, but she was afraid if she didn’t he would get on a plane and come check on her.

  She hit the green answer button and tried to compose her voice. “Hi Justin, I made it. I’m here.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, his warm voice suddenly suspicious.

  “Nothing, really, I just … nothing.”

  Justin didn’t respond for a moment. When he did, worry had replaced the suspicion. “Mica, don’t do this to me. Don’t block me out. Something is going on. You haven’t been yourself for weeks now and you won’t tell me anything. And now you take off to San Francisco when we have a show coming up?” He didn’t speak for a moment, then added. “I would ask you if you were pregnant, but this ain’t Bethlehem and you ain’t the Virgin Mary.”

  Mica barked out a laugh, dismayed at how quickly it turned to crying again.

  “Oh hey, Mica, what is going on? For real. You have to tell me. I’m here. I’m listening.”

  The concern in his voice made Mica cry harder. Justin just listened, and when she finally got herself under control, she was able to spill the entire story, starting with his very first letter, and ending with the train on her doorstep today.

  “Call the cops,” Justin suggested.

  “I did. They just left. They searched my place but he’s not here. They said they can’t do much.”

  “I should come down. I can stay with you. I mean, I know I’m not much in the fighting department, but if you need someone to scream like a baby when something scary happens, I’m your guy.”

  Mica chuckled softly. “You can’t do that. You have the show.”

  “Yeah.” Justin fell silent again. “Wait! I know, you should hire someone to stand outside your door, like in the movies. An off-duty cop or something.”

  “Yeah right, where am I going to find an off-duty cop?”

  “You can hire them. They go to private investigators and hire out their time…” Justin’s voice trailed off and then he squealed in excitement, hurting her ears. “I got it! There are private security companies you can hire. There’s a ton of them. There was one I read about recently in Forbes—Royston something. He’s hot as sin and specializes in protecting the wealthy. He carries a gun and everything. Oh my God, Mica, you have to hire him, and if you do, I’m flying down. A man as hot as him has got to be gay, right?”

  “Rosesson,” Mica whispered into the phone, barely having heard the last part of Justin’s conversation. She had seen the article too. Read it three times.

  “What?”

  “Rosesson. His name is Knox Rosesson. And he’s not gay.”

  “Damn! I thought for sure. Are you going to hire him?”

  Mica didn’t answer—couldn’t answer as her mind spun dangerously out of control.

  Hiring Kn
ox Rosesson could fix all of her current problems, but it would create too many more for her to count.

  Chapter 9

  Knox

  Knox sat behind his mammoth oak writing desk in his corner office in the Russ building in downtown San Francisco. It was Saturday, but he sometimes worked Saturdays, especially on days when he didn’t know what else to do with himself. He’d woken feeling antsy and dissatisfied, which didn’t make sense to him. His night with Darby had been intoxicating. He’d played her like the world’s finest violin, finding her sexual boundaries, places she hadn’t gone before, and easing her past them, giving them both a night of heady, provocative passion. Normally, after a night of spectacular sex, he would head out to Mount Diablo or Beaver Street Wall for some rock climbing, but today he’d ended up at the office instead. Something was plucking at him, not letting him rest. He almost felt like he was in the path of something big, an event or circumstance that was on its way to change his life. Knox stilled at the thought. It intrigued him, even though he knew it was more likely that being reminded so strongly of Rachel had caused his disquiet.

  Knox doodled on the blotter in front of him, his mind far away. His phone buzzed. Knox pulled it out of his pocket. Rock. Great, just the man for the job.

  “Rock. What’s the great word?”

  Rock chuckled. “Pussy. Ain’t nothing greater than that, boss.”

  “You might be right, Rock, and you might be wrong, but what’s the great word on your assignment?”

  “Ah, got you. I managed to grab samples and they are at the lab right now. You should know if you are related to these boys by Tuesday.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, Rock. What’s your gut instinct?”

  “Well, I’m not the smartest bag of rocks in the city, but I would say yeah, they might all be your half-brothers. They look like you. The oldest one actually reminds me of you. They are plenty secretive about who their daddy is, like maybe they don’t even know but they don’t want you to know that, and their mom is your dad’s type, for sure. Plus she ain’t worked in twenty years but has a nice house and car.”

  Knox drummed his fingers on his blotter and considered everything Rock had said. Rock was his oldest employee, and Knox trusted his word implicitly. Rock liked to joke that he was dumb because he hadn’t finished high school and because his preferred diction leaned more towards crude and simple than refined or sophisticated, but anyone who worked with him knew differently. The man was as street-smart as they came, and he could solve puzzles better than Sherlock Holmes.

  If Rock thought the three sons of Myra Covina had been fathered by Felix Rosesson, then Knox thought so too. Besides, Rock knew Knox’s father almost as well as Knox knew him. Rock had been in the Army with Felix, they’d gone through Vietnam together, then retired at the same time, Felix as a Colonel, Rock as a First Sergeant. Felix had started Rosesson Security that same year and hired Rock as his first employee. But then Felix had fired Knox in a fit of infantile rage over a disagreement, and Knox had stolen him away. Knox still thought Felix only agreed to work for him so he could stay in Knox’s father’s life in some small way. That didn’t bother Knox. He knew there was history there. Knew the two men had saved each other’s lives. Knew they still loved each other like brothers even though Felix was a pig-headed tyrant who couldn’t stand anyone getting the better of him.

  Knox opened the Covina file and wrote Tuesday on the bottom half of the top sheet, then flipped it shut and slid it in the drawer he saved for his personal investigations. He dug to the very bottom of the stack and pulled out a marked and creased folder with one word on the identification tab. Rachel.

  “Rock, what else are you working on right now?” Knox said, knowing what the answer would be.

  “Nothing, boss. That’s why I was calling in, ‘stead of just sending over the report. You got something for me?”

  “I do, Rock, but you should take a few days off first.”

  “Don’t need no time off right now. My ol’ lady is gettin’ her colon cleansed so I got nothing to do anyway. She won’t be back till Friday.”

  Knox grimaced at the image. Rock’s ol’ lady, Yolanda, was a mean health freak who spent her days meditating, eating grass and drinking kombucha, and who liked to go to every retreat she could pay for. Knox didn’t want to know what kind of retreat offered colon cleansing.

  “If you’re sure. I want you to go to Chicago and look into the Rachel case again. Maybe even go back to Portland.”

  The line was silent for a moment. Finally, Rock spoke. “Boss, that case is colder than a dead man’s balls.”

  “I know it is. But I can’t help feeling like we missed something. And it’s been five years since we looked into it. There’s new technology—”

  “Boss, we ain’t got nothing to technologize.”

  Knox barked a laugh in spite of himself. “Sure we do. Take her picture, age-enhance it. Play up the heterochromia angle. That’s why people will remember her, because of her two-different colored eyes.”

  Knox paused as a thought struck him. “Holy Jesus,” he whispered into the phone.

  “Boss?”

  “Technology! See, I knew technology was the key. Look, more and more news stations are digitizing their archives, and some police stations are too. If something happened to her, I have to know, and that might be a way to find it out that we’ve never explored before. Get Mac to help you. She had one blue eye and one green eye. The right eye was her green one.” Knox heard his voice rise as excitement overtook him. “We could even search the internet for twenty-eight year old women with heterochromia, I might be able to find her picture out there somewhere…” Knox’s voice trailed off as he imagined finally finding Rachel. He leaned forward and spoke urgently into the phone. “I’ll take care of that last part. You tell Mac to work on the news and cop angle, and let me know the minute you find anything new.”

  “Will do, boss.”

  Knox hung up, excitement making his heart hammer. He grabbed his laptop and pulled it towards him. Was he finally going to discover what had happened to Rachel after a decade?

  Knox’s fingers trembled over the keyboard. If so, would it finally let him put that chapter of his life behind him for good? Or would it only reawaken his obsession? Knox didn’t care as long as something happened. Ten years was too long to be bewitched by a memory.

  Chapter 10

  Mica

  Mica came awake slowly, her head heavy and dull. She blinked and sat up. She’d been determined to stay awake all night again, thinking she’d feel safer sleeping while it was light out, but sometime in the early hours she’d fallen asleep right on her couch. Mica pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. Everything seemed just as she had left it. Good.

  Mica stood and headed to the kitchen to start coffee, then to the bathroom to run a comb through her hair. Not that anyone was going to see her today. She wasn’t stepping foot out of this apartment until she figured something out. Her mind cast over her conversation with Justin the night before. Hire a security agency? Maybe she should do it. It would certainly give her peace of mind. Her brain played a short fantasy of her calling Alpha Private Security and somehow speaking to Knox Rosesson himself. His strong, chiseled face entered her imagination and she clucked her tongue at herself. Yeah right. Like he would answer the phone himself. She probably wouldn’t get him even if she asked for him personally. He was a busy man, probably as well-protected as the president of the United States. She was sure he had secretaries and assistants running interference for him. Besides, the last thing she wanted was to actually talk to the man.

  She’d followed his career with interest over the last nine years since he’d started Alpha Private Security, piecing together a picture of who he really was. Driven, she knew that. Close to his brothers. She knew that too. She wasn’t sure about his relationship with his father though. It seemed strained. And the rumors about his love life made her blush. He was a good man though, that was obvious with the way he
ran his business and conducted himself in public. He’d never married. Never even seemed to have serious girlfriends. Mica wondered about that fact the most.

  The smell of coffee reached her and Mica walked to the kitchen to pour herself a cup. She sipped it, straight up, her tongue rebelling at the bitterness. She ignored it. She didn’t want to enjoy her coffee right now. That was one of her special tricks when she was working on something big. Drinking and eating unpleasant things, like a salad with too much vinegar, or black coffee, when she was really a two creams, two sugars gal. Something about withholding pleasure caused her brain to work faster.

  Mica found her phone and typed in Private Investigator San Francisco. The results made her realize she was searching for the wrong thing. She tried again with Private Security San Francisco. Knox Rosesson’s company, Alpha Private Security, was the first on the list. Mica scrolled past it, her heart galloping in her chest. There had to be other companies that were just as good as his.

  A noise in her living room startled her, making her jerk her head that way. Mica had a gun in the bedroom down the hall and her mind screamed at her to run and get it. Instead, Mica put her coffee slowly down on the counter, but kept her phone in her hand. She took one trembling step towards the archway that divided her kitchen from her living room, then another. She reached the archway and looked around, trying to figure out where the tiny noise had come from. Nothing moved. Nothing seemed out of place. Movement drew her eye to her front door. The thumb turn on the doorknob was turning. Someone was unlocking her door with a key! Mica squeezed her phone tightly as her body tensed with fear. She felt frozen, unable to move.

  The chair was still wedged under the doorknob, but Mica knew that wouldn’t stop him. Fear pounded a speedy drumbeat in her brain. Move! she screamed at herself. The thumb turn stopped moving and Mica held her breath in fitful anticipation, her fevered brain unable to believe she was just standing there.

  Nothing happened.

  Mica waited. The door didn’t move. Mica watched the doorknob, almost seeing it turn in the video screen of her imagination. Still it didn’t turn. The tension in her body squeezed so tight, that it finally broke, making her muscles feel hot and rubbery, but it was enough to allow her to move finally. She whirled around and ran for her bedroom at full speed, bouncing off the hallway wall. She felt in her pants for pockets, but she didn’t have any. As she entered her bedroom at a run, she shoved her phone into her bra and snapped her hand down onto the gun safe on her nightstand. It popped open, and Mica grasped the gun, reciting her instructor’s lesson inside her head.