by Hadley Quinn
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “I just know that Damien didn’t send you, so obviously I’m on edge with you being here. I’m pretty sure you’ve never met him, either.”
“Why would you think that? Early forties, black hair, brown eyes, about six-foot, decent looking guy, scar right here,” he pointed to his jaw line. “Talks cold and calculated, like he’d rather slit your throat than converse with you? Yeah, I know Damien Glenn.”
“Aww, nice standard report on the guy.”
“Is there something about that that’s off?”
“Oh no,” she shook her head. “I mean I can even visualize it on the piece of paper that was handed to you guys.”
“Handed to who guys? What the hell are you talking about?”
“How long are you going to insist you’re not a cop? Fine, okay, I’ll pretend I don’t know. Just leave before Damien does find out that you guys are here.”
“I’m not a fucking cop,” he growled at her, getting in her space.
She didn’t even flinch, but glared at him even harder. Cole decided to take a step back to compose himself.
“But I am here looking for someone,” he added calmly.
She raised her eyebrows but took her time with a response. “Who are you looking for? And why?”
“She’s a friend’s sister. He hasn’t been able to locate her for a few years.”
“So what’s her name?”
“I only know her ‘real’ name. Apparently you girls don’t know each other by real names.”
“Most of the girls don’t. But I’m not most girls,” she eyed him carefully. He could sense the arrogance from her. Maybe she did know information like that if she was one of Damien’s special girls.
“Her name is Leah Kemp,” he said, figuring he had nothing to lose at this point.
Scarlett never broke eye contact with him, and after a few seconds of studying her reaction, he honestly couldn’t tell if the name was familiar to her or not.
“I actually don’t know anyone by that name here,” she finally said. “But that doesn’t mean anything. Some of them even give fake names as their real names. You saw all the girls? You didn’t recognize any of them?”
“Dressed up in their streetwear? Uh, nope.”
She narrowed her eyes at him again but didn’t respond right away. Finally she said, “Well I’m sorry you wasted your time here. But seriously, you should leave. I don’t feel comfortable with…whoever you are.”
“I’m not anybody,” he shrugged, making a move for the door again. “Just a guy trying to help a friend out.”
He opened the door, focusing on his exit strategy. He’d forgotten one tiny detail until Lurch stepped in front of him and said, “Money first, Casanova.” Then the guy looked at Scarlett with a raised eyebrow. “Problems?” he asked, glancing at his watch.
“Just, ahem, a minor malfunction.” She motioned to Cole’s lower half, obviously trying not to smile. When Cole caught her eye briefly, she looked away.
Fine. He’d let that one slide.
“That’s your problem, kid, not ours,” Lurch informed him with a laugh. “There’s a still a matter of the time you—”
“He dropped the money on the bed, Gordon. I’ll leave it there until you get back.”
Cole left it at that, not sure what she had planned. He briefly considered sticking around, but she seemed like a smart woman with influence and he couldn’t risk ending the night with his own demise.
The bouncer shoved him forward to escort him out and Cole glanced back, just as Scarlett was closing the door to the suite. Her wink and smug smile gave him mixed feelings.
They passed the salon again and the same woman was still in the room. This time she was facing the door and Cole got a one-second glance at her. She had on black-rimmed glasses and her brown hair was in a messy up-do.
He didn’t know how he saw it in that brief amount of time but bam…
There it was.
Chapter Two
Cole had been waiting for three hours in his rental car and was beginning to think he’d made the wrong decision. Maybe she actually lived at this place? He’d seen about a dozen women already exit from the back of the club to cars or to start walking at three a.m. He watched two women walk together only a block before they entered a dumpy apartment building, and two other women walked a block further and turned a corner.
His thoughts returned to Scarlett. She worked in what had to be the oddest business entity. A trashy neighborhood that housed a low class strip club with a medium class underground prostitution outfit, which was connected to a higher class VIP suite. She didn’t seem to belong there, and she didn’t belong to someone like Damien Glenn. No, he had never met the guy. Scarlett called that one correctly. But Cole had learned enough about him in order to enter this assignment and he hoped he never had to deal with him.
The back door opened again and Cole continued his surveillance. He watched as two more women exited the building, and his attention was drawn even closer when he noticed one of them was Scarlett. She spoke to the other female for a minute before they hugged and headed for separate cars.
He watched Scarlett’s long legs stride across the parking lot until the rest of the women trickled out of the building as two bouncers stood on the stoop to supervise. Cole already had his sights set on one woman in particular and headed out in his car to follow her.
He drove for about five minutes before stopping at what appeared to be an average looking apartment complex. The young woman parked in a space to the side of the building and then went inside as Cole observed from across the street.
He was out of his car at the same time. He walked straight through the entry and caught sight of the last of her shirt as she stepped onto the elevator.
Great. A damn elevator.
He sprinted a few silent steps and stuck his hand through the doors to prevent them from shutting. When he stepped on, the woman eyed him with surprise and then looked away. The fifth floor was lit up as her selection, so Cole reined in a silent breath and just went with it, pretending that he wasn’t confined in a small space that was about to hold him hostage for the next ten seconds.
He measured the girl’s body language and decided she was obviously uncomfortable with his presence. He’d planned on just being straightforward when he finally came to this moment, and seeing how uneasy she was helped him to stick with that plan.
“My name is Cole,” he said, just before the elevator came to the fifth floor.
She glanced over at him, her eyes trying to study him subtly through her glasses. “Awesome,” she replied dryly, looking away.
With a smirk, he nodded his head. “Okay then,” he agreed.
She barely glanced at him again as she squeezed through the doors before they were even open all the way.
“Bye, Leah,” he called after her as she disappeared to the left.
He silently counted to five before the doors began to shut and she shoved her hand through to stop them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was totally caught off guard.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I told you. I’m Cole.”
“That’s not what I fucking meant,” she scoffed, looking him over again.
The doors tried to shut again and she stopped them, but also motioned to the hallway for him to step out. She was obviously curious, but too smart to be stuck in an elevator alone with him.
“Tell me who you are right now before I scream my goddamn head off. I’ll have about ten people in the hallway in five seconds.”
“Five seconds, huh?” Cole eyed her, pretending to think. “Well thanks for the tip. That gives me time to slit your throat and be halfway down the stairwell.”
Her mouth partially opened, and he wasn’t sure if she really was going to scream bloody murder or he’d only stunned her, but he was prepared either way.
“Noted,” s
he finally said, taking another step away from him. “I’ll be sure to not help my predators out next time.”
Cole gave her a single nod. “Very good.”
“Tell me who you are,” she demanded with a tired exhale. “I got three hours of sleep last night and it’s been a long day.”
“How come you didn’t sleep?”
She gave him an exasperated stare. “Can you just give me a break and get to the fucking point? Who the hell are you?”
He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d have her attention so Cole decided against another smartass retort. “I’m a friend of your brother.”
She cocked an eyebrow and then looked him over again. “Darren doesn’t have any friends like you. Unless…? Hey, look. If my brother owes someone money, I sure as fuck don’t have any.” She held up her hands and backed away. “I seriously don’t, okay? Just…leave me alone and—”
“I’m not here for Darren,” Cole explained. He silently cursed himself for not being more specific the first time. He’d forgotten about the other little drug dealing shit of a brother. “I’m Van’s friend. Donovan Kemp. That’s your oldest brother, right?”
The look on her face was confusing. She looked as if he’d just kicked a puppy. Or ten. Was she trying not to cry?
“Okay…” she replied slowly. “Um, how’d you know Van?”
“We worked together for a bit,” he started, not sure how much she knew about her brother’s current life. “Now we’re friends.”
If her look confused him before, now Cole was really lost. And she even surprised him by jumping forward, shoving him as hard as she could yelling, “Stay the hell away from me!”
She was through the closest apartment door quicker than Cole could figure out what even happened.
He stared at the 5B on the door that had just slammed behind her and shook his head. Stepping toward it, he rapped on it lightly.
“Leah? What just happened?”
“Go away. I don’t understand who you are so you’d better just leave before I call the cops.”
“I just told you who I am,” he stated impatiently. “I’m here because Van has been looking for you. I’m an investigator, we’re friends, and he wants to see you. What am I missing here?”
He waited for several seconds for a reply but didn’t get one.
“Leah? Can you please talk to me?”
Still nothing. But he listened harder when he thought he could hear the muffled sounds of crying on the other side of the door. Whatever the hell was going on, this shit needed to be figured out.
“Look, Leah… I don’t know what’s going on, but… Well, let me introduce myself better, okay? My name is Cole Nicholson, I just turned twenty-eight, I was born in Jersey but moved out to California when I was fifteen. I lived there for about ten years, working construction. I’ve been in MMA since I was a kid. I trained with Mickey Tate in Edison when I was younger. You know him, Leah? He basically took Van under his wing when he was sixteen, shortly after your dad went to prison and you guys were split up to foster care.”
Cole waited for almost a minute. He had no idea if she was still listening or not, but he didn’t hear crying anymore.
“Leah?” he asked quietly. He sucked in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly, leaning his forehead against the door. “I’m here to help, okay? I don’t have any other motive other than that. I swear to God. Van has been looking for you for a few years now. The state wouldn’t tell him anything when you were still a minor under their care, but even after you turned eighteen he couldn’t track you down. I know you’re an adult and have been on your own for almost three years, but he just wants to know if you’re okay. Even if you hate him he said he would accept that and move on, but he just wants—”
The door opened suddenly and he quickly stepped back. Leah’s face showed the obvious signs of tears, but she also looked baffled.
“Hate him?” she basically stated. “Why would I hate him? Van was the only person I had in my life that ever looked out for me. Growing up, he always protected us from our father. It didn’t matter what it cost him, he did everything he could to keep us safe. When my dad went to prison, the last thing I ever wanted was to be separated from Van. I bawled for months. I was hysterical on a weekly basis. They wouldn’t let me see him! I begged and pleaded to see Van but I was told I wasn’t allowed. Darren was with me at the first two homes, and then they separated us.”
She paused and looked at the floor between them.
“What else did they tell you?” Cole dared to ask.
She glanced up with tired eyes. It was then that he noticed she didn’t have her glasses on anymore and he got a better look at her eyes. They were a dark hazel, rimmed with black to match her pupils. She also had lush eyelashes that weren’t enhanced with makeup nor did they need to be.
“I was told that Van was into some bad stuff,” she finally said. “My foster parents told me he was a very aggressive and angry person like our father, and that he had to go to a special home so it could be dealt with.”
“At what age were you told that?”
She sucked in a breath and pursed her lips in thought. “That was my third home,” she exhaled. “After they split me and Darren up. I was thirteen, I think. I didn’t believe it, though. Van was never like that with us and I just couldn’t see it. They showed me pictures of people; people they said he’d hurt.”
“You mean in MMA fights?” Cole wondered.
Leah shrugged, but her face scrunched up trying to recall the memory. “I didn’t know,” she exhaled shakily. “I didn’t know anything about him getting into martial arts and stuff back then. I didn’t know he was fighting as a job, for money.”
A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away, but her gaze into the hallway informed Cole that she was either very confused and having trouble remembering, or she was piecing together evidence that could have pointed to one thing instead of the other.
“I remember seeing the pictures they showed me and thinking, my brother would never do this to someone. But the more they told me, the more convincing it was,” her voice cracked, and she wiped away another tear.
“You were a kid, you didn’t know better,” Cole told her. “We’re trained to listen to the grownups, to believe them. Unfortunately some of ‘em lead us astray. It wasn’t your fault, Leah.”
She looked him in the eyes for a few seconds, lost in thought. Cole knew she had a lot to work out, no matter what she’d been through, but he was relieved that he at least found her and was one step closer to reuniting her with Van.
“I decided to try and find him myself,” she told him. “I skipped school a few times and took buses to other cities. When I was sixteen I lost my driving privileges with that foster family because I snuck their car out looking for him and got caught. People tried to tell me he wanted nothing to do with us; I was told a few times that he moved out of the state.”
“What about the internet?” Cole asked.
“I did finally find him on there,” she nodded, looking up at Cole. “It linked him to a gym, the Dive-something, so I called there and asked for him.”
Cole stared at her with disbelief. “You called the Divehouse? Like…you said who you were and that you were looking for Van?”
She nodded. “Yep. I said I was looking for my brother, Donovan Kemp—and that he probably goes by Van—and I really needed to find him.”
Cole had to take a moment to think before he asked, “How old were you? When was this?”
Biting the corner of her lip she looked down at the floor to recall. “Um, I was still in high school. Seventeen, maybe.”
“You’re close to twenty-one now so…almost four years ago?”
With a shrug she answered, “I guess.”
“Who did you speak with when you called?”
Leah paused in thought. “Oh jeez, um…” She shook her head, trying to find the answer. “Well I asked but he didn’t say. Someone else called his name to hurry him of
f the phone—at least I think that’s who they were talking to because he said he had to go. They called him Scotty.”
Cole almost lost his shit right there. Scotty? As in the one person at the gym that had it out for Van from the beginning but no one had a clue? The same Scotty that killed a person for money and set Van up to take the fall?
Unbelievable.
“Okay,” Cole sighed, trying to compose himself. “You asked for Van at the gym, told the guy who you were… Then what?”
“He said Van didn’t go to that gym anymore.”
Of course.
“I asked where I could find him and he said he didn’t know but was pretty sure he moved out of the state. That’s when someone hollered about getting off the phone and he said he had to go.”
Cole’s thoughts were all over the place. Just the mention of that little bastard’s name brought back all sorts of memories from the investigation. Not only did Scotty frame Van for murder, he’d thwarted Leah’s efforts to find her brother more than a year before?
A hand touched his forearm and Leah’s eyes were fixed on him. “You’re telling me that Van is alive?”
Alive? This girl thought that he was dead?
“Yes, he’s alive. Who told you otherwise?” he questioned.
She took in a sharp breath of air as her eyebrows furrowed. With a little shake of her head she looked at him again and said, “I can’t do this right now.”
Cole stuck his foot in the door before she could shut it on him. “Leah, don’t leave this hanging. Please. Tell me why you thought he was dead. And what made you actually believe it.”
Her angry, narrowed eyes relayed how much that was the wrong thing to say to her.
“Fuck you and get out of my door,” she snapped at him.
Whether she was pissed because of his comment or because of the news she was just learning, Cole wasn’t sure. But he reluctantly removed his foot and allowed the door to slam in his face.
He ran a hand over his head while he considered his options. He could remain at the door and plead with her to speak with him some more, but Cole figured that could be pushing too hard, too soon. He needed to appreciate what he’d already learned and plan out his next step.