by Robin Leaf
She adjusts the bed to sit up better and reaches for the both of us. I hug her quickly, but Douglass holds on for a few seconds. After he kisses her cheek, her eyes are misty, and on her face is a look of pure adoration. She pats his cheek, and for some reason, it gets me, right in the feels. His hand over hers, holding it to his cheek makes me swoon. Their mutual affection is just adorable.
When he sits on the edge of her bed, she reaches to her nightstand and tries handing him a piece of paper.
“What’s that?” he asks, staring at it in her hand like it might bite him.
She settles back against her pillows, still holding the paper in her hand. “It’s my bucket list. I thought you might help me make sure some of it gets done.”
He rolls his tongue around in his mouth and narrows his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that, Boy. I told you yesterday that you get no say in my decision, but you can sure as hell help me live my last days to their fullest.”
He looks down and away, trying to hide his sadness. “God, Mabel, don’t talk like that.”
She pulls his chin so that he looks her in the eyes. “Douglass Van Cleef, do you know how many people I’ve outlived?” She pats his cheek. “Ember, will you please help me out here to get him to see reason?”
He sighs. “She already tried last night.”
“I thought I was making headway,” I say, stepping closer to her bed.
“You did last night.” He shakes his head. “Today is a different day.”
I hold out my hand, so she hands me the paper. I make my way halfway down the list of seven or eight scrawled phrases in her shaky, but delicate handwriting. I expect the first thing to be something about strippers, and she doesn’t disappoint. In addition to that, there are a couple of totally doable things, and one thing that might be a little iffy.
I look up from the list, folding it in half. “Are some of these negotiable?”
She smirks. “Have you ever known me to compromise, girlie?”
I raise my eyebrow. “You got the CT scan, didn’t you?” When she snickers, I smile. “But there is no way I’m helping you get arrested.”
Doug makes a snorting noise and shakes his head, trying not to laugh, I’m sure.
“Plus, I’m not sure if your doctor will agree to a tattoo, Mabel, since you’re at a pretty high risk for infections.”
“There’s ways around that one,” Doug interjects from his hanging head, “if you will agree to a safe version.”
She smiles and pats his hand. “I don’t care as long as I get one. And it needs to last until the end.”
He meets her eyes and returns her smile despite his apparent melancholy, shaking his head. “If it doesn’t, we can reapply it, hopefully many times.”
“Okay, good. I want it today.” She flicks her wrist at him. “Make it happen.”
He chuckles. “Jeez, pushy woman, I’ll call Shay after ten and set it up.”
“Okay, but tell her it’ll need to be sometime before four this afternoon. I have an appointment to tour some new place at four.”
“New place?” I ask. “Are you going to Park Village?”
She nods. “That young man who came in here yesterday to talk about it was quite a looker.” Grabbing Doug’s hand, she squeezes, telling him, “They supposedly have Friday poker nights and live music on Saturdays.”
I raise my eyebrow. “If you move there, will the live music count as your concert?”
She tilts her head a little, twisting her lips to the side in contemplation. “Maybe. It depends on if the performer is an actual musician or somebody’s grandson with one of those crappy portable karaoke machines.”
I giggle. “Fair enough.”
She turns to Doug. “I hate to ask, but will you be available to take me to the appointment this afternoon? I don’t want to ask Robert, and Braxton left for Vegas for some work thing last night.”
He looks to me, and I nod. Smiling, he tells her, “Of course we will, Mabel.”
“So,” she says my direction, nodding to my hand. “Will you help him with… everything on the list?”
Even though I didn’t read to the end of the list, I have no problem making sure this special lady gets all her dying wishes.
I nod. “Absolutely.”
She claps her hands in front of her chin, and it almost appears sinister. I don’t want to admit in front of her that I didn’t read the whole thing. Opening it right now would be obvious, so I just smile awkwardly.
“He’s already been to a male strip club,” I add, indicating Doug with my head, hoping that by throwing him under the bus, she won’t catch on to my blatant diversionary tactic, “so it probably won’t be a problem to get him back there if it’s for you.”
“Okay,” Douglass says, rolling his eyes, “I’ll make arrangements for something, but not the club again. It’s too loud and crowded for you.”
“I can handle it, boy,” she scoffs. “I’m not some delicate flower.”
He chuckles. “You’re not, that’s true. But I’ll see what I can do to get someone to come to you.” He winks at her, then turns to me. “Ember, if we’re going to make our meeting, we need to go.”
“Yes,” Mabel nods, waving her hands to shoo us away. “Go figure out who that stupid stalker is so I can kick him in the balls.” She turns her head and looks at us sideways. “Although, I shouldn’t be too hard on him. He is the reason you two are together right now.”
I feel my face flame. “We’re not together, together, Mabel,” I say quietly, glancing at Doug and tucking my hair behind my ear.
“Yet,” he adds, winking at me this time. Turning to her, he shout-whispers, “But I’m working on making that a definite thing after her stalker is caught.”
“Ugh,” Mabel grunts. “You and your job worries.” She shakes her head, curling her lip. “You know, no one will find out if you have sex unless you tell them. Just go right now and get in a car quickie before your meeting. Then maybe both of you won’t look so… constipated. You both look like biscuit cans ready to explode with one hit on a counter.” She points to both of us. “You need the nookie, and soon.”
~ ~ ~
“As Dugger probably told you,” Mike Scott, otherwise known as Scotty, begins, “your stalker was a no-show at the hotel last night. Would you be willing to go back as bait?”
Scotty’s one of the computer experts employed at Reed Security, who’s amazingly kinda hot for a nerdy type, but he flinches when Douglass steps threateningly closer with his fists balled.
“Absolutely not an option,” Doug growls through clenched teeth.
Scotty nods, turning back to me. “Okay, then, on to the emails.” He clears his throat. “Question: why does the hospital not believe in a spam filter?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I think they had one before, and everyone complained because it filtered out too much important stuff. I will agree that more than half the crap I get is junk.”
He nods. “I pulled twenty-three emails from your guy, all from the same address. The fact that you responded made them easy to identify.” I can feel Doug’s tension from behind me, but Scotty continues without missing a beat. “Mateo ran the email address hoping to get an IP address, but either the fucker is smart as hell or broke as fuck because he used a VPN when he sent the emails, which makes them virtually impossible to trace.” He takes a drink from his coffee mug. “When he started switching email addresses, we hoped he would make a mistake. We got about halfway through your emails before we realized you blocked him every time.” He chuckles. “Two computer hackers took a day to figure that out. Sometimes we’re dumb. But we were able to retrieve the other addresses from your blocked list.”
He pulls out a piece of paper and slides it across the table to us. “He used the free wi-fi at a coffee shop near the hospital on three different occasions to create new email addresses. Unfortunately, the coffee shop doesn’t keep video for more than a month, so we can’t get visual on the guy before Septem
ber, and zero luck on him using their wi-fi in the past month.” Taking out a stack of photos, he slides them across the table. “That is until Thursday. These were photos taken around the time the email was sent.”
I pick up the pictures, which include grainy, pixelated grey images of possible humanoid-shaped blobby things. Flipping through them, my eyes cross at the unfocused images.
“Do you recognize anyone, Blue?” Douglass asks from over my shoulder.
I shrug and point to the pictures. “Which one? This fuzzy blob looking thing maybe, or, wait, is that a guy whose face looks to be covered by a hat, or is that a coat rack with a hat on top of it?” Shaking my head, I sigh. “I need to see faces, Doug, and there are no faces in any of these pictures.”
Scotty lifts his coffee cup and downs it. “And those are enhanced images. If we didn’t hack these pics, we could probably talk to the shop about better surveillance cameras.”
He stands to pour the third cup of coffee he’s consumed in the ten minutes we’ve been here. If that were me, I’d be vibrating from all that caffeine.
“More bad news,” he continues. “Without a warrant, we can’t get the hospital’s surveillance footage from the time the picture of you and Dugger was taken, and Noah won’t let us hack the hospital security system, so that’s out. Which leads me to last night’s email. The problem is the photo of your car at the hotel was obviously not taken at the time the email was sent, since you had your car with you at the time. The picture was taken at night, which means we have two nights, equaling about seventeen hours of footage to go through. Without a time stamp, the search will be a nightmare, and Matty is planning on working on hacking the hotel’s footage this afternoon.”
“Can we just ask? I mean, my best friend is the assistant manager of the hotel. My guess is she’ll hand the footage over with no issues.”
He shrugs. “Wouldn’t hurt to ask before Matty commits a felony, I guess.”
“I don’t want him risking getting in trouble for me.”
Scotty chuckles. “Trust me. He won’t get caught.”
“What about the background check on Dr. Douche?” Doug asks, sounding kind of testy.
Scotty scratches the back of his neck, looking sideways. “We haven’t uncovered anything so far, not even a warning ticket issued. But our deep digging will take a little longer. Give me until this afternoon.” He takes another drink from his mug. “Is there anyone else you can think of, Ember? Anyone you work with that has ever given you creepy vibes or is just overly friendly?”
“No creepy guys. But overly friendly?” Hmm. “There is my favorite tech, Ned. But I wouldn’t call him overly friendly. He’s simply the nicest guy, and he’s never, ever come on to me at all.”
“Is that the smiling guy in the white scrubs that took Mabel to her tests?” Douglass asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
Scotty brings his mug to his mouth again. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He’s a hard worker. Always moving and ready to do anything we ask. God, when he’s off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, all the staff misses him so much. The other med techs don’t have his work ethic, like at all.”
“He’s off on Wednesdays?” Douglass asks. “That’s when her apartment was broken into.”
“And he would know her work schedule and could easily find out where she lived from the hospital records.” Scotty adds.
“And he could easily take the picture from the parking lot of the hospital.”
“I don’t know,” I say, wanting to defend Ned. “This just doesn’t feel right to me.”
Douglass places his hand on mine. “That’s because you like him, Blue. It’s understandable.”
Scotty turns to his computer. “Do you happen to know Ned’s last name, Ember?”
“Flannigan or Hannigan. It definitely ends in -annigan.”
“I’ll find him and run a background check.” Scotty turns to Doug. “Noah wanted me to tell you to meet him in the training room after we were done.”
Douglass nods and stands, holding his hand out to me like a gentleman. I place mine in his; the way his large hand envelops mine as he helps me stand makes me feel a residual warming all over. He motions for me to go first, and his hand finds its way to the small of my back. It’s comforting, protective, and sweet, which only intensifies the warmth within me. In a way, this is more powerful than the electric feeling I had from him grabbing my hand just two days ago. That feeling was powered by lust. This… this is something else. Something different. Something better. Something stronger.
And it kind of scares the shit out of me.
If I’m not careful, I can seriously fall for this man, that is if I haven’t already. I feel almost like I’m standing on the cliff staring over the edge into the beautiful, crystal-clear water of mysterious depth. Three scenarios come to mind: I will enter gracefully, swim to the surface, climb the cliff, and do it all over again. I will break my fool neck and drown, or the Kraken will come out of the depths to swallow me whole.
I hazard a glance at Douglass, who meets my eyes. His expression softens, but his brows furrow.
“You okay, Blue?”
Am I? Well, that’s the million dollar question.
Let’s take a quick inventory of my sanity. I’m at a security company, with Douglass Van Cleef, a man with whom I never dreamed I would be contemplating a relationship, to try to figure out the identity of a stalker who’s not only freaking me the fuck out, but he’s also, in a roundabout way, playing cock blocker to my sexual neediness. Speaking of sex, I’m riding this stress train hard on only four hours of sleep because I stayed up talking to the same man I almost had unprotected sex with, and both of us cuddled in his bed shirtless while we talked and talked, simply because I had the bright idea shirtlessness was an awesome way to achieve intimacy, when all it really did was make me fall asleep vaginally needy, despite the self-induced orgasm I had in front of him at his command. All that caused wicked, naughty, achingly awesome dreams that left me with a killer case of lady blue balls. When I woke up, my plan was that hopefully, he was in the same needy state I was, and I could take advantage of his sleep-induced inhibitions and seduce him, except it’s hard to seduce an empty space beside me since he was already showered and on his second cup of coffee by the time I rolled my tired ass out of bed; at least he looked as haggardly frustrated as I felt, and since then, he’s kept his distance this morning, until now, with his hand on my back sending tiny little shockwaves to my sulky vagina.
Damn, I even think in run on sentences.
I don’t get the chance to answer Doug’s very simple question (made more complicated by my overactive thoughts, because let’s face it, it’s what I do), when my phone rings obnoxiously from my pocket. That can only mean one thing: it must be my mother. Taking my phone out of my pocket confirms my guess. Jeez. Leave it to Mom to ruin a perfectly good mental rant. I consider not answering, but if I don’t, she’ll just immediately call back.
“Hey, Mom,” I answer, trying not to sound peeved.
“Oh, good. You phone does work. So, Ember Nichole, why haven’t you called your mother in three days?”
Yes. My mother is the type to refer to herself in the third person. She also is the type to interrupt and talk over people. I’m betting I’ll be interrupted at least four times.
“I’m sorry, Mom, I’ve been busy with –”
“Too busy to check on your mother? You knew I had an appointment with the rheumatologist yesterday, but you don’t even care enough to call and ask about it?”
“I guess you forgot to remind me a seventh time.” I say, all snarky-like, but it’ll be lost on her. “But I’m kind of in the middle of –”
“Well, the doctor gave me a new pain treatment for my knee pain until I can get those injections in a few weeks. I just didn’t know if I’d be willing to try it since it’s rather unconventional, but your father talked me into it. I’ve done my first dose this morning, but so far, it’s not doing m
uch.”
“If the doctor thinks it’ll help, I say –”
“You are coming to brunch tomorrow, right? I told your brother to let you know that we changed it to brunch instead of dinner. Did he call you?”
I turn to Doug to see a look of concern. I roll my eyes at Mom, and his expression doesn’t change.
“No, he –”
“Well, you know your brother is having some… family issues. Can you believe he actually told me he’s thinking of running for city council?”
My mother doesn’t know that my brother and I haven’t spoken to each other voluntarily since the lawn mower debacle of 2015. Walker borrowed Emory’s lawn mower and called Emory to let him know it wouldn’t start. Emory said it worked before Walker borrowed it and accused Walker of breaking it, demanding we pay to get it fixed. Walker wanted to replace the thing, but I refused to allow it, knowing the stupid mower was already broken before Walker borrowed it. If my brother didn’t pull shit like this all the time while we were growing up, he would have scored a new mower, probably a thousand times better than the cheap-ass one he got by haggling the clearance price down because of a scratch, one he probably put there when the salesman wasn’t looking.
Yeah, my brother is one of those seemingly perfect, charming types, when really, he’s a fast talker. It’s probably why he’s such a good salesman; he has no conscience. He could sell condoms to nuns, and bonus, the condoms would probably have holes in them.
“I’m bringing a plus one, Mom,” I blurt, placing my hand on Doug’s forearm without making eye contact.
“Oh, are you bringing Kelly?” she asks brightly. For some inexplicable reason, my mother loves Kelly. I mean, I love Kelly, and Kelly is a lovable gal, but I just find it odd that my mother loves her, simply because Kelly is my best friend.
“No, It’s someone else.” This time, my eyes meet his, and looks away to push the button for the elevator. “His name is Douglass.”
Doug’s expression is… well, I’m not sure I can decipher it. He looks serious, but his mouth is twitching in either amusement or anger. His eyes are slightly narrowed, like almost squinty. Maybe Mabel was right about that constipated look.