6. Theo #2
The whole time I spend here is a farce. I came wanting to know that she’s a clean cop. I needed to know she had no connection to our old world. And now I know; she’s clean, she’s legal, she’s beautiful, and had this been any other person, I’d have already finished my search and walked away.
I search her closet, take down a pair of perfectly folded jeans and snap them out straight.
This is the strangest search I’ve ever conducted, but I can’t stop myself.
I can’t walk away just yet. I need to know her new world.
I need to know what makes her tick. And apparently, I’m the creep that wants to know the size of her waist.
She’s not the chubby girl from two decades ago anymore.
She had fat dimples back then, curly hair, and no clue how to get two skinny bitches off of her.
What I saw in the gym today was not the same person.
No fat dimples, but pockets of muscle. No chubby knees, but thighs that could choke a man.
No weak arms, but biceps that could almost, almost challenge me to an arm-wrestling match and make me look like a punk.
The blue jeans in my hands are tiny, the waist is barely more than thirty inches around. She’s worked hard to make jeans look like heaven. I haven’t even seen her wear them yet, but I know what I know.
Folding them again, I stack them back in place and make sure they line up exactly how she had them, then I continue my search until I find a gold gift box.
It’s the kind of box Grandmas buy to shove a gift in, rather than wrapping it.
Gold foil, twenty inches long, and topped with dust. Frowning, I pull it down and note the disturbances to the dust. It’s been in the closet for a long time, but it’s opened semi-regularly.
The smell of rubber hits me before I lift the lid.
That should have been hint enough, but I open it anyway and blow out a heavy exhale when my eyes stop on a dildo that makes me feel like a little bitch.
Batteries roll around inside the box. A bottle of lube, used, but three-quarters full.
The smell of rubber is stronger without the lid, but my senses have short-circuited on the sight of this dildo that has, at least once, known Libby Tate intimately. Very, very intimately.
Put it away. Put it away. Put it away !
My brain struggles to separate nine-year-old Elizabeth and thirty-one-year-old Libby. My brain knows the girl, but today, I met the woman. For two decades, I’ve thought of the girl with a deep longing, wondering how things turned out for her, and concerned for her well-being.
I didn’t look her up in all these years. Not once, because I wasn’t ready to tell her my truths, and lying to the girl I’d made promises to was intolerable.
But last night, I saw the grown version while she slept. Today, I saw her working out. And now, I see her stash of sex toys.
“Fuck.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, my one and only warning to clean up and get the fuck out.
Slamming the lid back on the box, I shove it all back where it goes and close the closet doors.
I take a fast glance around her room to make sure everything looks the way it did when I got here, then I move through the rest of the apartment and do the same.
I switch the lights out, and stop at the kitchen counter when I find a stack of mail.
I quickly flick through the pile – electric, phone, building maintenance.
Setting them back exactly how I found them, I rush through the apartment and make sure everything is perfect, then I let myself out and down the stairs with a heart full of adrenaline.
The vibrating phone meant I had twenty minutes to get out.
I took only ten, so there’s no reason to panic.
No reason to rush. I push through the building’s front doors and onto the sidewalk.
It’s dark out, windy and biting at the tip of my nose.
I drop my hands into my pockets and watch my shoes as I walk to the corner and cross over.
I don’t go far. I want to see her arrive home. I want to see her, period.
Stopping just a block away, I back into the shadows of an alleyway just like I did twenty years ago, and wait for her headlights. These streets aren’t busy. The traffic is almost nonexistent; surprising, considering it’s a Saturday night.
Did she go on another date tonight ?
Just seventeen minutes after my alert, she pulls around the corner right where I stand.
Her lights flash over my shoes for a beat, but she continues on and pulls up against the curb outside her building.
They don’t have secure parking, the way I do.
There are no underground lots, no shelter for when she comes home in the rain.
I mean, it’s not like she lives in poverty or anything, but the fact she lives in anything less extravagant than I do bothers me.
She had the chance to live among gold and riches, but she chooses this.
That proves her innocence in a way the scrapbook should have.
Or the fact she became a cop. The fact her bank accounts prove the way she lives.
The evidence to support the fact she’s not her father is overwhelming, but it takes her pulling up in the dark wearing jeans just like those inside, black sneakers, a ponytail, and a Dixie’s Ice Cream cup perched in her hands to slide the lock into place and let me trust her.
She’s a cop, yes. And I hate those almost as much as I hate old man Tate. But I suppose if there was such a thing as a good cop, she would be it.
Phase one of my trip to this shithole town is complete.
Now I have to decide what to do with my ally from my past. What would she do if she knew it was me?
What would she say if I waited ten minutes for her to settle in, then knock on her door?
And what would be her excuse for not recognizing me today?
I sure as fuck recognized her.
Olly pulls up in the black SUV as though he knew I’d be in this alley.
I could have been in the park. I could have been sitting on the bench under the trees across the street.
I could have caught a cab back to the hotel.
But he knows me. He knows me almost as well as I know myself, so he pulls up in the dark and waits for me to slide into the back seat.
As soon as the door closes, he pulls out again and passes right by Libby’s building just as her living room lights come on. My eyes latch onto that light, my heart yearns to go back, but Oliver pulls around the corner and mercilessly drags me away.
“What do you know, boss?”
“She’s not in anyone’s pocket but her own.” I sit back and rest my head against the seat. Pulling in a long breath, I let it out again on a sigh. “She’s a cop.”
“We hate those.”
I smile and finger the diamond earrings in my pocket.
I palmed them from her dressing table no more than twenty minutes ago.
It’s a habit, a compulsion to take something that isn’t mine.
The diamonds aren’t gaudy, they’re not expensive.
They would have cost a hundred, perhaps two hundred at the local jewelry store – not so much that I question where she gets flashy cash from.
Not even so much that means they weren’t a gift.
Perhaps her boss got them for her, or maybe she saved her birthday money.
Now they’re gone, because I’m a thief.
“We sure do hate that breed,” I agree. “But she’s clean.
I’ve been in her home twice, and neither time makes me think she’s selling people to get a leg up.
None of her files indicate anything suspicious.
She’s living a thoroughly middle-class life.
Fifty-K salary, and not a dime more. She works, and she works out. ”
“You going to approach her?”
I nod, though I have no clue how to do that besides hope she drops the bar at the gym again. “Yeah, I’m gonna approach her soon. I’ll have to figure out how when we get back to the room.”
“You okay with word getting out who you are? People have big mouths, boss. Chick at the gym could spill.”
I shrug. It doesn’t matter if Theo Griffin is known. It would be easier if he’s not, but it’s still legions better than word of Gunner Bishop getting out. “It doesn’t matter. We won’t splash it about, but it doesn’t matter if word spreads. We might even be able to spin it to work for us.”
Griffin Industries and Checkmate Security share interests, according to the woman at the gym, and I know for a damn fact that Griffin security systems are Checkmate’s preferred brand when wiring a home.
The irony is sweet.
“It’s fine. If word gets out, we can easily spin it. In the meantime, I need an in with Libby. She’s off shift till Monday, so let’s find out what she does in her spare time.”