Chapter Five #2
“Just about daily,” I agreed as I went into the fridge to grab a plastic container of store-bought pre-cut mixed fruits and put it next to the stove where I put some water on, then stirred in oatmeal.
“Are you cooking for me?” she asked suddenly, sounding almost suspicious.
“We need to eat,” I said with a shrug as I finished the oatmeal, put it into two bowls, then brought them and the fruit over to the counter.
She eyed the oatmeal for a long moment, brows low.
“Sugar?” I asked after a minute, figuring that, while healthy, plain steel-cut oats were probably an acquired taste.
“Yes, please,” she said reaching for a piece of cantaloupe with her fingers and putting it in her mouth, the juice making her lips wet. I had to shove some food in my mouth to keep from giving in to a sudden and almost overwhelming urge to go over there and lick that juice off myself.
I handed her the sugar and watched as she put a teaspoon in, mixed, and tried to eat it.
I knew one thing right then: she wasn’t lying to me. She hadn’t concocted some ridiculous story to get attention or something. I knew this because if Riya Sweeney was incapable of anything, it was acting.
“Go on, put another,” I said, pushing the sugar closer to her. “You know you want to.”
Given permission to sugar-load her oatmeal, she did. “I don’t know how you are eating that plain.”
“Babe, spent a good eight years eating MRE meals. This tastes like heaven.”
“What are MRE meals?”
“Meals, Ready to Eat,” I explained. “Military rations.”
“You were in the military?”
I smiled at that. “Didn’t do any research before you came to me, huh?”
“I didn’t exactly have any way to do research. I was walking back from the hospital and I looked at your building and…”
“Say it was fate and I’ll lose all respect for you.”
“Alright. It was… serendipitous,” she said, smiling a little.
“Sap,” I said, tossing a blueberry at her.
She picked it up off the counter and plopped it into my mouth. And, well, her mouth was becoming way too much of a distraction. I turned away from my food and got Slim’s breakfast ready.
“So, ah, are we going to go to my old apartment today? I mean, I know you have other cases and…”
“Babe, I said I would take you, so I’m taking you. I do have other cases, but they can wait an hour while we at least try to see if you have some IDs or clothes left behind.”
She finished her food and found the shoes from the day before, slipping into them and patting her butt, a habit that likely came from checking to see if her cell was in her pocket there.
But she had no pockets, and she had no cell.
Her hand fell a little self-consciously, and she shook her head at herself.
“Ready?” I asked, reaching for Slim’s leash.
“You’re bringing the dog?”
“Nah. Some days, he lays on the bed and won’t move when I leave. Those days, he stays in the apartment. Other days, he’s restless. Those days, I take him down to the office so he can follow the guys and Marg around and be spoiled rotten.”
“Don’t listen,” she told Slim, taking the leash from me. “You deserve to get spoiled. You big softie, you.”
She let him drag her down the steps, whereas he always heeled for me.
“Slim…” I warned as he tried to drag her around the building.
“He’s every bit as strong as he looks,” she said, struggling to hold onto the leash.
My hand reached out before she lost it, my hand half-covering hers, the impact of which made her completely stiffen.
Her eyes snapped to mine—wide, a little shocked at the contact.
“Don’t let him have his way, babe,” I said when Slim huffed, seeing who was in control of the leash and coming back a few feet.
“He will drag your ass clear across town to the dog park if you let him.”
“Good to know,” she said, yanking her hand out from under mine and curling it into a fist at her side, a gesture I wasn’t exactly sure I understood. “I’ll wait…” she started to say as I reached for the door to the office.
“Come in. Meet Brock,” I said, giving her a smirk. “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you bring up the chick throwing him out naked thing,” I added, reaching to grab her hand because she seemed like she was stubborn enough to plant her feet and stay outside.
Why I was insisting on bringing her in, yeah, that was a mystery.
“You don’t need to…” she objected, trying to pull her hand from mine.
But it was too late; we were inside.
And everyone was standing around.
“Good morning, mijo,” Marg greeted me from behind her desk, despite me telling her for years to call me by my name at work.
“Tig,” I said, nodding at him as he reached down to pet Slim.
“Sawyer. Pretty girl,” he said, giving Riya a smile that she returned easily. He had that effect on women. I swear his goodness seeped out of his pores and women could smell it.
“Hi,” she said back, a little shyly, something I hadn’t expected.
“And this fuck is Brock,” I said, gesturing toward the blond buzzcut guy with the tall, strong military build.
Military build because he had been in the military, with me.
There was a lot of shit only the two of us would ever know, missions whose files were heavily redacted in the public record.
They didn’t call them black ops for nothing.
“Brock, huh,” she said, pursing her lips as she did an incredibly slow, almost invasive once-over of him that had a small bit of jealousy well up inside. But that shit was insane, so I squashed it right the fuck down. “You know, I think you actually might be able to pull off a maple leaf skirt.”
I threw my head back and laughed at that, surprised and pleased that she took me up on the dare. Tig, Brock, and Marg laughed too.
“Smartass,” Brock said, offering her his hand. “You must be Riya.” He paused, giving her a charming, albeit teasing smile. “Any chance you know the score of the Jets game last week?”
I felt myself stiffen at that until I looked over and saw Riya’s mouth part, her eyes dancing for a second before she let out a surprised laugh. “Classy,” she said, still smiling big. “Make fun of the girl missing a year,” she added, shaking her head at him.
“Alright,” I broke in, annoyed for reasons I didn’t understand and nodding my head toward Slim. “You guys keep an eye out for a bit. I am going to take Riya to see her old landlord and see what we can figure out.”
Brock nodded, giving Riya another smile. “See you around, Riya.”
Brock, while he still had his dark moments, was a notorious flirt, always getting himself into some situation with women.
Normally, it was amusing. But when it came to Riya, I didn’t like it.
“Ease up,” I warned him, giving him a look that he raised a brow and smirked at.
If I knew him, and I fucking did, that was his ‘game on’ look. Should have kept my mouth shut.
“Ready?” I asked Riya, who nodded, giving everyone a smile, and following me back outside and around the building to the lot where my SUV was parked. “So this landlord of yours, is he a dick like they tend to be?”
“I really didn’t have a lot of interactions with him outside of calling him when something or other went wrong in the apartment. But he was always nice and quick to fix whatever it was.”
“So not some shitbag slumlord then,” I said, nodding. That was somewhat refreshing. It gave a little hope to the idea that he didn’t just toss all her stuff in a dumpster and call it a day.
We pulled up in front of her building a couple of minutes later.
It was a small apartment building with maybe twelve units total.
It was kept up well with power-washed green siding and fresh white paint on all of the balconies.
It was the kind of apartment that must have cost a fair penny in rent and fees, but made up for it with decent management, a good grounds crew, modern updates, and security measures.
“What’d this place set you back?” I asked, knowing that information was likely in the file Barrett sent over, but I wouldn’t get around to reading that for a couple hours still.
“I have a one-bedroom and it’s about eleven hundred,” she said, shrugging the number off. “Had,” she corrected, pausing and shaking her head. “I had a one-bedroom.”
“Come on,” I said, putting my hand on her lower back, feeling her start slightly at the contact. “Let’s go see if your nice landlord tossed, sold, or stored your shit.”
We walked up to the front doors, and Riya reached out instinctively to punch the code in, but the door made a beeping noise, indicating the code had changed. “Shit,” she said, sighing hard.
“That’s what this nifty button is for,” I said, stabbing my finger into the one for the super, holding it down until I saw a figure step into the hall, looking out the front door, then moving toward us.
He opened the door with his mouth agape, his brows drawn together. “Two-A!” he declared at Riya.
“Hey, Chip,” she said, shifting her feet a little uncomfortably.
“What happened to you, girl?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. Riya might as well have been a ghost to him. “Five years, never a late payment, never a day missed picking up your mail. Then… nothing. Gone. Off the face of the Earth.”
One look at Riya’s face showed her eyes a little watery, her lip just on the verge of quivering. “She was in an accident and in a coma,” I supplied a little heartlessly, wanting to push the situation along. “She had no family to deal with her shit, so bills didn’t get paid.”
“Oh my God,” he said, looking over at me, concern in his light blue eyes. “Wow. I had no idea. I’m so glad you, ah, woke up,” he said, looking back at Riya.
“Yeah, real miracle. Now, did you toss her shit?”
Chip snapped back like I had slapped him. “Toss it? No. Of course not.”
“Rent out her place like it was furnished?”