Chapter Thirty #3
The only sound in the room was the tapping of keyboards from four individual sources.
As such, my mind had absolutely nothing to do but race.
Seventy-five thousand.
It was such a specific bit of money.
I had it. Sort of.
When we started, Cassie and I both decided the smartest way to go about it was to pay ourselves each a set salary and set aside any overhead for rainy days, for slow months, for any just-in-case situation.
So even though my business kept growing, my salary had almost been static, just a couple cent raises here and there.
Truly modest by any account. But my business nest egg was healthy.
I had managed to clear almost one-hundred thousand.
Actually, it was enough of a reassurance that I had finally decided it was time for Cass and me to get a healthy raise from that point on. Three more an hour. It didn’t sound like a whole hell of a lot, but it added up since we worked so much.
There was no second thought about it. I would give him every cent of the money I had to my name if he demanded it. I would sell my designer shoes and handbags and my damn car if he wanted more.
But I would be lying if I said the ramifications didn’t cross my mind for a short while as I sat there with nothing to do but think.
A thirty-thousand surplus would put me back where I had been my first year after opening. It would mean another lean couple of years, more nickel-and-diming fabric suppliers and the cable company.
But none of that mattered.
Because I could have Cass back.
My heart constricted as my stomach lurched again, the image of her flashing across my brain.
“If you’re gonna puke,” the guy next to me said, interrupting my focus, “give me a two-second warning, so I don’t get vomit on my shoes.”
“Real fucking sensitive, L,” the dark-haired woman called but didn’t sound all that chastening.
“There’s a bathroom,” Barrett chimed in, he and the L guy seeming to have the same manners, meaning none at all.
That being said, a bathroom meant a little privacy, a chance to literally and figuratively pull myself together. I rose slowly, and walked across the floor to the bathroom, finding it cleaner than I expected and closing myself in.
I took a slow, deep breath and moved in front of the mirror, taking in the view.
It wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t expecting it to be.
Considering what I had seen, it sure as shit shouldn’t have been pretty.
I ran the water and wet a bunch of tissues, wiping as much of the mess as I could without proper tools, finding a sort of soothing in the familiar actions.
I didn’t immediately go back out, deciding I was useless out there and that their frenzied work was only going to make me feel all the more inept.
It was the sound of raised voices that eventually did pull me out—voices that seemed agitated and bored in equal terms, depending on who was speaking.
I walked out to find not only the people who had been there when I left but also two detectives.
One was Lloyd who I knew; the other was unknown to me.
He looked maybe a few years older than Lloyd, and unlike him, his suit was not only cheap but fit like it was bought for a man a size and a half bigger than him, hanging like a boy in hand-me-downs at church.
“Is that my phone?” I heard myself accuse when I saw the familiar golden case in Lloyd’s fellow detective’s hands.
“It’s evidence, Miss Washington,” Lloyd said, giving me what I felt was an apologetic shrug.
“Seeing as your cohorts here,” the other detective said, pure malice spitting from his tongue as he waved my cell phone around carelessly, “already wasted valuable time not telling us about the call when we were right across the street, we need to play catch-up now. And for that, we need your phone.”
My gaze immediately sought Tig’s, looking for and finding the answers I hadn’t actually asked. There was nothing we could do.
“Don’t mind him,” Alex cut into the tense silence, looking up at me from her glowing laptop. “Detective Jones here is all surly because his wife cheated with his old poker buddy and ran off with him. Took his dog too. It was practically country song worthy.”
And that was Alex for you. I felt my lips twitch and pressed them hard together to keep myself from making the situation any worse.
“Oh, and he is into domme porn with an emphasis on male butt plugs. In case anyone was wondering.”
Really, there was no way any of us had the strength to hold it in. The roar of laughter in the small space was almost deafening. And because I was looking in that direction, I noticed Lloyd having to turn away to hide the smirk that made his severe face seem much less so.
“I could have you locked up!” Detective Jones sputtered, face almost purple it was so red.
“For what? Knowing shit? Try to find some fucking proof I did anything… felonious, and then we can talk about your wounded pride.”
“Alright, alright,” Lloyd said when Jones went to open his mouth again.
Really, someone needed to check his blood pressure; he looked as though he was about to pass out.
“Let’s get under control here. Miss Washington, I know this is inconvenient.
If there is anything… delicate that you would like to…
” he trailed off for a second, giving me a knowing look, “delete, we can work that out.”
Delicate.
Like nudes or some incriminating texts.
I wiped my texts every week, and it was always bullshit anyway.
And I had never taken a nude in my life.
In my personal opinion, sexting and cybering and all that other crap were sterile and impersonal. Real sex was anything but and it was screwing an entire generation to not make that distinction clear.
“There’s nothing on there that I would be embarrassed for my mother to find, so I think they should be fine for your virgin eyes, Detective.”
He gave me a look, one that wasn’t perfectly clear since I didn’t know him, but it seemed to say he appreciated my attitude.
Who didn’t like that in a man? One who didn’t get intimidated by a strong woman since his identity wasn’t wrapped up in oppressing them.
Sexy. He was going to make a badass woman very happy someday.
And while he and I were wrapped up on other sides of the law—with him being a cop and me having a bunch of less-than-legal associates and family members—hat didn’t mean I couldn’t respect him.
“Alright. This is probably too much to ask, but if you all have something…” he trailed off, jerking his head to the door as his partner yanked at his tie. “Keep that head up, Kenzi,” he added as he was half out the door. “You are going to get her back.”
With that, he was gone.
And it struck me as odd… that wording.
Not we will get her back but you will get her back.
It almost implied he understood that there was a good chance my ragtag team of various experts had just as good, or better, a chance of bringing her back, and that he didn’t particularly care either way so long as an innocent, tortured woman was found safe and sound.
“Okay, here’s the situation,” Sawyer said, turning fully to me, all business.
“Barrett, Alex, and Jstorm,” he said, motioning to the small woman with black hair and tattoos, “are on the Bitcoin and IP angle. It is not something that will have answers immediately. I don’t understand that shit at all, but it’s complicated, and they will likely be working for the next twenty-four hours straight on it.
Wait,” he said, holding up a hand when I opened my mouth to object to that timeline.
“We have two days. I know you don’t want to hear that, and believe me, none of us likes this either, but the fact of the matter is, we need to stop thinking about what might be happening to her and focus on finding this fuckwad.
I think we can all agree that just getting Cassie back isn’t good enough at this point. He needs to pay for this.”
Maybe it was vengeful of me, cruel, inhuman, but I wanted that. I wanted him choking on his own blood. I wanted him skinned. I wanted him roasted over a motherfucking spit.
“Right,” I agreed with a firm nod.
He gave me one back, both of us agreeing to the eventual and inevitable outcome. “So, we are going to take this twenty-four hours and see what we can find, see if we can locate him before you drain your goddamn savings.”
“How did you…” I started, to which he gave me a brow raise.
“Babe…” he said, shaking his head.
“Right,” I agreed, looking around. And it struck me right that moment that literally everyone in that room not only knew how much money I made, and how much I saved, how much I spent on shoes and chocolate milkshakes on my shark week every month when I was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and did shit like that—a pattern I knew they would have recognized and knew for what it was—but they also knew the names of every man I had slept with and kissed.
Hell, they likely even knew that I got my Pill refilled at the pharmacy one town over because the pharmacist in Navesink Bank was a friend of my mother’s and when I was young, that felt weird to pick up there.
They knew more about me than I probably ever told anyone, least of all in such a short period of time.
“It might come to that,” he went on, shrugging.
“In which case, we do what we have to do. We get Cass safe, and then we find the bastard. L here,” he said, waving to the guy who was gulping down his coffee with one hand and typing with the other, “is creating a profile and cross-checking any similar patterns across the dark web. Brock is your new shadow,” he went on and my eyes went to Brock, blond and handsome and charming with ‘ex-military’ written all over him.
“But Tig is…”
“Going to be at your side,” Sawyer cut me off.
“Where he belongs. But because he will be that, he might not be able to see what could be behind you. None of us think he is going to stop at Cass. Actually, Brock is going to be at your six for a long while even after we get Cassie back. He wanted you too, and it doesn’t fit the pattern that he would take her and move on, even with the cash. ”
“More than likely, he will take the money and use it to stage whatever he needs to get his hands on you and then repeat this whole process.” That was coming from L, who didn’t even seem like he had been paying attention but apparently was.
“It doesn’t fit the profile that the money has anything to do with this.
He was inside your store around thousands of dollars of merch and a full safe.
If it were money, he would have taken shit, not ruined it.
This is and always was about the two of you.
In fact, it would make a lot more sense if he wanted you to drop the money personally, so he had a chance to snatch you. This Bitcoin…”
“Alright, you look like your head is spinning,” Brock cut in, not seeming to bother L at all, who just went right back to work.
“Let’s cover the important shit. Paine, Elsie, and Gina are all at your place keeping an eye on Reese.
No one thinks it will go to that, but no one wants to take that chance with her either. ”
There was a softness there when he talked about her. And I maybe for a split second thought about what Tig had said about him being the kind of man she would need. But I shook my head at that, calling it what it was—insane.
“It’s gonna be packed with all of us… what?”
“You’re coming with me, honey,” Tig said, the first time he spoke since we had come into the office.
There was a firmness under the soft tone, one that suggested that no matter what I said, no matter if he had to drag me screaming, I had no choice.
“It’s safer,” he added, making me think of his weird office building, wondering how that huge thing would be easier to secure than my little apartment, but figuring he knew what he was talking about.
“Brock will be parked outside on the watch. After we get some sleep, we will all come back here tomorrow, regroup, compare notes, and make a plan for moving forward.”
“For tonight, there is nothing else to do,” Brock added, shrugging. “I know you don’t exactly want to hear that, but it’s the truth. You need to rest so you are sharp tomorrow.”
“What about you?” I asked, knowing he was going to be up all night.
“You forget, darling,” he said, slinging an arm across my shoulders, “I was special ops. They really really like their sleep deprivation training. I could go four days without losing my wits or my good looks. I haven’t had beauty rest in over a decade.
Fuck, think of how good-looking I’d be if I had. ”
Because he was being Brock, his charming self, I hadn’t even realized he was pulling me through the office until I saw him reach out with his free hand to open the door.
“Wait, I…” I started, waving back toward the group.
“They don’t need your thanks. Come on.”
With that, I was shuffled into Tig’s SUV, where Brock stood watch after gesturing for me to flick the locks as we waited for Tig.
He came out a couple of minutes later, letting me unlock the doors, then climbing inside as Brock shuffled off to his own car.
He put the car into drive and turned off onto the street, his giant hand reaching out and landing on my thigh, just under the hem of my dress, up high, touching my bare skin.
And despite the high-stakes situation, despite the emotional upheaval I had had that day, despite the fact that maybe it was wrong for my mind to think of anything other than the situation, my mind went there.
I was going to Tig’s house.
I was supposed to be getting rest.
But from the way his casual, reassuring touch was sending shockwaves from the contact and up between my legs, yeah, I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be much sleeping going on once we got to his place.