Chapter Forty-One
BARRETT
What the hell was wrong with me?
That was pretty much the only thought that circled around in my head after she left me with only my half of the pizza, all that night, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep, then all the way back to Navesink Bank.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I didn't lie to clients.
I didn't con strange women into cleaning my office.
I didn't even want anyone to clean my office.
I loathed having people in my space. Especially strangers. Always poking around, demanding explanations for my paperwork being in code, talking about how much coffee I drink, bitching about the overflowing trash bin.
But I had just... agreed to it. Without even giving it any thought. I never did that, acted impulsively. I always thought things through. I always made sure I knew the ins and outs of a situation, any possible way it could go south.
The worst part, I decided as I made my way back into my office, locking the door, going about doing my usual sweep for bugs since I hadn't been around to keep an eye on things, was that I had no idea why I did it.
One minute, she'd just been there, prattling away nonstop. The next, I was inviting her into my life.
Maybe it was because there was something about her, something I felt myself drawn to.
The way everything about her seemed frenetic, disorganized.
Much like my brain often was. She was, outwardly, how I often felt inside.
It was unexpectedly refreshing in a way I couldn't have anticipated.
A part of me knew that unless I took her up on her offer, there was no way I would get to have her in my life again, feel that odd sort of comfort she brought with her.
I still had no idea what she was into with the Turkish mob. But, quite frankly, it was none of my business. It wasn't even, if you analyzed it, part of the job.
I was hired to find out where she went.
I did that.
Then, to avoid too many questions, I had used an app to call directly to Collings' machine, rattling off that I found Clarke, that she was on the way home, that she would explain it to him when she got back.
Then I tried to get back to my life, back to my work, back to my routine. And not think about how entirely abnormal my behavior with the daughter of one of the town's most respected—in all circles, criminal and not—former detective was.
With no active cases to work on, it was much easier said than done.
I had just been going over an old, unsolved local case—a hobby of mine when I had nothing else to work on—my office door flew open and whooshed shut, someone pressing back against it, body ramrod straight, still, but breathing heavily.
Brock.
"Which woman are you hiding from this week?" I asked, brow quirked up as he turned, creaking the door open, carefully glancing out. "And what did you do to her?"
"Do to her?" Brock asked, turning back, his face a mask of horror. "More like what she did to me."
"What could she have possibly done to you?"
Brock was known for women trouble. Whether it was because he miscommunicated or because he was somewhat drawn to crazy women was anyone's guess.
"Remember that case we worked on back when you were still at the office? With the wife of the oil magnate..."
"The one who was fucking his secretary's barely legal daughter," I recalled, inwardly cringing at the age gap. The wife and his gap was bad enough with him being in his sixties and her in her mid-thirties. But nearly seventy and eighteen? That wasn't May/December. It was cradle/grave.
"You stormed out before it was all resolved, but she ended up getting half.
" Half of ten billion. "He ended up with the teenager.
Had a heart attack in bed with her. But the ex ended up hitting the market again, closing in on her forties after spending more than a decade with that gross fuck.
So, she, ah, had some catching up to do. "
"Sawyer let you fuck a client?"
"Well, she wasn't a client anymore," he clarified, moving inward, heading over to the coffee machine to help himself.
"And?" I asked, knowing the story wasn't over. Brock was not the type to hide away from a woman who simply wanted meaningless, loveless sex with a good-looking man. And if he could have that and also a great view of the Navesink, all the better.
"And she almost broke my dick, man," he declared, waving his coffee mug - the last clean one - outward dramatically.
"Yeah? How'd she accomplish that?"
"I dunno if it was some old Catholic schoolgirl repression rearing its head or what, but she had the sex drive of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Anytime I could get it up, she put it down.
I caught her trying to go down on me in my sleep.
After seven rounds that day. I had no fucking fluids left in my body.
Felt like cardboard inside and out. Finally, I had to ghost it out of there.
You know... to save my own ass. Pure survival instinct at that point. "
"That was years ago. And you're still hiding from her?"
"Have you met a hot, single, middle-aged woman, Barrett? They like to fuck. A lot. If anything, she's even more lethal now than she was before. I can't risk it."
"You ever think you're getting a little old for the playboy thing?" I asked a bit absently, trying to remember how old he was. He had to be closing in on forty himself now.
"Not saying I'm against finding the right woman and settling down. I'm saying I haven't met her. So, what's the harm in enjoying other women while I wait?"
"Gonorrhea comes to mind. Or crabs."
To that, his lips curved up. "No glove, no love, man. Even your hermit ass must have learned that one. I mean, not all of us can be in such a committed relationship with our own right hand."
Ribbing was something I had gotten used to when I was young.
Being the smarter, nerdier, more introverted younger brother to someone as popular and outgoing as Sawyer meant I was constantly around him and his friends, always getting teased for not being quite like them.
Though there was clearly some kind of rule about it going too far, all of it cutting off before it got genuinely cruel.
Then joining up with his group of investigators had meant more of the same, though the maturity had toned them all down a bit.
But I was always still the one who didn't quite fit in, who didn't quite operate the same way they all did, who didn't go out drinking and screwing around simply because I could.
"Not prying, just... when was the last time you had a woman in your bed, man?"
He really wasn't trying to pry.
They all did it.
My brother's crew. My old crew.
They all had their things.
Sawyer asked if I was being safe with my cases.
Riya asked if I was sleeping.
Marg asked if I was eating greens.
Tig asked if I was moving my body.
Kenzi asked if I remembered to bill my clients.
And Brock, well, Brock asked if I was spending time with the opposite sex.
It was all based on what was important to them.
To Brock, sex was important. Sex was something you did not just for fun, but to keep yourself healthy.
"I had a woman in my bed last weekend," I told him, turning away in case he was as good at spotting a lie as my brother was. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it was clearly not the whole truth either,
"No shit? Who was it? Someone we all kn..."
Just then, just like that, just like some perfectly cinematically timed scene, the door pushed open once again, blinding us both with the sun for a long moment before we adjusted, before the person moved inside, closing the door behind them.
And there she was.
In a pair of cutoff shorts and a deep green lightweight tee, scuffed black and white Chucks on her feet.
It was clear in point-five seconds that Brock knew precisely who she was. And was assuming she was the woman I was referring to.
"We never specified a time, so I figured I would just show up whenever..."
"Aren't you... Collings' daughter?"
"Also known as Clarke," she told him, brow raised. "Who has an identity outside of the men she's related to," she added with a pointed smile.
Brock's gaze slid from her to me for a second before he threw his head back and laughed, hard and long, making Clarke look in my direction, brows drawn together.
"Oh, you're so fucked," Brock declared, clamping a hand on my shoulder for a solid few seconds before putting down his mug, making his way to the door, making Clarke step to the side so he could open it. "It was nice meeting you, Clarke."
"That playboy smile thing doesn't work on me," she informed him, but her tone was light.
To that, Brock's gaze slid to me, eyes dancing. "Apparently not," he agreed before disappearing as suddenly as he had arrived.
"What was that about?"
"That's Brock. He works for my brother. He ducked in here to avoid a woman who wanted to eat him alive."
"Hmm. Anyway, yeah, I figured I would drop in while I have some free time, get some clean..."
She trailed off as she started to look around, taking in the mugs scattered everywhere, the stacks of papers, the dust-covered surfaces, the nearly overflowing garbage.
"Just for the record, if you have rats, you're on your own.
Those traps freak me the hell out. Do you have cleaning products? " she asked, glancing around dubiously.
"I think my sister-in-law kept them at the bottom of the storage unit," I told her, waving over toward it.
"You made your sister-in-law clean up your mess?"
"She worked here for a while before she was my sister-in-law."
"Did she get hazard pay?" she asked, her foot catching the edge of a stack of admittedly oddly placed research books, stumbling before catching herself.
"You seem sure enough on your feet. Did you talk to your father?" I asked as she found the cleaning supplies, smiling a little to herself when she found a box of rubber gloves stashed with them. Then slipping them on.