Chapter 28 Lunch Date that Never Was
lunch date that never was
Cian
Friday was a blur.
The meeting with the FBI was not at all what I expected. There was no back-door cloak-and-dagger meeting in an abandoned warehouse. Instead, three men met for beers in a bar in Fort Collins.
Very full circle if you ask me.
The city has changed since I left college, but the soul of it is still the same. It has a special place in my heart, so it was fitting to meet here.
Ren and the guy shot the shit for a while.
Turns out his wife is from Evergreen and they’re here on vacation—a working one since they booked flights on Thursday expressly to allow for this meeting.
More smoothly than I could imagine, Ren paid the tab with cash, leaving a thumb drive atop the coaster next to the bill.
“It’s a copy. Start with the document labeled Start here and it should walk you through everything. Links to originals are in the doc labeled the same. My source will answer any questions you have. Just go through me.”
“You trust the source and the data?”
“One hundred percent. No motive otherwise. Just a mom with a kid who was served up nudes in a gaming app.”
“With these kinds of skills?”
One nod, that’s it. Ren offered one nod, shook the guy’s hand, and we left.
I did the same, saying next to nothing during the whole meeting.
If the agent thought anything of the black and blue man with an eye bandage riding shotgun with his buddy, he said nothing.
I was home and in bed soon after, exhausted beyond measure.
Saturday and Sunday felt the same.
I’ve done too much, pushed too hard, and outdone my meds. If I never see another pill, I’ll be good with that. But after…
Sariah wasn’t lying about the Tramadol. That shit is worth its weight in gold.
The next week slides by. I have appointments with my plastic surgeon for my eye, which is healing so well, I’m allowed to remove the bandages.
I also have appointments with the maxillofacial specialist and my dentist. The jaw is healing well enough that I have less than two weeks to go with the wires.
I’m disappointed but won’t complain about being average.
I can get my implants in six weeks. My cheek caving in on my left side is only hidden by the swelling and once that diminishes, the rest will be more obvious.
I’d never recommend starting a new relationship with a busted face, missing teeth, and a wired jaw. This sucks.
But it’s coming together.
Nothing has happened yet to bring down the offenders.
Sariah’s gone to work. Rosie has too.
Renée goes to school. And I stay at home building Phoenix and waiting on my sister’s audit to determine if I can afford to keep the life I’ve built.
The wires come off four weeks and three days after they went on. Four weeks and three days after my eye was smashed and my father decided I should be sacrificed for his convenience.
My first call is to Sariah who’s at work, to ask her to lunch.
My face is no longer black and blue, but the yellow stains “mar my rugged good looks” according to my sister who no longer has a reason to dote on me or chauffeur me or otherwise invade my life.
She and Franklin will celebrate by taking Ellie and me on a hike next week.
But my lunch date awaits. As I walk Sixteenth Street Mall, my phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Cian Murphy?”
“Yes.”
Disconnect.
Unknown number stares back at me in my missed calls log.
With everything going on, it’s suspicious, and I remind myself to tell Sariah since she’s a goddess of all things tech.
There she is, sitting outside at a tourist trap café, perfectly oblivious to her beauty or to how many people check her out as they wander the shops.
I take her in. Her dark hair falls down her back and sunglasses cover her eyes. She wears a black long-sleeved tee with a puffy vest over the top in a slate gray. Colorado mountain chic.
And all mine.
She looks up from her phone and I know the moment she spots me because her smile goes wide and she lifts her sunglasses to her head.
I can’t stay away any longer and spectators be damned. I haven’t kissed her since the night we watched How to Train Your Dragon and that’s way too damn long for my liking.
Jumping the waist-high rail, I lift my palms to her face and drop my mouth to hers, hungry to taste her. She gasps and I take the opening, sliding my tongue into her mouth, caressing and dueling with hers. Her arms lift around my neck, and I press my cock to her belly.
Fuck lunch. Fuck everything.
I pull back, dropping my forehead to hers. “I want you. I’ve thought of nothing but tasting you for weeks.”
Her eyes light up and dance with mischief. “Is this when I should tell you I’m working from home the rest of the day?”
“Seriously? Let’s go.” I drop a few bills on the table, bounce over the rail again and lift her with me. Hand-in-hand, we run for my truck, her sweet laughter the soundtrack to the best lunch date that never was.
Sariah
We enter the parking lot, and both our phones go off in tandem with a group message.
Liam: FBI/DOJ coordinated raids took down 478 perps today around the country. They thanked Sariah publicly for the info that allowed them to take down one of the largest child pornography rings in history.
“Fuck.” Cian’s chin lifts to the sky.
“No.” My hand flies to cover my mouth.
Liam: Sariah, get to safety. Ci, where are you?
Me: Get to Renée’s middle school. I’m calling them now to release Renée to you. I’m on my way too. First one there, take her to—
Where do I go?
Everything I worked for. All the hiding. All the moving.
And I blew it.
Blew it being a hero.
Blew it when my daughter is turning fourteen, and now we’re in the crosshairs of way too many villains.
My legs give out. But not before Cian catches me and picks me up, bridal style, and lifts me into the passenger seat of his truck, spending valuable seconds to buckle me in before rounding the bed and jumping behind the wheel.
He extends his phone. “Program in the school.”
I do as he asks, and the computer-generated voice fills the truck and I make the call I’ve been dreading.
When I disconnect, he dials Liam as soon as we leave the lot, while I text Renée.
Me: Liam Murphy is coming to get you. Please go with him.
Me: Trust him.
“Yeah?” The rev of a motorcycle engine roars in the background
“ETA?”
“Fucking fast, brother. Where am I taking her?”
“My house for now.”
“Angel, where’s your car?”
What? “Why?”
“Never mind. Li, get Renée. We’ll meet you at my place.”
He hangs up with a “Roger that.”
“Don’t worry about your car. We’ll figure that out. Now, I need you to tell me where Rosie is.”
“We have the same last name.” It’s all coming together for me, and I don’t like the picture that’s being revealed. “You think they could get to her?”
He nods slowly and drops a bomb. “Angel, where does Rosie work?”
“She’s a counselor at an addiction center.” I offer the name and area of town.
“Call her and tell her to come to my house. She needs to grab a rideshare and do it now. If she can’t, tell me, and I’ll send someone.”
I dial her and it goes straight to voicemail.
A second call does the same.
Me: Rosie, call me.
Me: It’s urgent.
Finally, I look up the center online and dial their main number. When the receptionist answers, I explain who I am and ask to speak with Rosie, even if it’s interrupting a session. “I’d never ask if it weren’t critical,” I add, hoping to smooth out my demands.
“Sariah, Ms. Ocotea never came in this morning. We reached out to her because a no-call, no-show is so unlike her. You know how consistent she is…”. She may keep talking but I don’t hear anything. My phone slips from my hand onto the truck’s rubber floor mat.
Turning to Cian, I whisper through the lump of panic welling in my throat. “She didn’t come in this morning. No call. No show.”
“Renée or Rosie?” He forces a choice I never want to make. Renée. Always Renée, but—
“Liam will get Renée, right?”
“Yes.”
There’s no other alternative. He’s already in route and is closer than we are. He’ll save her.
He has to save her.
I’m spiraling. “If you’re sure, head to—” Calm descends, and I offer turn-by-turn after giving him the general cross streets for Rosie’s house. I’ve never been so thankful for a planned city.
We tear across town, heading west on 285. We’re making a right, going north when the phone rings.
“Yeah?”
“Mom?” The panic in my daughter’s voice would be enough to push me over the edge, except she’s yelling.
“I’m talking to you through a helmet. I’m on a motorcycle.
” Her voice drops to a whisper. “He’s not wearing a helmet because I have his, and he’s going fast.” The last word stretches out like she’s on a roller coaster.
No words. I have no words for my fucking life right now. “Hold on” is all I can muster. I mean it for my daughter, but also for myself, because we’re turning into Rosie’s driveway.
Her car is under the carport. Everything looks normal, except…
Except her back door is wide open.
“Stay in the car.” I’ve never heard Cian’s voice so harsh, not even when I told him about what I’ve been through. He exits the still-running truck and walks quickly toward the house, peering in before crossing the threshold.
I’m holding my breath and only gasp when I see the screen on the dash light up with a call—an outgoing call to 911 before it shows the words Call moved to private, and I’m left in the dark.
Left sitting alone.
Left out of the loop.
Just fucking left.
Eventually, after several minutes, an ambulance comes screeching to a halt in front of Rosie’s place. The damn lights remind me of my own run-in just days ago.
Cian appears in the doorway and beckons the EMTs, waving me in at the same time.
It took all I had to sit there as long as I did, and I only managed it because I’m scared as fuck with so many moving parts spinning like tops around me. One wrong move, and the world comes crashing in on me… on us.
I slide out of the truck and yell “she’s allergic to latex” at the swarming team as I bob and weave around the stretcher and the paramedics to make it to Cian’s side. He wraps me up, my back to the room, and pulls me in tight.
“Angel,” he starts slowly.
I grip his shirt with both hands and tug. “What?”
“Rosie isn’t okay.”
For the second time in an hour, my legs lose their strength and buckle beneath me. Strong arms surround me and keep me upright.
He holds my gaze. “She’s unconscious. Do you have any idea what could have happened?
No. I shake my head quickly, not in answer to his question, but as if the idea doesn’t make any sense. “What? No.” I spin in his arms to find my mom—the mom of my heart—lying on the floor, her body at odd angles. The softness of her face and the lithe way she carries herself are missing.
I pull in his arms, straining to get away, but he holds fast, shaking me gently. “Sariah. Settle please.”
“Did you just tell me to calm down?” I glare at his handsome face.
“Baby, I need you focused.” He looks over my head before finding my face. “They’re working on her now. She’s alive. You and I can only get in the way. So I want you to put your attention where it can be of use. Tell me anything and everything that could have led to this. What are her habits?”
Peering to the side, I direct all my energy to what I can control. What comes from my mouth may be of use, or it may not, but it’s all I have and if any of it can save Rosie, I’ll spill it all.