1. Grayson #2
He set down his fork, balling up a fist and touching it to his stomach. “It’s like a knife in my gut. I can’t stop blaming myself for forcing her to run. If anything happened to her, it would be my fault.”
So far, nothing about his story set off any red flags. Still, I was reticent. “If she doesn’t want to be found, what then? Would it be enough for you to know she’s safe somewhere?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know if there’s anywhere she could be safe without my protection.
Safety could be an illusion,” he concluded, looking at his plate and what was left of his lunch.
With a scowl, he muttered, “I’ve lost my appetite.
I can’t help it. Whenever I think of what could happen to her because of me…
I should have known better than to get involved with her. “
“You can’t blame yourself too much. If someone else is after her, that’s because they made that decision, not you.”
“Right. Maybe I needed to hear it from you.” It didn’t take long for his self-flagellation to end.
Checking his watch, he winced. “Shit. I have a meeting at one, and it’s already a quarter to.
Do you mind if we cut this short?” His attention landed on a man standing near the entrance.
When he nodded, the man headed outside to get the car.
“Not a problem.” The sooner I got started, the sooner I could finish. “I’ll have a report for you in around five days.”
“You think it will take that long?” he asked, looking concerned and maybe a bit irritated. He never did have much patience.
“Five days on the outside,” I amended. “I like to underpromise and overdeliver. Don’t tell anyone,” I added, grinning, which seemed to placate him.
“I like the way you think.” He took care of the bill, then shook my hand. “It’s good to see you. I want you to know that whenever I get the chance, I ask your mom about you. I hope you don’t mind.”
If it hadn’t been for their occasional communication, I would never have known Dominic was looking for my help.
While Dad and I hadn’t exchanged a word in more than fifteen years, Mom and I spoke weekly—one thing he couldn’t take from me.
“I don’t mind, though she thinks you need to settle down with a nice girl and start a family,” I joked.
He didn’t see the humor. “Right. Look what happens when a man in my position starts to think that way.” A troubled look washed over his face before he cleared his throat. “I better go. I look forward to your report, and, of course, I’ll keep an eye out for your invoice,” he added.
“We never did talk about my fee,” I reminded him as we left the restaurant.
I noted the appreciative looks cast our way by several women.
While the suit I’d worn for our meeting wasn’t the expensive custom-made masterpiece he wore, it was hardly shabby.
Despite what I could afford, I never developed a taste for dressing or living extravagantly.
He merely laughed. “What was one of the lessons we learned when we were kids? If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
I’m confident I can.” With that, we parted ways on the sidewalk.
It was a relief to drop the blank expression I’d carefully practiced over the years to mask the thoughts running through my head, which I vented briefly once I was in the privacy of my truck.
I then called my most trusted mentor in hopes of getting his opinion on whether I had done the right thing by accepting Dominic’s request for help.
Detective Jack Meadows was the only living soul who knew the ins and outs of my youth and the rocky, broken road I’d traveled to get where I was today.
His phone went to voicemail when I called, but that was no surprise—the beauty of retirement, he claimed, was knowing no one owned his time anymore.
He would listen to my message and get back to me when he was good and ready.
In the meantime, I stared out the windshield, airing my thoughts in a recording while watching pedestrians stroll past. “I told myself I wouldn’t get involved again,” I added, remembering the darkest days of my life.
“But this girl might be in trouble. It’s not her fault she got mixed up with the wrong person.
And I do feel sorry for him. He seemed distraught.
He feels guilty. I can’t punish her by punishing him.
But you know how it is,” I concluded with a sigh.
“Once you’re in, they don’t let you go. I would rather not become the family’s go-to fixer. ”
By the time I ended the message, I was no closer to understanding my feelings about the situation. Did my feelings matter? This didn’t have to be a permanent arrangement.
And part of me felt I owed it to Dominic. A means of balancing the scales after a lot of dark shit I’d worked like hell to put behind me.
After ending the call, I placed another one to one of the guys in my office.
Drake was my research guru, able to find a needle in a sea of haystacks.
I sometimes wondered how he did it, but I also knew better than to ask about the methods he guarded so carefully.
After rattling off the information Dominic had shared, I added, “Let’s keep this between the two of us for now.
I want to mull it over a bit before I make a move. ”
“You’ve got it,” he assured me because he knew better than to ask questions.
It was yet another thing I appreciated about him and all the men freelancing for me—they valued discretion and efficiency and knew better than to ask too many questions.
They were all self-starters since time was a valuable commodity, and there was none to waste while waiting for instructions.
With a sigh, I started the truck, intending to change at my apartment before heading into the office to settle a few administrative issues. Along the way, one name weighed on my mind.
Scarlet Bowers.
The woman who could very well end up roping me back into a world I swore I would never return to.