Authors: Lisa Ladew
Tags: #General Fiction
Mica chuckled softly. "You can't do that. You have the show."
"Yeah." Justin fell silent again. "Wait! I know, you should hire someone to stand outside your door, like in the movies. An off-duty cop or something."
"Yeah right, where am I going to find an off-duty cop?"
"You can hire them. They go to private investigators and hire out their time..." Justin's voice trailed off and then he squealed in excitement, hurting her ears. "I got it! There are private security companies you can hire. There's a ton of them. There was one I read about recently in Forbes—Royston something. He's hot as sin and specializes in protecting the wealthy. He carries a gun and everything. Oh my God, Mica, you have to hire him, and if you do, I'm flying down. A man as hot as him has got to be gay, right?"
"Rosesson," Mica whispered into the phone, barely having heard the last part of Justin's conversation. She had seen the article too. Read it three times.
"What?"
"Rosesson. His name is Knox Rosesson. And he's not gay."
"Damn! I thought for sure. Are you going to hire him?"
Mica didn't answer—couldn't answer as her mind spun dangerously out of control.
Hiring Knox Rosesson could fix all of her current problems, but it would create too many more for her to count.
Knox
Knox sat behind his mammoth oak writing desk in his corner office in the Russ building in downtown San Francisco. It was Saturday, but he sometimes worked Saturdays, especially on days when he didn't know what else to do with himself. He'd woken feeling antsy and dissatisfied, which didn't make sense to him. His night with Darby had been intoxicating. He'd played her like the world's finest violin, finding her sexual boundaries, places she hadn't gone before, and easing her past them, giving them both a night of heady, provocative passion. Normally, after a night of spectacular sex, he would head out to Mount Diablo or Beaver Street Wall for some rock climbing, but today he'd ended up at the office instead. Something was plucking at him, not letting him rest. He almost felt like he was in the path of something big, an event or circumstance that was on its way to change his life. Knox stilled at the thought. It intrigued him, even though he knew it was more likely that being reminded so strongly of Rachel had caused his disquiet.
Knox doodled on the blotter in front of him, his mind far away. His phone buzzed. Knox pulled it out of his pocket. Rock. Great, just the man for the job.
"Rock. What's the great word?"
Rock chuckled. "Pussy. Ain't nothing greater than that, boss."
"You might be right, Rock, and you might be wrong, but what's the great word on your assignment?"
"Ah, got you. I managed to grab samples and they are at the lab right now. You should know if you are related to these boys by Tuesday."
"Perfect. Thanks, Rock. What's your gut instinct?"
"Well, I'm not the smartest bag of rocks in the city, but I would say yeah, they might all be your half-brothers. They look like you. The oldest one actually reminds me of you. They are plenty secretive about who their daddy is, like maybe they don't even know but they don't want you to know that, and their mom is your dad's type, for sure. Plus she ain't worked in twenty years but has a nice house and car."
Knox drummed his fingers on his blotter and considered everything Rock had said. Rock was his oldest employee, and Knox trusted his word implicitly. Rock liked to joke that he was dumb because he hadn't finished high school and because his preferred diction leaned more towards crude and simple than refined or sophisticated, but anyone who worked with him knew differently. The man was as street-smart as they came, and he could solve puzzles better than Sherlock Holmes.
If Rock thought the three sons of Myra Covina had been fathered by Felix Rosesson, then Knox thought so too. Besides, Rock knew Knox's father almost as well as Knox knew him. Rock had been in the Army with Felix, they'd gone through Vietnam together, then retired at the same time, Felix as a Colonel, Rock as a First Sergeant. Felix had started Rosesson Security that same year and hired Rock as his first employee. But then Felix had fired Knox in a fit of infantile rage over a disagreement, and Knox had stolen him away. Knox still thought Felix only agreed to work for him so he could stay in Knox's father's life in some small way. That didn't bother Knox. He knew there was history there. Knew the two men had saved each other's lives. Knew they still loved each other like brothers even though Felix was a pig-headed tyrant who couldn't stand anyone getting the better of him.
Knox opened the Covina file and wrote
Tuesday
on the bottom half of the top sheet, then flipped it shut and slid it in the drawer he saved for his personal investigations. He dug to the very bottom of the stack and pulled out a marked and creased folder with one word on the identification tab.
Rachel
.
"Rock, what else are you working on right now?" Knox said, knowing what the answer would be.
"Nothing, boss. That's why I was calling in, 'stead of just sending over the report. You got something for me?"
"I do, Rock, but you should take a few days off first."
"Don't need no time off right now. My ol' lady is gettin' her colon cleansed so I got nothing to do anyway. She won't be back till Friday."
Knox grimaced at the image. Rock's
ol' lady
, Yolanda, was a mean health freak who spent her days meditating, eating grass and drinking kombucha, and who liked to go to every retreat she could pay for. Knox didn't want to know what kind of retreat offered colon cleansing.
"If you're sure. I want you to go to Chicago and look into the Rachel case again. Maybe even go back to Portland."
The line was silent for a moment. Finally, Rock spoke. "Boss, that case is colder than a dead man's balls."
"I know it is. But I can't help feeling like we missed something. And it's been five years since we looked into it. There's new technology—"
"Boss, we ain't got nothing to technologize."
Knox barked a laugh in spite of himself. "Sure we do. Take her picture, age-enhance it. Play up the heterochromia angle. That's why people will remember her, because of her two-different colored eyes."
Knox paused as a thought struck him. "Holy Jesus," he whispered into the phone.
"Boss?"
"Technology! See, I knew technology was the key. Look, more and more news stations are digitizing their archives, and some police stations are too. If something happened to her, I have to know, and that might be a way to find it out that we've never explored before. Get Mac to help you. She had one blue eye and one green eye. The right eye was her green one." Knox heard his voice rise as excitement overtook him. "We could even search the internet for twenty-eight year old women with heterochromia, I might be able to find her picture out there somewhere..." Knox's voice trailed off as he imagined finally finding Rachel. He leaned forward and spoke urgently into the phone. "I'll take care of that last part. You tell Mac to work on the news and cop angle, and let me know the minute you find anything new."
"Will do, boss."
Knox hung up, excitement making his heart hammer. He grabbed his laptop and pulled it towards him. Was he finally going to discover what had happened to Rachel after a decade?
Knox's fingers trembled over the keyboard. If so, would it finally let him put that chapter of his life behind him for good? Or would it only reawaken his obsession? Knox didn't care as long as
something
happened. Ten years was too long to be bewitched by a memory.
Mica
Mica came awake slowly, her head heavy and dull. She blinked and sat up. She'd been determined to stay awake all night again, thinking she'd feel safer sleeping while it was light out, but sometime in the early hours she'd fallen asleep right on her couch. Mica pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. Everything seemed just as she had left it.
Good.
Mica stood and headed to the kitchen to start coffee, then to the bathroom to run a comb through her hair. Not that anyone was going to see her today. She wasn't stepping foot out of this apartment until she figured something out. Her mind cast over her conversation with Justin the night before. Hire a security agency? Maybe she should do it. It would certainly give her peace of mind. Her brain played a short fantasy of her calling Alpha Private Security and somehow speaking to Knox Rosesson himself. His strong, chiseled face entered her imagination and she clucked her tongue at herself. Yeah right. Like he would answer the phone himself. She probably wouldn't get him even if she asked for him personally. He was a busy man, probably as well-protected as the president of the United States. She was sure he had secretaries and assistants running interference for him. Besides, the last thing she wanted was to actually talk to the man.
She'd followed his career with interest over the last nine years since he'd started Alpha Private Security, piecing together a picture of who he really was. Driven, she knew that. Close to his brothers. She knew that too. She wasn't sure about his relationship with his father though. It seemed strained. And the rumors about his love life made her blush. He was a good man though, that was obvious with the way he ran his business and conducted himself in public. He'd never married. Never even seemed to have serious girlfriends. Mica wondered about that fact the most.
The smell of coffee reached her and Mica walked to the kitchen to pour herself a cup. She sipped it, straight up, her tongue rebelling at the bitterness. She ignored it. She didn't want to enjoy her coffee right now. That was one of her special tricks when she was working on something big. Drinking and eating unpleasant things, like a salad with too much vinegar, or black coffee, when she was really a two creams, two sugars gal. Something about withholding pleasure caused her brain to work faster.
Mica found her phone and typed in
Private Investigator San Francisco
. The results made her realize she was searching for the wrong thing. She tried again with
Private Security San Francisco
. Knox Rosesson's company, Alpha Private Security, was the first on the list. Mica scrolled past it, her heart galloping in her chest. There had to be other companies that were just as good as his.
A noise in her living room startled her, making her jerk her head that way. Mica had a gun in the bedroom down the hall and her mind screamed at her to run and get it. Instead, Mica put her coffee slowly down on the counter, but kept her phone in her hand. She took one trembling step towards the archway that divided her kitchen from her living room, then another. She reached the archway and looked around, trying to figure out where the tiny noise had come from. Nothing moved. Nothing seemed out of place. Movement drew her eye to her front door. The thumb turn on the doorknob was turning. Someone was unlocking her door with a key! Mica squeezed her phone tightly as her body tensed with fear. She felt frozen, unable to move.
The chair was still wedged under the doorknob, but Mica knew that wouldn't stop him. Fear pounded a speedy drumbeat in her brain.
Move!
she screamed at herself. The thumb turn stopped moving and Mica held her breath in fitful anticipation, her fevered brain unable to believe she was just standing there.
Nothing happened.
Mica waited. The door didn't move. Mica watched the doorknob, almost seeing it turn in the video screen of her imagination. Still it didn't turn. The tension in her body squeezed so tight, that it finally broke, making her muscles feel hot and rubbery, but it was enough to allow her to move finally. She whirled around and ran for her bedroom at full speed, bouncing off the hallway wall. She felt in her pants for pockets, but she didn't have any. As she entered her bedroom at a run, she shoved her phone into her bra and snapped her hand down onto the gun safe on her nightstand. It popped open, and Mica grasped the gun, reciting her instructor's lesson inside her head.
Take your stance.
Take aim down your sight.
Take a breath.
Hold it one moment.
Let it out.
Squeeze the trigger with control.
Mica thumbed the safety off the gun and held it in both hands, pointed at the floor. She ran back to her kitchen, praying to God she wouldn't have to discover if she could shoot someone or not.
The kitchen was empty. Mica rounded the corner to the archway, slowing to a tiptoe as terror wheeled inside her, making her tremble slightly.
The living room sat empty. The door was still closed, the chair still in position. Mica took a few deep breaths to calm herself as best she could. She stared at the door, trying to think of her next move. Call the police? That would mean she would have to let go of the gun with at least one hand, something she didn't feel ready to do.
Mica found the door getting closer and realized she was walking towards it. One part of her mind told her that was a bad idea, the worst idea she could possibly have, while another urged her on. She reached the door, then inched her way around the chair in front of it, and slowly stretched her head to the peephole, her ears straining to hear even the smallest sound.
Mica pressed her face to the door and looked out the tiny peephole. The hall outside seemed empty. Mica took a step back, not sure what to do. She stepped forward again and pressed her eye to the peephole again, this time looking down.