“Uh, why?” Alyssa whined.
“Google nineteen-seventies formal dresses. I swear that Mana wore something like that to one of her dances. It looks dated to me.”
“Agreed,” Ariel and Katy both said.
“Fine.” Alyssa marched off.
“What’s going on with Jackson?” Ariel asked.
“Nothing. I’m advised to do nothing as well.”
“Advised? By who?” Katy asked.
“Internal Affairs.”
Alyssa returned a few minutes later, interrupting our discussion.
“How about this one?” Alyssa walked out and twirled. The dress was off the shoulders, with long sheer sleeves that gathered at the wrist with sequined bands. It was a beautiful periwinkle blue and had silver sequins around the bodice. The skirt was long and form-fitting. Basically, it was breathtaking.
I found my ten and held it up. “You look like a cross between Jasmine and Cinderella.”
“Wow, you look so grown up. That dress is perfect,” Ariel whispered. “I don’t know how you can beat it next year. Remember you still have another prom next year; you’re only a junior.”
“You look beautiful,” Katy agreed.
“I have a few more.” Alyssa twirled in the dress. “Should I go try them on and show you?”
“No. The one you have on is perfect.” I got up and gave Alyssa a peck on her cheek. “Don’t ruin this look. Don’t doubt it. You will be the envy of everyone.”
Ariel stood. “The girls will hate you because you will be the most gorgeous one at the prom.”
“They’re right, you are stunning,” Katy added as the three of us made our escape.
Tonight wasn’t so much about talking with my mother, but more about her knowing that her family was here and supporting her.
Around ten, I left and headed home. Turning onto my road, I glanced to my right to see if lights were still on at Jackson’s. I slowed as a shadow on Jackson’s front porch started to move. I stopped in the middle of the street and watched as a half-naked woman, who I could only assume was Tammy, sashayed to her car that was parked at the curb and got in. What the actual fuck? Oh, hell to the no. I definitely had no time for this shit.
“Hey, you. Stop right there.” I pulled my bike up next to her car. “Get out.” I had my radio on and was already calling for backup.
“Get out of my way, you whore. You’re the one trying to steal another woman’s man. Two people have loved me in this world, my brother and Jackson, and I’m not about to let you take him from me.”
“Fine, calm down,” I lowered my voice in an attempt to diffuse the situation. “Step out of the car and let’s talk about this. You can tell me your side of what happened.” My radio was transmitting everything we were saying to whatever cars were on their way.
“Jackson doesn’t love you. He’s just sleeping with you to make me jealous.” Tammy raked a snide glance from my eyes to my toes and then started her engine. The air had turned crisp, but I didn’t care. I was furious, and the anger was only intensifying the burning inside me as I waited for backup.
Tammy spun her wheels and peeled away, knocking my bike over. “Fucking bitch.”
When the deputies finally arrived, I tore them a new one and then gave them the details before heading up to Jackson’s front door. He was already standing there.
“What’s going on?”
“This is too much. The sex is nice, but the drama is out of control. I need your ex harassing my family and me like I need a hole in the head. She assaulted my mother today. I just had a little run in with her outside. Internal Affairs is involved. I’m done with this whole thing.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, Kat. What happened with your mom? And I had no idea that Tammy was here again. She came by an hour ago, and I refused to let her in. I’m sorry you had to deal with her.”
“My mom is fine, no thanks to that bitch. As for your apology, you can shove it. I don’t care. I’m done. Lose my number.”
“Kat, stop. Come inside, please.”
“You don’t get it. She assaulted my mother this afternoon, and then I drive by and find her walking from your house half-naked. Since she was here, did you call 9-1-1?” I waited for him to say that he had, but with every passing second of his silence, my heart broke a bit more. “No, you haven’t. I’m not sure why. Maybe you like the attention, I don’t know.”
“Stop, I’m still processing your mom being attacked. But, yes, I called the police, they got here, but she wasn’t anywhere around, so they said that they couldn’t do anything. I could file that she violated the injunction and then it would be up to the court but all they could do was just take a report.”
“For fuck’s sake, Jackson, that crazy bitch is going around hurting my family. Did you ever consider, even for a second, what kind of damage an unstable person like her could do?” I flung up my hand in angry exasperation and turned to leave. When he tried to grab my elbow to stop me, I stepped out of his reach.
“Kat, please.”
“No, I don’t feel safe around you as long as she is out of control. I’m shocked that you aren’t more aggressive with Julien’s welfare.” I took several more steps toward my bike.
“Bullshit, Julien is the most important thing to me.”
“Not my concern.” I heard whatever he said, but I continued walking, not looking back, totally ignoring him.
I pulled my bike into the garage and let out a sigh of relief, not because I had ended it with Jackson, but because a little piece of stress had been lifted. Plus, I was off tomorrow and could relax.
I slept in, which I needed. I was shocked to see that it was after eleven when I woke. Dragging my ass from bed, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen with one thing on my mind, coffee. Oh, and attempting to forget all of the shit that had been tossed at my feet over the last two weeks. Grabbing my phone, I sent a group text.
Me: I need to talk. Life is getting FUBAR.
Piper: Meet at Sixes for lunch?
Sadie: I’ll be there.
Bridget: See you then.
Harley: We’ve got you. See you around noon.
With a mug of coffee in one hand, I headed back to my room and got dressed.
When life was FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition—I needed one thing, alcohol, and Sixes definitely delivered on that. I walked in and smiled that the place was relatively empty. Although they were open for lunch, night was their busiest time.
“What is going on?” Piper asked as she rounded me and headed for our corner table.
I dropped my phone and keys onto the table and pulled out a chair. “You all know about my bike with the food, right?”
They all nodded.
“Someone writing ‘whore’ on my driveway?”
“And we know about Galena’s car,” Sadie added.
“Something else happen?” Sadie asked.
“My mom and Kayson’s mom were out yesterday. Oh my god.” I shoved my hands through my hair. “Let’s get drinks first.”
“Danny, can we get a few beers?” Bridget hollered.
“Coming right up.”
“Now go on,” Bridget ordered.
“Jackson’s ex verbally assaulted my mom and Kayson’s. She ran into my mom and knocked her down. Told my mom that I was having an affair with her husband and that they were expecting a child. I know she’s the one who wrote whore on my driveway. And she’s probably who trashed Galena’s car.”
“Are you positive?” Harley asked. “I say we find her and leave her for dead.”
“Anyone have matches?” Piper asked.
“No why?” I asked, wondering what was up with Piper’s weird question.
“Cause, I’ll light the bitch’s hair and you all start singing, ‘This Girl Is on Fire.’”
“Hey, y’all, don’t forget I have huge ovens,” Vivian said as she edged up to our table.
“Perfect, better to hide the evidence.” Harley laughed.
“I don’t know, I
kind of hate the taste of fried assholes on my food,” Piper added.
“Oh-kay, let me just grab y’all a variety of food.” Vivian walked off. Harley was still laughing.
“I’m not sure if I’m having a pity party or feeling as if I stepped into another dimension. Freaks, all of you.”
“Truly, though, what are you going to do?” Piper asked.
“No clue. I like him, I really do. But I can’t handle this drama.”
“But it’s not like he’s creating it,” Sadie defended.
“I know. But . . . I have four sisters, do you all get that? They come with their own drama. I was raised around their drama, which means I have a zero-drama threshold. I can’t handle it. It’s a lot for me, especially when my family is affected. You should have seen my mother today—I’ve never seen her so shaken. Hell, I thought Kayson was going to go on a witch hunt, and Christine wasn’t the one pushed down or screamed at.” I dropped my forehead onto the table. “Plus, there is an innocent kid involved, and he’s kind of cool.” There was a rustling noise, and a few whispers, but I didn’t have to look up to know what was going on. “Y’all can stop now. Fine, that kid is sort of okay, but he’s the first. No, that doesn’t mean I want kids, and I definitely don’t want a guy who comes with his own drama.”
“Well, I think you need to do what is best for you. We’ve got your back, whatever you decide,” Bridget offered.
“Yeah, we’re here for you,” Sadie agreed.
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“Soooo, exactly what do you need?” Harley asked, and I snorted. It was just like them not to give me a chance to breathe before they were all in my face.
Jackson
“What part of my not calling you, my telling you not to call me again, and my moving sixteen hours away tells you that we belong together?” I sat behind my office desk, scanning the lobby to see if anything else was going on.
“Why are you being like this? I just came in to open a bank account.” Tammy’s eyes twinkled and her eyelashes beat a million miles a minute.
“You are not welcome here. Please leave.”
“Oh, stop, Jackson. You are just trying to punish me and make me chase after you even harder.”
“Tammy, please leave.” I raised one hand and signaled for security.
“Ugh, I’m tired of the way you are acting, but don’t worry, I will fix your mess.” Tammy stood and moved closer to my office door, and a restless, edgy feeling crawled over me. “Thank god I have Caleb, he listens to me, he lets me cry. He says that I’m too good for you. He has no clue why I want you, but I do. I said vows, dammit, and I’m committed to holding true to those.”
She stepped out, and I cringed as she stood in the center of the lobby and yelled back to me, “This is crazy. You are putting your marriage on the line for some slut. At least Caleb thinks she’s hot.” Tammy tried to storm out, but my security officer stopped her and pulled her aside.
I made a note to get a copy of the video for Kat and the investigator and waited for Mac to head my way.
“She’s a real work of art. You aren’t married, are you?” Mac asked as he folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against my door.
“I’ve been divorced for over two years. There is a protection order in place to keep her away from Julien, but I’m starting to think I need to add my name to it.”
“That might be a smart idea,” Mac agreed.
“Would you mind making me two copies of the security footage, starting from the moment she walked in until she left, including audio, please?”
“Yep, I’ll pull those now and have Paul come out and stand guard.”
“Thanks for ensuring she left.”
Mac gave me a chin nod and was gone. Since I met him two weeks ago, I had learned that he was a man of few words.
I looked up and scanned the lobby from behind my desk; we were pretty empty today, so I continued working in my office. Something wasn’t sitting right, and I couldn’t quite figure out what in the hell kind of mess Tammy thought she was going to fix for me.
Finally deciding that I needed to be proactive, I pulled the contact info for Seven, yes, that was the name we had for him. He was the bank’s go-to guy, we had used him in New Orleans as well. I had no clue where he lived and didn’t need to know where he lived. We just needed his services, which were best described as ‘professional hacker.’ Like many banks, security companies, software sites, as well as the CIA, every year they attend the International Hacker event. People compete in challenges trying to break into, reprogram, and access every type of system and file, the best of the best. Then companies and organizations would offer them jobs. It was their way of getting to be a legal hacker, it’s how we discovered Seven a few years ago.
I checked the front lobby one more time before dialing him.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Jackson from Southern City Bank.”
“What can I do you for?”
“I need you to do something personal for me.”
“Go ahead.”
“I need you to access a phone number.”
“Easy, what am I looking for?”
“Call history and text history, I need to know who she is contacting and if any of it involves me, my son Julien, or my girlfriend Kat, she is a deputy. I have a feeling they aren’t safe.”
“This is your ex-wife, I’m presuming?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“It’s my job to know things. I just need the number, and I should be able to get back to you later today.”
I repeated the number Tammy had called me from the one and only time she had forgotten to block her number. “Thanks, Seven,” I said before disconnecting.
I put my phone away and I looked up Tammy Boudreaux in our system.
But there was nothing, which wasn’t a surprise. She came here for an account, right? Something in my soul said wrong.
I tried again and typed Tammy Whitaker, her maiden name, still nothing.
Finally, I opened a query page and entered as much info as I could about her, which was little more than her name and phone number, and hit enter.
The linear loading signal reached the end, and BAM, there she was, but not as Tammy, she was listed as Julien Boudreaux. What the hell? I printed the file so I had a hard copy, then scanned all the transactions, looking for unusual activity. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but the fact that she transferred five thousand dollars out of her account to a bank account in our system a few days ago threw up a red flag. I kept scrolling and found a second transaction for the same amount, sent the same way, a week prior.
Pulling up another screen, I entered the transaction information, hit enter, and then checked the lobby to make sure everything was still on the up and up.
The new screen came up, and I froze. The money was transferred to an account owned by Caleb Eric Whitaker, and he had withdrawn the money from a different Orlando branch office on the same day it was deposited. I clicked another screen and studied the photo of him. Anytime someone came in to deposit or withdraw a suspicious amount of money, we added the photo from the surveillance to their account and then filed a suspicious activity report. I flipped through the photos from both times Caleb had withdrawn money. This was Tammy’s brother, whom I had never met, but he looked enough like her that I had little doubt.
I opened my cell and found a number that I had recently added since moving next door. I called and when they answered, I relayed my instructions then disconnected. I turned off my computer, grabbed my stuff, and headed to find my assistant manager, who I had told that I had an emergency and needed to head home.
Surfing through traffic along Kirkman Road, my mind not where it should be…on the road, I thought of all the possibilities, all of the signs, what everything means. I had just started to breathe a little easier when I neared my home and saw Mindy’s car in front.
I opened my front door, and Mindy smirked. “Hey, dude, did you
forget that I pick Julien up on Mondays?”
“You didn’t?” I was much calmer than I thought I would be, maybe because I had already made the phone call.
“No, I got to his preschool and they told me he was picked up around two by his parent.”
I rolled my shoulders. My phone rang, and I answered.
“Darling, I told you that I would fix everything, didn’t I? I already have Julien, and we’re waiting for you. I’ll text you where to meet us. Oh, and don’t worry about your little tramp.”
“Stay here,” I ordered Mindy.
I needed to get Kat. I knew that she was off today, I just prayed that I wasn’t too late. I raced to my car and drove to her house, we needed to go. Kat was in jeans and a T-shirt. “Hey, long time no see.” She smiled as she neared me, and we met as I rounded my car.
A movement caught my attention. I looked over and with all of my being, I knew that was Caleb. His profile had not been as vivid as real life but still, I knew it was him.
I returned my attention to Kat; a small part of me was relieved to see that she was safe, but a bigger part of me was sick over what I was about to do to her.
“Kat”—I snagged her elbow, convinced that the only reason she didn’t kick my ass was because I’d taken her off guard—“I need you to come with me. Please.”
“Jackson, I really have no interest in going anywhere with you. I was just being nice.” She tried to wiggle out of my grasp, but I held tight. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of me.”
“Kat, shut up and come on.” I scanned the area, and my eyes locked on Caleb standing at the corner. “I don’t have time to explain. Get the fuck in my car.” I opened the rear passenger door.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
I shoved one hand on top of her head and pushed her in.
But I heard the thud and felt her body go lax a second before she collapsed in my arms.
Kat
My head was killing me, and even the light that cut through my eyelids was too bright. I slowly took in that my hands and feet were tied, not tight, I could escape if I worked at it, and there was the soft sound of a road passing under tires, the sharp smell of upholstery mixed with the faded scent of men’s cologne. If I had to take a guess, I would say I was in a car, probably sprawled across the back seat instead of stuffed in a trunk. I just barely managed to crack my eyelids open enough to see that the passenger seat was empty, but I couldn’t tilt my face enough to see who was driving.
Kat, Knight Watch (Iron Orchids Book 11) Page 10
