by Karen Renee
It was then I realized what had happened, and my rant came back to me.
My hands went to my hips and I said, “Yes. I was. And for good reason, mister. I cannot…we cannot... This can’t be,” I finally spit out, and continued, “We were once great. But there’s no turning back time. It’s done. I appreciate you staying here last night, but someone else needs to be on guard for me tonight.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Vamp looked like he wanted to smile, but held it in check. He stepped back from me, shrugged, and then said, “Can’t make any promises, babe. Club business comes first. You know that.”
I pursed my lips and then stalked past him to put on my shoes. I wasn’t certain of the time, but I was pretty sure I needed to get moving if I wanted to avoid traffic headaches.
*** ***
It was just after ten-thirty when my phone rang. According to the front desk receptionist, there was a new customer who specifically wanted to meet with me. That was odd, but it was not entirely unheard-of for someone to come into headquarters to discuss a loan, or for them to have a specific loan officer they wanted to deal with.
I went out to the lobby and found a young blonde-haired woman waiting for me. She was dressed in a grey pantsuit and dove-grey pumps. She was carrying a large Michael Kors handbag. We introduced ourselves to one another, and I found out her name was Emily Yates. I led her to a conference room.
Emily sat down at the table in the small meeting room, and promptly pulled a picture out of her large handbag. I knew something was wrong immediately. Photographs were not necessary in loan applications unless the individual with the pictures was an appraiser, and these days, those pictures were digital and were emailed directly to underwriting. The picture Emily placed on the table was fuzzy and showed me talking to Mark Stillman on the side of Riverside Avenue near my SUV. His hand was on my upper arm; I had not yet yanked it away. My legs suddenly felt weak, so I quickly pulled a chair out from the table and sat down.
Emily Yates wasted no time with my reaction. “I’ve been following my brother-in-law off and on for a few weeks. I couldn’t do it on Saturday, so a friend of mine was following him for me. She says the asshole hit you, stomped on your hand, and kicked you repeatedly in the ribs. She called 9-1-1 instead of getting a picture of Mark beating you.”
My temper was rising to the boiling point. Was I supposed to thank this woman for having a friend follow her cheating brother-in-law? Something about her tone and her contrived reason for meeting with me rubbed me the wrong way. Nevertheless, with Mark’s threats to my livelihood, I couldn’t fly off the handle with someone who was supposed to be a new customer.
“I’m sorry, but I thought you were here for a loan?”
She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, “I’m here to find out why my asshole brother-in-law decided to beat a loan officer outside a home he and my very-pregnant sister had toured just an hour or so prior. Can you help me out with that?”
That was new. She was looking for a co-conspirator against the cheater.
“Is your sister even going to believe any of this?”
“Depends on what ‘any of this’ might be. Clearly, someone broke your hand, and your eye looks God-awful.”
“Gee, thanks for that,” I said, and just barely kept my eyes from rolling at her.
She sighed, “What I’m getting at is that clearly my friend didn’t lie, but we have no idea what was said to precipitate such brutality. Even though Jenny denies it every time I ask, I can’t help but suspect that, with four miscarriages, perhaps Mark has beaten her. Truly, if he’ll attack a random woman, then what can my sister and future niece expect? They deserve better.”
Blowing out a sigh, I said, “Yes, your brother-in-law attacked me. I didn’t press charges because he’s threatened to come after my job.”
Her light-hued eyebrows crinkled. “How could he possibly?”
There was no help for it. I was going to have to give her the whole story, well, an abbreviated version. Hopefully, I wouldn’t feel too much shame.
“I met him three weeks ago. He picked me up at Ragtime. He had no ring on, and no obvious indentation of a missing ring.”
“He stopped wearing it nearly eight months ago,” she said, with a slight tip of her chin.
“Yeah, well. I had been planning to end it with him after our third date. When your sister came into the house followed by him, I was stunned. I asked if they were looking for more room with a little one on the way and if it was her first pregnancy. She told me it was her fifth time being pregnant, but first time carrying to term, and I couldn’t bring myself tell her. Not to mention, I’ve found that women never believe me. Cheaters put on the dramatic denial, and start dissecting words.”
Tapping the picture with my left index finger I said, “In this picture, I was telling him we were done. Then he punched me, and said we weren’t done and if I denied him sex then he would have my job.”
“So, does Mark stand a chance of getting you fired?”
I shrugged, “Not sure. Filled my boss in further last night. She’s with HR now.”
I had brought my legal pad down with me for the meeting, and Emily took it from me. She grabbed a pen from the container on the table, and jotted down her name and numbers.
She stood and moved toward the door, “Please call me, if you’re in the clear. I’d like to have you around when Susan and I tell Jenny about all this, if that’s possible.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but I didn’t commit one way or the other.
After my bait-and-switch meeting with Emily Yates, I could not wait to sit for an hour with Reggie. I texted him when I was back at my desk and informed him that we had to eat lunch somewhere good. It was already ten minutes after eleven. If we were going any place decent, we would both need to get rolling to beat the lunch crowds. Luckily, he texted back and suggested Piper’s on the River, a small local steakhouse that had recently opened just two miles from my office.
Reggie and I often had lunch together on Mondays after a weekend open house. We did that in an effort to cross-compare our leads from the open house. That way, if someone signed up for Reggie’s services, but not mine, and they didn’t indicate having other financing in place, I could follow up. The same held true for Reggie, sometimes open houses would have multiple customers wandering about, and he could determine if someone didn’t sign his guest list. Initially, we had done it immediately after the open house over dinner and cocktails, but being such good friends, it always devolved into too much to drink. Lunch during the week forced us to focus. Plus, my CPA told me I could use the business lunch as a personal tax deduction. With my injuries and other craziness at work, Reggie and I had decided to do lunch Tuesday instead of Monday this week.
I still had no idea how Vamp got so much information about Stillman in only about ninety minutes while we were at Dick’s Wings last night, but I was definitely grateful I had run into the Riot MC boys that night. God knew, I had absolutely no idea what I would have done confronting Mark on my own Monday night.
I pulled into the parking lot for Piper’s and noticed that Reggie’s car was already there. I grabbed my purse, legal pad, and day-planner, which held two copies of my leads. When I got out of the car, I felt like I was being watched. I turned and scanned the parking lot. On the far side of the lot, near the entrance to the plaza, I noticed a man on a motorcycle with a navy-blue bandana tied on top of his head in a doo-rag style. He was wearing dark aviator sunglasses. When I kept looking at him, he whipped the glasses off, and I realized it was Vamp. I exhaled with relief and he gave me a two-finger salute in greeting. A warm feeling curled in my stomach, but I ignored it. Shaking my head, I made my way up the stairs to the restaurant.
Piper’s was quite a gem of a restaurant. That was, in part, because it overlooked the Ortega River and in part because not many people had discovered the tucked-away steakhouse, which meant Reggie and I had plenty of privacy in our booth. I put my legal pad down and pulled my phone
from my purse as Reggie stirred his unsweetened tea, to which he had just added three packets of artificial sweetener.
I sighed at him, “I don’t know why you bother. If more than two packets are needed, you really ought to just suck it up and drink sweet tea.”
Reggie shrugged a shoulder at me, “To each their own, dear. Now, why did we have to go somewhere ‘good’?”
I leaned back and, with big eyes, looked up to the ceiling slightly as I did so. “Where do I even begin? Christ.”
Swallowing a sip of tea, Reggie prompted, “The beginning, I’d say.”
“Well, last night I ran into Vamp and a bunch of his Riot MC brothers at Dick’s Wings.”
“Ok, that doesn’t sound like it requires a steakhouse lunch.”
“Did you block out my heartache from six years ago, Reg? That alone calls for a stiff drink,” I told him, as I looked for a server.
“If you say so. Go on, then.”
“Well, being bikers and all, they homed in on the fact that a woman would never manage to hurt me like this,” I said as I lifted my cast up and down in front of my face.
Reggie nodded and then rolled a hand to encourage more talking.
“So, then, they insisted that someone had to follow me home to make sure Stillman wasn’t there.”
His head tilted marginally to one side and then the other. “That sounds like decent advice, actually. Tucker and I should have thought of that.”
A waitress finally appeared and I ordered my beverage and my lunch at the same time. Obviously, Reggie only had to order his lunch. Once she left, I continued my tale.
“So, I told Cal, if someone had to follow me home, it couldn’t be Vamp.”
“But why not?” Reggie asked, with an almost-innocent tone of voice.
“Why not? Who are you and what did you do with my boy Reg? Because there’s too much damn history there. But, anyway, they told me Blood was following me, but I didn’t see him get in the car they said would be following because I was parked on the opposite side of the building. When we both got to my house, it was actually Vamp behind the wheel. He came into my house, and I disabled my alarm and told him all was good and he could leave. That was when Stillman rang the doorbell and insisted he was going to talk to me.”
Reggie’s eyes bulged at that piece of information. When I reiterated Vamp’s threats to Stillman, Reggie’s expression turned to one of being impressed.
“Sounds like he had the situation well in hand for you, honey.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I know, but I can’t fathom how he got such detailed information about his pregnant wife and shit. I mean her sister’s name and her OB/GYN’s name, that’s nuts. His answer when I asked was just a cryptic, ‘I have my ways.’ What the hell is that?”
Reggie hung his head slightly and examined his tea. He raised his head and said, “I might have helped with the sister and OB/GYN.”
“Uh, Reg, I could swear I just heard you say you might have helped with the sister and OB/GYN. How would you know that shit?”
With a sigh, Reggie said, “Vamp called me last night immediately after he saw you. He was possibly more irate than Tucker, though that is debatable. He knew you and I had been tight, he wanted to know if I knew about your attack. Your former beau can be quite pushy when he wants something.”
The server arrived with my Coke, and after she left, I stated, “Still doesn’t tell me how you knew that stuff.”
His chin tilted down and Reggie looked at me as if I should know better.
“I am a top-notch realtor, Frankie. I saw that ‘whoa’ pregnant wife and turned on the charm. Before they made their way to the kitchen where you were, she and I must have chatted for a good twenty minutes. She’s had four miscarriages, and she’s very excited about carrying this baby so long. Women love talking about themselves, and pregnant women love to talk about anyone and anything that has to do with their impending childbirth. When I inquired about her doctor and if it was North Florida OB, she immediately volunteered the info about her doctor. I asked if she was going to have help for the first few months, and she mentioned her sister Emily. I got the gift of gab, you know that, sweetheart.”
That answered part of Vamp’s ‘ways,’ but I still had no idea how he knew where Stillman worked. I decided to let that lie for the time being.
“Well, here’s the other reason we needed to go somewhere good for lunch. This morning, I had the displeasure of meeting Emily Yates.”
Reggie started to look at me as if he shouldn’t know who that is, but then I saw the wheels turning behind his eyes, “You mean, the sister?”
I nodded.
Reggie’s eyebrows furrowed, “But, how?”
“Apparently, she had a friend following her brother-in-law on Saturday afternoon. She was watching and took a fuzzy picture of Stillman confronting me. She called 911 on my behalf but didn’t get a photo of the attack. I suppose I owe this friend a ‘thank you’, though Emily seemed miffed that she didn’t get a shot of the beating.”
Our server and a food runner arrived at our table and placed our plates in front of us. After we said we had everything we needed, Reggie and I dug into our food. My steak was a filet and the smell was a mouth-watering blend of seared meat, fresh-cracked black pepper, and possibly beer in which the steak had marinated. I cut into it clumsily, with my right hand holding the fork while my left did the cutting. My first bite was succulent and absolutely hit the spot.
Reggie had opted for a grilled chicken lunch, and after swallowing a forkful of mashed potatoes, he said, “So, why’s she got friends following her jerk-off brother-in-law?”
“She suspects he might be the reason for the miscarriages, plus, she’s genuinely concerned for the safety of her sister. As she mentioned, if he can beat a loan officer he has no real ties to, then what’s to say he won’t do the same to his wife?”
Reggie slid two sheets of paper towards me, and I fished out the two photocopies of my listings and laid one copy on his side of the table. As we ate, both of us got down to the business of cross-referencing our lists. By the time that was done, both of us were finished with our lunches.
Reggie shot me a look and said, “So, Vamp being at your house last night and the impromptu visit from Emily are the only things that necessitated a visit to a steakhouse for lunch rather than, say, European Street. You sure there isn’t something else going on?”
He knew me all too well.
There was no burying the kisses exchanged this morning, not from Reggie. I explained the circumstances leading up to being kissed by Vamp, how he was being terribly bossy, and I wasn’t going to run around in fear of Mark Stillman. After I mentioned that my adamancy to drive myself resulted in the second kiss from Vamp, Reggie just looked at me with a blank face. He said nothing and I felt obligated to fill the silence.
“I don’t know what the hell came over me! I managed to be totally unresponsive to his first kiss, but the second one I just snapped.”
Reggie sighed. I could see from his facial expression that he was debating with himself.
Finally he said, “I do wish T. were here.”
“Why? Tucker doesn’t even know Vamp.”
Reggie’s left eyebrow lifted slightly and then returned to its usual position, “No, but he knows you and he surely knows the look you get thinking about six years ago. He said to me, if you ever got in touch with Vamp again, there’d be fireworks. He was spot-on.”
Tucker was not spot-on, but I didn’t have the mental energy to argue with Reggie. He was a master. How he never made a debate team, I’d never know.
“Well, Tucker isn’t here. And I’ve got to put this morning out of my mind. Especially since he had like way too much info on Stillman and his wife.”
“I already told you how he knew about the wife. It can’t be that hard to search Facebook or LinkedIn to find out where the jerk-off works. I don’t know why you’d want to put this morning out of your mind. It sounds like you enjoyed Vamp kissi
ng you,” Reggie said, with a sly smile on his face.
“I have to use the bathroom. Let our server know we need our checks,” I said, putting my legal pad on the table as I scooted out of the booth.
I returned from the bathroom to see our checks on the table. I said to Reggie, “While I was washing my hands, I realized you’re not much help to me on this.”
Reggie and I both had paid cash. As he placed his cloth napkin on the table he said, “I’m not supposed to be, girlie. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m pulling for a reconciliation.”
We exited the restaurant together, and I saw Vamp was still sitting astride his bike at the farthest edge of the parking lot. I sighed and shook my head at the same time. Reggie looked at me, and then followed my gaze.
He chuckled, “Oh, yes. Reconciliation would be just what the doctor ordered.”
CHAPTER 5
I was sitting in a very high-walled cubicle inside the 103rd Street branch. It was shortly after six o’clock. I was willing the time to pass faster so I could get home, but some customers only had time to talk about loans in the evening. Some of my best clients were end-of-the-day walk-ins at a branch. I heard the click and clack of high heels approaching the front desk. The customer service receptionist asked if she could help the woman and I heard her ask for me by name.
I couldn’t believe that there was yet another woman who specifically wanted to meet with me regarding a loan. Sure as hell, not in the same day. I walked to the entryway to my cubicle and saw Mallory, Cal’s girlfriend, standing at the front desk. I smiled at her, but I was perplexed as to why she would be seeking me out.
“Can I help you?” I asked as Mallory came to my cubicle.
She smiled, “I think you can. Is this a bad time?”
With a shake of my head, I said, “Not at all. Have a seat.”
Mallory sat down in a client chair, and leaned toward me, “Sorry, but Vamp told Cal you were going to be at this branch. I thought I’d see if you wanted to get a drink with me and Jackie, she’s Volt’s old lady. And I think my best friend, Natasha is coming, too, but I have to pick her up.”
