by Kira Barker
I really didn’t like where this was going. With Brigitte, I could kind of see why she’d jump to conclusions and try to intervene—after all, she’d lose business if she lost me as her asset—but with Adam it made no sense at all.
“Do you want to see the wad of cash I got for it? Or do you need my itinerary? Bed, shower, shower stall, bed, floor—kneeling and on my back—bed again. Am I boring you already, or do you want more details?”
Adam looked actually taken aback, but then my voice had come out rather sharp.
“You sound damn defensive for this just being a regular if somewhat extended job,” he pointed out.
“Everyone’s a critic nowadays! What happened to letting whores be whores?” I chuffed, throwing my hands up. Maybe a little overdramatic, but I really didn’t like that he wanted to continue our little spat from the hallway last week.
“I’m not criticizing you. I’m just concerned.”
“Concerned? About what? All assets are still in prime working condition.” Or were again, after that little intermezzo.
“Sheesh, I was just a little worried, calm down,” Adam tried to placate me, but now there was an edge to his tone, too. “But you have to admit, this is getting strange. You never ever entertain your clients at home, and suddenly our hallway looks like a brothel.”
Again I wondered just how well the soundproofing in my apartment was still holding up, but I thought I remembered that his home had been crawling with suits back when Ray had gotten a little too enthusiastic, and even Agent Smith with all her disdain directed at my person wouldn’t continue twiddling her thumbs if she had heard me scream my head off.
“Don’t presume you know everything that’s going on with my business,” I replied haughtily, but then tried to offer a pacifying smile. Not that it worked, but still. “If you need to know, it was just one house call. Darren just picked me up. We had a scheduling conflict. My bad.”
The look Adam gave me let me know quite plainly that he didn’t buy my bullshit, but instead of continuing to badger me, he instead leaned back against his couch and regarded me levelly.
“What’s between you and Hunter is just business.” A statement, not a question anymore.
“Yes.”
“So it is coincidence that for the last couple of days you’ve stayed home mostly rather than worked? Or does he pay you now not to fuck other guys anymore?”
And we were clearly back to our verbal bitch-slapping contest. Not even my deadpan stare seemed to bring him to his senses.
“Are you watching me like some creepy stalker or something?”
“Not you, but the elevator,” he told me levelly.
“Seriously? Isn’t that illegal or something?”
His smile was nothing if not sad.
“It’s my handlers who cut into your privacy NSA-style, I’m just piggybacking the feed. They don’t trust me not to circumvent my electronic tag, so they spy on me old-school. As annoying as that is, it can sometimes be quite useful.”
I wondered just how many hours a day he spent staring at what I presumed must be a blank screen that always showed ever the same image, but I was too cranky to dwell on that now.
“How, when, and with whom I conduct my business is none of your concern.”
My voice came out cold enough to make polar bears feel at home, but Adam just kept looking at me with rising frustration.
“True. So fuck me.”
“Excuse me?”
He snorted and reached behind the only throw pillow on his sofa, the presence of which should have made me suspicious from the start. He returned with a wad of cash in his hand and held it out to me.
“Your hourly rate hasn’t gone up too much, right? That should be enough for the usual. You know me, I’m boring, just do what you’ve done, what was it, seven times before? Eight?”
Glaring at him now, I crossed my arms over my chest, making it plain that I wasn’t getting anywhere near that money.
“I’m not desperate enough to take your alimony.”
“I do expect you to work for it,” he pointed out, and laughed. “If nothing has changed, as you claim, then why are you throwing a fit now?”
“I’m not—“ I started, but he interrupted me.
“You’re just acting like the prissy princess who’s too good to open her legs for just any guy anymore.”
“That’s not—“
Again he didn’t let me speak.
“So why are you still sitting there with your clothes on? Here’s your pay, I already told you what I want, so get to it.”
“You can’t be serious—“
“I am,” he assured me.
This time I paused, waiting for him to say something else so he’d maybe let me finish a sentence for once, but he just held out the money to me.
“I am not going to have sex with you if you behave like that,” I finally replied, ignoring the dough in favor of fixing him with my glare. “You’re acting like a petulant child.”
“Well, then we’re at least on the same page,” he offered.
Frowning, I tried to make sense of this, but it was useless.
“Adam…” I started, but even though he didn’t talk right over me, I was at a loss for words. Sighing, I looked away, the first to break the momentary staring contest. I couldn’t help but feel sad at how this conversation was winding down. When I looked up, I found him still gazing at me, with something else but fire in his eyes now. “Where is this coming from? You’ve never been this—“
“Irritating?” he supplied helpfully.
“Demented about fucking me before,” I finished.
He shrugged.
“I’d prefer the term ‘determined,’ but suit yourself.”
I shook my head, then looked at the money again but still refused to take it. Not exactly because of Darren, but I felt that same reluctance overrule my sense of duty that had had me cancel my appointments earlier.
“I know that I make a living selling myself, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like this.”
“How am I treating you?” he wanted to know, fire leaking back into his tone. “How is this different from any other business transaction? You bring your broken stuff over here for me to fix, I ask for a little companionship in return. See, I’ll even pay you, contrary to our usual barter system.”
“I do not want your money,” I said as if I was talking to a small child.
“So you’re quitting.”
Another statement that sounded very final.
Exhaling slowly, I considered, but not even a sip of coffee could help me there.
“The thought has crossed my mind, yes.”
It was the first time that I admitted that to anyone, even myself, and Adam looked appropriately stricken.
“Seriously?”
His wide-eyed gaze almost made me grin—almost.
“Is that concept that hard to grasp? That I don’t want to spend the rest of my life spreading my legs for money until only guys with a granny fetish still want to shove money up my wrinkly ass?”
He blinked, likely disturbed by the mental image my words conjured up.
“And this only just occurred to you?”
I shrugged.
“It’s not like I didn’t know since I hit thirty that the clock’s ticking.”
“Yeah, but—“
“No buts,” I interrupted him, feeling slightly vindicated for earlier. “Even my madam sees it that way.”
“She’s going to kick you out?”
“She offered me her job,” I replied, then laughed at how his brows shot up. “What? I’m a damn fine whore with a good business sense. It makes sense that at the end of my career I’d switch to upper management.”
Adam opened and closed his mouth several times and actually had the grace to look a little chagrined.
“I can see that you have a point. Must be nice to earn your money by telling others to go fuck someone than do it yourself.”
“It has its perks,” I r
eplied, if a little vaguely.
“So this has nothing whatsoever to do with Hunter? You’re just, what, weaning yourself off cock?”
That made me laugh, and I wished my voice was a little less shaky.
“That’s not gonna happen, but I might get a little more selective.”
It was only then that he remembered the cash he was still holding out toward me.
“But I’m not on the shortlist?”
I hesitated, then reached out and pushed his arm away from me.
“If you stop acting like a lunatic, maybe I’ll put you back on. If I decide to go for this. I haven’t, not yet.”
“You’re also avoiding answering my question,” he pointed out.
Damn. Caught.
Sighing, I settled back into the couch and eyed him levelly.
“Let’s just suppose for a moment that my thing with Hunter might get more permanent. What’s it to you? Can’t I find happiness with someone? Don’t I deserve to be loved? Do I have to spend the rest of my life making other people’s fantasies come true without ever thinking about myself?”
Normally, Adam was a sucker for guilt-trips like that, but contrary to my expectations he bounced right back to his asshole rhetoric from before.
“Are you even listening to yourself, Penelope? He’s your fucking john, not your savior, and certainly not your knight in shining armor! If anyone were to cast Darren Hunter for anything, it would be the villain!”
His vehemence made me blink.
“Just because he loves to screw prostitutes—“
“I’m not talking about that! Did you even Google that guy? He’s a damn mob lawyer, that’s what he is!”
As much as I didn’t like Ray Moss, I couldn’t see how he or his wife would associate with anyone criminal. Gossip was one thing, but now that I’d come to know all of them closer, I couldn’t see how that might be true.
“He’s junior partner of a respectable law firm,” I offered, but Adam cut me short again.
“Who make all their money from getting mobsters out of reach of the system! Don’t believe me? Just look up the recent press releases. I’m sure that the newspapers have a separate section dedicated to the stunts he pulls. Or they would if they weren’t all paid off.”
Shaking my head, I put the coffee mug down between us lest I’d throw the contents in his face.
“Your paranoia is showing. Seriously, don’t you think that’s a little farfetched? And Brigitte ran a background check, as you very well know. He came up clean.”
“For messing up girls, maybe,” Adam supplied, his eyes boring into mine. “But speaking of his girls, have you tried contacting any of his previous conquests? Because good luck there. None of them exist anymore.”
As ridiculous as his tirade was sounding, that last part made my stomach clench hard.
“Probably because they used fake names before,” I offered. “A lot of the girls try to keep how they put themselves through college under wraps.”
“But they still leave a trail broad enough that even the most rookie hacker could follow easily. You know how I keep telling you to be careful about what you share on social media?”
“I’m at least as paranoid about that as you are,” I let him know.
“You are, yes, but you’re the exception,” he replied. “Maybe because you’re older or have some common sense, but who does this nowadays? Not that they pose for selfies with their clients or some shit like that, but they all leave a trail. Pictures of their outfits, what they ate, stupid little game updates, quizzes, the odd high-school reunion invitation, random check-ins at restaurants and shops.”
“And your point is? You keep going on about how we all make your handlers’ jobs so much easier nowadays.”
“Exactly. Everyone does it. But none of Hunter’s girls exist online anymore. No trace, nothing. I even used face recognition software to track them down, and the search came up empty.”
I didn’t point out just how creepy that was, and refrained from asking how he got access to the databases. A guy like him probably just needed ten seconds for what I lacked the knowledge to even understand.
“As I said, aliases—“
“Think this through,” he replied. “Your guess is that Hunter in all his generosity made them enough money so they quit and moved on, right?”
I nodded. From how my own bank account was doing right now, that conclusion was obvious.
“So what would they do? Use another name, fake or real, to set up a new life. Maybe marry, have kids, interview for a normal job, right?”
Again I inclined my head.
“How many bonus cards do you carry in your wallet?” he asked next
That threw me completely for a loop.
“I have no idea. Twenty, maybe? Why? What has that to do with anything?”
“How often did you use your name, birthdate, and email for signing up to them? How many of them have pictures of you stored? Just think DMV, bank accounts, your kid’s best friend’s birthday party? With everything we do, we leave trails all over, and with enough time, you could even find James freaking Bond out there because of how often he swipes his card because he pays for his damn Martinis.”
The knot in my stomach grew during his explanation.
“Maybe they moved to Europe?” I offered, knowing already how weak of an excuse that was.
“Even the jet-ski rental in Southeast Asia is checking your credit rating nowadays,” he destroyed my objection. “They are gone. Completely. And not just from the point forward where they disappeared from the stage, but for the last couple of them I couldn’t even track down any electronic records, in one case just a copy of a birth certificate.”
Swallowing became just a little harder, but at the same time I couldn’t help but realize just how ridiculous this entire thing was.
“What you are saying is that someone wiped their records?”
“Someone like me, yeah,” he confirmed. “And this level of thoroughness doesn’t come cheap.” That for someone like Darren money wasn’t the issue he didn’t need to add.
“This still doesn’t make any sense,” I replied, steeling my spine with conviction. “And even if their records are wiped, he probably offered that service to them as a severance package. It’s kind of neat not to be regarded as the whore of Babylon wherever you go, you know?”
“You’re completely missing the point!” Adam suddenly shouted, coming out of his seat to start pacing in front of me. “They are gone, just gone! And no missing persons reports, no anything.”
“Which actually supports the idea of an intentional radar wipe. My mom wouldn’t be filing a report for me if she knew that I was now red-haired Tiffany living on the coast of Maine with my four kids.”
He stared at me as if I was the one who was spouting nonsense instead.
“But then she’d have pictures of you and your brood, right? On her phone, to show the gossipy neighbor.”
“Not if I was paranoid enough to let someone wipe all my data,” I insisted.
“Yeah, you, but not—“
“No buts!” I interjected. “I wasn’t born paranoid myself. Without you and Brigitte, I’d probably also post some ‘hashtag-WhoreMakeup’ selfies every day.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” he cried, coming toward me, but when he saw me shrink back, he stopped in his tracks. “They are gone, all of them. Any woman Darren Hunter ever had a relationship with is gone. Some may have wanted to disappear, and maybe one or two had an accident or used plastic surgery so that the software can’t relate their biometric data to their old identities anymore, but not times twelve. Twelve, Penelope! Twelve women have disappeared without a trace after dating a guy who has thinly veiled ties to the mob. Doesn’t that seem like too much of a coincidence to you?”
The more I thought about it, the less sense it actually made.
“You’re insane, you know that?” I replied, trying not to let my voice quiver. If anything, his behavior upset me, not h
is allegations—or so I kept telling myself.
Getting up, I stepped away from the couch, putting more distance between us. Adam didn’t follow, but his eyes turned pleading.
“Penelope, please, don’t be so fucking naive! I get it, all right? He’s charming, he has money, he can make your dreams come true, but it’s all lies. Nothing is real. You want to quit? Then take your madam’s offer and take her place. But don’t do it for him, do it for yourself! And for God’s sake, don’t see that psycho anymore!”
Shaking my head, I turned to leave, but before I’d made it to the door, Adam’s hand closed around my arm, pulling me to a stop.
“Please—“ he tried again, but I just tore myself free.
“Goodbye, Adam,” I replied, then stepped outside and let the door fall closed between us. It had an oddly final ring to it.
But as I walked over to my own door, my pulse still racing as hard as my thoughts, I couldn’t shake off the fact that, deep down, his words were disturbing me.
Chapter 17
My righteous indignation only carried me so far, in this case over to my apartment and into the kitchen. There I stopped, seething inside, but my rage quickly turned into something clammy and ugly, making me anxious rather than antsy.
When had the world suddenly started to give a shit—and to my face, no less—about my social conduct? Was I wearing a shirt that designated me as a whack-a-mole for their well-meant concern? It wasn’t like I generally didn’t expect people to care about me. There was a reason why I considered both Adam and Brigitte as friends, but things were starting to turn ugly.
But try as I might to decry their concerns—real or fake or misled—as stupidity, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, they held the tiniest crumpets of truth. Darren wasn’t the most likable man I’d ever met, by far not the least demanding client on my list, and I could see where he could easily ruffle feathers with his mere presence. Now, of course, the bull Ray had been spreading around found new fertilizer in my already conflicted mind, and I knew that if I spent the evening mulling over this on my own, I’d be a mess come morning. I couldn’t even curl up in my bed and read or watch TV because Adam now had my craptastic tablet, so all was in favor of going out.
