Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  “Good job, chef.” I raised my glass to Julian and leaned back against the chair, patting my belly. “I pigged out.”

  “That’s the baby,” Six murmured, he was looking at me gently, the way I loved—the way I didn’t think I’d ever get used to.

  “The food baby,” I amended.

  He shook his head and looked down. “The human one.”

  “Yours.”

  He looked at me and a small smile curved his lips. I tried to imagine him as a dad, those muscular arms holding something so small, something that was half me. There was no doubt to me that he’d be better for our baby than I ever could, a fact that made me…happy. It surprised me.

  But then his eyes grew serious again. “Lighten up, Six,” I said at a low volume.

  “This isn’t a game, Mira,” Six said, his voice even. “This isn’t like before.” He opened his mouth like he was going to continue but stopped when he realized we had an audience.

  Andra spoke up. “Why don’t I just come out of hiding?”

  Six whipped his head toward her. “Are you joking?”

  She shook her head and straightened her back. “I’ll just tell everyone what happened.” There was silence at the table. “He raped me.” The silence that echoed off her words was incredible. I could see Six tense up in my periphery, but my eyes were on Andra. She was so strong when she said it. I could see her refusal to be a victim, but still acknowledge that she’d been assaulted.

  “Do you think that’s how it works, Andra?” Six asked sarcastically.

  She shrugged. “I’ll come out. I’ll say I ran away.”

  “That’s not going to get you justice. Nor will it get justice for your mom.”

  “But if I say he raped me—”

  “They’ll just believe you?” Six asked incredulously. “Do you think that any woman who says she was raped automatically gets justice?” Six laughed, without humor.

  I itched my wrists, a reluctant observer of this sparring match. I could feel my scars raised up, and my nails traced them under my sweatshirt.

  Six continued, “That’s not how it works, Andra. You can’t claim rape and get justice. If that was the case, our prisons would be overflowing.” He shook his head and looked down at his hands, his jaw clenching.

  “I want to help,” she insisted.

  Six leaned forward across the table, facing her. “You want to help? Stay the fuck inside this house.” He stood up and took his plate into the kitchen, leaving the three of us at the table.

  The silence was once again deafening. I knew better than to chase Six down then. It was obvious that he loved Andra like a sister, but he’d been kind of a dick to her. Not that he was wrong, but he hadn’t even allowed room for her to speak.

  Minutes later, Six returned with a case and pulled out some electronics, laying them out on the table.

  “What’s that?” Andra asked.

  Six braced his fists on the table and looked up at her. “Mira’s going to wear an earpiece and mouthpiece while she’s in the apartment. You’re going to listen in and help her if she needs to know where to go.” He glanced at me and nodded. “Mira will need your guidance once she’s inside the apartment, as far as where to look and passwords and everything else.”

  This was part of the plan I wasn’t aware of. Six didn’t need me to be on the phone with Andra during this, but maybe this was his way of including her so she didn’t feel so helpless.

  “Okay. How will I listen in?”

  Six reached down and picked up a small, no-frills cell phone. “Disposable phone. Mira will call you once she’s inside the apartment. I’ll be waiting outside, like I did with you. We’ll need to make this quick, because Hawthorne has been under extra scrutiny lately. He hardly leaves the apartment.”

  “When are you breaking in?”

  “Tomorrow,” Six answered.

  “When do you fly back?”

  “Tomorrow night. Red-eye.”

  Andra nodded and I heaved a deep sigh. It was going to be a big day, and I wanted a nap before our flight.

  Six and I flew to Indiana and checked into a hotel. “Two days,” Six told the clerk. He paid with a credit card that wasn’t in his name—an alias, perhaps—and ushered us into our room.

  “Two nights?”

  “Just in case. We’re flying back tomorrow, but we need to leave our stuff here after normal check out tomorrow.” He unzipped his coat and slung it over the back of the chair. Pulling at the collar of his t-shirt, he paced the room. He was restless.

  “Want to shower?” I asked, stripping off my clothes to do so myself. “It’s big enough for us both,” I told him after peeking into the linoleum-covered bathroom.

  “Sure,” he said with a grunt and removed his pants, his shirt, his socks and briefs. I pushed him under the spray first before following behind him, wrapping myself around him from behind as he faced the showerhead.

  He braced his hand on the tiles and just let the water rain over his back so that it soaked my hair. It was the most intimate we’d been in a while, and it wasn’t even sexual. He needed that hot water to settle his muscles in a way he hadn’t been able to for so long. He was nervous, I could tell, but I didn’t know how to ask in such a way that he’d actually tell me what was making him nervous.

  “Water feels good,” I said, settling on that as my segue.

  He hummed in agreement but said nothing else.

  I nuzzled against his warm back, grateful for the good water pressure of the shower head.

  “Are you cold?” he finally asked, as if he just realized I was still here.

  Before I could tell him no, he turned so that I was under the spray and his front was to my back. He ripped the bar of soap out of the plastic and put it under the water so it would get sudsy. “Thank you,” he said as he dragged the soap over my breasts.

  “For what?” I leaned back, my head barely grazing the top of his shoulder. He had one arm wrapped under my breasts and the other was washing me with the soap.

  “You didn’t have to do this. I never intended to include you on any of my jobs again.”

  “Yeah, well, this isn’t like any of your other jobs, is it?” I turned my face into his neck and pressed my lips to the skin there. “First of all, Andra’s not paying you.”

  That earned me a chuckle that rumbled against my mouth. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “This means more. And it means more that you’re here with me.”

  “She’s family to you.”

  “She is.” He brushed the soap over my lower belly, back and forth across my skin. “And so are you. It’s strange, now that you’ve met her.” He kissed the skin behind my ear. “But I’m glad you have. And when this shit is over with, we can figure out where to go from here.”

  I knew that this shit was long from being over with. There were things to do still, even after the trip that awaited us the following day. I’d probably go back to San Francisco at some point, alone. And Six would follow…at some point. Maybe not for months from now.

  “It’s been a while since you broke into a house,” Six said.

  I leaned against him. “Not since Brooke’s house.”

  “Sure you’re up for it?”

  “Positive.” I covered his hand on my belly, which he’d been rubbing with the soap back and forth. “Quick in and out, right?”

  “Right,” he said.

  But even after the shower, he was restless until I forced him to lie down.

  “It’s after midnight,” I told him pointedly. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  “We do.” He laid down, and I curled up against his side. “When this is over, all we have to worry about is the baby.”

  It seemed weird to keep calling it a baby. “We need to figure out names, I guess.”

  “You guess?” he asked on a laugh. He turned his head toward me. “I mean, it’s not like we can give it the name Baby can we?”

  I shrugged, but the blankets kind of hindered it. “Do you have b
etter ideas?”

  He was quiet for a minute, looking over my shoulder at the wall behind me. “Ursula.”

  It took me a second before I nearly punched his shoulder. “That’s stupid.”

  “It’s gotta be a good name. A solid name. It’s the first thing we’ll give this baby, beyond life itself.”

  I was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ve never thought much about this. But not some long ass, million syllable name. Not like Mirabela,” I said, drawing out my name.

  “Oh, but that’s my favorite name.” He rolled over so he was on top of me, but supporting himself over my stomach.

  “Well, your name is a number, so your opinion is invalid.”

  “My real name is William, and you know it is.”

  “Then we’ll call him William.”

  Six’s smile left his face. “Him?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if it’s a he. It’s still too early.”

  “William won’t work for a girl.”

  “Williamette, then.”

  “I said a good name, Mira.” He kissed my neck gently and then moved to the other side. “We can come up with better than Williamette, surely.”

  “Maybe when we know what the gender is, we can figure that out?” I asked. I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to verbalize plans out loud. Maybe voicing them would make them happen. I didn’t know, not for sure, but felt the need to say it nonetheless.

  “You’re right.”

  “I think around Christmas, we’ll be able to find out.”

  “Perfect timing,” he said and rolled back to his side with a heavy, sleepy sigh. “I think I’m finally tired.”

  “If just talking about babies makes you tired, imagine what the actual, up-all-night shitting and eating little squirt is going to do.”

  He laughed and dropped his arm over his eyes. “I know.” He let out a long exhale and rolled to the side, kissing the arm I had stretched between us. “I can’t wait.”

  “This is it?” I asked, as Six drove past the apartment complex, a fourplex.

  “Top floor, left one.”

  “Is he home?” I matched the number of the apartment with the corresponding driveway, but that was empty.

  “I don’t think so. But if he is, he’ll be leaving soon. He’s supposed to work tonight.”

  I turned away from the windows and looked at him. “It’s creepy sometimes, the stuff you know.”

  “It’s my job to know.”

  “Right.” I looked up at the windows. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, though.”

  “I know. But we’ll wait until closer to ten. His shift starts at eight, so he’ll be gone before then.”

  “Why not go at nine, if his shift starts at eight?”

  “Because most people will be asleep closer to ten. So you won’t be detected as easily.”

  “If that’s the case, why are you sending me in solo? Why not join me?”

  “I’m the lookout so that he doesn’t surprise us. If we’re both in there and he sneaks in on us, we’ll definitely have to take him out.”

  I looked sideways at Six. “I know you wouldn’t mind doing just that.”

  “I wouldn’t, but that’s not part of the plan. I will have the opportunity again.” His eyes darkened, and a shiver went up my spine. “Right now, we’re just getting information on the shit about Andra’s trust.”

  I saluted him. “Yes, sir.” I turned back to the building, which was getting darker by the minute. “So, now we wait?”

  “Now we wait.”

  When darkness settled over the apartment and no car appeared in the driveway, Six handed me the burner phone. “Call the number in the history when you get inside the apartment. That’ll connect you to Andra.”

  “What kind of lock is it?”

  He handed me a set of picks and tapped the middle one. “I think it’s this one. But if not, try the others.”

  I got out of the car and Six stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful in there, okay? Keep quiet, don’t snoop where you don’t need to snoop. In and out, right?”

  “Right,” I confirmed, and left the car, bound for the apartment.

  Six’s guess had been right and I’d unlocked the door rather easily. Once I was inside the apartment, I dialed the number in the history and Andra answered immediately.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” I said, before remembering the headset I was wearing. “Let me put this pain in the ass headset back on.” I hooked it on my head and adjusted it so it was tight. “Here I am. Can you hear me?”

  “No, I can’t hear you,” she said.

  “Smartass.” I looked around at my surroundings, but my eyes were still adjusting. “Fuck, it’s cold.” I blew on my hands. “I’m in the apartment. What the fuck is that smell?”

  “His cologne.”

  It was worse than anything I’d smelled in a long time, and I’d been in some pretty sketchy places. “He’s a cheap bastard.” I looked around, trying to feel for the hallway wall.

  “His office is the second door down the hallway.”

  “Okay, okay, keep your panties on,” I muttered. “Have you been behaving?”

  “If you’re wondering if I have left the house, the answer is no.”

  “Six will be happy to hear that.” And he would. He wanted her to stay locked down until he was back, especially with a P.I. out and about, sniffing around for information.

  “Happy?” she asked.

  I chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. Six being happy is something mythical, like the Loch Ness monster. He operates on two levels: pissed off or serious. Or seriously pissed off.”

  I pushed open the first door in the hallway and it creaked obnoxiously loud. “Why are you going in my room?” Andra asked.

  I was surprised she knew it was her old room based on the sound alone. “Calm down,” I mumbled. “I’m just looking.”

  I shuffled down the hallway, over crusty patches of carpet and walls that reminded me of my old apartment. I turned the knob of the second door in the hallway. “It's locked.”

  “That door is never locked.” She paused. “That knob doesn’t even have a lock.”

  “Well it does now, Andra.” I shoved against it, to see if my body weight could open it, but my struggle was in vain. “Well, that's annoying. Do you know where he'd keep a key?”

  “Did you check around the frame? At the top?”

  “I'm too short.”

  “Jump,” she said, like it was so easy.

  “I have an avocado on my bladder. If I jump, I'll piss myself.”

  “Can't you just pick the lock?”

  “No shit, but a key would be faster and leave fewer marks.”

  “Check the drawer in the kitchen, to the left of the fridge. There might be a key there.”

  I moved back down the hallway, over the crusty carpet and into the sticky-floored kitchen. The drawer left of the fridge was so full, I expected it to fall apart at the seams when I pulled it open. “There’s only a dozen keys here,” I told Andra.

  “Look for a new, shiny one. Hawthorne has had keys in that drawer for years.”

  There were only three that didn’t look borderline antique. “Okay, I have three keys. Let’s see if one of them fits.” But a moment later, I was dropping them to the ground. “None of these are working. I need to pick it.” I opened my bag and began digging through it for the kit Six had given me. “I need to put the pen light in my mouth, so don’t ask me anything while I try to pick this bitch.” She said nothing while I worked. I tried all five picks, but they mocked me by how ineffective they were. “This isn’t working. I’ll need to use a credit card.” Should’ve done that from the start, I realized, kicking myself.

  “You can use a credit card?”

  “Yeah. I just forgot I had one on me.” A second after jabbing the credit card between the door and its frame, the door creaked open. “There.”

  Andra said, “When I was there earlier this summer, the
re were papers strewn across the desk.”

  “There’s just boxes now, on either side of the computer.” A tower of them, in fact.

  “Boxes? Is he moving?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you should ask him, Andra.”

  She ignored my sarcasm. “What’s in the boxes?”

  “Looks like junk. Books,” I answered. I took down one of the boxes and started digging through it. My hand closed over something leather-bound and wrapped. “Oh, what’s this?”

  After a pause Andra asked, “What?”

  “Left you in suspense, didn’t I?”

  “What is it, Mira?” Andra asked, anxiousness present in her voice.

  “Hold on.” I shined my pen light over the open book and read through the handwriting. Paragraph after paragraph was about William, a boy she was in love with. My heart plummeted into my stomach and I swallowed. “Was your mom a writer?”

  “She did freelance projects here and there.”

  “Would you recognize her handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  I unzipped my bag. “I’m keeping these.”

  “What are they?” she asked.

  “Journals.”

  “Whose?”

  “Judging by the content, I’d guess they were your mom’s.” I didn’t want to give her the short version any more than I wanted to give her the long version. I didn’t want to read about Lydia, a woman who loved Six before I did. The woman he loved before me.

  “What do you mean, ‘judging by the content’?”

  “What I saw, it looked like things Lydia would say.”

  “What did it say?”

  I worked on keeping my voice calm, not annoyed. “Stuff, Andra. I packed them up, you’ll see them. Chill your pits.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Papers and shit.” Stacks and stacks. I wished Six was with me so he could tell me what it was I was looking for. I shoved things into the backpack without really looking at them aside from whether or not Andra’s mom’s name was on them. The deeper I dug into the office, the more the guy’s scent assaulted my nostrils. “That cat piss cologne smell is everywhere,” I said, and coughed. “There’s a monster fuck ton of paperwork here and I haven’t even gotten on the computer yet.”