Played by Him

by M. S. Parker

  The moment hung heavy between us, and then she pushed back from the table and refilled our coffee.

  “Anyway, I didn’t bring you here just to tell you all of this,” she said as she set down the mug again. “I wanted to know if you would like to help.”

  “Help?” I reached for the mug automatically, but I wasn’t really even paying attention to it outside the warmth it would provide my cold fingers.

  “I know you’re working on my case, and you need to take other cases too,” she said. “I’m not going to ask you to risk Adare’s business. I just want to know how you’d feel about me possibly contacting you with some footwork for cases. I used to do all that myself, but with my kids…” She shrugged again.

  I met her steady gaze. “I’d love to help out in any way I can. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Five

  “Work’s been keeping you busy,” Jalen said as we headed into the city. “Does that mean things are going well?”

  “They are.” I twisted my fingers together as I glanced at him, then out the window. “I’ve been looking into Jenna’s siblings, trying to get more information on the three kids I know were adopted out of Cheyenne, and I’ve been doing some legwork on a case against some human traffickers who are bringing people up from South America to work in sweatshops.”

  “Is that safe?” Jalen asked. He reached over and took my hand. “After what happened when you were looking for Meka–”

  “I won’t be talking to anymore high school kids.” I threw him a smile. “Most of what Jenna has me doing is verification of things she’s found online. Paper trails, that sort of thing. I get the impression that her methods aren’t always…legal.”

  “Yeah, based on some conversations I’ve heard, that sounds about right,” he said with a grin. “Jenna’s brilliant.”

  “She is,” I agreed. “I think that’s one of the reasons why I want to make sure I don’t let her down with the personal stuff. She could find her siblings, most of them at least, and help the FBI with their cases, all without me, but she’s putting her family first, trying to keep things as legal as possible.”

  We pulled up in front of The Melting Pot, and neither one of us spoke until we were seated at the best table in the place. We’d had those moments of silence before, but this was different, I could feel it. This was our first real date. We’d done the dinner and movie thing, but that had been at his house. Jenna and Rylan knew we were a couple, but that was about all.

  As far as the outside world was concerned, Jalen Larsen’s bachelorhood was still intact.

  This dinner of ours could change that. Fort Collins wasn’t like New York or LA where paparazzi were all over the place, but if someone at the restaurant recognized Jalen as one of the city’s celebrities and it was an otherwise slow news night, we could find pictures of ourselves in tomorrow’s paper.

  Neither one of us had talked about it, but I knew it had to be in the back of his head because it sure as hell had been in mine. We might not be referring to each other with the titles of boyfriend and girlfriend, but this couldn’t be seen as anything other than a date.

  After the wine had been poured and the waiter left, Jalen sighed. “Does this feel as awkward to you as it does to me?”

  I laughed, and the sound helped break some of that tension down. “You sound as if we haven’t had a completely traditional relationship from moment one.”

  He laughed and took a drink of his wine. “That is an excellent point.”

  “We’ve had a rough few weeks,” I said. “Let’s talk about the stuff we haven’t had a chance to talk about. Like, do you come here often?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, heat flooded my face. “Shit. I can’t believe I just asked that.”

  “It’s a perfectly reasonable question.” A smile played around his mouth. “And the answer is no. I don’t come here very often. I’ve brought a few business contacts here, but no…dates.”

  He didn’t have to say her name for me to know that he was specifically talking about his hopefully soon-to-be-ex-wife, model Elise Marx. They hadn’t been together for a while, their prior attempt at a reconciliation destroyed when he caught her fucking a bodyguard. Now, she was holding up the divorce proceedings because she’d violated the terms of their prenuptial agreement and wanted a way around it. She was a real gem.

  The waiter returned to take our orders, and I was glad for the distraction. When I’d asked if he’d come here before, I hadn’t meant it to be a question about whether or not he’d brought Elise here, but I couldn’t deny that I liked being the first one to have dinner with him here. A little nagging voice in the back of my head questioned the fact that this was usually his business restaurant, but I quickly shoved that away. No jumping to conclusions and no being petty. That was the only way this would ever work.

  As the waiter walked away, I changed the subject. “Have you heard how Meka’s doing?”

  I hadn’t seen the fifteen-year-old since finding her and five other girls held by men with guns. With Jalen’s help, I’d gotten the police involved, and the girls had all been rescued, but between Adare’s hospitalization and death, and my return to Indiana for a week, I hadn’t taken the time to decide if I should visit Meka or not. After all, Jalen had been the one who’d hired me, and aside from a single interview with Meka’s father, Theo, I didn’t have a connection with the family.

  “I talked with Theo a few days after the fact, and he said that she was doing well. A few scrapes and bruises, but no other physical harm. From what Meka told him about the other girls, it was the same for them.”

  I was sure the girls would be dealing with the repercussions of their kidnappings for a while, but it was still a relief to hear that none of them had been assaulted.

  Jalen continued, “I guess what she went through really made her think about how fortunate she was to have a father like Theo and how it would devastate him if something happened to her. I’m sure they’ll have some moments butting heads in the future, but from what he said, the rebellious attitude she’s had since her mother died is gone.”

  “That’s great.” I blew out a relieved breath. “I’m glad something good came out of that terrible experience.”

  “You helped take down a human trafficking ring,” he said. “I’d consider that pretty good.”

  My smile tightened. “It would be if another one wasn’t already taking over.”

  Anger darkened his expression. “It never ends, does it?”

  “Jenna says that she tries not to focus on the big picture, that she’d get too discouraged if she did. Instead, she thinks about each individual life that’s been saved, as well as the ones who were never forced into slavery because of what she does.” I toyed with the edge of my napkin. “I’m going to help her with the work she does for the FBI.”

  “Can I ask you a question? About the FBI?”

  I’d been waiting for this to come back up. Jalen had sat through the trial and my testimony, which meant he knew everything about me. My real name, what my father had done, why I’d gotten kicked out of the FBI. Sometimes, having all the information only led to more questions, and I’d been wondering when he was going to start asking them.

  “Go ahead.”

  “You had to know that you wouldn’t be able to lie to them about the things that’d happened, but you tried anyway. Why’d you do it?”

  “I wanted to help people,” I said simply. “I have a degree in criminal justice from Columbia, and when Clay came to me my senior year and suggested I join, I thought I might as well try it. If I was going to get caught hiding my past, I figured why not do it with the FBI.”

  “You don’t do anything by half-measures, do you?” he asked wryly.

  “I don’t see the point,” I admitted. “But you’re the same way. Graduated MIT with a doctorate at twenty-one. A millionaire by twenty-three after selling a business that came out of an app you created in college. And now you have Sylph Industries.”

  “
You did your homework on me.”

  I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea to know who I was getting into bed…” Heat flooded my cheeks. “I mean, business. Who I was getting into business with.” I squirmed in my seat. “It was a good idea for bed too.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up in a partial smile. “That reminds me. I still need your invoice for Meka’s case.”

  “With everything that’s been going on, I completely forgot.” I dug my phone out of my purse. “I’ll set a reminder right now.”

  “Are you going to try to manage Burkart Investigations on your own?” he asked.

  “Adare had a receptionist for a while,” I said, “but she worked the cases alone. I’m thinking about doing the same. Have someone at the office to answer calls and keep the calendar, but do the actual investigations myself.”

  “If I was working on something that could be used to find missing people, would you be willing to work as a consultant? Answering questions, pointing out flaws, that sort of thing.”

  “You want me to help you with an app?” I was flattered but wasn’t entirely sure how much good I could be at something like that. I really hoped that he wasn’t offering because he thought he needed to.

  “I’m still in the brainstorming stage,” he said. “Which is part of what I’d like your input about.”

  “Maybe you should tell me what you’re trying to do first.”

  He flushed and gave me that self-deprecating grin I liked so much. “Sorry. Sometimes my mouth and my brain aren’t in sync.”

  I flashed back to the other night when his mouth and brain were very much in sync, and a rush of heat flooded me. It took far more effort than I liked to bring my attention back to the present.

  “I want to come up with ways to track people,” he said, then hurried to clarify. “Not in a creepy way. I want something that’s a combination of a GPS, so if a kid like Meka goes missing, there’s a quick and efficient way of finding her, and a panic button. Even though Meka and her dad were having issues, when she realized what her boyfriend had done, I’m sure she would’ve used a panic button if she’d had one.”

  I let the idea turn over in my mind, looking at the possibilities – both negative and positive – as well as possible complications. I wasn’t a tech person, which meant I didn’t know how feasible the logistics were, but I could see some of the legal issues that would come up. I wasn’t going to assume that’s what Jalen wanted though.

  “What, exactly, is it you want me to do?”

  He leaned back as the waiter returned to clear away our appetizer plates and refill our wine. “Mostly, just let me pick your brain about problems we’d have, suggestions, recommendations, anything that you can think of that we might possibly need to know and answers to any questions I might come up with.”

  “Can I have some time to think about it?”

  “Of course.” He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I don’t want you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “And I don’t want you to feel obligated. It’s a sincere offer, but I don’t want to risk what we have going here.”

  It was the perfect opening to ask him what that was, to get him to put into words this thing between us. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I told myself that it was because I didn’t want to sound like one of those women who want to know where things were going from moment one, but I knew that it was fear, plain and simple. I was terrified that he would tell me that what he felt wasn’t the same as what I felt. That he wanted to keep things casual and we could both see other people.

  I didn’t want to see other people, and the thought of him with another woman made my stomach churn. In my head, I knew it’d be better to get it all out in the open, but logic wasn’t ruling here. So, I smiled and turned the subject to our meal. We’d have a nice, uncomplicated date, and I’d figure out the rest later.

  Six

  After losing my mother in Indiana, and my uncle in New York, I didn’t really miss either of the places I used to live. Now, I’d lost a friend here, but as much as I missed Adare, it wasn’t the same as what happened before. Besides, I had other people I cared about in Fort Collins. Leaving wasn’t something I was considering.

  Still, as I walked across the cemetery, I couldn’t help but feel that something was absent. Over the past couple months, I’d sometimes missed the trees that had surrounded me most of my life, but it was never more obvious than now. There were trees on the mountains, individuals or pairs scattered around, but so many were pines that it was still greener than the abundance of colors I’d been used to in the fall.

  I’d never seen the place where my mom was buried, and Anton had been cremated, so I’d never really done the whole leaving flowers, spending time at the cemetery thing until now. Although I was new to this, as I approached Adare’s marker, I couldn’t help but think that it looked far too bare. She’d paid for a simple headstone, and I’d gotten a letter a couple days ago that said it’d be installed this upcoming week.

  “I should’ve brought flowers,” I said softly as I stopped at the edge of the grave. “You always said you liked sunflowers.”

  I looked around. It was Saturday morning, and the weather was still nice, if a little cold, but I didn’t see anyone else nearby. That was good. I needed to talk to someone about everything that was going on in my head, and I didn’t want anyone overhearing. I could’ve talked to Jenna, and I probably would at some point, but not today.

  The grass was damp, but I sat down anyway. I doubted I’d feel it through my jeans, but even if I did, a little discomfort wasn’t my primary concern.

  “There aren’t a whole lot of sunflowers around Halloween,” I continued. “I’ll bring some in this spring, or whenever they bloom.”

  I crossed my legs and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on me. When Adare had been alive, I hadn’t told her about my past. She could’ve looked into it, but I knew she hadn’t. She would’ve wanted me to come to her myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled up a couple blades of grass and rolled them between my fingers. “I should’ve told you everything. You wouldn’t have pitied me or looked at me differently. I was just scared.” I sighed. “No, that’s not the truth. Not the whole truth anyway. I was scared, but it had nothing to do with me worrying about how you would have seen or treated me. It was all me. I’m terrified of my past. I don’t want to have to think or talk about it. I just want to pretend that nothing happened.”

  I ran my hand over the grass and let my thoughts wander for a few minutes.

  “Jalen and I are dating. I think.” I smiled. “I know what you’d tell me about that. Either we are or we aren’t, and if I don’t know, I need to do something about it. But I’m scared of that too. What if I ask him and he says that we’re not dating? What if I’m doing the same thing with him that I was doing with Clay, except this time, it’s not my decision?”

  I rubbed my forehead, but it didn’t do much to help the throbbing.

  “I want more than just a fuck buddy. But I also don’t want more. What I had with Clay was good. Couldn’t I have the same thing with Jalen? No risk of getting too close. We both walk away when we’re done.”

  I didn’t need Adare to be here to know what her response would’ve been.

  “I know, I know,” I said, pulling up another blade of grass. “I’ll never move forward if I’m not willing to risk being hurt.” I sighed. “Whenever people hear about my past, or even learn that I don’t have any family, or discover that I wanted to join the FBI, or how I moved here on my own without knowing anyone, they’d tell me how brave I was. But I’m not brave. I’m scared of so much.”

  I didn’t say anything else for a long while, and I tried not to think anything either. I let my mind go as blank as I could, skipping across thoughts without allowing myself to go any deeper. It helped that it was peaceful here.

  When I finally got to my
feet, I hadn’t come up with any solutions or decisions, but I felt better anyway. If I got to a place where I needed actual advice, I’d probably go to Jenna. Considering she’d chewed Jalen out the last time he behaved like an ass, I felt comfortable that she wouldn’t pull any punches, and I needed someone who wouldn’t use my past as an excuse to treat me like I was fragile. Sometimes, a scared person needed a kick in the ass more than a sympathetic ear.

  I was halfway back to my car when my phone started to ring. As the theme to a certain popular science-fiction movie series blared from my purse, I fumbled with my zipper. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d gotten until my fingers didn’t want to cooperate. I finally managed to get my phone out, answering it without looking at the caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “You have a collect call from Indiana State Prison.”

  I went numb, barely hearing my father saying his name during the pause in the robotic statement. I ended the call and dropped my phone back into my purse. For nearly ten years, he’d sat in prison and left me alone. I’d ignored him at the trial and made a point of testifying against him.

  What in the hell had given him the idea that I’d accept a collect call from him, let alone actually want to talk to him?

  Seven

  “It’s the gall of him that I just can’t get over,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, when he had his accident, I couldn’t completely understand what happened, but I was old enough to get that a brain injury could change a person. It was still awful, and he deserves to be in prison for life, but…”

  I ran both of my hands through my hair, unable to come up with the words to explain what I was really feeling.

  Jalen found the words that I couldn’t. “But while he was in prison, states away, not reaching out to you, not present, it was easier to accept that the father you’d known wasn’t the father who’d done those horrible things.” His voice softened. “But it wasn’t him then, and it still isn’t him now. The man who raised you, who loved you, it’s not the same man.”