by Freya Barker
The rundown building is owned by a developer, who by all accounts, is waiting for the appropriate permits before turning the place into high-end lofts. He saw dollar signs when Guild Film Productions showed interest in the place, and since construction was held up for the time being, he wasted no time signing on the dotted line of the short-term—and very lucrative—rental contract.
The place looks deserted. No cars, no lights. I drive around the back to the railroad yard, which looks to be abandoned as well. No luxury cars and no activity at all.
“Yeah,” I answer my phone when it rings. It’s Dimi.
“Your detail just stumbled into the lobby. Dude’s wasted. Where are you?”
“Heading back. Keep your eye on him.”
“Ten-four.”
It takes me two minutes to get back to the hotel parking lot, where I easily locate Steele’s Lexus. It’s almost parked fucking sideways, across two accessible parking spots. Figures. From my vantage point, it almost looks like he rammed the bumper into the production trailer parked in the next spot. I park the truck and walk over to check it out.
The Lexus isn’t touching the trailer, but the front end looks damaged. Nothing on the trailer, though, so I don’t think that’s what was hit. Fuck. I don’t exactly have a good feeling about this.
“EXHAUSTED...CAN’T TALK...”
I roll my eyes at the theatrics of the grown-ass man rolling on the bed. Exhausted—my ass. Drunk out of his mind is more like it. It takes everything out of me not to wake him up with my fist in his face. I don’t have time to play games.
“Keep your goddamn eyes open, or I swear I’ll dunk your ass in an ice bath. I need to know where you were and why there is damage to the front end of your car. Were you in an accident?”
“F–fever titty-bar. F–fuck me, that Brandi could pull the dollar bills from my fingers with her pussy lips. Ne’er seen anything like it,” he snickers, slurring his words.
“What about the car?” I prompt him.
“Dunno.”
That’s the last word I manage to drag out of him before he passes out cold. I roll him on his side, just in case he pukes during the night—it wouldn’t do to have my charge end up choking on vomit—and back out of the room, making a note to check the Fever Gentlemen’s Club on the west side of town.
I’m not getting paid enough.
CHAPTER 2
ROSIE
“I’m not hungry.”
I’m on my knees, trying to pull my mother’s support stockings back up after she, once again, stripped them down her swollen legs. A dance we engage in all too often. Just like the back-and-forth we do every time we have to leave the house. Of all the things Mom might have forgotten; who I am, day of the week, or even her own name at times, she never forgets how to be stubborn.
“Grant is waiting for us, Mom,” I try, hoping today she’ll remember who Grant is, but the blank look in her eyes tells me she doesn’t have a clue.
Luckily, Grant is a master at charming my mother. When I finally get her dressed, out the door, and over to the restaurant, he’s there waiting with his disarming smile and endless patience. My mother shrinks back when she sees his large, looming body, an involuntary response to a nonexistent threat. Grant doesn’t fault her for that, which endears him even more to me. He instead ignores the fact she clearly doesn’t recognize him today and gently coaxes her to her chair, while updating her on this week’s headlines from the gossip rags.
My mother and Grant share a passion for movies and for the National Enquirer.
“Come sit by me, Connie,” Grant coos, never letting go of my mother’s small, bony hand in his massive paw. The man is exceedingly gentle for his size. “Did you hear they’re remaking Murder On The Orient Express? The lineup of actors is unbelievable...” I listen to him prattle on, slowly engaging Mom, for which I’m grateful.
Most days I feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, the sense that I can never take my eyes off the ball or my precariously balanced life collapses. The only time I feel true relief is during our standing lunch date at the Golden Corral with Grant.
I catch his wink over Mom’s head. He knows.
Mom, like a lot of folks suffering from Alzheimer’s, more frequently will mentally revert back decades, easily remembering people, events, thoughts, feelings from her youth, but is at times unable to recall her own daughter’s name. That’s tough, when, despite the less than stellar relationship I had with her, she’s all I have. Except now I have Grant too.
I never was very good at making friends. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe because I tend to live inside my head? I guess I’m outwardly quiet, even though inside my head it’s never silent. I sometimes simply forget to say things out loud. It makes me seem demure, or boring, even when I’m not. Not really.
Grant never appeared to notice my relative silence to his nonstop banter. From the moment we met, he was determined for us to become friends, even though we are the most mismatched pair there ever was. His size, his bubbling personality, his deep ebony skin, and his ready smile stands in stark contrast to my short, stocky body, red hair—complete with pale skin and freckles—and my pensive nature. You’d think I’d have the cheerful smile and he’d be the brooder of the two. Not so.
It didn’t take Grant much time to drag me out of my shell, at least with him. In the almost eight months I’ve known him, he has fast become the best friend I’ve ever had. This is why I can sit back and let my mind empty, while he looks after my mother, and therefore me. I trust him.
“...When are you going to make an honest woman of her?”
My head whips around as my mother’s words drag me out of my daydreams. I can tell from the sharp look in her eyes that she’s present in the moment. Her awareness comes and goes, with the pendulum swinging more and more toward the going.
“Mom! We’re just friends.” I glare at Grant who can’t keep a straight face.
“You wound me,” he quips, dramatically grabbing for his chest.
“See?” Mom jumps in. “You’re forty-two years old, overweight, without any education to speak of, and the only work you can find is cleaning toilets. You should consider yourself lucky.”
I close my eyes tightly, reining in the equal feelings of anger and inadequacy my ruthlessly sane mother invokes. It doesn’t help every word she uttered is the truth. Perhaps not all of it, the fact I didn’t get to college doesn’t mean I’m uneducated, and my job in housekeeping is not the only one I can find, but it’s the only one that allows me to look after her during the day. But I don’t say that out loud. Why would I? By the time I’m done defending myself, my mother will have disappeared again, lost in the maze of her memories. The only reason her words still have the ability to wound me is because those rare moments of brutal lucidity in her otherwise permanently clouded mind surprise me.
“Au contraire, ma belle,” Grant addresses her, interjecting on my behalf with his rich Cajun heritage shining through. “I should be so lucky. Your daughter is smart, funny, and stunning, but she’s a girl and I like boys.” He smiles at Mom, but I can tell she’s already lost the thread.
“See you tomorrow night?” he says, closing the car door after having buckled my mother into the passenger seat. My shifts start at eight, he doesn’t work until nine, but I make it a habit to stop by the front desk on my break.
“You will.”
With a wink and a wave, he turns and I get behind the wheel, my mind already on getting Mom down for her nap and finishing up the loads of laundry before the workweek starts again.
“HEY.”
I look up from the pile of laundry I’m folding on the kitchen table when Hillary walks in.
Hillary Glenwood is my savior. I met her the day I returned to Grand Junction and walked into the emergency room at St. Mary’s Medical Center, where they had taken my mother after she was found by the neighbor. The young woman calmly directed me to the ward where they’d kept her for observation, since sh
e was hypothermic and clearly very confused. She’d checked up on us when her shift was over and found me overwhelmed and quietly crying by Mom’s bedside. With Mom fast asleep, Hillary had resolutely walked me to the cafeteria where she made me eat the first meal I’d had all day.
She helped me get a handle on what to expect in terms of Mom’s needs and her care. There’d been so much I didn’t know, but Hillary didn’t give me time to feel guilty. In the days that followed, she helped me connect with the right people to discuss my mother’s care. When it became clear Mom needed someone around twenty-four hours a day, she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. For half of what I would have to pay for daytime help, Hillary would stay with Mom overnight, five nights of the week. She needed the additional income to finish paying off student loans. It worked for everyone.
“Hey,” I respond, smiling.
“How was your weekend?” She sets her bag on the kitchen counter and turns to face me.
“Relatively uneventful. She was good enough on Monday to play a game of cards, after we finished her exercises, and yesterday at lunch with Grant, she had a moment of clarity, but other than that she’s been quiet. Sleeping a lot.”
“Have you seen any improvement in her tremors?” Hillary asks. Just two weeks ago, she was started on a new medication that’s supposed to minimize her disabling tremors.
“Not really,” I grudgingly admit. “She insisted on drinking tea from a mug, but even with my help, ended up wearing most of it, so we reverted back to her sippy cup.”
“I’m sorry,” she commiserates, but I wave her off.
“Meh, such is reality. On a more exciting note,” I tease her, smirking. “How was your date with Dr. McDreamy? Or was it McSteamy? I can’t seem to keep them straight.” Hillary rolls her eyes, but I can see the smile pulling on her mouth. That’s a good thing, I’m guessing.
“Well, during dinner he started off as McDreamy...” she drawls, fanning herself with her hand as she drops down in the chair across from me, “...but he totally morphed into McSteamy after he drove me home.”
“Way to go, Hill,” I encourage, leaning over and slapping her a high five.
I’m happy for her, after a few, short, failed relationships and a string of disastrous dates, Hillary deserves to find a good guy. One who appreciates her. At thirty-two, she’s ten years younger, but a lot more discerning and aware of her self-worth than I was. Or am. She doesn’t need a man; she wants one. There’s a huge difference.
I thought I needed one and let myself fall for the first handsome smile and sparkling eyes that came along. Even if it was in the form of my boss: my very married boss.
Don’t judge me. I had no idea. I was twenty-seven and just out on my own for the first time. An innocent with dreams to study psychology at NYU. My first stop had been Denver, when my car irrevocably broke down, and my meager savings were quickly decimated by lodging and food. I’d walked into a temp agency, working as a receptionist that afternoon, and fell for my new boss within the week. There were no pictures in his office, no indications of a life outside of work, and I was too naïve to look beyond the boyish charm and exciting flirting he drew me in with. I almost left when I discovered he had a family: a wife and two kids. He swore he only stayed in the marriage because of the kids, that there was nothing left between his wife and him. He promised me I was the only one he loved, and I bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. Not something I’m particularly proud of.
I can admit now that I was willingly gullible. It’s amazing what a few flattering words and some well-timed attention can do for an insecure and fragile ego.
Excuses, all of them. The truth is it was easier to be weak and stuck in a reality of someone else’s making, than it was—is—to stand on your own without a safety net and risk discovering you are not even a fraction of the person you imagine yourself to be in your mind. So I stayed, eventually learning all the empty promises were just that; nothing would change.
The call from Dora Shipman, Mom’s neighbor, had been a bucket of ice water, a healthy dose of reality.
“He says he’ll take me to his cabin near Moab one of these weekends.”
Hillary’s voice drags me from my thoughts and I smile, listening to her wax poetic about her tall, blond Adonis, ignoring the pang of jealousy at the hopeful glow on her cheeks.
“Make sure you check him out first, okay?” I caution her. A date or even a one-night stand is one thing, but the promise of a weekend away deserves closer scrutiny. Safety first.
“Of course.” She rolls her eyes, and I suddenly feel a hundred years old.
“I’m happy for you.” I smile and give her shoulder a squeeze when I stand up and move past her to put away the laundry.
It’s time to get ready for work.
JAKE
“You don’t need to hold my hand, you know?”
It’s been a rough fucking couple of days already, and the last thing I need at this point is his prima donna attitude.
“Just get in the elevator, Steele.”
“I just don’t get why I can’t drive myself to the warehouse.”
I swing around and plant the flat of my hand in the middle of his chest.
“Then let me refresh your memory. You got wasted Sunday night in a fucking strip club, flinging your name around when the bartender tried to take your keys from you. You ended up driving while under the influence and somehow, somewhere, you ran into something. Your damn car is in the shop, and I wouldn’t trust you with a tricycle at this point, so suck it the fuck up.”
“You can’t talk to me that way,” he blusters, getting in my face, his cheeks flushed in anger. “I could fire you.”
I don’t flinch, even as the spittle flies from his lips. I just stare him down, unblinking, until he eventually starts fidgeting. That’s when I respond. “For the record, you can’t fire me since your name isn’t on our contract. That would be Phil Drexler, so if you have a problem with the way I do my job, take it up with him.”
Without another word, I turn and step into the elevator, a distinctly more demure Kyle following me. Good. I would’ve tossed his ass in there otherwise. When Dimas called a few minutes ago to tell me to get Steele the fuck out of the hotel and to the warehouse, I didn’t stop to ask questions. I’ll get the answers eventually.
IT WAS JUST TWO DAYS ago the idiot was still sleeping off his bender in his room, while I met up with Yanis in the small coffee shop in the hotel lobby to give him an update.
“Where was he?” Yanis asked, before my ass even hit the chair across from him.
“Fever. That place off the 70 on the west side? According to the bartender—who, by the way, was not too impressed with the early morning interruption—Steele came in just before two in the morning, already half in the bag, and made short work of getting in the rest of the way. The guy tried and failed to convince Steele to take a cab. He said, normally he’d have called the cops on him, but Steele threatened the club with a lawsuit. Not wanting to get in trouble with his boss, the guy let him go.”
“Is he gonna keep his trap shut? Can we suppress this without alerting Drexler?”
“That depends.”
I explained about the damage to the Lexus and that Steele had no recollection of what he may have hit. I informed him that, since before the sun came up, the car was at the mechanic we occasionally use when we need discretion. Other than Dimi watching the monitors, no one had seen Steele come back into the hotel. According to the security monitors, the night clerk had been in the bathroom at the time.
“We may appear to be in the clear, but there are a shit-ton of variables that are unknown or unaccounted for—like the busted fucking front end of his car—so we best not get too comfortable. Not yet.”
Yanis agreed to hold off alerting the big honchos at Guild Film Productions until I had some more information.
“Update me the minute you have something.”
Later that afternoon, I questioned Kyle again, after pouring a gallon of coffe
e down his gullet, and he remembered hitting a dumpster. That was a relief, and rather than rustling the bushes, drawing more attention, I opted to lay low and keep my ear to the ground. My charge however, had other ideas.
I was in the surveillance room, talking with Dimi, when I spotted one of the baristas from the coffee shop sneaking out of Steele’s suite, still buttoning up her goddamn shirt. So much for studying lines. Dimi kept me from charging upstairs for an ugly showdown with the stupid son of a bitch. Instead we intercepted the young girl, escorted her to the monitoring room, and proceeded to scare the living shit out of her. Dimi checked her phone for incriminating pictures or messages, while I had her sign a non-disclosure form and sent her on her way with a pile of cash, enough to pay off her student loans. I stayed out of Steele’s way the rest of yesterday.
I FUCKING HATE THIS assignment.
The moment the elevator hits the lobby and we get out, I can feel a charge in the air. Something is going on. Not that there is anything visible, but the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My eyes scan the lobby, but other than a few people at the front desk going about their business, there is nothing obvious.
Yet as soon as we step out the service door in the back and turn to the parking lot, I see it. Flashing lights from at least six police and first responder vehicles down the alley on the other side of Third Street. An officer is cordoning off access and exit to the alley with yellow tape and looks this way. I pretend not to notice, but Steele is gawking, so I yank on his arm and march him to my truck.
“What’s going on?” he wants to know, and I shake my head sharply by way of response. I’m focused on getting us out of here as instructed.
Instead of driving out to Third Street, like I normally would, I turn down the narrow alley that takes me to Main Street. There I turn west, avoiding Third Street altogether, as I take an alternate route to the warehouse. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I know it’s not good.
