I soften my tone and lean an elbow on Marjorie’s desk. “This is what we do, Evianna. A lot of PI work is waiting. And if you’re not ready to leave, I can surveil or handle email on my phone until you’re done.”
“If you’re sure…” She presses her lips together, the move highlighting the stress lines around her mouth. The woman’s been through some shit in the past few days.
“I’m sure.”
Clive ambles up, his leather jacket slung over his shoulders. After I introduce him and verify that Evianna has everything she needs, I make a beeline for the coffee machine. Dax is standing at the counter, a mug in his hands.
“Clive’s following our new client back to her office,” I say, pouring myself a cup of black gold. “Want some?”
Dax’s brows draw inward, and he rubs the back of his neck as he extends his cup in my general direction. He may be blind, but he always seems to know exactly where I am. He and Ryker are absolutely creepy with echolocation.
“What do think about her…her case?” he asks.
Half of what Evianna talked about—home automation, code, data breaches—went completely over my head. “I wish we had Wren for this one,” I admit.
Our phones vibrate simultaneously with a message from accounting. Evianna paid our retainer before she even got back to her office.
Removing his Bluetooth, Dax tucks the little earbud into his front pocket. “She pays on time. And I keep telling you. Wren’s not dead. She’s in Seattle. They have the internet there. Hell, she emailed me this morning asking when we’d have something new for her. Pull her in so we can wrap this up quickly.”
“You don’t like our new client.” I follow him back to his office where he sets his mug down on the center of the desk. There are days I’d swear the man wasn’t blind. “Why not?”
“She clearly doesn’t like me. That handshake was—”
I set down my mug before I double over with laughter as it hits me. Why the end of the meeting felt so off. Why she went from staring at Dax like he was a god to acting like he’d killed her puppy in the space of five minutes.
Dax arches a brow. “You didn’t think she was a little…confrontational at the end?”
With a final snort, I get myself under control. After this morning, Dax isn’t in the mood for my shit. “You’re wearing your glasses.”
“What’s that have to do with anything? I needed the camera in the damn things to read me her police report. And I’ve had a low level headache for three days. They help with the light sensitivity.”
“Look, I know you can’t see yourself, but your glasses hide a lot of the scarring. And how pale your eyes really are. Evianna smiled at you a couple of times. You didn’t respond. And when you held out your hand at the end? She was waiting for you to take hers. She doesn’t know you’re blind.”
“And I came across as a total jerk?” He pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”
His voice holds an odd note. Somewhere between longing and regret, and I study him for a minute. I think…he might be interested in her.
“I’ll explain when I talk to her,” I say as I head for the door. “Clive’s going to handle everything until I can line up Ronan or Vasquez for the night shift. She didn’t want close contact. Those two know how to be unobtrusive.”
“Don’t. Don’t tell her anything about me. It’s not important, and I don’t want anyone’s pity. She doesn’t have to like me. She’s a client. One I probably won’t talk to again.”
“Whatever you want.” My phone buzzes with a number I don’t recognize, but the area code…is San Diego. “Shit,” I say under my breath. “Gotta take this. Catch you tomorrow.”
As soon as I’m out in the hall, I jab the screen. “Ford Lawton. Who’s calling?”
“Ford?” The voice is vaguely familiar, but I can’t place the soft, scratchy tone. “This is Geraldine. Gerry Taylor. Joey’s older sister.”
My heart stops, but my legs are still moving, carrying me back to my office where I shut the door. “Gerry? How did you even get this number? What’s wrong?”
“I…I asked a friend of mine—a local cop, retired now—to track you down. Joey’s missing.”
I don’t hear anything for another minute, and then my back is pressed to the door and my ass is resting on the hardwood. “Missing?” The word scrapes over my throat, like if I don’t say it, maybe it won’t be true. “From where? For how long? Tell me everything.”
The office walls press in on me as I scour our various intel sources on Turkmenistan.
Human trafficking.
Two hundred women reported missing in the last two years.
