Blaze (Big D Escort Service Book 2) Read online

  He turned toward Ethan, who opened the door for him without a word and then followed him out. They sat into the car with the saleswoman watching from the window.

  “Her work wouldn’t sell there,” Ethan said as he put on his seatbelt. Without tapping a number, he lifted his phone to his ear. Pretending to call someone. Nice touch. “She would get a bad label. Not to mention the prices could only be so high. We can do better.”

  “I agree.” Dave pulled away from the curb. “Let’s hit a few more and hope things improve.”

  Twenty-Three

  Janie stepped back with a sigh.

  Done.

  She had finally completed her journey, as Dave had called it. The final painting was titled Goodbye.

  She’d painted this one bittersweet. She and Dave would continue to be friends, and that was awesome, but all the other gooey, heart-swelling stuff would have to go. That part sucked.

  Still, through her painting, she’d explored each facet of the experiences they’d shared, and it was one helluva ride. Even though she was sad it had to end, she couldn’t say any part of it had been unwelcome. She’d thoroughly gotten over her ex, of course, but she’d also learned a lot about her ability to feel. She wasn’t as shallow as she’d always thought. There was some emotion way down in there.

  Now it would be a matter of finding someone else with whom to experience it fully.

  She put down her paints and looked around the mostly empty room. Dave’s portrait was gone from the easel, now living downstairs. Standing in front of the goodbye image was sad. Sobering. Except for the blank canvas leaning against the wall, it was over. Really, really over. After she filled that canvas, she would officially say farewell and close the book on them.

  She stretched, trying to work out the aches and pains from the last week or so, and checked her phone. A new message from Dave: I’ve got a plan.

  She glanced at the time. Three o’clock. He was out at the galleries.

  In other words, they hadn’t placed any pieces.

  Trying not to let panic overcome her—she had known it would be a long process—she headed to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. There was one more unpleasant task to do concerning Dave’s mother.

  It was probably for the best that she and Dave couldn’t make it work, because after this, she and his mother were not going to get along. The sort of come to Jesus talk she had in mind would cement that. You couldn’t be a bully and expect the victim to like you afterward.

  But it needed to be done.

  After a stop home for a quick cleanup, a phone call to Noah asking what rehab place Dave’s mom was in, and then an argument in which she’d learned that Noah could yell much louder than she could, she arrived at her childhood neighborhood with Noah in tow. He’d refused to let her go alone.

  She parked the car next to a yellow and brown mattress littering the sidewalk. It had surely started out white. Gross.

  “Leave the door unlocked,” she said, and slammed her door shut.

  Noah hesitated with the passenger door open. “But someone might get in.”

  “They’ll get in anyway. I’d rather not have to pay for a new window. Besides, if you lock it, they’ll assume I have something worth stealing.”

  Noah glanced into the car. As a guy who did have things to steal, including his car as a whole, this was probably a foreign concept.

  “Look.” She tucked Nora’s gun into the front of her pants. It was only there for show—she’d pocketed the bullets so as not to accidentally shoot off her knickers. “If we get noticed, let me do the talking. This place is usually pretty quiet until later in the day, but you never know.”

  “I’m armed, too, Janie.” He pulled up the bottom of his loose windbreaker, exposing a gun in a holster, of all things. “I have a license to carry, though it shouldn’t be concealed.”

  “Look at you, Mr. Wild West. Holster and everything. Wow. You’re the nerd of the thug world.” She started walking.

  “The Wild West was actually mostly farmers and people working the land. The John Wayne Hollywood version wasn’t accurate. And actually, well-established prostitutes-turned-brothel-owners often made more than their clientele. Even though they were women at a time when few women had anything to do with business, they learned that money was power. They set up proper communities with hospitals and schools for children. They pushed for, and were granted, the right to vote in their states long before the federal government came on board. So really, as a prostitute myself, I’d own the Wild West.”

  She was pretty sure that the frown from his long-winded explanation of irrelevance worked to her advantage, since it was better not to look too friendly in a place like this. “Right. Thanks for the…history lesson. Try not to use that gun.”

  Two guys waiting off to the side checked her out before their eyes stuck to Noah. He was a big dude who, even though he was “dressing down,” obviously came from money. Even on his worst day, there was no way he’d fit in. Thankfully, they didn’t want to investigate Mr. Daddy Warbucks.

  The place was just as bad as it had always been—all cracked cement and litter. A child’s crying echoed around them. Janie made her way up the stairs to her mom’s tiny apartment. She pushed open the door without bothering to knock. It slammed against the side.

  Someone stirred on the couch, glancing back at her. A man, twice as old as Janie.

  “Where’s Sandy?” she barked.

  “What the fuck is going on?” A fifty-year-old woman with a flimsy shirt hanging off her shoulder, no bra, and holey sweats staggered out from a hallway to the side. She squinted in Janie’s direction. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Janie slammed the door to cut out the stream of light. The man on the couch rolled, but he couldn’t make it up to sitting. A strip of rubber lay on the ground beneath his outstretched arm.

  “Really, Ma?” Janie shifted, not going any farther in.

  “Oh. Janie.” She lipped a cigarette before pulling a lighter out of her pocket. She took a drag and leaned against the wall with a smirk. “You always come back when you need something. What is it this time? Because you can’t have your old room. I’m renting it out to Gene.” She nodded at the deadbeat on the couch.

  “I just need a hookup at a rehab place.”

  Her mom glanced at Noah. “And who is this?”

  “A friend.”

  “A friend. A good-looking friend. You always did bring around the pretty boys. Will you share this one like you shared a few of the others?”

  Anger ignited deep in Janie’s core, an emotion that had long ago replaced pain and embarrassment. “Listen up, old lady. You owe me. I need a name, and then I’m gone. You can carry on with your sad existence. You won’t see me again.”

  Her mom smirked knowingly. “You said that last time.”

  “This is a special circumstance. I’m helping a friend.”

  “Is that right? Well, what’s in it for me?”

  “I won’t tell T-Boz that you ratted him out a couple years ago. He just barely managed to stay out of jail. He was still pissed about it, last I heard.” Janie braced a hand to her hip. “I got a long list of people you screwed over, Ma. A long list. I’ll go down that list one by one until you get what’s coming to you—unless you give me that hookup. Up to you, but make your decision quickly. I don’t want to walk out of here with fleas.”

  Her mother’s glare could turn fire to ice. The end of her cigarette flared as she took a drag. “What rehab place?”

  “The Windy Hollows. I have to get in there tonight or tomorrow to talk to one of the patients. I need a pass to get her alone.”

  The end of the cigarette flared again. Her mother looked her over for a long moment. They both knew Sandy had connections in all the rehab places. Usually those connections were used for smuggling in contraband items, but Janie could use them to get in.

  “I give you this, and you’re gone, right?” Sandy asked in her sandpaper voice. “You don’t come around h
ere asking for nothing else.”

  “Gone for good.”

  She huffed and pushed off the wall. “Just like your good-for-nothing father,” she muttered.

  Janie wouldn’t know. She’d never met the man. Or maybe she would know, for just that reason.

  Noah rubbed her back, no doubt gobsmacked by what he’d heard. Madison had felt the same way the few times she’d had the misfortune of coming around. Janie was long past letting this type of thing affect her. You could either dwell on the bad things in life, or you could push past them and continue to reach for the stars. She couldn’t fix her parental relationship, but she could try to help Dave fix his. There was still hope with his mother. Janie could feel it.

  “Here.” Sandy waltzed back into the room, holding out a torn slip of paper. “Tell her I sent you. She’ll let you know when the coast is clear.”

  “What hours does she work?”

  “She used to work nights. Might’ve changed, though. It’s been months since I needed to get something through her.”

  “Thanks, Ma. I’ll reward you by staying gone.”

  Sandy sniffed. “Reward me with an eightball.”

  Janie shook her head and pulled open the door. “That stuff is going to kill you.”

  “Hasn’t yet. The trick is moderation.” Sandy cackled.

  Noah was quiet as they walked out. Back at her car, he finally spoke.

  “You’ve only known Dave for a couple of months. Yet you’re doing all this for him. Confronting your past, and asking your…mother for a favor.”

  “I know enough about him to know that he needs help, and it just so happens that I can supply it. And so can you. Report that doctor. Hell, report the Hutchinsons. Close that part of Betty’s life down. You seem like you have connections.”

  “I do, yes. Besides the doctor I mentioned, my godfather is a police captain. I also have an uncle in the high-tech crime division.”

  “Good gracious. What am I doing hanging out with you? We are from two different worlds.”

  “Were from. We’ll get your business up and running, Janie, just you wait. You grew up back there, but your kids won’t.” He put a light hand on her knee. “Dave is a lucky guy to have you.”

  “He has me as a friend, just like all of you do.”

  “He’ll figure it out. Don’t give up on him.”

  Pain pierced her. She was trying to shut the door on that, not hang on to hopeless dreams. “Are you done?”

  He laughed and took back his hand. “Now I am. Not the sensitive type, huh?”

  “You just saw where I grew up. Sensitive?”

  “Good point. Give me that gun.” He put out his hand.

  She glanced over. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Throw it in a body of water…or keep it, I don’t know.”

  “Yikes. Don’t tell me. I want to be able to pass a polygraph.”

  He laughed, not realizing she was serious. After a moment of silence, he said, “Now what?”

  “Call that number. See if that lady is working. If so, we finish what we started and I can move on.”

  Twenty-Four

  They stood at the side entrance of a shabby building with trimmed bushes and tufts of weeds. It was something a working man could afford, and probably made Betty feel a lot more comfortable than the upscale places for rich people and celebrities that Dave had surely chosen in the past.

  Noah had called the number, and, after mentioning Sandy’s name, had been told there’d be a window later that night. However, to earn it, they had to bring three cartons of cigarettes. Janie’s response: Is the place a prison, or what?

  “You shouldn’t come in with me.” Janie pushed Noah away.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m about to badger an older woman who has had a very bad few weeks, not to mention a bad life before that, and you’ll get squeamish.”

  “You’re going to go with the hard-love approach?”

  “Yeah. Dave has tried the soft approach how many times? It hasn’t worked. She needs a wake-up call.”

  “Cool. I’m coming with you. I’ll stand in the corner like a goon, or something. Just in case.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you think is going to happen to me in there?”

  “They might talk you out of drinking, for one.”

  A laugh bubbled up. She nodded, her lips pressed into duckbill. “This is true. Good point. That would be horrible.”

  She rapped on the door and stood back, looking out at the countryside beyond. The rehab center was way outside of the city, tacked onto a small town with not a lot going on. If someone escaped for the night, they wouldn’t find much in the way of partying.

  Her phone vibrated as the lock turned with a clink. The handle rotated before a head with dark, braided hair peeked out from around the door. “Yes?”

  “Camila?” Janie stepped to the side so she could be seen. “I’m Janie, and Noah is beside me. We—”

  “Yes, fine.” She pushed the door open a little farther. Her eyes rounded when she took in Noah. “Wow.”

  He shifted and put his empty hand in his pocket, his face expressionless. The other hand was wrapped around the cartons of cigarettes.

  Janie elbowed him. “Say hello. Honestly, of all the times to be sheepish about someone liking your junk.”

  A grin spread across Camila’s face. “He’s shy?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m just not used to situations such as these.” He shifted again. His body screamed uncomfortable.

  Camila noticed it, and her smile spread. “He’s polite, though.” She looked between them. “You both coming in?”

  “No, just—”

  “Yes.” Noah stepped up. “Both of us.”

  “Normally I would say one of you has to wait outside, but…” She tsked, her smile still evident. “I’m not saying no to that. C’mon.”

  Camila pushed the door open even farther and led them through a small hallway. “We’re in the staff quarters now. The other girl is on break, so you have an hour until I have to sneak you back out.”

  “I won’t need that long.”

  “And it’s Betty Miller, right?”

  “Yes. How is she doing?”

  Camila tsked as they walked out through another hallway. At the end, someone with a wristband was turning into a room. “Not good. I don’t know that she wants to get better. She’s not real happy with her life, know what I mean?”

  “Have you seen cases like that before?”

  “Oh yeah.” She held the door open, and they walked through a large industrial kitchen, currently inactive. “A lot, right? They just keep ending up back here.”

  “Anybody ever pull out of it?”

  “Oh yeah, sure. That happens. It’s gotta start with them, though. A lot of people find a higher power. Usually God, but not always. It’s early yet for Betty. She hasn’t been here very long. It’s harder to get going in the beginning.”

  She stopped in front of a closed door. “She’s in there. Alone for now. Her roommate does yoga in the evenings.”

  “Great, thanks, Camila.” Janie gestured for Noah to hand off the cigarettes. “How do we find you when we’re done?”

  Camila held up her phone. “Text.”

  “Right. Okay, great.”

  “Good luck. Hope whatever you do helps. I hate when people come back. It’s such a waste.”

  They waited until Camila had moved away before Janie let herself into the room. A light glowed in the far corner over a chair, illuminating the woman reading beneath it. Her gray hair had been pulled back in a bun, bringing attention to the lines etched deeply in her face. Her eyes weren’t as red, which was good, but a pallor still clung to her. The effect of having given up.

  Janie walked forward slowly, deep emotion rising up within her. Dave really loved his mom. He wanted the best for her, even if she didn’t want it for herself. It broke Janie’s heart that he would ever have to see her like this. She knew it must tear him ap
art inside. He was such a good person—such a good man. He deserved the best in life.

  “Hi.” She sat on the edge of the bed as the book lowered.

  Betty’s brow furrowed. Trying to place Janie’s face, no doubt. “Yes?”

  “I’m a friend of your son’s. You probably know that guy.” She hooked a thumb at Noah.

  The furrow in Betty’s brow deepened as she glanced back at Noah. “No…”

  “We’ve never met, but I’ve heard a lot about you.” Noah clasped his hands behind his back.

  Oh. Janie hadn’t expected that.

  She forged on. “Anyway, I’m here to talk about Dave.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?” Betty closed her book and put it to the side.

  “I’m Janie. A friend of Dave’s. I’m going to level with you, Betty. I was there the other day. I helped him take you to the hospital.”

  Betty’s eyes clouded over, her expression bending to one of misery and embarrassment.

  Janie raised her hands. “I just want us to be on even ground. I also want you to know that I paid a visit to the Hutchinsons.” Fear sparkled in Betty’s eyes. That was an interesting reaction. “They won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  Betty smiled in a placating sort of way. “I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but—”

  Janie held up her hand to stop the lies she knew would come. “Betty, let’s get serious. I know where you are in life. I know what landed you in here, and that you have relapsed many, many times. I also know what the Hutchinsons are up to, how you got that gun, and I’m pretty damn sure I know why. Here’s what I don’t know. Why are you doing this to your son, who’d move the world for you? Who just wants you to be happy—so he can be happy? Why are you dragging him down with you?”

  Shock smacked into the woman’s expression, and then tears leaked out of her eyes. “Wh-what?”

  Janie ignored her desire to soothe the older woman’s feelings, and waited.

  More tears leaked down wrinkled cheeks. “I ask Dave to just leave me be. To live his life. I’ve told him that he needs to be free of me. He can’t help me. No one can.”