CHAPTER 20
Grant
My phone buzzed against the foam mat.Jonesblinked on the screen. I was in the middle of a rep, and thought about ignoring the call. There wouldn’t be any consequences. Answering Jones’s request for a clean up wasn’t an order to be followed, but a favor to a good friend. With Zaid in community work again, as well as planning a collaring ceremony with his future wife, he didn’t have time to add another client.
Which meant shuffling him off onto me.
The name dimmed. I finished the reps. A few minutes later, Jones called again. I wiped the sweat off my brow. Seeing his number flash on the screen reminded me that it wasn’t him that I was helping, but his people. I answered the call.
“Grant?” he asked in a raspy voice.
“Yeah.”
“Zaid said to call. You do clean up jobs?”
I had done clean up jobs for Jones before. It was amusing, and mildly irritating, that he didn’t remember. The job and his property were not new to me.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“One of the card dealers has been clipping off our women,” he huffed, “Getting rid of them.” I rubbed my forehead.
“You know it’s him?”
He raised his voice, “I saw it with my own eyes.” I wasn’t questioning him, but I had an obligation to confirm the information.
“And you didn’t do anything to stop him?” I asked.
“I can’t do anything, man,” he said, a resigned tone taking hold of him. “Fired him. Threatened him. He keeps coming back. I don’t want to lose another woman. They don’t deserve that.”
No, they didn’t. I didn’t take kindly to a man who hunted prey like that.
The possessive way he said he didn’t want to lose another woman made me wonder at his relationship with the working women. I agreed to the job, negotiated pay, then interviewed Jones about the particulars.
Ron, the ex-card dealer, lived near the casino, though he brought the women back to a weekly-rate motel. He knew Jones was onto him, but he hadn’t backed off, as the illegal nature of the activity enveloped both of them. Jones had allowed the pros to work there for years and had likely used their services himself. Perhaps more than that. Ron had only been working at the casino for a while when he started picking them off, though he had not worked there long enough to realize that Jonesknewpeople. People like Zaid, and me.
Once we hung up, I racked the weights. I stretched, listening closely for Hazel. She had locked herself in the bedroom since we had been attacked by the driver, and hadn’t let me leave the apartment. Not for groceries. Not to pick up dinner. In her eyes, there was no reason to; we had enough at the apartment. Every night, we had fallen asleep in her bed, Hazel curled up in a ball, my arms wrapped tightly around her.
It had been almost three days like this.
For the most part, I wasn’t complaining. It was her way of showing that she cared. That she needed me. Or perhaps she only wanted her protector. Regardless of the reasons, she didn’t want anything to happen to me. I ignored the guilt that came with the knowledge that she needed me.
But her behavior would make the cleanup job difficult.
I knocked on her bedroom door. “Hazel?”
There was some movement, the sounds of a person adjusting behind the door. After a few moments, Hazel answered. She stared up at me, her turquoise eyes glossy, her light blond hair in soft waves around her face. A loose tank top and leggings. She was dressed. That was a good step.
“Do you want to go out?” I asked. “We can get dinner. Pick something up—”
“No,” she said.
Should I get to the point, or try to ease it out of her? Neither seemed to have a good success rate with Hazel. I opted for the quicker route. “I’ve got a job soon.” I hoped that she understood what a ‘job’ meant. She had referred to herself as a ‘job’ before, so I assumed I didn’t have to spell it out. When she shook her head frantically, it confirmed that she knew.
“You can’t,” she said. “He’s out there.”
Yes, the driver who had tried to run me over was most likely male. But that didn’t mean he was working alone. He could have had an accomplice. We didn’t know for sure.
But that reminder wouldn’t help the situation.
