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“The last time I slept was the night she walked out of our room in Australia,” I told her truthfully.
“How long ago was that?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks, give or take.” It had taken three days to get into see my team of fixers since, for once, my problem wasn’t of the “someone is going to kill me if you don’t step in” variety.
From there, it seemed like they’d just hit dead-end after dead-end.
“She really got under your skin, huh?” she asked, leaning forward, grabbing a notepad and pen off her desk. “Alright. I’ll bite. What do you know?”
“She goes by Wasp. She has a best friend. I think she called her Raven. And then the two brothers who are in the arms trade somehow. She converted a skoolie.”
“A skoolie.”
“A school bus. Into an RV, of sorts. She told me she is a dog trainer.”
“Alright. What else? The more details, the better.
The problem was, I didn’t have anything really solid to go on. I had little details, general preferences, but no names or events or even a home state to drop a pin in.
“All details are good details,” Nia told me, shrugging. “People share everything on social media. You never know what might be an important part of the search.”
“She likes classic movies. She has a strong aversion to gross feet and bad grammar. She’s traveled a lot. But it sounds like just across the continental US. She mentioned a lot of different tourist traps and restaurants.”
“Alright,” Nia said, nodding. “This is a good start. Oh, Jesus. Stomp your feet or something,” she snapped, making me turn to see who she was looking at only to find a tall, massive man with tanned skin and a short crop of hair standing in her office, looking for something on a shelf. “No worries, man. You’re not interrupting or anything,” she added to the man who ignored her completely. “Yep, I wanted your hands all over all my shit. We don’t do boundaries at this office or anything,” she went on as the man continued to ignore her.
“It’s nice to—” I started, trying to introduce myself to someone who was clearly a new member of the team. He would likely be on one of my cases more than once. It was always good to get on their good side early.
“Don’t bother,” Nia told me, rolling her eyes at the man’s back. “He has no people skills to speak of. Or manners. Or respect for someone else’s property,” she added as the man tucked something under his arm and made his way out of the room.
“Who was that?” I asked, jolting when he slammed the door.
“Holden,” Nia said, shaking her head.”He’s new.”
“What is his job title?” I asked, knowing that each of them had a particular specialty, and that their names reflected that. The owner, Quin, was The Fixer. The man who helped people in sticky situations was The Ghost. There was a Messenger, a Negotiator, a Cleaner, a Babysitter. More recently, a friend of mine became a member of the team under the title of The Executioner. Nia, appropriately with her impressive computer skills, was The Hacker.
“The Inquisitor,” she said, snorting. “I know. It’s ridiculous, right? So pretentious. Like he is going to come riding into your town, round up your wild women who were accused of witchcraft, and put them on the rack until they admit to it. When all he really does is go into our communal fridge and steal other people’s meals. Meals they put a lot of time into preparing.”
“Why, Nia, if I didn’t know any better, I would say you have a crush.”
“Oh, ew,” she said, cringing. “God, no. He’s not my type.”
“I’ve heard that before. Doth you protest too much?”
“Doth?” she repeated. “And no. Not at all. The stoic, silent type with bad tempers aren’t my type. I like men with some levity.”
“Oh, Nia, dear thing, you can just come out and say it. You’re hopelessly in love with me. You’ve been carrying a torch all this time.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, smirking. “That must be it. I’m in love with your pain in the ass self. Cleaning up grown-ass men’s problems gets my panties wet,” she drawled.
“I am afraid to inform you, but I find myself in love with someone else.”
Those words sounded clumsy on my tongue, unpracticed, my lips struggling to form the right sounds.
But there was no denying the truth in them.
I didn’t even know the woman’s real name, but I had fallen for her.
I had to figure out where she went, why, what would possess her to cut ties completely. When things had seemed to be going so well, when we had all sorts of plans to keep exploring the world together.
“Wow. You love her,” Nia repeated. “I wasn’t sure you were capable of loving anyone other than yourself.”
