Dirty (7 page)

Sometimes I wondered why I fell slightly short of that category.
 
I worked hard that much was true.
 
My friends described me as driven, even accused me of being all work and no play at times.
 
But I often considered whether my intense focus on making it in this male-dominated occupation was more about proving I could.
 
I’d felt that way since the divorce...as if I couldn’t risk failing at anything else.
 
Maybe that’s why I always picked the wrong guy.
 
I couldn’t fail at a relationship if I wasn’t technically in one.
 
The wrong guy automatically ensured things didn’t meander too far into dicey territory.

Enough with the self-psychoanalyzing already.
 
Something was troubling my young friend and she needed my help.

Alita glanced back toward her son.
 
“I would very much like you...find Emilio’s father.”

“You want me to find your son’s father?”
 
I blinked in an attempt to hide my initial reaction.
 
Too late.
 
She noticed.
 
My repeating her statement in the form of a question might have played a small part in giving away my surprise.

“I never talk of him before but it’s time he know he had a son.”

I nodded, just then grasping her full meaning.
 
“Were you pregnant with Emilio when you left Mexico?”

Her head moved up and down quickly.
 
“But I did not know.
 
When I find out it was too late.
 
I couldn’t go back and he not know.”

Before I said yes I knew full well Alita couldn’t pay me.
 
But it didn’t matter.
 
She was my friend, if I could help her I would.
 
“I’ll look into it, Alita.
 
Make a list of all you know about him.
 
Full name, last known address, stuff like that and I’ll get right on it.”

“Thank you, Miss Jackie.”

Hobbs made a sound in his throat and I shifted my attention to where he lurked in the doorway. “I believe this is for you.”
 
He waved the FedEx envelope Alita had accepted.

There was something about his tone that gave me pause.
 
“What is it?”

He strode to my desk and placed the envelope in my outstretched hand.
 
“A somewhat intriguing message,” he declared.

I frowned.
 
I couldn’t be sure if Hobbs was yanking my chain because he was still frustrated about Willis or if he was serious.
 
There was a return address, a PO box, but no name.
 
I reached into the envelope and felt around.
 
At first I thought it might be a joke since the envelope felt empty.
 
Some might deem that a message in itself.
 
Then my fingers encountered something small and rectangular.
 
Smooth, slightly thicker than paper.
 
I withdrew the object and studied it.
 
A photograph.
 
The kind taken for a passport or drivers license.
 
It was...

The air evacuated my lungs...for ten full seconds I couldn’t speak or form a coherent thought.
 
I could only stare at the face I hadn’t seen in a decade.

“Who this, Miss Jackie?
 
You know him?”

I licked my lips and took a shot at swallowing, but a chunk of emotion had rammed into my throat.

“You might want to read what’s written on the back.”
 
My gaze collided with my assistant’s and he nodded to the photo.

I knew from the softness of his tone and the concern in his eyes that my face had gone white as a sheet.
 
Hobbs and I enjoyed our cutting banter, but we were both keenly aware of each other’s feelings.

Somehow I managed to turn the photo over though my fingers were ice cold and shaking.
 
My heart stumbled as the words scrawled there registered in my brain.

You were the last one to see him alive.
 
#D-1216
.

My knees went weak, forcing me to wilt against the edge of my desk to keep from hitting the floor.
 
Who the hell would send this to me?
 
No one knew...I hadn’t told a soul.

“Do you know this man, Jackie?” Hobbs inquired cautiously as if he feared the answer might be something he didn’t actually want to know.

I blinked, tried to snap out of the daze of disbelief I’d slipped into but couldn’t quite manage the feat.
 
I must have looked as if I’d seen a ghost since both Hobbs and Alita hovered close, their faces cluttered with worry.

“I don’t know his name,” I admitted, my words as thin as a whisper.
 
Not once in all those years had I allowed myself to consider the full ramifications of what I’d done that night.

My mind rushed back ten years.
 
The barrage of sensations that accompanied the memories stole my breath again.
 
We’d met at the bar of a local nightspot—the hottest singles gathering place at the time.
 
Even now it felt surreal...as if it had happened to someone else.
 
It was the night my divorce had become final.
 
My son was with his father and new stepmother.
 
As glad as I was to be rid of my lying, cheating, pompous ass husband, I felt lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life.
 
I’d gone out for the evening hoping to get my mind off the past and focused on the future.
 
I was a free woman.
 
Had a second chance.
 
I was supposed to be ecstatic.

But the truth was I hadn’t dated in fifteen years.
 
I felt out of place, like I didn’t belong.
 
God, that had been a miserable feeling.
 
The other women at the club were flirting or dancing and dressed to kill.
 
I simply didn’t know how to do that anymore.
 
Somehow in all those years of motherhood and being a wife I’d forgotten how to be just a woman.

Then
he
had claimed the bar stool next to me.
 
I stared at the man in the photograph...my thumb slid over his face as if I could somehow reach back in time and touch him.
 
Dark hair and eyes.
 
Classically handsome.
 
He’d had that whole Cary Grant suavity going on. The attraction was instantaneous and fierce.
 
The encounter had begun as a game, then he’d started talking to me as if we’d known each other for years.
 
Pretty soon he had me laughing and then...incredibly he’d made me want him like nothing I’d ever wanted before.

We ended up in a motel room...alone and feeling desperate like the world might end in the next moment.
 
Heat rushed through me as images from that night flooded my mind.
 
Still keeping up the pretense of the game he’d started, we hadn’t exchanged names, just hours of explosive passion.

How could I have put that night so completely out of my mind?

Damn.
 
Now I remembered.
 
The next morning I had awakened and he was gone.
 
He’d left without saying good-bye, without my even knowing who he was or where he’d come from.
 
But that magical night had coalesced into a kind of clarity that woke me up as nothing else could have.

I never told anyone about him...not even my closest friends.
 
But somehow that night a complete stranger had made me see that everything would be all right.
 
I would survive the divorce and all it entailed. I was still a desirable woman and my destiny was my own. All I had to do was make it happen.

Surely this wasn’t someone’s idea of a sick joke.
 
That couldn’t be.
 
Absolutely no one knew about him or that night.
 
I shook off the memories and, knowing that Hobbs and Alita waited for some sort of enlightenment, I explained, “I mean, I met him...spent time with him, but I didn’t get his name.”

“What do you suppose the message means?” Hobbs ventured, still looking suspect as regards my responses.
 
The man read me entirely too well.
 
He would want the rest of the story.

Not trusting my still unsteady legs I stayed put on the edge of my desk, but I forced my mind to wrap around the possible scenarios.
 
I studied the face that held a kind of power over me even now, then reviewed the message once more.

“I’m not sure.
 
But this—” I tapped the number “—looks like a court case number.”
 
The files my father had brought home from work as a judge had been designated similarly.

“I can check the PO box.
 
Try and track down the guy’s name if you’d like,” Hobbs offered.
 
“Shouldn’t be too difficult.
 
The DMV will have–”

“I haven’t seen this man in ten years,” I interrupted my assistant’s attempt at cutting through the awkward tension.
 
“I met him at a bar.”
 
My eyes fixed on his.
 
Might as well give him the facts up front.
 
“We had a one-night stand.
 
When I woke up he was gone.
 
That’s all I know.”

Hobbs cleared his throat indelicately.
 
“Well, that’s a start.
 
Let me scan that photo and see what I can find.”

He took the photo from me but hesitated a moment.
 
“You don’t have any idea who might have sent this?
 
Someone you shared the experience with?”

I shrugged.
 
“No one else knew about that night.
 
Maybe he told someone, but I didn’t.”
 
I kept to myself the other possibility that had already crossed my mind.
 
I just didn’t see what the man in the photo could hope to accomplish by sending something like this.

Hobbs let the subject go at that.
 
But he wouldn’t rest until he figured out who the guy was.
 
I told myself I wanted to know too, but the ominous warning written on the back of the picture had me hesitating.
 
If he was dead, did I really want to know?
 
What could I possibly have had to do with it?
 
I hadn’t even known his name.
 
Hadn’t heard from him in all this time...of course if I had been the last one to see him alive that would certainly explain why.

The instincts I’d worked ten years to hone suddenly overrode my more tender emotions.
 
Damn straight I wanted to know who he was and what had happened to him.
 
Obviously someone thought it had something to do with me and that, if nothing else, made it my business.

“I be going now,” Alita said uncertainly.
 
“You be okay, Miss Jackie?”

I squeezed her arm and produced a reassuring smile.
 
“I’ll be fine, Alita.
 
Don’t worry.
 
We’ll take good care of Emilio for you and I’ll look into your request.”

She nodded.
 
“When there is time.”

With Alita off to work and Emilio busy building a Lego city, Hobbs promenaded back into my office.
 
“I checked with FedEx.
 
They weren’t that helpful,” he griped.
 
“The sender was a John Smith.
 
He’s also listed as the owner of the PO Box.”
 
He snorted.
 
“That’s almost as bad as John Doe.
 
And get this, the shipment originated from right here in Houston.
 
The clerk couldn’t recall what the sender looked like, only that he was male.
 
He could have stuck it in our door and saved himself thirty bucks.”

I nodded, a part of me still distracted by memories that just wouldn’t be ignored.
 
I should have asked him his name.
 
How could I have slept with a man and not even have known his name?
 
To some degree I supposed that had been part of the mystique...we could be anyone...do anything.
 
No boundaries had restrained us.
 
That night...our being together was all that had mattered.
 
But now, considering the picture and its ambiguous warning it felt wrong.
 

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Jackie?” Hobbs prodded.
 
The man loved juicy gossip but I knew his question was related to the worry I saw in his eyes.
 
This blast from the past had shaken me.
 
He’d noticed.
 
“Is there any reason you know of,” he went on, “that this guy could have some sicko friends who’ve just discovered your connection to him?”

I shrugged.
 
“I don’t know the first thing about him.”
 
Except that he’d been an attentive lover.
 
Why would anyone do this now?
 
Ten years was a long time.
 

Hobbs handed the photograph back to me.
 
“What about the number?
 
Can we use that to track him down?”

I stared at the message for a moment.
 
“That’s a possibility.
 
If it’s what I think it is.”
 
I felt reasonably certain it was.
 
“I’ll check it out.”

“Before you get into that,” Hobbs said, his tone moving back into his usual perky zone.
 
“I do have some good news.”