HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (97 page)

              But with a new career and a new apartment, plus with all the extra classes I was attending at the community college in subjects that interested me, I felt like anything was possible. I knew that all my hard work was finally paying off.

It was time to see my son.

I dressed in a nice suit—one of the pieces that Carlotta had gifted me—and did my makeup tastefully. A little mousse in my hair ensured that my curls stayed pretty and tight. I looked like a woman who had her life in order, and I really liked that. I had waited so long to be this version of Shimmy that it was hard to believe when I saw her smiling back at me in the mirror.

              I hailed a cab and directed the driver to the Paxton’s house. My heart was troubled in spite of my excitement to see Trevor. It had now been more than two years since I’d heard anything from them. Did they even still live in the same house? If I’d been sending my letters to strangers, I would’ve thought that I would’ve gotten at least a few return to senders.

But no. My letters remained unreturned and unanswered. Someone was getting them. And it was past time to get my son.

“Here we are,” the cab driver announced, pulling up to a house that until now I’d never thought was intimidating. The way it loomed up over us made me doubt everything.

“Do you want me to stick around, or what?” the driver asked, witnessing my hesitation.

I laughed him off, trying to bolster my own spirits. “I won’t keep you,” I said. “Thanks for the ride.”

Despite the blossoms on the trees, a chilly wind blew, letting me know that spring was still having trouble asserting its claim this year. The house looked just like I remembered it, even if it had been four long years since I last laid eyes on it.

One new addition looked to be a security camera encased in a black dome right at the front door. That was odd.

I walked up to the porch and knocked on the door, trying not to stare into the camera. My heart was fluttering at several possibilities, but the one I was hanging on to was the possibility of seeing my son. Trevor was the reason I did everything, the reason I drove myself to earn money at the worst place to do so, the reason why I had the strength to turn everything around and make something of myself. I would never stop improving my situation if it meant that my baby was going to have a good life.

The door opened, and I smiled.

“Hi, Miles,” I greeted the bewildered butler. “It’s me, Shimmy.”

“I remember you, Miss Shimmy,” he said, clearly aghast. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see my son, Miles,” I said, my voice firm and confident. “May I come in?”

That seemed like the last thing that Miles wanted to have happen, but he stood aside anyways.

“Wait right here, please,” he said, trying to recover his composure as he walked quickly away.

As I waited, I looked around a little bit. The gold couches and cherubic crown molding was the same, but something was different. First of all, I couldn’t believe that I’d ever dreamed of living in a place like this. This wasn’t a place for living. This was a place for looking and not touching, a place to show people what they’d never get, even if they tried.

Even if it was just four years ago, I’d grown way past the level of emotional maturity I was when I was eighteen. Twenty-two wasn’t ancient, but I was bristling with experience and a little bit of wisdom from what I’d been through in the last four years.

And my instincts were screaming at me that something wasn’t quite right.

A pile of boxes was stacked in the sitting room, which was odd in of itself. I’d never seen the house look anything but immaculate. Was it possible that the Paxton’s were getting ready to move? The contents of the room seemed intact, but the boxes were full. I ran my hand over one of them and tried to move it a little. It was heavy, solid.

I glanced around the room, but I was alone. Could I peek inside one of the boxes? Was I brazen enough? The top one had been opened. I reached inside and felt around gingerly. There were several packages inside, all tightly packed inside the box. There was a graininess to them, though, that I couldn’t quite place. I took out one of the packages to take a closer look, but I froze and dropped it back down inside the box immediately.

There was someone in the room with me. Light footsteps on the rug.

I turned around slowly and saw him. My treasure. My baby boy.

We stared at each other for a long time, regarding each other with the same brown eyes. He was a spitting image of me except that he was a little boy, just four years old, dressed in a light sweater and khaki pants.

He was adorable. He was my heart. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He was my entire life.

“Hi, Trevor,” I said, putting my hands on my knees so I could be at his level. “Can you say hi, baby?”

“Hello,” he said shyly, and my entire existence melted.

“Do you know who I am, Trevor, my treasure?” I asked him. If the Paxton’s couldn’t keep their promise about the letters, I was sure they wouldn’t keep their promise to tell my son about my existence. I realized it was Ben who made me that promise, and it chilled me to the bone. What had I ever seen in him? What had made me trust him in the very beginning.

My baby shook his head slowly, frowning at me. He knew me, he had to know me, I thought to myself. I’d nursed him, starved for him, tried everything to raise him, gone through hell and back, and now I was going to be his mother.

Even if I had to start from square one.

“Trevor, I’m your mommy, baby,” I said. “Can you say mommy, Trevor?”

“Mommy,” he said immediately. Lord, he was a smart, sharp boy. I wanted to run to him, to crush him to my body and never let him go, to stroke his curls and kiss his round cheeks and smell his mahogany skin. That was my baby, my little son, and nothing would take him from me again.

“I’m your mommy, Trevor, and you’re my little boy,” I said. “Did you know that? Did you know that your mommy was gonna come for you?”

He thought about this for a few moments before shaking his head.

“Well, I’m here now,” I said, forcing myself not to rage at the Paxton’s. They would hear some sore words from me in time, but I didn’t want to be anything but happy in front of my baby. “Do you like hugs, baby? You think you can come and give your mommy a hug? She’s wanted one for so long.”

His big eyes not leaving mine, Trevor sidled across the room toward me. He was so shy, but I was convinced he knew me. He had lived inside my own body for nine months. Please, God, let him know me, I prayed.

              When he was just a few feet from me—close enough to grab, which I was only barely able to restrain myself from doing—he refocused on a point beyond me and lit up. His smile was breathtaking.

“Daddy,” he said happily.

That was all the warning I got before I was yanked bodily away from my baby with bruising force.

“Wait!” I screamed, unable to keep my composure. “Wait! Let me hold my baby! Please!”

“That’s not your baby, bitch.”

I twisted in my captor’s arms, my shoulder popping painfully for the effort, and stared into Ben’s eyes.

“Get your goddamn hands off me,” I hissed, rage bubbling up through my shock. “I told you that this day would come, Ben. I’ve been doing nothing but working toward this day for the last four years.”

His grip got even tighter, and I hated to think about how his fingermarks would look in black on my forearms. Ben’s face was an ugly mask, his eyes cold. He was nothing like the boy I loved.

“You can’t actually believe that you can do a better job than I can in raising the boy,” Ben said. “What do you possibly have?”

“Enough,” I said. “I have enough to make it happen. I own my own business and have an apartment. You said that once I had it together, Ben, that we were going to talk about custody of my son.”

“My son,” he corrected, “and that offer’s off the table now. You’re not good enough for him. You never were. And you’ll never see him again.”

I heard a small cry from behind me and wheeled around again. Little Trevor was standing in the front hall, looking at us with big eyes and a trembling little lip.

“Don’t cry, baby,” I said, smiling even as tears ran down my cheeks. “Everything’s okay, Trevor.”

I tried to hold my arms out to my son for a hug, but Ben held them fast.

“Let me hold my son!” I screamed.

Terrified, the baby started sobbing and spluttering. I regretted it, but I had to get my point across. I had to let Ben know that I wasn’t going to stand for this.

Ben pushed me against the front door and I hit it hard, seeing more than a few stars. He was on me in a second, pressing his body up against mine. There had been a time when I’d craved his closeness, but this was way beyond invasive. This was aggressive and threatening.

“You’re leaving now,” he said as our son wailed behind him. I kept eye contact with my boy, watching the big fat tears roll down his cheeks. This was the last time I was going to be the reason for my baby’s tears, I vowed. The last goddamn time.

“You’re going to be seeing me again real soon,” I said, forcing myself to smile through my tears. “I’m going to bring the entire legal system up in this shit and our son is going home with me.”

“If I see you here again, I’m going to kill you,” Ben said, no light whatsoever in his eyes.

“What happened to you?” I demanded, shivering at the promise in his voice. “What happened to the Ben Paxton I used to know? The one I fell in love with in high school?”

“It’s family business,” he snapped, “and doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Mommy’s coming back for you, baby,” I called to Trevor, who was still sobbing.

Heels clicked on the floor as I continued to struggle with Ben. Fury consumed me and made me see red as Mrs. Paxton walked out, cool as a cucumber, and lifted Trevor into her arms.

“There, there,” she soothed. “There, there. That bad woman’s going now. She’s leaving.”

“Your mommy is coming back for you, Trevor,” I called. “I promise you, baby.”

              “For God’s sake, Ben, throw out the trash,” Mrs. Paxton said, turning and walking away with my son clinging to her. I tried to make eye contact with him one last time, tried to give him my biggest smile, but he had his little face buried in the crook of Mrs. Paxton’s neck.

              It should be me comforting my son, not her. I gritted my teeth and shoved against Ben, but he didn’t budge.

“There is nothing you can do to keep me away from my son,” I said, setting my jaw and eyeing Ben. I didn’t care that he scared me to death. This motherfucker was going to know that I was serious. I was a fucking grizzly bear mama. And there was someone standing in between my baby and me.

“If you’re dead, you’ll have an awfully hard time,” Ben said almost pleasantly before shoving me out the front door.

I stood out on the porch, staring hard into the camera mounted there, wondering who was looking back at me.

Then, I gathered what few shreds of dignity I had left and walked to the street with my head held high. To my credit, I made it inside the cab before I broke down, sobbing so hard that the driver almost pulled over.

“No,” I said. “Keep going. Please. I need to get back to my home.”

              I was staring at my hand, which I’d raised to wipe away some of my miserable tears. There was a white dust on one of my fingernails. Baby powder, I thought at first. I sniffed it experimentally, but there wasn’t an odor.

A quick dart of my tongue against the powder told me everything I needed to know.

There had been crazy nights at Mama’s nightclub and memorable customers, but one of the most insane times I’d had was with a guy who told me he was part of a Colombian drug cartel.

I didn’t believe him, thinking it was pillow talk he told to impress the ladies, until he whipped out the cocaine, sprinkling a tiny bit on the head of his cock. I sucked him off, having never done the drug, and my mouth and tongue went numb as my world exploded into a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and experiences. It had been a trip that I never wanted to repeat, spending the rest of the shift on the nightclub floor, jumpy and jittery.

Still, it had imparted an unexpected perk: I could now recognize cocaine.

There was cocaine in the house my son was being kept in—maybe a lot of cocaine. I thought about how much that’d be if each of those boxes in the living room had been filled with the drug. Enough to put that whole family away for the rest of their lives and give me back my baby.

Yes. I needed to go home. There was planning to be done. Careful planning.

“Shimmy, I’m asking if you want to press charges. It’s a yes or no question.”

I bit my lip and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. All I was wearing was a camisole and panties, and the bruises where Ben had grabbed me stood out sharply on my upper arms despite my mahogany skin.

I was on the phone with Fitch, the police officer who had taken me from Mama’s nightclub during the raid.

At first, he chided me for not calling him right away like I said I would. I apologized, explaining that I’d been busy and regaling him with all of my recent successes.

Then, I told him my plan.

“I don’t really understand what pressing charges will do,” I said. “I just want the authorities to get a warrant to search the house. I think there were drugs in there.”

Fitch gave a long sigh. “Without probable cause, I think we’re going to have issues getting that warrant,” he said. “Plus, the Paxton’s have a lot of connections.”

“Wait, you know them?”

“Sure,” he said easily. “They’re one of the biggest donors at the NYPD.”

“Shit,” I breathed, resting my hot forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. This was getting much more complicated than I thought it would be.

“Maybe we can do something if you decide to press charges,” Fitch said, his voice hopeful. “That’ll probably get you the warrant.”

“I don’t want to press charges,” I said firmly. “I think that’ll only go badly for my son.”

“If you press charges, you can get a restraining order,” Fitch said. “Then he’ll have to stay away from you.”

“I’m not concerned about my safety,” I said crossly. “Everything’s about getting my son back.”

“Well, it sounds like you’re on a personal vendetta and need a bodyguard,” Fitch said. “I regret to say it, but the NYPD’s not really in that line of work.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who is, would you?” I asked glumly, staring at the bruises. If they were that bad one day after the incident, how would they look tomorrow? The black streaks looked like I’d been mauled by a bear.

Well. This grizzly bear mama wasn’t about to back down. I was getting ready to bring the fight.

“You know, I just might.”

“What’s that?”

“I might know someone more in your line of work,” Fitch repeated. “You got something to take a number down?”

              “Shoot,” I said, uncapping a lipstick. I wrote the number that Fitch recited on the mirror, repeating it back so I could make sure it was right.

“His name’s Tyler Marlowe,” Fitch said. “Ex-FBI.”

“And he’s in my line of business now?” I asked, staring at the number and at the bruises on my arms.

“Private investigator,” Fitch confirmed. “That’s what you need. Unless you want to press charges against Ben Paxton. And then the NYPD will more than take care of you.”

I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it. “It’s too risky,” I said. “I want to press forward and see if I can get some evidence against the Paxton’s. If this doesn’t pan out, I’ll think about the charges.”

“Make sure you document everything he did to you,” Fitch said. “If you decide to press charges a week from now, you’ll want proof.”

“Believe me,” I said, eyeing my arms. “This is still going to be here in a week.”

Fitch let out his breath. “I’m worried about you,” he said. “And I kind of regret giving you Marlowe’s number.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Fitch said. “Marlowe’s a hard man. He’s seen a lot and done even more. I can’t say that he’s incredibly friendly, either.”

“I don’t need someone to hold my hand,” I said. “I need someone who’ll help me get results.”

“Then Marlowe’s your man,” Fitch said. “Be careful. Call me about those charges.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. “Thanks for everything. You are, as always, a life saver.”

“I sure hope so.”

I ended the call and used my cell phone camera to take several pictures of my arms. If they looked even worse tomorrow, I’d photograph that, too. I was slowly building my arsenal of evidence against the Paxton’s and I hoped that this Tyler Marlowe was going to help me start putting nails in their coffins.

I called the number Fitch had given me and let it ring. It went to voicemail.

“This is Tyler Marlowe,” a deep voice recited. There wasn’t an ounce of emotion in it. “I am unable to take your call at this moment. Leave your name, number, and briefly state your business. I will reach you.”

Something about that last statement gave me pause. “I will reach you.” It sounded vaguely threatening. A beep sounded in my ear and I jumped, forgetting myself and what I was doing.

“Mr. Marlowe,” I began, “my name is Shonda Crosby. I was given your number by a mutual friend. He told me that you were a private investigator, and I’d like to hire you for your help in resolving a matter that is of great importance to me.”

I recited my cell phone number twice, slower the second time, even though I knew that the man’s phone would probably record it.

I waited about five minutes, but there weren’t any return calls. Instead, I called Jasmine.

“What’s going on, Shimmy?” she asked, picking up after the first ring. She was my biggest ally in all this, always making time for me. I really appreciated her.

“I was wondering about getting a lawyer,” I said.

“What for?”

“I guess you can say I’m engaged in a custody battle with the father of my child,” I said. Battle would be an understatement in this case.

“It just so happens that you’re in luck,” Jasmine said brightly. “We have partnerships with several firms around the city, and they all guarantee pro bono work with any of the clients of Sisters Together.”

“Pro bono?”

“Free of charge.”

“I can pay for it,” I protested, but Jasmine clucked at me.

“Accept help where you can get it,” she said. “Are you free this afternoon?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll swing by your office after I run by the boutique.”

“You want to call it three?”

“Perfect.”

I climbed into the shower and turned the spray on as hot as it would go. After I’d gotten home yesterday, I’d done a lot of crying and a lot of thinking. I’d stayed up until the wee hours going over my options, and I was now sure that I had set the right plans in motion.

If the Paxton’s thought I was going to let them just have my son without a fight, they had another thing coming. I was going to leap into this fray with guns blazing. I just had to set up all my bullets.

I felt refreshed after the shower, and dried myself off with a fluffy towel, taking care around my upper arms. It was hard to raise my hands above my head, and I knew I’d be sore for days.

I put a button down shirt on, reminding myself that I couldn’t wear anything that would expose my bruises, and a pencil skirt before slipping into low pumps. I’d always had the ability to walk wherever in whatever shoes. My apartment wasn’t terribly far from the boutique, so I liked to walk the distance any time I left early enough to do so. And these pumps were some of my most comfortable.

I went minimal with my makeup, just sweeping on mascara and a layer of red lipstick, and I was out the door.

It wasn’t until I checked my phone about halfway to the boutique that I realized I’d missed a call.

“Ms. Crosby,” the deep voice said, “this is Tyler Marlowe. I don’t talk business on the phone, so we’ll have to meet in person. If this is as important to you as you say it is, you’ll find a way to be at the Braxton Speakeasy at 8 o’clock tonight.”

That was it. I replayed the message to make sure I didn’t miss anything. He was a curt son of a bitch, that much was certain, but it also brought me a little comfort. This Tyler Marlowe sounded like he was all business, and that was all I needed.

I couldn’t ask for better business at the boutique. Whether they’d read about it from the newspaper write-up or simply stumbled upon it while shopping, the customers kept coming in. I tried to help as many personally as I could, feeling like it gave the boutique a more intimate touch. I also like to see what different customers enjoyed the best out of the fashion I had in stock. I felt a little bit like a curator at a museum might feel. I was procuring the pieces that I thought would be most interesting, and my customers let me know through what they bought—or didn’t buy—how close to the mark I fell.

Working was a lovely distraction, and business was so good that I was considering hiring someone to help me with sales and inventories. I’d ask Jasmine if there were any Sisters Together clients who needed work once I went to the office to meet with the lawyer.

I closed the shop early, wincing at the sales I might get later in the afternoon. That’s why I needed another person to work with me, I told myself. I couldn’t do every single thing by myself. And I had a plan that might require me to be out of the shop for long periods of time. Yes, hiring one or two girls—or the right men—would have to become a priority.

In fact, the boutique was doing so well that I’d started considering expanding, or opening another branch of the boutique in another area of town. The thought made my eyes cross, though, so I knew that it was a long way down the road for me.

One quick cab ride later, I was sitting at a table across from Jasmine and a suit I could only assume was a lawyer.

“Shimmy, this is Charles Bloom,” Jasmine said, holding her hand out. “Mr. Bloom, this is Shonda Crosby.”

“Shimmy, please, Mr. Bloom,” I said.

“Then I must insist you call me Chuck,” he said, smiling. His grin was as shiny as his bald, white head.

“Chuck,” I tried, then smiled back. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he said. “How about you tell me what’s going on.”

I wasn’t sure how forthcoming to be with this man about my situation, but Jasmine put all my suspicions to rest.

“Because Mr. Bloom is an attorney, anything you say to him is private,” she explained.

“Client-attorney privilege,” Chuck put in. “So don’t hold back.”

“Okay,” I said. “The father of my baby threatened my life yesterday and assaulted me. He is also keeping me from seeing my son. I also suspect that his family is doing something illegal. There were lots of boxes in their house, and a security camera outside that wasn’t there the last time I was there. In one of the boxes was a white powdery residue that I came to understand was cocaine. My son had access to this room with the boxes.”

Chuck and Jasmine stared at me.

“I thought this was just a custody case,” he said.

“It is,” I insisted. “The father of my child and his family are keeping me from my son. I’m trying to give you some weapons to use against them in court. Everything I’ve done has been to try to be reunited with my son. I gave him up with the understanding that once my life was in a good place, I’d have the chance to take him back.”

Chuck let out a long breath and tapped his pen on a clean pad of paper.

“It’s hard to establish which parent is more fit to raise a child,” he said.

“His father is violent and likely doing something wrong,” I said, incredulous. “That should be all there is to it.”

Chuck shook his head. “We need proof,” he said. “Until then, it’s your word against his. A big part of proving your fitness as a parent is touting what you bring to the table, not detracting from the father of the child.”

I bit my lip. “I own my own business,” I said. “I’m—I’m thinking about opening a second location.”

“Shimmy!” Jasmine exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”

              “And what are your potential detractions?” Chuck asked, not pausing in his staccato rapping of the pen against the pad. He still hadn’t written anything down.

I swallowed. “It was a teen pregnancy,” I said. “I don’t have any family to help support me. I was a prostitute in a nightclub that was raided by the NYPD.”

Chuck looked grim. “Can we go over the positives of the father’s family, just as an exercise?”

“They have a lot of money,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “And they’ve raised him these past four years. He—he seemed healthy when I saw him yesterday. And happy, I suppose. He didn’t know who I was.”

I felt like shit. I felt like it was four years ago again, and I wasn’t good enough to raise my son. Things had to be different now.

“Let me tell you something,” Chuck said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “You’re the mother of that child, and no one can take that from you. Judges are very, very sympathetic to mothers in cases like these. You deserve to see your son again. Anybody can see that. It’s just not going to be as easy as I think you think it should be.”

“You should press charges against Ben,” Jasmine piped up.

“That’s a possibility,” Chuck agreed. “Cast some doubt on him.”

“Not an option,” I said. “I’m afraid of what he’d do. I’m afraid they’d disappear with my son.”

“Paxton’s can’t just disappear,” Chuck said, laughing. “They like the limelight too much. Which is why I just can’t figure out how you found cocaine in their house. Is that true?”