Page 12 of A One Woman Job
This little check-in isn’t going to go well.
I guess I should just be grateful my father appears to have a handle on the kids and hasn’t had anything to drink. Who knows how long that good fortune is going to last, though. When I called them a moment ago, they were all laughing and walking home from town with ice cream, but the next time I call, he could be snoring in an alleyway somewhere and the kids could be running amok.
To distract myself from the frustration of the unknown, I pick up the phone and dial the memorized number. Etta answers after two rings.
“Well?”
I hate this bitch. “I’m at work—thelegalkind—so I’ll make this quick. I’ve made contact with…him.” Even saying his name out loud to her feels disloyal. Although, when did I become loyal to him? “We have plans to see each other again—”
“Excuse me?” she laughs. “Try again. Tell me the real story.”
My nose wrinkles. “What do you mean?”
“Do you really expect me to believe you simply ‘made contact’ with one of the deadliest…” she trails off, clearing her throat. “That you met him so easily? He doesn’t people very well. One does not simply strike up a conversation with him.”
“Well, I did.”
And we took a bath.
And he licked me. Everywhere.
“What color are his eyes, then?”
“Ice blue. Like a glacier.”
There’s a pause. “Lucky guess. Name some other defining traits.”
I take a deep breath and hit launch. “There are tattoos all over his body. Chest, neck, back, both arms. Throat, even, with a red heart over his Adam’s apple. Shaved head, but his hair is beginning to grow in black. He’s extremely surly. He called me an idiot. Then he called me Michael Phelps.” Why am I smiling against the phone’s receiver? “He’s intense. Private. But he’s also…curious. And kind of confused about why he wants me around. I’m confused about it, too.”
The silence on the other end of the line is thick. “Holy shit, you really did make contact with him. How did you do it?”
Easy, I nearly drowned. “I have my ways.”
“This man rarely has face-to-face contact with anyone. If you see him, odds are you’re…about to have a terrible day. Even I have been communicating with him via messages in a social security box for years.”
If I didn’t already have a strong feeling Koen does something very bad for a living…I do now. “I might have made his acquaintance, but I don’t think I’ll be able to persuade him to go back to work for you.”
“Your family being burned alive isn’t enough incentive?”
My blood freezes. “Please don’t do that,” I beg, my voice wobbling.
“Six days,” she purrs, hanging up.
My fingers are so numb, I can barely manage to put the phone back in the cradle. The office is still as death around me, but I’ve been in bad situations before. Perhaps not this bad. Still, I put in my headphones and get the hell on with my responsibilities.
That’s what women do.
And that’s what I do.
Koen
I only allowedher to leave my home so I could follow her.
There is nothing among her possessions to identify her. No phone or wallet. No clues about who she is or where she came from. And so, I let her go to work, hoping to learn what I need to know.
Which is fucking everything. I need to knoweverything.
I’m sitting in the front seat of my nondescript SUV, my eyes fastened on the entrance to the building Meg disappeared into moments earlier.