now. Remember I’m in the Haunted House?
Johnny: Are there any cold spots? Anything move on its own? What about mysterious sounds?
I ignored him and tossed my phone down to the bed, then shivered as I thought about what had happened in this house.
That was the last thing on my mind for a long time.
CHAPTER 16
Once I get an attitude, it takes 3-5 business days to fix my face.
-Text from Blaise to Sin
SIN
“I’m sorry, but what?” I asked, sorting through the mail as I walked up to the office doors.
“There’s a woman here asking for your services,” my receptionist, the one that came with the job, said. “She’s telling me that you for sure will want to hear her out.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What’s her name?”
I didn’t want to go inside those doors without first knowing who it was that waited on the other side.
“Her name is Linda Ames,” the receptionist explained.
I felt my entire fucking body lock.
“One more time?” I asked, looking around the parking lot of the investigative offices that I’d taken over upon getting out of prison.
“Linda Ames,” Lulu repeated. “Why, she bad?”
I liked Lulu. She was a no nonsense seventy-year-old black woman with six children she raised on a single income, a mountain of grandchildren, and a perpetually bad attitude toward anyone that threatened any of her kids.
And, somehow, I’d ended up being one of her ‘kids.’
So yeah, she didn’t like my being threatened, even when it came to a woman.
“She’s bad,” I confirmed. “I’ll be in in two seconds.”
Then I hung up the phone, placed my phone in my pocket, and tried to compose myself.
This had to be why Blaise’s message had struck me as wrong earlier.
Though she said she was fine, I’d left the office to go check on her. And she was indeed asleep.
Leaving her alone with Sarge as her protector, I’d just gotten back to work when Lulu had called.
Opening the door to my office, I was unsurprised to find Ames sitting on the only couch in the waiting room that faced Lulu’s front desk.
I gritted my teeth, plucked the aviator glasses from my face, and then hooked them onto the collar of my shirt.
Once my eyes adjusted, I walked over to Lulu‘s desk to stand beside her.
Lulu coming with the business had been great. The man that I’d replaced had recently retired, and Lulu knew what she was doing when it came to running an office.
She handled all the bills, all the client accounts, and did the shit that I didn’t want to do.
“Couple of bills, Lulu,” I told her as we made eye contact and I held out the mail for her to take.
She studied me for a long time, not reaching for the mail, as she tried to decide what to do.
Finally, upon reading whatever it was she needed to in my eyes, she reached up and took the mail.
“There’s always bills, darlin’,” she said. “I’d be more surprised if there weren’t bills.”
I winked at her, grinning wider when I heard the impatient woman at my back clear her throat.
Lulu’s eye twitched, as if she wanted to give Ames a piece of her mind.
And hell, maybe she did.
We took new clients by walk-in only. For her to stop by and stay went against Lulu’s routine, and Lulu didn’t like getting off her routine.
After rapping my knuckles on Lulu’s desk, I turned around and moved slightly to the left so Lulu could see, then leaned my ass against it while studying Ames.
She’d aged quite a bit since I’d last seen her before the shit had gone down with Brees.
Her hair was longer, but it was also grayer, as if she’d aged a shit ton and didn’t even care.
She was also heavier. She’d put on quite a bit of weight.
“How can I help you?” I asked carefully. Neutrally.
At least, I hoped what it came off as was neutral.
Based on the way Ames’ eye twitched, I was thinking it didn’t.
“I didn’t realize you lived here,” she said.
My brow rose. “I do. What’s it matter?”
“You need to leave,” she said. “Jaycen and I were here first.”
Jaycen.
I’d heard Brees called that only during the trial that sent me to prison.
“Sorry for your bad luck,” I said calmly. “But this is where I live now. I’m not leaving, whether you want me to or not.”
Ames’ jaw clenched and unclenched as she processed those words.
“We’re happy,” Ames continued. “My kid is in daycare here. We can’t leave. You can, though.”
The understanding that Brees and