School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,62
that moves?”
Jackson cast a half-guilty smirk at Tage, who smirked back.
“Uhm, no,” he said, feeling his face burn. “Actually living with someone for a year now. He sort of won’t let me leave.”
Mira cackled. “Well, that was never our problem. I always had one foot out the door, and so did you. But God, it’s good to see you.” She held up her hand, and he saw a rock almost as big as her ring finger and an intricate wedding set.
“You too. And it looks like you’re doing okay too. Congratulations!”
She beamed. “We have kids, if you can believe that shit. My cooter made two other complete human beings. I am boggled!” She held up a picture from her desk where two elfin children, maybe two and four, frolicked naked in a wading pool while a thin man wearing swim trunks, a beard, and a besotted smile sprayed them lightly with a hose.
Jackson had to laugh; happy families were a good thing. “Well, I am boggled too. I’d heard lady parts could do that, but you know, my brother’s kids are like my only example.”
“Oh, honey, you’re born to be a dad. You and Mr. Right will figure it out.” She batted her eyes at him. “So what favor do you need, and which kid am I going to have to sell to get it for you.”
Jackson opened his mouth in true shock. “Mira!”
She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “Honey, we see shit so awful here that if we don’t fucking laugh at it, it’ll make us batshit insane. Besides, my kid daughter, the four-year-old, can take apart the toaster, the blender, and her bicycle if we so much as sleep in on a Saturday. Nobody’s going to buy her. She’s trouble.”
Jackson nodded, understanding. Sometimes dark humor was the only kind life gave you.
“Well, I was hoping to talk to Eleanor or Ethan, but maybe you can help me. I’ve got a name of someone who is probably in the biz. He seems to have snatched our client’s brother and sister. They’re twelve and fourteen—” He looked over his shoulder. “—right, Tage?”
“Maxim turns fifteen next week,” he said, his eyes going big and liquid.
“So yeah, they’re a good age for….” He swallowed, not able to say it with Tage right there.
“Sex work,” Mira said, dropping her voice. “I hear you. Were they snatched as part of a net? Were they just close? What happened?”
“Well, the same group of people who tried to frame Tage here for murder kidnapped the kids as insurance that Tage wouldn’t talk. And then they tried to kill him in prison, and the assumption is they’ve been shipped off regardless of whether he talks or not. We’re pretty sure they’re counting on him to be dead.”
Mira pursed her lips. “Oh, Jackson. That’s some bad news right there. I mean, we’ve got a couple of bloodless gangs out there, but that sounds like one of our trifecta of scumbags. We’ve got MSTK, some outfit that seems to be run by American businessmen that we want really fuckin’ bad, and a group from Russia that’s kicking our ass. What’s your name?”
Jackson looked at Tage who squared his shoulders resolutely and nodded. “Dima Siderov.”
Mira’s eyes got huge, her lips parted, and she actually gasped as though she’d been hit. “Oh Jesus. We have our scumbag. That’s a case for Eleanor. This guy is her meat, and we want to make sure he’s tender and sweet before we go after him.”
Aha! A name—and a plan. “I’ll be honest, honey, we don’t even need to take the scumbag down. If we could recover the kids and get all the kids the fuck out of Dodge, I will take that as a win.”
She made a face. The kind that Jade used when she was trying to say, “That’s a beautiful dream, sweetheart, but it is just not going to happen.”
Jackson girded himself for some bad news and some red tape and a need for an alternate plan. He’d meant what he told Siren Herrera. He could deal with the fact that chaos went on and on and on and he and Ellery could only do so much about it. But the people they could save he was by God going to save, because that’s the only way he could sleep at night knowing the chaos was working overtime to grind people’s lives into dust.
“Honey, I… with the way these guys function, the odds of them still being in Sacramento