Chapter Four - Ixion
I sit up straight and stare at the largest of the monitors I’ve got set up in the basement control room. Someone is at the front gate. A woman.
I push away from the panel of screens, jog to the door and yank it open, then sprint across the obscenely large basement to the stairs. I take them three at a time, see my shoes over near the kitchen, slide across the hardwood floors in my socks, grabbing them by the shoelaces as I slip past, and then duck around the corner of one wall, just as the front door opens and the alarm sings in protest.
The woman—tall, long, dark hair, wearing a long winter coat, and carrying a brown paper grocery bag—pushes all the right numbers of the alarm keypad to make it stop screaming, and walks towards the kitchen.
This is not Evangeline Rolaine. I know that for sure. Because this woman is pregnant. Very pregnant. “Excuse me,” I say, coming out from behind the wall. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
She doesn’t jump at my voice or anything stupid like that. Just smiles and sets her bag down on the dark soapstone countertop. “You must be Ixion,” she says.
“It’s just Ix,” I say, annoyed. “And you are?”
“Oh.” She laughs. “Sorry.” She extends her hand for a handshake. I take it as she says, “You don’t remember me, do you? I remember you though. Who could forget that name, right?” She’s still smiling. And I still have no fucking clue who she is. “Jordan reminded me, so I cheated, I guess. But our parents were friends. Marcella Walcott. Ring any bells?”
I squint my eyes at her. I have no clue.
“Well, it’s Baldwin now.” She wiggles the fingers on her left hand to flash her diamonds at me.
“Baldwin?” I say.
“Smith. You know him, right?”
“Not really,” I say. “But your name…” I think back.
“My father is the senator?” she adds, trying to be helpful.
I point at her. “Oh, fuck yeah. I know you.”
She makes a gesture with her hands that says, Of course you do. “Lucinda had an emergency, so she asked me to bring groceries over before her patient checks in tomorrow. So.” She turns back to her grocery bag. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Got it,” I say.
“So you and Jordan have been friends all this time?” She looks over her shoulder as she loads vegetables into the fridge.
“Sorta,” I say, fascinated by her. And a little weirded out that two childhood friends have reappeared in my life lately. “We go way back, as I’m sure you’re aware. But we don’t talk much now.”
“Ah,” she says, closing the fridge with her hip and walking over to the subzero freezer on the opposite wall. “So he conned you into doing this job, huh?” She laughs a little. Like she knows him pretty well and this is just… one of those cute things we can count on Jordan doing.
“Are you and Jordan friends?” I ask.
“Sorta,” she says. And then she winks at me. “He went to the Club a lot when I first met the guys.”
Mmmmm-hmmm. Interesting. The Club denotes a place called Turning Point. Been around for decades. Jordan wanted to be part of that place in the worst way back in college. But they have an age requirement, and then he went to UCLA for law school, and I was there, and we did… with… yeah. Fuckin’ club. Sex is what they do there. “So that place is still rollin’, huh?”
“No,” she says. “Bric sold it about a year ago and I understand that someone is turning it into a hotel.”
“Ah.” I point to her belly. “And that’s Baldwin’s baby?”
“Of course,” she says.
“Uh-huh,” I say. I have a lot of details I could fill in just based on what she’s told me already. None of them come from her and all of them come from that statement about meeting Jordan at Turning Point Club.
I wonder if she fucked him?
“Well,” Marcella says, folding up her paper bag and stuffing it in the universal place people stuff folded paper bags—that thin slot of empty space between the fridge and the wall—“that’s it for me. My job is done. Good luck with yours. Oh, and if you find yourself downtown, I own a tea shop next to where the Club used to be. Stop by and we’ll be friends again.” She smiles broadly. “Or something.”
I just… kinda laugh at that and watch her walk out.
Weird.
I lock the house back up, re-arm the alarm, and go back downstairs to a buzzing phone on the desk top. “Yeah,” I say. Its caller ID says it’s Jordan.
“I told you not to be seen,” he says.
“Well, you didn’t tell me that some strange chick was gonna show up out of the blue.”
“It’s none of your business what happens outside your little control room, Ix. I thought I made that clear.”
“Look, I just didn’t know she was coming. A little heads up next time, right?”
“Stay away from this Evangeline girl, Ixion.”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”
“I know you, remember. You fuck girls just to see if you can.”
I actually fuckin’ guffaw. “You are no one to judge me.”
“Do not fuck with this girl, Ixion. Understand me?”
“Dude, Evangeline Rolaine is the definition of boring. Don’t worry.”
“Good,” he says. “She’s so not your type.”
“No shit. She’s kinda…” Well, I was gonna just say ugly as kind of a default answer, but I’ve got her picture up on the wall where I always keep a picture of my targets. And she’s not ugly. So I can’t even lie about it.
“She’s kinda what?” Jordan asks.
“Uptight,” I say. “You know I hate girls like that. Fuckin’ high-society bitches with their fancy debutante dresses and fake giggling.”
“Yeah, from the information I’ve gathered on you up in Wyoming, you like the mean ones. The wasted ones. The easy ones.”
I shrug. “So? Someone’s gotta like ‘em. Might as well be me.”
“Stay in the control room. If you see a problem, call me immediately. Do not go upstairs. Hell, do not leave that room under any circumstances unless she leaves the house and you need to follow her. And if that happens, you call me then too, got it?”
“Got it,” I say. “You’re just like her. Uptight and shit. You got a thing for this girl, Wells?”
“No.” He laughs. “I just provide a service. Nothing more.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not the least bit interested in Evangeline Rolaine. And I can’t wait for this shit to be over so I can be on my way. Gonna hit up Oregon next.”
“Yeah? Why there? Why not stay here?”
“Why should I stay here?”
“You’ve got roots here,” he says.
“Not anymore,” I say back.
“That’s harsh,” he says.
“I’m just a realist, that’s all.”
“Sure,” he says. “Whatever. I’ll call tomorrow afternoon to check in. Stay in that fucking room.”
I hang up on him. He’s told me that like five times already. He can fuck off. I have no intention of interacting with the boring ex-child prodigy. But if I did intend to, I would.
Because Jordan Wells does not get to make rules for me.
Not after he broke them all and ruined my life.
In fact… this girl might be good for something after all. I don’t need the money, but I could use another game.
How about it, Miss Rolaine?
Would you like to play a game?