Fisher

---

That had been a close call, far too close for comfort.

I had been chatting with the front desk clerk, one who was far more helpful than I would have hoped.

At one point during the conversation, she had said that the hotel’s general manager, Eden, was due back any minute, but that in the meantime, she’d be more than happy to talk to me about my questions and concerns.

I’d thought I was going to shit a brick, but I kept my outside cool and had simply thanked her for her help and told her I’d be back later.

As I left the hotel, I had to weigh whether or not to take the opposite route or follow the one that I had before.

I decided to go the way I had come, certain that the front desk clerk was looking at me and would find it odd if I left in a different direction than the one I had come in.

The problem was that it put me directly in Eden’s line of sight.

I spotted her preparing to cross the street, felt my heart skip a beat.

She didn’t know me, but she would recognize me if she saw me, or at the very least wonder at my resemblance to her husband and brothers-in-law.

I couldn’t let that happen, but it was also far too soon to take action, so heart pounding, palms sweaty, I kept my head down, taking care to obscure myself to the highest extent possible while not drawing more attention through odd behavior, and headed toward the car.

I’d seen Eden many times before, and knew exactly what she looked like. When she passed me without even noticing my presence, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I also resisted the urge to turn back, follow Eden all the way to that front desk clerk.

I didn’t have the stamina for it, not after that close call. So I walked toward the car, wondering at how I was feeling. I’d gotten some good information, but my mind wasn’t focused on that. Instead I was thinking of Jade. I knew she wouldn’t be happy to see me, but I would be happy to see her. Though it made no sense, I was looking forward to seeing her, anxious for a chance to be in her presence again.

When I found the car empty, my stomach clenched, twisted, as I wondered if Jade had changed her mind.

I hoped she hadn’t.

I was still sure that she didn’t trust Patrick as completely as she thought she should or as she wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if she trusted him enough to go to him with this.

If she did, I would be dead, but even more, I had no clue what he would do to her.

I hoped she was smart enough to see that, and even if she left, she would just stay gone and leave all this behind her. It was my fault Jade was in this situation, but I didn’t want to see her hurt. I was crystal clear on that point, didn’t quite understand why, but it was important that Jade stay out of harm’s way.

Her absence was yet another wrinkle in my plan, but I would figure it out.

In fact, as I got behind the steering wheel and noticed that the keys were still there, I pondered what my next move would be and how I would go about it.

Almost jumped out of my skin when the passenger side door opened.

“What took you so long?” Jade asked.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I said.

“Then you need to improve your situational awareness. I suggest you get away from here,” she said.

I was simultaneously relieved to see her and annoyed by her scaring me and being so pushy about what to do next. But I also knew, at least in one of those instances, she was right.

Without another word I drove off, putting a good distance between myself and the hotel.

“You thought I’d left?” Jade asked.

I heard her question and it pulled me out of my thoughts. I turned to her and then shrugged.

“What else was I to think?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she responded, her voice tight.

“Where’d you go?” I asked.

“I decided I needed an up-close view of what you were doing in the hotel, so I walked to the end of the opposite block to see what was going on inside.”

She made her confession about spying on me as if it was absolutely nothing, and I kept my eyes on the road but the moment I pulled over I looked at her agog.

“You were following me?” I asked, barely able to contain my annoyance. I’d known she was reckless, but I found it hard to believe she had done something so brazen. Didn’t even want to contemplate what could have happened if things had gotten out of hand.

“Sure, you can call it that,” she said.

“And what would you call it, Jade?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Information gathering,” she said, throwing my own words back at me.

“You don’t have any information to gather, so don’t follow me,” I said, not bothering to hide the edge or the annoyance in my voice.

None of which seemed to get Jade’s attention.

“It would be my pleasure, but if you think I’m just going to let you run around and do whatever while I stand aside and watch, you’re very wrong,” she said.

“Don’t interfere in this, Jade,” I said.

“I’m not interfering with anything. But if you’re not going to give me the information I need, I’m going to find it myself. It’s my profession. And besides, you don’t get to control what I do,” she muttered.

“You really think I’m interested in controlling what you do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. But if you think I’m going to just feed you information while I sit idly by and watch things happen, you’re wrong,” she said.

I wasn’t at all surprised by her interference. What surprised me was that I wasn’t especially annoyed by it either.

I’d expected no less from her, in fact.

“So what did you see during this information-gathering expedition?” I asked.

“I saw you flirting the panties off that front desk clerk. Did you?”

“I think they were still intact, but they definitely would have come off had I wanted them to,” I replied.

“You’re just as modest in the morning as you are in the evening,” she said glibly.

“And as I told you before, there’s no need to be modest when one speaks the truth,” I responded.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Jade glared at me, and I found myself wanting to smile.

Which was surprising given how I felt.

She stayed quiet for a moment and I continued to drive, sinking into my thoughts until her voice pulled me out of them.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft, soothing, warming me from the inside out.

I looked at her, saw the sincerity in her expression and then answered.

“I’m fine,” I said.

I hadn’t had much occasion to use those words because very seldom in my life had anyone ever asked how I was doing.

Still, the answer felt like a lie as it slid off my tongue, especially when I was talking to Jade.

And it was a lie, because I was anything but fine.

I had been honest with Jade when I told her that that visit to the hotel was all about gathering information, the information I had gathered thus far was enough to make me want to punch something.

Jade had warned me as much, told me how devoted Michael’s employees were to him. And after talking to that front desk clerk, I could see why. I had taken as many angles as I could think of, easing into it by asking questions about the hotel, but then broadening to ask questions about Michael and then Eden. I didn’t necessarily need to get specific answers, but seeing how the front desk clerk responded to my questions was great insight.

Some people hated their jobs and bosses so much that they dripped with anger and dissension at the very mention of their name.

The front desk clerk, and any of the other employees I might have talked to, I suspected, were the exact opposite.

If I believed the clerk, Michael was an angel descended from the heavens to help them, and his wife, Eden, was even more exalted.

I got stories about how the Murphys almost never fired anyone, how generous they were with their employees, how out-of-the-way they went for anybody and everybody.

It had taken all of my willpower not to vomit, or tell the clerk in no uncertain terms how wrong she was.

Neither option would advance my plan, so I kept my opinion to myself.

But holding it in didn’t make that little quiver in my chest disappear.

And I didn’t know what to do about that.

In my head, I had imagined Michael as some kind of tyrant, stomping around taking advantage of people, shitting on the downtrodden for his own good and propping up his family’s criminal enterprise.

But no. If I believed the front desk clerk, and, as much as it irritated the shit out of me, I did, they were the real deal.

Michael and Eden treated their staff just like family.

I almost scoffed at the thought.

That fucker didn’t know the meaning of the word, but he had at least one person convinced, and instinct told me that the reaction might extend far beyond one front desk clerk.

Which left me incredibly frustrated.

It didn’t exactly surprise me that Michael would treat his employees well. Part of maintaining a legitimate business came at the cost of keeping it squeaky clean, and squeaky clean would include happy staff.

But even though I had been prepared for something like that, just seeing the affection, the connection, the seeming joy that the employees got when discussing him was next level.

And I didn’t understand how it could be true.

I’d heard all about Michael’s exploits, how crazy he was, didn’t give a crap about niceties.

So why then did he seem to go out of his way to help his employees, and more to the point, should I allow this conversation to change my intent?

Immediately I decided no.

One person’s story was great, but no matter how nice Michael might be to his employees in the moment, what he owed me went so far beyond that.

And I wanted to make him pay.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

I would make them all pay.

Soft fingers on my forearm was the first thing I noticed, followed by an equally soft voice.

“Fisher?”

---

Jade

---

I shouldn’t have touched him, but I’d been unable to stop myself, not when I saw the tumult in his expression, had been overcome by the urge to comfort him. Doing so set off a reaction I tried my best to ignore, so I dropped my hand, swallowed down the feelings that had no place in these circumstances.

At the sound of his name, Fisher turned to look at me, and the expression on his face was still the tortured one that had been there before.

“Are you okay?” I asked, repeating the question from earlier that he clearly hadn’t heard, my voice sounding breathless, something I hoped he didn’t notice.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not fine,” I said.

“I’m fine, Jade,” he repeated, his voice ragged.

The only thing I could assume from his demeanor was that he hadn’t gotten what he was looking for.

As crazy as it was, that kind of made me sad.

It wasn’t like I wanted Fisher to be successful in this awful plan of his. I wanted exactly the opposite. But, some other part of me—smaller, but undeniably there—didn’t like the idea of seeing him disappointed.

Which was so messed up.

“So if you’re fine, why do you look like shit?” I asked.

“That’s your opinion. The clerk didn’t seem to agree,” he said.

“Oohhh! Are you trying to remind me that some pretty clerk was trying to hit on you?” I asked.

I didn’t laugh, knowing that his emotions were probably too raw for that, but I did smile.

And after a while I got a grudging smile returned.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No offense taken,” I responded, shrugging.

And I wasn’t offended. In fact, if that was Fisher’s idea of trying to get under my skin, he had a long way to go. I intended to give him a lesson on that as we rode.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he responded.

“What I think matters?” I said.

“No,” he replied flatly, his hands again tight on the steering wheel as he stared straight ahead.

His body language, his voice, his demeanor were screaming at me to leave him alone.

Unfortunately for Fisher, he was about to learn that that wasn’t me.

“You definitely didn’t get what you needed, so what’s the plan now?” I said.

“Do you really think I’m going to answer that?” Fisher said.

“No. But I had to try,” I said.

“No, you did not,” he retorted.

I didn’t respond, deciding that getting into a pissing match would not be the best use of time. Instead I looked at him, studying his face.

“You know what I think?”

“No, and I don’t care,” he said.

I didn’t let his words bother me and continued on as though he’d said nothing.

“I think you fucked up,” I said.

Though he tried to pretend otherwise, I could see that my words had piqued his interest.

“Now that I’ve gotten your attention, shall I explain?”

He didn’t respond, which I took as a yes.

“You went to the hotel. Talked to at least one person, got seen by how many others. I know you don’t like to admit this, but you look very similar to the Murphy brothers. And if people see you, like they did just now, they’re going to wonder. How long do you think it took that clerk to tell Eden about the dashing Irishman she was chatting up? Thirty seconds? A minute?”

“Is there a point here?” he asked.

“Yeah, the point is your little front desk hottie is going to tell Eden, and Eden is going to tell Michael, Michael’s going to tell Patrick, and you’re gonna have a whole world of pain raining down on your ass,” I said.

“I welcome it,” he said, his voice edged with steel.

I looked at him and shook my head, not surprised but undeniably disappointed.

“You really are serious,” I said.

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. I could see the intensity in his expression, knew that he firmly believed what he thought.

That chilled me.

I was again reminded that this was a personal vendetta, one that was sadly immune to my logic.

I wanted to speak, but decided not to.

Because as I glanced at Fisher, his face set in a mask of intensity so strong it was almost difficult to look at him, I got the sinking feeling that I didn’t really know what I had gotten myself into.

And I had no idea how I would get myself out.