Pretties in Pink

1 HALLIE I so, so nearly made it out of the office. Eight o’clock in the evening, the report was finished, my laptop was packed into my oversized purse, my car keys were in my hand, and…Knox was standing in the doorway. His expression said that I wouldn’t be going home anytime soon. He looked…spooked. And Knox was a former Navy SEAL, so he didn’t spook easy. “Dan said you might still be here.” Daniela di Grassi was my boss and mentor at Blackwood Security. Through several strokes of luck, both bad and good, I’d ended up working in the Investigations division, and she’d taken me under her wing. For a girl who’d lived on a diet of true-crime podcasts and coffee for years, it was a dream job. “What’s up?” I asked Knox, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. After twelve hours in the office spent wrapping up a corporate fraud case that had involved not only Investigations but our Forensic Accounting and Cyber teams as well, I needed dinner and then bed. But we’d located three million bucks’ worth of stolen assets—more than the client had been hoping for—so I was looking forward to the meeting with him tomorrow. As long as I could get some sleep, that was. Knox dropped into the empty chair at the next desk. Not a good sign. “Just got a call from one of my buddies in the teams. He’s overseas right now, but he’s got a family situation here in Virginia. Asked for my help.” What did that have to do with me? “Go on.” “His little brother got arrested.” Knox paused for a second. “Actually, Micah’s not so little anymore. He’s also their younger sister’s legal guardian, and the Department of Social Services got involved. They’ve put Fenika into a residential home while they search for a temporary guardian, and she’s freaking out.” “And you need me to help you find her?” “Nah, I know where she is. I was hoping you’d come with me to visit her.” “But I’ve never met her.” “I’ve never met her either—that’s the problem. Figured maybe she’d feel more comfortable with a woman around.” Knox offered a winning smile, and it was gold-medal-worthy. “Buy you dinner on the way back? Cal just wants to know she’s okay.” How long would it take? An hour? Two? I knew how it felt to be alone and in trouble. “It’ll cost you a pizza from Il Tramonto.” Oh, that smile only got wider. “Appreciate it.” “Are we taking your car or mine?” “I rode in on the bike today, but if you want to wrap your thighs around me, I have no objections.” When I first arrived at Blackwood, the office banter had made me very nervous. Hell, the sheer number of men had left me twitchy. But as I’d settled in, I’d grown to understand the place. Visit the finance department, and the quiet, industrious atmosphere made you want to whisper every word. The Security and Monitoring division, which provided everything from mall cops to event staff to home alarm systems—the bread-and-butter team, Dan called it—was always serious and professional. But climb up the ladder to Investigations or Cyber or Executive Protection, and the atmosphere grew more casual. For the people on the top rung—Emmy Black’s Special Projects division—Blackwood wasn’t just a job, it was a way of life. Lines between work and friendship got blurred. Those folks were a team in every sense of the word. And by virtue of my unconventional route into Blackwood—I’d skipped the interview process and gotten rescued from a s*x trafficking ring by the company’s directors—I’d found myself a member of that exclusive club. Still very much the newbie, but…accepted. Until I came to Blackwood, I’d felt as if it was me against the world. Now? Now it was us against the world. Knox, he was an incorrigible flirt, sometimes filthy with it, but also a gentleman. He’d never act on any of his innuendos. Well, I guess he might if I invited him to? But I never had and I never would. I didn’t date, or hook up, or anything in between. The mere thought of being naked with a man again left me nauseated. But the flirting? It was safe. Even fun. “Aw, honey, you don’t have enough to hold on to.” Knox laughed as I’d known he would. “Got your keys? If you drop me at my place afterward, I can catch a ride with Cade in the morning.” I drove a Honda compact, nothing flashy but a huge step up from the clunker I’d owned in Kentucky before my foray into hell. Back then, I’d scraped by as a waitress, working sixty hours a week to survive but not really live. The Honda was my most extravagant purchase to date—an old Blackwood pool car with a few nicks and scratches but a solid engine. Even though the work parking lot was well lit, the mid-October darkness was never far away, and I felt safer with Knox by my side as I hurried across the damp asphalt. He folded himself into the passenger seat as I slipped behind the wheel. “What did the guy do, anyway?” I asked. “The little brother?” Knox’s smile disappeared. “Cal said the cops accused him of taking a girl.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. I’d figured on burglary or a bar brawl, but abduction? I knew first-hand the toll that took, and any sympathy I might have had for a man who’d made a stupid mistake flittered away in the evening chill. “Did he do it?” “Cal says no way, but…” Knox shrugged. “I only met Micah a time or two. Can’t say he struck me as the type, but we all wear masks, don’t we?” Yes, we did. “Is Cal a good friend?” Knox nodded as I started the engine. “Had my back for two years.” “What happened to his parents? I mean, for his brother to have custody of their sister?” “His father was never on the scene. His mom, she died in a hit-and-run right after Cal completed BUD/S.” “Bud-what?” “Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training. He was committed to the Navy, had good money coming in, so Micah dropped out of college to take care of Fenika. The way Cal talks about him, the kid’s a saint.” “What about the girl? The one he kidnapped?” “We can’t be certain that he did it.” “Okay, what about the girl he was accused of kidnapping?” “Cal doesn’t know much. Fen didn’t have many details, and like I said, she was freaking out. They’ve been trying to get ahold of Cal for three days, but he was out of range.” I assumed “out of range” meant he’d been on some hush-hush mission that nobody was allowed to discuss. “Is he coming home?” “Not at the moment. He can’t. Hell, he wasn’t even meant to call me, and if he gets distracted, that could cost lives.” Knox cursed under his breath. “I said I’d do what I could, okay? But I know nothing about the legal system.” “Other than how to circumvent it on occasion?” That got me a half-smile. “Yeah, maybe.” Fenika Ganaway was a petite Black girl who scuttled out a side door of the residential centre to meet us by a bench in the courtyard. Her skinny jeans were on the wrong side of baggy, and she kept her hands stuffed into the pockets of an NYU hoodie that dwarfed her. I couldn’t see much of her face since the hood was up, but her tears glistened under the streetlights. “We have a nine o’clock curfew,” she said right away. A stickler for the rules? “You’re Knox?” “Yeah, and this is Hallie.” They stared at each other, two strangers, neither of them sure where to start. “Could you tell us what happened?” I asked gently. “Knox spoke to Cal, but I don’t think he had all the details.” “I don’t have the details either!” “Micah got arrested?” “They came to the apartment and took him. For questioning, they said, but he didn’t come back, and these people…” She jerked her head toward the squat brick building next to us. “These people say he’s gotta stay in jail.” “Have you spoken to him since?” “One time. He told me to be strong and everything would get fixed, that he hadn’t done anything and the cops would work that out, so why isn’t he here?” “What did they accuse him of doing?” Yes, Knox had already told me, but I wanted to hear it in Fenika’s own words. “They said he took some girl, but that’s bullshit.” She shook her head. “Micah wouldn’t lay a finger on anyone, let alone a kid.” “A kid?” I began to get a bad, bad feeling about this. “A rich little white girl got snatched outta her bed, so who do they blame?” “Vonnie Feinstein? Are you talking about Vonnie Feinstein?” The story had been all over the news for the past week. Eight-year-old Vonnie had disappeared from her bed in a well-heeled Richmond suburb sometime between nine p.m. and the early hours. Her devastated parents had been interviewed on every news channel, and half of the state’s paparazzi were camping outside their home. Nick, one of Blackwood’s directors, lived less than a mile away, and he said it was a circus. The cops thought Micah Ganaway was involved in Vonnie’s disappearance? Fenika nodded. “That’s what they said her name was, but he never met her. I mean, why would he? Those kinda people don’t eat dinner at Burger Ace.” “That’s where he works?” “Worked. When he didn’t show up for Saturday’s shift, his boss fired him on Twitter.” A choke-sob burst from Fenika’s throat. “I got no clue how we’re gonna pay the rent, and the landlord’s an asshole. Like, a real d**k. He’ll kick us out for sure, and what’ll happen to our stuff? These people won’t let me go home, not even to get more clothes. They just made me stuff whatever I could carry into a trash bag and drove me here. When will Micah come back? I need him to come back.” “Did he hire a lawyer?” I asked. “He said the cops found him one, but the guy didn’t seem much good.” “So, a public defender?” “I guess. Not as if we have enough money to pay for an attorney ourselves, is it? What can I do? How can I get him out of there? You don’t know my brother the way I do—there’s no way he’d have hurt anyone. I feel real bad for that little girl’s family, but they’re trying to pin this on the wrong person.” And if that was true, then whoever took Vonnie Feinstein was still walking free. If that was true. I’d never even met Micah Ganaway. He could be a sociopath for all I knew. The only evidence we had to the contrary was the word of two people, one of whom was technically still a child. But I also knew what it was like to be accused of a crime I didn’t commit. “There isn’t much we can do tonight, but we’ll speak to some people in the morning, okay? Find out what’s going on. Do you know the lawyer’s name?” She shook her head again. “Do I have to stay here? They said I did, but I’m sixteen. I can take care of myself. Been doing that for years while Micah’s out at work, anyway.” Her voice hitched. “And the other kids, they’re mean.” Sixteen, but in that moment, she sounded so much younger. And scared. Wouldn’t anyone be if their whole family had been torn away from them? Even if Micah was guilty, Fenika didn’t deserve to be collateral damage. “We’ll look into that too, but there are rules the Department of Social Services needs to follow.” “Rules suck.” She turned to Knox. “You know Cal from the Navy?” “We served together.” “Is he coming home? I asked him, but he wouldn’t give me a straight answer.” “I’m sure he’s doing everything he can to get away, but it’s difficult for him to jump on a plane from…out there.” A silhouette appeared in the doorway, a stocky woman. “Curfew!” “Don’t make me go back in there. Please.” A note of panic came into Fenika’s voice. “Take me with you?” If we did that, the cops would be investigating two child abductions instead of one. “Just stay here for a few more days while we ask questions. This might all get cleared up tomorrow.” “We’ll come back,” Knox promised. “Whatever happens, we’ll come back.” Uncertainty crept into his voice as he glanced my way. “Won’t we?” Why not? It wasn’t as if I had a social life. Mercy, my bestie, spent her days plotting how to spend a billion dollars of stolen cash—not even kidding—and my other roommate was a parrot. And besides, I was curious. You see, Vonnie Feinstein wasn’t the only little girl to have disappeared from her bed. Five years ago, Mila Carmody had vanished into the dark, and despite an extensive investigation by both Blackwood and the police, no trace of her had ever been found. Cold cases were my bedtime reading, and that one…that one had stuck. The media were already speculating about a connection, and the possibility intrigued me. “Sure, I’ll come back.” And Knox could buy me dessert too.