Head Above Water (Nightshade MC Book 4) (9 page)

Once Caesar had gone, he started through the house again. The men had left plenty behind; there had to be something there that meant something. There was always something. It was one of the key rules of investigating. If there was anything Monroe missed about being a detective, it was the investigating. He'd always enjoyed putting the pieces together to create the whole picture.

It took him a while, but he eventually found a crumpled, heavily stained receipt for a gas purchase; it was from Ohio and a credit card had been used. Only the last four numbers were visible, the rest had been redacted for security purposes, but it was something. He also had numerous cash receipts. When they were all together, there might be a pattern.

Monroe left the house when it started to get too dark to see anything. As he walked back to Max's, where he'd left his bike, he called Caesar for a check-in.

Gino's had been a bust; the server who'd entered the order didn't work there anymore. She'd left on bad terms, having been caught with her hands in the cash till, so no one was sure how to reach her. It had been a long shot; still, it was disappointing. Monroe explained about the receipts; he'd go home and give them some attention to see if there was a pattern.

It was only when he was halfway home that he realized he'd taken the long way, a route that would take him past Drea's house. Monroe pulled to the curb, took out his phone and dialed her number. He wanted to see her. Disappointment flared again when he was greeted with her voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, he hung up. There were no lights on when he drove past, and her car was in the same spot it had been when he'd left earlier that morning. Maybe she'd gone to sleep; neither of them had gotten much rest the night before. The idea of stopping and knocking tempted him, but in the end, he kept going. He'd let her sleep, he had work to do.

Hours later, his eyes were burning. Staying awake was a problem, even with the coffee he was drinking. The only thing he'd come up was three receipts from the same corner store. Monroe jolted as his phone rang, nearly knocking his freshly filled cup of coffee all over the table. The caller ID showed Drea's number. “Hey.”

“Hey, I saw you called. Sorry, I was sleeping.” Her voice was soft, as if she'd just woken up. “And I just realized how late it is. Sorry.”

“It's okay, I was up.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Not really,” he replied.

“You sound tired.” So did she; he heard her stifle a yawn.

“You're the one yawning in my ear,” he pointed out. “Maybe you should go back to bed.”

“Maybe you should come and join me. You should probably get some sleep.”

Monroe was tempted, seriously tempted, but the receipts on his kitchen table were mocking him. He knew that there was something he was missing. “I'd like that, but I'm doing something, a club something. I can't really talk about it.”

“Say no more, I get it.”

“Can I get a raincheck?”

“I don't think anyone has ever asked me for a raincheck before,” she said after a pause. “Yes, Monroe. You can have a raincheck.”

“Good. You should probably go back to sleep, and I should probably get back to it.”

“Okay. Be careful. Call me when you can, but only after you get some sleep.”

Monroe laughed at that. He didn't see sleep in his future, especially since he was supposed to meet Buster at one of their sites for an inspection at eight in the morning. “I'll call you,” he promised. “Night, hon.”

<#<#<#<#

Monroe thought he'd be the one late to the site for the inspection, but when he arrived, Buster was the one not there. The inspector, a good-natured guy named Mike, pulled up about fifteen minutes later. “Hey, Monroe.”

“Morning, Mike.”

“I stopped for coffee, figured that you couldn't with the bike. We waiting on Buster, or do you wanna get started?” Mike produced two coffees from the front of his pick up.

“Let's get started,” Monroe said as he reached for the offered cup.

“I'm sure this will be quick. You guys know what you're doing,” Mike said. The man was known to be a bit of a gossip. “Not like the company renovating one of the burned out warehouses on the dock. I've had to stop work on the site twice. The owner is racking up fines like you wouldn't believe.”

“Which warehouse?” Monroe asked the question even though he knew the answer.

“The one that used to be that porn company headquarters. You know it?”

“Yeah,” Monroe replied. He knew it well. Drea hadn't mentioned anything about rebuilding, though he couldn't be surprised that she'd gone with a different company. “Who's doing the work?”

“Ramos and Ramos.”

“Never heard of them before.”

“You probably won't again. They seem pretty fly-by-night to me. Not like you guys.” Mike sipped his coffee, took out his phone. “I've got an inspection app, can you believe that?”

At this point, Monroe could believe just about anything. The walk through of the house was textbook. Altogether, the inspection took maybe twenty minutes. Mike segued from the shoddy work on the docks to the couple he'd caught in the act at his inspection the day before. When they finished, Buster still was nowhere to be found.

Monroe waited until Mike pulled away before he dialed his president. A bad feeling was taking root in his stomach; it wasn't like Buster to be late or to not call. The phone rang all the way through to the voicemail, which wasn't set up.

It took maybe five minutes to get to Buster's house. Monroe parked in the driveway, looked into the garage and saw that Buster's bike was next to Caroline's new minivan. He took the stairs two at a time, pressed his finger against the doorbell.

An eternity seemed to pass before Caroline opened the door. “Why are you ringing my doorbell like you're still a damn cop?” Though she was known for her sunny disposition, pregnant Caroline was on the cranky side.

“Buster here?”

“Of course he's here. Where the hell else would he be?”

“He was supposed to meet me for the inspection this morning,” Monroe reminded her. Caroline knew the schedules as well as the guys did, if not better, since she was the one who created them. He watched her eyes widen. She'd forgotten, which definitely wasn't like her.

“He's still sleeping. We were up late. These babies do not like to stay still and one feels like he's jammed against my ribs.”

“Wait, one of the babies is a he?” Monroe watched her eyes widen again.

“Don't you say anything, don't you dare!” Caroline shot a look over her shoulder to the stairs. Buster had been adamant that he didn't want to know the sex of their babies. Instead, he wanted to be surprised. “I had to know,” she admitted.

“My lips are sealed,” Monroe replied. “You want to go and wake up your old man or what?”

“Is it an emergency or a problem?” She asked.

“No. It's really not.”

“Well then, I'm not waking him. He needs his sleep, and honestly, I'm still tired, too. So, bye.” Caroline shut the door in his face.

Monroe headed back to his bike. He had nothing else on the schedule for the day, so he'd planned on heading home and getting some sleep. He was tired, and the energy drink he'd downed made it feel like he was crashing. The rush of air helped when he started to ride. Instead of going towards home, he found himself headed to Drea's.

She opened the door before he'd even got up the walkway. He stopped in his tracks, took her in. He'd never seen her dressed up before, but there she was in a black pencil skirt, crisp dark gray blouse and heels. Her hair was twisted back into a complicated-looking bun. “Wow.”

“Is that a good wow or a bad wow?” She walked down the stairs to him.

“A good one,” he replied without hesitation. “I don't think I've ever seen you dress up for Love and Lace before.”

“I'm not opening Love and Lace today. I've got a meeting.”

“For the porn stuff?” he asked. She nodded. “Is it about the construction on the warehouse?”

Surprise registered on her face. “Do I even want to know how you know about that?”

“Word gets around.”

“I can see that. Is that why you're here, to ask me about the warehouse renovation?” Her words were casual but her body was rigid.

Guilt flared and burned inside him. “No,” Monroe replied. “I wanted to see you.” He closed the distance between them. “Is it going to mess up your lipstick if I kiss you?”

“Probably. Ask me if I care.”

“Do you care?”

“No,” she replied with a laugh.

Monroe kept the kiss light and pulled back well before he actually wanted to, o since he knew that she had somewhere to be. “I don't want to make you late. I'll get going.”

“Come over for dinner later, if you want.”

“It's a date.”

Chapter Seven

Frankie was either stupider than she'd thought, or trying to fuck her. Drea kept going back between the two. Really, it didn't matter because the end result was the same. She owed the city ten thousand dollars in fines for the problems at the warehouse. When she'd shown up there, she'd found the construction crew sitting around, smoking weed, while the actual bosses of Ramos and Ramos were nowhere to be found. Obviously, they were fired now, but there was no way she was getting back the money Frankie had paid them up front.

Drea was more pissed at herself than Frankie. She'd let him get away with all of it right under her nose because the idea of being hands-on in the porn business disgusted her. It was her mistake. Now, it was up to her to fix it.

She'd done what she could to repair the damage caused by her lack of interest in a more active roll. The first order of business had been to withdraw every cent in the bank accounts of Gagliardi Productions, transfer it to an account only in her name and write a check from that account to cover the cost of the fines the warehouse had incurred. After that, Drea had gone and spoken to the leasing agent for the space Frankie had signed off on. The penalty for breaking the lease, another ten grand, was more affordable than maintaining the five thousand dollar a month rent for the year.

By the time that she arrived back at Love and Lace, she knew what the answer to the filming problem was. There was an upstairs above the shop used now for just storage. It was two rooms, relatively big, clean, and best of all, free. It was the practical thing to do. It would be temporary. It was all temporary. Once she'd paid back the money Frankie and Matt had borrowed, her intention was to look for a buyer for Gagliardi Productions. Until that happened, she was just going to have to work twice as hard to keep on top of everything.

Drea's phone rang. She swallowed hard as she saw the restricted number message on the screen. “Hello.”

“Your first payment is due in ten days. Is that going to be a problem?” The voice had a pronounced New Jersey accent, so pronounced that Drea often wondered if it was simply a show. She didn't have a face to put to the voice; she'd never seen Alton in person. If she were lucky, she never would.

“No, no problem,” Drea said casually, as if she discussed such matters on a regular basis. There was no response, so she took the phone away from her ear and looked down. Alton had ended the call without a word. “Fucking great,” she grumbled to herself as she ignored the way her hands were shaking. All of her was shaking.

The payments, to be made once a month, were of a hundred thousand dollars each. If she drained every cent from the Gagliardi accounts, she could make the first one. There were to be ten in all. One million dollars because Frankie and Matt thought that a strip club was their ticket to the big time. One million dollars to keep herself, Sarah and the niblets safe. Drea knew that she was in over her head, but there was little she could do about it. Alton and his cohorts were not the sort of people you went back on your word with. The first missed payment would trigger an interest rate that guaranteed the debt would never be repaid. The second would end with an actual trigger being pulled.

<#<#<#<#

Drea pushed her cart slowly through the aisles of the grocery store. She'd told Monroe that she'd make dinner, but really she didn't feel at all like cooking and had no idea what to make. What did he even like? What if she made something that he was allergic to or hated? She did know what she was running low on, pretty much everything, so she started to pick up the things she needed. She was in the produce section when she heard someone call her name. She looked up to see Meg Grimes with a cart of her own. It looked like she was shopping for an army. “Hey, Meg.”

“Hey. I called you earlier. I went by Love and Lace and it was closed, I was worried.” Meg was a relatively steady customer, coming by once a week at least.

“Shit,” Drea swore as she dug into her tote bag for her phone. Sure enough, there was a missed call from Meg, one from Monroe and two from Frankie. “I was in a meeting. I never turned the ringer back on and with my phone in the bag, I can't feel it vibrate. Sorry, was it for something special?”

“Train's been cranky lately. I figured I'd find something to cheer him up,” Meg replied. “I'll just drop by tomorrow. Tonight, I'll distract him with food.” She motioned to the cart. “This stuff should keep them fed until tomorrow,” she added with a laugh.

“What are you making?” Drea asked, hoping for inspiration for her own meal.

“My guys are easy to please, we're having meatloaf, mashed potatoes and roasted carrots. Shit, I almost forgot I need chunky peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter in meatloaf?” Drea asked.

Meg laughed. “No. The peanut butter is for Train's midnight snack and Leo's breakfast. They go through it like it's going out of style. You could come over for dinner tonight if you want. We can drink some wine while I cook.”

“That's a sweet offer, but I've got plans. I'm making dinner for a friend tonight,” Drea told her.

“A friend? Would this friend be named Monroe?” Meg asked with a knowing smile.

“Yes.” Drea realized that the Meg knew Monroe a lot better than she did. “It'd be a big help if you could give me a direction as to what to make.”

“He's not picky,” Meg assured her. “You should make whatever your favorite thing to make is or you could just order in pizza.”

“That's really tempting, actually. It's been a long day.”

“Then you should do it. You can't go wrong with Gino's. They'll deliver. Just grab some beer. Find a movie and you've got a great night.” Meg's phone chimed. She looked at the screen, sighed. “And the natives are getting restless. They're hungry and I'm apparently taking ten years. I should get a move on, but I'll see you tomorrow.”

“See you.” Drea turned her attention back to her cart. She needed to grab some beer. There was a small selection of movies to buy, so she grabbed two of the newer releases and headed for the checkout. Drea typed out a quick message to Monroe before she left the parking lot, telling him that she was on her way home and he could come over when he was ready.

When she got home, she grabbed the bags and headed inside. The alarm was on, just as she'd left it, and nothing was out of place. Drea half expected to find Frankie in her living room with some bullshit song and dance where he was the victim of everything he'd done. It was a relief that he wasn't. The idea of spending a night at home with Monroe, eating pizza and snuggling during a movie, sounded perfect. It sounded like exactly what she needed after the day that she'd had.

Drea decided that she deserved wine while she waited for Monroe. She took a glass with her, headed upstairs to change her clothes. Her poor toes all but wept with joy as she took off the torturous heels. Drea returned her skirt to the hanger, it would need to go to the cleaners, and tossed her shirt into the laundry bin. She took off her jewelry, changed and washed her face. It felt good to have the makeup off; the only reason that she'd bothered she'd wanted to come across as professional and put together. It had worked; they'd seen her as a strong business woman. They never needed to know that she was scared shitless.

Drea checked her phone when she got back downstairs; there was no word from Monroe. Her stomach rumbled while she poured a second glass of wine, so she grabbed a bag of chips to take the edge off of the hunger and settled in on the couch to see what she had built up on her DVR to watch. Drea lost track of time, pulled into the plot of the show, so when the doorbell rang she nearly fumbled the bag of chips. “Shit,” she said as she realized she'd nibbled her way through the most of the bag.

If it was Frankie at the door, she was going to lose her shit. Drea checked through the peephole, saw that it wasn't her idiotic cousin, it was Monroe. Relief rolled through her and she opened the door. “Hey, sorry it took me so long. I got caught up.”

“It's okay. I was just watching television.”

“And eating chips,” he said with a chuckle. “You've got some crumbs.” Drea brought her hand up to wipe her face. “Not there,” he said with a pointed look down.

Drea brushed the crumbs from her chest, felt her cheeks redden. “You can come in, you know,” she said in a rush. “I didn't order the pizza yet. I wasn't sure what you wanted.”

“I'm good with sausage and peppers, maybe some garlic knots?”

“Sounds good, I've just got to grab my phone so I can call. I left it in the living room.” Drea stepped back so he could come inside. “There's some beer in the freezer, it should be cold by now.”

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

Drea turned to face him, found him right there. “What am I forgetting? Oh, the door.”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Not the door, this.” It wasn't until the last second that Drea realized he was going to kiss her. He'd kissed her goodbye the last time she saw him and now he was kissing her hello; she couldn't remember the last time, if ever, she'd been kissed hello. He pulled back. “Salt and vinegar chips? Good choice.”

“They're my favorite,” she told him. “There's some left in the living room.”

“Awesome.” He kissed her forehead before he stepped back from her. “So, how'd your meeting go, hon?”

Every single time that he called her hon, Drea felt it like a jolt through her whole body. She didn't want to think about her day or her meetings. “I'd rather not talk about it now.” She braced herself, waited for him to push her on it.

He didn't. Instead, he reached out and ran his fingers through her hair. “We won't talk about it, then. We'll have some beer, some food and maybe call it an early night?”

Early night. He was already thinking about leaving. Drea pushed down the feeling of loneliness that came with knowing that. “Okay, if that's what you want. I'll call for the food.”

“Nope, I'll call the food. And, I'll get the beers. You go and sit, have some chips or something.” He smiled, and it warmed Drea down to her toes. “Just make sure to save some for me.”

Drea wondered what was wrong with her as she made her way into the living room. In the space of two minutes, she'd gone from feeling deeply sad that he wanted to leave early to feeling tingles through her whole body. Maybe she really was about to crack under all the pressure. Tears burned in her eyes again; she turned her back to the door, covered her face with her hands.

“Alright, food is on its way and I've got a surprise for you.” Monroe said from behind her. “And you don't look like you got very comfortable.”

His voice was what made Drea lose her battle with the tears; in it she heard concern. When was the last time anyone had been really concerned about her? She felt her shoulders, maybe her whole body, shake. “You okay, hon?”

“No,” she replied. It was all she could manage to say before she started to sob. Embarrassment flared inside of her as Monroe crossed the distance between them. He didn't try to say anything or to soothe her, instead he just wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. At first she struggled against him, fighting the tears and him, but she was already so tired.

When the sobs slowed enough that she could breathe, and think, the embarrassment returned full force. She opened her eyes and realized she hadn't gotten all of her makeup off because there was a huge mess of black mascara all over the white tee shirt Monroe had on. “Oh fuck, I ruined your shirt. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of this.” For one horrible moment Drea was sure that she was going to cry again, but it passed.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I just cried all over you,” she pointed out. “I ruined your shirt and I cried all over you.” Drea moved to step back from him but he held onto her. “I...” she sighed.

“Don't say sorry again,” he said gently. “You feel better?”

“I feel stupid,” she told him. “Embarrassed and ridiculous. You didn't come here to watch me have a meltdown.”

“How do you know that? Maybe I was hoping you'd have a breakdown. Maybe that's my thing, chicks who get all sobby and ruin my shirts.” Monroe leaned in, pressed his lips against her forehead. “You know what we should do when the food comes? We should take it upstairs and just eat in bed.”

“You want to stay? I thought that you wanted an early night.”

“I was talking about us having an early night. That's not what got you upset is it?”

There was a look on his face, quite obviously panic at the thought she'd cry like that over him not wanting to spend the night. “Relax, it's not what got me upset,” she admitted. “It was more everything that's been going on lately.”

“What's been going on, hon? I know you said that you didn't want to talk about it, but it might make you feel better if you do.”

Drea thought he might be right. There were times when she needed to talk something out. Most of the time she went to Sarah, but for this her friend needed to be left in the dark. “It's a lot to dump on you, Monroe. We're just starting whatever this is. I'm not sure it's the right thing to do.”

“This is something to me, Drea. It's new but it's something. You can talk to me.”

“Okay,” she exhaled a long breath. “I will, but not right now. I'm really hungry and I don't want to lose my appetite.” Drea also knew that she was going to need some time to pull herself together. Another episode of tears would take too much out of her. As it was, she felt shaky.