Here’s a new episode in the blog series, FIRST CHAPTERS. It’s the first exciting chapters in each book in the Micah Reed series! Expect a new one each week.
To get this book, click here. To see all posts in the First Chapter series, click here.
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WHEN FRANK LIFTED the cover from the cake, Micah Reed burst out laughing, but probably not for the reasons Frank had intended. White frosting topped the cake, with a single candle and an icing picture of some blueish blob thingy with gray streaks running through it.
A lake, maybe, or a swimming pool? Micah couldn’t figure it out.
“What’s so damn funny?” Frank said as he hefted the cake onto Micah’s desk.
“Well, it’s just… I mean, I appreciate you getting me a cake for my one year and all, but I have no idea what that is supposed to be. Is it like an abstract thing?”
Frank huffed a sigh and retreated into their office’s kitchen to grab a coffee mug. Micah worried for a second that he might have pissed off his boss, but Frank returned a moment later, with no anger written on his wrinkly face.
Frank craned his neck, squinted at the blue blob. “Well, crap. It’s supposed to be a bird escaping a cage, you know, symbolism and all that. I asked the girl at Whole Foods if she could do a bird, and she said it was no problem. Looks like she oversold her talents.”
Micah stroked an imaginary goatee. “Ahh, I get it now. Symbolism. One year sober, free of the cage of alcoholism. That’s clever, Frank. Real clever.”
Frank shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, kid. This is about as sentimental as you’re going to get from me today. Cut yourself a piece and let’s get back to work.”
Micah picked up the knife and was preparing to dig into the cake, but he stopped himself. Maybe Frank wouldn’t want to hear it, but Micah needed to say it. “I mean it, though. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’d be dead in a gutter if it weren’t for you.”
“That’s how it works. I sponsor you, and if you don’t relapse, you eventually go out and sponsor other people.”
“Like a Ponzi scheme but with good intentions instead of lies and bankruptcy.”
This time, Frank did grin. “You got it. You’re a year sober, so it’s about time you started expanding your horizons.”
The knife slipped into the cake, and Micah sectioned off a corner for himself. “My horizons, eh? That brings up a good point. For the last year, I’ve been thinking about not much besides getting twelve whole months under my belt. Stringing together as many days as I could.”
“And?” Frank said.
“Now I’ve got a year. So what do I do with myself?”
“Mostly, you keep living one day at a time. But it’s also time to start figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. Go out into the world and mix with the normal people. Make a friend. Write your memoirs. Take a pottery class, or whatever. Doesn’t matter, as long as you keep doing what’s required to stay sober on a daily basis.”
Make a friend. Not an easy task for Micah, for more than a few reasons. Not the least of which was that his name wasn’t actually Micah Reed. Not the name he’d been born with, anyway. He’d had plenty of experience reciting the version of his past that included all the government-approved fake details, but it never got any easier.
Before he had time to dwell on this further, the door at the front of Mueller Bail Enforcement opened, and in slinked a terribly familiar woman.
Dark skin, dark eyes, long dark hair. Wearing a t-shirt and jeans, which might have seemed strange for October, but Denver weather could be like that. She had a constricted gait, as if she was trying to keep her frame from tearing apart as she crossed the room. Held her arms close to her body, her legs tightly together as she walked. When she came to a stop, her knees pointed slightly inward.
Micah knew her, somehow, but he couldn’t place it. Like seeing a recognizable actress in a movie, but her name dances barely outside of your memory. The not knowing drives you so crazy that you have to get on the internet and investigate.
Frank shot to his feet and waddled across the office. “Morning, ma’am. Can I help you?”
She pulled her purse a little closer to her chest. “Daisy Cortez. You are Mr. Mueller?”
“That’s what they call me. What can we do for you?”
Daisy nodded at Frank, then her eyes darted in Micah’s direction a few times. Unsteady, flashing glances. “Hi, Micah.”
The hair on the back of Micah’s neck spiked. She knew his name? “Hi. You gotta forgive me, but I don’t… do I know you from somewhere?”
“Yes. We live in the same building. I’m on the second floor. We met in the elevator on the way to the manager’s office, a couple months ago.”
Now it all clicked into place. Both of them on their way to pick up packages. They’d even chatted for a couple minutes that day, and now he remembered all of it. She’d been new in the building, worked at a coffee shop, had a boyfriend named Mason or something like that.
Micah crossed the room to greet her. “Daisy. I’m so sorry I didn’t remember.”
“It’s okay. We only talked a little.”
But Micah did remember seeing her around elsewhere, in the parking garage, maybe once or twice in the lobby. An attractive woman, shy, often didn’t make eye contact. Always in a rush to get somewhere.
“What can we do for you, Daisy?” Frank said.
Her eyes bounced back and forth between Micah and Frank. She hitched a tense breath and blew it out as she deflated like a balloon. “I need your help.”
* * *
Micah watched Daisy take a nibble of the birthday cake and then set the paper plate on his desk. She gave a sheepish grin as she wiped a dab of frosting from her lower lip. Plopped the finger in her mouth and then wiped it on her jeans.
At least she hadn’t asked why they’d served birthday cake on a Monday morning. Micah wasn’t publicly “out” to most people as an alcoholic. Especially not clients, or even potential clients. Frank didn’t talk about it either, although he was into his third decade of sobriety. Was probably easier for him to keep it confidential.
“You understand, Ms. Cortez,” Frank said, “that this isn’t normally what we do. We’re not private investigators, although I do employ them from time to time.”
“I know,” she said. “I looked you up online. You do bail bonds and some bounty hunter work.”
Frank sipped his coffee. “Then can I ask why you’re coming to us? If you think you’re in danger, maybe we’re not the best place to start.”
She scooted the purse in her lap closer. “Because I can’t go to the police, and I don’t know if I trust private investigators. They all know the cops.”
“But why can’t you go to the police?” Micah said. She’d only told them bits and pieces of the story, in a jumbled, non-linear ramble of information.
She sighed. Daisy wore her anxiety like a shawl, her shoulders climbing and then sinking with each labored breath.
“Because that’s who I saw him with. My boyfriend, Nathan. That’s who the other people were in the room.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Frank said. “Tell us again what you saw, step by step.”
She crossed her legs with a hurried movement. Inhaled a few times through pursed lips.
“I went over to Nathan’s house last night at about eight. I wanted to surprise him. When I opened the door, he was with all those cops.”
“Your boyfriend is a cop, too?” Micah said.
“No, he works in logistics. He just knows these guys, like old buddies. I know only one of them, but not his name. He is larger, you know, with a gut. Light brown hair, thick mustache. He’s a police officer up in Boulder County. Anyway, they were in the living room, and all that cash was just sitting on the table. Piled up like someone had overturned a recycling bin. So much money. I wanted to ask what it was for, how they got all this money they were counting. His brother was there, his twin. He always hated me. Nathan’s brother, I mean. But before I could say anything, they all looked at me, real angry, and Nathan made me leave the room. He grabbed my arm and dragged me out and they pushed all the money onto the floor so I couldn’t see it. But I already saw it.”
“Drugs,” Micah said. “It’s almost always drugs.”
Her head dipped and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s not drugs. I would know if he was doing that. But whatever it is, I’m worried about him and what he might do. I don’t want to believe he’ll hurt me, but he does get angry sometimes. I’ve never seen him as angry as he was last night.”
Frank sighed, gave Micah a glance. “Ms. Cortez, what is it you would like us to do?”
“I want you to find out what he was doing. If he’s into something bad. Maybe it’s not his fault. You could help him get away from these people if they’re making him do things against his will.”
Micah was no private investigator. His official title at Mueller Bail Enforcement was skip tracer, an unglamorous data analyst kind of job. Researching people online who didn’t want to be found. Bail jumpers, deadbeat dads, insurance frauds. But if taking on her request meant simply spending a little time on the internet to dig up some info on the boyfriend, he could do that.
She held out her phone, showing a picture of a man with black hair and blue eyes. “This is him. His brother is almost an identical twin, but with brown eyes. It’s the only way to tell them apart.”
Frank tilted his head at Micah. “You know I’m leaving to do that thing. Tonight, or in the morning. I haven’t decided yet.”
Micah opened his notebook to a fresh page and scribbled some numbers. He tore it off and slid it across the desk to Daisy. “This is my per-hour charge for standard skip tracing. Since I’d be doing this without Frank’s help, if I have to go into the field, there’ll be additional charges. That’s if I have any expenses.”
Daisy skimmed the page, winced, but she eventually nodded. “I can find the money.”
“Do you have somewhere you can stay tonight? Somewhere your boyfriend Nathan doesn’t know about?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Frank cleared his throat. “Might be a precaution you should consider taking anyway. But make sure Micah has a way to get in touch with you.”
She wrote down a phone number and slid the notebook page across the desk to Micah. “I have friends he doesn’t know. People from work.”
“Okay, then,” Micah said. They all stood, recited some terse goodbyes, and she gathered up her purse. Micah escorted her to the door and watched her go. On the way out, she kept herself small and clustered together, like she was expecting part of her body to detach and tumble to the ground.
When Micah turned around, he found Frank giving him the stare down.
“What’s that look for?”
“You sure you want to do this on your own, kid?”
“No, but she sounds like she needs the help. Doesn’t take a psychologist to figure out she’s scared of this Nathan guy.”
Frank wrinkled his nose. “You know she’s not telling us the whole story, though. You can’t blame me for worrying about people coming in here off the street, given your… privacy situation.”
“She lives in my building. Daisy’s not a stranger.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s on the up and up.”
“Fair enough, Frank. I’m going to check her out, too.”
Frank waved his hands in an hourglass shape and gave Micah a wry grin. “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.”
Micah actually felt himself blush. He hadn’t even thought about Daisy that way. She’d made it quite clear when they’d met back in the elevator that she had a boyfriend. Micah had immediately placed her in the unavailable folder when she’d first uttered that word.
Frank crossed the room with his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet. Standard Frank Body Language 101 indicating the old man had something on his mind.
A few framed pictures and other items lined the yellowing walls, like the photo of Frank in his police uniform, grinning in front of a towering stack of seized cocaine bricks. Frank’s framed Renault Robinson Award from the National Black Police Association. He lifted that frame and carried it back to his desk. Sat, smiling at the award. “Did I ever tell you about the day I decided to retire?”
“I don’t think so.”
Frank leaned back in his office chair and traced a finger around the award’s wooden frame. “It was after I moved here and made detective, this was about five, six years ago, now. I had this perp, I’d arrested him for the murder of a prostitute. Stone-faced, impossible-to-crack kind of guy. Like the serial killers you see on the TV shows, more or less.”
Frank let loose a barrage of coughs, and Micah waited patiently for him to continue.
“So, I grilled this guy for an hour or two, finally got him to admit he’d done it. Brutal, awful murder. He sliced her up, drained her blood into a collection of glass jars. One of the most gruesome scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Later, we found a big stash of these jars in his apartment, like sixty or seventy of the things, all full of blood. Some newspaper reporter nicknamed him the blood thief.”
“Catchy,” Micah said.
“After he admitted to killing the hooker, I asked him why he did it. Just for my own curiosity, you know. And he looked me straight in the eye, and with this wicked grin, he said, ‘because she loved it. They always love it.’”
“What a sick freak.”
Frank frowned, set the frame on the desk. “What happened next was basically a blur. I found myself with my hands around his throat, slamming him against the wall. Took three of my guys to pull me off him, and when they did, it felt like waking up. I went back to my office, popped in a piece of nicotine gum, and wrote up my retirement letter right then and there. Got my cake and my watch two weeks later.”
Frank held up his wrist and jiggled the gold watch.
“That’s a hell of a story, boss. Why tell me this now?”
“Whatever you do,” Frank said, “watch out for yourself. Don’t you go piloting your ship into the rocks just because you hear the pretty voices singing.”
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