“Coffee?”
“Thanks,”
I placed the coffee on the table, being careful not to spill any on the papers scattered around his desk.
From the corner of my eye I noticed a photo paperclipped to the file he was currently working on.
“Another disgruntled wife?”
“Worse.”
“Husband then?”
“Missing person.”
Reaching for the photo I took a closer look.
It was a girl with long black hair and ember eyes.
Pretty to say the least.
“She looks like you.”
I scoffed at Seth’s remark.
“Me!?”
Scutinizing the photo with a critical eye I took an even closer look.
She was standing in front of a tall building from the upper side of town.
Her clothes looked exspensive, Coupled with gold acceseraries that could probably pay a years worth of rent in the slums.
“If I was born a socialite maybe.”
Seth’s chuckle made his lips spread with a smile as he snatched the photo back.
He was one of the few people in my life that I trusted to be this close.
“Her parents hired me to find out what happened to her.”
“Wow not often we get real jobs from up top.”
Parking my arse in the chair opposite Seth’s desk I stared at him.
With the appearance of a patient house mouse waiting for an elabaration of the case in question.
While in reality I was trying to contain the excited child who’s about to get a new toy feeling that bubbled up inside me.
Not fooled by my false attempt at being an adult.
Seth shut down my vieled request for more information.
“Not this time Rexy.”
“So not a runaway who just wants to test daddy’s limits then?”
“Not at all. She’s a striaght A student. Pre-law. Everyone I’ve spoken to says the same thing. She just up and disappeared.”
There’s only one reason Seth would look this worried.
“You think she was murdered?”
“It’s hard to say. I’ve been Retracing her last movements. She never left the school grounds. She even had body gaurds stationed outside her rooms. Both said they didn’t see or hear anything.”
“Were they paid off?” Seth’s eyes met mine over the photo in his hands.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
His attention turned back to the photo a smile widening on his lips.
“I wonder if the socialite version of you has better manners?”
I scowled at him.
Even during a serious conversation he could crack a joke at a moments notice.
“You can barely contain one of me let alone two.”
His chuckle was like an infectious disease.
Hear it once and you’ll smile right along with him.
“I only need one of you.”
It was always like that with us.
The banter never stops.
“Kidding aside what’s our next move?”
Placing the photo back into the file and closing the folder with a delicacy that showed just how much he deeply cared about the people he took cases for, he sighed one of his famous not this again sighs.
“Like I said. Not this time. There’s something going on here. Something even I’m having trouble grasping. Until I figure out what it is your not going anywhere near it.”
Deflating with exagerated movements I sank back into the chair.
“Not fair.”
Another chuckle sounded at my dramatics.
Seth shook his head at how childish I was being.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
I stood up foregoing my fained disappoinment in an instant.
“That’s right, I forgot to tell you.”
Quickly leaving Seth’s office only to return seconds later with another file.
“So it turns out the butterflies twin sister wasn’t stealing her money. It was actually her husbands brother slicing pieces from the books at regular intervals.”
“You found proof?”
Seth snatched up the file.
After taking a moment to scan its contents he let out an almighty “I knew it!”
“From the moment I met the guy he seemed shifty. His clothes, the house, everything was well above his pay grade. I never bought the whole I have a side hussle bullshit.”
“The police want everything you have to charge him with imbezzlement.”
“Send it and close the case. It’s in the hands of the police now.”
Seth passed the file back gently.
“On it.”
I headed back to my desk.
The file tucked under my arm and Seth’s now empty coffee cup in my hand.
“After that you can go home.”
Spining back around I side eyed him with a smirk.
“Got another date have we?”
His glaring look was answer enough.
“Alright calm down I was just kidding.”
Seth’s sworn off woman.
His last date ended tragically.
Something about water, alot of booze and a chicken, Or something resembling a chicken.
Maybe it was a chicken shifter.
Whatever it was he still refuses to tell me the full details but I’m determined to get to the bottom of it.
~
My last email sent.
I closed up the computer and started grabbing my things.
Just as I was about leave, the door opened once more.
Bells chiming his arrival.
“Still open?”
The male in question, a tall drink of water with ebony black hair.
Muscled to the max and dressed like a modern day mafia boss.
Complete with padded leather motor cycle jacket and black padded jeans.
The helmet tucked under his arm topped off the whole ensemble in a delectable morsel that just begged to ridden like the bike he undoubtably left out front.
The real kicker though.
His eyes.
The green irises a striking contrast to the mahogany coloured walls behind his back.
That I hoped like hell was tattooed up the whazo.
The look he gave me as those glowing orbs of emerald, travelled up and down my body like he wanted nothing more then to toss me over his shoulder and slap my arse while I called him daddy.
“Miss?”
Doubling back I replied “Miss?!”
Who’s this guy talking to.
Who the hell says miss in this day and age.
“Yes sorry I was just,” His green flashes of gem filled bliss meet mine and my heart stopped right there and then.
“Leaving.” A breathless whisper straight out of an audio file from bad girls gone badder.
His lips part in a knowing smile before he answered my what could only be discribed as sexy call girl voice.
“I can come back tomorrow if you want.”
Footsteps approach from Seth’s office snapping me out of my soon to be role in, ‘he’s just not that into you.’
“Ignore her. She defaults to factory settings around guys she has no chance with.”
“Pity I don’t have another stapler.”
My words growled through clenched teeth annoyed that said stapler had already made it’s way into Seth’s office from the last attempted assualt with a deadly weapon.
Not that it would ever work considering Seth had the reflexes of wolf shifter.
Still mourning it’s loss while My mother’s voice inside my mind plays like a broken record on replay.
“Now repeat after me.” Before the inevitable conclusion of “We don’t throw things in anger Alrexia.”
Just one of many daily interactions that inhabit the twisted parts of my inner monolougue.
The well scuptured specimen of a man tayored to appear in every womans spank bank held his eyes to mine.
It was almost like he could see every depraved thing my imagination could think up and whip out at any given time.
“She’s hard to ignore.”
In seeing the way he was looking at me Seth diverted the guys attention by grabbing his arm with a vice like grip.
“She was just leaving.”
Oblivious to the pressure on his arm by Seth’s now clawed hand.
Mister sex on a stick smiled one last time in my direction.
“I don’t mind leaving it until tomorrow.”
“No time like the present.”
Seth’s seething scowl sent my way as he practically shoved the meat stack in leather towards his office.
My tongue jolted out seconds before the door was shut.
With a smile plastered on my face feeling like I had won the exchange.
I left the office and headed home.
It was worth it just to see the look on Seth’s face.
It’s not very often uber eats delivers to this part of town.