Eli hasn’t been answering my phone calls for the past three days because he’s dead. His office looks like someone went on a crazy, blood-fuelled rampage in here. It covers the walls and his desk; it’s crusted and dried in the already stained carpet. Eli’s mouth hangs open in a grim yawn, his eyes rolled back in his head. His skin is a sickly grey color everywhere apart from his hands. They rest on his desk, his fingers tinged purple-black by all of the blood that has coagulated in his palms.
I’m crying by the time I finally regain control of my body enough to pace into the room properly and stand in front of the man who cheated me out of my virginity. Not because I feel bad that Eli’s dead. No, I have reasonably positive feelings about the fact that he’s been stabbed to death with his own letter opener (still sticking out of his chest). I’m crying because he’s dead. He’ll never be able to tell me where Alexis is now. I’ll never know if he was telling the truth. If she’s even alive.
But no, that can’t just be it. It can’t be over just like that. There has to be something here, some way of figuring out whatever he was going to tell me. My mind locks up as I realize what I’m going to have to do. I’ve seen far more horrific things than Eli’s dead body, but it’s not how gross he is that makes me feel like passing out. It’s my anger. I’m so angry, so cheated, so furious that I’m scared of what I might do if I have to go near him. I certainly couldn’t be arrested for stabbing him again since he’s already dead, but still… I don’t even want a dead man’s blood on my hands.
I suck in a lungful of air and hold it, and then I take an unwilling step forward. I just need to get through this, for Alexis. This is all for Alexis. Maybe he kept the information in a file somewhere. That’s something a regular personal investigator would do, surely? Eli was more than a P.I, though. He was a drug-dealing pimp, too. Admin probably wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. I’m retching as I pick my way through the devastation of his office, climbing over an up-turned chair to reach the small, three-drawer filing cabinet. It’s not locked. The top draw is severely dented, like someone took a crowbar to it. Inside, there are files. My heart soars when yank open the middle draw and find one labelled with my sister’s name: Alexis Romera. Missing Person. With trembling fingers I pull the thing out of the cabinet and almost sink to my knees. I see right away that it’s empty. There’s nothing inside, not a single sheet of paper.
“No, no, no, come on!”
The other files all have paperwork inside them. Regular information about bail bonds and cheating spouses. It’s just Lex’s that’s empty. What the fuck? There are no papers on Eli’s desk and none on the floor either. No hidden drawers that could be containing the information I’m looking for. It’s gone. Someone’s taken it, and I have no idea who. I suddenly can’t hold it in anymore—I lean forward and the past three days finally take their toll. I vomit, throwing up my meagre breakfast of dry toast and orange juice so violently that it strips my throat raw.
I’m sobbing as I leave Eli’s office. I feel useless. So powerless. Weak.
“I’m so sorry, Lex. I’m so sorry…” She can’t hear me, but I have to say the words. Admitting them out loud makes me own them instead of hiding them away inside my chest, letting them burn me from the inside out. I’ve let her down. All hope of finding her is gone. The very worst part of acknowledging that is the relief. It courses through me like a single exhaled breath, rushing from my head to my feet. There’s nothing more I can do. The responsibility is no longer mine. I am the very worst of people. I don’t even bother to report Eli’s death.
I leave him there to rot.
"You're a scandalous human being." Lacey's laughter is grating the fuck outta me this morning. She’s been riding me all day about the two girls I brought home last night then promptly kicked out at three in the morning when I was done riding them. The woman just doesn't know when to shut the hell up. We've been stuck in the car for the past twenty minutes, and twenty minutes in the car with Lacey is basically twenty minutes in hell.
"How 'bout we don't talk for the next while, huh, Lace?"
"How about you tell me what this guy is done and I'll shut my trap? That sounds like a fair trade."
Lacey's tiny. She was malnourished as a kid and didn't quite get the nutrients she needed to grow, which means her head barely hits me mid-chest. Her long, blonde hair, straight as straight comes, and pale blue eyes give her an angelic look, but the damn girl is anything but.
I'd have left her at home today but the she’s not a fan of her own company. Bad shit goes down when she's left in her own devices and a trip to the hospital is the last thing I need tonight. Not after I've done what I'm about to do.
"Frankie's been bad. That's all you need to know."
"When isn't Frankie bad?" Lace pouts. She and Frankie fucked a couple times, back before she showed up at my doorstep like a stray cat and refused to leave. Since then she's been focused on more delicate prey, namely the female of the species. Most times, I have to be careful about the chicks I bring back to the warehouse. I let 'em out of my sight for ten minutes, Lace'll have their panties around their ankles and her face buried between their thighs. The girl knows no bounds.
But anyway, I think she still got some sort of grind for Frankie. She went quiet for a moment when I told her where we were headed and that doesn't happen too often.