Chaos Remains (Greenstone Security 4)

Something moved in his face at my tone. Something human, maybe. “You have evidence of this violence?”

I merely stared at him, the tightness of my eye speaking for itself.

He shifted uncomfortably. “Did you report any assaults?”

I gritted my teeth. “I tried. When we were married. Back in Virginia. I got all but laughed out of the precinct. I’m not here to report an assault. I’m here to report a kidnapping.”

His face moved again. He glanced to his computer. “I can make some calls. Do a house call at his father’s address. Check in on your son. But I cannot arrest your husband for taking his son when he was within his rights.”

“Ex-husband,” I corrected, hanging by a thread.

“You’re divorced?”

I wanted to sink into my seat with defeat. With pain. But I couldn’t admit defeat. If it were just me, I would have a long time ago. But I would never stop fighting for my son. “No. Not legally. He wouldn’t sign the papers. We’ve been separated for three years.”

“So you’re still legally married?”

It was then, right then, that I realized that no one would help me get my son back. No one wearing a uniform at least.

So that’s what had me in my car speeding toward the city, googling people without uniforms and with some kind of power.

Which had me landing on Greenstone Security’s website and plugging their location into my GPS.

I didn’t take note of my surroundings as I rushed into the building.

I wasn’t even sure if I’d locked my car. My keys might have still been in the ignition.

I didn’t care.

It was just a car.

A car that I couldn’t afford despite it being a piece of junk and a car I needed to drive Nathan to school. But I wouldn’t need to drive Nathan to school if this didn’t work. That was what had me bypassing the thoughts of my car getting stolen, getting trapped in LA with only a handful of cash in my purse and a near destitute bank account.

I rushed into the cool foyer, it smelled pleasant, clean, calm. It might have been calm. If I wasn’t on the verge of a mental breakdown.

But I couldn’t break.

No.

Not now. Not when my son needed me.

“I need to talk to a private investigator, now,” I said to the woman behind the desk.

Well, more like shouted at the woman across the desk.

I never shouted at people.

Especially strangers.

Especially strangers with kind eyes.

But this wasn’t me.

This was mother without a child.

“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked, face carefully blank and not reacting to the disheveled, sweaty woman shouting at her in her nice office.

“No, but it’s urgent. I really need to see someone now,” I said, my voice slightly less than a yell now, but still not an appropriate tone for this nice, calm office.

She gave me a kind look. “We are fully booked up right now, but I can refer you to a reputable office—”

I pushed the sunglasses atop my head that I forgot I was wearing just at the same time something moved in the corner of my eye. I didn’t take notice.

“Please,” I whispered. “I don’t have time to drive somewhere else, find someone else. I need someone now.” I paused, my hand shaking as I placed it on the clean black desk. “I need help.” My voice cracked at the end and I was so ashamed at the weakness of it.

I was ashamed. But I wasn’t above using that weakness, preying on other people’s sympathy or pity in order to get them to help me. I wasn’t above anything in trying to get my son back.

The woman gave me both pity and sympathy in seeing my bruised face now my sunglasses weren’t covering it. There was something a lot more human on her face than on the police officer’s earlier today. But there was also something else, a cold professionalism that I guessed someone who worked at a place like this might have to employ to insulate herself against the violence of the world.

I sighed and waited for the rejection.

It was then the shadow at the side of my vision that I hadn’t been paying attention to became actualized.

“Boyfriend do that?” a gruff voice demanded with no warm sympathy or pity, just hostility that sounded like it was permanent.

The voice did something to my already frayed nerves, exposed to the root. It flayed them. Turning fully to focus on the owner of the voice that did more than fray my nerves.

It shattered them.

Because the man in front of me had an aggression to his face, to his aura that was so much more violent and saturating that had been in his voice.

Robert had hated that. The fact I felt people’s auras. That I believed in phases of the moon, in burning sage, in crystals bring positive energy, that I had a tarot deck and studied astronomy.