Taut: The Ford Book

If. He’s iffy. And the last time I talked to him over Christmas, he had a huge mess on his hands, so he might be holing up, trying to stay out of sight. Which means he might actually be available. I press the generic avatar used for his name and listen to it ring. One. Two. Three. I’m just about to hang up and call the next guy on the list when he picks up. “Yeah.”

“Can you vet for me while I wait?” I can hear a girl panting on the other end. Fucking Merc.

“Is it absolutely necessary?” Now the girl is grunting, then a slap and a squeal.

“I don’t call unless it’s necessary.”

“Hold on,” he says as I listen to shuffling, the girl protesting in Spanish, and then, “Get off me, I gotta work for a minute. Stay put, though. Don’t move. OK, dickhead, give me the name.” I can hear his keystrokes as he gets online.

“Dee Vasquez, birthday 10-27-62, born in Jacksonville, Florida.”

“One sec, let me pull it up. Why don’t you just do this shit yourself?”

“I’m on vacation and I left the rig at home.”

“OK, coming up.” He snorts a little. “She’s got two traffic tickets for speeding back in the Nineties. Lives in… Vegas. You in Vegas? I’m in Palm Springs. You should stop by.”

“Negative. What else you got?”

“Nothing. This bitch is boring. Who is she? She f**k you over or something?”

“No, babysitter for tonight.”

He laughs. He laughs so hard I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Baby-fucking-sitter?”

“Nice talking to ya, Merc. I owe you a small.”

He’s still laughing when I hang up. I walk over at Kate and she’s got her eyes open, staring up at me. “Fuck him, huh, Kate. He has no clue.” She smiles at me and I melt a little and pick her up. She flings her little fists around in agreement. I take her back over to the couch and sit down. She’s got her head on my shoulder, just kicking it, so I flip through channels until I get to the news.

We relax together listening to the stock report.

Merc’s laughter comes back to me. If he saw me right now he’d never let me live it down. We met at a recruitment weekend for MIT back in high school. He was from Boston, not the nice parts, so he took me on a memorable one-night bender through numerous back-alley bars. I think they stuck us together to avoid corrupting the normal students. Or maybe they hoped we’d both go to jail together before the weekend was over. That’s a toss-up.

Merc and I both got offers—they couldn’t not give us offers. We’re f**king geniuses and MIT likes to hoard the country’s geniuses, keep us all neatly contained in the socially accepted bubble of serving the nation.

I went to film school—and I’m pretty sure my recruitment adviser from MIT threw up on the other end of the phone when I told her that. And Merc went into the army, but only so they’d train him how to kill. He never wanted to be a SEAL or a Ranger. He just wanted some hard and fast training so he could slip underground and not get himself offed when he completed his more hands-on jobs. He never had a team like I did. He’s a solo guy.

But he’s good at what he does, so if he says Dee Vasquez is clean, then she’s clean.

Pam had one of my suits driven up from LA and the staff delivers it at six. Kate’s asleep now, so I take the suit into the bedroom and get dressed. I don’t mind the jeans, but I love the suits. This one’s black, has a short coat, the sleeves are tailored just right so it shows some of my crisp white shirt at the cuff, and my broad shoulders are accentuated by a taper from the waist of the jacket all the way down the slim-fit trousers. The white pocket square and the black tie sets the whole thing off.

I comb my hair back and leave the one-day stubble on my chin.

Even I know that shit looks sexy.

The sitter arrives at six fifty and takes Kate and the bottles of breast milk across the hall to the second room I reserved that is stocked with everything she’ll need for the evening.

And at exactly seven o’clock Ashleigh walks through the door.

Chapter Thirty-One

I unleash the dimple on her. “I love it.”

“Well.” She blows some hair out of her eyes. It’s piled high on top of her head but she’s got those cute bangs that are too long to stay out of her eyes and too short to put up with the rest of her hair. “You should love it, they tell me you picked it out.”

The dress is very revealing, but only in the back—and that’s because there is no back. But her front is covered from neck to toes as it drapes down in a triangle shape and then fastens at each hip. The top is attached to a delicate red ribbon that circles her neck like a collar and the flowing fabric is snug at her waist, and then falls to the ground like a red waterfall. Her matching red toenails peek out from black strappy heels. “I have no bra on, Ford. If I leak through this dress in public—”

“Relax, Miss Li.” I hold my arm out to her and she smiles.

“It’s nice. Thank you. I haven’t dressed up in forever and I haven’t been on a real date in, God, I have no idea.”

I have a million questions and I want to ask them all this very second. I want to know why he left her. Did she do something? Is Kate not his baby? I admit, that question has popped into my head more than once. Maybe that’s why his parents haven’t seen her. Maybe that’s why he left? I secretly hope that’s the case. In fact, I’m in full-on fantasy mode right now, picturing all the ways in which Ashleigh might’ve f**ked up and ruined her chances with this guy. I want to ask so f**king bad. What the hell kind of relationship was she in that he never took her out? But this is her night and the last person we’re gonna spend our time talking about is Tony. “You look spectacular in red. Are you ready?”