Trouble at the Door

By Imani Miller

As a single mother, Amy Marino is used to handling her own problems. She’s left behind past mistakes and made a new life for herself and her son David, until a couple of her ex-husband’s thugs bust in wanting to take David back to his father. She’s shocked to receive help from Seth Bassett, her taciturn neighbor from down the hall.

Seth has had his eye on Amy for weeks. He’s the private investigator hired to track down this runaway mom who thinks custody agreements are a suggestion. But the client stepped over the line when he sent in bad guys to rough the lady up instead of letting Seth do his job.

Now Seth must use deception as a tool to save Amy and David from paying the price for his terrible mistake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imani Miller
• Release date: Jul 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476455907

Book preview

Trouble at the Door

by

Imani Miller

Trouble at the Door

Copyright 2012 by Imani Miller

Smashwords Edition.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by the author.

Cover photo: Doorway shooter one, Copyright Harley Pebley, istockphoto.com.

Acknowledgements

Every book I write comes with the help and support of loving family and friends. However, I'd like to say a special thank you to my kids, who love my story ideas and think ramen noodles are the best dinner ever. Also to Anika, fellow writer, critique partner, copy editor and sister extraordinaire, who understands me when I'm not making any sense and knows how to talk me down from the crazy ledge. Finally, to my husband Greg, who believes in me more than I believe in myself. To him I dedicate this book, first, last and always.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

Seth Bassett stepped off the elevator and saw trouble stacked two deep at his neighbor’s door. A couple of big guys murmuring to each other in nasal accents, wearing suits worth more than the rent for his cracker box apartment. New York? No. Boston, maybe. For certain the accents placed them somewhere hell and gone from Raleigh, North Carolina. Their cold stares tracked him as he walked down the hall, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

Junk mail and a sack of groceries occupied his hands, so he dropped his chin and turned his face away, pretending interest in a credit card offer and a pack of coupons. A quick glance told him all he needed, anyway.

Pretty little Amy was not going to enjoy her company for the evening.

The skin on his arms tingled and he tamped down on the surge of adrenalin. He stuck the mail in his mouth, fished the keys out of his pocket, and scraped open the door to his own apartment. He dropped the bags on the kitchen counter and shrugged out of his battered leather jacket, then he returned to the door and flipped the deadbolts home – two on top, one on the bottom near the floor.

His unit, like the rest of the building, was beautifully decorated in institutional tan and dust bunny gray. Amy’s was a mirror image of the same layout. Twice he’d broken in, so he knew she’d brightened hers up with colorful, girly things like flowerpots and pillows. There’d been toys all over the floor and an eight by ten on the wall of her and her son. They shared the same heart-shaped face, shiny black hair and big, licorice eyes.

His own place had exactly four pieces of furniture and no things at all. A card table, a black, folding chair, a futon, and a giant desk crowded the tiny living space. Like the apartment the desk was a cheap rental, but the electronic gear covering its surface had cost him a generous chunk of the seed money he'd put into Black Diamond Security.

Ignoring the peephole with its limited view of the hall, he moved to one of the keyboards on the desk. A couple of taps brought his computer screens to life displaying a two by two box of images from cameras in the hallway, the parking lot, and both doors of the stairwell. He tapped again, enlarging each image to full screen, scrolling until he saw the men at Amy’s door.

Oh, these guys were a pair. Spaghetti and a Meatball. Meatball had a baby face on a short, wide body – a college jock with most of his bulk gone to fat – but he held himself like he still knew what to do with it. Spaghetti was long and pale with a limp pony tail of blond hair flopped over his shoulder and light-colored eyes as dead as a doll’s.

Why didn’t they go in?

He scratched his fingers through the dark hair lying against his scalp. Keeping one eye on the screen, he ambled back to the kitchen and unwrapped his dinner, an Italian sub and a bottle of beer, while he tried to figure out what the hell had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours.

Two hours ago he’d checked in with his partner, Bryan. As usual there was nothing new to report on Amy Marino. This runaway mom who thought custody rulings were a suggestion was the most boring job he’d ever done for anyone. Add to that the fact that he was square in the middle of the sit around and watch phase, and there wasn’t supposed to be anything to report. Even Bryan admitted that.

While his partner co-owned Black Diamond Security, he generally kept his nose out of Seth’s end of the business. He and Bryan rarely worked together, which was good because Bryan was such a pain in the ass. Seth operated in the field creating complicated security systems for companies big and small. In this post-modern age everyone had information they wanted to protect. They usually used contractors for penny ante jobs like research and surveillance, but Bryan had asked for Seth’s help on this one, saying there was nobody better at hunting people down than his Hound Dog.

Stupid nickname.

This time Bryan was making his presence known by wanting regular updates on the job. Seth didn’t mind, however, because this little birdie behaved herself. She took her kid to school, went to work, and when they came home, they stayed home. Seth had talked more to the voicemail these past weeks than any human so why all of a sudden were a couple of heavies – he leaned closer to the screen – who were packing waiting at Amy’s door?

Maybe they were making sure she was gone before going in and tossing the place.

And maybe they were the prize patrol.

He swiped a paper napkin across his mouth and crumpled it in his fist. Okay little birdie, who have you pissed off this time? he said aloud.

His money was still on the goons in the hall being from Boston, which was an awful long drive to harass some random stranger, especially since he didn’t believe in coincidences. The client lived in Boston as well and that’s where he had started tracking Amy down. Despite Bryan's claims to the contrary, she was very easy to find. She’d run home to North Carolina, the Triangle area. Not really a surprise since she’d grown up in the western mountains, and it made sense she’d make her way home eventually, especially with a kid.

He sucked his teeth. Some people were so impatient. After he’d located Amy, he’d camped in this tiny apartment for three weeks, working, and sleeping on the lumpy futon when he wasn’t working. Meanwhile, some jittery ex-husband jumps the gun on a crumb of intelligence and sends in the goons. He’d told Bryan he wanted to bring her in. If hubby had wanted to move faster, a phone call would have sufficed, but this? This was so impolite.

At best, she’d get spooked and run. At worst, she’d already done it and he wouldn’t know until he reviewed the surveillance recording in the wee hours. This could set him right back where he started.

Seth finished his sandwich and dropped the wrapper in the trash. He wiped the oil and vinegar from his hands and rolled his shoulders to get rid of a nagging sense of foreboding that crawled its way into his stomach and wound up the muscles in his back.

The back pocket of his jeans buzzed. He pulled out his phone and saw Bryan’s name on the screen.

where r u?

Seth sighed. Texting Bryan was like talking to a twelve year old.

I’m out getting dinner

He didn’t know why he lied. Intuition, caution. Maybe he just wanted to annoy the micro-managing SOB right back, but for now the impulse came too fast to question.

is birdie home?

His thumbs moved over the buttons. Yes. You need me to go in?

no. check in 20:00

Same as always. He frowned as he flipped his phone closed. Odd.

He ought to double check the recording to make sure she really was home. A click of the computer mouse brought the timestamp to earlier in the day when Amy had taken her son to school. He moved it ahead until he saw her return, alone, and just as expected she didn’t leave again.

He switched back to the current view, then leaned forward to brace his fists alongside the keyboard and examine the screen. The camera angle provided an overhead picture with a grainy, but distinct image in grayish green. He watched Spaghetti and Meatball swivel their heads, looking up and down the hall before they settled again on Amy’s door. Their lips moved, but he’d never wired for sound and the angle was wrong to make out what they said. Through his paper thin walls he heard the musical chirp of a phone. Spaghetti opened his jacket and placed a cell to his ear. He did more listening than talking while Meatball rocked back and forth on his heels and looked … excited.

Oh. Crap.

Seth jumped back like someone had tossed a live grenade down the hall. No freakin' way. He was not going in there. Amy was cute, but she had this coming, and the kid wasn’t even home. When Trina, his ex, had disappeared with their son, he’d moved heaven and earth to find them, and Trina hadn’t even been trying to get lost. She had excised him from their lives out of spite. He couldn’t blame the boy’s father for wanting to know where his son was, and he refused to get mixed up in whatever the hell was happening down the hall.

The lie didn’t sit well even as he tried to convince himself. He paced two steps away from the desk before coming back to the same position, fists braced, glaring at the screen.

Nothing was going to happen. These two were probably sent to talk to her. Make her see reason. Of course, they didn’t look like they had a lot of strength in the talking department.

Meatball tapped his knuckles on the door, his arm stretched out as he held his body away from the peephole. If Amy was smart she’d ignore the knock and stay inside.

He shook his head as he saw her throw the door wide open. He caught a glimpse of her face as Meatball put a hand the size of a dinner plate on the flimsy door and shoved past her. Even on the grainy screen, he could see her freeze with the kind of shock that hits like a flash grenade. Again through the walls he heard a thump and a brief, muffled cry. The goons were out of the hall and in the apartment in seconds.

He stared at the now empty screen, scraping a hand across his heavy jaw, running through his options. The one he wanted to take, the one he should take, was the easiest. Do nothing. She wasn’t his problem in the first place and it wasn’t his job to get between a man and his son. That was the most important thing, no matter what the methods.

No matter what.

Aw, the hell with it.

He moved about the room, gathering what he needed even as he tried to talk himself down. Okay, she’d made a mistake. She shouldn’t have run off, but that didn’t justify sending Thing One and Thing Two. Especially since he was still doing the job. What if they got in his way? It was bad manners. Besides, they might scare the kid.

He stuck a 9mm Glock in the back of his pants, a precaution he hoped he wouldn’t need. Two against one in such a tiny space were pretty terrible odds, and the rounds would tear through the walls like tissue. When all was said and done, he’d rather not explain things like gunshot wounds and bullet holes to the police.

As he locked down his computer, he glanced at his watch. It had been two minutes since they’d gone in. Not much time, but many, many bad things could happen in two minutes. He grabbed the half empty beer bottle, slid back the deadbolts on his door and eased into the hall.

She had Russell Crowe. She had her sock monkey pajamas, half a glass of red wine and a box of candy she didn’t have to share. The apartment was blissfully quiet, save for the low gurgle of the radiator and Russell’s sexy accent. Amy Marino lounged on the sofa, without her little boy’s noisy, action figure battles and video games.

Too quiet. Like a still pond with bad memories just under the surface.

Without David to cover them up, she kept hearing noises – in the hall, out the window. Paranoia, her long lost friend, settled its hands on her shoulders like wet wool. Like it did when she was a child following her crazy father up a cold North Carolina mountain. She grabbed a sunny, yellow pillow and hugged it to her chest, then took a deep breath, exhaling anxiety with the bad air.

Of course there was a noise in the hall. Other people lived in the building, and they made noise. The busy street below made some too. Every little sound didn’t have to mean something was about to happen. That was exactly why she’d chosen Raleigh when she and Mal had split up. This city was small, but noisy enough to keep her from jumping at every creak in the night. She refused to let anxiety and unease rule her life again.

It was also big enough to get lost in, if need be. When she’d married Mal, she’d traded her father’s phantom demons for real ones – namely her in-laws. Not that they knew it. Malachi loved secrets. He’d kept his family secret from her before they’d married, and he kept her secret from them after. He’d even given her a secret of her own after they had split up. A bargaining chip in case the worst happened.

Even so, she’d been careful. She’d told David just enough about his father to make him cautious without spilling the entire truth, but unless she wanted to turn him into a neurotic wreck, alone time was a good thing for both of them.

She had to say it aloud before she believed it. I am thinking grown up thoughts and watching grown up TV. I am having a fabulous time. And darn it, she was determined to make it true. She took another sip of wine before placing the glass on the coffee table. If images of David’s sweet, gap-toothed smile and floppy bangs kept interrupting her wildly good time, well then, she just needed more practice, that’s all.

When the phone rang, she grabbed the remote and punched up the volume instead of answering it. She would solve no problems tonight. Restaurant emergencies would have to be fixed without her. She was in her pajamas, darn it, she wasn't even wearing a bra. Nothing was going to peel her butt off this couch. Besides, Russell was about to kiss the daylights out of Meg Ryan, and if she couldn’t enjoy it in real life, she may as well watch.

The phone rang a second time. A third. It might be David, calling from his first sleepover ever. Amy gave the handset a slanty-eyed look. He might need her. Might need to just talk to her so he wouldn’t feel so lonely.

She threw the pillow to the floor and snatched up the phone, catching it on the fourth ring.

David?

Ohmigosh, please don’t tell me you are pining after your son. You’re supposed to be enjoying ‘me time’.

Amy fell back onto the couch and clicked the pause button on the remote. Is he doing okay, Gina?

As long as you count running around with Garrett screaming his head off ‘okay’. They’re playing hide and seek in the backyard with flashlights. Seriously, the last thing I heard him say is ‘Boy, I’m sure glad my Mom isn’t here’.

Amy heard a crash and a shout in the background. You’re killing me.

Her girlfriend laughed. "He’s fine. He’s happy. You were supposed to enjoy the weekend, find a date and get