Chapter One
Devon never thought it would be this much trouble trying to find one young woman. At first, he had been afraid she was murdered, but he’d found a few people who had seen or worked with her in the last few weeks. One as recently as the day before.
The girl, Emma, had been running since she’d helped Lacey, the young heiress, escape from her mother’s plan that would have taken the young woman out of the country. Emma had worked for the family at the time, overheard the threat against Lacey, told her, and helped her get away.
Devon knew the situation had terrified Emma, and understandably, it was what sent her into hiding. He wanted her to know everything had been resolved. Lacey’s mother had been arrested, so there was no threat to her anymore.
He’d found her apartment, a small studio on the third floor in an old house. It was tiny, just slightly bigger than his living room in his condo. It looked like she might have been there recently. Dust covered every surface, but he could see where it had been disturbed in just a way that told him she was trying hard to hide the fact she’d been there.
He couldn’t figure out why the sight of where she lived worried him so much, except that a young woman shouldn’t live in this area of the city and in a place that couldn’t keep a toddler out.
The bed was the size of a crib mattress, and it sat on the floor with no bed frame. A red milk crate sat beside it as a nightstand with a chipped lamp on it. Between the two tall windows stood a small old dresser. One of the drawers looked lopsided and didn’t close all the way.
She used an old worn loveseat to separate the tiny bedroom from the living room. Besides the loveseat that she’d put a colorful blanket over to hide its age, there was a small rocking chair that looked like it came from a dumpster and a wooden table between the two. She had a kitchenette and a bathroom. The bathroom was so small his shoulders touched both walls when he stood in the middle. The kitchen had a hot plate, a dorm-size refrigerator, and a tiny microwave. That and two feet of counter space took up about five square feet of the place.
He could tell she took care of what she had. Besides the dust, everything was clean and organized.
The more he got to know about her, the more he wanted to find her. He spent every waking minute that he wasn’t working looking for her, but had a gut feeling she was running from more than the group of people Lacey had to deal with recently. The ones little Emma had risked her life to save Lacey from.
He wanted to know why she lived in a decrepit place while her mother lived across town in a huge beautiful house.
After his visit to the apartment, he visited the different diners around the area because he knew they were her best choice to find work. They were more likely to turn the other cheek and not ask questions.
At that moment, he was at the fourth diner where he’d found that Emma had worked for in the last few weeks. They all admitted to paying her under the table and said she was jumpy and talked very little. None of them knew where she lived or stayed at night.
A few had tried to help her, but she refused. No one knew what scared her enough to take off from the job each time, and they all felt terrible for her.
Devon shook the man’s hand.
“Thank you for your time.”
“Sure, if you ever find her, tell her we’d still like her as an employee. She was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever had. She had more energy than three of my guys. I wished she had confided in me. I could tell she was running from someone. She was so damn sweet and beautiful it broke my heart. She doesn’t belong in this area and should have had someone taking care of and looking out for her.”
Devon smiled. “I’ll tell her.” He walked out the back of the diner and looked up and down the alley. He cringed when he saw the rats and garbage and could smell feces and dank water.
Everyone he’d talked to had said the same things. She was beautiful, sweet, scared, but a hard worker, and she never stayed long.
“Dammit.” He ran a hand down his face in frustration. “I’m going to find you, baby, if it’s the last thing I do.”
He headed back to his car. He needed all the information he could get, and he only knew one person who knew her.
Devon called his friend and business partner.
****
“Cason, it’s Devon. I’m going to stop by. I need to ask Lacey some questions about Emma.”
“Sure, man, come on up when you get here.”
A few minutes later, Devon stepped off the elevator, walked to his friend, and shook his hand.
“Is everything okay?”