“Lori…she, she called again. She called my cell.” She hands him her cell phone, which he takes and starts to look through it.
“Unknown number. We can’t do anything.” He hands it back to her.
She turns to me. “She said she wants to come home. She just can’t get here.” She looks back and forth between us with panicked, teary eyes. “I have to get her home.” The tears start to run down her face, taking her mascara with them. “Help me find her.”
“Did she tell you anything? Where she was? Who she was with?” I ask her as she is rapidly shaking her head no.
“Nothing. The call lasted maybe twenty seconds, but I asked her. I told her to tell me where she was and I’d come get her. She just kept saying she wants to come home.” She wraps her arms around her waist as she starts to shake.
I lean in and take her in my arms just as she starts to fall to the ground.
“How did you get to work? Did you drive?” I ask her right before a skinny black man approaches us.
“I don’t pay you to come outside and turn tricks. I pay you to shake your ass and show off your tits. Now get back in there and do what I pay you for.” He looks back and forth at us.
Mick goes toe-to-toe with him. He may be the same height as Mick, but Mick has a good sixty pounds of muscle on him.
“I would watch your fucking tone, man. Can’t you see the lady is crying? Instead of making sure we aren’t forcing ourselves on her, you tell her to get back to work. Disgusting.”
“Ain’t no one need to force her to do anything. She does that shit for free.”
The minute he says that, Mick’s fist flies faster than a lightning bolt, popping him right in the jaw. The man is knocked to the ground. He picks him up by his collar and gets right in his face. “Talk to her like that again, I’ll have you eating through a fucking straw for a month,” he growls out menacingly as he pushes him away. I grab his arm before he does something more.
“Marissa, you get your ass back in there now or you look for something else.”
“She fucking quits, asshole,” Mick says, then turns and looks at her. “Go get your shit. Now.”
Marissa is either still in shock or just scared of the look in Mick’s eyes, but she nods and hurries inside.
“We are giving her five minutes. If she is not back, then you go in and get her,” Mick tells me, shaking his fist, which is starting to swell.
“Mind telling me what the fuck is going on there, partner? You talk to her like she’s trash one minute, and then you step up like a knight in shining armor the next.” I look at him with my hands on my hips.
He doesn’t answer, and I know he won’t answer since he just shakes his head. The look in his eyes is something I haven’t seen before.
Before I have a chance to press him more, Marissa comes out dressed in jeans and a shirt. A huge bag of clothes is in her hands.
“I have no idea how I’ll pay my next month’s rent, but I guess I’m done with this shithole,” she says quietly as she looks at us. Her face is cleaned of the black streaks that were running down her cheeks, and she looks much younger without all that makeup on her face.
“Did you see anyone out of the ordinary come in tonight?” I ask her.
“No one. It was really slow, which is why I had my phone on me. The minute I felt it ring, I jumped.” The tears start to fill her eyes again. “I need to find her.”
“We are doing everything we can right now. If she calls you back, you tell her to tell you anything. Preferably where she is, but if she doesn’t know then ask what she sees, what she saw on her way there, anything that can get us to her.”
“I’ll take you home, see if maybe there is anything there you might have missed,” Mick says to her.
“I have my own car. I don’t want to come back here,” she says to him while handing him his coat back.
“Fine, I’ll follow you. Jackson, I’ll send you a message if I find anything or if Lori calls again.” He nods at me.
I have nothing to say to him, so I give him a silent nod. I’m hoping he sees the questions in my eyes and will call me anyway.
I stay here as Marissa gets in her car with Mick following closely behind her.
Getting myself back in my truck, I make my way home. I’m so wired. I don’t know how I’ll fall asleep any time soon.
By the time I make it onto my street, I notice all the houses are dark. Pulling into my driveway, I turn off the truck and take a deep breath.
Pulling myself out, I do what I have been doing for the last three weeks, looking over at the house whose residents have become very important to me.