Page 120 of South Beach Bodyguards

Mickey nodded. “Yeah. Sort of like my ex-wife. Ryan’s mother.”

It was no secret Ryan’s mother had taken off when he was a kid. I knew Mickey kept tabs on her. He liked to be ahead of his enemies, so to speak.

“Totally. But his girlfriend at the time thought he was abducted.” Part of me understood Miranda’s loyalty and respected it. But at the same time, it infuriated me. What had Max done to deserve such blind trust? It was the story of my life—people believed him and never saw the rotten core.

“Why, because she couldn’t believe he’d leave her?” Mickey snorted. “Welcome to the club of every spouse ever cheated on or abandoned.”

Exactly. But I needed to keep my emotions in check. If Mickey knew my real motivation he might not be so quick to help. “Basically everything that the cops said was evidence of him fleeing she thought was an indication of foul play. He withdrew forty grand from the bank two days before. Cops figured that was seed money to start a new life, but Miranda insisted he had been planning to buy a boat, and why would he leave without doing that? Also, she said someone might have known about the money and killed him for it. That he probably told friends he was paying cash for the boat.”

“I mean, that is possible. Did he have a big mouth?”

“A huge mouth. Max was a bragger.” I shrugged. “But his cell phone was found at home. Like he left it there. I think on purpose. She thinks it meant he was forced to leave at gunpoint.”

“Any sign of a struggle?”

“No.” Max and Miranda hadn’t been technically living together. She stayed with Max when she wasn’t touring. Once she had told me how much she appreciated Max not being a jerk about her job and how frequently she was gone. He had been standing behind her grinning. I knew he loved her traveling. It gave him free range to do whatever the fuck he felt like, and that included other women. She hadn’t been anywhere near the apartment when he disappeared. “Max was living alone at the time but he had a lot of people in and out of that apartment and he wasn’t a slob, but he was no neat freak either. There was clutter, but nothing abnormal like blood or tossed furniture.”

Mickey nodded. “What was his favorite thing to do? He liked to go out on the water?”

“Yes. He did always want a boat, that’s true.”

“For sport or for fishing?”

“Speed boat.”

“So he’s probably not hiding in the Keys running a tour or anything like that.”

I tried to visualize Max in the laidback Keys and couldn’t. “I doubt it.”

“All right, well just give me everything you’ve got and we’ll get someone working on it.” Mickey was dressed casual in a T-shirt and khaki shorts, looking more like he was going fishing himself than running a multi-million-dollar security company. Despite his nonchalance as he rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, his eyes were shrewd. Mickey had seen a lot and was always suspicious of everyone, including me right now. “So what’s the real reason you want to find your brother? What’s changed?”

I could lie. But I wasn’t a particularly good liar. I was charming sure, but that didn’t work on guys like Mickey. My style was straight-out honesty. “Because personally I think my brother is a sociopath and I want to prove it to his ex-girlfriend.”

It was the truth but Mickey saw through that. “And why is that? Why do you care at this point if she’s hung up on him still?”

There was no way I was telling him about her request. But I could tell him how I felt. I had no interest in backing down from my emotions. “Because she should be mine.”

That made Mickey grin. “Well, you know I’m a romantic guy. I’m all for love. I’ve been in love at least half a dozen times, and don’t regret any of them.”

It drove Ryan crazy that his father was a serial dater, but it made me like him even more. The guy liked women. I understood that. “Never regret anything you wanted at one point.”

“You’re a man after my own heart. So you nail that pop star the other night or what? I heard you were partying in her room.”

Fortunately I hadn’t, because I wasn’t sure how happy my boss would be to know he had paid me to fuck someone. Not that Lola would have been the first time. But once I had seen Miranda, any other women that night were a no-go, even a pop star. “Nope. Miranda distracted me. I hadn’t seen her in awhile.”

Mickey held up his hand. “I don’t need details, I’ll just get jealous.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I told him, which was a fucking shame. But I was working on it. “I thought you have a girlfriend now anyway, so what are you talking about?”

“Kim’s pissed at me. She moved back out again.”

Given that it was early October and I was pretty sure she had moved in with Mickey last spring, that had gone south quick. “Well, shit. That’s no good.”

He shrugged. “She’ll come back. We like it this way. It keeps things spicy.”

I couldn’t even imagine a turbulent relationship like that. It was why I was never in one. I wanted uncomplicated. I wanted the flirt, the chase, the fuck. The walking away. Hitting the reset button and starting the process all over again. Fun without entanglements.

The only exception to that rule ever was Miranda.

---