Page 55 of Root

“Yeah, I think you do.” I stop, taking her in. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is I walked out of my prison.”

“You weren’t a prisoner.”

Well, not exactly. Thing is, I need to watch her… I don’t know what’s going on, but I need to get her talking.

I push the sex part from my head for a moment.

Jess walked into Bunny’s after leaving the mansion. And she walked out again. One reason I like Bunny’s is no one gets into your business. They don’t talk. So why, when my spy asked the bartender what was up with the hot chick, he was told she no longer worked there.

That’s a lot from Bunny’s to a stranger.

Are they hanging her out to dry?

“Of course I was a prisoner. You’re here, you broke in to drag me back, didn’t you?”

I frown. “The door wasn’t locked. I locked it behind me. And before you say a thing, if one of our people came to check, they wouldn’t have left it open.”

“You would say that.”

“Just like I’m going to point out your things, including your keys, were at Bunny’s. Until Tony got them back. So anyone could have used them,” I say.

She snaps straight and pushes past me, not into the bedroom, but the bathroom, and she goes into the cupboard beneath the sink, reaching up under there on her knees.

Of all the things I expect her to pull out—whip, handcuffs, gun—I don’t expect a plastic-wrapped bag.

With a flick of annoyance at me standing, watching, she hugs it to her. “If I asked you to go away, would you?”

“Would you?”

She sighs heavily, the air redolent with fries and my stomach growls. That earns another hard look from Jess.

“I’m hungry.”

“You’re rich, go eat rich person food.”

“Maybe,” I say, leaning against the wall as she checks the seal on the bag, “I like peasant food. And peasants.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re not appealing, at all.”

“You basically humped me earlier today when my fingers were rubbing that sweet cunt toward orgasm.”

“Desperation.”

“Me, too.”

A genuine smile breaks a moment on her face.

“If someone was in here,” she says, getting up, “someone other than you, then I need to know who.”

“I’ll put a sign up outside. That’ll get them.”

Jess pushes past me. The place is a postage stamp and it takes her no time to reach the bedroom. “Fuck.”

“Found the photo?” I go to her, hands raised. “Before you accuse, I didn’t do it. Found it like that. Who was in the frame?”

She’s turning a cheap silver frame with the photo of a woman and two kids in it over in her hands. Someone took the time to scratch out the woman’s face.

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