Page 16 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“Who’s this man your friend needs to find?”

An ex? An AWOL employee? Or just a date for the evening? I choked back my own laugh at the thought of the last prospect since I hadn’t had a shower in three days or a haircut in six months. Life was all about priorities, and living in my car, I didn’t have a roommate around to complain about the smell.

“Someone drugged her in a bar on Sunday evening, and the police haven’t made the progress we hoped for.”

“Let me guess—cutbacks?”

“Can you help?”

“Did he assault her?”

“No, she thinks he tried to kidnap her. She remembers being in a car, but she jumped out. And because the toxicology report didn’t show anything and the camera system in the bar was broken, the police have given up.”

“If the tox screen was clear, how does she know she was drugged? What if she only drank too much?”

“She just knows, okay? Besides, she’s practically teetotal. She was the only person at my last wedding who didn’t get drunk.”

I heard a quiet but indignant voice in the background. “Because I was yourwedding planner, Maria.”

Maria was with a wedding planner? “Are you getting hitched again?”

“In two and a half months. Do you want the job or not?”

“What’s your goal with this? If I find the guy, what then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to build a case and pass the evidence to the police? Go to the man’s employer? Have a quiet word?”

“We were thinking of a full-page ad in theWashington Post. Unless you can arrange for him to have an accident. Do you do that sort of thing?”

“I run a legitimate business here, lady.”

At least, I did when there was a possibility of entrapment.

“Fine, so we’ll stick with the naming and shaming. When can you start?”

“I haven’t said I’ll take the job yet.” But I knew I would. I didn’t have any choice. Since a recent client bad-mouthed me all over the internet in a hysterical reaction to finding out that her husband’s mistress was in fact her sister, the phone had been worryingly quiet. And my wallet was almost empty. If I didn’t work, I didn’t eat—simple as that. “How about I drive over and meet with you tomorrow? We can discuss things further.”

Such as my fees. A case like that—finding a stranger from a bar—could be a straightforward, half-day job or a never-ending, money-sucking nightmare. And the pauper inside me secretly wished for the latter.

“I’m not available tomorrow.” Frantic whispers sounded through the phone. “But Kim is. You can come to her office. I’ll text you the details.”

“Ten o’clock?”

More whispers. “Don’t be late.”

***

At seven a.m., I rolled up my sleeping bag and stuffed it into the rear footwell. Ice had formed on the inside of the windows overnight—I’d had to keep breathing, unfortunately—which meant I had to waste precious gas heating the interior of the car. Another six dollars went on the entrance fee for the gym, not because I wanted to work out—I barely had the energy for that this week—but because I needed a shower. I could hardly walk into the office of Maria Fitzgerald’s fucking wedding planner stinking of yesterday’s fast food, could I?

I know the question you’re asking. Believe me, I’d asked it myself many times by that point. How the hell did a guy who spent five years in the US Army and another five in the police force, both good careers, end up with nothing?

The answer was simple.

Emma.

Emma Cullen, my little sister. The rose in my heart and the thorn in my side since I was five years old. Now, at thirty, I loved and hated her in equal measure, but above all, I wanted to find her. Over two years had passed since we last spoke. A thirty-second phone call made from a truck stop near Baltimore where she’d tearily explained that she couldn’t stand living in Bethesda anymore and begged me to leave her alone to make a fresh start.

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