Blood Kiss (Savage Security Series Book 1) Page 18

  Alisha’s brows pulled down. “Really?” she questioned, her voice rising an octave. This man was hard to nail down.

  “Yeah.” Jack nodded. He wanted to like her since she was important to Mike, but he wasn’t sure what to think of her. She was attractive, so he could see the appeal. But Jack assumed that her judgment was poor if she wasn’t taking Mike’s advice on how to protect herself, or perhaps she didn’t care how her death may affect his friend. That didn’t give her points either as far as he was concerned.

  Mike nodded. “Yes. His name really is Jack Black. Apparently his mom was still drugged up when she gave him that ridiculous, rhyming name.”

  “I like it,” Alisha said with a smile. “I have a feeling that it suits you.”

  Mr. Alvarez didn’t like the looks of either of the men. They were large, muscular, and clearly knew how to throw their muscle around. He could tell that the one he’d tangled with had let him pass. He’d felt Jack’s muscles go slack as he barged past him. Alvarez was keenly aware that Jack could have laid him out on the floor, and it scared him. He’d witnessed cruel men back home in the cartels. He just never expected that type of man to wind up at his elementary school harassing one of his friends.

  Alisha saw the concern in Mr. Alvarez’s eyes. She recognized how brave he was to stand up to Jack in order to help her. “Mr. Alvarez, are you all right?” She pressed her hand against his arm.

  Mr. Alvarez appreciated her concern, but she didn’t need to worry about him. “I’m fine,” he replied, patting her hand. He looked over his shoulder at Jack. “I was concerned when I saw a stranger guarding your door. And when he didn’t want to let me in, I became very concerned. I just wanted to make sure you were safe.” He smiled, still not happy about the two men that were out of place at the school. He’d noticed that her shirt was misbuttoned too. He was somewhat relieved when she said the big man was her boyfriend, but he didn’t know why that other guy had stood watch at the door. Something wasn’t right. There was clearly more to the story.

  Mike didn’t trust Mr. Alvarez, and he disliked the way Alisha put her hand on the man’s arm. She didn’t need to encourage any man’s attention or affection towards her. He didn’t care that Mr. Alvarez was married, and he didn’t care that Mr. Alvarez knew that he was her boyfriend. The stalker knew about him and that had only infuriated the stalker. Mr. Alvarez could be playing his part very well, the concerned friend who wanted to know a little more about the ‘other’ man. That’s how he’d play it.

  Mike stepped towards Mr. Alvarez and pasted what looked like a genuine smile on his face. “Thanks for your concern. It’s nice to know that Alisha has such good friends here at work.” He looked tenderly at Alisha, took her hand in his, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m so lucky to know her.” He looked back at Mr. Alvarez, squarely in the eyes, “You know a man would do anything for the woman in his life.”

  “Yes, yes.” Mr. Alvarez nodded his head and returned the fake smile. English may be his second language, but he understood the veiled threat. “And Ms. Woods is one in a million,” Mr. Alvarez replied. “You are a lucky man.” Then he looked at Alisha, “I’ll talk to you later.” He smiled at Alisha, nodded his head, and walked out the door.

  Jack followed Mr. Alvarez out the door. Alisha thought it was a little strange that Jack hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye to her. She turned around and looked up at Mike. “That was weird.” She paused to see if Mike would comment. He didn’t, so she continued. “You’re friend seems…” she wasn’t sure what word to use, something to relay his strangeness without being insulting, “unique.”

  Mike laughed and stroked one hand down her arm. “I’ll tell him you said that.” He raised his eyebrows and made an obvious look at her shirt. “You missed a button.”

  She looked down at her shirt and noticed the fabric bunching. She let out a sigh. “How embarrassing. Do you think they noticed?” She unbuttoned her shirt and made quick work of redoing the buttons correctly.

  “Nah,” he replied. This visit had already taken a turn for the worst. Why add embarrassment over wardrobe malfunction to the mix? “Does he just show up very often?”

  “Who? Mr. Alvarez.” Alisha shook her head. “I run into him in the halls. If a kid gets sick, he comes and cleans it up.” She glanced at the standard issue clock that hung over her classroom door. “I hate to say it, but I have to go. I have one minute to walk to the cafeteria and get the kids.” She gave him a weak smile. “Do you want to walk with me?”

  “Of course.” Mike followed her through the hallway, down the stairs, and past the office. He gave a quick wave to the receptionist who raised her eyebrows as they walked past while Jack hung out by the school entrance.

  Alisha stopped beside the cafeteria doors and faced Mike. “Thanks for coming today.”

  “Happy to,” he replied. He wanted to kiss her, wrap his arms around her, but with twenty plus sets of eyes watching, he decided against it.

  Alisha walked to the front of a line of students, her finger pressed to her lips with the other hand raised in the air. Her students copied her as they stood in a single-file line.

  She turned and motioned with her head for Mike to follow them. He heard the quiet whispers of some of the kids as they headed back to class. At the office, she stopped and turned to Mike and said, “I’ll see you later?”

  “You know it,” Mike replied. “I’ll be here by four. Don’t go anywhere that is secluded. Stay in the public areas.” School let out at 3:45 so there would still be some kids around and plenty of teachers. But Mike’s gut told him that she wasn’t safe. He’d seen the way Mr. Alvarez looked at her. He’d stood up to Jack in order to check on her. Regardless of how he looked, he was not your average man.

  “I’ll be right here, waiting for you.” She smiled sweetly at him, and then noticed Mrs. Hughes in her periphery staring at them. She fought back a laugh. She couldn’t blame Mrs. Hughes; she’d be staring too. Mrs. Hughes silently mouthed “WOW” to her.

  Mike glanced over his shoulder to see what had Alisha’s attention. He gave a quick smile to the lady who gave him a quick wave of her hand and got back to busying herself with paperwork.

  “You need to go.” She looked over at Jack who stood at the door that led to the outside. “Your friend looks anxious to leave. He keeps looking at his watch.”

  Mike was aware of the time. They were still good, but they did need to leave. “Yeah, we got to hit the road.” He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to taste her, right here in the hallway of an elementary school with twenty plus seven and eight year olds staring at him, but he knew that would only get her in trouble. So instead he gave her a weak smile and squeezed her hand. “Text me.”

  She interrupted, “I know the rules,” she reassured him. She patted his arm and gave him a half smile that fully melted his heart. “Gotta get back to work.” She turned and led her line of students up the stairs to the second floor.

  Mike watched her go, her students following her like a momma duck with her ducklings. Some of the kids walked with their fingers held high in the air with another finger over their lips while others poked each other in the back. He would’ve been the kid poking his friends in the back and causing trouble. He was sure Jack would’ve been too. Alisha would’ve been the little girl in the pigtails who walked quietly with her finger over her mouth and obediently held her hand high.

  Life was like that. Rule followers, rule breakers, and those who thought the rules didn’t apply to them. Whoever her stalker was didn’t think the rules applied to him. In his sick and twisted mind he believed that what he was doing was acceptable. He’d justified his actions to himself. The monsters always do. They don’t worry about the lives they destroy. They just leave a wide path of destruction without a backward glance of concern. Well this monster was going to be stopped, and it was going to hurt.

  Mike followed Jack into the parking lot as they headed for the limo. He looked around to make sure there were no kids present. “
You really fucked that up,” Mike barked.

  Jack knew it was coming. He walked over to his side of the limo and opened the passenger side door. He slipped onto the leather seat. “What did you expect me to do? Drop the man in front of a bunch of seven year olds?” He looked incredulously over at Mike. “The hallway was full of kids when he showed up. I didn’t have a lot of options. And, uh, did you forget, we’re both carrying? The last thing we needed was for someone to call the cops.”

  Mike started the engine and drummed his fingertips on the wheel. “You could’ve figured something out.”

  “Yeah, I made a shit ton of noise so you’d know we were coming in. You plant the tracker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then mission accomplished. You can stop bitching at me and focus on the real problem.” He snorted a laugh. “I can’t believe you’re leaving her in there. You’re clearly thinking with your cock. After seeing her, I’m back to my original opinion. You need zip tie her ass to a table at Savage Securities.

  “Fuck! Jack!” Mike barked. “You think I haven’t thought about that all morning. I want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her to work and lock her up tight, but she’d hate me forever. And I can’t have that.

  Jack rested an arm on the door and turned so he faced Mike. “But you can have her kidnapped? Raped? Killed?”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  Jack hated to see his friend like this. Mike really was in a ‘fucked if you do’ and ‘fucked if you don’t’ position. “She’s what? I’m guessing around one ten. Even a pansy-assed pussy should be able to drag her skinny ass to his fucked up lair. I’m just saying.” Jack shrugged casually. “You need to deal with reality.”

  Mike needed to do what was best for Alisha, not what Alisha wanted to do. If she died, would Mike ever be able to forgive himself? He still carried his sister’s death on his shoulders every day, and he hadn’t even known Amy was in trouble. What would Alisha’s death do to him when he’d taken on the responsibility to protect her?

  “You think I’m not dealing with reality?” Mike snapped in disbelief. “I know the reality. I live with it every day. I see the pain of reality in my parent’s eyes every time I’m with them. There is no escape from reality for me.” Mike gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white from his death grip.

  A battle waged in Mike’s head. He wanted to go back in and get her. She’d gotten lucky this morning, and he didn’t know if her luck would hold. Would she be there waiting for him to pick her up after school? His heart burned in his chest. He hadn’t felt pain like this since he’d heard about his sister’s death.

  “Well, I’ve said my peace,” Jack said. “And when all this goes to Hell, and you know it will, I’ll have your back, and you won’t even hear me say ‘I told you so’.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  23

  Alisha’s afternoon went smoothly. Lunch led into recess which gave her time to talk with the other teachers while the kids played. She anxiously awaited Mike’s texts, happy each time her phone vibrated in her pocket. She quickly replied, knowing that if she didn’t that he’d freak on her. She wasn’t sure what he’d do when he ‘freaked’, but she knew it couldn’t possibly be pleasant. He was intimidating enough in his ‘everything is fine and dandy’ mode.

  As the students packed up to go home, she sent him a text even though she doubted that he‘d reply. She knew he had to drop the client off at the airport before he came back to get her. When she’d asked him about the man, Mike explained that he was unable to talk about him. The client hired them to protect his privacy while he attended to business here, so Savage Securities had signed a nondisclosure agreement. Mike assured her that this was pretty standard for them. They even had doctors, nurses, flight crews, and other various specialties that they frequently worked with that had signed nondisclosure agreements with them.

  The world of nondisclosure agreements was so far removed from Alisha’s reality. Gossip spread like lice at a slumber party around the school. She frequently heard things about people’s lives that she wished she didn’t know. She wondered how much of it was true or even if parts of the rumors were true. She tried to remain immune to the effects of gossip, but that was easier said than done. The nasty gossip bugs burrowed their way into her life and carried bits and pieces of information on to others. A nondisclosure agreement would never work at a school. The gossip bug would hungrily devour the paper it was printed on.

  She chuckled as she set her phone on her desk and looked at the bushy haired girl shoving everything in her backpack. Alisha hoped the girl’s parents had truly gotten rid of the lice. Those buggers were hard to get rid of, and that little girl had a lot of hair. Alisha didn’t understand why the mom didn’t put that magnificent mane in a braid to help prevent the lice from spreading. The day after the letter went home about the lice in the classroom, all the other girls in the class came to school with braids. Even girls from other classes showed up sporting braids of all kinds. Alisha chuckled. The one girl who needs a braid is the one girl who doesn’t have one.

  Typical. Oh well, she shrugged to herself, good luck to the others.

  She dismissed the carpool students and checked her phone again. No reply from Mike. She figured he was on the road. She’d asked him not to text and drive, so she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t reply.

  She set the phone down on her desk and graded a few papers while the bus students slowly trickled out. When the phone chirped, she set down her red pen and snatched up her cell.

  Running late. Accident on Interstate. Dropping him off now. Will text when on the way.

  Her heart sank. She was thankful for the update and glad that he was fine, but she was a little disappointed. She was ready to see him in minutes not wait another half-hour or more. She had no idea how long it would take at the airport. Did he just drop the client off, or did he have to wait until the client’s plane departed?

  Thanks for update. See you soon. ♥

  She wasn’t sure about the heart emoji, but she left it there and hit send. She did care about him, and he would just have to deal with it. Besides, she was an emoji person. That’s just who she was. Her day had been great so far, and the heart reflected her feelings. She hadn’t received any strange notes or gifts, and Mike would be with her soon. Those were two excellent reasons to use the emoji.

  The final bus was called, and the last students rushed out the classroom door, slinging their backpacks over their shoulders. Alisha followed them, picking up scraps of paper and pencils that lay scattered on the floor. She tossed the trash into the trashcan and peeked into the hallway. Students powerwalked past each other. Their backpacks collided into other rushing students as they fought to be in the lead.

  “No running in the hallway,” Alisha called out. Some students pretended to slow down, while others barreled through the mass of kids flooding the hallway.

  Alisha shook her head and closed the door, glad the day was done. She grabbed her phone from her pocket and opened her favorite music app. The music flowed, and a smile eased across her face. She straightened the tables and chairs as she made her way back to her desk. She settled herself on the cushioned seat and grabbed her math book. Opening her lesson plan book, she finished planning the math lessons for later in the week.

  A knock sounded at the door. Alisha looked up in time to see the door slowly open.

  “Hey there,” Cara called out as she peeked her head into the doorway.

  “Hey,” Alisha sang out. She closed her math book and smiled up at one of her best friends. Cara was a talker, and Alisha knew what she was there to talk about.

  Cara strode through the room, her long legs cutting gracefully through the air. She always reminded Alisha of an elf. Not the Keebler kind, but the Tolkien kind. She was so tall and lithe that she almost didn’t seem human. She was pretty, but in a different way. Her narrow face, high cheek bones and fair skin either made her look sickly or sexy. Alisha could never quite decide. I
t depended on what Cara was wearing and the mood she was sporting.

  “I know you gave us the edited version of your relationship with Mike at recess,” Cara teased, a huge smile brightening her face. “I’m here for the unedited version.” Cara leaned against the top of one of the desks and let her long legs sprawl out in front of her. “The dirtier the details, the better.” Her wide smile easily stretched across her thin face.

  Alisha set her pen down on her desk and leaned back in her chair. “Don’t look at me like that. You know everything you need to know.” She fiddled with her cell phone, willing a reply from Mike.

  Cara snorted. “Hardly. You did not meet that man shopping.” She raised an eyebrow and waited for Alisha’s reply.

  The seconds ticked by as Cara kept her gaze locked on Alisha. Alisha hoped her silence would elicit a different question from Cara, but it didn’t. She just continued to stare, her light blue eyes refusing to blink. Alisha finally had to answer just to save herself from Cara’s intensity. “I did meet him shopping.”

  “Where?” was Cara’s quick response. “And if you tell me the grocery store, I’m going to assume it was Victoria’s Secret.” She giggled and added, “That would make a better story.” At this she gave a smile and secretly hoped it was Victoria’s Secret. Alisha needed a little man and some hot lingerie in her life.

  Alisha pushed back her chair and stood. She scowled at Cara as she walked briskly to her classroom door. She peeked into the hallway, making sure no one was around, and shut the door.

  “Wow,” Cara drawled out. “This must be good if you’re closing the door.” She stared as Alisha made her way back to her desk. She tucked her straight, dark brown hair behind her ear and waited for Alisha’s response.

  Alisha wasn’t sure why she always looked for points on the tops of Cara’s ears. They were never there. She wasn’t really an elf.