Page 34 of The Vigilante's Lover
“How do you know Jax?” I ask.
The woman begins walking, and I assume I must follow.
“The question is, how do YOU?” she asks.
My suspicion is pricked. Does everyone here answer a question with a question? I decide to be stubborn. “I asked you first.”
We cross the lobby and enter a carpeted hall. Dell smiles at me kindly. “I worked with Jax back on the West Coast,” she says. “Six years of his crazy antics. There was this one time in Vegas with a bunch of MMA fighters having a brawl…” She trails off, shaking her head. “That Jax.”
“Oh.” I wonder now if maybe she and Jax had some sort of relationship. She’s talking about him very familiarly. My stomach feels like lead. Dell is poised and beautiful and wears her heels with grace and ease. This is undoubtedly the sort of woman Jax is used to.
Not a naive country girl who can’t handle her shoes.
I try to match her posture as I totter down the hall. I wonder what he is going through. Interrogation? Back to prison? He was so confident things would go well for him.
“Will I get to see Jax?” I ask.
Dell pauses by a tall steel door and waits to be scanned. “He’s going to be in meetings today.” Her tone is dismissive.
The handle pops open. “Let’s get you something to eat while we arrange your transportation,” she says.
I feel weird about just going home after everything that hashappened. It seems so anticlimactic.
Dell leads me into what looks like a lounge. Curved sofas follow the rounded walls, all in subdued shades of gray and blue. Soft lamps give the room a peaceful glow. A long kidney-shaped coffee table is decorated with three small vases of bright pink flowers like exclamation marks in the calm space.
“Do you drink coffee? Tea?” Dell asks.
“Tea, thank you,” I say. I sink onto one of the sofas and resist removing the uncomfortable shoes.
Dell sits a few cushions down. “I’m sure you’ve been quite lost and bewildered by all that’s happened.”
My concern pricks me again. What if they want to get information from me to use against Jax?
“So, when will I get to leave?” I ask.
Dell taps the face of what looks like an ordinary watch. On the wall, which appears to be glass over a light gray surface, an image appears. Dell skims the words, which mean nothing to me, just a string of Greek letters and coordinates and times.
“Surface time to your home in Tennessee is about six hours,” she says. “But we have to get special dispensation to have transport brought in mid-shift.” She smiles at me kindly. “But that will be no problem.”
“Thank you for the trouble,” I say uncertainly.
The door slides open and a young woman, maybe seventeen, enters the room with a tray. She is dressed oddly in a white pantsuit that looks like vinyl. “What an unusual outfit,” I say.
“Katya is in training,” Dell says. “This is her uniform.”
Katya’s chocolate eyes never leave me as she sets the tea set on the coffee table. “I’ve never met a special before,” she says.
“That is all, Katya,” Dell says sharply.
The girl’s face flushes red. She turns and hurries out.
“What did she mean by ‘special’?” I ask.
“Just someone outside our business interests being in the facility,”Dell says. She pours a steaming cup of tea. “I hope a breakfast blend is all right.”
Suddenly I wonder if the tea is drugged. My heart pounds as Dell sets the pot back on the tray. “Sugar?” she asks. “Milk?”
I shake my head no. She moves the cup closer to me.
