Negotiation: Daddy P.I. 0.5, E Frost [best thriller novels of all time txt] 📗

same wide, white smile that she gave me four years ago when I first brought my mother here. It was that smile that sold me on this home. Not the nicest, or the newest, that I visited, but that smile reassured me that the lady in charge cared, when I wasn’t sure anyone else did. When I felt so lost and alone caring for this woman I’d known all my life, who was becoming a stranger to me.

Jenetta rises and comes around her desk when I knock on her open door. The door to her office is always open. I love that about her. She takes my hand and leads me to one of the two chairs facing her desk. She sits in the other one, beside me. She never faces off across the desk. I’m not a people person; I have no intention of ever doing anything that has me interfacing with the public, but if I did, I’d take Jenetta as my role model.

She pats my hand, her coal-black hand covering mine as it rests on the chair’s cracked faux-leather arm. “How was your visit with Vi?” she asks me.

“The same. How’s she doing? No outbursts?”

“None at all.”

It was Jenetta who warned me that people with dementia sometimes act out. People who would never have hurt a fly before they developed the disease. The whole world becomes an incomprehensible, alien place. Bewildered, frightened, they rail against it. But my mother’s never done any of that. She’s just slipped gently, terrifyingly gently, into the twilight.

“I saw The Princess Bride in her room. Is she reading it?”

Jenetta shakes her head and gives me a softer, sadder version of her usual smile. “One of the volunteers was reading to her. She says she can’t understand the marks on the page anymore.”

I swallow the tightness in my throat and let out a long breath. My mother loved to read. It was her gift to me, her love of books. Now it’s gone. When she’s already lost so much. “Well, I just wanted to let you know I’m going out of town for two weeks. I, um, was invited on a cruise to Mexico. It’s a little last minute, or I’d have given you more warning.”

“We’ve got the emergency contact number for your brother if anything comes up, but I’m sure Vi will be fine while you’re gone. Do you have a contact number on the cruise?”

My cell, but she already has that. “Sorry, I should have—do you mind if I make a call?”

“Of course not. Do you want some privacy?”

“No, this will only take a second.” I take out my phone and dial Logan, glad that I haven’t changed his contact name over to “Big Daddy Dom NYC” yet, which I intend to do, just to tease him.

He answers on the first ring, “Emily, everything okay?”

“Yes, um, I’m just with the director of my mother’s care home and she’s asked me for a contact number on the cruise. I was just, I was wondering if I could give her your number? If that’s okay?”

“Yes, it’s okay. Text me the number of the care home after you’re done so I’ve got it, too.”

“Thank you, uh—” I almost say “sir,” but that would be too weird in front of Jenetta. “Thank you so much, Logan.”

“You’re welcome, baby doll. Call me later.”

“I will.”

I hang up and look at Jenetta, who is watching me with the slyest grin. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, unsuccessfully trying to suppress her grin. “Let me just jot this down.” She retrieves a pad and pen from her desk and takes down Logan’s number. “Picture?” she says, as she finishes writing.

“Picture?” I repeat dumbly.

“For the file,” she says innocently.

I shake my head at her, before I show her the picture I took of Logan over breakfast. I’ve already labelled it his “Greek God” picture. I caught him as he was reaching back to scratch his neck, so he’s got one arm stretched behind his head, his big biceps bunched. The morning light illuminates his tanned torso. He’s unshaven, heavy-eyed, shirtless and absolutely gorgeous—at least, to me—but I don’t know what he looks like to her. Maybe she’ll think he looks like a bum.

She whistles. “Fine looking man.”

“You’re shameless.”

“I’ll just note that for the file. James Logan. What, thirty, thirty-five? Brown and, what, black or dark brown? Two hundred pounds? All hunka-hunka.”

My cheeks have ignited. “That has to be a HIPAA violation.”

She laughs. “Probably. Bane of my existence, HIPAA. Anyway, now I know why you’re rushing off to Mexico. Have a wonderful time, Emily. Don’t worry about a thing. Your mother will be fine and you know if you want an update or need to tell us anything, just pop me an email.”

“I will. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I haven’t ever told you how grateful I am for you, for everything you do here.” I feel myself tearing up and blink back the prickle. “Being, um, with Logan, it’s made me realize that I take too much for granted. I don’t tell people often enough how grateful I am to them.”

Jenetta tucks her chin back into her neck like a surprised turtle. Then she reaches out and takes my phone from me and inspects Logan’s picture again. “Well, he don’t look like the Second Coming, but he must be if he’s brought all that on.” She gives me her huge grin and I laugh helplessly. “You’re very welcome, Emily, and if you decide he’s not a keeper, you pass him right on to me. I definitely need a man who makes me feel grateful to the whole world.”

I shake my head at her, still laughing. “I’ll let him know.”

“Have a great trip.”

When I rise, she hugs me, burying me in her ample bosom. It’s not quite my mother’s hugs. Nothing is. Not that she gave me many. Hugs were for Francis. But I miss them all the same.

My neighbor Tammy is waiting for me in the atrium with its cracked floor tiles,