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“Mr. Tanaka,” her voice betrayed slight fury at my indifferent manner.
Holding up my hand I halted her words. “I have a meeting in the next….”
Glancing at the Rolex on my arm, I noted the time. Even if I drove like a maniac, I was going to be late.
“I have to go!”
Standing, my office chair nearly flew back against the glass.
“Mr. Tanakaaaa….”
The screen of the laptop slammed closed, and I wondered if I’d broken the screen. Adjusting my tie, I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door.
Three guards were standing nearby but I went to dismiss them. They were with me for what seemed to be every single waking moment.
Not the school, I thought.
My older sister Abby would have been disappointed.
Our family and the elements that surrounded them had never been part of her life. She’d moved out the second she could never taking a single dime from our father.
And now she’d been murdered.
“Meet me back at the house,” I told my head of security.
“Sir…”
I shook my head. “I’m going to St. Sinclair. Guards are there watching the children but they’re not too obvious. Besides, it’s just a PTA event.”
Mark Jackson was an ex-marine and the only non-Japanese man in my vicinity, but I trusted him with my life.
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea. But as you wish.”
He seemed hurt by my words and that amused me when much didn’t.
By the time we got outside, the sun was beginning to set. Glancing up, I saw a cloud that appeared shaped like an angel. For a moment, I stood in awe of it.
When I was a kid, Abby had taken me to the park with my younger brother Alex often and we would lay back on a hillside, watching clouds roll by.
It was something I hadn’t done in nearly twenty years give or take.
Getting behind the wheel of the car, I whipped through Atlanta’s terrible ass traffic. Sitting in one spot for what seemed like too long, a few kids knocked on the window trying to get me to buy water.
I was only twenty-five minutes late when I strolled into the school and she was there waiting, along a wall. Janet Fryer was the social worker assigned to my nieces. The woman had a clipboard permanently attached to her body and I swore she was trying to make my life hell.
She spotted me immediately, walking over the brown dress suit she wore threatening to swallow her entire frame. Her shoes appeared to be leaning a little bit as well.
“Mr. Tanaka, how good of you to make it to the Bingo event,” she offered a smile and then like clockwork, she made a note on her list.
Fighting the eye roll that was assuredly coming, I nodded. “Yes, I made it. Got caught up at the office.”
She sighed. “Mr. Tanaka, I hope I don’t have to make you aware that you have to be on time for your nieces.”
I grumbled something just as someone shouted, “Bingo!”
The crowded hall erupted in applause. Someone had just won a brand-new flat-screen television and they were headed to collect their prize.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Fryer. I need to take a seat.”
