Page 26 of Total Exposure

“Dude, what’s the deal with this woman?”

“She’s there then?”

“Yeah, she’s here… but she kinda freaked out and now’s she locked in the bathroom you told me didn’t need cameras.”

“Define freaked out.”

“Full-on fucking panic attack, man. I’m not kidding. She came in, looked around a little, spotted the camera in the foyer chandelier, and then said ‘Hello’ to me.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is she fucking went crazy after that. Racing around the house looking for the bathroom, I guess. Now she’s locked in there doing what-the-fuck-ever and I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

“I’ll call you back,” Jordan says. “And whatever you do, do not leave that room. Got me?”

“Yeah,” I say.

But he’s already ended the call.

I sigh and lean back in my chair, wondering if I made a mistake in taking this job. I don’t need the money, so why bother?

But I know why I bother.

People think money is all you need in life. And yeah, it’s nice to have money. It’s even better to have so much you never have to think about it. Or anything, if you so choose. Which is how I deal with it most of the time.

But every once in a while I’ll meet someone, or hear something, and then…

Don’t fucking go there, Ixion.

So I’m lucky, I guess. I have more money than I can ever spend. Sick reality, I get it. Puts me squarely into a subset of the human population called grotesquely rich. But I don’t squander it. Unless you call walking away from a six-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee squandering. Which some might.

But I’ll make up for that. Send that chick the title or something. Let her keep it. Sell it, whatever.

I’m just… trying my best to stay unattached and make the most of the life I have. That’s just about my only aspiration. Live this fucking life like it’s the only one you get. Spend it all because you can’t take it with you. And never stop moving. The past might catch up if you stop moving.

My motto is faltering today, because against my better judgment, I find this Evangeline woman interesting.

What happened to her? Why did she just disappear like that? Did she do something? Did someone make her disappear? Was she forced out?

Normally I keep this caring shit to a minimum. It comes at a price, but I can’t help myself. It’s just intriguing. I want to know the answers to all those questions. Not to mention how she got mixed up with Jordan. It makes no sense at all. Because Jordan doesn’t gravitate to the kind of women I do, and I have a feeling Evangeline Rolaine is more my type than his.

“So was Augustine.”

My comment surprises me. Where the fuck did that come from? I have not so much as thought her name in seven years, let alone spoken it out loud.

Why did it have to end that way?

Stop fucking thinking about her. Now!

I know why.

My phone buzzes, so I answer it, happy to end the internal struggle I’ve been avoiding for seven years. “Yeah.”

“OK, I talked to her doctor and she says leave her alone. She has strict instructions to leave the house if she wants out of the treatment. So if she’s still in the house, she’s still in treatment.”

“So if she leaves, I call you?”

“Yes,” Jordan says. “If she leaves, call me and let me know what she’s doing. Then you follow her. Discreetly. If she leaves and calls her doctor. I’ll call you and then the treatment is over and you can just… fucking come over here and get your money, I guess. Job’s over. Got it?”