Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
I drove around the beat-up Mazda, the exhaust sounding like a damn rice can.
“What the fuck?” I said out of my window.
A little shit of a teenager who must have gotten his license three hours ago had his phone in his hand, clearly taking pictures for his Instagram.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I could see cars coming up from behind us. I peeled off, leaving a cloud of dust and dirt behind me.
Fucking Miami.
I loved this city, but they handed out drivers’ licenses like fucking candy. My commute to work topped twenty minutes at most, and in those twenty minutes, I’m guaranteed to see someone shaving, a girl blow-drying her hair while trying to read the news, and a little Chihuahua sitting on a booster seat with his paws on the steering wheel.
Shit was crazy here.
I pulled into my parking spot, just down the street from Stonewall Investigations. The offices were located barely a street away from the beach, so there was constant foot traffic with tourists and beachgoers carrying their chairs and coolers. I walked around a family of five, the kids already kicking around a soccer ball.
Stonewall Investigations was tucked between two taller buildings. The path leading up to the front door was welcoming, with a trickling fountain and perfectly maintained bushes and flowers, a rainbow flag waving in the breeze. It was a great place to work. I didn’t mind having to come into the office, something I used to dread in my other jobs. I had come from a job in finance and found that my days had been drilled down to the boring core. Nothing excited me besides the few hours I had scheduled for my other interests.
Speaking of.
I glanced at my watch as I entered the main lobby. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. I had a meeting with Jesse scheduled in the next ten minutes, but the rest of my evening was free, so that would hopefully give me enough time to get home and prepare for tonight.
The last few days had found me overly wound up, and tonight, I planned on releasing all that tension. My Velvet Room was clean, and my body was thirsting.
“Hey, Holly,” I greeted Holly Barrios, the curly-haired and always smiling receptionist. She beamed at me and waved before turning her attention back to the phone between her ear and shoulder.
“Mhmm, yup, we’ve got someone who can help you out. Yep, absolutely.”
I walked by her desk and into the well-lit hallway, a river of Miami sunlight streaming in through the windows. I passed by a couple of closed offices, hearing the detectives speaking to their clients in muffled tones. A phone rang as I passed Shiro’s office. His door was open, his feet thrown up on his desk. He gave me a casual smile and a friendly wave and threw his feet back on the ground, reaching for the ringing phone on his desk.
That was another thing I liked about Stonewall. All I had to do was say hi to the other detectives, and then we all pretty much focused in on our own shit. Sometimes I noticed a few detectives working together and taking things in a more collaborative direction, but that wasn’t me. I didn’t like collaborating. It only led to connecting, and I fucking hated connecting. Only one other detective managed to break through—Angel—and even then, I wouldn’t say we were best friends or anything.
I liked sticking to my own lane and getting shit done.
And today, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
I reached my office and unlocked the door.
The space wasn’t the fortieth-floor corner office with a wraparound view out to Miami Beach, but I liked it more because of that. I enjoyed the coziness of it, the hominess. It didn’t feel like a regular office, with fluorescent lighting, uncomfortable and squeaky chairs, and an ugly brown desk. No, my office had plenty of natural light coming in, especially since it was one of the only offices to have two windows that looked out to the street, where there were no other tall buildings to block the sun. The walls were painted a welcoming and soft light gray color, with all the furniture sleek and modern and black, with silver accents catching the sunlight. The blue-and-white rug I had imported from Morocco took up half the room and tied everything together, making it feel more like a home than an office.
I went to my desk, rolled back my leather chair, and sat. My desk was clean, as it usually was, with only a small succulent sitting on the edge of the desk inside a white ceramic pot. I liked to have things organized and under control in all aspects of my life, and that extended to the cleanliness of my desk. Life had taught me that there were many things out of my control, but keeping my desk clean? That I could control.