Dirty by Debra Webb Page A

make it happen.
    Surely this wasn’t someone’s idea of a sick joke.   That couldn’t be.   Absolutely no one knew about him or that night.   I shook off the memories and, knowing that Hobbs and Alita waited for some sort of enlightenment, I explained, “I mean, I met him...spent time with him, but I didn’t get his name.”
    “What do you suppose the message means?” Hobbs ventured, still looking suspect as regards my responses.   The man read me entirely too well.   He would want the rest of the story.
    Not trusting my still unsteady legs I stayed put on the edge of my desk, but I forced my mind to wrap around the possible scenarios.   I studied the face that held a kind of power over me even now, then reviewed the message once more.
    “I’m not sure.   But this—” I tapped the number “—looks like a court case number.”   The files my father had brought home from work as a judge had been designated similarly.
    “I can check the PO box.   Try and track down the guy’s name if you’d like,” Hobbs offered.   “Shouldn’t be too difficult.   The DMV will have–”
    “I haven’t seen this man in ten years,” I interrupted my assistant’s attempt at cutting through the awkward tension.   “I met him at a bar.”   My eyes fixed on his.   Might as well give him the facts up front.   “We had a one-night stand.   When I woke up he was gone.   That’s all I know.”
    Hobbs cleared his throat indelicately.   “Well, that’s a start.   Let me scan that photo and see what I can find.”
    He took the photo from me but hesitated a moment.   “You don’t have any idea who might have sent this?   Someone you shared the experience with?”
    I shrugged.   “No one else knew about that night.   Maybe he told someone, but I didn’t.”   I kept to myself the other possibility that had already crossed my mind.   I just didn’t see what the man in the photo could hope to accomplish by sending something like this.
    Hobbs let the subject go at that.   But he wouldn’t rest until he figured out who the guy was.   I told myself I wanted to know too, but the ominous warning written on the back of the picture had me hesitating.   If he was dead, did I really want to know?   What could I possibly have had to do with it?   I hadn’t even known his name.   Hadn’t heard from him in all this time...of course if I had been the last one to see him alive that would certainly explain why.
    The instincts I’d worked ten years to hone suddenly overrode my more tender emotions.   Damn straight I wanted to know who he was and what had happened to him.   Obviously someone thought it had something to do with me and that, if nothing else, made it my business.
    “I be going now,” Alita said uncertainly.   “You be okay, Miss Jackie?”
    I squeezed her arm and produced a reassuring smile.   “I’ll be fine, Alita.   Don’t worry.   We’ll take good care of Emilio for you and I’ll look into your request.”
    She nodded.   “When there is time.”
    With Alita off to work and Emilio busy building a Lego city, Hobbs promenaded back into my office.   “I checked with FedEx.   They weren’t that helpful,” he griped.   “The sender was a John Smith.   He’s also listed as the owner of the PO Box.”   He snorted.   “That’s almost as bad as John Doe.   And get this, the shipment originated from right here in Houston.   The clerk couldn’t recall what the sender looked like, only that he was male.   He could have stuck it in our door and saved himself thirty bucks.”
    I nodded, a part of me still distracted by memories that just wouldn’t be ignored.   I should have asked him his name.   How could I have slept with a man and not even have known his name?   To some degree I supposed that had been part of the mystique...we could be anyone...do anything.   No boundaries had restrained us.   That night...our being together was all that had mattered.   But now,