Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(151)

I lifted up and looked at him over the couch. Then I watched as he moved around the house, a manila envelope in his hand, closing all the blinds including the ones at the wall of floor to ceiling windows that it took three long tugs to get both sides of them across the expanse then he slapped them closed.

I’d never seen those blinds closed. It felt weird being closed in our house. We were in a development but removed. There were houses close but with the trees around, they felt far. Being the last house in the development, up an incline that grew significantly steeper after the last house before ours, our place felt separate, private, there was no need to close the blinds so I never had.

I felt a shiver trill up my spine at the need to close the blinds and then another one when Ty walked to stand opposite the coffee table from me where he lifted up the envelope and started to study it, turning it back to front.

I curled my legs in an S and got up on my hand, my eyes also on the envelope.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“No clue. Was sittin’ at the backdoor.” I looked up at his face to see him looking at me. “You see who put it there?”

Dusk had fallen, it wasn’t dark but there wasn’t a lot of light left. Our house faced west, the back was darker than the front and the outside light wasn’t on.

I shook my head and answered, “It was a man. A big guy but not you, Bubba, Deke big. Short-sleeved shirt, plaid. That’s all I saw.”

“So you didn’t recognize him?”

I shook my head.

He nodded and looked back down at the envelope.

Then he moved to open it and I tensed, whispering, “Honey,” not wanting it to be an envelope bomb or something because I didn’t want our house to explode. I loved our house, of course, but mostly I didn’t want Ty and me to explode with it.

He ignored me, pushed the clasps back, flipped open the lip, turned it over and a CD in a transparent, green plastic case slid into his hand.

I got off the couch and moved to him as he turned the envelope to look inside and I made it to him as he leaned forward and dropped the envelope on the coffee table and was looking at the case back to front.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Ty answered.

“No note?” I went on, looking down at the case which was a CD, no writing, nothing.

“No note, nothin’ on the envelope,” he replied.

Then without another word, he moved to the stairs. I hustled after him. His legs were longer than mine and he was already in the office, reaching to the computer to turn it on when I got there.

My computer was an all in one unit, just a big, long monitor, a wireless keyboard and mouse. Shiny black. It was awesome. I bought it because it looked good not because I knew anything about computers. Still, the dude at the store said it was a really good one and I’d noticed it was super fast, at least compared to my old one.

Ty dropped the CD on the desk and felt around the sides of the computer. After about a second, the CD drive slid open at the side.

I kept quiet and reminded myself to breathe as the computer booted up, Ty loaded up the CD, shoved in the drawer and sat down in the swivel chair, rolling it to the desk, his big hand covering the mouse.

I leaned into the side of the chair as the computer read the disc then opened up a window listing things Ty could chose from for what he wanted to do with the disc.

He picked, double-clicked, the screen went entirely black and I held my breath, hoping that it wasn’t some virus that would explode my computer because I liked my computer and my man that day asked me to slow down spending, he did it in a way that was super nice and we didn’t need to drop a whack on a new computer when mine was only five months old.

Then a small, square screen popped up, my breath came back, I blinked as what I saw and heard hit my brain, Ty’s hand moved the mouse, he maximized the image and it filled the big monitor.

Then I stared.

“Holy f**k,” Ty whispered.

Holy f**k was right. And also a big, fat euw.

This was because we were watching what appeared to be a homemade  p**n  video and it was not a good one. Not that much  p**n  was high-budget, high-quality just that this was bad.

And it was bad for more reasons than the director clearly had no vision.

Two women working an old guy. He was tall and lean but he was old. And he was into some seriously sick shit.

Seriously sick.

I’d never seen anything like it, I didn’t know anyone was into that kind of thing, I didn’t actually even know that kind of thing existed and, watching it, I wished I still didn’t know.

I was staring in fascinated horror, wanting to pull my eyes away but for some reason not able to. I wondered why some anonymous man had dropped this at our backdoor. I wondered how anyone could get off on that crap.

And as I was wondering and struggling with the nauseous roil in my stomach, I heard Ty whisper, “The blonde.”

I had been concentrating on the activities, not the participants so I focused on one of the two females, the blonde not the brunette.

Then I froze.

It was Misty Keaton.

“Ohmigod,” I breathed.

I felt Ty’s eyes on me but mine didn’t move from Misty. Thinner, younger, I couldn’t guesstimate by how much but half a decade, at least.

“You ever see that man?” he asked.