Laura

Laura 27.0

"This is all my fault," Brett says as he looks around his office for the papers. I stand at the door and memories come flooding in. Like the time when he was helping me find a place to live and he is trying to tickle me and we just had laughed. I watch him and think about where I would be if I had never met him in the park that day.

Or what would I be doing right now if I have never followed that guy back into the building to have a night's sleep.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have ended up doing what Jo was doing, sleep around to live and have somewhere to sleep. But that's the thing with her, she didn't just sleep with just anyone. She always had clients that would recommend her and those same clients were well clean men who had money.

She never once had to think about catching anything because she always took care of herself and was well attainable. I remember how I met her. Alone in the ally ways in a corner balled up crying, because I had just run away from the last foster home. She came up and I swear she was like an angel that had come and rescued me. She offered me a place for the night and fed me a burger king meal with a vanilla shake on the curb right outside because the employees wouldn't let us sit inside.

But that was okay, I didn't mind because I was with her and I wasn't afraid not one bit when I was with Jo. She was my safe place.

I feel the waterworks so I put my thoughts to the side, "It's not your fault." I reply to Brett who is still searching through files.

"Have you seen any files with the name Alexander anywhere?" he asks as he throws all of the papers onto the floor.

"I never got to the files when I was here," I say and sit on the sofa.

He looks at me and sits next to me, "that's alright. It's all going to be okay. We're going to get her back" he says and grabs a hold of my hand.

I look at our intertwined hands and back up at him and I cup one of his cheeks and caress it. 

"I love you," I say and place a soft kiss on his lips, He pulls away and looks at me and smiles, "I love you too Laura" and gives me a kiss back.

"We can finish this later when we get your friend back," he says and continues to search.

I nod my head and sit back and try to think where would he put those papers when he gave them back the deeds. I think about my position but I never got around to sorting through files let alone going through them for any reason. The only person I can think of that can know where all of those old files can be would be, Andrea.

"Had Andrea come for her things in her office?" I ask, "no, why?" he replies still throwing things around.

"she was your assistant for a while before yall became partners correct?" I ask and he stops and gives me a confused look. 

"Yes why are you asking this?" he says and flips through more papers.

"Because if I'm right, she should have copies of those original deeds," I say getting up and running up the stairs to where her office is.

"It's not possible! I told her to throw those out a long time ago" he shouts as I go up.

I get up there and the door is locked, I look around and go into the maid's closet to find a hammer and start beating on the doorknob and it breaks off. Opening the door and the smell of her perfume fills my nose as if she was here moments ago. I go behind her desk and start pulling out files and start carefully examining them.

My suspicions start to grow because she has files from what looks to be years before they even got married. She has files from when they graduated high school to college and marriage. She's got copies of my paystubs from when I started working for them as a cleaner in the beginning.