“OK, I’ll be right there,” Maggie yelled back.
She ripped off her shirt and looked at Colby with wide eyes. “Take your shirt off,” she whispered, “Hurry up!”
Maggie stood and stared at Colby, who was naked from the waist up. For a moment, she was distracted, taking in every inch of him. He had a broad chest and rock-solid biceps. His stomach looked as though someone had carved the muscles that ran from the top of his rib cage all the way down to his pelvis. Colby’s pants hung just below the hipbones and revealed the sculpted V where the muscles converged between his hips.
Rock pounded on the door again, snapping Maggie out of her stupor. “Bitch, ya better open this door now, or I’ll break it the hell in!”
Maggie grabbed the knob and pulled the door wide open. Rock stalked through, grabbed Maggie under the chin, and pushed her up against the wall. Colby rose from his spot on the sofa, and Rock looked him over.
“Sit the hell down,” Rock ordered.
Colby sat on the edge of the sofa. “What’s going on here? I paid up front for a full hour.”
“You’ll get your full hour, but right now I need to talk to this stupid whore,” Rock said, tightening his grip on Maggie.
“Wh-h…what, Rock?” Maggie managed.
“What? That asshole kid of yours talked Joey into running away. I wanna know where she is. Now!” he demanded.
“I-I don’t know. You have to believe me, Rock,” she gasped through the stranglehold he had on her.
Rock loosened his grip just a smidgen. “Talk!”
Maggie pulled air into her lungs in short, curt breaths. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to let me talk to Seth. He would never do anything to deceive you. This is probably just a misunderstanding. Please, just let me talk to Seth, and I’ll come find you. I swear.”
Rock looked her over. “You have an hour to find me, and you better have the information I need. You hear me?” he grunted.
“Yes, yes, I hear you. I’ll find you in an hour,” Maggie promised.
Rock took one more glance at Colby before he left. Once the door closed behind him, Maggie slid down the wall and sat on the floor in a heap.
Colby moved to her quickly. “Are you OK? Did he hurt you?”
Maggie looked up at Colby, her mascara racing down her cheeks with her tears. “I’m fine. I need to leave and find Seth,” she stated.
“I’ll help,” Colby offered.
“No, you can’t come with me. You should know a john would never help a hooker. I’ll see you another time, but right now I need to take care of my kid,” Maggie told him.
Maggie quickly put her shirt back on, grabbed her purse from the floor, and flung it over her shoulder. Taking one final look at Colby, she left the apartment to find Seth.
She ran the four blocks back to their studio apartment and pushed the door open with a bang. Juju and Seth jumped from where they were sitting on the floor.
“What the hell’s wrong?” Juju asked, alarmed.
Maggie looked straight at Seth. “Where’s Joey?”
Seth, in a state of shock, drew in a breath. “I don’t know, Aggie. I swear, I don’t know,” he said.
Maggie knew he wasn’t lying. “When is the last time you saw her?”
“Friday at school. Why?” Seth began to walk back and forth in the small room. “What happened to her?” he screeched, desperation dripping from his voice.
“I don’t know what happened to her,” Maggie said.
“But today’s Sunday, Aggie! Has she been missing all weekend?” Seth bellowed.
“I don’t know. Rock thinks she ran away from home and that you know where she is,” Maggie told him.
“All right. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s go find Rock and tell him Seth hasn’t seen Joey since school on Friday,” Juju suggested.
Seth ran to the door and then turned to the two girls. “What if Rock doesn’t believe us?” he asked with apprehension.
“He’s gotta believe us. We don’t know shit. He’ll see that. Let’s just go,” Juju said, following Seth and Maggie and pulling the door shut behind her.
They walked to Rock’s house in silence, each of them lost in thought—in fear, actually, that something unthinkable had happened to Joey. Only when they were standing in front of Rock’s house did Juju break the silence.
“You guys, we need to be prepared to fight. Do you understand? If Joey ran away, Rock won’t believe that we don’t know anything about it,” Juju warned.
Seth listened with a deep sense of sorrow. “I don’t care about Rock. I just wanna find Joey. We gotta find her ’cause I know something bad happened to her. I can feel it,” Seth said.
Maggie instincts were telling her the same thing. “OK, let’s go in and see Rock,” Maggie said, walking up the steps to the front door with a greater sense of urgency.
Maggie knocked at Rock’s front door while the other two stood beside her. Thelma got to the door first and immediately scowled when she saw Seth. “What the fuck you want?” she greeted.
“We’re here to see Rock,” Maggie informed her.
A second later, Rock came up behind his wife.
“Let ’em in, Thelma. They’re gonna tell us where Joey went,” he said.
“Oh. You the bastards that took my baby?” Thelma asked.
“No, we didn’t take her!” Seth blurted.
Rock grabbed Seth by the collar of his shirt, but the young boy wasn’t the same little rag doll he’d once been, and it took a little more effort to make him wince. Rock put his nose against Seth’s. “Unless ya want trouble that ya don’t know how to handle, ya better settle down, boy,” he seethed.
Maggie pulled on Seth’s arm to bring him into her. She put her arm over his shoulder and looked at Rock, her eyes begging for mercy. “We need to talk to you, Rock.”
Rock watched her intently. Finally, he said, “Yeah, you better have somethin’ good to tell me. That’s all I know.” He led them down the front hallway and into his office.
Maggie’s stomach was churning. How were they going to talk their way out of this one?