Blind Spot, page 1
Blind Spot
The Technicians, Volume 10
Olivia Gaines
Published by Davonshire House Publishing, 2023.
Blind Spot
The Technicians- Book 10
Olivia Gaines
Davonshire House Publishing
PO Box 5027
Augusta, GA 30916
THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.
© 2022 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin
Copy Editor: Teri Thompson Blackwell
Cover: Corbin Media
Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography
ASIN: B0BNLT7FLZ
eISBN: 9798215575024
ISBN: 9798373547055
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8
First Davonshire House Publishing January 2023
Also by Olivia Gaines
The Blakemore Files
The Delgado Series
Killers
Yunior
Becoming the Czar
The Technicians Series
Blind Date
Blind Hope
Blind Luck
Blind Fate
Blind Copy
Blind Turn
Blind Seed
Blind Side
Blind Spot (Coming Winter 2022)
Love Thy Neighbor Series
Walking the Dawg: A Novella
Through the Woods: A Novella
Life of the Party: A Novella
A Blue Christmas: A Novella
Modern Mail-Order Brides
North to Alaska
Montana
Oregon Trails
Wyoming Nights
On a Rainy Night in Georgia
Bleu, Grass, Bourbon
Buckeye and the Babe
The Tennessee Mountain Man
Stranded in Arizona
Maple Sundaes and Cider Donuts
Moonlight in Vermont
Sunflowers and Honey
Katherine Moves to Kansas
The Zelda Diaries
It Happened Last Wednesday
A Frickin' Fantastic Friday
A Tantalizing Tuesday
A Marvelous Monday
A Saucy Sunday
A Sensual Saturday
My Thursday Throwback
Slivers of Love Series
The Deal Breaker
Naima's Melody
Santa's Big Helper
The Christmas Quilts
Friends with Benefits
The Cost to Play
A Menu for Loving
Thursdays in Savannah
DEDICATION
For Sonya. There is justice in the world and sometimes, it takes a special kind of officer of the law. Love you, Sis.
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all the fans, friends, and supporters of the dream, as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired, and moving forward.
Write On!
Contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Prelude (Ending of Blind Side- Intro to Blind Spot)
Chapter 1 – Goldilocks
Chapter 2- Sleeping Beauty
Chapter 3- Aladdin
Chapter 4 - Rapunzel
Chapter 5 – The Gingerbread Man
Chapter 6- The Three Little Pigs
Chapter 7- Jack & The Beanstalk
Chapter 8- Picky Prince
Chapter 9- Ugly Duckling
Chapter 10- Red Riding Hood
Chapter 11- Tom Thumb
Chapter 12- Beauty and the Beast
Chapter 13- The Ugly Duckling
Chapter 14- King Midas
Chapter 15- Three Billy Goats Gruff
Chapter 16- Puss in Boots
Chapter 17- The Little Mermaid
Epilogue
Book Club Questions
Meet Olivia Gaines
Upcoming Releases
Follow the Series
Earn the Mile Marker Badge Here
Earn Mr. Slow’s Badge Here
Prelude (Ending of Blind Side- Intro to Blind Spot)
Indianapolis, Indiana
“Men!” Cherry exhaled in frustration, waiting anxiously for the arrival of Slow. She hadn’t physically seen the man in years and tonight, there were things that needed to be shared, and dues that needed to be paid, but she was out of time. Her cousin was out of time. She needed to get to Shenita and stay hot on the trail if she planned to find her before The Collector took her underground.
A light tap came at the door frame and for the oddest reason, she checked her hair, then her teeth, and finally her breath, in case he wanted to be mannish and try to steal a kiss. A kiss was all she had time to give, and she needed to move. The front door opened wide and Mr. Slow stood on her porch looking just as sexy as she remembered, bringing back all the nasty thoughts of the man’s slow-handed lovemaking.
“Damn, you still make me get all tingly when I see you,” she told him, pulling him inside and closing the door. “And you’re almost two days late. I’ve been following leads and trails on Shenita and I think I might know where he’s keeping her. I have him on the run. If he’s on the run, nine times out of ten, he’s not going to stop to sample the product.”
“Cherry, slow down,” he cautioned. “I was late because Hump ran into a scenario which got her shot and stabbed. Lucky for her I found the lady in time. Let’s not have the same thing happen to you.”
“Oh, it is not happening to me, I’m a sniper, I don’t do up close and personal,” she said, “but I have to find my cousin.”
“Okay, what’s the plan? How can I help?” He told her.
He watched the perfectly tight little ass he loved to grip in his large hands as he pulled all the sweetness that was Cherry to his mouth and slurped his fill. His eyes adverted since he didn’t want her to turn around and he’d be standing there like an idiot with a rager. His admiring stare turned to a scowl and she bent over, lifting what looked like a child’s diaper bag, and a kiddie suitcase. She turned quickly, passing both items to him.
His eyebrows arched, “What is this?”
“This is part of what I need from you,” she said, calling into the other room. A small child, no more than three maybe four came forward. An adorable little girl with a large pink bow in the top of her curly black hair. “You’re on duty until I get back.”
“The hell you say! I’m not a babysitter,” he said, passing the items back.
“It’s not babysitting when it is your own. When the child belongs to you, it is called parenting. I need you to parent our daughter until I can get back,” she told him.
The expression on his face was priceless as he looked at the child, then at the mother. Slow pointed to himself. He again looked at the child. Try as he may to wrap his mind around what had been said, it didn’t seem to be happening in his head.
“How. Why? When...Hold on Cherry, you can’t simply expect me to...”
“Expect you to what Michael?” She asked, using his given name. “Remember those nights in Tijuana, about four or so years ago? See, you do remember. So did my ovaries who decided you were a prime male specimen and allowed an egg to be fertilized. Meet your egg. Michael, this is Naomi. Naomi, say hi to your daddy.”
“Hi daddy,” the child said.
“Hi,” he replied, scowling, his chest growing tight. Swallowing a wad of spit, he finally managed to get out, “I can’t. Why didn’t you tell me? Call me? Allow me to help you.”
“I’m asking for help now,” she said. “Get the bags, take the car seat, take our daughter home. I’ll call when I get free.”
The child fastened her tiny coat, fiddling with the buttons. “Cherry, honestly? This is how you want to handle this?”
“I have no other options to handle this Michael, Shenita was my backup and childcare provider. I have to find my cousin, not for the childcare which helped a great deal while I worked to keep a roof over our heads, but because she’s like my sister. I love her and I will not sleep until she is home safe. Help me. Take our child.”
“Cherry, I have no idea what to do with a kid.”
“Feed it, water it, allow it to sleep regular hours, and don’t kill it. Mr. Slow, please read her a story at night, provide affection and engage in full sentence conversation so her cognitive abilities will develop,” Cherry told him, picking up her work bag. “Also, as often as you can, tell Naomi you love her, and buy gifts as tokens of your affection when she does something spectacular. Kind of like the stuff you did for me to get me into your bed.”
She bent low, opening her arms for the toddler. The child walked into the embrace, but her eyes were on the man she’d call daddy. His eyes as well were on her. She pulled away from her mother, her small mouth opening to say her first sentences to the man who entered her small world.
“Daddy, I gotta poop,” Naomi said, turning around, lifting the coat to show him her tiny, bright yellow flower-laden tights-covered butt.
“Dear Jesus,” he said, as Cherry walked over
“Take care of our baby. I’ll be in touch soon,” she said and walked out into the night. She didn’t look back at him. She didn’t look back at their child. Cherry marched into the night just as she had on the evening she walked out on him. He didn’t have the courage to go after her then, but now, he had a reason for her to come back. She had a reason to come back.
The reason spoke up again, “Daddy, stinky air came out my boodie.”
“Lord, order my steps,” he prayed silently, lifting his daughter for the first time in his arms, looking for the bathroom, to start a journey into a life, he never imagined having, and couldn’t see, living any other way.
PLEASE NOTE: CHAPTER NINE includes graphic scenes which may be triggering.
Chapter 1 – Goldilocks
She was quiet. Normally, quietness didn’t faze him, and he rather enjoyed the solitude of the lone tiger patrolling the forest, but this type of quiet made him uneasy. He stood outside the door, wanting to knock, wanting to peer in, wanting to ask questions, but he couldn’t. Instead, he stood outside, again wanting to be in, looking at the wood barrier which separated him from an understanding yet to visit his soul, leaving more questions than answers.
The narrow hallway boasted three additional doors. He opted to venture down the hall, hoping that by opening each door, answers would spring into his brain, giving clues about the people who lived inside the home. Maybe if he understood more about them, the next few days would go much better for all involved.
At door number one, he opened it slowly, flicking on the light, which brought up the one lamp on the nightstand, a lone nightstand that sat like an unemployed sentinel beside the full-sized bed, secured with a wrought iron headboard against the far wall. The window, covered in heavy drapery to ward off the frigid temperatures of winter, was a dull drab green that matched the bed covering. He didn’t think they were intentionally chosen to match. The items looked more like two choices of dullness found in a clearance bin and offered a home a well-planned evening’s respite fraught with more instances of the gloomy and uninteresting. He did notice, along with the dresser and piss-poor excuse for a rug, there was no television in the room.
“Well, found out nothing there,” he said aloud, moving to the next door.
This room, he surmised, belonged to the Mama Bear. It too was uninteresting with a thick patchwork quilt on a neatly made queen-sized bed. The furniture appeared to be second-hand, the pillows were flat, and the room had no smell. He longed for a whiff of her perfume, but she usually never wore any. Once, he had purchased a bottle for her, and as he looked about the room, the same brand, if not the same bottle, sat on the dresser. It looked unopened and unused.
A wicked thought crossed his mind of climbing into her bed and leaving his scent on the covers and pillows. A sly grin eked at the corners of his mouth, imagining her lying down in the bed alone and smelling him. It would be mean and incendiary on his part to do so, but a man had needs; this man, needed his lady.
“That’s not the only DNA I want to leave her,” he mumbled under his breath, exiting the room and backing away slowly.
The final room, he knew belonged to the baby bear. Behind the door, he hoped to find answers to who she was, what she liked, and maybe her favorite shows. He opened the door, flicked on the light, and sighed in abject disappointment. In his heart, he had expected pink bedding, oversized stuffed animals, and a rocking chair in the corner, accompanied by a bookshelf loaded with her favorite stories. There wasn’t even a doll in the bedroom.
“Daddy!” a small voice called out. “Daddy, help please.”
He backed out of the room slowly and headed down the hall, the fear and trepidation building. She was taking time to herself; he didn’t know what she needed help with and his mind went into overdrive. The idea of things being smeared troubled him as he tapped on the outer bathroom door.
“Naomi, I’m here; what do you need, more tissue?”
“No, Daddy wipe please,” she said.
“Uhmm, what?”
He stared at the wooden door, hoping she wasn’t asking him to do the thing he sure as hell didn’t want to do for himself, let alone a teeny-tiny butt. Swallowing hard, he stood, waiting like an idiot for the child to change her mind with the request for assistance. She didn’t change her mind but doubled down.
“Daddy, can you open the door and come wipe me please?” she asked again.
“Can’t you do that for yourself?”
“Mommy said I don’t do good, and I have peanut butter panties, so I have to ask for help,” Naomi informed him.
“Oooh, good God,” he said, leaning against the door jam. Once more he knocked, heard her small voice bid him enter, and he arrived and reached for the paper. The scent nearly made him hurl as he bent over, wiping the tiny bottom, then reaching for the handle to flush.
“Are they floaters, Daddy?’
“What?”
“The sinkers are stinkers, but the floaties are from oaties,” she said, smiling at him with her tiny baby teeth.
By all accounts, she was a funny-looking little thing, so odd looking that she was bordering on adorable. She checked the toilet, watching the waste go down, pleased she had floaties, and climbed a small step stool to wash her tiny hands. He immediately realized that at his home, he didn’t have the stepstool in his bathroom or the toilet seat she used to keep from falling into the commode. Those two items would come with him.
“Sweetheart, as long as I live, I never, ever, ever, want to check to see if there are floaties or sinkers, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy,” she told him, reaching for the coat she’d left on the couch. She put it on like a little old lady and added her cap, then the scarf, followed by her gloves. Her diminutive hand reached for the kiddie suitcase, dragging it behind the small form until she reached the front door. She looked back at him as if she were asking what he was waiting for, and he took a step, stopping and remembering the footstool in the bathroom and her toilet seat. With those items in hand, he set the alarm for away, closed the door, and walked into the night.
To his amazement, Cherry had added Naomi’s car seat to his shop, which is what he called his black Ford F150. The child knew how it worked, climbing in, fastening the clasps, and removing her hat.
“I don’t know if you can tell the time yet, but it is a two-hour drive to my house. Maybe we should remove the coat?”
Naomi unfastened the buckles on the car seat, unbuttoned the coat, struggled a little then looked at him.
“Oh, let me help,” he said, removing the coat and refastening the straps. He closed the door, rounded the vehicle, and climbed into the seat. “Let me get the heat going just to make sure you’re comfortable, and we can head home.”
“Do you have a big house?”
“Not really,” he said.
“Do you have a playground or a park near where you live?”
“I don’t,” he said.
“Okay,” she said softly and looked out the window. She said nothing more for nearly an hour, leaving the man they called Mr. Slow absolutely stumped. He wasn’t equipped to care for a child. Cherry, her mother, was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them as far as he knew, so if she said the kid was his, then it was his. Doubt crept up his back, making him shudder involuntarily.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Naomi?”
“What is your name?”
He looked into the rearview mirror at her, thinking it was an odd question, “Michael.”
“What is the rest of it?”
‘The rest of what?”
“Your name?”
“Oh, my whole name,” he said, checking the rearview mirror. Her dark eyes looked in the mirror as well with an intense gaze like she had a secret to reveal. Curiosity propelled him to provide the information. “Michael Isaac Neary.”
She smiled at him. “We have the same name.”
“Your name is Michael too?” he asked giving her a faint smile.
“No,” she said, staring at him again. “My name is Naomi Ruth Neary. We have the same name.”
