Picked

  PICKED

  BY

  JETTIE WOODRUFF

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, dead or alive are a figment of my imagination and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s mind's eye and are not to be interpreted as real.

  Copyright © 2014 Jettie Woodruff

  All rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

  This book is dedicated to

  TEAM J

  YOU ROCK!

  Thanks for all that you do.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “Come on, Cass. It’s the newest, biggest thing,” Justine urged.

  “You do it. Let’s just start with one account and see what we think.”

  “Cass, this game has gone viral in a matter of days. Do you have any idea how many men are going to be in here?”

  “Yeah, and they’re all going to be a bunch of losers. Fat, ugly, and broke. You don’t really think these guys are going to show their real profile, do you? You’re probably going to meet some guy in a club, get raped, and then murdered. I’ll go from having one friend, to zero friends. I’ll grow to be an old, lonely cat lady,” I assured Justine. I wasn’t spending twelve bucks a month on a video game.

  “Fine, I’ll pay your twelve dollars, tight ass. And if you end up with some hot guy worth millions, you have to take care of me.”

  “I don’t want you to pay for it. I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t get the whole online dating thing.”

  “This is way different than the other dating sites, Cass. This is interactive. We get to go to clubs, run the streets of Glitter City. We’ll be roommates. Come on. Let’s play. What else are we going to do? You won’t go to Starters with me.”

  “It’s Sunday. We have to get up and go to work tomorrow,” I argued. Not to mention, we were just at Starters Club the night before. I was home by ten and Justine went home with someone. I didn’t ask who. She would have lied anyway.

  “Are you nervous?” Justine asked about my first real day at my father’s company.

  I wasn’t nervous at all. I was irritated. I didn’t want to work for my father, but at least I was going to get out of that office. Finally. It only took five years. My father insisted I wasn’t ready and wanted me to wait until I was twenty-two. Why he thought twenty-two was the magic number was beyond me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t lived in that dingy office since I was a child. Although I guess I never really paid attention to the cases.

  “No, it’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to it,” I explained, trying to convince myself more so than Justine.

  “I still think you should go to school and work with me.”

  “Never. I could never touch feet. It freaks me out. No way.” I could just imagine an old lady with blue hair and half an inch of dead skin being scraped from the heels of her feet. No thank you.

  “Okay. We’re both on. Set up your player. You’re supposed to make her look as close to your real looks as possible.”

  Groaning, I tilted the screen on my laptop, grabbing a napkin before the wind sent it flying through the air. Why did I have to attract the weirdo friends? Justine wasn’t really a weirdo, well, sort of. She was going to school to learn how to make feet pretty. That was just weird.

  Justine’s grandma lived in the house across the street from my Grandma Belle. We never went to the same school but played together when I stayed with my grandma on weekends or summer vacation. Grandma Belle was good friends with her grandma, and when she knew Justine was going to be there, she came and picked me up.

  I loved staying there. Spending the weekend at Grandma’s was more of a getaway for me. I was fiveish the first time I met Justine. My mom was there with me and we were sitting on the same front porch that Justine and I were sitting on. I was shy when Justine’s grandmother brought her over to play with me. Grandma Belle cut us both cold watermelon. I shied behind my mom and timidly nibbled on my cool treat.

  Justine was spitting seeds in the yard, trying to see how far she could spit them. My mom smiled down at me, leaned over the banister, and spit a seed halfway across the yard. I giggled and followed suit. Justine and I stood side by side, spitting watermelon seeds to the front yard, sure they would turn into watermelon trees by the end of summer. Of course, there was never any watermelon trees, but a friendship was born.

  “Okay, what do I do?” I asked, trying to figure out what the hell to do in the game. The game I didn’t want to play. Justine and I spent the next two hours, designing our characters to look as much like ourselves as possible. I was a little impressed at how real the graphics were. I looked hauntingly real, except maybe my hair. Justine blamed that on me. My long hair was just long hair, no style, no shape, just long, dark hair. None of the hairstyles I could choose from were like mine.

  “If you would let me do your hair, you could find something more suitable,” she accused.

  “When you graduate and have a license to cut my hair, I’ll let you do it.”

  “It’s not like I could mess it up.”

  “Screw you, Justine,” I retorted, gaining a laugh. “HA!” I screamed, finding a ponytail in my carousel of choices. Perfect.

  Justine rolled her eyes at my customary ponytail. “I gotta go. I’m starving. I’ll get back on as soon as I get home,” Justine decided.

  “I could cook for us,” I offered.

  Justine snorted. “Sure you could. What are you going to cook, frozen pizza? I’m good. I have a turkey breast calling my name.”

  “I can cook,” I demanded. I could. No. Not really.

  “You can’t cook. You can’t cook and you can’t clean. If your grandmother saw this house, god rest her soul, she’d haunt your ass.”

  “What’s wrong with my house?”

  “It’s a mess. I’ll see you later.”

  I gave Justine a dirty look. She smiled, took her laptop, and disappeared. My house wasn’t that bad, other than the laundry I should probably go start, and maybe the dishes could have been washed. I hated that my grandma’s house didn’t have a dishwasher. I guess I shouldn’t complain, at least I was on my own and out of my dad’s house. That was the important thing. I could do things to make it a lot less cluttered.

  I lived in a dated neighborhood on Mindy Street, two blocks from the elementary school Justine attended. Moving my eyes to the newspaper boy, I stood to collect mine—the one I never read. I only subscribed to it because I couldn’t tell the kid no. He was trying to save money for a bike. Noticing he had a new bike, I thought about canceling, but knew I probably wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  I gathered my own things and walked inside. Snowball habitually met me at t
he door. He always met me at the door, did a crazy eight between my legs, and ran to the kitchen. I followed him, preheating the oven for my frozen pizza while catering to my spoiled cat. Snowball couldn’t have been one of those cats that ate cheap dry cat food. I guess it was sort of my fault. He was so skinny when I took him in, I figured I’d pamper him, help him get his strength back.

  What I think really happened, was Snowball played me like a fiddle. He wouldn’t eat for a couple days and I would feel sorry for him, go buy him a can of Gold Crown cat food, and he’d eat it just fine. I swear he wore a smirk every time he won.

  Snowball ate his food while I opened my cardboard box. Adjusting the temperature on my oven, I slid in my frozen pizza. Typical for me. What was the point in cooking for one person? Not that I really even knew how. After my mother left us, my father pretty much fed me takeout—breakfast, lunch and supper. He didn’t know how to cook for himself, let alone a six-year-old. Eating out worked best for us.

  Forgetting to set the timer on the stove while I showered only meant one thing—I was eating the middle out of a burnt pizza. Letting the hot water run off me, the steam entered my lungs, causing me to cough a little. That one little cough was the reason I’d be eating burnt pizza as my mind returned to when I was six and three-quarters.

  That was when my father loved me unconditionally without the disappointed looks. He was happy, always joking with my mother and being silly with me. I almost felt like he wasn’t the same dad. I guess he wasn’t in a sense. Once my mother was gone, so was my daddy. He was no longer a daddy to a six-year-old little girl. He was my bulletproof vest, my protector, guarding me like a billion dollar diamond.

  It’s amazing how many memories a six-year-old has. You’d be surprised. I couldn’t really remember much about being five or seven, but I remember six. I remember my sixth birthday because it was the last one I shared with my mother, and my last birthday party. I remember my mom’s birthday when I was six, too. Six and three-quarters. Her birthday was in September. Mine was January. My mother had just had her birthday before that day happened. I was six and three-quarters. My dad took us to Alibi’s Seafood restaurant for her birthday that year.

  “Dad doesn’t like seafood,” I reminded my mother, smiling from ear to ear.

  Squatting, she fixed the top of my white lace socks and straightened my white lace dress. We matched. We had gone shopping the day before her birthday for new clothes to wear. We both wore white dresses. Hers was sexy. I remember telling her I could see a lot of her boobies. She giggled and blew me off. I know now she changed the subject because I was too young to know why she wanted my dad to see her cleavage.

  “Your daddy would take me to the moon if I asked him to.”

  Gasping, I got excited. “Can I go?”

  “Of course you can go. We’re a team, right? We pinky swore, remember?”

  I nodded my head and then smiled when I saw my dad in the door.

  “I would take you both to the moon. Wow. How’d I get so lucky?” my dad asked, seeing how pretty we looked.

  Even at six and three-quarters, I knew my mom and dad loved each other. She smiled at him and stood. I loved the way my mom’s eyes sparkled when my dad entered the room. He slid his arms around her without her seeing the roses. Shushing me by placing his finger over his mouth, he handed me the flowers behind her back.

  “Oh my goodness, Cassandra!” he exclaimed. “How am I supposed to compete with that?”

  I giggled, handing my mother the bouquet of flowers, feeling proud that I had a present for her, too. My dad bought her a silver necklace with matching diamond earrings. The necklace had two little angel charms holding hands. One had my birthstone and the other had hers. He said we were his angels and we saved his life. I’m not sure what that meant. I used to think she shoved him out of the street to keep him from being squashed by a bus. Now I wonder if he was a drunk or something before he met my mom.

  Hearing the fire alarm and smelling the smoke, I jumped out of the shower, covered myself with a towel, and ran to the kitchen, slopping water all over the floor. After throwing my burnt pizza on top of the stove, I waved the dishtowel over the alarm, trying to stop the ear piercing noise. It wasn’t so bad. I’d eaten worse. It was salvageable. I never ate the whole thing anyway, I decided as I waved the towel.

  Hopping back into my still running shower, I bathed quickly, wondering whether I had washed my hair or not. I decided I’d better do it again, just in case. It was summer. If I didn’t wash it every day, it got too dry, but in the winter, it was the opposite. If I washed it every day in the winter, it got too oily.

  I settled to the middle of my bed with my well-done pizza, picked the pepperoni off and ate the center while I logged back on to the game. Justine lied. She wasn’t there. I couldn’t find her, anyway. I continued with the game for whatever reason, dressing my character in jeans and a hoodie. The top right corner told me the temperature in Glitter City was sixty-seven. That was sweatshirt weather. I smiled at the foolish game where I was supposed to meet Mr. Right.

  Rolling my eyes, I looked at the text message from Justine.

  Justine – Sorry, love. Busy. I will call you tomorrow. Good luck with your first case.

  Cass – Yeah, have fun with your neighbor.

  Justine – Don’t judge. He’s got HBO.

  Okay. Profile. Hmmm, how much did I want to disclose here? Knowing Justine was going to check out my profile, I decided not to lie, my first instinct. I didn’t have to display my last name, only my first, and I could just pick the state. I didn’t have to give my city. That wasn’t bad. My dad wouldn’t freak too much if he found it. Not that he ever would. He loathed technology.

  Once I had my profile set up, I moved about the game, walking down the sidewalks of Glitter City. I liked the city. I wished I could actually live there. Everything was so perfect, clean, fresh, and new. I learned pretty quickly how to maneuver the game. The number keys were used for different functions. Hitting number seven allowed me to smile at the passing patrons on the sidewalk. I paid close attention to the other players in the game, wondering if they were designed to be true to their real life.

  I still didn’t get how you were supposed to meet people. I assumed from the different places around the city, you could meet people where you usually would. I could take my avatar anywhere I wanted—clubs, libraries, coffee shops, parks, pools, beaches, you name it, you could meet anyone, anywhere. I chose a little bistro shop where I sat my girl down at a table on the sidewalk, wanting to watch people. I was just like my mom in that sense. She loved to sit on a park bench and watch people. I inherited that from her. I loved to observe behaviors of people, try to read their faces and decipher their expressions.

  I finally logged off the game around ten thirty, deciding I’d better get some sleep for my first case. Hoping it was something good, I snuggled up with Snowball and closed my eyes. I thought about my day ahead, and a touch of excitement came over me. I had been working in that dingy office, catering to the other agents for five years. I was sick of filing, answering the phones, and getting coffee. Although I wasn’t the least bit excited to be working for my dad, I was excited to get out of the office and do something else.

  ***

  I felt the smile in the corner of my lip. Watching the two little boys play chicken on the concrete parking block was more entertaining than the meeting. Holding hands, toe-to-toe, they tried to knock each other off the yellow block.

  “Cassandra!”

  “Huh?” I questioned, straightening my posture.

  The snickers were obvious and I shot Matt a dirty look.

  My father, and boss, plopped the file in front of me. “Meet Mr. Zimmer,” he began as I opened the folder. A bald, fat man was paper clipped to the top right corner. “Mr. Zimmer is presumed to be using the system. His monthly workers’ compensation checks are supposed to be paying his bills while he is disabled from an industrial accident. Cartage Steel doesn’t think so.”


  “I can read,” I assured my dad. “This isn’t my first day.” All five of the men sitting around the conference table instantly laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, I’ve been coming in here since I was born,” I tried to explain. Glancing at the only other female, I noticed the smirk on Marti’s face as well. Whatever. I never liked her, either. She may as well have been a man, she looked like one.

  My father sent another case sliding down the table to Marti. Opening it, she rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Luke? We’re in Philly.”

  “Polygamy isn’t prejudice. Check it out, would you? One of the girls’ sisters thinks she’s there against her will.”

  “How many are there?” I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I was just curious, more about Marti’s new case than mine. Nobody answered my outburst, well, just my dad with his piercing, disappointed eyes, telling me to shut up and that it wasn’t any of my business. Yes. I read all that in one quick glance from him.

  “Becker Cole?” Marti questioned. “Isn’t this the guy that was on the news the other night? What was he on there for? I can’t remember.”

  “He’s the nerd that created the new online game that went viral in a matter of days, an interactive dating site, I think. I’d like to have his money. You got photos of the chicks?” Matt’s interest was piqued, sticking his neck out to look at Marti’s file. “Who wouldn’t want to be rich and have three beautiful girls?”

  I think my breathing stopped. I was playing the game this guy created. He was hoarding women. Where did he come from? Polygamy wasn’t well known around these parts. Why would any man want more than one wife anyway? I didn’t get it and found myself very intrigued with Marti’s new case.

  “Oh yeah. I remember that. I still think it’s a waste of time. So what if the guy is doing more than one girl? The guy’s got money. They’re probably eating that shit up,” Marti supposed.

  “Can you just do your job, Marti?” my dad spoke. I wanted to hear more. I wanted that case. Why did I get the bald, fat guy? “Check it out and report back to me by Wednesday. Go on, go to work. We’ll brief here in a couple days. Stay!” my father demanded with one stern finger pointed back to my chair and his eyes focused right at me. Great, just what I wanted, another Luke McClelland lecture.