by Laila Kelly
“Well I can assure you, Ms. Everett, that I’m not planning on killing one of your clients, I just need to speak with them.” Joleigh snorted and turned her chair around. “Isn’t that how all murders begin? With just talking?” she heard Jamie take a deep breath on the other end of the phone. Joleigh could tell that he wasn’t too charmed with her responses. “Well I thank you for your time, Ms. Everett, I will pass that information along to my client. Have a great afternoon,” the rustling on the other end had stopped. “No problem, you have a great day as well.” She hung up the phone and placed it back on the base in her office. She shook her head to herself. “That was really weird,” she muttered to herself and got back up to head back to the front of the shop. “What happened, did he tell you what he needed?” Sam stood by the door like he had been waiting on her to come out of the office. This was the most enthusiasm that she had ever seen from him. He was usually bland and didn’t show much excitement over anything, but she guessed he liked the idea of private investigations, or anything interesting happening in the shop.
“It went fine, he just asked about one of those orders from yesterday.” She casually began sorting through the few orders that Sam had written down since she was gone to lunch. One fall wreath, one floral basket, and one bouquet. Simple orders that she could begin today before they were due to be delivered tomorrow. “Did you give him what he wanted?” Sam inched closer to her and she could hear the excitement rising in his squeaky voice. “Of course I didn’t give him what he asked for. You can’t just give other people’s personal information out over the phone. Especially not our clients. Besides, how was I supposed to know that he was who he said he was? He could’ve been any random man calling for information.” Sam stepped back a bit and placed his hand on his chin and looked up at the ceiling.
Joleigh cleared her throat to hold back a giggle. He always did that when he was in deep thought. Sam spent a few more seconds looking like that before he came back to earth to join her. “You’re right, Joleigh. It’s good that you didn’t give him that information. Now, if he is a private investigator, I’m pretty sure that he’ll be able to get the same information that he called you for another way. Any decent private investigator should be able to do that.” Joleigh nodded and jotted down a list of the things that she would need for the orders that she had to do. “Exactly what I thought. If he’s worth his weight in salt, he’ll get her address some other way,” she kept jotting down her ideas while Sam stood nearby watching her. She looked at the time and noticed that it was getting close to the time that Sam usually went to eat his lunch. “You can head to lunch if you would like Sam,” he nodded, spun around and headed to the refrigerator to get out his sack lunch. Sam always brought the same lunch every single day, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of plain chips or pretzels and apple slices. His lunch reminded her of the same lunch her mother used to pack for her. “I’ll see you in thirty minutes,” Sam waved and headed out the door and across the street to the park.
When she saw him sitting down on the bench and pull out his lunch she ran back to her office and sat back down at the computer. She began searching for private investigators and went onto the criminal database for Georgia and Texas to search for Tamara. Joleigh looked at the order she wrote down yesterday and the address to find if Tamara’s last name was on there. Joleigh spent fifteen minutes searching between the FBI, Texas and Georgia Department of Corrections and came up with nothing. What kind of mess could she possibly be into where people were calling here to get a hold of her? Joleigh muttered to herself. She took a minute to run a list of scenarios through her head and none of them made any sense.
Joleigh looked out the window and wondered why she had automatically assumed that Tamara had done something bad. From the few interactions that she’d had with her she seemed like a sweet woman and unless she heard or saw otherwise, Joleigh would continue to think the same thing. There had to be some other reason for someone looking for her. Shaking her head, she walked to her flower refrigerator and began picking out flowers that she was going to use for the wreath order. If someone was looking for Tamara, they would have to go through another route to getting it.
She pulled out the flowers for the wreath that she was working on and began placing them out on the table to see how they would look. She would have to put the weird call behind her, there was far too much on her plate for her to allow her mind to wander all over the place. Sam came back in from his lunch break and began working on the next order. This was her life, and the flower shop and her father were her main priorities. Everything else would have to take a back seat.
Chapter Four: Graham
It had only been less than a week since he asked Jamie to begin the search for his biological mother, and so much had already been uncovered. He had already looked at the copy of his birth certificate and adoption papers that he gave to him and found out more than Graham had been told from his mother. Somehow, Jamie found that he wasn’t born in Texas, like his mother had told him, but was really born in South Carolina and was placed for adoption through an agency called Wonder’s Place. Apparently, it was an active adoption agency and they took a message and would be getting back to Jamie within seventy-two hours. Graham was shocked at how much he got done in such a short amount of time, as he was under the impression that these types of things take months to uncover, but he was pleased regardless.
Graham stared out the window of the office and looked down at the small cars and people walking up and down the street. Manhattan Street was the busiest street in Houston and was where all of the large corporations housed their main offices. It was a big move to end up on the same street as some of the older, and more prominent businesses in Texas, but definitely one that solidified Graham’s place on the map of the business world. Staring out the window was one of Graham’s favorite pastime and aside from the gym, was where he thought of his best ideas. He always got peace from watching the hustle and bustle of life from above.
He heard a knock on the door and turned around to see Stephanie standing at his door. “Mr. Brentwood, Mr. Caldwell is here to see you,” her voice was so smooth and listening to her speak made Graham wonder why she wasn’t reading children’s bedtime story books on television. “Send him in,” Graham stood up and watched her walk around the corner to get Jamie. He didn’t usually drop by the office. He must have found something that he needed to tell Graham in person.
Graham walked around to the front of his desk and leaned on it and watched as Jamie walked in and closed the door behind him. “Nice to finally see you in person, what has it been, six or seven months?” Graham chuckled. It wasn’t odd for Jamie and Graham to go months or even years without seeing one another in person. Their relationship wasn’t based on them seeing each other, or even talking to each other very often, but when they needed one another they knew who they could call. “Yep, it’s been about that long. Ever since Sophia’s engagement party.” They gave each other a brief hug and Jamie sat down in one of the wooden office chairs and Graham sat in the other one. “So, what brings you to my office? Did you find something else?” Jamie sat back in the chair and grabbed a notebook out of his back pocket. “Yes, and no at the same time.” Graham raised his brows and sat forward in his chair. “Okay, shoot,” Jamie flipped through some pages and stopped at one. “Okay, so you remember the information I called you about this morning?” Graham nodded, “Well, I got in contact with the adoption agency and there’s a procedure that you have to go through in order to open closed and confidential documents. They gave me the runaround but all they could really tell me was that your biological mother was a teenager when she gave birth to you and that your parents made sure that it was a closed adoption.” Graham already knew that his adoption was a closed one, both his and Sophia’s were closed, and they did that for a reason. They didn’t want their biological parents popping into their lives one day and confusing them about what was going on.
“So, you have a couple of options. The
y told me that your parents have always had the current contact information of your biological mother which I’m more than sure she still has stashed somewhere, and you can get it from her. Or your second option is that I can fly out to South Carolina and use some of my contacts to get through the hospital databases and get it that way.” Graham sat in shock at hearing that his mother has always had the current contact information on his mother and failed to tell him after all of these years. “wait a second. What was the first thing that you said? You mean to tell me that I could’ve just asked my mother? So basically, Sophia could’ve done the same thing.” He got quiet and ran his hands over his face, trying to make sense of everything that he had just been told. “This is news to me, she’s never mentioned ever having any information on my birth mother, just that her name was Tammy. So, you mean to tell me that she’s had current information on her for my entire life, and not once has offered that to me?” Jamie pursed his lips and nodded.
“The caseworker at Wonder’s Place said that it was their policy to keep up to date records on both the birth and adoptive parents in case the children were to ever want to reconnect with their birth parents, but it’s a lot of paperwork that you would have to fill out in order to get it, including them finding out if your biological mother even wants to be found.” Graham shook his head. “How long would it take for you to get to South Carolina and sort through all of that information?” Asking his mother for any help with tracking down his biological parents used to be one of his last resorts, but now that he knew that she’s known the entire time, he was furious. “It should take no more than a week for me to get out there and find out what we need to know. I haven’t made arrangements to head out there yet because I wanted to talk to you and see what you wanted to do first. He stood up and walked over to the window and took a deep breath. He knew without any doubt that he loved his mother, but the lack of communication about their biological parents made him upset. He balled his hand into a fist, and he wanted to hit something, but he knew punching a hole into the thick glass of his window wouldn’t be the best idea.
“Calm down, Graham. I know you’re a little upset. I was a little shocked too when I found that out, but you do know why your mother didn’t tell you. Or why she didn’t tell anyone around here about you and Sophia being adopted. Regardless of if you think it’s right or wrong of her to do that is up to you, however I do believe that it would be good for you to have a conversation with her about how you feel,” Jamie put his note pad back into his bag and walked over to the window and put his hand on Graham’s shoulder. “Thanks, Jamie. I definitely will be speaking with Mom about this to understand where her head is on all of this.” Jamie patted him on his back and walked over to Graham’s desk and scrawled something out on the pad. “I did get an address on some flowers your mother sent to someone in Georgia, do you have any family in Georgia?” Graham turned around. “No not that I’m aware of. Jeanne just gave you that information? How’d you get it?” Graham knew his mother’s secretary like the back of his hand, and she didn’t let much information get out about any of his mother’s affairs. Jamie smiled, “You know her daughter Caroline has a crush on me, and she gets to blabbing when she gets flustered. Apparently, your mother has had a standing appointment of sending someone flowers every month, but this is the first time she’s bought flowers from this shop. The other shop that she purchased flowers from was in South Carolina, but a couple of months ago she stopped. I assume your biological mother should be close by. I called the shop to see if the owner would give me the information voluntarily, but apparently there’s some sort of florist client privilege,” he chuckled. “You can call and try if you’d like, though,” Jamie walked over to his bag, picked it up and opened the door, “I’ll be seeing what other information I can find, and I’ll call you when I find more.” He waved goodbye and breezed through the door, closing it behind him.
Graham watched him walk back around the corner and sat down at his desk to look at the address that he wrote down on the paper. “Flower’s Flower Shop” He logged onto his computer and began searching the flower shop. Flowery Branch, Georgia, Graham muttered to himself. A flower shop in a town called Flowery Branch, how ironic. There weren’t any other flower shops within a twenty-five-mile radius. If his mother had a standing order of buying someone flowers and this was a new shop, this was somewhere that he needed to look into further. He reached over and grabbed the phone. “Stephanie, I need you to gather some information for me. We’re expanding to Georgia.” “Yes sir, send me where.” He wrote up an email and asked Stephanie to see if Flowery Branch would be the first place that he would be building in Georgia. With her research skills, he would be able to find all of the places that have new subdivisions in the area, and he could find out if his biological mother was who his mother has been sending flowers to.
“Could you also make reservations for my mother and I this evening at Four Leaves around six o’clock? Louis owes me a favor,” He needed to sit down with his mother and talk with her about what he had been told. It wasn’t the best time to try and spring him finding his biological parents on top of Sophia finding hers, but the present is the only time that they have. He picked up his phone and dialed his mother’s number. The phone rang twice, “Why look who it is, my baby boy. How are you, sweetie?” His mother’s sweet voice came through the phone like a melody, and it made Graham’s heart tighten at the thought of being upset with her. His mother had always been there for him and was hands down the best mother any man could ask for. “I’m doing great Mom, how are you doing?” “Oh, I’m doing well. Just getting settled in after my garden club meeting. Did you know that my gardenias are just now blooming and we’re well into fall? I’m not sure what is going on with this weather, but it’s affecting my poor flowers,” Gardening had always been one of his mother’s hobbies but gained a bigger influence in her life after his father passed.
“Hmm, I didn’t pay attention to that, but we have been having unusually warm weather these past few days. Well I think the forecast said that it should mellow out soon,” he paused to turn his attention to the weather channel on his television, “I called to see if you would like to go to dinner with me tonight. I got Stephanie to make reservations at Four Leaves this evening. I know it’s such short notice, and I wanted to ask you personally to see if you would like to before I got her to call Jeanne,” he heard his mother giggle, “Graham you’re far too formal, just like your father. You don’t have to call Jeanne to see if you can have dinner with your own mother. Of course, I would love to go to dinner with you tonight. What time are we going?” He smiled, laughing at how much his mother has changed. Her schedule had definitely relaxed her schedule in the past few years. “We have a reservation for six o’clock, so I’ll be around to pick you up around five-thirty,” Graham wrote down his dinner plans in his appointment book so he wouldn’t forget.
“That sounds lovely, I will be ready by 5:30 this evening, I’ll see you then. Ooh, it’ll be so nice to catch up with my baby boy!” she squealed over the phone. Her excitement wasn’t once sided, Graham rarely saw his mother or sister unless they came by the office. He spent the majority of his time there, going over plans and plotting for new places to expand his business ventures. They say once you make your first billion that you’ll never forget it, but for Graham, making his first million on his own, without the help of his family meant the most to him. Replicating that feeling over and over again was his driving force. His first billion was a breeze and a little lackluster in the feels department.
“I know Mom, I’m trying to work on that, but I’ll see you tonight. I love you,” Graham looked out the window again. “I love you too baby, I’ll see you then,” and with that, the phone went dead. Sophia and his mother worked hard to try to get Graham to not spend so much time at work, but that was the only place he felt comfortable these days. It was one of the few places that he didn’t have to discuss or think about his personal life. Everything was business at the office,
and there were not questions of when he was going to settle down with someone, or when he was going to start a family being asked and giving him a headache. Things in his personal life Graham had no control over. He couldn’t control when he would meet a woman worth his time, or when he would start his own family. But at the office, everything was under his control, and nothing happened without him wanting it to. In business, what Graham wanted he always got. Anything outside of that was a gamble, and he hated losing.
Graham stood up and walked over to the window, wondering how his personal life had gotten so far off track. At Columbia, he pictured his life in ten years being filled with a wife and children. Instead, he had nothing, and he went home to his mid-sized mansion to his cleaning staff and his butler. His only family had their own lives and his friends were busy juggling their own businesses and families. He lived a routine life of work and home, home and the gym and then right back to work again. A change of pace and environment was exactly what Graham needed.
He turned around and walked out his door to see if Stephanie had left for lunch yet. He found her sitting at her desk typing away and the report he asked her to draw up. “Hey Stephanie, can you arrange the jet to fly to Georgia tonight after my dinner with Mom? Keep doing the report but I’m going to head out to Georgia tonight to see it for myself,” she looked up and her blue eyes questioned him. Stephanie, along with everyone else who knew Graham knew he didn’t make spur of the moment decisions and flying to Georgia on a whim was highly unlike him. Regardless, she always did what he asked. “Yes sir, I’ll try to find you a nice hotel nearby. I’ll be finished with the report before you leave for dinner.” Graham looked at his watch, it was already four o’clock. “Thank you, Stephanie,” and he walked back into his office.