by L A Pepper
It was disconcerting. For the twentieth time today, I slid my hand into my pocket and felt the smooth paper of Jordan’s business card. His cellphone number on the back.
He’d left it up to me if I wanted to see him again. Because I was the one who said it was just one night. It had been my call, so if I wanted more than that, I was the one who’d have to call. Why did the choice take over my mind more than simply waiting for him to call? I wished he’d call me, then I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to decide if I should, because I really wanted to, and was starting to think my reasons for not dating anyone in general and him in specific were completely made up and maybe I was just scared of opening myself up to a man at all. But I’d never felt this way with any man at all, even Trini’s dad. His lips were so soft and so firm and so passionate all at once. I imagined them on mine...
“Ugh!” I turned back to the first page of my phone records, needing to start over again because I had lost my place entirely. I hadn’t even a clue where I’d been.
The door to the back room where we did the paperwork opened. It was Patty, who did a lot of the clerical work in the office and manned the spy shop while we were out on cases. Even when we weren’t investigating, we did a brisk business on surveillance devices. She wasn’t a full agent, but she did some of the honeytrap work too. Tall and blonde, she looked like a good time in a dress, but she was possibly the sunniest person I’d ever met. “Hey honey, you doing okay? You look kinda flushed. You’re not catching your kid’s strep throat are you? I don’t want that spreading around the office.”
I made a low sound in my throat. If I was flushed it wasn’t because I was sick. Not strep throat anyway. I took a sip of coffee. “I’m not sick. What’s up, you need something?”
“Not me. But John sent a new client through for you.”
“I’m already working on a case, Patty. Can’t John take this one?”
“No, he says only you.”
I sighed. “Fine, send them in. Give me a second to make myself presentable. It’s probably another infidelity case.” She nodded and went back out to the front while I put on my blazer and refreshed my lipstick. But when the door opened up, it was not an angry wife looking to hire me to get back at her cheating bastard of a husband like I had expected. A middle-aged man entered the office. He had brown hair and eyes, of average weight and average height and entirely average looks. I would be hard-pressed to pick him out of a crowd and I was known for my attention to detail. His suit was ordinary. His shoes were ordinary. Even his nose was ordinary. Something was about to happen.
I stood and offered my hand. “Alex Martin, private investigator. How can I help you today, sir?”
He shook my hand but didn’t sit. “Ms. Martin, my name is Agent Long.” He took out his ID. FBI. “I work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we need to hire you on a case we have in common. We are investigating the international criminal dealings of the Boucher family, and have been unable to get inside. They’re a very closed group and tend to trust no one but family.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can help you. You should talk to my boss, John Reilly. He’s the one who’s in contact with Mrs. Boucher in her infidelity case, not me. I’ve had no contact with Mr. Boucher, either. I was supposed to meet him this weekend to get evidence on his infidelity, but he never showed up. I can’t give you any information except for some phone records we think lead to his mistresses. I feel quite certain you don’t need me to access his phone records.
“Please sit, Ms. Martin so we can talk.”
I didn’t like being told to sit in my own office but I was fighting an attack of nerves and thought perhaps it would be best. “Why don’t you just tell me what kind of help you’d like me to give you and stop beating around the bush.”
“Mr. Boucher was not going to meet women at the bar this past weekend, Ms. Martin. Mrs. Boucher was misinformed. He was going to meet his son, an appointment that he did not want his wife to know about. He is trying to lure his son into the criminal business dealings, and she wants to keep him out of it. He canceled on his son.”
I closed my eyes as if that would keep me from hearing what Agent Long was about to say.
“His son’s name is Jordan Bellamy, Ms. Martin. Dr. Jordan Bellamy. He uses his mother’s maiden name because Dr. Boucher is an unfortunate name.”
“What?” I said. My brain was not connecting. Mainly because it didn’t want to connect. It would like to go back to thinking about abs.
“Boucher. It means Butcher in French. No one wants a doctor named Butcher. I’m surprised. You should know that. You are fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Farsi.”
“I am learning Russian and German, too. Learning languages soothes me,” I said, processing this information. “Of course I knew boucher meant butcher. But that wasn’t really what I was questioning.” My office felt dinky and stuffed with files. I felt awkward and uncertain. “Dr. Bellamy is a criminal?” Why was my heart breaking?
Agent Long shook his head once. “Not as far as we can tell. He’s been living in California, working in a clinic for five years and has had little to do with this family’s business, but the new clinic here in New York seems to be set up as a front for counterfeit medicines.”
“Counterfeit medicines!” This was a real crime with real effects on real people. “Jordan is counterfeiting medicine?”
“We have no evidence of that. That’s where you come in.”
“Where I come in? How am I coming into this? You were watching me.”
He nodded.
“You’ve investigated me.”
He nodded again. “When you took on the Boucher case, we turned our attention to you, but you were already on our radar, due to your background. We’re impressed with your talent with languages. Your fluency in multiple languages makes you an asset as a private investigator. It could make you an even better federal agent. You don’t really want to have a career as a lure for cheating husbands, do you? When you could use your language skills and your education to stop real criminals. You have a future with the federal government, Ms. Martin. Your translation skills are needed. This is your way in.”
I was glad I was sitting now. “You want me to honeytrap Jordan. To spy on him. On his criminal activities.”
“You have already engaged in a physical relationship with him. We would like you to encourage his further attentions.”
“And spy on him.”
“It is quite likely that the evidence you find could exonerate Jordan. We don’t expect you to go to extremes, not as a new agent. You still have much to learn, but yes. We would like you to infiltrate the family, and provide us with information that could stop Regis Boucher.”
“But what if it catches Jordan, too?”
Agent Long stared at me with blank eyes. “If Dr. Bellamy is distributing counterfeit medicine, that is a serious crime.”
I slid my hand into my pocket and touched the business card with Jordan’s number. I’d thought he was a good guy. I’d thought we had something special. But what if he wasn’t? What if we didn’t? What if this was an opportunity for me to be something more, for me to provide my daughter with a better life? I thought about my tiny, cluttered apartment and how I couldn’t even afford childcare and had to depend upon my aging grandmother to watch my daughter so I could work. I’d thought being a private investigator would be enough, but it wasn’t. A federal agent. I thought about health insurance and retirement plans, things that no single mother could discount. And I remembered Jordan’s castle in the sky. I nodded. “I’ll do it.”
Agent Long smiled then, letting little emotion through. “Good. We will have you set up as a barista in the coffee shop down the block from Dr. Bellamy’s clinic.”
“You already knew that I worked in a coffee shop to put myself through college. How much do you know about me?”
“Quite a bit.”
I shook my head. This didn’t make sense. “This isn’t
just from this weekend, is it? You’ve been surveilling me for longer.”
“Your connections to your ex-boyfriend needed to be investigated.”
“My ex– you mean Trini’s dad? He’s why I know Farsi. He was Persian and I always thought it was a beautiful language, but I haven’t had contact with him since she was a baby. He disappeared. She’s never known him as a father at all.”
“Perhaps that is for the best.”
For the best? Was Trini’s dad a criminal now too? I laughed without humor. “And I suppose this is my way to make it up to the FBI.”
“You do not need to make anything up to anyone. But you are in a unique position to keep deadly drugs off the street and save people’s lives. And like I said, this is your way in.”
My way in? But to what?
Chapter Six: Jordan
I promised my father I’d meet him at a coffee shop to “talk.” Since he’d stood me up this weekend, he was lucky to get this. I wasn’t looking forward to it but these were the costs of getting my family to fund an entire foundation for low-income kids. It was a very ambitious foundation. And this was what I’d agreed to when I’d come back to New York City. To engage with my father and talk to him about our “business.” It was a charity, I kept telling him, the point of which was to serve, not make a profit, but he hadn’t accepted that. Yet.
So here I was coming to meet him, away from my clinic, thank you very much, at the coffee shop down the street. It had been recommended as having really great coffee and food, but really all I needed was a neutral place so I could make my exit when my dad got to be too much. I could never deal with more than fifteen minutes of him. A half hour, tops. I took a deep breath and walked in.
The chime over the door rang and the barista behind the counter looked up.
It was Alex.
Her eyes went wide at the sight of me and it was as if the whole world faded away. I was drawn to her. I couldn’t stay away. I couldn’t help the smile. “Alex.”
“Hey! Back of the line, no cutting, asshole,” some guy said, and I looked up and realized this was a rather busy café, with a half dozen people ahead of me, and I had just floated to the front of the line like it was my right. There was a long list of intricate-sounding drinks described on the wall above the counter. I shook my head out of my daze and grinned at Alex sheepishly.
“Sorry,” I muttered and made my way to the back of the line. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her hair was back up in the bun, but she was wearing a green polo and a black apron this time. Was this real? Was she really here? I was beginning to doubt my status as a man of science because I had to wonder if this thing between us was kismet. Fate. Something. Science had no explanation for this.
“Hi, Dr. Bellamy,” she said when I got to the front of the line. Her smile was shy, even awkward. Her fingers tapped nervously on the counter.
“Jordan, Alex, call me Jordan…” I didn’t like her using my title. “Is this why you came to my clinic? Because you work down the street?”
A lock of her hair fell from her bun to curl in front of her ear. I wanted to reach across the counter and tuck it back. “It was a complete coincidence that I brought my daughter to your clinic. I swear.”
“And this?” I looked around the café.
She raised her hands in defeat. “A girl’s gotta earn a living.”
“You never said you worked in a coffee shop.”
“Well, we never really got to talking, did we?” Her voice lowered, and when she looked up at me this time, there was that spark again.
“Would you like to?” I asked, leaning as close as I could get over the counter. “Talk?”
She bit her lip. “I think so. But I’m working.” She gestured behind me. The line was still long. The café was busy, although I’d only had eyes for her. “I have your number. I’ll call you.”
“Will you?”
She looked at me, direct. “Yes,” like the word meant more than it did. Like there was a whole world behind it. I felt there was. Then she ducked her head and looked up at me through her lashes. “But for now, what can I get you to drink?” I gave her my order and paid and left a twenty in the tip jar and stood by the side watching her while I waited for my drink.
I loved the pink tinge to her cheeks as she took the other orders and the way she kept glancing at me and shaking her head at me, restraining her smile, before getting back to work.
“Dr. Handsome,” the bored barista behind the espresso machine called. She grinned and winked at me and I had to laugh.
“That’s me I guess.” I took my drink and walked away, facing the café seating for the first time. I should have looked for my father before, but my attention had been taken by Alex.
There was my father, watching me intently, sitting at a table with a porcelain cup of espresso and a bottle of sparkling water. His hair was slicked back and his suit was expensive. Everything about him was expensive. He raised one eyebrow at me as I slid into the other seat across from him. “So who was that?”
“None of your business. What did you want to talk to me about?” Just sitting with him made my blood run cold.
“Now, now Jordan. I promised your mother I would try to build bridges with you. Be a family.”
“Is that what you promised her? Hmm.” I didn’t believe it. He knew I didn’t believe it. He never honored a promise in his life, as well my mother knew. “I thought it was something along the lines of being faithful to her.”
He sucked his teeth and glanced around the café as if none of this meant anything. “You are your mother’s son, aren’t you? You know how to hold a grudge and how to judge others who fail to meet your perfect standards.” He watched Alex as she took orders behind the counter. “But you got your taste in women from me. That’s one hot piece of ass. I’d love to see her in some stiletto heels and a strapless bra.”
My blood boiled and for a second I couldn’t hear a thing that he said. He continued on with what he’d love to see. What he’d love to do to Alex.
My Alex.
I clenched my fists on the table, restraining myself. Trying to remind myself that I was trying to not let him get to me anymore, that I was free of him. That I was a grown man living my own life. I took a deep breath and then flattened my hands. Standing up, I looked down at the man I had looked up to my whole childhood, before finding out what kind of man he really was. “Father,” I said, my voice cool and controlled. “You asked me here to talk about some opportunities for my foundation.”
“It’s the family’s foundation, Jordan, not yours.”
“My foundation. This was the agreement. I came back. The Good Friend Foundation is mine. Under my control. Separate from Boucher Industries. As such, you can’t possibly have any business dealings with it, and we don’t need to discuss it.”
“This isn’t business,” he gritted out. “This is family. It is about the interests of our family.”
“You’ve never cared about our family, father. You only cared about money and what money could get you. I don’t want what you’re looking for.” I wanted him to stay away from Alex, but I couldn’t tell him that, or he’d know she meant something to me and he’d use her to get to me. “If you need to talk to me about ‘family’ again, you can reach me through Mom.”
I turned around, feeling the tension in my back and shoulders, wanting to scream, and left.
“Jordan!” he barked. As if that would stop me.
I was halfway down the back when I realized someone else was calling my name. I turned around.
“Jordan! Jordan!” Alex was running down the street. A paper coffee cup in her hand. “You forgot your coffee,” she said with an awkward laugh.
I had to laugh with her, that was how ridiculous this all was. I took the coffee. “I’m sorry you had to see that. That– that asshole was my father.”
“There wasn’t much to see. If that was a scene in your family, I shudder to wonder what you’d think of mine on any random Thanksgiving.�
�� When she smiled, I was nearly dazzled. “Oh the yelling! The claims of murder and vengeance! Once there was an opera battle. I wasn’t sure how we got to that point, but there was a definite competition to see who could hit a high C. It was not pretty.”
I ran a hand through my hair. She was delightful. Seeing her was so much better than meeting with my dad. That she’d come after me was even better. “I think I’d like to come to your Thanksgiving. Mine were never like that at all. We were always taught to speak quietly, never let our opponents know our thoughts. And treat everyone as an opponent.”
“Everyone?”
“Including the rest of the family. Everyone. No one was ever to be trusted. But we were supposed to be dignified while we did it.”
“Jordan…” she said, reaching out to wrap my wrist gently in her fingers. Her touch made my racing thoughts slow down. They centered on her. She centered me. The sun shone in the sky. The trees were green. The traffic rolled on.
“My family isn’t dignified, Alex. Don’t you believe any of us. We’re none of us to be trusted. We’re all creeps.”
“You too? I don’t believe it.” She was looking at me like she wanted to see inside of me.
I shrugged. “I’m trying not to be. I don’t want to be like him.” I turned my hand so I could hold hers. “Do me a favor, Alex. If you ever see my father coming, run the other way.”
Her brows wrinkled. “Why would I ever see your father again? I’m just a barista in a coffee shop.”
I rolled my neck to release the anger simmering up my spine. “He thought you were hot.” I got out between clenched teeth. “And he’s the kind of man who believes that if he wants something, he should have it. And he’ll do anything to get it.”
A long black limousine drove past us. The both of us watched it pass. “And there he goes. You can be sure he’s noticed my interest in you, and that will make him even likelier to come after you. Dammit.”