by Claire Adams
“Were you aware that Mr. Miller had sold off all his shares in your company prior to making the offer?”
“No, I’m not close with him or privy to his investing strategies.”
“Doesn’t it seem suspicious that he would want to get rid of the shares in a company that he believed so much in and was going to make an offer on?”
“Again, I don’t know. I’m not privy to how he makes his investing decisions or purchasing decisions. Is that illegal?”
“There’s more to the investigation, but that’s all for now. That’s a nice painting there,” the man said as he noticed my new large painting I had purchased a few weeks prior.
“Yes, it’s new.”
“Interesting that a man of your stature would be fond of childlike artistry and prostitutes.”
“What?” I asked in total shock.
It was bad enough the guy was making fun of my art taste, but why the hell was he saying I liked prostitutes? That was absolutely not the truth, and I started to get worried that his guy wasn’t who he said he was.
“That woman you were out with a few nights ago – she’s a known prostitute and swindler. You should be more careful of the company you keep,” he said as he made his way toward the door.
“Who? Delilah? She is not a prostitute! And what do you know about who I date? Am I being followed? Am I under investigation?”
This guy had some nerve coming into my house and pretending to be investigating my old partner when he really wanted to get to me. It couldn’t be legal to get information the way he was. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Even if there was some sort of investigation, I would have had some contact with the agency.
All my alarms were going off about this guy. The problem was he was the size of a bus and not really the type of person I wanted to mess with.
“Hey, what’s your badge number?” Josh asked as he grabbed a piece of paper to write the information down. He must have been feeling the same weird sense that this guy wasn’t who he said he was.
“You stay out of this or I’ll make sure you have a full investigation on your trading practices, as well, Mr. Josh Market.”
“I know the law and if I ask you for your badge number, you are required to give it to me. I am asking for your badge number, sir.”
The guy in the suit didn’t look like the type you wanted to mess with. He stopped dead in his tracks and used his muscular hand to straighten out his tie while he stared at Josh and me. We both were pretty damn close to pissing ourselves as his intense gaze looked at us like he wanted to break our necks.
The way he stood there without moving had me wondering what I would do if he didn’t leave? I certainly couldn’t force the guy out of my house; he was at least twice my size. I looked at Josh, who continued to stare at the man in the suit – who started to move toward both of us.
“Hey, hey, now. Let’s calm things down,” I interjected. “Is there an issue with giving us your identification? It seems to me that a legitimate investigation would mean that I had a right to contact your office. Just give me your badge number and I’ll be in contact, it’s as simple as that.”
“I don’t take orders from scum like you,” he said.
“Okay, well, I appreciate that you don’t like to take orders. Is there some other way we could verify who you are?”
Negotiating was one of my best skills. I had worked large corporations over for millions and they thanked me in the end. Being nice and compromising when it was possible was necessary in any situation.
Unfortunately, this Antonio Pryor person didn’t seem like the type who liked to negotiate. He seemed more like the kind of guy the mob hired to go break someone’s knee caps…if that sort of thing was still going on in the world.
“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” he turned toward me.
There was one time in the sixth grade that a bully had started to pick on me because of the sports team I liked. I felt almost the same way as I did in that very moment as this big dude in a suit moved closer to me. I couldn’t think of a way out of the situation, and I didn’t want to think about how easily I would cry when he laid his hands on me.
“If you touch him, I’ll kill you,” Josh said with all the confidence of the nerd he was.
By that point, both Josh and I were visibly sweating, and it was pretty obvious we were scared to death. Neither of us were the fighting type. People loved me – I didn’t have to fight with anyone. People liked Josh, too; he was the funny guy everyone was friends with.
“I think you should leave,” I managed to say in a solid voice without quivering.
I would have fought him. No doubt about it, I would have thrown some pretty damn good punches and put up a fight. But I would have lost. Hell, both Josh and I together couldn’t have taken this guy; not to mention he looked like the type who was probably carrying a gun, as well.
“Kiss my ass,” the man said as he quickly turned and walked out the front door. “The next time I come here, I won’t be so forgiving.”
This was not happening. My hands turned clammy, and I tried to get a good look at the man’s license plate as he sped off, but I couldn’t. Nothing about the situation seemed right. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt fear like I did while he had been in my house.
If I was under investigation, they wouldn’t just come to my house with one guy. Any investigation would have required two interviewers; no federal agency would send just one. Plus, the pure size of the guy made it unlikely that he actually worked for the Securities Exchange Commission; they were filled with brainiacs and number crunchers. Of course, it was possible that he worked there, but my gut was saying something else was going on and I had to figure it out.
“Now, it’s time to call your lawyer.”
“I have no idea what’s going on here. Is this about me or about Antonio?” I mumbled as I talked to myself and tried to figure out what was happening. “It seemed like it was actually about me. But he didn’t work for the government. Was he casing the joint? Maybe going to rob me or something? Perhaps going to try and blackmail me? This is so strange.”
“Yeah, it’s strange and dangerous. Brandon, you’re a billionaire. People come after men like you because they want money. Any number of things could be going on here. We need to get your lawyer involved, and we probably need to call the police.”
Josh was right about getting my lawyer involved. I had to make sure there wasn’t a real investigation, and I needed some help in figuring out who this guy was and why he was after me. I tried to lead a legitimate life and couldn’t think of anyone that I had pissed off so bad that they would have sent that beast to my house.
“No, no police. What if I actually did something and I am being investigated? I think we should deal with my lawyer first and then wait and see what your private investigator has to say.”
“Do you really think that guy works for the Securities Exchange Commission? Because if he works there, then I’m actually Brad Pitt.”
“Yeah, you look nothing like Brad.”
“That dude was scary looking. Did you see the size of his neck?” I asked.
“Yeah, Josh, I saw it and the size of his giant hands. I don’t want anything to do with that dude and it’s freaking me out. So, this isn’t a securities investigation?”
“I mean, I can’t say so one hundred percent, but it’s looking more like you have something much worse.”
“It’s funny how yesterday the worst thing I could imagine was all my bank accounts getting frozen. Now, I clearly see there are much worse things that could be going on.”
Life had a way of putting things into perspective for you. I had learned that lesson the hard way over the years, but it was true. There was always someone else who had it worse that you did. Always something worse that could happen to you.
After losing my son, I did my best to look at the positives in every situation. It didn’t always work that way, but I was getting better at seeing the goodness in t
he world.
In this particular situation, it was baffling me why this guy had come to my house and purposely tried to scare us to death. I tried not to think the worse of the guy, though. Maybe he really did work for some agency? But more than likely he was some guy or a friend of someone that I had pissed off somehow. I racked my brain to think of anyone I could have made angry enough to send a guy like him after me. There wasn’t a single person that came to mind.
“Dude, you really pissed someone off.”
The problem was, I had no idea what I could have done. As I scrolled through the people in my past, none of them struck me as people who would want to set something like this up. This guy, or his co-workers, had actually been following me. He was calling my date names and trying to work me up. It seemed personal to me.
“What if he wasn’t talking about Delilah?” I muttered. “What if he was talking about a different girl I brought home?”
“The prostitute comment?”
“Yeah, Delilah didn’t come back here. I guess they could have been following me when I went to meet her, but damn… I have no idea.”
“Here’s what we are going to do, Brandon. First, you’re going to call your lawyer and tell him what’s going on. Second, get your damn alarm system fixed. It’s been broken for a month. You could have any number of horrible things happen to you and no one would be notified. You spend thousands for the system; get them out here to fix it.”
“I know, right? It just kept going off for no reason, and I always had to take calls and verify who I was.”
The alarm was useful and I really did like having it around, but about a month prior, I had been notified over a dozen times that the alarm was triggered when I wasn’t home. The first few times, I hurried home to see what had happened and absolutely nothing was gone. The door was still locked, there was no sign of forced entry; everything was fine, so I figured it was the stupid system and had disconnected the main line.
I lived in a gated community with a private security company that patrolled the streets. We hadn’t had any break-ins in all the years that I’d lived there. Plus, if the alarm was going off so much when nothing was happening, I didn’t really trust that it would actually go off when I needed it.
But Josh had a point. I promised to call the company that afternoon to get them over to check things out and get the system back up and running.
“Dude, I can’t get over how you just let that guy into the house. What if he was here to kill you? You can’t just let strangers come in here. Maybe we need to get you security cameras at the door? I don’t know, but you aren’t safe here.”
“Josh, don’t go getting all conspiracy theorist on me. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it. I bet it’s the brother of some girl I brought home, and he’s just trying to scare the crap out of me. I probably broke her heart or some crazy shit like that. Let’s not make it into something too wild. I’ll take some more precautions and get the alarm up and running today; we can go from there.”
“Okay, but if you turn up missing, I’m going to feel like an ass for not going to the cops. What if he kills you? What if I’m watching the news and I hear that you’ve been killed? Am I supposed to go to the cops then? Will this guy come find me? Will you haunt me from the grave? Dude, this is scary shit.”
“If I get murdered, I promise not to haunt you,” I laughed. “Or only really cool ghost shit, deal?”
“Man, I don’t know why you aren’t freaking out. You should be the one losing it here,” he said as he frantically paced my living room and ran his fingers through his hair. “I annoyed the guy, but he looked like he was going to kill you when you spoke up to him,” he said.
“Josh, I didn’t get to where I am in life by over-reacting. Of course, I’ll take some precautions, but my gut is saying this guy is just interested in scaring me.”
“He scared me, does that count?”
“Yeah, I think it does. So, what the hell am I going to do with myself now? I’ve got to stay off the investing for a while. I don’t have my date with Del until tomorrow, and I’m worried about using my credit cards. Is this what life is really like for you?” I said as I tried to figure out how to use my time.
“What are you talking about? None of those things are my life, I’m busy all the time,” he laughed.
“Oh, I just thought you’d understand since you’re unemployed and all.”
“Shut it!” Josh joked.
Chapter Thirteen
Delilah
“See, it’s as simple as this,” the consultant explained as he typed a few commands into the code.
“If that fixes this, I’m totally quitting my job and giving it to you,” I laughed.
The consultant had been at the office since eight o’clock, and we were fixing all the errors the two of us had been able to find while working from home. He was actually really helpful, and I found myself feeling guilty for judging him so harshly when he first arrived. It wasn’t the consultant’s fault that my boss was a major jerk.
“It was a team effort. Should we check through some profiles and see if everything looks good?”
He moved out of my seat and let me click through the accounts to look for errors. A huge weight felt like it had been lifted off my shoulders. We hadn’t been hacked at all – it was just the errors in the coding. Of course, that meant it was the errors I had put into the code, but at this point, I didn’t even care: I was just happy everything was working.
“It’s been a long week. For a minute there, I thought we had been hacked. Could you imagine the chaos if someone got a hold of the clients’ records we work with?”
“You have some high-profile people?”
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but yeah, almost all the men are pretty important. If they aren’t a millionaire, they are famous. It would have been a disaster, and I certainly would have lost my job.”
“What a horrible thing. I’m glad we got it straightened out.”
“What was your name again?” I asked as I pulled out a pen and piece of paper. I wanted to be able to write to his supervisor and tell them how great he had been. He really had gone above and beyond while working with me.
“Antonio Pryor,” the man said. “It was my pleasure working with you. I better get back to my other clients now.”
“It really was my pleasure. I appreciate all your help. Two sets of eyes are indeed better than one.”
As he left the cubicle and made his way down the hallway, I felt Mattie’s eyes glaring into me. She had sat quietly working on her side of the cubicle all morning long, looking like she was about to explode on at least two occasions. She wasn’t used to actually doing her job for hours at a time without breaks to chit-chat.
“What is it?” I said before I even sat down.
“Okay, I’m not trying to be judgmental or anything,” she said right before she said something judgmental. “But does he really look like the kind of guy who likes to work with computers?”
“Mattie! People say that about me, too, and you know how much I hate it,” I said.
“I know, I’m not judging. He obviously was good at his job. I’m just saying he looked more like a hired hit man than an IT professional.”
“You know, I’m not going to have this conversation with you. Let’s get back to talking about what I should wear tonight on my date with Brandon.”
I had literally been thinking about Brandon since the last time I saw him. On a couple of occasions, I thought about texting him and then deleted my message and decided not to send it. My emotions were on edge about everything going on with him.
Love hadn’t been something I’d thought I was capable of after losing my husband. I could love my son, of course, that was a different sort of love than having a man around.
Even the few hours I’d spent with Brandon had started the process of opening my eyes to the possibilities that were out there. I didn’t have to make him my forever love, but just being with him was building up my con
fidence that someday I’d find love again. Maybe it would be him, or maybe it would be someone entirely different; I wasn’t going to worry about it. All I cared about was that I had happiness rushing through me again, and I wasn’t going to let it go just yet.
“You’re going to wear that red gown in your closet. I thought we had already had this conversation and made this decision. Don’t mess with perfection.”
“Ugh, that dress is so revealing. We are going to the theater, not a strip show.”
“Excuse me! That dress was my dress, and I wore it to my step-brother’s wedding.”
“That’s weird,” I teased her.
“The colors were black and red. It wasn’t weird. And, it barely shows any cleavage. I think your definition of revealing and mine are totally different. Plus, you had a string bikini on already around him; I think any dress is going to be a step up.”
“Yeah, I did,” I smiled as I thought back to our little swim out to the island. “That bikini doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I probably shouldn’t have agreed to that whole swimming on the first date thing.”
“Yes, you should have agreed, and you did. For once, you need to stop second-guessing every decision you make. Just go have fun with this guy. Stop worrying if you love him or he loves you. Stop worrying if you’re wearing the right thing or saying the right thing. For once, just have some fun and relax. Can you at least give it a try?”
“I’m relaxed,” I said. “I’ve been funny and irreverent. You’d even want to screw me if you’d been on our first date.”
“Let’s not talk about my wild college years. I’m trying to forget those.”
Mattie was much funnier than I could ever hope to be. Her quick wit was just one of the things I admired about her. No matter how off-track I seemed to get since losing Spencer, she had always been there to guide me back.
Our friendship was a gift that came to me in my darkest days. It was nearly impossible to imagine that this woman, who was my best friend now, hardly knew me at all before I lost my husband. Over the years, we had shared our college stories and came to the conclusion that we probably wouldn’t have been friends if we hadn’t ended up sitting next to each other at work. It was amazing how life could bring two people together in seemingly random ways.