by Demi Damson
But she could do better. She could make a vow not to be that way again.
The world needed more people who cared about the effects of their action. Her weekend in Haven proved to her how far wrong she could go and how badly it could hurt people. She could do her job without having to break into people’s files or tell elaborate lies to everyone. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to catch a criminal, but she was an investigator, not the police. And even they couldn’t just walk into your house and start rifling through your files.
Charlotte didn’t want to be ruthless anymore. She wanted to be fair. She knew it was too late to prove anything to Jordan, but she could prove it to herself.
So, she created a mission statement, something else she wouldn’t have considered before Jordan. Maybe it was just wasted words but if she could take a stand and make it public, then that would hold her to it. Then she added a code of conduct, for herself and for the company. She sent it to every customer, with an intro explaining why she thought it was important for a private investigator to be forthright, ethical, and transparent. She posted it on her website, front and center, and on her Facebook page. There. Maybe one day, she’d tell him how he’d helped her to work out her own boundaries. Now, though, she needed to get to work.
It was tough, navigating the boundaries of what she could and couldn’t do. But in the message boards and groups, she found she immediately got a good reaction. It became clear people didn’t necessarily feel good about hiring someone who was willing to work dirty. Soon, she found herself in the middle of a long message board discussion about what a PI service could offer and why she was taking a stand.
Her mother called most days, nagging at her to go out with “people her own age” and then giving up and inviting her over to dinner.
She knew she should get out but everything seemed dimmed, after the brightness of experiencing the world with Jordan. Jordan pushed her to be more than she was, while loving the fact that she tried, without judging her. She sighed. There was no point... no, she’d made her bed and now she was going to have to lie in it.
The next day, Charlotte’s phone rang off the hook with enquires. She scribbled notes about each interested party, remembering George’s filing system. Anything they mentioned might be a useful detail, even though it didn’t appear to have an immediate bearing on the work they wanted.
She shoved her dining table against the wall and turned it into a desk. It wasn’t like she ever had guests over anyway. She bought a filing cabinet and a stack of manila folders. She could do it online but she liked the system of just being able to drop things in without needing to scan documents or open the computer.
And because she couldn’t help herself, she looked up Kenny James. He was retired now, apparently. George’s files had included the man’s wife’s name and birthdate and his wife had a Facebook account: it was easy for Charlotte to get up to speed on his life.
They seemed a happy and comfortable couple. Did George Lovett blackmail him at the time? Threaten his marriage? Or just waive that check in his face? She didn’t really feel like she could say much on that score, having accepted $5,000 from Jordan for the weekend job under false pretenses.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang. “I spoke to someone this morning, was it you? About my husband.”
“I’m sorry, who is this? I don’t think I talked to you.”
It was an older woman, sounded like she was crying. “Are you alright?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m not alright,” the woman said. “I need your services. You said you could get photographs.”
Charlotte furrowed her brow. It sure sounded like the woman needed a private investigator. But Charlotte worked alone and she definitely never spoke to this woman before. “It wasn’t me, Mrs...?”
“Golden. Julia Golden. I was coming out of the Mercy Hospital. My husband got taken there from a hotel room. At lunch time! The woman said she was the top investigator for adultery in the city, but I lost the card. It wasn’t you? You are the only female PI in the phone book.”
Ambulance chasers. Charlotte paused for a moment. She could get the benefit of whoever primed this woman. It wasn’t like SHE was ambulance chasing, after all. “Mrs. Golden, I don’t offer services to strangers in places like hospitals. It’s taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable.”
The woman snuffled loudly. “Are you saying you won’t help me? She said there would be evidence on the CCTV she could help me get it. She said I needed to act immediately or it would be too late.”
Charlotte grit her teeth. It would absolutely be a good deed to save Julia Golden from whoever it was trying to panic this woman into hiring them. And Charlotte needed the work. But at what cost? Jordan’s words kept bouncing through her head. You don’t treat customers that way.
“I’m not the person you spoke to. I’ll be happy to take your case, if you decide you’d still like my services after you’ve had a chance to deal with the shock of your husband’s medical situation. The person you spoke to earlier clearly put pressure on you and that’s not something a good private investigator would do. I think she was taking advantage of your current emotional state. So, please take some time to think about it and call me back if you still feel hiring an investigator is the right move.” She felt her voice get stronger as she invited the woman to talk to her on Monday. Maybe she wouldn’t get this one job but she sure did feel better.
She caught up on reports for all of her customers, including the man with the faithful wife, except that this time, she stated outright she thought he was wrong; there was no evidence whatsoever his spouse was seeing someone else. Tomorrow, she’d deal with the fallout. One thing was certain: If you had to be ruthless to do this, then she wasn’t going to do it anymore. She would be fair and treat others like she wanted to be treated. It might make for less money but it would sure make her sleep better at night. Maybe she should just accept this wasn’t the business for her.
Thanks to Jordan’s payment, she could afford to take a breath and work out what she wanted to do. The bills were paid, this month at least.
Charlotte knew what Jordan was doing was right. He was better than she was. She wanted to bring down George Lovett, so she’d lied, trespassed, and stole. Jordan would have said either do the job right or don’t do it at all.
And it just broke her heart that there she’d been, surrounded by the warm and protected space of his affection, and she’d treated him like dirt.
She wanted to become the kind of person Jordan would be proud of, even if he never knew. Maybe one day she’d tell him about her business and that he’d changed the way she worked. Maybe she’d write him an anonymous thank you card.
Right now, though, she had work to do.
Chapter Thirty–Seven
A Private Investigation
Jordan had one photograph of the woman: the end of the race where he’d teased her about losing. He looked at it again. Sure, she was glaring at him for laughing at her but there was something else, too. Something tender in her look. She clearly wasn’t really sore about losing. She just enjoyed the race.
He knew Charlotte. Not just in the biblical sense, although he’d enjoyed that quite a bit, but as a person. He still couldn’t believe the woman he’d spent the weekend with was fully a product of his imagination.
What was weighing on his mind was that hiring her was his idea. Replaying that first meeting, she never said a word about who she was or what she wanted—he just filled her in and expected her to fall into place with his plans. She’d never planned to spend the weekend with him.
Maybe it was crazy. Maybe he was in for disappointment. But he desperately wanted, no needed to know who she was and what she was doing. He didn’t care she was an escort, when he thought she was one. Maybe her real story was worse. Maybe what she did was unforgivable. But he wanted to at least hear her side of the story.
He’d looked up her name already, which went nowhere. Her phone was dead, which didn’t
surprise him; he knew she had two phones. He’d called the bank with her account details but, not surprisingly, they refused to give him any personal details. Still, he managed to prove the account was with a local branch. She must live in Riverside somewhere.
It was his only solid lead. And he knew only one person who might have the contacts to find out who held the account.
“That’s a tough one,” said Buddy. “It’s not the 1990’s anymore. Security has been increased up the wazoo. What do you wanna know?”
“Anything. Her name, her address, anything you can get.”
“Really, the only thing you got is her bank account details? I’d tell you to let it go, but you’ve been mooning around like a lovesick calf for weeks. You clearly got it bad.”
“I’ve got her picture, too.” Jordan pulled out his phone.
“Where’d you meet her?”
“Here. She walked in. I thought she was your escort friend.”
Buddy burst out laughing. “No shit! No wonder you were shocked.”
“Yeah, don’t even ask.” Jordan sighed. “She gave me a fake name and a phone number that went out of service the day after the incident. I don’t know anything else about her other than she’s got a tattoo of an R on her wrist. I even thought about hiring a private investigator.” He pulled up the picture on his phone.
Buddy looked. “Huh. She looks familiar in a weird sort of way.”
“That’s all I’ve got, one lousy picture. I don’t even know if Charlotte is her real name.”
“Charlotte?” Buddy was still staring at the photograph. Then his eyes went wide and he snatched the phone out of Jordan’s hand. “No shit! Jordan, that’s Charlotte Nichols.”
Jordan’s heart leaped to his throat. “Who?”
“Charlotte Nichols! Owen Nichol’s little girl. Well, not so little anymore.” His eyes drifted down to her body and Jordan resisted the urge to thump him.
He snatched his phone back. “Who is Owen Nichols?”
“You’re joking, right? No, I guess you wouldn’t know. Owen was your old man’s partner. George bought his half of the company off of him for a dime. Poor guy, he was as straight as a board. He never stood a chance against George, hell he probably never even knew he’d been taken for a ride.”
“Wait, slow down.” Jordan glanced at his watch. 4pm, close enough to the end of the day. He opened Buddy’s bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of whiskey he knew was hidden there. “Let’s sit down, have a drink and you tell me what happened.”
Buddy at least had the grace to look embarrassed.
“It was about 10 years ago, I guess, when you were still in school. Owen and George had set up the company.”
“Really? Not just George?”
“Nope. At the time, it was called Industry Transport. George put in the start-up capital but it was Owen’s baby. Started off good but it grew too fast. I guess they over-invested or something and ended up with serious cash flow problems. Owen put everything he had into it but it wasn’t enough. It came to the point where they weren’t going to be able to meet running costs.”
Jordan poured a glass for Buddy and then, after only a brief hesitation, one for himself. “I never knew any of this.”
“George offered to help by buying some land off of the company, to get some cash into the bank. The land was brownfields, it was some sort of rail repair service in the 1930’s and back then they just dumped everything on the site. The land was sopping wet with discarded oil.” He took a slow sip from his whiskey. “Completely useless.”
“My dad bought it as a favor?”
“That’s what he wanted Owen to believe. But a few months later, surprise, surprise, the EPA puts a bunch of money into Riverside for cleanup, including the lovely piece of brownfield in the middle of town. The land George bought for $50,000 gets cleaned up and is now worth a cool seven million bucks. Talk about profit!”
Jordan shook his head. “I knew about the land sale but not that it was bought from the company. So, Industry Transport sold the land and missed out on the deal of a lifetime.”
“Yep, you got it kiddo. But that’s not the end of the story. George promises he’ll invest that cash back into Industry Transport but only if Owen resigns and gives up his shares. If not, George walks away, lets the company go bust. And Owen was already struggling. Trying to run the business without George, well, that wasn’t going to work.”
Jordan took a sip, not sure what to say. It didn’t matter, Buddy was on a roll.
“Owen had a choice: let the company and staff have a future with George funding it, or stick his heels in and watch the company go bust. To be honest, Owen never even had the chance to decide, because the board agreed to George’s proposal immediately, leaving him stranded. But knowing Owen, he’d have walked away anyway, even if they’d backed him against George. And that’s how Industry Transport LLC became Lovett Industries. Owen was left out in the cold. His shares would be worth a few million now, if he’d kept them. As it is, he never recovered. I saw him one night at Maloney’s, but he was knee dip in drink by then and depressed to boot. I didn’t hang around.”
“And Charlotte’s his daughter?”
“Yep. Seems little Charlotte has grown up and shown up on your doorstep.”
Charlotte Nichols. Jordan was struggling to take it all in. “How come George didn’t recognize her?”
“Because he doesn’t pay attention to anything but the final numbers on a spreadsheet and the balance of bank account. I only did because I remember her coming to the office to visit her dad. Cute little thing. George just thought she was a pest.” He topped off their glasses. “Listen, kiddo, I don’t want to tell you your business, but she’s got reasons to hate the Lovetts.”
“Yeah.” Jordan frowned. And rummaging through his father’s office. What was she looking for? Not the company check book but maybe the books? All those old files. Maybe she was searching for information on the land deal. He sipped his whiskey. “Maybe I should go talk to George. Or Owen himself.”
“You could do that. Or you could just let bygones be bygones. It’s not like you can fix it.”
“Can’t I?” He frowned. “The least the company could do is pay Owen a pension.”
Buddy leaned back. “George won’t be happy.”
“He doesn’t need to be.”
Buddy drained his glass. “Let me just channel your old man’s voice for a moment.” He rumbled with a frown and close-drawn eyebrows. “And how does that help the bottom line, son?”
“It doesn’t. But it gives me the moral high ground when I confront Charlotte.”
Buddy smiled. “Fair enough. That’s a pretty good reason, kiddo.” He slid the glass over and pushed himself out of the chair. “Well, clock’s about to strike five. I’m heading out for a drink, if you want to join me...”
“No, you go on.” He knew Buddy was bunking off early but he didn’t care. Right now, he had more important things to worry about.
Chapter Thirty–Eight
A Man With A Mission
Jordan wasn’t particularly surprised to find that no information about the land deal was in the company records, except for the sale. It’d all be in George’s files at home, of course. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that the files were what Charlotte was after.
Half of him wanted to go home and rummage through the files himself. But that was just pure curiosity. He didn’t care what Charlotte found or didn’t find; at least now he understood why she was looking. He was still a little angry—she didn’t tell him who she was or what she wanted. But then, did he ever really give her a chance?
The first thing he did was call in the HR manager to pull up everything she had on Owen Nichols. She filled out the paperwork for him to receive a full company pension, which Jordan just noted with “for services rendered.” Let George come to him and ask what it was about.
With the personnel file, he had enough information to look up Charlotte. He found her
business: private investigator. Well, that figured.
Her office address was actually a residential district on the south side. He could just go there, knock on her door and tell her everything. She had to know he wasn’t like his father. If he told her he knew the whole story, maybe she’d listen.
He replayed that morning in his head. He’d told her she had to quit her job. Christ, she must think he was a misogynist Neanderthal!
He desperately wanted to tell her he didn’t mean it when he told her she never had to work again. Same with the house in the suburbs and the white picket fence. Not unless that’s what she wanted.
He could kick himself for his stupid presumptions. That’s what he got for asking Buddy to set him up. He wasn’t sure he should try speaking to Charlotte at all, he’d made such a mess of it already.
He couldn’t undo what had been done but he could try to fix the damage. An impersonal pension was not enough.
He jumped into the McLaren and plugged the Nichols address into the GPS. He stopped just once, running into the mall to buy a present for Charlotte on the off-chance she agreed to see him. First, though, he needed to apologize to her father.
Parked along the curb in front of her address, he looked at the lit windows for a few minutes. It was a nice house with a large yard. It seemed like it would be a nice place to grow up—nicer than a mansion in Haven, perhaps. He remembered telling Charlotte about school breaks at home and how she said she never felt a lack of caring. Her parents were clearly important to her. And now, here he was.
With a deep breath, he went to the door and rang the bell. A woman with Charlotte’s smile answered the door. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’re interested,” she said preemptively, her smile slipping.
“I’m not a sales person.”
She raised a doubtful eyebrow and he was struck again by how closely the mannerism resembled Charlotte’s expressions. It made his heart beat faster. He put on his most charming smile. “I’m hoping to speak to Owen Nichols. Is he in?”