by Claire Adams
“Sounds good.”
He called in a favor with his friend and the guy arrived at my house less than two hours later. His hipster suit made Josh’s friend look more like a marketing agent than any sort of investigator – but I didn’t know any investigators, so I had no idea what they were supposed to look like.
Being a billionaire had its advantages. When you called someone and wanted to hire them for a job, those people dropped everything else to come make you happy. It was a perk of my fortune and I knew it, but I still really liked it. I probably hadn’t had to wait longer than a couple hours for anything since the sale of my company; I was getting spoiled by my wealth and I felt it.
Yet, I wasn’t going to be the person to tell people to treat me like everyone else. Who wanted to be treated like everyone else? If that happened, I’d be ignored and pushed off for weeks or months and nothing would ever get done.
“Hey, I’m Billy Stalling. I hear you’ve got an issue on your hands.”
“You can say that. I’m not sure how much of my current issues are connected or not. It could all be connected, or maybe none of it at all.”
I went on to describe all the strange things that had come up in the recent weeks. Each issue on its own seemed to be no big deal, except maybe the large man in the suit who had shown up at my house. But when I said them all aloud, they started to sound like I had a rather large problem building up that could explode at any moment.
I told him about the women in my life, the business partners, friends I’d talked to recently, and everything else I could think of. Josh chimed in and filled in details where I skimped and the investigator took notes the whole time. When we had finished telling him about everything, Billy looked through his notes and underlined areas before turning toward me to ask some more questions.
“Tell me about the girl who works at Dating the Rich,” Billy said while he wrote down some more notes.
“She’s a great girl. Funny, easy to talk to, she’s a lot like me. I don’t know, what do you want to know?”
“All these issues seemed to start popping up when you met her. What part could she be playing in all of this?” His question hit me in the gut like a sucker punch. I hadn’t expected him to question Del or her motives. She was such a kind person, so loving and devoted to her family. I absolutely didn’t think she had anything to do with the mess that was going on.
“What? No. Why would she have anything to do with this?” I said defensively. “Delilah is a widow, she takes care of her son all by herself, and she’s by far one of the best women I’ve ever dated.”
“Please know I don’t mean any offence here. I’m hired to dig into everyone and figure out what’s going on. From what I know about Dating the Rich, there is a large following of women who are scam artists. I’m not saying this girl is; she could very well be exactly who you say she is. I’m just letting you know I’ll need to include her in my investigation.”
My eyes darted over to Josh, and I knew he was in agreement with his friend. Josh had been warning me about the website and Del since I first started talking to him about it. I understood their concerns. Sure, there were women on the site that were trying to land themselves a rich man and would do anything necessary to make it happen.
I knew Del, though. I knew her better than either of these guys and she wasn’t like that. She hadn’t joined the website to hook up with guys; she was simply doing her job when I’d messaged her.
“I messaged her. She didn’t reach out and contact me. She didn’t chase after me or try to get me to ask her out. It was my initiation that started our contact. She was even here with me when one of the messages was sent to her. She showed it to me in her email. This is not Del causing all of this. I know it.”
“Did she have an overly provocative profile picture up?” Billy asked.
Josh raised his eyebrows at me and mouthed the words, “I told you.” He had told me, and I didn’t think he was right then – and I still didn’t. Delilah wasn’t that kind of woman. She was honest and kind, not a manipulator like they were making her out to be.
My blood pressure was rising the more we talked about everything that was going on. We were wasting time by turning the questioning to Del; instead, Billy needed to be getting information on the other women I had recently dated.
Love life decisions weren’t always my best decisions. I was much better at making business decisions.
In business, there was an ability to keep everything neutral. Numbers guided my decisions in the business world. With numbers, you had a right and wrong answer. Sure, there were different ways of analyzing the numbers, but I still felt very confident in making these decisions.
I was not as confident in my love life. My gut was a soggy mess when it came to falling in love. I knew it and had protected myself from that mess for years. But as Billy mentioned the possibility that Delilah wasn’t who she said she was, I couldn’t imagine what that heartbreak would do to me.
Normally, my confidence in my own opinion was high enough to squash anyone who got in my way. I wouldn’t have thought a moment longer about the ideas that Billy and Josh had brought up regarding Del.
But since losing my son, I had a distinct lack of confidence in my own ability to see things when they were going wrong. I hadn’t seen his illness in time to make an effective fight against it and that devastated me and my trust in my decision-making skills.
“Yes, she had a bikini photo,” I reluctantly answered Billy’s question. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I know her. I know she’s not involved.”
“I’ll research her, if that’s all right with you? Nothing more than doing a little background work. It’s highly possible that everything about her checks out just fine and we will move on to looking at the other people we’ve mentioned.”
“Fine, research her,” I said as the anger built up inside of me. “Research whoever you want. I don’t care. I just want to go back to my normal life. I just want to not have to worry about this stuff anymore.”
“It will only take me about twenty-four hours to get the preliminary data, but it could be as long as a week to get it all. I’ve got a lot of contacts within the FBI; I’ll be able to find out if there is any real investigation. But so far, I think this is probably something more personal.”
“I need details. Don’t come back to me with half-assed answers; I only want to hear about the details if you have strong proof. Do you understand? If this is someone close to me, I’m not going to confront them or make a big scene if I don’t have hard evidence.”
“Do you mean strong proof toward the woman that works for the dating site, or everyone I’m looking into?”
“Everyone!” I screamed at him. “I’m not going to confront someone about their lies and tricks if I don’t have all the facts. Come to me with facts or don’t come to me at all. Now, I think you should go. I appreciate your help – let me know when you have proof.”
I was steaming with anger by the time Josh walked the investigator out of my house. Never had I even thought about the idea the some of the people closest to me could be part of what was going on. It really pissed me off and I was going to destroy whomever was after me as soon as I knew who it was.
Chapter Seventeen
Delilah
“Come here, take a SnapChat photo with me,” Mattie said as we waited for the staff meeting that morning.
“God, Mattie, you need to get over all this social media stuff. Does anyone even follow you?”
“Hey, I’ve got several hundred followers.”
“Fine, take the photo.”
I leaned over our cubicle so she could snap her picture. As usual, instead of taking one photo, Mattie continued trying to take the photo with random filters. What should have taken three seconds stretched into three minutes in her search for the perfect photo for her social media account.
“Delilah, this man is here to see you,” my boss Robert said from behind me.
As I turned around,
my face was hip level to Robert and another man in a suit. Both men took a step back as I stood up to make the interaction a little less awkward. I wasn’t expecting a visitor and really had no idea why this guy would be at my office to talk with me.
“Hi, I’m Carlos Rodriguez; I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Is this related to the hacker we have had? I think we finally fixed those errors, and I don’t see any other issues.”
“No, ma’am, this is a personal issue.”
Suddenly, I was worried. My heart jumped in my chest as I looked frantically between my supervisor and this man. I didn’t do illegal things or anything that required someone to question me. My life was extremely boring – more than boring, it was lame. I held my hands close to my body as I tried to calm myself down before going with the man to answer his questions.
“You can use my office,” Robert said.
Worry filled every pore of my body as I followed them. I hated being in trouble. I’d purposely been a really good child just to avoid any sort of need to talk to me or punish me. As an adult, I lived by pretty much the same theory. I didn’t break the law, I didn’t hang around others who broke the law, and I did my best to avoid situations like the one I was currently walking into.
“We will just need fifteen minutes or so,” the man said to Robert.
“Take your time,” he replied in a nicer voice than I had heard from him in years.
“So, Miss Hunter, I’ve just got a few questions for you and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Okay. Sure. I’ll answer what I can.”
My nervousness had taken over and I felt small beads of sweat at my temples that I tried to ignore. My fingers shook and I held them together in an effort to calm them, but it didn’t work.
“Do you know a Brandon Baker?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s a friend.”
“Can you elaborate on this?”
“A good friend.”
I wasn’t purposely being short with my answers, but I didn’t want to say or do something that I would regret. I had no idea who this guy was or why he was there to ask me questions. I certainly didn’t feel comfortable sharing details about my life if I didn’t know who I was talking to.
“Miss, I need you to be honest with me. How do you know this man?”
“Where did you get that picture?” I said as I reached for the snapshot in his hands. It was a close-up picture of Brandon and me at the bagel shop. “Who are you? Why should I answer your questions if you haven’t even identified yourself?”
“I told you, my name is Carlos Rodriguez. I’m an investigator with the federal government.”
“With whom in the federal government?” I asked suspiciously.
“I work with the Securities Exchange Commission,” Carlos said as he pulled out his identification and handed it to me.
I took some time looking over the identification and handed it back when I was satisfied he was who he said he was. But I still didn’t know how I had anything to do with an investigation of Brandon.
“I’m dating Brandon. What else do you want to know?”
“Has he been moving money around lately? Were you privy to any conversations where he discussed hiding assets, or have you participated in helping him hide his fortune in any way?”
“No, I hardly know him.”
“He’s involved in some serious stuff. I’d advise you to stay away from him if you value your life and the lives of your loved ones.”
“What? Aren’t you involved in investment issues? What’s going on?”
“Listen, you seem like a nice lady, and I can’t go into all the details of this investigation. I can tell you that this man has some pretty dangerous people involved in his scam life and it’s not the place for a young mother like yourself.”
“How do you know I have a child?”
This guy was really starting to freak me out. Brandon didn’t strike me as the type of guy who was involved in dangerous things, but that message I received through the online system was still in my head. Whatever was going on in Brandon’s life was getting out of control, and I didn’t want to be part of it any longer. I couldn’t risk something happening to me or my son and I didn’t want to be part of the drama.
“I’m an investigator, ma’am. Here’s my card. If you think of any other important information, please give me a call. And like I said, I’d try staying away from the trouble that Mr. Baker has himself in.”
“Okay, thank you,” I replied as the man left the office and I continued sitting there.
The whole encounter had seemed rather odd. How did this guy even know who I was? I had only been on a couple of dates with Brandon, and I couldn’t have been the closest person in his life that they were able to contact.
But none of it mattered. As much as I was starting to like Brandon, I certainly couldn’t be in dangerous situations. He was going to have to figure things out before I was going to spend any more time with him.
“What’s going on? What happened? Are you going to be arrested? Am I going to be arrested?” Robert said as he rushed up to me.
“No, Robert, neither of us is going to be arrested. I can’t really talk about anything more than that.”
“You’d tell me, right? I mean, if they were after me, you wouldn’t keep that to yourself?”
I had to laugh at the paranoia that Robert had and couldn’t help but wonder what sort of trouble he was getting himself into that he actually thought someone was coming after him.
“I’d tell you, Robert. Now I’m going to get back to my desk and my work, if that’s all right with you?”
“Sure, yeah, of course. You do what you need. Let me know if you need any help. I think you’re doing a great job.”
I quickly made my way back toward my desk and grabbed Mattie as I continued walking down the hall. She pulled away from me and we looked at each other with an understanding that there was a lot we had to talk about.
“What was it? What’s happening?” she whispered.
“The guy works for the securities commission and said Brandon is mixed up in some illegal stuff. I didn’t tell you that I got a weird message from Brandon’s online account when I knew he hadn’t sent it. And, when we came back to his house from the theater, it had been broken into. He didn’t let me go inside with him, so I’m not sure what’s going on, but I saw through the window when he opened his safe. Man, I think he’s mixed up in some crazy stuff.”
I took a deep breath as I waited for Mattie to reply. It was all too much for me. Investment fraud, break ins, computer hacking: I felt like I was in the middle of a crime show and not my actual life. All the chaos seemed to come from Brandon, though, and it was looking more and more like I had to step away from whatever it was we had going on.
“First of all, I didn’t hear half of what you just said. You really should breathe more when you talk,” Mattie said. “Second of all, I think you are right and you shouldn’t risk your own wellbeing around someone who has this kind of trouble in their life.”
“Mattie, I really like him, I do; but what else can I do? I mean a dude with a badge just came and interviewed me about a guy I’ve only been on three dates with. I’m not stable enough for this kind of drama.”
“You’re stable enough for anything, don’t fool yourself.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Del, don’t be so dramatic. You’ve answered the necessary questions; now get back to your normal life. It isn’t life-altering if you just take a week or two and don’t date this guy. Either things are going to get worse, or they will clear up and you can make your decision about him then.”
“Yeah, that’s probably true.”
“It is true. Stop worrying about it.”
“I just expect things to turn into some sort of disaster and look what’s happening: it’s a disaster. Why can’t I just have a normal relationship, with a normal guy, that does
n’t end in some big, dramatic way?”
“What fun would that be?”
“I’ve got to have dinner with the ex-in-laws tonight. I had intended to tell them all about Brandon and how the dating was going; now I’m going to have to tell them I got mixed up in some sort of illegal disaster?”
“Don’t tell them anything. Just go enjoy your dinner and wait and see what happens. Del, you really have no idea what’s going on just yet.”
“I know he’s under investigation for illegal trading, right? That’s what the security exchange commission does. So, at the very least, I know that much.”
“Take a couple deep breaths. Everything doesn’t have to be decided right now. How’s your computer issue going? Did you get that all figured out, at least?”
We made our way back to our desks as I took some more deep breaths and tried to refocus myself. I still had a whole day of work ahead of me and the distraction from the morning wasn’t helping at all.
After a lot of hard work and digging, I’d finally figured out how to block whatever or whoever had been getting into our system. It looked like they had gotten in from an internal connection, which was a little concerning, but it didn’t matter any longer; I’d blocked all outside edits to my work. When the time came that someone did need to make changes, they were going to have to go through me anyways, so it was simpler just to put the security measures in place.
“It’s taken care of now. We shouldn’t have any more problems.”
“That’s great. You’re so good at fixing those issues.”
“I have to admit, the consultant had a big part in the issues getting fixed. I’m glad Robert hired him – just don’t let Robert know I said that.”
The last thing I needed was my boss thinking that he had done something right by hiring a consultant to help me. I was barely holding onto my job as it was; I didn’t need him thinking that there were other people more capable than I was.