“Hedgefund, huh?” I whistled appreciatively as I glanced up at him. “We’re cooking with gas, then?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Family’s old money. But break-ins happen everywhere, even in The Rock. Just thought you should know what you’re dealing with. One remarkable thing, though. He came out of the recession smelling like roses. Nearly doubled their holdings, and it’s just kept climbing.”
I nodded. That wasn’t too surprising. Plenty of people came out of the recession doing well, especially if all they were losing was money on a balance sheet. “Anything besides her family in here? We know anything about her?”
He shook his head. “She’s pretty low-key. Just seems like the normal debutante, wealthy heiress bag. Like I said, just thought you should know. That’s it.” He patted the arms of his chair and stood to leave.
I shut the file for a second and glanced up at him. “Hey, Pete? Can I talk to you?”
He settled back down in his seat with a tired look. “About the case? Or…?”
“About you. And, well, that girl Gen brought back from Oklahoma. Mary.”
He sighed, his jaw and teeth working a little bit.
A few months back, during the fiasco with the Skull and Bones outlaw biker gang and Jessica Long, Peter had disappeared to Oklahoma to meet with some corporate types. He didn’t come back with any work he rustled up on in the Sooner state, though. Instead, he’d come back with a girl. A young shifter named Mary Waynescott, who’d been staying out on his property outside of town.
It had been a touchy subject with him, and he’d refused to really speak on the matter with the rest of the pack, just saying she needed time and space to adjust to the new area, to her new school. No word on her family, where he’d gotten her, or who she was. None of that. Only that she was Gen’s great-niece, and not to ask too many questions because she wouldn’t answer them anyway.
With that last part in mind, I raised my hands. “I ain’t gonna ask about her, Peter, where she comes from, any of that, don’t worry. Alright? You’ve been clear.”
He sighed through his nose and nodded. “What, then?”
“You doing okay? You seem tired, is all.”
He glanced away, frowning a little as he looked at a blank spot on the wall and seemed to try and figure out the best way to word whatever he was about to say. “She’s…troubled. I knew she was and, I mean, aren’t we all? But she’s still just a young girl. So, yeah, nights are hard for her.”
I settled in my seat and shifted as he spoke. “I just, we—the guys—we’ve been thinking, that’s all…” I trailed off as I caught the look on his face. He wasn’t happy, that was for damned sure. “I’m just saying, if you need any help, you let us know, okay? We don’t necessarily want to do anything without your say so, but we can do things like grocery shopping and such, man. Pick up the slack. Look, I helped raise my younger brother and sister, so I know it’s hard. But we’re a team, Pete. And just cause you’re the leader, that don’t mean you’re not part of the team, too. You can ask for help.”
A look of relief came over his face, one that said he was glad he didn’t have to fight with me over whatever decision he’d made and was going through with. He nodded. “I’ll think it over,” he said as he rose from the chair. “Your offer, I mean. Eventually, I want her to meet all of you. Just not yet. Give it time.”
I nodded and glanced down at the time on my desk phone. “Will do. Just remember our offer, okay? You’re strong, boss, but even Hercules needed help sometimes.”
Laughing, he stopped at my office door. “That was just in that crappy TV show. Hercules never had any help.”
“Whatever,” I called back. “See if I ever offer you any handouts again!”
Frowning, I pushed the matter to the back of my mind as I returned to the file Peter had dropped off. I spent the next ten minutes or so going through it, looking over the quick rundown Gen had made when she’d taken the initial phone call. All seemed pretty cut and dry, except for one part that really stuck out like a sore thumb to me. The alarm had never been triggered, and nothing valuable had been stolen.
That was odd. I grabbed a pen from my little desk organizer, circled those two points and, after a quick glance at the time, started to go back through it to see if anything else seemed out of place. A few minutes into my second run-through, my phone’s intercom beeped. “Frank?” Gen’s voice called. “Your nine-thirty is here.”
“Be right there,” I replied, jogging the file back together and removing just the legal sheet before grabbing one of my own smaller pads. I left the file on her father and his business back on my desk and headed up front. I didn’t necessarily want her to know we’d been doing research on him or where her money came from. Not at a first meeting while we were trying to get details of the incident itself.
I got up and headed out to the lobby, walking past Jacob just lounging back in his chair in the office, hands clasped behind his head, feet up on his desk. Jake was an ex-cop from LA who worked most of our missing persons and skip-tracing cases. He did his time in the military, just like we all had, and went straight into the academy after he got out. He’d done a stint in their robbery and homicide division and had a good nose when it came to this kind of thing. Might he’d be able to give me some pointers or see something I didn’t. I knocked loudly on his open door and popped my head in.
“Frank,” he said with a nod, not even glancing up from the monitor. Like all of us, his sense of smell was better than a Bloodhound's.
“Hey, Jake. Got a minute?”
“What do you think, cowboy?”
“I think you’re watching a soccer game on a pirated streaming service that Lacy set up for you.” Lacy was our IT girl and Gen Richter’s granddaughter. Where Gen was our den momma, she was our company mascot.
He grinned and glanced over at me. “It’s called football, you heathen.”
I rolled my eyes. “Got a client up front, had a break-in last night.”
“That the one that smells like Beverly Hills?”
“Never smelled it before, but I’ll take your nose’s word on that.”
“Want me to take a look at it later?”
“Run it cold?” I asked.
“You know how I prefer it,” he said with a nod, his feet still up on the desk. “Gives me less preconceptions about the scene.”
“You just prefer that I leave you alone while you’re watching a game.”
“Match, dammit. Get it right if you’re gonna give me shit about it.”
“Where’s the fun in that, partner?”
“Lemme know when they got your sorry ass going wherever, and I’ll ride out with you. Deal?”
Honestly, Jake wasn’t slacking off on his work. He didn’t have an active case at the moment and, when we were free, our time was our own. He’d just never invested in a computer or a decent internet connection at his cabin way out in the middle of nowhere, and there weren’t any bars in the area that showed his soccer games. Whenever he did get assigned a case, his snout pressed to the grindstone just as hard as any of ours, and I knew it.
But what good is a buddy if you can’t give him a little shit?
“Deal.” I tapped the door twice, then headed off to meet Miss Ashley Maxwell.
I rounded the corner of the glass offices to the little lobby to meet my client. I stopped as soon as I got a look at her. You could’ve blown me down with a feather.
I mean, I knew she’d be good-looking. Most of these rich socialite girls were, since they took after their mothers.
But, damn, she was beautiful, even with the despondent, exhausted look on her face. Just everything about her—the way her long blonde hair fell across her shoulders, the way she crossed her legs with her sandal dangling from her foot, and her billowing vintage dress that still clung to her form—was striking. Even the way she smelled, faintly of amber and some kind of exotic incense I hadn’t smelled since I’d visited my buddy at the University of North Texas. This was one amazin
g-looking gypsy, even if she was wearing second-hand vintage clothing.
As I stopped to catch my breath in the lobby, she turned her long neck and looked right at me with eyes the deepest blue I’d ever seen, the kind of blue you expected the ocean to be when you were a kid.
I swallowed hard, put on my biggest, most confident smile. “Ms. Maxwell?”
She smiled a little uncertainly and stood from her seat.
“I’m Frank O’Dwyer,” I said, stepping forward and offering my hand. “I’ll be working your case.”
“Ashley,” she said as she brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled a little wider and more genuinely. “Please, you can just call me Ashley.”
Chapter Four - Ashley
The receptionist, Gen, brought me my tea not long after I’d settled down at the conference table across from Frank. I nearly blushed—I was so embarrassed by her having to clear her throat to get my attention, cup of tea in hand.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling as sweetly as I could at the receptionist. She’d been really wonderful over the phone, especially after the night I’d been having and the wreck of a house I’d woken up to. But now that I was here at Frost Security, I surprisingly felt a little better.
“Can you walk me through everything again?” Frank asked, pen and notepad at hand. “From the beginning, ma’am?”
“From the beginning?” I asked, sighing a little as I grabbed my cup of tea and brought it to my lips, savoring the warmth. Something about a cup of tea always felt comforting.
“I know,” he said, a drawl in his voice that seemed reassuring and manly. Like he could go rope cattle and shoot a gun or something, and still have time to ride down the bad guys. “You’ve probably had to do a lot of this already. But this will be the last time, I promise.”
I nodded and took another sip of tea before clearing my voice. “Okay.”
I walked him through the drive up to the house.
“What time was it again?” he asked.
“Sometime after midnight, I think. I know it was before midnight when Sheila and I turned in for the evening, since I thought one more would get me a little too tipsy.”
“No exact time, though?”
I shook my head, and he nodded for me to continue.
“I pulled up at the house and put the car in the garage.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary that you saw in the garage, or anywhere else?”
I pursed my lips and thought about it. “Only that Father has all the cars in the shop for to get them checked for winter.”
He nodded. “Are you sure about that?”
“Well, they weren’t there when I got into town,” I said with a shrug. “So I don’t think they were stolen last night or anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
He smirked a little and made a note on the pad. “You went into the house? The door was locked?”
“Yes. I went in, I think the alarm was going off, so I turned that off, then went into the kitchen and got out stuff to make a sandwich. When I was making my sandwich, I felt the breeze, and that’s when I discovered the broken window in the living room.”
He grunted and tapped his pen on the notepad. “You say you turned off the alarm, ma’am? You disarmed it or it was going off?”
I stopped to think about it. “To tell you the truth, I just typed in the passcode, so I don’t know for sure. Maybe I did disarm it, or the alarm was going off? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard what the alarm sounds like when it goes off. And, please, stop calling me ma’am. I think I’m younger than you, Mr. O’Dwyer.”
“Force of habit. I’ll try and remember to break it.” He smiled, his eyes going back to the notebook open on the table in front of him. “And don’t worry, we can call and check on the alarm. They’ll have a record of it from last night. With your permission, of course, ma’am.”
I cleared my throat and gave him a look.
“Sorry,” he said, his face stony. “And, please, don’t ever call me Mr. O’Dwyer. My uncles were Mr. O’Dwyers. I’m just Frank.”
“You’ll need my father’s permission, or one of his people I guess,” I said, laughing a little. Just something about this man, he seemed so capable and dependable. So completely unlike the boys I normally ran into. They were all just faux-macho. Frank, he had some kind of quiet confidence, and I knew he never had to boast about how strong or tough he was. Unfortunately, I could tell he didn’t come from money or any kind of well-heeled family. Definitely not marriage material or anything, but definitely a good bodyguard. “The cabin belongs to him and I think everything’s in his name. And you’re forgiven.”
He smiled and nodded. “Got it. And nothing was stolen? Nothing that you saw?”
“The Deputy and I, oh shoot, I forgot his name–”
“Glick?” he asked, glancing up from his notebook.
I nodded. “Right. Deputy Glick and I walked the cabin, but we didn’t see anything gone, or missing, or anything.”
“Just ransacked?”
“Ransacked,” I agreed. “Good word.”
“We’ve got whole books of them. What does Glick think about it? Did he say?”
“He thinks it was just some local boys, that they thought it was one of the vacation homes, and didn’t think anyone was there yet since it’s off-season.”
“Could be, I guess,” he ventured, his brow furrowed.
I looked up at him and looked in his eyes. I thought I could see uncertainty there at what the deputy thought. “What do you think it is?”
“Oh, I’d prefer not to make any assumptions about anything just yet. These kinds of cases, when we get one, we like to look at all the evidence at the scene, anything the police might have missed, and everything they have before we start making theories. But Glick’s thoughts on it could be accurate. We won’t know for sure until we spend some time at the site.”
“So what do we want to do?” I asked.
“First, have you contacted your father and let him know what happened? You see, you’re an adult, so normally I wouldn’t ask, but you did mention that it’s his cabin…”
I shook my head. “No. I’m pretty sure my father knows I’m up here, but he and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms. I’m going to call his assistant as soon as I leave here and let her know what happened.”
“Good. Because you’ll definitely want to get that window replaced. It’s supposed to get cold soon. There’s a contractor I know, if you’d like his number.”
“Thank you.”
“But other than that, one of the guys from the office and I would like to go visit your cabin, look at the scene ourselves before you begin any kind of cleanup. I know Deputy Glick probably made a report, but you’re paying us to visit and investigate on our own, correct?”
I gripped the tea mug a little tighter, my knuckles white as I looked down into it, lost in thought. I didn’t say anything for a long moment, just thought about the picture of me and my mother on my birthday, of the broken frame that had once held it. Even though Deputy Glick had dismissed my questions about why nothing was taken, it still felt like something other than a robbery.
“Ashley?” Frank asked, snapping me back into reality.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just—it’s been a long night, you know? What were you saying again?”
“It’s okay,” he said with a tight smile. “I understand. I’ve had plenty of those myself. I was just confirming that you wanted us to investigate it, see if we could track down the person who did it. That’s correct, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’d be cool. I mean, yes, that’s what I’m looking for.”
He smiled and pushed his chair back, and rose from the table. “Okay. Gen will be in here in a little bit with a quote. As soon as we get your first payment we’ll head out.”
“Frank?” I asked as crossed to the conference room door.
He turned back to me, a questioning look on his face, his strong jaw
set to take whatever the world gave him.
“Thank you. I didn’t know what to expect when I came in here, but you’ve been wonderful.”
He nodded, giving me a polite smile. “That’s what we’re here for.”
I picked up my mug again and took another sip as he left. I stayed there with my thoughts for a few minutes. I considered posting something on social media, but I didn’t know what to say.
What would I even say? “LOL! Totally got broken into last night!”
I shook my head. What if one of my friends tried to contact my father or something because they saw my post? Or started up some kind of rumor? No, that didn’t seem right. He needed to hear it from me, even if it was by way of his assistant Barbara, the old battle ax.
The more I thought about it now, the more worried I was that my father would freak out no matter how he found out. Hell, what if the old man tried to make me move back in with him? He could do it, too, if he really wanted. All he had to do was cut off the money from my trust. I didn’t get full control over it until I was thirty, which meant he controlled the purse strings for quite a few more years. I’d be screwed!
I realized then that my heart was racing almost as fast as it was last night, thumping harder at just the thought of being stuck in the same house as him. Hell, the same city. Shit.
No, I could handle this on my own, I decided. No need to worry Father. I could pay for the security guys, the contractor, clean up, all that, with the credit cards I had. They hardly batted an eye when I went on a shopping spree or flew over to Europe. I don’t think they even looked at the bills anymore.
“You okay on tea, dear?”
I glanced up, surprised at the sudden interruption of my thoughts.
Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 27