by Holly Rayner
“That was your ulterior motive all along, wasn’t it?” I asked her. She laughed.
“Spending time with this amazing little guy is always my ulterior motive.”
I left Eric in good hands and went to see my first, and hopefully only, private investigator.
~
Chapter Five
~
HOLLY
I found the private investigator’s office easily and although it was a nice, neatly organized and chicly decorated place, something about being there still made me feel creepy or sleazy somehow.
“Miss Scott?” The man was tall, probably over six three or four. He wore jeans and a nice pair of cowboy boots and a long-sleeved black cowboy-cut shirt. He also spoke with a strong southern drawl that was unusual to run into in Manhattan.
“Um, yeah, it’s Mrs. though. You must be Mr. Shelton?”
“Yes ma’am, good to meet you. Please come on in.” He took me into a nice office with a big oak desk and bookshelves surrounding the room. He offered me a seat and I took one of the chairs facing his desk. He sat down too and took out some paperwork. Then he folded his hands under his chin and looked at me, “Are you a little nervous about coming here?”
I smiled, “Yeah, just a little,” I told him. “I’m not usually one to invade other’s privacy, but sometimes people just take their lies too far, you know?”
He grinned and said, “I do know. That’s why I’m in the business I am.”
I nodded and told him, “My problem is that I know this woman is lying, but I don’t know how to prove it. I’m afraid if I don’t prove it soon, however that it might mean the end of my marriage, or even worse.”
He took a pen from his pocket and stacked the paperwork in front of him. Then he said, “Alright then, let’s get started so that we can try and stop that from happening.”
He started asking me a lot of questions. As we talked, I felt a little bad about telling him things about Aiden, like I was betraying him somehow. When we finished, he told me that I just had to keep in mind that what I was asking him to do was to protect my family. He assured me that he was only going to talk to Jake and people who knew Cecile but that he wouldn’t involve Mark at all and he also wouldn’t bring my name up to anyone as his client.
I shook his hand before I left and thanked him. He told me that he would be in touch as soon as he had anything substantial. I left, not knowing if I was doing the right thing or not, but at least feeling like I was being a little more pro-active with my life.
***
About a week later Aiden and I were having coffee before he left for work. It was one of the rare times I’d seen him that week. He had been leaving when the sun came up and coming home long after it went down every day. I felt like a single mother and I told him so.
“I miss you, Aiden. Eric misses you. I eat dinner alone every night. Every time the baby does something incredible and I want to tell you about it I can’t because I’m asleep by the time you get home and not up yet when you leave. You said you were going be able to spend more time with us when your big project was up and running, hasn’t that happened yet?”
“Not yet, baby. I’m sorry; I miss you both too, so much. I try to get home at a decent time every night, I really do. Every night this week so far as I tried to walk out, I’d get called back for one crazy thing or another. I know those are just excuses and what you need is action. You need me to be here for you and I need to try harder. I really don’t have that much to do today. Anything that comes up late, I’ll have Randall take care of it and I’ll be home by six, okay?”
I smiled and put my hand on the side of his face, “Okay, I’ll make dinner for us.”
“That sounds better to me than you can imagine. I miss you so bad.”
He leaned in then and covered my mouth with his. He had one hand on the back of my neck and the other on my waist and I felt his tongue snake in between my lips and seek mine out. We shared a long, deep, passionate kiss and I didn’t care that I couldn’t breathe; I didn’t want it to end.
When he broke the kiss he looked at me with those deep, sexy, brown eyes of his and gave me one of his sexiest toothy grins and said, “Hold that thought for me for a few hours?”
“Oh, I will,” I told him. “You better be here, tonight, Mr.”
He pulled me in and kissed me again, then he said, “I will be, and you can take that to the bank. I love you, Holly.”
“I love you too,” I told him.
Once Eric had gotten up and had his breakfast and bath, he and I went out to do some shopping. I was so happy; I was actually humming as we made our way through the Whole Foods store, picking out the ingredients for Aiden’s favorite meal. I was on cloud nine, until I heard a familiar voice. It sent a chill down my spine as I heard Cecile’s voice come from behind me.
“Oh my goodness, Holly…and Eric.” I wanted to keep walking, but I was trapped by my own good manners. I sighed, cursed in my head, and turned around and saw her behind me with a shopping cart. I tried not to notice that she had a lot of Aiden’s favorite things in her cart, almost like she was stocking her home to his tastes.
“Cecile, hi. You’re shopping a long way from home. No grocery stores in Scarsdale?”
“Nothing good,” she said with one of her fake smiles. “I love this place; everything is organic and so fresh.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I should go, Eric and I have a busy day.”
“Sure, it was great seeing you and you too, Eric. I do hope your mommy wiped that basket down before she sat you in it. It’s just covered in germs.”
Something inside of me snapped a little bit. I looked at her and I could feel the fire burning in my eyes.
“I am so sick of you acting like you think you know so much more about being a mother than I do. I adore my son and if I make mistakes, they’re no worse than what other new parents do. He’s very well taken care of and I don’t need advice from the likes of you. I have plenty of support if I have questions.”
She smirked and said, “You mean your waitress friends…Oh! Maybe you mean your mother, the drunk?”
I took a step towards her and sometimes later when I think about it, I have to admit that Eric saved my life. If I had assaulted her, the way I’d wanted to she would have called the police in a heartbeat. The only thing that kept me from doing it was my angel sitting there in the basket watching me.
“Aiden’s going to figure out what you’re doing soon enough, Cecile. Right now, he’s so thrilled that you’re letting him see Mark, but I’m doing all I can to encourage him to call Jake and get the real story,” Cecile’s entire affect changed when I said that. “I have no doubt that as soon as that happens, your jig will be up. Have a nice day.”
I could almost feel the daggers she was shooting out of her eyes and into my back as I walked away. It felt good to finally tell her what I thought of her. I had no idea how that was going to backfire on me later on that day.
I finished picking up what I needed quickly and paid for our purchases. I didn’t want to chance another run-in with Cecile. She’d already gone a long way to run off my happy mood. When we got to the car I put Eric in his seat and strapped him in and then I unloaded the groceries into the car. As I stepped into the SUV, my phone rang. Looking at the face I saw that it was the private investigator.
“Mr. Shelton, hello.”
“Hey there Mrs. Scott,” he said. “I have some news for you.”
“Great, what did you find out?” I asked him.
“I was hoping you could come by and pick up the file I have, if you have time. If not, I’d be happy to bring it by to you.”
“Well, I’m actually out right now. If you’ll be there for a while, I’ll come by on my way home and get the file and settle up with you.”
“That sounds dandy,” he said.
Eric and I stopped at Shelton’s office. When I carried him in, the P.I. smiled broadly at the baby and said, “I can see why you’re so determined to protect your fa
mily. That is a right fine looking young man you have there.”
“Thank you,” I told him with a smile. “I think so too.” We sat down and he opened a manila file. He took out some photos of Cecile that looked like bank surveillance photos. I thought that was strange, it wasn’t like I was accusing her of stealing money or anything. Then, he took out some more photos of her in “compromising” positions with a much older man. “Is that Jake?” I asked him.
He chuckled and said, “No ma’am. That is the manager of a bank in Manhattan. That was where Jake and Cecile had one of their joint banking accounts. It seems that even though neither person should have been able to access that account without the other’s signature…Cecile cleaned that account out right after she left Jake. These pictures of her and the manager, and the ones from the bank were given to me by Jake. They were given to him by his own private investigator. He knows where Cecile and the boy are. He hasn’t gone after her yet because he’s building a case. She and the bank manager can likely be charged with theft and fraud when this all comes to light. Jake is having her surveyed to make sure the boy is being taken care of. He’s aware that Aiden has been spending time with him. He told me that he was glad of it. He’d suggested it to Cecile a while back and Cecile had declined to give him permission to set it up.”
“Wow,” I said, “This is a lot more than I bargained for. What about the abuse allegations that she made towards Jake? Is he aware that’s what she’s been saying?”
“I told him, today. But, not until he told me that is what she said to him to keep him from allowing Aiden to see him. I think she’s been working it both ways”
“This is unbelievable. She’s worse than I thought.”
“Yes ma’am, I think you need to trust your instincts from now on. They’re pretty good ones. It’s all there in the file; Jake was even kind enough to sign the paperwork from our interview for me. This all just gives him more ammunition to get custody of that boy.”
I was so happy; I wanted to hug this big man. I didn’t do it; again, I have good impulse control. Instead, I paid him, gave him a bonus, thanked him profusely and Eric and I sang happy songs all the way home.
AIDEN
I spent my whole day thinking about having dinner with Holly and spending a long, romantic evening with her. I could hardly concentrate on my work and several times I had to tell Randall that I was fine and not having some kind of mental breakdown because I didn’t respond when someone talked to me and I had forgotten some important points about one of our big contracts. I missed my wife like crazy, and my son. This deal was supposed to be closed by the end of the week and then I could hire someone to help Randall do what needed to be done from here on out and spend more time with my family.
It was around five p.m. as I was wrapping things up for the evening when my phone rang. I looked at it and saw that it was Cecile. I really didn’t want to answer it, I was tiring of her games, and I knew that she was really getting to Holly. I hesitated, but I went ahead and answered it. I worried that if I didn’t, it would be like the day Mark had the seizure and then I wouldn’t be there for him when he needed me.
“Hello?”
“Hi Aiden,” her voice sounded sullen or depressed.
“Hey Cecile, what’s up?”
“Are you still at work?”
“Yeah, what’s going on? Is Mark okay?”
“Mark’s fine. He’s at a sleepover with a friend tonight.”
“Okay then, what’s up?” I was getting annoyed with her.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a deep sob suddenly. “I’ve just had such a bad day. I’ve been out driving since I dropped Mark at his friend’s house. I don’t know where to go or what to do.”