Hoverfly Girl

by Parker Wren

  Hand in hand, Dom and I walked down to the water. I shivered in my thin, oversized tee, which didn’t provide much extra protection beyond my bikini.

  “Would you like my shirt?” Dom asked. He was wearing a pink button-down, front open, over cargo shorts.

  “It’s okay. I’m good,” I said.

  “You’re freezing! Come on,” he said, taking off his shirt. As much as I had been thinking about Grayson, Dom was a good distraction. Despite all of our sedentary time on the beach, his tense muscles were still present. The sun had given him a handsome glow, and his blonde hair had grown longer. It suited him.

  “Give me your shirt,” he said.

  I laughed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! That thing is huge. It should fit me.”

  It did. Just barely. I laughed again. “Only you could look good in a woman’s v-neck.”

  “You know it, babe,” he said.

  I slid on his shirt and buttoned it up. I felt instantly warmer in the thick long sleeves. It smelled like sunscreen and beer, with a faint hint of his own musky scent.

  He put his arm around me. I was surprised; this was the first time he had touched me when no one else was around. I let him, and slid in to his warm body as we walked.

  “So I talked to Manuel today,” Dom said.

  This was the conversation I was dreading. I knew why we had come there. I had taken a ridiculous job that I wasn’t even sure was legal, and I had pushed it to the back of my mind, as if avoiding it would make it go away.

  “Oh, great,” I said sarcastically.

  “It’s what we came here for, Ariel,” Dom said. “He texted me, and I had to call back. I mean, I know you signed on just so that you could be my girlfriend—”

  I gave a small smile.

  “—but we have to do something soon,” he continued. “Grayson is going to be out of town for a couple days, and then Brit and Henry are spending a night in Boston, so we will have some time to go digging. I think Brit and Henry planned their trip at the same time as Grayson so that you and I could have some—ahem—alone time.” Dom wiggled his eyebrows and nudged me.

  My heart sunk at the news that Grayson would be gone.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Dom could tell I wasn’t pleased.

  “Here, let’s sit,” he said.

  We sat on the sand, watching the sun melt into the horizon. For a brief moment, I felt deeply alone in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “I know this sucks,” his whispered.

  I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I think you and I feel the same way. I like Henry a lot, and to betray him just… I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”

  I nodded. “I know. I really like him and Brit.”

  Dom said, “I keep telling myself that this is best for Henry—that this is to help him, so that all of the blame goes to his father. Not to him.”

  “Is that what Manuel told you?”

  “Kind of,” Dom said. “He’s so vague that I feel like I have to read between the lines. One thing he keeps emphasizing is how loyal Henry is to his father, so we can’t risk Henry finding out, or we undermine all these other investigations. I feel like everything is all connected somehow, but I just can’t put the dots together.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I never knew when I took this job how much I would hate not knowing what was going on. I should have thought this through more.”

  “No kidding,” Dom said. “Manuel hasn’t been happy with how I’ve done. He keeps wanting me to talk to Henry but without tipping Henry off. I’ve tried a few times, but it never goes anywhere. So Manuel thinks I’m slacking.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” I said.

  Dom sighed. “I just feel like a jerk. And I don’t need the money or anything. The last job I did for them was exciting, and when they suggested a second one, I thought sure—why not?”

  “What did you do last time, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Oh, it’s stupid,” he said. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, but screw it. We’re in this position together now.”

  He explained. “It was a similar setup to Henry, where it’s someone I kind of knew through a friend. I had to find proof that this guy was cheating on his wife. The guy was a total douche, so I didn’t mind. I became his party friend, and he confessed his affair to me one night when he was drunk. He was totally paranoid, and a private investigator had failed to turn up proof because this guy was so careful, which is why they brought me on board. I recorded our conversation and found out how he and his mistress met up. I told Manuel—I assume—so he could then tell the private investigator.”

  “How did they meet up?” I asked.

  “In his office. She was his boss.”

  I shook my head. “Well, makes for a nice switcharoo in the normal office affairs, huh?”

  “Yeah. He had cheated before, but the wife didn’t suspect the boss this time. It turns out the wife was the client I was working for.”

  “So much for Select Recruits being secret government outsource work, huh?”

  “Ha,” Dom said. “That’s what they tell you. The wife was a politician, so I guess she’s the kind of VIP Select Recruits will occasionally work for. Of course, I was never told this, but I eventually figured it out.”

  I sighed. “So we really don’t even know for sure who we are working for.”

  Dom nodded. “Well, how about we compare notes,” he suggested. “We’ll keep trying to solve this puzzle. We’ll do what Manuel asks, but we will keep our heads on straight and eyes open.”

  “Well, that’s a good goal,” I said.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning, after an average terrible night of sleep, I sat on the deck, curled up in a fleece blanket. I hadn’t bothered putting any makeup on. I had given up trying to look good for Dom or Grayson or whomever it was I was supposed to look good for anymore. Makeup had its purpose, and early mornings certainly weren’t one of them.

  I took a slow sip of my hot coffee and waited for the caffeine to kick in. The sound of the waves, the smell of the Martha’s Vineyard air, and the energy around me felt like home. I thought again about how there is something about a place where you spend your childhood. It’s as if that place has become a part of who you are, gently etched into your marrow.

  “Hey.”

  The voice sent my thoughts spiraling away. Grayson came out onto the deck, eating a bagel. He didn’t sit down.

  “Hey,” I said. I wasn’t sure where we stood as friends; we still hadn’t been alone since that one night—the first day we met. Were things awkward between us? Had he been avoiding me? Or had I really just been making it up in my head?

  “Your hair,” he said.

  I turned in my chair to face him, knees still at my chest.

  “What about my hair?” I asked.

  “Won’t it get all tangled? In the wind? I didn’t realize it was so long,” he said. He paused then, as if he’d given something away.

  I smiled, glad for an excuse to look at his face, a day’s worth of dark scruff growing.

  “Well, thanks for caring about my hair,” I said. “But I don’t mind. It’ll just be knotty. I’d rather have the wind in it and deal with the mess later.”

  “Fair enough,” he said and sat down to finish his breakfast.

  I hated awkward silences, and I was determined to make small talk with Grayson.

  “So,” I said, “I hear you’re headed out of town?”

  Grayson nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Going to see my parents. They never like it when I go too long without visiting.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, meaning it.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, they’re not too bad. They keep me sane anyway.”

  “Well, you’re one of the lucky ones,” I replied. “Most people’s parents do exactly the opposite.”

  Grayson laughed. “Yeah. Good point.”

  We both looked
out at the ocean for a few moments.

  “So what are you up to these next couple of days?” he asked.

  I held my coffee mug in between my hands, cupping it so that my hands formed a full circle around it.

  “Just staying here,” I said. I wanted to avoid mentioning Dom. “I have some work to do.”

  “Oh yeah? What are you working on?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Oh, it’s boring, really. Rewriting yet another paper. Story of my life. Collect data, write thirty-page papers, rewrite them , and then rewrite them again, if I’m lucky. But if I’m really lucky, they’ll give me my PhD. Eventually.”

  Grayson shook his head, smiling. “Yeah, no thanks.”

  He went to get up and before he turned to say goodbye, said something else instead.

  “Good for you,” he said.

  “Hmm?” I said, looking up from my cup.

  “That you do something you love. No matter what a pain in the ass it is. Not many people can say that.”

  I looked at him this time—really looked at him—and let myself make eye contact. I remembered looking at those deep-brown eyes before, feeling like we had really connected, and then losing them these past weeks.

  “But you can say that too,” I said. “About your job.”

  He smiled, shifted his gaze, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess we’re just a lucky pair.”

  He started walking inside the house, and I felt that part in my middle sink, as if it was dipping back into the waves.

  “Have a good day, Air,” he said.

  “You too. Bye,” I said, immediately turning my body back to my beach.

  Air? Goddamnit. He called me Air. It was just a nickname, but there was an intimacy to it. To just assume you could call someone by a nickname, to shorten their name, to make it yours, without asking permission.

  Before I had time to be frustrated and giddy and confused, Henry and Brit poked their heads out on the deck.

  “Bye Ariel!” Brit said. She looked happy, wearing a light blue dress with her hair tied up in a tight bun. Henry was similarly handsome in a linen shirt and khakis.

  “It’s freezing out here! You should come in,” Henry said.

  “Thanks, guys. I will soon,” I said. “I’ll see you when you get back. Have a good time in Boston!”

  “We’ll try,” Brit said. “Henry has some kind of ‘business’ he won’t tell me about, then we have to go to some boring event with his dad.”

  “Hey,” Henry said, “we met at one of those boring events.”

  “Well, now I have you, so there’s no need to go to them anymore,” Brit said, kissing Henry softly on the lips.

  Dom squeezed by them both, looking even rougher than me; he was wearing a wrinkled sweatshirt and backwards baseball cap.

  “Oh, come on, you two. It’s too early in the morning for your love fest. Move along!” Dom said, holding a big glass of orange juice in one hand and waving them away with the other.

  “We get the message,” Henry said, but he was smiling. “Okay, we’re really leaving now. Have a fun alone time, you two!”

  “Yeah,” Brit said. “Have a really fun break.” She gave me an obvious wink, along with a thumbs up, before heading back inside with Henry.

  I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” Dom said, sitting down across the table from me. “Now that we’ve gotten rid of those idiots, let’s get to work.”

  “Dom!” I yelled in a whisper. Whisper-yelling, I liked to call it. “They just left. Let’s wait a little bit. For real.”

  “Fine, have it your way,” Dom said. He took a big gulp of his orange juice. “What do you want to do instead?”

  “Well, I have some work to do,” I said. “How about we regroup in an hour?”

  Dom took another large drink.

  “What is up with you and that orange juice?” I asked.

  “Oh, this? It’s a mimosa,” he replied.

  “Biggest mimosa I’ve ever seen,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  ---

  After about an hour of writing, I went to fetch Dom, who was playing video games in the living room. We decided to go over our plan of action before doing anything.

  “Okay,” Dom said, “I’ll tell you what I’ve done so far.”

  “Didn’t Manuel already go over that?” I asked.

  “I guess,” Dom said, “but now that we are really starting this thing together, I figure it can’t hurt to go over what we already know.”

  “Yeah. Good point.”

  “So,” he said, “the whole point of this is that Henry’s dad is somehow siphoning off money into offshore accounts. Whatever he’s doing—and this is according to Manuel, so who really knows how accurate any of this is—he’s using someone else to help him, and he’s doing it in such a way that the Feds haven’t been able to figure it out. Or they know exactly what he’s doing, but the authorities need more help in tracking down the evidence.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “hence you and me and our extralegal operation here.”

  “Someone with big pockets obviously cares about this,” Dom said. “But since we have no idea who that person is, all we can do right now is try to find out the information and hope we figure out the rest.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Agreed. So, tell me what you’ve already done?”

  Dom went over his multiple attempts at talking to Henry about his dad. It had taken Henry some time to open up to Dom. According to Henry, his relationship with his father had been estranged for a time. They fought over money and the business. Since Henry was young, his father always assumed that his eldest son, Henry, would take over the investment company. Henry, like just many other heirs before him, had his doubts and periods of rebellion. However, the power, prestige, and continued money promised by taking over his father’s business eventually led him to work for his father for a period of time before becoming disillusioned again and quitting. Based on Dom’s conversations with Henry, Henry had not indicated any knowledge of the Ponzi scheme being run by his father.

  “But he worked intimately with him and with the financial statements,” I said. “How could Henry not know?”

  Dom shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I guess that’s why I started kind of giving up. I’m not convinced that Henry has anything to do with it.”

  “Okay,” I said, “what else have you looked into?”

  “I’ve looked in Henry’s office a few times, tried to look at his computer and phone,” Dom said. “All around the house, including his car, but the office is where there could be something. There are a few locked cabinets.”

  “Have you been able to open them?” I asked.

  “No,” Dom said. “I tried to get the key from his key ring once when he was asleep and left his keys out, but none of them matched.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on,” I said.

  Dom and I walked over to Henry’s office. There was nothing particularly striking about it. The dark-wood furniture was accented by a nautical theme; a large globe hung from the ceiling.

  “All of these files,” Dom said, rifling through a stack of papers on Henry’s desk,” are just bills and stuff. Nothing important.”

  “Be careful!” I said, stopping his hand. “You need to make sure you we keep the office looking exactly the same.”

  Dom slanted his gaze at me. “Yes, Sherlock, I know that.”

  I had already moved on to the cabinet. “So about these locked cabinets,” I said. “Which ones are they?”

  “These,” Dom said, pointing me to the ones surrounding the desk chair.

  I grabbed a paperclip off of the desk and got down on my knees.

  “You’re going to pick the lock?”

  “Yes, Watson,” I said. “You really are new to this.”

  I easily opened all of the filing cabinets that were locked. Dom and I looked at each other, aware of the other’s discomfort at going through Henry’s personal things. We didn’t say anyth
ing. We took out files and we read.

  We took hours reading over everything, getting to know intimate parts of Henry’s life. We knew the gifts he liked to buy for Brit, personal letters he had kept from an ex-girlfriend, and old papers he had written for college.

  “I think I found something,” Dom finally said.

  We looked at the document. It was a financial statement. A large amount of money—$100,000—had been moved from a personal account to an account at a Swiss bank.

  “There are more of these,” I said. “Look. All of these are transactions into this Swiss account.”

  “Aren’t they cracking down on Americans who hide their money in Switzerland?” Dom asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “That is odd. They’re all under his name too.”

  Dom shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said.

  I touched Dom’s arm. “It might,” I said. “It does if he’s moving money for his dad. It doesn’t mean he was smart about it.”

  “But wouldn’t the Feds be able to track this kind of stuff? It looks pretty straight forward.” Dom asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t really know a whole lot about this stuff. I need to think.”

  Dom was quiet for a little bit.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “We send the pictures to Manuel, then you and I talk. Okay?”

  Dom nodded. Without saying anything, we took pictures of the documents with our phones and sent them to Manuel.

  I then brought Dom outside to the deck.

  “This will buy us some time,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Dom asked.

  “You said it yourself. You don’t think Henry’s involved. So let’s not go digging where we don’t need to dig.”

  “But the job?” Dom said.

  “We have been half-assing this job and you know it. And I don’t care,” I said. I was getting more righteous the more I thought about it.

  I continued. “You know what files I really need access to? His computer. His phone. His email. Not easy to get, I know, but we could do it. Trust me. If we need to dig, I know how to dig.”