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"Sally, you gorgeous thing," James declared, kissing her dramatically on the cheek and sending Hannah and Elliott a grimace behind her back.
Sally composed herself, straightening her straw-like hair down. "Mr. Michaels, your appointment is here."
"Right, send him in," Elliott said, waving toward Hannah.
He'd just dismissed her. Hannah almost felt like laughing. But she walked back to her office, powering up her computer and typing furiously into a search engine. Elliott would be busy for a few hours.
She needed to find a private investigator.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
His name was straight out of a detective novel, Hannah thought as she parked the car in a part of town that made her nervous that she would have no tires left when she returned. She had a box under one arm and an address scribbled on a piece of paper and she scanned the barred storefronts for the correct number.
She came to one with the picture glass window blacked out. And on the glass door was two words. Xander Rhodes.
She pulled on the door and walked inside. She found an old brown leather couch, the material slit in several places and marked up in others. Worn. Old. The desk looked like something someone had thrown away, written all over with one too-short leg. There were newspapers and an older desktop computer on top. The walls must have been white at one time but had faded to a dingy yellow-beige color. On the wall behind the desk was a collage of newspapers and various candid photos taken at a distance stuck into the wall with brightly colored thumbtacks.
"When you're done snooping, I can help you with your case, Miss Clary," a deep, ridiculously masculine voice said to her side.
She jumped and stumbled backward, turning to face him. "I'm sorry. There... there wasn't a bell or anything," she said, accusingly.
Xander Rhodes was nothing like she had pictured. When you thought private detective you thought mid-forties, hardened ex-cop. Xander Rhodes looked like someone you didn't want to meet in a dark ally at night. He was well over six feet of muscle, his shoulders wide like a football player and his arms unnecessarily muscled. She wondered, fleetingly, if he was that muscular everywhere. A blush crept up her face as she scolded herself for where her mind was going lately.
He had black hair, somewhat long and falling over his eyes. His face was all strong, hard features- fierce eyebrows and a wide jaw. Deep eyes, almost black and a long scar that split both his upper and lower lips from top to bottom. He looked like someone who would have won if forced to take part in a cage fight.
"Yeah, I get a lot of complaints about that... being bell-less," he said, deadpan, sarcastic. He walked over behind his desk, slowly. A deliberate kind of walk. "So, Miss Clary. What brought you all the way down here?"
"It's Hannah," she said, feeling her spine straighten at his tone. Like she was some spoiled rich kid who had never been in a bad neighborhood before. "Someone is threatening me."
Xander waved her toward the black metal fold-up chair and she sat, feeling the coldness even through her pants. "Alright," he said, grabbing a piece of paper and a a pen, "tell me how it all started."
"It started when I started... dating someone," she evaded. He looked up from his desk, an eyebrow raised like she was wasting his time being there. "They had snuck into my office and carved something into my desk. And then there were letters. Like a hundred of them," she said. At his silence, she felt her anger rise. How dare he act like she was being ridiculous? She pulled the top off the box, stood, and dropped all the letters onto his desk, covering his arms. Unfortunately, she didn't get the rise she was hoping for out of him. He casually reached for a letter, read it, then another, then another.
"Alright," he said, brushing them out of the way to find his paper and scribbling, "you're going to leave these with me so I can go through them. "Anything else?"
"Emails," she said, holding out a sheet of paper. "That's my name and password for the email. They are in their own folder. I figured you would need access to the originals."
"Yep," he said, taking the paper and sticking it to his. "Anything else?"
Hannah never quite felt so irritated by someone she had just met before. No wonder he worked such a crummy job- no one would ever tolerate him as an employee.
Xander looked up at her and sighed, sitting back in his chair, his hands holding a pen between them across his chest. "Look, I get it. You're upset. You should be," he said, holding up a hand at her when she was about to interrupt. "I just need all the details. Just because I am not grilling you for every minute detail doesn't mean I am not taking this seriously."
"Fine," Hannah said, no less irritated but relenting. "Um. They broke into my house. And um... stole my guinea pig."
At that, Xander's head shot up and he looked like he was about to laugh. He brought his hand up over his mouth for a second, presumably to cover a smile. "Seriously?"
Hannah sighed. "Yeah. He was gone and in his cage was a..."
"What," Xander asked, noticing her discomfort and ignoring it.
"A picture of me and... someone else. In a compromised position."
Xander's eyebrow raised as he jotted something down. "Any chance I can get a hold of that picture?"
"Not a one," she said automatically. "It was printed on regular paper. Like off a computer. No special markings or anything."
"Alright," Xander said, writing and writing away.
