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“I like dick,” Aida said.
Miranda’s pale cheeks bloomed with two crimson roses. “What?”
“Private dick.” She chuckled. “I get such a kick out of the term.”
Miranda laughed, nervous and a little too high for her voice. “Okay. I get it.”
“So you were starting to let me in on what brings you here, besides those sandals of yours.” She raised up slightly to peer down at Miranda’s feet. “Ecco?” Aida liked the brand, even though she was now more partial to good old Birkenstocks.
“Yeah. Anyway, my dad just got married, and I don’t know, I’m not happy.”
“Why not?”
“I just, uh, don’t trust the guy. Something seems off about him. I felt it the moment I laid eyes on him. You probably think that’s weird. Overprotective. Maybe paranoid?”
Aida shook her head. “Not at all. I believe in intuition. Hunches. There’s more to be said for what comes to us through our guts rather than our heads. Intuition, I’ve found, never lies. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you or your feelings. In fact, if you feel that way, even before you had any logical reason for it, I suspect there’s more to the man than meets the eye.”
Miranda nodded and appeared to be relieved. “Yes. You’re right—my daddy, he’s a writer—has said pretty much the same thing. He never plots out his books. He says he listens to his heart and what his characters tell him. They’re never wrong, even if they go off in directions he hadn’t anticipated.”
Aida nodded. “So this man and your dad: Have they been together long? And before you answer, Idowant you to understand I know he’s Alfred Knox. I do my homework before a client comes in.” She smiled. “I’m a fan.”
“He’s good, isn’t he? Everybody loves him.” She curled some hair around a finger and then let go. “They got married real quick. They haven’t known each other more than a couple, few months.” Miranda shrugged. “And then they were keeping it a secret. I only found out because my dad forgot one day to remove his wedding band.”
“Marriage is usually a happy occasion—something you want to share with family and friends. Wonder why they’d want to keep it a secret?” Aida, because she was old-school, pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a pen. She clicked the ballpoint. “So what can you tell me about this guy?”
Miranda laid out both names she was aware of, the fact that neither name had only the slightest ranking in search engines, and what shehadbeen able to discover—the reference to Wellsville, Ohio, and the suspicious fire in which his brother had perished. “I’m not sure that’s him, Bruno, Trey, whatever. But it seems to fit because when I spoke to Daddy this morning, Trey told him he comes from money and isn’t in touch with his family, whom I believe he said lived in a suburb of Chicago. It wouldn’t exactly shock me to know he’d made the past he’d given to my father up. After all, he didn’t even reveal his real name until they got married, far as I know. I guess it was only because he had to for the license.”
“Bruno Purdy,” Aida said as she jotted it down and made notes on the sparse information Miranda had given her.
“Is this enough for you to go on? I mean, I know it’s not much.”
“It’s more than you think. Yeah, I can do some digging and see what comes up. I make no promises, but I’m confident I can find more than you did.” She winked. “I have ways.”
“Okay.”
“So you wanna move forward with this?”
“Oh, I do.” Miranda groped in the canvas messenger bag she’d set on the floor when she sat and brought out her checkbook. She opened it, scribbled, and handed a check for fifteen hundred over to Aida. “How long do you think it’ll take you?”
Aida shrugged. “It always depends on what rabbit holes I end up going down, but I should have some info by the end of the week.”
“That fast?”
“Sweetie, I may look like the internet is a mystery to me, but I know my way around and have entre into several databases the public isn’t privy to. Let’s start there and, if we need to, I can get out or on the horn and talk to some folks who might know more. Sound acceptable?”
Miranda smiled, nodding.
Aida stood and extended a hand. Miranda followed her lead. They shook hands. “When will you be able to get started?”
Aida looked her in the eye. “As soon as you close the door behind you.”
“Perfect.”
Aida sat back down and watched Miranda as she exited. She gave a little wave, not looking back, over her shoulder. Aida’s gut said,I like this girl.She opened her laptop, and her fingers began flying over the keyboard like a teenager’s.
Chapter Seventeen
“SHIT!” CONNOR’S HANDjerked, making him slosh coffee over the edge of his mug’s rim, when he heard the knock at his front door. He’djustsat down in his office and was only three sentences in on his work in progress,Death’s Sweet Surprise, about a murder in a chocolate shop. He’d retreated into what he called the zone, that place where he went under, hypnotizing himself so that his imaginary world became real. That state was only arrived at after much procrastinating—dishes washed, bed made, Spider Solitaire, checking Amazon and Goodreads for the latest reviews of his work, having a second cup of coffee, and staring out the window at the steel-gray surface of Lake Union—so the interruption was annoying to say the least. Plus he had welcome silence as Trey had gone out for a run, headed toward Gas Work Park. He’d be gone for at least an hour.
