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“You will on this salary.” As if we are in some kind of spy film, she takes out a pen and scribbles something on the paper napkin in front of her.
She slides it surreptitiously across the table.
Glancing at it, I baulk. “What?”
That appears to be my go-to word of the day. I’m usually more eloquent than this. On the plus side, she might think she’s made a mistake with the village idiot and move on.
“You can’t be serious?” I choke.
“Very serious.”
I can’t even count the zeroes she’s circled neatly across the napkin.
“Look, this is bizarre.” I stuff the document back in the envelope and shove it at her. She takes it and slips the napkin inside and then thrusts it back at me.
“Just think about it.”
“No. Listen, I work with people with mobility issues and old ladies. I wash their hair and do their chores, go shopping for them and read to them. I don’t know who or what you think I do for a living, but NDAs and obscene amounts of money offered to me on anapkinare not me. I’m sorry, but you need to leave me alone.”
Standing up, I stalk past her, but she slaps the envelope into my mid-section. “Take it and think about it.”
The way she says it leaves absolutely no room for refusal. She is bordering on scaring the shit out of me.
Taking it wordlessly, I know I won’t look at it or even think about it again. It will go straight in the shredder when I get home. Something tells me chucking it in the litter bin outside the coffee shop would be a huge no-no.
Shoving the café door open, I leave in a huff and climb back in my car. Throwing the envelope on the passenger seat, I set off, my hands still shaking slightly as I head to my next job. A lovely old man whose wife died only a few months ago, leaving him heartbroken and helpless. Thinking about him makes me smile sadly, but it puts my head back in the game. I can’t be thinking about ridiculous rendezvous when I have a job to do. I won’t give my clients anything less than one hundred per cent. They deserve my undivided attention, and they will always get that from me.
3
GIDEON
One thing I’ve noticed about this file that Sophia left is that there is no photo of this woman. It raises more than one red flag about why she left it off. Why doesn’t she want me to see her face?
It’s been bothering me since I read the file cover to cover and then again this morning. On the surface, she appears as wonderful as Sophia thinks she is, but there is always the huge but.
Diving into the deep end of the indoor swimming pool, I start to swim laps while the rain lashes against the glass roof.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Pushing myself harder, faster, it’s no use. I can’t get this woman out of my head. I need to see her face. It’s driving me crazy. Not that it matters. She isn’t stepping foot in this house, no matter what Sophia says, but still. Isla Harding has woven a web over me. She has no social media, and her background check has come back practically exemplary, apart from a parking fine two years ago outside the hospital and a few late payments on her rent from years ago. I’m guessing Sophia went through the usual Solitaire investigator to glean all this information, so I’ve sent it all over to my secret guy, who can do a deep dive on someone in a few hours and uncover every skeleton they tried to bury in the hour after that. He is the best, and that is why I don’t want anyone else to know about him. I’m happy to keep him on a healthy retainer for just such occurrences.
Fifty.
Sixty.
Seventy.
Resurfacing with a ragged pant, I haul myself out of the tepid pool and sit on the side while I catch my breath. I’m getting old. Forty-one is no joke. I used to be able to do a hundred and still run a mile. Nowadays, it’s just not happening. Lying back, I glare at the rain splatting against the ceiling and then sit up when my private mobile phone rings. Grabbing my towel, I stand up and dry my hands before I snatch the phone from the wicker chair near the pool.
“Did you get what I asked for?”
“Sending it over to you, but I gotta say. Sophia dug up everything on this woman there is to find. She is clean.”
“Impossible,” I snap. “Keep digging. There has to be something. I want a connection to this Society or worse by nightfall, so I can act on this threat, or you are fired and when I say fired, I mean that literally. Got it?” Hanging up, I growl and clutch the phone in my hand so hard that it might break.
