Thanksgiving was next week. It didn’t seem possible that we were heading into the holiday season. Even the more frequent flurries couldn’t make it feel real.

Holidays were hard. An understatement, really, but it wasn’t like anyone could blame me. After my mom died, Uncle Anton and I had come up with our own traditions and ways to celebrate that let us remember without sadness taking over. Then he was gone, and I was alone.

As much as Clay looked after me, I’d always made sure he knew I had plans for the holidays. I never did, of course, but I wasn’t about to let him make us both uncomfortable by asking me to spend the time with him and his family. Hell, I wouldn’t have wanted an invitation even if he hadn’t been the son of a congressman.

This year, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Clay wouldn’t be a problem. He’d assume that I was spending my days with Jalen, and I wasn’t going to do anything to dissuade him. I was hoping that Jalen would assume I would be with Clay, but if he didn’t, I needed to have a plan in place. I didn’t want pity invites.

I was staring at the calendar, frowning as I counted the days between now and Thanksgiving, when I heard the front door shut. I straightened in the chair and put on my best professional look.

“Come on back,” I called.

My first walk-in client.

If he hadn’t been a man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair, a bit of a paunch, and a leer that he didn’t even try to hide, I might’ve jumped up to shake his hand. Instead, I gestured to the chair across from me and told myself to ignore the suspicious-looking stain on his pants. The guy was probably just having a bad day. And he probably wasn’t staring at my breasts. He was probably just…

Nope.

He was definitely staring at my breasts.

Still, I stayed polite. “Sir? Can I help you?”

“I hope so.”

If he propositioned me, I was going to need a lawyer to get me out of what I did next. And possibly an alibi.

“My name’s Evan Lee.” He grinned at me with an expectant look on his face. When I just raised an eyebrow, his arrogant expression faltered. “I own Lee Automotive.”

I knew of it, but only from the television ads. They were badly written, and the women on them looked as if he’d hired them straight off a porn set. Not really the most politically correct advertisements.

But none of that was a good excuse for kicking him out before I heard what he had to say. “How can I help you, Mr. Lee?”

“I think my wife’s cheating on me.” He sighed as he dropped into the chair. “Hard to believe, right?”

Not so much. “You’d like me to follow her, find out one way or the other?”

He nodded. “I want to hire you to find out who she’s fu–” his eyes dropped to my chest again as he cleared his throat, “who she’s sleeping with so I can get her to divorce me without getting a single penny.”

As much as I didn’t like this guy, if he passed the background check I was going to do on him, I saw nothing to prevent me from taking the job. If I found out he had a single domestic assault charge, however, I would offer his wife the opportunity to get enough shit on him to be safe. Part of me didn’t want to tell him about the background check, but I did it with all my other clients, which meant I had to do it here too.

“Before I take on any sort of domestic case, I do a background check on my client. This is your opportunity to tell me if I’m going to find anything that would make me think twice about tracking your wife.”

He shrugged. “Got some parking tickets. Couple barroom fights that landed me in jail for a night.”

He sounded sincere. Probably a creep, but not an abusive one.

“Do you have a picture of your wife?” I asked.

“Sure.” He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen, then held it out.

I should’ve anticipated that the picture of his wife was going to be naked, but I didn’t. I managed not to react as I made a mental list of her appearance. Mid-forties, blonde hair that was obviously dyed. Brown or hazel eyes. Pretty, but worn.

“Thank you,” I said as I handed him his phone back. “Now, if I can get some information from you, I can come up with a plan of action.”

Two hours later, I was standing in front of the giant whiteboard, looking at the plan I’d come up with. He’d given me his address, as well as the address of where his wife worked, along with her schedule. Jessica worked as a receptionist for a doctor, which meant there was a possibility that she was cheating with someone at work. I’d need to research the doctor and the employees a bit, see how viable that particular avenue might be.

I’d start simple, the obvious places, following her when she left work or home. Once I figured out–

My phone rang, cutting into my concentration. I answered it without looking at the screen.

“Hello?”

“You have a collect call from Indiana State Prison.”

I yanked the phone away from my ear and let out a string of curses. What the hell was he thinking?! I didn’t want anything to do with him. I hadn’t answered the last three calls. Why did he think I would answer this one?

I threw my pen across the room.

This needed to stop.