Hiring this woman might be a settled subject for Lou Ellen, but it certainly wasn’t settled for Gray. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out the hiring packet then slid it across the table to Michaela Girabaldi.
Before she was hired, he would have liked answers to the million questions fighting for pole position in his mind at the moment. Gray saved his breath, however, because he knew asking them now would be futile. Lou Ellen had hired her, and that, was evidently that.
Logan would just have to deal with the manifestations of those unasked questions as they presented. And Gray would have to deal with Logan’s wrath. The one question he’d defer to Lou Ellen, though, was why they hadn’t performed the mandated pre-hire background check, which could’ve identified those problems, because he was stymied himself.
That was protocol, Deep Six’s established hiring procedure, which was written by Lou Ellen, herself. It appeared she wasn’t handcuffed by her own process, though. Gray just hoped they didn’t all three end up handcuffed for helping her when they got back to Dallas.
They’d been interviewing all week. He had a stack of resumes in his briefcase for people he would’ve liked to hire on the spot too, but hadn’t, because he needed Mac to run their background checks first.
If that check had been done, the problems, which Michaela obviously hadn’t told Lou Ellen about, would have surfaced. The bigger issues, which were right now making her squirm like she was sitting on hot coals in the seat across the table from him while she filled out her forms.
Something was very off here, and he was shocked that Lou Ellen didn’t see it. She was just about as perceptive as a person could be, much more intuitive than him. Gray didn’t trust his instincts about people and for good reason, but Lou Ellen lived by hers. Nobody bullshitted her, but it looked like Michaela Girabaldi just had.
While she continued to labor over her employment forms, Gray booked her ticket to Dallas, then waited impatiently for her to finish. He didn’t miss the tremor in her hand when she finished the last one and handed the stack back to him.
He thumbed through the papers and pulled out her income tax declaration, then studied it for a second. She was born in Jersey according to her social security number, which was really no surprise. That number could be his key to finding out if they’d just hired Dirty Mary. There were quick surface checks he could run online tonight.
If anything turned up, he’d just cancel her ticket and tell Lou Ellen he couldn’t agree with hiring her. As it stood, there was nothing in these forms that served as reason to not hire her. He also had her bank account information on the direct deposit form she’d filled out, which would allow him to check out her finances if he were so inclined.
He set her tax form aside to review her official application. His eyes tracked down her application to the background section and he saw she checked the box that said she’d never been convicted of a crime. Because Lou Ellen didn’t do their due diligence in hiring this woman, it was all he had to hang his hat on that she could get clearance.
If she had a record, Michaela Girabaldi would be as useless as a paperweight in this office. The east coast location would be handling government and military contracts, so she would need clearance. Even private security details for dignitaries and politicians would require clearance by the Secret Service. If she couldn’t get that clearance, she couldn’t handle classified documents, or even emails. None of their clients could, or would, talk to her.
His eyes zipped up the form to the marital status line and he saw she’d checked single, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t divorced. A lot of woman declared single after they divorced. He needed to know if Girabaldi was her maiden name.
“So, you’re single?” Gray asked, and she nodded. “Ever been married before?”
“Uh, no,” she replied, her face flushing. “Didn’t I check the single with no dependents box on the tax form?”
She pursed her plump lips as she leaned forward to glance at the tax form and Gray couldn’t stop his eyes from dropping to the pillowy flesh spilling over the vee where her lapels met. He forced them back up, because he was not going to let her distract him.
“Yes, but I’m, ah, just making sure we get the withholding right on your check.” And that I can do a thorough background check on you. If you’ve got skeletons, baby, I want to know about them.
His eyes met hers and he fell into their gold-flecked hazel depths trying to discern exactly what made Michaela Girabaldi tick. In the coffee shop, he’d thought they were brown, but now he realized, like her background, there was a lot more going on with this woman.
He looked back at the tax form. “I see you entered a post office box in New Jersey as your mailing address. Is that correct as well? I’ll need your physical mailing address too.” He looked up again and her face blanched, upping his suspicions. “Is that a problem?”
She averted her eyes, and folded her arms over her chest. The hair on the back of Gray’s neck bristled and he knew that feeling well from working at the FBI for so long. She was hiding something, and was about to tell him a lie.
“The post office box is my mailing and physical address for now. I just moved to DC and I’m, ah, staying with friends, so I don’t have a permanent physical address yet.” She cleared her throat and finally dragged her eyes back to his. “Is there anything else, or can I go now?”
“I’ll need your email address to send you the travel arrangements. We’re leaving early Friday morning,” he replied. Having it would also save him time locating her social media accounts.
“Ah, can you just print it out for me? My, phone is out of order at the moment.”
Out of minutes most likely, he thought. I have exactly five dollars and twenty-five cents left in my account—just enough for my coffee. Who moved to a new town flat broke and jobless? Someone who was on the run from something. If there was one thing Gray knew, it was math, and there were too many things about this woman that just didn’t add up.
“Sure, I can print it out, but the printer is out of ink. I’ll have to get hotel maintenance to replace the cartridge,” Gray fudged, because he wanted to know badly now where she was staying in this monstrously expensive town. “I could drop it off to you—”
Michaela cut him off by holding up her hand as she stood. “Lou Ellen wants me here tomorrow morning to go over some things, so I’ll just get it from you then.” She quickly bent and grabbed the handles of her purse, then turned.
“Where are you staying?” Gray pressed, pushing back his chair. “I’ll need your local address so we can pick you up on Friday morning for the flight.”
She chewed her full lower lip. “I’ll just meet you here. What time is the flight?”
Since she was on foot this morning, he couldn’t imagine her dragging her suitcases on the train, or lugging them here on her own. With no money, a cab would be out of the question.
“We’re leaving here at five o’clock Friday morning. Since we’re taking a car to the airport, it would be just as easy for us to pick you up,” he insisted.
“No thank you. I’ll be here at four-forty-five.” She took a step toward the door, and Gray realized she wasn’t going to disclose where she was staying. He had no idea why that bothered him so much, but it did. The fact she was on foot did too, because some parts of DC weren’t safe for a woman her size to be walking alone.
“Wait!” he said and she spun on her heel, as he picked up the phone. “Let me at least get the concierge to call a car to drop you off at home.” He could find out where she was staying that way too. But she raised her hand again.
“No, I’m fine. It’s not far and I need the exercise, but thank you.” The panic in her face, her quick movements as she turned and hurried out of the room spoke volumes. As did the fact she planned to exercise in a wool suit and six-inch heels in ninety-degree heat.
Right then, Gray knew finding out where she was staying would probably be a big clue to what she was hiding. He put the phone down, sat back in his chair a moment and waited until he heard her say goodbye to Lou Ellen.
The office became silent and before Gray knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, sliding on his suit jacket and buttoning it. He met Lou Ellen just outside his door and she shoved some paperwork into his stomach, but he brushed her off.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said as he strode out of the office.
In those heels of hers, he should have no problem catching up to her, he thought, hurrying down the hall and out the back door. A red flash caught his eye as she rounded the corner at the end of the building, into an alley.
Gray quickened his pace and when he reached the alley, she was already turning left onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel. He stopped at the end of the alley to lean out and saw her hurrying down the street with her shoes in hand. So as not to spook her, he waited a second to give her more space before following her.
Almost eight blocks, and a labyrinth of twists and turns down alleys and side streets later, the demographics of the area changed drastically. The neighborhood became seedier, the people more suspect. Gray scanned the area nervously as he continued to follow her. Handbag Hammer or not, even in broad daylight, she should not be walking here alone.
What was she doing here? Was she catching a train?
They’d passed a station a few blocks back and she hadn’t stopped. His heart picked up pace as the late spring sun beat down on his head causing beads of sweat to gather at his hairline. They streaked down his neck to soak into his shirt collar, but Gray pushed on. He felt like he’d run a mile by the time she finally stopped in front of a faded red brick building to look up at the tattered sign above the entrance that marked it as a Catholic homeless shelter.
Was she volunteering there?
The sad, hopeless look on her face as she stared at that sign answered his question. No, she was staying there, and he felt like the scum of the earth for his hard thoughts about her. Maybe this is what Lou Ellen knew, but didn’t share with him, and the reason why she hired her so quickly.
Having that information might have made him go easier on her too, but he’d been kept in the dark and had acted like an asshole because of it. Before he would be satisfied they hadn’t hired a moll, though, Gray needed to know why she was staying here. And the woman across the street was going to tell him, since he knew Lou Ellen wouldn’t.