Chapter Thirty–Seven
A Private Investigation
Jordan had one photograph of the woman: the end of the race where he’d teased her about losing. He looked at it again. Sure, she was glaring at him for laughing at her but there was something else, too. Something tender in her look. She clearly wasn’t really sore about losing. She just enjoyed the race.
He knew Charlotte. Not just in the biblical sense, although he’d enjoyed that quite a bit, but as a person. He still couldn’t believe the woman he’d spent the weekend with was fully a product of his imagination.
What was weighing on his mind was that hiring her was his idea. Replaying that first meeting, she never said a word about who she was or what she wanted—he just filled her in and expected her to fall into place with his plans. She’d never planned to spend the weekend with him.
Maybe it was crazy. Maybe he was in for disappointment. But he desperately wanted, no needed to know who she was and what she was doing. He didn’t care she was an escort, when he thought she was one. Maybe her real story was worse. Maybe what she did was unforgivable. But he wanted to at least hear her side of the story.
He’d looked up her name already, which went nowhere. Her phone was dead, which didn’t surprise him; he knew she had two phones. He’d called the bank with her account details but, not surprisingly, they refused to give him any personal details. Still, he managed to prove the account was with a local branch. She must live in Riverside somewhere.
It was his only solid lead. And he knew only one person who might have the contacts to find out who held the account.
“That’s a tough one,” said Buddy. “It’s not the 1990’s anymore. Security has been increased up the wazoo. What do you wanna know?”
“Anything. Her name, her address, anything you can get.”
“Really, the only thing you got is her bank account details? I’d tell you to let it go, but you’ve been mooning around like a lovesick calf for weeks. You clearly got it bad.”
“I’ve got her picture, too.” Jordan pulled out his phone.
“Where’d you meet her?”
“Here. She walked in. I thought she was your escort friend.”
Buddy burst out laughing. “No shit! No wonder you were shocked.”
“Yeah, don’t even ask.” Jordan sighed. “She gave me a fake name and a phone number that went out of service the day after the incident. I don’t know anything else about her other than she’s got a tattoo of an R on her wrist. I even thought about hiring a private investigator.” He pulled up the picture on his phone.
Buddy looked. “Huh. She looks familiar in a weird sort of way.”
“That’s all I’ve got, one lousy picture. I don’t even know if Charlotte is her real name.”
“Charlotte?” Buddy was still staring at the photograph. Then his eyes went wide and he snatched the phone out of Jordan’s hand. “No shit! Jordan, that’s Charlotte Nichols.”
Jordan’s heart leaped to his throat. “Who?”
“Charlotte Nichols! Owen Nichol’s little girl. Well, not so little anymore.” His eyes drifted down to her body and Jordan resisted the urge to thump him.
He snatched his phone back. “Who is Owen Nichols?”
“You’re joking, right? No, I guess you wouldn’t know. Owen was your old man’s partner. George bought his half of the company off of him for a dime. Poor guy, he was as straight as a board. He never stood a chance against George, hell he probably never even knew he’d been taken for a ride.”
“Wait, slow down.” Jordan glanced at his watch. 4pm, close enough to the end of the day. He opened Buddy’s bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of whiskey he knew was hidden there. “Let’s sit down, have a drink and you tell me what happened.”
Buddy at least had the grace to look embarrassed.
“It was about 10 years ago, I guess, when you were still in school. Owen and George had set up the company.”
“Really? Not just George?”
“Nope. At the time, it was called Industry Transport. George put in the start-up capital but it was Owen’s baby. Started off good but it grew too fast. I guess they over-invested or something and ended up with serious cash flow problems. Owen put everything he had into it but it wasn’t enough. It came to the point where they weren’t going to be able to meet running costs.”
Jordan poured a glass for Buddy and then, after only a brief hesitation, one for himself. “I never knew any of this.”
“George offered to help by buying some land off of the company, to get some cash into the bank. The land was brownfields, it was some sort of rail repair service in the 1930’s and back then they just dumped everything on the site. The land was sopping wet with discarded oil.” He took a slow sip from his whiskey. “Completely useless.”
“My dad bought it as a favor?”
“That’s what he wanted Owen to believe. But a few months later, surprise, surprise, the EPA puts a bunch of money into Riverside for cleanup, including the lovely piece of brownfield in the middle of town. The land George bought for $50,000 gets cleaned up and is now worth a cool seven million bucks. Talk about profit!”
Jordan shook his head. “I knew about the land sale but not that it was bought from the company. So, Industry Transport sold the land and missed out on the deal of a lifetime.”
“Yep, you got it kiddo. But that’s not the end of the story. George promises he’ll invest that cash back into Industry Transport but only if Owen resigns and gives up his shares. If not, George walks away, lets the company go bust. And Owen was already struggling. Trying to run the business without George, well, that wasn’t going to work.”
Jordan took a sip, not sure what to say. It didn’t matter, Buddy was on a roll.
“Owen had a choice: let the company and staff have a future with George funding it, or stick his heels in and watch the company go bust. To be honest, Owen never even had the chance to decide, because the board agreed to George’s proposal immediately, leaving him stranded. But knowing Owen, he’d have walked away anyway, even if they’d backed him against George. And that’s how Industry Transport LLC became Lovett Industries. Owen was left out in the cold. His shares would be worth a few million now, if he’d kept them. As it is, he never recovered. I saw him one night at Maloney’s, but he was knee dip in drink by then and depressed to boot. I didn’t hang around.”
“And Charlotte’s his daughter?”
“Yep. Seems little Charlotte has grown up and shown up on your doorstep.”
Charlotte Nichols. Jordan was struggling to take it all in. “How come George didn’t recognize her?”
“Because he doesn’t pay attention to anything but the final numbers on a spreadsheet and the balance of bank account. I only did because I remember her coming to the office to visit her dad. Cute little thing. George just thought she was a pest.” He topped off their glasses. “Listen, kiddo, I don’t want to tell you your business, but she’s got reasons to hate the Lovetts.”
“Yeah.” Jordan frowned. And rummaging through his father’s office. What was she looking for? Not the company check book but maybe the books? All those old files. Maybe she was searching for information on the land deal. He sipped his whiskey. “Maybe I should go talk to George. Or Owen himself.”
“You could do that. Or you could just let bygones be bygones. It’s not like you can fix it.”
“Can’t I?” He frowned. “The least the company could do is pay Owen a pension.”
Buddy leaned back. “George won’t be happy.”
“He doesn’t need to be.”
Buddy drained his glass. “Let me just channel your old man’s voice for a moment.” He rumbled with a frown and close-drawn eyebrows. “And how does that help the bottom line, son?”
“It doesn’t. But it gives me the moral high ground when I confront Charlotte.”
Buddy smiled. “Fair enough. That’s a pretty good reason, kiddo.” He slid the glass over and pushed himself out of the chair. “Well, clock’s about to strike five. I’m heading out for a drink, if you want to join me...”
“No, you go on.” He knew Buddy was bunking off early but he didn’t care. Right now, he had more important things to worry about.