The meeting my boss set me up with wasn’t a meeting at my office. It was a meeting at the client’s building. I woke up Monday morning to a call from my boss saying I had half an hour to get ready.
“Do you have the file folder ready for me at the office?” I asked.
“Nope. The client wants you to meet him at his office on the other side of Seattle.”
“Can’t we just have a conference over the phone like we usually do?” I asked.
“Look,” my boss said. “I don’t know why he chose you personally, but the money this man is paying you is three times what you usually make in one month. Get yourself ready. A car’s gonna be waiting for you at nine.”
I had no idea what was going on, but I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans before I zipped black boots up my calves. I threw on a pale-blue, sleeveless blouse before I pulled on my crimson-red peacoat. That was good enough for this meeting, I guessed.
There was a knock at my door, and I opened it to find a comforting-looking man standing there.
“Miss Conwell?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
The man seemed nice enough and greeted me with a smile before we walked down to the car. I shook his hand before he opened the car door for me, and I smiled as I got in. I sighed as I sat down in the genuine leather seats and felt their warmth cascading through my thighs. I knew from the moment I saw the car that I was dealing with a rich hothead.
The car was sleek and fully-loaded. It was also bright red.
There was a partition window separating me from the driver, but it was rolled down. There were sodas on ice in little compartments built into the side of the car, and I grabbed one to try and quench my thirst.
Everything had been thrown at me so quickly that I hadn’t had enough time to even brew myself a cup of coffee, and I was craving something to help me wake up. The driver climbed into the car and pulled us away from my apartment, and that was when I decided to speak up.
“So, where are we headed?” I asked.
“Kent Enterprises, ma’am.”
“You mean the seafood company?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. The seafood company.”
“Why are we headed there? Does my client work there?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, your client owns it.”
“My client owns Kent Enterprises.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, good to know, I guess.”
I settled back in for the ride and watched as Seattle passed us by. The Space Needle loomed over the entire city, and I couldn’t stop staring at it. In all the years I’d lived here, I’d never once been up it. I heard there was a restaurant or something up there, but it was exclusive and was only reserved for those who could handle one-thousand-dollar dinner plates.
I didn’t know if it was true, but it sure seemed glamorous, nonetheless.
After twenty minutes of traveling, the car pulled up to a massive gate. The driver punched in a code and the gate slowly opened. We drove inside, and the road took us up to a massive building. This was certainly an empire this person had built, and I dug my phone out so I could start doing some preliminary research on my client.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the driver said.
“Do what?” I asked.
The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Research. Trust me. Mr. Kent will tell you everything you need to know in the meeting.”
“Well, the problem with information like that is that it’s always unreliable. It’s biased in favor of the party relaying the information to me. Facts from the internet are straightforward.”
“Is it?” the driver asked.
I looked up and caught his stare in the rearview mirror. His face was reminiscent of a fun grandfather I’d always wished I had, but his eyes held something else. Something I couldn’t really place, even though it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
What the hell had I just gotten myself into?
The driver came to a stop and helped me out of the car. He led me to the entrance of the building, and I was promptly greeted by someone akin to a bellhop. He instructed me to follow him as he bowed at my entrance. Then we made our way to the elevator.
“Are we heading to Mr. Kent’s office?” I asked.
“We are, ma’am,” the man said.
We rode up many floors before we came to the top one: the penthouse suite of the seafood company empire. The doors opened and dumped me out into an opulent office space, and my eyes scanned the room for any clues as to who this man was.
There were floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned all sides of the office, and they were tinted from the outside. So my client enjoyed seeing things without being seen himself. The marble floors were expensive and shined to perfection, which meant he was probably a perfectionist himself. Not a vase was out of place and not a piece of furniture was crooked.
And that was when I noticed the furniture was actually bolted into the marble floor.
He wasn’t a perfectionist. He was a control freak.
“Welcome, Miss Conwell.”
I watched a man spin around in a chair at a cherry mahogany desk before his eyes settled onto mine.
“Hello,” I said.
“Welcome to Kent Enterprises. I hope the drive wasn’t too hard on you?”
“Not at all. It was only twenty minutes, and I did none of the driving. Your driver is very nice, by the way.”
“Was Micah not to your standards?” he asked.
I cocked my head at him slightly before I took another step forward.
“The man in the elevator,” he added.
“Oh, he was just fine. Quiet, which was nice.”
“So you enjoy quiet?”
“More than most assume,” I said.
“Why don’t you come take a seat?”
I approached his desk and sat down in the chair across from him, taking in every detail I could. The smile on his face was white, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
His hands were clasped on his desk, but his knuckles were white. He was gripping them, which meant he wasn’t relaxed. His eyes were unwavering in a way that was unnerving, so I rolled my shoulders back and crossed my leg to give him the perception that I wasn’t intimidated by him.
I saw his cheek tick at my posturing, which meant he knew what I was doing. Which meant he knew what he was doing.
“I have to say, this is very unorthodox. Usually, there’s a file folder of information placed on my desk, and I only reach out to the client if I require any clarification on the issue.”
“Oh, you mean a folder like this?”
He held up a manila envelope from his lap, and I sighed. He was a dangler. Someone who felt people should come to him and get what they needed instead of him going to them and giving them something.
Wonderful.
“There’s a man I want you to track down,” Kent said.
He pressed the file onto his desk and slid it toward me.
“His name’s Zach Harte. I believe he’s stealing from my company.”
“What gives you that impression?” I asked as I took the envelope.
“There have been some cyber attacks on my company recently. I didn’t think anything of it there for a while because nothing seemed to be missing. No documents or paperwork. No one’s hours were altered, and no one was randomly laid off.”
“You have people breaking into your technological system to lay people off?” I asked.
“I struggle with PETA quite a bit in my line of work. They like to do really fun things to make my life more… interesting.”
I pulled out the information he had on this guy before my eyes flickered back up to the man in front of me.
“Is this man involved with PETA?” I asked.
“Isn’t that your job to figure out?” he asked.
“All I’m wondering is why you think this man is stealing from you,” I said. “Usually, clients come to me and say, ‘someone’s stealing,’ or ‘someone’s cheating on me,’ and it’s up to me to put the pieces together. You’ve already figured out someone’s stealing, and who it is. What do you need me for?”
“I want my money back,” Kent said. “It’s rightfully mine. I earned that money and so did the workers of this company. I can’t prove anything, however. It’s all circumstantial.”
I started looking through the file and saw what he meant. There were bank statements of missing chunks of money, but nothing that would trigger a flag. Three hundred dollars here, five hundred dollars there. It wasn’t like this guy was siphoning off thousands of dollars at a time.
“And you think it’s this guy,” I said.
“I know it is. I just can’t prove it.”
“Uh huh. Well, just understand that my research will be thorough and that this man—in my eyes—is innocent until I can find out otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Miss Conwell. I just wanted to give you all the information I was working with.”
“Well, someone is taking money from you, by the looks of these accounts,” I said. “Have you checked them lately?”
“I have someone checking them now. We’ve been monitoring them closely.”
“How much has gone missing since this all started?” I asked.
“Just shy of fifty thousand.”
“Is there any way I could personally take a look at the accounts?”
“No.”
I slowly panned my gaze up to him and sighed.
“Mr. Kent, if I’m going to do this well, then I’m going to need unfettered access to the accounts that have been compromised. I’ll need to keep tabs on them myself. I’ll need to interview all those in your company who monitor and have access to those accounts.”
“Interview and talk with whomever you need to. Any access you need to those accounts, you can route through me, and I’ll have them email you whatever you need.”
Yep. He was definitely a control freak.
“Well, this is a wonderful start, Mr. Kent. Do you mind if I conduct a few interviews since I’m here at the office?”
“You do whatever is necessary,” he said. “My driver and car are at your disposal whenever you would care to go home. Or back to your office. Or wherever it is that strikes your fancy.”
“Thanks… I think.”
“You’re quite welcome,” he said, grinning.
“Well, this has been fun. If you could do me a favor and write down a list of names—”
“It’s already in the file,” he said.
I shuffled through the papers and found a sprawling list of names. It had their office numbers and their phone numbers. Their addresses and their cell numbers. Everything I needed to track them down and question them if I needed to.
“The highlighted ones are the people who have access to the compromised accounts,” he said. “I hope that aids in your work a little bit?”
Had I stepped into the twilight zone?
“Um, yes. It does, Mr. Kent. Thank you. I will get to work, and whenever I have my first lead, I will let you know.”
“There is only one thing I ask,” he said.
“Yes?”
“When you route everything back to that young man—and you will—I want constant updates on him.”
“I can’t surveil him until I have sufficient evidence to prove he might be the one doing this.”
“And when you find it and start your surveillance, I would like updates.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You’re free to go. Enjoy your interviews.”
He swiveled the chair back around to look out the window as I sat there in the chair across from his desk. I grabbed my bag and walked back towards the elevator. The doors opened up just as I got there, and Micah, the elevator man, was there to greet me.
“How was your meeting, Miss Conwell?” he asked.
“Weird,” I said.
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
Sighing, I heaved my shoulders and looked back at the photo of Zach. There was something oddly familiar about him, but I had no idea what it was.
His shaggy black hair almost covered his piercing, ocean-blue eyes, and his jaw was set in a sort of lazy determination. It was like this man was trying to fade into the background with features that stood out from a crowd.
I just couldn’t figure out why he seemed so recognizable.
“Could you drop me off at level six, please?”
“Of course, Miss Conwell. Would you like me to hold the elevator for you?”
“Not necessary. I’ve got three different people to talk to before I need the elevator again.”
He nodded. “Well, I will be here when you need me.”
“Thank you, Micah,” I said.
His chuckle tugged a smile on my cheeks as the elevator came to a smooth halt.
“Level six, Miss Conwell.”
“You can call me Paige, if you’d like,” I said.
“Trust me, Miss Conwell. I cannot.”
I furrowed my brow at his sentiment as I turned to look at him. His smile was kind, and his eyes were easygoing, but there was something in his posture that seemed a little slumped. It was like everyone here was carrying some sort of burdened secret. Like they were trying to conceal something from the private investigator that had been dropped into their midst.
But I was determined to figure out what was being hidden in this seafood conglomerate. I would uncover whatever the fuck was going on.