My printer hummed as I printed out photo after full color photo. Luciano Mena wasn’t going to be pleased, but I didn’t care. If he didn’t want to know the truth, he shouldn’t have hired me. I didn’t have a smoking gun. I hadn’t been able to get photos of Gabriela, his wife, banging anyone, but I had enough evidence to convince anyone with two brain cells to rub together what was going on.

I’d been following her for almost a month. Luciano had suspected for a while Mrs. Mena’s daily workouts weren’t entirely above board, and he’d shown up at Clearview Investigations to confirm his suspicions. He had good reason to be suspicious. His wife was getting a good workout alright, but it wasn’t at a gym. Los Angeles never slept, but it damn sure slept around.

Now that I had compiled a complete file, I was turning it over to the client. I just took the photos. What happened after that was no concern of mine. I did it for the money, nothing else. It wasn’t the type of work I wanted, but it paid the bills and I couldn’t afford to be choosy since Dad died.

I looked up when my outer door opened, Mr. Mena stepping into my small waiting area. Private investigators didn’t need large offices. If I got two new clients a month, I was doing good.

“Mr. Mena,” I called from my office. “Come on in.”

“You have something for me?” he asked as he entered my office.

I tightened my lips. He didn’t sound eager to know. It was always the same way. Men and women would come in and hire me to find out if their spouse were cheating. They always thought they wanted to know, but when it came time to find out, they realized they really didn’t. Unfortunately for them, if they came to me because of misgivings, they were rarely wrong.

“Please, have a seat,” I said as I waved him to one of my two guest chairs.

I never understood what drove men and women to cheat. Luciano was a good-looking guy. Fit and well dressed, he owned a half-dozen car dealerships around town. He had a big house, two expensive cars, and apparently could give his wife anything she wanted. Maybe he was a complete dick at home, but that wasn’t really an excuse, in my opinion. Divorce his ass, move out, and take half his shit with you when you do, but keep your legs closed or your zipper up until the divorce is final. But no, they’d rather cheat. Now he was going to be able to throw her ass out on the street, and she would likely get nothing.

I reached to the printer and handed him two dozen photos, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. The pictures spoke for themselves. I watched as he slowly looked through the pages, paling as he did so, his mouth hardening. I had pictures of Gabriela with four different men outside various low-rent motels around the city. She’d been careful, but I was good at my job. Very good.

“This proves nothing, Ms. Jacobs,” Mena said, tossing the photos on my desk.

I had to work not to laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“She met some men. Maybe they’re just friends.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “Four different men, five if you count that one time she did the threesome, outside a dozen different motels, and you think maybe they’re meeting to play cribbage?”

He stared at his shoes. “It proves nothing,” he repeated softly.

I tapped the papers into a neat pile. “Whatever. This is what there is. I can keep following her if you want, in case she makes a mistake, but short of breaking into their room while they’re indisposed, this is all the evidence there’s going to be. She’s very careful to make sure she doesn’t get caught.” I softened slightly. “I know this is hard to accept, but the evidence is clear. She’s got four different men on the line that she rotates through.” I flipped through the pictures until I found the one I wanted, the one that clearly showed her left hand. “She takes off her ring before she meets with them, and she meets with each of them on a different day, and always on the same day. I doubt if any of them know about you or each other. This is all on her.”

Gabriela was a beautiful woman. Slim and well-built, I could see why any man would want to bed her, but she was obviously dead inside. She was using men, and sex, to fill an emptiness inside her. If she’d been cheating on Luciano with just one man, I would have said maybe it was for love, but not this.

He hadn’t answered so I gave him a nudge. “You want me to keep following her?”

“No! I want my fucking life back, or proof she’s fucking around, and this is what you give me? What am I supposed to do with this?”

I held up my hands, thinking, what do you expect? “This is all there is. I can’t shoot photos through closed curtains. Take the photos and show her. She’s dirty, and she knows it. Maybe she’ll come clean and tell you everything.”

“You’ve ruined my life!”

“I haven’t done anything,” I corrected, my voice firm. This wasn’t the first time a client wanted to take their anger out on me. “You came to me and asked me to do the job. I’ve done it. I’m sorry you don’t like what I found, and I understand you’re upset, but remember who you’re upset with.”

He grabbed the photos from my desk and struggled to rip them. He finally tossed half back on my desk, ripped the other half into quarters, threw them onto the floor, then repeated the procedure with the other half. I didn’t care. He’d already paid for them, and I could always print more if I wanted to. He sat, breathing hard, his face red and ugly with rage.

I slid my invoice across the desk and ran down the itemized list with a pen. “My billable hours totaled fifty-one. Fifty-one hours at one-hundred dollars an hour is $5100. Six-hundred and twenty-six miles at sixty cents a mile, $375. There’s another $68 in miscellaneous expenses. Copies of the receipts are attached. That comes to $5543. You paid for twenty hours as a deposit, that’s two-thousand dollars, which leaves a balance of $3543. Make your check to Clearview Investigations, or I accept debit, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover.”

“I’m not paying it!”

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. “Mr. Mena. You signed a contract and the addendum agreeing for up to sixty hours. I’ve done the job you requested and provided you with photographic evidence of your wife’s infidelity. Don’t make this worse than it already is. If you don’t pay me, I’ll take you to court and I’ll win. You’ll end up paying me now, or later, and if it’s later, it will cost you more because you’ll be paying my legal expenses as well. Your choice, but I’d recommend paying now.”

“I’m not paying you shit! You ruin my life and expect me to pay you? You can forget that!”

“Have it your way. I’ll see you in court.”

“You fucking bitch!” he snarled as he jumped to his feet. “Are you threatening me?”

I remained in my seat, trying not to escalate the situation, but I pushed back from the desk to gain a little room and prepared to defend myself. “I am in no way threatening you, Mr. Mena. But you’re in breach of contract, and I’m informing you that I will exercise my legal right to collect payment. You either need to sit down and get control of yourself or you need to leave.”

He started around my desk and I jumped to my feet. “Mr. Mena! Luciano! You need to stop what you’re doing!”

He kept coming, his eyes and mouth hard. I had my Glock 43 in my desk, but shooting a client was bad for business.

“You fucking bitch,” he growled. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

“You need to just calm down!” I said firmly as I continued to back away.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he roared as he rushed me, his arms out like he was going to grab me.

My office wasn’t large, so I didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, but I ducked under his rush and hooked his leg as he passed. I shoved him to aid his stumble. He fell over one of my guest chairs and landed in a heap on the floor.

“Knock it off!” I yelled as he scrambled to his feet.

There was death in his eyes as he started toward me again. I hated to do it. I spun as he came at me, bent at the waist, my right leg high as I pivoted quickly on my left foot. The back of my heel caught him squarely on the jaw in a spinning hook kick. It was nowhere near a full power kick, but it stopped him cold. His head snapped around and he stumbled back into my office door, his head breaking the glass before he slid to the floor.

“Shit,” I muttered as I hurried to his side. He was bleeding badly from the mouth, but he wasn’t completely out. “Are you okay?”

“You kicked me,” he slurred.

I helped him to his feet as he held his mouth. I grabbed a handful of tissues from the box I always kept on my desk. Normally they were for tears, but they’d work for blood.

“I’m going to have you charged with assault,” he mumbled as he took the tissue and pressed them against his bloodied lip.

I pointed to the camera in the corner of the office. “Go ahead and try. I’ll sue your ass while you’re in jail… and I’m charging you for the broken door. Now, are you going to pay what you owe me, or are we going to dance again?”

I retrieved another wad of tissues from the desk and handed them to him before offering my waste basket to dump the bloody ones.

“I’ll pay.” He glared at me, then all the fight went out of his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

I nodded. “Pay your bill, fix my door, and nothing will be said. But you need to get control of that temper.”

He nodded as he moved back to my desk and sat the upended chair back on its feet. “Will five-hundred for the door be enough?”

I glanced at the back of his head. He wasn’t bleeding, so I moved back around behind my desk and sat. I nodded. “Make the check for four-thousand and we’ll call it even.”

He scribbled a moment then ripped the check out and slid it across the desk. I took it, glanced at the amount, and tucked it in my drawer. I pulled the invoice back and scrawled Paid across the bottom before sliding it back to him.

“Been a pleasure doing business with you,” I said in my best customer service voice.

He grunted. “Can I get another copy of the photos?” He could hardly meet my eyes.

“Sure.”

I spun to my computer and typed a moment before my printer whirred to life. It took about a minute for all the photos to land in the paper tray. I handed them across the desk.

“Thank you.” He looked at me a moment, tossed the bloody tissues, then probed his lip with tongue. “That’s a hell of kick you’ve got there.”

I grinned. “You should see me when I’m pissed off.”

He snorted once. “I’d probably have to pick my head up off the floor. Sorry about the door, and everything.”

I rose and extended my hand. “It’s done, don’t worry about it. But a piece of advice. Do something about your temper. One day it’s going to get you into real trouble.”

He nodded and turned toward the door. I waited until the outside door closed, then looked at my busted office door and the glass-covered floor.

“Shit,” I muttered before picking up the torn photos and shredding them. That task complete, I walked to the cabinet tucked in the corner of the waiting room.

The cabinet held pens, printer paper and other office supplies, the coffee maker and all the stuff required for it, and my few cleaning supplies. I did my own office cleaning. It took less than ten minutes to clean my two small rooms, and it wasn’t worth paying someone for that.

I started by picking up the big pieces of glass and dumping them into the waste basket. After some thought, I picked all the remaining glass out of the door and added the shards to the rubbish. I didn’t want someone to get cut. Big pieces taken care of, I began sweeping. My office had hardwood floors, so getting all the little splinters of glass into a pile was easy. I swept the glass into my dust pan and dumped them in with the rest of the trash.

I’d just put my broom away and taken out my dust mop when a Greek god walked in. He paused inside the door, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head as he glanced around. He was at least ten inches taller than me, with light brown hair worn stylishly short. His thin nose, strong chin, and cheekbones gave him the face of a movie star. He was dressed in a tight, dark blue Polo with Neil Gibson Fitness Centers embroidered on the left breast, tan dockers, and comfortable loafers. I could tell he was a major league stud-muffin by the way he filled out his shirt and pants, but more striking than that were his eyes. They were the most amazing green I’d ever seen.

Los Angeles was full of beautiful people, and one of them had just walked through my door. And I was standing with a dust mop in my hand. I swallowed hard as I put the dust mop away and closed the cabinet.

“May I help you?”