Chapter 3
The first thing Matt did when he got into his car was text Sherry, Paige, and Gracie: Met Hope today at business meeting. Had no idea meeting was with her. Didn’t tell her anything but we all need to talk. I’m free after six. After that, he called Sylvia, but had no luck reaching her. And after that, he called his mom.
Half an hour later, Matt was waiting for his mom and stepdad outside his office. Luckily, they were both on vacation and he didn’t feel too bad about asking them to come and get Zeus and pet sit for the rest of the day. He smiled the moment he saw his mom sprinting across the street in a pair of jeans and a bright blue winter jacket. It always made his day to see her looking youthful, happy, and free. His stepdad, Logan, was hanging on to his mom’s hand, letting her rush him along.
They had been married ten years now, but Logan had been part of Matt’s life since they’d moved to the Dayton region twenty years ago. Logan’s family owned a few apartment buildings in downtown Dayton, and they had turned his mom’s lease application down due to her lack of credit, but Logan stepped in when he passed their car and noticed they had been living out of it. He had agreed to rent one side of a duplex he personally owned to them on a month-to month basis and had become their first landlord before he became their friend. It had been Matt’s first lesson on how businesses could help people by being community-minded. Logan and his mom now worked together, with his mom putting her associate’s degree in accounting to work for the small real estate investing company they now owned.
“Hey there,” his mom greeted both him and Zeus before planting a kiss on each of them. “Zeus now, is it?” She looked up at Matt.
“Yup. Long story. And I hate that I had to ask you guys to come all the way down here, but I’ve got tons of work and I’m running late.”
His stepdad shrugged. “I’ve been trying to convince Sabrina that we should adopt a dog of our own. Having Zeus around will be good practice.”
“How long will his doggie day care be closed?” his mom asked.
“They think three days.”
“Then how about we keep him until Thursday? It’ll be perfect. You can take us to the airport when you come pick him up.”
Matt stared into Zeus’s eyes. Three whole days without him? He wasn’t sure he could do it, but it was the only way. “Sounds like a plan. But I’ll stop by to visit him tomorrow.” Both his mom and Logan laughed at him, and Matt shrugged. Wait till they got attached to him. They might not even want leave for their cruise.
They said their goodbyes, with Matt’s and Zeus’s taking significantly longer than the rest. The moment he walked into his office, his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. Matt put his briefcase down and picked up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Williams?”
“This is he.”
“It’s Maya Gaines from Friendly Clicks.”
Matt frowned, expecting a cancelation for next week’s meeting. “Are you calling to reschedule my meeting with Ms. Piper?” he asked, preempting her.
“Settle down. Your meeting with Hope Piper next Monday is still on. I’m calling because I’d like to meet with you separately. As soon as possible in fact. Today would be great.”
“And why is it you’d like to meet with me separately, Ms. Gaines?” he asked, instantly suspecting the reason. His temple began to throb.
“I’m the source. Or the leak. Or rather, the source of the leak. The Deep Throat to your Washington Post. The—”
“I got it.” Matt sat down. Maya, who seemed to be friendly and on good terms with Hope, was the source. Something else he’d have to keep from Hope. “How does five o’clock sound to you?” he asked. “We can meet in my office.”
“How about noon? I have a sick mom and a teenage boy to get to after work, and I won’t be able to handle the stress of keeping everything I know from Hope unless I get it all off my chest today.”
Matt raked a hand through his hair. That was in twenty minutes. “A lunch meeting it is,” he said, stifling a sigh.
“I knew you were a good one,” she exclaimed.
When he hung up, his assistant was at his door holding a red folder, a white binder, and a lone piece of paper. She held up the binder. “Final draft of the Manned Aircraft Strategic Integration Study—needs your approval.” She then held up the red folder. “Agenda for the Regional Economic Forum—needs your feedback and your approval.” Finally, she held up the piece of paper. “Dayton Create’s networking events for the year—Marty Medina, the new president, said he’d like your input.”
He had a lot to get done and little time to get to it, but at least that last name made him smile. Matt had met both Marty and Johnny Amador through Dayton Create, a coalition of young professionals who ran community-based projects as a way of connecting with other young adults and showing them all the region had to offer. The three of them had endless energy between them, and they’d gotten a lot done the past two years.
“Did I hear my grandson’s name?” a familiar accented voice called from just outside his office. A moment later, Rosa Medina, Ruby Merriweather, and Sherry Stokes were crowded at his door, along with Hope’s sisters, Paige and Gracie. “How do you know my grandson?” Rosa asked. “And why didn’t you say anything about knowing him last time we met?” Before he could answer, she narrowed her eyes and turned to the other women. “I told you there was something secretive about him. It’s in his eyes. He holds back.”
“I’m the one who said that,” Ruby declared. “And that’s why I brought along this.” She reached into her bag and took out a large, round, glass ball.
Matt’s assistant cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but do you all have an appointment?”
Sherry pointed at him. “He asked us for one.”
His assistant turned to him. This time, he didn’t bother stifling anything. He sighed. He’d clearly texted them that he wouldn’t be available until after six that evening. “It’ll be fine, Dana. Let them in.”
Dana cleared her throat again. “Is that a crystal ball?” she asked Ruby.
“Sure is.” Ruby grinned.
Sherry stepped in first. “We all got here as soon as we could.”
“They had to wait for me. I was in Columbus working on a new project,” Gracie explained.
“And I had to see if anyone was willing to exchange their shift with mine,” Paige, who was in purple scrubs, said next.
“And I had to go all the way to Yellow Springs to pick this baby up.” Ruby plunked the crystal ball in the middle of his desk. “It was a special order.”
“How do you know my grandson?” Rosa asked, ignoring the crystal ball, and everyone else, and pinning him with her dark brown eyes.
“I know him through Dayton Create. We’ve become friends—I’m even helping him get Huffy’s Tavern ready for the Amadors’ joint engagement party in a few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew him when we first met? I’m sure he’s mentioned me.”
Because you’re the oldest women I’ve ever seen wearing lingerie and that kind of made my mind go blank. “Yes, ma’am. He has mentioned you. I didn’t say anything that night because you were all busy giving me dirty looks and threats, and I was tired and… sort of in shock. By the sleepwalking and… everything.”
“And why haven’t you stopped by the café?” Ruby asked. “Everyone stops by the café. It’s famous.”
“I’ve been avoiding the café because I didn’t want to run into Hope.”
“Hmm.” Sherry folded her arms in front of her chest. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“I’m just telling you the truth.”
Ruby frowned. “His expression is open, but his eyes are guarded. It makes him hard to read.” They had barged into his office without so much as a text message to warn him when they’d be there, and they were now treating him like he was a villain. Normally, he had a good sense of humor about people’s quirks. But he wasn’t used to being the bad guy.
It was time to put them all in their place. “Maybe the background check you ran yielded some answers,” he said. But if he thought they’d feel embarrassed that he knew what they’d done, he was mistaken.
“No. It only brought up more questions. It said you were originally from Texas, but you don’t have a drawl.” Paige sat down in front of him and pinned him with what he now knew was a deceiving angelic gaze.
Matt had an answer for his lack of a Texas drawl, too, but he needed to move the conversation away from him and to the subject of Hope. He took in a breath, held it, and slowly let it out. “I moved here when I was eight and lost my drawl. But I didn’t ask you here to talk about me. This is about Hope. I met her today through work.” He motioned toward a framed poster in his office where the first businesses the DBDA had helped were featured. Friendly Clicks held a prominent spot. “She and I are now in a position where we must work together, and I can’t fathom working with her while keeping the things I know from her. I won’t do it. Not only is it morally wrong, but I know that if I were in her position, I’d want to know. I need you to tell her before next Monday, when we’re set to meet again.”
“Don’t work with her. Have someone else take your place,” Gracie suggested.
Matt shook his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t tell someone else the things I know. It’s because of what I unwittingly know that I need to work with her.”
“And what is it you know?” Sherry asked. Matt gave her a look. It didn’t even feel right to tell Sherry. Hope’s business was Hope’s business and he wouldn’t tell anyone but her. But he had an inkling that Sherry was merely testing him.
He got up. He hated what he was going to do next. “Look, I’m meeting with Hope next Monday, and I moved into my house this weekend. She might run into me in town and now that we’ve met, I won’t be able to just turn and walk the other way. Please either tell her who I am and how we’ve really met, or I will.”
“Over your dead body will you be the one to tell her.”
Matt felt his eyebrows go to his head as he looked back down at Paige. It was the demonic voice again. And all five women were glaring at him with evil eyes. Matt didn’t know what else to do. People normally liked him. He was friendly and easygoing. “Then we agree that you’ll all tell her?” he tried again.
“Are you sure you want us too? She won’t want to meet with you again once she knows where you live and everything that happened,” Gracie said.
Matt had thought about that, but he didn’t know what he’d do about it yet. He eyed his reflection in Ruby’s crystal ball. Maybe it held some answers. That made him quirk a smile. What the heck was Ruby doing with that thing, anyway? Yes, they were treating him like a wannabe villain, but he liked these women. And he liked Hope most of all. “Look, the DBDA is responsible for economic development in the region, and my job is to retain and attract businesses and new investments. Hope knows that, and she knows it’ll be in her company’s best interest to work with me.”
They were quiet. “So we’re agreed? You’ll tell her this weekend?” he tried one more time.
Rosa raised an eyebrow. “You’ve left us with no other choice. Now all that’s left to do is see if we can trust you to do right by Hope when you work with her. Ruby is right. You are hard to read.”
At least they’d reached an agreement. He walked to the front of his desk and leaned against it. “You can ask your grandson and Johnny Amador about me. They know me and trust me. We’ve volunteered together on a number of projects. And if you want to know anything about me, just ask. You don’t need to run a background search or consult a crystal ball.”
Ruby frowned. “You’re not escaping the crystal ball. I just need to learn to use it first. I keep staring into it, but I’m getting nothing.”
Paige scrunched her nose up and peered into the ball. “So you can’t see the future?” she asked.
Ruby shook her head. “That’s a common misconception, dear. Crystal balls don’t show you the future. They are simply a window into a person’s subconscious thoughts. To access his thoughts, I need him to sit in front of me with the ball between us, but I have to be in a trancelike state that I can only achieve at the café. I was also supposed to cleanse the ball, but I didn’t have time.” She looked up at Matt. “Will you stop by the café sometime next week?”
“Sure thing.” He smiled. And for some crazy reason, he found he was actually looking forward to it.
Mere seconds after the women left—and just as he was getting ready to tackle his ever-growing workload—Maya burst into his office, shut the door behind her, and flattened her body against it. “That was Hope’s grandmother and her sisters!” she exclaimed, eyes wide, before sneaking a glance through the side window. “I don’t think they saw me. Do you think they’ll come back? I don’t want them to think I’m a traitor, because I’m not. I’m trying to help Hope.”
It seemed everyone was trying to help Hope. From what he knew of her, she wouldn’t be pleased. “Uh, no. I don’t think they will.” He put down his pen and gestured to the chair Gracie had just vacated. “Have a seat.”
Maya sat. “Now I only have ten minutes. Why were they here?”
Matt looked down at his desk and slowly exhaled. Obviously, he couldn’t tell her why Hope’s family and friends had been in his office. But if Maya told Hope she’d seen them there…well, she’d have to tell Hope why she herself had been in his office, too. Which she might. His life was becoming more complicated by the second, it seemed, and it all revolved around one woman: Hope. “I can’t tell you,” he finally answered. “But you need to give me the same benefit of the doubt I’m giving you. I don’t think you’re out to betray Hope. Neither am I. I’m only trying to do my job, and right now, my job is to keep Friendly Clicks from leaving the region.”
“And you recruited Hope’s family to help you?” she asked, sitting back and folding her arms across her chest.
Matt stifled a groan. “No.”
“So they recruited you because they want her to stay?”
It seemed Hope was surrounded by terriers. And today, they were all trained on him. “Ms. Gaines, you said you only had ten minutes. Two have already flown by. You also said you knew I was a ‘good one.’ I am. I’m trying to help everyone involved. That’s all I can say.”
“Well,” Maya said on a heavy breath before pursing her lips and eyeing him up and down. She somehow managed to sit back even further and fold her arms tighter. “I see you don’t trust me.”
Matt glanced longingly at his workload. They were getting nowhere. Time for some business psychology. Reassure your potential partner that you are an ally and restate common goals. “I trust that you’re not here to betray your employer and that we have a common goal. If you tell me your reason for requesting this meeting, we’ll both have a better chance at achieving it.”
Maya dislodged her hand to point a finger at him. “I respect that.” She then leaned forward. “Here’s the scoop. One of our programmers got word from another programmer in North Carolina that Friendly Clicks and Unlimited Sparks—which merged eight years ago—have a buyer, and that the buyer would move Friendly Clicks to North Carolina. Now, everyone here likes Hope—she makes everyone feel valued without coming off as patronizing, and she tells it like it is without ever making you feel small—but she also keeps herself to herself. It makes it easy to like her when all is good, but easy to distrust her when something’s off, see what I’m saying?”
Matt nodded, and Maya continued. “On top of that, everyone knows she left the moment she had a chance to leave and only came back when her family needed her. Now that her sisters no longer need her, it’s easy for everyone to believe that Hope would be eager to get this deal going so she could leave again. But by not even giving us a warning, it feels like a stab in the back. And moving would be against the deal with the DBDA. Those who’ve been here from the start know it. So thirty-four out of our one hundred and one employees held a meeting to talk about strategies, and I was suddenly in the middle of it, with information that all sides would like to know, but that I can’t divulge without risking my job and a possible promotion, and potentially creating a bigger mess. It’s why I volunteered to contact the DBDA and be the lead. So I wouldn’t have to betray my job duties, Hope, or my coworkers. I believe the right thing to do is to share my information with you.” She finished with a firm nod, and Matt waited.
When she didn’t continue, Matt prompted, “So you asked for this meeting to share your information.”
“Yes.” Maya scooched her seat closer to his desk. “What I know is that a clause in the merger would allow Hope to buy out Justin. Friendly Clicks would become a completely independent company once again, and we’d stay put. And it seems this is what Hope wants to do. I know ’cause I handle all her meetings and phone calls and I know she’s trying. But something of a personal nature is holding her back, and she’s running out of time to buy Justin out.” She continued to move her chair forward until she was leaning across his desk. “This morning she had a meeting before work. I thought it was odd because it was outside business hours and nothing was scheduled on her calendar. When the woman she met with came out, I…”
Maya swallowed and her eyes flickered to his desk before meeting his again. “I took a picture of her with my computer’s camera and did an image search on her. The information that popped up on the lady that walked out confirmed a few things I know about Hope. She’s trying hard to solve her personal problem so that she can stay.” Her gaze took on an imploring look, and Matt felt for her. “I—I know what I did was nosy, and I can’t tell you what I found out, but I’m trying to understand what’s going on with Hope—for everyone’s sake. I can’t move to North Carolina. And I won’t find another job that pays me what I earn here. I only make what I make because I’ve been here so long that I know the ins and outs of our particular company. Hope has also offered me to head the Human Resources department, but I can’t accept and be part of hated management if Friendly Clicks moves and causes a ruckus in the region. That would hurt my chances for finding a new job here. I volunteered to be the liaison with the DBDA so I could explain how things really stood, but I need to know how you’re going to help us all, and what I can say to the others to keep them happy without lying to them. I’ve never been this stressed out! Keeping secrets is not my thing.”
Matt looked down at his desk to take a moment to turn everything around in his head. Would he have secretly taken a picture of someone and done an image search on them? No. But he understood where Maya was coming from. In a way, they were in similar positions. They both knew Hope wanted to stay but might not be able to, but they both answered to others and had to find a way to keep them happy while trying to assist Hope, who didn’t think she needed their assistance. The Dayton Business Development Alliance was a nonprofit that answered to a board of directors. They’d soon want to know what was being done to keep Friendly Clicks in the region.
Still, this was all getting to be a little too much. Ghosts, crystal balls, and now a spy… He bit the inside of his cheek and considered what he could say to Maya that would help her keep Friendly Clicks’ employees from doing anything that could hurt everyone’s cause without feeding them false hope. Finally, he looked at Maya. “You and I are both in difficult positions. But I have a plan…”
* * *
Hope looked down at her phone. What was with her family and friends today? They normally didn’t text her or call her during business hours unless it was an emergency. Yet all morning, her phone had been blowing up with inane texts like: Hola, Hope. I found a scarf that would look divine on you. Stop by to pick it up when you have a moment from Rosa, and: Hey big sis, how about a shopping expedition after work? from Gracie, who was supposed to be in Columbus until tomorrow, and: I know no one likes playing board games with you anymore, but I have a new game we can play. Stop by the café later from Ruby. Join Ruby for a new game? Ha! Last time she and Ruby had played a “game,” Hope had ended up dunked in a tub filled with salt and sage and something green and pungent while Ruby shrieked out a spell that would rid Hope of the spirit that claimed her at night. She shook her head to rid herself of the memory. At least now she knew to avoid Ruby and the café for the rest of the week. And shopping with Gracie? Shopping with either of her sisters was torture. They both literally shopped till she dropped.
What she needed to do was focus. Normally, she didn’t take a lunch break, preferring to eat on the go unless she had a lunch meeting. But today was different. The takeaway from her meeting with Matt Williams that morning was that another wall was closing in, and she had to find a way to push it back. Walls weren’t obstacles. A lack of solutions was the main obstacle she faced. And everything that was important to her was riding on a solution to her problem.
So Hope put her phone away, sat down, and stared at the wall. What more could she do to solve her sleepwalking problem? The sleep clinic hadn’t helped. She had already been checked for underlying conditions, and she already knew how to make her environment safe so that she wouldn’t hurt herself. Cognitive therapy hadn’t worked. The therapist wanted her to open up, and Hope couldn’t see herself telling a stranger about her past. Especially when the past didn’t bother her during daylight hours, or even in the dreams or nightmares she remembered. Meditation hadn’t helped. When she’d finally managed to keep her mind from focusing on business, she’d fallen asleep, and sleepwalked. After that disaster, she’d allowed Rosa to drag her to a priest to see if she was a candidate for an exorcism (she wasn’t), and Ruby to take her to a friend who had tried and failed to balance her yin and yang. But at least the acupuncture component of that last venture had relieved her neck pain, and she would now be able to do yoga again.
She closed her eyes. All that was left for her to try was hypnosis, and it was the one idea that filled her with apprehension. By all accounts, a person could be hypnotized. To her, the loss of control of her conscious state in front of another human being was the equivalent of sleepwalking. Her sisters and her grandmother had offered to go with her, but Hope was afraid she’d say something that would hurt them. She was causing them enough trouble as it was, what with alarms going off in the middle of the night whenever she tried to leave the apartment while in a somnambulant state. Never mind that someone had tried to lure Gracie to her death by saying that Hope was in the middle of a sleepwalking episode…
She sat up straight. If hypnosis was a possible solution, then hypnosis it was. She lifted her computer screen and conducted a search. To her utter surprise, there were two hypnotists in Spinning Hills, one with terrible reviews and one who appeared to be highly regarded. The one with terrible reviews was none other than Ruby Meriwether. Hope read a few of the comments. Apparently, Ruby was too theatrical and dramatic for most people’s taste. She sighed. Poor Ruby. No wonder she never said anything about her hypnosis certification from the Romanian University of the Americas. She was probably mortified the reviews existed.
Friendship aside, Hope made her choice. The hypnotist with the great reviews was named Flo, and she owned Flo’s Country Yoga. The hypnosis school she’d gone to was state licensed. But instead of calling Flo for a hypnosis appointment, she called to find out what country yoga was all about. It made sense to take a few yoga classes with the woman first, to get a feel for her as a person before she trusted her with her subconscious.
Minutes later, Hope hung up, delighted with Flo’s friendly drawl and conversation, if not with the description of her strange yoga practices. She buzzed Maya, who breathlessly answered, “Yes, yes! I’m here!”
Hope frowned. “I only buzzed you once.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “Then that must’ve been my cell phone.”
Hope shook her head. “Maya, does Justin have anything scheduled for this Saturday at nine a.m.?” Justin was eccentric and often scheduled meetings at odd hours. Since she’d agreed to take over his meetings for the coming weeks, she had to check.
“Uh…let me just pull him up… No. He doesn’t.”
“Thank you.” Hope released the button and got back to work, feeling more focused now that she had a viable plan. If Flo was as open, friendly, and genuine in person as she was over the phone, she’d schedule a hypnosis appointment. She was also sure she could get Rosa to go with her. As much as she wanted to leave her family and friends out of it, it made sense to bring a bodyguard of sorts, to protect her from any funny business. Sleepwalking was bizarre enough, she didn’t want to do be hypnotized into doing something truly crazy, like barking like a dog whenever someone clapped twice.
The thought of barking like a dog made her think of Zeus and wonder why she’d felt such an instant connection to him. The cute little critter’s soulful eyes had tugged at her heartstrings. Unlike his owner’s amused smile. That had yanked at her annoyance.
Hopefully, she and Flo would click, she’d try hypnosis, it would work, and her problems involving her employees—and Matt Williams’s interference over them—would be resolved.