Chapter Thirty–Six
Business Not As Usual
Charlotte managed to get herself motivated by challenging herself to prove she wasn’t who Jordan thought she was.
Jordan thought she was a thief and a liar. She knew nothing she could say would erase that. Hell, she’d wanted to be ruthless. And it had worked. She could hardly blame him for what he thought about her. She may have gotten the information she was hoping for, but in the process, she made herself just as dirty as George. It didn’t feel like a win.
But she could do better. She could make a vow not to be that way again.
The world needed more people who cared about the effects of their action. Her weekend in Haven proved to her how far wrong she could go and how badly it could hurt people. She could do her job without having to break into people’s files or tell elaborate lies to everyone. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to catch a criminal, but she was an investigator, not the police. And even they couldn’t just walk into your house and start rifling through your files.
Charlotte didn’t want to be ruthless anymore. She wanted to be fair. She knew it was too late to prove anything to Jordan, but she could prove it to herself.
So, she created a mission statement, something else she wouldn’t have considered before Jordan. Maybe it was just wasted words but if she could take a stand and make it public, then that would hold her to it. Then she added a code of conduct, for herself and for the company. She sent it to every customer, with an intro explaining why she thought it was important for a private investigator to be forthright, ethical, and transparent. She posted it on her website, front and center, and on her Facebook page. There. Maybe one day, she’d tell him how he’d helped her to work out her own boundaries. Now, though, she needed to get to work.
It was tough, navigating the boundaries of what she could and couldn’t do. But in the message boards and groups, she found she immediately got a good reaction. It became clear people didn’t necessarily feel good about hiring someone who was willing to work dirty. Soon, she found herself in the middle of a long message board discussion about what a PI service could offer and why she was taking a stand.
Her mother called most days, nagging at her to go out with “people her own age” and then giving up and inviting her over to dinner.
She knew she should get out but everything seemed dimmed, after the brightness of experiencing the world with Jordan. Jordan pushed her to be more than she was, while loving the fact that she tried, without judging her. She sighed. There was no point... no, she’d made her bed and now she was going to have to lie in it.
The next day, Charlotte’s phone rang off the hook with enquires. She scribbled notes about each interested party, remembering George’s filing system. Anything they mentioned might be a useful detail, even though it didn’t appear to have an immediate bearing on the work they wanted.
She shoved her dining table against the wall and turned it into a desk. It wasn’t like she ever had guests over anyway. She bought a filing cabinet and a stack of manila folders. She could do it online but she liked the system of just being able to drop things in without needing to scan documents or open the computer.
And because she couldn’t help herself, she looked up Kenny James. He was retired now, apparently. George’s files had included the man’s wife’s name and birthdate and his wife had a Facebook account: it was easy for Charlotte to get up to speed on his life.
They seemed a happy and comfortable couple. Did George Lovett blackmail him at the time? Threaten his marriage? Or just waive that check in his face? She didn’t really feel like she could say much on that score, having accepted $5,000 from Jordan for the weekend job under false pretenses.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang. “I spoke to someone this morning, was it you? About my husband.”
“I’m sorry, who is this? I don’t think I talked to you.”
It was an older woman, sounded like she was crying. “Are you alright?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m not alright,” the woman said. “I need your services. You said you could get photographs.”
Charlotte furrowed her brow. It sure sounded like the woman needed a private investigator. But Charlotte worked alone and she definitely never spoke to this woman before. “It wasn’t me, Mrs...?”
“Golden. Julia Golden. I was coming out of the Mercy Hospital. My husband got taken there from a hotel room. At lunch time! The woman said she was the top investigator for adultery in the city, but I lost the card. It wasn’t you? You are the only female PI in the phone book.”
Ambulance chasers. Charlotte paused for a moment. She could get the benefit of whoever primed this woman. It wasn’t like SHE was ambulance chasing, after all. “Mrs. Golden, I don’t offer services to strangers in places like hospitals. It’s taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable.”
The woman snuffled loudly. “Are you saying you won’t help me? She said there would be evidence on the CCTV she could help me get it. She said I needed to act immediately or it would be too late.”
Charlotte grit her teeth. It would absolutely be a good deed to save Julia Golden from whoever it was trying to panic this woman into hiring them. And Charlotte needed the work. But at what cost? Jordan’s words kept bouncing through her head. You don’t treat customers that way.
“I’m not the person you spoke to. I’ll be happy to take your case, if you decide you’d still like my services after you’ve had a chance to deal with the shock of your husband’s medical situation. The person you spoke to earlier clearly put pressure on you and that’s not something a good private investigator would do. I think she was taking advantage of your current emotional state. So, please take some time to think about it and call me back if you still feel hiring an investigator is the right move.” She felt her voice get stronger as she invited the woman to talk to her on Monday. Maybe she wouldn’t get this one job but she sure did feel better.
She caught up on reports for all of her customers, including the man with the faithful wife, except that this time, she stated outright she thought he was wrong; there was no evidence whatsoever his spouse was seeing someone else. Tomorrow, she’d deal with the fallout. One thing was certain: If you had to be ruthless to do this, then she wasn’t going to do it anymore. She would be fair and treat others like she wanted to be treated. It might make for less money but it would sure make her sleep better at night. Maybe she should just accept this wasn’t the business for her.
Thanks to Jordan’s payment, she could afford to take a breath and work out what she wanted to do. The bills were paid, this month at least.
Charlotte knew what Jordan was doing was right. He was better than she was. She wanted to bring down George Lovett, so she’d lied, trespassed, and stole. Jordan would have said either do the job right or don’t do it at all.
And it just broke her heart that there she’d been, surrounded by the warm and protected space of his affection, and she’d treated him like dirt.
She wanted to become the kind of person Jordan would be proud of, even if he never knew. Maybe one day she’d tell him about her business and that he’d changed the way she worked. Maybe she’d write him an anonymous thank you card.
Right now, though, she had work to do.