Chapter Sixty-Two #2
“I stole it out of your cabinet. It didn’t look like you had enough room to fit one more up there, so I am reusing,” he told me. “How was work?”
“The usual. Are we about ready to head out?” I asked.
“Do you want to change?”
“No. Why?”
“To be more comfortable,” he said, looking down at my shoes.
“Comfort is overrated,” I shot back.
“Alright then. My ride is around the corner,” he said, reaching out to gently touch my hip to turn me.
I should have been annoyed.
I hated when men put their hands on a woman to move her out of his way or even to move past her. If you wouldn’t put your hand on a man’s lower back to move past them, don’t put it on mine.
But with Brock?
Oh, yeah, I was a lot more into that than I should have been.
It was just a quick touch, though, gone before I could even fully process it.
I couldn’t tell you what I expected a man like Brock to drive. For example, I could generally picture ex-military guys driving pick-ups for some reason. But also, in my mind, private investigators drove really nondescript black sedans.
What Brock drove, though, was an unexpected 4Runner in this unique pale greenish blueish color that I didn’t even have an example to compare it to. But it stood out. Definitely not something that suspicious people would miss parked on the street.
“Front, sweetheart,” Brock said when years of riding in the back of a town car made me go to the rear passenger door.
“Right,” I said, shaking my head at myself as he pulled the door open for me.
“Been a while, huh?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t remember the last time I rode in the front of a car,” I admitted. “Years, I guess.”
“Don’t you ever drive?”
“I never learned how,” I told him. “I was born and raised in the city. There was never any need for me to learn. And then when I decided having a vehicle was smarter than wasting time on public transit, it made more sense to go with a town car and a driver, so that I could get work done on my way to and from places.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed, pulling out of his spot. “For a workaholic, anyway,” he added. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your laptop.
“The only reason I didn’t is because you were waiting for me outside,” I told him.
“Won’t it be nice not to be working for a couple of hours?”
“That is a good question that I don’t have an answer to yet. So what is Navesink Bank like? I haven’t been to a lot of places in New Jersey. Aside from Cape May.”
“It’s a big small town, if that makes any sense.
Lot of people, and a lot of diversity in socioeconomics.
There’s a rougher area, a big suburb, and a rich suburb.
And I mean rich-rich. You rich,” he clarified.
There’s the Navesink River along one part, and the beach is only maybe fifteen or twenty minutes away, depending on where you live in Navesink Bank. ”
“Is it where you grew up?”
“Yes. And then I went away after the military.”
“Why did you go back?”
“Sawyer. He’d gotten his shit together and opened up the private investigator agency. He wanted people he knew that he could trust on his team. So he came to find me, dragged me back to town, and I’ve been there ever since.”
“Do you like your job?”
“I guess that depends on the case,” he said, shrugging, and it was refreshing that he didn’t just answer yes. No one loved every aspect of their work. Not even ‘workaholics’ like me.
“Which cases don’t you like?”
“While they’re the easiest cases to work on, I’ve had about enough of cheating spouse cases. It’s hard to enjoy the breaking up of a marriage or family, even if the person did bring it upon themselves.”
“I get that. There’s a lot of trauma involved. What are your favorite sort of cases to work on?”
“The ones involving beautiful, single women?” he said, shooting me a smirk.
“I also like helping the families of missing persons after the cases go cold, or when their local department is just not doing enough. Those can be heartbreaking a good chunk of the time, since most people who go missing end up being dead.”
“But at least the families get closure.”
“Exactly. And when you can, on a rare occasion, find someone alive, that’s a high you don’t come down from. Even if there is often a lot of trauma involved in that too.”
“But you helped get them out and back to their families where they can heal.”
“Yeah. It’s definitely nice to get some good mixed in with some of the shitty stuff.”
“Do you get a lot of cases like mine?”
“With the faked suicide and 5150? No, babe, you’re my first.”
“I kind of meant with some unknown foe wishing someone unwell.”
“It’s not as common as the cheating spouses, but, yeah, it happens. We get a lot of stalker cases in particular. It’s hard for victims to get any sort of help from the police with shit like that, so they come to us for help.”
“What can you do? I mean, aren’t stalking cases notoriously hard to prosecute? Even with evidence?”
“Yeah, definitely. But we help the victims build up cases, get information on their stalkers, and try to weigh the danger level. Sometimes, just knowing we are involved with scare the creeps off. Other times, we have to refer clients to other organizations to help them disappear and start a new life away from a real psychopath. What?” he asked, giving me a long look, making me realize my thoughts must have been on my face.
“It’s just… I spent two hours today going over financial reports,” I said, laughing at myself. “Your job sounds so much more interesting.”
“Don’t underestimate how nice predictability can be,” he suggested.
The rest of the ride was riddled with little funny stories about cases he’d been on, situations he’d gotten himself into, and how I’d managed to get my career going at such a young age.
Grit and tireless determination, that was how.
“This is the Navesink?” I asked as we neared a bridge over a body of water.
“That’s it,” he confirmed as we passed what looked like the rich suburb he’d mentioned earlier.
I didn’t know what I was expecting with Brock. But I guess, in my mind, I pictured bachelors living in apartments.
Brock, however, pointed toward a suburb as we passed. “I live down there, but I wanted to do the meeting with the team first,” he told me. “They have families to get home to. And we have all night.”
The offices of Sawyer Investigations was an upscale, two-story building with a very masculine decor style—all dark black and grays, nothing soft or frilly around.
“Marg! The one who got away!” Brock greeted the woman at the front desk who looked old enough to be his mother. And, judging by the annoyed, yet affectionate, smile she gave him, that was likely very much the dynamic the two of them shared.
“Oh, you. You still need to get your comeuppance from Terry, you know. She’s asked for you twice already.”
“Marg, the love of my life, not in front of the client!” Brock said dramatically, one hand to his chest, the other gesturing toward me.
“Oh, you must be Miss Coulter,” Marg said. “With the extremely persistent assistant.”
“In his defense, I pay him to be a bit of a pain in the ass,” I told her.
“These guys,” she said, waving to the office. “They pay me to be the same.”
“We pay you because we love you and your time is valuable,” Brock insisted.
“You are putting it on thick today,” Marg told him, rolling her eyes. “You can go on in. He’s free,” she said, waving toward the hallway to the side.
“She’s the office mom, huh?” I asked as we walked.
“She would love to hear you say that,” Brock told me, reaching for a door and opening it without knocking.
“For fuck’s sake, Brock,” a man inside grumbled as he leaned back in his chair. He was tall, handsome, somewhere around the same age as Brock. “Miss Coulter,” he said, tone going a little more professional as he looked at me.
“You must be Sawyer,” I said, moving forward to offer my hand. “I’ve heard next to nothing about you,” I admitted, getting a surprised chuckle out of him.
“That’s no surprise,” another voice said, a deep, booming sort of voice, making me turn to find another man walking in. “He does tend to talk mostly about himself.”
“This is where I might adopt a Rodney Dangerfield voice and grumble about not getting any respect,” Brock said.
Sawyer ignored that.
“How have things been going, Miss Coulter? Is there anything we can do to improve your experience?”
“I mean, on the one hand, I wish this was all over…”
“Understandable,” Sawyer said, nodding.
“But on the other, I have no complaints. Everything has been very thorough.” Including my wholly inappropriate fantasies about my now live-in investigator.
“We promise we will be doing everything in our power to bring about a resolution as soon as possible,” Sawyer assured me. “If necessary, we can also come to the city to do some digging, but I have full confidence in Brock’s skills.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Brock has been keeping us in the loop about the progress on the case. I’m glad you have all the security set up. How did you find Lennon?”
“Intense, but I imagine that is a good thing in his line of work. He is having me do construction on my balcony.”
“I’ll bet he is,” Sawyer said with a smirk. “If there is anything else you would like for us to do…”
“So far, I have no complaints. I’m still alive and not in a psych ward, so that’s good. I won’t keep you any longer,” I said, getting back to my feet. “I just wanted to drop in and introduce myself since we are in town anyway.”
“To get some of my things,” Brock supplied at Sawyer’s puzzled look. “Because I will be staying with the client for the time being. Did I forget to tell you about that?” Brock asked, looking like a mildly apologetic younger brother when caught not giving his big brother the whole truth.
“It must have slipped your mind. But I’m glad to hear it. Especially since we have no leads,” Sawyer said, also getting to his feet, and walking us toward the door.