Chapter 6
“What’s with the phone calls?” Timber asked, as Jaxon looked at the screen on his phone in disgust, then pocketed it again.
“I don’t know. I’m getting hassled by somebody. It’s been going on for a while. I just don’t know who it is.”
“Obviously that is disconcerting.”
“If I had the money to figure it out, I would do something about it,” Jaxon noted, with a shrug. “Sometimes you get people who just want to play around and to mess up your world, and I don’t have time to fix it.”
“No, of course not, but if there’s anything we can do …”
He smirked. “Do you have anybody who can handle this techie stuff?”
“Yeah, I do,” Timber said, nodding at him, “at least to a certain extent.” He turned to Tommy, who was serving up a plate of food.
Tommy was the most tech savvy of the military personnel at the Haven just now.
He had come since Timber got started building on the property.
Tommy helped them set up the medical clinic, and, even now, he did as much as he could with the chores and whatever else was needed.
“Tommy, what about that buddy of yours?”
“Yeah, that’s Gregory.” He looked to Jaxon and shrugged.
“He is a digital PI. He’s busy, but I know he won’t mind taking a look to see what the problem is.
” He quickly contacted him and told him about the situation.
Tommy laughed at whatever Gregory had said on the other end.
“No, that’s another one. That one was Burke. ”
“Oh, this is the guy who helped Burke?” Jaxon asked, turning to Timber.
He nodded. “Yeah, Gregory helped resolve the credit card fraud issues and some other online trouble that Burke had.”
Just then Tommy came over, his phone in hand, laughing, still talking to Gregory. “Apparently these guys collect trouble.” Then he passed over his phone.
With the phone now in his possession, Jaxon talked to Tommy’s friend and explained what the problem was.
“It’s probably just a phishing con or something,” Gregory suggested. “Give me your number.”
Providing the number, Jaxon heard clicking on the other end.
“And what about the number of the caller?”
“It just comes up as a Private Number.”
“Great, so either it’s a burner phone or a computer app, which would imply a little bit more exuberance or interest in ruining your life. Anybody in this world hate you?”
“My soon-to-be ex-wife,” he replied. “She started divorce proceedings.”
“That might do it. Does she have a partner?”
His heart clenched at that. “I honestly don’t have a clue.”
Gregory went silent for a moment, then added, “Okay, leave it with me for a few days, and I’ll see what I can come up with.” And, with that, Gregory disconnected.
Jaxon returned the phone to Tommy. “Gregory will get back to me.”
“Yeah, he’ll run through everything he can and try to find whatever there is, and either something will be there or not.” Tommy sighed. “It’s never the answer we quite expect or want, yet he’s often right.”
“That’s both good and depressing.”
“Yeah, he would say the same thing,” Tommy agreed, with a wry smile. “He’s a good guy.”
“What will I owe him for this?”
“Depends on what he finds, sometimes nothing,” he replied, with a shrug. “Sometimes he just thinks it’s a shit deal, and people are people, and he doesn’t want to take payment for stopping these kinds of problems, but I can’t guarantee that. Everybody’s got to eat.”
“Right, and that’s fine too.”
“You good for money?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah, if I have anything left after the divorce,” Jaxon said, with a groan, “that’ll be something to pay him with.”
“She’s got a vet clinic, so she should be the one who’s paying you,” teased one of the men. A few Hell yeah comments could be heard.
Jaxon looked around and frowned. “I don’t think I could live with that.”
“Maybe not, but, depending on how much of your pension and everything else she’s planning on taking, you’re not likely to end up with anything to live on.”
“Which would really suck,” he muttered.
“Yeah, you’re not kidding. It all depends on who she is as a person.”
“Generally indecisive,” he muttered. “That’s probably one of the biggest things I would say, and she’s got a sister who she’s basically looking after.”
“Why is that?”
He explained about the car accident, and they all winced.
One said, “You understand that perfectly well.”
“I do now,” Jaxon admitted, “but back then? I had very little tolerance for her, so I was definitely part of the problem.”
“What was the rub?”
“She’s one of those people who just sits there, complaining about her lot in life, and expects to be waited on. I didn’t have much patience for it.” He sighed, as he looked down at his own rebuilt body. “Maybe I would feel differently about Kelly now.”
“Maybe your wife couldn’t handle the strife again,” Roman suggested.
“Maybe, but it would have been nice if she’d given us the chance to figure out if we even had a problem before starting divorce proceedings.”
“Sometimes it happens that way,” Big Toby announced from the doorway.
“I came back, and my wife was already long gone,” Roman shared, sorrow still in his tone. “There was no, Hi, welcome back or anything else. Nobody was home, and the divorce papers were waiting on the counter, which is the last thing we need while we’re overseas or coming back from that assignment.”
Jaxon winced at that and nodded. “Sorry about that.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Roman,” Dwight barked.
“I’m not,” Roman declared. “It’s been quite a few years now, so whatever, but it still left a bad taste. We can’t blame anybody for being that person, but …”
Just then Jaxon’s phone rang again. He stared down at it and swore.
Timber held out his hand, looked at the Caller ID, and asked, “Just says Private Number, huh?”
“Yeah, Private Number, computerized voice, no clue what all this harassment and taunting is all about. If I answer it, there’ll be a mocking laugh.”
“Answer it,” Timber said, “and put it on Speaker.”
He immediately answered it and that same mocking laugh that he’d come to hate filled the air.
Everybody just stared at it. “That’s like the Chucky doll nightmare horror stuff,” Roman noted, staring at it. “God, that’s creepy.”
“Right, and not a whole lot I can do about it.”
“That one is definitely weird.”
Timber stared down at the phone and asked, “How often are you getting these calls?”
“Lately, it’s been more,” he shared. “Overseas, I used to get it every once in a while, but then it was more … I don’t know how to describe it, but it was off and on. Now that I’m back, they’re just out there, constantly pushing buttons.”
He nodded. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, it pretty much does,” Jaxon agreed, with a shrug, and went back to eating his breakfast. “What’s on top of the list for today?”
Timber glared up at the whiteboard that had become the nemesis for everybody here. “Shirley has the board nicely refilled,” Timber muttered, turning his glare on the young woman sitting on the other side of the kitchen table.
Shirley was an absolute dream project manager. She just let Timber rant and rave, and, if through the course of the conversation she heard anything else useful, she would get up and add it to the board while he watched, which usually sent him into another tailspin.
She smiled at him. “You’re doing fine, Timber,” she called out. “Pretty soon you’ll have some of this stuff beaten.”
He rolled his eyes at that and groaned. “Ya think?”
“Yep, I think,” she confirmed, with that smile still in place. “It will be a while yet, but the longer you guys just sit here and commiserate, the longer it will be.”
With exaggerated sighs and varied complaints, several of the men got up, but their plates were well and truly empty, and Shirley knew it. They joked and laughed, mostly over anything else, but it was still a great working environment.
The progress she spoke of was something Timber really hoped to accomplish for himself and for the Haven, but he also knew she probably had volumes of items to add to the whiteboards as soon as some space was cleared.
That depressing thought was interrupted by the ringing of a phone, and he turned his attention back to Jaxon.