Chapter 12 Diem
Diem
Diem
I woke early and carefully escaped the cage of Tallus’s arms to slip out of bed.
He didn’t stir—the man slept like a rock—but he was used to my early morning gym sessions.
Echo, who had found her way to the foot of the bed sometime during the night, inquisitively cocked her head as though asking where I was going.
“Gym time. Go back to sleep.”
Chuffing, she buried her nose under a paw and closed her eyes.
Echo didn’t join me at the gym. Considering it was the one place I could let off steam, I was usually fine on my own.
Nothing cleared my head more than a half hour of punching a bag and another thirty minutes pumping iron.
If I was especially agitated, I ended a workout with a run on the treadmill until every anxious thought had been extracted from my pores.
The goal was to start each day with the least amount of stress possible.
In the dark, I put on clean shorts, a fresh tee, and snagged a hoodie from the closet before heading out into the chilly morning.
An hour and a half later, ripe and sweaty from a workout, I drove to Tallus’s favorite café to grab him a treat.
I earned more than my fair share of side-eyes and wrinkled noses from customers as I ordered him a latte and a cookie.
I didn’t shower at the gym anymore. After years of relying on their facility, I was grateful to be able to clean up at home.
At that time in the morning, the café’s waiting area was full of men and women dressed for office jobs, students hustling off to school, and me, wafting BO and with a thick layer of sweat drying on my skin. At least that meant most people gave me a wide berth.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call as a man elbowed me out of the way to grab his order. I hated impatience. I hated crowds and people. I especially hated talking on the phone. It was twenty past seven for fuck’s sake. Who the hell was calling, and what was wrong with sending a text?
I dug the device from the kangaroo pouch on my hoodie and checked the screen as the barista called my name and placed a huge takeout cup and a wrapped cookie on the pickup counter. I waved my thanks as I frowned at the number displayed. It wasn’t one I recognized, and the ID came up as unknown.
“Probably spam,” a stranger beside me said.
I gave her a dirty look for being nosy and wedged between people to get to the counter. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
I grabbed Tallus’s treats and pushed through the bustle to get out the door.
In the fresh-as-it-came city air, I inhaled relief and debated answering the call.
In a second, it would roll to voicemail.
Maybe it was Benaiah again. I hadn’t programmed his number, and I couldn’t remember how it displayed the other day.
Although if Benaiah needed me, he should call the fucking office during business hours.
I didn’t work on demand, and I wasn’t on call.
Against instinct, I tapped to accept.
“Yeah.” My barking tone made a woman with a baby on her hip startle as she exited the coffee shop. I turned my back, ignoring her.
“Hey, Diem.” The caller was far too cheerful. “How are you? I hope I didn’t wake you. I wanted to catch you before your day got too busy. Got a minute?”
“I…” The person sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place them. “Who is this?” I headed to the Jeep.
“Ah, shit.” The man chuckled. “Should have started with that, huh. My name doesn’t come up, does it? Forgot we had it set that way with the provider. My bad. It’s Heath.”
“Hea… Oh.” Why on earth was Tallus’s stepfather calling me? “Is… Is Tallus okay? Did something happen?”
A jolt of adrenaline surged through my veins as I balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could grab my keys. No. That didn’t make sense. Tallus was asleep in bed when I left. How could he have—
“I assume he’s fine. You would know better than me.”
“Right. No, he’s… in bed. Are you… Why did you…” Fuck my stupid head. My brain was muddled from the unexpected call and wasn’t processing properly. It was Heath. This wasn’t about Tallus. Of course it fucking wasn’t.
I got in the Jeep and set Tallus’s treats carefully aside before exhaling and pinching the bridge of my nose. “How can I help you, Heath?”
“Well, it just so happens that buddy of mine I was planning to go fishing with had to cancel. Since I already have the cabin booked for the weekend, I thought, what better time than this to teach you to fish and to get to know my son-in-law. Think you’d like to join me?
It’s the first weekend in April. We’d leave on the third, if possible, and get home late in the afternoon on the fifth. ”
I opened my mouth to… What? Ask a question? Tell him he was crazy because I wasn’t the kind of person you invited on a fishing trip? Remind him that Tallus and I weren’t married? Confirm if he’d dialed the right number?
Son-in-law? Was that a dig? A compliment? I wasn’t… We weren’t…
“Diem? You still there?”
“Yes.” My voice came out small. “You want me to go fishing with you?”
“We talked about it.”
“Yeah, but… me?”
I pictured a serene lake. No people for miles. Absent city noise. Clear, smogless air. A blue sky overhead. Maybe a bird or two. The wind in the trees.
“Why the heck not? I think we need bonding time, you and me, and what better way to do it than on a quiet fishing trip.” Heath paused. Then, as though sensing my discomfort, added, “You can say no, son, but I’d love to take you.”
I had no idea how to respond. This wasn’t something I could decide on a whim. I could barely wrap my head around the son-in-law part, let alone the fact that this man, who called me son, wanted to bond.
With me.
For a weekend.
“C-can I think about it?”
“Of course. No pressure. If you don’t come, I’ll head up there myself, so take all the time you need.”
We said an awkward goodbye, and I sat in the running Jeep for a long, long time without pulling into traffic. An hour and a half at the gym had grounded me. A five-minute phone call with Heath had upended my life.
Again.
***
Shadowy Solutions was, in essence, a shared business.
Tallus’s name wasn’t technically listed as part owner, but I treated him as such.
We divided cases according to our skill sets.
Since he still worked for the police department a few days a week, I took the lion’s share.
Some cases suited Tallus’s more social personality, while others landed in my wheelhouse.
After helping Oliver Hill, a prominent prosecuting attorney, with a few odd jobs over the winter, the lawyer had hired Tallus on a semi-permanent basis.
The tasks involved a lot of side quests, including obtaining specific evidence for cases, researching backgrounds on witnesses the defense planned to call to uncover all the skeletons in their closets before trial, and authenticating certain details for whatever Hill had going on at the time.
It amounted to a lot of computer work, which was not Tallus’s favorite way of passing time, but he complained less.
Facts were facts. Tallus excelled at that stuff.
Plus, working for a lawyer required a lot of communication and tact, both of which I lacked.
It paid well and had put our business on the map.
We’d had calls from other lawyers to do similar work, and Tallus’s days at the office were usually packed.
As a result, I ended up with most of the infidelity cases.
The grunt work. The long, lonely nights of surveillance.
Following husbands or wives as they slinked out of their lovers’ beds and headed home.
On occasion, I chased down bail jumpers or tracked people who skipped parole meetings.
My size and ability to intimidate worked better in these situations.
I handled the more technical research jobs and picked up stray cases for corporate suits who wanted dirt on their employees and were willing to pay big bucks for me to dabble in the illegal side of things.
I didn’t care about the ethics involved.
The chances of getting caught or sued were slim, and if I didn’t do it, they’d find another PI who would.
It was rare that Tallus and I ended up working a case together. Elwood Scarrow and his unfortunate grandparent scheme was technically mine on paper, but I could tell Tallus was itching to join me at Evergreen to interview Marcy Daily, so when I requested his assistance, he eagerly accepted.
“Are you going to chat with Elwood’s bank?” Tallus asked as I pulled the Jeep into the lot at Evergreen, snagging the best spot in the visitor section near the front doors.
“They won’t talk to me. I’m not a cop, and I can’t get a warrant. Benaiah already explained that the account where the money was sent was shut down. Tracing it to its owner, if whoever set it up wasn’t careful, would require a lot of legal loophole jumping. Chances are, it was a mule account.”
“What’s that?” Tallus unbuckled his seatbelt as I grabbed Echo’s leash.
“A transfer point for illicit funds. Criminals layer accounts to wash money through them so it can’t be traced. It’s something on a level your cousin might investigate for the police, but even he would be hard-pressed to map it out or tag the person responsible. These people know how to disappear.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“It’s why these kinds of fraud cases usually don’t get solved.”
“You really think a kid knew how to do that?”
“No.” And that had been bothering me more than I liked to admit.
Lost in my head, I pulled into the first available parking spot. I let Echo out and attached her leash, taking her to the grassy verge for one last pee before we entered the building. Marcy started work at nine, according to yesterday’s receptionist. We were twenty minutes early.
“Want to pop in and see Nana?” Tallus asked, mindlessly scrolling on his phone as we waited on Echo.