Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Joe watched the lights turn off in the massive place and noted the time. Eight o’clock sharp. The woman was, if anything, punctual.
He’d been on the job for four weeks now, and, even though she’d packed up her car and moved to Pride, Oregon, a small town with about ten thousand people in it, she hadn’t missed a beat.
He knew the massive lighthouse and the home attached to it belonged to her brother, Max Wilson, the famous screenwriter who’d had more blockbuster hits in the past five years than anyone else in Hollywood. He also knew that Max and his wife, Juliette, were in South America for the next few months.
He suspected that Ally Wilson, the woman he’d been hired to watch twenty-four seven, was house sitting with her daughter, five-year-old Charlotte.
He’d been hired by her ex-husband, Ted Garrison, district attorney in Portland. Ted had more power in the city than, well, anyone else he’d worked for in the past two years.
Joe had all sorts of skills that helped him in this job.
He was ex-military, and after his service he’d done what all his buddies had done—he’d joined the local police force.
Moving back to his hometown of Portland hadn’t really been a hardship, not when Lisa had been waiting for him all those years.
Marriage, kids—he’d hoped for all that with her.
Instead, a drunk asshole had taken all those plans away one night as Lisa drove home from her job at the hair salon.
After watching the SOB who had killed his dreams walk free thanks to a technicality, his taste for protecting and serving had gone sour.
So now, he found himself photographing and cataloging the scums of the world, in hopes that they’d get what they deserved.
But something ate at him and told him there was more to this job. The couple, Ally and Ted Garrison, had been divorced for almost five years. When he’d asked if the man had hired other PIs to watch his wife in hopes of winning back full custody of their daughter, the guy had acted… pissed.
Joe leaned back in his warm car and set his camera down on the passenger seat.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. The night air off the coast was damp and cold, and it carried the faint cry of gulls even after sunset.
He’d been parked long enough that his legs itched to move, but he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Habit kept him planted.
Normally, he’d just watch until the lights went out, document the pattern so there would be no surprises.
Still, his mind drifted back to that first meeting with Ted Garrison.
The district attorney’s office had smelled like old leather and power.
Ted had kept Joe waiting for twenty minutes, which told him plenty about the man right off the bat.
When Ted finally strolled in, he’d been dressed in an expensive suit that was expertly pressed.
Even the man’s tie was perfect. He had thinning brown hair, glasses with thin wire frames, and cold eyes.
His smile had been more shark-like than human.
The millions his family had given him as seed starter when he’d graduated from college had gotten him far over the years.
Joe had looked into the man when he’d called for a consultation.
“You’re ex-military,” Ted had said, flipping Joe’s résumé across the desk like it didn’t matter. “So you know how to follow orders.”
Joe had nodded and kept his tone even. “I know how to do my job. You want surveillance, you’ll get surveillance. But you’ve had custody hearings before. If your ex-wife hasn’t slipped yet, odds are she won’t.”
The shift in Ted’s expression had been instant. His jaw ticked as his eyes grew cold. He leaned forward, his voice sharp as glass. “Don’t ever tell me what my wife will or won’t do. She’s unstable. She always has been. And I don’t hire people who doubt me.”
Joe had held his ground, though every instinct told him this was the kind of man who would destroy a career, or worse, without blinking.
Ted’s smile returned, colder than before. He pulled out his checkbook and tapped it against the desk. “You get me proof that she’s unfit in any way, anything that’ll hold up in court, and I’ll double your fee. We’re not talking small change, Mr. Dalton.”
Joe remembered the way the man’s eyes had darkened when he said it. A promise wrapped in poison.
Now, sitting outside the lighthouse with the waves pounding somewhere beyond in the dark, Joe shook off the memory. Money was money, sure. But there was a sour taste in his mouth every time he wrote his reports and emailed them to the man.
So far, Ally Wilson wasn’t giving him much to work with.
She was quiet. Routine. The kind of mother most people would point to as steady.
He’d seen her walking with her little girl on the beach, holding her hand, when they had first arrived, listening to her chatter about seashells when he’d snuck close enough to them.
Nothing reckless, nothing neglectful. Just… normal.
Which made his job complicated.
With a sigh, Joe finally started the engine and turned around at the end of the long driveway. If he was going to keep at this, he’d need a place to stay in town. Somewhere closer, less conspicuous than circling the lighthouse every night like a vulture and sleeping in his car.
Pride wasn’t exactly packed with options, but after a quick search he found a hotel on the outskirts of town. It was small, no-frills, with a neon sign that flickered on and off like it was tired of existing. It suited him perfectly.
The clerk didn’t ask questions when he laid cash on the counter. The woman just slid the keycard across to him.
“How long are you staying?” she asked.
Joe hesitated. That was the problem, he didn’t know. Ally might stay a month, she might leave tomorrow. From the luggage he’d watched her carry in, along with the boxes, he was guessing it was longer than a few days. Either way, he had to be ready.
“A week,” he said finally. It was safer that way since it was long enough to keep watch and short enough not to leave a trail.
He carried the bag he always kept packed in his trunk down the hallway to a room that smelled faintly of bleach.
Tossing the bag on the bed, he sat in the chair by the window and stared out at the cars flying by on the dark highway beyond.
He doubted his view was as nice as Ally’s up at the house on the hill.
The fact that Ted Garrison had promised him double his normal fee had made him feel like this was a job he’d be able to finish clean.
However, with weeks under his belt, the worst thing he’d found against Ally was that she’d forgotten a few items on her grocery list once and, after loading up her car with her purchases, had to haul the kid back inside the store to get the forgotten items.
There was no way this woman was this squeaky clean. Right? If the DA of Portland was spending this much money to find something against her that would hold up in court, surely it meant there was something.
After hitting send on his latest report, he figured he’d do some more digging on his client. It was standard procedure, but his first few looks into the man had come up with nothing bad. He didn’t even have a speeding ticket.
He had grown frustrated at the lack of information now that he was pretty sure that Ally was just a single mother trying to care for her daughter the best she could.
So he pulled out his burner phone and scrolled through the numbers.
He landed on one that he hadn’t dialed in a few months and hesitated for a second before pressing call.
It rang twice.
“Dalton?” a gruff voice answered, heavy with sleep or, more likely, whiskey.
“Yeah, Clay, it’s me. You still working records?” Joe asked, leaning back in the rickety hotel chair.
Clay Walker had been a sergeant back when Joe wore the badge. He was one of the few guys he halfway trusted. Clay was a man who knew where the skeletons were buried and sometimes who put them there.
“Sometimes,” Clay said slowly. “What’s this about?”
“Ted Garrison. You got anything on him? Anything not scrubbed clean?” he said, watching the car lights flash by outside in the rain.
The line was quiet long enough that Joe thought maybe the call had dropped. Then Clay’s sigh filled his ear.
“Dalton, you like playing with fire, huh? That guy’s untouchable. People who poke around him don’t stay employed for long. Some don’t stay around, period.”
“I know,” Joe muttered. “But I need to know what I’m dealing with. Every time I dig, I come up empty. I’ve got a job from him, and it just doesn’t sit right.”
Another pause, then Clay said, “Give me a few days. No promises. If there’s dirt, it’s buried deep. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll owe you.”
“You already do,” Clay said, and then the line went dead.
Joe tossed the phone on the bed and opened his laptop. If he couldn’t get dirt on Ted yet, maybe he could piece together more about Ally.
It didn’t take long to find the trail of lawsuits she was dealing with. There were fourteen in the last five years. All of them initiated by his client.
He skimmed through docket summaries, case numbers, and settlements.
Most of the cases brought against her by her ex had been dismissed outright.
Two of them were still pending. All in all, the only thing Ally had won was full custody of Charlotte.
There were mentions of CPS getting involved and monitoring Ted’s visitations with his daughter, but no specifics.