Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
S alem
The cupcakes turned out perfectly, and the frosting might be my best yet. Sometimes the cream cheese doesn’t mix as well as it needs to, but today, it’s as smooth as can be.
Talking with Kellen was fun too. That’s the side of him I want the world to see. I think if people knew how funny and charming he can be, they’d understand that he’s a regular human being with good and bad sides. That’s all I want. I don’t expect to make him a saint in the public’s eyes. I just want them to accept that he’s a person just like them.
Pleased with how my baking turned out and happy my focus is back, I return to my office to put a call into my favorite private investigator. Ivan has had nearly three weeks to find out everything there is to know about Gina Randolph. That he hasn’t called me in all that time worries me, but nobody’s life is spotless. That I know.
Ivan answers on the first ring and is his usual, tempestuous self. “Salem, how the fuck are you? I was just thinking about you. I was going to call you in a couple minutes. You must be reading my mind.”
“Does that mean you have news for me?” I ask, hoping to God he’s found something.
“I do. Where can we meet in about an hour?”
Looking down at the floury mess all over me, I quickly try to gauge if I can be cleaned up and somewhere in an hour to meet him. Unlikely.
“How about tomorrow? Say around lunch? I’ll treat.”
“No bueno, baby. I have plans. There’s a new woman in Ivan’s life. Why don’t I just come to you? You said you were out somewhere in the wild, right?”
Doubting most people would call Dutchess County the wild, I chuckle. “Not exactly. Where are you now?”
“Driving up the damnable Taconic, and two minutes on this fucking road reminded me why I rarely leave the city. Who in the hell designed this highway? Whoever he was, he had no goddamned sense.”
I give him the address, and he jokes, “Holy fuck! You must be like a fish out of water out there. I’m not going to run into creepy dour-faced farmers standing with pitchforks next to their homely wives, am I?”
As much as I’d pay to see Ivan scared by the Dutchess County version of American Gothic, I highly doubt he’ll see anything like that out here. “No, it’s a nice area. Very posh. I’m staying in a house owned by the CEO of King Industries.”
“Really? Well, fuck me. You’re moving up in the world, honey. Does this mean sometime soon you’re going to be too good for the likes of this son of a bitch?”
“Never! You’re my go-to guy, Ivan. You know what. Who else is as good as you at finding dirt on people?”
“Nobody, thank you. I’ll see you in a few, depending on whether or not I die on this fucking road.”
“I’ll be here waiting.”
Excited that I soon may have a better sense of what Gina Randolph is all about, I hurry to my room to get cleaned up. Ivan knows how to find out anything, even details people try their hardest to keep hidden. If there’s something to know about the woman accusing Kellen of sexual harassment, Ivan’s the man to sniff it out.
My favorite private investigator sits down on the sofa across from where I sit at my desk and looks around. “Pretty fucking swanky, sweetheart. I might not hate having to leave the city if I could hang out in digs like this.”
I glance at the room and nod. The office is definitely nice. He’s not wrong about that. Roomy with large floor-to-ceiling windows in front of the desk, the room contains enormous bookcases filled with priceless classic editions on the left wall and a cozy seating area with a sofa and chair on the right side of the room. I have to admit it’s probably the nicest office I’ve ever worked in.
“It’s not bad work, if you can get it,” I joke. “I’m a pretty simple girl. I think that’s why I like this office so much. The view out the window isn’t bad either.”
Ivan leans forward and looks out toward the side yard filled with oak and maple trees. “I think all this green would put me into a coma. I thought you were a city girl, Salem.”
That makes me laugh. “I am, but it’s nice to get away from all that concrete and steel every once in a while.”
He sits back on the couch and spreads his arms across the back. “So how was your vacation? Where did you go again? Somewhere in the Caribbean?”
“Turks and Caicos. It was great, for the most part. Sun and sand. How can you go wrong?”
Ivan grimaces like I’ve just told him I had to stay in prison for a week. “All that fucking nature. Give me the urban jungle any day. You spend a lot of time out here and you’re going to be the queen of suburbia. I’m not sure I can live with that.”
Throwing my head back, I laugh at that idea. “I don’t ever see me being the queen of suburbia. I’ll always be a New York girl. Speaking of that, what did we find out about another New York girl, Gina Randolph?”
Ivan slaps his knee. “Now there’s a woman no man wants to wake up to in the morning. Holy fuck! She’s the workplace version of a black widow spider.”
His comment intrigues me. “What does that mean? Did she kill somebody?”
He waves off my question, disappointing me momentarily. “Not a killer, but she definitely knows how to lure flies to her spider web. Let’s start with the fact that your boy is not her first victim.”
I cringe at the way he refers to Kellen as a victim. He may not be the villain everyone’s making him out to be, but I find it hard to go with calling him a victim.
“What the fuck was that for?” Ivan asks, pointing at my face.
Not interested in having this discussion with a man who may be the world’s biggest chauvinist, I shake my head and shrug like it’s nothing. “What? Let’s move on to what you found out.”
“Oh, no, no, no. You made a face, baby. You don’t like thinking your boy is a victim? Set whatever your damn problems are aside because if the roles were reversed and your boy was a woman, you’d be all over terming her a victim.”
Seeing we won’t be moving on until I address this issue with him, I say, “Victim always hits my ears wrong when we’re talking about men who have everything they want in this world. He’s a billionaire, Ivan. Save your tears for the people you pass on the street who don’t have a place to go or don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Kellen King will be fine. I’ll do my job, time will pass, and he’ll come out smelling like a rose, I bet. The title of victim should be kept for people who deserve your pity.”
The private investigator levels his gaze on my face and stares at me for a long moment. Shaking his head, he smiles and finally says, “I’m getting a vibe here, Salem. What’s going on? You never talk about clients that way.”
“I generally don’t have to fix anything for people like Kellen King.”
Still shaking his head, Ivan refuses to believe that’s what’s behind my attitude toward my newest client. “You’re acting like my calling him a victim is a personal offense to you.”
That gets him another shrug. “You’re reading too much into this, Ivan. How about you tell me what you found out about Gina Randolph?”
He points at me and laughs. “I’ll figure out what you’re up to, but okay. For now, let’s talk about good old Gina. Your boy tangled with the wrong woman when he hooked up with her. First thing you need to understand, which I certainly hope his lawyers already know, is this isn’t our girl’s first brush with sexual harassment.”
“Don’t tell me. She actually sexually harassed someone in the past,” I say with chuckle, loving the irony and hypocrisy of that.
“Nope. She’s all about playing the victim, baby. Let’s start with her first time blaming a man for doing something against her. Five years ago, she was working at a company named Schless. They make things out of glass and are based in a town near Albany. Pretty much hell, but there you go.”
I write down the details of what he’s saying, leaving out his commentary on how awful everything that isn’t Manhattan or the boroughs around it is. I’m just thrilled to find out Gina’s accused another man of sexually harassing her before.
“A mere two months after starting as an executive assistant to the production manager, a young man named Kenny Brighton, who I swear if you saw him you’d wonder if anyone has ever sucked his dick, unfortunately met up with her. She said he touched her inappropriately. The first thing I thought was he looked like a goddamned virgin, and I can’t tell you the last time I saw someone who looked like that. I mean, in this day and age, who the fuck isn’t having sex by the time they’re in their mid-twenties, for Christ’s sake? This is the reason our society is such a fucking mess today, I tell you. Goddamned people not having sex. No wonder they’re so angry. I’d be angry too if I didn’t get to nut on a regular basis.”
My hand hovers over my notebook as he goes off on his sex tangent. “Ivan, should I be worried about your date tomorrow? You sound a little tightly wound today.”
With a big smile, he answers, “No need to worry about her. She’s about to have all her dreams fulfilled. Now can I continue?”
“Go ahead. I was just hearing a lot of sexual frustration in what you were saying. That’s all.”
I can’t keep the smile off my face as I say that, so he knows instantly I’m teasing him. That’s why he’s so great to work with. Nothing bothers Ivan.
With a smirk, he says, “Moving on. Schless reacted to her claim by paying her off, and she got a cool two mil.”
“Damn! That’s not a bad haul for one claim of bad touching. I’m assuming young Kenny Brighton swears he never did anything wrong?”
“Of course. Now I tend to believe him because again I’m not sure this guy has ever had sex. He looks like a fucking priest.”
“Okay. She got some cash and left the company, I assume.”
Ivan rolls his eyes. “Of course. It doesn’t make for good water cooler chat to keep working at the place where you claim the quiet production manager who looks like a virgin sexually harassed you. Unfortunately, our girl blew through two million in very little time, so that meant she had to go back to work like the rest of us commonfolk.”
Damn. Gina has expensive tastes. Two million isn’t chump change.
“Let me guess. That’s where she met Kellen.”
Shaking his head, Ivan grins wickedly. “You have no patience, baby. No, she did it again at another company before she ran into your boy. The second time was three years ago at a small company in a hole-in-the-wall town in Vermont, of all places. Hang on. I knew I wouldn’t remember the name of the company.”
He flips through his little notebook and stops, looking up at me. “Handy Goods. That’s the name. Sounds like a place where you get a handjob, if you ask me. She was the executive assistant to the son of the president of the company. George Handy, Jr. Poor fuck. Can you imagine having to walk around for your entire life with that name?”
“I swear to God you’re frustrated, Ivan. It’s all about sex with you.”
“It’s all about sex with every man. If you women would finally admit that, you’d control the fucking world. Instead, you fight the fact that could truly liberate you. I’ll never understand your sex, you know.”
“We’re a conundrum. So what happened with Mr. Handy?” I ask, trying hard not to smile at the poor guy’s name.
“This one was different than the first one. She was dating the young Handy. According to him, they were serious. The sap even thought she loved him and he was planning to marry her.”
“Jesus, that’s pathetic,” I mumble.
“The company didn’t want to go through a whole civil thing, so they forked over a million bucks and our fine lady was on her way.”
Even though it doesn’t matter, I’m curious if Ivan believes Handy was as innocent as he claims. Something in the way he talked about him compared to the first guy makes me wonder.
“So are you thinking she really was sexually harassed at that second company?” I ask as I get ready to write down what he’s about to say.
Ivan takes a deep breath in and blows it out of his lungs in a rush. “I don’t know about that one. I mean, to hear him talk, it was love. They don’t have any rule against co-workers dating, so he did nothing wrong on that count. The fact that they were involved makes the whole sexual harassment thing difficult. Gina claimed he pulled a number like that guy in 9 to 5, you know that movie with Dolly Parton in it. Who was the guy who played the boss in that?”
“I have no idea, Ivan. I don’t think I’ve seen that movie in ages.”
“Well, the boss was a touchy-feely douchebag who was always trying to get under Dolly’s skirts. Not that I blame him. She looked great in that movie.”
“So she said he made physical contact with her at work while all the while she was sleeping with him?”
Ivan nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”
That’s interesting. It sounds sort of like what happened with Kellen.
“The problem our girl seems to have is she goes through money like it’s water, so she needed to find another job to make another score. She got the job at King Industries last year right after the old man died and the oldest son took over. I’m guessing that’s the reason nobody looked into her past because they would have found out about one of these, I’m sure. Yes, there are NDAs for both, but a good investigator working for companies that big can dig anything up.”
I smile as I jot down in my notes what may have happened when she was hired at King Industries. “Not everyone is you, Ivan. Maybe they wouldn’t have unearthed the details.”
Looking over at me, he grins like a Cheshire cat. “Nobody is like me, sweetheart. Still, I think King spends at least a little money to check out their people before bringing them on. Whatever happened, though, they didn’t with Miss Gina.”
I sigh, happy to know Kellen wasn’t the first Gina tried her ploy with but unsure what I can do with this information. “Thanks, Ivan. I appreciate you finding all this out for me.”
He sits back on the sofa and laughs. “Of course, Salem. Your boy walked right into that spider’s web, didn’t he? The first guy lost his job, by the way, but he still swears he didn’t do a damn thing. He wouldn’t tell me much because of the NDA, but he swears they only went to the movies once and nothing happened. I’m telling you he’s still a virgin. As for the second guy, that poor fuck thought she truly cared for him. She was his first love. That’s a guy who’s going to have a hard time believing in love after that. Not that it’s something I would suggest for any man. You women are always our downfall.”
“Spoken like a true romantic.”
Ivan stands up and stretches his arms over his head. “Nothing about that woman is romantic. Gina views men as prey. Nothing more.”
I walk him out as I thank him for all his great work. “You never disappoint, Ivan. Thanks.”
He looks up at the fa?ade of the house and shakes his head. “You better not give up your life to become some billionaire’s gopher, Salem. I know this is tempting, but you don’t belong out here. You’re a creature of the city like me.”
Rolling my eyes, I tap him on the forearm. “Nobody’s staying out here for any longer than they have to. Trust me on that. Take it easy on the way back home.”
He starts walking to his car, that ugly maroon sedan he’s had forever. “I’ve got a big night to look forward to, so you don’t have to worry about me. Take it easy, honey. Keep in touch.”
I wave goodbye and turn around to walk back into the house. Kellen is standing in the doorway, and I get the sense he’s got something on his mind.