Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Beckett
“And your keys.” I hold out my hand and Georgia slaps them on my palm. I’ve already changed the locks, so I don’t really need the keys, but she doesn’t know that.
“I’ll check it against the inventory and if anything is missing, I’ll be in touch. But I certainly hope for your sake that it’s all present and accounted for.” I nod at the cops as they climb out of their cruiser. Perfect timing.
Georgia turns, her jaw dropping as the cops close in. “But you said if I did what you asked you wouldn’t call the?—"
I said no such thing. I slam the door in her face and lock it.
None of this would have showed up on the inventory though. Sometime between my father’s last breath and his funeral, she must have taken it upon herself to take what she wanted before the insurance adjustor conducted the inventory.
My father knew he was dying, so he gave himself six months to get his affairs in order before choosing the hill he wanted to die on. Literally. Pete found him between the rows of old zinfandel vines on the steepest part of the slope. He’d smoked a Cuban cigar and drank a few bottles of wine before checking out.
“Wow,” Daisy says, running her hand over a Murano vase shaped like the horn of plenty. I’d get more pleasure out of throwing it against the stone wall and watching it shatter than actually filling it with flowers or displaying it. “Money makes people do some crazy shit.”
“And what would you do for money, Daisy?”
“I’ve done a lot of things for money,” she says, ripping open one of the boxes stacked in the entrance hall. “I worked as a dishwasher at a Michelin starred restaurant where they treated the staff like shit. But I met some good people and got some great photos out of it.”
She picks up a bronze sculpture of a lion and looks around for the right spot before setting it on the mantel above the stone fireplace in the living room. I set a painting of thoroughbreds behind it and prop it against the wall instead of hanging it. My father used to have a stable full of horses, but they’re all gone now, and the stables have been converted into a crush pad and winemaking facility.
When I turn, Daisy is eyeing the mantel, her head tilted, and I get the distinct impression that the painting will end up somewhere else by tomorrow.
She is incapable of leaving things as they are.
“Let’s see…what else have I done?” she says, distributing the goods after I take a photo of each item and save it to my phone. “I once shot a campaign for a fashion brand and then later found out that they use sweatshops to manufacture the clothes. Lesson learned. I always do my research now before accepting a job.”
She’s making herself sound like a Girl Scout, but I’m not completely buying her little goody-two-shoes act.
She sets things down where sh e thinks they belong, and I move them to their rightful home. It becomes a game.
A marble statue of a naked woman takes up residence on my desk, and I move it to the downstairs bathroom.
Silver candlesticks are relegated to the chopping block island, and I move them to the table in front of the window.
She sets a pair of matching terracotta urns on the patio, and I move them to the front of the house, one on either side of the double carved oak door with brass lion’s head door knockers.
I don’t even know why we’ve unpacked these boxes when I plan to auction off every single thing in this house and donate the money to charity, but it’s done now.
After checking all the boxes to ensure they’re empty, Daisy spins to face me. Her skin is lightly tanned from the sun and her cheeks are flushed like a child with a fever. “So was that the whole booty or do you have more treasure hunters to track down?”
Only the one living under my roof. “No. I’m done.”
“How did you know about Georgia?” she asks, sitting on one of the bottom steps of the staircase and leaning back on her elbows while I break down the empty boxes for recycling.
“For one, she was being overpaid for her incompetence, so I was already suspicious. But when Pete mentioned that she had a set of house keys and that I should probably get them back, I did some investigating. I called around to some pawn shops and tracked down a watch that used to be my father’s and went from there.”
“Look at you, Nancy Drew.”
I glance over. Her combat boots are planted on the rustic limestone tiles, legs spread wide open like an invitation. “Of all the detectives you could have chosen, you went with Nancy Drew?”
Daisy shrugs. “It was a toss-up between Nancy and the puppy from Blue’s Clues.”
With a sigh, I grab my keys off the carved wooden sideboard in the entranceway and stride to the door. She’s such a pain in the ass that it almost kills me to say, “Let’s grab some burgers.”
“Fine. But only if they’re wagyu beef and bite-size.”
Funny girl. But this is by no means a friendly invitation. As the old adage goes, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer; and for all intents and purposes, Daisy is the enemy.
She’s also the only person who can give me information about Astrid.
I’ve been with my share of beautiful women but I’ve never seen such an over-the-top reaction before. The men sitting at the bar are practically falling off their fucking stools, heads swiveling to watch Daisy walk past.
Daisy, in her frayed cargo pants and another ridiculous T-shirt from the kids’ department. This one has the name of a high school track team on it. A high school that I’m almost positive she never attended since she went to high school in Santa Monica, not Michigan.
I don’t know if she’s oblivious to the male attention or if she’s just so used to it that it doesn’t faze her, but when I slide into the booth across from her, she’s studying the menu like it holds all the secrets of the universe and she couldn’t care less about the men ogling her.
“God. I’m starving,” she says after she orders a double cheeseburger with all the toppings, fries, and onion rings. I already know she’ll eat every single bite and still have room for dessert.
“Do you like your job?” she asks, taking a big bite of her burger.
“It pays the bills.”
It more than pays the bills, but I’m not about to discuss my net worth with Daisy Larsson.
With any luck, the little fortune hunter hasn’t googled me. Last year, Grayson and I were both featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 thanks to our unicorn startup that was valued at $2 billion.
Unfortunately, I was also named one of the Bay Area’s Most Eligible Bachelors, a title I’d neither wanted nor flaunted, yet it still attracted unwanted attention.
“That’s not what I asked.” She shoves a handful of fries into her mouth and licks the salt off her fingers but thankfully refrains from performing fellatio on her index finger tonight. “Is it your passion? Is it something you would choose to spend your time doing even if you didn’t get paid for it?”
“If I wasn’t making money, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
She looks disappointed by my answer. “That’s what I thought.”
In the beginning when Grayson and I were building an innovative platform to connect lenders with small businesses, I loved my job. But now that we’ve scaled up and we’re dealing with the fintech operations side of things, not so much.
Founding a startup takes a different set of skills than running a successful company so I’m looking forward to selling and moving on to my next venture.
But I got what I wanted out of the deal—financial security.
I never again want to be in the position where I need to scrimp and scrape just to pay the rent and utilities.
I never again want to have to beg, borrow, and plead for money.
Helpless. Powerless in the face of my mother’s depression that she never emerged from.
When I was fifteen, I found an in-patient treatment center on the internet that promised amazing results. I hadn’t spoken to my father in two years, but I made an exception and called him to ask for the twenty grand I needed.
He pleaded poverty so I got myself kicked out of the fancy boarding school and called him back. “There. Problem solved. Now send me the fucking money.”
By the time he coughed up the money, it was too late. My mother was dead.
And I will never, ever forgive him for that.
As far as I’m concerned, loving my father is what ultimately killed my mother, and Astrid was the one who pulled the trigger.
“So what’s Astrid up to these days?” I ask casually. As if that could ever be a casual conversation.
Daisy sits back in her seat and studies my face, no doubt debating whether to trust me and how much information she’s willing to share.
The silence stretches out between us so long she starts to fidget, but I just wait and say nothing. I could sit here all night without breaking a sweat.
“I have no idea,” she says finally. “I haven’t seen her since I was seventeen.”
That’s not what I expected to hear, but she could be feeding me a load of bullshit. “No contact whatsoever? No birthday cards or phone calls or messages by carrier pigeon?”
Her eyes meet mine. “If you’re trying to find my mother, I won’t be of any help. I don’t even know where she is.”
I mull over the possibility that she’s telling the truth, but for all I know she’s a skilled liar like her mother.
“What happened when you were seventeen?” I prod.
“She left.” Her gaze dips to the plate in front of her. “I came home one day and the guy she was living with told me to pack my bags and get the hell out.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I get the feeling that it is.
I don’t want to picture seventeen-year-old Daisy getting kicked out of the house with nowhere to go and no one to look after her so I’m choosing to believe it’s a lie.
But it sounds exactly like something Astrid would do.
And if Daisy is telling the truth, it adds up. Astrid’s last known whereabouts were Santa Monica, where she lived up until seven or eight years ago.
“Hey, Beckett,” Daisy says when we get back to the house. “Do us both a favor and don’t try to find her. If Astrid shows up here, I’m out.”
On that note, she climbs the stairs and a few seconds later I hear her bedroom door closing.
That sounded a hell of a lot like a threat, which only goes to prove that there’s nothing sweet or innocent about Daisy Larsson.
It also proves my point that you should never sign anything until you’ve read the fine print.
Did I skip over a few key points when I was summarizing the contract for her?
Of course, I did.
Was I playing fair? Hell no.
But she never should have trusted that I would, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s on her.
Time to grow up, Daisy.