Chapter 3 #2
“That might be a problem in light of recent events.”
“Have you reported him to the authorities?”
“What? No, I haven’t reported him.”
“Why not? Are you just going to let him get away with stealing fifteen grand from you?”
“The cops aren’t going to do anything.”
“How do you know that if you haven’t filed a report?”
Julia shook her head. She’d grown up watching people in authority turn a blind eye to what was happening in their home and had lost faith in justice.
She was still half-waiting for her father’s guilty plea to be overturned on a technicality that would set him free.
“I’d rather not go that route.” The thought of reporting it made her anxiety spike.
“That’s what he’s counting on. You know that, don’t you?”
“Know what?”
“He thinks he knows you so well. Julia would never report me to the cops. She’s not that kind of girl, which makes her the perfect girl to steal from.”
When he put it that way, Julia couldn’t deny the truth of it. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to go about reporting him.”
“I know how to do it, and I’d be happy to help you.”
Julia bit her bottom lip and tried to organize her thoughts. “What would it entail?”
“First of all, you’d want to review his social media to prove his mother isn’t sick.
Take screenshots of everything he posted around the time he was telling you his mother was desperately ill.
Next step would be to document the baby, the house, the setup with the other woman. How did you give him the money?”
“Venmo.”
“That’s awesome. There’s a digital footprint. That helps tremendously—you can prove you gave him the money. Do you have text messages or anything that shows him talking about his mom being sick?”
“I think we talked by text about her having had cancer before, which I now know isn’t true.” It burned her ass that she’d believed him, but he’d been so sincere with her, so caring and considerate. Now she knew he’d been setting her up for a scam.
“You’ve got a solid case against him, Julia. You just need to put it together and pull the trigger. Your local police would probably act on something like this. I know I would have if this had come across my desk when I was on the job. It’s a clear-cut case of fraud.”
“You were a cop?”
“Uh-huh. Ten years in Boston.”
“Oh.” She crossed her arms. “How come you aren’t a cop anymore?”
“I got injured.”
“Did you get shot?”
“Nah, nothing that dramatic. I tore my ACL chasing a perp, and after I had surgery, I didn’t regain full range of motion, so they medically retired me. When you’re a cop on the beat, you have to be able to run fast and climb and jump over stuff. I can’t do that anymore.”
“Just like your mom, you had to change your plans.”
“Yep, but unlike her, I’m still looking for the reason for what happened to me. I loved being a cop. It was my ‘calling,’ if you believe in such things. Since I left the force, I’ve been kind of floundering.”
“I know what that’s like.” At times, Julia felt like she’d been floundering her entire life.
Unlike most of her siblings, she’d never found a profession that particularly interested her, so she’d used her organizational skills to fashion a career as an office manager.
That, too, had turned to shit when a new boss had arrived to make her life a living hell.
“If I file a report, would I get the money back?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to say. Depends on whether he still has it.”
“It’s probably long gone.”
“Possibly, but you’d give him some serious heartburn if you filed charges, and you’d put him on notice that he can’t treat people this way and get away with it.”
“Would he get arrested?”
Deacon’s sinfully sexy lips curved into a smile, and his golden-brown eyes glittered with delight. “Yep, and searched, fingerprinted, booked, charged, possibly held overnight and then arraigned. The whole nine yards.”
Julia had to admit that the idea of Mike being arrested and charged for what he’d done brought her a perverse kind of pleasure.
“What do you say? You want me to help you get him in some trouble?”
“Yes, please.”
He cracked up. “So polite.”
“Well, you’re offering to do me a favor. The least I can do is be polite.”
“I’ll trade you a favor for a favor.”
Disappointment flooded her. Of course he was just like the others.
“Not that kind of favor,” he said, laughing again. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about the kind of favor where you have dinner with me in exchange for my professional services. I don’t have many friends here, so it’s kind of lonely.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll have dinner with you, but only if it’s not a date.”
Deacon considered that, rubbed at the stubble on his chin and gave her a calculating look. “No deal. I want a real date.”
She shook her head. “I told you I’m done with all that.”
“Forever?”
“Maybe.”
“If you take that stance, then he wins, Julia. If you deny yourself the chance to be happy with someone else, he wins. Are you going to let him win?”
“It’s not just him. It’s all of them.”
He cocked his head adorably. “You want them all to win?”
“No, I don’t want that, but I also don’t want to date anyone. Can’t we just go as friends?”
“Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that.”
“Hey, Julia!” Her sister Cindy’s voice had Julia turning toward the party. “It’s time for more toasts, and Katie is looking for you.”
“I’m coming.” To Deacon, she said, “I’ll see you later?”
“Save another dance for me.”
Now that she knew he was interested in dating her, she didn’t want to dance with him anymore. He was too tempting, and she was determined to stick with her man diet for the foreseeable future.