Chapter 1
“Would you like some more salad?” Caroline asked me as she passed the glass bowl around the table. I grabbed the tongs and deposited a few leaves of lettuce onto my plate alongside the freshly-grilled cheeseburger and juicy chunks of watermelon.
“Thanks,” I said graciously. “This is really nice. Thanks for having me over.”
“Any time,” Max said warmly as he took a bite out of his veggie burger. Upon Caroline’s insistence, he was doing his best to limit his red meat intake. “Now, tell Caroline about your latest case. I couldn’t believe it when you told me.”
I grinned. I had found a new client who worked for an insurance agency. She wasn’t pleased with her investigators, so she hired me to check in on a few claims. While most insured told the truth, some came up with wild stories and fabricated evidence to cheat the system. I loved catching these people. At the worst, they were conning an insurance company out of several thousand dollars. It wasn’t life or death, but I loved sticking some justice to those entitled pricks.
“So, I got a call from my client and she tells me there’s this guy who was recently injured pretty badly in a wreck. The thing was, there was fairly minimal damage to the car he was in, and all the witnesses said he hopped out of his car in a rage, his arms swinging. But he goes to a chiropractor and is told that his neck and shoulder are all screwed up from his accident and that he’s going to have to have all sorts of treatment to get back to normal. Now, this guy plays in a lot of golf tournaments, so being injured was really messing with his livelihood.”
“Why didn’t the guy go to a physician?” Caroline asked.
Max rolled his eyes. “Happens all the time. You’d be amazed at all the things those guys can slap a diagnosis on, and the insurance companies have to believe it. Meanwhile, they make money on their patient coming in for back crackings and massages. Sorry,” Max said, realizing he had gone on a rant. “Go on.”
“My client in insurance had a hunch this guy was faking it. She says the loudest and most obnoxious people think they can scream their way into getting what they want. I guess this guy was billing obscene amounts for treatment, so she sent me to investigate. So, I basically trailed this guy for an entire weekend.”
“Wow,” Caroline said, her eyes lighting up. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, actually, I did.” I chuckled. “While he’s in town, this guy wears a cervical collar and shoulder sling. But I followed him all the way to Orlando. I even had to buy a freaking amusement park pass to see if he went on any rides with his date. By the way, the second he got on the interstate, the sling and neck brace came off. So, I spent an afternoon snapping photos of this guy getting tossed around by these violent rides and throwing fastballs at those metal bottles. My favorite was when he played the game where you swing the hammer to show how strong you are. I think those pictures capture the irony of the situation.”
Caroline covered her mouth to hide her giggles. “What an ass!”
I grinned. “I know. Truth be told, I had a great time following him. I bought a turkey leg and walked around the whole day, snapping pictures of this tough guy. I was going to stick with him all weekend, but I had more than enough evidence. I got to go home early and send my report before Monday rolled around.”
Max shook his head and laughed. “Tell her what your client told you.”
“Oh, yeah. My client called me later with a follow-up. Most of them do, just because they know I get invested in these cases. Obviously, the insurance company took the guy to court for fraud. Meanwhile, investigators found that the chiropractor was also playing a role in this fraudulent scheme. He gave a completely false diagnosis and was using his office hours to shoot this guy up with steroids so he could improve his golf game. Both of them had to pay back all the money they stole and received some hefty fines. Because of this, I ended up getting a bonus. It was all very satisfying.”
Caroline giggled again. “That was a good story. I’d love to discover someone’s big secret. Maybe you’ll let me come along with you sometime.”
She gave me a big smile and batted her long, dark eyelashes at me. I momentarily forgot what we were talking about.
“I don’t know about that,” Max said. “You never know when things are going to take a turn. If that guy would have caught John, he could have gone into a ‘roid rage. John can take a punch. You can’t.”
Caroline gave her dad a dirty look. “I’m not as fragile as you seem to think I am,” she retorted.
I dug into my lunch as Caroline and her father went back and forth. They were an entertaining pair. Max was always trying to baby her and she was always trying to prove how strong and independent she was. I never took sides in these friendly fights. I understood Max’s desire to keep his daughter protected from the world, but she was a capable and remarkable woman. She could take care of herself.
Since Max moved back to Miami, I felt like I was a member of the family. Max and I were too close in age to have a father-son dynamic, so I tended to think of him as an older brother or cousin who liked to tell me what to do. I wasn’t sure what that made my relation to Caroline. I guess we were just friends.
For a while, I was worried she was going to hate me forever after her dad’s relapse. Eventually, she came around, but she had been hostile toward me for about a week. After the case was over and Paulie was sentenced, she actually apologized to me. I felt so incredibly uncomfortable and tried to brush it off, but she insisted on clearing the air. I sat and listened to her tell me about how afraid she was of losing her only living parent, especially after having a boyfriend die right in front of her. With no other place to point her fear and exasperation, she placed the blame on me and said she had been wrong to do so. I appreciated her sentiment, but I had to take some responsibility. After all, I had promised to make sure he kept clean.
But it was nice to be on good terms with Caroline. She was a lot of fun to hang out with. We both enjoyed making fun of Max, and she loved to hear the stories about my work. Max invited me over to their home for meals on a regular basis, so there was always something to talk about. And as much as I tried to be a hermit in my apartment, I really appreciated having a close group of my own. I really felt like I was a member of the family.
“Have you heard from the woman lately?” Max asked me out of nowhere. I nearly choked on my iced tea.
“Dad, you’re embarrassing him,” Caroline chided as my face turned pink.
“No, I haven’t heard from her in months now,” I reminded him. Every once in a while, he liked to bring Marcie up, just to make sure I hadn’t fallen off the wagon. I appreciated his concern, but I hated when she was brought up in casual conversation, especially among mixed company.
“Good,” Caroline replied. “Dad told me about how awful she was to you. I can’t imagine being with a cheater. I know it’s different, but after I found out about what Benicio had been into, I didn’t quite feel the same way about him. I couldn’t have gone on for too long with him, with all the secrets and stuff. I don’t know how you did it.”
I shrugged, feeling very awkward. “I don’t know. It wasn’t all bad. We were together for so long that it’s kind of hard to change things. You just get into a routine that’s hard to break.”
She frowned, causing tiny creases to form in her brow. “Well, I think you deserve better, that’s all.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly, hoping for a change in conversation. I really didn’t want to talk about my relationship woes with Max and Caroline. In fact, it wasn’t a topic I wanted to discuss with anyone.
“Do you know anyone better?” Max asked Caroline. “Maybe you can set him up with one of your friends,” he suggested.
She gave me a coy smile. “He’s too good for my friends.”
My face started turning pink again. I was confused by what she was saying. I was getting the strange feeling that she was trying to come on to me, and I really didn’t understand why.
I wished I understood relationship stuff better. I had dated several women in my life, some of which were long-term relationships, but I still felt like a child when it came to knowing what women were thinking. Perhaps my observation skills had a blind spot because I became baffled and flustered so easily when women tried to flirt with me.
It really seemed like Caroline was trying to flirt with me, but I wasn’t sure how to take it. On one hand, I could see her trying to tease me because she knew how to get under my skin. That was a thing friends did to each other. But on the other hand, would it be crazy of me to take her words seriously? After all, she was a grown woman in her late twenties. She wasn’t a teenager flirting with the older guy for fun. She was starting to get back out on the dating scene, and we had a lot in common. Was it so crazy to think that she could want to be with me?
But there was the complication of the nature of our relationship. Her dad and I were good friends, but he was fiercely protective of her. If I made one wrong move and took her flirtations seriously, I could find myself in deep trouble with Max. Besides, we were like family. Why would she say these sorts of things to me?
In some ways, I felt like my relationship with Marcie had really set me back. If we hadn’t been together for so long, maybe I would have had the time to really hone my dating and relationship skills. Instead, I got comfortable to the point of complacency. I could be a lazy lover because we didn’t expect much out of each other near the end of our time together. Of course, I couldn’t place all the blame on her. I just feared that now that I was single again, I would be a hopeless case. So much had changed in dating since I was last on the market. When I was last single, online dating was shameful. Now, everyone was using their phone to meet up with other singles. I was left behind. I also didn’t know if I knew how to flirt, let alone find someone to flirt with. The whole concept of dating made my head spin. I just didn’t want to have to do it again.
But on the other hand, I didn’t like to be alone all the time. I loved the simplicity of stripping down to my underwear at the end of a long day and just lying on the couch, watching TV. I could eat when I wanted to and I could go to bed when I pleased. Without someone else’s schedule to limit me, I felt incredibly free. But that freedom didn’t come without a price. Saturday nights, I’d find myself stricken with a pang of loneliness. I had so many things that I wanted to share with someone who cared about me, but there was no one like that in my life. I wanted to date again, but I worried that it was too late for me. I was on the wrong side of thirty, and every little flirtation from Caroline reminded me of that.
Ironically, salvation from the conversation came in the form of a phone call from Zeke. Knowing my dinner mates would understand the interruption, I stood up from the table and pointed at my phone.
“It’s Zeke,” I said, my voice low. Both Max and Caroline looked surprised, yet curious.
Max knew that I occasionally helped Zeke out on cases, but it was still exciting and a little nerve-wracking when he called. If he needed my help, that meant that he was dealing with something more complicated or more time-consuming than the cops could handle. Oftentimes, that meant that I was dealing with a dangerous person. Unfortunately, Zeke wasn’t the easiest person to work with. He was highly critical of my skills, even though I had helped him out many times. Still, it wasn’t enough to deter me from working with him every time he called. He typically had the most interesting cases.
“This is John,” I answered.
“It’s Detective Greene. Are you busy?”
I looked at Caroline and Max, who were quietly eavesdropping on the conversation.
“I’m not busy. What’s up?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’ve got an interesting case I’m not sure what to do with.”
“I’d be happy to take on a new case,” I said eagerly, but not too eagerly. Showing any kind of emotion was not advised with Zeke. He liked to be manipulative of such things. Excitement was mocked and vulnerability was picked at.
“Good,” he said gruffly. “I might need your friend, Max, to help. Is he available?”
I looked across the room and decided the answer for him. “Yeah, I think he’d be willing to help. What’s the case? Do you need us to follow someone?”
“In a way,” he said carefully. “I’ve got a case the police can’t touch. We’re dealing with a very well-connected family. I worry that any police interference will get lawyers involved so quickly, the investigation would be shut down in a heartbeat. I think the best way to deal with this is to send someone undercover for a while to gather information. Then, if something looks good, we can potentially make an arrest.”
“Wow,” I said, devoid of any other reaction. I was surprised by his request and excited about the prospect.
“Do you think you can handle something like this?” he asked, sounding slightly whiny. We weren’t that far apart in age, but he still liked to treat me like a child.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. When can we discuss the details? Will we meet at the police station or the beach house?”
Zeke clicked his tongue a few times. “I’m going to have you talk to the man who tipped me off to this case. The beach house won’t work in this situation. Do you know where the new country club is?”
I furrowed my brow. “Yeah, the one that just opened a few months ago?”
“That’s the one. Let’s meet there tomorrow at noon. Will that work?”
“Tomorrow at noon?” I mouthed at Max, holding the phone to my chest.
He nodded. Caroline leaned closer to me, as if she wanted in on the action too.
“Yeah, we’ll see you then,” I said. Zeke hung up his phone without so much as a goodbye.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and returned to my seat at the table. “I guess we’re partners again,” I said to Max.
“What’s the case?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled to myself. “I have no idea, but I imagine it’s going to be a strange one.”
“Good,” Max said, stretching out in his chair. “I’ve been missing some excitement in my life. Now, if you don’t mind, the hammock in the backyard is calling my name for an afternoon nap.”
I grabbed Caroline’s empty plate and took it to the sink with mine. “No problem,” I said. “I should try to figure out why Zeke wants to meet at the new country club. It seems a little too fancy for a schlep like him.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a game of Scrabble?” Caroline asked me. “You don’t have to go just because my dad can’t stay awake for more than a few hours at a time.”
“Maybe next time,” I said, giving her a polite smile. “I never like to go into one of Zeke’s cases without a little research first. I think he likes to make me feel out of sorts. Want me to pick you up tomorrow, Max?”
He gave me a thumbs-up as he yawned.
“Cool,” I replied as I walked to the front door, not turning to look at Max or Caroline. “See you then.”
My brain was already buzzing with all the possibilities. I had never worked an undercover case before. Sure, I had followed people and briefly pretended to be someone I wasn’t, but I had no long-term experience in deception. Whatever this was, it seemed to have the potential to be more fun than following people who commit insurance fraud. I was in for a real treat.
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