9. Woman Next Door

9

WOMAN NEXT DOOR

“ D id you have a client meeting last night?” Betsy asked him the minute he walked into the office. He’d had every intention of beating her here. But good intentions don’t mean it works out when he gets a call in the middle of the night from a client.

“Why?” he asked. “And bill Justin Rogers double for three hours last night.”

Betsy laughed. “Did he get you out of bed again?”

“Yep,” he said. “Got a call at midnight, then found myself sitting at a bar snapping pictures of his wife with some guy that wasn’t with her the last time I had to do this.”

“What do you think that is about?” Betsy asked.

“No clue. I couldn’t hear the whole conversation, but what I did hear was nothing that alluded toward a romantic relationship. They were talking about sports and some TV show, even the freaking weather.”

“Like a first date?” Betsy asked.

He wasn’t sure the last time he talked about that shit on a date with a woman. Not even a first one.

Hell, if he was being honest, he had a date last night.

All the elements were there.

Food. Privacy. Personal conversations.

None of it was about the weather or sports. Not even about work either, other than they shared the same wall in their offices.

Now that he knew that piece of information he might have a hard time concentrating.

Nah, he never had that problem before.

“If that is what one consists of, maybe. I didn’t get that vibe either. They were more like friends.”

Betsy’s head went back and forth. “And this isn’t the first time you’ve noticed this with her, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. It was the third time Justin had called him in the middle of the night to see where his wife was. The fact Tricia didn’t know there was a tracker on her car wasn’t his problem. It seemed odd to him since Justin admitted that his wife would often say where she was going, so it must be Justin wanted to verify it wasn’t a lie.

There was no violence in the relationship that he could see. Just a man that was with a woman way out of his league in looks and it was causing a lot of jealousy.

“Tricia has a full-time job,” Betsy said. “She is home most times with her husband, but a few times a month she goes out with friends or clients and that is what Justin has an issue with?”

“Seems it to me. I haven’t seen anything to show that she is cheating. In the beginning, I was following her a lot.”

Dead end work that paid a lot and bored the crap out of him to sit in his car and take pictures. But it paid the bills well and Justin seemed to have an endless amount of money.

“Who knows?” Betsy said. “But as long as he’s willing to keep paying you.”

“Yep. If it’s not me, it will be someone else. I wonder if he just likes the control for his own peace of mind, but that is their relationship. Justin said Tricia tells him she is going out for work meetings. He asks her all the time and she says they are clients. He has access to her work calendar; she’s shared it with him. I feel as if she’s not really keeping secrets from him by doing that and answering his questions. He’s almost relieved every single time I report back that it seems innocent enough. It’s like he needs that verification that his wife is telling him the truth.”

“Do you think he’s trying to catch her to get a divorce or trying to assure himself it’s not that so he doesn’t have to divorce her?” Betsy asked.

He played those words in his head. “Don’t know, don’t care. I’m not paid to figure out the emotional element or motivation in this situation. He might be concerned or jealous of her time with coworkers, but again, he’s talking to her and she is answering him on it. Since he knows where she is going and she’s there, she’s not being secretive.”

Betsy laughed. “You still didn’t tell me if you had a client meeting.”

“Why are you asking?” he asked.

“Because I walked in and it smelled like Chinese food. I saw the boxes in the fridge and it made sense but not so much that it still stunk. I opened the other office and that is where it was coming from. There were two dirty dishes and forks in there.”

Busted. “No client meeting,” he said, going to his office.

He’d let her stew on that some and she’d know enough to not pester him.

She’d probably think he picked some woman up for the night. He’d done it in the past.

Well, it’s not like he’d bring that person back here so no, not quite. Maybe earlier in his career he’d meet someone at the bar and they’d have a few drinks and go back to his place.

Now it was more like acquaintances that he hooked up with now and again.

It drove Betsy nuts, but it’s not like he reached out to them. They were always calling or stopping in to see him.

Could he help it if women wanted to spend time with him?

Yep, that was a cocky thought he’d had in the past and didn’t feel like he’d want to admit it now.

Because all he was interested in was the woman next door finding time to be with him.

At eleven, Betsy went into the hall with her cup of coffee and met with Miles.

“What’s so juicy you’ve got to share?” Miles asked. “Who is secretly meeting with whom? Is it the accountant on the fourth floor coming here to use the bathroom at the same time as that dude from the first floor walking up?”

She laughed. She and Miles did have a nice view of the bathrooms from their offices and often would joke and notice meetings of people that weren’t housed on their floor.

Sure, someone could come from another floor and did, but when it happened with the same two people more than once a week and they’d stand out there chatting, she’d get suspicious.

Maybe it was her nature to be that way, but Miles and she had a good time chatting about it in the few months he’d been here.

“They normally meet on Mondays,” Betsy said. “Like they need to convene after they’d spent some time together over the weekend.”

“Good point,” Miles said. “And Fridays so they could make their plans. I bet they don’t like having a trail of conversations on their phones.”

“That would be smart, but most people aren’t that smart when it comes to affairs. At least from what I’ve seen.”

“Then we get the ones that catch each other,” Miles said, winking.

“Can you imagine the teamwork that could be done with our two bosses?” she asked.

Miles was rubbing his hands together. “That is the goal. At least what the Fierces have planned out. By the way, Regan seems completely oblivious to what their hobby is and I’ll try to keep it that way.”

“Good,” she said. “Zander knows and has since Royce and Chloe were set up. They’ve made no secret they were working on him, but he just brushes it off. It’s not like they’ve mentioned Regan’s name around him. I think they hope for us to do it all.”

“I’m game for it,” Miles said.

“Which leads me to something I discovered last night.”

“What’s that?”

“I came in and noticed two dirty plates in the spare office and two dirty forks. Zander isn’t the neatest person and probably thought he could hide it from me and would pick it up this morning, but I got here before him.”

Miles put a comical pout on his face. “Do you think he had a woman there last night?”

“Did Regan work late?” she asked.

“She did, but I don’t know when she left. I can check the alarm.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll do the same. But if she set hers and then came to our place it would be set a different time. So that might not mean anything.”

“It would mean they were at least here at the same time for some point.”

“Does Regan like Chinese?” she asked.

“She does, but she’d never leave dirty dishes anywhere.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Guess that blows that theory.”

“Yes and no,” Miles said.

“How is that?”

“Regan is adaptable to situations. She might never want to do it, but she’d do it to be polite too. I’m going to suggest ordering Chinese for lunch when she gets out of her session. I’ll let you know her answer.”

They clinked their coffee cups together. “Good plan.”

Twenty minutes later Betsy heard her phone go off and looked down to see that Regan brought a salad for lunch and passed. No mention of if she’d had it recently.

Well, it was worth a shot.