Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Mattie

Iwake up in Rigs’ bed, all warm and relaxed. I didn’t even have a bad dream, which is rare for me. That’s probably why I’m feeling like a million bucks this morning.

Mine and Cleo’s investigation is finally taking off. Or I should say mine and Rigs’ investigation while Cleo’s is knee deep in diapers. The alarm on my phone goes off and I reach over to the bedside table to turn it off. I find that I’m reluctant to leave Rigs’ comfortable bed. His room is sparsely decorated with huge motorcycle themed metal artwork on two of the walls. I don’t know what I expected, crosses or something like that? But there is nothing with a religious theme decorating his room.

If I didn’t know better, I would think he was just another badass biker. But I do know better. Out of all the brothers Cleo introduced me to, Rigs stood out. He was different from all the rest. Even though he was ripped and his biceps hard as rocks, he was less bulky than most of the other men in the club. Truth be told, I liked the look of him, the tone of his voice and the way he responded when Cleo introduced us. I was always used to admiring and not touching, needing and not getting. Imagine my surprise when he hit on me yesterday. If there hadn’t been so many other things going on, I would have liked to have been able to lean into the moment and savor it a bit. I was still wary, considering my disastrous attempts at dating, but Rigs seems like a good man, a really good man.

Finally I drag myself out of bed and start getting ready for my day. After a nice warm shower. I can already smell coffee and bacon wafting under the door. Room service breakfast? It was enough to get me moving double quick and I dress and grab my purse.

When I come out of the bedroom, Rigs has a table set with breakfast. I waste no time taking a seat and enjoying his generosity once more. If there’s one thing I will say about this man, it’s that he knows how to treat a guest. We make polite small talk as we quickly eat and then go outside to get on his bike.

***

Rigs motorcycle is something else. It’s a huge Harley with a lot of chrome and leather seats. I can tell this man has spent a lot of time taking care of his bike. The chrome is gleaming under the morning sun.

“It’s almost too pretty to sit on,” I exclaim. “I’m afraid I might scratch it.”

Rigs throws me a proud smile. “You won’t. Trust me. My bike’s tough like its owner.”

Oh, there’s that bad boy biker, hiding behind his smooth, easy-going demeanor. He helps me put on his spare helmet and then assists me onto his bike. He climbs on in front of me and revs his engine.

“Hold on tight, Miss Mattie.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and hold on for dear life. When we take off, it’s like magic. I can now totally understand why Cleo loves riding on the back of Siege’s motorcycle. It’s the best feeling in the whole. I rest my cheek against Rigs’ back and just watch the scenery go by.

All too soon we arrive at my office. Rigs helps me off and packs the spare helmet in the storage compartment.

“Thanks for the ride. It was absolutely exhilarating,” I say with a huge smile plastered on my face. My hair is probably flattened, and my cheeks reddened but it was the most fun I’ve had in ages.

His face lights up with pure happiness. “I’m glad to be able to share one of my favorite experiences with you.”

I give him a little pat on the shoulder. “I’m looking forward to the ride home this evening.”

When I turn to head into the office, I notice two other employees staring at me. I’m having a hard time working out whether they’re jealous because I caught a ride with a hot biker, or they see my behavior as unbefitting of a manager. I don’t really care what they think. I never have.

Once in my office and out of the way of judgmental eyes I start getting set up for my day. Cleo makes it to the office shortly after me, and we get to work. Our day is filled with scheduling home visits for the clients who have open cases and trying to decide which cases we should refer for possible removal. We try never to remove a child from the home unless they are truly in danger. Family separations are always traumatic for the child and for the parents.

In between tasks my mind drifts back to the gentlemen biker who has insisted on becoming my protector and helping me solve the case of these missing kids. He’s clearly at least ten years older than me, but that doesn’t mean he’s not attractive. If I’m being honest, he’s panty melting hot. My long-lost libido has come roaring back to life. I still can’t decide if I want to end up in a full-blown relationship with Rigs or even if that’s what he wants. I know he said that he wanted to settle down, but part of me wonders if that would be with someone like me. Once he gets to know me properly and sees me on the days when I am not so mobile, then maybe he’ll change his mind. He seems like a nice man, and we have a lot in common, but I’ve sworn off men for a reason.

***

I have a fresh file in front of me which makes my heart sink, it’s on an employee who has been accused of dereliction of duty. She was working with a family where a child has been found to be neglected to the point of being in active danger. A neighbor called a few days ago to report that the boy was sitting on the front porch playing with a small power drill. I pushed a notification for the case worker to make an immediate home visit to assess the danger. Instead, she just called the mother and told her to remove the drill and then wrote up that the home visit revealed no danger. We now know that there was no home visit, because shortly after the call the neighbor heard the mother beating her kid and called the police, who then arrested the mother and called CPS to pick the child up for placement. The Las Salinas police filed a complaint against the agency because the child was covered in bruises from prior abuse by the mother. So, now the whole agency is in hot water.

I dial her office and ask her to come to mine. I hate terminating staff, but in this situation, I don’t see another choice.

Elaine Markus sticks her head around my door, “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, please come in and take a seat. I need to talk to you about the Brady Clifford case.”

Her shoulders slump. “Yeah, I really messed that one up. I heard his mother ended up getting herself arrested. I hope she didn’t take her son on a drug run or anything like that.”

“I read your report. Can you walk me through what happened verbally?”

“Sure. I got your push notification to make a home visit right away. I called the mom to intervene immediately because there was a power tool involved. When I got there, there weren’t any tools out and Brady was playing a video game in the living room. I talked to the mother, and she said the neighbor spies on her all the time and called just to harass her. Since I didn’t find evidence of wrongdoing, I didn’t take further action.”

“Which company vehicle did you take?”

The Altima. I always use that one if it’s available. Why do you ask?”

“I looked at the travel log, and you didn’t sign out that you took the car that day.”

She shrugged. “I might have forgotten to sign the book.”

“Well, the Altima was off the premises for the entire day. Three employees took it for a training session in Eastman, which the GPS log confirms.”

Elaine sits up straighter. “You know, I might have taken the Elantra. They’re both white and sometimes I get them confused.”

“No, Elaine. You didn’t take any vehicles from our fleet. I checked every single one and your signature was nowhere to be found.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Are you aware the same neighbor called law enforcement right after you called Mrs. Clifford? The call logs confirm it.”

She pales. “No, I wasn’t. The file disappeared. I couldn’t even write my note. I had to write it up and put in the box to be filed by our records department.”

“The reason you couldn’t check it out was because the administrative team had to review it because the department got a complaint filed against us for failure to act. When the police arrived at the scene and found the child still playing with the drill. Luckily, he’d not come to any harm with that, but the police report says he had bruises on his face, arms and legs, in various stages of healing, which would have been noticed if you had actually made the home visit.”

She begins stammering, “I’m sorry. I know I should have made my way out there after I got the push notification, but the mother said it was all lies. Until now, I haven’t found evidence of any kind of abuse going on. It was just low-grade neglect that didn’t justify removal. You’ve got to believe me, I never would have let it go if I truly thought he was in danger.”

“I blame myself for not following up the case. I saw your note and trusted that you’d made the home visit—someone in your position should be capable of handling cases such as this. I even advocated with the admin team to take you off home visits and send you for retraining in case it was something that I had overlooked. However, it is not the first time you have made a mistake, I see you were sent for retraining by your former supervisor. We’ve come to the conclusion that termination is the only solution, for your sake as well that of the children this agency is responsible for supporting.”

“This has been the best job of my life. It’s what I went to college and trained for. I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.”

“Let me ask you something, Elaine. What would you have done if the police showed up and found Brady Clifford dead or seriously injured?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again.

“Do you really want to be in a job where you have to make those kinds of decisions on a daily basis, always worrying that if you zig when you should have zagged some innocent kid will wind up dead?”

“I thought I did but when you put it that way, maybe not. I just don’t know what I would do with myself if I got fired.”

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you that you are getting fired today. Like I said, the agency doesn’t feel that we have another option. In terms of what you can do moving forward. I would suggest working for one of the local charities that support families in need. There would be less chance of someone getting harmed if you were responsible for approving funding for childcare, emergency utility terminations or food for the needy. Non-profits are nice. I feel like you would really fit in there.”

She began to tear up. “Like they will hire someone who got fired for dereliction of duty. I’m going to end up flipping burgers somewhere.”

“Look Elaine, I’ll give you a chance to resign before I terminate you.”

“Would you give me a good reference?” She asks hopefully.

“That wouldn’t be ethical after you endangered a client and covered it up the way you did. But you could just not list me as a reference.”

“Any future employer is going to want a reference from my former employer.”

“You’ll just have to get creative, volunteer long enough to get a good reference or even use your former professors if they’re willing. At a pinch I might be able to provide a reference regarding your timekeeping and sickness record. But I will not be able to give a reference for the quality of your work.”

“Fine, I’ll work it out somehow.”

“I’m sorry it has to be this way but I’m going to give you a sheet of paper and a pen. If you want to write a letter of resignation, now’s the time.”

“Can’t I go back to my desk and type one out?”

“Unfortunately, not. I’ll need you to go ahead and hand over your employee ID and after you’ve tendered your resignation, I’ll escort you to your desk to gather your things and walk you out. We’ll need you to relinquish any work-related flash drives and passwords for your computer, and our IT department will need to purge your phone of any data related to your former clients.”

Elaine snatches the paper and pen from me and grumbles, “You’re treating me like a common criminal.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

The entire process is over within thirty minutes. When she’s finally out the door, I go to my office and start writing up the details of the separation for her personnel file.

Cleo pops her head in at the end of the day. “How are you holding up? I heard what went down with Elaine. It’s all anybody’s talking about this afternoon.”

“Since I haven’t even turned in my separation report, I’m going to assume that she’s already started complaining to former coworkers?”

“Yes, she’s called about half a dozen people complaining that she got accused of doing things she didn’t do, and how you treated her unfairly and wouldn’t listen to her explanations.”

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that none of that is true,” I reply calmly.

“I didn’t think that it was, but I wanted to stop it and tell you one thing. Watch your back with Elaine. She’s always been deceitful, manipulative and a backstabber. Expect her to appeal the decision and throw you right under the bus in an effort to get her job back.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. Firing her wasn’t even my decision, every single member of the admin team voted to terminate her employment. I gave her an opportunity to resign so it wouldn’t be on her permanent record. Instead of being grateful she’s trying to put the blame on me for her own incompetence. Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because we’re both getting too jaded, that’s why,” Cleo responds. “Want to know what the other thing everyone else is talking about?”

“Probably not, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“It was you showing up on the back of a hot biker’s motorcycle. People are saying you’re into bad boys and they never knew.”

“Rigs is a freaking minister. Be sure to point that out to them.”

“Oh, I did, and you should have seen the looks on their faces. I don’t think they knew how to reconcile that in their own mind.”

“I wish I could care what the latest gossip was. Unfortunately, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“I know. You’re gonna go home and work on your little project.

“That’s exactly my plan. A fresh pair of eyes always helps.”

“I know how hard this has been for you, Mattie. If you just keep chipping away at it, I know you’ll figure it out. Once you do, Siege, Rigs and the rest of the Savage Legion brothers will be there to back you up.”

“I pray that’s true, because you know I can’t do this on my own. I still can’t for the life of me understand why law enforcement is not taking a more active interest.”

“Because they’re lazy and incompetent. If you do all the footwork, I’m sure they’ll step in in the end, and take all the glory.”

“That sounds about right. And you wonder why we’re so jaded.”

Cleo took a step back, “I’m going to finish up the case I’m working on and head home. You should do the same.”

“Rigs is picking me up at four p.m. sharp. We’re going to take a quick swim.”

“That sounds fun, is this your way of checking out your hot biker’s body, before you test drive him?”

I pull a face at her, I hadn’t actually considered it, but now the thought of Rigs in nothing but swim shorts, enters my mind.

Before turning to leave she looks me dead in the eye, “I’m not joking about Elaine. Seriously watch your back. That woman has fangs and claws.”