“Anyway.” She takes a seat in the chair across from my desk.
It’s a miracle an extra chair fits in this office. In my old life, this room would have been a broom closet. I barely have enough room for my desk, my chair, and one visitor chair. But I do have a window and a door. I know Suzie eavesdrops on all my conversations, but at least I can shut the door and pretend to have privacy.
“I need to go out on a job, but there’s a potential client coming in soon. Can you handle him?”
My smile widens. I haven’t done any client acquisition yet. In fact, the Brown case was the first investigation I completed entirely on my own.
“You’re sure? You don’t want Suzie to handle it?”
Her eyes widen and she glances over her shoulder at the open door. She clears her throat before sitting up straight in her chair. “No, potential clients are handled by the investigators, not the business manager.”
I hear squeaking before Suzie rolls her office chair to a stop in the doorway of my office. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard you the first two million times.” She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back before stomping her foot. The chair goes flying backwards and then there’s a thud. “I’m okay!”
Hailey rolls her eyes before focusing on me again. “You sure? You’ll be all alone.”
“What am I? Chopped liver?” Suzie shouts.
“You know what I mean!” Hailey shouts back.
I giggle. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they’ve been the best of friends since grade school. I try not to be envious of their relationship, but it’s difficult. They have what I’ve always wanted. Close friends and close family where everyone accepts you for who you are. No one’s trying to mold either of them into their perfect version of a lady.
Hailey stands. “I’m out of here. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I say but luck has nothing to do with it. I’m sure I’ll be fine dealing with new clients. After all, I practically have a doctorate in dealing with persnickety people.
I’m printing out the report for the insurance company when the bell over the outside door to the offices chimes announcing the arrival of a visitor to We Cheat, You Eat. I smooth my hand down my skirt and make sure my blouse is buttoned correctly. I’m surprised my hands are shaking. I can’t allow myself to show signs of being nervous. I’ll be chewed up and spit out.
No. In my previous life, I would have been chewed up and spit out. This is my new life. A new life I’m creating all on my own. I take a deep breath to center myself.
Suzie appears at my door. “Phoebe, there’s someone to see you.” She winks. Why is she winking? Suzie winking never heralds good news in my experience.
“Mr. Havers.” She steps aside. “This is our investigator, Phoebe Adams.”
I stand and walk around my desk to greet him. When the man enters the room, however, I falter for a step. I quickly right myself and extend my hand. I can handle a potential client who’s wearing a tinfoil hat. I blink to clear my vision, but the man is still wearing the handmade hat.
Mr. Havers steps into my office and his eyes dash around checking everything out before finally reaching forward to shake my hand.
“Please, have a seat.” I motion to the chair before walking around my desk and sitting. “How can I help you today?”
“You’re not one of them, are you?”
I paste a smile on my face. “One of whom?”
He leans forward and whispers, “The aliens.”
“No, I can assure you I was born and raised in America.” I pretend to misunderstand him, hoping he’s not as crazy as he appears.
“Not a foreigner. An alien. You know from outer space.” Guess the crazy ship has sailed and Mr. Havers has a first-class ticket.
“I am one-hundred percent, purebred human.”
I try to make light of the situation. Hailey in no way, no how prepared me for crazy clients. I thought I’d be dealing with a bawling woman carrying on about her cheating husband. I don’t have any experience with emotional women, but I’ve been one too many times to count. I could have dealt.
But crazies? I have no experience with people who let their freak flag fly. Well, except Suzie, but she’s perfectly harmless. At least to other people.
“What about listening devices?”
I open my mouth to ask him if aliens use different listening devices from humans but stop myself. Instead, I lie. “I swept the place for bugs before you came myself.” Never mind I have no idea what a bug would look like, let alone how you do a sweep for them.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” He exhales and relaxes in his chair.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
“I need you to find the aliens that abducted me.”
I blink rapidly to stop my eyes from widening in disbelief. I guess I should have expected some outrageous alien abduction story when he walked in with the tinfoil hat. In my defense, I’ve never seen a man in real life wearing a tinfoil hat.
What do I do? Play along? Tell him I’m not a ghost hunter and ask him to leave? But I can’t let Hailey down. She asked me to represent You Cheat, We Eat, and I will do my darndest to handle this the way I think she would. Except I have no idea how Hailey would handle crazy guy.
“Why do you need me to find them? Wouldn’t you rather forget all about the incident?” And by forget, I mean stop pretending you were abducted.
He squirms in his seat. “They have something of mine.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I’m too curious not to. “What do they have?”
“My sperm.”
I must have heard wrong. He didn’t say sperm. I’ve never heard an adult male say the word sperm before. I guess my previous life was more sheltered than I thought, despite having traveled all over the world.
“Um. How did they manage to take your…?” I clear my throat. “… sperm.” And do I want to know?
“Sex obviously, which was surprisingly pleasurable since they can control your mind.”
“But.” How to put this delicately? “If you …er… ejaculated into the alien, then the sperm has been used. I’m not sure how we could get it back.” I’m sure my face is flaming red considering the heat emanating from it. Am I dreaming? Surely, I’m not sitting in my office discussing sperm and ejaculation with aliens?
“They also extracted my sperm in other ways.”
And I’m done. I’m not asking him how they extracted sperm. I do not want to know what ‘other ways’ means. There’s a limit on how many times I can say sperm and ejaculate in one lifetime and I’ve hit it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Havers, but I’m afraid we don’t handle alien retrievals.”
He frowns. “But you’re the fifth investigation firm I’ve met with.”
And I bet he’s going to meet with a whole bunch more before he finds a taker.
I stand. “I’m sorry. We’re a small firm. We simply don’t have the manpower to pull off an operation involving aliens.” Wow. I’m making stuff up as I go along, but my excuse didn’t sound at all like I pulled it out of my ass. Go me.
“I understand.” He stands and we shake hands.