Ollie
"I'm asking you for this favor, you can't ask any questions, you have to keep it to yourself, and you can't let it blow back on me."
Ginger Manning lifted a brow as she watched me. "You're kidding, Ollie."
I shook my head. "No. I wish I was. This is important, okay?"
She laughed. "Ollie, you can't just turn up here after, what's it been, several years now? And ask me for a favor."
"Actually, I can. Haven't I saved your arse before? Three times. Once you almost got pinched."
It was true. Ginger owed me and she knew it. Except, I'd been the one to walk away from this life years ago and now that I was in a pickle, I was back asking for favors.
"Aren't you fancy now? Can't you get a PI or whatever to look into her?"
"I could, but PIs have laws they need to follow. You can hack anything anywhere and tell me what I need to know."
"You know what, if I do this, we're done. No more turning up for favors."
"I asked you for one favor. And hell, that was for Tessa."
She shrugged. "We're done. I don't need any more blasts from the past. Haven't you heard? I'm going straight."
I had heard. I did know she was trying to go straight. I also knew she'd gotten herself a cushy little job at a startup tech firm. But every now and again, she couldn't help going back to her roots. Not that I needed her to blow up her spot. Something was going on with Rian. I just wanted to know what it was. "Remember, no blow back."
She rolled her eyes. "As if I'm not clean. Who am I looking for?"
"A woman. Her name is Rian Cooke. She's changed her name to Rian Beaumont now. She used to date Max."
Ginger's eyes went wide, and she rolled her chair back from the computer. "Oh, no. Mm-mm. Not touching it."
"You owe me. I won't darken your doorway again."
"You and your brother just can't let shit go. God, the two of you. If only you could have agreed on anything, been on the same side for anything. What you could have accomplished. But oh no, you guys have to have your little private war going on. I don't want to be involved."
"No one's asking you to get involved. I'm not asking you to research anything about Max. I know what he put you through. I am merely asking you to look into Rian Cooke, find out what she's been up to for the last five years. Anything you can find. It doesn't even have to be comprehensive. I just don't like being blindsided."
"You owe me."
I nodded with a half-smile, knowing I’d won. "Yeah, I know."
"E or no E on the end of her name?" She asked.
"E."
Her fingers flew over the keyboard and she started poking them around some databases that she probably should not have been poking around. I leaned back against the wall. I didn't need everything. I only needed a little. If there was anything that needed extra digging, Ginger would tell me. And then I'd make the decision on whether I would keep going or not.
What was the worst that could happen?
Famous last words.
Ginger sat forward. "I mean, honestly, there's not much here. She has very little social media. What she does have is either highly curated, or she doesn't run it. Usually, she starts posting a little bit before her father has an election around, and then she posts for about three months right after and then goes silent.”
“What else?”
She slanted me a pursed-lip look that said let me work. “Let's see, arrested under suspicion of burglary when she was here. I can't get into the file except for the arrest record. Says she was a minor. I know that she was not charged in the end and went back to America. You could tell that from her passport information."
"I know all that. What happened after?"
"Touchy, touchy. I don't tell you how to work, so don't come tell me how to work."
"Sorry." I was impatient. And I need to figure this out.
"Or maybe, just let the girl live. She's done nothing to you. She's minding her own business."
I didn’t believe that for a minute. If she wasn't going to go on her own, I was going to find a reason to make her go. Besides, she'd be much happier on her own. Back in America. Far away from me.
Ginger leaned forward. "Okay, this is interesting. About a year after she went back to the States, she had some kind of problem with a stalker. She reported it three different times. But the investigation, from what I can see, shows no arrests made. She graduated from high school. But oh, what's interesting here is there’s a year where there is a span of empty time. It's blank."
I frowned. "What do you mean, blank?"
"Just what I said, blank. Nothing. Even though her father had an election, there is no social media, no nothing. It's like this girl vanished off the face of the earth. I can't even find school records for her for that one year."
I frowned at that. "No files, no records, no nothing?"
"No. And P.S., what I'm doing is already illegal, and for part of that time she was a minor. So for one solid year, she is silent, unavailable. Then out of nowhere, there’s a registration for her at Georgetown University. And then she attended Georgetown and graduated in three years. Smart cookie. After graduation she got an internship at a London Lords Hotel in New York. A year after that internship , she shows up here. That's all I’ve got."
I frowned at her. "No boyfriends, no nothing?"
Ginger frowned. "Let's see. At Georgetown, she dated some guy, Matthew Peck, for six months. Another guy called Christian Laverne for a year. But nothing serious. They broke up when he graduated and then nothing."
"There has to be something else."
She shrugged. "Look, that's all I can do right now. Someone has locked that year up tight. I'm getting very big do not cross this line vibes. I mean, I can, but it's going to take time. I'll call you later with more?"
I nodded. "Yeah, call me."
What was she doing for a solid year that we couldn't access? Maybe that missing time would give me something I could use.
Seven
Rian
Our war of attrition started with coffee.
In that morning's meeting, Olivia announced that our meeting with Alan Kensington had been scheduled for later that day and it was Ollie's turn to pick up the coffee order.
He cocked his head as if he expected me to get the order. That, combined with the fact that he was sitting so close our legs could touch with the slightest shift, had me wondering if a pen would make a good stabbing weapon. File that under things Jason Bourne taught me.
I’d done the coffee order the last four meetings in a row. Besides, all he had to do was call down to the admin pool and get it organized. How was that so hard?
I had the slight sense that Olivia might've known that. Because she narrowed her gaze at him. "Ollie, please don't try and get fancy with the order. Just get the basics."
He grinned. "Yes, of course, Olivia. But I do know you like that fancy French roast."
"It's fine. You don't have to do that. Remember, this is just a client meeting, not a big deal."