by L A Pepper
Because I was not trustworthy. I couldn’t give up spying on Jordan, not if it meant keeping him safe.
Before I’d gotten dressed, before I’d left Jordan’s room and tried to say goodbye to him, before I took the elevator and left his life, I’d put another bug inside of his phone case. It would be able to record him as well as track him, because I’d seen how upset he was, and it wasn’t just me he was upset at. He was furious at his father and I had the strong feeling that he was going to confront him. I was even more glad I hadn’t told him that his father had put a hit out on his mother. I didn’t think Jordan could have faced him and stayed safe with that knowledge. If he told his father he knew that, maybe Mr. Boucher would even kill him over it? My stomach flipped into knots.
I hadn’t lied when I told him I only had the listening device on me and in his office. I was telling the truth. Then. But I made sure to plant another one before I left, because the truth was only good if he was safe. I would lie to him and I would betray his trust, if only I could finish this business.
His heart was already broken. So was mine. He’d never forgive me. My heart gave a pang at that, because now that it was over, I realized how much I had cared for him, how much I had wanted something to work with him. I realized that somewhere inside of me, I had wanted the thing between us to be real, to be permanent. I wanted to keep him. Forever. To make him mine, and now, I would never have the chance.
I laughed bitterly as the app downloaded and the pedestrians passed on the street. I’d never had a chance with Jordan, and that was the biggest joke. Even if I hadn’t agreed to spy on him, he would never have ended up with a single mom like me. He was a handsome billionaire doctor. He could have had anyone. To top it off, I had probably lost any chance possible of getting that federal agent job. I was a miserable agent. I didn’t think I liked being a private investigator, either. Hopefully, I could salvage something from the case that I’d paid for with this empty, bleeding feeling in my chest. I needed to prove that Jordan was innocent and keep him safe from his dirty father.
So what was the first thing I heard when I listened to the device on Jordan’s phone? Jordan calling his father. Terror beat between my ears because Jordan, instead of staying safe and staying away from his creep of a dad, drove right towards him. I knew it. The stupid, noble idiot.
“Dad,” he said, his voice cold and callous just like his father’s, so different than he’d been with me, at least until he found out who I really was and what I’d done. “I need to see you. We need to talk.”
“Oh no, Jordan, no,” I moaned into the listening device, without him ever being able to hear me because a listening device where you gave yourself away by talking back to the subject would be useless and was in fact called a “telephone,” not a listening device at all. “Why would you do that? Don’t go to see him, Jordan, please don’t, it’s not safe. You can’t trust him. You know you can’t trust him. You know.” But the begging did no good, because I wasn’t speaking to him, only to a one-way bug. I’d done no good for him. In fact, what I did do, was make his life more dangerous. I shouldn’t have told him a thing. I told him about his father’s plans, and now he thought it was a good idea to go and confront the criminal that was his father and expose his criminal deeds.
“You’re a pediatrician, Jordan! You’re not made for this! Please don’t do it!” My voice was raised on the city streets and pedestrians stared at me like I was crazy. How was it still so early? There were so many people out on the streets. We’d had dinner and made love and my life had fallen apart and I didn’t understand how the city could keep on going like everything was ordinary. Nothing was ordinary. My heart was broken and the man I had fallen in love with was risking his life.
I cursed at the phone. And again. The pedestrians stared at me, walked in a wide circle around me, but otherwise ignored me. It was, after all, New York City. Crazy people were the norm.
I flagged a cab down and had it take me to the detective shop. The lights in the storefront were dark. Everyone must have gone home. That was lucky, I thought, since the rest of our detective squad often stayed late to work on a case or sometimes just to hang out. But tonight it was dark and quiet and I went to the backroom to my desk, which was still mine because I was technically still a private detective, just one who had been hired out to the FBI for a special job. I opened up the bottom drawer and took out my duffle bag. I always had it in there in case I needed to go on a job unexpectedly, and today I needed it.
It held a change of clothes and a camera and snacks and other things I might need if I had a follow job where I’d have to sit in a car and watch a mark for a client. I hadn’t used it for a while, but today I’d need it. I got rid of the “Allie” date clothes and eased into the jeans and hoodie and sneakers, all in shades of black and gray and shadows. I tied my hair up in a ponytail and put on the baseball cap.
I listened to the bug I’d placed on Jordan, but he wasn’t talking. I could hear movement on the other end. I had no idea what he was doing, where he was going or what his plans were. When I tracked the device, he was still located in his apartment.
Where I’d been with him, barely an hour ago, in his arms. I collapsed into my desk chair and laid my head on my folded arms and began sobbing. What had I done? How could I have done this to him? All I wanted was to be in his arms and instead, I’d ripped open his life and put him in danger.
“What is this? I came in to turn the lights off and you’re here crying?”
I gasped and looked up, wiping the tears from my face to see a tall, blonde-haired woman, dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt. “Patty!” I cried. She lived in one of the apartments above the shop, owned by our boss, her brother.
“Alex, I haven’t seen you in a while, and I don’t remember ever seeing you sobbing in the office before. What happened?”
“Oh, Patty, I am not cut out for this federal agent business. Why did I ever agree to this job?”
Before I could talk anymore she swept over to me and pulled me up into her arms for a hug that I really needed. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, sweetie, but you should definitely tell me what’s going on because I am dying to know.”
It had been so long since I’d been able to talk to anyone about what was going on in my life that I just let it all out.
“Well honey, you’re not supposed to fall in love with the subjects of your investigation. That’s what you did wrong and I’m pretty sure you knew that already.” Patty was like a mother and a sister in one, probably something about being so tall, she always felt like she should be taking care of every woman who was smaller than her. She wiped my tears away.
“I know that. I tried not to, but I think I was already half in love with him before the feds even came to talk to me. Patty.” I lowered my voice although there was no one to hear. “Before him, I hadn’t had sex in ten years.”
“That’s a long time. It’s about time you got laid.” She nodded, unflappable, although I thought it was such a secret, my lack of a sex life. Such a shock to say such a thing. She didn’t seem surprised at all. “I bet you couldn’t help it with this guy though.”
“I couldn’t! How did you know?”
“Because he’s your soulmate.” She said it like it was obvious.
“Say what now?” Was she really going to lay some silly romantic twaddle on me?
“I can see it in you. You’re changed. It’s more than just having a new job. It’s more than just getting laid. Something in you is…whole now.”
“Patty, you can’t say this to me. You can’t be this romantic and dreamy. You honeytrap cheaters. You know love isn’t real.”
“Because those guys are betraying love, Alex. Because they are hurting the women they promised to care for. I’m righting a wrong, honey. Love is real. And when I see it, I say go for it.” She patted my shoulder comfortingly. “I say go for it, Alex.”
“You can’t. You’re an investigator, you have to be a cynic.”
“The hell I do. I believe in love. And I believe you’ve found love with this man. Love doesn’t care about awkward circumstances or criminal fathers. He’s a pediatrician, Alex! And you have a daughter? And you found him the next day? That is some fate-level love, honey. Well. That’s it.”
“That’s what?” I said. Because I needed some insight into this whole thing. I needed my love for him to mean more than just pain and loss and yearning.
She stood up and dusted her hands on her jeans. “You’re not going to let this man get away.”
“He hates me, Patty. I betrayed him.” I sniffled and wiped my eyes. “There’s no hope.”
“Nope. He’s in love with you, that is clear. And where there’s love, there’s hope.” She smiled that big smile she had that made all the cheaters fall all over her. “But for sure you’ve thrown him for a loop. You need to give him some time to deal with it but you can’t wait for him to get over it. You’re going to go after him and get him back.”
“I don’t have time for that. The idiot is planning to meet with his father. Only I don’t know where. What if he puts a hit out on Jordan like he did his wife. Jordan could be murdered.” The app on my phone dinged. “Patty, he’s on the move.”
“See? The answer to your problem. You follow him. I told you it’s fate.”
“Patty, it’s not fate, I stuck a tracker in his phone.”
“Well, it’s fate that you’re an investigator with trackers to go after the man you love so he can’t get away from you.”
“You’re crazy!”
“You’re a cynic. He’s your soulmate, and this is fate, and you’re going to get him free of his evil father and he’s going to take you away and make you deliriously happy and all your years alone will be because you were waiting for him.”
I could only stare at her. “That doesn’t happen in real life.”
“Fate works in mysterious ways, honey.” The tracker dinged again. He was moving fast now. In a car. “You ready to follow him and get him back now?”
I let out a sad little laugh. “Of course I am.”
“There’s my good girl.”
“Patty, I need a car.” I’d come here to get the car anyway. I had planned to steal it – borrow it – geez, my ethics were taking a beating, but now that Patty was here, I had a better option. “Can I have the keys to John’s car?”
“If you ask John for his car, he’ll want to know why and he’ll never let you go.”
“I know that Patty, that’s why I’m asking you, not him. You trust me, don’t you? I’m just going to keep an eye on things. I’m not going to go in there. I’m in contact with the feds. I don’t need my boss treating me like a baby, and you know he will.”
“Of course I do, he’s my brother. He treats us all like babies. I’ve got you. We women have to stick together.”
A buzzing notification went off on my phone. Jordan was on the move, his little blinking dot sliding onto the highway. I pressed my lips together, trying to hold back the fear. It was his own father. He shouldn’t have been in danger, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he should not be going out to see his father, that it was dangerous. “I need it now. I have to go after him.”
Patty grimaced at me and shook her head. “I love you honey, but you’re crazy.” I shrugged my shoulders, feeling crazy indeed. “You’re armed, aren’t you?”
I lifted up my shirt to show her the gun in my back holster.
“Good girl. All right. I know you can handle yourself, you always manage to take me down in hand to hand, even though I’m twice as tall as you, and you always take the big macho men by surprise. You’re clever and you’ve got a gun...” She went to her desk on the other wall and rummaged around in the drawer for a minute. I’d known that was where she kept them but it was much better to have her give them to me instead of stealing them. “Here are the keys to John’s car. He’s always losing them and needs me to keep a spare. I won’t tell him you have it unless he asks, but if you don’t text me every hour on the half hour, I’m coming after you.”
“You got it, Patty.” I took the keys and grabbed her wrist in gratitude. “I can’t let him be harmed. I love him.”
“I know that honey, go get him.”
I slid into John Riley’s nondescript sedan that he kept parked on the street. I’d driven it before, usually when we were on a follow job and John wanted to nap before we started work, so I was familiar with it, and opened up the glove compartment to get out a packet of John’s favorite mints. I didn’t need them but they gave me a sense of normality. Back in the car, dressed in my dark surveillance gear sucking on John’s mints. This was the job. There was nothing special about tonight. Nothing unusual about the mark I was following. But as I followed the blinking dot farther out into Brooklyn and the streets got emptier and darker, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
I was following Jordan because I needed to make up for what I’d done. I had not the slightest clue how to do it. I’d thought I should just let him go, let him live his life without the interference of a woman who betrayed him and snuck into his life under false pretenses, Patty’s belief that we were fated soulmates or not. I knew I’d done wrong but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t just walk away. And I couldn’t leave him when I might have gotten him in real trouble.
I caught up with his car out by the docks, a beautiful little BMW coupe that told me he never needed to be nondescript. Following him at a distance so he wouldn’t realize anyone was actually tailing him, we slid through the dark streets. But then he stopped, parking in front of the looming hulk of a dark warehouse.
He got out of his car as I eased into a spot a block away and he didn’t even look around to see if anyone was watching. He didn’t even look. I thought he was supposed to be suspicious. My heart clenched with worry. I wanted him to turn around and see me. I wanted to go in with him, as if I could protect him. But he wasn’t mine to protect anymore. If he ever had been mine. I’d kept myself distant from him, for reasons that had been wise but didn’t seem to matter anymore.
He went to the warehouse and knocked on the heavy metal door. The sound echoed through the empty streets until it screeched open.
“I’m here to see my father.” The bug was still working, the sound clear and bright. He must have been holding his phone in his hand. It wasn’t even muffled in his pocket.
The other person grunted and I could hear them going upstairs. Two flights from what I could tell. I raised my binoculars. Another door opened and clanged shut again. There on the second floor, the one lit window, barely visible through some sort of paint coated over the glass. That was where he was. That was where my heart existed outside of my body.
“So you’ve finally agreed to come to terms, Jordan,” Mr. Boucher’s voice was steely. “It’s about time you rejoined the family.” The traces of mockery and humor from before were gone. This man was all business. He was displeased.
“No, Dad. We’re done. I’ve come to tell you that I can’t be a part of this family’s business anymore.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jordan hated his father and had told me how he distrusted him, and yet, I still was. He just came right out and said it. It was no wonder he was so upset by my dishonesty, he’d lived his whole life with the lies of his father and hated it. Everything he did was honest and sincere. He was a good man because his father was not.
A deep booming laugh came through the listening device.
“This is not a joke, Dad. I’m done. I’m dissolving Good Friend and going back to California.” I gasped. He was leaving? A sharp stab of pain went through me. There would be no more chances to make my betrayal up to him. When had I decided to make it up to him? When had I decided that he was worth fighting for, that I was not letting him go? I didn’t know, but the very thought of him leaving made me sure. I couldn’t give up on him. Not like that. I had to fight for him.
Mr. Boucher scoffed. “You can’t do that. You’re too soft-hearted. You’d nev
er leave all those kids in the lurch and just close your foundation.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. That’s why I’ll be separating the various charities and donating the resources to other organizations. Free and clear. The Good Friend Foundation will be a good friend, indeed.”
“Nonsense. Good Friend Foundation has been set up to be world-class. It would have made us famous. You would never.”
“You underestimate me. You always have. I never wanted to be world-class anything. I never wanted to be famous or rich or powerful. And I’ve never been afraid to stand on my own two feet. Do you think I’m naïve? You taught me not to trust anyone. Did you think I’d just follow the Boucher plan and come home because you wave a little foundation at me?”
“A little? This foundation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If it wasn’t worth its weight in distribution and shelters, I never would have consented to our money being used like this.”
“Is that so, Dad? Distribution and shelters. That’s what you want from me. So it’s true. I knew it was. But it’s nice to hear it from your own lips. It’s all crooked.” Jordan made a noise like a tiger growling. “This whole return to New York was the last chance I was giving the Bouchers and I only agreed because of Mom. It’s not good enough anymore, even with the foundation. Our family is a farce. And I won’t be a part of it. Before I agreed to this, I had a plan set up with my lawyers to dissolve the whole organization and distribute its assets to one hundred worthy causes. And all I had to do was set it up with my lawyers ahead of time. All I had to do was give them a signal. And the dissolution would begin processing.”
“You lie. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars. You couldn’t possibly be so irresponsible.”
“What does it matter who gives the money away? Me or a hundred different boards? I never cared. I didn’t go into medicine for the money or the status. I went into it to help people, something you have never understood, Dad. The money will go to worthy people who need help. And I’m happy to do it.”
“You would never do that. You’re still a Boucher.”
