by J. L. Beck
Her Ex’s Dad
J.L. Beck
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
Copyright © 2018 J.L. Beck
Her Ex’s Dad
Prologue
MACY
“What?” I asked as I stared at my apartment door hanging off the hinges. It was like something from a bad cop show. Or a bad reality show.
“He was arrested this morning,” Max said.
“B-ut why?” I asked. David in trouble? He was so straight and narrow. Always telling me how irresponsible I was. Like I didn’t really line my ducks up in a row or something like that. Now he was in jail?
Max shrugged. “All I know is they pounded on the door, saying ‘it’s the police, open up,’ then David didn’t open the door, obviously.” The super pointed to the ruined door as he got out his drill. He paused and stared at me with pity in his eyes. “I’m sorry Macy.” He dug out a card and handed it to me. “The detective gave me this. Maybe call them and try to find out what the hell happened.”
I took the card and stared down at it. Detective Howard… Fraud Division.
Fraud?
And that was what David was… a total fraud. False name, different aliases. White Collar Crimes…as Detective Howard had put it when he explained the charges over the phone. Embezzlement, false bank accounts, a con artist. I just couldn’t have gotten that lucky could I? I knew he’d been a dream too good to be true. And so he had been…Just a dream.
My boyfriend. The one guy I had allowed in. Into my apartment, my bed and my life.
After that, I packed all his things and put them in storage until I could find out where to send them. If he was never David Long, then I didn’t know anything about him. Well, of course I didn’t.
I also refused his collect call from jail. I wanted nothing to do with him. He was never what he said he was. How could he think I would want him in my life at all?
Then…
I found that my savings was gone.
I was now broken hearted AND broke.
I felt so stupid. How could I be taken in by such a con man? Apparently, he was just about to skip town and using my money to do it. He had been the one to insist I had a savings. Telling me, I couldn’t live day by day. Paycheck by paycheck the way I’d been doing it all this time. Then he just took it all?
Now, I winced when I thought about what my mom would say. I’d messed up again. The fact that he was good looking with loads of charm, wouldn’t matter to her now.
Getting involved with David or whoever he really was… changed my life for sure.
I would have start all over again from scratch…
I decided to stop wallowing in self-pity and complaining. It wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Then…
It got worse….
Chapter One
Four months later…
“Damn! Late again!” I exclaimed as I rushed down the rain slicked sidewalk. If not for that stupid bus passing me by, I would’ve been on time. I could’ve sworn bus 30 was the right one. I could never catch anything, not a stable job, or even a bus to work. The Temp agency warned me about my tardiness already and this time, I would get fired. I gazed down at my brand new watch I bought to ensure I would be on time for once in my hapless life.…Oh, man, 2 minute warning. I just can’t get a break!
My mom always said I just wasn’t responsible enough. For my entire life, I just couldn’t seem to stay with anything. A job, a friend or a man. I rolled my eyes, like David. How was I supposed to know? Then after he left me broke, it just seemed to go downhill from there. Oh boy, did my mom roast me on that one. A criminal, she had shouted. Her daughter had been taken in and was shacking up with a smooth criminal!
Yeah, like the old 80’s song.
Then jobs, they were even worse. When someone did give me a chance, I would somehow blow it. Never right away though, there would always be a sequence of strange events leading up to ‘blowing it’. Like it hadn’t been bad enough when David what’s-his-face took all my savings. That led to depression then me being late to my job one too many times, so I lost that job. Then I lost my apartment. I had to then move in with said judgmental mom, until I could get my own place again.
I got a small studio and it already looked like I would be getting kicked out of there too. I just couldn’t make enough to cover it.
I finally realized I was actually Forrest Gumping my way through life. Yeah, Macy Gump. I let out a humorless laugh as I hurried around yet another mud puddle on the sidewalk. Only, I wasn’t about to go on some wild, cool adventure, meet Bubba and become filthy rich. It’d been twenty-five years of one thoughtless mishap after another and it would be funny, if it wasn’t so stupidly disastrous. I could barely balance a job, a freaking savings account, or even a simple bus schedule.
So, I signed up at the Temp Agency. After all, I would be the type of employee they wanted…Temporary help, someone who didn’t care about staying on the job and seeing it through to promotion and a future.
Yeah, temporary, that’s me.
So far, I’d waited tables, worked in an assembly line and in a warehouse that made umbrellas. I did like the constant change of scenery, so I really wanted to stay with the agency. Stay? The word seemed to echo in my head. It was a condition fate didn’t allow me, try as I might.
My Aunt Tibby told me once that my destiny was to be a tumbleweed. At the time, I’d laughed at the statement while thinking, yeah, a tumbleweed with no direction. My Aunt just smiled and told me, “Some are meant to wander and roll around the world, gathering experience and adventure. You, Macy…Are one of those wanderers.”
I stopped laughing soon after that, when I got kicked out of College. It hadn’t been my fault. I’d trusted my roommate and got burned. Just like I’d trusted David-fake-face and got scorched beyond recognition. Susie, my roomie cheated on a few finals and implicated me, saying I provided the test answers. No. I didn’t have anything to do with the cheating. Except, I did go out with Brad and Susie considered that as the main cheat…Dammit! Why had I accepted his invite to dinner? Well, I knew why, he was interested in me, when that rarely happened since I was a little on the chubby side. Susie had a major thing going on for the guy, and then found out he liked me. Then, sexy but seemingly worthless Brad pocketed my credit cards and went on a Clothe Sexy Brad buying spree. My friendship with Susie tossed, my credit and education dream ruined and the rest is spiteful history.
Then the following year, I met David. I finally thought my life had changed.
Nope. He was worse than Brad could have ever dreamed of being. Like Brad was a toddler criminal compared to David the Goliath of Stealing.
I forced my thoughts away from my failed attempt at accomplishment and a normal life, then hurried in through the double doors of the agency. I couldn’t lose this job, my rent was due and I was still short. Yet another move was unthinkable. It would be living out of another cardboard box, like Sally, the crazy lady outside of my apartment building, next to the alley dumpster.
I halted my wild breathless running at the front desk.
Carol, the receptionist had never been nice, now she glared at me with a visible sneer on her lips.
I knew why. The secretary was pole thin and she scorned anyone who wasn’t from the regular mold. I couldn’t tell her off for it, I had no proof. Just a feeling. That ‘feeling’ I’d experienced too many times, ever s
ince high school. “I’m so sorry!” I burst out, “My bus just passed me by and—”
“Save it!” Carol seethed.
“But I’m just a few minutes late, I could—”
“I said save it.” Carol handed me a slip.
The dreaded pink slip! I reached out with a shaky hand and took it.
“No need to say more. You’re done here,” Carol whispered as she gazed over to the row of chairs by the window.
I sighed with distraction and followed her gaze.
A smallish man sat in one of the chairs. He wore overly large glasses and dark suit. He nodded his head at Carol.
I swung my gaze back to the prickly stick person of a receptionist. Yeah, a cold reception at best. I so wanted to tell the sickly looking icicle of a woman off. Again though, I refused to lower myself by accusing her of what I knew to be true. She hates me because I’m, not a stick. I opened my mouth to say so, finally. Then I changed my mind. Why make it worse, I could never alter stick lady’s opinion. None of it mattered really.
Except… I just lost my rent money.
Shrugging dejectedly, I went back out through the doors. Well, another day as a tumbleweed, and now I won’t be able to make the rent either. My new address will be Suite One at the alley dumpster. “Dammit!” I swore as I stepped out to the sidewalk.
~***~
“You have two days…” Mr. Harvey told me as he handed me a red piece of paper.
I stared down at it. The dreaded red notice. Great—first pink, now red. Maybe the next paper will be what—black? It sure would suit today….a BLACK notice. Do you get one of those when you’re about to die? Bad joke, Macy. What I really need is some green paper, badly. “I can’t get a thousand dollars together in two days, Frank. I need a week at least.” Yeah, like I really needed a month. I anxiously chewed at my bottom lip as I stared at my landlord.
He shook his head. “Sorry girl, it’s not up to me. You’re already two months in arrears and I can’t—I tried but…you know.”
I knew he was telling the truth. It was Mrs. Harvey who called the shots…Ida, the shrew faced battle axe. I wondered how Frank, who really seemed like a sweet man, could be married to the Wicked Witch of west Fourth Street as I secretly called her. What a tough nut to crack too. Try as I might, I never could seem to penetrate that steely-bitch exterior of hers. I’d often wondered if Mrs. Harvey was actually Ms. Cold Receptionist’s sister or something. They both acted like human glaciers. I hope I never act like that when I get older. “Well, I’ll start packing then.” I turned away. “Time to go to the back of Walmart and find just the right box,” I muttered to myself. Box Land is what I was heading to.
I wouldn’t go back to Mom. There was no way. I’d had it with hearing what a failure I was. I still held hope that I would make it someday. No matter what bad luck haunted me. No matter what man conned me. I would make it. No…I just couldn’t face my mom while homeless again.
“I really am sorry,” he called out to my back.
“Yeah, me too.” I sighed as I went out through the lobby of my apartment building. I really felt too anxious to go home just yet. Home? I was gonna lose another one, just like the job. Glancing up the alley, I spotted crazy-Sally, rummaging through the dumpster. This was the future Miss Macy Gump, a basket case with no home, no sanity left.
“Ooh!” I straightened my spine in frustration, knowing I needed to do something. I needed to come up with a solution. I needed some cash, some job that would get me some quick. “Fat chance of that…” I muttered and peered down at the red eviction notice.
“Oof!”
Surprised, I looked up, realizing I’d bumped into someone and almost ran him over. “Oh! I am so sorry!”
“You really need to pay attention young woman,” the man huffed out as he straightened his pinstriped tie.
My eyes grew wide as I recognized him. “You? You were in the lobby at the agency.”
He nodded and pushed his horned rimmed glasses up along his rather pointy nose. “Yes, I followed you.”
I took a step back. This felt too weird. He followed me from work? “Well, now that’s just—just creepy.”
His eyes grew larger behind his spectacles. “Oh, no, no. I want to hire you!”
I looked him up and down. 5 foot tall, if that and he appeared to be 45 or so, with beady eyes. “Even more creepy.”
He peered at me through his thick glasses. “No! I’m not interested in you!”
I almost laughed in his sweaty little face. What a relief that is. “Then, what do you want?”
Looking nervous, he cleared his throat and turned his head to look all around. “It’s a delicate matter…”
I was reminded of some cartoon hoot owl as I watched at him. Though, his behavior still seemed suspicious and I felt I needed to take yet another step back. So I did. It would just be the cherry on top to have some nutcase coming onto me.
“I need to hire you to deliver a message.”
I shook my head while feeling puzzled. “What? Like Western Union or something? You do know there’s the internet now, don’t you? Like you could even Instagram a message.
“No, no. Hand delivered.” He smiled for the first time. “It has to be hand delivered.”
I almost laughed again at this funny little man. His smiling made him look even more cartoonish. “I don’t understand.” Like the Cheshire cat on a diet…I covered my smile, so he wouldn’t see how amused I was.
He squared his narrow shoulders. “It’s complicated and really not your concern. It’s supposed to happen out a ways and it’s time sensitive.”
I nodded slowly. “I still don’t—”
“500 to deliver and another five when it’s done.”
My mouth popped open as my jaw went slack.
The man’s grin grew wider. “It’s just an envelope, see?” He raised up a green colored envelope.
I stared at it. Green! Blinking my eyes rapidly, I tilted my head back and stared up at the sky in sudden reverence. Was a guardian angel listening to me just now? A green notice? I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms.
The little man looked spooked as he leaned his head back and followed my reverent sky gazing, probably wondering what I saw. He then dropped his head to peer at me again. “I saw and heard everything. You getting fired and all…” he continued, “I really needed this in a hurry and the agency couldn’t have it done when I needed.”
“And when is that?”
“Tonight, by 7 pm.”
“What? Seven—as in tonight at seven?”
He nodded his head and reached into his pocket. “Here is the up front.” He showed me five one-hundred dollar bills “All you gotta do is deliver this…” He again raised the envelope. “…to a man out on Highway 87 at a small truck stop.”
I hesitated.
He sighed loudly. “Look, I know it sounds strange, but it’s nothing dangerous or illegal, I assure you. Just a letter, plain and simple. High finance, no drugs or sedition. The plain truth is—I might lose my job for being late on getting this taken care of, you see?”
I relaxed a little. “Well now, that I can relate to.” I laughed. “I’m always late and always getting…” I decided he didn’t need to know any of that. “How do I know that you’ll pay me the rest?”
His smile dropped. “I will go back inside here…” He pointed at my building.
I turned my head to stare at Mr. Harvey who’d been watching us curiously through the plate glass window.
“Yes, I happened to be in the lobby and overheard your um…rent dilemma.” He nodded his head knowingly.
I turned and stared at him. “You sure do get around, don’t you? Yeah again, pretty creepy, mister.”
“I’m not a creep!” he defended as he pushed his glasses up along his nose again. “I’m just a little desperate. I need this to be done. I can pay you the money to solve your current situation. I mean you don’t want to be living on the streets.”
What the hell is happening
here? I gazed all around, wondering if there might be a hidden camera. This could be some kind of YouTube prank or something. I mean it happened to people all the time. My gaze finally rested on the odd man again. Or some kind of con job? Damn, I’d had enough of that expression for sure. It’s one thing to be conned by someone who seemed normal like David had been. But this guy wasn’t any kind of normal.
Creepy cartoon man motioned his head toward the lobby of my building.
“Are you paying for my transportation?” I knew better than to leap and grasp at straws yet again, but that cardboard box kept looming in my mind. If I did this then I could pay my rent and have breathing room to find another job.
“Yep.” He gave me that funny lopsided grin again.
Chapter Two
Tucker
“Dammit!” I let out an oath and finally finished with my tie. It’d taken three tries at the knot and I still struggled to get it. I usually had no trouble with this kind of thing. Finally, it cinched and I stepped back to look at my reflection. Yeah, black, a good color to wear today. My dark hair and blue eyes matched the suit’s colors perfectly, but it was my mood that it really suited. Meeting with this buyer had already made a mess of my nerves. The Federal agent who approached me a week ago said they were very dangerous people. I straightened my shoulders as the whole situation hit me suddenly. I’m working for the FBI! I reminded myself yet again. It all felt so surreal.
Agent Moss just appeared in my office one day and asked me, “Do you love your country, Mr. Midland?”
I’d stared back at him and didn’t answer the question, instead I asked, “Do you love your face, cause I’m about to rearrange it, if you don’t explain why you broke into my office.”
After 2 days of harassment and some sweet talk of government contracts, they’d convinced me to go ahead and talk to this mysterious buyer. They put me in as undercover. All this chatter and trouble over a teeny-tiny piece of technology. A device which I never thought of as any kind of big deal, least of all to a super power government and the FBI. Tucker-Midland had its interest in all kinds of pots, so to speak. Mainly oil, transportation, communications and lastly…technology.
