Everything Changes

by Bybee, Catherine

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Carson said.

  “I was told to stay away from my clients.”

  “So they don’t have to investigate those clients,” Carson explained. “Unless you two are willing to end your relationship—”

  “Not gonna happen.” Dameon’s voice was stern enough to make everyone stare.

  “Then be prepared to answer questions. For now, go about your normal routines. Just don’t waltz into city hall holding hands until we have a handle on this. But don’t sneak around like you’re doing something wrong either.” Carson offered a kind smile.

  Dameon kissed her cheek.

  Carson picked up her statement. “Okay, let’s get to work on this. But before we do, call the office and tell them you’re requesting that the same three people that were in the room yesterday are there today when you come in.”

  “What if they can’t?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s a power move. If they all show up, it’s a bonus. I guarantee you they will all be there the next time when word that you’ve hired an attorney gets around.”

  Grace was smiling. “This feels good.”

  Grace really wanted Dameon by her side, but Carson made it clear that this first meeting wasn’t the time or place.

  The other thing she wanted but wasn’t going to get . . . was the ability to say anything to anyone.

  They arrived together in Carson’s car. It was eleven thirty, the requested time to meet Richard, Vivian, and Mr. Simons.

  “You ready?” Carson asked.

  “More than I was yesterday.”

  “Let me do the talking. This should be brief.”

  Grace lifted her chin and led the way into the office. They walked into the lobby, and already she felt the stares.

  Good gossip never takes long to spread.

  They walked past the front lobby and into her corner of the city offices. Because there wasn’t a general secretary greeting people, Grace walked through the hall to see if anyone was around.

  Evan saw her first. “Holy shit, Grace. What’s going on?”

  She accepted Evan’s hug, but didn’t answer his question. “Where is Richard?”

  “They’re in the conference room. Are you okay?” Evan looked over her shoulder.

  “I’m fine. I can’t talk now.”

  Grace walked around her friend, past her office, and into the conference room.

  Like the day before, Richard and Vivian sat on one side of the table.

  At first glance, Richard stayed in his seat.

  When Carson walked in behind her, Richard and Vivian both stood.

  “Hello, Grace,” Vivian said first.

  Grace smiled and said nothing.

  Carson moved forward and removed two business cards from his pocket. “I’m Carson Phillips, of Franklin, Phillips, and Bowers.”

  “Oh.” Vivian looked at Grace and back to Carson.

  It took everything in Grace to not gloat.

  Vivian introduced herself, and so did Richard.

  “Please have a seat,” Vivian said while taking hers.

  “Are we waiting for Mr. Simons?” Carson asked.

  “No, he had a prior commitment.”

  “I see.” Carson turned to look at Grace, then back to the others.

  “I’m confused as to why you’re here,” Vivian said.

  Richard looked past Carson and straight to Grace. “You didn’t have to hire a lawyer, Hudson.”

  Grace bit her tongue. The polite Grace this and Grace that from the day before was gone, and Hudson was back.

  “My client has been put on leave, isn’t that right?” Carson asked.

  “Yes, pending an investigation.”

  “Was there paperwork that went along with this request, because it seems that was neglected.”

  “Of course. Things were hectic yesterday,” Vivian said as she shifted through a folder that sat in front of her.

  “You need to sign that,” Richard said to Grace.

  Carson took the paperwork, glanced at it, and put it in his briefcase. “We’ll get this back to you.”

  Richard opened his mouth, but Vivian placed a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Do you have the incident report we requested?” she asked.

  Carson removed three copies and handed them over. He gave them very little time to read through it before scooting his chair back. “If you have any questions or requests from my client, you will need to go through me until this matter is settled.”

  “Really, Hudson?” Richard started.

  Grace kept a polite smile on her face.

  “Thank you for your time,” Carson said before opening the conference room door.

  Grace walked in front of him, her heart beating a little too fast.

  Evan, Adrian, and Lionel all stood outside of the kitchenette doorway watching as she walked by.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Grace jumped into Dameon’s arms when she returned to her parents’ house. It had taken less than ten minutes to go to the office and make a stand for herself.

  “I take it things went well,” Dameon said when he set Grace back down to her feet.

  “It was awesome.”

  Carson smiled. “Well, now that they know what they’re dealing with, things will get very professional and very quiet.”

  Dameon shook Carson’s hand and patted his shoulder. “Thanks for jumping on this.”

  “No problem. I’ll be in touch. Grace, remember, if anyone from the office calls or asks anything, they come through me. Even what seem like innocent questions from your friends may not be.”

  Evan was the only one she truly thought cared enough to ask. But she didn’t want him getting caught in the crossfire of all this.

  “Thank you.”

  Carson got back into his car and pulled out of the driveway.

  Her mom and dad, who had been standing outside, walked back in the house.

  “Did they talk your ear off while we were gone?” Grace asked.

  Dameon looked over his shoulder. “I think I won your mom over, but your dad had fifty questions. He really doesn’t like suits.”

  She laughed. “He hates ’em. But if he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have bothered asking questions.”

  “He all but asked the name of the girl I lost my virginity to.”

  Now Grace was laughing. “Awww, he loves you.”

  Dameon shook his head. “I told your mom I’d stay through lunch, but as long as you’re going to be okay, I have to get back to the city.”

  “I am now. Thank you, Dameon. I wasn’t thinking yesterday.”

  “You’re obviously not alone. I’m glad Carson can help.”

  She sighed. “He’s expensive, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t want you thinking about that.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  Dameon placed a finger on her lips. “Stop.”

  She would figure out a way to make it up to him.

  “It’s good to see that smile again,” Dameon said.

  She lifted her lips, asking for his kiss.

  Dameon dipped his head to oblige.

  Her dad’s voice yelled from the front door. “Are you going to molest my daughter on the front lawn or come inside for lunch?”

  She broke away and giggled.

  “I think he hates me.”

  “He’s an ex-cop. If he hated you, he’d tell you to leave at gunpoint.”

  Grace had never met a private investigator, and she certainly didn’t picture Michelle Overland when she thought of one.

  In her midfifties, Michelle looked more like a PTA mom than someone who investigated anyone or knew anything about what Grace was going through.

  Grace welcomed Michelle into her condo and played hostess before they sat down at her dining room table to talk.

  “I’ve already spoken to Carson in depth. He e-mailed me your statement and a copy of what the city gave you when they sent you home. I’m going to ask a lot of personal que
stions, and I’m sorry about that. I need financial information, your banks, loans, debt. Absolutely anything you can tell me about your accuser. I need phone numbers and any online social media you use.”

  “Wow. It really sounds like I’m the bad guy.”

  Michelle smiled. “I’m looking for anything to prove you did do it so I can prove you didn’t.”

  “Sounds backward.”

  “Your employer has your work records. They have to audit to obtain anything not work related. So we’ll get a jump on that first. If they want your personal stuff, they have to make a move on the chessboard first.”

  “Officially accuse me of taking a bribe.”

  “Exactly. If and when that happens, they have to give your lawyer any evidence they found at the office.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “All they are going to find is that I was overworked and did the job of two people.”

  “Tell me about Richard. I get the feeling he doesn’t like you.”

  Grace shook her head. “Richard may not like me, but he’s not the kind of guy to plant something in my office to prove I did something I didn’t do.”

  Michelle looked at Grace as if she was five. “You really never know what someone is capable of. I can tell you plenty of stories.”

  “I have only been with this job for five years. For the first two, almost everything I did had to have a second signature on the plans. There are a lot of eyes on nearly everything I do. We work independently on some things, but for a lot of stuff, we work as a team. So if someone put my signature on something I didn’t approve, chances are there had to be a second one there somewhere.”

  “Is there anyone in the office who might be taking bribes?”

  Grace shook her head. “There are five of us. Richard, who took the senior position six months after I was hired. Before then, he was like the rest of us. Yeah, he’d been there the longest, but he had his own caseload and had to report to the boss. Adrian has been there the longest after Richard. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s overlooking an issue and signing off on it because he wanted to get out of work on time. Lionel is recently divorced, spends his free time watching the games during happy hour for the two-dollar beer. Evan is the next in line as far as seniority. I consider him my friend. We get along the best. He has my back.”

  “How so?”

  “He just does. He worked the Sokolov property with me. Knew the guy was an ass. He mentioned to Richard more than once that the guy was stalling and wasting our time.”

  “So you’re closest to Evan at the office?”

  “Yes. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “So he knows about your relationship with Dameon Locke?”

  Grace paused. “He knows I’m interested in Dameon. We might have both talked about how good-looking he is.”

  “Oh?”

  “Evan is gay. But not open about it. I’m pretty sure the others know, but he hasn’t talked about it at work. He doesn’t want to deal with Richard’s censure.”

  Michelle wrote something down on her notepad. Grace hadn’t noticed when the woman pulled it out. “Can you think of anything else about Richard’s character?”

  “You know what I think it is with him . . . he’s an unhappy man. He’s old-fashioned and doesn’t see women as equal. He’s on his fourth marriage, and I’m guessing he hasn’t had sex in years.”

  Michelle laughed.

  “My parents both knew him in school. They said he was as uptight then as he is now. And probably bitter that he can’t afford to retire when all his friends are spending their days on the golf course.”

  Michelle stopped laughing. “Your parents knew him in high school?”

  “Don’t be surprised. There are a lot of people who live in this community going back three generations.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “I know it’s not a small town now, but it was for a long time.”

  “Is there any bad blood between your parents and your boss?”

  Grace shook her head. “What? No.”

  “Your dad was a local police officer?”

  “Yeah. He retired about the time I was graduating from college.”

  “He never gave Richard a ticket or anything?”

  Grace had to laugh. “I don’t know, but I’d think my dad would have told me if he remembered doing so. I’ve been complaining about Richard for years.”

  Michelle scribbled a note.

  “You really don’t think a traffic ticket could prompt this?”

  “People run people down for cutting them off in line at the drive-through at McDonald’s. So yes, I do. You might ask your dad if he remembers anything of this nature.”

  Grace thought it was stupid, but she would do it.

  “Who knows about you and Dameon?”

  “My family,” Grace said. “We’ve gone out a few times in town, so we could have been seen. But no one at work has said anything. And they’re not a shy group.”

  “No one else?”

  “We went out on New Year’s Eve. There was a function with some of the people he works with. It was obvious we were together. Dameon bid on this during a silent auction and gave it to me.” Grace pulled the necklace from under her shirt.

  “It’s beautiful,” Michelle said, looking at it. “Expensive?”

  “Yeah.”

  Michelle put her head down to her notes.

  “Is dating Dameon a problem? Carson seemed to think it wasn’t.”

  She shrugged. “The question of ethics comes up. Have you single-handedly approved of anything?”

  “No. The project is new for the city. We barely got started on it. I was considering telling Richard about our relationship when all of this happened. I was pushing hard for more hands on Dameon’s project.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s too much work for one person. There are a lot of pieces to the project that would take me months doing alone. Dameon wants to break ground in the spring.”

  “That seems fast.”

  “It is. I’m guilty of wanting to help him do it. But I knew eventually our relationship would come out and someone, likely Richard, would try and find fault. That’s why I asked for more help from the team.”

  “And did you get it?”

  “No. Not yet. This all happened yesterday before I was put on leave.”

  For the next half hour, Michelle asked about Grace’s finances. She wrote down bank names and account numbers. She said she wanted to see statements.

  “Let’s talk about Sokolov.”

  Grace told her everything. The early meetings when he ignored her to the last one when he wasted her time and tried to bribe her. “. . . so as I was walking to get into my car, he did this jump thing and startled me. I know I jumped and he knew he got to me. Even said something about me being on edge. I drove off. Halfway home I realized I’d left my cell phone on the hood of his car.”

  “Did you go back to get it?”

  “Later. With Dameon. It didn’t feel safe by myself.”

  “But you didn’t find your phone?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think Mr. Sokolov took it?”

  “Not sure why he would. It was password protected and I replaced it the next day. The old one would have been turned off.”

  That’s all Michelle seemed to need. She put away her pen and stood. “It’s going to take me a few days to go over everything.” After giving Grace a to-do list, the woman told her she’d be in touch and left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “It’s been three days and I’m bored stiff.”

  Grace sat on Parker’s front porch with the two of them taking turns tossing the ball for Scout to chase. The Labrador loved his tennis balls almost as much as he loved running after them.

  “I would think you’d be catching up on all the things you can’t do when you’re at work.”

  “I did that. My bills are paid, my place is clean. I even organized my closets and sock drawer. Who do
es that?”

  “Someone who was told not to show up at the office,” Parker said.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “I still can’t believe I’m in the middle of this bull.”

  Scout placed his slobbery snout on Grace’s lap with ball clenched in mouth. His tail thumped on the wooden planks of the porch, and his eyes shifted back and forth. “Aren’t you getting tired?” Grace asked as she took the ball from his mouth and tossed it over the railing of the porch. Since Parker’s ranch house sat on top of a hill, the ball rolled down the driveway and into a large grassy portion of the property. Scout ran down the steps of the home in search of the ball that had already stopped moving.

  “When I was let go last year, I realized I was in the wrong job. Not that I ever thought assisting in an elementary school was the end all, be all, but it helped push me to figure out the next phase.”

  Parker’s next phase was to get married and go back to school. Which she had decided to do online.

  “I’ve been unhappy at work for a while,” Grace confessed. “I like the work, but the long hours and lack of kudos make it hard to go in.”

  “So maybe this is a sign to move on.”

  “Perhaps. But if I’m fired under the cloud of fraud, who is going to hire me?” As much as she started to feel like she had the right team to help her get through the allegations against her, she worried this would follow her wherever she went next.

  “If I were you, I’d think about what’s next. Get through all this, get your job back, and then leave.”

  “Seems a waste of time to fight for a job I don’t want to keep.”

  “It’s not the job, it’s your integrity you’re fighting for.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  Scout had returned with the ball and a dirt-filled nose.

  “How is Dameon doing with all this?”

  Grace couldn’t help but smile when she heard Dameon’s name. “He’s a breath of fresh air. All the duds I’ve dated over the years . . . after Dameon, the others don’t compare. Like, why did I ever waste my time?”

  “Because you were searching for Mr. Perfect. And that guy isn’t out there.”

  Grace repeated the ball-throwing process for the dog. “I wasn’t looking at all when Dameon came along. I even tried hard not to date him. And he’s about as perfect as they come.”