The Diary

by Julia Derek

  My body tensed as I got ready to find my own cab and follow him—hopefully I’d hail one much quicker than he had. Not that it looked promising. As I kept searching for one, I watched out of the corner of my eye how he opened the door to his cab and prepared to get in. My heart pounding, I waved frenetically in the direction of each cab I spotted, even the taken ones. Come on, I hissed under my breath as they swished by, all of them ignoring me. His car door was fully open now. But instead of climbing in, he turned around and gazed straight at me.

  I couldn’t stop the gasp that pushed through my lips as his eyes landed on me. I glanced around in a vain search for somewhere to hide even though he had clearly already discovered me. Even so, my fight or flight instinct was well and alive, urging me to make a decision.

  Before I could dash into the restaurant, his face changed. The sullenness faded and there was the tiniest of smiles on his lips. I couldn’t determine whether it was sarcastic or kind because his lips soon shrank back to the straight line they had been in prior. Then he swiveled around and climbed into the cab. It took off with a shriek shortly after he had closed the door.

  I kept staring after the yellow car as it quickly headed northbound on Madison Avenue. When did he notice that I was after him? Had he known all along? That seemed most likely. When had he seen me? Before I’d spotted him? And what had he tried to tell me with that little grin? It had been so quick I wasn’t sure I’d actually seen it. I was completely dumbfounded.

  I watched how his cab got smaller and smaller as it kept driving up Madison Avenue, zigzagging smoothly between all the other cars crowding the lanes. I opted not to try to follow him in the end. There were no available cabs around for me go in; everywhere I looked, the occupied lights were on. He would be long gone before I found one.

  I sighed. I might as well head back to Nikkei for my shift. While there, I’d sweet talk the front desk staff and see if I could find out his name that way. If he was a member, he’d be in the computer system and if not, he’d be on the sign-in list all guests had to sign to gain access to the club. As long as he used his real ID and the receptionists worked with me, I’d figure out who he was. It couldn’t be that many names on that list and not all of them would be male.

  I jogged back toward the club. My shift started soon, so I needed to hurry.

  I punched in my employee number right on time, still catching my breath. I would take a round covering every floor of the club and then head down to the front desk and talk to the receptionists, ask them to dig up the mystery man for me. I would have to use all my charm to win them over, convince them to help me with my investigation. Too bad they were all girls.

  I climbed the stairs to get to the fifth floor. On my way I bumped into Ron, an investment banker who used to hang with Cardoza and his men when I was undercover. For a while I had suspected that he might be involved in Cardoza’s organization, but as I’d gotten to know him better, I changed my mind. This guy had no idea what thugs he often partied with. To Ron, Cardoza was just another wealthy real estate developer.

  Did I jump to conclusion? I asked myself as he approached me in the staircase now. What with Nick’s murder, I could no longer be sure despite that the FBI seemed to have gotten all of Cardoza’s underlings and cohorts, especially the ones who’d hung out at Nikkei. Until I had figured out if he’d been involved after all, I was better off avoiding him. I tried my best to just walk past him. Unfortunately, he stopped me.

  “Hey, the TV on one of the treadmills on the fifth floor isn’t working,” he said, scowling. “Can you fix that for me?”

  “Um, I could take a look at it,” I said in a lighter voice than the one I’d used when I had been Annika, even though the fact that I spoke with an American, not Swedish accent should be enough. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “If I knew that, I’d fix it myself,” he snapped.

  “Let me call buildings operations and have them come look at it,” I said, not feeling like dealing with Ron’s bad mood. “Which treadmill is it?”

  He explained which treadmill it was and I told him I’d go call for help. Someone should be there shortly.

  “Let’s hope so or I’ll be canceling my membership,” he grumbled. “I’ll be on the treadmill waiting.” He turned around and walked back up the stairs. I turned around myself and walked down to the front desk. From there, I’d radio buildings operations to be sure someone went up to Ron immediately. I hadn’t missed the way he’d thrown glances at my nametag and I didn’t need him to complain about me. At least he hadn’t seemed to recognize me.

  I asked Natalie, one of the cool front desk girls, to find building operations for me. Then, having already broken the ice with her, I asked if she could help me find a member.

  “Sure,” she said, pushing her cat-eye glasses up her nose. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied back in a French twist and she was wearing virtually no makeup. “What’s the name?”

  I grimaced. “I misplaced the card he gave me. All I know is that his first name is Jacob. We spoke in the cafeteria during lunch today and he told me he wanted a trainer. I obviously know what he looks like, though. Can we look at who checked in during lunch maybe?”

  “Sure, but how do you know that he didn’t check in earlier? Maybe he was having lunch after working out.”

  “That’s true. How about we look through all members who checked in after ten today. We spoke at one.”

  “Okay.” Natalie brought up the check-ins on the screen before her. With things going so surprisingly well, I didn’t want to push my luck by asking if I could come around to get a better view of the faces popping up. Instead, I leaned over the counter as much as I could without breaking my back to see. She kept scrolling through members.

  “Anyone?” she asked me when we got to members who had checked in at noon.

  “Um, no.”

  As Natalie kept scrolling through members, I prepared myself to ask for the sign-in list. It would be harder to justify getting access to that. When we got to members who’d checked in after twelve thirty, I gave up on him being an actual member and also knew what excuse to use.

  “Oh, I just remembered that he said his membership doesn’t start until next week. So he was only here as a guest today. May I look at the sign-in sheet?” I gave her the friendliest smile I could muster. “There can’t be too many Jacobs there.”

  She handed me the clipboard with the sign-in sheet on it. It took me only a quick glance to realize that at least thirty people had scribbled their names there. I would need to make a copy in the business office; doing it by hand would take forever. And I couldn’t stand around at the front desk much longer without a manager wondering what I was up to.

  “Can I make a copy of this sheet?” I asked Natalie in a quiet voice so that the other receptionists wouldn’t hear me. The fewer people who suspected I was up to something, the better. Natalie might be a little cool, but so far she obviously thought my requests were totally legit. Others might not be as easy to fool.

  “Sure,” she said. As I was about to remove it from the clipboard, she put a hand over mine. “But I would need something in exchange for that.”

  My heart sank; I should have known this was going a little too well.

  “And what would that be?” I asked, careful to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  She smiled at me, revealing that she wore a small brace. “Three free training sessions.”

  “I’d be happy to train you,” I said quietly, even though we trainers weren’t supposed to be training any of the staff for free. Hopefully she would be too lazy to actually reach out to me for training. “Just text me whenever you want to do them.” I gave her my cell number.

  “Thank you,” she said and lifted her hand from the sheet. I removed it and scurried into the nearby business office, making a mental note that Natalie was someone to be leery of.

  Now that I had a copy of the sheet all I needed to do was go through the many names and put faces to each of them. It
was a shame the guests didn’t also have to add the time of their arrival at the club, as, this way, I would have been able to narrow down the list significantly.

  I went to the locker room and stuck the paper into my purse, then I returned to the gym floors. I needed to focus on getting some clients now; so far, I had only picked up one. In the evenings, most members were working out on the third or fifth floor, so I was better off hanging out in those areas.

  As I stepped onto the fifth floor, an older woman with significant curves in a hot pink outfit and black tights was struggling with one of the machines. She gazed at me helplessly.

  “Do you need some help, ma’am?” I asked.

  She looked relieved. “Oh, yes, that would be so great. How do I use this machine?”

  “What is it that you’re trying to accomplish?” I asked. The woman was on one of the club’s many ab machines. I was fairly sure she would tell me she wanted to get rid of her belly by using it. In my days as a trainer, I never ceased to be surprised about how many people kept thinking that by working their abdominal muscles, the fat on top would magically melt away.

  In fact, my client Felipe Cardoza had been one of them.

  She pointed to her chunky midriff and smiled a little embarrassed. “I want a flat stomach.”

  “Well, in that case, this machine won’t help you.”

  “Really? Then what should I do?”

  “The club offers complimentary sessions to all members. Did you use yours yet?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, if you let me train you, I can show you what you need to do to get a flat stomach. Flat stomachs are my specialty!”

  The woman smiled. “Really? That sounds great! When can we do it?”

  “What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

  She screwed up her face as she considered my question. “Could you do sometime in the afternoon?”

  “How about four p.m.?”

  “I think that should work. Where would I meet you?”

  “We meet our clients on the fourth floor by the fitness desk. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, I do. Okay, I will see you there tomorrow then.”

  I got out my phone and took the woman’s contact information before I moved on. Now that I’d picked up a person who seemed like she could afford to train on a regular basis—I hadn’t failed to notice the huge diamond on her ring finger—I would go back down to the fourth floor and Google a couple of the names on the sign-in list on the desktop computers there. Thirty-seven people had signed it and twenty of those were males and not all easy to read. I had my work cut out for me for sure. I went to grab the sheet out of my locker in the trainer lounge and then walked out to the area where the employee computers were.

  Keeping the sheet next to me, I Googled the first name, a Richard Otey. The screen filled with several results out of which one was Whitepages.com. I clicked on it and found fourteen exact matches. Out of these, only three were in their thirties and none lived in New York. I Googled the three young Richards with their respective cities and then clicked on the Images tab. If I was lucky, there would be a photo of this man somewhere on the web. Out of the ones that spread open before me, none looked even remotely like the blond man.

  I did the same with the next three Richards and none appeared to be my man. Exhaling frustrated, I went to male number five, a Norbi Novak. Sounds Eastern European to me, so this might be the one, I thought. Biting my lip in expectation, I punched in his name on the keyboard.

  “Spying on your boyfriend?” a smooth male voice behind me asked.

  I turned to the voice and discovered one of the new, gorgeous trainers standing behind me. How long had he been standing there? I hadn’t heard him come up. I froze when I realized that he could have been standing there for quite a while. Spying on me.

  “Norbi is a weird name for a guy,” the tall, muscular, drop dead gorgeous guy continued and swiped away his long bangs, revealing striking green eyes with the longest lashes I had ever seen on a man. “You should dump his ass.”

  I relaxed then. He had probably just arrived. I smirked at him and checked his nametag.

  “Are you trying to tell me that I should upgrade to someone called Jonah instead?”

  He grinned at me, perfect teeth flashing white. “Would be a lot better than Norbi.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with that.” As discreetly as I could, I grabbed the sheet and flipped it over so Jonah wouldn’t see what it was. It was best I continued my search when I got home instead. I didn’t need to be interrupted like this.

  “You’re feisty,” Jonah said, still grinning. “I like it. I don’t think we officially met. I’m Jonah Green.” He held out a big, square hand in my direction. As I took it to shake it, he flipped it around and brought it to his lips, pressing a light kiss onto my knuckles. Speechless, I just stared at him. “Welcome to Nikkei, Jamie. When did you start with us?”

  I cleared my throat, annoyed with myself that he’d gotten to me just a little bit with his ridiculously great looks and confident seduction moves. Oily moves. I pulled back my hand.

  “A few days ago. How long have you been working here?”

  “Nine months. Representatives from Nikkei recruited me and my twin sister directly from college. We were both on athletic scholarships at Princeton.”

  I frowned at him. “You were recruited?” I had never heard of a health club going to colleges to recruit employees. I wanted to ask him if he was given a signing bonus too, but felt that was too nosy. As I took a closer look at him now, I realized he was younger than I had first thought. Which would totally explain his arrogant behavior and the kiss on the hand, a total overcompensation. I suddenly liked him a lot better. The poor boy just didn’t know any better and was probably just trying to hide the fact that he was inexperienced.

  “Your sister must be gorgeous,” I said, feeling almost maternal toward Jonah now.

  “Yeah, but you’re sexier.” He fired off a boyish grin at me. “I love older women.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling at his forthright comments. Jonah could not be from the big city acting this way.

  “You do, huh?” I said. “And why is that?”

  His cheeks went a light pink, but he still went ahead and said, “Well, for one, they’re a lot more confident than girls my age. More emancipated.”

  I arched a brow at him. “Emancipated?”

  “Yup. You go straight to the point when you like a guy. No playing games, driving guys crazy. So you wanna hang out later? Have some pizza?”

  I chuckled. “Sorry. Norbi wouldn’t be very happy if I did that. Hey, I need to get going. I’m supposed to be talking to members, not trainers.” I took my paper and slipped past him.

  Folding it and sticking it in my bra, I walked down to the club’s third floor.

  When I was done at Nikkei and I went home to Google the rest of the guys on the sheet, I would also Google The Adler Group. It seemed to be a most interesting company and it was time I learned more about it.

  Chapter 5

  As soon as I got home later that night, still sweaty after a fierce workout, I opened my laptop and Googled the rest of the names on the sign-in sheet. By midnight I had reached the end.

  Sadly, none of the guys on the list had yielded the result I’d hoped for. This could mean a few things: 1. the mystery man had a fake ID and used a different name when he signed the sheet; 2. he was a member who had come earlier in the day—before the time Natalie and I looked for him in the computer; 3. I had missed him when Natalie sped through the photos; 4. there simply weren’t any photos of him on the internet; or 5. he had walked straight in during the lunch hour rush despite that Natalie claimed no person ever entered the club unnoticed.

  She’d adamantly assured me of how thorough the front desk staff was as I returned the sheet to her and asked if it was possible the receptionists might have missed checking him in. I didn’t know her well enough to be able to determine if s
he was lying or at least exaggerating, though she did strike me as a person who would lie about such a thing to protect her ego. Even so, surely the vast majority of people entering were recorded one way or another; Nikkei Sports Club prided itself in being a very private institution.

  Out of the five scenarios, I believed no. 4 was most probable—especially since Emma hadn’t seen him before—which meant he must be just a guest, not a member.

  I could only hope he was a guest who would return.

  If the way he had been looking at me was any indication, he would. And then I would be more prepared, make sure I got his name before he disappeared on me again. I’d find out what that look and smile had been all about. For now it was time to stop obsessing about this guy.

  I typed in “The Adler Group” in the Google search box next. Adler was a privately owned real estate company in Switzerland with headquarters in Zurich and offices and developments all across the world, including New York. As far as I could tell, the company was only interested in real estate, primarily luxury condominiums in large cities. There had been nothing bad about it or its CEO in the media. On the contrary, they seemed pretty involved in charity and had even received a couple of awards for the impact their work had had on the environment as well as for their efforts in building affordable housing in poor communities all over the world. It seemed only natural that they would expand into fitness clubs when they were involved in so many great causes. Helping people get and stay healthy was of great concern, so why not have a hand in that field? Nikkei Sports Club fit perfectly into their many luxury buildings and developments, so it also made sense they had picked that club as opposed to some low budget one like Planet Fitness or Bally. All in all, a great company, on paper at least.

  Of course, their aggressive pursuit of trainers from top colleges was highly peculiar, I had to admit. I’d bumped into Jonah again on the floor and asked him if he knew about others who had been recruited the way he and his sister had. He’d looked at me like I was stupid, then said, “Um, yeah. Like pretty much everyone here.”