She stood up and shook her long hair over her shoulders, even though she looked too old for that kind of thing.
Jeremiah stood up and squared off with Brad. “Is this about the volunteer funds?” His frown was intense.
Brad chuckled lightly.
The woman laughed softly, “No, Jer, this is news. I can’t say no to a reporter.”
“Yes, in fact, you can say no to a reporter.” He edged toward the door. “Especially this one.” He looked Brad up and down.
Jane did too. Brad wasn’t the most intimidating figure, and for a minor kind of journalist, doing stuff online, he didn’t seem worthy of Jeremiah’s complete disgust.
“You’re welcome to come, too,” the woman said.
“Oh yeah?” Jeremiah looked at the T-shirt pile.
Jane did not want to be left in charge of them again. “I could finish.” The words fell out of her mouth without her permission.
“Fine. Just leave a final count on top of the box.”
“Of course.” Jane gritted her teeth. What she wanted was to get a few questions of her own in on this lunch, or at least to have Jeremiah pay close attention for her. Which wasn’t impossible. “Before you go…” Jane stood up and pulled her phone out of her purse. “Give me your digits and I’ll send you an invite to the wedding.”
“Cool.” Jeremiah took her phone, but his eyes didn’t leave Brad.
“If you’re coming, come,” the woman said.
Jeremiah tossed Jane the phone and left with Brad and the other woman without saying goodbye.
Jane scanned the desk for a name plaque. The woman was Brenda Larson. Not that it mattered, but it was nice to know after working in her space for so long.
Jane finished her tally, borrowed a clean sheet of paper from Brenda’s desk, wrote a clean copy of the stock, and left it on top of the boxes, then she texted Jeremiah.
“I’m a detective. Brad is a person of interest. Please tell me if he does anything fishy.”
He replied immediately. “Awesome.”
“Can we meet later to talk about Brad?”
“Def. But don’t forget the wedding invite.”
Jane sent a smiley. She wished she could go hover in the background of the lunch, or get Jeremiah to somehow bring up where Brad had been last night, but it wasn’t going to happen. Flora was waiting back at the office to kill all of her dreams.
Well, not all of them. Just the detective one. But that was bad enough.
She stopped for lunch before she went back to the SCoRI office. She wasn’t hungry, but she wasn’t in a hurry to get fired.
Back at work, she took the same seat across the same desk from the same boss, but Flora looked different. “Jeremiah called.”
“Good.” Jane tried to sound confident and decisive.
“I should say good. He said everything was ship shape.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But it does not make up for disobeying simple orders.”
“No. Definitely not.”
“If I can’t trust you to obey simple directions, how am I going to be able to trust you to handle important and delicate work?”
Jane’s heart was in her stomach. “I suppose you can’t.”
“I wouldn’t say can’t, but it takes quite a bit more work to repair a reputation than to earn one.”
“I am so sorry.” Jane just shook her head. Forgetting the T-shirts was a bigger deal than she wanted it to have been. She could see why, in a big-picture kind of way, but it was so disappointing. She wanted to be better than that.
“You look like you have something on your mind,” Flora said.
Jane opened her mouth to talk about her own self-doubt and shame, but couldn’t do it. It was too raw. “I need your opinion on my future.” She let her hands rest on her lap, trying hard to look casual.
“Go on.” Flora adjusted her glasses. She pushed the file on her desk to the side, though she hadn’t been working on it.
“Jake—my fiancé—thinks we can have our support in order in about two years.”
Flora looked confused.
“Mission support, I mean. But I won’t have gotten enough hours in for the PI license by that point.”
“Go on.”
“And I was wondering about your opinion, since you guys were missionaries, and detectives.”
“Why are you working on your PI license right now?” Flora asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to be interning with a shelter, or an outreach? Maybe the Pregnancy Resource Centers or the Salvation Army? You don’t want to show up on the mission field unequipped to serve.”
“Sure. Of course.” Jane mentally kicked herself. She kept meaning to start up a Bible study outreach. She knew she needed to.
“Well? What’s your plan for that?”
“It’s…in the works.” Jane’s mind spun. Was it in the works? What had she planned on doing? “Oh!” She exhaled in relief. “The organization we are going with is the one Jake works for. It’s a rescue mission for trafficked girls and boys in Thailand.”
“And?”
“And I think working in a detective agency is good training for that.”
“Does the agency agree?”
“Er…” She felt like she knew they did, but why? “Yes! Jake spent a year doing it himself and he thinks it is good practice.”
“Okay.” Flora looked over the top of her glasses into the distance. “If you and the agency think doing this is good preparation for your future service, I’m not going to argue.” Her furrowed brow hinted that she wanted to argue.
“Okay.” Jane chewed her lip. “So, how do you feel about my leaving before the license is complete?”
Flora didn’t smile. “That’s between you and God.” Again, her face and her words were sending a different message.
“True…” Jane felt like something more was wanted from her, but she couldn’t guess what it was.
Flora sighed. “You have the appearance of a moldable youth. Willing and teachable. But really you’re a hard nut, aren’t you?”
Jane scrunched her mouth and nodded. “You may be right.”
“Oh, I am right.” She folded her hands. “Who do you trust?”
Jane frowned. “What?”
“In general, who do you trust? Your parents?”
“Of course.”
Flora lifted an eyebrow.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
“That’s what I’m curious about.” Flora looked tired, but kept at it. “What about Jake, do you trust your fiancé?”
“Definitely!” Jane sat up straighter. Why shouldn’t she trust her parents and the love of her life? What was Flora getting at?
“What about God? Would you say you trust God?”
Jane opened her mouth to insist she did, but then shut it again. Of course. Absolutely. There were no words positive enough to explain how much she trusted God. Why should she be forced to explain it to this Flora Wilson?
“And what about me?” Flora asked. “Do you trust me?”
Jane just stared at Flora. “I don’t understand the question.”
Flora’s smile faded. “It’s not difficult.” She stood up and walked around her desk. “Trusting people is being willing to act on their directions even when those directions go against your instincts.”
Jane bit her lip.
“Even if you don’t find that you trust me, you have to act like you do, because I am your boss.” Her voice was hard, but her face was softening. “And if you can’t follow my directions, you will be fired. This is your only warning.”
“I understand.”
Flora let out a soft sigh. “Someday you will understand. But that was the boss to employee speech. Now as an older Christian woman to a younger one, whether God intends you to serve missionaries with prayers and money, or to serve by going, the number one thing he needs from you is your trust. You cannot go into the field believing that you only have your own wits to rely on. You have to trust God’s pla
n, and you have to trust the people God has given you to work with. You asked if I thought you should stay here and finish your PI license or if you should go overseas as soon as you have the money.”
Jane folded her hands together and squeezed them until her knuckles were white.
“I believe you need to stay stateside until you find you are able to take directions.”
“I can take directions.”
“Jane.” It sounded as though Flora was using her mom-voice.
“But I do trust God.” Her thoughts were swimming. She had so many arguments against what Flora was saying, but no way to get them out coherently.
“If you trust God, obey the people he has put in charge of you.” The friendly look had faded. Flora looked tired.
“Okay.”
Flora exhaled slowly. “Okay then. You are excused.” She stood up and walked to the door.
Jane left.
Of course she trusted God and her parents and Jake. If she didn’t, she wasn’t any kind of Christian girl. But, trusting God didn’t mean she had to do everything her parents or Jake said. It’s not like they were the boss of her.
She scratched her forehead. Flora, on the other hand, was literally the boss of her. And she was having a hard time following her directions.
But didn’t Flora have to earn her trust?
It had been a long time since Jane had had a job with a real boss, rather than just cleaning clients. And she knew, even as the question occurred to her, that no, a boss did not have to earn her trust. That’s not how jobs worked.
Jane pulled out of her parking spot with a screech.
The sooner she was entirely her own boss again, the better.
At home, Jane didn’t even try to ponder Flora’s advice. She turned her mind back to the problem of Paige Tech instead. A nice, concrete, murder problem.
Lots of books of game cheat codes and hacks. A dead game device maker. A missing gaming journalist. How was it all connected? She picked up her phone and called Ayla.
Jane got straight to the point when Ayla answered. “Tell me everything you know about game hacks and stuff like that.”
“Nothing.”
“But…”
“You want Brenna for questions about games. Or Maggie. Maggie knows more about gaming than anyone—even Devon. Why don’t you just call her?” Ayla yawned. “I have to go to work, anyway.”
Jane hadn’t expected Ayla to be her new best friend or anything, but she had hoped for a little more than this. “You don’t know anything? Not about, like, books people write about how to game the, um, games?”
“Honestly? I was into Devon. Not games. Talk to Maggie, please.” She didn’t just hang up, but she did sigh heavily, like the phone call was a big inconvenience.
“Okay.” Jane exhaled through pursed lips. She hated being so passive with people, but if there was a magic trick for making them tell you what you wanted to know, she hadn’t learned it yet. “Thanks anyway.”
“Sure. Bye.” Ayla hung up.
She hadn’t said it, but it felt like a “Bye Felicia” if ever there had been one. She had been massively dismissed.
She cracked her knuckles, dragged her fingers through her hair and pulled it up into a pencil bun. Then, after one more deep breath, she called Maggie.
“Hullo.” Maggie’s voice sounded deflated.
“Hey, this is Jane Adler from the Senior Corps of Retired Investigators. I think I might have a new scent on finding Kyle.
“Yeah?” Maggie didn’t sound interested.
“What do you know about Paige Tech?”
“Never heard of it.”
“But Hester Paige sold you your insurance policy.”
“She did? I didn’t know. Kyle handled all of that.”
“And Cora Paige connected you guys with your premarital counseling.”
“With Father Pete?” Maggie sounded confused.
“No, I don’t think so. This guy was Pastor Morris.”
“Oh yeah, the one we didn’t like. We finished with Ayla’s pastor.”
“Ayla goes to church?”
“Yeah.” Again, Maggie sounded like she might have been talking about the weather in the channel.
“But anyway, Hester Paige sold Kyle the insurance, and Cora connected you with the other guy, and Cora runs a company called Paige Tech that sells books of game cheat codes and hacks and stuff.”
“She does?” There an uplifted note of interest at the end of those two words.
“Yes. Or, at least that’s what Shane told me,” Jane said.
“Shane who?”
“Shane Paige.”
“Oh.”
Now she was on to something. “You know Shane Paige?”
“I don’t want to talk about him right now.” Maggie’s voice was definitely interested now—in an interested in shutting down the conversation kind of way.
“When would be a good time? I can come over any time today. Or tomorrow.” It sounded desperate, but Jane was desperate.
“You said Shane Paige?”
She repeated it quietly, but something about the way her tone had dropped again made Jane think Maggie was on some heavy antidepressants
“Yes, Shane Paige. When can we get together to talk about him?” Jane made the whole thing very clear and concrete. If she was dealing with someone over-medicated, she was going to have to keep close track of things.
“No, no. I don’t know anything. I’m sorry.” Maggie paused, the phone muffled. “I’ve got to go.” She hung up.
Jane wasn’t sure the last time she had felt that disappointed.
About five minutes later a text came in from Jeremiah that helped lift her spirits a little.
“Brad is bad news. Muckraker. Mudslinger. Wants to take down the zoo. Or anyone. Wants to be famous. I brought you up, just to see what happened. He fumbled. Let’s eat. You and me and whoever gave you that ring, if it makes it better.”
“Perfect. Yes. Lets. When?”
They went back and forth and made plans, in the end including both of their significant others, which was the kind of overkill a good graduate of Harvest School of the Bible would take. Jane liked it.
“Who are we eating with?” Jake buttoned up a plaid short sleeved shirt.
“A contact who knows something juicy about that Brad guy, the one who popped by the apartment.
Jake nodded approval. “Good. Want me to wear a wire?” He buttoned his shirt over the Rivermaiden Coffee T-shirt he had been wearing.
“Not this time.” Jane was itchy to get going, but they were pretty early still. She flipped back and forth on her phone from more VoP forum conversations about Maggie/MotherofBridezilla and the missing persons Facebook page Ayla had set up. She was looking for some obvious writing style tying to people together…to make a connection between someone who knew Kyle in real life and someone who hated Maggie for the article, but she wasn’t seeing anything.
While popping back and forth, waiting for the minutes to tick by, she got a text from Brenna. “Need to see you ASAP.”
Jane’s heart lurched. “Tonight?”
“Now.”
“I have plans. Dinner. Big clue.”
“Now.”
Jane gritted her teeth. She and Jake had to be at dinner in forty-five minutes. The restaurant was fifteen minutes away. Brenna was ten minutes away, in the other direction. So if they went there now…
“Okay.” To heck with it. She had to go there now. She’d just text Jeremiah if it looked like they’d be more than five minutes late. She’d tell him to order a plate of starters on her. “Hey Jake, we’ve got to run. Brenna needs us.”
“Brenna…” He cocked his head to the side. “Who’s that?”
“The bride’s weird sister who has all the clues.”
“Works for me.” He grabbed Jane’s hand and dragged her out. “Good thing I’ve got the Jag. Much faster than your car.” He was joking, but it made Jane shiver. The last thing they needed was to get pulled
over for speeding
Halfway to the Frances house, it looked like they were going to get caught in a speed trap, but Jake saved it, slowing down just in time. Jane snuck her hand over to his knee.
At the house, Brenna had the door open for them before they could ring the bell. “Come to my room.”
Brenna’s room was just as weird as it had been last time. The windows were papered over with cardboard, and the shelves were full of labeled glasses. Piles of papers covered every horizontal surface. She was one wall covered in newspapers and string away from having a beautiful mind.
She shut the door behind them and locked it. Then she passed a stack of papers to Jane. “You’re going to want to sit down.” Brenna paced in front of her cluttered desk, one hand tapping her chin.
Jane sat on the edge of the bed.
Jake leaned against the door, his hand casually resting on the doorknob. His jaw twitched.
Jane scanned the pages, but she was too excited to get it. One page was an article from the insurance company blog, another was an email about going to the river. She didn’t see the connection.
Brenna sighed impatiently. “Look at how often the word ‘beyond’ is used in both pieces of writing.”
Jane looked for the word and found it several times.
“It’s used four times in the blog post, and six in the email. It’s one of the less commonly used prepositions. It shouldn’t appear that often in either a post or an email. And he is using it in place of more correct prepositions, such as next to, or near.”
“Okay…” Jane spied out a sentence that illustrated what Brenna meant.
“That is an indicator they were written by the same person.”
“Is this the same thing you noted last time we were here?”
“Yes. Exactly. Maggie didn’t want it to be true, so I spent many hours confirming it.”
Jane flipped through the pages. There were other blog posts, another personal email, and several posts from a message board. “So, who is it?”
Brenna’s face blanched. “It’s Kyle.”
“Whoa.” Jake stepped away from the door and checked out the papers.
“Look at the last page, please.”
Spoiled Rotten Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 5) Page 13
