Chapter 1

My intercom chimed and flashed. I pressed the button to receive.

“Miss McAllister, there’s a Mrs McKenzie here to see you,” said Tiny, my general factotum. “She doesn’t have an appointment but she says she knows you.”

The name didn’t ring a bell, but I’d reached that point in the day when any interruption would make a welcome break.

“Thanks, Tiny. Show her in.”

The door opened and in walked the person I had least expected to ever see again. Apart from those who were dead or in prison, of course. I recognised her as if it had been yesterday. She was well-groomed and well-dressed; she’d obviously done well for herself. Nature had been kind to her too: her figure would put most glamour models to shame and I would bet it was all natural too. When I’d known her before, the breasts had been far less spectacular. And the blonde hair had been more of a dirty blonde; she was probably getting some help from a bottle.

“Hello Jocelyn,” I said. “So it’s Mrs McKenzie now.”

“Hello Rose,” she replied nervously. “They told me you’re the best but I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.”

“Water under the bridge.” That might not have been true. Truth is, I didn’t know how I felt about her. “How have you been?”

“It was bad for a while. I was taken into care and shunted around from foster home to foster home. I had to have years of counselling. But I’m on an even keel now.”

Jocelyn didn’t elaborate. I had read in the local newspaper about the decorated war hero being arrested for raping his preteen daughter. They hadn’t mentioned any names, supposedly to protected the daughter, but it could only have been her.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“It’s my husband, Ray,” she replied. “I love him with all my heart and he’s helped me lead something like a normal life.”

“Sounds like a good man,” I commented.

“He is. I think. But I’m starting to have doubts. He travels a lot for work and sometimes he seems to be away longer than necessary. A couple of times the firm he works for has called while he’s been away, asking to speak to him. They didn’t know he was still on the road and he wasn’t answering his cellphone.”

“Do you think he’s having an affair?”

“I don’t know. He never even glances at another woman when he’s with me. But what if I’m too damaged for him and he needs a normal woman?”

“You want me to find out?”

“Yes.” A small voice, almost a whisper.

“I’m not cheap.” I handed her a copy of my charges.

“My husband is Regional Manager for Office Automation Products. I can afford it.”

I took down Ray McKenzie’s details, including his regular movements and when he was next due to go on the road. Jocelyn had the forethought to bring a recent photo of her husband. I asked her to let me know details of his itinerary when he next went on the road, then showed her out.

Did she whisper, “I’m sorry,” on the way out, or was it my wishful thinking?

“Are you okay?” asked Tiny. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I just have.”

“What did she want?”

“Thinks her husband might be cheating. Wants me to find out.”

“That sounds routine.”

“The job’s routine, the client isn’t. We have a history.”

“Oh! Enough said.”

I liked that about Tiny. He knew when not to press.

I hadn’t realised I had been staring at the door until Tiny cleared his throat.

“Ahem. While you’re standing there, would you like me to start a file for the client?”

“I’m contemplating whether I want you to take me to a bar and get me blind drunk or take me home and fuck my brains out. I might as well start the file myself while I’m trying to decide. But you can run off ten copies of this photo for me.”

“Sure thing.”

I set up a new entry in our customer database and typed in the details I had elicited from Jocelyn. When Tiny brought in the photocopies of her husband’s photo, I scanned the original into the computer and attached it to the file. Then I ran off a hard copy. I had never trusted computers sufficiently to do away with paper backups.

“Have you decided?” asked Tiny, after I put the paper copy in a filing cabinet.

“What the hell, let’s do both. Unless you have other plans.”

“No, nothing that can’t wait.”

What I knew about Tiny’s history was limited. At 6’ 3””, Jackson Scott dwarfed my 5’ 2”. And he must have weighed over 200lbs, most of it solid muscle. Not being quite good enough at football to become a professional, he had joined the army instead. Most of his army career was classified, but it must have been bad because I saw the look on his face sometimes when he was having a flashback. I suspected he had a drawer full of medals that few people were allowed to know about, and I wasn’t one of them. Eventually his luck ran out; he lost his lower right leg to an IED and was invalided out of the army.

I’m still not sure how he came to work for me. I was good at my job as a Private Investigator, too good in fact. Realising I needed help in the office, I advertised for a receptionist/administrator. To prove I wasn’t hidebound by gender stereotyping, I gave Tiny an interview when he applied. And he passed with flying colours. His prosthetic didn’t hamper him, he had a good telephone manner and he was as gentle as a lamb, except when circumstances dictated otherwise when his exceptional armed and unarmed combat skills came into play. In short I got a bargain. In fact I couldn’t understand why Tiny would want to work for me. I could have found out, but that was something I wouldn’t do to an employee except under extreme circumstances. My curiosity didn’t count.

Chapter 2 »