Again, deep down, I knew this was bullshit, but yet I proceeded to walk down to her office anyway.
“Charlotte, can I speak to you for a moment?”
She seemed especially guarded. “Okay . . .”
Pulling up a chair in front of her desk, I said, “I was thinking about what you asked me earlier, and I was wondering if . . . maybe rather than a date, if you would be interested in spending time with me in another capacity—more as friends.”
“What do you mean?”
Making Charlotte feel better after my rejection earlier was my number one priority. I knew on some level this proposition was complicating the situation even further. But I wanted to reward her brutal honesty with something, even if meant tempting fate.
“I’d love your assistance in tackling a couple of the items on my bucket list, namely rock climbing to start—since you’re an expert and all now. I’m talking about outdoor climbing. There’s this place in the Adirondacks with guided instruction. I can send you the info. We could go up this Saturday. It would be one overnight. Separate rooms, of course. Would you be interested?”My cell phone buzzed as I pulled my door closed Friday night. It was after seven, and the office was quiet. Even Charlotte had left on time today for a change. Although that wouldn’t stop me from taking my indirect route out just so I could pass her office.
I locked my door and dug my vibrating phone from my pocket. Josh Decker’s name flashed on the screen. Josh was a retired NYPD detective turned private investigator who ran background checks on all our employees. Unfortunately, we’d gotten burned years ago when we hired a real estate agent without a sufficient check, and he basically used Eastwood Properties as a front to gain access to our wealthy clients’ apartments and steal. Our backgrounds were now so extensive it sometimes felt like we were crossing a line and intruding on a potential employee’s privacy.
“Hey, Josh. What’s going on?”
“Same ole, same ole. Working late so I have an excuse not to eat Beverly’s tuna casserole.”
“What if she saves you the leftovers?”
“Oh, she always does. And I toss it in the dumpster outside my building before I come in. I tried to feed it to the strays outside my office once, but even starving cats wouldn’t eat Beverly’s tuna casserole.”
I chuckled. “How did the Erickson investigation go?” I’d had Josh run a potential new leasing agent.
“He’s pretty clean. Got one arrest for smoking a joint in college that was expunged.”
“Expunged, huh? Doesn’t that mean it’s wiped clean from his record? Yet here you are, telling me about it.”
“There ain’t no such thing as wiped clean. There’s always fingerprints, son.”
I turned left and walked down the hall on my way to the office exit, slowing as I approached a certain closed door. CHARLOTTE DARLING. I stopped and read the gold nameplate on her door. Which made me wonder about what she’d added to her Fuck-It List lately.
“Josh . . . let me ask you . . . do you think you could find someone’s birth parents?”
“Found a woman her father a few months back. He’d sold his sperm during college twenty years ago and was homeless today, living under a trestle in Brooklyn.”
Wow. I stared at Charlotte’s name while debating it for a minute. “I have a job for you. I need to find someone. It’s personal—outside of Eastwood Properties. So I would want it kept discreet. No mention to my grandmother or anyone. Especially not our administrative staff. Is that a problem?”
“Discreet is my middle name. Email me from your personal account and give me the details.”
“Will do. Thanks, Josh.” I hung up and ran my finger over the nameplate. “Looks like we might find out who you really are, Charlotte Darling.”CHAPTER 23
CHARLOTTE
All my clothes were in a giant heap on the couch when Reed buzzed to pick me up on Saturday at five thirty in the morning. I pressed the intercom before hitting the buzzer to unlock the door downstairs. “Running a little late. Come up and have some coffee.”
I cracked open the front door to my apartment and went back to frantically searching for the right thing to wear. I wanted to look nice—maybe even a little sexy—but I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to look sexy. Then there was the added complication of the outfit needing to be appropriate for climbing a damn mountain.
Reed rapped on the door before entering. I brushed past him in the kitchen wearing a frantic face and headed to the bathroom to get hair ties. He must’ve read my mood because his words were said with caution. “Morning, sunshine.”
“I have nothing to wear.”
Reed looked at the floor and shook his head. “Wear anything, as long as it’s comfortable.”