"She called, she accused you of adultery and embezzlement, you refused to pay, and nothing's happened," he summed up for them. "What exactly is it you want me to do?"
"Catch her," Budge said, looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy on a hot plate as he cast a sidelong glance at Jack.
"Well, let's not be hasty," Trevor said, looking like an expensive liquor ad in Modern Maturity.
"If this were your problem, what would you do?" Jack said, looking like a very wealthy Marlboro Man who'd just gotten his first subscription to Modern Maturity.
"Hit star sixty-nine," Gabe said. "Failing that, I'd try to think who disliked me enough to blackmail me."
"Every business has disgruntled employees," Trevor said.
"Anybody recognize the voice?" Gabe said.
"No," Trevor said before anyone else could answer. "We have many disgruntled employees."
"You might want to work on that," Gabe said. "Has anything happened lately that might lead to a newly disgruntled employee?"
"What are you talking about?" Budge said.
"He wants to know if we've pissed off anybody in particular lately," Jack said. "No. We've won cases, of course, which always leaves some people unhappy, but nothing stands out. We haven't fired anybody."
"How about the accusations she made?" Gabe said.
"I'm insisting on an outside audit," Budge said, expanding with outrage.
"We're not going to pay for an audit," Jack said tiredly. "Nobody thinks you're embezzling. I'm not cheating on
Suze. Trevor says he's not cheating on Audrey. It's a nuisance scam."
"It's outrageous," Trevor said automatically. "But she hasn't called back. I think if we wait-"
Jack closed his eyes.
"Where did she want you to leave the money?" Gabe said.
"She said she'd call back and tell me," Trevor said quickly. "In a day, when I had it."
Jack shot Trevor a glance and said, "That's right."
No, it isn't, Gabe thought. "What about you, Budge?"
"I hung up on her before she got that far," Budge said. "She accused me of stealing."
"That's what blackmailers do," Gabe said. "Accuse people. Okay, as this stands, there's not much I can do. If you want to bring in the police, they can check the phone records, but I'm guessing she called from a public phone and not her living room."
"No police," Jack said. "This is a joke."
"I don't think it's a joke," Budge said. "I think-"
"Budge," Jack said. "We all think it's a joke." He said it with enough intent that Budge shut up. "Thanks for coming out, Gabe. Sorry we wasted your time."
"Always a pleasure," Gabe said, which wasn't true. OD was rarely a pleasure, but it was always profitable. He stood and said, "Let me know if anything else happens."
"Certainly," Trevor said, but his face said, Absolutely not.
"Wonderful seeing you all again," Gabe said and left, wondering what the hell was going on but not caring much.
Back at the agency, Riley slammed the door, threw a file folder on Nell's desk, and said, "I do not like that woman."
"What woman?" Nell pulled the file over and sat down at her desk to read the label, trying to get her balance back after the mirror. "The Hot Lunch," she read. "What is this?"
"One of our regulars." Riley dropped onto the couch and made it creak in anguish. "The client has a wife who takes a new lover a couple of times a year. She always meets him at the Hyatt on Mondays and Wednesdays at noon, so we call her the Hot Lunch."
Nell looked at the folder, confused. "And she's been doing this how long?"
"About five years." Riley stretched his legs out and put his hands behind his head, still scowling. "And I'm sick of it."
"You're sick of it?" Nell opened the folder. "How's the client feel about it?"
"All he wants is the reports." Riley closed his eyes. "It's a farce. She knows both of us, so it's not exactly a covert operation. Today she waved at me on her way to the elevator."
"At least she has a sense of humor." Nell scanned the report and shrugged. "So you did the job. What's the problem?"
"I feel like a marital aid." Riley shifted on the couch, and it creaked again. "My guess is, we deliver the report to the client, he shows it to her, they fight, and they have hot make-up sex for a while. Then it starts to taper off, and he calls us and says, 'I think my wife is having an affair.' No shit, Sherlock." He sighed. "That is not a marriage."
"Are you married?" Nell asked, surprised.
"No," Riley said. "But I know what a marriage is."
"And that would be…"
"Commitment for life with no whining," Riley said. "Which is why I'm not married. I'm more of a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. Can you type that report for me?"
"Sure," Nell said. "Can I have your datebook so I can log your appointments into the computer?" When Riley nodded, she said, "Okay, then, one more thing. When was the last time you took money from the petty cash?"
Riley shrugged. "Whenever it says I did. Last month sometime. Why?"
Nell took out the cash box and handed him the slips.
He shuffled through them, frowning. "These aren't mine."
"I know. My theory is that Lynnie signed them for you."
Riley whistled. "How much did she get?"
"With the other checks, over five thousand dollars."
"And Gabe says to forget it and swallow the loss." Riley tossed the slips back in the box. "You know, once he'd have gone after her just for the exercise. Now he's practical."
"What happened that he changed?"
"His dad died, we inherited the agency, and he got way too serious. He'd already started to slow down because of Chloe and Lu, and because Patrick was the world's worst manager, but that was the last straw."
Nell frowned, trying to keep up. "Chloe and Lu?"
"Wife and daughter. He was really something once. He was like Nick Charles."
"Who's Nick Charles?"
"Nobody reads anymore." Riley pointed at the black bird on the bookcase. "Do you know what that is?"
"Poe's raven," Nell guessed. " 'Nevermore."'
"And you work in a detective office." Riley sighed and slouched toward his own office. "You don't know literature, and Gabe's given up the chase. All I can say is, I hope I never get that old."
"We're not that old," Nell said to his back, but he shut his office door behind him before she could finish the sentence. "Hey!" she said, and when, he didn't open the door again, she buzzed his office and told him about the Farnsworth case, omitting the part about stealing the dog. Let the client tell him.
Then she sat back and processed the new information.
So Gabe McKenna was married to Chloe. She tried to imagine them together, but it was too absurd, like Satan with a Powerpuff Girl. And they had a daughter. How could you mix those two sets of DNA? She and Tim had been perfect for each other, had made a perfect son, and their marriage was over; McKenna and Chloe were at opposite ends of the human spectrum and they were still together. Marriage was a mystery, that was all there was to it.
She picked up the Hot Lunch notes that Riley had written about a woman named Gina Taggart who got away with adultery on a regular basis. That was the problem with the world. People did stuff they knew was wrong because they knew they could get away with it and other people didn't stop them. The Hot Lunch cheated, and Lynnie stole, and that guy in New Albany tormented a dog, and Tim dumped her and left her looking like she was a million years old-her heart clutched at the memory of the mirror-and nobody paid. Except she couldn't be mad at Tim, he'd played fair, it was her fault she looked like hell, she couldn't be mad.
Sitting there in the dim office, she realized that she wanted to be mad, wanted to say, "No, you can't just change your mind after twenty-two years of marriage, you spaghetti-spined weasel." But that wouldn't have been productive, it would make things more difficult for everybody, it would do nobody any good at all. Imagine if she'd screamed at Tim when he'd said he was leaving; their divorce would have been hell instead of civilized and fair. Imagine if she'd screamed and thrown things; they'd never have been able to maintain the friendly relationship they had now. Imagine if she'd screamed and thrown things and grabbed him by the-
"Nell." Riley said and she swung around in her chair to face his office doorway.
"Yes. What?" She frowned at him. "Don't yell. Why didn't you buzz me?"
"I did. I'm leaving. Back around five."
"Okay," Nell said, and then she frowned, transferring her frustration with Tim and Lynnie to him. "Explain this to me. You guys do background checks all the time. Why didn't you do one on Lynnie?"
"We did, or at least my mother did when she hired her. She had great references." Riley dropped his datebook on her desk. "Ogilvie and Dysart, same as you. She was only supposed to be here for a month until Mom got back. That's why the appointments have never been in the computer. My mother doesn't like computers."
"That explains a lot," Nell said. "So your mother quit?"
"She decided to take a two-week trip to Florida in the middle of July, hired Lynnie, and then when she got down there, decided to stay. That's when we made Lynnie permanent. There wasn't any reason not to trust her."
"I suppose," Nell said. "It just makes me mad that she got in here."
"Yeah, I can see you're frothing," Riley said.
"I'm a quiet kind of person," Nell said. "I do a subtle mad."
"Kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?" He headed for the door, and then stopped. "Did you get lunch? I can cover the phones for a while if you want to go out."
"I'm not hungry," Nell said.
"Okay. If Gabe asks, I'm out working on the Quarterly Report."
"The what?"
"Trevor Ogilvie," Riley said, from the doorway. "Of the infamous Ogilvie and Dysart, Attorneys at Law. He hires us to check on his daughter every three months to see what she's doing."
Nell gaped at him. "He hires you to check on Margie?"
"No, we check on Olivia, the twenty-one-year-old.
Margie is the older daughter, right? By the first wife? Margie evidently makes no waves."
"I forgot about Olivia," Nell said, remembering Margie's spoiled little stepsister. "I don't think she and Margie talk much." She sat back. "So Trevor hires you to follow Olivia?"
Riley nodded. "It's his idea of parenting, and it's a miracle he survives the reports. Olivia has a very good time. Oh, and before I forget, we are not rescuing SugarPie."
"Who?"
"SugarPie, your abused dog," Riley turned back to the doorway. "Rule number two: We do not break the law."
"There are two rules?" Nell asked, but the office door slammed before she finished her sentence. "You know, it's rude to do that," she said and then picked up Riley's datebook to enter it into the computer, trying not to think about the dog and the Hot Lunch and everything else that needed to be fixed- in the world.
"You've got to admit, the place is cleaner," Riley said when he came into Gabe's office the next morning to find him scowling at his desk.
"So clean I can't find anything." Gabe shuffled through the papers on his desk. "She stacked things."
"That's a woman for you." Riley sat down across from him and stretched out his legs. "Look on the bright side. She's concentrating on the bathroom now. That can only be good."
"She'll find some way to make it ruin my day."
"You know, we're going to have to make her permanent."
"Oh, God." Gabe knew he was right, but he didn't want to dwell on it. "So what happened yesterday?"
"I did the Hot Lunch. Gina's cheating. What a surprise."
"Anybody we know?"
Riley shook his head. "Never saw him before. He was wearing a really ugly tie and looking at Gina like she was the best thing that ever happened to him. If only he knew. She waved and said to give you her best."
Gabe shook his head. "And people think detective work is exciting."
"What happened at OD?"
Gabe told him.
"Jack's cheating again?" Riley said. "He never learns."
"That's it, keep an open mind." Gabe sighed. "I don't think any of them are guilty. But I do think Trevor lied about the accusations she made. I find it hard to believe that he's playing around."
"True," Riley said. "It's not like Trevor to work with his hands."
"And I know he lied to me about how she wanted him to get the money to her." Gabe leaned back. "I think he went to meet her."
"And Jack knows?"
"Maybe. Budge Jenkins called me first. Then I got a follow-up call from Jack that played down the whole thing, told me not to start investigating until we'd talked. And then I got a call from Trevor trying to cancel the meeting." He shook his head. "You have to wonder what would happen if Budge met a problem he couldn't tattle on, Jack met one he couldn't solve with fast talk and charm, and Trevor met one he couldn't delay out of existence."
"So Trevor and Jack are hiding something and they haven't clued Budge in." Riley thought about it and grinned. "I'd hate to be Budge right about now."
Gabe nodded. "I have this ugly feeling that the way to find out who's blackmailing the clients is to investigate the clients."
"Let me do the easy one," Riley said, standing up. "I'll find out if Jack's cheating."
Gabe shook his head. "We're not going to investigate it. They don't want us to, and we don't have the time."
"I might do it just for the hell of it," Riley said.
"It wouldn't be just for the hell of it," Gabe said. "It'd be to nail Jack Dysart. I can't believe you're still hostile about that woman after fourteen years."
"What woman?" Riley said and went out, passing Nell on her way in.
"I need your appointment book," she said to Gabe briskly.
"Why?" he said, feeling the need to annoy her.
"Because your appointments are not in the computer, and I need to put them in."
"Fine." Gabe handed over his datebook.
"Thank you." She took it and turned back to the door. "Mrs. Dysart," he said, hating what he had to say next. "Yes?" she said, patiently.
"Would you like a permanent job?"
She surprised him by pausing for a minute. "Would I get to fix your business cards?"
"No."
She sighed. "Yes, I'd like a permanent job."
"You're hired," he said. "Don't change anything."
She shot him a look that was completely unreadable and left.
"Yes, she's going to be a great help," he said to the empty room and turned back to his neatly stacked desk to get some work done.
An hour later, with both partners gone and the bathroom still to be cleaned, Nell began to enter Gabe's appointments into the agency's antique computer system. After typing in his future workload, Nell went back through the book for the past year and realized she'd misjudged him. He might be a controlling fiend, but he was a hardworking controlling fiend. No wonder he hadn't caught Lynnie embezzling; he'd barely had time to catch his breath. A significant amount of the work he'd done was background checks for Ogilvie and Dysart, and Nell stopped long enough to flip through Riley's past appointments, too. Even more OD, close to a quarter of their business.
The door rattled, and she looked up from her computer screen to see her handsome son come in with a paper bag in one hand and a drink in the other.
"Lunch," Jase said, hitting her with the irresistible smile that had been getting him out of trouble for twenty-one years. "Also I wanted to check out your new salt mine."
Nell smiled back in spite of herself. He was such an all-American boy, tall and sturdy and open. "You look wonderful."
"You have to say that, you're my mother." He put the bag and the drink on the desk and kissed her cheek "Aunt Suze says you're supposed to eat, so eat. I don't want her on my case."
Nell ignored the bag and picked up the drink. "What's in here?"
"Chocolate milkshake. She said to get high-calorie." He looked around the reception room. "So you've been here a day and a half and it still looks like this? What have you been doing with your time?"
"Getting to know my boss," Nell said as Jase sat on the couch, the spindly legs creaking under his weight. "He's tricky. I may have to sneak some things past him." She opened the bag and tried not to recoil at the smell of the hot grease. You look like hell, she told herself. Eat. She took out a french fry. "So what's new? How's Bethany?"
"I wouldn't know. Haven't seen her in a couple of weeks."
"Again?" Nell put the french fry back. "Jase, that's your fourth girl this year."
"Hey, you don't want me getting too serious too young, do you?"
"No," Nell said. "But-"
"Then be grateful I play the field. That way when I'm ready to settle down, I'll settle down. No cheating." Jase faltered a little. "I mean, there's no point in getting serious now, two more years of undergrad to go, and who knows what after that. I don't even know what I want to be when I grow up." He smiled at her again, as sunny and as guileless as when he was six.
"I love you," Nell said.
"I know," Jase said. "You have to. You're my mom. It's part of the deal. Now eat something."
"I am." Nell reached in the bag for the french fries. "See?" She chewed a fry, trying not to gag at the taste of the grease. "Although I have to admit I'm not a big french fry fan."
"You used to be," Jase said. "You used to pour vinegar over them like Grandma did, remember? One of the best smells I know is vinegar and hot oil because of you two."
"Well, at least I gave you some good memories," Nell said.
"You gave me a boatload." Jase stood up and leaned across the desk to kiss her again. "I have to go. Promise me you'll eat that."
"I'll give it my best shot," Nell said.
When he was gone, she dumped the bag in the trash and went back to the computer and Gabe's datebook. It really was amazing the amount of work the man did. Imagine what he could accomplish once she'd organized him.
She began to type again, keying in words while she thought about all the things she could do to fix McKenna Investigations.
On Wednesday, Nell got to the agency at nine sharp, but Gabe wasn't there. She was surprised to feel vaguely let down, as if she'd braced herself for nothing. It was like pushing hard on a door that opened easily; she felt stupid and clumsy, all at once. She made coffee and poured Riley a cup and took it in to him, and then she went into the bathroom to start on the final frontier.
"What are you doing?" Riley called when he came out of his office half an hour later to give her his empty cup.
"Cleaning your bathroom," Nell said, drying her hands on a paper towel as she came out to find him staring at the four white garbage bags she'd managed to fill so far. "You won't let me do anything else right now, and you have dirt in there from the Cold War."
Riley frowned. "What did you want to do instead?"
"Fix the business cards. Repaint the window. Replace the couch," Nell said, her voice getting grim. "Speak sharply to Lynnie. But the boss says no." She looked up at him. "You're a partner in this place. Give me permission to do what I want." It sounded like an order so she added, "Please."
"Cross Gabe?" Riley shook his head. "No."
Nell turned back to the bathroom. "Fine, then go out and do something so I can type the report."
"We never talk anymore," Riley said, but he said it on his way out.
One hour, three shelves, and two phone messages later, the door rattled opened, and Nell came out of the bathroom, expecting Gabe.
A very young blonde came in, all but bouncing on her heels as she pushed the stubborn door shut with her tight little body. She beamed at Nell, and Nell smiled back, helpless not to.
"You must be Nell," the blonde said. "My mom told me about you. I'm Lu."
She held out her hand, and when Nell took it, her handshake was firm, almost painful. Like Gabe's, Nell thought. She had his smart, dark eyes, too, which contrasted with her blonde, cheerful openness. Odd but attractive, Nell thought. "Very nice to meet you."
"My mom thinks you're the best." Lu stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, clearly prepared to make her own judgment.
"She's a nice woman," Nell said.
"Nice isn't everything," Lu said. "She's a Pisces. They never get what they want. Especially when they're married to Tauruses." She shot a disgusted look at her father's office door.
"You're not a Pisces," Nell said.
"I'm a Capricorn," Lu said. "We get everything we want." She jerked her head at Gabe's door. "Is my dad in?"
"Nope," Nell said. "He's out harassing the guilty."
"Maybe that'll put him in a better mood." Lu pulled her hands out of her pockets and plopped down on the couch, everything she had bouncing with her. As part of her miracle, the couch held. "He's being impossible about this Europe thing."
"Europe thing?"
"I want to go to France next month," Lu said. "Get a Eurail pass, see the world. He wants me to go to OSU. He's paid the tuition, which he feels is significant."
"I've paid tuition," Nell said. "It is significant."
"Yes, but I don't want to go," Lu said. "It's my life. I didn't ask him to pay tuition."
"You probably didn't have to," Nell said. "Your dad strikes me as somebody who takes care of his own."
"Exactly. That's pretty good for only knowing him three days."
"It's been an intense three days."
"That's what my mom said." Lu studied her, narrowing her dark eyes until she looked uncomfortably like Gabe. "Mom says you're going to run the place. She can't get my dad to do anything. I mean, she divorced him and they stayed together."
"They're divorced?" Nell said.
"Hard to tell, isn't it? He bought the house next door for her so she'd stay, and she did." Lu shook her head. "I think that's why my mom's decided to go to France with me, although she's not there yet. If Dad doesn't want her to go, she won't go." She set her jaw. "I'm going." She cast a careful look at Gabe's door. "I think."
The door rattled again. "Hello, trouble," Riley said as he came in, smacking Lu on the top of the head with the folder he was carrying. "Stop making your dad crazy. He's taking it out on me."
"It's good for you," Lu said critically. "You get things too easy."
Riley detoured around her to drop the folder on Nell's desk. "Everything you've ever wanted," he told her. "Last part of a background check. Type away." He looked back at Lu. "Would it kill you to spend a couple months in college and make your old man happy?"
"It is not my mission in life to make my father happy," Lu said airily. "I must follow my bliss." She came back to earth. "Tell me you love me."
"I love you," Riley said. "Now get out. This is a place of business."
"You know, if you have to tell people it's a place of business, it kind of loses its impact," Nell said.
Riley grinned down at her. "And that's enough lip from the help."
Nell smiled back and then caught Lu's expression. "Hello," Lu said.
"Not hello," Riley said. "Good-bye. I thought I threw you out of here."
"Just when it was getting interesting," Lu said and left, yanking on the door to get it closed.
"That's an amazing child," Nell said.
"You have no idea. She's had Gabe and Chloe whipped since birth. Some guy is going to have his hands full with that one." Riley looked into the bathroom. "I can't believe you're still doing that. Go to lunch."
"One more shelf and I'm done," Nell said and went in to finish.
The bathroom was better, but it still needed to be painted. Maybe she could do that when they weren't looking, since she was permanent now. She climbed up on the toilet tank, balancing herself with one hand on the wall, and began to take old boxes and bottles down from the top shelf, dropping them into the trash can below and listening to them smash with satisfaction. Then she reached for the last box.