Page 43 of Wild King

I give him the address, and he jokes, “Holy fuck! You must be like a fish out of water out there. I’m not going to run into creepy dour-faced farmers standing with pitchforks next to their homely wives, am I?”

As much as I’d pay to see Ivan scared by the Dutchess County version of American Gothic, I highly doubt he’ll see anything like that out here. “No, it’s a nice area. Very posh. I’m staying in a house owned by the CEO of King Industries.”

“Really? Well, fuck me. You’re moving up in the world, honey. Does this mean sometime soon you’re going to be too good for the likes of this son of a bitch?”

“Never! You’re my go-to guy, Ivan. You know what. Who else is as good as you at finding dirt on people?”

“Nobody, thank you. I’ll see you in a few, depending on whether or not I die on this fucking road.”

“I’ll be here waiting.”

Excited that I soon may have a better sense of what Gina Randolph is all about, I hurry to my room to get cleaned up. Ivan knows how to find out anything, even details people try their hardest to keep hidden. If there’s something to know about the woman accusing Kellen of sexual harassment, Ivan’s the man to sniff it out.

My favorite privateinvestigator sits down on the sofa across from where I sit at my desk and looks around. “Pretty fucking swanky, sweetheart. I might not hate having to leave the city if I could hang out in digs like this.”

I glance at the room and nod. The office is definitely nice. He’s not wrong about that. Roomy with large floor-to-ceiling windows in front of the desk, the room contains enormous bookcases filled with priceless classic editions on the left wall and a cozy seating area with a sofa and chair on the right side of the room. I have to admit it’s probably the nicest office I’ve ever worked in.

“It’s not bad work, if you can get it,” I joke. “I’m a pretty simple girl. I think that’s why I like this office so much. The view out the window isn’t bad either.”

Ivan leans forward and looks out toward the side yard filled with oak and maple trees. “I think all this green would put me into a coma. I thought you were a city girl, Salem.”

That makes me laugh. “I am, but it’s nice to get away from all that concrete and steel every once in a while.”

He sits back on the couch and spreads his arms across the back. “So how was your vacation? Where did you go again? Somewhere in the Caribbean?”

“Turks and Caicos. It was great, for the most part. Sun and sand. How can you go wrong?”

Ivan grimaces like I’ve just told him I had to stay in prison for a week. “All that fucking nature. Give me the urban jungle any day. You spend a lot of time out here and you’re going to be the queen of suburbia. I’m not sure I can live with that.”

Throwing my head back, I laugh at that idea. “I don’t ever see me being the queen of suburbia. I’ll always be a New York girl. Speaking of that, what did we find out about another New York girl, Gina Randolph?”

Ivan slaps his knee. “Now there’s a woman no man wants to wake up to in the morning. Holy fuck! She’s the workplace version of a black widow spider.”

His comment intrigues me. “What does that mean? Did she kill somebody?”

He waves off my question, disappointing me momentarily. “Not a killer, but she definitely knows how to lure flies to her spider web. Let’s start with the fact that your boy is not her first victim.”

I cringe at the way he refers to Kellen as a victim. He may not be the villain everyone’s making him out to be, but I find it hard to go with calling him a victim.

“What the fuck was that for?” Ivan asks, pointing at my face.

Not interested in having this discussion with a man who may be the world’s biggest chauvinist, I shake my head and shrug like it’s nothing. “What? Let’s move on to what you found out.”

“Oh, no, no, no. You made a face, baby. You don’t like thinking your boy is a victim? Set whatever your damn problems are aside because if the roles were reversed and your boy was a woman, you’d be all over terming her a victim.”

Seeing we won’t be moving on until I address this issue with him, I say, “Victim always hits my ears wrong when we’re talking about men who have everything they want in this world. He’s a billionaire, Ivan. Save your tears for the people you pass on the street who don’t have a place to go or don’t know where theirnext meal is coming from. Kellen King will be fine. I’ll do my job, time will pass, and he’ll come out smelling like a rose, I bet. The title of victim should be kept for people who deserve your pity.”

The private investigator levels his gaze on my face and stares at me for a long moment. Shaking his head, he smiles and finally says, “I’m getting a vibe here, Salem. What’s going on? You never talk about clients that way.”

“I generally don’t have to fix anything for people like Kellen King.”

Still shaking his head, Ivan refuses to believe that’s what’s behind my attitude toward my newest client. “You’re acting like my calling him a victim is a personal offense to you.”

That gets him another shrug. “You’re reading too much into this, Ivan. How about you tell me what you found out about Gina Randolph?”

He points at me and laughs. “I’ll figure out what you’re up to, but okay. For now, let’s talk about good old Gina. Your boy tangled with the wrong woman when he hooked up with her. First thing you need to understand, which I certainly hope his lawyers already know, is this isn’t our girl’s first brush with sexual harassment.”

“Don’t tell me. She actually sexually harassed someone in the past,” I say with chuckle, loving the irony and hypocrisy of that.

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