Page 5 of The Burnt
“Is he going to be fired?” Crystal asked. She seemed quite excited at the prospect.
“I didn’t say that,” Charlie replied. “They’re just assessing his performance and want to make sure that his work…conforms to the corporation’s mandate,”before they fire him, he added to himself. “Because Mr Chipping’s openly gay, they wanted to make sure that if anything negative came out of our investigations, it couldn’t be interpreted as homophobia on their part.”
“And you can do that how?” Laura asked.
“Both Declan and I are gay and the firm is known for handling cases like this…in an unbiased way.”
Crystal looked around then whispered, “Gay’s thelastthing that guy’s got to worry about.”
As lunch progressed, they opened up to Charlie with all of the lurid details of Chipping’s corporate abuses. It was clear that they didn’t like Tyler.
“I honestly don’t know how he’s kept his job this long,” Laura said as they departed Bastion’s. She took Charlie’s card and wrote a number on the back. “This is a friend of mine who works in the company’s accounting department. Farzan will give you everything you need to know. He’s pissed at Tyler. Farzan got him his job. Now he feelshisreputation’s in the sewer because of what Tyler’s been up to.”
Crystal gave Charlie a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Now, my advice to you is to get back in there and get Carrick’s number. You obviously have a better chance than the two of us.” Shegiggled and the two women walked away, leaving Charlie alone in the cold sunshine.
Chapter Three
Charlie mounted the stairs to the office. It was five o’clock and he was running late. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Carrie.
Declan and I will be there by seven. I have to deal with a few things then I’ll come home.
Home. Charlie had only had two places in his life that he’d considered home. The first was the one he’d shared with his parents and grandmother. The second was the apartment he now shared with his best friend Carrie, who had taken him in when he’d been kicked out of his parents’ place. Now he stood one floor below the home he wished he had—the apartment above the office, where Declan lived.
Living with Declan would be the last home he could hope for, but they both had to be ready for that. Working and living together was a big step.
Crash.
The ceiling trembled. Charlie shook his head. He really had to buy Declan a thicker weight mat to muffle the noise.
Crash.
A text came in from Carrie.
Looking forward to seeing Declan.
Carrie had been bugging Charlie for weeks about getting together with Declan for dinner. But something had always gotten in the way. Tonight, he had to make it happen.
Charlie ran to his desk and typed as quickly as his fingers would allow. Forty-five minutes later, he printed a copy of the report of his interviews to pass on to Declan. As Charlie shut down his computer for the night, the detective walked into the reception area.
“Still working?” he asked Charlie.
“Just documenting my progress on the case,” Charlie answered. “I cornered some of Tyler Chipping’s coworkers. They were more than willing to help out. I hope it’s okay—I treated them to lunch. That can’t be interpreted as me bribing them, can it?”
Declan laughed. “No. I think you’ll be safe.”
“Their names are all in the report. They were happy to slag the guy. They even gave me contact info for another guy named Farzan who corroborated their stories. I talked to him this afternoon. He referred to Tyler as”—Charlie looked at his report—“and I quote, ‘a backstabbing bastard’. Apparently, everyone thinks Mr Chipping is an obnoxious slacker who rarely does anything at work except live on Grindr. Among other things, he was caught by one of his coworkers banging a guy in the office of a VP who was on vacation. I don’t think a wrongful dismissal due to sexual orientation is at play here. The company should be able to fire him safely.”
Charlie looked up from his notes. “I was trying to use only publicly accessible sources but, just to be sure, when I got back here to the office, I hacked into his work computer. I was surprised they had such poor security. Anyway, I found almost nothing that appeared work-related. There was a ton of really hot porn which was downloaded after hours during the time he was billing a client for working overtime—I cross-referenced thedownload times with his work-time log. The guy is basically an idiot.”
Charlie hesitated before continuing. “What’s creepy, to me at least, is that he also had a computer folder labelled ‘Hunt’. Chipping’s got a ton of info on you, photos saved from news sites and copies of stories about the Ian Mann case.”
“You think he’s a crazy stalker?”
Charlie scowled. “That thought had crossed my mind.”
Declan shrugged. “As long as none of the photos were taken by him personally, I don’t think we have to worry about it.”
Charlie didn’t like the idea that a total stranger was fantasising about his boss…and boyfriend.
