Page 1 of The Chad Next Door
Chapter One
Chad
October 4
If there’s one thing Ihate, it’s puzzles. I used to love puzzles. I have no idea where that love came from because I’m pretty sure I haven’t done an actual puzzle since I was six, but there was something satisfying about the idea of taking broken pieces and putting them together into something whole. These days it’s just a chore, despite my entire life being made up of one solved mystery after another.
The broken pieces never fit quite right anymore, and I always feel like I’ve left a part of myself behind each time I solve a new case. Is it even worth the effort?
I’ve been thinking that a lot lately, and I don’t especially want to know what that means for my business. I’ve spent the last eighteen years building up a reputation as a private investigator; I’ve never met a mystery I couldn’t solve. I have so many people hoping to hire me that I have three different backup detectives to recommend them to whenever my client list is full. At this point, I could refuse to take on any clients at all, and the commission I get from those recommendations would be enough to pay the bills and then some.
I think that’s what scares me the most. I don’t want to do this, and I don’t have to do this. But if I stopped, what would that mean for me? Where would that put me?
“Briggs? Did you just figure something out?”
I look up from the picture frame on my desk—I’ve been staring at it for a while—and shake my head. “Keep talking.”
Gordon Thwaite has been talking at me for the last twenty minutes, telling me all sorts of “evidence” he’s found when it comes to who is stealing money from him. He hired me a week ago, but I figured out the culprit about an hour after first stepping into his office. I could have told him the answer back then, but most people like to think I’ve done my due diligence, and they always prefer proof. He wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told him too soon, so I’ve been biding my time and gathering evidence until I’ve reached a point where he’ll accept the answer I give him.
He’s not going to like it.
“Oh,” he says. “Well, that was basically it. Do you think it’s Sharon?”
His secretary is quite possibly the sweetest woman I’ve ever met. She’s nearing seventy years old and keeps Werther’s caramels on her desk, and she will talk about nothing but her grandchildren for hours if given the chance. She also happens to be married to a self-made millionaire who struck oil on their little farm decades ago. Thwaite may be a moderately successful stock trader, but his wealth is barely enough to make him a target. If he had been making more, he likely wouldn’t have noticed the funds going missing in the first place, but ten million dollars made enough of a dent to send him running to me.
“It’s not Sharon,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. If he would open his eyes for once, Thwaite could have figured this out on his own. The signs were all there.
He frowns at me, as if annoyed that I didn’t consider his theory. Honestly, I wasn’t listening to his evidence anyway. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Then who is it? Damian? Brian from accounting? The guy who cleans the—”
“It’s Todd.”
Thwaite’s jaw drops, his face turning ashen as he stares at me. He’s going to argue—I know he is—but deep down he knows I’m right.
They always do.
“Todd?” he repeats. “My brother? You think my brother is stealing from me?”
I don’t think. I know. Todd used a shell company to siphon the money, but he wasn’t good at covering his tracks. One transfer from the shell to his own account each time, in the exact amounts that have gone missing from Thwaite’s business account, isn’t exactly a mystery. Besides, the guy was shifty the moment I set foot in the office and introduced myself. He knew exactly who I was, and I made him nervous enough that he took an early lunch that day.
During his lunch break, he went to the bank and cashed out as much as they would let him take in one go. The rest went somewhere I couldn’t track it.
I take a slow breath and rub the scruff on my jaw, bracing myself for a stronger reaction than this disbelief Thwaite is giving me now. “Todd has access to the accounts.”
“Because we started this company together after he left his teaching position in Alabama.”
“He sent a questionable email to your accounting team, telling them he noticed some discrepancies in the books.”
“That’s how I found out about the missing—”
“So he requested full control over the money until things were resolved,” I continue. “AKA no one else could access the money. The day you hired me, Todd cashed out half a million dollars from his personal account.”
Thwaite groans, growing agitated enough that he stands and starts pacing. It’s sinking in now. “He gets a good salary. That’s not—”
“Where is your brother now, Gordon?”
