Page 14 of Mine This Time
“Busy, busy. Yourself?”
“Same. I need to hire you for a not so typical job.”
“You know I’ll say yes. I love a change of pace.”
“Here’s the situation. A personal friend got screwed over by an ex. He maxed out all of her credit cards, although they were all in her name. I’d like you to do a forensic breakdown to see just how far it went and see if you can chase down any accounts connected to him.”
“You got it. I do this kind of shit all the time, but not usually for you. What gives?”
“Doing a favor for a friend. I don’t know if she’ll ever get her money back, but I’d like to make things uncomfortable for him. While we’re on the topic, you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a way to slap charges on things like this, would you?”
Trent chuckled. “There’s always a way, but if they were shared accounts, it gets a lot more difficult. Best way to deal with it is for the person affected to file fraud claims on every card. If it’s enough money, they might get somewhere. If you willingly hand over or share an account, there’s not a whole lot to do about this kind of fraud. Is this a nasty divorce? Those are usually when I get called for things like this.”
“Nasty break up, but not a divorce. I don’t even know if it was that ugly. He just ran her credit cards up and took off. At least, that’s all I know for now.”
“Damn, people can sure be shitty. Unfortunately for me, that’s what pays my bills. Get me the deets, and I’ll chase it down as far as I can.”
“All right. I’ll give you a call later. I want to run this by my friend before I hand over all the info.”
Chapter Eight
Mari
“What the hell, Max?”
“I knew you’d be pissed, Mari. For what it’s worth, I should apologize for telling you I thought Brett was an asshole the first time I met him. Even if he proved my point for me, I shouldn’t have done that.”
I wanted to throw the phone across the room, but this was my brother, and I did love him after all. I paced back and forth in front of the windows. “Oh yeah, Brett proved you right and then some.”
“I also spoke to Nash Reynolds.”
I could practically hear the trepidation in Max’s voice. “Nash called you?” I sputtered.
“No, I called him. If you’re gonna be pissed, be pissed at me. I know Nash because he hired me to set up the security systems on the buildings he manages in New Orleans. He’s a good man. I wanted to ask him to check in with you in case you needed any help. Sounds like he beat me to the punch on that one.”
I wanted to scream, but I bit my tongue. Hard. “Yes, Nash has been very helpful. I went to meet him when I realized Brett was gone. Brett left a note in his online calendar about meeting with Nash. Nash was dropping somebody off at the airport when I discovered Brett canceled my ticket for the refund.”
“Don’t be pissed at Nash. Be mad at me for being an overbearing older brother. Meanwhile, I’m gonna see if I can find Brett.”
“I don’t want to find Brett. I just don’t want my credit all messed up.”
Max said something in a mumble.
“What?”
Max’s voice came back to full volume. “Well, if—“ After an abrupt pause, Max began again, “That’s Harlow telling me not to be an ass. Would you like to talk with her?”
“Please.”
About the only woman Max didn’t try to boss around was his wife. Harlow was a total badass and a hotshot firefighter to boot. She could handle herself and Max.
“Hey, Mari,” Harlow’s voice came through the line.
“Hey, Harlow. Max is being a big brother. Could you just tell him he was right about Brett? Now I know, and he can let that go.”
Harlow laughed. “I can tell him, but you know your brother. It’s all I can do to get him to back off with me sometimes.”
“I feel like such an idiot, Harlow. Don’t you dare tell Max this, but if I’m honest with myself, I tried to stay with Brett because I wanted to prove Max wrong. Instead, Brett turned out to be the overachiever of assholes.”
