Page 24 of Never and Always
Chapter 6
She fellasleep before the movie finished. They ended up choosing the firstNight of the Living Deadfilm.
Nick finished watching it by himself because he needed the momentary distraction. Once it finished he went straight back to thinking about the situation with Mia. It got to him that she’d been involved with that guy—some criminal who’d worked his way into her life and took everything from her. But worse, it got to him that she’d actually been involved. Nick wasn’t jealous, he had no right to be, but he couldn’t helpit.
Glenn had warned him away from Mia. Him, who always took great care of her. And look who she found herself with. That Alan shit-face had multiple offenses of all sorts. Mia was lucky that all the guy did was con her. It grieved Nick to think of how he must have wormed his way into her life…and into herbed.
That got to him, too—alot.
Before they went to the station he’d imagined some geeky-type person who was tech savvy. But when he saw the pictures of Alan on the police database, the sight of the guy infuriatedhim.
Alan was thirty-six years old. Two years younger than Nick. He looked ordinary enough with his buzz-cut hair and sharp brown eyes, but there was a rough creepiness about him that would have given Nick every reason to be wary of him. He wished Mia could have felt the same warning and stayed away fromhim.
It was pointless thinking about it that way. Pointless and fruitless because it only served to annoy him, and the tension in the house wasn’t helping,either.
Glenn was ignoring them both now, and Nick couldn’t be bothered to try to reason with him when he was in the mood he wasin.
When he eventually went to his room he didn’t go to sleep, he spent an hour going over a few of the applications that came in for the secretary job he’d posted. While he was probably okay to do everything himself for the moment, he wanted to set everything up correctly fromnow.
He didn’t want to suddenly get busy and then find he was swamped with work and had no form of organization. That almost happened last year when he was helping Glenn with a massive fraud case while he was also helping Sawyer out with a murder case. He’d just been granted his PI license. After seeing the skill and technique he employed in his work Sawyer offered him a fulltime job with the police. He thought they could use a man like Nick, especially with his high-level military background andexpertise.
Nick had turned down the offer in favor of freelancing. He hated the idea of being tied down to a full-time job, and didn’t want to only work for the police. He’d always had the goal of doing his work solo and saw restriction with a job of thatnature.
Being a true private investigator required pushing limits that would be outside an employmentcontract.It meant going rogue sometimes and operating in that gray area employer’s liability and shit like that wouldn’t cover. He knew that some jobs would require him to be a little rough around the edges, and use methods that would be deemed unconventional. Sometimes he would have to act like a bounty hunter. That was his style, always had been. In the Marines, Nick had managed to tame his recklessness and harness it into something that would make him an asset. He’d be the one that would take that step over the edge of reason and verge on madness when it came to situations like rescuing his comrades, or civilians who’d been caught up in a cross fire, or a bomb blast. Situations that warned you to run and stay the hell away to protectyourself.
He’d be the guy who’d be daring enough to cross enemy territory knowing that he wouldn’t have backup.
Nick would be that guy who’d run out unshielded into the line of fire, bullets blasting from both sides if he saw a way in to protect someone, or fulfill a call of duty. The mission was what mattered and he’d fulfill it at all cost, even if it cost him hislife.
To do what he had in mind properly he wanted his mind free of administrative work, so a secretary was definitely on his list. There were ten applications, and of them he found three ladies that sounded perfect for the job. He made a note to email themtomorrow.
The next thing he did was a search of his own on the elusive accountant. He cringed at the picture that came up. The one Sawyer showed them earlier was a mug shot. In this one he looked like one of those slimy creeps who waited around a corner to rob you. His hair was longer and looked dirty, his face and his receding hair line more obvious. When Nick found his website and saw it listed him as a business accountant with a wealth of experience in managing new companies, he snapped his pen in half and filed a report to have the website shut down andtracked.
There were more pictures but he stopped browsing. He’d seenenough.
He had a face to go with the name. All he needed was a location. He couldn’t wait to meet thisguy.
Nick went to sleep on that thought and set out the next day with a plan. He went back to the station to touch base with Sawyer. There was some good news, but they couldn’t celebrate just yet. The Florida Capitol police had been in touch to let them know that some of the stolen money had been located in an account in the Bahamas. It would, however, be tied up in the investigation for another few weeks. Sawyer had also gotten some intel about the removal company that was used to get the paintings. They were able to get some CCTV footage from the storage facility that showed the company logo on the side of the van. Nick was looking into thattoday.
He stayed at the station all day researching and looking through the information they had on them. They worked across the country doing mostly home removals and delivering office supplies. He got contact details for the guy who owned it and he confirmed the van registration information that had picked up the paintings. However, it just so happened that that van was listed as being on a job and had been for the last few days. Since they didn’t really do jobs that lasted as long as days unless there was a special booking, the van was reported as stolen. And with that, Nick was able to get a report out to keep an eye out for thevan.
It was a lot to organize, but Nick had a good feeling about this and felt progress was being made. The more eyes they got on the van, the better it would be. All he had to do was hope that the paintings hadn’t been soldoff.
The one thing you could trust with criminals who were into theft was that they’d try to get either the highest price for whatever it was they stole, or the thing of most value in exchange forit.
Those things took time. According to what Mia had explained, Alan knew about the money and was stealing with the intent to get that money. The passwords for the storage facility and paintings were a bonus. A good bonus that the guy would never have had time to plan for. With the amount that Mia said the insurance company valued the paintings at, Nick knew Alan wouldn’t be dumb enough to sell off the paintings at the cheapestprice.
By the time he got home he was exhausted and ready to hit the bed, but a conversation caught hisattention.
It was Mia. She was in the living room talking on thephone.
“Do I have to do topless? I mean, couldn’t I just be in my underwear? That’s stillstripping.”
That was what she said, he was sure ofit.
He stopped in the corridor and listened in as shecontinued.
“Of course I know what stripping is, I was just asking because I’m certain the same effect can be achieved with underwear. I wear Victoria’s Secret, the lacey kind, so you can see most of my breasts. I just don’t want to be completelynaked.”
