“You want me,” I said slowly, “to investigate whether someone is cheating on you.”
Her chin came up slightly. “I know how it sounds.”
“Do you? Because it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d ask your old boyfriend’s widow to do for you.”
“I can pay.” She opened the purse and pulled out an envelope. “I brought a retainer. Heidi told me how much you charged her.”
She held it out.
I eyed it. It was nice and thick. She might be paying me in one-dollar bills, of course, but if not, there was a decent chunk of change in there.
And yes, I knew I should refuse. I should tell her to take her money and her problems and shove them. But clients weren’t exactly plentiful on the ground, and she was offering us money. No one else had done that in a while. While my divorce settlement from David meant I wasn’t starving, I would really prefer to pay Zachary from actual business income instead of my shrinking savings account. So would Rachel, clearly. She was staring fixedly at me across the desk.
Besides, there was something almost poetic about it. Jacquie Demetros, the other woman, getting a taste of her own medicine.
“Fine,” I said. “Sit down. Tell me about it.”
Relief washed over her face as she sank into one of the chairs in front of Rachel’s desk. I pulled over a yellow legal pad and pen.
“My boyfriend is Nick Costanza,” she said. “We’ve been involved for a while now.”
I wrote down the name, though I didn’t really need to. I knew exactly who Nick Costanza was. He’d been Jacquie’s boyfriend before she’d set her sights on David—or at least, that’s what I’d pieced together from various conversations and some light stalking after David’s defection.
I’d always suspected that they’d planned the whole thing together, to be honest. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that she’d been stringing them both along at the same time, although truthfully, it would have been a stupid thing to do, because David wouldn’t have stood for that, had he found out. Nick might have, if the payoff seemed reasonable. Or if he liked Jacquie enough to take what he could get.
“And you think he’s cheating,” I said.
“There’s something going on.” She sounded sure of it. “There’s this woman where he works. Megan. She’s new, started about a month ago.” Jacquie twisted the strap of her purse between her fingers. “And Nick’s been acting weird ever since. Evasive. Like he’s got something on his mind.”
I wrote down Megan’s name. “Any last name for Megan? Does Nick still work at the same place? The car repair shop on Charlotte Avenue?”
Jacquie nodded. “The Body Shop. It’s the only place he’s ever worked.”
Was it, really? Nick must either be very good at his job, or his employer offered a nice benefits package.
“And no,” Jacquie added, “I don’t know her last name. He didn’t mention it, and I didn’t want to ask.”
I nodded. “What do you mean, he’s been acting weird? Weird how?”
“He won’t look me in the eye when we talk,” Jacquie said. “He’s jumpy, always checking over his shoulder. Last week he said he had to work late, but when I drove by the shop, his car wasn’t there.” She looked at me. “I just want to know. One way or the other.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that sentiment. Heidi Newsome had said the same thing a month ago, and Diana before her.
This sounded like a simple enough matter. I knew where I was going and who I’d be looking for. I was familiar with the area around the Body Shop, enough to know that there were plenty of places nearby where I could park and keep watch for a day or two, even if sitting in a parked car for ten hours in November wasn’t my idea of a good time.
Zachary was always eager to do that sort of grunt work, though, so we could trade off. And one of us might get lucky and catch Nick and Megan sneaking off to a nearby motel on their lunch hour on day one, before my posterior turned numb and either of us had a chance to get bored.
“I’ll need a retainer,” I said. “And a contract.”
She pushed the envelope across the desk. I opened it and made sure there was money inside before I took the blank contract Rachel handed across the desk and started filling it in.
Client name: Jacquie Demetros.
Subject: Nick Costanza.
Scope: Surveillance to determine if subject is engaged in an extramarital—I crossed that out—a romantic relationship outside of his relationship with the client.
When I slid it across to her, she signed on the dotted line without reading it.
