Framed: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 2) Read online

  “Sasha, wait,” I said, hating the fact that this would end the first and only monogamous non-committed sexual relationship I’d had, even if it was a short-lived one.

  “Yes?” she said, stopping at the door.

  “What or who is Voldemort?” I asked her.

  Since I doubted I’d ever see her again, it seemed harmless enough to ask. In fact, it seemed perfect, until she explained it to me.

  “He was the bad guy in the Harry Potter movies. Evil, killed a lot of people. Why?”

  “So inferring that a woman’s vagina is Voldemort, that’s a bad thing?”

  I heard a loud crash and shouts from an adjoining room. Sasha looked at me, surprise evident on her face, and then she gave me a little wave and said, “I think that’s my cue.”

  The door swung shut behind her, and I could hear the raised voice getting closer. I looked to see if I could hide behind the door when it opened, but I wasn’t fast enough. Johanna Nash strode in, fury written across her face.

  “Why…” she paused to take a few deep breaths, “are you discussing Voldemort?”

  “Because it came up recently in conversation, and I didn’t know if it was a cultural reference or something—”

  “You were talking about Voldemort with who?” Jo asked, her voice trembling in what I thought was anger.

  “Skye said when I said ‘the act that should not be named,’ that I was calling your vagina Voldemort. I never meant to offend, but if I’ve done so I wanted to know—”

  One manicured fingernail flicked the tip of my nose.

  “Don’t ever talk about Voldemort to Skye or Sasha in regards to me, or I’ll end you.”

  I’d heard that so much lately that the threat was almost a term of endearment. The nose flick was the threat that she never used to stoop to. She’d always been verbal, so whatever I did, I’d have to make it up to her somehow. I’d been terrible at making her angry lately. Maybe chocolate. Dad always said when Mom was in a mood, he’d feed her lots of chocolate.

  “I promise. I just wish I understood these things better,” I admitted.

  Something softened in Jo’s look and she stepped back, a smile tugging at the corner of one side of her mouth. I knew how quick her temper could be, so I wasn’t surprised to see she’d already taken one small measure of forgiving me, no matter how—

  “I heard the rest of what you said to her,” Jo told me, her lips twitching as she tried to give a neutral expression. But the smile was making it difficult for her to maintain.

  “That there was no way I could hire her?” I asked her.

  “Yeah,” she said and smiled. “And the prison sentence thing. Your jokes are getting better.” Her admission surprised me, because I wasn’t joking.

  “But, that’s what I thought she was talking about—“

  “So that wasn’t your way of derailing her and getting her out of the building quicker?” Her face scrunched up, and she leaned back against the wall, her right foot coming up to rest against the surface.

  I thought about saying something, but I’d leave a note to my cleaning people if her stompy man shoes left a mark. I’d made that mistake once, calling her shoes that. But that’s what they looked like. Rockports or something like that. Stompy man shoes.

  “No, I just sort of blurted everything out like usual. It happens when I’m stressed,” I admitted.

  “Oh, I know how you are. So you really won’t hire her because of me?”

  “Well no,” I told her. “You two would compare notes about wild monkey sex and then I’d never get any rest at night.”

  I didn’t mean for that to hit her funny bone, but it did and she chuckled.

  “Just don’t call it ‘the act that shall not be named,’ and you and I will be fine,” Johanna said, pushing away from the wall and approaching me.

  I stepped back, till my butt hit the edge of the table.

  “Your collar, silly.” She fixed it with two deft movements. “You have been walking around all day with a funny corner sticking up. I’m sorry I got angry, Jarek.”

  “Thank you. See, I really do need you around, even if it’s to correct my fashion sense.”

  “Your brutal honesty…Hey, what did Skye want?”

  I thought about it for a minute and figured she’d know anyways sooner or later. “She is going to take one of the furnished apartments down the hall from you.”

  Jo nodded, no surprise in her eyes.

  “You knew?”

  “I suspected,” she said. “Her brother and sister-in-law are back in town, and she’s been crashing on my couch here and there.”

  Hmm…Skye never told me that. I would have to wonder about that a bit. I trusted her enough, but she’d held back somehow. Maybe it was something embarrassing. Jo would tell me in the end, but I was a little overloaded and needed some quiet time to calm down and to read the financials and make a decision.

  2

  I’d been waiting in Debora’s office for ten minutes when the receptionist got a phone call. She then nodded to me and looked toward the doctor’s doorway. Mutely I stood. I think it’s a game she plays with me. If she doesn’t talk, I won’t talk, and as long as I don’t talk, she doesn’t have to talk to me. It makes perfect sense, but I always screw it up. Debora’s receptionist was a striking black woman with high cheekbones and an accent right out of the south. It was her eyes that were distracting. They were big and brown, full of life.

  Still, I played the game and just gave her a passing nod and slipped into my therapist’s office.

  “Good evening, Jarek,” Debora said.

  She insisted I use her first name. Not doctor, not Mrs. Hamilton, but Debora.

  “Hello doc,” I told her.

  “You’re doing it again,” Debora told me.

  “I know.” I sighed.

  I try to be contrary sometimes. It’s my attempt at understanding and using sarcasm, but often times it fails me.

  “So tell me about the week?”

  We always started with this. She’d slowly poke and prod me about what happened in my life that week until I relaxed enough to talk to her more openly. It wasn’t that hard to talk to her really. She was in her mid-fifties, with one gray streak in her otherwise dark black hair. She was of Italian descent, she had told me once. Everything about her reminded me of what I’d imagined my mother to be like. Warm, loving, good cook—not that I ever bothered to cook much.

  “…and then a former lover came into the office today wanting to drop off a resume,” I finished, pretty much summing up all the high points of the week.

  “Former lover?” She raised an eyebrow questioningly. At least, I thought it was questioningly.

  “Yes. She doesn’t get along with Johanna, and although it’d be fun to watch them spar in little to no clothing, that’d be the only thing productive they would get done around me.”

  She broke out into laughter. “You’re still trying to joke with me. Good.”

  I wasn’t joking. Watching Jo and Tech Support spar was fun, almost as fun as watching the girl MMA fights, not that I could ever hope to match their skill level. Moving on…

  “It wouldn’t have worked out. Jo doesn’t like her, and I can’t have Jo not like someone, which reminds me. I forgot to fire Annette today.”

  Debora dropped her pen as I pulled out my phone and made a note to myself.

  “Wait, isn’t she the one your father hired right out of high school?”

  “I think so. Something like forty years ago.”

  Debora looked at me, aghast. “I know she’s difficult, but what did she do? I thought you liked her blunt, straightforward ways,” she said, using my own words against me.

  “She went over Jo’s head,” I told her. “Because she knew it would cause her to get upset and be a pain for me to deal with.”

  “All talks seem to come back to Jo,” Debora said, changing the subject.

  “She’s a big part of my life,” I admitted.

  “Does she know t
hat?”

  I thought about it, I was pretty sure I told her that all the time.

  “Yeah, I tell her how I couldn’t run the business without her, and that she’s been my best friend since the third grade. Really, my only truly close friend. The fact that we had a couple mistakes only further complicates things,” I told her. She already knew I’d slept with Jo. I didn’t hold back from Debora; she knew almost all of my secrets.

  “Do you think she’s in love with you, or vice versa?”

  There was the kicker—I didn’t know if I was. I was truthful about that. I knew I had loved my dad, but with women, it was a different kind of feeling. I’d felt the strange fluttering in my chest when Jo hugged me or did something nice for me like, preventing me from getting my head caved in by a line of guys kicking and stomping me…But then I felt that same feeling in my chest when I hugged Skye earlier. It was like a bubble that had risen from my stomach to stop just underneath my collarbone.

  “My friend, Susan O’Hara, once told me that Johanna’s ‘got it bad’ for me,” I said, using my fingers to make air quotes. “But when I tried to talk to Jo about it, she got angry. I must admit, it could have been the timing. She’d just set back the investigation by not listening to direction I’d given her earlier and wiped a piece of hardware.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “I was frustrated that she’d wiped out the hard drive, but I promise I wasn’t angry, and I didn’t use harsh or mean words with her,” I told her, wanting to make sure she understood I’d tried to hold back the only emotion that I could reliably count on in my own body. I knew what anger felt like, and I think I knew what fear was like, just a modification or flipside of the fight or flight portion of anger…

  “No, I meant, how did it make you feel to hear another woman tell you that Johanna liked you?”

  “It made little to no sense. She wouldn’t be my friend if she didn’t like me.”

  “I know you understand that one. Remember little Jessica Evans?”

  I looked at my shoes.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “How did you react when you heard another woman tell you that Johanna liked you?”

  She really knew how to push the tough questions, didn’t she?

  “Surprise, actually.”

  “Why surprised?” Debora asked.

  “Because, I’d been trying to be empathetic like you’ve been teaching me, and I said some things that seemed to make her angry at me despite the fact that I was trying to be honest and put myself in her shoes. It didn’t work.”

  “Why not?” Debora asked.

  “She kissed me, then pushed me or something. I don’t remember, actually. I just know it was puzzling.”

  “Why? What was puzzling?”

  “The weird feeling. The bubbles in my stomach.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that,” Debora said.

  “She kissed me, and I felt this weird sensation in my stomach and chest,” I admitted.

  “Butterflies,” Debora whispered, smiling at me.

  “I assure you, I don’t have butterflies in my stomach, unless that Filipino woman who’s been making meals up for me ahead of time and putting them in the fridge has been feeding me some—”

  “Jarek, slow down,” Debora said, putting a hand up to stop my tirade. “Butterflies, like excitement or love.”

  Oh.

  I rocked forward, putting a leg on either side of the lounger, and put my hands on the raised leg rest. I leaned down and rested my head on top of them. The realization had my heart racing suddenly, and my mind flashed back to school. Jessica Evans. I’d been sitting towards the back of the classroom, doing my best to avoid sitting near the loud obnoxious kids. A note had been passed back. I remember reading the top of the lined paper that had been folded up into a square.

  To Jarek: had been written on the front. I opened it and read what was inside.

  Do you like Jessica Evans? Yes or No?

  Why? _____________________

  I’d filled it out and passed the note back up. I’d heard about notes like this, and Jessica Evans had been a quiet girl, one who had always stayed out of the bullying. I only had one class with her, and it was also one of the only classes I didn’t share with Johanna. Unfortunately, the teacher saw the note getting passed back up and confiscated it.

  She’d read the name on the front and looked up sharply at me. I just sat there, hoping I wouldn’t get yelled at. My teacher hated note passing, but I’d always stayed out of trouble.

  “Do you like Jessica Evans?” she read aloud.

  There were snickers as my classmates all turned to look at me and then to a furious Jessica.

  “He circled yes.” And then she read the next part. “Why? Looks like Jarek wrote…‘She smells good and has nice hair,’” the teacher finished as the kids in the classroom howled their laughter.

  “Shut up, I don’t even like the fucking retard!” Jessica screamed, tears now streaming down her cheeks.

  She’d stood up at that point and walked out of the classroom. The ones who were laughing the loudest were the four boys who’d done nothing more than torment and terrorize me as their main hobby for the last six years. Often times, they’d recruit help from any and all. I’d come home bloody and bruised at least once a week and had to beg my dad not to put me in a private school or home school with tutors. I wouldn’t have my friend there. Johanna.

  I also remembered the way Johanna had beaten two of the four boys senseless with her backpack later that week before she’d gotten knocked unconscious by one of the remaining boys. She’d been sticking up for me when they’d become angry at me for no longer responding to their verbal jabs. They’d gotten physical with me, and as I retreated into my shell, Johanna got physical, giving them something to remember as the security officers broke things up. Both Jo and I had to be taken to the hospital after that.

  It hadn’t been the first fight she’d been in for me, but as I sat on the floor of the ambulance holding her hand, waiting for her to wake up, I had felt something. Something bubbling up…

  I sat up abruptly, and Debora smiled at me.

  “You figured something out?” she asked, knowing how I sometimes withdrew inside my own head to chase a memory. She understood I had to zone out once in a while, or risk having a panic attack.

  “Yeah, I felt that about her one other time. It was seventeen years ago. The Jessica Evans incident, as a matter of fact. The bullies had gotten ugly, and she saved me. She got hurt in the process; that’s when I felt it.”

  “Ok, so do you still think you’re an uncaring man?” she asked, bringing up the one thing I knew in my soul to be true about myself.

  I wasn’t built the same way as other guys. I knew that and accepted it. I didn’t have the same emotions or feelings like most people, and I couldn’t even fake them like sociopaths could. I’d considered trying to do that with Johanna, to see if that would make her happy or at least not be angry with me, but I knew it wouldn’t be real.

  “I care for her I think. Love? I don’t know about that,” I admitted. “We’re just good friends, and sometimes people can mistake friendships for relationships,” I recited. “So yes, I think I care. But love? No. I don’t think I’m capable of something that deep.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  I hated that question, and she asked it often. I’d been seeing the same doctor for the past twenty years. Dr. Debora Hamilton was actually a pediatric psychiatrist, but she had continued seeing me long after I aged out of the normal guidelines because I had a hard time talking to other people about issues like that.

  “Self-reflection,” I admitted. “I know I lean on her a lot now that my dad is dead. I actually think my dad would approve of what we’ve done with the business this past year.”

  “So you’re doing this, with Johanna, to feel your father’s approval? Even if he isn’t around to tell you that?”

  “Listen, doc,” I said. “
My whole life people have told me what I can’t do. I spent almost thirty years believing them. I got really good at finding my limitations and boundaries. There’s some things that are currently boundaries that I can break through. I believe that’s your job and the reason you charge such an extraordinary hourly fee. You’re good at what you do, and I’m finding I’m good at what I do.”

  Deborah smiled at me, which puzzled me completely.

  “So you’re rebuilding your self-confidence,” she said plainly.

  I paused and considered it, then shrugged.

  “You want to listen to the tapes from a couple years ago? When you were unsure if you wanted to continue being the ‘computer guy’ for your father? You didn’t believe in yourself back then. Something has changed. Have you considered that you’re becoming more self-confident because you are pushing your old boundaries and not hiding from them or behind them anymore?”

  I hadn’t. One thing that really had me wondering though: was hiding behind Johanna for everything a boundary? Was that holding me back, or did having her there with me allow me to become more confident in the world?

  “It’s a lot to think about,” I said and was about to add to that when the timer buzzed.

  The hour was up, and I knew how horribly booked the doc was.

  “Good. I’ll see you next week, same time. Bring Johanna in if you want.”

  “I’ll pass the message along,” I told her, knowing Jo wouldn’t come willingly unless it would be directly beneficial to me.

  * * *

  “Where to now?” Johanna asked.

  “Let’s head back to the office,” I told her from the back seat. I sat on the passenger side so I could see her better. “I need to look for a new secretary, and I want to scour monster dot com.”

  “You’re going to fire Annette?” Jo asked disbelievingly. “Why?”

  “I forgot to earlier,” I told her. “I can’t have her overruling you.”

  “Jarek,” Jo said, her voice sounding angry again. “Don’t. Don’t worry about it. She was just being herself. She can’t help it, just like you can’t help being you some days.”