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I’d been angry... annoyed... relieved... It was a clusterfuck of emotions. I didn’t know what to feel. I returned to my breakfast, but had lost my appetite and ended up throwing both plates into the garbage.
I’d stayed home that entire Saturday for two reasons. The weather was still bad, and some pathetic part of me hoped she would come back. At least I knew she hadn’t taken off on foot, so likely wasn’t frozen in some dead end alley somewhere.
I just wondered who the hell she was with and why did she stay here if she had other options available. I’d become so consumed with those questions that I’d gone back and reviewed the security cameras from her room.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said as she lay there.
I’d acted completely out of character the night before, but she had driven me to it. I still had no idea whether I’d been trying to punish her or not. It’d been ten fucking years, but all that time evaporated the moment I sank balls deep inside of her.
She’d felt it, too. I’d recognized it in her eyes and I suppose a bigger part of my actions had been trying to let her know what she’d been missing. If she wanted to be fucked like some whore, I could’ve done that for her.
“Impossible men. I might as well just leave and take care of this on my own,” she’d also said, before she called a hotel. I had no idea which one, but all in the city were full.
Or maybe, that had been a lie, too. It had to be. The truth was blatantly obvious. She had played me and when realizing she couldn’t con me out of whatever she came there to get, she’d slipped away like a thief in the night.
I’d been even more bitter upon that realization, and I stayed irritated the rest of the weekend. I decided against calling anyone, and chose to spend my time working from home. Now, the snow had subsided and the roads were mostly cleared, so I was back in my office. When I had gotten there, a lot more started to make sense.
“Did the woman ever find you, Mr. Blake?” one of the male interns asked me.
I hadn’t known who or what he was talking about until he told me Harper had shown up at my office on Friday night. He mentioned telling her about the charity auction which was how she’d known I would be there. None of that explained her motives, though.
Something was off, but I didn’t know what. Usually, I could find out anything I wanted or needed, but she was so damn elusive. I used to know her every habit, but this woman was essentially a stranger to me. She was definitely not the girl I’d once known and loved.
Still annoyed and apprehensive about everything, I pulled out my phone and quickly found the number I was looking for.
After a few rings, a man answered brusquely. “Blake.”
“Hey, Clay,” I said, then leaned back in my chair. “I have a job for you.”
“A job for now?” he asked, and I stood up.
I walked over to my large windows and looked out over the Magnificent Mile. “Yes. This is of an urgent nature.”
“What do you need?”
I exhaled, before responding. “I need you to find me anything you can on a woman.”
“A woman?”
“One from my past. She’d arrived in Chicago spewing a bunch of bullshit about some supposed danger. I don’t believe her, but I need to know where she is right now, and also where she’s been these last ten years.”
“That’s a steep task. When do you need this information by?”
“Yesterday.”
“Okay. Who she is? And what do you have on her?”
I returned to my desk, and knowing so much about her from our past history together, I provided him with her name, birthdate, social security number, and last known residence. I had no idea what I hoped to find, but I knew if there was something going on in Portland with her, he’d find it out.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” Clay told me, and I disconnected the call.
I eventually sprang back up. I had so much restless energy rolling through me, and I tried to expel some of it via pacing. It didn’t help, and only managed to anger me further. I sat back down just as I received an email. Seeing the sender, I quickly opened it to find numerous attachments.
Clay knew how impatient of a man I was, and while her credit report and the other miscellaneous documents might not tell me anything, he still provided them to me to review while he worked on retrieving the rest of the stuff.
Starting with her three bureau credit report, I skimmed over the numbers. She had a great score, and none of her accounts appeared to be in default. She was meticulous in her payment history, and had only a single inquiry which was dated a few months earlier. I knew from the name that it involved real estate. Where or what kind was not listed.
There was nothing to be found on it, so I moved onto what appeared to be her company website. She had become an interior designer, just as she’d always wanted. I leaned back as I remembered how she used to love to hang out with my mother during the many renovations we’d have done in our house.
