Chapter 1
Toby Wagenknecht placed two coffee mugs on the table before taking a seat across from me.
“We need an office,” he said as he dropped three sugar cubes into his coffee.
What he meant was he needed an office. As my IT guy, he was the one who had equipment that needed electricity. I could store my stuff: scanners, mini cameras, and trackers, on a shelf in my closet.
“We can’t afford an office,” I replied.
“But work has been pretty steady for us.”
I nodded. “It has, but insurance work isn’t the best paying gig for a private investigator. It’s a steady gig, and I like steady. Besides, if we were to get an office, even a co-share situation, you and I would have to take a big pay cut to cover the office cost. And I can’t see either of us wanting to do that.”
Toby reared back as if the words had horrified him. “How big?”
“Huge,” I said. Yeah, I was exaggerating, sorta. But for the first time in a lot of years, I had money in the bank. A real life, honest-to-God savings account with a healthy balance. And I wanted to keep it that way.
Opening up a PI base of operations would be great, but the expense wouldn’t. “So, for now, we meet clients here or other places. Besides, what’s wrong with Lark’s coffee shop? Most Tuesday morning’s people find themselves stuck in a cubicle, and we aren’t.” I looked around the place. Lark had recently redone the interior. “What’s she calling this place these days?”
“The Steamy Cup, I think.” Toby dropped another cube in his coffee. “I like these sugar cubes.” He tossed one in his mouth and wagged his brows.
“I wonder how many people have touched that cube?” My question was part genuine curiosity and part messing with his head for fun.
His face froze briefly, then a few muscles twitched as he likely considered my words. Finally, he met my gaze and shrugged. “I’ve been shot. What can be worse than that?”
I rolled my eyes, then glanced at my watch. “They should be here any time now.”
“What if the lack of privacy kills this deal?”
I shrugged, my reaction opposite of the worry I had about that exact issue. “What if the lack of privacy makes them feel safer? Maybe the casual setting will help with easing anxiety. I’m banking on that.”
The entry door swung open, the bell Lark had installed above it emitting a happy chime.
“Welcome to The Steamy Cup,” Lark yelled happily from behind the counter.
Her shop’s previous theme had been about a person’s aura and her suggestions on what they should drink to cleanse it. That theme had gone over like a lead balloon. Especially for me. When a girl marries a guy who turns out to have lied about his identity, happens to already be married to someone else, and is trying to run a scam in said girl’s hometown, it doesn’t take a genius to know my aura was jacked up. And a mere year of time passing did nothing to abate the strong emotions I felt about my past. Emotions that make me want to use my stun gun on someone until the charge is dead.
I stood and gave a small wave. Two dark-haired women had entered. They looked to be in their early twenties. Dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts, though one had a sweater vest on over her tee. They weren’t twins, or even related, according to my research. But they looked like they could be.
“Lora?”
The one without the sweater vest nodded. She pointed to her friend. “This is Vanessa.”
Toby stood, his mouth slack and catching flies. I shoved him in the shoulder.
“This is my associate, Toby Wagenknecht. He does all my IT. That’s why I asked him to join us.”
Toby, lanky and rail-thin, stood ram-rod straight and pushed back his shoulders. “I’m a huge fan. I subscribe to your YouTube channel. It… It’s such a pleasure to meet you both.” He stuck out his hand.
Lora smiled. “You game? What’s your favorite?” She shook Toby’s hand. He pumped hers vigorously.
“I love Zelda. That’s my go-to. I wasn’t a fan of Shadowland Walker until I started watching your videos, and then I got into it.”
In our research, Toby had told me that Lora Darling and Vanessa Taylor had started a YouTube channel when they were in high school, five years ago. Lora, the older sibling to twin brothers used the channel as a way to help her brothers learn the ins and outs of various games. She’d been asked by her parents to make sure the games her brothers wanted to play were age appropriate. She and Vanessa had turned that task into a multimillion-dollar business. Today, they were known as the gamers who were the most kid friendly and were trusted by parents. Though over the years, Lora had become the face of the channel as Vanessa had put her energy into college. She’d just graduated with a business degree.
I gestured to our table. “Have a seat.”
Toby twitched with excitement. In a breathless rush, he said, “Can I get you drinks?” He gestured to the large menu on the wall over the counter. “Lora, I know you like boba, but they don’t have that here, but they do have these little bad boys if you like sugar in your coffee.” He pushed the sugar-cube bowl toward them. “Like a burst of energy in every bite. I know it’s not the same, but it kinda is.” He tossed one in his mouth and chewed like a rabbit munching lettuce. He opened his mouth to continue his ramble, but Vanessa cut him off.
“We’ll get drinks and be right back.” She smiled widely at Toby and patted his arm. Then the two headed off to the counter.
I steered Toby to a chair. “Take a deep breath, and stop eating the sugar cubes.”
“I got all fanboy, didn’t I?” His already ghostly white skin was two shades paler. “How bad was it?”
“You don’t want to know. Good thing you’ve got Lady M,” I winked. “You’re fine.” Lady M or Lady Marmalade was a sugar glider and Toby’s emotional support animal. He’d gotten her after he’d been shot.
Subconsciously, he reached for his chest where Lady M typically was housed in a pouch shaped like an orange. He glanced over his shoulder to where Lora and Vanessa were getting their drinks. “Don’t let me talk when they come back.”
I chuckled. A moment later the two friends rejoined us at the table.
Lora looked around the empty coffeeshop, then met my eyes and smiled. “This place is nice. Why is it so empty?”
I shrugged. “Maybe time of day?” It was between breakfast and lunch. But what I didn’t add was that Lark and her aura reading had put off a fair amount of the locals.
Vanessa blew on her drink before saying, “We just bought a house in Wind River a few months ago and haven’t explored the downtown. We’ve been stupid busy.”
Lora yawned. “Stupid busy. We’re on the cusp of landing a big sponsorship deal with a popular kids’ streaming service, and they’ve been having us go to various screenings and such to field-test us.”
Vanessa added, “Make sure we have the following we say we do.” She rolled her eyes. “If it wasn’t such a great deal, I’d insist we walk away from it.”
Lora grinned. “But it’s a great deal. So, we do all the travel and waving at the camera and smiling while trying to find content for our channel. Who knew making a few videos for my brothers would have led to this.”
Vanessa pointed to Lora. “She does all the waving and smiling. I’m behind the scenes now with the business side, and it’s a lot better than being in front of the camera.”
“We shouldn’t complain, we’ve got all we could ever want,” Lora said. There was no sarcasm or bitterness to her words.
“What brings you to me then?” I asked.
Lora had reached out via email a week ago asking for a meeting.
The friends looked at each other before turning their attention back to me. Lora was the first to speak. “Someone is sending me weird emails and gifts and stuff.”
Vanessa, who’d been sipping her drink, placed the mug on the table with a clunk. “She has a stalker. The emails and gifts—I use that word lightly—started arriving around four months ago.”
Lora said, “At first, we didn’t think anything of it. But then the letters got kinda creepy, and Nessa listens to a lot of true crime podcasts and said we had to start making a paper trail in case things escalated.”
Vanessa picked up where Lora left off. Clearly, these two spent a lot of time together. Like Precious and I, they could finish each other’s sentences. “We went to the cops, and they said there wasn’t anything they could do until something happened. They said to keep a journal and track everything. Which we were already doing. But keeping a journal didn’t feel like we were doing enough, and with Lora going on this tour and being in the public more, I was worried. So we hired a private investigator to help track the stalker.”
“Wait, are you still working with this PI?” I asked. This potential case was taking a sudden and unexpected turn.
Briefly, Lora and Vanessa’s eyes met, exchanging silent communication.
Vanessa was the first to speak. “Yeah, he was referred to us by my mom. She’d used him in the past, so it’s kinda hard to get rid of him. But that’s a different problem. The problem we have, the problem we want your help with, is that the PI we used thinks he identified the stalker.”
Lora interjected, “But we think he’s wrong, and he won’t listen to us. He insists that the emails and gifts are coming from a guy named Caleb Harris. But we know Caleb; he’s harmless. Yes, he’s sent some weird emails. He’s kinda odd, but he’s really harmless.”
I cleared my throat. “Are you one hundred percent sure the stuff came from Caleb?”
They looked at each other again, then Lora shrugged. “Our PI is. I guess we aren’t. I just can’t see Caleb wanting to hurt me.”
I didn’t say that their mentality was part of why issues with the stalker had gone on as long as they had. Denial. Disbelief. Ted Bundy worked a rape hotline. The BTK killer went to church and ran a Boy Scout troop. I married a married man. Just because you can’t imagine a person being capable doesn’t mean a person isn’t capable of bad things.
Lora continued. “But the PI wants me to file a restraining order. He wants to build a case to get Caleb put in jail. Our PI is very aggressive about the situation, and it’s stressing me out.” She rubbed her stomach.
Vanessa cleared her throat. “It’s affecting everyone. The letters are scary enough, but the PI’s response is just making our stress skyrocket at the office, and since the office is our home, we can’t seem to get away from it.”
Lora rubbed her stomach some more. “Moving into the big leagues was stressful, but these letters … these gifts, are creepy, and Walt—that’s the PI—is so confrontational, I’ve developed a stomach ulcer.”
“And you want me to do what?” I liked the friends, but I wasn’t sure what, specifically, they wanted from me. Yeah, their PI was aggressive, but I couldn’t fault him for that. Stalker cases were notoriously underhanded, and often the consequences were devastating. I couldn’t say I wouldn’t react the same way for a client.
“We want you to prove Caleb isn’t the stalker. Walt gave us one week to prove Caleb’s innocence.” Vanessa laughed. “I don’t know how he thinks we’re supposed to do that, and we know by asking you to prove Caleb is innocent means there’s still someone out there who is stalking Lora. We’ll cross that bridge after we get Caleb off the hook.”
Lora interjected, “But you can’t tell our staff that you’re a PI. We can’t handle the confrontation it’ll cause. We know that’s asking a lot, but if you could do this … you know … undercover like … we’d appreciate that. I mean, if Walt knows we’re hiring another PI, things will get so ugly.” She pressed her stomach harder and rolled her shoulders inward, like she was trying to minimize the pain.
“My mom hired him. It would make things tense there too. She still sees us as kids who don’t have the life experience to make solid decisions.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “We know we’re asking a lot, but we’re willing to pay for it.”
“And there’s a bonus too if you can do this soon. Walt gave us a week. We would love to make this all go away ASAP,” Lora said.
Taking this case, with clients of this stature was a boon in and of itself. But a bonus would go a long way to secure my company’s future even more. I glanced at Toby. A slight nod from him told me he thought we could do it.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll take the case.” This guy could be innocent or guilty, but I was going to find the truth and present it, regardless. And if he was guilty like the PI said, then maybe the two friends would hear my case against Caleb and take action.
Stalker cases were tricky. Yet I had a personal interest in these types of cases. In protecting people. And their PI had done a lot of the legwork for me. Should be quick and easy to wrap up.
