By midweek I was pretty well smoothed out. I’d adjusted to the shock of my dad’s deception, and the inner tension when I was around him had settled. Most importantly, I felt confident I was acting natural. There were no signs he suspected I knew a thing.
My ability to carry it off was made easier by the fact that whenever we happened to be in the same room together, everything genuinely felt normal. Sometimes I almost wondered if I’d dreamt the whole thing.
While I wanted (needed) to know what was going on, part of me hoped it would be weeks before the next so-called business trip. That wasn’t a realistic wish though. When Dad had first started having meetings “out-of-town” it had been once, maybe twice a month. Now it wasn’t unusual for him to be away for a few days three or even four times a month. So, I knew there was a good chance the next trip would be soon, and I wasn’t wrong.
It was on Sunday, at the dinner table, that Dad mentioned he’d be leaving for “business meetings” the next morning and probably wouldn’t be back until the following Monday at the earliest.
I wanted to know what time his pretend flight was so I could alert Ms. Abboud, but I’d never asked anything like that before and was afraid to risk it. Luckily, Mom spoke up.
“What time do you leave for the airport?”
“Nine-thirty or so,” he said.
I picked up the dinner plates and cutlery and took them to the kitchen — to demonstrate my lack of interest while I listened carefully to every word.
“That’s okay then. I think I’m blocking your car, but I’ll be heading out a good hour before that.”
I finished clearing the table, loaded the dishwasher, and looked around to see if there were any stray cups I’d missed before tossing in a soap pod and hitting the start button. By then, Dad had disappeared down into his “storage office” and Mom was scrolling through one of the streaming programs she subscribes to.
“You in the mood to watch something?” she asked. A courtesy, not an indication that she wanted company — our combined TV viewing, when it happens, is always a compromise for one of us. Not exactly enjoyable. I passed.
I wished Nora was free, but she’d picked up a couple of extra shifts this week after one of her co-workers called in sick. And Owen has a regular Sunday thing with an online gaming group — something he’s tried unsuccessfully to persuade me to join at least a dozen times. I’m a decent enough player, but I’ve never been keen on the idea of locking myself in on a regular schedule, especially with people I don’t know.
Anyway, before I made any plans, I needed to let “Pipi” know about my dad’s plans for the morning. Her answer to my text was back quickly and it was good news. Her Monday morning was flexible, so she’d be ready to follow him when he left the house.
It felt strange, like a surge of power and fear running through me at the same time. I might be on the verge of solving the mystery of my father’s secret life.
Just what I was going to do with that information, I had no idea. I’d been so fixated on wondering what he was up to, that I hadn’t given any serious thought to how I’d handle it if I found out he was involved in something sleazy.
I shook off that thought and headed out on my bike looking for something to do. It only took a few minutes. There was a cluster of kids I knew from school messing around with a soccer ball in a sports field not far from my place. I joined in for a while, but my performance was lousy. Too much on my mind. No one on the impromptu team I’d been part of protested when I decided to leave.
The next morning brought a sense of dread. And guilt, when Dad slipped me three twenties and a fifty, “in case I needed anything.” I told him thanks even as I was thinking, Yeah, I might need a cab or two, or something else to keep you from tracking my movements.
That last part echoed in my head after he’d left. Tracking my movements.
It’s an interesting thing, suspicion. As soon as the thought came to me that my father could be keeping tabs on me, flashbacks started popping up in my brain. Casual questions he’d asked that put me in the position of telling him things I might have preferred not to. I’d usually told the truth, or some version of it, but there had been times I’d decided to make something up instead. Not even because I had anything significant to hide, but there were certain things I figured were my business. A person can have perfectly innocent reasons for keeping something private.
But now I see it’s a possibility — a probability even, that he knew when I was lying. That he already knew where I’d been every time he’d asked me. It gave me the creeps.
I waited, on edge, all day, avoiding everyone. It wasn’t until midafternoon that I heard from Ms. Abboud. She texted to say she could see me at four o’clock if I was able to come in.
When I got there, she was standing in the doorway of her personal office, talking to a man I assumed was the “Rayne” part of Abboud and Rayne. When she saw me, she signaled me inside right away. Her face told me nothing, which I suppose is a good trait in a private investigator.
Once we were both seated, she asked me how I was. A standard courtesy, but I was in no mood for small talk.
“Good. Fine,” I said. And because I didn’t want to look rude, I made myself ask the same of her.
“I’m well, thank you,” she said. Without wasting any more time, she pushed a file across the table to me, nodding for me to have a look.
The first item I saw when I flipped the folder jacket open was a photo of three men. One was my father.
As I studied the picture, Ms. Abboud began to speak.
“I followed your father from your home to a second location marked as number one on the attached map — it’s the last page in the file you have.”
I slid the map out and quickly found the number one.
“That’s where I saw him last week,” I said.
She nodded to acknowledge she’d heard me before continuing.
“Your dad parked his car in a lot behind the building there, which left it quite hidden from the street. He joined two other gentlemen at that time, as you see in Exhibit A.”
There was nothing written on the photo of the three men but when I flipped it over and checked the back, I saw it had been stamped with the word Exhibit and an A was written in by hand.
“A dark, chauffeur-driven sedan was waiting in front of the strip mall, and the three men got in. During my observations, there didn’t appear to be any conversation between the passengers and the driver. You can see the driver in the next photo, which is Exhibit B.”
She paused while I looked that picture over.
“Do you recognize any of these men as the ones you saw your father with at this location previously? Or the gentleman you observed in the lobby of your father’s office building the following day?”
“They could be the same guys from the parking lot; I’m not sure. I didn’t really pay much attention to them.” I looked closer and pointed to the tallest man. “This might be the guy from the lobby, but I only looked at him for a second or two.”
“Understandable,” Ms. Abboud said. “Anyway, I was able to follow the sedan undetected — there was no indication from the driver that he was watching for a tail. The car left the city, going west on 31, exiting on Davidson, and taking various rural roads as indicated on the map.”
Ms. Abboud had marked it clearly with a pink highlighter. Finding my way there wouldn’t be a problem. Transportation would. I pulled my attention back to what she was saying.
“They stopped at location number two, here.” She leaned forward and tapped the spot on the map. “It’s marked by a small painted sign that just says Welcome, so nothing helpful there.”
I nodded to let Ms. Abboud know I was following, and she continued.
“There’s a residence there, set back off the road, with a privacy hedge in front. I didn’t see anyone getting out of the car because they parked in the attached garage.
“However, I turned back a bit farther along, and was able to get a look at the place by pulling off the road and making my way close to it under cover of a patch of trees on the north side of the building. It appears to be a single-family home. Nice, but not overly conspicuous. There’s a photo. Exhibit C.”
She passed me a picture of the place. Just a regular house, like she’d described.
“From that vantage point, I discovered that the hedge along the front hides a small parking area directly in front of the house. Room enough for two or three cars. In fact, while I was there, a woman in a small white car drove in, parked, and went inside. She was only there for a few moments before she re-emerged and left. I got a picture but it’s unclear because a light mist had started to fall. Exhibits D and E.”
I lifted the photo from the folder. It was true, the details of that photo were blurred.
“About fifteen minutes later, two other vehicles pulled in,” Ms. Abboud said. “An elderly couple, and a man with a child. Photos were impossible by then, and anyway it was time for me to go. I didn’t mind the rain, but one has to be careful in a rural setting. I needed to move along before my car drew unwelcome attention.”
It seemed her report was finished. I shuffled through the photos and map again and saw that there was also an envelope in there containing a printout of the report she’d just given verbally.
“So, what do you think is going on?” I asked.
“At this point, I could only guess, and that’s something I generally avoid.”
“But you have an idea, don’t you?”
“Even if I do, an idea is just an idea. I like to deal in facts and reasonable certainty.”
“So then, is there any way you can find out? For sure?”
“Not without getting inside that house. Even attempting such a thing, say by pretending to be lost or whatever, would be risky. Anything that made them suspicious could prompt them to shut down the operation or find a new location. It’s not worth taking a chance of that happening.”
I knew I couldn’t suggest anything illegal, like trying to get inside when there was no one there, but another thought occurred to me.
“Can’t you spy, like with a telescope or something?” I asked.
Ms. Abboud smiled. “It’s not quite as simple as that. Without sound, you could run that kind of surveillance for days and find out nothing. And there’s the problem of having to leave a vehicle somewhere along the road. You might as well drop a note in their mailbox telling them someone is nearby with eyes on them.”
I realized then that a person with Ms. Abboud’s experience would already have considered every possibility, which left me feeling kind of deflated.
“So, I won’t be able to find out what’s going on in there?”
“I’m not saying there’s nothing else I could try, but the risk of raising their suspicions is much stronger than the likelihood of learning anything through a cold walk in. I just can’t recommend it.”
“I understand,” I said, but I know she could see the disappointment on my face.
“Look, Ethan,” she said, “it’s probable — but not certain — that there’s an illegal operation of some sort taking place. And that could make any further digging dangerous. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I believe it’s best you leave it at that, at least for now. Wait for other opportunities to present themselves.”
I took that in. I knew she was giving me good, solid advice.
And I knew I wasn’t going to take it.
If she couldn’t go any further looking into what my father was up to, I was going to find a way to do it on my own.