CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

July 14th, 2016

Oregon Coast

 

“THIS IS JUST flat weird,” Kelli said. Then what he had said suddenly dawned on her. “You are investigating me?”

Jesse pushed his plate forward and turned to face her. He was more handsome than she had realized before. And he didn’t look happy. She didn’t blame him and she was a long way from happy. A long damn ways. She never expected to run into a nut case tracking her out here. Especially such a good-looking one.

He nodded. “I am.”

He then opened his laptop and got it going. “The couple who hired me to look into you would like to talk with you.”

He pointed to the screen.

“And why would I want to talk with them?” she asked, feeling just about as angry as she had felt in a damn long time. She didn’t often get really angry, but when she did, and lost control, it was never a pretty sight.

“Because that picture, when I told my client about it, rocked him. And honestly, I want to find out what the hell is exactly going on as well. That picture is not possible.”

“It’s a fake,” she said, disgusted. “What’s the big damn deal?”

“No doubt it’s a fake,” he said. “But how?”

“Some discrediting stunt as you said. Did you set it up?”

“You were the one that showed it to me, remember?” Jesse said. “I had no intention of doing anything but having lunch here, saying hello, and then heading back to Idaho with my job done.”

“So did I come clean?” she asked, her words biting.

“I don’t make judgments, I just investigate,” he said. “But here is the key with that picture. Only the couple who hired me know I was doing a background check on you. For what reason, I have no idea. They did not tell me, but I would trust both of them with my life.”

“So,” she said, wishing the woman from the kitchen would come out of the back so she could pay and just get the hell out of here. At least the state cop was still sitting in the booth behind her if there was a problem.

“When did you get that picture?” he asked.

“About a year ago,” she said, suddenly realizing how impossible that was as well.

Jesse went on. “I had never heard of your name a year ago. They did not create that picture and you didn’t and I didn’t create it, yet you found it a year ago and recognized me in it and showed it to me. Something is going on we both need to know about, don’t you think?”

She just shook her head. As he said, not a bit of this was making sense, and that scared her.

“As I said, I have done this for five different historians in the past for the same couple who hired me. I have also investigated an architect, an interior designer, and two mathematicians. Both the mathematicians were higher-level theorists and they both work for the couple who hired me now.”

“And what do your clients do?” she asked.

“I have told you more than I should,” Jesse said. “They gave me permission to blow my cover and tell you what I was doing, but beyond that let them tell you. And honestly, other than their names, I have no idea why they hired me to do a background report on you.”

At that moment his computer dinged and he started up the conference call.

“Is she there?” a man’s voice on the screen asked.

“She is,” Jesse said. “Angry as she has a right to be, and wanting answers, as do I.”

At least he acknowledged she had a right to be upset about being investigated.

“Let us talk with her,” the man’s voice said.

Jesse turned the computer around so that it faced Kelli.

On the screen were two people. One was a dead replica for Duster Kendal, the other a dead replica for a woman known in the San Francisco area around the turn of the century as Bonnie Kendal.

Kelli jerked back. “What the hell is going on?”

“Doctor Rae,” the man said. “I would like to introduce myself. I am Duster Kendal. This is my wife, Bonnie.”

“So you two have been planting the fake pictures,” Kelli said.

Both of them shook their heads.

“We planted no fake pictures,” Bonnie said. “And I am sorry you had to discover we were having a background check done on you before we had a chance to meet. You have a right to be angry and we apologize. We have an offer for you and it is sensitive and we needed to know who you really are before making the offer. Nothing more than that.”

Kelli shook her head. “I have no idea who you are, I don’t need a job, and I sure don’t need some private detective following me around.”

She glanced at Jesse when she said that, but he was looking down at his almost empty coffee cup just shaking his head.

“We don’t expect you to trust us,” Duster said. “And we were never going to offer you a job. We were going to offer you a way to help in your book research. Nothing more. We are sending you our history, our CVs, and so on. And we also have six others sending their backgrounds, as well as our character references to you.”

“All we ask,” Bonnie said, “Is that you meet us in Portland to talk with us, give us a chance to make an offer we think you might be interested in.”

“Can you explain the picture?” Kelli said.

“We can, yes,” Bonnie said. “We can explain them all. There is an explanation.”

“I would love to hear that as well,” Jesse muttered, more to himself.

Kelli sat back slightly on the stool. The idea that they weren’t offering her a job and wanted to help in her research was interesting. It calmed her some.

And it calmed her that the investigator they had hired was as upset about all this as she was. If what they had to offer was something special, of course they would have had her investigated. It was not the first time someone had looked over her life. She had nothing to hide.

So they had been following standard procedure and the picture had just knocked everything off the rails.

No one said a word as she stared at the two people facing her on the screen. They had been in so many pictures from so many collections that were authenticated, she had to know how they had done that, and why.

“Send me your information and your references,” Kelli said. “Then I’ll decide if I want to talk or not.”

“It’s in your e-mail as we speak,” Bonnie said. “Have Jesse call us back after you have looked it over.”

“Understood,” she said.

She pushed the laptop back toward Jesse.

He turned it around. “I’m going to need an explanation for those pictures as well. And exactly why I’ve been doing all this. I think it’s beyond time I know the reason why.”

“Only fair,” Kelli heard Duster say. “If Doctor Rae decides to meet us, we’ll explain it to both of you in Portland. If she chooses not to, we’ll show you when you get back to Boise.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said, closing the laptop.

She could tell he was clearly not happy either. The fake photo she had shown him had clearly stepped over some line for him as well.

And for some reason that made her feel a lot better about him.

Plus, he was just so damn good-looking. And he got even more handsome when annoyed.