Cassie arrived at her office early the next morning and breathed a sigh of relief when she found the door still locked. She checked the strip of tape. It was still attached. There were no additional indications of intrusion.
She went inside, got a cup of coffee from the Keurig machine, and went into her office. She’d come to treasure the first hours of her day. It was quiet and she could get her head together before Isabel arrived and the downtown block woke up.
She opened her window to the cool mountain smells of pine. With Yellowstone to the south, the Bridger Range to the northeast, and the Tobacco Root Mountains to the west, there were lots of trees. The air was thin and sweet and it reminded her of growing up in a much more rural Montana.
It was early summer and there weren’t any forest fires yet. Considering how dry the season had started out, there was no doubt they would come. Soon. Sometimes she wondered if the fires would run out of timber to burn.
Cassie located her readers in the bottom of her purse and wrote a quick email to Great Northern Insurance about her surveillance of Rupert Skeeze the day before. She was attaching the most representative action photos of him when she heard rapid footfalls coming up the stairs. April entered wearing her backpack and she stopped short in the lobby. Her eyes were opened wide.
“What happened here last night? Why are the drawers all open?”
“We had a break-in,” Cassie replied. “Give me a second to finish this and I’ll catch you up.”
Cassie sent the email and got up from her desk. April had been given a small desk on the east wall in the lobby. Cassie had purchased the desk, the chair, and the computer secondhand. She’d learned how expensive it was to employ even a low-paid intern.
“Let me ask you something,” Cassie said to April. “Did you see anyone suspicious hanging around the building when you left last night? Maybe somebody who looked out of place?”
April laughed. “Half the people out on the street in Bozeman look suspicious to me. This is quite the crazy place, but I think I like it. But no, I don’t remember seeing anyone odder than usual.”
Cassie nodded. April came from a small mountain town in north-central Wyoming called Saddlestring. She found the name charming.
April was dressed in cowgirl-chic style: tight bejeweled jeans, boots, a tight tank top beneath an open yoked shirt. She had an impressive belt buckle for winning All-Around Cowgirl at the Central Wyoming College Rodeo.
“I wanted to ask you about that last night,” Cassie said. “I realized I didn’t have your cell phone number in my phone.”
April whipped her phone out of her back pocket and sent a message to Cassie’s phone. Cassie heard it ding on her desk.
“Now you do,” April said.
“I’d like you to spend some time right off going through your desk and especially everything you’ve got on your computer,” Cassie said. “Make sure nothing is missing. Check to see if any files were accessed last night after you left. If you find anything, let me know right away.”
“I don’t have much to access,” April said with a grin. “I just got started.”
“You’ve got all those past case files I asked you to review.”
April smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh yeah, right. I didn’t think of those. I was reading up on the Lizard King yesterday afternoon. That’s an amazing story. Good God!”
Cassie nodded.
“Do you have any idea who broke in or why?” April asked.
“I’ve got my suspicions but no facts to back it up yet.”
“Who is the perp?”
Cassie stifled a smile. “I’ll let you know when I can confirm it. In the meantime, I’ve got a couple of assignments for you.”
April swelled up with obvious excitement. This was the first time she’d been given a specific task since she’d started the week before. Her time had been spent reviewing case files and doing clerical work for Isabel.
“Won’t that piss off Isabel?” April asked.
“Probably, but don’t worry about that. I’ll deal with her.”
“Thank you. I don’t think she likes me very much as it is.”
“You two have different worldviews, I’m afraid.”
“I’m fine with her, by the way,” April said. “She’s just an old hippie. I learned to live with them at college. I had teachers like Isabel. It’s best just to put your head down and let them spout their nonsense. If you argue with them they’ll give you a D or worse.”
Cassie said, “I’d like to put you in charge of locating the best locksmith in the county and getting them here as soon as possible. Also, contact a few security companies and ask them to come by and give us a bid for closed-circuit cameras. Make sure to check their references.”
“I can do that,” she said, nodding. “In the meantime, do you want me to rig up something that might stop the next guy?”
Cassie frowned. “Like what?”
“I was thinking we could set up a trip wire about six inches high on the floor just inside the door. We could wire it to the trigger of a double-barreled shotgun aimed chest high.”
To demonstrate where the blast would hit, April placed both of her hands on her chest. “That’d stop him.”
“That would get us put in the women’s prison in Billings,” Cassie said. “Let’s concentrate on the locksmith and the security company, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right on it. Was there another assignment?”
Cassie nodded. “I’ll need a list of writers who live in Montana.”
“Writers?”
“Authors, I should say. Fiction, nonfiction, technical. Male only. Include screenwriters, I suppose. It’ll be a long list.”
Cassie once overheard a well-known mystery writer pontificate from his corner bar stool in Missoula, attempting to woo a young female grad student. The author, who looked like a cross between a buffalo and a walrus, said, “In Missoula if you throw a stick you’ll hit a goddam writer. I wish more people would throw sticks.”
“Where will I find this list?” April asked.
“Start with the Montana Arts Council in Helena, the state capital. They might have a list. If they don’t, someone there might be able to help you find one.”
“I’ll get to work,” April said.
The call from Candyce Fly of Boca Grande, Florida, came two minutes later. Cassie took it directly because Isabel, whose job it was to act as receptionist, was late to show up as usual. Cassie liked the optics of having a receptionist fielding calls because it suggested her firm was more established than a one-woman show.
“I’m sorry to call so early,” she said. “It’s what, three hours earlier than Florida time?”
“Two hours,” Cassie said. “We’re on mountain time. It’s the forgotten time zone. A lot of folks don’t know it exists.”
“Oh my. So it’s eight there?”
“Yes.”
“It’s ten here.”
“Okay.”
“I’m calling to speak to Cassie Dewell, please.”
“I’m Cassie Dewell.”
“Oh. I guess I didn’t expect you to answer your own phone.”
Cassie scowled and said, “As you mentioned, it’s early here. Our receptionist isn’t in yet.”
“Oh, that makes sense. Tell me, do you Zoom?”
“Of course,” Cassie said. “We can do that even in Montana.”
“Tell me your email address and I’ll send you a link,” the woman said. “I like to see who I’m hiring. My name is Candyce Fly, by the way.”
That’s presumptuous, Cassie thought but didn’t say. She gave the woman her email address and hung up. The link showed up ten minutes later in her in-box.
Candyce Fly was blond and willowy, with a deep tan and a face so taut from skin-tightening procedures that it was almost masklike. Cassie guessed her age at late fifties, early sixties, but it was hard to be certain. Fly was obviously a stylish woman who kept herself fit and she could afford cosmetic fixes that preserved her in a vague kind of amber. Only her green eyes were animated.
She wore a pink sleeveless golf top and behind her was a well-appointed home office with framed photos on the wall. No books. Visible on the top of the screen was the bottom slice of a gold and crystal chandelier. When Fly spoke there were rat-a-tat flashes of perfect big white teeth. Candyce Fly had obviously set up the angle of her webcamera and had positioned interior lighting so it looked like she was speaking from the set of a television studio.
Despite Fly’s inability to display emotion, Cassie thought she saw a hint of disappointment in her eyes when she first viewed Cassie on her screen. Cassie’s background was a flat white wall with her framed PI license on it. The direct morning sunlight from the window made every wrinkle in her face stand out. She wished there was a webcam filter that would make her look twenty pounds lighter.
“Miss Dewell, I’m interested in hiring you to locate a con man named Marc Daly. That’s Marc with a C. I believe he’s in your state of Montana.”
Cassie jotted down the name on a pad to indicate she was listening.
“Marc Daly is a grifter and a charlatan and he must be stopped,” Fly said.
“How about we start at the beginning,” Cassie said. “When did you meet him and what do you allege that he did?”
“There’s no alleging about it,” Fly said. “He stole millions of dollars from me and then he vanished from the face of the earth.”
“I’m not trying to argue with you. I just need the facts as you know them, please.”
That seemed to satisfy Candyce Fly. She sighed deeply and began. Cassie surreptitiously reached over and slid her digital recorder across her desk and placed it beneath the monitor of her computer. She wanted an audio record of the conversation in case she missed something in her notes. Since Fly had initiated the Zoom session, Cassie was unable to record it herself.
“What were your questions again?” Fly asked.
“When did you meet Marc Daly.”
“Last February. The end of February. I don’t know the date. Is that important?”
“I don’t think so but go on.”
“I met Marc the first time at the Lemon Bay Golf Club. I try to play a round every morning before it gets too warm or too many people show up. Ask anyone around here. If you want to find Candyce Fly, go to Lemon Bay early in the morning.”
“Okay,” Cassie said.
“Have you ever been to Boca Grande, Miss Dewell?” Fly asked as she tried to arch her eyebrows.
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s an interesting place. Boca Grande is a cute little island with a lot of wealthy residents and truly spectacular homes where people drive around in golf carts. It’s a small town, really. Everybody knows everybody and what lots are available rise in value every year. What I’m saying is that not just anyone can show up and get a tee time at Lemon Bay.”
“I’m not sure I understand your point,” Cassie said.
Fly started to explain, but apparently couldn’t find the right phrasing. Instead, she said, “Let’s just say Marc didn’t look out of place at Lemon Bay. He didn’t look like a tourist who just walked in from the street. He looked like he belonged.”
“Gotcha. So what happened?”
“I hit a good drive on the third fairway—one of the long holes—and I couldn’t find my ball at first. All I knew is that it landed near a pond but not in it. I didn’t see a splash. So I was walking along the edge of the pond when I saw my ball sitting there in the weeds about three feet from a great big alligator!”
“Goodness,” Cassie said.
“Yes, I know. That’s a very real hazard here that I’d say you don’t have to worry about in Montana.”
“No,” Cassie said. “We have grizzly bears, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions. But go on.”
“Well, I was standing there trying to figure out what to do when a cart drove up. The man driving it was alone as well, and I thought he was going to ask if he could play through. But when he saw my predicament he laughed and he said, ‘If you’d like me to, I’ll wrestle that alligator to get your ball back.’ He was quite … charming, I must admit.”
“This was Marc Daly?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know his name at the time.”
“Did he get your ball back?”
“He did. But he used one of those telescoping pole-like things you use to get balls out of the water. He didn’t wrestle the alligator or anything.”
Cassie thought, If this were a movie this would be called a meet-cute.
Instead, she asked, “What happened next?”
“He drove off.”
Cassie paused. “He didn’t introduce himself or ask your name? He just drove off?”
“Yes.”
In her peripheral vision, Cassie noted the flowing robes of Isabel as she came in the door. Isabel placed both of her hands on her cheeks as she surveyed the open filing cabinet and desk drawers. Cassie got up and eased her door closed.
“Where did you go?” Fly asked.
“Just closing the door so I can concentrate. Please go on. When did you see him next?”
“Two nights later. I was waiting for a table in the bar of Gasparilla Inn. He walked through the lobby and saw me and stopped. He asked if I had any more alligators that needed wrestling.”
“So he remembered you.”
“He certainly did. And I remembered him,” she said. Cassie thought she saw Fly almost blush.
“Describe him, please.”
“He’s a quite good-looking man,” Fly said. Her description of him was so precise and so detailed that Cassie almost stopped listening. On her pad, she wrote: “Sandy hair, great jawline, mustache, blue eyes, six foot two, well-built, muscular, wonderful smile. Good dresser.”
“Do you have any photos of him?” Cassie asked.
“That’s a very strange thing,” Fly said. “He always seemed to avoid being in photos, like when we were in a group and someone wanted a shot. He’d be in the bathroom or something and miss it. I did have a few of the two of us on my phone, I’m sure of it. But he must have somehow gotten my phone when I wasn’t looking and deleted them. I have a couple of blurry shots my friend Trixie took but they aren’t very good. We were kind of far away on the dance floor when Trixie took them. I sent them to the last private investigator.”
“Excuse me,” Cassie said. “The last private investigator?”
“Yes, I probably should have mentioned that. You’re the second private investigator I’ve hired to locate this snake. The first one, like Marc, seems to have vanished as well. He was in daily contact and closing in—or so he claimed—when all of the sudden he stopped communicating. No texts, no calls. And he hasn’t sent me any invoices for expenses, either. That leads me to believe that something happened to him or he’s too embarrassed to admit that he failed.”
“Hmm,” Cassie said. “First, you haven’t hired me yet because I haven’t accepted the case. Second, it sounds pretty suspicious that your first guy in is the wind. When did you last hear from him?”
“Two weeks ago,” Fly said. She picked up her cell phone. “I can read you the last text he sent me on May nineteenth.”
She did.
“Still in Big Sky Country. Got some good intel and I’m closing in. I think I’ll locate him tomorrow. Will keep you posted.
“He sent me this photo,” she said. “Here, I’ll forward it to you.”
A second later Cassie’s in-box chimed and she opened up the graphic.
“Anaconda?” Cassie said. “He was headed into Anaconda?”
“That’s as much as I know,” Fly said. “I didn’t know it was a real place until I looked it up. It sounds kind of … snakey to me.”
“It’s a real place,” Cassie said. “It’s off the beaten path but I’ve been by there many times. It’s a little less than two hours away from me.”
When Cassie thought of Anaconda the first thing that came to mind was the lone standing smokestack off in the distance from the interstate. The first time she’d seen it was on a high school basketball trip many years before. One of her friends giggled and said it looked phallic. She could never quite shake that description in her mind.
The second was Anaconda’s colorful and tragic history. It had once been one of the state’s most important locations and had been in the running to be named state capital. Anaconda’s past was filled with labor strife, copper mining tragedies, federal occupation, and violence. She’d heard Anaconda—and Butte, just a few miles from it—had defined Montana’s hardwired anticorporate heritage in both good and bad ways. It was known as an extremely tight-knit and insular community that was still hanging on years after the copper smelter was shut down.
“Have you contacted the authorities in Anaconda to look for your guy?” Cassie asked.
“I didn’t but his office did,” Fly said. “The sheriff’s office there took down the missing person report but never called back. As for me, I kept waiting to hear from him. Now it seems kind of stupid since it’s been so long.”
“What’s his name?”
“J. D. Spengler. He’s out of Tampa. He came highly recommended.”
“Have you followed up with his office since?”
“Yes, about a week ago. The girl there said she hadn’t heard anything from him, either. But she also said it wasn’t that unusual when he was in the field.”
“It sounds suspicious to me,” Cassie said. She circled the name J. D. Spengler on her pad several times.
“I don’t know what to think,” Fly said. “But that’s not why I’m hiring you—to find an overweight private investigator from Tampa. I want you to find Marc Daly.”
“Got it, I understand. Why was Spengler going to Anaconda?”
“I don’t know for certain. He didn’t fill me in on any details other than he thought he was closing in on Marc, like I said. Spengler was in Montana for three or four days doing interviews before he vanished.”
“Interviews with whom?”
“I don’t have any names.”
“Can you please send me the transcript of the texts he sent you?”
“Does that mean you’re taking the case?”
Cassie had gotten ahead of herself and she regretted it. She was really more interested in the disappearance of a fellow PI than in Marc Daly. But she didn’t want to say that to Candyce Fly.
“We can circle back to Mr. Spengler later,” Cassie said. “Let’s go back to your relationship with Marc Daly. What happened after you encountered him at the hotel?”
“I was dining alone, you see. Since I lost my husband to cancer four years ago I do that quite a lot now. We were close. We were partners in the largest real estate company on the island as well as in life. It took me ages to summon the courage to go out by myself after I lost Dick. But now I’m more comfortable going to dinner or to a movie—or to play golf. So it wasn’t unusual.”
Cassie tried not to be distracted by the fact that Candyce was married to a man named “Dick Fly.”
“Did Daly ask to join you?”
Fly hesitated a moment. Then: “I asked him to join me.”
Cassie found that interesting but refrained from saying it.
“We had a lovely dinner together,” Fly said. “Maybe too much wine, but very lovely. He passed himself off as a very interesting man and I admit I was quite taken with him. Later, when I look back at it, there were red flags all around me. But I didn’t see them at the time.”
“What do you mean by red flags?”
“Look, I’ve had quite a few men hit on me over the years, especially since Dick passed. And, honestly, some when he was still alive. It’s no secret around here that I’ve done very well for myself and there are plenty of predators targeting rich and lonely women on an island like Boca Grande. But I’m sure you know how most men are when they meet you. They can’t stop trying to impress you by talking about themselves. Marc didn’t talk about himself at all. He asked me about me. And he listened.”
“That is unusual,” Cassie agreed. It was one of the primary reasons she rarely, if ever, went out by herself when she wasn’t on a case. But she guessed Candyce Fly had many more such encounters.
“When it came to Marc’s history, I literally had to pry it out of him,” Fly said. “He’d make little self-deprecating jokes about how it was better to be lucky than good, that kind of thing.”
“What did you find out?”
“Only what he finally told me,” Fly said. “He made several passing references to being the principal of a hedge fund. He said he was tired of traveling so much between New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco and that he really enjoyed the slower pace of life here in Boca Grande. When he learned about my background in real estate he asked if he could impose on me when it came to buying a place here. I readily agreed.”
“Did he buy a home?”
“No. I think that was all for show. It was a way of indicating to me that he had the means to buy one.”
“Were there other red flags?”
“Yes. He always paid cash for everything he bought. I thought it was quirky at the time but I now realize he was probably doing it so there’d be no credit card receipts. I mean, who pays with cash these days?
“Also, Marc never looked at his phone. You know how people are these days, especially wealthy financial-services types. You can’t even get them to look up. But not Marc. I don’t know if I ever even saw him use his phone.”
“Did you call and text each other?”
She hesitated again. “Yes, we did.”
“So he had a phone.”
“Yes.”
“Did you send each other photos?”
This time, Fly did blush. She said, “A couple. But the ones he sent me … wouldn’t really identify him, if you know what I mean.”
“He sent you explicit photos?”
“Yes.”
“Was that another of your red flags?”
“No,” she said. “I asked him to.”
“Oh.”
“Look, Miss Dewell,” Fly said. “I’m not stupid. I’m not naïve. I feel like an incredible idiot even telling you all of this. I know I sound like a love-struck teenager when I talk about Marc. I know that.
“But it had been decades since someone made me feel the way Marc made me feel. Decades. Dick and I had a very convivial relationship but there hadn’t been passion like this for years and years. In the end, we were more like siblings or good friends than husband and wife. Marc made me feel giddy when I was around him. I said and did things that make me cringe when I think of them now. Like the photos. Look, I’m not hiring you to put me on trial.”
Suddenly, Candyce Fly’s expression contorted and she looked as though she’d swallowed something sharp and bitter. Tears, like snail tracks, coursed down over her cheeks and she looked away from the camera lens and brutally wiped at them with the back of her hand. It was as if something had just snapped inside her and the mask she’d so carefully maintained had dropped.
“Are you okay?” Cassie asked.
“I’m fine,” Fly insisted. “I’m just fine.”
You don’t seem fine, Cassie thought.
“Can we please just get on with this?” Fly asked, turning back to her camera. Her mask was again firmly in place, and Cassie had no idea what had just happened.
“As I said, I don’t want you to put me on trial here.”
“I’m not trying to do that,” Cassie said. “I’m just trying to get as many facts and pieces of evidence as I can so I can do my job. Did he tell you the name of the hedge fund he managed?”
“He said it was called Enterprise Capital. I Googled it and it looked legitimate. He was listed as the president.”
With that, Fly deftly brushed her hair back in place and reassumed command. Cassie let it go.
“But he wasn’t?” Cassie asked.
“Like everything, he was lying about that. But I just didn’t know it at the time.”
“What do you accuse him of doing exactly?” Cassie asked.
Fly sighed. “Well, I told you he rarely said much about himself, so it was really odd one night when we were in bed that he seemed distracted. That was out of character because—and I’ll ask you to hear this in complete confidence—Marc was a magnificent lover. Warm, sharing, very skilled in bed. He made me feel like no one has ever made me feel. But on that night it was obvious there was something on his mind.”
Cassie nodded for her to go on.
“Finally, he said something at work was driving him crazy. He’d identified a start-up in Silicon Valley that he was sure was going to be the next Uber or Airbnb, but his partners didn’t agree with him. It was something about a new way of manufacturing batteries for electric cars. He said there was some kind of agreement among the partners that they all had to be unanimous when making a large investment, so the money Marc had available in his venture capital account wasn’t enough to make the deal by himself. He said he’d never been so sure of an opportunity before and it was upsetting to him that he couldn’t pull the trigger on his own.”
Cassie saw where this was headed. “How much did you offer to go in with him?”
“Seven million,” she said. “I actually offered ten but he said seven would be enough. I realize now that by trimming it down he’d seem more credible. And he tried several times to talk me out of it. He said he didn’t want to risk our relationship if something went wrong. That meant everything to me at the time.”
“You paid him how?”
“He gave me the details to an offshore account in the Caymans. I wired the money. He said we had to do it that way so his partners wouldn’t know.”
“Did you do any due diligence?”
Fly shook her head sadly. “I was so wrapped up in Marc the details were secondary,” she said. “I thought at the time it would bring us closer being business partners as well as a couple. I was such a complete fool.
“Marc said he needed to fly out to California to close the deal and that’s the last I saw or heard from him,” she said.
“Before he vanished, Spengler did quite a bit of research on Marc Daly and Empire Capital,” Fly continued. “In a nutshell, neither one actually exists.”
“Can you send me his reports?” Cassie asked. “I’d like to see them.”
“Of course, but only if you agree to take the case and we have a contract in place. I hope you understand.”
“I do. But you can tell me what he found out.”
Fly sighed. “The website for Empire Capital turned out to be a complete sham. According to Spengler, it was put up the month before I met Marc. The account in the Caymans was closed the day after my money arrived there. Even the cell phone number Marc gave me was bogus as it turned out.”
“He used a burner, I suspect,” Cassie said. “That’s why he never let you see his cheap phone.”
“Exactly.”
“Spengler found a few hits when he searched his name using some kind of special people-finder database,” Fly said.
Cassie was familiar with the methodology. Her firm subscribed to several such database services. They were expensive but essential to her job.
Fly continued, “He said Marc had sprinkled his name around in financial news articles that turned out to be bogus. They were designed to be located with a casual Google search, but when Spengler tried to verify them he found out the sources were phony. If you didn’t know they were fake news, you’d be taken in. Like I was.”
Cassie said, “You’re suggesting Marc Daly did quite a bit of prep work before you met him. Do you think he was specifically targeting you?”
“Yes. He knew where to find me on the golf course. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that he’s done this before,” Fly said. “Conning women who should know better.”
Cassie shared Fly’s outrage now that she knew more.
“I’m intrigued,” Cassie said. “But before I officially take the case, I’ve got a few other questions for you first. And a lot more later depending on how you answer.”
Fly peered with concern at her webcam. “What?”
“I need a better idea of what you hope I can achieve,” Cassie said. “If I find him do you want him arrested for fraud and a half-dozen other crimes? Do you want him put in jail here and extradited to Florida to stand trial?”
“I want revenge,” Fly said. “I want him to be humiliated like he humiliated me. If I can get my money back, all the better. But most of all, I want him brought down so he can’t do this to another woman in the future.”
Cassie doubted her sincerity on the last one, but it sounded good and she withheld comment. She said, “I’m not a cop or a journalist. PIs can only do so much, you know. If I can find him I can build a case against him and turn it over to law enforcement. I won’t leak it to the press because that’s not what I do. What you do with the information is up to you, however.
“But let’s say I find him and build an airtight case,” Cassie said. “Then what?”
Fly paused. “Find him first. I’ll decide what course to take after he’s positively identified. How is that?”
“Okay, I guess. We’ll play that part by ear. And why me?” Cassie asked. “And why Montana? Is it because Spengler went missing here?”
“Partly,” Fly said. “But it’s also because Marc mentioned once that he’d grown up there. He didn’t say where, and when I questioned him about it he just deflected with jokes like he always did. I told him my grandfather and great-grandfather lived in Montana for a while and he seemed interested but it was one of the few things I ever said he didn’t ask me more about. I find that curious in retrospect. I think it might have been a slip on his part and maybe the only true thing he told me.
“It makes sense to me that if Marc grew up in Montana that maybe he still lives there. And when Spengler said he was going to Anaconda, well…”
“I get it,” Cassie said. “Why me?”
Fly smiled widely and it looked painful to Cassie. “You’re the only private investigator I could find there.”
Cassie sat back. “Well, that’s a ringing endorsement…”
“I did some online research as well,” Fly said. “You’ve been in the news, it seems.”
“I try to stay out of the news.”
“So will you take the case?”
Cassie outlined her terms and cost per hour. She didn’t inflate them as she had with the Sir Scott’s Treasure client.
“I’ve got quite a few things on my plate right now,” Cassie said. “I can’t devote my full time to this.”
“That’s disappointing,” Fly said. She said it like a woman who was used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it.
“I’ll send you our standard contract via scan,” Cassie said.
“Thank you. I hope you don’t mind if I have my lawyer look at it before I sign. I’m a little gun-shy about trusting people right now, as you can imagine.”
“That’s fine,” Cassie said. She knew the contract she used was absolutely airtight. It had been written by Rachel Mitchell of Mitchell-Estrada. Cassie was often retained by the firm to do their investigative work.
“Once you return the contract, please forward Spengler’s reports and the photos you have of Marc Daly, even if they’re lousy. And I can get started.”
“I really hope you’re successful,” Fly said. “This man needs to be stopped.”
“I’ll do my best,” Cassie said. “I have a good track record.”
“If you shoot him in the head like you did that Montana state trooper it would be fine with me as well,” Fly said before signing off. “Just get my money back first.”
“Quick question,” Cassie said. “Is he likely armed?”
“I never saw him carry a weapon when I first met him,” Fly said. “But one night I peeked into the side table near his bed at the hotel. There was a gun there in a holster within easy reach. I never told him I found it and I wasn’t all that surprised. Everybody here has guns and Marc probably grew up in Montana, after all.”
“Good info to have,” Cassie said.
Cassie took a moment to digest the call with Candyce Fly before getting another cup of coffee. Although she planned to look into Marc Daly, there was a niggling caveat in her mind. She had the suspicion Fly herself might not be totally on the level and that she was withholding something. Cassie was also a little shaken by Fly’s surprising loss of her cool façade.
What if Fly was simply a bitter, scorned woman out for revenge on the man who rejected her? She wouldn’t be the first.
What if Marc Daly could be found but he had a completely different version of events? Cassie could imagine a scenario where Daly felt pursued and smothered by a woman who would never give up—and he fled. Men took action with their feet more often than their words, especially when up against strong women. Cassie knew this from experience.
Perhaps the truth would be a version of both of their stories? Maybe Fly did invest with Daly but the company they capitalized simply crashed, like so many other start-up firms? Fly could be angry about that as well as feeling scorned.
Or was Marc Daly the rogue con man Fly made him out to be?