Free Jay Giles by Blindsided (A Thriller) Page B

and left.
          Tory frowned, focused her gaze on me. “I want to be upfront with you about this. I’ll look into it for you, but I can’t promise anything. This is fairly sophisticated stuff. I have to assume whoever did it wouldn’t have made and won’t make a stupid mistake. I don’t think this is going to be easy or quick. I wouldn’t even know what to tell you in the way of an estimate.”
          “Don’t worry about an estimate. See what you can find.” I took a sip of my coffee. “Do you need another retainer?”   
          She nodded.
          “Thousand dollars?”
          She nodded again, gathered up the papers.
          I got a check out of my briefcase, wrote it out, handed it to her.
          She took the check, dropped it in her black bag. “I’ll call as soon as I know something.” She left a couple of dollars on the table and departed.
          I sat there, sipped my coffee. She’d been right. Nobody was going to fess up to this. The best I could hope for was finding a connection between one of the brokers and Nevitt. I left a couple of dollars for my coffee, started to slide out of the booth. My cell rang. I got it out of my briefcase. “Matt Seattle.”
          “Matt,” Rosemary said. “That man who came yesterday? He’s back. And he won’t leave.”

Chapter 14

    I hustled out of there, sloshed through the parking lot, jumped in the car, and headed for town. From the passenger seat, Eddie cocked his head and looked at me. Probably wondering why I was so agitated. I stroked his head. “It’s back to the office, fella. Quick meeting, then we’ll go home.”
          An agonizing hour later, I pulled the Saab into the parking area, turned off the ignition. Eddie and I made a run for the front door.
          Inside, Rosemary sat rigid behind her desk, the stranger stretched out nonchalantly on the lobby sofa. He got up when I came in, grinned at me.
          “Didn’t I say call for an appointment?”
          His eyes narrowed. “You should have been here yesterday when I told you I was coming,” he said, an edge to his voice.
          “Well, I’m here now. What do you want?”
          He tugged at the bottom of his vest, smoothed his tie. “Think we could talk in private?”
          I would have preferred to stay in the lobby. But Rosemary looked so terrified I decided it might be better to get him away from her. “C’mon back to my office.”
          I took my seat behind the desk. He sat in one of the visitor’s chairs across from me.
          “Okay, it’s only you and me here.”
          He smiled, showing his pointy teeth again. Looked around the office. “Not bad.” He noticed Eddie, who watched him from his spot by the side of the desk. “What a great dog. Yours?”
          I nodded.
          “You and your dog gotta really be close for you to bring him to work with you.”
          I nodded again. “Tell me about Joe.” I wanted to find out what this guy knew and get rid of him
          He wasn’t in any hurry. He slouched down in his chair, smiled, adjusted the crease in his trouser leg, shot his cuffs. Gold cuff links, a monogram, W.W., on his right cuff. He tapped his fingers in front of him, touched them to his chin a couple of times. “Joe, he was a good old guy. I liked Joe. I think we all liked Joe. We being the guys that worked with him. We passed the hat when he retired, got him a nice present. A fancy watch. I wouldn’t a wanted it, but he seemed to like it. I’m telling you this so you know we liked Joe.” He paused as if waiting for me to say something.
          “I liked Joe, too,” I said to keep things moving. “But you’re going to tell me something I’m not going to like about him, aren’t you?”
          His eyes got harder. “You think you’re smarter than me? You think you know what I’m going tell you?”
          I sat back in my