Fidelity Files (5 page)

"I'm sorry," she said timidly, laughing at herself.

"Don't be."

As easy as it would be, I never blame myself. There's no reason to. I'm just a messenger. And we all know it doesn't do any good to shoot the messenger.

"You know . . ." I began gently.

She looked into my eyes with anticipation and waited for my next words as if they might be gospel. Something she could take to bed with her at night and wake up with the next morning.

"The human spirit wasn't meant to live in denial. It will always seek the truth."

And just before I turned back to leave, I saw something in her eyes. Something
I
could take to bed with me at night and wake up with the next morning.

It was a tiny speck of hope, struggling to break free and perform its one mission in life. To heal.

For Anne Jacobs it was the hope that maybe I was right. Maybe she did do the right thing.

And there was nothing more in the world I could ask to leave with.

TWO DAYS earlier my business line had rung while I was in the middle of watching an episode of
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
on TiVo. It's my favorite show on the air because it always manages to put me in a good mood. Zoë says that's why they call it "feel-good programming." But for me, the reasons are much more deeply rooted than just wanting to feel good.

Because I secretly believed that every client I visited, every house I stepped into and stepped out of, every family I changed was like my own little extreme makeover project. Just with a much less orthodox approach.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

When answering my business line, I always opted for a standard, informal greeting rather than a typical, "This is Ashlyn," or anything personalized. This approach kept the whole thing more discreet. The caller knows who they're calling. And if it's a call I want to take, I can proceed from there. Otherwise, I can simply tell the caller that they have the wrong number and hang up.

Every so often an angry now-
ex
-husband or
ex
-boyfriend will stumble upon this number and dial it, hoping to get more information about the test they've just failed miserably. And, of course, looking for a scapegoat upon which to release their pent-up anger. Anything to distract themselves from turning inward and facing the real issue.

"May I please speak to Ashlyn?" It was a male voice. Although I have had a few male clients in the past for various reasons, I'm still always wary when a man calls this number.

"What is this regarding?"

"My name is Roger Ireland. I received your number from a close friend, Audrey Robbins. She said you might be able to help me."

I considered, sizing up his voice in an effort to decide whether this would simply be a "wrong number" or a longer conversation. The man on the phone sounded genuine and almost endearingly uncomfortable. This type of phone call was clearly not part of his normal daily routine.

"What kind of help are you looking for?" I asked.

He cleared his throat. "Well, my daughter is getting married in a few months, and I'm not sure I really trust the guy." He paused and then quickly added, "I could be completely wrong, but I just have a bad feeling about the whole thing. I'm worried about her."

"I see."

"I'd rather know now if he's going to break her heart so we don't have to go through with the wedding."

"Well, that's understandable," I said. "Have you mentioned your concern to your daughter?"

"I
tried
. It didn't seem to work. She got really upset and didn't speak to me for a week."

"Right," I responded. It made sense. Young brides-to-be rarely want to hear anything except, "White is a good color on you."

"I love my daughter. I only want her to be happy. But if this guy is no good, I want to prove it to her. To save her from heartache further down the road." He struggled momentarily with his next line. And then finally, "Can you help me?"

I agreed to meet with him so that I could gather some more information. I rarely accept assignments over the phone. I insist on meeting face-to-face first so I can get a better feel for the person who's hiring me and what the assignment would entail.

THAT PHONE call was two days ago. So today, after leaving Anne Jacobs's house, I drove back to Los Angeles to meet with Roger Ireland at his office in Century City. I arrived at the twenty-story building on Avenue of the Stars and rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor where a sign read LAW OFFICES OF IRELAND, HAMMERL AND WELCH.

The receptionist smiled cordially upon hearing the name Ashlyn and led me right into his office.

Roger Ireland was a pleasant-looking man, with gray hair and tired eyes, probably in his late fifties or early sixties. His large corner office was filled with a combination of dark wood furniture and brown cardboard boxes. "I'm retiring in a few weeks," he said, after shaking my hand and motioning toward the boxes and random piles of clutter.

I smiled. "Congratulations."

He pointed at a chocolate-colored leather couch by the window, and we sat down. I pulled out my black Louis Vuitton portfolio and flipped it open to an empty page.

"So let me just start by asking you some questions, and then I'll determine whether or not I can take on your case."

Roger nodded, seemingly relieved that I had been the one to initiate the dialogue. I'm sure he was wondering how one would even begin a conversation like this.
"So, you're gonna try to have sex with my future son-in-law?"

I started by asking him the usual opening questions. The easy stuff. The subject's name, occupation, hobbies, and interests if he knew of any.

The fiancé's name was Parker Colman, a risk management adviser for LDS Securities. He had asked Lauren Ireland to marry him approximately nine months earlier. The elaborate $100,000 wedding was in three weeks, and the bachelor party was scheduled for a week from tomorrow in the land of bachelor parties: Las Vegas, Nevada. I had personally been there at least twenty times since starting this job.

As far as Mr. Ireland knew, Parker liked basketball, poker, BBQs, boozing, and, from what he suspected, women.

"And how does your daughter feel about the bachelor party?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they can be tricky," I explained. "Some women believe that anything goes at the bachelor party. Last final fling type of stuff, just don't tell me about it. Is Lauren like that?"

Roger shook his head. "Oh, no," he replied without reservation. "I know she's been pretty on edge about it. According to my wife, she only agreed to the whole thing because he promised not to go to any strip clubs. And of course, not to...you know,
be
with any other girls."

"Okay, then, it sounds like the bachelor party is the best place to conduct the inspection," I stated, jotting down a few details in my portfolio.

Roger agreed with a nod of his head. It's rare for a client to argue with one of my location suggestions. Kind of like how you don't argue with a doctor when he prescribes you medication; you trust that they know what they're doing. A "Yeah, whatever, just do your job so it stops itching" kind of thing.

"Does your daughter play poker?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "Not that I'm aware of. The gambling gene has never really been in the Ireland family."

I made a note and then looked up again. "What about confidence level? Is your daughter the shy type or the confident type?"

Mr. Ireland thought about his response before he spoke. He was taking all of my questions very seriously, and I appreciated his effort. But then again, for the money he was going to be paying me, this wasn't exactly the time to start filling in the multiple-choice bubbles randomly. "Well, she's very confident when it comes to her job. She's the chief technology officer at East Global Tech," he stated with a glowing, fatherly pride. It was obvious how much this girl meant to him. "She graduated cum laude from MIT. Always into the gadgets. When she was little we could never get her to play with dolls or Carebears like all the other girls in her class. All she wanted to do was take things apart. The answering machine, the phone, my brand-new computer." He laughed fondly at this memory, and then more solemnly added, "She's very smart."

"What about when dealing with men? Is she as confident around them?"

Roger shifted in his seat. The question made him visually uncomfortable. He was probably not in the habit of being so involved in his daughter's love life. And I imagined I was the only person in this office who'd ever seen him squirm.

"Not really." He hesitated. "At least I don't think so. I think she's always been a bit reserved when it comes to men... meeting them or talking to them. You'd think being in a male-dominated field it would come easy. But then again, she's never really talked to me about those things, so I'm only speculating."

I nodded. "Okay, then. I'll probably start with a chance meeting at the poker table, and then follow it up with another 'coincidental' encounter at whatever club they plan on going to. My experience has shown that when men cheat, it's usually with someone who is a direct opposite of their wife or girlfriend. It's that 'grass is always greener' complex. So I believe the ideal bait for Parker will be someone who's confident in her ability to talk to men and who plays poker...
well
."

Mr. Ireland raised his eyebrows. "Do you? Play poker well?"

I flashed a confident smile. "No . . . but I will."

Roger laughed and leaned back in his seat, amused by my confidence, yet clearly never doubting it for a second.

That was one of the fun parts of my job... becoming an expert at almost anything in a very short period of time. There are not many occupations that pay you to do that.

I continued. "Bachelor parties are usually tamer on Friday nights, and then Saturday is when they really go all out with the drinking and partying... that's when the 'mistakes' tend to be made. So I'll conduct the test on Saturday."

Roger scratched the back of his head. I could tell he was starting to have second thoughts about this whole process. It was now my job to reassure him.

"I think it's a good thing that you called me," I began in a comforting tone. "It's best to test them
before
they get married. If all my clients had done so, then maybe I wouldn't see half of the things that I've seen."

And it was true. I
did
wish my assignments were all bachelor parties and suspicious fiancées. They were so much cleaner. No kids. No law-binding commitments. No homes to be broken and made over. If only everyone would think to hire me
before
the wedding. But as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Foresight is... twenty–five billion.

"You're right. I'm sorry. This is just difficult. I don't want to see her get hurt."

"I understand. And hopefully it won't come to that," I said with sympathy.

It was really a win-win situation for everyone. It always is. The first win was obvious. He doesn't cheat... congratulations, you found a good one. But the second win... that's the one that's not so evident at first. It comes with time.

And it was also a no-lose situation for me. If Parker Colman failed next weekend, it was just one less deceitful marriage I might be asked to expose one day in the future.

"How many of them actually fail this... test?" Roger asked with uncertainty. Probably not sure whether or not he really wanted to know the answer.

"It's about half and half," I said convincingly. It was the same lie I told every client. They all wanted to know, but I didn't see the point in telling them the real statistic; it would only freak them out, and the next few days of waiting would be hard enough without all the odds stacked against them, threatening to topple over. Fifty-fifty was an efficient lie. It wasn't enough to give anyone significant hope or doubt, and if the subject failed, it wouldn't seem completely out of the norm.

"Oh, that's not too bad," Roger conceded. "I kind of thought it would be worse." Then he chuckled lightly to himself. "I guess I'm just cynical."

I stifled a reaction. "So if you're ready to proceed with this, we can discuss my fees and some other important details."

He nodded. "Yes, I'm ready. Let's do it."

I continued to explain to Roger Ireland the basics of a fidelity inspection, including the fees associated with the assignment and the retainer that I required for all expenses. He nodded his agreement, more than willing to pay whatever the price to get exactly what he had called me for.

As with most of my clients, money was not an issue.

And finally, I explained what testing for an "intention to cheat" really meant. To my clients it meant everything but sex. It meant that there was no doubt in my mind that had I not stopped things when I did, the subject would have had sex with me.

But to me the concept was much more defined. Much more controlled. It
had
to be. For my own comfort level... and sanity. To put it simply, I refused to engage in anything you wouldn't see on network television. (Well, "viewer discretion advised" network television, obviously.) If you wouldn't see it happening on one of NBC's weekly prime-time slots, then you wouldn't see me doing it either. It may sound overly simplistic, but it kept everything safe, legal, and consistent.

AFTER GETTING back into my car, I placed Roger Ireland's check in my wallet and the photograph of Parker he had given me in my portfolio. From my bag I pulled out my Treo smartphone, which multifunctions as my business phone, my day planner, my address book, and my e-mail in-box. It's helpful when I'm traveling all the time, since I'm able to get my e-mails, phone calls, and text messages all in the same device. And I have my entire life schedule programmed into it, as well. In other words, if I ever lost the thing, I'd be fucked...royally.

I removed the metal stylus and marked out all of next Saturday and half of Sunday for my trip to Vegas. Then I checked the clock on my dashboard. I was right on schedule. Just enough time to make a quick stop at the gym for an abbreviated workout, a rinse in the locker-room shower, and then off to my next assignment.

I stuck my Bluetooth headset into my ear and clicked it on. After a series of quick beeps I clearly pronounced the name of my travel agent into the mouthpiece.

I waited as my phone dialed.

"Hi, Lenore. I need to book a flight to Vegas," I said pleasantly as I turned left out of the parking garage and onto Avenue of the Stars.

"Hi, Miss Hunter. No problem."

I heard typing through my earpiece. "Weren't you just in Vegas?" she asked, making small talk as she searched for an available flight.

I laughed my normal "I'm so busy" laugh and replied, "Yes, lots of clients send me to Vegas. It seems to be a popular place to do business lately."

"That it is," she agreed. "All that investing to be done in those huge hotels!"

"Exactly."

As I was probably one of her bigger clients, Lenore was always good at remembering the details of my job. Well, my fake job, rather. "Okay, what time do you need to arrive?"