ride took about a half hour. At last, he turned into the back parking lot of a flat-roofed, unremarkable two-story building. He pulled into a space, stopped the car and took off his sunglasses.
“Ready?” There was excitement in his voice.
She almost smiled. Really, it was kind of touching how eager he seemed. “Lead the way,” she said.
They went in through a rear entrance and up a flight of stairs. On the second floor, they walked down two hallways lined with doors that led to the offices of lawyers and bail bondsmen and a few businesses whose names told her nothing about what went on inside.
At last, he stopped in front of a door with Dark Horse Investigations on it and his name beneath. He unlocked that door, pushed it wide and gestured her in ahead of him.
She stepped into a reception area, which included a desk with nothing on it but a phone and a water-cooler minus the water. The lone window to the left of the desk had cheap brown miniblinds and a view of the building next door. There was brown all-weather carpeting on the floor. A brown loveseat, two end tables and a couple of brown chairs waited next to the door.
Beyond the empty desk was another door. That one had only his name on it. “I take it your private office is through there?”
He dropped to the sofa. “You got it. Want to have a look?”
“This is your deal. Do you want me to have a look?”
“Go for it.”
So she crossed the room and opened the door on more brown carpeting, another desk—this one with a computer on top as well as a phone. Two lonely brown guest chairs faced the desk. There were four tall file cabinets filling one wall and another window with cheap blinds—that one looking out on the street in front. Framed documents marched in a line across the back wall. She moved into the room to get a closer look. The documents declared him licensed to be a private investigator in the states of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Texas.
Crystal returned to the bare waiting room, shut the door and turned to find Tanner watching her. “Depressing,” she said.
“What? You don’t like brown?”
“I’m surprised you ever get any clients, with an office like this.”
“When you hire a P.I., it’s not for the decor. And the truth is, I hardly use this place. I have a twenty-four-hour answering service. I usually just pick up my calls and meet clients…anywhere. Starbucks. Their offices. Whatever.”
The phone on the desk started ringing. Tanner didn’t get up.
She asked, “You’re not going to answer it?”
He waited for the phone to fall silent before he explained. “The service will get it and send me a text.” Right on cue, the phone at his belt chimed out two notes.
She waited for him to check the display and slide the cell back into the carrying case before she asked, “Call me crazy, but I have to know. Why have an office if you don’t need it?”
He lifted a hard shoulder in a half-shrug. “Seems more…professional, I guess. An office. And an assistant. Someone to take the calls during business hours, someone to be here, to greet clients, someone to keep the records up-to-date, do the books. All that.” He slanted her a look. “I have had assistants. They never worked out. I’m used to going it alone and they always had too many damn questions about every little thing. But I’m willing to try one more time, especially if I can find someone who likes to make her own decisions, someone who’s independent by nature….”
By then it was all so painfully clear. “You mean someone like me?”
“That’s right. Someone just like you.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re offering me a job.”
“Believe it. I am.”
“You are just full of big plans today, aren’t you?”
He gave her his broodiest look. “A man finds out he’s going to be a father, it’s his nature to start making plans.”
She leaned back against the shut door to his brown inner sanctum. “Tell me you’re kidding. You don’t really imagine that you and I could work together.”
“Seriously. Not kidding. I can
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