Addy leans back so that her shoulder provides a nice resting place for my head to nestle against. She doesn’t care in the least that she’s wrinkling her pristine suit. “You got it,” she says lightly. “So what else?”
“I, uh, ran into Guy. Like, almost physically ran into him before the door stopped my progress.”
Her head snaps up causing me to pitch a little to the side. “Oh, shit!”
“Yeah,” I chuckle while righting myself. “Oh, shit.”
“So? Give me the deets!” Releasing my hands, she wiggles her brows while smiling like a loon.
I can’t help but laugh, so glad it’s just that easy to get back on the right foot with my friend. “You’re a child.”
“Damn straight.” She winks before her face gets a bit serious. “Really, Lynne, what happened? What’d you do? What’d he say?”
“Easy there, Hot Rod. Give me a moment to pull myself together.”
“That bad, eh?”
I finally move, scooting off the couch to take off my bag and coat, dropping them to the floor. I cross to a credenza and fill a glass with ice water before returning to sit with her.
“It was much more civilized than I would’ve thought. He was clearly shocked to see me, and even though I sorta had a heads-up he was in the city, I wasn’t expecting to encounter him after we’d just spoken about him. So, yeah, I was equally surprised.”
“And how did you two just happen torun intoeach other?”
I inhale deeply and tell her the story, starting with the emails to the probable corruption involving multiple agencies within the city government. I don’t go into any detail about my reaction to Guy. I know she’ll get around to questioning that further.
“Holy crappola,” she nearly whispers. “Your father?”
“It would appear so. We spoke this morning, or, well, more accurately, he berated me for ignoring him and then expected me to drop everything and go running to him for whatever help he thinks I can offer.” I let out a breath after that mouthful.
“Do you think he’ll try to use your position with M&B to help cover up his activities?”
I sigh. “If he’s involved and if that’s what’s happening, I wouldn’t put it past him.” The hurt in my heart must’ve shown on my face as Addy sits toward me and takes my hand in hers again.
“Oh, Lynne, I’m so sorry. Goddamn that man! He doesn’t deserve you. Why on Earth would you even entertain the idea of meeting with him?”
“Well, I’d really like him to give me a plausible reason for what’s been going on. I need to learn more and hear what he has to say. Dennis asked me to approach him with an open mind. So, yeah, I’m going to try to be neutral and unbiased.” Addison rolls her eyes as I continue. “I’d also like to ask your help with researching this wealth fund, if possible.”
“You bet. Give me whatever information you have and I’ll see what I can do.”
I set the glass of water I’d been holding down on the table in front of us and turn to wrap my arms around my friend. “Thank you.” We squeeze each other before releasing and I reach for my bag, extracting my laptop. “Let me pull up what I have and I’ll copy it on a flash drive for you.”
“Sounds good.” She stands and walks to her desk, fishing through a drawer and retrieving a drive. “Here.”
“Thanks. Oh, and I have a surprise for you. A betterthank youfor being my friend and putting up with my shit.”
Addy chuckles and waves a hand as she sits back down on the couch. “I love you, you goof, so no thanks necessary. Although I do love surprises as well.”
I laugh. “Well I hope you’ll love this.” I fire up my laptop, pull up the information, and plug in the drive to copy the records. “I booked us massages at Mahalo Massage down near Union Station.”
Addy blinks, confusion etched on her lovely face. “How in the world did that come about between breakfast, your encounter with Guy, and now?”
“Funny story…” I tell her about meeting Stephanie and the encouragement to make the appointments.
Rubbing her hands together with glee, Addy smiles. “It’s been too long since I’ve had a massage. That’ll be wonderful. Thank you, Lynne.”
“Hey, it’s the least I could do. But just so you know, they’re darn busy, so the appointment isn’t for six weeks.”
“That’s fine. Just let me know the date so I can mark it on my calendar. Oh, maybe we can rope Elodie into joining us and make it a girl’s day. You know, brunch, shopping, massages.”
