Josh raised his eyebrows at me and mouthed the words, “I told you.” He had told me, and I didn’t think he was right then – and I still didn’t. Delilah wasn’t that kind of woman. She was honest and kind, not a manipulator like they were making her out to be.
My blood pressure was rising the more we talked about everything that was going on. We were wasting time by turning the questioning to Del; instead, Billy needed to be getting information on the other women I had recently dated.
Love life decisions weren’t always my best decisions. I was much better at making business decisions.
In business, there was an ability to keep everything neutral. Numbers guided my decisions in the business world. With numbers, you had a right and wrong answer. Sure, there were different ways of analyzing the numbers, but I still felt very confident in making these decisions.
I was not as confident in my love life. My gut was a soggy mess when it came to falling in love. I knew it and had protected myself from that mess for years. But as Billy mentioned the possibility that Delilah wasn’t who she said she was, I couldn’t imagine what that heartbreak would do to me.
Normally, my confidence in my own opinion was high enough to squash anyone who got in my way. I wouldn’t have thought a moment longer about the ideas that Billy and Josh had brought up regarding Del.
But since losing my son, I had a distinct lack of confidence in my own ability to see things when they were going wrong. I hadn’t seen his illness in time to make an effective fight against it and that devastated me and my trust in my decision-making skills.
“Yes, she had a bikini photo,” I reluctantly answered Billy’s question. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I know her. I know she’s not involved.”
“I’ll research her, if that’s all right with you? Nothing more than doing a little background work. It’s highly possible that everything about her checks out just fine and we will move on to looking at the other people we’ve mentioned.”
“Fine, research her,” I said as the anger built up inside of me. “Research whoever you want. I don’t care. I just want to go back to my normal life. I just want to not have to worry about this stuff anymore.”
“It will only take me about twenty-four hours to get the preliminary data, but it could be as long as a week to get it all. I’ve got a lot of contacts within the FBI; I’ll be able to find out if there is any real investigation. But so far, I think this is probably something more personal.”
“I need details. Don’t come back to me with half-assed answers; I only want to hear about the details if you have strong proof. Do you understand? If this is someone close to me, I’m not going to confront them or make a big scene if I don’t have hard evidence.”
“Do you mean strong proof toward the woman that works for the dating site, or everyone I’m looking into?”
“Everyone!” I screamed at him. “I’m not going to confront someone about their lies and tricks if I don’t have all the facts. Come to me with facts or don’t come to me at all. Now, I think you should go. I appreciate your help – let me know when you have proof.”
I was steaming with anger by the time Josh walked the investigator out of my house. Never had I even thought about the idea the some of the people closest to me could be part of what was going on. It really pissed me off and I was going to destroy whomever was after me as soon as I knew who it was.
Chapter Seventeen
Delilah
“Come here, take a SnapChat photo with me,” Mattie said as we waited for the staff meeting that morning.
“God, Mattie, you need to get over all this social media stuff. Does anyone even follow you?”
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“Hey, I’ve got several hundred followers.”
“Fine, take the photo.”
I leaned over our cubicle so she could snap her picture. As usual, instead of taking one photo, Mattie continued trying to take the photo with random filters. What should have taken three seconds stretched into three minutes in her search for the perfect photo for her social media account.
“Delilah, this man is here to see you,” my boss Robert said from behind me.
As I turned around, my face was hip level to Robert and another man in a suit. Both men took a step back as I stood up to make the interaction a little less awkward. I wasn’t expecting a visitor and really had no idea why this guy would be at my office to talk with me.
“Hi, I’m Carlos Rodriguez; I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Is this related to the hacker we have had? I think we finally fixed those errors, and I don’t see any other issues.”
“No, ma’am, this is a personal issue.”
Suddenly, I was worried. My heart jumped in my chest as I looked frantically between my supervisor and this man. I didn’t do illegal things or anything that required someone to question me. My life was extremely boring – more than boring, it was lame. I held my hands close to my body as I tried to calm myself down before going with the man to answer his questions.
“You can use my office,” Robert said.