“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?”
“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.
Worry filled every pore of my body as I followed them. I hated being in trouble. I’d purposely been a really good child just to avoid any sort of need to talk to me or punish me. As an adult, I lived by pretty much the same theory. I didn’t break the law, I didn’t hang around others who broke the law, and I did my best to avoid situations like the one I was currently walking into.
“We will just need fifteen minutes or so,” the man said to Robert.
“Take your time,” he replied in a nicer voice than I had heard from him in years.
“So, Miss Hunter, I’ve just got a few questions for you and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Okay. Sure. I’ll answer what I can.”
My nervousness had taken over and I felt small beads of sweat at my temples that I tried to ignore. My fingers shook and I held them together in an effort to calm them, but it didn’t work.
“Do you know a Brandon Baker?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know him?”