Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,49
The price of a new plate-glass window seems heavy on her mind.”
“Hmm.” Max tents his fingers. “I’ll look into it later. Someone in her life may be caught up in this drama.”
“It's possible,” I concede.
“You know what this means, right? You have to stay sharp where she’s concerned.”
“Yeah, that’s starting to sink in.” I need to find The Plumber and figure out who’s trying to wreck the pie shop. And I can’t let myself be distracted by the pretty lady in the kitchen. It’s not good for my concentration, and it’s not fair to her, either.
The waiter approaches with a tray, and Max is forced to set our backgammon game aside to make room for our lunch. “I suppose I can finish you off later.”
“You know it.” I place my napkin in my lap. “Let’s eat some stuffy rich dude food first. This lobster bisque is barking my name.”
Max gives me a funny smile and picks up his spoon.
We never do finish that backgammon game, though. Instead, we head upstairs to the club’s library—where computers are permitted—and sit down to spend some quality time looking up all the details of Posy’s life.
First I focus on her father. Nothing much to see there. He sold his grandparents’ restaurant and cashed out. He owns a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and a home in Southampton.
Posy’s mother lives in Paris with her new boyfriend. They don’t look very interesting, either.
Then I look for dirt on Spalding Whittmer Jr. and Saroya. Usually you can’t get anywhere if you don’t have a last name, but Saroya is an unusual enough name that I find her right away. She used to be a real estate broker in Brooklyn. Her picture is still on their web page.
Meanwhile, Max is digging into Posy’s finances. “You were right. Your rich girl isn’t a rich girl anymore,” he says when he finds Posy’s mortgage documents. “She’s increased her debt load twice.”
Looking over his shoulder, it’s pretty hard to deny it. Posy borrowed money to buy out her sister a few years ago. And then she increased her burden again when she had to sign over the adjacent building to her ex.
“Her divorce lawyer should be disbarred,” I whisper. She lost a big chunk of her inheritance to her asshole ex. “I think she’s supporting her sister, too.”
“Really? Why?”
I shrug. “Seems like daddy disowned Ginny when she had a kid with a criminal.”
“What kind of criminal?”
I jot down a note to figure that out.
“Still,” Max muses. “Posy could sell that building and walk away with some cash in her pocket.”
“She doesn’t want to. It’s the one part of her old life that she wants to save. Her ex is having a kid with his new piece. Posy practically sets herself on fire every time they walk into the place.” I feel a spark of anger just mentioning them. Usually I don't get all emotional over a background check. But her ex is such a tool.
Besides, I used to think Posy was spoiled. If I’m honest, I disliked her for it. She hadn’t worked a real job before that summer at the bar. And she never had the crushing student loan debt that I did. Everything seemed so easy for her.
I’m starting to realize it’s not.
“Posy’s business is drowning?” Max asks.
“Struggling against the current, anyway. It isn’t easy to run a small business in that expensive neighborhood. Her taxes are high. She needs a new roof, and the bricks need repointing. The place is worth millions, but only on paper.”
“Messy,” Max says.
“Yep.” But Posy shows up with a smile every morning at five to make pies and pastries for other people. She’s inspiring, damn it.
“Do you think the ex-husband could be dirty?” Max asks. “Maybe he has a Windows laptop and an unfortunate connection to the Turkish mafia.”
“I’ll check him out. But he seems too clueless to be secretly dropping secrets on the dark web. His new woman, though …” I trail off, trying to decide what to say about her. “She's different. Icy. Pushing her own agenda. She spends a lot of time in the pie shop. Almost like she’s flaunting it. I’m looking at her, too.”
“Cool,” Max says. “You never know.”
I go back to my work, spending a few minutes on Saroya. For a young person, she’s had a string of jobs, including the real estate gig. Before that, she managed a car wash in the Far Rockaways. Then the trail goes dark.