Lauren's phone buzzed in her pocket while she was talking to Omar, but she didn't answer it. She never answered her phone when she was with a client, and kept her phone on silent so she wouldn't be disturbed by the ringing, but the vibration would remind her to check later.
Her landline wasn't taking any calls, either; she'd told reception not to transfer them and to take messages. Her entire attention was focused on her client when she was with them, because the client was paying for her time.
Of course, Omar wasn't just any client off the street. His ex-girlfriend sat in the cubicle outside her office. She and Rachel had talked about whether to meet him together, but Rachel had declined, citing confidentiality, but most likely not wanting to let her past feelings for the man interfere with their investigation of his present-day problem. If Rachel had to use her skills in forensic accounting for this file, she would, but otherwise she wouldn't be talking with the client, not after that awkward phone call on Tuesday.
"Let's start at the beginning," she said, starting a fresh pad of paper. She liked to use a fresh pad for each new client; she loved the feel and smell of the paper and glue of the pad, because they put her in the frame of mind she needed to take in a new client's details and the nature of their problem. "We'll start with your name and address, plus a phone number and email where we can contact you, preferably not a work email. We'll get all this entered in our database later."
She pushed the pad to Omar, who used his own pen to write the details. As he did, Lauren examined the man, who was their age but engaged to a younger woman. She imagined what he might have looked like as a teenager, and pictured him and teenage Rachel making love for the first time. Would it have been awkward and lovely at the same time, as it had been with her and Joe? As first times went, he would have been a memorable candidate, with his chiselled jaw, olive skin, deep brown eyes and runner's build, which Lauren wondered how he found the time to maintain when he worked long hours at a hospital. He didn't have kids, so maybe that was one distraction gone.
He passed the pad back, and she began. "So, you mentioned you work at Surrey Memorial Hospital?"
"That's right," he said.
"And there's a colleague at the hospital you suspect of wrongdoing?"
"Yes. He's not only violating the Canada Health Act, he's taking advantage of vulnerable people."
Lauren paused and looked up from her jotting. "Wouldn't you rather bring this to the police?"
"I don't have proof to bring them."
"What about the College of Physicians and Surgeons? Don't they do disciplinary work with less of a threshold for proof?"
"Again, same problem. I need someone who can follow him and keep an eye on him outside the hospital. I'm almost certain he's meeting his clients off-site. If we can catch him in the act, we can bring that proof to whichever authority he deserves to face."
She thought about that and nodded. "Here's what I'd like to know: how did you begin to suspect him in the first place?"
Omar cleared his throat and looked away for a moment. He didn't answer.
Lauren waited. Police and investigators of all stripes found this to be the most effective of interview/interrogation skills. People hated silences; they felt the need to fill them.
He turned back to her and asked, "Do you really need to know how? Isn't it enough that I hire you to find proof of such?"
Lauren sat back and stared hard at him. "Is this why you don't go to the police with this? I take it you're protecting a source?"
"You could say that."
"Can I take a guess?"
Omar looked away again.
Lauren said, "Your colleague's wife talks in her sleep."
Omar remained silent, jaw clenched. Poor Fatima, Lauren thought. Did she know she was marrying an adulterer? Not that she could judge. She just hoped Omar's reasoning for blowing the whistle on his colleague wasn't so he could have unfettered access to his wife. Where would that leave Fatima, who'd been so proud to be engaged to such an eligible man who was, supposedly, also a devout Muslim?
"Okay, fine," she said. "Is there a name for your errant colleague?"
"Dr. Brian Beckham."
She wrote that down. "Department?"
"Plastic surgery. In the hospital he performs reconstructive surgery on burn victims and other disfigured souls. Outside the hospital, his services are more cosmetic. I wouldn't have any objection to it necessarily, if he wasn't using hospital property unlawfully and putting his patients at risk with where he performs his procedures."
Lauren scribbled some more on her pad and then looked up at him. "Unsanitary?"
"Certainly not sterile environments. Hotels, motels, even home visits if necessary."
She grimaced. "Home visits? Aren't they worried about the mess?"
"Those clients have staff to do the cleaning."
She squinted at him and asked, "Are we talking rich people?"
Omar chuckled. "Of course. Do you think they want to stay in a hospital, among the riff-raff? We don't have private hospitals like they have in the States. You can't buy your way to a private room. And anyway, most people who'd be using his off-the-books services wouldn't want it out there that they were using them. Better to rest and recover somewhere anonymous, where no one suspects you of having gotten work done.
"But some of his clients are people who literally have botox parties. They celebrate the fact that they're getting together and bringing in a certified dispenser to give them their maintenance shots to get rid of their frown lines. They have cocktails and canapes, it's a whole thing."
"Do you have experience in that kind of thing?" she asked.
"Not dispensing it. Are you kidding? I'm a gastroenterologist. I've witnessed first-hand what botulinum toxin does when ingested, and they're happily injecting it under their skin. These are well-documented, though. The College has had to deal with their share of those."
Lauren jotted some more notes down. "Okay. You suspect he does this work off site. If we're going to watch him, we're going to need his work schedule so we're not wasting our time sitting on his car while he's working. We'll also need his home address."
Omar nodded. "I can provide that. How quickly do you think you can begin?"
"We have investigators we can put on a rotation as soon as we get that schedule."
"Will you be one of those investigators? Rachel recommended I talk to you rather than your partner. Because of that, I assume you're the best here."
Lauren grinned. "Flatterer. Yes, I will most likely be on that rotation. Unlike my partners, I still enjoy field work." Right now, Somers and Sanderson, her two other partners, were at the helm of the contract negotiations with the security guards. She was only too happy to leave that work to them and do the work she was good at.
She went over their rates and explained how often he would get reports. Satisfied, Omar wrote a cheque for a retainer, and she printed off a basic contract for them both to sign, one copy for each. He put his copy in his inside jacket pocket, stood and offered his hand. "Very good. I'll look forward to hearing from you soon."
She shook it and said, "Are you off to work now?"
"Yes. I came to you so Dr. Beckham won't have any inkling of what I'm doing."
He left, and Lauren remembered to check her phone. She found a voicemail from Johnny, of all people. Good Lord, what did he want now? The man had already shot himself in the foot yesterday.
She played it, and during Johnny's panicked entreaty for her help, Rachel peeked her head in through the open door. Lauren raised a finger to her indicating she'd just be a minute, then beckoned her in. Rachel quietly closed the door behind her.
"Lauren, it's Johnny," he said. "Um, have you heard from Val at all? I think she came back home after the funeral, but she packed a bag and left, and she left her cell phone on the bed. She didn't come home last night, and I got a voicemail from her saying she was going away for a while, but I don't know where she is, and she hasn't used our credit card to book a hotel room. She didn't stay with you, did she? Anyway, call me back as soon as you can, I'm really worried. Thanks."
Lauren hung up with a sigh of frustration. "Fucking hell," she muttered.
"What's wrong?" Rachel asked.
"Johnny left me a voicemail saying Val's missing."
"Shiiiiit," Rachel said, drawing out the word. "Well, I'm not surprised she left."
"Me neither. Thing is, he asked if she stayed with me, but she didn't. I better phone him back."
Rachel waited patiently while Lauren returned Johnny's call. He answered on the first ring. "Lauren, thank God," he said.
"Johnny, do you know if Val stayed at her parents'?" She knew Val's parents were both still around.
"She didn't. Vic checked last night. I had to tell him everything."
Lauren sighed and said, "Well, it was going to come out eventually after that argument you had yesterday."
"I know. It was almost as if she'd been waiting until Dad was in the ground before really going off on me."
"Johnny, I'm not going to ask why you did it. I can probably guess after hearing Val go off on Joanie."
"All that matters now is that she's safe," he said. "She can decide what she wants to do about me later, but I couldn't live with myself if she did something drastic and got herself into danger."
"Have you thought about calling her friends?"
"I did that too. No one's seen her. You were last on my list because you might have some tricks up your sleeve."
"In the case of a missing person, Johnny, the best thing to do is call the police. They have far more resources than our firm has. They can have a BOLO out to every car in the area looking for her car. She's driving her car, isn't she?"
"I think so. It's not parked at home, anyway."
"But she left her phone at home, is that right?" Lauren asked. Rachel's eyes widened when she heard that.
"Yeah. That's what really worries me. It's like she purposefully doesn't want me to use that Find My Friends app to track her."
"That is concerning, and I think you're right about the reason, going off the grid, or at least not being easily reachable. I think she really wanted a break from her life. Definitely from being your wife, but also from being a mother and a daughter-in-law. She probably thought, 'Now that Pappa's buried, I'm done, and I'm out of here.'"
Johnny was silent for a moment before saying, "She never called him Pappa. That's what she calls her own dad. You're the weirdo in-law."
She chuckled, then asked, "What about your mom, does she know Val's gone?"
He sighed wearily and said, "Yeah. It was the hardest conversation I ever had with her. I'm not her perfect son anymore."
Lauren snorted. "You?"
"Well, at least I wasn't damned to Hell like poor Joe was, until now."
"Poor Joe," she said with mock pathos. "Are you still at her place?"
"Um, no. She actually sent me home. She couldn't bear to have me in her house. Isn't that wonderful? I guess I reminded her too much of Dad."
She barked a laugh and said, "Well, at least you're back in your house."
"It's not the same without Val. I screwed up, Lauren, I really screwed up."
She sighed in resignation and said, "I can't judge you. I haven't acted well, myself. I can't tell you everything will be okay, either. She was hurt by what you did. I think you need to give her space to work out her feelings and decide what she wants to do."
"Like you did for Joe?"
She felt a flare of irritation in her chest. "Sort of, but there were other reasons for him to go. Joanie was laid up--"
"Right, but he was still reachable, right? If she could even call someone other than me, a friend, the boys, anyone, just to let someone know she's okay, I could stop worrying."
"Maybe making you worry is the point. Have you thought of that?"
"Yeah," he said weakly.
"I think at this point you have two options: you can file a missing persons report with the police, or you can give her a little more time and see if she contacts someone. At the very least she might miss Vic and Tilly enough to reach out to them; it would actually be a good strategy, getting them on her side."
"It's already happened. My sons hate me now. They won't ever forgive me if something happens to her."
"I'm sorry. Look, I'll leave you to make the decision. Neither will be easy to do. Keep checking your credit card charges like you've been doing. If she's not staying with friends or family, she has to be in a hotel or motel, unless she's sleeping in her car."
"I couldn't imagine her doing that, but then again there was a lot I couldn't imagine before I went out and did what I did." He sighed. "Okay, thanks, Lauren. I'll let you go."
"Let me know if you hear from her, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks, again. Bye."
He hung up. Lauren looked at the screen for a moment, then put her phone in her pocket with a feeling of foreboding.
"She left her phone at home?" Rachel asked. "I don't like the sound of that."
"I know. Can you believe we all used to walk out of the house without a phone in our pocket? We survived, but I couldn't imagine doing it now."
"It's because we watch too much Dateline."
Lauren began to pace. "If Johnny doesn't call the police today, he should do it tomorrow if Val doesn't contact anybody. I'm worried now."
"Yeah, me too." Rachel ran a hand through her hair and steeled herself for what she would say next.
"What is it?" Lauren asked.
"Okay, don't get mad," Rachel said.
"Why does everyone say that? That's guaranteed to make someone mad."
"You're right, but I didn't tell you in the car on the way here because I thought you might get in another accident."
"Very funny." They carpooled downtown every day, Lauren, Rachel and Al. Last Fall, though, Lauren had flipped her Toyota Highlander while she and Al had been evading another car that had seemed hell-bent on running them off the road. The resulting accident had put Al in a coma for a few weeks, and Lauren had never heard the end of it from Rachel, with good reason, sure, but how long could she keep atoning for something that hadn't been completely her fault? "What is it that will make me so mad?"
Rachel grimaced and said, "Your daughter kissed Logan yesterday."
"What?!" Lauren squawked.
"Before they left for the movie, while they were downstairs. It wasn't a long kiss, apparently, just a quick peck on the lips, just to see if she could do it."
"And you're sure she kissed him, not the other way around?"
Rachel's mouth dropped open. "No. Why?"
"How did you find out about this?"
"Logan told me. He wanted to be completely transparent with me, after I had that talk with him. He knows what a precarious situation he's in, unlike Naomi."
"You better not be slut-shaming my daughter," Lauren said, suddenly hot with irritation. This was new. Rachel never irritated her.
Rachel put her hands up. "Of course not. I love Naomi like my own daughter. Look, it was probably all innocent and juvenile, young people exploring new possibilities. Harpreet kissed him too, if that makes you feel better."
Lauren sighed in frustration. "Fucking hell."
"I think they were trying to one-up each other. Competition between girls for a boy's attention can be vicious."
Lauren shook her head and said, "Why do I feel like I'm watching a train wreck in slow motion?"
"I know," Rachel groaned. "At least he told me."
"And the worst thing is, I can't really do anything about it. Forbidding Naomi from seeing him would only make her want him more!"
"I know. Look, I told you, and that's all I could do on my end. How you deal with this now is between you, Joe and your daughter."
"Yeah," she said, sighing. "I can't do anything now, anyway. Let's get off this topic before I get angry again. Want to talk about Omar?"
"Are you going to need me?"
"I don't think so. At least not at first. Right now it seems like straight-up surveillance. I'll do a standard rotation of investigators."
She nodded, looking relieved.
"I'm afraid poor Fatima isn't marrying the man she thought she was marrying, though," Lauren said. "That's confidential, mind you."
"What?!" Rachel asked, surprised. "What are you saying?"
"I think your ex has been sleeping around, and his suspicions about his colleague arose from pillow talk."
"Oh. I see." Rachel was silent a moment, then she said, "I won't tell Fatima. No need to burst her bubble. I don't even know when I'll see her again, anyway. Let's just hope he finishes sowing his wild oats by the time he marries her."
Lauren nodded. "If it were at all relevant to this case, I wish I could find out how his first wife died."
Rachel frowned. "Jesus, Lauren, you don't think he murdered her, do you? That's not the Omar I knew."
Lauren shrugged. "Maybe you're right."
Rachel stared at her for a moment before asking, "He didn't ask about me, did he?"
"Nope."
"Good. When he called on Tuesday I was worried he was trying to creep back into my life by pretending to have a case."
"From what I gathered, his focus is on this errant colleague."
"Why hire us, though?" Rachel asked. "Why spend the money if it's not really his business?"
Lauren shrugged. "Maybe he's an upstanding citizen and can't bear to see his profession tarnished by the acts of one bad apple?"
"Maybe," Rachel said uncertainly. "Or maybe he has a real beef with the guy and wants him out of the way for another reason."
Lauren plucked Omar's cheque and their copy of the contract off her desk and said, "It's not up to us to make judgements about the motivations of our clients, unless the object of our surveillance would be endangered by us passing on the results of our surveillance to the client. I better get this to accounting and get a file opened."
"Hey, before you go..."
Lauren stopped at the door. "Yeah?"
Rachel touched her arm and said, "Feel like locking the door and having a little fun?"
"Oh. Uh..." She pulled out her phone and looked at her calendar. She might have had some time, but Rachel's comment about Naomi still stung, and thus she didn't feel the usual lust for her today. "Shit, I can't. I have McClain coming soon, and I have to get a rota drawn up for Omar's thing in the free time I have before he comes."
Rachel's face fell. "Oh. Right, yeah."
"I'm really sorry. If Johnny hadn't called I might have had more time--"
"It's okay, really," Rachel said, doing her best to hide her disappointment. "I just... miss you, you know? I miss just being with you."
Traitorously, visions of Joanie, naked and on top of her, filled Lauren's mind, and she had to shake them away before she said, "I miss you too. I'll try to make some time for us soon."
"It's just... you seem to find the time when you want to be with Al; hell, you go to him."
Lauren felt another flare of irritation. Rachel wasn't endearing herself to her today. It killed her to admit this. "I was meeting VPL management. I just happened to be there. And what did you and the Parhars get up to at your house last night, I wonder?"
Rachel sighed in frustration, crossed her arms and looked away.
"Tomorrow," Lauren said in desperation, because the last thing she wanted was her best friend and lover mad at her. "I should have some free time tomorrow. I promise I won't be on surveillance on Omar's guy tomorrow. I'll save it for Saturday, because it's my day to work."
Rachel shrugged sullenly and said, "Okay. I'm sorry for being so needy."
Lauren offered her arms to her, and Rachel stepped into them. "I still fucking love you, okay?" she said.
"Okay. I still fucking love you too," Rachel said, squeezing her hard. Just to give her a little more physical reassurance, Lauren kissed her hard on the mouth, and Rachel melted into her.
When they unlocked, Lauren said, "I really wish I could go to that play with you guys on Saturday, it sounds like a lot of fun."
"Yeah. It's just me, Al and Emma, though. All of my friends are busy this weekend. I'll get you a gift from the gift shop, though. Something Shakespearean."
"Aw, you don't have to do that."
"Don't deny me my right to buy things at a gift shop."
"Okay, fair enough," Lauren said, chuckling. "Now, come on, we need to get back to work."
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