Perfect Match Read online

  Moose finished loading up the food tray and set it on a rolling cart that he would take in to Henry and his workers. “I wish you hadn’t asked me that, Jake. I really do. I’m on Beezer’s side. I can see that’s going against your grain here, so after I take this food into the office, I can pack my gear and be out of here in thirty minutes. Think about it and give me your decision when I get back. We have finally reached a point where the rubber is meeting the road. I’m too old for this kind of shit. Like I said, think long and hard before I get back.”

  Guy talk. Down-and-dirty talk. Moose would never talk or say things like he’d just said in front of anyone else. That alone told Jake that Moose was more serious than he’d ever seen him. Rubber meeting the road, fish or cut bait time. Crap!

  Jake pushed his plate to the middle of the table. He turned his chair around and headed for the back door. On a hook was a plaid car robe that he threw over his shoulders. He was seething as he opened the door, pushed it aside, and propelled his chair out onto the deck and the ramp he’d had installed, which would take him down to the yard, where he could sit closer to Mother Nature than up on the deck. He needed to calm down, and he needed to calm down now, before things got so far out of control there would be no hope of recovery.

  His sister was right. Moose was right. He was wrong. Dead wrong. There was no halfway mark, no wiggle room. This was look-it-in-the-face-and-deal-with-it. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. End of story.

  He was an unmitigated bastard. No doubt about it. Who wouldn’t be if they were in his position? Jake knew that kind of thinking was a cop-out, so he backtracked. The doctors, the surgeons, the therapists said it was okay for him to feel sorry for himself. For a little while. He knew in his gut a little while didn’t mean three years. They’d all told him he had to face his demons and get on with his life. That he had years and years ahead of him. Yeah, yeah, what they didn’t say was how bleak-looking those years were going to be. They weren’t sitting in this goddamn chair like he was. Excuses! Excuses!

  Throw caution to the winds, go for the operation, forgo the drugs afterward, go with Tylenol or Aleve. They’d tried to tell him that, but he’d refused their advice and asked for the painkillers until he got addicted. Never mind that he slept eighteen hours out of twenty-four. Stupid is as stupid does. And now it was front and center and biting his butt.

  What did he know about the matchmaking game? Not a damn thing. Beezer knew that, and yet she’d turned her business, a very lucrative business, over to him. She’d even taken an extra step and hired someone to help him. How much more fair and responsible could a person be? And she’d paid him back for all the times he’d invested in job opportunities for her. Plus interest. Don’t forget the interest she paid you, Jake, he again cautioned himself in his thoughts. Fair-minded, responsible Beezer.

  Jake felt his throat start to close up, and his eyes began burning. Was this the end of his and Beezer’s relationship? Obviously, and he was just holding out for the impossible. Thirty-six unanswered texts told him all he needed to know. He blew it, and he knew it. He also knew no matter what he did, even if he groveled, that Beezer was done with him. His little sister was done with him. It hurt. God, how it hurt. And he had no one to blame but himself. “Okay, I own it all,” he bellowed, as his words were carried away on the wind.

  Jake heard the kitchen door open. He didn’t turn around because in his mind he knew he’d see Moose with his suitcase in hand. He raised a hand and waved as he stared across the yard at a row of privet hedges that were thicker and more secure than a chain-link or wooden fence. It was all about his privacy.

  “Well!” the single word was like a thunderclap. Jake turned his chair around, steeling himself for the sight of Moose and his suitcase. He blinked when he didn’t see it. He felt so light-headed he almost blacked out.

  “Okay. You win! I was wrong all the way down the line. Call Dr. Frey and schedule an appointment for me. And while you’re at it, schedule an appointment with the shrink, what’s her name . . . Ardeth . . . Ardeth Ames. Did Calvin get here yet?”

  “Calvin is in the gym waiting for you. I think you need to make those appointments yourself, Jake. That way, when you cancel them like you’ve done dozens of times before, you can’t blame me for it.” Moose turned on his heel and entered the house. His fist shot high in the air. Maybe this time. Maybe this time Jake would actually go through with it all. Maybe there was something to this tough-love business everyone talked about after all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  “Just a damn minute, Moose!” Jake shrilled, but Moose was already in the house. He heard the door slam shut. Moose was probably hiding out somewhere, which meant Jake was going to have to make the calls and actually talk to the nurses himself. “Okay, you whiny puke, just do it and get it over and done with.”

  He did it.

  Then he struggled to reach the calendar hanging on the pantry door. He put large red Xs on the dates for the appointment, along with the times. Done! He’d committed, whiny puke that he was.

  Jake whirled the chair around and headed for the gym, where Calvin was waiting to work his ass to the bone. He drew a deep breath and made a promise to himself that he would give one hundred percent to the workout.

  Calvin Winters took one look at Jake, and his first thought was Oh, shit! Something happened, and I’m going to have to deal with this guy all day long.

  He was stunned when Jake yanked his sweatshirt over his head and said, “I hope you had a good night, Cal. I’m ready when you are. Just so you know, I just, five minutes ago, scheduled an appointment to speak with the surgeon, and made an appointment for a workup. I’ll need a report from you to take with me.”

  “Ah . . . well, good for you, Jake. Sure, no problem. When do you need it?”

  “Next week. Friday is my appointment. We good?”

  “We’re good, Jake. Congratulations!”

  “Aren’t you going to say it?” Jake needled.

  “Say what?”

  “The same thing Moose always says, ‘Are you going to cancel it?’ ”

  “Why would I say that? I’m taking you at your word. If you say you’re going to do it, then I believe you. To think otherwise would mean you’re a liar, and I do not think you are a liar. What I think is you’re scared, and guess what, man. You have every right to be scared out of your wits. But, even a slim chance you can walk is better than no chance. So, having said that, get your ass in gear and let’s make you sweat. You know the drill. Who’s the boss here in this room?”

  “You are!” Jake said, shooting off a sharp salute.

  “And . . . ?”

  “I do what you say, when you say it, and how you say it,” Jake said smartly.

  “Then let’s do it!”

  At the end of the three-hour session, Jake was ready to cry he hurt so bad. But he’d done everything Calvin had asked plus more. “Whiny puke my ass,” he muttered over and over as he made his way to the kitchen for lunch. He was starved, since he hadn’t eaten his breakfast. He hoped he didn’t fall asleep in the middle of the homemade vegetable soup Moose was making.

  Chapter Six

  Gracie Sweet let herself in to Beth’s house a little after nine o’clock. She’d lollygagged, an expression her mother used to use all the time when she was too slow doing something or other. She simply was in no hurry to turn on the computer to assess the damage she knew was unfolding. Just thinking about it was scary enough for her, visualizing a nightmare come to life.

  Postponing the inevitable moment, Gracie opened one of the garden doors and let Gizmo out. She left the door ajar so he could get back in on his own. Sometimes Giz was quick, and other times he liked to meander in the hopes of treeing a squirrel. She made coffee, then dropped some shrimp flakes into the fish tank. She always spent a few minutes tapping on the tank and talking to the fish. Beth used to do the same thing.

  It was just way too quiet in here. But did she really want to turn on the surround sound and drown in country-western
music? Maybe what she needed to listen to was some crazy rap music to get her dander up. She hated rap music. Golden oldies? Too schmaltzy, reminded her too much of Alex. Maybe a little jazz with some moody Miles Davis. Nah. A stupid game show on TV. No—Beth said all those shows were fixed, so why waste her time. How Beth came by that information she had no clue. It was probably just her own opinion. In the end, she wasn’t going to watch or listen to any game show, so the thought was moot.

  Gracie heard the garden door click and knew Gizmo was inside. “Did you lock it?” she shouted. A sharp bark was the affirmative response. “Good boy!”

  Coffee cup in hand, Gracie walked around to her desk. She hesitated a moment before she sat down. She looked around, knowing she would probably never view this room the same way again once she turned on the computer. She hated change. Of any kind. And yet, that’s what life was all about, change.

  Gracie pressed the button that took the computer out of sleep mode and waited for it to boot up. She stared across at the colorful fish swimming so lazily in their home. And then it hit her—the phone wasn’t ringing. That was part of the silence. The phone should have been ringing off the hook. Mandy and Callie had said they had to take the phone off the hook, or they would lose their minds. And yet the office phones, of which there were four along with two different fax numbers, were silent. None of them were ringing, not the office phones or the 800 number. She reached over and picked up the receivers, one by one, to see if there was a dial tone. There was.

  Coffee cup cradled in both her hands, Gracie leaned back in her special ergonomic chair and closed her eyes as she thought about Perfect Match’s successes and failures. Who was disgruntled enough to hack into their system? A client? A competitor? Who?

  The name Luke Olsen hit her right between the eyes. When Perfect Match was just a dream on paper for her and Beth, they had contacted an architect to redesign the back end of the house to create the spacious office that was now the headquarters of Perfect Match. Beth said they had to do it right, or her brother would have a fit, so that meant hiring an architect and a construction company, because the house, a gift from Beth’s brother, would keep him happy. She followed that up with, “If he even cares enough about me to stop by to check on me or his gift of the house.” To Gracie’s knowledge, the brother had never stopped by.

  Luke Olsen was a super good-looking hunk. She remembered how she and Beth both had giggled and primped as they flirted with him. More Beth than her. At the time, Beth had been on the outs with John, and she said it was okay to flirt a little, and besides, it was time John stopped taking her for granted. So it was mainly to make him jealous. It worked, too. For Beth. Luke still flirted with her; then, as time went on and Beth told him to cool it, he got nasty. Maybe nasty wasn’t the right word. Maybe sassy, snarly, something along those lines.

  Suddenly, both Beth and she, along with the contractor, had started seeing another side of Luke Olsen. The contractor had threatened to walk off the job unless Olsen started treating him with respect. Beth found herself in a sticky situation where she had to confront Olsen and lay it on the line. Either he toed the mark, her mark, or he was fired.

  At that point, the job was almost complete except for painting and a few cosmetic touches. All the inspections had been done, and she’d gotten the COO, so Beth wrote him a check, thinking that was the end of her business with Luke Olsen.

  And in a way it was the end; Olsen cashed the check, and she and Beth painted the room themselves. They placed the new furniture where they wanted it, installed the fish tank themselves, then hooked up all the equipment.

  How Olsen found out what kind of business they were in was to this day still a mystery. As it turned out, he was one of their very first clients, only he came to them with a different name. The name he filled out on his online profile sheet said he was Phil Parsons, an electrical engineer who owned his own firm. He paid five thousand dollars with a certified bank check in the name of Phil Parsons for his platinum status, which guaranteed him seventeen meet-and-greets.

  After five meet-and-greets with no second dates, she and Beth both decided something was off. They discreetly interviewed the five women who had met with him and they all told them the same thing—that all he wanted to talk about was Perfect Match and the woman who ran it. He also broke the first rule of the company, which was on the first meet-and-greet, the couple went dutch. He always insisted, the women said, on paying the entire bill. He also always ordered the most expensive wine or champagne. All of the women thought he was trying to impress them. None of them were impressed, however. They also said he looked good, smelled good, had impeccable manners, but there was no promise of anything. One of the women summed it up by saying that Phil Parsons was the closest thing to a robot that she’d ever come across, and they were all thankful when he never called a second time.

  That was when Beth decided to contact two old childhood friends, twin brothers who were lawyers and had investigators at their disposal. She hired one, and when the report came back, needless to say they were both stunned. Phil Parsons was actually Luke Olsen.

  Gracie squeezed her eyes shut as she recalled how the two of them panicked when they read the report. In the end, the twin lawyers, Andy and Artie, had sent Luke Olsen a registered letter to his parents’ architectural firm telling him that they were refunding his check in the amount of five thousand dollars because he’d misrepresented himself and broken the rules everyone who used the services of Perfect Match had agreed to. All Beth could say over and over was how could someone so good-looking, with a legitimate profile like his, turn out to be such a skunk?

  Gracie and Beth over time more or less forgot about Luke Olsen as their business took off like a rocket, and they were both working sixteen to eighteen hours a day. Their clients were ecstatic with the matches Beth and she arranged. The money poured in faster than they could count it. Word of mouth brought them clients in droves, in all age categories.

  Two years and three months later, Beth started experiencing panic attacks. She said she thought someone followed her when she went anywhere. She said her cell phone, which she kept on her night table, would ring late at night, but no one spoke when she clicked it on. Twice she said she thought she saw someone in the backyard early in the evening and once a little before dawn. She was adamant that someone was watching her. She begged Gracie to leave Gizmo with her.

  Back they went to the twin lawyers and their special investigator. The first person they homed in on was Luke Olsen. It took them all of three weeks to corner him and call the police. Beth was able to take out a restraining order on Olsen, but she continued to have regular panic attacks.

  It was with Gracie’s encouragement that Beth followed her dream and went to Nashville. She told her she needed to get away from Garden Grove, Luke Olsen, and her brother, Jake being the one at the core of her misery. Beth didn’t fight her; she was more than ready to head to a safer climate. Other than telling her brother that she was leaving, and that only at the last minute, her departure was a secret.

  And now this. Gracie was convinced that this latest mess had to be Luke Olsen. No one else had a vendetta against either her or Beth. She shivered at the thought and what lay ahead for Perfect Match.

  Gracie was off her chair in a second and running around to Beth’s desk. She yanked open the bottom drawer and pulled out a file with a big red X on the front. She flipped through the pages before going back to the cover profile to refresh her memory.

  Luke Olsen, aka Phil Parsons, was definitely a good-looking guy.

  Gracie looked at the four pictures in the file. One was of Luke in a kayak; he was the outdoor sports type. The second was Luke in a designer power suit that looked like it was made for him. The third picture was a younger version of him with his parents, who were just as attractive as Luke was. The last picture was of him in his running gear, spandex shorts, muscle shirt, and a sweatband around his forehead. According to his profile, he was six foot three, 190 pounds. Said h
e worked out every day and ran twenty-five miles on weekends. He was an architect by training, drove a Porsche, and belonged to two different health clubs. The overall impression was he was a playboy who worked or pretended to work at his own firm. A stand-up guy, according to Beth’s original note penned in the margin. Later, Beth penned another note in the margin: not a stand-up guy.

  Beth had penciled on a red flag No second dates with the same person. When Beth had discreetly asked the women how the dates went, they’d merely shrugged and said Phil Parsons, whose real name was Luke Olsen, was like a shiny red apple, but when you bit into it, it wasn’t as good as the outside, or words to that effect. “No substance” was another comment. “All eye candy, nothing under the veneer” was another comment. And he refused to follow the rules, insisting on paying for everything. Another red flag penciled in by Beth. Nothing positive, no other notes written by Beth as feedback.

  Gracie kept flipping the pages. Luke, aka Phil, had paid for seventeen meet-and-greets, before she and Beth discovered who he really was and cut him off at the knees. Gracie squeezed her eyes shut. That was about the time that they had started to hear ugly rumors about their company, rumors they had to hustle to squelch. They’d burned the candle at both ends as they sought to set up individual as well as group meetings to discuss the ugly rumors that someone was spreading. They organized parties, get-togethers, meet-and-greets till they were like zombies. But, finally, they were able to put a lid on it all. Then came a quiet time for a few months. Yes, they’d lost some clients, but they picked up some new ones, too. And then the dark stuff hit the fan with Beth, who said she was being stalked. It had gotten so bad at one point that she asked to take Gizmo for protection. And now this.

  Gracie stared at the screen in front of her. She should have been looking at the company’s home page with a couple holding hands. Instead, she saw an animated lightning bolt with the words Dead in the Water, which rolled over and over.