Page 17 of Fierce-Zander

He knew she liked to help out, but he’d never put her in danger. He was very selective in what he let her do and she never argued if he’d said no.

“Make a list of things you think need some more work or might have gotten stale. I’ve always got cases open with not much going on or that are ongoing.”

There were criminal cases that families hired him to look into. Most times there wasn’t much to see or find, but he’d keep them open if they had anything else to report. He had a lot of work he was doing for law firms now too, not just Trent.

Companies wanting background checks done that they didn’t want to pay some big corporation to run but rather know they could call and talk to someone and get more information if needed too.

“Will do,” Betsy said and left his office.

He was just getting ready to open a file to look at when he glanced up to see Garrett Fierce in the doorway.

It was one of those days where nothing was going to get done.

“Garrett,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

Garrett walked in and shut his office door. Hmm, didn’t look like a social call.

“I’ve got a company that is expressing interest in one of the office spaces at the new building.”

There was a second building under construction a few miles away that was bigger than the one he was in but was going to operate the same.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’ve talked with Grant and the other partners about this. We’ve never wanted to turn business away and this company would take up a whole floor.”

“Even better,” he said. There was one company on the top floor of this building too.

“But some of their business feels a little questionable to me,” Garrett said. “Maybe I just don’t have a good enough understanding of it. Not sure. Olsens was good with you looking into this. They don’t have the time but would like to know what they could. The Kennedys and McCarthys, they know construction, not information technology.”

He’d met the other three owners of the building. He was assuming all tenants did at one point or another. Of course, he knew the Kennedys well since he all but grew up in their house, but the Olsens and McCarthys were new to him.

“Give me their name,” he said. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find. When do you need the information?”

“A week or so if possible?” Garrett said. “I’ve been able to put off giving them a tour until then. No reason to waste our time if we aren’t sure we want them in the building.”

“Are you looking to see why they are moving or the business itself?” he asked.

“Both. I’m not sure what they do and it seems odd to me, but I can’t make sense of it. But, when I’ve searched Indeed, there are a lot of employee complaints.”

He laughed. “That is common and not usually a reason not to rent to someone.”

“Agreed,” Garrett said. “But, there was some talk about messes in the offices and tempers of the owners and destructive behavior.”

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll do a reference check on it and see what their last landlord says.”

“Already called there,” Garrett said. “Five times. They aren’t returning my calls.”

Which meant there might be something to hide. “I’ll get on this today and see what I can find.”

“Thanks,” Garrett said.

Zander was shocked there was no talk about finding him a nice young woman or working too hard and needing a personal life.

He got up and walked out to Betsy’s desk and explained what was going on. “Can you work on this first before you get to the rest of what you need today? Just see if you can get any information from the databases first.”

He paid through the nose to be a member to all sorts of databases for criminal activities and personal information that was somewhat public knowledge—if you paid for it—on businesses and people alike.

“I should have some results by this afternoon if there is anything to be found. But I know you want a bigger search.”

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