Page 53 of Gross Misconduct

“And nice touch about the engagement. I’m not sure it was necessary to take our arrangement that far, but you do seem dedicated. I like a dedicated employee.”

“It was Jeremy’s idea. To mitigate any Orla damage.”

“At least he’s finally using the head on his shoulders, and not the other one.” He got up to leave and glanced over at Chloe again. “Is this the team dog?”

“No. As far as I know, we don’t have a team dog.”

“A service dog?”

“No. She’s my dog. And before you say anything, I looked into the building and Kodiak policies, and nothing prevented me from having a dog here.”

“You are thorough. Well, she’s cute. We should make her the team dog.”

Chloe opened both eyes at that, and we watched Clay saunter out.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jeremy

We had the afternoon to ourselves in Minneapolis, and part of me wanted to reach out to Jill’s mom and see who she was. I’d done some snooping and found her on Facebook. Her entire profile consisted of vacation pictures with her boyfriend. You wouldn’t even know she had a daughter because she didn’t have a single picture of Jill. Not one.

I studied Laura Bowman’s face for a long time. Jill looked similar to her, with the same blue eyes, but her mom’s hair was a faded blonde, and she clearly spent too much time in the sun. Her skin was more wrinkled and leathery than it should be for a woman in her mid-fifties.

But I hadn’t come to see Jill’s mom. I had someone else I wanted to see, and we met at a coffee shop near my hotel. I hadn’t told Jill about it because I knew she’d tell me not to do this, or worse, be pissed off, but I had to. After she’d told me about her father, I’d hired someone to look for him. I hadn’t even told Ethan about it because I knew he’d tell Tangi, then Tangi would tell Jill. And that couldn’t happen.

The PI I’d hired hadn’t taken long to find Bill Rebchuk. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Jill didn’t have the same last name as her father. He’d walked out on her when she was so young, so why should she carry his name? The PI had emailed me a file with all the information about Bill Rebchuk. He worked as a bus driver and had remarried years ago. He had another family—a girl and a boy—but his second wife had divorced him four years ago. He lived in an apartment, and from what my PI could ascertain, spent a lot of time hanging out at a sports bar, drinking and playing cards. He’d led an unremarkable life, which didn’t surprise me one bit.

I’d reached out to him two weeks ago. I told him I was a friend of Jill’s and would be in town and wanted to meet him. He hadn’t seemed interested at first, so I asked him a few questions about why he hadn’t contacted her. He blamed his ex—Laura—but I couldn’t tell if that was true or not. I then asked him if he wanted an update on Jill and what she was doing. He said he wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t believe this asshole. How could he not want to know about his oldest child? I was going to write the whole thing off, but then he’d called me back and agreed to meet. And here I was waiting for him, wondering if he’d actually show.

I was reading the news on my phone when he took the seat across from me. I looked up and saw a haggard man in his late fifties. The years hadn’t been kind to him. He was dressed in his blue bus uniform and reeked of stale cigarettes. He was wearing a cap and sniffed a few times from the cold. He looked tired, and I couldn’t find much of Jill in him. Maybe the nose? He was also tall and had blue eyes, so maybe some of that? Though his blue eyes were darker and dead-looking.

“Hi. You must be Bill?”

“Yup,” he said in a gruff voice, made gruffer from a lifetime of smoking. “You’re Jeremy Vaughn. I know who you are.”

I hadn’t expected that. Not once had he given me the impression he knew who I was. “Can I get you a coffee? A donut?” His thin frame could use a donut or two.

“Yeah. Extra-large coffee with double cream. And a blueberry muffin. Butter on the side.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.”

I went to the counter and requested his order. As the barista put it together, I glanced back at him, and he’d pulled out his phone and was reading something. The barista handed me the coffee, and muffin and I headed back to the table. I gave him the items and sat back down. Bill put his phone away and tore the top off the muffin and popped a chunk of it in his mouth.

“Does Jilly know you’re here?”

The fact he had an affectionate name for her was kind of sick. The man hadn’t made contact with her for twenty-plus years, and still had a pet name? He could go fuck himself.

“She doesn’t,” I said.

“Figures. Laura, her mother, is a real piece of work. After I left, she decided to punish me by not letting me see my kid. Then she poisoned her against me.”

His story already wasn’t adding up. Jill was barely out of toddlerhood when he’d left. How could Laura poison her? “Why didn’t you go to court for custody or at least visitation rights?”

“With what money? After I left, I lost my job. Laura and I were young when we got married, so there was nothing to split but debt. Eventually, I gave up.”

It didn’t make sense to me. How could you give up on your kid? Unless he didn’t want to pay child support. Jill had never mentioned her father taking care of her financially. “Why didn’t you try to connect with her when she got older?”

He shrugged dismissively. “I remarried and started a newfamily. Angie, my second wife, didn’t want anything to do with Jill or Laura, so I didn’t try. If you knew Angie, you’d understand why. She made life hell for me too. Always breaking my balls.”

---