Deadly Rivalry (Hardy Brothers Security Book 17) (12 page)

“
O
kay
, we’ve got a lot of background here so everyone needs to get comfortable,” Grady said the next morning, tossing a heap of files onto the dining room table and glancing at the assembled faces. “Mandy and James should not get comfortable because I cannot watch them pet each other for three hours straight.”

“Mind your own business,” James ordered, refusing to remove his hand from the back of Mandy’s head. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Yet,” Grady said. “You’re not doing anything yet. We all know that will change when your hands decide to wander and Mandy does that breathy whispering thing she thinks no one notices.”

“I don’t get breathy,” Mandy shot back, offended. “That’s like a stripper thing or something, isn’t it?”

“Don’t look at me,” James said, trying to hide his smirk and failing miserably. “I’ve never been around a stripper so I have no idea what one would sound like.”

Finn barked out a laugh as Jake rolled his eyes.

“That is the biggest pile of crap I’ve heard in my entire life,” Grady said. “Mandy doesn’t care if you’ve hung around with strippers.”

“James was a virgin when we met the second time,” Mandy supplied, her eyes twinkling. “He told me so and I believe him.”

James wasn’t thrilled with the “virgin” reference, but she was so perky this morning he was willing to put up with an endless stream of ribbing to keep her happy. “I was a virgin at that point in time. There’s no doubt about that.”

“So … what … he was a virgin the second time you met him but not the first?” Grady challenged. “You know he slept with at least three girls in high school, right? Do you want to know how I know that? We shared a room in the old house.”

James scowled. “Why? Why do you have to bring things like that up?”

“Because you two need shaking up occasionally,” Grady replied, unperturbed. “Mandy knows darned well you weren’t a virgin. For the record, Mandy wasn’t a virgin when you got together either.”

“Now I’m going to have to beat you,” James said. “I’d start running now.”

“We’ll play that game during our lunch break,” Grady said. “We have a lot of information to go through and I think Jake should start.”

“What does Jake have?” James asked, intrigued.

“I have the first eighteen years of her life, and there’s some interesting stuff here,” Jake said. “First off, Madeline Stokes lied about her age. She was actually thirty-three, not thirty.”

“You were dating an older woman,” Finn said, making a face. “Gross.”

“Yes, we all know I do better when they’re younger,” James said, tweaking Mandy’s nose. “Not that I don’t find that tidbit fascinating – and I’m actually sad I didn’t know about it because it would’ve made it easier messing with Madeline on that last day – but what does that have to do with the bigger picture?”

“I’m getting to it,” Jake said. “Don’t ruin my moment.”

“I’m sorry,” James said, holding his hands up. “I would hate to ruin your moment.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Ally,” Grady said. “She did that ‘don’t ruin my moment’ thing all the time when she was a teenager. In fact, Mandy picked it up there for a few months, too.”

“Somehow Ally could always pull it off and I couldn’t,” Mandy lamented. “Ah, well. Jake is kind of cute. He’s starting to look more and more like Ally. He’s like one of those dogs who starts resembling his owner that people post photos of on Facebook.”

“Are you guys finished messing with me?” Jake asked, his eyes flashing.

“We are,” James said. “What do you have?”

“Madeline Stokes is not a real person,” Jake said. “She goes back fifteen years and that’s why she didn’t trip any immediate alarms, but she was born Marilyn Sennet. She lived with her parents in Pleasant Ridge – and they were quite affluent – until the mother emptied out the family bank accounts and took off with a local contractor when Marilyn was fourteen.”

“Nice,” Finn said. “I love it when the rich prove they can do something white trashy like the rest of us.”

“The mother cleaned the father out and he lost the Pleasant Ridge home and moved Marilyn to Royal Oak Township,” Jake said.

“That’s quite the drop in status,” Mandy said. “I’ll bet that was hard on Marilyn because she hung around with affluent white kids and then suddenly found herself living with poor black kids. She probably had issues fitting in with both groups.”

“Right you are, Miss Mandy,” Jake said, causing Mandy and James to exchange an amused look. That was something Ally would’ve said, too. “Marilyn got in quite a few fights and graduated by the skin of her teeth. With no money in the family coffers she had to get a job as a waitress and work her way through community college.”

“She said she went to school to get a business degree,” James interjected.

“Yeah, she went to school to be an actress,” Jake said. “She took every acting class Oakland Community College offered and then dropped out after two years.”

“I’m guessing she took the acting classes because she already knew she wanted to play a part,” Finn said.

“She started the paperwork to change her name the second she turned eighteen,” Jake said. “She became Madeline Stokes right around the time she started attending college. Marilyn was never heard from again. Well, kind of.

“After leaving college Madeline got a job in a law office answering phones,” Jake continued. “There’s not a lot of information to go on during that time period, but a police report was filed against her three months after she started because apparently she slept with her boss and then refused to leave him alone. The reason we didn’t find the restraining order right away is because the court clerk made an error and filed it under Marilyn’s name.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” James said.

“After that Marilyn bounced around in various secretarial jobs,” Jake said. “She lasted about three months in each one … sometimes four if she was lucky … and then moved on to the next one.”

“She slept with someone in the office at every job and then lost it at her three-month mark and had to find another place to hunt for a man,” Grady surmised. “What a whackjob. You sure know how to pick them, James.”

James frowned as Mandy lowered her gaze. “Really?”

“I was talking about your choices before Mandy,” Grady soothed. “Calm down. We all know Mandy is the cream of the James Hardy love crop.”

“I’m seriously going to beat you,” James muttered.

Mandy reached over and squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. I like being the cream of the James Hardy love crop.”

“You’re going to be the cream of … huh. That was going to go to a filthy place even I was uncomfortable with.” James rubbed the back of his neck while everyone else laughed. “Go back to your story while I think of something sexy to say, Jake.”

“Oh, good, they’re already getting to the sexy talk,” Grady muttered.

“I’m going to get to the brother beating if you’re not careful.”

“Promises, promises,” Grady teased, enjoying his role as group entertainer for the afternoon. “Please continue, Jake.”

“Madeline managed to have eight restraining orders put on her by the time she met James,” Jake said. “He lasted the longest of any of her relationships.”

“Congratulations, man,” Grady deadpanned. “You’re an idiot.”

“Now I’m going to thump you, Grady,” Mandy warned.

“When James broke up with Madeline she seriously flipped her lid,” Jake said. “She stalked him to the point where he filed a restraining order. I pulled the order because I was curious, and you’ve been holding out on us, my friend.”

Mandy shifted her eyes to James as he blushed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry or get territorial,” James said, brushing Mandy’s hair away from her face. “Well, to be fair, the territorial thing probably would’ve turned me on. I didn’t want you to worry, though. I honestly thought she was over being psychotic.”

“For those who are curious, Madeline slashed James’ tires, broke the mirror off his truck, and showed up at his neighbor’s front door – naked, I might add – and smacked him across the face when he told her she had the wrong apartment.”

“Holy crap,” Mandy said, dumbfounded. “I can’t believe you dated her.”

“Yes, well, that was during a dark time of my life,” James said. “I had no light. Then you came along and all I had was light.”

“Oh.” Mandy leaned over and kissed him.

“Nice save, man,” Jake said.

“I do my best.” James’ grin was sly. “What did she do after I filed the restraining order?”

“I’m not done recounting all the crazy things she did to you yet,” Jake answered. “She also poured fake blood on the cement close to his truck and called the police to report a hit-and-run and she interrupted a date James was on in an Italian restaurant and dumped a dish all over James’ date. This was after she announced she was pregnant and James was shirking his responsibilities as a father.”

“Seriously?” Mandy arched an eyebrow. “What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t remember a lot of this stuff until Jake reminded me,” James admitted. “When you string it all together like this, it really does sound bad.”

“It sounds crazy,” Grady corrected. “She sounds crazy.”

“She also put an ad in the newspaper – Sophie’s newspaper, for those who like details – announcing the birth of her son with James,” Jake added. “She then used the birth announcement to file a claim for child support, but since she couldn’t produce an actual kid that suit was thrown out of court on the first day.”

Mandy widened her eyes and made an exaggerated face. “Are you kidding me?”

“See, your little meltdowns don’t look so bad now, do they?” James teased, although he was mildly embarrassed. “Seriously. I’m relieved Mandy found me and took dating decisions out of my hands. I think I might’ve been stupid or something.”

“Or something,” Grady said.

“After James, Madeline fell off the map for a year,” Jake said. “I can’t find any record of her and that disturbs me. Maverick claims he has a program that can check private mental health care records and he’s running it against both names this afternoon.”

“Do you think she checked into a crazy house?” Grady asked.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to call it that,” Mandy chided.

“You know what I mean,” Grady said.

“I think it’s an option,” Jake said. “If she wasn’t locked up, where was she for a year?”

“What did she do when she showed back up?” James asked.

“She took a job as a secretary.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” Finn said. “How does a secretary afford to start a day spa?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot that part of the story,” Jake said, flipping backward in his file. “Two months after Madeline Stokes showed back up so did the mother who took the family fortune and abandoned her when she was a teenager.”

“That’s where she got the money,” James said. “Where is the mother now?”

“She’s dead,” Jake answered. “She and Madeline shared a home in Clinton Township for a few months until, in what is being called a ‘freak accident,’ her mother fell down the stairs during a blackout and broke her neck.”

“She killed her,” Mandy said, rubbing the side of her nose as she considered the ramifications.

“It was ruled an accident,” Jake cautioned. “If I had to guess, though, Madeline killed her mother to get her hands on that money.”

“Well, that explains that,” James said. “Who did she date once she got the money?”

“No one,” Jake answered. “As far as I can tell, you were the last man she dated.”

“That’s because she convinced herself she was in love with you,” Mandy said. “If Jake is right and she was committed for a year, the doctors spent that time trying to break her of her stalking habit. It worked to some extent, although it kept her fixated on the last man she dated.”

“There’s more,” Grady said, sobering. “We authorized Maverick to hack her home computer. I know you’re probably going to hate that, but we did it before the cops showed up at her place and downloaded a mirror image of her desktop. We didn’t have a lot of time and I didn’t want to regret not doing it.”

“I’m not thrilled with the illegality of it, but I’m glad you did it,” James said. “What did you find?”

“Maverick is still going through it and a lot of it is password protected,” Grady answered. “She did have an unfortunate habit of stalking both of you online.”

“Both of us?” Mandy’s voice was squeaky.

James rubbed her back to soothe her. “What do you mean? She acted surprised at the benefit when I told her I was married.”

“I think ‘acted’ is the operative word there,” Grady said. “She had hundreds of files on both of you. She had photos from the courthouse, too. She hired someone to take photos of Mandy and there were a lot of her and Heidi … and you. Apparently you took her lunch one day and you two got practically horizontal on the patio.”

“I’m starting to think I’ve been inappropriate at your place of business a lot more than I realized,” James said, ruefully rubbing his forehead. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“I’m not,” Mandy replied. “I had fun on the patio that day.”

“So cute,” James said, pinching her cheek.

“Don’t get melancholy,” Grady said. “You’ve been inappropriate at our place of business, too.”

“What else was on her computer?” James asked, his irritation ramping up.

“She got Mandy’s school records, the names of two ex-boyfriends, and photos of Mandy and Ally when they were in high school,” Grady replied. “I think she ordered one of their old yearbooks.”

“That is so creepy,” Mandy said, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing them to warm herself.

“That is creepy,” James agreed. “That’s going to work to our advantage at trial, though.”

“Only if we want Mandy to plead self-defense, and she didn’t do it so we don’t want that,” Grady said. “There’s one other thing.”

“I’m guessing it’s really bad if you saved it for last,” James said. “Lay it on me.”

“I have to show you instead,” Grady said, opening his laptop. “Do you remember the extra cameras we put on the property when Pritchard was on the loose?”

James nodded.

“Well, I didn’t take them down like you told me to.”