The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(9)

"And I wanted to meet him, too," I assured her. "But I have a feeling this won't be the last opportunity for that to happen."

She paused and reflected. "Well, with your schedule and his... you never know."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to meet him at the wedding, then," I jested.

"Shhh!" she urged me. "You'll jinx it! According to Marie Claire, the eight-month mark falls right into the beginning of 'prime proposal time' while still lingering in the novelty wear-out phase. It's a dangerous intersection. I have to be very careful of what I say."

I rolled my eyes as I turned my SUV onto Wilshire. "Sorry."

"Are you in town?" she asked.

"Yeah, just flew in from Denver an hour ago. I'll be here until nine tomorrow morning. Why?"

My friends had gotten used to my hectic schedule. Well, they had gotten used to Jennifer the investment banker's hectic schedule. Being in town for mere hours at a time was nothing new to any of them. And as far as they were concerned, I had just as normal a job as any other traveling businessperson. Selling consulting packages, negotiating million-dollar deals, schmoozing with hotshot clients – the usual. I'm sure the image of me dressed up like a sexy corporate bimbo in order to see if some rich woman's husband is capable of committing adultery is the last thing on their minds when they think of me "on the road."

And although this whole thing started out as somewhat of a mini-quest, being a fidelity inspector had actually turned into quite the lucrative career. I worked on a referral basis only. But once word of my services had started to spread, there weren't enough hours in the day to take on all the requested assignments. It had never been about the money... but it certainly hadn't made things worse.

"Can we meet up tonight?" Sophie asked. "I could seriously use a 'session.'"

"I'm sorry, hon. I can't," I said regretfully. "I have to work tonight."

Sophie sighed again. It was a phrase she had heard many times. "Okay. But those slave-driver bosses of yours better give you the weekend off. You've worked the last two weekends. Nobody's that important."

I laughed. "Yes, I do have the weekend off." Which was actually something I'd been looking forward to all week. "We'll get everyone together. It'll be a group session."

"Yeah. For sure," she said, trying to sound upbeat. But I could tell she was disappointed.

"Don't worry," I reassured her again. "Eric's a good guy. I'm sure you're overreacting. A textbook case of long-distance relationship paranoia."

"Okay, thanks," she relented. "I better get back to work. Love you."

"Love you, too."

I clicked off my headset and tugged it out of my ear.

I felt bad that I couldn't be there for Sophie tonight. It wasn't the first time my job had stolen time away from my friends. And it broke my heart every time I had to lie to them. As if it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't be there for them when they needed me, they didn't even know the real reason why I couldn't be there.

But I was sure we would analyze Sophie's boyfriend drama quite thoroughly this weekend, when the group was assembled for her "session."

Sophie and I had adopted the term when we were in elementary school. Her dad was a psychologist, and while we were growing up, he saw most of his clients in his home office. He used to come upstairs to Sophie's bedroom in the afternoons and tell us to be quiet because he was "in a session." We always liked the way the phrase sounded: important and confidential. So we decided to make it our own.

After dinner Sophie and I would sneak into her dad's office and take turns sitting in his large, brown leather chair while the other person sprawled out on the couch and came up with ridiculous-sounding problems like "I can't stop making fart noises in class. It's ruining my social life." The "psychologist" would then open up one of the heavy, leather-bound books on the nearby shelf, flip to a random page, and in their best Masterpiece Theatre voice say, "Sounds like a textbook case of 'fundamental attribution error.'" Or whatever the longest, most important-sounding term on the page was.

As the years went on, our sessions eventually moved out of Sophie's dad's office, and evolved from silly make-believe problems to real, adolescent issues. But we still always managed to throw in a "textbook case" reference for each and every problem we encountered. It offered a comforting implication. Knowing that all of our problems were documented in some pretentious leather-bound book somewhere made us feel better about the situations we found ourselves in. As if despite all the agony and hardship, there was nothing we could say or do that hadn't already been solved, sorted out, and properly labeled by some hotshot shrink along the way.

In recent years, however, it had mainly been Sophie calling for the sessions. For some reason, drama seemed to have a strange attraction to that girl.

As I turned off of Wilshire Boulevard, I began my usual six-turn routine. As a rule of thumb, I never drive directly home. No matter what. I take five separate side streets before finally turning onto my own street and into the garage of my building. It makes it easier for me to spot anyone who might be following me. Wilshire is a huge street, and someone can tail you easily from a couple of cars back. But the five turns I make before returning home are all on smaller, quieter streets. Anyone making that many unnecessary turns behind me would certainly be noticed. In my line of work I couldn't take any chances. The last thing I needed was some lunatic, enraged husband banging on my door at two A.M.