Chapter 4 FOUND YOU
ENZO
I noticed it on Wednesday.
The fact that I didn't notice it sooner irritated me most.
I had gone two days living normally, conducting meetings, signing off on business deals, existing in my own life without realizing that someone had reached into it and helped themselves. The fraud alert came through my private account at eleven-fourteen in the morning, a charge for three hundred and forty dollars at a grocery store in a neighborhood I had never visited. I sat there for a long moment, confused and about to call my account manager before I understood what was going on.
Then I pulled up a full account statement and found more charges. Six to be exact over the course of four days at different locations from a card I didn't even know I owned.
I set my phone face down on the desk.
I picked it up again.
“Who could possibly…” my eyes widened then anger flooded me. “That fucking bitch!”
Mia.
“Shit!’ I slammed my fist on my desk.
The timeline added up. I needed to find that thief but I didn't even have a last name. So fucking stupid of me to let a woman into my bed for the first time in a long time and then not be cautious.
I was going to make her regret ever stealing from me.
I picked up my phone and made a call. “I need you here. Now.”
“What's wrong?” The person asked.
Damien Ricci had worked for me for six years. He was a former law enforcement agent and my current whatever-I-needed-he-can-get-it-done man. He could find things that didn't want to be found.
"I need you to find someone," I said.
"When?"
"Yesterday."
He came to the office later that afternoon and I gave him everything I knew from the hotel, the date, the time, the name she had given me which we both knew immediately was worthless. I described her. Hair, height, the birthmark under her boob, the way she spoke, the mask, the membership card she'd used to get into Obsidian that belonged to a woman named Sophie who, when Ricci called her two hours later, had no knowledge of attending any masked event and reported her tote bag had felt like it had been searched two weeks prior but she'd assumed she'd imagined it.
She had a goddamn sexy body and had used it to her advantage in getting to me. Was I targeted? Or just stupid enough to walk into an open trap?
I was more angry at the fact that I couldn't get the sex out of my mind. There was just something about her. I wished I had gotten her to take off the mask.
"She's done this before," Ricci said. "This isn't random. She has a system."
"Find the fucking system," I said. "Find her."
"I'll need time."
"You have less than you think.”
He called back four days later and what he had was almost nothing but turned out to be useful.
"Whoever she is, she's thorough," he said. "There’s no match on the name that fits the physical description you gave. Also no hit on the description in any database I can access. It's like she doesn't exist."
"She exists. I was inside her for two hours, Ricci, she exists."
A pause. "I found something but it’s not much."
"Tell me."
"It’s an old beach photograph that was uploaded about six years ago on social media. The username's a string of numbers, so no name attached. The account has also been dormant ever since that last photo was posted. But the image—" I heard him pulling it up. "There's a birthmark underneath the left breast. It's heart-shaped and matches your description. It could just be a coincidence"
I said nothing for a moment then the image of her boobs bouncing and giving me a show of that birthmark decided to hunt me.
"The account," I said. "Anything attached to it?"
"Nothing useful. Whoever uploaded it scrubbed anything identifying a long time ago. I ran the image through every facial recognition tool I have access to and came up empty. It's like she went through her digital footprint and deleted it deliberately."
"Or someone did it for her."
"Possible." He paused. "She's young in the photo. Eighteen, maybe. Whoever she is now, she's been hiding for a while."
I looked at the image he sent through. My eyes first caught her hair and then the birthmark which was exactly how I remembered it.
Her face, although a bit obscured, was too beautiful for the thief that she was.
"Keep looking," I said.
"Enzo." His voice was careful as he chose his words. "If she's this clean, she's either very good at this or she's hiding from someone specific. Either way—"
"Keep looking."
I hung up.
I was more angry because I had been careless than the fact that she stole from me because three hundred and forty dollars meant nothing to me. I had powerful enemies who would have done more with that opportunity but she didn't. That irritated me because I couldn't tell what exactly her angle was.
Little thief, I thought. You have no idea.
The applicant files came through on a Friday afternoon and at that moment, I believed that a god somewhere actually existed and was working in my favor.
I didn't go through them immediately because I was busy and only got to them later in the evening when the office had almost cleared out. I was merely glancing through them when I passed the third one.
And I stopped.
There was a small passport photo attached to it but the person had a different hair, the name on the file read Lucy Park. The experiences listed were good but that face…
I had spent hours looking at the beach photo that I'd recognized those eyes and jaw anywhere.
“No way.” I muttered in disbelief, dropping the file for a second and then I picked it back up.
It was her.
She had probably stolen another name and life, walked into my building, put her face on the application and handed it to my HR department without knowing whose company she was applying to, and the universe, in its dark humor, had dropped her file on my desk like a gift.
Either she was incredibly brave, stupid or clueless.
“You little thief.” I said to her photo then pressed the intercom.
"Yes, Mr. Marchetti?" My assistant said.
"The Lucy Park application. Approve it. Send her a message tonight — I want her here Monday morning, seven a.m. Earlier than the standard start time. Tell her I prefer to meet new staff before the building fills."
"Of course. Anything else?"
"No. That's all. Goodnight."
The intercom clicked off.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her photograph for a long moment, and then, alone in the empty office with the city dark outside my windows, I smiled.
Found you.
