Page 2 of The Burnt (The Declan Hunt Mysteries #3)

Charlie Watts sat at his desk in the front room of Declan Hunt Investigations.

He’d spent the last few hours trying to find information on a guy named Tyler Chipping.

It wasn’t that there hadn’t been anything to find.

His social media accounts were overflowing with images of Tyler out dancing, Tyler out drinking, Tyler out at restaurants.

Some of them were Tyler alone, but most were of him in the company of attractive men.

Not unusual for a young gay male. What was unusual was that he appeared to have no followers.

Either nobody was particularly interested in him, or he had intentionally adjusted his privacy settings so that others could view his photos, but couldn’t comment or follow.

Declan Hunt Investigations had been hired to find anything on Chipping that could support his company in firing him.

Management were of the opinion that Chipping was, in their words, a waste of corporate space.

Declan had given Charlie the job—his first solo case as a private investigator in training.

Charlie was using the tool he was best at wielding—the computer—yet he could find nothing of value.

Point scored—Tyler Chipping. Charlie was batting zero, and he wasn’t happy about it. His ego was taking it personally.

Charlie glanced down at his desk, spotting the box of business cards that had just arrived from the printers. He picked up one of the cards. It was crisp, white, and bore the name and logo of “Declan Hunt Investigations”. Embossed in black below, it identified the cardholder as—

Charlie Watts, Researcher.

Charlie had come up with the job title himself, and Declan had approved it. It was too soon to print cards that said “Private Investigator” since Charlie was only in training, but it carried more clout than his previous title of “Office Manager.”

“Researcher. Yeah, right,” he muttered as he flipped the card away from him. It gracefully sailed across the room and landed at the feet of his boss.

“How goes the hunt for Mr Chipping?” Declan asked, propping himself on Charlie’s desk.

“Fine, if we’re looking to find out what he ate for dinner on his birthday,” Charlie answered, then looked up. “Which was steak, medium rare, mashed potatoes with sour cream and a side of roasted cauliflower. Care to know what he ate for dessert?”

Declan smiled. “Part of my brain is telling me to ask if you found anything pertinent to the case, but the rest of my body is telling me to keep my mouth shut.”

“Smart body.”

Declan nodded. “The standard searches yielded nothing, right?”

“Nothing that could pertain to his employment. It’s almost like he doesn’t work.”

“That’s what his employer is saying.”

Declan walked around to Charlie’s side of the desk.

Charlie sighed. Why does Declan always look perfect? It’s like every piece of off-the-rack clothing was made specifically for his body.

Charlie was wearing his best long-sleeved dress shirt and khakis and still looked like he’d either slept in them or stolen them from a charity bin.

Declan leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head. “I think the time has come for you to earn your stripes as a real gumshoe.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Not all problems can be solved at a computer, although you’ve done things with this machine that amaze me to this day. As scary as it might sound, sometimes you have to hit the pavement and ask your questions in person.”

“As I recall, I did that when I first started here and almost got myself killed.”

Declan nodded. “Yeah, but in this case you’ll be talking to people from a human resources firm, not the mob.

You just have to make sure you don’t let Tyler Chipping know you’re there.

That’s where all this research you’ve done will come in handy,” he said, patting Charlie on the shoulder. “You know exactly what he looks like.”

* * * *

Charlie stood in front of Chapman, Sherbrook and Finch, the small human resources firm Tyler Chipping was working at…

for now. Charlie’s nerves were on edge. He didn’t want to let Declan down.

His computer research hadn’t been completely in vain.

He had identified two employees who seemed to be the office gossips based on the contents of their social media posts. Maybe he’d get lucky.

He stood and waited on the street. The winter sun was low in the sky and shining directly into his eyes. It was twenty below with a wind chill that made it feel closer to minus thirty. He loved Calgary. He just hated winter. Why couldn’t this be happening in July?

Charlie checked his phone and huddled against the building.

A few minutes after noon, two young women exited from the main door of the one-storey office building. They were chatting wildly to each other. As they neared Charlie, he moved into their path.

“Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but do you work here?”

“Yes,” one said, hesitantly. She peered at Charlie through the fur of her hooded parka. She was mummified against the cold, the part of her face not shielded by her coat was covered by a scarf and sunglasses.

Smarter than me .

“My name’s Charlie Watts.”

He pulled out the small metal business card case that his friend Carrie had given him when he started working for Declan.

His hands shook a bit as he opened it. The case had a tight catch on it and when he finally got the lid to pop open, several of the cards spilled onto the ground.

Most of them blew away in the wind, but Charlie managed to bend over and retrieve a card that was stuck to his boot. The day was going from bad to worse.

Charlie handed it to the mummified woman.

The woman looked at the card and read, in a whispery voice, “Declan Hunt Investigations. Charlie Watts, Researcher.” She lowered her glasses and stared him directly in the eyes. “ You’re a private detective?”

This was not going well. Charlie swallowed and stared back at her. “Look, I was just wondering if you’d be able to answer a few questions for me. My firm has been hired to do a background check on Tyler Chipping. Do you work with him?”

The term ‘background check’ was an exaggeration Charlie came up with to hide his real purpose.

“Well,” the other woman said, “I’m not sure we should be talking about this here.”

Charlie considered his options. “Would you be more comfortable talking over lunch? My treat.”

The first woman said, “Maybe it would be all right, if we get to pick the place.”

“Sure,” he replied.

The two looked at each other, simultaneously spun back to Charlie, and shouted “Bastion’s!”

Charlie assumed Bastion’s was an expensive restaurant based on their enthusiastic reaction to being taken to lunch. Hopefully not too expensive .

The women led Charlie along the street for a few blocks then steered him down a back alley and through a door into a small café.

They made their way to a booth in the darkest corner near the back and stripped off their polar-wear.

One of the women was a redhead whose scarlet lipstick matched the colour of her thick mane of hair.

The other, a blonde, was more reserved with her makeup, with a light blush on her cheeks and pale lipstick.

Both were in their early twenties. As they sat down, he pieced together why they had recommended the place.

The waiter was tall, had raven-black hair, blue eyes and the perkiest butt Charlie had ever seen.

He quickly came over to take their orders.

“Crystal. Laura and…friend,” he said, smiling at Charlie. “I’m Carrick. I’ll be your server this afternoon. Will it be the usual for you ladies?” he asked in a spine-melting Irish accent.

They giggled out a “Yes.”

“And for you, sir?” he asked, with a sexy emphasis on ‘sir’, even though he appeared to be Charlie’s age.

“I’ll have…whatever they’re having.”

“Excellent choice, sir,” Carrick said before he smiled broadly at Charlie, turned on his toes and walked away.

“Hey,” Crystal, the redhead, said as she swatted Charlie on the arm. “You leave him alone. He’s ours.”

“I’m not so sure about that now,” the other woman, who he now knew was Laura, added.

Charlie was thoroughly enjoying his time with Crystal and Laura. They adopted him like a long-lost friend and soon they were engaged in conversation which slowly turned to Tyler Chipping.

“Declan Hunt Investigations has been hired by Chapman, Sherbrook and Finch’s law firm to look into Tyler,” Charlie started.

“Is he going to be fired?” Crystal asked. She seemed quite excited at the prospect.

“I didn’t say that,” Charlie replied. “They’re just assessing his performance and want to make sure that his work…

conforms to the corporation’s mandate,” before they fire him , he added to himself.

“Because Mr Chipping’s openly gay, they wanted to make sure that if anything negative came out of our investigations, it couldn’t be interpreted as homophobia on their part. ”

“And you can do that how?” Laura asked.

“Both Declan and I are gay and the firm is known for handling cases like this…in an unbiased way.”

Crystal looked around then whispered, “Gay’s the last thing that guy’s got to worry about.”

As lunch progressed, they opened up to Charlie with all of the lurid details of Chipping’s corporate abuses. It was clear that they didn’t like Tyler.

“I honestly don’t know how he’s kept his job this long,” Laura said as they departed Bastion’s.

She took Charlie’s card and wrote a number on the back.

“This is a friend of mine who works in the company’s accounting department.

Farzan will give you everything you need to know.

He’s pissed at Tyler. Farzan got him his job.

Now he feels his reputation’s in the sewer because of what Tyler’s been up to. ”

Crystal gave Charlie a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Now, my advice to you is to get back in there and get Carrick’s number. You obviously have a better chance than the two of us.” She giggled and the two women walked away, leaving Charlie alone in the cold sunshine.