Double Trouble (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 10) by Mike Faricy Read Free Book Online

be able to post whatever and whenever they want on my profile page. It’s supposed to be secure, but obviously it’s not. Roy has already shut down my site twice and I’ve had to fill in all the information again for a new site. Let me tell you, not fun.”
    “Roy? You mean, Mr. Baker, Royal?”
    “Yeah, sometimes I call him Roy,” she wrinkled her nose and shrugged again. “He kinda likes that, he takes good care of me, tells me I’m special. Well anyway, we’ve changed my password more times than I can remember, but that didn’t do anything. He even bought me a new computer, but that didn’t seem to help, either.”
    This was sounding more and more like it was out of my technical skill range. I was quickly becoming convinced I was probably the wrong guy for the job. “What kind of business are you in?”
    She looked more than a little surprised. “Are you kidding? Why, I’m an escort of course. You pay and I’ll play,” she said then wrinkled her nose at me. “What did you think? Why the hell else would I be dealing with Roy?”
    The two women next to us quickly slid off their stools, left their coffees on the table and marched out the door.
     
     
    Chapter Thirteen
     
    You’re an escort?” I said and immediately decided I would do my utmost to help Ashley in any possible way.
    “Yeah, what’d you think I do, teach kids or work in an office or something?”
    “No, no, actually it makes sense, sort of. I mean I didn’t know Royal, Roy, was involved.”
    She nodded and took another sip. I noticed the lipstick on her coffee mug matched the color of her nails.
    “He does your website?”
    “Sort of. No one actually has a website like you’re thinking. Roy’s got a number of sites, all over the world broken down by country. Like in the case of the US, the site lists the state and then the city. So for someone like me, well, I can go to Florida and Arizona in the winter or even London or Paris, if I want. Roy’s service posts a visiting notice for me and I get to work as much or as little as I feel like. It’s pretty cool.”
    “And this works, I mean you get business, customers, clients?”
    “Yeah, course it’s all specialized, I mean they’re vetted, you know, on his contact sites. Besides, we can list a complaint and if the customer turns out to be some kind of jerk they’ll get black balled and then they can’t use our services.”
    “Contact sites?”
    “Yeah, before you can respond to my posting and set up an appointment, one of Roy’s sites checks you out, makes sure your credit is good, you’re not some lunatic or serial killer or God help me, a cop. They assign you an id number so you, as the customer, remain anonymous and all the transactions go through the site, no cash is exchanged, well, except for the tip,” she said and raised her eyebrows. “Keeps us legal and safe.”
    I was curious. “What’s your going rate?”
    “Three-fifty an hour, goes up from there, depending,” she said then looked at her watch. “Look, we should finish up, Tony’s gonna be here any minute. Here’s the deal, I’m down about fifteen percent over the last two months. This shit is hitting me right wear it hurts, in my pocketbook. I told Roy, ‘get it fixed baby or I gotta cut you loose.’ You know?”
    I nodded like I did know, although nothing could be further from the truth. “Let me do some brainstorming, Ashley. I’m thinking just an old fashioned second pair of eyes might do the trick.”
    “Huh?” she said with a very blank look on her face.
    “I plan to follow you around, see if we can’t get whoever is taking all those pictures.”
    “Oh yeah, got it. Of course I don’t want you getting in the way. My clients are pretty high class and very private. It could be bad for business if they saw you lurking behind a palm tree in the hotel lobby or something. You know?”
    A guy suddenly walked up behind Ashley, “Hey, baby, everything all right here?” he said giving me the cold