Eden by Candice Fox Read Free Book Online

thought I should do to fix all the problems in my life tangled up with an old hostility, a need to make sure he didn’t find out anything about me he could use. He turned the handle of a mug on the table toward him and resumed a coffee my presence must have interrupted.
    “Funny what hard work will bring out in you,” he said.
    “I needed it.”
    “You want some more?”
    “I think Eden will nag me to death if I don’t come at least a couple more times, and that’s not how I plan to die.”
    “Not that kind of work,” Hades said. “Something more in tune with your official employment.”
    I frowned.
    He smiled.
    The old man folded the newspaper on the table between us with one hand and set it aside. It was a stalling gesture. A bit of silence, in case I hadn’t caught on yet, to help me realize that offering me trash-sorting work had been a ruse all along. That was how Hades did things. Set up games and created shadows. Observed, listened, tested you. Broke you down until you were vomiting from heatstroke. Embarrassed you in front of others, offered you a redemption ticket with something more dignified. Setting aside the newspaper was a metaphorical setting aside of everything we both knew and need not say in polite conversation.
    You’re on the edge, Frank, and you’re making Eden and me nervous. We own you. I need you to do something for me, and you’re going to do it whether you like it or not.
    “I’ve got a problem,” Hades began. “It’s something I’d usually deal with myself, but seeing you’re more skilled at this sort of thing I thought I might entrust it to you. I’ve been thinking of you almost as part of the family for some time, you know. You’re my daughter’s partner. It comes easily to me.”
    Part of the family. Sharing in the secrets. Obligated. Till death do us part.
    “What’s the problem?”
    “I’m being watched. I don’t like it.”
    “Who’s watching you?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve laid a couple of traps and come up empty. Seen the fucker only once with my own eyes. I know he’s around though. I can smell him.”
    I sat back in my chair.
    “Just watching? Nothing else?”
    “Nothing yet.”
    “Why would someone want to watch you?”
    Hades gave a small laugh in answer.
    I felt stupid. “Okay. What have you seen?”
    “A car, a couple of weeks ago. A Commodore, gray. Nothing so brazen since but I feel it going on.”
    “He a cop?”
    “I’ve been assured he’s not.”
    “Are you assuming he’s male?”
    “Yes. All I’ve seen is the car.”
    “You got cameras out there on the road?”
    “I do now. Haven’t caught anything.”
    It had been a long time since I’d been on a case. I was hungry for it.
    I reminded myself where I was, who I was talking to.
    Hades watched me thinking, sipped his coffee, set it down and looked at it.
    “Journalist?”
    “They’re not usually this persistent.”
    “Is it a threatening kind of watching or a curious kind of watching?”
    “How am I supposed to know a thing like that?”
    “It’s an instinct, I guess.”
    Hades was silent for a moment.
    “I’d say threatening. Like letting me see the car was a kind of hello. Now there’s uncertainty. Worry. It’s not a very nice thing to do, even by my standards.”
    I made like I was considering. Weighing my options. We both knew I had very little choice.
    “How much?” I asked.
    “Ten grand to start you off, ten grand again when you catch him. Plus expenses.”
    “I won’t be catching anyone for you, Heinrich,” I said. “And I’ll need to think about this a little. But if I do agree to it I’ll tell you who he is and why he’s watching you. That’s it. You want to hire me as a private investigator, I’ll privately investigate. You want an accomplice in whatever you plan to do to him, you can go elsewhere.”
    “Good enough,” the old man smiled. “And please, call me Hades. Everyone else does.”
    I went silent. A deep discomfort had begun to grow in