The Woman At The Door Daniel Hurst (online e reader TXT) 📖

She has been doing some digging after using the footage of that woman to start her investigation.

And now she thinks she might have something.

30

THE WOMAN

It’s probably clear by now that I’m a woman who likes to take charge of her life. I did it when I wanted Devon, the man of my dreams, and I did it when I realised that I had stumbled upon a potential business that could make me a fortune. But even for a control freak like me, there are some things I have to rely on other people to do. One of those things is intrinsically tied to the success of my business.

I need my clients to let me know if what I am doing is working.

That’s why I am making a call to one of my current clients right now. I need to speak with her and get an update so I can assess the situation and decide if things are working already or if I am going to need to do more in order to achieve the desired result.

My client picks up on the second ring, which is very quick and either means that she is desperate to hear from me or simply already had the phone in her hand when I called.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Hi. I was just about to ask you the same thing. Is there any news?’

‘Yeah, I think there is, actually. It seems like there’s a few problems at home. I’m not sure how serious it is yet, but things are definitely happening.’

‘That’s good,’ I say, because it is. ‘We’ll let things play out for now, and I’ll check in with you in a couple of days. But feel free to give me a call if you make any progress yourself in the meantime.’

‘Will do. Thanks, Charlotte.’

I hang up and put my mobile back into my handbag before taking another sip from the coffee cup that is on the table in front of me as I sit outside this quaint little cafe in the English countryside.  Charlotte is not my real name, but it is the name that I gave to this particular client when I started working with her. If things go wrong and she ends up revealing what the pair of us have been up to then at least she has the wrong name to go off for starters. But I have no reason to think that things are going to go wrong.

From what my client has just told me, it sounds like everything is going to plan.

My client has told me that there are hints of trouble at home between the couple we are trying to break apart, and that’s exactly what I was hoping to hear after doing all the work I have done so far. As successful as my business is, there is no guarantee that any of the things I do will work. Knocking on a door and telling a husband or wife that their partner is cheating on them doesn’t mean that they are going to believe me over their spouse, nor does putting someone else’s underwear in a bedroom guarantee that they are going to kick that spouse out and start filing for divorce.

All I can do is try to make things happen.

But it’s ultimately up to the couple themselves to decide the outcome of all of this.

I’m glad my client has given me a promising update because it means that I might be able to keep my feet up and let things go the way I want them to from here without much more work required on my part. If so, I will be getting paid the second half of the sum of money that my client owes me in good time. They only pay me half upfront, and the rest is dependent on how well my methods work.

But what if my initial methods hadn’t worked so far? What other tricks do I have up my sleeve to bring about the destruction of a perfectly good marriage? Let’s just say that there are very few lines that I am unwilling to cross and very few things that I am incapable of doing to achieve my desired outcome and get my full payment from my client.

Very few.

With the warm glow of the sun on my face as I sit outside this cafe and enjoy a quiet Monday afternoon, it’s easy to think that everything is alright in the world. But it’s not. Not really. I’m still grieving the loss of Devon, the man I loved and the man I had successfully taken for myself before he was tragically taken from me by a drunk driver. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about him and how much fun we would be having together if he was still around. I seriously doubt I would be in this line of work if he was here. Instead, I’d just have a more traditional job because I wouldn’t care about silly things like money, power and control if I was in love. I’d be too busy laughing, kissing and making memories.

I wish he was here with me right now to enjoy this beautiful day and a lovely cup of coffee. But he would only have ordered a drink from this cafe if they had dark roast coffee beans because they are the healthiest type, and he was a very healthy guy. I had just figured that it was because he had to be healthy in his line of work as a personal trainer. But Devon didn’t just look after himself because he had to portray a certain image to his clients. He did it because he was genuinely interested in health and fitness and doing what was best for the human body.

I guess it’s the same for me. My clients probably think that I portray an image of being a cold and calculating woman because that’s the type of work that I am in.