#SampleSunday: Dinner at Sam's-Yvette Young Revisited
Today's sample is a snippet from Dinner at Sam's where we first meet Yvette. Dinner at Sam's is book 2 in the Ruby's novel series and available in eBook, print or audio at Booksbydlwhite.com/dinneratsams.
If you haven’t heard, we are DAYS away from the launch of Missing Persons! ARCs have gone out and I am working on everything else that surrounds a release— front matter, back matter, all the important things.
Until then, I hope you enjoy one last tease of this novel! Keep your eye on this book’s page on my website as it’ll hit my store first then matriculate out to retail.
I am off to brunch while you enjoy today’s Sample Sunday.
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Gibson
“In the last five years, divorces have changed,” Gabriel was saying, blowing a puff of smoke into the air before continuing. “You used to have to hire a private investigator to find out if a client’s spouse was stepping out. These days, people are so messy and careless, all you need is access to their social media accounts.”
“Yep,” Greggory agreed, bobbing his head forward and back. “They used to say Facebook was the devil; it’s about to be Instagram. Or Snapchat. It disappears, but that doesn’t mean nobody saw it.”
“Even if you think you’re careful, that woman you’re with, that you think operates at the height of discretion can’t wait to open her mouth and brag about who she’s with. I tell these guys all the time, but…” Gabe shook his head slowly. “They don’t want to listen. And in the moment, they don’t care. Do they, Gib?”
I’d been listening to the conversation, enough to follow along but not enough to be interested in what my brothers were discussing. I stirred my drink, which had been sitting so long it was room temperature and watered down. My cigar sat smoking and neglected in the ashtray.
My mood was more than mellow, deeper than melancholy.
“In the moment,” I said to Gabe, lifting my glass to the waitress as she passed. “Men don’t care about much of anything. We are of singular mind, in the moment. I want what I want and damn the consequences. That’s how they get themselves in a situation where they need a divorce attorney. Because at some point they said hell yes when they should have said hell no.”
“You sound kinda strong right there, Gib. You’ve been dragging ass for weeks, the corners of your mouth all downturned. Can I guess what you said hell yes to when you should have said hell no?”
Gabe asked the question, but his near-twin Gregg wore the same quizzical expression, one that said I wasn’t getting away from the table without spilling something.
“Vanessa Jackson,” I said, confirming what I knew was gossip around the office. And around the table at Mink’s when I wasn’t there. “I was seeing her, for a while. I know, I know. You warned me. And you were right. It got heavy quickly and… I mean, I don’t know what happened but it blew up.”
I was quiet about my admission, but they each responded with loud a ‘Ooooohhhhh’, rearing back dramatically in their seats.
“You both need to dial it back or I’m done talking.”
“Okay, okay,” said Gregg, pulling his chair closer to the table and leaning in. “So talk. Are things still heavy, or...”
The waitress dropped by with a fresh drink for me. I waited until she stepped away to answer.
“Not anymore.”
“You’re still working her divorce though, right?” Asked Gabe. “You’re too far into that to hand it off to someone else.”
“Yeah, so things are nice and awkward now. If it’s not about the divorce, she doesn’t acknowledge my messages. She said to get that taken care of, so that’s what I’m working on.”
“Sounds like you want to work on more than her divorce though.”
I practically inhaled the fresh bourbon and set the glass to the side, nodding and wiping the corners of my mouth. “You tried to tell me. I should have just left things as they were. Like you said, there’s a danger in crossing that line with a client, especially with a volatile partner that can’t let go. There was a draw to her. The feeling was mutual. I thought I knew what was doing, but obviously…”
I shrugged my shoulder. “I said the wrong thing, I didn’t back off when she let it known she wasn’t happy. I pushed the conversation too far, and now she won’t take my calls. Won’t talk to me unless it’s about her case. Which is going shitty, by the way. That’s what our argument was about.”
“Define shitty. How shitty?”
“He’s picking apart the entire petition, fighting everything Vanessa asked for. Clarification here, different amounts there, re-negotiation of this, dispute of that. Never ending, stupid bullshit.”
“You should be used to that, though. That’s how it goes when a spouse doesn’t want his wife to move on.”
“I get that. The thing is… he’s keeping an attorney very busy and this guy’s not doing these briefs for free—not at the rate they’re coming. I’m suspicious because he says, out of his mouth, that he’s near bankruptcy. The IRS is after him and so are his creditors—his wages are probably being garnished for the credit cards he maxed out while he was married to Vanessa. And they’re about to be garnished more for child support—”
“So there’s a secret source of money somewhere,” Gregg summarized. “But when you brought it up to her she said…”
“She said don’t go looking for money that isn’t there. Except…it kind of has to be there, doesn’t it?”
“Seems like it. There’s a reason she doesn’t want you to find it. Maybe she helped him get it?”
I wagged my head. “I doubt that. She’d have something to hold over him if she did. It’s more like…” I paused, pondering my next statement. “It’s more like there’s something she knows and she wants to be away from him before the shit hits the fan. I don’t know. But I want to.”
“Okay, hear me out, here. She’s already mad at you, right? She’s already not talking to you, you’re already not seeing her. What’s she going to do, not see you some more? It’s unlikely she’ll fire you—another attorney won’t take her case for what you’re charging her. So what, if she doesn’t want you to look. Look anyway.”
I relaxed in the leather chair and picked up my cigar. It had grown a length of ash that I knocked off before placing the tip between my teeth. I considered Gabe’s point. My gut was rarely wrong about things. My gut told me there was something to find. My gut told me that there was more to Warren than a sonofabitch who hated to lose. My gut also told me that his soon to be ex-wife had a few secrets of her own.
“Do we still use Yvette at Young Investigations?” I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled the address book with my thumb, already forming a plan. Yvette was a former Army Investigator who’d opened a private agency when her fiancé died in Afghanistan just before they were both due to finish their service.
“Yup,” Gabe answered. “She’s probably the best option. She’s quick and quiet.”
“And cheap,” I added, pulling up the text messaging app. “I can’t bill Vanessa for this.”
I shot off a quick text to Yvette, letting her know I had a small job for her and asked her to call my office in the morning. She responded that she would and I tucked my phone away.
“Should I feel guilty about this? Because I don’t.”
Both of my brothers smirked across the table. “It’s ammunition. She doesn’t need to know that you know anything. The way Yvette works, Warren will never know he’s being tailed. The more you know, the better you serve Vanessa.”
“At least that’s the party line,” finished Gabe, bumping Gregg’s fist as he said it.
“I should really know better than to follow advice from you two. Especially when you still act like frat boys. At least you aren’t dressed alike tonight.”
Gregg laughed. “We were, but I changed before I came here tonight. You’re right, it’s creepy—”
“He only thinks that now because his love interest said so. Two weeks ago, he was all let’s wear the blue pinstripe on Tuesday...”
“Oh wait… catch me up. Love interest? That waitress you said you’d been talking to? Made a dent in her armor?”
“You didn’t know? Gregg and that fine ass hon— waitress over there have been spending some time together.” Gabe tipped his head toward the same waitress I’d noticed paying him more attention than usual a few weeks ago. Just as we all turned our heads in her direction, she picked up a tray from the bar and turned to face us. And froze.
Gregg cleared his throat, the first to look away. “It’d be cool if y’all could stop staring at my woman.”
“Your woman? Moving kind of quick, aren’t you?”
“Says the man who was fucking his client. You have no room to criticize.”
“Touché’. Just saying. Take your time, man. Know all you can about her. I’m two for two on women I thought I knew, but I had no idea what I was getting into. Literally.”
I tapped out my cigar and stood, tossing a few bills to the center of the table. “I’m out. I want to prep for my call with Yvette in the morning. Be good.”
*****
Yvette did more than call the next morning. At 9AM sharp, she strolled into my office, wearing her usual uniform of baggy jeans, black boots, an ARMY t-shirt and a cap over her hair, a ponytail sticking out of the opening in the back. Yvette had been doing private investigation work for a few years and always looked the same. Deep caramel skin tone, fit physique, no-nonsense facial expression. She was the definition of poker face and her body language didn’t give away much either.
It wasn’t until I spent some time with her that I came to realize how witty and quirky she was, some by accident and some by design. The loss of her fiancé had hurt her deeply, so her job, which involved hiding from her subjects and the public, served both her professionally and personally. A person never got to know Yvette, but I felt like I was as close as a person could come to knowing her.
“I thought you were calling me this morning,” I told her, releasing her from the hug she didn’t want but stood still for anyway.
“I was in the neighborhood, dropping off some invoices, picking up some checks. Thought I would stop by,” she said, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of my desk. Instead of sitting in the leather chair like it was a formal meeting, I sat in the chair next to her and kicked a foot up to rest it on the edge of the desk.
“Well, it’s good to see you. It’s been awhile.”
“Same here. I swear, you’re the only Kincaid that can relax in this place.”
I laughed, giving myself a once-over. It was a Friday, and though Kincaid didn’t have a Casual Friday policy, I’d worn jeans and a button up shirt and the Clarks that Vanessa said she liked.
“I like to keep my mother on her toes. She’s already rolled her eyes at me twice this morning.”
“I have to admit, I come up here to give the old bat a reason to clutch her pearls.”
“Ten minutes after you leave, she’ll ask me if I have to keep using your agency.”
“Speaking of… your little case must be something important. I rarely get a text from you after hours.”
“Oh, yeah. Now, when I say it’s a small case, I mean it. I’m not looking for anything fancy, but...” I dropped my foot and leaned across my desk to a folder that was stuffed with pages I’d gathered on Warren Jackson, anything I could find that was readily available—which wasn’t much—coupled with the information supplied by Vanessa. “There’s this divorce I’m working on. Husband is highly suspicious. My client, his soon to be ex, is cagey about him. I get the strong feeling that she doesn’t want me to know something.”
“Now you need to know what that something is.”
She took the folder from my hands, flipping through each page and making little noises—a grunt here, a hmmm there.
“Anything stand out for you, at first glance?”
I folded my arms across my chest and sat back, trying to read her face. As per usual, it was pointless. The Army had trained her well—she’d never reveal her mother’s secret to great lasagna, let alone military secrets. For damn sure, she wasn’t going to let me know what she was thinking in that moment.
“Not really, but that’s what the investigation is for. How many hours do you want me to spend on this? You know my rate, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know your rate. I guess we start with twenty and see how it goes.”
“You want me to limit this to internet, or what?”
“Well, you see the history there,” I said, gesturing toward the folder. “I think I’ve exhausted the internet search, but see what your people can dig up. I don’t even know where to start, but maybe his mistress would be a better mark. We have strong reason to believe that’s where he’s living.”
“Mmkay,” she responded, flipping through more pages. “There’s usually a little bit of overlap, but do you want me to dig up anything on your client?”
“No!” I hadn’t intended to answer as strongly as I did. Her eyes popped up from the folder and an eyebrow crept toward her hairline. “I uh… no,” I continued, quieter now. “Just him. She doesn’t know I’m looking into him. She asked me not to but I can’t…. Not.”
“Right. You need to know everything.”
She stood, tucking the folder under her arm. “I’ll get to work on it this afternoon. Daily briefings every morning via email unless I strike gold. You want me to call your cell with any news?”
“Please.”
I stood, threatening to hug her again. She laughed and ducked away from my open arms. “Go on with that touchy-feely stuff. Everything good with you? You don’t seem yourself…”
“They teach you that mind reading stuff in the Army? Nothing I can’t handle. Getting these answers will help a lot.”
Yvette leaned in and softly, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her, said, “You got a thing for the client, huh?”
A blazing heat crossed my face. Obviously, I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding what was going between Vanessa and me. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and shrugged, trying to control my facial expression.
Yvette chuckled, humming, “Mmmhmmm. You know you’re not supposed to go there, Counselor.”
“There’s no rule against it. No hard and fast one anyway. It snuck up on me. But things are on a hiatus right now. This…” I nodded toward the folder. “Is why. So, now I want to know what I’m getting into. Is she worth going after, or is this a complete mess and I should stay away?”
“Mmhmmm,” she hummed again, then turned toward the door. “Which way do I go so I walk past Sylvia’s office? I feel like getting on her nerves today.”
“Oh, please. Spare me her tirade, today.”
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