Double Trouble (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 10) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Marilynn.”
    “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Haskell.” She grasped my hand for half a second then made a sort of grand gesture toward the private elevator.
    “Please, after you,” I said.
    She smiled and led the way. Some sort of soft violin music filled the elevator and seemed to immediately remove one from the chaos of the outside world. There were only two buttons, she pushed the one labeled “up” as the doors closed then half turned to face me.
    “Mr. Baker is on an extremely tight schedule. I’ve allotted fifteen minutes for him to discuss things with you. I’ll knock on his office door in exactly fifteen minutes from your entry. Please don’t think I’m needlessly interrupting, unfortunately he has quite a number of things to attend to today.”
    The doors opened and I moved back a half step indicating she should go ahead of me. We walked down a nicely paneled hallway on thick carpeting leading toward a set of massive double doors. She input a six-digit code on the security lock. I heard a loud snap and she pushed one of the large doors open.
    We entered a round, spacious office with a large desk stationed in front of another set of double doors. A set of arm chairs and a coffee table with neatly arranged magazines were positioned within glaring distance of the desk. Marilynn was clearly keeper of the gate.
    “If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll see if you can go in,” she said then pushed a button on her desk phone and placed a white head set to her ear. “Yes, sir, I have Mr. Devlin Haskell to see you. Yes. Yes. Very good.”
    “He’ll see you now, Mr. Haskell,” she said then put the head set down, grandly opened one of the doors behind her desk and I entered the king’s chambers.
    Royal Baker sat behind a massive U-shaped desk positioned in the corner of his office so that he had windows to his left and right. Behind him was a hundred and eighty degree view of treetops stretching all the way to the Mississippi river. He signaled me with an index finger indicating one. One of what, I wasn’t quite sure of. After a moment, he put his pen down and tossed his glasses on the desk as he stood. I noticed a framed photo of him and I guessed his wife on his desk. Royal had a wide grin pasted on his face and the woman, a brunette with short hair and apparently no makeup looked like a kid who had just been told to stand in the corner for another time out.
    “Mr. Baker, nice to see you again.”
    “Please, let’s keep it informal, Dev, call me Royal.”
    “Okay, Royal.”
    “Let’s sit over here, we’ll both be more comfortable,” he said indicating a leather couch and two matching arm chairs against a side wall. “Oh, man, I tell you, it never seems to end,” he said taking a seat on the couch.
    I sat in one of the arm chairs and nodded like I knew what he was talking about.
    He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
    I waited for what seemed like a year until finally I said, “You mentioned something private you wanted to talk about. I believe you said it was work related and you were hoping not to have law enforcement involved, at least initially.”
    He seemed to blink himself back to reality then cleared his throat. “Here’s my problem. One of our, or rather, my very special clients, is being harassed. I’d like you to find out who’s doing it.”
    “Define harassed. Is someone spray painting the side of their building, picketing their office or maybe sending threatening letters?”
    “To tell you the truth, I wish that was the case. No, they’ve somehow bypassed our security systems and fire walls. Without boring you with the technical details they’re posting bad reviews, changing my client’s profiles and inserting different images.”
    “Reviews? Profiles? You make it sound like Facebook or something.”
    “Not far from the truth. If word of this got out it’s the sort of thing that could put us out of business, literally over night. We deal in a series of websites with a