Jeff approached the desk and listened as Jessica told him that he needed to sign a paper proving that he had met with Mr. Young today.
"Oh, of course."
He had never been to a P.I.'s office before and was a bit nervous, but played it off with a casual smile. Jeff was a nice-looking young man in his 20's with wavy brown hair and ocean blue eyes. His blue blazer and khaki pants indicated that he came from a wealthy family, which was the truth. Like many people around the globe, he had seen Scott's incredible battle with aliens, and when he found out this same hero was working as a P.I., he figured that he could use his help on this problem.
After finishing up with Jessica, he walked into Scott's office, where Scott rose to meet him and shake his hand in greeting. Once Jeff had taken a seat, Scott folded his hands on the desk and adopted perfect, professional posture.
"So, what can I do for you today, Jeff?"
Jeff leaned forward a bit, and lowered his head a moment in thought before raising it.
"Well, I have this girlfriend that I've just started seeing named Francesca. She's from Brazil and--"
"Okay, do you have a recent picture of Francesca?" Scott asked, having gathered that this case would be about her.
Jeff pulled out his smartphone and showed a picture he had taken of Francesca. The woman had pale skin with Brazilian features, tall and with long, flowing brown hair. She was gorgeous, the kind of woman that could easily be a model.
"She's pretty good looking."
Scott wondered if part of this could be that Jeff felt she was out of his league, since he was a bit nerdy and she was a stunner.
"Yeah, she's hot," Jeff replied.
"So what seems to be the problem?"
"Well, in the past I've dated women that I confirmed were dating me for my money because I come from a rich family. We met on my father's boat, and things were going great at first, but now I'm suspicious that something might be going on."
"Okay, what makes you think something's going on?"
Jeff pocketed his phone and thought about the words to say for a moment.
"Well, Francesca and I are in communication a lot, especially by texting. However, there are times that I can't get her to respond to a text at all, and that's not like her. I've asked her about it and she's said it's because she's doing yoga or something similar, and I want to believe her but..."
"Okay, is there anything else that's making you suspicious?"
"Well, there was this Facebook status that I didn't know what to make of..."
"Show me," Scott replied, eager to see what Francesca was saying in her own words that would make Jeff suspicious.
Jeff took out his smartphone again and pulled up the Facebook app before going to Francesca's page. Scott made a mental note that her last name according to her page was 'Belliorante'. After he found the status he was looking for conveniently at the top, he showed it to Scott. The status update was a selfie picture of Francesca smiling with her left hand on her hip in front of some kind of rock and not much else in the background. The words above the picture were much more interesting, as they said, "Feel like a new woman. Thanks, Dan!"
It was at this point that Scott understood Jeff's concerns that Francesca was cheating on him.
"Alright, so who is this Dan?" Scott asked as he handed the phone back to him.
"I don't know. I asked her about him, and she said he was a friend from the yoga studio where she goes once a week. I went to that same yoga studio and asked around, but there's no one named Dan in her yoga class. So, if she's lying to me about who this Dan guy is, what am I supposed to think?"
Scott nodded and folded his hands again, thinking there definitely was the possibility of cheating in this scenario.
"When you first made your appointment, you said you wanted me to find out if your new girlfriend was really a virgin. Tell me about that."
Jeff looked a little bit embarrassed about this, but Scott's professional demeanor made him think it was okay to tell him.
"Well, Francesca and I...haven't been very intimate. I've tried to go further with her than we have, but she tells me she's a virgin and not ready for that. I just find it hard to believe that a woman who's that hot is a virgin."
"And now with the deceptive behavior, you think there might be cheating."
"Yeah, I was okay with respecting her boundaries, but with all this, I'm really wondering if she's another woman using me for my money."
"Well, I promise that I will get to the bottom of this. I'll follow her and if she's cheating, I'll catch her."
Jeff stood up and the two shook hands.
"Thank you, Mr. Young."
Pulling a sheet of paper out of his pocket and a pen, he held them out to Scott.
"Also, could you please sign this for my little brother? He's a big fan of Crusader."
"Sure," Scott replied with a smile and put his signature on the paper, personally addressing it to Jeff's younger brother Ian.
"I'll get started on the case right away," he said after he finished writing and handed the paper and pen back to Jeff, "and I'll call you tomorrow with an update."
Jeff nodded and headed to the elevator, noticeably happier now that his case was being handled.
Scott sat down at his desk and booted up his computer, logging on to a website exclusively for the private investigation community. After putting in his license number, he was able to enter the mainframe and begin doing background research on Francesca Belliorante. He found that she had immigrated to the United States from Brazil as Jeff said, had an active green card to keep her resident alien status legal, got her home address, found her place of work as a bank teller at First National downtown, and discovered that she did have a membership to the yoga studio in this very building. So far, everything Jeff told him had panned out, so now it was time to do some research on Francesca's social media history. As he dug into it, he discovered that she had lived in the US for five years, but only had an FB account that she had created one year ago. Scott could think of a few reasons why that wouldn't be unusual, but he still filed away that information.
After finding as much information as he could, Scott knew he had to head out and get eyes on Francesca to gather anything else. He hoped that following her would shed light on who this 'Dan' person was. Leaving his office, he stopped by Jessica's desk.
"All right, I'm going to go do surveillance on the client. I'll see you later."
After giving Jessica a peck on the lips, he headed to the elevator and began to descend.
Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)
