“All right,” Tommy said, his tone having the same businesslike clip Seth was accustomed to hearing during the workday. It somehow made the whole thing easier. Slightly.
“I’ll of course send the complete report electronically as well, complete with password-protected documents, but I find it’s sometimes easier to explain the high-level findings over the phone. And of course, if there are questions—”
“Franklin,” Seth interrupted, rubbing at his forehead that hadn’t ceased aching. “Just spit it out. I’m not a besotted husband waiting to hear if the love of his life’s been sleeping with the milkman.”
“Who do you want me to start with?” Franklin asked.
“Garrett.”
“Is actually not Garrett. Or Neil for that matter. The man’s real name is Ned Alonzo. Mother is a Katherine Alonzo, a hairdresser in Albuquerque. Father listed as a Jorge Alonzo, died in a car accident when Ned was a teen, although wasn’t in the picture even before that.”
Seth inhaled deeply. He’d been right. Neil Garrett wasn’t who he said he was.
Of course, there were worse things than changing one’s name. Perhaps the man had just wanted a fresh start, or—
“Garrett, or Alonzo, whatever we want to call him, is nearly eight hundred thousand dollars in debt.”
Just like that, Seth ceased to be aware of the pain in his head, because his chest suddenly hurt too much. “Sorry. Eight hundred thousand? As in, nearly a million dollars in the hole?”
“Gambling addiction. The man did okay playing small tables in casinos across the country, likely starting as a hobby. Thought he could make it in the big leagues in Vegas. He started out legit. Charmed the right people, got access to the big tables at the big resorts. Lost big money fast, and tried to make it up underground.”
“And he didn’t.”
“Nope,” Franklin said.
“How long ago?”
“That he lost the money? He started to go under about eight months ago, but it escalated rapidly. He headed to New York not too long after getting roughed up by one of his bookie’s juice men.”
“Where he met my sister.”
“Right. Here’s the part you may want to take a deep breath for,” Franklin warned.
“It gets worse?”
“I was able to access some of the security video footage of some of Ms. Tyler’s favorite places from that list you sent me. Her local Starbucks, favorite wine bar, the restaurants she prefers to meet her girlfriends for lunch. He made an appearance at all the same places she did for nearly two weeks before he first approached her in line at that Starbucks.”
“Christ.”
“Without any kind of audio coverage, I don’t have verbal confirmation, so I feel duty-bound to inform you that it could be a coincidence, but in my professional opinion . . .”
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Seth finished grimly.
“I don’t believe so, no. This man needed money in a hurry, your sister has money, and Garrett played her rather perfectly. Also, I looked into some of the more expensive gifts he bought her. The jewelry, the lavish dinners, the designer accessories . . . it appears that they were all charged to one of Ms. Tyler’s credit cards.”
“Wait, Maya paid for her own gifts?”
“I suspect she’s unaware. The card hadn’t been used for several months prior to her meeting Neil. My guess, he swiped it from her wallet, her dresser, maybe an old handbag.”
Seth dragged a hand over his face. He’d known this was coming. In his gut, he’d known. But damn, he would have been happy to be wrong.
“He’s planning to use her money to settle his debt.”
“Yes, and there is one more bit of bad news.”
Seth gave a mirthless laugh. Of course there was. “Hit me.”
“Those dates you sent me, with Garrett’s travel for work.”
“Yeah.”
“Definitely not traveling for work. He’s bought tickets to every location he’s claimed, trying to create some credibility, but he’s bought tickets to Vegas for those exact same dates, every time. Guess which flight he got on. Every time.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
There were several moments of silence as Franklin seemed to sense his client needed a chance for everything to sink in.
“Anything you’d like me to dig further into?” Franklin asked. “I haven’t seen any signs of other women, if that’s a consolation.”
“It’s not,” Seth replied flatly.
The PI snorted. “Thought as much.”
“This is good stuff,” Seth said quietly. “Not what I wanted to hear, but . . . thank you.”
“Just doing my job,” Franklin said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t suppose part of your job might include telling my sister all these bits of good news?”
Franklin gave a polite courtesy laugh. “Trust me, you’re not the first person to ask. I suspect I could make a killing delivering other people’s bad news.”
“No doubt,” Seth said, his head pounding even harder as he tried to figure out how the hell to break this kind of news to his sister.
“Ready to hear about the other job?” Franklin asked.
The other . . .?
Ah, fuck.
Seth was so busy reeling from news about Garrett—no, Alonzo—that he’d nearly forgotten that he’d also hired Franklin to check into Clay Battaglia’s whereabouts.