Trust Me

Chapter 1

"We'll pay you 700 if you get the job done," she said to me.  I glanced up over the desk at both of them.  Neither could have been older than 17.  The guy's hair was thick and dirty-blonde, not falling further than his ears or green eyes.  The girl's hair was black and thin, making her skin even more pale by comparison, and her ice eyes seeming sharper.  The two were an odd pair.

"Exactly what do you want me to do again?" I questioned, examining the folder that had the information they had provided.  A picture of a teenage boy sat pinned inside it, along with various forms that had filled out for us.

"Do whatever it takes to get him to us.  We've tried everything, but he won't come back," the girl said.  

"We can't talk to him about it if he's refusing to even see us," the boy added.  I wanted to ask why they were so frantic to reach this Aidan Fosco guy, but it really wasn't any of my business.  That was how it worked at my job.  We'd do any undercover and acting work to spy/follow/lure in/prank/whatever for the customer, but we never got to ask why.  We just sat wondering.

"All right.  Can you tell me anything about this kid?  Hang outs?  Type of girl he's into?  It'll be a lot easier to get close if I know what he'll want from me," I explained.  The nice thing about being a 16-year-old girl was that it was so easy to be someone different every day, and I had so many options.  

"It's all on the paper.  We've tried everything we can, but you're our last hope," the girl explained.  My curiosity kept growing the more they spoke.  They were completely desperate to get this guy to them.  Was he a druggie and they wanted to stage an intervention?  Did he do something terrible to them and they wanted revenge or an apology?  Maybe I'd get to find out as I worked through the job.

"I'll see what I can do," I stated.  

Both excused themselves from my office while I examined the file.  He didn't really look like a druggie.  Maybe like he'd hang out with the potheads and smokers, but not like he'd do them himself.  All I could depict from the image they had given me was that this Aidan guy looked like one of the emo kids, with black hair that fell into his face and covered his ears, a hoop through the right side of his bottom lip, and bright red hair dye to cover the tips of his hair.  I couldn't tell how tall he was with the head shot, but if I had to guess based on what I could see, he was going to be nearly six feet tall.  

"Ash," someone said from the door leading to the small room I was in.  The whole place barely qualified as an office, being large enough to barely fit in a classroom-sized desk, a chair for me, and two chairs for my customers.  It was more of a closet than an office, but what can a 16-year-old expect?  

I glanced up to see my co-worker, Brady, staring at me from his position at the doorframe.  He was the only other teen that worked with me, but that didn't stop him from acting like my boss when we were on-duty.  Off-duty he resumed his position as one of my best friends.

"Brady," I replied.  It was impossible for me to treat him like my boss when he had just been at my house the night before, playing video games with me.  

"Do you have any idea who those guys were?" he asked.  I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders.  

"Only the information they gave me when they came in.  It's not my business to know, remember?  It's just my business to get close to this Aidan guy, get him back to them, and collect my 700 bucks.  I'll be that much closer to my Camaro," I explained.  

"Do you pay any attention at school?" he demanded, taking a seat across from me.  I sighed and rolled my eyes.  Couldn't he give boss-mode a break for a while?  I had bigger fish to fry than figuring out the identities of the customers that had asked me to track down Aidan Fosco.