Ch93 Payback's a Bitch

“I can’t believe you’re missing practice for me,” Janet said, feeling unduly guilty about it. “What did you tell the coach?”

He rubbed his stomach and grinned. “Something at lunch didn’t agree with me.”

“Yeah, I can be very disagreeable,” she said, pouting.

He laughed and kissed her. “No worries, I still love you.”

“I really do appreciate this, Wes” she said as they got into his car and buckled up.

He shrugged. “I still don’t see how this helps. What are you planning on doing? I don’t see her volunteering anything like that, especially with you…her lover’s daughter. Sorry, alleged.”

“I thought that would give me the opening I need, actually,” she said. 

“Seriously?”

“Just make sure you mention my last name, okay?" Janet said, excitedly. "I want her to think of my dad. I’ll be able to tell just from her face. You can tell all sorts of things from body language and facial expressions, you know.”

“Now you’ve gone from the yenta to the Mentalist?” Wes said shaking his head incredulous. “This I gotta see. Just…Janet, please control your temper, okay? I know what you think of Ms. Masinski, but she is my client, a very good one, and I’d rather not lose her.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “I’ll be good…I hope.”

Wes cast a worried glance at her, then gave a silent prayer.

“Hey, Ms. Martha, how you doing?” Wes said holding the office door open for Janet.

“Hello, Wes,” she said, eying Janet curiously.

“This is Janet Fummel,” Wes said, watching them exchange pleasantries. “She’s in training right now. I hope you don’t mind that she’s here with me today. She needs field experience before I can send her out on her own.”

Martha smiled. “Not at all. My goodness, Wes. You are simply amazing. Not even out of high school and you have a business, an expanding one! Hope my kids are that industrious when they grow up.”

“I think you have time. What’s Jerry, all of eight years old?” Wes said laughing.

“Seven, but anyway,” she said moving away from her desk computer. “You can check this one first and then Harry’s. He’s already gone for the day. Ms. Mas…I mean Ms. Harris is with her last client right now, but she shouldn’t be too long.”

“Great,” he said, motioning Janet to take the vacated seat. “Come on, you’re doing this one.”

“Me?” Janet shrieked. “But…but…”

“You learn by doing,” Wes told her then shook his head at Ms. Martha. “These young whipper-snappers, I tell ya!”

Martha laughed and went off to file a stack of folders.

“Wes, what are you doing? I can’t…” Janet desperately whispered.

“This is easy. Just do as I say,” he said. He then proceeded to instruct her through a series of checks on all computer systems looking for anything untoward.

“Good, the scan will go on its own for a while. Let’s go to the next one and get that one going,” he said leading the way to his accountant’s office.

“They just trust you to do…whatever?” Janet said watching him do the same procedure she had just done—only he did it much quicker.

“Hence, why I wish to keep things on the up and up. Trust is everything,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said frowning at him. “So, I shouldn’t trust you cuz of what you did to me.”

“What?” he shouted. “No, Janet. Thought we got past all that. I was stupid to do it, but I learned my lesson. Never again!”

“So, this is legitimate?” she said, waving toward the computer.

“Of course. Don’t you ever do system checks on your laptop to get rid of questionable things, clearing cookies, cache?”

“Uh…” she said, biting her lip and looking adorably guilty.

“Oh, babe, what am I gonna do with you?” he said. “I’ll do it on your laptop when we get home.”

“Guess I’m not a very good trainee, huh?”

“We’ll fix that,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her back to the receptionist’s desk. He sat down and his mouth fell open. “Oh, snap! There was something there. Bastard. Good thing we came when we did.”

“Really?” Janet said.

“Uh-oh, something bad?” Martha asked.

“You don’t wanna know,” Wes said. “Caught it in time. If you had done one stupid thing…uh, not that you would!”

Martha laughed. “I’m very likely to do something stupid when it comes to my computer, so don’t worry about it.”

Janet felt like an idiot standing around and doing nothing while Wes went through his work. She caught Martha staring at her at one point and she nervously smiled.

“Sorry for staring, but you look very familiar. Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Martha said.

“Uh…I don’t know. Maybe you know my sister. We're twins,” Janet said carefully looking at this thirty-something woman for the first time. Her bleached out, brittle hair, her fleshy face and her dull brown eyes gave her no clues. She looked like a hundred nondescript woman everywhere.

“Did you say your last name was Fummel? Like the jeweler, Jeff Fummel?”

Janet smiled. “That’s my dad,” she said, and she was a bit astonished that she could say it now with pride.

“Jeff Fummel is your father?”

Janet spun around at the sound of this sharp voice and saw the woman from whom it escaped. She was beautiful in a fabricated sort of way. She had perfectly coiffed flaming auburn hair, a peaches-and-cream completion and bright green eyes, but she wore too much makeup—in Janet’s opinion-- which rather marred instead of enhanced her beauty.

“Hey, Ms. Harris,” Wes said, casting a cautious glance at Janet. He stood up and went to her. “This is my…um, trainee, Janet Fummel.”

“Do you know my dad?” Janet said.

Karen Harris didn’t answer straight away. Instead she looked Janet up and down dwelling for a full minute on her face, taking in each feature in turn.

“You look very much like him, but I can see some Wendy in you, too,” she said.

“You know my mom, too, then?” Janet said, watching her carefully while trying to keep her tone neutral.

A lift of an eyebrow could have meant anything, but the not-so-subtle twist of her ruby colored lips screamed contempt and derision. 

“Yes, we all went to school together,” she said, turning to Wes. “Have you finished out here?”

“No, not yet. I found something potentially bad and I need to get rid of it. Janet can start the scan and systems check on yours if…”

“Wes, maybe you should do it,” Janet said. “I’m not sure I can on my own just yet.”

Wes smiled at her. “Janet, I have total confidence in your abilities even if you don’t.”

“Wes, we pay for you to do this,” Karen said pointedly.

“All right,” he said, going back to the receptionist’s desk to finish.

“If you knew my parents, can you tell me what they were like back in high school?” Janet said. "I've heard stories, but it would be nice to hear it from their friends."

Karen gave her one of those smiles that are more like a grimace. “A cheerleader and a jock. They were the perfect couple. What more is there to say?”

“Guess they were inseparable even then. My dad still can't get enough of her,” Janet retorted, trying her best to needle her into letting something spill.

“But I hear they’re divorcing now,” Karen said. “Terribly sorry. We all thought they would last forever.”

Janet narrowed her eyes not liking the woman’s gleeful tone, and she was unable to hide her satisfied smirk, either.

Janet forced a smile and shook her head. “Forever hasn’t gotten here yet.”

“I’m sorry?” Karen said, confused.

“You’ve been misinformed. They're not getting a divorce,” she said. Janet so enjoyed the stunned expression on her face  that she almost let out a laugh.

“You mean they’re back together?” Karen sharply said.

“Yep,” Janet said, briefly glancing at Wes. “It was so totally ridiculous. My mom didn’t believe any of it. She thought it was so funny. Some bitch calls her up to say my dad slept with her, when she knew from the bartender that Dad passed out from two shots of tequila. Everybody knows he can’t do much after two shots of tequila.”

“I’m done with this one. I’ll go see about the others,” Wes said, “Janet, can you help me in here, please?”  He shot her a warning look, but she promptly ignored it.

“I mean my dad gets so drunk he passes out and can’t remember leaving the bar and some slut takes him home, lets him sleep it off on the couch and then she calls Mom and gives her some stupid story that he slept with her and Mom’s supposed to be all, oh, this is such a betrayed? What a joke!” Janet said laughing. 

The expression on Karen’s face was priceless and told Janet exactly as she suspected.

“So, she believed him then?” Karen said, trying for nonchalant, but not quite making it.

“Well, she wasn’t going to believe that sl…” Janet said.

“Janet, it’s time to go,” Wes interrupted just in time. “I found nothing bad on your computer, Ms. Harris, one suspicious thing which turned out to be nothing on Mr. Pollack’s computer and four potentially bad things of Ms. Martha’s…”

“Four?” Ms. Martha shrieked.

“Yes, but don’t worry,” Wes explained. “I got rid of those and everything should be good now. Unless you have any questions, we'll leave now.”

He looked from one to the other. Janet looked pleased, Karen looked distressed and angry and Martha, worried and  preoccupied.

“So, why does mine always get the bad stuff?” she asked.

“You might be going to questionable sites. You can’t trust some of them, a lot of them,” Wes said. “Stay away from kitten videos.”

Martha gasped. “Really? I love those!”

He laughed. “I was only kidding. Well, um, have a good evening, ladies,” he said, grabbing Janet’s hand and pulling her out of the office.  He wouldn’t let go until they were at the car. When he did and before he could scold her for abusing his client, Janet wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him ever so tightly.

"Janet, what are you..." 

“Wes, you’re the best boyfriend ever, and I’m keeping you forever!” she said, just before thoroughly kissing him.

So much for the telling off!