The Date

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Blinddatebrides.com is running thirteen chat rooms, fifty-six private IM conferences, and 7,828 members are online. Chat with your dating prospects now!

Private IM conference

* * *

25 (3 participants)...

EnglishCrumpet: Who would have thought I’d meet the man of my dreams on an online dating site? I still can’t believe it!

Danica Bennett blew out a puff of air. She couldn’t believe it either.

Alone in her neatly organized cubicle in the otherwise messy San Francisco office of Hookamate.com, she reread the purple words written in a funky font on her computer screen. EnglishCrumpet, aka Grace Marlowe from London, deserved all the happiness in the world. Dani sincerely hoped her online friend found wedded bliss with her new husband, Noah. Especially with a baby on the way.

But living happily ever after didn’t seem possible to Dani. A glance at the photograph of her family—her mother, her three younger sisters, and herself—only reaffirmed that belief. Winning the lottery appeared to be more likely than falling in love. Though she’d never say those words to her newlywed friend. Dani typed, the letters appearing in green—the color of money. Too bad her life wasn’t as rich and bold as her computer font.

SanFranDani: It is incredible.

Grace had only known Noah a short time before marrying the bestselling thriller author and then finding out she was pregnant.

More words, rust brown in a plain but strong font, appeared on the screen—KangaGirl, their mutual friend Marissa Warren, from Australia. The three had met during an online party for new members of the Blinddatebrides.com website. They now talked in a private chat room to catch up on each other’s lives.

KangaGirl: Amazing, yes, but not that rare. One in eight people meets their spouses online.

Dani almost laughed. Marissa sounded like a commercial for online dating. Or like a happy bride. Which she would be in a few months. She’d fallen in love with her temporary boss, not someone she met on the website like Grace, though it wasn’t for Marissa’s lack of trying to meet a guy online.

SanFranDani: Well, it’s a good thing for me. Or I’d be out of another job.

Even this awful one. She stabbed her fork at her lunch, a limp chicken Caesar salad left over from last night’s dinner. Her meal was a metaphor for her life that was only limping along. Ugh. She hated that.

EnglishCrumpet: What do you mean?

KangaGirl: You’ve lost me.

The two messages popped up on Dani’s screen at the same time.

Oh, no. She dropped her fork. Distracted by her friends’ happiness and her bleak prospects, she’d revealed more than she intended. The three of them had grown so close over the past six months she’d almost let her secret slip out.

Time for damage control.

SanFranDani: Nothing. I’m just so glad you guys joined Blinddatebrides.com. I don’t know how I would have survived these months without your support and friendship.

As she typed the words, a funny feeling settled in Dani’s stomach. What kind of friend was she, keeping the truth about why she’d joined Blinddatebrides.com from Marissa and Grace?

EnglishCrumpet: You’ve been through a lot, Dani. Losing your dream job at that start-up and getting used to a different one. Things will turn around. Just watch.

KangaGirl: And then, when you least expect it, you’ll meet him. Your special man.

Dani hoped not.

Snores drifted from the engineers’ cubicle a few feet away. Someone must have pulled an all-nighter. That was normal because the CEO thrived on pressure. He didn’t care if it was killing the morale and health of his employees.

But that was why she needed to get her career back on track first. She’d spent the last six months trying to find another job with no success. Distractions, especially men, weren’t allowed right now.

KangaGirl: The only question is...how do we make it happen?

We.

Unexpected tears stung Dani’s eyes. She ran her fingertips over the bracelet—silver with crystal beads—Marissa had sent her after a trip to Hong Kong. These women, even though they’d never met in person, truly cared about her.

SanFranDani: Please. No one needs to make anything happen. I’m doing fine. No worries.

EnglishCrumpet: We’re not really worrying. We just want to help. You joined this site for a reason, Dani.

But not for the same reason as Marissa and Grace.

Guilt welled up inside Dani.

It was time to come clean. To stop lying.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard with lightning speed, in case nerves and fear got the best of her. Or her boss showed up.

SanFranDani: I didn’t join Blinddatebrides.com to meet men.

KangaGirl: Then, why did you join?

SanFranDani: Because

The cursor blinked, waiting for her to finish. Dani swallowed hard. Her online friendship with Marissa and Grace was the only thing in her life going well these days. Did she want to risk that?

But what kind of relationship did they have if she wasn’t honest?

Dani took a deep breath and typed.

SanFranDani: I was forced to.

She stared at the screen, her heart racing, her hands sweating.

EnglishCrumpet: Did someone sign you up as my daughter did with me?

If only. Dani snuck another look around the office before returning her trembling fingers to the keyboard.

SanFranDani: No, I signed up myself.

KangaGirl: ???

Dani felt sick, but she needed to tell the truth. Er, type it.

SanFranDani: I’m a spy.

* * *

“There’s something you should see.”

Bryce Delaney heard his assistant’s voice, but he didn’t glance up from his computer monitor and the database query he was writing. He didn’t have to.

Joelle Chang would stand two feet from the edge of his walnut-stained desk, holding a manila file folder with a pen—blue ink only to tell the difference on photocopies—tucked behind her ear. Despite her college-girl long hair and trendy clothes, his forty-one-year-old personal assistant was dedicated, thorough, and one hundred percent predictable. Exactly the way he liked things. And people. “I pay you enough to see for me.”

“You wanted to be kept in the loop about security issues.”

Security was a top priority at his website, Blinddatebrides.com. Bryce glanced up. “What’s up?”

Joelle’s gaze darkened with irritation. “Two red flags.”

Seriously? He didn’t need this on top of the other problems they’d been dealing with. Scammers, spammers, hackers, marrieds, the list went on.

“It might mean nothing,” she added.

In the last year, they’d experienced a handful of false alarms. “But it might mean we have a troublemaker on board.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. He’d dealt with escorts, cheats, thieves, and liars. Had charges brought against the criminals when possible, too.

He was determined that no one would take advantage of his customers. Too many people pretended to be someone they weren’t, both in real life and online. He had experience with that. His sister, as well. But Caitlin was more trusting than him. That was why he’d started an online dating—make that a relationship—service: to protect people like her.

“What do you have?” he asked.

Joelle handed him a file. “This client has been a member for over six months. Everything about her appears legit, including her background check.”

“Her?”

“Yes,” Joelle answered. “No filters picked up anything to suggest she’s an escort.”

Those were usually easy to detect since they asked for money in almost every message.

“But the chat filter pinged something, so we did a little investigating,” Joelle said. “The subject spends hours logged on to the site each day, but she hasn’t accepted a date yet, even though her profile has been marked highly compatible with several men.”

Bryce had worked with a psychologist to create an algorithm to match clients based on their interests, backgrounds, and personalities. Chats, based on compatibility, were also arranged with groups of well-matched personalities since many people preferred group interactions to one-on-one. Some clients, though, preferred to peruse the profiles and pick matches themselves.

He opened the file and studied the photo of a woman. The messy blond hair piled on top of her head and secured with a red bandana caught his eye first. Not the most appealing hairstyle. The picture itself was far from flattering. She wasn’t smiling or looking at the camera. Shadows obscured much of her face, though she appeared flushed unless her skin was always red like that. Her profile stated blue eyes, but he couldn’t distinguish the color—or really anything about her.

“The compatibility program matched her?” he asked.

“Yes. With seventeen clients so far. Five contacted her. Others must have seen something they liked because they emailed her, too. She replied to each one, but that was it. No additional correspondence. No chat invites. Nothing.”

“At least she’s following the guidelines about replying to messages, even if you’re not interested in the person.”

“Yes.”

He read more in the file. Clients turning down potential dates wasn’t unusual. Bryce remembered a shy woman in particular, but several others had misrepresented themselves. Better to err on the side of caution. “You’ve taken the usual steps?”

Joelle nodded. “Customer service called to discuss her experience. She asked as many questions as they did, and they were on the phone for two hours.”

“Two hours?”

Another nod. “I contacted her myself after that. She came across as highly intelligent and friendly, but remember that identity thief? Assume no one nice is also harmless.”

“That’s for sure.” Bryce flipped through the other pages in the file. He noticed a familiar zip code. She lived here in San Francisco. Many scammers he’d dealt with were overseas. But this was his home turf. He would be able to follow the prosecution to the end if she were guilty. “Where does she go on the site?”

“Chat rooms, particularly the Ladies Lounge, and private IM chats. She spends most of her time exploring the website. Not client profiles, but the content itself.”

Most people, whether or not they wanted to date, enjoyed checking out the profiles of others in their area. On some internet relationship sites that earned revenue through advertising, anyone could register and search profiles for free. Not on Blinddatebrides.com. Only paying members, who’d filled out a detailed questionnaire and agreed to a background check if they lived in the United States, were able to search the database, read profiles, and contact members.

Joelle continued. “She’s online during normal work hours and late at night. Two different IP addresses have been linked to her account name, depending on the time of day.”

Nothing unusual about that. “Work and home.”

“Seems likely, but few employers would encourage their employees to spend that much time on a dating site while at work.”

“Unless her boss has no idea.” Bryce skimmed the rest of the pages and zeroed in on one of the red flags. She’d said she was a spy during a chat. “Or her employer wants her checking us out.”

The online dating world was a cutthroat one. The competition stole from each other regularly, but pretending to want to meet dates went against the terms of service users agreed to when they joined Blinddatebrides.com. She’d mentioned nothing about her job before saying she was a spy.

“What does she do for a living?” Bryce asked.

“She listed sales as her occupation.”

“That’s too vague, given the list of options to choose from.”

“Red flag number three?”

Bryce nodded. He prided himself on making his website a safe and secure place for his customers to meet and fall in love. His sister’s heart had been broken, and her bank account drained, thanks to the “love” she’d found on a competitor’s site. The guy had turned out to be the exact opposite of what he’d claimed to be. No one would pull a stunt like that on Bryce’s website during his watch. “I’ll get right on it.”

Joelle smiled. “I almost feel sorry for her.”

“Why is that?”

“Because, once you get started, you don’t stop.”

He shrugged. “Just doing my job.”

“Remember, it’s just a job.” She pulled the pen from behind her ear. “Grant is emailing you a file with additional information you might need.”

“Thanks.” As she left the office and closed the door, Bryce stared at the picture in the folder. He glanced at the username. “Who are you, SanFranDani? And what are you doing on my site?”