The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

how many other people around the world have the same business as I do. I certainly don’t have any colleagues. I do this very much on my own, and that is vital because what I do is dangerous.

I play with people’s lives.

Of course, I don’t do that for the fun of it. I command a hefty fee, a figure that my prospective clients are often shocked at when I first give it to them. But I don’t charge a lot out of greed.

I charge a lot because I risk a lot.

Take Rebecca and Sam, for example. I’ve had to sneak into their home, and I could have been caught at any moment. That would have resulted in a prison sentence and a criminal record. That’s why I charge a lot. I need to be well compensated in case something goes wrong. But so far, nothing has ever gone wrong. My assignments have always gone well, my clients have always been happy, and most importantly, I have avoided prison. I can’t complain. But I’m only human, so I can always find something to complain about, and that is why I’m complaining about not having enough business.

I can sometimes go days without work, and while that doesn’t matter financially because I have plenty of money from my previous jobs, it matters when it comes to keeping myself busy. It’s like I have the best job in the world, but I just can’t do it all the time. It’s very frustrating, but I guess that is perhaps the price to pay for being ahead of my time. As I said, I don’t know anyone else who does what I do. It’s not that there isn’t a market for it. It’s just that it’s very niche, and most importantly, it’s very hard to advertise. I can’t just put up a billboard or run a commercial. My success in keeping my business away from the prying eyes of the police is down to discretion. All my clients have to sign an agreement that says they will never disclose what I do in the event of it being uncovered. That keeps me safe, but it also keeps them safe too. They are just as guilty as I am.

The only difference between us is I get rich while they get the chance to snare the man or woman of their dreams.

Here’s how it works. A prospective client will contact me and tell me their story. It’s nearly always the same story, and the only things that change are the names. Here’s an example. Say there’s a woman called Sarah and she is in love with a man called Simon. Now Sarah could just tell Simon that she likes him and ask him out for a drink, but there is just one problem. Simon is married to Stella, and he’s a good guy, so he’s not going to cheat or leave his wife. So what can Sarah do? Give up on her heart’s desire and find somebody else to fall in love with or get serious about what she really wants?

If she gives up, she has no one to blame but herself.

But if she gets serious, that’s when she gives me a call.

It’s at that point that Sarah will give me Simon and Stella’s names, as well as their address, and that’s when I go to work learning everything that I can about them.

Their habits. Their routines.

Their weaknesses.

Then it’s just a case of implementing a series of strategies that will yield the result that my client requires. And what does the client require? In Sarah’s case, she wants Simon and Stella to break up. That way, she will have a chance at getting her man once he is unencumbered. But why would Simon and Stella break up if they were happily married?

Because I can make it seem like one of them is cheating on the other.

All I have to do is plant some seeds and watch them grow. The first thing to do is create doubt in the subject’s mind. Stella might think of her husband as being loyal until she suddenly sees me on her doorstep telling her that he is not. I have no evidence to give, but I don’t need it at that time. All I needed to do was plant the first seed. Now Stella is thinking about it, and the first crack in the solid foundation of their marriage has been made.

Then I simply create more cracks by planting things in their house, things that shouldn’t be there. I can also use technology to create messages that seem incriminating for a cheating spouse or send handwritten letters with even more fake claims in them. In truth, I can do anything that I want because I’m the boss of my own business, and that business is all about understanding what makes human beings tick.

Hope. Fear. Happiness. Paranoia. We’re all the same, and we all want the same thing.

We just want to be loved.

That’s the concept that marriages are built on. Two people who love each other and make a commitment to be together forever. But those marriages only work with trust, and losing that trust can bring the whole thing crumbling down.

In the end, Stella will leave Simon because she can’t trust him. It doesn’t matter that he has done nothing wrong because the evidence I left has created enough distrust for things to never be the same again. Then my work is done, but for my client, Sarah, her job is just beginning. Now it’s up to her to make all that time, money and effort worth it by swooping in and taking Simon for himself, preferably when he’s feeling at his lowest point after the breakdown of his marriage and needs somebody to cheer him up.

And just like that, Sarah has got her dream man.

She’s happy because she’s always loved him, Simon’s happy because he has a new woman to make him feel good about himself, and I’m happy because I’m