“No more sorry, no more self-blame, got it?” Sam used her mom voice.
“Got it.” She’d just have to say all that to herself.
Avery placed the plates on the coffee table and started to open boxes of spicy Thai food.
“What happened?” Sam finally asked.
“He took me to Santa Barbara to break it off.”
“Douche,” Avery muttered.
“He’s not a data processing anything. Unless you call a spy someone who process data.”
“Reed’s a spy?” Avery stopped dishing up the noodles.
“He said he used to be a cop, and now he’s a PI.” Lori watched Sam for her reaction.
“Cooper hinted that he didn’t think Reed was in any field that required hours at a desk,” Sam said.
“We should have listened. He was sent to Barcelona to gain information about me. About us.”
“About Alliance.”
Lori nodded.
Avery started dishing stuff up again. “No wonder he was all serious when Trina was drugged.”
“All an act,” Lori said.
“I don’t know, he was concerned.”
“He told me that someone was following me ever since our stop in France. Probably the entire time we were on the ship.”
“Miguel? Cuz that guy—”
“He said it was a woman,” Lori told her.
“Did he give you a name?” Sam asked.
“No, and he wouldn’t tell me who hired him either, or why.”
“So what did he tell you?” Sam asked.
“Just that he was hired to find information about all of us. And that he thought the woman following us was one of Petrov’s hired hands. That I was still in danger.”
Lori looked across the room to where Cooper attempted to blend with the wall. She knew he was listening. Which was fine. All the information Lori had would get back to the Alliance security team anyway.
“He knows about Alliance, Sam.”
“You told him?” Sam asked.
God, if she could take back the pillow talk after all the sex that night. “I was discussing a new client whose husband is beating her up for sport, and how if we’d done a character profile and background check, we would have caught how screwed up this man is. Next thing I know we’re talking about Trina.”
“It wasn’t like we didn’t all talk a little about our lives when we were in Europe,” Avery reminded her.
“I know. The night he and I were talking about Trina, he had this look on his face . . . like someone watching a movie and finally figuring out all the holes in the story. I should have realized then what he was up to.”
“What did you say about Trina’s marriage?” Sam asked.
“Just that we’d done all the background checks and Fedor slipped through. He figured out the rest. I didn’t confirm or deny any of his conclusions about Shannon or you,” Lori told Avery.
“Hey, I don’t care. Bernie would probably be fine with the world finding out.”
“Paul won’t,” Sam said.
Lori squeezed her eyes shut. “I screwed up.”
“Enough, Lori. He’s the private investigator. He knew enough of the pieces to draw the information from you.” Sam reached over and grabbed an unopened bottle of wine. “Now, let’s start at the beginning, everything you can think of, both of you, about what Reed overheard, and what he knows. I need to know which clients are at risk.”
Instead of some dark corner in a warehouse, Mr. Smiles and Mr. Serious pulled into the driveway of a simple suburban house in Tarzana. They entered the house after driving into the garage. Mr. Smiles disengaged a house alarm and went around the kitchen, turning on lights.
Reed knew heavy surveillance when he saw it. Cameras were in the ceiling, his guess was microphones captured the conversation. It was a kinder version of an interrogation room. He wondered if there was a double mirror somewhere with someone behind it.
Mr. Serious’s phone rang, and he moved into a living room to answer it.
“Sit,” Smiles told him.
Part of the other man’s conversation drifted into the room.
Smiles turned to the refrigerator and removed a soda. “I’d offer you something, but this really isn’t a social call.”
Reed huffed. “I took you as the good cop.”
“Ah, c’mon. We’re both good. It isn’t like we forced you to come with us.”
Mr. Serious returned, leaned against a counter, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Reed Barlow doesn’t exist,” he said.
“Sure he does, he just has a different name.”
Smiles turned a chair around and straddled it. “What’s your name?”
Reed hesitated.
“I’ll make it easy.” Smiles lifted his hand across the table. “I’m Rick, and this charmer is Neil.”
Reed extended his hand, and for a good fifteen seconds he and Rick shook hands in a way that would have broken bones for a mere mortal. The desire to shake out his hand to return the circulation was huge, but he squelched it. He opened his mouth and Neil spoke.
“You have one chance to get the name right.”
Or what?
“Lori deserves to know who screwed her over.”
Rick knew how to punch below the belt.
“Michael Reed Barnum.”
Neil glanced at what Reed assumed was a camera and then back to him.
“Who do you work for?” Rick asked.
“Does Alliance use private investigators?” he asked, knowing full well they did.
“Alliance?” Rick played dumb.
“Fine, but how would you feel if your PIs went around blabbing about you?”
“What were you hired to find out?”
“Everything, anything.”
“About Lori?”
“It started as an investigation on Shannon in an effort to find dirt on her ex.”
“How did Shannon turn into an investigation on Lori?”
Reed didn’t answer . . . wasn’t even sure he could.
Rick looked at Neil. “This isn’t going to get very far.”
“I don’t know either of you. For all I know you work for Petrov.”
Rick lost his smile. “I should hit him just for saying that,” he said to Neil.
Neil shrugged like it wouldn’t matter if Rick made good on that threat or not.
“I fell hard.” Lori heard the slur in her own voice. “I mean, I wasn’t looking at wedding dresses, but I started to draft a prenup.”
“That sounds like love for a lawyer,” Sam said. She was sipping her wine, while Avery had no problem trying to keep up with Lori.
“How could I be so stupid? So many coincidences. So many things that just didn’t measure up.”
“Love is blind,” came from Sam’s logical and sober side of the room.
“Screw love. I’ll just switch teams.”
Avery pulled back. “Don’t look at me, I like guys.”
Lori felt the first real smile of the day. “He screwed me just to get information.”
Avery lifted her glass in the air. “Hey, I got screwed for fifty grand.”
Lori blinked. “Bastards.”
Neil didn’t blink. Reed was convinced the man was half robot.
The only reaction was when his phone went off.
“Yeah,” came one side of the conversation. “Keep looking.”
He hung up, stared at Reed. “Michael Reed Barnum, former decorated police officer. Left his badge when he and his partner, Luke Mallory, were ambushed.”
“We were set up by our own guys. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore, so I left.”
Rick and Neil exchanged glances.
“It isn’t fun when one of your own turns on you,” Rick said.
“All I ever wanted to be was a cop. Private investigation seemed the next logical step.”
“Which you’re licensed to do,” Neil said.
“I’m a pillar of honesty.”
Neil pointedly lo
oked at him.
“With a few chinks in my armor.”
“Okay, someone needs to start trusting someone here or we’re never going to be able to protect Lori,” Rick said to Neil.
“Is she all right?” Reed asked.
Rick held up his hand, reached for his phone. “Hey. You’re with them?”
He paused. “No, he’s here. We’re chatting.” Rick laughed. “Maybe he’d like to hear that, hold on.”
Rick handed over his phone.
Reed held it to his ear. Cooper spoke in a low voice. “Remind me to punch you when I see you.”
“Get in line.” Reed was certain one was forming.
“Yeah, there is one. Lori is pissed. And you know what they say about a woman scorned.”
Reed heard voices in the background. Female voices.
“Is she okay?”
“You tell me.”
The voices in the room became louder, as if he’d been put on speaker.
Lori was drunk. “I fell hard, I mean, I wasn’t looking at wedding dresses, but I started to draft a prenup.”
“That sounds like love for a lawyer.” Reed didn’t recognize the voice.
“How could I be so stupid? So many coincidences. So many things that just didn’t measure up.”
Every time Lori spoke, he cringed.
“Love is blind.”
“Screw love. I’ll just switch teams.”
He closed his eyes and kept listening, even though he knew she deserved her privacy.
“Don’t look at me, I like guys,” he heard Avery say.
“He screwed me just to get information.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Rick took the phone from him.
It took several minutes for Reed to move his lips. “I won’t tell you who hired me. They’re not the ones you should worry about, anyway.”
“We’re listening,” Rick said.
For the next hour, Reed revealed everything he could without using the senator’s name. He told them about Sasha and how she was on the flight to Texas, how she was the one to watch.
“That’s not her name, I’m sure. I’ve attempted to get into the passenger list on the cruise, but I doubt it would be of much help.”
“What did Rogelio and Miguel have to do with any of this?”
Reed shrugged. “Coincidental . . . thieves. I spent an extra day in Barcelona searching for them. Their names weren’t on any list, good or bad.”
“Aliases.”
“Right. Crime rings frequent ships like the one we were on, preying upon those first-class passengers who didn’t bother bringing fake jewelry on board. The scam works well because of how few crimes on the open sea can be prosecuted. My guess is Miguel and Rogelio knew the names of the single, rich women when they boarded and targeted them.”
“Just like you did,” Rick said.
“My target was Shannon, and not to rip her off. I told you that.”
“Which means Paul was the target.”
“None of the women said a thing about the governor. I concluded that he hired a bride,” Reed announced. “Lori didn’t tell me that, Shannon didn’t either.”
“Did you tell your client?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it would incriminate Lori.”
Rick and Neil did that silent look thing they’d been doing all afternoon.
“How so?” Rick asked.
“She represents both parties in these marriages. And although that isn’t illegal, there is a question of ethics. I didn’t look into individual cases, mainly because the only ones I can say are part of this deal were those of Avery and her husband, Trina and the dead guy, and Shannon and Paul. I don’t have to tell you both how tight your security is. I’m not ashamed to say I tried a few hacks to get into her files, but it wasn’t possible. And before you damn me for that, I didn’t care about the information I’d find, I wasn’t going to use it anyway. I wanted to know how safe Lori was being.”
“She’s safe.”
“I found that out. But what I would have looked for was loopholes. Reasons for the bar to go after her.”
They did that silent look thing again.
“And you found . . . ?”
“I’m not a paralegal, but one thing that stuck out was timing. If these contracts are signed back-to-back, where either party hasn’t had time to look it over, or seek other counsel, they could be voided. In cases like Avery, chances are neither party would consider turning back on their contract, but in cases like Trina . . . who knows what Petrov would do with the information.”
He paused.
“And since all of the marriages and divorces are public record, as well as their settlement agreements, Lori’s case files would blow up.”
“And those cases would be brought into question,” Rick said to Neil.
“I’m guessing anyone willing to part with several million dollars for a facade doesn’t want that information public.”
“I need to call Blake,” was the only thing Neil said all afternoon.
“And I need to find Sasha,” Reed said. “If she’s working with Petrov and she’s managed to put any of this together, she’s going to try and gather evidence.”
Rick stood, turned the chair back around, and pushed it under the table. “I’ll go with you.”
“I work alone.”
Rick pointed to his chest. “Oh, I’m not your partner. I’m flattered, but thank you.”
“I’m serious.”
Rick lost his smile for all of two seconds. “Me too. You see, you haven’t earned our trust yet. And until you do, you and I just became besties.”
“I told you everything I know.”
Neil had already left the kitchen with the phone to his ear.
Rick crossed to a kitchen drawer, opened it, and removed a pistol and a magazine. He checked the chamber, seemed happy with what he saw, and holstered it at his side.
“Wait, you’re not armed?”
Rick winked. “Why would I be armed?”
Reed peeked around the corner toward Neil’s back. “Neither of you were armed.”
Rick tossed Reed one of his guns, he caught it.
“That would be felony kidnapping.”
Holy crap.
Rick returned Reed’s ammo and his other weapons. “How did you know where I lived?”
Neil stepped around the corner. “Where did you place the bugs in Lori’s home?”
He wanted to lie.
She was going to find out, and that hate she’d been spitting with fire in her eyes when she’d walked away was going to burn holes in him from miles away.
He gritted his teeth as he spoke. “There’s a wire basket on her kitchen counter full of wine corks.”
“And?”
“A tracking device in the trunk of her car. Looks like a pen.”
Neil turned to talk into the phone.
“Dude, she is going to hate you.”
Reed started toward the garage. “Are we going, or are you going to just stand there and remind me what a douche I am?”
Chapter Thirty
“What are we watching?”
Reed had his unwelcome partner park up the street from a mail center. “I managed to acquire a credit card number from Sasha. It was sent here.”
Rick peered out the window. “What makes you think she’s ever coming back?”
“She might not, but until she uses the card, it’s all I have to go on.”
“How often have you been sitting here?”
“Whenever I wasn’t with Lori. And when I was, I had a colleague helping out.”
“I thought you said you didn’t like partners.”
“Colleague, not a partner.”
“How sure are you that she works for Petrov?”
The question made his head itch. “She knew of Petrov . . . and she knew of the person who hired me.”
“So she’s good at what she does.”
“Yes.”
“How soon will we hear from your contacts with the fingerprints?” Reed told them about the wineglass and cell phone.
“Takes a day to run through the database. The fact she had the card sent here points in the direction that she might be local.”
“That was my guess, too.”
Rick looked at the military-style watch on his arm, the kind that screamed waterproof, had a compass, and due to the size of the thing could probably be eaten as an MRE.
“I take it you’re not the patient sort.”
“I don’t like sitting when I could be doing.” He reached for the handle on the door.
“What are you doing?”
Rick popped the trunk, put something in his pocket, and winked as he walked past the car and into the storefront mail spot.
Twenty minutes later, he waltzed out of the building, tucked behind the steering wheel, and turned the engine over.
“Where are we going?”
“Food. I’m hungry.”
“What did you do?”
Rick did a U-turn in the middle of the street and drove back the way they’d come. He removed his cell phone from his pocket and opened a screen.
Reed couldn’t help but laugh. “You managed to put in a camera in only twenty minutes?”
“No, I did it in ten, but I needed to open a mailbox, and that took a few more.”
“You guys are good.”
“We like our toys,” Rick told him.
“Who else can see this?”
“Headquarters.”
“You sound like you’re in the CIA.”
Rick cringed. “No, thank you. I can’t stand paperwork. Private security offers us the opportunity to work without red tape.”
“How many people do you provide private security for?”
Rick snickered. “Why? Looking for a new job?”
Reed stared out the window as the world sped by and didn’t answer the question.
Late, hungover, and really happy she wasn’t due in court, Lori inched into her office with dark sunglasses covering her bloodshot eyes.
She sat in her pool of self-pity and bathed in alcohol and carbohydrates for twenty-four straight hours. Now she was determined to push the man who had all but taken over her life for months over the edge and let him go.
“Coffee,” she told Liana as she walked by the reception desk. “Nothing but emergency calls today. Reschedule my meetings. Tell them I’m ill.”
Fool Me Once (First Wives Series Book 1) Page 26
