The Undercover Affair

by Cathryn Parry

  “A burglary ring? Are we sure about this? How so?”

  Pete sighed. “Sometimes we have to keep you in the dark, Lyn,” he said softly. “That’s why undercover work isn’t for everyone.”

  “Don’t patronize me. You and I both know that I’m the one on the front lines, and as such, I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

  He frowned at her, but she stared back. She’d countered him well with her gun handling; he had seen that. No way could he claim otherwise.

  “We have footprints from three different men,” he said quietly.

  Her heart pounded. How she wished she could be part of the fieldwork beyond this cul-de-sac.

  “Any matches?” she pressed. “Any leads?”

  Pete’s lips pressed harder. “None.”

  So she was still a sitting duck out here.

  “Have there been any more break-ins?” she asked.

  “Since you met with Simon? No. But the thinking is that we’ve had the moonlight and clear atmospheric conditions. Now we’ve got some overcast weather and dark nights coming up, so we’re expecting that to change.”

  Food for thought. She would have to be careful.

  “Well,” she said, “I’d like to share my leads about the paintings with the task force. Maybe that will help.” She motioned Pete to the door. “I want to show you the paintings in question and talk about a theory I have.”

  Nodding, he followed her inside to the large downstairs living room. Kitty MacLaine, in all her tastefully nude glory, gazed at them from above the fireplace.

  “I looked up the artist that the congressman commissioned for these on the internet,” she said. “He’s New York–based, he’s famous, and the subject, of course, is my client, so these paintings are of interest. There are two smaller watercolors upstairs.”

  Without a word, he followed her upstairs, waiting outside Kitty’s bedroom as Lyndsay withdrew the key to the MacLaines’ private rooms.

  She paused outside the door to the master bedroom suite. “Kitty asked that I not let anyone inside. Her husband has a second safe that he didn’t mention to us inside one of the closets.”

  “Interesting,” Pete mused.

  “That’s what I thought.” She opened the door—easily and soundlessly now that John had fixed them—then pocketed the key. She led him to the alcove where they were displayed.

  Pete stared at them. “Take a look at this.” He pulled out his phone and scanned through some photos before holding out the screen for her to get a better view of one.

  It was a similar watercolor, but with a different subject on the beach and no pets. “It’s the same artist,” she said.

  “We’re not sure.”

  “Sure we are. Look at the expression on the two women’s faces.” She pointed between his phone and her paintings on the wall. “It’s the same.”

  He squinted closer. Made a small noise in his throat. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  She had. She was detail-oriented.

  “Where did you get this image?” she asked Pete. “Did you find it online?”

  “No. There’s nothing at all online—believe me, we checked with our image-matching software. We also checked with the top auction houses we work with. They had no idea what this painting is.”

  She got a feeling again. A hunch. She gestured to the photo on his phone. “Was this watercolor stolen from another seacoast home?”

  He nodded grimly. “It was, along with a bunch of others. We weren’t focused on this one right away, not until your tip, because other, more valuable paintings were stolen. We brought photos of the pictures here that Gary had taken to the owners of the burgled homes. In three out of five homes, they told us that these paintings were similar to what was taken from them. Two of them hadn’t even realized their painting was missing—it wasn’t on their radar to check, precisely because they aren’t valuable.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. She had done this. She was breaking open the case, she could feel it. Just to make sure and be careful, though, she asked the question: “Are there any other artists in common with all these break-ins?”

  “So far? No.”

  “It still might be a coincidence. Maybe the thieves are just taking whatever art they can find in addition to the contents of the safes. Maybe they’re art connoisseurs—who knows? But to follow this lead, we need to talk with the owners of the other paintings to find out where they got them and who painted them.”

  “We did that. In one case, the painting came with the house when the owner bought it furnished. It used to be a rental, and no one knew how it came to be on the wall. In the second case, the owner thinks his late wife bought it at a local crafts fair, but he’s not sure. The third owner doesn’t have a clue. He inherited the home from an aunt. He had only one image he could find of it, quite by chance. What I have on my phone is blown up from a bigger picture he gave me, of a room in his house during some sort of party. Wesley cropped it down to this single image of the painting.”

  “Has anyone talked with Congressman MacLaine about his two paintings?”

  “Not yet. We can’t reach him for another forty-eight hours.”

  “Can’t you or I contact him through a satellite phone or something?” Cruise ships weren’t completely inaccessible.

  “We could, Lyn, but it’s not important enough of a question to disturb him.”

  “Oh, the VIP gave his orders, did he?”

  “His wife did. Evidently, she’s adamant that she have his undivided attention.” He glanced fiercely at her. “That’s need-to-know, and it’s to go no further.”

  “Of course.” Without thinking, she made a lips-are-sealed sign with her fingers before her mouth. Just like John had.

  Wow.

  “Well,” she said, moving right along, “I have a tip. One of the locals mentioned that there are summer artist colonies on the seacoast. My thought is that the talented amateurs sell their paintings for cash.”

  “Could be worth checking out. What’s the name of the artist colony?”

  “I plan to search the internet this afternoon.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll set up a call with you and Commander Harris for Monday,” Pete said. “Prepare to make a case to him for contacting Congressman MacLaine and then seeing where you can run with this.”

  “Thank you.” She hadn’t expected this from him, at all, and she appreciated it.

  Pete glanced at his watch. “Meet me at the rendezvous tomorrow night at eight.”

  “I thought you were busy,” she remarked. “That’s why I got Simon last time.”

  “I’m still your backup, Lyn. And I do have compassion for your situation.”

  “Do you?” Without thinking, she glanced toward John’s house. She wouldn’t mind his help with her internet search.

  “Tonight,” she said impulsively to Pete, “could you please relieve me for dinner?”

  He sighed. “Tonight?”

  “I need to get out, just for an hour or two.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” He scratched his head. “What I’ll do is I’ll access your cameras remotely from the hard drive and monitor the place in real time.”

  “You can do that?” she asked, surprised.

  He looked guilty. “We have the web location and user ID and password, so, yes, we can.”

  Amazing. If she had known this, she would have requested it more often. “Great. I’ll call you tonight when I’m ready to leave.” She paused for a moment. “Do you like homemade chocolate-chip cookies?”

  Pete grinned. “Love them.”

  “Then you shall be rewarded.”

  He smiled at her. With another glance at his watch, he stepped outside the room. “I’m off. Remember to keep your cover.”

  “Yeah, you, too.” Since he’
d taken the precaution of dressing in a bland uniform similar to the way a cable repairman dressed, if he was seen then she had a story for nosy Andy.

  She let him out downstairs again, by the kitchen exit, and she stood before the back doors, arms crossed, as she watched him walk past the hot tub and over the sand dunes.

  That had gone well.

  And now she had an honest excuse to see John again.

  * * *

  FOR THE REST of the day, every time Lyndsay passed the upstairs windows, she gazed out at the gray cottage that John had pointed out as his. Just head over there. You’re always welcome.

  A sense of joy filled her, all the sweeter after her morning of anxiety. She loved the possibility of combining two things that gave her pleasure—talking with John, and forwarding her police investigation.

  Humming, she decided to research artist colonies first. She found several that looked interesting, but they were upstate in the lakes region and nearer the mountains, which was ironically her home turf. She planned to ask John for help with the seacoast region, but only if they could speak organically about it. She didn’t want to raise his suspicions.

  Later in the afternoon, she phoned the small market down the beach and ordered groceries to be delivered. Chocolate, butter, eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder and vanilla flavoring—she set to work mixing cookie batter using her mom’s recipe. After the batch finished baking, she set it on a wire rack on the counter to cool, then turned off the oven.

  She took a quick shower, put on some lip gloss and mascara, then threw on a thin pullover and a fresh pair of jeans and some sneakers. It felt naked being without her Glock, but she slipped her driver’s license and some cash in a wallet and tucked that into her pocket, along with her mobile phone. When John’s vehicle arrived in his driveway, home from work, she would call Pete, then head over. If she walked all the way around using the streets, it was a twenty-minute walk. Hiking a direct route across the street and through the grass path—the way John had jogged this morning—would take five easy minutes to reach John’s front door.

  She kept a periodic watch for him, but it wasn’t until eight o’clock that John’s truck drove into the driveway. She saw him turn off the engine and the headlights, then get out. Once inside, his house lights went on.

  Her heart beating in anticipation, she forced herself to wait five more minutes before she called Pete.

  She scooped her cookies on to a pretty plate and wrapped it with a sheet of plastic wrap. At the last minute, she decided to bring her Glock along. Because...well, it was part of her job.

  She really didn’t know what would happen, or who she would cross.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JOHN CAME HOME after a long afternoon and evening of staffing the bar, minding the till, watching the door. Saturday nights were always crowded. He wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and chill out, away from the public.

  Inside the bathroom upstairs, he peeled off his clothes and stepped under the steaming spray. The water pounding on his back, he leaned his hands against the tiled wall and zoned out for a few minutes. He was wound up from dealing with everyone else’s issues. Backing up his employees. Herding and keeping an eye on his family. They were all good people, just...maddening sometimes. He got the feeling they’d all been in too close contact this past year. After Patrick was settled, John needed a long vacation to think.

  Ding. The motion-detector alarm he’d installed for his driveway went off. Could be anything—a critter, probably. Still, he turned off the shower and groped for a towel.

  Ding-dong.

  That was his doorbell. His pulse kicked into gear. Since it was nighttime and no one had called ahead, he doubted it was good news. Who was in trouble—Patrick? His mother?

  He grabbed his jeans from the floor and tugged them on. The T-shirt he didn’t bother with—it smelled like wood smoke and pizza, anyway. If this was an emergency and he had to leave the house, then he kept a hooded sweatshirt on the hook by the door. Boots were down there, too. And his wallet was still in his back pocket.

  On the way past his bedroom, he caught a glimpse of Toby’s gray-and-brown-striped tail. The cat hid himself under the bed. Good. It was the best place for him.

  John took the stairs two at a time. The porch light had come on—he could see it through the side window, but whoever was on the other side wasn’t in view. As he’d been trained to do in the Marines, he stopped beside the door.

  He peered cautiously, until he caught a reflection.

  Lyn Francis.

  Every muscle in his body instantly relaxed. It should have told him something that his first reaction to seeing her was pleasure. And to think he’d once suspected her of being someone other than who she was. Seemed strange to think of her as a cop now. He’d caught her crying today—cops didn’t cry. They were hard-asses, like Marines. They didn’t worry about water leaks, and they didn’t take long walks on the beach and lean against a guy’s chest, lingering too long.

  They also didn’t show up at his house on a Saturday night holding a plate of what looked to be homemade cookies.

  Smiling to himself, he opened the door. “Have you come to feed me?”

  “Um, yes.” Her eyes were huge as she stared at his bare chest.

  He’d forgotten about that. He still had water droplets on him from the shower. Even his pants stuck to his wet skin.

  He grabbed the sweatshirt, put it on and zipped it up so she would feel more comfortable. “Please, come in.” He held the door wider as she stepped tentatively past him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her lashes dipping. “I should’ve given you advance notice. I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “That’s okay. I have a motion detector. I knew someone, or something, was outside the house before the doorbell even rang.”

  She laughed. “Why am I not surprised?” she teased. Then she held her plate forward. “A small token of my gratitude for last night and this morning.”

  “Nice.” He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the chocolate-chip cookie. “You brought the one thing we don’t have on the menu.” He gave her a smile. Her eyes were so hesitant and blue. And she’d remembered what he’d said about liking desserts—he appreciated that. “Want to have some with me?”

  “Okay.” She glanced around. His housekeeper had been by this morning—the place looked pretty good. It was clean, and the air smelled like lemon. She smiled shyly at him as they went into the kitchen. She set the plate on his kitchen table, then took off her jacket to hang it over a chair.

  “I took your advice,” she said, folding her hands and dipping her head. “Since I’m stuck here this weekend, I indulged in my love of baking. It’s been a long time, but...” She nudged forward the plate. “Care to taste my efforts?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” He reached under the cellophane and snagged the biggest one, right on top. He took a big bite. Bittersweet chocolate and crumbly cookie, crisp the way he liked it. Grinning, his mouth full, he waved her to take a seat.

  She pulled out a chair, but Toby, that curious rascal, stealthily came out of nowhere and curled his tail around her ankle. “Oh!” she said, jumping in surprise. “You have a cat.”

  He reached over and hauled up the old miscreant so she could sit down peacefully. Holding him one-handed under his arm like a football, he pulled out a chair and sat, too, settling the creature on his lap. “Lyn, this is Toby. Toby, meet Lyn.”

  All smiles, she reached over to pet the tabby cat. “He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?” She scratched Toby behind his ear, the way that he liked it.

  “He turned sixteen in March, or so I’m told.”

  “Wow, that’s great. Was he a rescue?”

  “No, he’s—” Justin’s, he was about to say. Strange, but it was the second time in one da
y that he’d been prompted to tell her about the third Reilly brother. Swallowing, he absentmindedly ruffled Toby’s fur. Maybe it was a sign.

  “John? Did I say something wrong?”

  “No.” He smiled to reassure her. “Toby belonged to Justin, my brother. The middle of the three Reilly brothers,” he clarified. “I’m the oldest, Patrick is the youngest. When Justin—” He took a deep breath. “After he passed away and I came home, I took over Toby’s care.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know that’s a really weak sentiment, but I really am sorry, John.”

  He nodded. He believed her. “I know, Lyn.”

  “So...you’ve had Toby a long time. And you’re taking good care of him.” She stroked the cat on the striped fur between his green eyes.

  “Yeah. We get along pretty good.”

  “How did Justin pass? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  He didn’t mind—not as much as he’d thought, anyway, and that was strange for him. Lyn wasn’t like anyone he’d ever known. When her clear eyes assessed him, it was with gentle understanding. Maybe because they’d both been through loss.

  He picked up a cookie, but he didn’t eat it. He just sat with it in his hand, poking the crumbly edge. “He passed away four years ago in a drowning accident,” he said quietly.

  “Is that why you came back to Wallis Point?” She tilted her head and said, “And now you’re taking care of everybody in your family, even Toby.”

  “I don’t really think of it that way,” he protested.

  “But it’s true.”

  “When Justin died, it was traumatic and sudden for my family. My parents and Patrick were in shock. Then my dad died of a heart attack a few months later, and my mom was...” He let his voice trail off. “It was bad, Lyn. And I couldn’t be here right away because I was overseas.” There had been so much guilt about how little he’d been able to do, about how his mom had been forced to make all the arrangements herself. He remembered that feeling, eating up the pit of his stomach.