a Touch of TNT (An Everly Gray Adventure) (24 page)

She tilted her chin at me. “Why else would I be here?”

I sucked in some air. “How—”

She held up her left hand. Sunlight glinted off the hunk of diamond on her ring finger as she turned to sit down. “Relax. I don’t want to kill her. I wouldn’t need help for that. No, I want to get rid of her. Preferably scare her away, maybe out of the country.”

I slid forward in my chair, braced my elbows on my knees. “You want me to help you figure out a way to scare her into leaving the country?”

She pointed a blood red, manicured talon at me. “Exactly.”

I scooted backward and placed the pad and my pen neatly on the table next to me. “No. That isn’t what I do.”

Yes! A way out of this…except what if she really was Reese North’s twin? And I could help?

Terri wriggled her finger at me. “Your ad says you do creative problem solving. Surely it wasn’t false advertising.”

Speechless, my stomach had dropped somewhere around my toes.

Terri pursed her too-glossy scarlet lips. “Okay. I can see I’ve offended your principles or something. How about I fill you in on what I’ve been doing? Maybe talking about it will give me some ideas even if you aren’t willing to help.”

I nodded, offered her a genuine smile, and reached for my notebook. This opportunity was too good to pass up.

“I’ve been following Justin for a few weeks now.”

Not a twin. I swiped my tongue over my bottom lip. “Justin is your husband?”

She nodded, started pacing again. “He hasn’t spotted me. How could he not recognize my car? How could he not recognize
me
?”

I stopped writing, slid her a glance. “Is it a distinctive car?”

“A cherry red Mercedes convertible. What do you think?”

I’m in way over my head is what I think. “That would be noticeable,” I said.

“Yes. We have matching cars. He definitely should have spotted me behind him.”

“Help me understand. You’ve been following him, and you
want
him to catch you?”

“Well, yes. If he knows I’m following him, he won’t do anything that will force me to divorce him.” Terri, aka Reese, trailed a finger down her cleavage.

“So your plan was to keep him on the straight and narrow with your semi-covert behavior?”

She sat, toed off her shoes, and curled her legs under her. “Exactly. But he didn’t notice me, so I had to change my plan.”

I tapped my pen against the pad. “And?”

“I started to follow Marcy instead. Only I didn’t want her to catch me so I rented a—” she wrinkled her nose— “Ford Taurus. White.”

“And Marcy is?” Was I getting good at this or what?

“Justin’s secretary, Marcy Blaine.”

I nodded. Sympathetic. Understanding.

She shook her head and squinched her mouth. “She met a policeman. Can you believe that? Young, ordinary, brown hair, brown eyes, mole here.” She pointed to her cheek. “Really not an appealing young man.”

The pen slid from my suddenly numb fingers and rolled to rest on the floor between us.

I scrambled to reach for it and tried to pull myself together.

Terri had described Jerry Applegate. No. Couldn’t be. There have to be a ton of policemen who have brown, brown, and a mole.

I curled back into my chair, calm, poised, focused. Except for the waves of nausea churning through my stomach.

Terri tipped her head to the side, looked at me. “You okay? You turned pale.”

“Fine. I’m fine.” I waved a hand in her direction. “Please continue. Where did Marcy and the policeman meet?”

“Coffee shop right by Justin’s office. Mundane. No imagination whatsoever. A coffee shop meeting.” She shuddered.

“Mmm,” was all I could manage as I scribbled some notes.

She took another sip of water, swirled the bottle around. “So I thought I might be wrong, maybe she was having a fling with the—”

“Policeman?”

“Um-hmm. But it doesn’t add up. Policemen don’t make any money. None at all.” She did a shoulder shimmy that displayed more cleavage than I wanted to see. Ever.

I waited, pen poised.

“So, I went back to following Justin because I figured Marcy was a dead end.” Her eyes dilated, bright and focused. “I followed him. In the Mercedes. Right to some house in the country. His car was parked in front.”

She uncurled her legs, stood, and started to pace. “I banged on the door, yelled his name. When he unlocked it, I pushed past him calling for her, for Marcy.”

“And you found her?” My voice hitched on the question. An actress I was not.

“No. She wasn’t in the house, but the bed was trashed and it smelled like sex. And Justin hadn’t zipped his fly. I caught him. Not her. You see the problem here?”

“It’s hard to threaten someone you have no proof against,” I said, calmly. I did not want this woman to go postal on me.

She pointed that manicured finger at me again. “Exactly so.”

“And that’s when you called me?”

“Yes.” Her smile was the snooty, rich version of a pat on the head. Apparently I’d been a good student. She shook her head again, pinned me with a look. “Why would someone who has Justin North wrapped around her steno pad be meeting a lowly public servant?”

My ears twitched in anticipation. “North? I thought your name was McGraw?”

She waved me off. “I gave you my maiden name. Didn’t know if I could trust you when I made the appointment.”

“Ah, of course. Maybe the policeman is a relative of…Marcy’s.”

She shot me a look. “Of course he’s not a relative. Had that slimy look. Marcy is—” she flapped her hands— “too put together to have a relative like that. And they looked nothing alike. No, this was something else.”

My spidey sense kicked in. “You like Marcy.”

Terri’s head snapped up. “What—?” Grin. “Yes, I like Marcy. She’s smart, manipulative, maybe even ruthless. What’s not to like? But she can’t have Justin’s bank account. Or his dick. The man thinks with his dick.”

I clamped my lips together, bit down to keep the smile in. “So, what’s your next step?”

She drummed her fingers against her thigh. “I’m thinking—”

Scary. This was one scary woman. “Yes?”

“I need to focus on that policeman. Follow him around for a while. Damn, that means I need to rent the Taurus again. Maybe borrow some clothes from my housekeeper—”

Not good. “And what—”

She snapped her fingers. “Yes. That’s it. That man. That public servant type, he’s the key.” Her eyes narrowed. “He knows something, and I can use him to ruin Marcy’s reputation. Get her out of Justin’s life. Permanently.”

I swallowed. “Terri, I don’t think—”

“Of course you don’t,” she said as she slipped her shoes on. “You’re not ruthless enough to think. But you have done exactly what your ad said.” She pulled out a wad of cash, stripped off a few bills, and set them on the table. “You’ve solved my immediate problem.”

Oh. Damn.

She strode to the door and let herself out, turned and waved her fingers at me before she closed the door behind her.

Bloody hell. I dropped my head into my hands and tugged on my hair. What was I supposed to do with this?

Annie stormed in without knocking, skidded to a stop in front of me. “What’s going on? Who is that woman? Are you okay? It hasn’t even been twenty four hours since Pierce left you in my care, and you go skitzy.”

I slowly raised my head and reached for my water. “Nope. Not okay.”

She sat in Terri’s newly vacated chair. “Talk.”

“Can’t.”

Annie glared.

“You know I can’t say anything about a client.”

“This is about Adam’s case, isn’t it?”

Silence.

She stood up. Paced. “Surely you can talk about information that pertains to an active police investigation.”

Silence.

“El, this isn’t the time to go all—” Annie waved her hands, then continued pacing— “politically…proper.”

I didn’t say a word. Who knew I could do silence?

She stood over me. “I can have Adam subpoena you.”

My eyebrows headed north. “Right.”

She backed away and crossed her arms. “Are you in danger?”

I shook my head. “Don’t think so. How about I make a suggestion? Someone needs to tail Marcy Blaine, diligently.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded.

Annie slipped her cell from her pocket and left a message for Adam. “What now?”

“Lunch?” One of my more tentative suggestions.

She huffed. “Sure. Gypsy’s or Lucky?”

Tension drained from my muscles. Good friends are the very best. “Lucky. I need…to be outside.” Who wouldn’t need some fresh air after an encounter with Terri North?

“Whenever you can talk about this…” Annie watched me. Probably for signs of weakness.

I didn’t give. Couldn’t. It was one of the few times I hated my job.

She drove. We had the chef’s special (grilled Tilapia, spicy asparagus, and cheese grits) and avoided talking about anything serious. Well, except that I told her about Mitch—

“So did you break up?”

“Sort of. He said something about phone sex—”

Annie grabbed her napkin and stuffed it against her mouth, trying not to choke on a bite of Tilapia. “Okay, then, so you’re just not seeing each other, but all other parts of your relationship remain in working order?”

I played with my grits, making a hole in the middle like I used to do to mashed potatoes when I was a kid. “I don’t know what we are. In limbo, I guess.”

“Doesn’t sound good,” she said around a bite of asparagus.

“I don’t want him to leave his job. I’m not ready for that kind of commitment, you know? It’s almost more serious than marriage for someone to change their life’s work for you.”

“How do you figure?”

“Marriage is a promise you make to each other. It has a…time frame that begins when you agree to spend your life together, but it shouldn’t require you change everything you were prior to that moment.”

Annie put down her fork, held my gaze. “The past is pretty much a done deal. Can’t change it.”

I nodded. “Photography is a part of Mitch that’s probably been there since birth.”

“Yeah, but he’s not planning to give up photography. Just working for the government, right?”

I took a bite of the grits, giving myself time. “Those jobs, the ones he doesn’t talk about, they…are a part of him, too. Mitch is one of the good guys. Maybe he doesn’t need to be a hero like Pierce, but he needs to—”

“Yeah, I get it. Been there, done that.”

Grin. “Right. So you get what I’m saying. Mitch wouldn’t be Mitch if he wasn’t up to his neck in top secret stuff.”

Annie pushed her plate away. “The choice is his, El. No one can or should try to influence that choice.”

“When you left—”

“My decision. Had to be.”

“But no one else was in your life? No one influenced your decision?”

Her face went sniper blank. No point following that line of conversation, so I moved on. “I need to tell Mitch about my touch coming back.”

She nodded. “Yeah. And because of where he is and who he’s meeting with, now would be good.”

“Yeah.” Tears burned behind my eyes, but I dialed the number and left the message. “Okay. Now what?” I asked as I laid some money on the table.

“Now we go home and you stay put. Read a romance, clean your closet. Just don’t do anything until we hear from Pierce.”

I saluted. “Got it. I’ll be good.”

My cell rang as I stepped into the house.

It was Katelan, not Mitch.

My heart did a funny squeeze. Guess I’d really needed to hear his voice.

“Hi, Katelan. You back in town?” I sounded too enthusiastic, hiding how much I missed Mitch.

“Just got in and have a pile of packages from friends waiting for my intuitive attention. I’ll work on them tonight, but I’d like to schedule another appointment.” She sounded good. Ready to work.

I set my handbag and lunch leftovers down, then dropped into the nearest chair. “What time is good for you?”

“I have a negotiation scheduled for tomorrow at…where did I put that email—?” Her voice trailed off. “Ah, here we go. North Construction at ten a.m.”

EIGHTEEN

There wasn’t anything I could
do about Katelan working with North Construction. Probably wasn’t even relevant to the case…although, my spiritual teacher had taught me there were no coincidences.

But what about Terri McGraw North showing up on
my
doorstep? There were other personal coaches in town. A couple, anyway. So, why me? Coincidence or not?

I scrubbed at the tingles prickling along my nape. I needed to find a way to share the info from Terri with Adam and still maintain client confidentiality. Which meant I had to investigate the leads she’d shared.