Family Affair (34 page)

"Wow, she's good," Lacey said. She took a bite of her lobster bisque. "Want some?" she said, holding out a spoonful.

"Uh, no thanks," Chase said, looking at the creamy sauce with distaste. Maybe when they were through with the escapade they could swing by Taco Bell and she could have a seven layer burrito and a taquito.

James pulled up with the car. Stella popped him another twenty and got in, waiting impatiently for the two others and then floored it once everyone was inside.

Lacey held onto her bisque for dear life. "What's with the driving lately?"

"We are on a mission," Stella said. The tires of the Bentley squealed as she pulled out of the parking lot onto the adjacent street. "Now, Chase will you reach under your seat and pull out the camera bag."

"A couple of incriminating photos and Peggy and Addison are free," Chase said.

"You got it." Stella got off the freeway and pulled into the parking lot of a hotel.

"Isn't that him?" Chase said. She'd only met Dickhead once when she was picking up Addison. He'd sort of grunted at her as they passed in the hallway.

Stella looked at her GPS screen. "That sneaky bastard. He parked at the Hyatt and crossed over to the Marriott." She raced the car through the parking lot to the other hotel. Lacey barely kept the plate from slamming into her chest. Bisque soaked the napkin and would soon soak Lacey. "I really wish you'd stop doing that."

"To reiterate, we're on a mission," Chase said. She pointed at the entrance of the Marriott. "There he is again."

"Well, doesn't he think he's smart," Stella said, smirking. "Parking across the street but still in a hotel parking lot isn't an Einsteinian move when there's no reason he should be at a hotel in the first place." Stella grabbed the camera bag and pulled out two straw cowboy hats and tacky cheap black sunglasses. "Here put these on and go take pictures of each other in the lobby." She shoved the camera at Chase.

"I thought you wanted pictures of him,'" Chase said.

"I want you to get a picture of him going into the hotel then I want you to get his hotel room number." She slapped the straw hat on Chase's head and handed Lacey the other one.

"I'm not wearing that," Lacey said. She was still holding the plate.

"Give me that," Chase said. She opened the car door and set the plate down on the pavement. She pulled Lacey out of the car.

"I don't understand why you're so gung-ho," Lacey complained.

"He's Addison's father. He is fucking some cheap whore and I want him hung up so he can't get at Addison. Is that a good enough reason?" Chase stared hard at Lacey who looked taken aback.

Stella observed her. "You'll make a fine parent."

"Thank you." Chase smiled as if her mouth, unaccustomed to doing that around her mother, were relearning a gesture from when she was an infant and hadn't know any better. She shouldered the camera, adjusted her silly hat and slapped the glasses on. "Operation Ball-Slammer, ready for action." She looked back at Lacey again.

"All right, I'm in. I just hope he's not an NRA member."

"He's not," Stella said.

Chase didn't want to know how she knew this. She grabbed Lacey's hand and made for the door.

Once inside Chase said, "Stand over by the fountain and I'll take your picture. Do you have your phone?"

"Duh," Lacey said, pulling it out of her blazer pocket.

"Good, I'll photograph you and you set your phone to video mode."

"Why?" Lacey asked.

Chase watched as he came through the door. "Just do it."

The urgency in her voice made an instant impression on Lacey. She opened her phone set it up and waited for the cue. "Now," Chase said. She began snapping photos of Lacey by the fountain with Dickhead in the background at the front desk. She looked over at him once. Their ruse must be working because he didn't notice them. Her mother was right. They looked like stupid tourists.

He got the key and went to the bank of elevators. "Shouldn't we follow him?" Lacey asked.

"Too obvious. Let's see your phone."

Lacey handed it to her. "Over here." Chase took them to the far corner of the plant-strewn atrium. Behind the ficus tree she replayed the video making sure to turn up the sound. "That's room five-twenty, Mr. Smith."

"You're brilliant," Lacey said as they headed back to the car.

"Did you get it?" Stella asked as they slid into the car.

"Sure did." Chase hit play and showed her mother.

"Oh, this is much better." She wrote down the room number in a slim black leather notebook, putting in the date and time.

Chase leaned over to observe this. "You're taking this pretty seriously."

"I think I may have found my calling," Stella said, her eyes gleaming

Chase remembered how she felt when she completed the first chapter of her first novel—complete euphoria. She had found her purpose. What had been foreign was now familiar.

"So now what?" Lacey said.

"Now we do some serious spying," Stella said.

Stella grabbed another black duffel bag from the trunk and they headed to the lobby of the hotel.

Chase watched as her mother schmoozed the desk clerk. The well-groomed desk clerk happily supplied her with a chart of the hotel and allowed her to choose a room of her pleasing.

"That was slick," Chase said as she punched the five button.

"It's all about presentation," Stella said, handing Chase the duffel bag. Chase handed it to Lacey who looked miffed but said nothing.

Once inside Room 518, Stella pulled the heavy emerald green curtains open. She drew her eyebrows together.

"Can you see him?" Lacey said, looking over Stella's shoulder.

"Not yet but I will." She pulled various equipment from the black duffel bag—a Nikon D700 digital camera with a high-powered lens, a set of enormous binoculars, a tripod and some kind of goggle-looking things.

"What are those?" Chase said.

"Night vision goggles," Stella said, laying out the equipment on the bed, careful not to get the fuzz from the amber brocade bedspread on any of it.

"Let me try them," Lacey said, carefully picking them up and examining them.

"It's light in here," Chase said.

"It's not in the bathroom," Lacey said. She tromped off.

"She's not all there, but she does have moments," Stella said, looking through the camera and adjusting the lens.

"Are the curtains open over there?"

"You betcha," Stella said, as she began rapidly snapping shots. "We got you, you slimy bastard." She turned around. "High-five, baby." She held out her hands.

Chase slapped them. The world was definitely off-kilter and she felt like a sailor canted on the deck of the wrong boat.

Chapter Twenty-Three

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my backpack," Addison said, avoiding Chase's gaze.

They were on their way to an Isotopes baseball game. Chase had no idea why Addison had expressed a sudden interest in the sport. She thought kids were into soccer these days.

"You were under pressure," Chase said. She hoped she wasn't condoning behavior that would one day turn Addison into some corporate monster that enslaved the masses in a third-world country with her "don't tell" philosophy. The Congo came to mind.

"No, it was wrong. I succumbed to blackmail, thinking only of myself and abusing your trust," Addison said, studying her hands as they gripped her backpack.

Chase's vision of the Congo popped like a soap bubble. Addison had morals and a conscience. "Well, if I behaved better toward my own mother it wouldn't have happened in the first place—a cause and effect thing."

The old ballpark had undergone a serious makeover—modern architecture of steel frame and a groovy color scheme of adobe sand and sage green with some red thrown in to make it fun. The grounds were xeriscaped. Chase noticed the yuccas with their red blooms and the wild grasses. She was always interested in the horticulture of the city in an effort to see what would grow in the hot dry climate of New Mexico so she could add it to her garden with a fifty-fifty chance of species survival.

Addison pulled two tickets from her backpack.

"Where'd you get those?" Chase put her wallet away. She never ceased to be amazed by Addison's organizational skills.

"My mom gets them free at work—for her real estate clients."

Addison handed them to the large man wearing a red vest and white baseball cap with the Isotope logo of swirling atoms. Chase thought the logo was stupid. Before the city had lost the team due to lack of financing in the eighties the baseball team had been called the Dukes—named for the Duke of Albuquerque who had colonized the place by killing off and subduing the indigenous people. Not that she thought this was a good name either, but the name Isotopes was in reference to the bombs made at the two labs in New Mexico, Sandia and Los Alamos.

"Can you buy those hats at the concession stands?" Addison inquired.

"Sure can—take a left and you'll see the souvenir shop."

"Thank you."

"Well-mannered kid," the man remarked.

"Yes, she is," Addison said.

Chase smirked. "I'm going to make a terrible parent," she said as they walked off.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not very mature. If I was a normal parent I would chastise you for being a smart-ass with that man. Instead, I thought it was funny. That's not good role model material."

"Ha! That'll be the day. He got what he deserved. Grown-ups shouldn't use the third person when the kid is perfectly aware of what is going on." She led them toward the souvenir shop.

Chase made a mental note: Don't treat Bud as if she weren't present by using the third person.

At the souvenir shop Addison picked out a khaki-colored hat with the Isotopes logo stitched in reds and yellows, then a huge yellow foam hand giving the number one sign and a small wooden bat.

"Are you sure you want all that stuff?" Chase asked as she tried on a black visor.