She stared at him in confusion.
“So we look like obnoxious tourists who don’t care that we’re blocking part of the driveway. But keep it trained on Vivi and zoom in—” He showed her the zoom button, then handed her what amounted to his baby. “Be careful with it.”
She looked at the camera, at all the dents, dings, scratches, and general abuse it had taken over the years. She glanced at him. “Really? Because you’re afraid parts of it are going to fall off if I’m not?”
“Because it’s been with me every single day of my adult life.”
She looked at the camera again, only in awe this time. “This is the camera you bought when you left Iceland for Greenland?”
He smiled, liking that she’d remembered that detail among all they’d talked about since. He shook his head. “Close. That’s the one I got right after the other one. It shoots videos. The first one didn’t.”
“But you still have that one, too, right?”
He smiled, nodded. “Yeah, but it stays back at the farm. I don’t use it anymore. I don’t use this one professionally, just personally. It goes where I go.”
“Still taking photos and writing down your thoughts?” she asked, looking charmed by the possibility.
He nodded, then grinned. “Just for myself. No photojournalism aspirations these days.”
She looked at the camera again, with reverence this time. “I was just thinking if only this camera could talk.” She smiled at him. “But I guess it has. Have you taken pictures of Blue Hollow Falls? Our farm?”
He nodded. He’d taken a whole host of photos of her when she hadn’t been aware. Out in the field, in the barn. Asleep next to him.
“Can I see them, sometime? And some of the others? It’s okay if they’re just for you. I don’t want to intrude—”
He nodded to the fountain and the woman standing on the other side. “Really?” he asked, and they both laughed. “Yes, I’d love to share them with you.” He didn’t bother to add that she’d be the first one to ever see them collectively, from his viewpoint. “I think it’s safe for you to sit up. Even if she could see you, which she can’t, you’ll have the camera blocking your face.”
Chey slowly slid up about halfway, but enough to aim the camera through the water spouts. “She must be waiting for him. Valet would have brought her car around by now.”
Just then a sleek, silver limo pulled into the circular drive and stopped right in front of Vivi. “Is that a . . . ?” She quickly held up the camera and zoomed in. “It is! That’s a Rolls Royce.” She snapped a few frames as a driver in a sharp black suit, complete with driver’s cap, got out and stepped around to open one of the rear doors, curbside. Chey swore. “She’s getting in!”
Oh boy.
“We have to follow them,” she said, sliding back down again as the limo pulled away from the curb and started around the circle, coming right toward them. The vehicle shifted to the right and eased out of the loop, heading toward the traffic light. “The windows are tinted,” she said. “I can’t get a picture of who is inside.”
Wyatt slipped the camera from her fingers, then expertly pointed and zoomed in on the retreating vehicle, snapping the license plate.
“Will that do any good since it’s a limo?”
He shrugged. “Had to be leased or rented by someone.” Wyatt circled around the fountain and got into line, three back from the Rolls, just as the light turned green. He tried to keep some distance from the Rolls. Tailing a professional driver wasn’t the same as tailing Vivi in her ’56 Chevy. He’d driven in far dicier situations using significantly inferior modes of transportation, so it was silly to be nervous, but this was Vivi.
“Why meet at a hotel only to go somewhere else?” Chey asked. “I want to feel like I’m being an overreacting jerk who should be minding her own business, I do. But I have to say, my gut is liking this whole setup less and less the longer it goes on. I don’t care how fancy his car is.”
Wyatt wanted to believe this was all a harmless arrangement, too. But it did seem rather convoluted for what was, ostensibly, a business meeting. The downside about the price tag on the ride Vivi was currently in was that money often meant power, and as he was very well aware, power wasn’t always used for the forces of good. In fact, in his experience, the opposite was far more prevalent. He kept that bit of info to himself.
The Rolls turned west, and Wyatt slowed to increase the distance between them as the other cars continued on straight; then he followed suit.
“This leads out to the interstate.” She turned to Wyatt. “Okay, now I’m officially worried. Where is he taking her? I mean, this is supposed to be a lunch meeting.”
The Rolls turned again, and Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief. It was moving in the opposite direction of the highway now. He was forced to slow way down, as the traffic had thinned out significantly, and the road the Rolls had turned on was one lane and flat. He saw the sign next to the road the same instant Chey gasped. Valley View Airfield.
“Oh, hell no,” she said fiercely. “She is not getting on a plane. I think this meeting has officially come to an end.”
Wyatt was on the same page there and sped up.
“Best case is this is all innocent and he is some guy from her past, they took one look at each other, and are running off to Vegas or something and we spoil a romantic interlude and look like idiots, then do penance for days.” She caught Wyatt’s glance. “Okay. Weeks.”
Wyatt didn’t want to think about the worst-case scenario. He’d seen a lot more of the world than Chey had. “Why don’t you text her. She knows you were worried about this. Maybe joke that you’re asking if she needs a bailout call. Say something about the umbrella. Just see what she says. Maybe that will give us a gauge on things.”
He continued to close the distance, but they had entered a series of roundabouts with tall statuary and foliage decorating the centers of each one, blocking his view. He temporarily lost the Rolls, but when he saw a sign for the private airstrip, he took a gamble and turned, just in time to see the Rolls turn off in the distance at the end of the road, along a row of private hangars.
“She’s not answering,” Chey said, then swore. “My text just bounced back. So she never even got it.”
“Cell tower signal might be blocked here to keep from interfering with air traffic control.”
She looked at him. “How are you so calm?”
“Experience,” he said simply. “Don’t worry, Chey. He’ll have parked that Rolls in front of whatever hangar his plane is in, or was in, assuming it’s out on the tarmac. We’ll have time, so she knows—and he knows—she has company.”
A crack of lightning split the sky. “Oh, come on,” Chey said, flinching at the big boom of thunder that followed.
“No, that’s a good thing,” Wyatt said. “They won’t take off during an electrical storm.”
“Oh,” Chey said, brightening, “good.”
He finally made it through the last roundabout and turned in along the hangars. No Rolls in sight anywhere.
“Where is it?”