I smiled at her, lifting my teacup and taking a sip of the overly bitter tea she’d made, schooling my features to hide my wince as I forced it down my throat. “I always listen to you. You know that.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, unconvinced. “Then what were you doin’ going on a blind date with a man you don’t even know?”
“It was set up by a friend, Ms. W,” I assured her. “He wasn’t a total stranger.”
She harrumphed, giving her head a shake. “Yes, well, I saw this Dateline special the other night where—”
And that was how I got stuck listening to Ms. W prattle on about how I could have ended up in some strange man’s trunk, on the way to the Mexican border without anyone the wiser until it was too late.
Man, I loved my crazy-ass neighbor.
“This is so boring! Do we have anymore cheese puffs?”
Without looking away from the binoculars I had pressed against my eyes, I grabbed the last bag of cheese puffs from the center console and threw them at Layla, hoping it would shut her up.
After tea, I’d decided to take Ms. Weatherby’s advice about getting proof. Well . . . sort of. Instead of confronting Nick outright, I’d opted to go a different route. Which was why I was currently sitting in my car outside his office building at 8:30 at night, with everything I assumed I’d need for a stakeout—a ton of junk food, bottles of Gatorade (for the electrolytes), water, binoculars, a tape recorder so I could document what I saw without having to take my eyes off the building long enough to write anything down, and a thermos of coffee to keep me awake and alert.
I may have gone a little overboard.
“I told you this was going to be a long, tedious process,” I said in a scolding tone, pulling my gaze from the building just long enough to shoot her a scowl. “It’s not my fault you didn’t bring a book to read like I suggested.”
“Well, I could watch Netflix on my phone, but you won’t let me.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling before turning back to her. “Because we need your phone just in case we see something that needs to be recorded. I can’t have you draining the battery just so you can binge on Schitt’s Creek.” I let my eyes travel down her frame and felt my face pinch up in a scowl. “And what the hell are you wearing?”
She gave me an affronted look before lowering her head and tugging at the hem of her T-shirt. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“I told you to wear something dark. This is a stakeout, Lay.” Her bright white shirt and cut-off jean shorts weren’t even close to appropriate. Meanwhile, I’d nailed the whole look, dressed in all black: black jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt, and I had even tucked my long blonde hair into a black wool beanie to hide it. Sure, I was sweating buckets, what was happening beneath my disguise was so not okay. But if that was the cost of getting answers for my sister, then so be it.
“What if we need to pursue him on foot, huh? You’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”
“There will be no foot pursuit,” she declared vehemently. “I know I set you up on a shitty date, and slowly being bored to death in this car next to your stinky ass is my punishment for that. But I draw the line at a felony. And dressed in all black, skulking in the shadows while stalking an unsuspecting man will definitely get us arrested! Also, just a side note, for the love of God, turn on the A/C already! Your Secret deodorant gave up the secret a long freaking time ago.”
“I can’t turn the car on,” I argued. “A running car just sitting here will look suspicious.”
Layla bugged her eyes out. “And you sitting here with military grade binoculars, casing a joint, and looking like you’re seconds away from robbing it isn’t?”
I was just about to explain all my reason as to why what I was doing was the smartest, wisest decision, following all that up with “Ms. Weatherby told me to,” if necessary, when Nick stepped out of the building I was staking out.
“There he is!” I whisper-yelled, for some reason thinking we needed to be quiet, like he could hear us from across the street and down the block. “Quick! Take pictures,” I exclaimed, reaching over to smack at Layla to make sure I had her attention.
“Pictures of what?” she demanded, her tone flustered as she smacked me back. “He’s just standing there!”
“Will you just take the damn pictures like I asked?” With a roll of her eyes, she lifted her phone, and I could hear the shutter begin to click as she snapped photos. “And make sure to zoom in.” I ignored the insults she started hurling under her breath and grabbed my tape recorder, promptly pressing play. “The time is approximately 8:36. Scratch that, 8:37,” I corrected just as the digital numbers on my dashboard changed. “The unsub has just stepped out of the building at 1100 Lamar, and is—”
“For Christ’s sake, Marin, he’s not an unsub. You know him. He’s your brother-in-law, for crying out loud.”
“Will you be quiet and let me do this?” I hissed, giving her a killing look. “I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s debatable,” she snarked. “Just because you’ve watched Criminal Minds doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing.”
“It’s not just because I watch Criminal Minds. I’ve also watched Law & Order: SVU, Bones, and Luther. Oh, and a documentary on Ted Bundy. Now shut the hell up already. The tape’s been running this whole time, so I’m going to have to cut all this out. Thanks a lot.”
“This is the stupidest thing ever,” Layla grumbled as she turned back and started clicking away. However, her mumbled curses quickly cut off a second later. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh? What uh-oh?” I lifted the binoculars just in time to see the woman in the red dress from the other night follow Nick out of the building.
“Is that the woman you saw him with at dinner?”
“Yes,” I gritted out. “Time is 8:40, and unsub has just been joined on the sidewalk by a female companion,” I said into the tape recorder. “We’ll call her . . . Slutzilla.”
“Nice,” Layla said with a nod.
Slutzilla reached Nick’s side a moment later, and through the binoculars, I watched her tip her head back and smile up at him seductively as she placed a palm on his chest. If I got the chance, which I sure as hell hoped I did, I was going to rip all that long, glossy black hair from her scalp by the handful.
“This doesn’t look good—wait,” Layla said. “He just stepped back. Did you see that?”
I sure did. “Slutzilla attempted to caress unsub’s chest, but he stepped out of her reach and is now offering his hand for a companionable shake,” I told the recorder.
Layla and I watched in rapt fascination as the woman took Nick’s offered hand, but instead of leaving it at a shake, she stepped closer and lifted up on the tip-toes of her pencil-thin stiletto heels to press a kiss on his cheek . . . dangerously close to his mouth. The instant she did that, Nick disengaged and took a step back. Moments later, they both turned in opposite directions and took off.
“Well this whole damn thing has been one giant waste of time,” I groused, dropping the binoculars back into my lap with an unhappy frown.