Snoops in the City (A Romantic Comedy) (26 page)

Tori watched in fascination as her friend Crystal dug into her Chocolate Seduction with undisguised relish.

"Mmmmm," Crystal said after she'd barely finished chewing the piece of chocolate-glazed, double-fudge cake. "The food here is to die for. I can't believe I never heard of this place before."

Neither had Tori until Grady pointed it out on the way back from the carnival. Tucked between a barbershop and a dry cleaner in an obscure strip shopping center, the restaurant gave new meaning to the term out-of-the-way.

Crystal took another bite of cake and demolished it as quickly as the last.

"This cake alone was worth the hassle I had to go through to get a night out. Not that being waited on and spending time with you isn't enough. But this. . . this is better than sex."

"I doubt that," Tori said before she could stop herself.

Crystal raised her fork in the air. "Girlfriend, do tell. I can't believe we got through dinner without you mentioning you had a man."

Tori could believe it. Crystal had been at her entertaining best talking about her not-yet-potty-trained sons, her husband's quest to become a stand-up comic and the cast of characters at the Roseate Spoonbill.

"It's kind of new," Tori said.

"Oh, my gosh," Crystal exclaimed. "Is this the multiple-choice guy from the other night? Did he pass the question about the position of the toilet seat?"

"He passed every question, even the one about cats."

"You don't mean he actually likes your homely little rat-cat?"

"Better. My landlady wouldn't let me keep Gordo so Grady took her. She's living with him now."

"There's only one explanation for that," Crystal said, an awed expression on her face. "He has it bad for you, girl."

"Maybe not as bad as I have it for him," Tori confided. "I think I'm in love."

Crystal gave a low whistle. "So where is Loverboy now?"

Tori got ready to reiterate what Grady had told her about working late. The words, however, wouldn’t come.

Because Grady, looking tall and handsome in a cream-colored shirt and brown slacks that accentuated his coloring, walked into the restaurant.

"There," Tori breathed.

"Excuse me. What did that mean? Are you paying attention? What are you looking at anyway?" Crystal's back was to the front door and she twisted in her seat.

"Turn around.” Tori fastened a hand on her friend's arm. "I don't want him to see me."

Crystal threw her free hand up in the air. "Who?"

"Grady.” Tori watched him say something to the hostess and glance over the sea of diners. She quickly picked up a menu that was still on the table, opened it and hid behind it, a la the mysterious Ms. M the first time they'd met.

She peeked over the top of the menu and watched Grady thread his way to a back table with a sense of purpose. He didn't glance her way once.

Crystal's index finger appeared at the top of the menu, pushing it down so Tori's face was once again in the open.

"I take it that hunk who just walked in here is Loverboy and he told you he'd be somewhere else tonight?"

"He said he'd be working,” Tori said.

"Then go over there and give him a piece of your mind for lying to you," Crystal declared.

Tori shook her head, trying to ignore her breaking heart. A girlfriend would be in her rights to confront him. A private eye wouldn't. She technically still worked for Ms. M, which meant she should have checked Grady's story about working late instead of taking it as gospel.

"I can't do that. I need to know who he's meeting," Tori said. Tables stretched the length of the long, narrow restaurant. Grady sat somewhere behind her, at a table she couldn't see. "Can you tell who he's with, Crystal?"

"If it's a woman, I'll go over there and slug him for you.” Crystal craned her neck and frowned. "It's a man. He's middle-aged. I'd guess early forties. Dyed black hair. Lots of gel."

The description sounded familiar, but Tori couldn't mentally match it with anyone she knew. "Can you see what they're doing?"

"Talking, it seems like. No, wait a minute. That lying hunk you're dating just took something out of his pocket. It looks like. . . an envelope. He's giving it to the hair-gel guy."

Tori's heart seemed to stop beating. Crystal was describing a classic bribe. The City Council meeting that would determine which construction company got the contract to build the community center was tomorrow night.

Everything inside Tori rebelled at the notion of Grady paying off city officials to win the contract. There had to be another explanation.

"What's happening now?" she asked Crystal.

"Hair-gel guy's getting up. He’s coming this way. Quick! The menu!" Crystal grabbed for it, then hid her face. Tori didn't turn. She didn't need to because the man Grady had met would come into view within seconds.

She offered up a silent prayer.
Please don't let it be someone from City Hall
. Then she waited for the man to pass their table.

"Why am I hiding behind this menu?" Crystal asked. "If I don't know that man, he certainly doesn't know me."

Her words hardly registered because the man had Tori’s full attention. His slacks were different, but she recognized his black silk shirt as the one he'd worn at the mayor's party. She still had the business card he'd given her somewhere at home.

Hair-gel guy was Ned Weimer, the mayor's Chief of Staff.

***

GRADY WIPED HIS DAMP palms on his slacks, ignoring the cup of coffee he'd ordered from the waitress.

His stomach churned. The thought of drinking anything, even a glass of water, seemed impossible.

The exchange with Ned Weimer had gone as well as could be hoped. It had still left him feeling dirty.

Now that Tori was in his life, he wanted more than ever for the City Hall investigation, and his part in it, to be over.

Taking into account that he had the mayor's Chief of Staff on tape accepting a bribe, he could see a light at the end of the tunnel. However, he couldn't help thinking the light signaled an onrushing train.

Thrusting the negative thought aside, he took a bill from his wallet and threw it on the table.

It had been a full five minutes since Weimer left, plenty of time for the other man to have cleared out.

Grady rose, intending to walk out of the restaurant as quickly as he'd come. The back of a woman's head stopped him. Her hair was an unusual shade of rich auburn, and she wore it loose around her shoulders. The same way Tori did.

His heart pounding, he approached the table. The freckled redhead sitting across from the woman with the auburn hair stared daggers at him. She wasn't the one who mattered.

"Tori," he ventured, hoping he was mistaken.

The woman turned and he found himself staring at his lover. The lover he never should have trusted. Especially after he'd discovered the tête-à-tête she'd had with the mayor at City Hall.

"Are you following me?" he asked in an accusing voice.

"Following you? We were through eating dinner before you got here." The redhead answered for Tori, who looked as though she'd been struck.

Grady knew with instant clarity that Tori had seen him with Weimer and pieced two and two together. Judging by her expression, she'd come up with an answer of three hundred sixty-four.

"What are you doing here anyway when you said you'd be working?" the redhead continued when neither he nor Tori spoke. "And what's up with that envelope?"

At the woman's raised voice, other diners turned to stare. Not good. Grady bent at the waist, imploring Tori in a soft voice, "Can I talk to you in private? Outside the restaurant?"

"Don't go with him, Tor," her friend advised. "A man like him probably knows how to sweet-talk a woman."

Tori hesitated.

"Please," Grady added.

Tori nodded once, then laid a hand on the other woman's arm before she could erupt. "I need to do this, Crystal. It'll only take a few minutes."

The restaurant was not only small but full, making the parking lot the only place they could hold a private conversation.

Grady thought of a half-dozen openings. He discarded them all, not wanting to tip his hand if he were mistaken about the conclusions she'd reached.

He'd parked near the front of the lot, not far from where they stopped. Before he could begin talking, he heard a frantic scratching on his car window. It was Gordo, who'd clearly recognized Tori.

Figuring he needed all the help he could get, he opened the door and picked up the little cat. Gordo practically crawled over him to get to Tori. She cradled the cat against her chest.

"She cries if I leave her alone too long," he confided.

"If you're trying to soften me up, it's not working," Tori said, stroking Gordo and gazing at him with hurt eyes. "Because that's the last time I'll trust a cat as a judge of character."

"Excuse me?"

"So you like cats? So what? It could be an act."

"It's not an act," he denied.

Her lower lip trembled but her eyes turned granite-hard. "I know you paid Ned Weimer a bribe."

Damn. How was he supposed to refute what was essentially the truth?

He could lay it all on the line by telling her about his part in Operation Citygate. He'd have to trust her implicitly, with no more room for doubt.

"Don't worry. I won't turn you in.” She sounded infinitely sad. "I can't continue seeing you, either."

"Why not?" he asked, needing to know.

"You're not the man I thought you were.” She handed over Gordo, who started to cry. When she reached out to touch his cheek, the hardness had gone out of her eyes. Now they just looked miserable. "Goodbye, Grady."

"Wait," he cried before she could walk out of his life. "I can explain."

She backed up another step. "Nothing you say will make a difference.”

"Please, wait. I can't talk freely until I shut this off." He pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket and turned it off. "There. Now I'll explain everything."

She stopped retreating. "Why did you have to turn off your cell phone before you could talk?"

He took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. "I don't want it to record what I have to say."

"Your cell phone's a recorder?"

"Yes.” He indicated the pager clipped to his belt. "That's a microphone."

While she digested the information, he gently took her by the shoulders, gazed deeply into her eyes and trusted.

"I am the man you think I am," he said. "I'm also part of an FBI sting operation to clean up City Hall."

***

TORI SAT NEXT TO GRADY on a sofa in her apartment with Gordo asleep on her lap, hardly able to digest the story he'd been telling her for the past thirty minutes.

After his declaration in the parking lot, she'd gone back inside the restaurant and told a concerned and protesting Crystal she'd catch a ride back to town with Grady.

He'd told her a little in the car, saving the bulk of the story for when they were alone — with only Gordo to overhear — in her apartment.

"So you won't really go to any lengths to secure a contract?" she asked while stroking the little cat.

"Far from it," he said. "Larger contracts mean more staff and bigger responsibilities. Palmer Construction started as a small family business, and I'm happy to keep it that way."

"And you don't really whole-heartedly support Mayor Black and her pro-growth movement?"

"On the contrary, I'm planning to vote for Forest Richardson if it gets that far. Now that we have the mayor's Chief of Staff on tape accepting a bribe, I'm hoping the queen will fall."

"This is incredible," she said. "Like something out of a movie. You know what this makes you? A hero."

He quickly shook his head. "I'm an ordinary guy trying to do the right thing."

She picked up Gordo from her lap, set the cat down on the other side of the sofa and turned toward Grady. She took his face in her hands and gazed into his eyes.

"You’re far from ordinary.” She pressed a light kiss to his soft lips. "It takes an extraordinary person to do what you've done."

"Then you'll forgive me for lying to you?" he asked with a rueful grin. "I didn't want to but I had no choice. I couldn't tell you everything until I trusted you."

She froze as the meaning of his words penetrated the haze she'd been navigating since his confession earlier that evening.

He'd trusted her with a secret that federal agents had warned him not to share, a secret that could spell grave consequences if it got out to the wrong people. Yet she continued to deceive him.

She had to make her own confession, had to tell him that she'd been hired to spy on him. She'd do it while protecting her client's identity, not that she knew who Ms. M was.

"Tori?" Concern touched the blue of Grady's eyes. "Is something wrong?"