The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) (19 page)

He set his mug on the ground and opened his arms.

She settled on his lap and nestled into his embrace.

“Thank you, Cammie.”

She felt the shift in their energy, like the ebb and flow of the tide. A fierce ardor for what was right, and just, surged within her.

“I’ll serve her if I have to live in that rental car night and day surveiling her place.”

“But no—”

“Oh, please, are we really going there again?” She huffed a sigh. “I won’t do anything illegal.” She held up two fingers. “Girl Scout promise.”

He frowned. “I thought they saluted with three fingers.”

She added one. “Better?”

“Cammie, I know it irritates you to be reminded, but you are my
key
witness at not only Laura’s trial down the road, but also at my father’s impending parole hearing. If you look dirty, my case looks dirty, and dirty legal cases end up in big, ugly garbage dumps.”

“Thank you, Mr. Positive.”

“Okay, I got a little heavy.”

“Ya think?”

He held up one hand in apology. “One last point, and it’s constructive. Do you know if there’s another exit to Gwen’s—I mean, Laura’s—place? Don’t want her slipping out the back while you’re out front.”

“I already checked the former real estate agent’s data. No back door. She either leaves through the front, that garage or the chimney. Whichever way, I’ll be waiting.”

“Chimney.” He chuckled under his breath, then turned earnest. “I hate to leave you here alone. I’d hoped to get that chance to negotiate a deal with her.”

“You might’ve gotten her to agree to certain terms, but, Marc, let’s be real. You would’ve walked away with empty promises.”

She stared into his solemn eyes. The fire crackled and sputtered. Breezes carried scents of the salty ocean and sweet honeysuckle.

“C’mere,” Marc said, tugging her closer. “I don’t have much time....”

Snuggling into his warmth, she looked into his face. Morning light caressed the firm line of his jaw, gleamed on the reddish-brown of his hair. She gazed longingly at his mouth, then slowly, her eyes rose to meet his hard gaze.

He took an agonized breath. “I should’ve been with you,” he murmured, “not her.”

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders as he lowered his lips to hers.

Their kiss was intense, hungry. Underneath her, she felt his thighs tighten as he reached for her beneath the blanket. His large, warm hand stroked and caressed her naked body, stoking her internal fires.

She sucked in a sharp breath as he touched her
there
.

“So good,” she groaned, moving her hips in time with his hand.

She felt his erection press hard underneath her.

“Take off,” she whispered mindlessly, half turning and fumbling for his pants.

He clamped a hand over hers. “I want you so bad, it hurts,” he said in a thick voice, “but we used my only condom last night.... Today it’s just for you....”

He wet his finger with his mouth, then zeroed in on the center between her legs. His eyes holding hers, he rubbed her nub in tight, slick movements.

“Is that good for you, baby?”

She bit her lip, a whimper escaping her throat. Locked on his eyes, she stared into those glistening blue depths as her body rocked to his movements, driving her closer and closer to the edge.

She stilled, her entire body suspended on a precipice. Then her insides exploded in wave after wave of release.... She cried out, the sound lost in a kiss as Marc held her.

Afterward, she lay in his arms, vaguely aware of the distant pounding surf, the smell of the fire, the warmth of the sun on her face.

“I have to go, Cammie,” Marc whispered.

“I know.” She paused. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to...”

He pulled her close, holding her so tightly against himself she swore she could feel his heart hammering through his shirt.

Stroking her hair, he whispered into her ear, “I’ll wait for you, Cammie, as your man, your lover, your friend. I’ll always wait for you.”

She pressed her head against his shoulder, fighting a well of emotion. For a hard moment, she regretted ever telling him about her mother’s death, how it had felt to come home and see the single most important person in her world had left her forever. She hadn’t realized it until this moment, but she’d never wanted anybody to be that important to her again.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

She nodded, her face pressed against his soft T-shirt.

“I mean it, Cammie.”

“I know you do.”

“Always,” he repeated.

* * *

A
T
7:35
,
C
AMMIE
DROVE
the rental—a blue Kia Rondo—to Laura’s house. She’d checked out of the motel and tossed her few possessions into the passenger seat.

In her investigations, she often rented different cars when conducting multiday surveillances, to avoid detection. Even better that the Rondo had a California plate, a different state than the rental from yesterday.

After hitting some local traffic, she arrived at the house at ten to eight. She parked across the street, one house down, and checked out the place. The garage door was closed. The standing mailbox door, which yesterday had been closed, hung open. They’d either checked for mail when they’d gotten home in the wee hours or within the past hour or so.

If somebody was up, Cammie wanted to make this fast.

After sticking the papers into her pocket, she quickly exited the car, headed to the gate and peered over it. Nobody in the yard, no motion in the window. She quickly entered, letting the gate swing quietly shut behind her, and headed to the corner of the window where she’d left her smartphone.

It was gone.

She scanned the ground underneath the ledge. Nothing. Looked around a hedge near the window. Nothing. Surveyed the immediate area. Nothing.

A grinding metallic sound diverted her attention. The garage door was opening. From inside came the splintered rumble of a cold engine.

Cammie bolted across the yard and shoved open the gate as a red Dodge Viper hurtled backward down the driveway, spun a ninety-degree turn in the street and halted, facing forward.

The gate slapping shut behind her, Cammie ran into the middle of the street while fumbling to get the papers out of her pocket. Stumbling to a stop fifteen or so feet in front of the car, she held them up for the driver to see. Bright morning sunshine glinting off the windshield, obliterating the face behind the wheel.

What the hell. She had fifty-fifty odds.

“Laura McDonald,” she yelled, “you are served!”

The car lurched forward, smoke spewing from its spinning tires as it bore down on her. Cammie jumped out of the way, gripping the papers.

“Crap!”

She jogged to the Kia, hopped inside and started the car. Seeing it was clear both ways, she spun a one-eighty and sped down the street, keeping her eye on the flash of red.

It swerved left several blocks ahead.

She followed suit and slammed on her brakes.

In front of her, kids were boarding a yellow school bus, its red lights flashing. A few mothers hovered nearby, looking tired or relieved. One wagged her finger at a grumpy-looking kid strapped into a superhero backpack. She flashed on a long-ago memory with her mother, who’d felt well enough that day to walk Cammie to the bus stop. They’d held hands and laughed, making up silly stories about a cat named Crusader. Her mom could have such a wonderful sense of fun and creativity about life—Cammie liked to think she got some of that from her.

But today was about creativity, not fun.

She glanced around for any police units. Seeing none, she pulled out and drove past the school bus, waving at the matron bus driver who looked about as happy as a prison guard.

Cammie scoured the road ahead, peered down side streets, checked if the red car had tried to hide by parking behind a Dumpster or truck.

Nothing.

The road curved around to a stoplight at the main drag, El Camino Real. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought she saw the Viper zipping past before realizing it was an Audi.

She’d never been one for theatrical outbursts, but at that moment she could have out-acted Meryl Streep in the melodrama department. Cammie wanted to cry, curse, pound her hands against the steering wheel. She hadn’t come this far to
fail.

She flashed on Philip Marlowe’s line in
Murder, My Sweet
. “I felt pretty good—like an amputated leg.”

“That feels about right,” she muttered, debating if she should turn north or south. Eenie, meenie, minie...north. She turned the steering wheel and eased into northbound traffic.

Spying the big rooster on a surfboard ahead, she had an idea. Maybe it would work, maybe not, but it was her best hope.

Her only hope.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

C
AMMIE
TURNED
INTO
The Surfing Rooster. A gangly girl in a string bikini and a red-haired boy in flowered swim trunks sat at one of the picnic tables making out, oblivious to the world around them.

A swell of feeling, like a wave, rolled over her. She missed Marc.

After parking in one of the three parking spaces behind the restaurant, she walked around to its order window. A guy stood with his back to her, his brown hair tied in a scraggly ponytail. He was chopping onions in time to a reggae number, heavy on the reverb, that played over an iPod-speaker setup on the shelf next to a jar of pickles.

“Hello?” Cammie called out.

“Hey,” he said, setting down his knife. Wiping his hands on a cloth, he turned and smiled at her, his eyes pinker than a Mary Kay Cadillac.

“Dude,” she said, “I’m, like, in a major jam.”

“Yeah?”

When he leaned closer, she caught a telltale whiff of ganja. “Yeah. Lost my cell phone.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah, and I’m lost and I need to call my sister to get directions to this major family reunion thing. You got a phone?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He looked around, lifted a towel, pushed aside a bowl. “There it is.” He handed it to her.

“Far out.” Sometimes the goodness of people gave her hope. Especially people who’d upgraded to smartphones. She tapped on the keypad, checked the GPS results. If Laura had her smartphone—which likely she did—this would give the location.

“Biggee’s Burgers—is that nearby?”

He looked confused for a moment, then pointed at El Camino Real. “Take a left. It’s about a mile or so. Can’t miss it. Says Biggee’s Burgers on the outside.”

No kidding. “Thanks.” She handed it back to him.

“Wow,” he said, “your family reunion’s at Biggee’s Burgers?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cammie said, walking away. A reunion of sorts, anyway. One she was primed to attend.

“Have a groovy one,” he called out after her.

“Oh, I will,” she murmured, picking up her stride.

B
ack in the car, she retrieved a rubber band from her purse and secured her hair into a bun, put on her big sunglasses and swapped her fresh T-shirt with the one she’d worn yesterday. Then she started the car and headed to Biggee’s.

A few minutes later, she parked in the lot adjacent to the restaurant, out of view of Biggee’s customers and its parking lot, and stuck the papers in the waistband of her pants, covered by her T-shirt. Then she got out and walked into the restaurant.

“How many in your party?” asked a girl with curly brown hair and braces on her teeth.

Cammie looked at her name tag. “Can I look at a menu first, Alison?”

Alison, flashing a silver smile, handed one to Cammie. Holding it up, Cammie peered over it at the room. No Laura. As Alison escorted a middle-aged couple to a booth, Cammie walked outside with the menu as though perusing it, and headed to the parking lot.

The red Viper was parked in a far corner of the lot in the shadow of a tree. A woman with a brown pixie cut sat in the driver’s seat, her head bent.

Cammie pulled the papers out of her pocket and held them inside the menu she pretended to be reading.

She didn’t walk straight to the Viper. Instead, she meandered toward another car parked near it, as though it were hers, preoccupied in her menu-reading. As she reached the car’s passenger door, she swerved and headed straight to the open driver’s window of the Viper. Closer, she saw what Laura was looking at. Cammie’s smartphone.

She slapped shut the menu with the papers inside and tossed them in Laura’s lap.

As Laura jumped back in her seat, emitting a curse that could clear a locker room, Cammie reached through the open window and snatched her smartphone.

“Laura McDonald,” she barked, “you’re served.” She almost said
effing served,
but Marc wouldn’t have approved.

Laura’s forehead wrinkled. “Are you that private eye?”

“No, I’m your fairy godmother.” Cammie started heading across the lot.

Behind her, a car door slammed.

“Get back here, you—”

If air could turn blue, their shared ether would have pulsed sapphire. Cammie picked up her pace, smiling politely at an elderly couple who’d stopped in their tracks and were staring, wide-eyed, at the epithet-shrieking woman hot on Cammie’s tail.

“You can’t serve me papers in a restaurant menu,” Laura screamed, “you fu—”

Cammie could serve papers in a Spanx sandwich for all the courts cared, but she wasn’t going to debate the issue with Miss Pissed-Off Pixie Head, who she hoped wasn’t carrying a gun. Name-calling she could survive, but a bullet...

Passing Biggee’s entrance, Cammie checked the reflection in its windows. Laura, fists raised high, was gaining on her. She wore a flouncy cropped top that could be covering a weapon stuck into the waistband of her pants, but if that were the case, she’d be reaching for it, which she wasn’t.

Cammie began speed walking, but too late. A heavy punch to her back sent her teetering forward, fighting for her balance.

Catching herself, she darted to the side and spun to face Laura, who looked genuinely surprised.

For a fleeting instant, Cammie considered head butting her. A quick, vicious shot to put her out of commission. She’d used it once successfully, years ago, on a guy who didn’t believe no meant no.

But Laura could be carrying Marc’s baby. She was supposed to be five or six months along. No matter what craziness this nutzoid pulled, Cammie couldn’t risk hurting that child.

“Take it easy,” Cammie said coolly, showing her palms in a peacemaking gesture. “I’m only the messenger.”

That reminder lasted all of two seconds.

Spitting a colorful two-word directive, Laura sprang forward, her hands clawed like a raptor descending on its prey.

Cammie jumped away and raised a defensive elbow, which caught Laura in the eye. With a screech, Laura staggered a few feet, holding her hands over her eye.

People were gathering outside the restaurant.

“Lady, you okay?” a guy yelled.

“That...that
dick
socked me in the eye,” Laura wailed, pointing at Cammie.

In the skirmish, Laura’s crop top had crept up almost indecently high. Between it and her low-slung jeans, Cammie got a good look at her flat, brown midriff. Not just flat, but concave with jutting hip bones.

“Somebody call the cops!” a woman yelled.

“I got a better idea,” a shortish, fattish guy chimed in. Tucked into the front of his shirt was a ketchup-smeared napkin. “Let’s throw some Jell-O on ’em and sell tickets.” He and his buddy guffawed and slapped each other on the shoulders.

“The short-haired one started it,” said a man in a white Stetson hat.

Easing in a calming breath, Cammie punched a few keys on her smartphone and pulled up a photo of herself in front of the American flag, proudly holding her just-earned Nevada P.I. license. God, that photo seemed like a lifetime ago. Her license wasn’t valid anymore and showing it might fall into the gray area. But Cammie decided to risk it. She wanted the crowd on her side. She held it up for people to see.

“I’m a private investigator working on behalf of attorney Marc Hamilton. This woman’s name is Laura McDonald and she’s been served a subpoena to appear in court for stealing thirty thousand dollars from Mr. Hamilton’s law firm. You can call him at 303-555-7299 to confirm this.”

Several people started punching numbers into their cell phones. My, how crimes had changed since Marlowe’s days. Marc would be surprised at the influx of calls, but he’d also be keenly interested in first-person accounts of Laura’s violent behavior, which could only have a positive effect in his case against her.

Cammie toyed with calling 9-1-1 herself and pressing third-degree-assault charges—another one would be such a lovely addition to Miss McDonald’s rap sheet—but that would mean being stuck in San Clemente while cops interviewed her, and Cammie wanted to get to Vegas as soon as possible.

She snapped a few quick shots of the crowd and of Laura, whose blood had drained from her face, the resulting tan-over-pallor making her look a bit sickly.

The man in the white Stetson, pens clipped in the pocket of his utility-type cowboy shirt, stood next to Laura, his hand clamped like a vise on her shoulder. It was clear he intended for her to stay put whether she liked it or not, and from the bitter, beaten look on her face, she got the message.

Cammie stared at her. She should start the long drive back to Vegas, but there was a niggling question that only one person could answer.

“Why Marc?” she asked.

Laura laughed—a dark, disturbing sound—before fixing unflinching eyes on Cammie. “I happened to be in Denver, and I read about his dad skimming a fortune off his clients’ money. I thought, why not pull the same trick with Junior? When the theft was discovered, everybody would blame him. Like father, like son.”

“You targeted him?”

“That’s right. I expected a huge payoff, but sometimes you take what you can get. When I figured I couldn’t get more than a lousy thirty thou, I moved on.”

For a moment or two, all Cammie could do was look stupidly at her, her brain assimilating how a woman who had once seemed so silly, so Shopping Mall Queen, was capable of such diabolical actions.

But then, hadn’t she once said that a Mall Queen was a lot more complex than people realized?

“You nearly destroyed a wonderful man’s life,” Cammie said quietly.

A look dawned on Laura’s face. “God, how pathetic. You still carry a torch for him.”

Cammie turned and started walking away.

“I could always tell you had a thing for him,” Laura called out. “Even told him once and we had a good laugh about it.”

Cammie focused on the swaying palm trees, the crush of the distant surf, the look in Marc’s eyes when he said he’d be waiting for her.

“Because he never cared for you that way, honey,” Laura yelled. “Never did, never will!”

The twist she gave to the word
honey
made it sound uglier than a dirty name.

After Cammie got into the Kia, she called Marc and got his voice mail. He was probably talking with one of the witnesses from the restaurant. He would be one busy guy fielding all the phone calls as he drove to Vegas.

“Hi, it’s Cammie,” she said. “Laura’s been served. Yes, I gave your phone number to a group of strangers, most, if not all, of whom saw Laura McDonald go berserk after I served her. I’m heading back now, should be there by—” she checked the time “—2:00 p.m. Call me.”

As she drove out of the lot, she passed Laura, who flipped her the bird.

“You’re number one in my book, too,
honey,
” Cammie murmured.

* * *

L
AURA
’
S
TAUNTS
BUBBLED
UP
in Cammie’s mind on the drive. Every time she pushed them down, reminding herself that Laura’s ramblings were nothing more than the vengeful barbs of a criminal who’d been caught and would pay for her crimes.

After miles of road and several hours of thought, Cammie finally reached the conclusion that a corner of her heart hadn’t caught up with current-day events. That the Cammie who had nursed an unrequited crush for years was still hanging around, a kind of ghost of Cammie Past, who was stuck there because she was afraid to embrace the future.

Really, if she ever got tired of being a P.I., she could be a shrink.

As she pulled out of a gas station in Barstow, California, Marc finally returned her call.

“Next time,” he said, “why don’t you just spray paint my private cell number on the side of a building?”

Next time
. She liked that. “Because I don’t do illegal things like deface private property.”

He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”

My girl.
She liked that even better. “But not indulging in gray activities is not just about you, you know. Little things like misdemeanor charges could put a serious crimp in getting my license back. Felony charges, forget it.”

“Seriously,” he said, “good job serving what’s-her-name. How’d you find her at that burger place?”

“When I got to her house, my smartphone was missing. At the same time, she was backing her snazzy red Viper down the driveway—tried to follow her, lost her. Ended up at The Surfing Rooster, where a stoner short-order cook loaned me his smartphone. Checked my phone’s geolocation through an iCloud connection, and learned it was at Biggee’s Burgers.”

“Good job, Mrs. Peel.”

“Thank you, Mr. Steed.”

“Witnesses have told me stories about her trying to start a cat fight.”

“Yeah, Swagtastic knuckle rapped me from behind, and although I considered giving her a head butt, I refrained.”

He half choked a laugh. “Head butt, really?”

“It was a passing thought,” she mumbled, not wanting to explain what else had gone through her mind at that moment.

“Did she hurt you?” His tone had turned serious.

“No, Marc, I’m okay.”

“Now we understand how she got that third-degree assault.”

“Exactly what I thought.” Maybe she should go ahead and tell him that Laura wasn’t pregnant, but no, that would be an awkward conversation to have while they were driving in separate cars. Plus Cammie didn’t want him to be alone when he heard the news. Either Laura lost the baby, or it had never existed. Regardless, Marc would grieve the loss.

“You’re so quiet,” he said.

“It’s been a long day.”

“Going to get even longer. I’m heading straight to Delilah’s place to pick up Emily so I can chaperone her at her first political rally.”

“Right. Eco-Glitter.”

“Shame Amber can’t join her. Seems she and Em have become bosom cell-phone pals, talking at all hours about environmental issues and social responsibility.” He chuckled. “I should be getting into Vegas in an hour, tops. How about you?”

“I’m an hour behind you.”

“Got to hand it to Em.” The pride was evident in his tone. “She’s walking the talk.”

“Maybe she can use this experience to write a report at school or start some kind of student eco organization.”