Undercover Love (The Women of Manatee Bay, Book 2) (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Peeking at the mayor’s schedule wasn’t technically breaking the law, was it?

Rachel hovered behind Denise’s computer, scrolling down the screen and copying the mayor’s appointments into her iPhone. Denise had conveniently gone to get coffee so that Rachel could have a few moments to herself, and leave Denise inculpable for any consequences to private information getting out.

Not that she’d do anything with this information. Some stakeouts maybe. A little bit of following. She finished copying the appointments that looked like they’d be stalkable, then clicked out of the program and came around the desk.

Denise chose that moment to emerge from the break room, set off a ways from the main hall of the building. Town Hall was located in a small, freshly built structure. With the new building came updated computer equipment containing nice, expensive programs with which Rachel had much experience.

“Are you done?” Denise, a leggy brunette who found more trouble than was fair, balanced a plate of chocolate chip cookies in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. "Have a cookie."

Rachel snagged one. “Are these fresh?”

“Mayor Owens likes us to offer refreshments to town residents. He’s thoughtful.” Denise set the plate and bottle on the desk and perused a stack of mail. “Anything else you need?”

“Nope. Thanks for the opportunity.” Rachel bit into the cookie, chocolate melting in her mouth.

“I owed you.” Denise smiled and leaned against her desk. “Ron hasn’t come back since March. You were right about him.”

Rachel finished the cookie and hoped she didn’t have any crumbs on her face. “Have you dated?”

“Nah. I’m taking a break from guys for a bit. Trying the whole single thing.” Denise said it sardonically, but Rachel knew she was serious.

“Well, take care.”

“I will. You, too.”

Rachel nodded and scooted out. Once safely in her car, she pulled out her phone and studied the mayor’s schedule. According to his book, today he was meeting his wife for lunch.
Right.
She snorted and started up the car.

First. she’d head over to Hot Mama’s Grill. He ate there every Saturday, trying to be the good ol’ boy people thought he was. If they only knew. But he was a man of habit and that trait worked in her favor.

She thought about dialing Gerta Owens but changed her mind. If Mrs. Owens wanted her flash drive, it was too late. Based on her behavior, the drive was the last thing on Mrs. Owens mind. Unlikely she’d be at Hot Mama’s, but driving by couldn’t hurt.

Minutes later, Rachel let out a breath and pulled to the curb. Parked across from Hot Mama’s on the other side of the road, she gained a clear view of the mayor’s car situated in a parking space near the door. Thirty minutes later, when the mayor left the restaurant, Rachel followed. She flipped the radio onto a jazz station, hoping the throaty purr of the sax would calm her racing heart.

Following him, she swung onto Elm street, leaving the busy central streets of Manatee Bay for the darker section. The poorer section.

The place she’d spent her childhood.

What was the mayor doing back here? This must be the business meeting scheduled after lunch. Better to follow him by foot than risk her car getting jacked. It would be easy to spot his vehicle parked somewhere, and easier to hide if she needed.

Before trailing him deep into the neighborhood’s shadows, she parked at a CITGO, in a far corner of the parking lot. Opening the door, she looked both ways before hopping out of the SUV. She shut the door and opened the rear door. Climbing into the backseat, she reached for the bag she’d stashed behind the driver’s seat earlier. Ah, reconnaissance. Such a beautiful word. Her pulse trembled through her body, already laced with adrenaline. Clicking the door closed, she quickly changed while casting furtive glances through the window.

Finished, she slid out, pressed the lock button on her remote clicker and then slipped it in the pocket of her jeans. After clipping up  her hair, she pulled the hoodie of her oversized sweatshirt over her head.

A tiny camera jostled in the zippered front pocket of her sweatshirt as she traipsed across the gas station’s tired lawn. She cut across Lincoln Ave., heading toward a dingy warehouse on the east side of the neighborhood. It was easy to dodge the trouble spots.

She’d lived here until the year she turned twelve, after all. Ran around, wild and strong. Until her father came back from whatever jaunt he’d been on, holding fistfuls of money and claiming he’d bought Mom a real home.

Rachel paused and surveyed the street before jogging across. She supposed a trailer could be called a home, even if it was in the middle of the woods. But, boy, had she disliked it. Living in a trailer screamed hick louder than Charlie’s twang. Maybe she was a snob but it was how she'd felt back then.

She'd hated that Dad bought her mother's love with a trailer. He saw her need and filled it with fluff. On Rachel’s seventeenth birthday he’d handed her a check before walking out their rickety screen door forever.

So Rachel went to college and left Mom in that old, beat up thing she called a home. Left Maggie to party her way through life.

Rachel didn’t regret bettering herself. She regretted her snobbery, the certainty that she was right in everything. Her religiosity pushed Mom farther away from God than her father’s final abandonment.

Rachel shoved the memories aside. At least she’d had a family, however disjointed it might be. Grant lost much more from his childhood than she ever had.

The warehouse loomed above the rickety houses lining the road to her right. In this section, the trees stood tall and straight, blocking the sun’s harsh glare and darkening the shadows.

It was time to slip off the sidewalk and into someone’s yard. She would need to be quick. People in this place shot first, questioned later. She spared a quick glance at her watch. Almost two. The mayor’s meeting scheduled for 2:15 took place somewhere. She’d try the warehouse first because it was centrally located and ideal, if not a bit cliché, for shady dealings.

Rachel plunged her fists into the pockets of her jeans as perspiration trailed a warm line down her neck. She stepped across someone’s meager excuse for a flowerbed and pressed herself against the peeling paint of their house. Grayed flakes floated to her shoulders as she inched across the yard. The warehouse squatted a few hundred yards in front of her. The perfect coop in which unsavory individuals could nest.

She tugged the hoodie farther over her eyebrows. Broad daylight was the worst time to follow someone but appointments clogged next week’s schedule. Today served her best. Plus, it was doubtful the mayor would do anything illegal during the week, when people flocked around him.

Was he meeting Slasher? No concrete evidence that the mayor and the drug dealer were connected, except for that file named S. And then there had been Corrine. Swallowing hard, Rachel focused on crossing the property.

Where had the mayor parked? Stifling a groan, she moved onto a patch of open grass, the sun punching her in the face with a fist of fire.

She hoped Mayor Owens planned on parking at the abandoned warehouse entrance. If he didn’t and she had to trek around to find him, she’d need to lose the sweatshirt. The jeans clung to her legs in damp patches. Could people get heatstroke in May? She wouldn’t be surprised.

For now she needed to slink through the rest of the yard without being recognized. She didn’t know why the mayor knew her name, but she sure didn’t want him finding out she followed him. Maybe Maggie had talked about her to him?

Taking a deep breath, she sauntered through the grass like she’d seen junkies do, looking like a crazy chicken. Weave this way, weave that way. She lolled her head to the side and used the new angle to check out her peripherals.

No one to the left.

The grass thinned, slowly merging with a beaten road. The warehouse loomed just ahead. She could sprint to it. The urge strengthened her but she fought it back. No way. Running in broad daylight would blow her cover.

She hung her head to the side again, sweeping her gaze to the right. No one there, either.

Her best bet would be to stroll across the grass like she had nowhere to be. Gritting her teeth against the heat, she forced her legs to shorten their stride. To widen. Like a man. She just had to get there unnoticed. There were few sober people on this road. The warehouse had once housed a cement company. In the wake of their bankruptcy, they’d left an area of chipped roads and ugly views. Most of the houses on this street were abandoned.

Some, unfortunately, were not.

So close now. Almost to the warehouse’s shadow. She stepped into it and cool air settled like a blanket around her. Relief whooshed out of her in an exhalation of air. She felt safer now. She had to assume the mayor would be pulling into the main parking lot, which was just around the corner. Satisfied the hoodie obscured her face, she hugged the side of the warehouse with her back and moved forward.

She peeked around the corner. The glare of sun against metal made her squint. She adjusted the angle of her face and the metal morphed into the mayor’s Cadillac.

“Bingo,” she whispered. Was he still sitting there? She squatted. Her fingers found the mini-binoculars lodged in the pocket of her sweatshirt. She brought the binoculars to her eyes and tensed.

Someone was stepping out of the car. The mayor? It looked like him. She adjusted the zoom. Yep. He strode to the front of the car, shoulders squared beneath his expensive suit in a cocky manner.

A movement to the right snagged Rachel’s attention. She shifted the binoculars, catching a blur running to meet the mayor. The focus cleared until an image took the place of the blur.

Long legs, feminine gait. Hair glinting like scarlet foliage beneath the sun.

Rachel dropped the binoculars, her fingers tingling. Why? That deceitful … Rachel worked to calm her breathing though her stomach cramped tight, so tight she thought she’d be sick.

How could Maggie do this? How could she meet the man who’d practically forced her to abort their child?

***

“Maggie is out of control.”

Rachel paced her mother’s tiny kitchen, fingers clenched because if she didn’t make a fist she was going to pick something up and throw it. After seeing Maggie with that lowlife, she’d hurried back to her SUV only to be interrupted by a phone call from Mom, needing a lift to the post office. She’d performed the favor on autopilot.

Now her mother sat at the table painting her nails, acting as if her oldest daughter’s life wasn’t in shambles. “It’s her life.”

“Don’t you care?” Growling, Rachel slammed her mother’s UPS package on the table. “Is this all you needed from me today?”

“Unknot your britches, Rachel.” Mom pushed her chair back and pulled the package closer to her belly. “If you broke anything, you’ll be paying for it.”

Rachel barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Hair curlers and towels filled the box, necessary tools for her mother’s salon. Nothing glass, nothing that couldn’t be replaced.

Unlike Maggie's innocence.

“I saw that. Give me a little respect, Rachel Lynn. I didn’t work myself to the bone during your childhood for you to give me lip.” Mom’s face was getting splotchy; a sure sign of temper.

Rachel swallowed hard, reining in the heat that zipped through her belly and made her hands shake. “Maybe you should’ve been home more. Should’ve cared more.”

“Get out of my house.”

“That’s right, kick me out. Too bad you didn’t do the same to Dad.”

“Excuse me?” Her mom shot out from behind the table and pummeled Rachel.

Shocked, Rachel didn’t defend herself. A slap caught her across the lip and she tasted bitter blood.

Mom stopped with the slapping, but her breath was still hitching and her eyes sparked. “Go wash yourself up and then get back in here so we can talk.”

“I don’t think so,” Rachel said slowly. Mom had never, ever hit her before. Thrown things, cussed, booted them out of the house. But she’d never been violent. “You’re as out of control as Maggie.”

Her mother sneered and pointed to the door. “Keep on judging, Rachel. Life will show you the truth.”

Heart thudding and body shaking, Rachel pivoted for the living room. “Say what you want, but you just hit your daughter.” Senses reeling, she shoved past the junk in the living room and slammed out the front door.

Why had she bothered helping her mother anyway? She knew it would only end in pain, and it did. Mom wouldn’t bother herself over Maggie. That left Rachel to care.

Her muscles ached with shuddering nerves and her lip stung as she peeled out of her mother’s yard and bounced down the dirt road that led to town.

She’d help Maggie, take care of her the way Maggie had cared for her as a child. First things first. Snatching up her cell, she dialed Gerta Owens.

Straight to voicemail. Again.

She pulled to the side of the road and did some searching on her phone’s internet. Not as specific and detailed as she could do at home, but after five minutes she managed to pull up a list of people who could possibly be Gerta hiding out under a different name. One of the possibilities was checked into a mental institution in South Florida, which unfortunately fit the sob story Mayor Owens hacked up on her dinner date with Grant.