Maybe that was what really happened.
“Laurie?”
She turned to look at him just as they stopped in front of her office. There was a question in his dark eyes and his expression was so warm and inviting that she almost wondered if she wasn’t being charmed herself. But what could it hurt? Really. She had asked him for his help to begin with, right? He was doing her the favor. It wasn’t like he had concocted this situation as a way to get her alone and vulnerable.
“When?” Laurie managed to say without choking on the word. She really needed to remember to breathe when this guy was around.
“How about tonight?”
She bit her lip. She was not technically working tonight. And at this point, she had been working so much unpaid overtime that it was tempting to take one Saturday night for herself. “What time?”
“Nine o’clock,” Younger told her with a smile. “That way all of his classes will be done for the night.”
“That would be good,” Laurie decided. If there was going to be an incident here at the mall, it would happen before then, more like at seven o’clock.
Laurie pulled the office door open and was greeted with a wave of cold air. It seemed almost arctic compared to the balmy heat of the outdoor morning and even the bakery warmth of the coffee shop. She and Younger stepped inside the building and Laurie couldn’t help but feel just a little bit of lingering awkwardness. It honestly felt as though they had just made a date. It wasn’t a date. She needed to be really clear in her own mind about that. But it sure felt like one. A delicious sort of feeling. Like she was dancing on air.
“Laurie!”
She nearly fell over at the sound of her own name. Spinning about, she realized she’d been so involved in making plans with Younger that she’d failed to notice her two early morning security walkers standing in the middle of the office. The taller one—Jax—looked so eager to tell her something that she was almost afraid to ask.
“Hey there, guys,” Laurie said in an effort to bring everything down to a normal level. “I thought you’d be out walking until at least nine. That’s when some of the stores open up. Remember?”
“Right.” Jax gave a terse nod. He was waving a smartphone in the air. “And then we found this.”
“You found that?” Laurie frowned. “I guess it’s probably a bit too pricey to just chuck in the lost and found box. Do you want me to put it in the safe?”
“What? No!” Jax looked confused. He stared at the phone in his hand. “The phone is mine. I want you to look at the pictures I took.”
Oh. Well that at least made a little more sense. Jax held the phone out and Laurie crowded in close. It didn’t help that Jax’s partner for the morning—a man they called Ace—was also leaning in. Soon it was the four of them peering at the little screen with Younger leaning over Laurie’s shoulder in a position that was distractingly close. Wait. Distractingly? Ugh! Sometimes Laurie was totally disgusted with what was going on in her own head. She really needed to remember that to focus on work and not the fact that Younger smelled so good.
“Do you see what this is?” Jax asked in a hushed voice.
Good. She had to focus now. Laurie cleared her throat. “It looks like a picture of that kiosk out near the parking lot. Not far from here actually. The one they put in with chalkboards on it and places for tourist brochures.”
Ace shifted from foot to foot with obvious excitement. “Exactly!”
Laurie wasn’t exactly sure what was so exciting. “It’s supposed to be for people to write on, Ace. Remember? They can leave messages just in case they were supposed to meet up with friends. We’ve had people leave messages for acquaintances or family members who were going to visit later. I believe maintenance clears that thing off once every four weeks unless it gets really crowded.
“That’s what I’m getting at!” Jax was so emphatic that he was shaking the phone. Then he seemed to realize the glare was sort of preventing anyone from seeing what the big deal was. “Oh. Here. Let me tilt it… just… there!”
“Holy. Shit.” Laurie breathed the words before she could think better of them. “Is that…?”
“A plan!” Jax said triumphantly. “I don’t know if all of those little bastards stood out there around the kiosk like some kind of sick blackboard, or if someone else was writing this down and calling all the shots. But this is for the other night.”
Laurie frowned. “How do you know that?”
This time, Younger was the one to answer. He gently stretched his arm over the top of Laurie’s shoulder. She could feel the warmth of him against her back in the cold room. It was entirely too—well pleasant.
“See this?” Younger murmured as he gestured to what would have been the top right hand corner of the message board. He looked to Jax. “Can you zoom in at all?”
Jax quickly used his fingers to do just that.
“This,” Younger said slowly, “is Thursday’s date and the time is seven o’clock.”
Laurie felt her stomach do an unwelcome flip flop. “And what are the numbers underneath?”
“A second date,” Jax said quickly. His eyes were alight and he was talking so fast that Laurie could hardly keep up. “I think it refers to this Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” Laurie frowned. “Why Tuesday? These attacks were happening almost every night. Why would they go from Thursday to Tuesday? That seems like an awfully long time between attacks.”
“It’s a strategy,” Younger murmured. He paused just a moment and Laurie turned to look up at him. He seemed deep in thought. “The question is why they’re waiting. What is their end game?”
Jax frowned up at Younger. “You make it sound like they’ve got an actual plan. I figured it had something to do with summer camp or some kids’ nonsense. Like their parents had grounded them or something. Maybe they had vacation plans with their families over the weekend.”
“All of them?” Laurie shook her head as she peered at the little numbers on the screen. There was something about that picture that jogged a memory, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Does that look familiar to any of you?”
All three men shook their heads. Younger gazed at her as though he were waiting for her to expand on her thoughts, but Laurie couldn’t think of what she wanted to say. “It just looks familiar.”
“It probably is,” Ace told her quickly. “Can you even begin to imagine how many times all of us have passed this thing? We’ve probably seen it a dozen times and never realized it’s not just a bunch of boxes and scribbles.”
Laurie nodded her head. That was true enough. If you knew the layout of the mall, you could see that there was a distinctive bank of boxes on each side of a space that could be the promenade. There were lines for the lake and little circles that indicated the fire and water cannons. Then there were a whole lot of little exes and lines and other swishes that didn’t really make sense.
“It looks like a football play,” Jax remarked. He looked up at Younger. “Did you ever play football?”
“Swimming,” Younger murmured. “But I can see what you mean. It does resemble a football play out of a book. I hate to say it, but this suggests we’re dealing with a whole different thing here.”
Jax and Ace were nodding, but Laurie wasn’t sure she understood. “What do you mean? A whole different thing?”
“You already told me they seem organized. I would have agreed with you on that for sure.” Younger scratched the side of his jaw and made a face. “But this is more. This suggests they have a responsible party pulling the strings. Those kids are just players on his field.”
Not that Laurie doubted what he was saying, but she didn’t really understand what he was driving at. The sense of it all eluded her. “But why?”
“I think that’s what we need to be looking at. Who benefits from this place being the target of a whole lot of vandalism? Who gets a kickback from that? If the tourists stop coming here, where do they go?”
“Tanger Outlets?” Jax
suggested.
Laurie was already shaking her head. “Honestly, we’re not the same market. The shoppers go there anyway. That’s an outlet mall and a huge one. We’re more boutique and unique. That was the intention. The blend of upscale and casual restaurants. Ice cream parlors, bakeries, fudgeries, the big sporting goods store—it’s not the same shopping experience. This is more of a mall, and Tanger is an outlet mall. Every store has a brand connection there. So, while I could see a slight boom in their sales if we took a hit, it wouldn’t be them to really benefit.”
“Okay, so who benefits?” Younger tried again.
Laurie pursed her lips. “Do you think there’s a corporate angle? Are they trying to get more money?”
“Has Hilary Allenwood been a problem for you in the past?” Younger wondered. He looked as though he was digging through the bottom of every barrel in his head trying to find the right answer. “Sometimes Hilary chooses a venue or a person and just runs them into the ground. I could absolutely see her making this whole thing up just to get a good story.”
Laurie was aghast. “Why us? That seems pointless!”
Younger only shrugged. “We’re heading into the fall holidays. There’s back to school shopping sales still going on and then we’re into Thanksgiving and the pre-Christmas rush. So, maybe she’s trying to drum up interest in some exposé on…”
“Ha!” Laurie nudged him with her shoulder. “You can’t even come up with a reason.”
“No, but there has to be one somewhere,” Younger told her. “If it doesn’t involve Hilary, then it involves someone or something else.”
Jax and Ace both looked mystified. It was time to send them back to their morning rounds. Everything had to appear normal. And maybe it was good that they were evidently going to get a break in the drama. By Tuesday they could have a strategy in place and ready to go. It would be the final showdown. One way or the other.
“Well,” Younger mused. “If this battle plan looks like it was the one they used on Thursday, that means we could stake out this message board and see whose hanging around drawing football plays between now and Tuesday. That might give us at least some answer.”
“How are you going to do that?” Laurie was starting to freak out at the idea that she was going to have to assign someone twenty-four hours a day to watch a sign.
But Younger gave a wolfish smile. “That’s easy. Surveillance equipment.”
Maybe this was the reason she’d hired a consulting expert. They had all of the good ideas and the toys to carry them out.
Chapter Twenty-One
It hadn’t taken long for Younger to retrieve some surveillance equipment from the Rock Wolf Investigations office. He didn’t have nearly the same trouble as the other agents did thanks to the fact that Caroline would rather be helpful to Younger than argumentative.
He considered the whole Caroline situation while he set up his surveillance on the message board. The wireless cameras weren’t difficult to mount but it took some creative wrangling to make sure they weren’t entirely visible. That left one of the camera views partially blocked in one corner by vegetation from a potted plant where Younger had stashed the camera.
It was necessary to use two cameras rather than one since the message board was octagonally-shaped and nearly five feet across. One side had a door with a chalkboard covering it so it also doubled as storage space for the myriad brochures and maps that were tucked into holders in every possible spot on the kiosk.
By five o’clock Younger had the entire thing situated. He had taken up residence on a bench tucked into a shady corner in order to watch the camera feed on his mobile phone. That was about the time Caroline started texting him.
At first, it was nothing to write home about. Did the cameras work? Did he need any additional equipment? She was volunteering to leave the office in order to bring it to him. Younger initially figured it was the Landing that made her want to be so cooperative. No doubt she wanted to stop and do some shopping on the company clock. But as the texts continued, he wasn’t really so sure.
“Hey, how are things going out here?” Laurie took a seat on the other end of Younger’s bench. She looked as though she was trying to see where the cameras were located without being too obvious. “Where did you put them? I can’t even see anything.”
Younger grinned at her. “That’s good. You’re not supposed to be able to see them. We have to assume whomever has been writing down these plans is used to this place. He will notice something out of the ordinary and that might scare him off. But if we keep things hidden, hopefully he’ll just be confident enough to walk right up and start drawing.”
“What if it’s a kid?” Laurie frowned and leaned against the bench’s backrest. She folded her arms, crossed her legs, and let one bounce over the other. Everything about her body language was apprehensive and prickly. “What if we can’t even tell who it is? What if the person is so normal looking that we don’t know he did it and the attack happens anyway?”
“That’s just a risk we have to take,” Younger murmured. He was smiling at Laurie when his phone buzzed in his hand again. He could feel the grimace taking shape on his features before he had a chance to reel in his reaction.
“What’s that?” Laurie’s brows drew together and she craned her neck to see the screen of his phone where it had automatically pulled up a text box to cover the camera feed she had been watching. “Who is Caro?”
“You were in my office,” Younger reminded her. “Caroline is the blonde receptionist slash secretary who tends to try to make herself just as disagreeable as she can.”
“And she’s texting you?”
Laurie looked more than a little interested in this fact. Why? Women were weird. That was the long and short of it. Even Laurie had girl tendencies toward strangeness. It was evidently in their nature for some reason.
Younger made a face. “I’m not sure what’s really up with Caroline. She’s the one who put herself in my contacts as Caro. I don’t socialize with her. I try my best to maintain the most professional attitude as I can. She doesn’t seem to notice.”
“She has a crush on you!” There was a teasing note in Laurie’s voice. Her blue eyes sparkled and she swiped at a few stray strands of her hair in the most adorably feminine gesture Younger had ever seen. “That’s kind of sweet, I guess.”
“No, it isn’t,” Younger groused. “Do you have any idea how frustrating it is for a guy to have zero interest in a woman and to have her try to reel him in anyway just because he’s nice and she assumes—incorrectly I might add—that being nice means something it surely does not mean?”
Laurie sighed. She fidgeted with her hands for a moment and then cast a look up at Younger from beneath her thick dark lashes. On any other woman, Younger would have thought she was trying to flirt. Laurie, though, was different. With her, it rather felt like she was honestly shy. “I don’t know what your friend Caroline thinks or feels, but women tend to be used to guys either being straight up rude or just acting like complete bullies. And I’m not really talking about meanness. Not necessarily. But if I had a nickel for every time my mother told me if a boy was bothering me or teasing the daylights out of me that it really meant he was into me and just didn’t know how to say it, I would be filthy stinking rich!”
“Wait. Your mother told you that when a boy is mean it means he likes you?” Younger shook his head. Then he laughed. And then he threw back his head and exhaled a huge sigh. “That’s a really bad message to give a kid.”
“I know.” She wrinkled her nose. She really was adorable sometimes. The woman had that girl next door thing going for sure. “At least I know that now. But when you’re a kid and there are boys that you like, you pester them because boys don’t relate to girls the same way girls relate to other girls. It’s just an unfortunate social truth. Don’t you think?”
“So, if you come across a boy who is actually nice to you,” Younger murmured. He thought about Caroline, and before her he thought abo
ut Sidney back when he’d been a Marine. The entire incident that had ended his career had soured him on finishing his initial commitment of twenty years. If Younger thought about that, maybe he could trace it all back to being too nice.
“But what you’re saying,” he continued slowly, “is that we’re screwed either way. If we’re mean to a woman she’s going to think we like her and don’t know how to show it. If we’re polite, she takes it as encouragement. What is wrong with just waiting until a man says, hey, I like you and I want to go out with you?”
Laurie laughed. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she giggled like a schoolgirl. Younger had to catch his breath at the sight of her. “If we waited for that, we would never get to go out with anyone! The only guys who are eager to ask you out are the ones who want something from you. That’s the way it is these days. I swear. And no. It’s not always true, but damn close I think!”
Younger had never tried to put himself in the shoes of a woman trying to find a date in a world populated by men like Josh Bentley or Lieutenant Solomon. “I suppose you make a good point. So, what am I supposed to do? Just walk into the office and say, Caroline, I really appreciate all of the hard work you do here in the office, but I’m not interested in having anything but a professional relationship with you?”
“Yes, that’s precisely what you should do.”
Younger gave Laurie a narrow-eyed, suspicious stare. “And if she decides she wants to change my mind?”
“Then that’s her problem. She’s trying to pursue a guy who was absolutely honest about not being interested.” Laurie clucked with obvious disapproval. “Then you have a right to keep saying it until she either gets the message or you get a restraining order.”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 63