“So I heard. Quite an honor.”
“She’s really done well. She’s a surgeon at Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago.” Heather stopped. “But you’ve done really well, too. A professor at a big university. I wonder why they’ve never asked you.”
Alex appeared startled at the idea. “Fine with me if they haven’t. Really. It’s not something I’d want to do.”
“But you’ve accomplished just as much as Karin.” He had to have been hurt by the slight, even if he was pretending he wasn’t. “I’m going to talk to the committee. Since Owen Philips has to have bypass surgery, they’re looking for a new co-grand marshall to partner with Karin and you would be perfect. They’ll just do a quick background check—”
“No,” Alex said quickly. It had to be hurt that was making his voice sound annoyed. “Really. I’d rather that you didn’t.”
“Oh, don’t be so shy,” Heather said. “Think of how proud your mother would be.”
“Well, that’s part of it.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure my mother would be able to come to the festival this year and I’d hate for her to miss it.” He glanced down the street and then at his watch. “Wow, look at the time. I’d better get going or I’ll run into lots of traffic.”
“Better than it running into you,” she said.
He stared at her a long moment. And then he laughed, as if suddenly realizing she’d been making a joke. “Well, have a nice day,” he said and took a few steps backward before turning and jogging off down the block.
Heather pulled down the gravel drive and parked her car. Penny’s grandmother-her name was Emma but all Penny’s friends called her Aunty Em—came out on the porch. She still had a slight limp from her hip surgery, but was no longer using her cane.
“Hi, Aunty Em,” Heather called as she got out of the car. “You’re looking great. Hear anymore from Penny and Brad?”
“They’re having a great time in Paris, but she’s fretting over me being here alone. You’d think I was a two-year-old.”
Heather just laughed as she climbed up on the porch and gave the older woman a hug. “Don’t get mad at me for agreeing to check on you for her. I did it for purely selfish reasons. I don’t get to see enough of you regularly.”
“Well, once the fool doctor gives me the go-ahead, I’ll be driving again and you’ll be sick of me.”
“Never.” Heather held the container out to Aunty Em. “I know you don’t need me to cook for you, but I made too much salad for my lunch and thought maybe you could use it.”
“That’s awful nice of you,” the old woman said. “But you know, you shouldn’t be fussing over me. You should be finding yourself a man and fussing over him.”
Heather just laughed and followed Aunty Em inside. “You’re friends with Gloria Waterstone, aren’t you? Is she planning on attending the festival this year?”
“I don’t know.” Aunty Em said and took a casserole out of the oven. “Why?”
“Alex’s name has come up as a possible replacement for Owen Philips as a grand marshall this year and I—”
“Alex as a grand marshall?” Aunty Em looked stunned, then dropped the casserole on the table rather loudly. “What kind of crazy fool idea is that?”
“It’s not crazy.” Heather got glasses out of the cabinet and poured iced tea for both of them. “He’s accomplished a lot and deserves the honor just as much as Karin.”
Aunty Em brought Heather’s salad over to the table and motioned for her to sit down. “Well, you just be careful around him.”
Heather was confused. “Careful? Why?”
Aunty Em started dishing up the casserole, plopping spoonfuls on the plates with force. “Because Alex Waterstone is up to no good.”
Heather sighed. This wasn’t the type of dinner conversation she had hoped for. “He’s a well-respected university professor.”
“So he says.”
“He is,” she said. “Penny had him in class.”
“One class, that’s all he teaches,” Aunty Em said. “And Penny says he never dates.”
Heather refused to find that piece of information intriguing and started eating. “Maybe he’s serious about someone who lives someplace else. He does travel a lot, you know.”
“Does he?” Aunty Em was interested. “He have many guests?”
Heather thought about it for a minute. “Actually, no. He rarely has anyone over that I can remember.”
“Ha! See, I told you. Up to no good.”
“That’s no proof. So he doesn’t have a lot of friends in Chesterton. He was gone for years. Maybe his friends just don’t come here.”
“Speaking of which, why did he move back here anyway?”
This conversation was getting too bizarre. “Maybe because it had been his home. Lots of people move back home after traveling around a bit.”
Aunty Em just pushed back from the table. “I think he’s a spy.”
“A spy!” Heather just stared at the older woman.
“Yep. He’s mysterious, travels a lot and never tells you anything when you ask him a question.”
“That hardly means he’s a spy,” Heather pointed out. “He could just be the type that keeps to himself.”
“I bet if we followed him we’d find him going to dark alleys at midnight in a trench coat.”
Or bright parking lots in daylight? Why had he been in that neighborhood anyway? Heather shook herself. She was not going to get caught up in Aunty Em’s fantasies. “Well, we aren’t going to follow him so we’ll never know for sure. Can I have another helping, please?”
Aunty Em put several large spoonfuls of the casserole on Heather’s plate. “I wonder what kind of gun he has.”
Heather froze. No, she had dreamed that. He hadn’t had a gun the other night. She had imagined it. “He’s a professor,” she said, but her voice sounded weak and less convinced than before.
Aunty Em gave her a look. “What have you got before school starts again? A week?”
“About that.”
The older woman nodded. “Enough time to do a little investigating. I’ve got my own PI firm. Well, I will when I finish my correspondence course. We’ll get started right away.”
An investigation? What in the world was Aunty Em talking about? “I don’t think we ought to.” Heather stopped. Wouldn’t it be best to know if her neighbor was more than a mild-mannered university professor? Finding out would certainly be a brave thing. And didn’t she owe it to Dorothy and Toto for all they’d done for her over the years?
Heather took a deep breath and put her fork down. “Okay,” she said. “What do we do?”
“Rough evening?” the man said.
Alex turned, hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other. He’d been contemplating the fenced-in parking lot, stewing over this whole mess with Heather as he waited to leave for his meeting with Casio. Next to him stood one of the gambling den’s security guards.
Alex forced himself back into his role. “Just a little break in the action. Came out to catch my breath.”
“That’s a good idea.” The man lit up a cigarette and leaned on the fence himself, looking away from Alex. “Sometimes a man needs to step back and get his nerves settled. Just like Michael Jordan when he’s about to take a free throw.”
Alex nodded and took a bite of the hot dog. “Luck’s gonna turn. I can feel it in my bones.”
“That’s good.” The man took a deep drag on his cigarette then crushed it beneath his foot. “Real good.” He turned and strode away.
Alex went back to eating his hot dog, though it was sitting pretty heavy in his stomach. All he could see was Heather’s vivid eyes this morning, downplaying her asthma. Her delight in rescuing Bonnie and her certainty that love was all that was needed to heal a fearful heart.
She lived in a dreamworld that he had never even visited. Okay, maybe before his father had died, it had been his world, too. But not since. And never would be again either, not that he wanted to go
back. No, he was where he belonged right now He just had to push Heather back where she belonged.
Alex glanced at his watch. It was just about time. Casino had left the shady casino an hour ago, and it should be safe for Alex to leave now. too. He pulled away from the fence, about to take the last bite of his hot dog, when he saw a cat in the parking lot starting at him.
It was a mangy-looking little thing, brown and white in color with green eyes and ragged ears. Most likely mean as all hell—had to be to survive on these streets—and it was staring right at Alex, accusingly.
“Hey I’m trying,” he muttered to the creature. “I know sh. doesn’t belong in this mess. And I’m gonna get her out of it. Just give me a chance.”
The cat was still staring at him and Alex looked at the piece of hot dog he still held in his hand, then tossed it to the cat. “Here you go, buddy.” Alex said, throwing the hot dog toward the cat.
The cat crept up to the piece of meat, while its eyes darted all around, making sure that danger wouldn’t come pouncing on it. Then, after a tentative bat, he snatched up the scrap of hot dog and ran under a car to eat it
If that had been Heather, she would have come over an nked him for the food certain that everybody er trusted. Alex swall ed hard. He was not going to be the one to help her learn that wasn’t true.
Alex hustled to the corner and caught the bus about to pull away. After four bus transfers, two train rides, and an hour spent in a shopping mall to lose any possible tails, Alex walked into the hotel suite Casio was using as an office. His supervisor looked about to break a blood vessel.
“What’s wrong?” Casio said, almost shouting. “You been made? Something go wrong with the loan?”
Alex flung himself down in a chair across from Casio. “Everything’s fine with our caper. I got the loan just fine. First payment is due next week.”
“Then—”
Alex fixed Casio with a hard gaze. “I don’t want my neighbor involved in this operation.”
Casio frowned. “She’s not involved.”
“I don’t want her to be even a bit player.”
His supervisor looked away and shook his head. “Don’t worry. She’s in no danger.”
“I want her out.” He glared at his supervisor until Casio turned back to look at him. “Totally.”
“There something going on between you two?” Casio asked.
Alex laughed. He hoped it sounded better to Casio than it did to him. “Of course not.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“My problem is...” That he liked her. That he admired her. “I went to school with the woman. I know her family, her friends.”
“She got herself involved by butting in. I can’t help that these goons have her pegged as your lady. Besides, I told you,” Casio said, “there’s no danger to her.”
“You can’t predict that absolutely for sure,” Alex replied “And I don’t want to take a chance.”
“Look—” Casio leaned forward on his desk “—we’re prepared to—”
“I’m prepared to quit the task force,” Alex said quietly.
Casio’s mouth opened and shut several times, making him look like a guppy in a fish tank. Alex could feel his stomach churn. He didn’t want to leave the task force. He wanted to bring this operation down, but he was not about to put Heather in any danger. And no, not because the two of them had something going. It just wasn’t the right thing to do
“I said we’d protect her,” Casio murmured.
“Can you absolutely guarantee that nothing will happen to her?”
“Hell.” Casio shook his head. “I can’t guarantee that for myself.”
“Then she’s out,” Alex said. “Far out.”
Casio leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Time dragged like it wasn’t having any fun. Finally, he brought his gaze back on Alex. “Okay.”
Chapter Six
Heather heard a noise somewhere deep in her sleep and jerked awake, her heart racing and her blood pounding as she sat up. It was just starting to get light and she was on the sofa in the living room where she must have fallen asleep while watching for Alex to come home.
But Alex coming home wasn’t what she heard, it was more like—
The doorbell sounded again, sending Heather flying to her feet. Who would come over at this hour? She peered over at the clock on the mantel; it was just past four. Something must be wrong. She raced to the front door, getting there just as the bell rang again.
She pulled the door open, only to find Aunty Em there, all smiles.
“Aunty Em?” Heather said, gasping for breath. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”
“The only thing wrong is that you aren’t dressed yet,” the older lady snapped. She pushed past Heather and came into the house. “Although I suppose your pajamas are as good a disguise as any. You could claim you were sleepwalking if you’re caught.”
“Caught doing what?” Heather asked and then frowned. “Why are you here?”
“We got ourselves a job to do.” Aunty Em went over to the dining room table and dropped her folder and a small duffel bag. It made a small clunking sound.
Heather could feel her stomach grind and twist. Oh no, it was this crazy investigation Aunty Em had talked about last night. Why had Heather agreed to go along with it? She should have said up front that it was against the law and she was not going to be involved.
“Okay.” Aunty Em took some papers out of a folder, spreading them across Heather’s breakfast table. “Here’s what we’re gonna—”
“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Heather pointed out. “Alex won’t be up yet, if he’s even home. I never heard him come in last night.”
“Oh yeah?” Aunty Em looked even more interested and hurried over to the dining room window. She pulled back the curtains slightly and peered out. “I don’t see a car in his garage.”
So he hadn’t come home last night. Heather felt her spirits sag even as she told herself she was a fool. She knew he had a life and that she was no part of it. “Well, I guess the investigation will have to wait.”
“Why?” Aunty Em hurried back to her papers on the dining room table and shuffled through them. “This is a real stroke of luck, him not being home. I just finished a chapter on lock picking. We can take a look inside now instead of just taking a look around the outside.”
“Inside his house?” Heather asked, her stomach going all quivery. “Wouldn’t that be against the law?”
“Oh pishposh,” Aunty Em said with a snort and pulled something out of her bag. “It may appear that way but that’s only on the surface.”
“How is something only against the law on the surface?” Victoria came over to Heather, rubbing against her leg to be picked up. Heather gratefully clutched the warm little body, but it didn’t dispel her worries.
“Because it looks like you’re doing one thing that might be illegal—that’s the surface part—but you’re really doing something else. Something good and noble. That’s below the surface.” She pulled some more things from her bag.
“I don’t understand,” Heather said.
“That’s because you’re not a trained investigator like I am.” Aunty Em put on a Kiss the Cook apron and tied the strings behind her waist. “Just do what I tell you and don’t worry.”
Don’t worry? Heather was beyond worry, she was ready to hyperventilate. “What if we trigger some kind of alarm? A whole bunch of police cars could come flying out and we could get shot.”
“He doesn’t have an alarm system. I checked.”
“How?”
Aunty Em’s frown barely concealed her impatience. “I looked at his front yard. People with alarm systems have to have those little signs stuck in the ground someplace by their door. He doesn’t have one.”
Heather took a deep breath. She was feeling more and more lightheaded. “I think I’m going to have an asthma attack.”
“You’re fine,” Aunty Em said and put a l
ittle packet of tools into one of her apron pockets, a pencil-thin flashlight in another, and a sheaf of papers in a third. “Once we get inside, I’ll take the kitchen and you search his bedroom. Then we’ll each work our way toward the other.”
“What if he comes home while we’re inside?”
“Then you vamp him,” Aunty Em said.
Heather just stared at the older woman. Did Aunty Em remember who she was talking to? If Heather had any spare air, she would have laughed,. “I can’t vamp him. I don’t know how.”
“Every woman knows how to vamp a man. We’re born with it. Like being able to bake an apple pie.”
“I’ve never vamped anybody in my whole life,” Heather walled. “I’m getting a rash just thinking about it.”
“Look, Heather, stop worrying.” Aunty Em’s voice was soft and low. Almost soothing. “This is going to be just fine. It’s something we have to do. It’s our duty. It’s for God and country.”
For God and country? Heather wasn’t even going to question the absurdity of that. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, Aunty Em.”
“He’s got some secret,” the older woman said “I just know it.”
“No, he—” The image of Alex stumbling along the dirty streets of Chicago came to Heather’s mind. She had been too chicken to ask him what he’d been doing there and he’d never told her, but it certainly wasn’t anything to do with Shakespeare’s rhyming couplets. Aunty Em was right, he did have a secret.
But secrets didn’t have to be the hiding of something bad. They could just be a burden that he was unable to share, or that he had no one to share with. Maybe he needed help but didn’t know to ask her.
“Okay,” Heather said. “You have an extra flashlight for me?”
Alex pawed at his radio-alarm clock with no success, then suddenly sat straight up in bed. Four twenty-three in the morning? It wasn’t his alarm clock buzzing. It was his house alarm.
Secret Agent Groom (The Bridal Circle #2) Page 7