Cinderella's Secret Agent

by Ingrid Weaver

  Joanne was right, Maggie realized. She was trying to convince herself. Could she really be falling in love with Del?

  Oh, yes. All too easily. Given a wonderful, sweet, nice man like Del, any woman would be hard-pressed not to fall in love, and it couldn’t be blamed merely on postpartum hormones. “But I told you,” Maggie said. “I’m not in any shape to think about a relationship. I’m not looking for a man to come and rescue me. Delilah and I will be fine on our own.”

  “But you’ll get back in shape soon, and if the right man has already happened to come along, maybe you should hang on to him.”

  “But he’s not the right man,” Maggie said desperately. “He’s only in New York temporarily. He’s going to leave. And he doesn’t want to be anything more than my friend.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Maggie demanded.

  “He’s not married, is he?”

  “He claims he isn’t.”

  Joanne lost her smile. “You’re not certain?”

  “He doesn’t talk about himself much, and I don’t ask. Much. It isn’t my business. Actually, I still don’t know exactly where he works or where he lives when he’s not traveling for his job.”

  “Why not? If he’s coming into your home on a daily basis and getting close to you and your baby, don’t you have the right to know more about him?”

  “After all the nice things he has done for me, I’d feel disloyal if I pried.”

  “Go ahead and pry, hon. What are you worried about? That he’s another Alan?”

  “Alan was a liar. Del doesn’t lie. He’s just…reserved.”

  “Do you think he’s hiding something?”

  Maggie paused. “He couldn’t be. He’s such a nice man.”

  “But?” Joanne prompted. “I hear a but.”

  “Nothing. He’s a nice man, a good friend,” she said firmly.

  “You keep saying that, but I hear something else. If you have doubts about him, you owe it to yourself to find out.” Joanne took her apron out of the stroller pouch and put it on. “If he’s really such a great guy, then you’ll know it for sure. If he isn’t, then wouldn’t it be better to find out sooner rather than later? Like before you fall all the way in love with him?”

  “What do you think I should do? Sit Del down in a straight-backed chair and shine a light in his face while I interrogate him? Work him over with a rubber hose?”

  “No, but for starters, you could find out where he goes when he isn’t with you.”

  “And how would I do that?”

  “Easy.” Joanne motioned with her chin toward the other side of the street. “You could follow him and see for yourself.”

  “What?” She spun around. “Oh!”

  As if their conversation had conjured him up, there was Del, big as life, striding along the sidewalk with his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  Maggie chewed her lip as she watched him go past. She should have realized she might run into Del in this neighborhood. After all, he worked around here somewhere. That’s why he had frequented the coffee shop in the first place.

  But why had he never told her the address of his office, or even the name of his company? Why did he still tend to change the subject when the conversation turned to his profession? And why hadn’t he given her the number of his cell phone yet? He’d taken calls on it several times while he’d been at her apartment, and every time he had dropped what he was doing and left immediately.

  What kind of emergency did a consultant for an electronics company get called out to? If he was meeting a shipment of parts, wouldn’t the flight schedule or the shipping manifest be known already?

  Unless those calls weren’t from his office at all. What if he really did have a wife, the way Alan did? Or what if he was doing something illegal? Maybe he had been lying about everything. Maybe she was wrong to trust him.

  But he was so nice. The only reason she had the energy to undertake this outing today was Del’s help with Delilah. How could she doubt him like this? How could she repay his friendship with suspicions?

  But after the lesson she’d learned from Alan, how could she trust anyone blindly again? Maggie had to admit that Joanne’s advice made sense. If only she didn’t feel so guilty about it….

  “Go on,” Joanne said, giving her a nudge. “He’s heading for the subway. This is your chance.”

  Del deposited the token in the slot and pushed through the turnstile. After scanning the crowd on the subway platform, he took up a position with his back against a pillar to wait for the next train. The rendezvous was set for eleven-fifteen. That gave him a good half hour to work his way to the site.

  He didn’t usually handle information drops—that was left up to the intelligence-gathering specialists—but when the opportunity had arisen, he’d quickly volunteered. He was getting sick of staring at an empty apartment. He might be serving by standing and waiting, but his patience was wearing thin.

  A hunter had patience, Del reminded himself. A hunter had self-control.

  Sure, but it had been more than four weeks since Simon had gone underground after the warehouse blast, and nothing was happening. There hadn’t been any significant activity at the other surveillance sites, either—agents had been tailing Simon’s tattooed associate who had swept for bugs in the apartment, but the man had continued to divide his time between strip bars and peep shows. Repulsive, yes. Illegal, no.

  Something had to break soon. It had to. Each night when Del returned to his hotel room, the tension that tightened his muscles couldn’t be completely relieved, no matter how much he exercised. Trouble was, Del knew most of the tension wasn’t due to the frustrating wait for Simon. No, his main problem was Maggie. She was on his mind constantly. She and Delilah were rapidly becoming a major part of his life. He treasured the time he spent with them both, even though it was starting to drive him mad.

  It was getting more and more difficult to control his urges every time he saw Maggie. He still wanted to kiss her. Hell, more than that. He just plain wanted her. But he had painted himself into the proverbial corner. She thought he was chivalrous. She depended on his help. He couldn’t take advantage of her. He had a conscience. He had scruples.

  He had patience, he had self-control.

  Del swore under his breath and clenched his jaw. Shoving his hands roughly into his pockets, he did another scan of the platform. Nothing suspicious, nothing threatening, just the usual mix of people. Business suits and briefcases, baggy jeans and bandannas. A petite blond woman with a stroller, two old men with canes…

  Del snapped his gaze to where he’d spotted the woman. For a moment, he thought he’d seen Maggie. His view was obscured by a group of passing teenagers momentarily. When they moved on, he saw that the woman pushing the stroller was a brunette accompanied by an older child.

  Damn. His preoccupation with Maggie was intruding into his work—he was imagining her even here. The floor vibrated with the arrival of the uptown train. Del exhaled hard and forced himself to relax as he boarded. He had to put Maggie out of his mind. She was part of his off-duty life. Until he finished his shift, he’d better keep his mind on his job.

  One car down from Del, Maggie maneuvered past several teenagers to claim a seat as the train started to move. She drew the stroller close and set the brake. Through the grimy windows in the doors that separated the cars, she caught a glimpse of Del’s back.

  He was wearing a cream-colored shirt and khakis today. He looked as appealing and clean-cut as always, with his nondescript clothes and his close-cropped hair. Yet he seemed different from the man who visited her every day at her apartment. He seemed…harder, more alert. The way he moved, the way he held himself, he looked like the cowboy she had first thought he resembled, a ruthless gunslinger scanning the horizon for his prey.

  Maggie leaned back against the seat and blew her bangs out of her eyes. Was she nuts? What on
earth was she doing, spying on Del? What could she say to him if he saw her?

  On the other hand, Joanne had a good point. Maggie had to do this, for Delilah’s sake as well as her own. If she was starting to fall in love with this man, she had better know who he was. She hadn’t bothered to discover the truth about Alan, and look what had happened.

  Besides, it was too late to turn back now. Del was already getting off the train.

  Maggie quickly released the stroller brake and blended into the crowd, assuming Del would leave the station. Instead, he worked his way to the opposite platform and caught the next train.

  Over the next half hour, they changed trains three more times, seemingly at random. Her lack of stature made it a challenge to keep Del in sight, but if she had been taller, he probably would have spotted her half a dozen times. And if she hadn’t been a native New Yorker and so adept at navigating the subways, she never would have been able to keep up with him. When they returned to midtown and he finally exited the subway only one stop away from where he had entered, she began to suspect that he might be lost.

  She emerged into the sunlight and hurried along the sidewalk after him, pausing to stand on her toes. He disappeared briefly when he crossed the street and a bus blocked her view, but then she spotted him heading for the mid Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library.

  Instead of going inside, Del paused at the base of the steps and took a map from his back pocket. Unfolding the map, he bent his head to read. An elderly couple, tourists by the look of them, stopped in front of him. Del gestured vaguely with one hand, then shrugged apologetically before they went on their way. He lingered for a few minutes, then folded up his map and started off once more.

  Maggie sighed and pushed the stroller forward. Even though Del obviously had been confused by the transit system, he still was, well, nice enough to attempt to give directions to complete strangers.

  She followed him from the library to a restaurant near the theater district. It appeared that he wasn’t there to meet another woman. He went directly to a table that was already occupied by a balding, middle-aged man who reminded Maggie of her old high school English teacher.

  The buoyant mood with which she had started out today slowly subsided under a weight of guilt. So far, Del had done nothing to warrant her distrust.

  Yet he had done nothing to dispel her distrust, either. She could follow him around for days and still not know for sure whether he was hiding anything.

  The problem here was her, not him. It all came down to a matter of faith—in Del as well as in her own judgment.

  So if she wanted to trust Del, she had to trust herself.

  At the table in the far corner of the restaurant, Del withdrew the encrypted message the tourists had slipped into his map. He concealed it in his palm as he passed it to Bill. “Are you going to decode it yourself?”

  “I might as well. You know what they say about idle hands.”

  “Yes, I do, but I figure you’re going to remind me anyhow.”

  Bill dipped his head. “‘Idle hands are the devil’s playground,’” he intoned, smoothly slipping the message into his pants pocket.

  “Somehow, that doesn’t sound like Shakespeare.”

  “No, it was my grandmother,” he said. “How did the drop go?”

  “Like clockwork.” Del’s lips twitched as he thought about his convoluted approach route. “I used the subway to get to the rendezvous.”

  “The subway? You could have walked there faster.”

  “It’s standard operating procedure, the best way to ditch a possible tail.”

  “It’s also more interesting than staring at the blank walls of that apartment.”

  “You said it. Those video cameras we set up are already doing what we’re doing.”

  “Ah, but a camera couldn’t pull a trigger.”

  Del nodded. “That reminds me. I’ve arranged to do my long-range target practice tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll talk to the other team and rearrange your shift.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. I doubt if you’ll miss anything exciting.”

  “This waiting is wearing on my nerves. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

  “Seems to me you’ve been keeping yourself busy enough during this assignment. How are Maggie and the baby?”

  “They’re both fine,” Del said. He rubbed his eyes briefly. The strain was really starting to get to him. For a second there, he thought he had seen Maggie’s reflection in the small mirrored tiles that covered the wall. “Delilah’s thriving. I have some new pictures. I’ll bring them in tonight—”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Bill said quickly. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  Del smiled inwardly. He was beginning to enjoy boring his partner with baby pictures. A small revenge for the endless quotes he’d endured over the years. “It wouldn’t be any trouble. I have an extra set of prints.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Bill looked past Del’s shoulder. “Not when I can look at the real thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bill nodded toward the restaurant entrance. “Isn’t that Maggie over there behind that plant?”

  Del twisted around. This time it wasn’t an illusion. Maggie was actually here. She was standing just inside the door, evidently studying the menu that was scrawled in chalk on the blackboard there.

  “Did you ask her to meet you?” Bill asked.

  “No, of course not,” Del said.

  “And how many times did you change trains?”

  Del frowned. “It has to be a coincidence. She couldn’t have followed me. Why would she?”

  Bill chuckled. “No wonder we haven’t been able to corner Simon if a pint-size waitress from Queens can outwit a top-level operative.”

  Del didn’t join in Bill’s laughter. He didn’t find the situation amusing in the least.

  Maggie looked up at that moment. Through the drooping leaves of a potted fern, she met his gaze.

  Del really had no choice. He lifted his hand and waved a greeting.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. Until now, Del had managed to keep Maggie’s world completely separate from the world of SPEAR.

  But now those worlds were on a collision course.

  Chapter 7

  “Maggie,” Del said, rising from his chair as she approached. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Hi, Del.” Her smile looked strained. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “You’re not intruding. We were just about to order coffee.” He gestured toward Bill. “This is…a colleague of mine. Bill Grimes.”

  “Hello, Maggie,” Bill said, putting on his most benign expression. “You might not remember me, but I used to come into the coffee shop when you worked there.”

  “That must be why you look familiar,” Maggie said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Same here. And congratulations are in order. That’s a fine daughter you have there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Bill pushed out an extra chair. “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Oh, I can’t stay. I have to get Delilah home soon. I was just downtown to visit some friends and thought I’d take a little walk when I saw Del come in here and decided to say hello.”

  Her words were rushed, her voice pitched higher than usual. Del realized she was concealing something. Had Bill been right? Had she followed him in here? How much had she seen, and had she actually understood what she’d seen? He moved the stroller to one side and took her arm, guiding her to sit. “I’ll take you home in a taxi when you need to leave,” he said.

  “That’s really, um, nice of you, Del.”

  “I wish I’d run into you sooner,” he said, watching her face carefully. “Somehow I got turned around and could have used a guide.”

  She pressed her lips together briefly, then glanced at him with an expression that looked almost guilty.

  Damn, he thought. She must have seen the route he’d
taken. She had been following him.

  But for how long? And why?

  Her penetration of their security was completely innocent, of that he was certain. He would stake his life on it. Maggie knew nothing of SPEAR. She couldn’t. Only a handful of top government people were aware of the organization’s existence.

  Bill caught his gaze then, his eyes twinkling with barely suppressed humor. Evidently he still found the situation amusing. “Yes, Del is still just a farm boy at heart. The big city confuses him.”

  Maggie’s smile wasn’t quite as tight as before. “It must be difficult having a job that involves so much traveling. It wouldn’t give a person the chance to get to know any one place very well.”

  “Ah. I assume Del has told you about our work, then?” Bill asked.

  “A little. Are you a consultant, too?”

  “We share the same office,” Bill said smoothly.

  “You must be really busy. There’s so much demand for that kind of thing these days.”

  “Yes, that’s true. Business is booming.”

  Del glanced at his partner in irritation. He knew Bill was alluding to the warehouse explosion—sometimes his sense of humor was definitely warped. “Electronics is an expanding field,” Del said.

  “Cutting edge, all right,” Bill added. “Why, just the other day—”

  Whatever Bill was going to say was interrupted by a sudden wail. Both men looked down at the stroller.

  Delilah was lying on her back, her eyes squeezed shut as she inhaled in preparation for another cry.

  Maggie leaned over to scoop her up. The baby calmed somewhat as soon as she was held, but she bumped her head restlessly against her mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Maggie said, getting to her feet. “I’d better get her home.”

  Five minutes later, Del settled beside Maggie for the taxi ride to Queens. He wasn’t disappointed to have the conversation with Bill cut short. He hadn’t had a chance to brief his partner on the cover story he’d given Maggie. Considering the mood Bill seemed to be in, the lies would only end up getting more and more complicated.