Fool Me Once (First Wives Series Book 1)

by Catherine Bybee

  Reed glared at the entrance to Starbucks with a groan. “This doesn’t make sense. She’s too smart for this.”

  “How so?”

  “She picked the lock on my apartment without leaving as much as a speck of evidence. The wineglass was clean, the cell phone was about as traceable as a hooker’s case of VD. She’s not this stupid.”

  “You think it’s a setup?” Rick asked.

  “She’s leading us here. The question is why? Is she trying to distract us?”

  Instead of answering, Rick made a call.

  “It’s me. Everything good there?”

  Reed heard the male voice on the other end of the phone but couldn’t make out the words.

  “Alert level up one. Notify Neil.” He hung up.

  “Who was that?”

  “Cooper.”

  “At Lori’s.”

  Rick took his time answering. “Yes.”

  Reed focused his attention out the window. “How is she?”

  He was slow to respond . . . like a metronome on a piano.

  “She’s spending a lot of time in her office.”

  “Work is good.” And if she was working, she wasn’t in tears over him.

  As the morning drummed on, the coffee shop across the street started to take on a life of its own. It didn’t help that Reed hadn’t managed even one cup before being dragged out of bed.

  “This is a waste,” Rick said.

  “She’s leading us around,” he agreed. “Tell you what, one pass through and we backtrack.”

  Rick brought his cell phone to his ear while Reed pushed out of the car to satiate his need for caffeine.

  Morning coffee rush hour was in full swing.

  The tables in the coffee shop had yet to fill, but the line was six customers deep. Instead of standing in line, he walked to the bathroom. Sure enough, when he left the restroom, only two patrons were waiting to make their orders.

  Then he heard it . . . a voice, very deep and distinctive.

  He turned.

  Red hair, petite . . . a voice that should be on the radio or doing voice-overs.

  Sam . . . Lori’s partner.

  What the hell?

  He turned back toward the hall to the bathroom and dialed Rick.

  It rang several times before he picked up. When he did, he answered with a demand. “Regular coffee, black.”

  “Sam is in here.”

  “What?”

  “Samantha.”

  “I know who Sam is . . . what is she doing in there?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a feeling we should.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sam sitting at a tucked away table. A woman sat in the opposite chair, her back to him. Not Sasha, he could see that from where he stood. This woman was a little larger, her hair a little lighter. Her profile suggested a similar gene pool to Sasha’s, but that was about it. He had a feeling he’d seen her before but couldn’t place her.

  Rick walked in the front door like a bull in a china shop.

  “Lordy, Lord, Lord, I could use some caffeine.” Rick said the words loud enough to get everyone’s attention in the place.

  Including Sam’s.

  Rick smiled at the woman in front of him and nodded with a wink.

  There was a brief moment of eye contact, and Rick placed a hand to his head. “Just don’t think straight without a little coffee.”

  He was next in line.

  “What can I get you?”

  “An ultralarge grande, verde . . . whatever it is you call your biggest cup of coffee. Just coffee. Cut off any of that froufrou stuff. I’ll let the women in my life sweet talk me, I take my coffee bitter and black.”

  Reed saw the moment in Sam’s body language when she switched gears. The fact that she hadn’t jumped up from the chair to say hello to someone she knew said she didn’t want the woman with her to know.

  “Our coffee isn’t bitter,” the barista said.

  “Well, if I leave it in my car as long as I usually do, it will be cold and bitter by the time I suck it down.”

  Reed stayed hidden while Sam ended the conversation with the woman.

  There was a quick back-and-forth before Sam shook the woman’s hand and the unknown woman turned and walked out.

  Like a switch, Rick’s character jolted back to baseline, and he abandoned the coffee he’d just made a show of buying in the barista’s hands. “Who was that?” he asked Sam.

  Reed walked around the corner, and Sam saw him for the first time, her expression going from concerned to panicked.

  “A new client.”

  Reed stepped forward. “For Alliance?”

  Sam looked between the both of them, then to Rick. “Yes.”

  Ah, damn . . .

  Rick bolted for the door and called behind his back, “No new clients, Sam. Lock it down.”

  Reed followed him out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Sam’s on line two, she said it’s an emergency.”

  Lori accidentally pressed the wrong line. “Sam?”

  “I’m on hold for—”

  She disconnected the man on the line, pressed the next one. “Sam?”

  “Lori?”

  “What’s happening?” Her heart was pounding. Sam didn’t cry wolf, and emergencies were never mentioned unless it was.

  “I need to know exactly how you met Susan Wilson.”

  “The new client?”

  “Not a client. I scheduled a quick meeting to get a feel for her. Before I had an opportunity to really speak with her, Rick and Reed showed up.”

  Lori’s head spun. “Reed? What was he doing with—”

  “I don’t have the details. They ran out the door. The woman is obviously not who she says she is. No new clients on either end until further notice. Now tell me again how this woman approached you . . .”

  Once the call with Sam was over, Lori pushed away from her desk and stormed into her lobby.

  Her resident loiterer glanced up, smiled, then looked back down to his book.

  “Cooper!”

  He snapped his eyes up.

  “My office. Now.”

  Liana looked around as if a cloud of crazy had descended upon the office.

  She stormed past her office door, waited for him to close it before she began. “Where is Reed?”

  Cooper blinked a few times but didn’t answer.

  “I know he’s with Rick . . . why?”

  “You should probably have this conversation with Neil.”

  “Nobody converses with Neil. The man sits there, listens until you run out of words, and then walks off.”

  Cooper opened his mouth to argue.

  “Cooper! Spill, now.”

  He bobbed his head a few times, ran a hand through his hair. “He’s working with the team to find this Sasha woman.”

  “Working with . . .”

  “Reed is the only one who knows what she looks like.”

  “We can’t trust him,” she all but shouted.

  “So far . . . that’s not completely true.” Cooper spoke with slow, careful words.

  “Oh my God . . . have you ever heard the phrase, ‘fool me once, shame on you’?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts. He’s a lying piece of dirt. He bugged my home. Tracked my car.” Broke my heart.

  “He did all those things. You’re right. However.” He paused.

  Lori spun around, marched to the window as if it offered some sort of sanity.

  “Neil and Rick think he can be trusted.”

  “Idiots.”

  They lost her.

  Reed ran after her while Rick jumped into the car. They didn’t make it two blocks before she was swallowed in a sea of people.

  Rick drove slowly along the parked cars on the busy street with his window rolled down. “Anything?” he yelled.

  “No.” Both hands on his head, Reed spun in circles.

  “Was that Sasha?”

&
nbsp; “No.”

  Several cars were attempting to get around Rick, and honked and shouted as they weaved around them.

  Reed gave up and got into the car.

  They drove around the block several times.

  “Which means Sasha is leading us to this woman.”

  “A woman who now knows our faces.”

  Rick tapped his hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t think that’s the point. We know her now.”

  “And if she was attempting to be one of those Alliance brides to get on the inside . . .”

  “Yeah,” Rick said. “That’s my thought.”

  “So either Sasha doesn’t want the competition or . . .”

  “Or she’s helping us out.”

  “And if that’s the case, then this was the woman we needed to be on the lookout for yesterday.”

  Rick muttered a curse under his breath, pulled an illegal U-turn, and made his way to the Beverly Wilshire.

  They left the car with the valet and split ways when they entered the lobby. “You watch the elevators, I’ll check the garage.”

  Reed took his place against a wall. With each ding of the elevator bell, his pulse hitched up a notch.

  Ten minutes later, Rick sent a text. Not in the garage. Sweeping the common rooms.

  With each click of the second hand on his watch, he knew they’d missed her.

  His phone rang.

  Unknown number.

  “This is Reed.”

  “She’s already gone.”

  “Sasha.” He spun in a circle and took in the people in the lobby. “Who is she?”

  “That’s irrelevant. You’ve made her. She won’t be back.”

  “Why are you helping us?”

  “Consider it a professional courtesy.”

  “One you’d like payment for in the future?” He knew how this worked.

  “You’re bright. Now please take that Neanderthal out of the hotel. There are more players watching than you’ve seen, and that poor girl doesn’t need to end up dead because she failed.”

  “What the—”

  She hung up.

  Reed made a straight shot to the lobby doors, his eyes peeled for Sasha. He dialed Rick. “She’s gone.”

  “Do you see her?”

  “No. Meet you at the car.”

  Later, sitting in the Tarzana home, drinking much-needed coffee, Rick was all smiles.

  “Why are you so happy? We lost her, both of them.”

  “I appreciate efficiency, and this Sasha chick . . . efficient with integrity.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Don’t we? You said yourself she was too smart to use a credit card in a bar or coffee shop. She stopped Sam from confirming Alliance, prevented someone on the inside who could potentially blackmail any number of people.”

  “And ruin Lori,” Reed added.

  “I don’t think your Sasha is working with, or for, Petrov.”

  “I’m doubting that, too.”

  “Yet she has all the information she needs to headline the blackmail list.”

  “And she’s not using it. Why?” Reed asked.

  “Holding it for future use? Her own needs . . . who knows,” Reed said.

  “Who gains by infiltrating Alliance?” Rick asked.

  “Sam and Lori need to be answering that question. They have the client list.”

  Rick reacted to the ding on the microwave and pulled out leftover pizza. He dropped it in the middle of the table and reached for napkins for the two of them.

  “You ready to tell us who you were working for?”

  Instead of giving a name, Reed took a slice and wrapped the cheese that was melting off around his finger. “You’re smart. Who won when Paul and Shannon married?”

  “Paul. And Shannon, in the long run.”

  Reed bit into his lunch. “And who lost?”

  “Senator Knight.” Rick lost his continual smile, chewed his pizza slowly as the information sank in. “I hate politics.”

  “She’ll hire someone else.”

  Rick ate half his slice in one bite, talked around the food. “By the time she does, the girls will figure out a way to make what she finds irrelevant.”

  “The girls?”

  “The women of Alliance.”

  “Lori and Sam?”

  Rick laughed, swallowed his food. “Sure,” he said, not really answering Reed’s question.

  He knew she didn’t want to see him . . . or hear his voice. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least get a glimpse of her.

  After he left the Tarzana home, he drove to Lori’s complex and parked across the street. He wasn’t there five minutes before his phone rang.

  “I just need to see her,” he said to whoever was calling.

  “Take a picture.” It was Neil.

  He hung up.

  Five minutes later, it rang again.

  “Go away.”

  “Listen, creepy dude.” This time it was Rick. “You’re not going to get her back by spying on her.”

  “I’ll leave once I see her.”

  “You have it bad.”

  He tossed his phone in the passenger seat after turning off the ringer.

  When her car pulled into the valet, Cooper jumped out of the driver’s side and turned directly toward him.

  What are you going to do?

  Unlike Cooper, Lori didn’t seem to expect him there and didn’t notice him staring from half a block away with a pair of binoculars.

  She removed her briefcase from the trunk, along with a box of what looked like homework, and the bellman took it from her.

  He could smell her if he tried hard enough.

  Taste her if he closed his eyes.

  And when she turned and walked through the doors of her complex, and all that was left was the heat imprint of her skin, Reed closed his eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “I don’t have it.”

  Petrov slowly rubbed the edges of his fingers against the Colombian cigar. “That isn’t the right answer,” he said into the speakerphone.

  “I need more time.”

  “You’re out of time.”

  “Wasn’t it I who told you about Alliance? Wasn’t it I who led you to the lawyer in the first place?”

  “The lawyer who is physically surrounded by security and cameras. A lawyer who has managed to tighten up one loophole after the other in less than a week. A paltry woman who is no longer the easy target you claimed she would be.” The cigar snapped in his hand.

  “Another week.”

  “Belinda, do you know what I do to people who disappoint me?”

  “These things take time.”

  “Four days.”

  “Petrov!”

  “Four. Days.” He ended the call and rang for his help.

  “She’s a loose end. Take her out in three days, sooner if she makes contact.”

  A half nod and his guard backed out of the room.

  Petrov looked at the broken cigar in his hand before crushing it inside his fist.

  All week long her head was buried in work. The evenings ended late, without so much as a skip through the Internet for a few minutes of mindless nothing. But Friday evening was cloaked in a lack of purpose. She had nothing to occupy her mind. At Sam’s insistence, Lori, Avery, Shannon, and Cooper boarded the Harrison jet and flew to Texas, where they met Trina at the airport.

  Fall snapped the heat index into submission, making the transition from the dry heat of California more bearable.

  Lori greeted Trina with a hug. “It would have been easier had we sent for you.”

  “But not better,” she replied.

  Shannon stepped in for a hug. “You look great.”

  “Texas agrees with me, who knew?”

  “Ladies?” Cooper flanked them, while Trina’s fulltime bodyguard walked in front.

  They piled into the back of a Suburban and instantly started catching up.

  “How is the oil business?
” Shannon asked.

  “There is so much to learn. It’s like school, only no one is grading me.”

  “And the cowboys?” Leave it to Avery to ask about the men.

  “They grow those here like trees.”

  Avery did a little chair dance.

  Shannon laughed.

  “Leave me out of that,” Lori demanded.

  Cooper finished with the luggage and took the front passenger seat before they left the airport.

  “I’m nixing anything with a penis.”

  Carl cleared his throat from the driver’s seat.

  “Present company excluded,” Shannon said for her.

  “We didn’t hear anything, ma’am.”

  “How is all that?” Trina summed up the entire Reed fiasco with one overused word. That!

  “Reed’s an asshat,” Avery announced.

  Trina shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

  “There isn’t any denying the facts. Reed purposely infiltrated the compound and gathered top secret information to use against us.”

  Trina turned to Avery, concern in her eyes.

  “Don’t look at me, I think she’s been binge watching Mission Impossible episodes.”

  “Am I wrong?” Lori asked.

  Shannon leaned forward from the very back seat. “But he didn’t use the information.”

  “You’re defending him? His target was you.”

  “I’m not defending. I’m pointing out the facts. You’re the lawyer and facts are your thing.”

  “How about the fact that he slept with me to get information?”

  The car grew silent.

  Trina, who hadn’t engaged in any of the previous Reed bashing episodes, said, “He didn’t use the information.”

  “That isn’t the point!” she snapped. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” Trina quickly said.

  “First Wives Club or bust,” Avery chimed in.

  “Girl power,” was Shannon’s reply.

  They all sat in silence.

  Then, from the front seat, Cooper snickered. “I kissed my neighbor’s best friend just to get the other girl’s number.”

  “How did that work out?” Carl asked.

  “Ended up taking the best friend to prom.”

  Lori rolled her eyes. “Et tu, Brute?”

  “I don’t like the quiet.”