“Come on,” she said, with a little grin. “You can do better than that.”
“You have great faith in my lying ability. In this case, it may be overrated.” He paused.
She looked at him in the mirror and lifted a brow. “Your lying ability overrated? Never!”
He kissed the top of her head. “The truth is always the best lie. How about we ran into an accident that delayed us?”
Staci smiled in the mirror at him as if he was some kind of genius. “A lie of omission—perfect! And I’ll say I got this welt when you had to brake suddenly to avoid the crash. That’s kind of the truth. I love it!”
He smiled back at her in the mirror. “Think you can carry that lie off? Actually lie to your mother?”
“Yes, smart-ass. I told you I had a breakthrough, and I never lie.” She laughed, squirmed out of his arms, and shoved him toward the bathroom door. “This repair job is going to take a while.”
He put a hand on her arm. “You should probably ice it first.”
She shook her head. “There’s no time for icing. Do me a favor?”
“Yeah.”
“The iPhone recovery stick is in my purse. I scanned Sam’s phone at work—”
“Stace—”
“Let’s not argue about Sam’s privacy now.”
He had much greater worries than Sam’s privacy. He and Sam weren’t part of a good-old-boy club. Though Sam might not know it, they were mortal enemies. Drew would kill him if he had to.
“Recover the data for me?” Staci made another face in the mirror. The welt was turning purple and looking more like the butt of a gun by the minute. “See if there’s anything on the stick worth telling Mom about. And take a look at the brochure I found on Sam’s desk—”
“Sam’s desk!” He fought to keep his voice even and control the worried anger welling up inside him. He wouldn’t ruin the last half hour they’d had together. Staci would take his anger wrong. He took a deep breath and modulated his tone, trying to sound almost encouraging. “How did you get to Sam’s desk? I thought you weren’t allowed in the black-box area?”
That had been the plan, anyway. The way he’d arranged things so she wouldn’t get hurt and into trouble.
Staci grinned, looking absolutely gleeful. “I dressed up like the Plant Lady, borrowed her cart, and sneaked back with her badge. But before that, I loaned her my teddy cam and let her put it on her cart as she watered the plants in the classified area. It caught Sam on camera, hiding the brochure and looking worried about it. I’ll tell you all about my exploits later. Everything I know about spying, I learned from you.”
Not good. He hadn’t taught her much.
“In the meantime, it’s weird about that brochure,” Staci continued without missing a beat. “Sam acted suspicious about it. Guilty. And yet, it’s just a boring brochure for someplace called The Random Institute. I think he’s become paranoid.”
Damn it! Drew’s heart raced. Staci didn’t know what she was stumbling into. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. This was beginning to bear an eerie resemblance to Ciudad. He wished he could tell Staci the full truth, but he’d sworn not to, for the good of the country.
But hell—what if Sam had seen her? What if she just hadn’t noticed? What would she have done if she’d been caught? Throw her Kubotan at him? Had she even had it with her?
Drew did a quick mental review of the past few hours. Staci being kept late. The message someone had sent Staci pretending to be him. The car just like his waiting for her.
The whole event had been diabolically planned. It was a first-degree kidnapping that would have led to first-degree murder if he hadn’t shown up when he did. The timing wasn’t skilled heroics. That was damn blind luck and his spy sense kicking in.
What if Sam did suspect her of watching him? What if RIOT did? Was that what had prompted the attack on her?
Staci tilted her head and looked into Drew’s eyes. “Oh, Drew, don’t look so worried. We escaped!”
He couldn’t believe she was reassuring him. It was only because she didn’t know the full story.
He grabbed Staci’s arm, urgently. “Babe, I told you not to spy on Sam.”
She shook free again. “I know, I know. You men and your privacy.” She pushed him toward the door as she spoke. “No time now. We’ll talk about it later.” She slammed the door in his face.
There was only one thing to do—comply with her wishes. He got dressed, called Linda and made excuses, and went downstairs where he found the recovery stick and brochure in Staci’s purse.
The brochure sent a chill through him. It was a Random Institute recruitment brochure. He’d seen too many of them during his career. More evidence Sam was not just a greedy bastard. He was something even more dangerous—a true believer.
Drew took the recovery stick to his study and dumped it on his computer. Most of the texts were business or drivel. The Agency had been monitoring Sam’s phone and knew about most of the calls. But a couple of texts stood out.
There was an abundance of messages to Lucy, the Attitude receptionist. Lovey-dovey stuff. Apologetic. Excuses.
Drew cursed to himself. When Drew had told Staci about Sam’s fidelity, he hadn’t been completely truthful. But this thing with Lucy had been going on for a good ten years.
Though Drew didn’t condone it, and certainly couldn’t see a man who loved his wife behaving like this, this wasn’t the new behavior that worried Linda.
Now it appeared there was trouble in yearly paradise.
Drew kept scanning the readout. He sucked in a deep breath. Sam had been texting the Gardener. From the look of things, the deal was set to go down Friday at two in the afternoon. All of the details were there.
He used his encrypted connection and fired the download off to HQ, along with a quick report of Staci’s abduction and escape.
He also scanned the brochure in and included it. He’d examine it more thoroughly later for encrypted intel.
He’d just finished when Staci walked in. “What do you think?”
He looked up at her. She’d only been halfway successful at covering the welt, meaning it was still swollen and angry, but she’d covered the red and purple hues. “You look beautiful,” he said, meaning it. “The welt hardly shows.”
“No, I meant about Sam. What’s he been up to?” She came over and rested her chin on Drew’s head while stroking his hair.
“The usual,” he said. “Not much.”
“And that brochure?” She pointed to where it rested on Drew’s desk.
Fortunately, Staci had no inkling RIOT even existed. It was his mission to keep the worldwide public from finding out and going into a panic.
Drew shook his head. “One of those inspirational seminars where they tell you how to improve yourself, get rich quick, that kind of thing.”
Staci kissed the top of his head. “Anything Mom should know about? Do you think that’s where he’s been sneaking off to?”
“Could be, though why would Sam keep it a secret?” Drew didn’t want to pose too many questions, but he had to keep up the ruse of the curious stepson-in-law.
“Mom’s always been skeptical about those kinds of things. Maybe he thinks she’d disapprove? Particularly of him spending good money on them. Not that he keeps her informed about their finances.”
Drew nodded his agreement. “We’ll have to investigate further.”
“Good idea,” she said. “Any evidence of Sam straying?”
Now that he and Staci were on firmer ground, and Drew had the intel he needed on Sam, he decided to come clean with her about Sam and Lucy. He needed Staci to drop this silly spying-on-Sam mission of hers. For her own safety. And it was better for his chances of reconciliation with Staci for Linda to know the truth and throw Sam out. “Lots of texts to Lucy, the receptionist you’re replacing.”
“They’re old friends,” Staci said, slowly.
He watched as suspicion crept over her face.
She frowned. “Do you think
?”
“Stace, this is lovers’ stuff.” He paused. “Do you want to see?”
“No!” She bit her lip. “I believe you and I don’t need that stuck in my head.” She paused. “What am I going to tell Mom?”
He took her hand and gently squeezed it. “The truth, babe. The truth. As gently as possible.”
* * *
Linda fluttered around them as soon as they arrived with Poppy at her heels. Poppy flopped on her back for Drew again, begging for a belly scratch. Linda noticed Staci’s welt immediately. Staci’s camera-ready makeup failed the mom-test. But to Staci’s surprise, her mom’s fussing ended abruptly.
“Help me in the kitchen, Staci. I was waiting to make the last-minute preparations until you got here.” Her mom took her arm. “The men can entertain themselves.” She turned to her husband. “Sam, pour Drew a drink. Drew, we have just about everything.”
She dragged Staci into the kitchen, well out of earshot of the men. She handed Staci a colander and grabbed a pair of kitchen shears. “Why don’t you come outside with me while I pick some pansies for the salad?”
Oh, boy. At least she remembered about not talking about Sam in the house.
She grabbed Staci’s arm and led her outside to a bed of pansies and other flowers near the house. “What did you find out today?” Linda whispered as she bent to pick some pansies.
Staci was right about her mother’s motives, anyway. She held the colander as her mom snipped away, dreading what she’d have to say and stalling. “It’s only the first day, Mom.”
She did not want to tell her mother the truth. The truth would hurt her.
“Out with it, Staci. Hold the colander over here, where I can reach it.” She tossed in a bunch of yellow and purple pansies. “There must be something.”
“We used a recovery stick and retrieved Sam’s texts from the past week from his phone,” she whispered, reluctantly, back.
Her mom’s eyes widened. She looked up at Staci, terrified, as if Staci were the hooded harbinger of horrific news. Staci felt sick.
She really didn’t want to see her mom hurt. So she rationalized what she knew—she hadn’t actually seen the texts. There might be an explanation for them, though Lucy’s behavior, like stealing Sam’s phone, all verified what Staci feared. Still, until she had firmer proof, maybe just a warning, a little alert, was best. She softened the damning news. “He’s been sending an awful lot of texts to Lucy.”
Linda let out a breath and laughed, really laughed, resting the shears against her knee. The tension visibly left her body. “Of course he has! Lucy always makes the arrangements for the annual document control conference in Las Vegas. A crowd of those egghead document guys goes every year. Somehow Lucy always manages to tag along.”
“And you’re not worried about that?” Staci asked.
Linda pushed to a stand and waved her hand, brushing away the crazy notion. “About Lucy? Are you kidding? As far as Sam’s concerned, she’s just one of the boys.”
Staci knew differently. “You’re too trusting, Mom. Maybe you should go this year. You know, protect the territory.”
Linda laughed again. “To a document control conference? Are you kidding? I’ll die of boredom.”
“I’m just saying.”
“The conference is just an excuse to gamble, anyway.” Linda shook her head. “I hate gambling. I’m not lucky at all, not like Sam.”
Linda smiled, looking way too relieved for Staci’s tastes. “Did you find anything else?”
She hadn’t gotten the message at all, but Staci chickened out and shied away from blurting out the ugly truth. She’d tell her mom later, when it was just the two of them.
“A brochure to an inspirational better-yourself-type seminar.”
“That could be it! Do any of the seminars coincide with the dates Sam’s been gone?”
Staci shrugged. Lies of omission.
Her mom grabbed her and pulled her into a hug, kitchen shears still in hand. Staci nearly lost her grip on the colander.
“Sam’s been sneaking off to seminars, wanting to be a better man?” Her mom sounded rapturous.
Staci’s stomach turned.
Linda practically burbled with joy. “While I’ve been suspecting him of cheating!”
Her mom was suddenly the queen of denial. Give her some halfway-acceptable excuse for Sam’s absences and she was ready to believe and drop the matter. “Mom, we really didn’t have enough time to look at those texts before we came over. Maybe we should investigate them further—”
“You need to learn to be more trusting, Staci.” Her mom pulled back and studied her. “And you need some ice for that welt on your cheek. It looks horrible. Let’s get you inside and scrounge up some ice for you. That makeup you used to try to cover it doesn’t do a thing for you.”
* * *
After dinner and dessert, the four of them sat around the table discussing their day and sipping coffee. Poppy rested in Drew’s lap. Staci wished she could kill Sam for betraying her mother, or thinking about betraying her mother, or flirting with Lucy, or whatever he was actually doing with her. And mostly for putting Staci in this awkward, messenger-of-gloom position.
Drew had been shooting her curious looks all through dinner. He obviously hadn’t missed that Linda was happier when she’d come in with dinner than when she’d gone out with Staci to the garden. Yes, something was rotten in Redmond. Staci had been unable to tell the truth.
“I missed you at Hook House today,” Drew said to Sam. “Someone told me you’d been in, but I was in the back office all day.”
“Sorry I missed you.” Sam reached for the sugar bowl. “How’s the new job? Keeping you busy?”
Drew shrugged and passed Sam the sugar and a dainty set of silver sugar tongs. “One lump or two?”
“Hit me with two, right between the eyes.” Sam grinned at Drew as he took the bowl and tongs and dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee himself.
Drew watched him closely, looking to Staci as if he’d like to take Sam up on the offer and deck him. He was probably as angry with Sam as Staci was for betraying her mother.
“Busy enough,” Drew said. “We had a problem in the brew room—a bad smell.”
Was it Staci’s imagination or had Sam paled slightly? Good, he should get the message that something smelled bad around here, too—his lying, cheating ways.
“Bad smell?” Linda seemed oblivious to the tension in the room. Much to Staci’s chagrin, she only had eyes for Sam.
“Yeah, we tore the brew room apart. Couldn’t find a thing.” Drew shrugged. “We finally decided some of the hops we had stored there must be going bad. We got rid of them and wrote off the loss. Seems to have helped. Fortunately, it was nothing that affected the beer.
“Now if we could only find our assistant brew master. Wade hasn’t shown up for work since I arrived and no one can track him down.”
Sam seemed to relax. “Really? You’re talking about Wade Merrick?”
Drew nodded. “Do you know him?”
“Shot the breeze once or twice. Nice guy, but didn’t strike me as the responsible type. Had a bit of wanderlust, I’d say. I’m sure he’ll turn up sooner or later.”
Drew nodded again. He was definitely studying Sam in that unnerving, charming way he had. Most people wouldn’t notice it, but Staci had seen Drew in action before. “I hope so.”
For her part, Staci was going to make Sam squirm. “Speaking of work,” Staci said. “Talk around the watercooler says you’re planning a fishing trip to Victoria this Friday.”
Sam developed a small tic in his cheek, which Staci noted only because she watched him so closely.
Sam laughed. “Who told you that?”
“I forget. I’m not good with the names yet. Fishing sounds like fun.” She turned to her mother. “Are you going, Mom? Butchart Gardens are lovely this time of year.”
Drew sat next to Staci. He gave her a slight elbow. She looked at him and frowned. He was try
ing to convey some kind of message to her, probably to lay off Sam. As if she would.
Sam hedged as her mother jumped in. “That sounds like a great idea, Sam. I’d love to see the gardens.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Well, of course, come along if you like. I’d love to take you, sweetheart.”
Drew had been sipping the last of his after-dinner coffee. He set the cup down and flashed Staci a sheepish smile. “This is an ironic coincidence. Hook House is considering opening a hotel and brewpub here in the valley. They’d like to vie for more of the tourist and business traveler crowd. With Microsoft and Nintendo so close, we think we can pick up a profitable bit of business. Businessmen and beer seems like a winning combo.
“Victoria is the capital of brewpub hotels. They’re sending me there on Friday to talk to some of the establishments in town about their marketing campaigns. I have a suite booked at the Trumpet. Free beer tasting on check-in.”
He took Staci’s hand in his. “We have an anniversary coming up on Friday. I was going to surprise you. Ask you to come along. I thought we’d make a romantic weekend of it. I’ve already made dinner reservations for two at the Empress.”
He remembered our anniversary?
She shouldn’t have felt so touched and happy. Drew could look convincing and sweet when he wanted to. Staci’s heart danced, but her head warned caution. Despite earlier at the house, this could just be part of his cover. It was impossible to tell with him.
“This is perfect!” Linda said. “We can all go together. We’ll take the Clipper ferry.”
Her mother had completely ignored the implication—Drew wanted to be alone on their anniversary. A thought that, if true, sent Staci’s heart tumbling out of control. She shot Drew a surprised, happy look. Well, she had to stay in character, didn’t she?
Drew made a valiant attempt to save the situation and preserve their privacy. “I’d rather fly.” Drew held his sheepish grin. “I’ve already booked Stace and me on the seaplane.” He turned to Staci. “You’ll go?”
As Staci opened her mouth to reply, her mother cut her off.
“Oh, that’s excellent, even better! I love flying.” Linda smiled around the table. “Of course Staci will go. She and I can hang out while you boys are off doing your thing. See the gardens. Take tea at the Empress.” She looked at Staci and then Drew. “Don’t look so sullen. It’s not as if you’re newlyweds. You’ll have plenty of time to yourselves.”
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