Covert Alliance

by Linda O. Johnston

  No, Kelly wouldn’t try questioning, or even attempting to befriend, Councilwoman Arviss—at least not now.

  Slowly, Kelly started walking down the hallway toward the elevator, but she only took a few steps before turning to look back toward Alan. He had been there for her, yet he hadn’t let her go too far. She appreciated that.

  She appreciated him—too much.

  Why wasn’t she surprised to see that he had also turned during his walk down the hall and was looking at her? She had an urge to hurry back toward him, past all the closed doors to the offices of city council members, and into his arms.

  That was the role they were playing, wasn’t it? Only it didn’t feel like a role at the moment to Kelly.

  She had to get her emotions under control. Remember that she wasn’t supposed to trust him.

  Hiding her sigh, though she realized Alan could neither see nor hear it, she gave a slight wave with her fingertips, then turned around again and continued walking.

  Before she got to the elevators, though, one of the office doors opened, and a small crowd entered the hall near her. Though it was the far end of the hall from Stan’s office, he was among them.

  Rather, he was in front of them, speaking boisterously about hurrying to the conference room downstairs for their meeting.

  Kelly hung back, wishing the office doors were recessed or that there was some other way she could hide. But Stan saw her.

  “Hey, it’s that beautiful waitress from the Haven. Hi...what is it? Kelly? Have you come to...serve us again at our meeting?”

  His tone and leer were both suggestive, and Kelly wished she could make herself invisible. Better yet, she wished she could slap the miserable wretch’s ugly face with impunity. Or slug him till he promised to leave his son alone.

  And admit to the world what he had done with his missing wife.

  But attacking, or even offending, him now wasn’t a good idea—not in her role as Kelly. Besides, the quicker he left this floor, the better. She assumed he didn’t know his son was here, in Councilwoman Arviss’s office.

  Kelly smiled and said, “Sorry, but I’ve got to get back to my restaurant. But I hope you have a great meeting.”

  One in which everyone would see Stan Grodon for the heartless, selfish killer he was...

  Not going to happen.

  “Another time, then.” With one hand in the air waving to her, his suit jacket sliding down his arm to reveal the long sleeves of his white shirt, he turned his back on her and hurried toward the elevator bank, leaving Kelly standing there inhaling deeply in relief.

  At least this time she hadn’t had to get any closer to the man she abhorred than several distant feet away.

  She watched the crowd head for the elevators behind Stan, counting eight of them—five men and three women. They were all dressed as if for a city council meeting or something else businesslike. She saw a couple of the people from the lunch the other day, so she knew some besides Stan were on the governing council.

  The mayor wasn’t among them. He was the same man who’d been in office when Shereen fled town.

  Who were the others?

  One of them, a man, looked familiar. Very familiar.

  In fact, she knew him from local news and otherwise, way back when, when she had still lived in Blue Haven. Back then, his commercial real estate business had been a highly advertised, attention-stealing competitor of the one where Andi had worked. Andi’s had been the town’s premier company, but this guy had obviously been trying to change that. He’d imposed his presence into the media all the time.

  Remembering the circumstances, Kelly found herself almost gagging.

  She had nothing to base it on except conjecture, but seeing the man in Stan Grodon’s presence almost transported her back to that difficult past. It was when Andi had been championing a really nice piece of property owned by one of her company’s clients, one in a commercial area not far from the beach, as a great place for the National Ecological Research Administration to open a local office.

  Her sister had talked to Kelly—Shereen—a lot about how frustrated she was, and how important it was to her to complete the potential sale to NERA.

  And how intense the competition was, since another local real estate company, the one owned by this outspoken, pushy man whose name Kelly finally remembered—Jerome Baranka—was promoting another site for the prestigious, and undoubtedly profitable, office.

  Stan had turned his back on his wife and promoted Baranka’s property in front of city council. Had he been paid off by the wealthy, unprincipled businessman? That had been Shereen’s speculation at the time, and Andi had wondered about it, too, even as she struggled to do her own job and sell the site she represented—one she really thought better for the intended purchaser.

  Unsurprisingly, Andi and Stan had argued about the situation and Stan’s subversion, as well as other things. Andi had been so upset about the situation that she’d hinted to her sister that she’d documented concerns about her personal and professional life, and that she kept it with some information hidden in her house. And then Andi had disappeared.

  Jerome Baranka was now—still—publicly in Stan’s presence.

  Kelly had a strong suspicion which real estate company had made the sale, though she had left before any deal was consummated.

  Had that had something to do with what happened to Andi? Was she now in the presence of not only Andi’s murderer, but also the person who had instigated, intentionally or not, what had occurred?

  Clearly she couldn’t ask. Neither could she allow herself to throw up while surrounded by these people, despite how her stomach churned and her senses reeled.

  She turned and made herself walk at a decent pace as she headed away from them, down the hallway toward where she had last seen Alan.

  She wanted to avoid him now, too. She imagined she must look as horrible as she felt, and she didn’t want to answer any questions, not till she had found a way to calm herself.

  I knew I’d see these people and others when I came back, she reminded herself. She had chosen to come here nevertheless. But at the moment, that thought failed to help her cope with her hopeless mood.

  There was a lit exit sign over a doorway at that end of the hall, and she assumed it was an emergency stairway. That was where she headed, and she pushed it open slowly, just in case it somehow had an alarm attached, even as her mind scrambled for a reason she would give if she were caught.

  Fortunately, there was no alarm. The doorway led to a set of steps heading both up and down, and she hurried into the stairwell to flee downward, wanting to leave the building as soon as possible.

  If only she could leave her thoughts behind here, too, she wished, as three flights down she finally reached bottom and pushed open the outer door to the alley behind the plaza.

  At least she could breathe here.

  But could she continue this afternoon and beyond in her assumed role as a server who knew nothing and no one in this town?

  She had seen Eli again. She had to focus on that and nothing else at the moment, except that she had to find a way to help him.

  She kept telling herself that as, straightening her shoulders, she started trudging down the alley in the direction of the Haven.

  Where she would return as Kelly.

  But for now, she knew of no way to help her sister—or her nephew.

  * * *

  What was wrong?

  From the security office where Alan now sat with Dodd, he had seen Kelly appear in their end of the hall, after he had encouraged her to leave the building. Agreeing, she had headed toward the elevator bank.

  Instead, she had apparently left via the stairway. What was she up to? Was she trying to investigate something here, in the plaza?

  Not a good idea for a waitress to act so snoopy.

  “Just thought of something I need to check out,” he told Dodd, standing at the desk where they had been discussing the meeting scheduled to start in the downst
airs conference room in about ten minutes. They would both attend and ensure that security was maintained.

  That gave Alan a few minutes, at least, to try to figure out what was going on with Kelly.

  “You go ahead if I’m not back in five,” he continued, detecting amusement on the more senior security guy’s face, as if he, too, had seen Kelly and figured out why Alan was leaving. If so, he was right—but he didn’t know it all.

  “Will do, bro,” Dodd responded. “Have fun—but don’t be too long. The meeting we need to monitor is going to start soon.”

  Alan just grinned as he left. He looked both ways in the hall before he crossed to the stairway entrance, then headed down.

  At the bottom, he pushed the door open and scanned the alley. A car drove by, and he saw a couple of cats near a garbage can, but no sign of Kelly.

  Even so, he went in the direction she’d have headed to return to the restaurant, down Main Street. Maybe there was nothing wrong, though her going this way sparked concern in him.

  He hustled from the alley and onto the street in time to see Kelly crossing at the next intersection. She only had another couple of blocks to go to reach the Haven.

  And he had that meeting to attend—and act as one of the security team. It wasn’t likely he’d learn anything useful, yet he had to be there.

  At least Kelly seemed okay. He would talk to her later to find out what her exit that way had been about.

  Instead of returning to the building through the alley, he turned and headed back to the main entrance—in time to see Councilwoman Arviss exit with her son and Eli. Obviously, whatever the meeting was about, it wasn’t for all council members.

  “Seeing these great helpers back to school?” he asked her.

  She nodded, then glanced back up the steps as if to ensure they weren’t being followed. “They’re done with lunch, and this seems like a good time for it,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Eli agreed, and Alan couldn’t help wondering if the boy knew his dad was now in a meeting and therefore unlikely to run into him.

  He’d had some major concerns about the kid even before Kelly’s illicit arrival in town.

  Now he had even more.

  “See ya,” he called as the group headed down the street in the opposite direction from where Kelly had gone...and he meant it.

  * * *

  Okay. She had to be cool. Practical.

  On her walk back to the restaurant, Kelly texted Alan that she looked forward to seeing him later, maybe for dinner.

  He might already have some information about the dispute between Andi and Stan over the real estate angle, since Kelly had told her handlers at the ID Division about that possible reason for Andi’s disappearance. They could have passed it along to him to help with his undercover assignment here. But she wanted to let him in on this latest information.

  She didn’t hear back from him immediately and figured he was probably at that meeting on his security watch. That was fine. She felt certain she would hear from him eventually, and then they would talk.

  She had the time to talk to Judge Treena now if she could reach her, but she decided against it. Her nerves were frayed enough at the moment without having to defend herself the way she would to Her Honor.

  A couple of police cars drove by, but all seemed well in this popular area. Once Kelly reached the Haven, she let Ella know she was back and handed over the cash Alan had given her for the lunch.

  “Good job,” Ella said, making Kelly smile a little. At least she had done something right, and making her boss happy, even for this brief moment, felt good.

  Then, as much as possible, she shrugged off the rest of her fragility and anger and all the other emotions that had swept through her on seeing Baranka in Stan’s presence—not to mention spending a little not-so-quality time with Eli—and transformed herself back into her role here as a server.

  The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. And smoothly. They were busy but not overly so, so she was able to move her mind from everything else, at least somewhat.

  Despite all the care she was taking to change her mood, it must have shown somewhat since Tobi, and particularly Lang, jabbed at her every time they could—good-natured teasing that she knew was designed to cheer her up.

  She shot gibes back at them, even as she wanted to thank them, even hug them, for being so nice to her. Or not nice, as the case might be.

  Kelly was careful not to mention to Ella that she’d been gone as long as she had because she had joined their customers for lunch. It would negate the tiny bit of praise Ella had given her earlier. Ella had rules that she imposed on her staff, and fraternizing with customers like that during business hours was frowned upon, even though being friendly to them—and even flirting with them in those sexy uniforms—was just fine despite the contradiction there.

  Though Ella did comment about the length of her absence, Kelly said simply that she had helped to serve Councilwoman Arviss and her guests, without mentioning who those guests were—or that she stayed for a while.

  She kept her phone in her pocket. She wasn’t surprised to feel a vibration at a time she wouldn’t have chosen, when she and Tobi were taking orders at a table of two senior couples whom Ella introduced as some of her parents’ closest friends—in other words, they were to treat these seniors like family, take good care of them and make Ella proud.

  “Yes, our chicken potpie is wonderful,” she told the elderly gentleman she had been waiting on, even as the tingling vibration at her hip stopped. “It’s made fresh, of course, and our customers always rave about it.”

  “Have you ever tried it?” the man asked, aiming a squinting gaze up at her.

  She’d tasted some of the filling, though not the crust, so it wasn’t a complete fib to say, “I sure have. Wonderful!” she repeated.

  “I agree,” Tobi added from across the table. “It’s one of our best customer favorites.” The other server winked one of her pale hazel eyes at Kelly.

  “Let me have one, then,” the man said, nodding with a firm expression on his lips that suggested he had made the most important decision of the day.

  “I want to change my order,” the other man said. “I’ll try that pie, too.”

  “Of course.” This time Tobi’s expression was an exasperated eye roll that made Kelly want to laugh. But she held it in.

  In a minute, they had finished taking the orders, and both hurried toward the kitchen to let the busy chefs know.

  “What a group,” Tobi said, her voice lowered. “No wonder Ella likes them. They’re like her—full of orders and changes.”

  “Exactly.” Kelly was hoping to slip away for a minute after they’d turned in the orders so she could check her phone, but she had the impression that Tobi was in a chatty mood.

  Fortunately, though, once they were in the kitchen and the chefs had gone over the orders and promised to get to them right away—after Tobi informed them about the priority of these particular customers—Lang came in.

  “Just got a big group in the front,” he said. “I’ve already moved tables around, but I need some help.” The paunchy server looked from Tobi to Kelly and back again.

  “I’d be glad to,” Tobi said, just as Kelly had hoped.

  “Me, too, but not for a few minutes,” Kelly added.

  “Sure,” Lang said, then turned and waddled out the kitchen door.

  Tobi hurried to catch up with him.

  Kelly headed down the hall toward the ladies’ room.

  No one else was there, so Kelly immediately removed her phone from her pocket. She opened a text from Alan: Lunch and dinner together on the same day? Sounds great to me. I’ll bring takeout to your place at 7:30. See you then.

  She felt a huge grin spread over her face. She was definitely getting together with Alan. All business, of course. They had a lot to talk about, even though he might not realize it.

  Takeout at her place? He hadn’t asked her to text her address. But Alan was undercover. I
n security. He undoubtedly knew where she’d lived before, when she was Shereen. He’d also be aware of Stan Grodon’s address. So was Kelly, of course—unless Stan had moved Eli and himself away after “losing” his wife.

  Maybe Kelly should find out about that. She obviously couldn’t ask Eli, although she wanted to—and if they’d moved, to learn what her nephew thought about it. She would try to ask him that subtly sometime, somehow...

  But for now, she could ask Alan where they were living.

  And Alan, being who and what he was, most likely already also knew where the woman now known as Kelly lived. She’d test him by not providing the information unless he asked for it, though she suspected he wouldn’t.

  But she would see him that night. That was the important thing—for her safety. Her peace of mind. Her happiness of the moment.

  She was absolutely looking forward to it.

  Chapter 9

  The meeting was over at last. Alan stood in the hallway outside the conference room at one side of the door as the occupants exited, talking to one another but ignoring both him and Dodd, who was at the other side of the door.

  Alan had done his official Blue Haven security thing and, with Dodd and others, kept close watch on the hallway outside the occupied conference room as well as the room itself.

  He’d communicated off and on with their boss, Nevil, and other members of the security detail via cell phone to confirm that no one saw anything out of place. He had even talked to the Blue Haven police chief, Arturo Sangler, in coordination.

  More important—to him—he had listened to what was going on during that meeting whenever possible.

  There was nothing exciting, unfortunately. He didn’t know who all the players were, except for Stan Grodon and a couple of other city council members—both men with loud voices and opinions they clearly wanted everyone to hear.

  And the other participants? Men and women in suits who appeared to have businesses in Blue Haven. But nothing particularly noteworthy was brought up at the meeting—just some upcoming events like a county fair and a separate proposed music festival.