Spies and Prejudice (15 page)

No.

This is not how I wanted Mary Chris to find out I am investigating her father.

Tanner looks confused, but I can’t even enjoy being right. I need to try to explain and pray that Mare understands.

“I’m not trying to steal any corporate secrets,” I start. “Mr. Moss has a letter from my mother. She died eight years ago in an accident that was ruled a suicide. I never even knew my mom did work for Moss Enterprises, but she did. Just before she died. I thought maybe the letter would tell me something more about her. I asked Drew to help. He was helping me. Not the other way around.”

Drew puts his arm around me. “Sorry to disappoint you guys.”

“What’s behind your back?” Tanner tries to look over my shoulder, but I lean into Drew, blocking his view. He stares at me, holding out his hand.

I bring my hand around slowly, showing him the small handbag. “It’s just my purse.” I glance at Mare, pleading with my eyes. She knows I have the scanner.

Mary Chris looks down at the floor and then back up at Ryan. It’s one thing to discover Tanner has been playing us, but she really likes Ryan.

And she loves me.

Tanner holds out his hand, and I give him the purse because it’s not like I can just make a run for it.

“Didn’t your mama ever teach you not to go snooping in a lady’s pocketbook?” Drew asks.

Tanner’s icy eyes focus on Drew, and for a second I worry that he might hit him. I’ve seen Tanner handle a gun. He knows a thing or two about hurting someone.

Drew wisely keeps his mouth shut as Tanner unzips the small bag and looks inside. He pulls out the bobby pin and sets it on the table. He takes out the cell phone and turns it over in his hand.

I look at Mary Chris, but she won’t look at me.

I hold my breath for what seems like forever as Tanner flips on the phone. It’s not that I’m afraid of being caught. I’ve already confessed to looking for the letter. But I can’t bear to lose it before I’ve even had a chance to read it.

Rescue comes from an unexpected source. Ryan puts his hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “Dude, let it go. I believe her.”

Tanner looks at me. Looks through me. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“Try the truth.” I hate that I have to defend myself to Tanner. He’s no one but some hired rent-a-cop who couldn’t figure his way out of a cardboard box. “Drew is my friend. He’s here because I asked him to be.”

Mary Chris finally steps forward. “You asked him to come here to spy on me?”

“Not you. Your dad.” Okay, that doesn’t sound good either.

Mary Chris takes the fake phone and the purse from Tanner. She
drops the phone into the purse like she can’t stand to touch it. She holds the purse out to me with two fingers. “I hope you got what you came for.”

Is she giving me the scanner?

There are tears in her eyes and I realize Mare is asking me to make a choice. Take the scanner. The scanner that she made for me with the letter I stole from her father. Take it and leave.

Or give it back. Walk away from this whole thing and choose our friendship.

I stare at the little gold purse that Shauna and Jason picked out for me last weekend. Inside is a business letter. A letter that probably won’t get me any closer to the truth about my mother’s death. But it might get me closer to the truth about her life.

Mare still watches me, holding out the purse. Mare, who has never given up on me, even when she should have. Mary Chris, who never minded that I was the stray that never found a more permanent home. Who stayed with me through the darkness and accepted the stranger who came out on the other side.

I should be able to put my mother’s death behind me. I thought I had.

The lives you think you’re saving aren’t worth your own
.

But this is about more than whether my mother left me. Fields’ rule number four: there are no coincidences. Death threat plus death equals murder.

I step forward and take the purse from Mary Chris. I don’t miss the pain in her eyes. We both know I’ve chosen the letter over our friendship.

My fingers tighten around the bag.

There was never any real choice.

I made up my mind the second I came into Mary Chris’s house last Friday with a plan to search her father’s office.

I’ve already betrayed my best friend. The sick part is that I can’t seem to stop.

M
ary Chris doesn’t look at me as I walk out of the room. The skirt of my gown trails behind me, a river of crimson. Which is fitting considering all the blood that’s been spilled.

I have to drive Drew to his car at the country club, so I don’t have time to wallow.

I wait until we’re safely out of the gate at the end of Mare’s long driveway before I say anything. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this.”

“Are you kidding? That was kind of awesome. So what were those guys? Corporate spies?”

I shake my head. “Don’t sound so impressed. My guess is they’re contract security detail. Not very good, considering they just blew their cover based on a hunch.”

“I can’t believe they thought I was some kind of spy. That’s kind of cool.”

I want to slam on the brakes and throw Drew out of the car. Doesn’t he realize what any of this means? My best friend hates me.
The real Tanner is the guy who thinks I’m nothing amazing. The guy who was just hanging around to make sure I didn’t betray my best friend. Which I did.

I take a deep breath. “Why did you offer to help me?”

“What?”

“Why did you offer to help me?” I’m getting paranoid. I shouldn’t let Tanner get to me like this, but the truth is, now that I think about it, none of this makes any sense. Why would a guy who doesn’t even like people go out of his way to help me find out about my mom? Why would he set up an interview with the woman who witnessed my mom’s death without talking to me first? “Most people would just say, ‘Yeah, you should totally look into it.’ They wouldn’t offer to help.”

Drew smiles. “Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure that most guys would do pretty much anything if it meant they’d get to hang out with you.”

Is he serious? Is this all some kind of game to him? My heart is already tangled up in loss, and this last bit with Mary Chris constricts the knot so tightly I barely breathe. “This matters to me.” My whisper is barely audible.

“I know.” Drew looks out the window. “I meant it when I said I’d help you find out what happened to your mom.” We pull up to Drew’s red hatchback, but he doesn’t move to get out of the car. “Do you want me to follow you home? Someone should be there when you read the letter.”

He’s trying to help, but all I can think of is his line about hanging out with me, and I don’t want to be alone with him tonight. “I’ll be fine. You can come by tomorrow if you want.”

Drew leans forward like he’s going to kiss me, but I turn my head to the side at the last minute so his kiss lands squarely on my cheek. “Good night,” he whispers against my skin. Then he gets out of the car and I’m finally alone.

It’s a relief to pull into the garage of our quiet little house. Dad’s car is gone. I try not to think about what Dad and Shauna might be doing in Palm Springs together. There should probably be some law about parents dating while their kids still live at home.

When I open the door from the garage into the house, it opens wide. Okay, this has never happened in the history of Lulu. I move down the hall to the alarm, which is not even flashing. Dad has never forgotten to arm the system. I take out my pepper spray, leaving the lights off.

“Lu,” I whisper.

Slurp, slurp, clunk. The noise comes from the kitchen. Slurp, slurp, clunk. I tiptoe down the hall in the dark, peeking into my bedroom on the way, but it’s still and quiet. I cross over to the living room, sprinting behind the couch to the archway that leads into the kitchen.

The slurping is louder now, wet and monstrous. A streetlight on the corner illuminates the floor through the sliding glass window. Lulu lies on her side, licking and slurping at something on the floor. I let out a breath and turn on the light.

Lulu lifts her head and tilts it toward me. There’s a huge T-bone on the floor next to her, with tiny pieces of gristle and meat still attached to it. Her head flops back down in a puddle of drool as she goes back to licking and slurping at the bone.

I pat her on the belly, but aside from lifting her paw to give me better access, she doesn’t acknowledge me as she continues to slurp on the bone.

“Did Dad leave you some leftovers?” Maybe they went to dinner before making the drive to Palm Springs.

I start flipping on lights, first the living room, and then the hallway. Before I’m done, I’ve turned on every light in the house. It’s silly. Dad works most nights so it’s not like I’m afraid of being alone. Everything that’s happened tonight has me on edge. I’m not used to getting caught.

I set the gold purse on the kitchen table and stare at it for a few minutes. My new best friend. I finally pull out the scanner, releasing the memory card from the phone shell and carrying it over to the desk in the living room.

There’s just one problem. The desktop computer is gone.

I look back over at the alarm panel, and then back again at Lulu and her giant bone.

I reach for my pepper spray again. Someone broke into my house and took the desktop. I know the house is empty, but I check every room again anyway, my blood rushing in my ears. Everything is different, now that someone’s been here. My home feels like a cage at the zoo, the windows blackened, but doing nothing to stop me from being aware of invisible eyes on the other side of the glass.

After searching the house a third time, I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t spend the night here alone. I consider calling Jason, but I’m sure he’s still over at Mare’s house. And she probably needs him more than I do. If he’s even talking to me now.

I could call Drew, but he would get the wrong idea.

I can’t call Dad. He already told me not to look into this. He’ll be furious. Plus he’s almost two hours away.

I could call the police, but they would just make a report and disappear again. And let’s just say the police at my door is not an image I want to relive.

So I do something I regret almost immediately. I call Tanner.

T
anner doesn’t ask questions. He says he’ll be right over, and fifteen minutes later he is. He’s changed into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved tee. I’m overdressed in my red gown, but it’s not like I’ve been comfortable enough to change.

Tanner walks the perimeter in the front yard after he checks every room in the house again. He makes me stay in the house, relegated to watching him from the window while Lulu pants after him like she’s his dog, nuzzling his hand whenever he stands still long enough. He searches the yard at least six times before he finally deems it clear.

It should make me feel better to know the thief is gone, but it doesn’t. He’s still out there somewhere. He could be anywhere, which is somehow scarier than if he were still here in the living room. At least then I could fight back.

Tanner comes inside, Lulu trailing behind him. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

“I guess. Just shaken up.” An understatement. The more I think about the theft, the more wound up I get. I sit on the couch, my arms
folded against my chest. Tanner is here in my living room and I need to fight with someone. “Why did you come?”

“You called me, remember?”

Fair enough. I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly why I called him. He manipulated and used me. And Mare too. “How could you let Ryan use Mary Chris that way? Did you think she wouldn’t help you?” Even as I ask the question, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

He raises his eyebrows. “Said the mouse to the rat.”

“You were helping Mare’s father.” Not spying on him. “She would’ve helped you.”

“The less people who know about what we’re doing, the more effective we are.”

“And now?”

Tanner shrugs. “Now we go back to Pemberley.”

“Pemberley?”

“Our home.”

“Your house has a name?”

“Our company. It’s a family business.” He looks up at the ceiling. “My parents are going to kill me for botching this one.”

“You didn’t exactly botch it. No one was trying to steal secrets from Moss Enterprises to begin with.”

“Right.”

“Wait. You still think I was trying to steal from Moss Enterprises?”

“Not you. Him.”

“Him? You mean Drew? No way. Unlike some people, Drew didn’t come looking for me. I found him.”

“You found him?”

“In the back corridor of the library.” Drew had been at school for weeks before I ran into him.

“And you were there because?”

“Because I go there sometimes.” I leave it at that. He doesn’t need to know about the dozens of times I’ve read the same newspaper article that I can’t bring myself to print out.

“Exactly.”

“Can we drop this?” Drew did not use me. Tanner did.

Tanner sighs and sits down on the couch next to me. “Any idea who did this?”

I look at the empty space on the desk where our computer used to be. “Could be one of our marks trying to destroy the evidence before we turn it over to his wife.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not. Most of these guys are so flagrant I’d swear they want to get caught. And I can’t think of any of them who would risk a theft like this.”

“Who else might want your computer?”

I don’t want to think about who else might want our computer, because there’s only one person who comes to mind. The person who wrote the death threat to my mother. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s your dad?”

“Palm Springs until Monday.”

Tanner closes his eyes. With his eyes closed, Tanner looks deceptively innocent. Nice even. “I’m staying with you.”

I don’t argue with him. I can’t handle being alone right now. I take a breath. “Okay.”

He opens his eyes slowly, watching me. “Okay?”

The energy in the room changes in a heartbeat. The air around us is still and hot, so thick I choke on my own breath.

“On the couch,” I say, trying desperately to clear my head. I already know how safe I feel in Tanner’s arms. Having him here now is dangerous.