The Undercover Affair Read online

  But then, once they’d stopped the random testing, Patrick had started using again. This time, he got caught because of the way he’d been financing his drug buys. By petty theft. He’d been caught red-handed fencing gold jewelry from a neighbor. And of course, he failed the subsequent court-ordered drug test.

  John had felt duped, angry.

  Maybe that was part of the reason he’d been so hard on Lyn Francis. Because he’d been fooled by his own brother, maybe he was sensitive about being taken advantage of again.

  He heard crying noises. His mom had sat down on her stool, her head in her hands.

  Pain, helpless pain seemed to fill him.

  “Mom, I hired the best criminal defense lawyer I could find.” John stood beside his mother and rubbed her back, which was shaking from the force of her crying, warm and damp from her emotion. “He’s going to do everything to keep Patrick from being locked up. He says there’s a good chance he’ll just get probation. Once we get past that, we can do more.”

  His mom lifted her head. Red-rimmed, tearful blue eyes met his gaze. Struggling to smile at him, she clasped his hand. “I’m sorry I’m so emotional. I’ve been trying to hide it from you, but it’s just the date. I always feel this way on the anniversary.”

  For a moment, John was puzzled. And then with a sickening realization, he followed her gaze to the counter and to the daily calendar, set to today’s date.

  It was the anniversary of Justin’s death. The middle Reilly brother. John felt as though he’d been punched in the gut.

  “Four years,” she said tearfully.

  “I forgot.” He had. In all the drama, John had forgotten.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “How about if we take a break this afternoon? I’ll call Millie’s sister and see if she’s available to fill in—”

  “No.” Wiping her eyes and braving a smile, his mom shook her head. “Please, I’d rather work.”

  He understood. His mom found her solace in this business she’d built with John’s late father.

  “I’m going to take a walk on the beach,” he said quietly. “Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

  “Yes. You go do that. Remember Justin.” She gave him a shaky smile.

  Numbly, he nodded. His feet seemed to move on their own. Almost without seeing, he pushed through the bar, past Andy and all the rest of the crews, across the street and over the dunes to the stretch of beach beyond. He felt like he needed to breathe. To get out of that room, out of that restaurant and away from those memories.

  A forlorn gray sky was overhead, spitting rain on his unprotected head. Drops beaded on his bare arms, prickling his skin with cold, but that didn’t matter; his own discomfort would never matter. He stared at the angry waves—high and rhythmic in their crashing, their never-ceasing crashing—storming on the shoreline as he watched.

  He should have been home that day. He should have been with Justin, watching out for him as he’d always watched out for him. Instead, John had joined the Marines because he’d wanted to get out and start his own life.

  His mother’s tearful eyes always reminded him of that without saying it aloud. Patrick’s sullen rebellion expressed it. Maybe if John had been home, then things would have turned out differently.

  Before John had left, Patrick was a little kid who had idolized him. When John had returned, for Justin’s funeral, then again a few short months later, for their father’s funeral—Patrick no longer looked at him the same way.

  John bowed his head, faced into the wind, fisting his hands against the rawness. He dug his sneakers into the sand, the approximate spot where his brother’s lifeless body had been found. He’d drowned. No one had known exactly what had happened, which was the hard part. The toxicology report had been inconclusive. The death had been ruled accidental, even though his brother had grown up on the water and was a fantastic swimmer. The whys and the hows of the drowning were a mystery to this day.

  An anguished sigh came out of him. But he didn’t cry. John never cried. Even though all he could see was his brother’s face. Justin had been more than his brother—he’d been John’s best friend. His very best friend in the world.

  Hey, John. The only one who’d written him letters that actually made him laugh.

  John owed it to him to be here. His brother had loved this place. Had never understood why John had been so restless and wanted to leave Wallis Point. Had wanted more than to work at a family sandwich shop and beach bar.

  Justin had been the family surfer. Beach bum. Charmer.

  John turned and glanced at the restaurant. He wondered if Lyn would come by today. He wouldn’t mind sitting in her car with her again, even if just to watch the rain. To feel the warmth from her breath that fogged the cold glass.

  * * *

  TWO MORNINGS LATER, Lyn still hadn’t come to the Seaside. John felt itchy, but was starting to feel resigned to her decision.

  The door opened, and Andy strolled in with his oversize coffee carafe.

  “Lousy day outside,” Andy said, sliding the carafe across the counter. It made a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

  John grimaced.

  “You got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Andy remarked.

  Hadn’t Lyn said that to John, too, on that last morning he’d seen her? But John said nothing to Andy. Took the carafe to the kitchen to rinse it before he filled it up again.

  He’d fixed the sink last night. The faucet was no longer dripping like a sieve.

  “How are you, Patrick?” he heard Andy say behind him.

  “Good,” Patrick answered. But Andy wasn’t supposed to be here in the employee area.

  “What are you doing here?” John asked Andy, feeling tired and grumpy.

  “I could ask you the same thing.” Andy leaned over and stared him in the face. “What did you say to Lyn Francis?”

  John bit down on his tongue. He was tempted to ask about Lyn, but with Andy, it was better to act as if she’d never affected him at all. “What do you mean?” he asked noncommittally.

  “I saw you talking with her in her car that day.” Andy pointed at him. “Ever since then, she doesn’t leave the MacLaine house. She’s even having her groceries delivered. Did you know that?”

  John felt his neck tense. “How is that my fault?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  John couldn’t help going over that morning, yet again, in his head. He stared at the stream of water pounding into the carafe. Man, had he been an ass, accusing her of something that maybe seemed true to him only because he was sensitive to being duped, then forcing her to talk about her late husband. He’d probably hurt her. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t come.

  Suddenly having to blink, he shut his eyes.

  Andy, for once, stayed quiet. When John finally looked at him, Andy was arms-crossed, studying John.

  “You were rude to her, weren’t you?” Andy said.

  “I’m not going to talk about this with you,” John replied quietly.

  “No. Of course you aren’t. You could be a stubborn pain in the ass when you were a kid playing hockey, but I thought you’d outgrown it. I guess you proved me wrong.”

  John shut off the water. “Do you want to make your own coffee?”

  “If you act this way with everyone, you’ll chase off all your customers.”

  John opened his fists, then closed them. What did Andy want, for him to admit that he’d been wrong? That in his paranoia over watching out for his family, he’d seen a potential bogeyman that hadn’t turned out to be there?

  Because if she really was a cop, then she would still be here watching them. The fact that she wasn’t here was evidence enough for him.

  “Is she okay out in the cul-de-sac?” he asked Andy. They both knew there weren’t too many n
eighbors living on the peninsula this time of year. “Is Lyn alone at night?”

  Andy pressed his lips together in that caricature of sage owl that John remembered from his high-school days. He took a coffee cup from the overhead rack and filled it from the family’s communal pot, then sat on a stool before the prep table.

  “I’m worried about her, too,” Andy confided. “She’s up on ladders by herself. I saw her through the windows, pulling down paintings from the walls. A stupid stunt—I wouldn’t even do it, but she’s obviously got something to prove or she wouldn’t be doing it, either.”

  John had been accused of doing stupid stuff out of pride. He completely understood. “She wants to do a good job for the congressman. How often do you check on her?”

  “During the day? Every few hours. But she sleeps there, too. And Cynthia and I don’t live in the neighborhood, so it’s inconvenient for me to stop over after hours. You live close—you should check on her.”

  John itched to hop in his pickup truck and head out to the cul-de-sac. But even if Lyn let him in the house, then what? It wasn’t as if he could strike up a friendship with her.

  “John, for cripes’ sake, what is your problem?” Andy demanded. “Are you okay?”

  “Peachy.”

  “I’m serious. It seems like, lately, all you are is suspicious of people. Come on.”

  John whirled to face him. “Did you ever think that I might be taking a break from relationships in general?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot that you were divorced. Three years ago,” he said sarcastically. “And it’s not as if it lasted very long.”

  “Right. Go back to forgetting about it.”

  Andy stood. “I wasn’t asking you to marry Lyn.”

  John laughed sharply. The idea was so ludicrous, he couldn’t even speak. Him, getting married again?

  “Think about it,” Andy urged. “Bring her out some food or something, some night.”

  They both knew that wasn’t going to happen. John nodded stiffly. “Sure.”

  “Right.” Andy nodded.

  It would happen when pigs flew.

  * * *

  IN THE DUSK of early evening, Lyndsay stared at the men standing on her doorstep, not able to believe her own eyes. Or hear her own ears.

  “You did what?” she asked Andy.

  Moon stood beside him, arms crossed, mouth in a tight line. Andy’s son stood beside him, also looking concerned, shifting from side to side.

  “I know someone,” Andy said stubbornly. “Don’t ask me how, but I had him run that contractor’s license plate for me.”

  “But...you have no legal reason to do that,” Lyndsay sputtered. Then she remembered the background she was supposed to be hiding. “Do you?” she tacked on.

  Andy scowled at her. “It doesn’t concern you that your tiling contractor’s vehicle is registered at an address that doesn’t exist? I knew he looked shady. I knew it and I proved it. I did you a favor, Lyn.”

  She was trying not to panic, she really was. Here, she thought she’d done a wise thing, as far as Kitty’s goals and expectations went, by having the task force switch out the patio-concrete-pouring contractors and substitute them for a tiling contractor—in reality an undercover detective, driving an undercover vehicle. But Andy wasn’t supposed to know about any of this.

  “He works for my firm all the time,” she protested. “He seemed fine to me.”

  Andy set his chin stubbornly. “First, that’s not a professional vehicle he’s using. It screams fly-by-night or scammer. I don’t think you should use him again. Not until we’re sure he’s legit.”

  “But he did a good job,” she repeated stubbornly. “He’s fine.”

  “What did he do?” Moon asked. “I heard pounding.”

  Was nothing private in this cul-de-sac? It had seemed so friendly when she was in information-gathering mode. Now their friendliness had turned into nosiness and was biting her in the butt.

  “He removed the tile in the master bathroom,” she explained. It had been slow going, and he wasn’t finished yet. Her contractor had, in reality, been mainly there to check out the oil paintings of Kitty in the living room—Lyndsay had even prepared by taking them down for him to inspect them—as well as the watercolors of the mystery woman in the master bedroom.

  That was the contractor’s real strength—art appraisal. That he had a beard like a caveman and questionable hygiene had been inconsequential to her.

  “I can do that for you,” Moon said. “I’m a master at tiling. Why don’t you have your agency hire me?”

  “You already have a job,” Andy pointed out.

  “Yeah, but you could spare me,” Moon countered. “Lyn can’t.”

  “Look.” Lyndsay held up her hands. “I appreciate you guys looking out for me, I really do, but I’m capable of working with my own firm’s contractors.”

  The men exchanged glances. “I’m just helping you out,” Andy said.

  Yeah, by running a vehicle’s license plates. Good grief. What was Andy doing, going to a friend in some official agency on the sly?

  “How about if I talk to him for you,” Andy said. “Check out his credentials.”

  She knew he was a genuinely good person who wanted to help. Andy was the type who kept his eye on his kids, his kids’ friends, his neighbors. He surely volunteered to help when coaches were needed, or an adult for counsel. She had no doubt about Andy’s good intentions.

  “Sorry, Andy, honestly, I’m going to have to ask you to back off. I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I’m fine.” She rubbed her back—it was killing her. She was going to bed late every night, exhausted.

  And it was lonely. So achingly empty in this big house, quiet but for the television and the stereo system.

  “You don’t look fine,” Andy remarked. “You look stressed out.”

  “I have a lot of work to do, that’s true. But I’m safe. Don’t doubt that. There’s an alarm system in the house which connects to a private security firm.”

  “But if you fell off that ladder—”

  “—then I have a phone I can use.” She patted her pocket. “Right here. On my person. Always.”

  “At least come to dinner with us, Lyn,” he pleaded.

  “I’m sorry,” she said firmly. “This job is important to me, and I’m behind on my tasks as it is.”

  Andy held up his hands. “You have my phone number if you need it.” He glanced to his son. AJ lived at home with him, too.

  “Yes, I do,” she agreed gently. She mustered a real smile for him. It was kind of them to offer their company for dinner, and if she wasn’t undercover, then that wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. She would have felt included. One of the team. Not so lonely.

  But as it was...

  “I really do have to go, guys. I’ll see you all in the morning for coffee.”

  Holding up his hands again, Andy reluctantly let her close the door on him.

  No. No, no, no, she thought.

  Through the side window, she watched them head down the walkway and climb into their van and pickup respectively, then wheel out of the MacLaines’ driveway.

  When she was sure they were gone, she slumped to the floor. They were running their own background checks of sorts! What else could go wrong?

  She was on the verge of hyperventilating. Luckily, it was time for her nightly meeting with Pete. She needed to let the team know that license plates were being run and to make sure that her support team backed up her cover by dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s.

  Gathering her Glock, she armed herself, then she put on her raincoat and tossed her wallet into her pocket. Locking the doors and setting the home alarm behind her, she headed around back, then down the beach.

  It was nea
ring dark outside. She’d brought her flashlight, and she used it to light her way. Every night she made this trek to her prearranged meeting spot with Pete.

  The walk was easy. The evening wasn’t as cold, and what little wind there was came from the sea. She walked on the packed sand of low tide. The smell of fresh salt air calmed her nerves. No one else was on the beach.

  She turned in to the back door of a mid-size convenience store, grabbed a red plastic basket and headed to the far aisle, away from the register. At this time of night, and this early in the season, the store was nearly deserted. She spent a few moments choosing some fruit in the sparse produce section, then glanced up to find Pete.

  Simon—he of the tattooed neck and twisted sense of humor—stood in the back of the market near the refrigerated section. Curious, she joined him, the handle of the shopping basket drooping from her arm, and a few apples and a banana rolling around inside the basket.

  She leaned over and studied a selection of packaged hamburger. “Where’s Pete?”

  “Busy.”

  “All right,” she muttered to Simon, dropping her voice low because there was no coded way to say this, “then please pass on this message. Tell Gary to be careful. The neighborhood contractors are suspicious because his work van is unmarked and unprofessional-looking. So much so that they ran his plate.”

  Simon’s eyebrows lifted, but that reaction was quickly replaced with his usual bland expression.

  She sighed—Simon was anything but reassuring—and put the hamburger in her basket. This market didn’t carry the grass-fed version she liked, either, but it would have to do.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, chewing his gum. “I’ll look into it.”

  “If there is a problem, we will need to arrange to send somebody else to lay tile. Immediately.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll pass it on.”

  Why was she getting a feeling that this wasn’t a priority to him? She rested her basket on the floor. The true priority was the investigation, not the renovation, of course. “Please do it.” She came to her original point. “Did Gary find out anything about those tiles I showed him?” The task force had decided to use the covers as their code. So the tiles were really the paintings.