The southern belle was simple. Let the club manager know I need security tapes, slip a little money to one of the other waitresses to get the dirt on her, chat with a bartender I noticed she spent extra time with, keep an eye on everybody for a couple of days. The preliminary round of research on her tells me she’s probably not the one who tampered with Laurel’s glass—if anyone did. It could be I’m chasing my own tail here, but I’d rather find out I wasted my time than find out too late someone really is out to hurt Laurel and I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Marlena is easy to keep an eye on now that I got access to her apartment. I could break in and plant bugs, only problem is Rafe has that whole apartment community gated with a guard, and every license plate coming or going gets recorded.
My original plan was to boost a car just long enough to get that particular job done—didn’t want to take one from the shop, just on the off chance Rafe cared enough to trace it back to that—but then Rafe gave me a much easier in with his fake date. I’d like to stroke my own ego a little and say Rafe’s cast-offs keep taking to me because I’m something special, but while Laurel and I really did have an attraction, I feel not a damn thing for Marlena, and she was ready to make the fake date real.
I haven’t quite put my finger on what Marlena is, but there’s something about her I don’t fucking like. It could just be that Laurel hates her. I’m too close to it to see straight. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Whether her interest goes where the wind blows it or there’s some other reason, Marlena was all too happy to invite me back to her place, and I was all too happy to plant bugs when she went to the bathroom so I could keep an eye on her comings, goings, and visitors from the comfort of my home.
Or my car, as the case has been, because I’m also keeping an eye on Cassandra Carmichael. That has been a lot harder. She goes out all the time, and in order to know what she’s up to, I need to be following her. I put a tracker on her car to see where she goes when I can’t be there, but all I have is unattached locations. I can’t know who she is meeting with from a tracker on her car.
Today my life is a little harder, because something from this morning keeps sticking with me. Not just Laurel in the robe, my mental images of fucking her in Rafe’s kitchen, or the smell of her when I brushed too closely on my way back to my place at the counter after my trip to the bathroom, but something she said before she went upstairs.
She’s meeting Lydia for manicures?
I didn’t get the impression Lydia especially liked Laurel, and seeing as how she’s Gio’s wife, it has been significantly harder to get a peek at her dealings. She stays at home with the baby, and I sure as shit can’t get inside Gio’s house without being noticed, let alone hide a bug anywhere. The Morellis are a paranoid fucking people, and Gio’s house has a more advanced security set-up than Rafe does. Being a bachelor (and more easygoing than most of the Morelli men of my acquaintance) Rafe doesn’t have as much to lose. He doesn’t have as much to protect. Or he didn’t. Now he does, but he hasn’t caught up yet.
Now that he has Laurel and a baby on the way, he really needs to step up his security. It’s not just him in the world anymore. It’s not just himself he needs to keep safe, so he needs to lock that fucking place down like Fort Knox. He needs to pack go-bags for Laurel and the baby, walk her through what to do if anyone ever breaches the security measures he puts in place, and frankly, he needs to put in a panic room. He needs to make sure Laurel and the baby will be safe no matter what, and instead, his shit is so lax that I mauled the mother of his child on his couch last night, and he has no way of even knowing for sure, short of putting both of us in a room and trying to read our body language.
I know he gets a kick out reading people his way, but this is too important for that shit. Protecting your family isn’t something you can afford to take chances with. There’s no second chance when it comes to that.
Sitting here outside a fucking nail salon, of all places, I reach over and pop open the glove compartment. I go to reach for my sunglasses, and the Twix bar Laurel gave me catches my eye. The candy sealed inside is mushy and melted, of course, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw the damn thing away. I shove it back inside and grab my sunglasses, sliding them on. Then I draw out my phone to check the time. I don’t know how long manicures are supposed to take, but I know they’re heading to lunch after this. I need to remind Laurel to be safe, but I don’t want to text it, because I don’t want there to be a chance Gio ever finds out I don’t trust his wife around Laurel’s food and drink.
I see Laurel and Lydia stand and head to the counter to pay, so it’s time. I already scoped the place out before her appointment—the most ridiculous place I’ve ever had to check out, hands down—so I know the bathroom is in the door and to the right, while they’re paying at a counter to the left.
I text Laurel a brief, to-the-point message. “Go to the bathroom.”
Then I push open my door and head inside, hanging right and going to the restroom area. It’s single stall, not multi, but I slip inside and leave the door unlocked.
A moment later, Laurel shoves open the door and walks inside the bathroom, but she’s frowning down at her phone, not looking up.
She jumps when she realizes she’s not alone in the room, gasping and grabbing her chest. “Jesus Christ!”
I gently move her aside, reaching behind her and locking the door.
“What the hell, Sin?” she demands, eyes wide.
“Why are you going to lunch with Lydia?”
Laurel blinks at me, then shakes her head. “I don’t know. Because Rafe told me to?”
That sours my mood, fast. “Oh, okay. I forgot you do everything Rafe tells you to do.”
Narrowing her eyes at me, she says, “Yes, I do; I’m a good girl. Have you forgotten already?”
“Oh, I remember how good you are,” I murmur, taking a couple steps closer.
Laurel swallows, backing up against the bathroom door. I should hang back, but she’s being mouthy, and I want to crowd her. I like closing her in like this. I like the wariness that jumps in her eyes as she looks up at me. I can practically see memories of how good she was for me replaying in that dirty mind of hers, feel it in the way she loses steam now that I’m standing right on top of her, staring down at her.
Her voice has a faint bite to it, but more hurt than anger when she mutters, “Marlena probably wouldn’t approve of you standing so close to me in a locked bathroom.”
Ignoring her misplaced jealousy, I reach down and take one of her hands, lifting it so I can see what color she had her nails painted. They’re a muted color, barely tinted with pigment at all. “Not what I thought you’d pick out.”
Laurel wrinkles her nose up, looking at her nails disapprovingly. “It’s not. I wanted the sparkly purple, but Lydia told me it was whorish.”
Cracking a smile, I tell her, “Should’ve told Lydia you’re a whore. Next time do that and send me a picture of what her face looks like.”
Biting back a smile, she smacks me on the arm. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”