Tone cautious, he asked, “Are you hinting that you believe I stole from someone?”
“Goodness no! Nothing like that. Your heart is too soft for crime.”
“My heart...is soft?” he said, then shook his head as if he’d misheard her.
“I’m asking if you secretly work as a romance novel cover model in your spare time.” The perfect job for him. “Or maybe you went a step further and wrote a bestselling military thriller under a pen name. Perhaps a relative left you a first edition of a novel and you sold it for millions at auction.”
His brow wrinkled, sunlight glinting off his golden hair. “Why do all of your ideas for me revolve around books?”
“Are you kidding? It’s your vibe. Very straight from the pages of a sizzling adventure.”
He snorted as they crested a hill, the cottage coming into view. “My situation is complicated. I do have money. A lot of it. But I’d like to leave it at that.”
“Fair enough.” Except now she was even more curious. Did he think she’d treat him differently? Well, think again. “Just understand that this makes me want to find you a girlfriend faster.” A companion he trusted with his secrets. Then he might not feel so alone. And he did feel alone. She sensed it—because she felt that way at times, too.
“Jane,” he said with a groan.
Intending to tell her to forget about setting him up? Too bad. “I have some errands to run, and you have some patrolling to do.” She skipped ahead of him, calling, “If the Kirklands show up, you are authorized to use full force.”
“Or I can let them do what they want and catch them in the act.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a hardened criminal who has spent time behind bars now. Catch them before they do anything and show no mercy.” She bumped her fist toward the sky as she climbed the porch steps. “Okay, bye.”
“What am I gonna do with you?” he called. “By the way, do not do what you’re planning. It won’t end well.”
“Inside the house now. Can’t hear you.” The front door slammed behind her. She gathered her purse and a little extra cash from her emergency fund. After feeding and kissing Rolex, she headed to the hearse, Beau nowhere in sight.
Wait. Her phone. She’d left it on her nightstand.
Sure enough, there was a text from Conrad. Finally!
Agent Spice: Miss me today.
Relieved to the core of her being, she kind of hugged the cell to her chest before typing a response. Are you back at work?
Agent Spice: Not yet. Just have to handle some things at home.
What kind of things? So badly she wanted to ask. Which meant she shouldn’t. And really, she wasn’t sure she had the right, considering she’d been keeping him at a distance while he’d only tried to get closer to her.
Her relief dried up as she dropped the phone in her purse.
Thankfully, the drive to town proved uneventful, far different from her last trip. A few stops to pick up everything she thought she might need took longer than expected. But then, she had a very specific shopping list.
Once she had purchased every item, she drove to Fiona’s house in Bedrock, a small neighborhood filled with southern craftsmans and folksy Victorians right off Main Street. After her first and second husbands had died, she’d sold her farm outside of the city to be closer to her favorite coffee and sandwich shops.
Fiona waved her inside with a ready and eager smile, but quickly drew the curtain as soon as they were sealed inside. They intended to turn Jane into the long-lost sister of Tatiana Irons, and search the journalist’s home.
“What are you hunting for at Ana’s, exactly?” Fiona asked as they got started.
“Anything pointing to the speed daters, the Waynes, the Hotchkins or Tony Miller.” Let Operation Gravestone commence.
Jane adjusted an itchy, strawberry blonde wig and plowed on with her rehearsed story. “So, you see, I am Ana’s long, lost sister—”
“Let me stop you there, because I don’t actually care,” Ana’s neighbor said, a young woman with a baby on her hip and two toddlers at her calves. “I have a spare key to her place. After the landlord charged her forty bucks for an unlock, we exchanged keys. Well, once I signed an NDA, provided a drop of blood and a full set of fingerprints.”
“Really?”
“No, but almost. I’ll grab it for you. Here.” She shifted the child into Jane’s unsuspecting arms, then popped inside the apartment, taking the toddlers with her.
The baby’s hair was scooped into a ponytail high on her head and framed by a pretty pink bow. She looked at Jane with wide-eyed fascination. Then one tiny hand gripped a hank of Jane’s fake locks and tugged.
The wig shifted too far to the right, and Fiona rushed to help straighten the voluminous hairpiece before Ana’s neighbor returned.