Ridge: About an hour.
Mega Bitch From Hell: See you then. Room 5011
I made my way up to the fifth floor in the hotel. It was one of the basic rooms the place had to offer and nothing like the penthouse suite that I stayed in. Fiona may have had money to stay in Melbourne on her own dime, but she was doing so frugally. That gave me hope that she would run out of funds soon.
I knocked on her door and offered her a bag with a cheeseburger and fries in it from Royal Stacks, a local burger joint not too far from the hotel.
“What’s this?” Fiona was dressed to the nines, as if she expected to go out on a date. It made what Tania pointed out far more obvious. If anything, my former assistant had lost some weight, and it all appeared to have come out of her boobs.
I cocked my head to the side as I looked her over with obvious intent. Her cheeks pinked at the attention, and I chuckled at just how wrong her assumptions were. She most likely thought I was checking her out in a sexual way.
“Shouldn’t you look pregnant by now?” I asked and caught her completely off guard. Fiona took a step back and gasped as her hand went to her chest, not her stomach the way I’d seen most pregnant women do when their condition was brought up.
“Not really. I was worried, too. The doctor said I’m doing fine.”
I noted that she said she was doing fine, and nothing about the baby.
“And besides, my mother was tiny with me until she was like seven months along. Then one day, she popped and it was like a stick figure walking around with a watermelon under her shirt.”
“I see. Well, enjoy your dinner.”
I turned to leave, and Fiona reached out to grab hold of my elbow to stop me from walking away. I glanced down at where her hand touched me and narrowed my eyes to venomous slits.
“Wait,” she said hesitantly. “I thought we were going to dinner.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that I would take you out to dinner?”
“You said…” She seemed to think about it as she hesitated.
“I didn’t invite you out. No one saw you eat today. Figured you could use a cheeseburger.”
I tossed those words at her and walked away before she could say anything else. Once I got back to my room, I called up Locke. He was one of our security guys at the new studio.
“Need someone to check into Fiona and follow her for the next couple days. It is imperative I know where she goes. If she buys anything at all, no matter how small, weird, or whatever. And if she attends any doctor appointments.”
“Sure thing, man. I can take care of it myself or get someone else on it first if you can’t spare me.”
“Take it yourself. I trust you to follow through.”
“Will do.”
Two days later, Fiona approached me when I got back to my room after work. She was sitting outside my door waiting on me. I already knew because hotel security had called to let me know that one of their guests made it up to the lobby area of the penthouse.
“Fiona,” I called as I walked off the elevator. “Security called me about you being here. What is it that you want?”
She took her time to get off the floor, as if it was hard to do because of her non-existent belly.
“Since you were concerned about my lack of weight gain, I went to see my doctor.”
No, she didn’t.
“He told me everything was fine but reminded me that if I wanted to give birth back in the US, I needed to plan on leaving Australia soon. The longer the flight, the earlier the airlines want you to stop flying, so…” Her voice trailed off as if I should already know the rest.
I stared at her and waited for the rest of her lies. I already knew she hadn’t been anywhere near a doctor’s office. That wasn’t a smoking gun that she faked a pregnancy by any means, but it didn’t look good for her, since she was lying through her teeth.
“I booked a flight back to Atlanta. My stepmom is going to pick me up and I’ll stay with her and my dad until you get back, too.” She rocked back and forth on her feet, as if she was nervous. “Unless you can come with me now.”
“Why in the hell would I travel with you?”
