“Are you serious?”
With a long-suffering, been-married-for-fifteen-years sigh, he said, “Yes.”
“Justin, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Since Hugh won’t agree to children, I might as well drive yours around a little.” He held up his hand in the universal sign of “stop before you get ahead of yourself.”
“All I need. Thank you.”
Kyle and Lucas were both sitting at the kitchen table with blank morning stares. Gabby pulled their lunches out of the fridge and set clean water bottles on the counter. “Lunches are packed.”
“Uh-huh,” Kyle said, never looking up from her phone. Gabby normally would have said something, but the minute Kyle put it down, the bickering would start. Justin didn’t need that. Who did?
“Betty’s gonna pick you up,” Justin announced. “I have a thing tonight, so I’ll just get in costume early.”
“Yes,” Lucas said like it was a total score, and Kyle looked pleased as punch. Betty Danger really tended to overdo things, but in a good way. There would be gourmet after-school snacks for sure, plus a rotating mirror ball and a karaoke machine, if Gabby had to guess.
Gabby finished changing into her office clothes in less than five minutes and glanced at her watch. She had four minutes until Valentina was done, assuming Valentina ran about the same pace as the winner of that charity 5K. Running was so dumb, especially now that Gabby knew you could just buy some Spanx and take off ten pounds that way.
Before stepping out the door, Gabby slipped on a pair of oversized sunglasses and tucked her red hair under a baseball hat. She pulled Darcy’s car, which was thankfully nondescript, in a spot a block from the trailhead, just close enough for a view of Valentina’sDodge Charger. Clearly, Valentina wasn’t playing it low-key this morning. Gabby had already gotten a notice from the LISTSERV with a picture of Valentina’s car and the comment“Who bought the Charger?”
Valentina might be a spy, but she had no clue how nosy the people on Avocado Avenue were.
For the first time in her entire life, Gabby’s math was perfect. Valentina popped out of the trail, looking sweaty, out of breath, and annoyed. At her car, she took a swig of water and stretched her quads briefly before peeling out of the parking lot.
Gabby followed as far behind Valentina as she dared. Once they were on the highway, she dropped a couple of car lengths behind. In her head, she heard Markus admonishing, “Slow your roll, Jane Bond.”
Fifteen minutes later, Valentina pulled into a Starbucks. Gabby looked for some on-street parking with a view of the store, but it was California. After circling the block twice, she almost gave up until someone finally left. It was criminal the way people just sat in their cars, scrolling Insta, taking up space. Rationalizing that no one was looking for her anyway, she pulled into the lot.
While she waited for Valentina to make a move, she dialed her mom. Might as well get that convo out of the way on her stakeout. As she was chatting, she glanced in the rearview mirror and actually startled herself. Her look said “kidnapped last night.”
“Hi, Mom. I’m sort of in a rush this morning, but did you get my text?”
“The one where you are backing out of helping your grandmother?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” She didn’t have time to beat around the bush with passive-aggressive comments. She swiped on somelipstick to help with her corpse-like pallor. Smirnov might as well have killed her last night from the way she looked. “I have a major… roach problem. Today isn’t a good day.”
“Roaches? Oh no, have you been letting the dishes pile up?”
Gabby could scream. Why had she called her mom on a stakeout? Worst decision ever.
“If the roach problem is too bad for your grandmother, is it safe for the kids?”
“I just don’t want to add anything more until I get this handled, Mom.”
Her mom made a judgmental noise in the back of her throat.
When Gabby was mid lipstick application and only halfway through the convo with her mom, Markus walked out of Starbucks. “Oh fuck!” Gabby muttered and slunk low in her seat to stay out of view. It would have been too simple to catch Valentina in a lie, mole identified and her biggest problem solved before the day started. Real life didn’t produce answers that quickly.
Because this car was the devil, the phone call suddenly changed to go through the car’s speakers at top volume. “Fine,” her mom said, probably loud enough for everyone at Starbucks to hear. “But you know I have that cruise, and Granny has already been evicted.”
“I just can’t, Mom,” Gabby whispered. She tried to change the output from the car back to the phone, but somehow dropped the phone under her seat.
“What?” her mom yelled louder. “Are you talking through the car again? I can’t hear you.”
“I’m driving. I have to.” She was going to die.
She sat up just enough to watch Valentina and Markus in theside mirror. Markus slid his sunglasses down and strode toward a picnic table probably ten feet behind her car. His walk was unhurried but purposeful—the speed of seduction. She was a grown-up woman with kids. Markus was her colleague, not to mention a candidate for the mole. She needed to get. It. Together.
