“Oh, you’re right. That does sound like something she would say.”
“Have you been calling each other?”
“Just if I’m out and she needs something.”
Something fishy was going on. Sheridan had told Gabby and Markus her phone was missing. Why lie about that if she wasn’t hiding something? The woman could play innocent with the best of them. At this very moment, she was probably cozying up in her mom’s room, arranging sales to God knows who to besmirch the reputation of President Simon, after pretending to be scared of him.
Gabby had been played. She could feel it.
“Mom, I have to run.” Now that she knew she’d screwed up, all she wanted to do was rewind time, or at least fix it as fast as possible.
Did she and Markus lose their jobs protecting this con artist? Ire rose in her like mercury on a hot day.
“But what did you want to talk about?” her mom asked.
“Just stop using your phone in shared spaces!” Gabby called over her shoulder on the way to have a serious discussion with Sheridan.
Gabby was too keyed up to wait for the elevator, so she hoofed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When no one answered, she keyed into Sheridan’s room. “Hello!”
The room looked the same as earlier, except with some belongings strewn around and the scent of her mom’s perfume, Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, which had always seemed to be a bold choice for a cul-de-sac mom.
No one responded to Gabby’s call, so she scanned the room more thoroughly. Right there on the kitchen counter sat Sheridan’s phone. Unbelievable. At least she hadn’t searched every room at the resort looking for it.
She picked it up. The numeric passkey Sheridan had given her earlier worked just fine. The messages were pretty innocuous and sparse, so she went to recently dialed numbers. Her mom’s number was on there. She had called one number over and over again most recently, not her mom. Gabby didn’t recognize the number, so she hit redial.
With each ring, Gabby tensed. Would it be a newspaper or a reporter? What would she do when she got them on the phone? A journalist wouldn’t share any information unless they thought she was Sheridan—protecting sources and all that. She had found thesmoking gun, and she couldn’t flub it. Her strategy: pretend to be Sheridan.
When a woman answered with a “Howdy,” Gabby said, “Morning!” in a slightly rural twang. She cringed at her own bad accent, but the woman didn’t seem to notice.
“I bet you’re calling to check on Leonard.” Before Gabby could say anything, the woman launched into an explanation of Leonard. “Oh, I had to pick up another bag of food. They were out of the kind he normally eats, but he seems to be doing okay on this other brand. It’s some sort of primal kitty brand. Has he tried that before?”
“Um…”
Before Gabby could get a word in edgewise, the woman on the phone started in again. “And that darn cat won’t let me cut the poop out of his fur. He’s being a real pickle about that.”
Gabby dropped her face into her hand. Nothing could be further from national security than Leonard’s poopy tail.
To make it sound like the line had gone bad, Gabby pressed “speaker” and held it next to a running faucet. From a distance, she said, “Thanks. That sounds great.”
“I can barely hear you, Sher,” the cat sitter yelled through the line.
“How about now?” Gabby moved farther from the speaker.
“I’m losing you.”
“I’ll try back later,” Gabby said and hung up.
Gabby collapsed on the couch, a little dejected. So much for an easy answer, but at least she hadn’t been duped by Sheridan.
While she caught her breath and tried to figure out her next move, Sheridan came out of the bathroom.
“Agent Greene! I didn’t even hear you come in!”
Gabby looked up.
“How’s everything?” Gabby said. “I dropped by to check on you.”
“I found my phone,” she said.
