Pamela laughed softly. “I know.”
The pause that followed was loaded, and both women were weighing it.
“He’s out with a customer all day, but I’ll be sure to tell him when I see him for dinner,” Pamela said lightly.
Maggie’s hand tightened around the phone. “Dinner?” she tried not to choke on the word.
“I doubt he’ll call in, but I’ll get the message to him after his meetings are done.”
When they have dinner together.
“Thank you,” she said, far too quickly. “Goodbye.”
She pulled the phone away as if it might bite her.
“You need to know when to stop, Mags,” Jo Ellen said. “The glowing-and-pregnant monologue? Too far.”
“She needed to know his wife is pregnant,” Maggie said—though her pulse was still racing. “But, oh. That lying is exhausting. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Practice,” Jo Ellen said, standing. “So now we have a plan.”
“We do?”
“We’re going to follow Pamela to dinner.”
“We are?” Maggie shook her head. “We don’t even know what she looks like.”
“We don’t, but…” She clicky-clacked on the keyboard. “Pamela Wentworth…gimme a sec…come on, Oscar. Oh, here we go.”
“Is that her?” Maggie asked, leaning forward in shock.
“According to LinkedIn, this is Pamela Wentworth, senior administrative assistant at Meridian Software. Yikes. Look at her. Nothing ‘senior’ about that babe.”
Maggie groaned as she got a good look at a woman who appeared to be about twenty-five with long, honey blond hair, huge eyes, and a smile that would light up Atlanta.
“Holy…cow.”
“Please, that picture is Photoshopped to death,” Jo Ellen announced. “No one’s skin looks like that IRL.”
“IRL?”
“In real life,” she explained like a teenager exasperated with aging parents. “We have plenty of time, but we should be outside the office building early or we can sit in the lobby. Whatever. We’ll case the joint, find our target, and follow her as long as we can. And we’ll bring Oscar. He’s amazing, isn’t he?”
Maggie lifted the yellow book, feeling as dumb as the “Dummies” it was written for. “At least he didn’t suggest we limp.”
Jo Ellen shot a brow. “If we follow, we limp. That’s the rule.”
Maggie closed her eyes. “I hate you.”
“Inconspicuous?Does the word mean nothing to you?” Maggie waved the scarf that Jo Ellen had produced from her bag, watching in horror as she pulled out giant sunglasses. “It’s late afternoon?—”
“In the summer, sun’s still out.” Jo Ellen slid hers on. “Fab, huh?”
“I’mnotwearing sunglasses or a scarf.”
“Maggie, you have short silver hair, high cheekbones, and a very distinctive look,” Jo Ellen insisted. “It’s entirely possible that Anthony has a picture of you on his desk at work.”
“Unlikely.”
