“Listen, cat,” I whispered. “You can be Stella adjacent, but Mama’s gotta work here.”
I scooped her up with one hand and placed her beside me so I could hold the laptop closer. My good friend Tracers found the owner of the Land Rover right away—and no one criticized my off-key whisper singing, either.
Who was the owner? One Selena Nance.
Now came the tricky part. Did I tell Malone? Would he believe me, if I did? Obviously, Selena had done a number on him with the mean things she’d said about his eyes, but I’d thought at the time that her rationale made no sense. More likely, she knew she needed to break things off with him and was grasping for a reason.
Heck, if I were her, there’s no way I would’ve ever traded in Tiberius for Blake. No amount of money would be big enough to make me consider it.
But that was beside the point. It was possible that Blake was no longer with Selena either romantically or geographically, so it might be a good idea to stake things out before I told Malone of my suspicions.
He appeared in the hallway, and I snapped my laptop shut.
“You okay, Stark?” he asked with a yawn.
“Yeah, I had a thought. Wanted to look something up before I forgot about it.”
“Mmkay,” he said as he wandered into the kitchen. Behind me I could hear him open a cabinet and get a glass of water.
Something squeezed inside me at the familiarity of his actions. It was as though I mourned the passing of the moment before it had even finished happening. Malone paused by the love seat and offered his hand.
I took it.
Several hours later I was regretting my decision to attempt surveillance at midday. One, it was hot, and the town house where Selena lived was new enough that there wasn’t a tree in sight. Neither shade nor cover for me. Two, I was antsy thinking about another problem. Thanks to the weekend and the holiday on the Fourth, I had only that day and Monday to get my title changed over and my car’s registration paid. Technically, I had the entire month of July to get straight with the DMV, but there would be a late fee involved if I didn’t get my business handled before my birthday, which was also ... a holiday.
Oh, how I was tired of late fees.
Great. There’d be another fee for emissions testing, too.
If that wasn’t enough to make a person regret having a birthday, I didn’t know what was.
Even worse, I had yet to come up with a way to persuade the Douchecanoe to sign the title over to me. Come to think of it, I was probably doing surveillance because the next item on my agenda was getting that title no matter what it took.
Just then the two-car garage on the lower level—did I mention this was a fancy town house?—slowly opened. There was the Land Rover I remembered. It backed out, and I trained my telephoto lens on the driver as the vehicle moved past me.
Selena.
But she was alone.
My heart sank.
I slumped into the driver’s seat and yawned. I’d been stuck in my car for well over five hours at this point. I was sweaty, cranky, and dehydrated,andI had to pee. How one could both be dehydrated and have a full bladder was one of life’s great mysteries, but I seemed to be a champ at threading that particular needle.
Just as I was about to call it a day, the door to the town house opened, and out stepped a man with a trash bag in his hand. From a distance, he looked so much like Malone that my heart gave a stutter.
Then his watch glinted in the sunlight.
I focused the telephoto lens of my camera and took a picture. Then I took a grainier one with my phone. I was about to send the photo to Malone when I hesitated. This was the sort of information he would want in a phone call, wasn’t it?
I called but got sent to voicemail, so I tried again.
C’mon, Malone. Pick up, will ya?
“Bula Vinaka, Beachside.”
“What?”
“Sorry, Stark. Old joke my dad used to make. What can I do for you today, and please tell me it involves your dining room table?”
