I laughed. Granny was growing on me.
Melissa rubbed my arm. “There’s no other way. You’ll just have to save my life right in front of her.”
“Come again?”
“Yeah, that will work. Clear your schedule for tomorrow night. Do you think your brother and sister would be up for playing villains?”
I had no words and no clue what she was talking about. My mouth opened and closed. Melissa just laughed at my expression and kissed my cheek. “Save the chocolates and flowers for Natalya. She also hates you. But on a positive note, my mom thinks you’re cute.”
15
________
Melissa
“Granny, I can’t seem to ditch this tail.” I glanced in my rear view, where Parker was two cars back. I could see Lauren and Clay leaning forward from the back seats. Their grins were obvious, even from this distance. Apparently, summer vacation was a little more boring than they’d anticipated. They’d been happy to join in on my adventure with Granny today.
Granny picked up the set of binoculars on the console between us and turned around to look.
“No, don’t.” I lowered them from her face. She might have to meet them for real someday, and it would be helpful if she didn’t think Connor came from a family of hardened criminals. “We have to act like we don’t know they’re following us. Best case scenario, we lose them in the next few miles and then circle back to our destination.”
“But I could snap a clear picture of them with these bad boys.”
She was fascinated with the camera binoculars I’d brought. High-tech spy gear, in her mind. I’d be deleting so many pictures of innocent bystanders off them before returning them to Connor’s family. His stepmom used them for bird-watching.
“What happens if we miss the meeting?” Granny asked, glancing at the car’s clock. “You said we have to be there at six sharp. That’s in ten minutes.”
I took a deep breath in. “We’ll make it. Leave it to me.”
Right on schedule, Parker dropped away from tailing me and drove east towards the field we’d picked as our handoff location. I was giving him a five minute head start to get there. The field was down the road from Sun Valley Heavy Equipment Rental, the business Connor’s dad owned.
I made a point of mentioning Sun Valley when we drove past it, and that Connor was there today working with his dad. Granny only harrumphed, but I hoped his nearby location was a detail she’d remember later. Otherwise his rescue would seem all too convenient.
The weeds in the field were overgrown, and a property owner had long ago abandoned rusty farm tools here and there, along with a few old cars that hadn’t moved in at least ten years. Basically, it made a pretty great lookout location.
I parked my car behind one of the abandoned trucks and turned to Granny. “Remember, if anyone asks, we’re bird-watching. Got it?”
“I got it.” Granny picked up the wide brim hat I’d brought her with the fake stuffed birds all over it and stuck it on her head. “You better put yours on, too, Melissa.”
I did, smiling to myself. Once we’d involved Connor’s stepmom in the planning, she’d come up with details I never would have considered, like these hats. She was on the docket for next week to walk right past us on a busy street and hand off a mystery envelope. She already had a disguise picked out.
I got out and ran around to get Granny’s door, helping her into position with her walker and the binoculars. Around the side of the abandoned truck, we had a clear shot to see everything about to go down.
I texted the code word ‘birdstalkers’ to Connor, Parker, Lauren, and Clay, and set in to wait. Because it was so hot, we had decided to keep lag times to a minimum. The last thing we needed was for Granny to get heatstroke out here while playing spy.
“There they are,” I whispered, not thirty seconds later. Parker crept in from the back of the field with a leather briefcase, and Lauren and Clay ducked around a dead farm truck and headed his direction, high stepping through the weeds. All three were sporting white ski masks, sun glasses, and safari hats, and I had to bite back a laugh. They looked like backup dancers in a music video, except without the rhythm.
Granny harrumphed. “These pictures won’t help the CIA at all. They could be anyone.”
“Our job was just to see how many showed up. Besides, now we know their approximate height and weight. That’s something.”
“I guess.” Granny went back to looking through the binoculars and snapping images.
Parker handed off the briefcase to Clay, shook hands with both him and Lauren, and then my cell phone rang at full volume, right on schedule.
All three slowly turned to look in our direction, and even as part of the plan, their faceless stares still creeped me out.
Granny dropped the binoculars and gripped my arm. “Melissa, your phone.”
