get on the elevator. Then she glanced around the lobby before ducking into the hotel bar to wait, giving the man time to get to his room and become involved in whatever questionable activity he had planned.
Standing in the doorway, she took a quick look around the dimly-lit room, searching for a small table where she could sit alone and wait. Her breath stopped as she caught a glimpse of Lucas, sitting at a table in the corner, with a dark-haired woman. The woman’s back was to Emily, and she couldn’t tell who she was, a potential investor maybe.
Lucas leaned over and whispered something in the woman’s ear and she looked to the side and laughed. It was Fiona.
Surprise mixed with anger sizzled just below the surface, sending heat to Emily’s face. Should she go and confront them? Were they carrying on behind Maggie’s back? Maybe it was just an innocent drink after work with a co-worker. Either way, she didn’t have time to deal with it right now, especially with the wig and glasses, but it would not be overlooked.
She checked her watch, then peeked again in Lucas and Fiona’s direction. She figured she should wait at least twenty minutes for her mark to settle in and his guest to arrive, so she had a few minutes to do a little reconnaissance. Feeling her wig and glasses to make sure her disguise was in place, she nonchalantly moved to a table next to theirs.
“Can I get you anything, ma’am?” a young waiter asked, taking Emily by surprise and putting her on the spot. Now she’d have to speak, which may expose her.
“No thanks, I’m waiting for a friend.” Emily raised her voice a few decibels and answered sweetly. She watched out of the corner of her eye for any hint of recognition by Lucas or Fiona, but there was none. The pair was speaking to each other in low tones, and Emily’s conversation with the waiter obliterated any chance of overhearing what they might have said.
The waiter left her alone as Lucas and Fiona stood. Lucas threw a fifty on the table and they walked out. Either Lucas is a big tipper or they’ve been here awhile.
Maggie taught an aerobics class at the Y on Monday evenings, so she’d never suspect Lucas would be with anyone else. Emily shook her head, trying to focus. Maybe it was all these wayward men she’d been tailing that made her hypersensitive to the situation.
Checking her watch again, she decided she’d left the man upstairs long enough—it was time to pay him a visit. She went to the front desk.
“Room three-ten,” Trudi muttered, looking around as she discreetly handed the hotel jacket to Emily.
“Did you see anyone come in who may have gone up to his room? A woman perhaps?” Emily asked, keeping her voice down.
“No, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have let someone in through the side door,” Trudi uttered lowly.
“All right. Thanks.” Emily turned toward the elevator.
“Go get him, girl.”
“Will do.” Emily smiled, grateful for the help, and moved to the elevator, waiting until she was inside to put the coat on.
Stepping off the elevator, dressed in the dark green hotel worker’s jacket, she walked down the hallway, the camera in her hand, reading the room numbers as she went. Emily noticed a room service tray outside of one of the other rooms with an empty champagne bottle and two glass flutes. She picked them up as a prop to get the perp to open his door.
Emily knocked on the door and called out, “Room service.”
She put her eye up to the peephole and saw the man walking toward her. She stepped back and gasped, trying to stifle a giggle. Oh, my gosh, what is going on in there?
“Room service already delivered,” the man shouted back.
“This is champagne—on the house,” Emily replied, holding the full tray close up to the peephole where the man could only read the label.
Emily heard the door unlock, so she rushed to set the tray down on the floor. She whipped the camera out of her pocket and hit the On button. He opened the door a crack, which gave Emily the opportunity to shoulder it open all the way. He stumbled back a couple of steps.
There stood Harry Wykoski, attorney-at-law, father of six, married to the same woman for twenty years, wearing a sheer red negligee and matching high-heeled slippers with little fuzzy pom-poms on them.