Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,42
the hotel. Fifteen minutes later, he was waiting at the corner of Charlotte’s street, headed toward her house, when she pulled up to the four-way stop. She was alone. He remembered Meg’s comment that she didn’t want Charlotte’s mother to be upset. Maybe the conversation should occur here.
He stepped out of the car and waved her down. She didn’t wave back but she didn’t take off in her car. He approached the car and she rolled down her window.
“Detective,” she said, looking in her rearview mirror.
There was nobody coming. He didn’t care. If someone happened by, they could just go around. “Morning, Charlotte,” he said.
“This is a little surprising,” she said, irritation evident in her voice.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
She tilted her chin down. “Not that it’s any business of yours but I go to a yoga class on Sunday mornings.”
He’d never been to a yoga class but something didn’t seem right. She was in full makeup and had on a nice shirt and pants. “Yeah, well, I have a couple questions for you,” he said. “About your relationship with Mason Hawkins.”
Her upper lip twitched. Once, then again. “He worked in accounting. There were times when he’d need to consult with me on an invoice. Look, I don’t want to be late.”
It was time to cut to the chase. “I saw the two of you yesterday, on the street.”
The way her face colored, he suspected that what he’d seen might have been the more platonic part of the day. He let her wonder.
“I don’t understand what business it is of yours,” she said, obviously deciding the best defense was a whiny offense.
“He’s on a short list of people who might have a grudge against Meg. Definitely my business.”
She shook her head. “I almost took him off the list before I gave it to Meg but I couldn’t take the chance that she’d remember his departure. He isn’t behind any of Meg’s problems. He’s moved on.”
The man was in his boxers in the middle of the afternoon. “Right. How long have the two of you had a thing?”
She shrugged. “We started going out a couple months before he was terminated. So I guess almost a year.” She pulled her lip and got lipstick on her front teeth. “Does Meg know about you being here?”
“No,” he lied. “She’d be pretty surprised, right?”
“I imagine. He wanted to keep it quiet. He didn’t like people knowing his business. He was always asking me if anybody was talking about him.”
Hawkins had been using her, maybe trying to keep one step ahead of anybody who was interested in looking at the financials that didn’t quite add up. For the first time, Cruz felt almost sorry for her. But he still had an uneasy feeling that there was something off here. He decided to take a chance.
“I suppose Hawkins is an okay guy,” he said, “of course, he’s no Scott Slater.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t as if I’d have much of a chance there,” she said. “Especially considering that your wife is ahead of me in line.”
Now the claws were coming out. And he felt the pain of the verbal scratch. Was Meg in line? Were the two women competing for Slater’s attention?
If they were, he didn’t think Meg realized it. She seemed genuinely fond of Charlotte.
“If I find out that Hawkins had anything to do with any of this, or that you knew about it, I won’t hesitate to bring you both down,” Cruz said.
“Take your best shot, Detective.”
Chapter Twelve
By twenty after seven, Cruz was back at the hotel. Meg and Jana were both dressed and the four-year-old was leaping around the hotel room, as if she was a reindeer on uppers.
“Sorry,” he mouthed to Meg.
She smiled. “Where were you?”
He didn’t want Charlotte to ruin their day. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s have breakfast.”
They ate in the hotel restaurant. Cruz and Jana both had pancakes and bacon, Meg had oatmeal and fruit. Meg could see a few of the younger, female waitstaff huddled together and thought they were probably speculating on who Cruz was and how Meg came to be eating at his table.
When it came time to leave the hotel, Cruz led them out the back door of the hotel, to a car that was parked in the alley. He reached above the front tire on the driver’s side and snagged a key. “Get in,” he said.
“What happened to your other rental car?” Meg asked.
“It’s still there. I just figured it wouldn’t hurt to