Up in Smoke - Tessa Bailey Page 0,97

morning, she’d come to the conclusion that Connor would pay a visit to her stepfather that night. Her plan had been to plead with Bowen to go with him and make sure he didn’t do anything crazy, so she could get Sera alone and plot without the men around to cramp their style. Honestly, they took protectiveness to another level. Did she like Connor wanting to keep her safe? Yes. Would she always try to find a way around it? Also yes.

Okay, maybe her plan wasn’t foolproof. Bowen being sent along to play the level head? Funny ha ha. But she hadn’t seen another choice. When this opportunity to help Sera had come along, doubling as a distraction for Connor? She’d jumped on it. Tomorrow she’d come up with another idea. If it meant signing over the money to Luther, she would do it to keep Connor out of it.

Sera sat in the front seat of Maxwell Stark’s car laughing politely at his lame-ass jokes. The guy was good-looking, she could admit to that, but it was in a weekly eyebrow wax appointment kind of way. Too pretty. Nothing like the rugged ex-SEAL she would have to deal with later. Damn. The idea of dealing with a perturbed Connor didn’t exactly seem like a hardship. Maybe he would—

Focus.

Erin draped her arms across the back of Sera’s seat and played with the ends of her friend’s hair. “You still haven’t said where we’re going. Is it a surprise?”

Stark barely managed to stop at a red light in time, his eyes were so focused on Erin’s fingers. “I, uh, thought we could head to my house. I’m always being hounded by photographers downtown…figured this would be a nice break.”

Break. Right. Erin smiled. “Sounds…intimate.”

Sera smiled at her in the rearview, embracing the act. But there was tightness at the corners of her mouth, probably because the team, including Bowen, could hear everything being said. She hoped Sera realized they would have to separate at some point so one of them could search the house for the elusive Mr. May. Ever since she and Connor had brainstormed that theory yesterday, she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head. If he wasn’t there, they would plant the listening device, make an excuse and leave. If he was there? She’d play it by ear. And trust that Derek would have Chicago PD descending on the house if trouble presented itself.

There was that word again. Trust. It got easier every time.

They drove for fifteen minutes, leaving the city proper and entering the suburbs. Manicured lawns and long driveways, so foreign to her, threatened to snag her attention, but she focused on the street names and the turns they were taking. Stark finally pulled into a gated driveway, hitting a button on his sun visor to open a wrought iron gate. He winked at her and Sera, looking super pleased with himself, and continued toward the house where he parked beside a marble fountain. When Stark climbed out and went around back on his way to the passenger side, Erin snatched the gate remote off the visor and stuffed it into her pocket, keeping an eye on the rearview to make sure Stark didn’t see.

When Erin was in prison, she’d always imagined the correctional officers sharing a big house like Stark’s when they were off the clock. They would play paintball and munch on giant turkey legs in front of the television. Common sense had told her they probably lived in one-bedroom apartments devoid of reading material or color, but it had made her feel better somehow. Making them characters in a cheesy reality show instead of the assholes who watched her use the toilet or treated her like cattle.

Erin turned in a circle in the foyer, which had two carpeted staircases ascending to the second floor on either side. “Wow.” She placed a hand over her heart as she spotted the gaudy chandelier. “This place is amazing.”

“Designed it myself.” Douche. “It’s the one thing my wife didn’t take in the divorce.”

Erin made the pouty face she knew he wanted to see. “Some people are so greedy.”

Sera nodded. “It would have been a shame to lose something you worked so hard on.”

If she could have high-fived Sera at the moment for her subtle insertion of the phrase “hard on,” she would have. Instead, she reached up and gathered her hair on top of her head, letting her belly button peek out as she perused the