Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
We’re stuck… until Macy’s lips twist like she isn’t about to drop a bomb. “Why don’t we just knock on her front door?”
I’m too stunned to speak, so Brandon picks up the slack. “What?”
Macy’s smile hides the hurt in her eyes. I don’t believe her pain is physical. She’s been quiet since I identified the mysterious brunette from the surveillance footage. “Tobias always encouraged an old-fashioned approach. I’ll walk up and pretend to be a neighbor. People let their guard down when they think you’re harmless.” She waves her hand at her stomach, which I haven’t gotten around to unwrapping yet. “This makes me appear harmless.”
Brandon’s frown draws lines across his forehead. “That’s risky.”
“It’s simple.” Macy overemphasizes her last word. “And sometimes simple is all you need.”
With Brandon mute, Macy wordlessly gauges my opinion of her suggestion. I’m torn. She’s already spent hours on her feet today. I don’t want her to go into premature labor for me. But I’m also desperate.
After a beat, I say, “Let me think about it—”
“Time isn’t on our side, Grayson. This needs to happen tonight.”
“Tonight?” Brandon and I shout in sync.
Macy nods, hope flickering in her eyes when she spots the concern beaming out of mine.
“Why tonight?”
She fetches a coat from the back of the couch and heads to the door while saying, “Because it’s dinner time and I’m starving.”
Forty-five minutes later, Macy stands outside Cameron’s building. She’s dressed in the outfit she wore during our sting, so we didn’t have to wire up anything new, and she pulled her hair back in a low-riding bun. She is also holding an empty plate as if it is a perfectly normal thing to do.
Brandon and I undertake surveillance from a van parked down the street. He hacked into every camera in Cameron’s building and three blocks over, but my focus is on the one in Macy’s brooch. It doesn’t just show me everything she sees. It also announces her pulse and blood pressure, which I am pleased to say are in a safe range.
They weren’t when I fixed the medical tape keeping the weight of her son off her uterus. They were as spiked as her tone when she asks, “Ready?”
I click on the comms button before replying, “Ready when you are.” Her steps into the elegant foyer falter when admiration for her kickass attitude forces me to add more words to my reply. “Thanks for doing this for me, freckles. It means the world that you’re helping me with this.”
She doesn’t respond. She can’t with the eyes of the doorman on her, but the slight spike in her pulse tells me everything I need to know. She needed to hear my praise as badly as I needed to say it.
The doorman, security guard, and elevator attendant watch Macy as she moves through the expansive foyer, their stares too desirous to raise suspicion.
Even being heavily pregnant doesn’t reduce Macy’s appeal. She draws the eye of everyone in the room, and it takes more than a stern finger point to direct unwanted suitors’ focus away.
I learned that the hard way during our last three undercover gigs.
After exiting the elevator on the fifth floor, Macy walks up to apartment 5E and knocks on the door. My heart leaps into my throat when the door opens seconds later, and Cameron’s petite frame fills the doorway. Her face is pale, her eyes wary, but Macy was right. A second after she takes in Macy’s plumped-out midsection, the fear in her eyes fades.
Macy blinds Cameron with a grin so beaming it bounces off Cameron’s dilated gaze. “Hi! I recently moved in, and although this is highly inappropriate and somewhat embarrassing, I smelled your dinner while collecting my dry cleaning from the concierge”—Macy wiggles the empty plate—“and I couldn’t stop myself from checking if you have any leftovers?”
Cameron hesitates. Then, slowly, she opens the door wider. “Sure. Come in.”
When Macy steps inside an area we can only monitor through her button camera, I grip the comms mic so firmly that my knuckles go white. “She’s in.”
Brandon hums to display he heard me, but he’s too busy categorizing every inch of Cameron’s penthouse-size apartment to issue a verbal reply. He takes in everything—the letters on the entryway table, the handful of photos scattered on the mantel when they veer past the opulent living room, and the products on the kitchen island. Even something as simple as a spice only being sold at one grocer can break a case like this.
Unlike when she was a teen, Cameron is confident in the kitchen. Almost theatrical. I imagine the smell of garlic and roasted chicken—Cameron’s favorite combination—when Macy follows her into the kitchen. Cameron only ordered one dish when we ate out, but now she moves around the room, making her favorite meal from scratch.
When Macy’s face reflects off the mirrored backsplash, my heart thumps loudly. Earlier today, Macy and I shared a kiss that was exciting and fresh. Now she’s undercover in my once-missing girlfriend’s apartment.