“I don’t feel that guilty. Sorry.”
She laughed, looping her arm through mine, leading me into the living room. “Did you bring a gift for the baby?”
“Yup.”
“Then you’re good.”
Chapter Eleven
CHARLIE
Sunday, 2:25 p.m.
“Best baby shower, ever!” Aunt Suzanne said as I drove us back across town.
“Agreed.”
Two women had run out the door crying. Another had emptied the cash from her wallet into MaryBeth’s hands before leaving. And yet another blurted out that she’d gifted a thousand-dollar bond because she felt guilty about sleeping with Travis.
Within half an hour, most of the women had fled, but we stayed to watch MaryBeth open the gifts. Skipping the customary ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, she ripped through the packages like an English terrier, tissue paper flying. Altogether, she’d swindled about three-thousand dollars in gifts, not including the cash and gift card donations. Well worth sitting in a room with your husband’s flings in my opinion.
We’d left when grandma began searching online for a place to exchange the silver baby utensils for cash.
Aunt Suzanne turned in her seat to face me, bouncing with energy. “What’s next? What should we do now?”
“I have a meeting to attend. Alone,” I answered. “Then I need to follow up on a few things.”
“Like the dead bodies that were found in your building?”
“That and someone hiring a PI to hunt down one of Baker’s employees.”
“Busy girl. I thought you were taking time off?”
“It’s still time off if I don’t have to sit at a desk writing reports.”
“True. The paperwork was always Hank’s least favorite part of the job.”
I turned right onto Commerce Street and watched a silver Honda three cars back make the same turn. The car had been behind us since we left the baby shower. I didn’t recall seeing it around this morning, or even earlier in the afternoon, but I was damn well aware of it now.
I pushed the hands-free button on the console and voice-commanded my phone to call Uncle Hank.
He answered on the second ring. “Shower over already?”
“We’ve picked up a tail,” I said while dividing my attention between the car following me and the traffic ahead. “Who’s hosting your Sunday poker game?”
“We’re at Jack’s place, over on Fisher Drive. How far away are you?”
“Give me five minutes. Can you be ready in the east parking lot? It’s a silver Honda sedan with half tinted windows.”
“We’ll handle it. Reel him in, and we’ll drop a net on him. But if anything jumps off before you get here, get your aunt somewhere safe.”
“Roger.”
“I can take care of myself!” Aunt Suzanne said, leaning forward to speak directly to the radio as I disconnected the call from the button on the steering wheel.
I’d seen Aunt Suzanne in action, and agreed that most of the time she could handle her own. But whoever was tailing us knew what they were doing.
Professional? I thought. What if…?
I commanded my phone to call Spence.
“Spencer Investigations,” Spence answered.
“You wouldn’t by chance be following me, would you?”
“No. I’m sitting in my truck outside a motel, waiting for a money shot. Why?”
I had watched the driver, now two cars back, in my rearview mirror while talking on the phone with Spence. The windshield on the Honda was only partially tinted. I couldn’t see the driver’s facial features from the nose upward, but unless Spence was a damn good ventriloquist, he wasn’t the one driving.
“Okay. Later,” I said before pressing the button to disconnect.
My phone rang seconds later and I pushed the button to answer. “Yeah?”
“Do you need me to meet you somewhere?” Spence asked, sounding concerned.
I chuckled. “No.” I disconnected the call again.
“That was rude,” Aunt Suzanne said as she window-shopped the stores passing by, perfectly relaxed about us having a tail. “Who was that?”
“Russell Spencer, goes by Spence. He’s a P.I.”
“Cute?”
“Yup. Looks good naked, too.”
“Good in bed?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t slept with him. A private investigator isn’t too far off from breaking my rule of not sleeping with the men in blue.”
“But you had a relationship with Agent Kierson. And… that fellow in Texas. He was a deputy.”
“Neither work in Miami. My rule only applies to within Miami-Dade County. And I wouldn’t call the thing I did with the deputy in Texas a relationship,” I said, sliding a smirk at Aunt Suzanne.
“How did you see Spence naked, if you haven’t had sex?” my aunt asked out of curiosity, ignoring my relationship comment.
“He sleeps in the nude. I was sort-of in his kitchen when he woke to answer his cellphone.”
“And?”
I glanced over at her, but couldn’t read her expression. “And, what?”
“Was he, well, you know… big?”
I knew Uncle Hank was the only man she’d ever seen naked. Her curiosity of the unknown was the reason I shared some of my sexual exploits with her. Sometimes they made her blush. Sometimes, like now, I wondered if she’d run off to watch porn or buy a Playgirl magazine so she could figure out what “average” meant, and where Uncle Hank stacked up against the general male population.
I didn’t want to know the answer to that question, but enjoyed watching Aunt Suzanne mentally stumble around it. “He wasn’t fully inflated so I’m not sure what the end result looks like. I’d guess above average.”
“Above average…” Aunt Suzanne whispered to herself.
I laughed out loud as I made the last left turn into the east parking lot behind Jack’s condo building.
As soon as I stopped the car, Aunt Suzanne’s door opened and Joe Jr., one of Uncle Hank’s poker buddies, pulled her from the car and led her toward the back entrance of the building. I pulled my Glock from my purse
