~
"Sorry the evening was such a bust." I placed the bag of leftovers on the backseat of Lily's Mini and slammed the door.
"No, it was great, Lex. You know I love coming here."
"Even though you had to listen to baby talk all night?"
"I now know more about babies than I ever learned at school, so it's been educational." Bless Lily, she always looked on the positive side of things even after listening to Serena's hideously endless narratives of her friends’ ghastly birth stories, which sounded like “Alien” versus “Predator” mashed up with a Disney ending. "Although I might not have sex for a while," Lily finished thoughtfully. She skittered around to the passenger side, leaving me to wedge myself into the driver's side. I had skipped the wine and Lily had helped herself to my dad's whiskey upon hearing the breech birth story.
After adjusting the seat, and the mirrors, I pulled out, and both of us waved to Mom and Dad, as I aimed for home, my mind full of Adam Maddox and the hidden room downtown stuffed with the taskforce's equipment.
I hadn't heard from Maddox, as he’d told me to call him, all night, even though I obsessively checked my phone. I thought about calling him, or sending a message (or seven), but super cool undercover operatives just didn't do that, did they? I even watched the news with Dad just in case Martin Dean's murder popped up, but there was nothing, not even an accident report or a faked suicide. Maybe the body just hadn't been found yet and no one knew where the murderers had taken him? Maddox and I were the only ones who had seen Dean dead, and overheard the murderers’ plan to move his body, but unfortunately, they hadn't left any GPS maps with a big arrow pointing to the dumpsite. For all I knew, Dean could be swimming with the fishes. Clichés aside, his death would have to be announced soon. I didn't know much about Dean's personal life, but I figured someone must be missing him.
Even my brothers didn't have any police gossip when I gently prodded them. According to them, murder was currently unheard of in Montgomery and even though I knew differently, I didn't press any further, just in case they got suspicious and I blabbed everything.
This was my one shot at proving myself, and that I was much more than just a temp.