CHAPTER SIX
The Red Café sat in a strip mall full of eateries—restaurants, a cupcake shop, and a convenience store that sold sandwiches to go—on the outskirts of suburban Woodinville. At lunchtime, it was filled with Microsoft employees and other urban professionals. Not the kind of people you’d ordinarily suspect of dangerous, subversive behavior. Or of taking a shot or two at their neighbors.
Staci’s senses were on high alert anyway, thanks to Drew. It would have been nice to have a regular nearly ex-husband who simply told her to drive safely rather than warned her to be on the lookout for tails.
The Kubotan on her keychain jangled against her steering column as she pulled into the parking lot, reminding her that danger lurked everywhere. And not to park next to panel vans. Too easy for villains to jump out and grab you. Had Drew told her that, or had she seen it on a talk show?
Even though Staci arrived five minutes early, it took her twice that long to find a suitable, and safe according to NCS regulations, parking space. Feeling rushed and flustered, she caught the skirt of her peach-colored sundress on the edge of her seat, nearly ripping it as she got out.
May weather in Seattle is unpredictable and can be downright cold. Fortunately, it was only cloudy, not raining. A gentle breeze cut through her lightweight sweater. She cruised into Red and found her mom waiting for her in a chair by the window, next to the hostess desk.
Her mother was fastidiously put together, as always. Though Linda had recently turned fifty-five, she could have passed for forty-five. Slim and toned, she dressed in a youthful, yet age-appropriate, manner. Her thick blond hair fell in layers to her shoulders, obviously recently cut and foiled to cover the encroaching gray.
She wore a pale pink silk blouse, sleeveless light gray belted jacket, matching gray slacks, and closed-toe sling-back heels. She looked like the after picture on an episode of What Not to Wear and more like Staci’s older sister than her mom. And yet she’d recently retired after years as an executive office assistant. She claimed she’d grown so bored with the job that she hated it. She’d maxed out her pension benefits, so why keep working?
As Staci approached, Linda rose from her chair to give Staci a hug. She smelled as she had since Staci could remember, of Beautiful by Estée Lauder. Beautiful was the last perfume Staci’s dad had given Linda before he died. Sam gave her expensive new scents, but somehow nothing stuck. Linda always reverted. Staci never knew whether it was out of romance and sentimentality or simply preference that her mom refused to change.
“Mom! I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Staci said as she pulled away from the hug.
“Just got here,” Linda said, although it looked as if she’d been settled in for a while.
The hostess seated them at a two-person table by a row of windows that looked out on the parking lot. The view wasn’t stunning at Red, but the food made up for it.
A waiter appeared. Linda ordered a cucumber dry soda, which had zippo calories. Staci would have loved to order the bubbles flight of wine, four two-and-a-half-ounce pours of light, effervescent wines guaranteed to elevate your mood. She could have really used a mood elevation. Instead she followed her mother’s zero-calorie example. She needed her wits about her.
Linda caught the waiter before he left. “We’ll both have the special. Baked Brie to start, apple walnut Stilton salad, baked chicken breast, light on the Madeira glaze. And skip the artisan bread.” She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
Baked Brie! Drew knew her mother too well.
“Mom—”
Linda waved aside Staci’s objection. “Don’t start with me. We’re here to talk. I don’t want more interruptions than necessary. And besides, I know what you like.”
And what’s good for you, she may as well have added. “Yeah, but I wanted bread.”
Her mother frowned at her.
No interruptions? Staci bit her lip, worried her mother knew something. Had somehow sniffed it out. Despite his promises, had Sam spilled the beans to her already?
For a long second neither of them spoke. Each stared at the other, bracing for a confrontation. Finally, Staci shrugged. Her mother had won. She always did. She wielded the mom-edge like a prizefighter.
Linda sighed and glanced out the window. “I’d love a flight of wine. I could really use a drink.”
“If you want one, have one. I’ll call the waiter back.”
Linda grabbed Staci’s hand before she could raise it, shook her head and laughed softly. “Dear, naive baby girl of mine. Live long enough and someday you’ll understand.”
She released Staci’s hand. “At a certain age, women become invisible to men.” She sounded more upset than wistful.
Invisibility sounded pretty darn good to Staci at the moment. If Drew didn’t notice her, she could sneak out and get on with her life. Weren’t snipers mostly male, too? If they couldn’t see her, she’d be out of danger. Now, that would be heaven.
“Even to their husbands,” Linda added, interrupting Staci’s private musings. “Someday you’ll realize that getting older means giving up more and more of the things you love.”
“Give up things you love? You mean like wine?” Staci hoped her mother only meant wine. “I’m not following.”
“Wine has calories.” Linda waved her hand airily. “Extra calories bring on the pounds, especially after menopause. I read recently that for every decade, a woman should reduce her intake by fifty to one hundred calories a day and up her exercise level by the same. I never was a big eater. At this rate, by the time I hit sixty I won’t even be able to breathe for fear of the calories in air.”
“Mom, stop worrying. You look great. And you have Sam. He’ll love you no matter what.” Much to Staci’s chagrin.
Linda teared up.
Staci braced herself. Oh, darn, she’d just stepped into a bout of her mother’s menopausal moodiness. Big time.
“You’re still young and pretty,” her mother said. “You don’t know what those extra pounds feel like around your waist.” She laughed with a sort of pathetic snort. “Waist. Right.” She shook her head.
“I was a pretty girl. An attractive woman. Men noticed me. Now my own husband can’t stand to be around me.”
Staci didn’t want to go anywhere near that pity party or the mental image of Sam “around” her mother.
Mercifully, the Brie arrived. Neither of them touched it, in the same way Staci didn’t touch the conversation bomb her mom had dropped.
The last thing Staci needed to hear was Sam’s problems in the bedroom. If there was any justice in this world, Sam was impotent and Viagra gave him no relief.
When the silence grew awkward, Staci cleared her throat. Her mother had won again. “I’m sure that’s not true, Mom.”
“It is true.” Linda’s eyes snapped.
Staci wished she could tell her mother to lose the loser Sam and good riddance. But she had the feeling that was not what her mother wanted to hear. And she wasn’t in any mood to shoulder the burden of supporting her mom through a messy breakup. Surely, her mom exaggerated. It was her MO.
“Are you sure you’re not just hormonal today?” Staci said. It was dangerous territory, but completely fair play. How many times had her mom thrown that accusation at her throughout her teen years?
To Staci’s surprise, Linda didn’t yell at her to shut up. Instead Linda grabbed the cloth napkin, dabbed her eyes, and shook her head.
“I think he’s having an affair,” Linda whispered over the lunch din.
Staci sat back in her chair. “What! Sam, having an affair? That’s … that’s ridiculous.”
Which was, in Staci’s opinion, unfortunately true. She couldn’t picture Sam having an affair. Who else would have him?
She leaned toward her mother and lowered her voice, trying to control her shock and panic, and maintain privacy. “Why would you even think that?”
Linda used a cracker to poke at the apricot-covered Brie with surprising violence, and looked up at h
er. “He’s suddenly”—Linda made quotes with her fingers—“‘traveling’ a lot.”
Staci sat up straighter. “What do you mean, traveling a lot? For business or pleasure?”
“Business. Supposedly. I hope. But more likely for pleasure.” Linda stabbed the cracker into the cheese. Her eyes glittered with anger. “He’s not where he tells me he’s going to be.”
Staci stared at her. “How do you know?”
“I have my ways of finding out. I’ve caught him in a lie.” Linda took a deep breath. “More than once.”
Staci stared at her mother, wishing she could lie as smoothly as Drew. Wishing she could lie at all. Comfort her mother. Tell her it was all probably nothing. “Have you confronted him?”
Linda shook her head. “No.”
“Mom!”
“You may not understand, this, Staci. But I’m trapped. I’m fifty-five years old. And retired. Jobless in this tight economy. Without Sam’s income, I could never live like we do now.” Linda gripped her glass of cucumber dry soda with white knuckles. “Besides, I don’t want to live alone. I love Sam. I can’t lose him. I won’t lose him.”
Staci reached across the table and touched her mother’s arm. “There could be a logical explanation.”
Which didn’t seem likely, but sounded like good advice.
“If you just talked to him about it?” Staci said.
“If he wanted me to know what’s really going on, he wouldn’t lie about where he’s going.” Linda set down her glass and clasped her hand over Staci’s where it rested on her arm. She stared at Staci again.
True enough, Staci thought. Her mom had her there. She squeezed Linda’s arm. “What do you want to do?”
“Fix this. I have to fix this.”
Staci pulled her hand back and put it in her lap. “How are you going to fix it if you don’t know for certain what’s going on? Are there any other signs of him … straying?”
“He’s been secretive lately.”
“That’s it?”
Her mom nodded.
“Secretive?” Staci paused. “If you want the truth, why don’t you hire a PI?”
Linda shook her head again as the waiter came up. He’d noticed they’d hardly touched the Brie.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, eyeing it, and looking anxious.
“It’s fine.” Staci smiled up at him. “We’re fine.”
He nodded and walked off, glancing back over his shoulder at them. Staci grabbed a cracker, loaded it with Brie, took a bite, and smiled for his benefit.
“Interruptions,” her mother muttered.
“So, a PI?” Staci said.
“I can’t.”
“Come on, Mom, work with me here. Why not? I’ll help you.”
Linda shook her head. “You don’t understand. PIs cost money.” She lowered her voice. “And I don’t have any.”
“What? But you and Sam always seem to have plenty.”
“We do. But Sam handles all the finances. I can’t take any money without him noticing.” She shrugged, an obvious maneuver to cover her embarrassment, and took a sip of soda.
Staci felt like thumping her head on the table. How dumb and dependent could her mother be?
“Mom, don’t tell me you’re one of those completely reliant women who doesn’t even know how much her husband makes or where all your accounts are?”
Her mother shrugged again as Staci muttered beneath her breath. Things just kept getting worse. They must be about at rock bottom by now.
Linda cleared her throat. “Actually, part of the reason I dropped my other engagements and made time for lunch today is that I need a favor.”
A favor? This cannot be good. A favor that requires her to ask in person, even worse. “What do you want, Mom?”
“I need you to play spy for me.”
“What!” The word burst out of Staci’s mouth so loudly heads turned to look at them. Staci put a hand to the side of her face to hide her embarrassment and looked past her tiny white appetizer plate to her mother. Spying was Drew’s venue. Not hers. She hated spying and sneaking around, and for good reason. Unfortunately, she couldn’t give her mother any of her valid objections. “I can’t play spy.”
Which was the absolute truth. You had to be able to lie to spy.
Her mother stared her in the eye. “Why not? You’re too busy to help your mother in her hour of need?”
She didn’t like her mother’s tone. “I’m looking for work. I don’t have time to go sneaking around for you.”
She couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother about reuniting with Drew just then. Too bad her mother would never know she had a professional spy at her disposal in the form of her son-in-law. Drew would jump at the chance to help her mother and get the goods on Sam. Any excuse to play with his spy toys.
Her mother smiled. “No worries. I’ve solved your job problem, too. The office administrator in Sam’s department starts her maternity leave on Monday. Sam had to pull some strings with the employment agency that will be sending her temporary replacement. But it’s all fixed.
“All you have to do is apply at Temporary Office Services and you’ve got yourself a three-month job. It could even lead to a permanent position.” She reached over and squeezed Staci’s hand. “Mom’s looking out for you.”
Yeah, sure she was. She’d just volunteered Staci for a job way beneath her pay grade and education level to suit her own needs.
Welcome to the great underemployed ranks, Stace.
CHAPTER SEVEN
From the outside, Hook House Ale looked like a pleasant, rambling pub, with half a dozen gleaming steel beer silos tacked on for fun. It sat at the base of the Woodinville Valley, among the larger breweries and wineries occupying the once rural landscape. These days the valley only played at being farmland. It housed tourist attractions, recreational amenities, a bike trail, a park, and ball fields, and tried to pretend as if industrialization and heavy urbanization had not sprung up around it.
Hook House’s parking lot could accommodate over two hundred cars; its grounds, hundreds of picnickers and bicyclists. To keep up with its larger competitors, it operated a pub and café, a gift shop, a rope course, tours that featured free ale tastings, and a liberal visitors’ policy.
A little too liberal. They let in a killer, Drew thought as he squatted alone in a remote corner of the brewing room and stared at the body of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agent Claude Martel peering up at him from among the bags of hops someone had buried him beneath.
Drew frowned in thought. This must be related to the break-in attempt his boss, Harry, had mentioned earlier when Drew arrived for work. Drew didn’t believe in coincidence.
“That’s the life of running a microbrewery. People are always trying to break in and steal the beer and the gift shop receipts. A couple of guys tried last night.” Harry had frowned, as Drew was doing now.
Something obviously felt off to him.
“At the back entrance near the brewing room. Security scared them off. Looked like a couple of vagrants. We don’t get many of those in the valley. Probably nothing to worry about. Doubt they’ll be back.”
Unless they were really body-snatchers here to recover Martel before someone else found him.
Drew made a mental note to notify security and NCS. He wanted someone watching the building in case they tried again.
It was only by luck that Drew had discovered Martel just now. Taking a shortcut through the room, he’d walked by the stack of hops and noticed a faint bloodstain on the floor. Some of the bags sat askew. Investigating, he’d uncovered Martel, who’d been undercover as an assistant brew master.
Looks like it’s time for Hook House to get firmer about the rules—no guns allowed on premises. Maybe along with carding at the beginning of the tour, they should run guests through a metal detector and search for weapons.
“What are you doing south of your border, buddy?” Drew tilted his head as he whispered to t
he dead Claude.
At least the dreaded day job wasn’t as boring as he’d feared. On the other hand, finding a dead body was not a nice way to start his fake new career. If word of this murder got out, he’d be working overtime doing heavy PR and brand damage control.
As for his real job, the last thing he needed was to be associated with a murder. He didn’t want the scrutiny and the possibility of his cover being blown. Nor did he have time to be questioned by the police or show up at a trial.
Martel, whose identity Drew had verified via a fingerprint scan, was dressed in a Hook House polo shirt, and had two to the head, execution-style.
Assassins and snipers weren’t terribly creative. Two to the head was the most effective way to take someone down. No time for the victim to scream. But he didn’t like the similarity between Claude’s head and the two holes in the pantry door of Staci’s house.
Who had Martel rattled?
He suppressed a shudder, thinking of Sam and RIOT. Hook House was Sam’s favorite watering hole. In fact, Sam had been in for lunch earlier, around eleven. Drew had run into him in the café and shot the breeze for a minute or two. Unfortunately, Drew hadn’t had much time to chat. Not enough to mention he was back with Staci. But enough to gain some insight into Sam’s mood. Sam seemed both anxious and excited. Again, Drew didn’t believe in coincidence—Sam’s undercurrent of anxiety and the dead agent on the floor. Quite likely Sam knew something about Martel and his fate.
Drew glanced around the room, and quickly searched the body. He came up empty and cursed silently.
Not that Drew wasn’t saddened and angered by a fellow agent’s death. It’s just that this death handed him a whole host of new problems in one serving.
One, a dead body was bad for business.
Two, unlike lager, ale is brewed with heat. Which meant the brewing room was warm. Soon Claude’s body would begin to smell and overwhelm the pleasant aroma of barley and hops.
Three, at two PM, which was exactly five minutes away, the next tour of eager beer enthusiasts would come swarming in and peer through the second-story viewing windows above the brewery floor. The last thing either Hook House or Drew needed was for them to see Martel’s glassy-eyed and bloody body peeking out from the pile of hops behind the brewing tanks. It wasn’t Halloween, nor was this an episode of CSI Seattle.