Love on the Boardwalk (13 page)

Getting involved on an official level with a woman who might be his girlfriend was the last thing Brad wanted. “Atlantic City isn’t a place to play at investigating. Serious shit goes down here.” All right. Hard as it was, he’d put blinders on to ignore their connection and treat her like any other P.I. “Give it to me straight. Are you just practicing again, or do you honestly know, with facts and in your gut, that you’ve got a case?”

She met his gaze with cool assurance. “I
know
. I typed up a report on it last night and emailed it to Joe. Proper investigative procedure—documenting everything. He’s fully in the loop.”

And he had to respect that. God knows he’d felt that same, bone-deep certainty about cases he’d fought for over the years. Maybe they were more alike than he’d thought. “Then I won’t tag along. You say you’ve got this, and I believe you.” Still, Brad had to ask one last protective question before he dropped it. “You still have your mace?”

“Yes. And I’ve taken two self-defense courses. Money well spent no matter what. If I do decide to help Khristiana, I hear the fashion business can be brutal.”

So in the middle of this amazing night, mulling her career choices still popped into her mind? Brad resolved to up his game for round two. Because he didn’t want this whimsically adorable woman to be able to think any serious thoughts besides how right they were together. “Education’s never a waste.”

“Oh, and I already have my yellow belt.”

“Good for you. Do you know a vertical outward block?” Brad rushed at her, and she executed the move flawlessly. So flawlessly that it pushed him backward straight into the hot tub. Brad laughed so hard he swallowed a gallon of water.

Coop was right: finding a woman who could share his passions, his whole life—that was the only way to go. Now he just had to convince Trina.

Chapter Ten

If anyone had mentioned that being a navigational genius was required of an investigator, Trina might’ve given the whole thing second thoughts. And third and fourth, too. She looked down at the map covering her red shorts, up at the three-way branching of the road, and then back down. A four-leaf clover had less curves than this under—and overpass nonsense. She tossed the useless map over her shoulder into the back seat of Darcy’s car.

“Atlantic City has horrible signage. If we were trying to actually get somewhere instead of just following someone, we’d probably be lost.”

“We are lost.” Darcy’s voice had a grim undertone. Undoubtedly because her jaw was clenched and her hands in a ten and two death grip on the steering wheel.

“Yes, but on purpose. Technically, we don’t have to know where we are. We know exactly where we’re going—anywhere Misty goes.” Trina slurped at her toasted coconut chocolate latte. Getting up at dawn to tail the strippers coming off the Club Eden graveyard shift hadn’t been easy. But specialty coffee topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings made it bearable. Wherever Misty led them, Trina hoped it was near someplace she could get a refill. None for Darcy, though. She was wound tight enough.

“We still need to get back to the Atlantic Dunes at the end of this little adventure. Which is why you should have your nose in that map to figure out where we are.”

“Relax. I’ll use the GPS on my phone to...” Trina looked at the frozen screen on her phone. “Uh oh.”

“What is it? Did you see a police car? Did you get a text from Misty telling us to stop following her?”

Sheesh. Her partner was being a flat-out pain in the butt. “You’re very uptight this morning. Shouldn’t you be basking in the glow of being engaged?”

Darcy set her jaw. “I would be doing more than basking if you hadn’t dragged me out of my room at the ass-crack of dawn. Now we’re speeding down unfamiliar roads probably right into a dangerous situation.”

“Nope. No danger. We’ll safely assess from afar.” Same principle they were using to follow her. There were three cars and a lane between them and Misty’s lemon yellow sports car. “I don’t want Misty to even know we’re there. Strictly reconnaissance today. If we see anything that looks like trouble, we hightail it out of there for reinforcements.”

“Sounds good.” Darcy took her eyes off the road just long enough to slit a glare at Trina. “So what’s with the uh oh?”

“I wasn’t paying attention and accepted a full system upgrade on my phone. It’ll be unusable for, um, a while.” Yet another mistake she’d learn from and never, ever make again. Silver lining, right?

“How much of a while?”

Last time she’d followed the instructions and done it overnight. So the true answer was probably sometime after lunch. Which would only help them if Misty led them around town for the next five hours, at least. Which would no doubt freak Darcy out, as she’d left
her
phone at the hotel to charge. Trina knew that it was dumb, no, poor planning to be hot on the investigative trail without a cell phone. But, darn it, if Charlie’s Angels could solve crimes without a phone, so could she.

“Not too long,” she hedged. “Besides, see those three big wind-power thingies?”

“The windmills?”

“Yes, but I can’t call them that. Windmills are cute. They’re supposed to have people with big hats and even bigger clogs festooning them with tulips. These things look like giant, futuristic, ten-story-tall automatic fans. Anyway, they’re easy to spot for miles. We’ll use them as our guidepost. Problem solved.”

Darcy sighed. “You know Coop and I have to head back home tonight.”

“I know.”

“So what’s your plan for once I leave? You can’t run around chasing down leads by yourself on a crime so bad its annoying the Mob.”

Privately, Trina thought she could. But she got that people who cared about her wanted to coddle her and keep her safe. And she did appreciate the company. “Let’s stay positive. I’ve heard Misty talk about her twice-a-week rendezvous. And she always put
rendezvous
in air quotes. Maybe she’ll lead us straight to a big, whopping clue.”

“Not to cast aspersions, but Misty is a stripper, right? What if her air-quotes
rendezvous
is of the motel room by the hour variety?”

The problem with Darcy being the scientific type was that she tried to look at things from every angle. Why look for the bad when it might not happen at all? “Then we’ll try the same thing with Dakota. And I think I saw Jasmine whispering in a huddle with them, too. All those loose ends? One is bound to unravel.”

“Is that one of Joe’s sayings?”

“Yes. Along with
Pee whenever you can.
You never know when your next shot will come.
”

“Words to live by.”

Trina cast a wary glance at her almost empty extra-large coffee cup. “He’s a wise man.” She jerked her thumb sideways. Darcy followed the silent instruction and turned. They were in an industrial area now, with far less traffic to use as a buffer zone.

A few blocks later Misty stopped in a long parking lot adjacent to a series of low-slung, blocky buildings. Darcy parked in the row behind her. Simultaneously, both women slouched down in their seats as Misty got out and went into the end building. Trina noted it didn’t have any signage. Still, she wrote down the address on her tiny notepad. No boring black for her. Its cover was embellished with a dancing Woodstock. Because who didn’t perk up at the sight of the adorable little cartoon? When they returned to Pearl’s, Trina would do an internet search on the address and see what came up.

“Now we wait.”

Darcy cleared her throat. “What did Joe say when you emailed him your write-up of the case so far? Does he want you to go home? Or sit tight and wait for him to get down here?”

“He told me to keep my head down. And to either drop it or crack it in two days.” There’d also been a few heated lines about knowing the difference between chasing shadows and making money. But he’d finished by applauding her instincts and offering to help the moment she came up with anything more. It’d made Trina feel he did believe in her. Until he followed up by reminding her of the looming registration date for the university course. Talk about mixed signals. Or at least, signals she didn’t want to read.

“What about Brad? Does he even know what we’re doing this morning?”

Two could play that game. “Does Coop?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t want to wake him up, so I left a note that we were meeting for breakfast.” Darcy drained her coffee. “I know that as a bride I’m supposed to be stressing about fitting into the perfect dress, but I didn’t think you’d limit me to a liquid breakfast.”

“We didn’t have time for anything else.” Because she’d punched snooze on Brad’s alarm five times. Because the most amazing sex of her life tended to wear a girl out. But Trina did feel guilty about Darcy’s growling tummy. “I heard about this place that has the best biscotti on the East Coast. I promise we’ll go there afterward.”

“So what did you say to Brad?”

Do me.
More.
Again.
Don’t stop.
“He knows I’m tracking down a lead. I even asked if he wanted to come.” That third time, when she’d had her lips wrapped around him, sucking him down, he’d in fact begged to come.

“He said no?” Darcy sounded shocked.

“Even better. Brad said he believed in me.” Warmth spread through her at the memory, like a hot from the dryer towel wrapped around her heart. “I said I’ve got this under control, and he sent me on my way with a kiss.”

“Oh, Trina, that’s great.”

She didn’t bother to hold back the smug smile pulling at her lips. Trina and Darcy had been oohing and aahing over guys together for years. Heck, she’d been tempted to text her with the news last night. But Brad hadn’t left her alone for a second. Hadn’t stopped touching her. He even carried her into the elevator. “It really is. He really is. Great, I mean. Really, really great.”

“And why do you suddenly have the vocabulary skills of a third grader? What’d he do—screw you senseless?” she asked with a laugh.

“Over and over again.”

“O. M. G.” Darcy wheezed in excitement in between each letter. “You and Brad had sex?”

Adding another one for emphasis, Trina said, “Over and over and over again.” Why was Darcy so shocked? “You know he’s totally over Dana. Has been for a while now. Or maybe you didn’t know?”

“If I’d known he was so ready to move on, I would’ve fixed you guys up. My BFF with Coop’s. It’s perfect. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were all focused on the road. I figured we’d have lots of time to talk once we stopped tailing and segued into the stakeout portion of the day.”

Darcy rubbed her hands together. “Oh, we’ll definitely need all this time. I don’t want you to leave out a single detail. I want ratings in all categories: dexterity, stamina, muscles, inventiveness, overall prowess—”

Trina signed for a time-out. She was getting good flutters in her belly just thinking about all of that. Although oh-so-true, she knew labeling him Best Sex Ever wouldn’t satisfy Darcy. “He’s a solid ten across the board. Two thumbs up. Five gold stars. If sex was a competitive event, Brad would dominate the medal stand.”

“Should I start planning a double wedding?”

Trina rolled her eyes. Tried not to imagine even for a second how much fun that would be. “Bite your tongue. We’ve barely started dating. We just slept together. And I don’t have a great track record with committing to anything, as you’ve pointed out. Brad doesn’t deserve to get his heart broken again. It’s just...hard.”

Darcy held up one hand and started ticking off items on her fingers. “Um, a job you really like, your best friend planning a wedding in which you’re obviously the maid of honor, and a sexy new boyfriend—what precisely is hard about any of those things?”

“I get to be maid of honor?” Sure, they’d joked about it for years, but it was so much better to get the official ask.

“Of course.”

“Can I choose my own dress?”

“Of course not,” Darcy said with that same, indulgent smile.

“I’m scared to decide what to do next,” she blurted out. “About life. Work. And Brad.” Crap. Not that she was afraid to tell Darcy the truth. Her BFF had never looked down on her for not having a college degree. Never once asked Trina to call her Dr. Trent after she’d earned the letters PhD after her name. Trina knew the occasional shame at her untraditional career path was entirely her own. Having a best friend who was so much smarter was rough.

“Because...” Darcy prompted.

“Joe thinks I have this off-center way of looking at things that’ll make me a strong investigator. He wants me to keep working with him. But only if I take a bunch of college courses to get a certificate in investigation. And you know how I feel about tests and studying. It’ll be horrible,” she wailed. “I’ll suck. I might fail.”

“Or you might not. No matter how you do on the tests, you know you’ll learn everything. That’s what counts, in the end, not the grades. Look, I’ll help you. Tests and studying are what I do best. I’m an idiot savant of prep and cramming.”

Trina dropped her gaze to the dead phone sitting in the middle of the console. Gave into a moment of self-pity. Or self-disgust. “I’m just the idiot part of whatever you just said.”

“Shut up.” Darcy pinched her on the thigh. “I don’t let anyone insult my best friend—not even you.”

“It’s such a big decision. I prefer the fly by the seat of my pants approach to life.” She stared out the window at a bunch of seagulls looping and swirling through the air. They had it easy. “This is a big-ass, fork-in-the-road, turning-point, all-grown-up moment. And I know it’s more than time for that to happen.”

“Do you remember when you ate that ice cream cone on Labor Day and it made your tooth hurt?”

Of course. Trina never forgot an ice cream cone. “It was chocolate and peanut butter awesomeness until the pain started. That zing was so sharp I dropped my whole cone in the grass. What a waste.”

“You didn’t want to go to the dentist.” Darcy undid the seatbelt to twist and face Trina. “Fear held you back. You kept trying to swallow cold drinks on one side of your mouth and dribbling on all your shirts. When you finally went and got that cavity filled, what did you do?”

“I drank a raspberry slushy, and then ate a three-scoop sundae, because I finally could again without any pain.” Life without ice cream just wasn’t worth living.

“If you’d given in to your fear, you’d still be drinking lopsidedly. Instead, you sucked it up, had a couple of bad hours, and now things are great. This certificate course is just like getting a cavity filled. Are you really going to let fear hold you back from a lifetime of great?”

Darcy made a stellar point. Trina kind of hated that. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Are you really ready to walk away from Brad?”

“No.” Wow, that popped out of her mouth before her brain even processed the question. “But this was just supposed to be a fling. Nothing can come of it.” No matter how much she wanted to stick with her hot cop.

Darcy rummaged in the glove compartment. “Why not?”

This stakeout was worse than boring—it was
introspective.
“I’m his rebound girl. Everyone knows those don’t stick. Ever. They’re like the bread before the perfect prime rib dinner. Nice, but nobody lingers and makes a meal out of it. Maybe I’d be better off not even waiting for the end.” Better to protect her heart before it filled up any more on Brad. “Make a clean break after this weekend. I’ve distracted him from thinking about his non-honeymoon. My job is done.”

“Or maybe it’s just beginning to get good. Aha!” She triumphantly brandished a pack of gum. “Trina, I’ve never told you what to do. I’m not going to start now. I’m just going to tell you that whatever decision you make, it has to be for the right reasons. Upending your life for the wrong reasons isn’t a solution.”

“Gee, if you made the font really small, I bet you could fit that saying into a fortune cookie. Restaurant guests would be thrilled.”

Misty suddenly reappeared. She fluffed her white-blond mane of teased hair, then got back into her car. Darcy started to turn the key in the ignition, but Trina put out a hand to stop her.