Unauthorized Affair (Unauthorized #1)(17)
“No,” Fiore said. They don’t know who brought them here. They don’t know who outfits them, informs them, or where exactly the money goes.”
“OK then, you’re good. I’ll keep an eye on things and make sure they don’t get out of hand. And I’ll call you if there are any changes.”
The phone clicked in his ear. Fiore looked at it, irritation ruining his too-short alone time in number 2 house. He knew his operations weren’t infallible, and a high-speed investigator could probably make a connection between his three lackeys and him, in ways he couldn’t even imagine. Especially these days, with the computers. He should ask his son … but he knew how that always went.
Better for now to just trust his contact in the police department. His insurance that he’d planted years ago, nurtured, supported. For now he would wait, watch, and let the money roll in. And maybe he should start looking for some replacements for Huey, Dewey, and Louie, just in case.
Chapter 9
Jen glanced at the alarm clock for what seemed like the 50th time that night. 5:25 a.m. Her alarm wasn’t scheduled to go off for another hour, but she was thinking about getting up anyway. She’d only slept a few hours throughout night. A few fitful hours filled with wild dreams. She was too excited to sleep. Too nervous to sleep. To wound up to sleep. Her eyes swung to the chair by her bed. Her outfit for today was sitting there. She could just barely make it out in the little bit of streetlight that peeked around the window blinds. And underneath the pink Hollister t-shirt, inside a slimline holster, was her gun that she’d been issued last night at the pawn shop.
Her mind wandered to the night before, and played over it again. Besides being issued their guns, there were three shotguns secured under the counter, and they’d spent 30 minutes quick-drawing them. Jen shook her head slightly and hoped she’d never have to draw one of those guns again. That would mean something very bad was going down. And if something did go down that caused them to have to use those guns, Sgt. Foley had impressed upon them that the cops responding would not know that they were undercover cops. If things went well, no one would know until the operation was over and those three criminals were behind bars.
Jen’s mind slipped into a tiny, harmless fantasy where she secured a piece of information for Sgt. Foley that ensured he could arrest and charge all three of the men he was after. She imagined the smile that would slip onto his face, lighting it from the inside out. She imagined he would take her hand, look her deep in the eyes, and — she sat straight up in the bed, cutting off the thoughts before they could go any farther. He’s your boss, Jen. Keep it together, girl, she admonished herself. He won’t always be your boss, a tiny voice from deep inside her said. “Yeah, well, he’s my boss right now. And that makes thoughts like these stupid,” she said quietly to the empty room. She pushed herself up from the bed and made her way into the shower. So she’d be early. That was good, right?
***
At 6:45 she pushed her key into the lock at Westwood Harbor Pawn and Loan. Ryker was already inside, his binder open in front of him on the counter. She smiled at him.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” he drawled.
“No. Too excited.”
“Me too. Here’s to a good first day.” He walked to the coffee maker and grabbed her a cup of strong coffee in a Styrofoam cup, thrusting it into her hands.
“Thanks.”
They sipped coffee in silence and looked over their binders, trying to memorize the pictures of the criminals they might see. 20 minutes later, the door opened one more time and Ivy walked in. But a different Ivy than they were used to seeing. Every day that they’d seen Ivy so far, she’d worn dark t-shirts, almost-baggy jeans, scuffed sneakers, and her short, black hair had hung limply on her head. And Jen had never seen her in makeup.
This morning though, a different creature altogether walked in. Jen looked up and saw a tight, black, leather boot push the door open. Ivy was wearing skin-tight black jeans tucked in to these boots, plus a black top with a plunging neckline that showed the inner swells of two teacup-sized breasts. Jen couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But then Jen’s eyes made it to Ivy’s face and her jaw dropped. Her eyes were heavily-lined in black eyeliner which extended out past the outer edges of her eyes. She had in a small diamond nose ring. And her hair! It was spiked up into a Mohawk and shaved on the sides. Jen thought Ivy looked like a gorgeous, pint-sized punk rocker. Or an exotically-dangerous jungle cat.
She chanced a glance at Ryker and saw his jaw was open so far that his tongue was almost hanging out. It was not a good look for him. Jen giggled and ran to greet Ivy.
“Ohmygodyoulooksogood,” she breathed.
“Thanks.” Ivy smiled at her and Jen noticed it was a bigger, more confident smile than she’d ever seen Ivy give before. Before, Jen had thought of Ivy as maybe a timid mouse, scared of most everything. But this outfit seemed to give her … confidence or something.
“They said we should dress like we normally would. This is my favorite outfit, and how I always used to do my hair before I decided I wanted to be a cop,” Ivy said.
“Why in the world do you want to be a cop?” Jen asked, unable to figure out why this obvious punk-rocker chick would ever put aside her self-assured persona and try to pick up one that seemed to make her so relatively uncomfortable.