Hidden Agenda

“Daniel’s instructions were pretty clear. I’m not supposed to do anything except keep my eyes and ears open and report to him. He told me not to actively investigate.”

Celeste made a face. “Good thing you’ve got a mind of your own.” She shouldered her red patent-leather purse, too large to be legal as an airline carry-on, and made her way to the front door with her enormous ring of keys. “You listen to me, and you’ll come out of this operation smelling like a rose. The first thing you have to do is make friends with the other support staff—admins, legal assistants. They’ll gossip about their bosses, I guarantee it.”

“That’s a wonderful idea…in theory. But I suck at making new friends.” Oddly, though, Celeste seemed to like Jillian. The elderly woman was fierce and gruff with most everyone else, but she treated Jillian like her baby chick.

Celeste dropped her keys into her purse, then paused to look Jillian up and down. “You’re too perfect,” she said bluntly. “You intimidate other women. They despise you even as they want to be just like you.”

Leave it to Celeste to speak the unvarnished truth.

“Don’t worry,” Celeste soothed. “It’s nothing to do with your personality.”

Jillian wasn’t so sure about that. Last year, when Daniel’s eventual wife, Jamie, got sick, some people actually suspected Jillian of poisoning her.

“But you might try looking more…ordinary.”

“Ordinary.” Jillian wasn’t sure what Celeste meant. She felt she was ordinary.

“Like you don’t have a trust fund, girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

Celeste shut off the lights and set the security alarm. Phil, the night watchman, would arrive shortly. Celeste had left him a Snickers bar, Jillian noticed. She licked her lips, wondering if Phil would mind…

“Now,” Celeste said, snapping Jillian’s attention away from the chocolate temptation, “aside from the other secretaries, you need to get to know the janitors, or anybody who cleans or makes repairs. Those people are essentially invisible, but they see and hear much more than you think. Imagine what they could find out just by looking through the trash.”

“That’s the key? Getting to know people at work?”

“It’s the cornerstone of all undercover work, all police work, really. People have to get to know you before they’ll trust you. And they have to trust you before they’ll tell you their secrets.”

“Thanks, Celeste.” It sounded like good advice to her, and she could do it without disobeying Daniel’s orders to refrain from actively investigating, something he deemed too risky because she didn’t have police training.

“Oh, one more thing.” Celeste reached into her voluminous bag and drew out a small, black disk about the size of a quarter. “It’s a listening bug. Plant it in the office of someone you want to spy on, hide the digital recorder within a hundred feet. It’s voice-activated. The recorder has a memory card. You pop it into your computer and listen to the audiofiles. Elevates eavesdropping to a whole new level. Go on, take it.”

Jillian hesitated. “What if I get caught eavesdropping? I’d get fired and my cover would be blown.”

Celeste lowered her voice. “Daniel said to listen, right? This is listening. You gotta take some chances sometimes. I worked undercover in Vice playing a prostitute. Had to deal with some pretty shady characters. My life depended on keeping my identity and my true purpose a secret. You just have to be smart about it.”

Jillian took the bug and the small recorder with murmured thanks and hurriedly tucked it into her own purse. Despite Celeste’s confidence, she wouldn’t use it—she couldn’t take the risk of getting caught. Not only would Mayall Lumber fire her, but so would Daniel.

CHAPTER TWO

JILLIAN ROLLED INTO THE Mayall Lumber parking garage at 6:45 a.m., bleary-eyed but pleased to have missed the worst of the rush hour traffic. That was one benefit of showing up to work at the butt-crack of dawn.

She couldn’t think of any others.

No matter how hard she tried, she’d never been a morning person. Years of 6:00-a.m. swim practice, early college classes and working for Daniel—who also had expected her to rise early—hadn’t cured her of the tendency to sleep until noon if nothing woke her up.

Still, she was self-disciplined enough to manage to do a good imitation of a lark when called for. She’d driven through Starbucks for a Venti cappuccino and had been sipping on it nonstop during her commute. A healthy dose of caffeine now coursed through her system; at least her eyelids no longer drooped.

She opened the parking garage door with her new magnetic key card and smiled at the security guard seated at a desk just inside the door. The guard’s name tag identified her as Letitia, and she wasn’t exactly intimidating with her three-inch fingernails and an avalanche of springy curls pointing every which way. But Jillian tried not to judge by appearances.

Letitia looked at her quizzically, and Jillian showed her the badge on a lanyard looped around her neck.

“My first day,” she said.

The roly-poly guard looked her over, then decided to smile, revealing a row of crooked but bright white teeth in her round face. “Yeah? What department?”

“I’m an admin in Timber Operations.”

“Don’t tell me you’re reporting to Conner Blake?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The smile turned to a dubious frown. “Good luck, sister. You’ll need it.”

Jillian saw no reason not to start her undercover work on the spot. Letitia could be a good resource, seeing as she knew everyone and saw them coming and going to and from the building. “He couldn’t be that bad.”

“If you’re still here by lunchtime, there’ll be a betting pool started. Everyone puts in a dollar and guesses the exact hour you’ll quit. I usually pick 10:00 a.m. the second day—so far, I’m up twenty bucks.”

“Really.” Was Letitia having a joke at Jillian’s expense? “What if I stay?”

“You think you’re made of pretty strong stuff?”

Jillian thrust out her chin. “Yes, I do. No one could be as bad as my old boss. Imagine the ruthlessness of Attila the Hun combined with the incompetence of Barney Fife.” She hoped Daniel never got wind of that description. He wasn’t at all incompetent, but he could be ruthless when he wanted something.

Letitia snorted, almost a laugh. “Maybe your old boss was bad, but was he a murderer?”

Jillian’s heart thudded so loudly she was sure Letitia could hear it. “Excuse me?”

“I guess you haven’t heard about Greg Tynes.”

“Oh, the man who was killed. Yes, I did hear something about that.” Jillian didn’t want to appear terminally ignorant.

Letitia nodded. “He worked in Mr. Blake’s department. We all think Mr. Blake did it.”

“Why?” Jillian didn’t have to fake her horror. She’d known someone at Mayall Lumber might be a killer, but she’d never imagined it might be her boss.

“Mr. Blake is mean, that’s why.”

“Does he have a temper?” She couldn’t recall Conner ever losing his temper, but he did have a devilish streak.

“Not a temper. It’s more like…a darkness,” Letitia said, warming to her topic. “There’s a reason that man can’t keep an assistant. They always just…” Letitia lowered her voice to a whisper “…disappear.”

Dear Lord.

Letitia clapped a hand over her mouth. “Now I’ve gone and said way more than I should. Never mind me. I’m sure you and Mr. Blake will work out just fine.”

“We will.” They had to.