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Ryder stifled a yawn as the early morning sunrays broke over the single-story roofs of Andol City’s downtown, and did her best to ignore the funky scent emanating from the nearby overflowing trash barrels. While she was at it, she kept her gaze averted from the man with smoke pouring from his ears beside her. Let him stew, her plan was solid. All he had to do was follow her lead and they’d be golden.
Devin crossed his arms as the Jeep’s engine idled in an alley just off the central square. “I don’t like this. I should be by your side.”
“Which you’ve made abundantly clear.” She opened the passenger door, ready to hop down to the fast-warming asphalt. “But there are only two entry points for Tea Time. She’s either going in the front or hitting it from the back door, which we can’t see from this standpoint.”
“I don’t want you out of my sight.” His aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, but he couldn’t cover up the vein throbbing in his temple.
Saints preserve her from overprotective men. “Can the he-man bullshit. I’m a professional.”
“It all changed last night.” He kept his profile to her, but reached out to intertwine his fingers with hers. “Things are different now.”
“Not my ability to do my job.” His concern flattered and annoyed her even as the simple act of holding hands left her aching for more of him. And wasn’t that complication just par for the course when it came to this man? “Trust me. The plan will work.”
“What if Sarah doesn’t show?”
“She’ll be there.” She had to be, otherwise their chances of success within the designated time frame went from slim to microscopic. Not something Ryder wanted to think about. “See you soon.”
Abandoning the Jeep and the pissed off man behind the wheel, she loped down the alley toward a six-foot-high concrete pineapple in front of a jewelry store. Without slowing her pace, she scrambled up to the statue’s pointy top and leaped from it to the building’s roof. Setting up in the shadow of a rooftop air conditioner, she hunkered down for what she hoped would be a short wait. From her perch, she had an unobstructed view of Tea Time’s back door and the police headquarters—for all the good proximity to Andol City’s version of law and order would do them. Shit, with the crooked cops sitting inside, having them so close would probably do more to hurt them.
She glanced at her watch. Half past seven. If everything was going according to schedule, Devin had ditched the hot pink Jeep in a municipal lot by now and was on his way up the wooden staircase to the rooftop garden on top of the sidewalk caf?
? across from Tea Time. She craned her neck and scanned the shadows surrounding the café’s potted palms and brightly colored hanging plants, but came up empty. Then an early morning sun ray hit a reflective surface, making it look as though the shadows were winking.
Devin’s aviators. Had to be.
Everything was in place—everything except Sarah Molina. As the minutes ticked by, tourists on mopeds and locals in compact cars and four-wheel drives cruised down Main Street. The bakery down the street turned over its open sign and employees filtered into other businesses surrounding the tea shop.
Ryder chewed the inside of her check, trying to burn off the fidgety energy coursing through her. Seven fifty-eight. From the information she’d gathered, Sarah Molina had lived her life at Dylan’s Department Store like a drill sergeant. If you weren’t early, you were late, according to the domineering executive assistant. But she chose now to break her own rule? Odd didn’t begin to cover the creepy-crawly feeling dancing up Ryder’s spine.
When eight o’clock rolled around, most of the businesses lining Main Street had opened, but the tea shop stayed dark and no one approached the building.
Her stomach folded in on itself as she searched the streets for any sign of Sarah or a mysterious buyer. This couldn’t be happening.
Eight-fifteen.
She’d missed something, Ryder felt it in her bones. What it was, she had no fucking clue.
She searched the area for the reflection from Devin’s sunglasses and came up empty.
Her mind spinning through the possibilities, she loped to the alley side of the building and scurried down the drainpipe. Halfway down, her thumb snagged on a metal brace securing the pipe to the turquoise-painted cement wall. Pain shot up her arm and she lost her grasp on the metal. She dropped the final few feet to the ground. Her thumb throbbed and there was a slice of skin missing, but nothing that wouldn’t heal. Just like the other bazillion scrapes and bruises from yesterday’s fight. She sucked on the side of her thumb, the metallic flavor of her blood tasting a lot like defeat.
But there wasn’t time to whine about it now. She had to find Devin. Taking off at a quick jog down the alley toward the Jeep, she kept to the building’s shadows and collided with a rail-thin tabby cat tearing around the corner. It bounced off her shins and continued along the alley as if a pack of wild dogs were on its tail.
Ryder’s sixth sense electrified the hair on the back of her neck and she slowed her pace. Approaching the end of the building with caution, she peeked around the corner at the now bustling Main Street. Shoppers shuffled down the sidewalks, stopping every few feet to look in a store window. Cars and mopeds puttered down the main drag, many circling the square at a crawl, trolling for a parking spot. Even the birds chirped as if all was right in the world.
Ready to sprint out into the street, she spotted a tell-tale reflection. She peered closer and spied the outline of Devin’s buzz cut hair. Relief took the starch out of her spine.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. It scratched against her skin like a stiff tag on a new shirt.
That’s when she spotted a woman with a glossy ebony bob in the window of the coffee shop and bakery across the street from Tea Time. A couple of lowlifes loitered outside the glass front doors. Ryder narrowed her gaze. The woman turned her head so she faced the street and took off a pair of oversize white Chanel sunglasses. Bingo.
Ryder whipped out her phone, accessed the camera, and zoomed in. The picture was fuzzy, but confirmed it was Sarah Molina.
The woman had elephant-sized brass balls to hang out in plain sight with only a pair of lackeys as protection. The goons in question were more interested in flinging rocks at the island cats roaming the streets than keeping an eye out for trouble.
Ryder was scanning the perimeter, searching for a secondary entry and exit point to the bakery when a dark blue, older model van slowed in front of the café and the side door slid open. The guards dropped their handfuls of pebbles and hustled into the vehicle. The van burned rubber as it pulled away from the curb, leaving Sarah on her own.
