“I’ll look into it when I get home,” Hanna promised. “It may take a few days, though.”
“I still think Gayle’s A,” Aria said. “But how can we prove it?”
There was a pause on the line. “Well, A is following all of us, right?” Spencer said after a moment. “Maybe one of us could try to catch her in the act.”
“Or one of us could try to steal her cell phone,” Hanna piped up.
“That would be great, but we’d have to know her schedule and show up somewhere she’s going to be.” Aria sounded discouraged.
“I know somewhere she’s going to be.” Hanna ran her tongue over her teeth. “My dad’s campaign party tomorrow. Maybe we could figure out a way to snag her phone and go through her texts then. You guys are all going to be there anyway, right?”
Emily groaned. “I never want to see Gayle again.”
“We’ll keep you safe,” Hanna assured her. “But if Gayle does want to confront you, we could steal her phone while she’s preoccupied. Then we’ll prove she’s A.”
“But she might not be A,” Emily moaned.
“Look at it this way,” Aria said gently. “Even if she isn’t A, maybe there’s something in her phone about her search for the baby. Maybe A tipped her off or something. You want to know what she’s up to, right?”
Emily agreed, and the girls promised to be on the lookout for anyone following them and get in touch as soon as they got another message from A. After she hung up, Hanna parted two of the leaves of the potted plant and gazed into Victoria’s Secret. Mike and Colleen weren’t there anymore. Shit.
Then she spied them walking hand-in-hand toward the exit. Shooting out of the plants—and getting strange looks from the passersby—she trailed them to the parking garage. They paused by Colleen’s car and talked. Hanna ducked behind a VW Beetle to listen.
“Are you sure I can’t come with you?” Mike was saying.
“It’s probably better I go alone,” Colleen answered, her hand on the driver’s door.
“Come on.” Mike brushed Colleen’s bangs out of her eyes. “I bet it’s going to be really hot.”
Colleen kissed the tip of Mike’s nose. “I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done, okay?”
She slipped into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. Mike waved until she’d rounded the bend. Hanna darted for her car, which was parked only a few aisles away. She needed to get a move on if she was going to follow Colleen to her secret rendezvous.
She caught up to Colleen on the little driveway out of the mall to Route 30, then trailed the car down a series of back roads. Strip malls gave way to old Victorian houses and the brick-and-stone school buildings of Hollis. One street was blocked off; there had been a fender-bender between a Jeep and an old Cadillac. Hanna averted her eyes, the old memories of her own car accident from the previous summer swarming back to her. Not that she’d stayed around to see the ambulance lights.
Colleen turned onto a side street and expertly parallel-parked at the curb. Hanna turned her car around in an alley, parked crookedly, and dove into a bush just in time to see Colleen walking up the front steps of an old, grand house on the corner. Colleen rang the bell and stood back, fixing her hair.
The door opened, and a graying man with crow’s feet opened the door. “Great to see you,” he said, giving Colleen an air kiss.
“Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice,” Colleen said.
“Anything for you, dear.” The guy cupped Colleen’s face in his hands. “You have such good bone structure. You’re a natural.”
Colleen tittered bashfully. “I’m so glad you think so.”
A natural for what? Hanna pushed a branch out of the way. Was Colleen two-timing Mike with this geezer?
When the door slammed, Hanna scampered up to the porch and stared at a plaque next to the doorbell. JEFFREY LABRECQUE, it said. PHOTOGRAPHER.
Hanna snickered. So Colleen was getting professional photos taken. She knew just how that would go—if this Jeffrey character was anything like Patrick, her seedy photographer, he’d butter up Colleen and then convince her to take off her top. Mike’s jealousy of Patrick—and Hanna’s reaction to it—was what had broken them up. It could be just the thing to ruin Mike and Colleen, too.