Fool Me Once (First Wives #1)

There wasn’t a back door, and he’d only let his eyes off the restroom a few seconds at a time. He doubled his step to the door, scanned the people standing around.

On the other side of the street, a leggy brunette hidden behind large sunglasses looked away once he noticed her. He recognized her profile from the ship . . . the sunglasses. Had she bumped into him on the street? He wasn’t quite sure.

Either way, he knew she was spying on Miguel and Rogelio. He also knew, as he looked around the sea of unfamiliar faces, that he’d lost them.

He reached for his cell phone inside of his jacket pocket.

“What the hell are you doing calling this early?”

“Cut the crap, Jenkins, I need a favor.”

“At o-dark-hundred in the morning?”

“I’m in Italy. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Well aren’t you going all James Bond on me. Of course. What’s up?”

Jenkins was a good ten years younger than Reed, a decent private investigator who spent way too much time calling him to learn the trade. The man owed Reed a favor or two.

“I have a couple of names I need you to look up.”

“That’s easy.”

“In Spain.”

“Okay, maybe not so easy.”

“I have faith in you.” Reed gave him Miguel and Rogelio’s names, or at least the ones they were using on the ship, and told Jenkins to watch his e-mail for pictures of the guys.

“So what are you working on?”

Reed scanned the crowd again. “Do you know what the word private means?”

“Someone’s touchy.”

“I haven’t gotten much sleep. Dig a little, see if you can find anything.”

“Any context you can share?”

“I’m not sure if these guys are opportunistic predators or real players of some sort.”

Reed didn’t prefer to work with partners, but in this case, where he was thousands of miles from home with no real danger of putting his partner at risk, he made the exception.

Reed considered the last time he’d worked with a partner and how that had panned out.

His mind wandered back to when he carried a badge. He was a cop then, and he and his partner, Luke, had been investigating a few amateur drug dealers and were on the path to finding their suppliers. A tip had come in about a warehouse. They were going in to plant surveillance to capture the brains who were beyond the simple dealers.

The two other cops that scoped out the scene with them said they did a pass of the location when they were planting bugs, but as it turned out, that team wasn’t playing for the good guys. Reed and Luke had been ambushed. They didn’t have time to be anything but reactive when they realized the danger they were in.

The trap cost Luke the full use of his right arm and two years of his life to learn to walk again after a bullet ripped through his spine.

Reed escaped with thirty tiny stitches along his jaw and a hole through his desire to carry a badge.

It took six months for Reed to learn the truth about the pair of bad cops. Six months of investigation he had to do on his own, since the force didn’t believe Reed had a claim.

And when Reed went above his captain with the information, Reed had been the one to take the fall. One cover-up after another, and Reed ended up looking like the bad guy.

That’s when he decided to back out.

All because he hadn’t been proactive in his investigation of the drug-dealing thugs.

And what had he learned from all that? To distrust the system and work alone. Becoming a PI seemed the right move.

Still, it was hard to watch and not get involved when something bad was happening to someone good. Reed couldn’t shake the feeling bad was about to come down on his new circle of friends.

Reed hung up without saying good-bye before making his way back to the ship.

He found Lori two hours later stretched out beside Shannon by the pool. Still wearing the jeans he roamed the city in, he was slightly out of place among those soaking in the sun.

Lori tracked his frame as he walked closer, a smile on her face. “Hey. How was Florence?”

He shrugged. “Lots of statues of naked people.”

“Not your thing?” Shannon asked.

He couldn’t stop his grin, or his eyes from landing on Lori. “I like naked as much as the next guy. It’s the marble and brass thing that does nothing for me.”

Lori’s eyes narrowed, her smirk faint enough to show she heard him.

He tried to keep his eyes from traveling to the tops of her breasts.

He failed.

Lori’s chest rose and fell a few times before he looked back into her eyes.

“Ha! Maybe I should leave you two alone.” Shannon lifted her sunglasses from her eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lori cleared her throat and patted the space on the lounger by her feet.

Reed took the invitation and sat. He rested his hand on Lori’s calf and took her lack of pulling away as a positive step in the right direction.

“How is Trina?” he asked.

“Better. You just missed her. She has spent most the day out here but thought a nap was a good idea.”

“Did the doctor find anything?”

The women exchanged glances. Their body language answered before they opened their mouths. “A trace.”

His smile wavered. “Of?”

“They don’t know yet,” Shannon told him. “They sent out a blood sample.”

“Even if they do find something, chances are they won’t make a big deal about it since nothing happened. Word getting out of spiked drinks on a cruise ship is going to hurt sales.” The lawyer in Lori was coming out.

“Would that leave the ship open for liability?” he asked, knowing it would.

“Probably not, since Trina was drinking and ended up passed out in her stateroom with supervision. We found her before anything bad happened.”

That didn’t sound right to him.

When Lori didn’t meet his eyes, he knew there was more to the story. And perhaps he needed to do a little more digging into Lori’s circle of friends. He’d ask himself later if it was to find dirt for his client or collect information to keep them safe. Right now he justified all of his actions based on being a decent guy.

“Lessons learned,” Shannon said as she picked up a magazine.

He turned his attention back to Lori. “Can I sneak you away tonight?”

Shannon didn’t bother looking up from her riveting reading material when she replied. “Yes, please. Mother hen needs to let someone else helicopter for a while.”

“I’m not a mother hen.” Lori spoke first to Shannon, then turned to Reed. “I’m not.”

He placed a hand on her ankle. “After dinner? Night diving off the back of the boat?”

She lost her smile, her eyes widened. “Do they do that?”

Shannon started laughing.

He laughed and shook his head.

“Man, Lori, for a lawyer you sure are gullible.”

Reed knew if he stuck around these women long enough, one of them would reveal what Lori did for a living. So he smiled and pretended he was surprised. “A lawyer and a pole dancer. That must get complicated.”

Lori slapped at Shannon’s arm.

“Oops.”

Lori rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

He let Lori believe he’d just learned the information about her true profession but didn’t press for more. He’d do that later.

Timing was everything.

“So . . . tonight?”





Chapter Twelve