The women emerged from the café after only twenty minutes. No more than coffee and a snack, perhaps. And if they’d talked business, then the chat must have been decisive, straight to the point. There was a brief exchange of papers in the parking lot, Keira taking a small pile of them from Felicity and then getting into her car.
“Omigod!” Barb exclaimed. “Ten to one it’s a contract.”
“A book deal?” Steve said.
“A book, a film, maybe both. Looked like enough for anything and everything. Oh. My. God.” She sounded giddy. Cole couldn’t bear to look at her, so he kept watching the screen.
For a moment Keira seemed to glance upward, and Cole flinched, wondering if she’d spotted their drone, their eye, gazing back at her. But she was just tossing hair out of her eyes. She hadn’t seen a thing. She climbed back into her car. Her agent’s BMW was already pulling out of the lot.
“I better take over if we want to have her landed by the time she gets back,” Cole said. He slipped the goggles back on.
“Okay,” Sharpe said. “Back under your power now. Are we done with surveillance for the moment?”
“Yes,” Cole said, answering for Barb and Steve, who were now muttering to each other, walking back toward the house. Hatching a plot, no doubt. Dreaming up the best and most dramatic way to confront her when she returned. And why not? he supposed. It certainly looked bad, even to him. And it threw everything into a new light, including all of last night.
Cole landed the plane with ease. Sharpe thanked him and went immediately to his plane to inspect it for damage. Cole joined him as he was crouched on one knee. It was a relief to be away from the others, although he was already dreading the moment when Keira would come wheeling around the curve from the trees.
“Now you see exactly what I was talking about. The hazards of getting involved with journalists,” Sharpe said, still looking at his plane and not at Cole.
“This isn’t about journalism. This is about them. And about this thing you brought us.”
Sharpe shook his head.
“Goddamn idiots. They’ll carve each other to pieces before they ever get the story.”
“Your bird look okay?”
“She looks fine. You did well. I did well. But what exactly have we accomplished here, other than fuck things up in this group of yours?”
“Like you said. The genie’s out of the bottle.”
“They don’t know the half of it,” Sharpe said, scowling toward Barb and Steve. “But they’ll learn soon enough. I can at least see to that.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Whatever I want it to.”
He walked away, still in a sulk, then checked the rear door on his trailer, making sure it was locked. He turned and grinned at Cole as if daring him to figure it all out. More dramatics, the last thing he wanted now, so he walked away without a further word. He went into the house for water, maybe a snack. He expected to find Barb and Steve in a celebratory mood, perhaps cocktails, the clinking of glasses. Instead they were drinking coffee, seated at the kitchen table with somber expressions.
“Unbelievable,” Barb said. “You were absolutely right.”
“I’m not so sure.” For the first time Steve sounded uncertain.
“What do you mean, not sure? She said it was her source, and look who it was. It has to be some kind of side deal.”
“We don’t know what those papers were.”
“A contract, like you said. A deal that cuts us out.”
“We don’t know that. There might be a perfectly good explanation.”
“C’mon, Steve.”
“You c’mon. We’ve all worked on stories where we thought we had the goods, everyone dead to rights, then it turned out we had it wrong, or had misinterpreted something. And Keira’s a good person at heart. The more I think about it, the less I think she’d do something like this.”
Barb stared in disbelief.
“We just saw her do it.”
“I don’t like what I saw, either. I’m just not convinced she’d do it that way.”
“Well, she’s done it. And this is professional. It has nothing to do with her personal side.”
“It has everything to do with it. And with what we just did, too, spying on her. Maybe you can separate the two, but I don’t think she does, and I know I don’t.”
Barb held her hands out in abeyance.
“Easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Then how did you mean it?”
She sighed.
“Okay. We’ll wait to hear her side. It’s not like we can kick her off the property. But if she’s making an outside deal, she has to cut us in on it. And if she won’t, then that’s the last she gets from us.”
“I’m on board with that. But then what? What if she says no?”
“We go back to my house and double down on our own sources, starting Monday. We go our way and she goes hers.”
“What about me?” Cole said. “And Sharpe, with his drone?”
Barb turned around. It was obvious by her reaction that she hadn’t heard him enter. Her expression looked more sad than disapproving.
“We’d be happy for any help you can still give us,” Barb said.
“He’s chosen sides,” Steve said. “Or have you forgotten?”
“That’s personal, too,” Barb said, “and probably none of our damn business.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. I don’t have to like it, and neither do you. But I’m not going to start telling people who they can sleep with.”
“Relax,” Cole said. “I doubt anyone would willingly sleep with anybody who just followed her down six miles of highway with a spycam. Don’t you think?” He looked at Steve. “Or had that already occurred to you?”
Steve shook his head but said nothing.
It was dark now. They expected Keira to come wheeling up the drive any minute. But half an hour passed, then an hour. Had she seen the drone after all? If so, maybe she had pointed her car west and kept on going, leaving them behind for good. But this was her family’s place. She would at least come back long enough to pack her things and kick them out.
A second hour passed, then a third. They scraped together some pasta, a wilted salad, and the dregs of a cheap Cabernet and ate together in silence. Steve was the first of them to express concern.
“You think she’s okay?”
“Call her cell if you’re suddenly so damn worried,” Barb said.
No one made a move, although Steve did check online updates from the county and state police. Cole went outside and found Sharpe tinkering with the engine by the glare of a flashlight, fine-tuning the settings. He asked if he could help. Sharpe put down his screwdriver and looked up at the sky.
“What I’d really hoped to do today was make an initial run over toward IntelPro. Start getting the lay of the land. But I guess the True Confessions crowd had other ideas.”
“Couldn’t we go in the dark? Don’t you have infrared?”
“Yes. But not for our maiden over there. We need a wider margin for error until we get a better feel for the place, don’t you think?”
“Maybe so.”
They heard a car engine in the distance, which made them look up. A few seconds later, Keira’s Nissan emerged into the clearing.
“Well, this should be interesting,” Sharpe said.
“I better go see how it goes.”
Sharpe said nothing. He nodded and went back to work on his drone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cole walked into the house just as it was beginning.
“Great,” Keira said cheerily. “I’m glad you’re all here.” She unknotted her scarf and tossed her coat on a chair. “I got some great stuff.”
“You look empty-handed to me,” Barb said.