Easy Innocence

Chapter 17

SOMETHING WAS up. Something he wasn't privy to. It could have happened before he signed on. Or maybe it just happened, and they were keeping him in the dark. He'd witnessed a flurry of private conversations between Lenny, the security chief and the guy who'd hired him, and his employer. He'd overheard a fragment of one— his boss demanding to know when they would move. Whatever was going had to be serious; his superior was more short-tempered and impatient than usual.

He figured they weren't going to let him in on it, so he was surprised when Lenny came up to him while he was hosing down the Jag.

"Got a job for you."

"Sure."

"Surveillance."

He looked up, twisted off the flow of water.

"With your experience, it should be a slam dunk. Assuming all those references you gave us weren't bullshit."

"You checked 'em."

"Umm." Lenny hesitated, hands in his pockets, as if he was still deciding whether to give him the job. "I don't have to tell you how important this is. You come through, you're on your way up. You don't, well..." The unsaid threat hung in the air.

He cleared his throat. "I won't let you down."

Lenny shot him a glance. "The target is a woman. A P.I. Used to be a cop. She's been nosing around things we're not... comfortable with. We want you to find out who she's been talking to. Where she's been going. We need to know how much she knows."

"About what?"

Again Lenny hesitated. Then, "You been watching the news?"

"There's a lot of stories on the news."

"The girl who was killed in the Forest Preserve."

"I heard about it."

"The target is the PI working the case."

He started winding the hose, making big loops with his hands. "Why her?"

Lenny shook his head. "Sorry. Need to know basis only."

He shrugged. "She got a name?"

Lenny gave him an edgy look, almost as if he didn't want to say the name out loud. "Here." Lenny scrawled something on a scrap of paper and handed it over.

Matt set the hose on the ground and peered at the name. Then he stuffed the paper in his pocket. He picked up the hose and met Lenny's cool gaze with one of his own. "When do I start?"