Falling for You

In the church foyer, he spotted a cluster of men listening to Paula give them some kind of instructions. Though Augustus Hargrove wasn’t among them, Barry edged toward the men. As soon as Paula turned her attention to the bridesmaids, Barry began his usual interview patter along with the ceremonial flashing of the ID.

“Barry Sutton, Dallas Press. Do you have time to answer a few questions?” He spoke to the group at large and waited for someone to answer him.

Someone did. “Tee time is in a half hour, man.”

“This won’t take long.” Barry took down their names and learned that they were all related to the bride. “And where is the groom?” Barry kept his smile casual and friendly.

“Gus is out front.”

Okay. Paula began herding everyone outside, so Barry followed. Two stretch limos waited next to the curb. Barry knew one of the drivers, but not the other. Quickly introducing himself, he made a note of the new guy’s name while the bridal party headed toward the white limo and the groom’s party piled into the black stretch Lincoln Navigator—an SUV on steroids.

And behind that was an unmarked white van, prickling with antenna. Augustus stood next to it and as Barry watched, a man who might have been Gus’s twin in the cold, remote department emerged.

“Oh, man, is he in trouble now,” said someone from inside the limo.

Still watching the groom and the other man, Barry bent down. “Who’s that?”

“Derek. He’s the best man.”

Okay. Now things were cooking. Barry straightened and intended to approach the two men, but their body language stopped him. The groom was not happy—understandable, but the best man wasn’t looking any too thrilled, either.

And that van. Barry swallowed a snicker. Why didn’t they just paint a big sign on the side that said Surveillance Van? Anybody who watched any cop show on TV would know what the best man was driving.

That was one tense conversation going on beside the van. Barry took a couple of steps back and tried to melt into the giggling bridesmaids who were taking pictures of themselves by their limo, but kept an eye on the men.

Shaking his head, Gus strode toward the Navigator limo.

“Hey!” The best man—Derek—grabbed his arm and Gus promptly shook it off. “A few hours max.”

“I’m getting married,” Gus called back.

“Not until tomorrow,” Derek said.

Their eyes locked.

Barry tried to extricate himself from the bridesmaids, but they’d asked him to take a group photo. It took a few seconds, but in that time, Derek must have convinced Gus to do whatever it was he wanted him to do because when Barry handed back the camera and looked toward the other limo, the two men were walking together toward the pin-cushion van.

Barry made a note of the license-plate number, then watched as the best man and the groom got into the van and the limos pulled away without them.

The groomsmen were headed to the Water Oaks Country Club for an afternoon of golf. The van was following their limo, but Barry didn’t know if Gus and Derek were going to the country club or not. He suspected not.

The white limo pulled away and Barry stared after it, torn. According to Paula’s schedule, the girls were going to spend the afternoon at the Alabaster Day Spa. Another top-notch place, a favorite of old Dallas society. He got on his cell phone and wheedled a nail-buffing appointment in an hour and a half with a nail-tech intern, and counted himself lucky to get it. He should have called a lot earlier and would have done so if the groom situation hadn’t distracted him.

Well, he had an hour and a half to wait. For a nanosecond, Barry wrestled between following his reporter’s intuition and doing the job he was supposed to be doing, before getting into his own car and gently rolling out of the parking lot. Burning rubber was for teenagers.

It didn’t take him long to catch up with the limo and the van. Barry rode along for a couple of blocks, almost convinced that they were all going to the golf course and Gus was riding with Derek just to have a private conversation when the van suddenly turned onto a side street. No signal, no nothing. Barry was caught off guard. That turn was something else. Barry had a split second to continue following the limo, or deliberately follow the van. It wasn’t as though he were driving a nondescript car, so they’d know he was behind them, but the two men couldn’t know he suspected them of…well, something.

Before he could decide what to do, his hands, all by themselves, turned the wheel of his car. He was following the groom.

And he did a bang-up job, considering they went faster and faster and red lights became more suggestions than actual rules. This wasn’t good. Barry didn’t like traffic tickets. And he didn’t want to antagonize the cops, since they’d proven to be a good source of material in the past and he was still trying to mend fences there. And yet, as the speedometer inched past the speed limit—then galloped past it—he kept up with the van.

Ah, the adrenaline rush of a breaking story. He missed this.

And then the van pulled a maneuver straight out of the Action Movie Stunt Guide for Beginners. Maybe Intermediates. It ran up onto the median, pulled a U-turn against a red light and entered traffic on the other side.

There was no way Barry was taking his car over the curb. He couldn’t believe the van had made it. Swiveling around, he watched the van slip through a strip-center parking lot and down a service alley behind the stores until honking cars alerted him that the light had changed. By the time Barry managed to get his car over to the other side of the street, he’d lost the van.

Lost the van. Lost a big, solid white van that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Man, was he rusty.

Barry parked his car. Okay, now what? There was something going on. He knew it. And he wanted to find out what. Needed to find out what.

He’d been a good boy and had taken his punishment for months, which was how long it had been since he’d sunk his teeth into a story meatier than caterers jacking up prices when it was too late to book anyone else.

He stared at the van’s license-plate number and tapped his notebook. What was with the best man? No one seemed to know him—they barely knew the groom. Barry checked the wedding info he’d been given for a last name. There it was. Best Man: Derek Stafford.

It would be interesting to find out about those two, and it was his job to write about the wedding party. Details, his new editor was constantly carping.

So she wanted details. Barry checked his Palm. Who in the police department could run the license plate for him? Stephanie? No. They’d dated and it had ended badly. Didn’t it always? Gina? Maybe. Barry had maintained his contacts as best he could, but even he had to admit that the atmosphere in the police department was chilly these days.

His last story had been an incredible piece of detective work. It had just been published too early, that’s all. But nobody held a grudge like a cop.

Barry mentally sussed out the Dallas squad room, eliminating the men—he’d taken enough guff from them over the society reporting—and settled on Megan. There had always been an unacknowledged something between them. The question of who was going to acknowledge it first and when added a nice zing to their dealings.

Barry had to admit that he missed seeing Megan at briefings more than he missed the briefings. In the cynical world of journalism, she’d been a beacon of honesty. She’d made him believe when he hadn’t wanted to. How corny was that?

Way too corny. He had to push the zing aside and snap out of it. The point was that Megan was his best bet to run the plate. He sent her a quick e-mail.

2

MEGAN ESTERBROOK STARED at her computer screen. The nerve! Her squeak of outrage alerted Gina, a fellow policewoman whose desk faced hers.

In answer to Gina’s arched eyebrow, Megan opened and closed her mouth inarticulately, then pointed a finger at her computer monitor.

“What?”

Megan stared at the return e-mail address and felt her hands sweat and her heart pound. How intensely annoying. Not trusting herself to speak, she jabbed her finger at the computer screen again.

From where she sat, Gina couldn’t see Megan’s screen. After walking around the desks, she stood next to Megan’s chair. “Barry.”

“Yes!” Megan hissed. “He e-mailed me!”

“So I see.”

Gina apparently failed to understand the depth of Barry’s perfidy.

“How can Barry Sutton just expect me to ignore the fact that he’s the reason I’ve been banished to a desk for months?”

“Hit the delete key. Problem solved.”