Change of Heart Read online

  “Take a right,” Chelsea said.

  Eli glanced at the map, then looked at her in question.

  “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Go right. There are always service roads in these places, but they won’t show up on the GPS.”

  He followed her directions and within minutes they were on a gravel road that led them beside a huge house. It was a perfect McMansion, with great windows that looked out at the pretty lake.

  Chelsea got out of the car before Eli turned off the engine.

  “Wait a minute!” He caught her arm. “We’re trespassing.”

  “We’re a young married couple looking to buy. Besides, it’s too early for anyone to open their lake house.” She was looking across the water. “Is that Orin’s car? I wish I had binoculars.”

  Eli went to his car, got a pair, and handed them to her.

  “Part of your spy kit?” When he didn’t answer, she looked at him and Eli shrugged. “You don’t carry a firearm, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Eli said, but he was grinning.

  “I think you and I should have a talk about your life since you began working for the government.”

  “Nothing to tell. You know us nerds, we just sit at a desk all day and look at computer screens.”

  She put the binoculars up to her eyes. “Last time you went out of the country, where did you go?”

  “Antwerp.”

  “Ever been shot?”

  “Just twice.”

  She could hear the amusement in his voice. “That all?” Chelsea said. “How often do you see the president?”

  “Whenever he calls me to come.”

  “Like his kids?”

  Eli laughed. “I’ve helped a bit with homework. Isn’t that ol’ Orin?”

  Across the wide finger of the lake was a big house, mostly made of stone, with tall windows looking out over the water. There was a sprawling patio with furniture, a big barbeque pit at one end. A man in a white shirt and black trousers came out and stood there looking at the water.

  “Is that a drink in his hand?” Eli asked.

  “Yes.” Chelsea lowered the binoculars. “Good eyesight. Open the trunk, would you? I think I’ll get some of that camera equipment you got for me.”

  “I wanted it used for sunsets but you’re going to use it for spy work.”

  She ignored his comment. As she pulled a camera and a 400 mm lens out of the back, she said, “What happened to your glasses?”

  “I had a new type of eye surgery. It should be on the market in the next five or six years, but Russia wants to get a cut every time the surgery is performed anywhere in the world. That request is being fought.”

  “So you’re one of the first to try it out?”

  “It’s hard to wear glasses when you’re running away from bullets.”

  She walked back toward the lake. “You’re joking, right? You haven’t really—”

  “Who is that?”

  They watched as a woman came out of the house. She had on dark trousers and a blue blouse and she too held a drink. She was short and plump in a curvy, appealing way. Orin put his arm around her waist and pulled her close to his side.

  Chelsea propped the camera on a stone planter and began shooting. “What do you think? Mistress or wife?”

  “My guess is wife. And if she is, then he still owns the two furniture stores.”

  “How did you deduce that?” she asked, then put up her hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. The stores . . .” Her head came up. “This house is halfway between both stores so he can get to them. And if he’s here in what is usually a resort house so early in the season, it’s because he has to be here year-round to take care of the stores. Orin Peterson may have managers, but it looks like he’s a hands-on businessman.”

  Smiling, Eli took the binoculars from around her neck and looked. “That’s a wife. She’s pointing at the paving and he’s nodding, which means that she’s nagging him to do something.”

  “And since he hasn’t done it, that means he’s a husband.”

  As they were laughing, Orin began waltzing his wife around the patio, then led her into the house.

  “He’s using the distraction technique to get out of doing it,” Chelsea said. “My father is a master at it.” She looked at Eli. “Now what do we do?”

  “I’m going to take you back to Edilean. We can get there in a few hours and you can have a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow Pilar can make reservations for you to go anywhere in the world.” He held the car door open for her.

  But Chelsea sat down on the side of a stone planter, the camera on her lap. “What he’s doing is serious, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. I think that after I drop you off, I’ll run some deep background checks on him. Come on, the faster we get back, the sooner the guys can start on this.”

  Chelsea didn’t move but looked across the water to Orin’s big stone house. There was a nice motorboat beside a little dock and a cute little canoe beside that. It looked like it was possible that he and his wife did have children.

  “He took three hundred dollars from her,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  Behind her, Eli closed his eyes, and for a moment his hand tightened on the car-door handle. He walked to stand behind Chelsea. “I’ll have a government check sent to her. It’ll say tax refund on it.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sure,” Eli said. “Now I think we should go. There’s not much daylight left. Hey! We didn’t eat what we bought. Did I tell you about the trouble I had with that cooler? It’s actually a rather funny story. I—”

  She looked up at him. “You’re going to come back, aren’t you?”

  “Back here?” He looked out at the lake. “It is rather pretty. I saw signs that say there’s a little town nearby. But I know small towns bore you. Tell you what. We’ll go back to Edilean, pack some of your clothes, then we can return to this area. I bet there are resorts around here with massages and . . . and the other things girls like you like.”

  “Girls like me,” Chelsea whispered.

  “That wasn’t a put-down. I just meant pretty girls. Beautiful ones. Like you. With hair and all that.”

  When she stood up, she looked him in the eyes for a moment, then she went to the car and got in.

  Letting out a sigh of relief, Eli got into the driver’s seat. “We’ll be there very soon,” he said as he backed the car onto the little road. “Tell me about your modeling career. It sounds really interesting. My cousin Ranleigh tried that but he caused too much chaos so he left. What do you think—”

  “Go left,” Chelsea said.

  “Edilean is to the right.”

  “We’re not going there.” When she looked at him, her eyes held no humor. “We are going to drive into the town and get a couple of hotel rooms. I think that over the years that odious man has cheated Grace and her daughter, Abby, out of a lot of money. Tomorrow we’re going to start finding out if that’s true or not.”

  “Chelsea, this is not any of our business. I told you that I have friends who are law enforcement agents. My cousin Todd—”

  “They would have to get search warrants and to get them, they’d need more proof than an illegally heard conversation. By the time an arrest could be made, Orin will be living where he can’t be extradited. You know all this and it’s why you’re planning to return without me.”

  Eli’s eyes nearly shot fire—a look she’d never seen before. “We aren’t kids anymore, and yeah, it looks like there’s a lot of money involved in this.” He turned the car toward Edilean.

  Chelsea didn’t say a word.

  He drove half a mile, then pulled over to the side. “You plan to return by yourself, don’t you?”

  She took a moment before answering. “Eli, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I have to do this. I