“I blew it,” Nick said to himself, shaking his head as he drove. Of course Cora was able to see that he was nervous, lying, and completely knocked over by her beauty. She wore casual business clothes on the news, but tonight she had worn a thin flower shirt draped over a lacy red tank top, and a black skirt. It was pretty and feminine with a hint of sexiness. And yeah, it probably stopped most men from thinking straight. While muttering some more, he grabbed his cell phone to call his cousin on the handless speaker. “Adam.”
“Hey, why are you calling so soon? What happened?”
Nick sighed. “I talked to her for maybe five minutes and then she took off. I think I made her even more suspicious.” He could hear sounds from one of the Mexican restaurants, which Adam and his parents ran, from Adam’s end.
“Man. . . Did you call Keith yet?”
“No, I’m headed back there to keep an eye on things.” They both paused. Maybe Adam had been wrong in thinking that Nick could help. Nick didn’t feel in control of the situation. This was his first assignment to prove himself loyal to the family again, and it couldn’t have gone worse (according to Keith’s expectations, of course). Nick got what he wanted, to meet Cora Evans face to face. He doubted that he made a good impression. He added, “Something’s bugging me.”
“What’s that?”
“Maybe bugging isn’t the right word. . . I’m afraid this situation with Jerry will end up involving more people than we originally intended.”
Adam paused before saying, “Only if the cops get called in, and we don’t need to do that to help Jerry and his daughter. We got this.”
“I’m playing by Keith’s rules again when I wanted to take a stand.” Nick sighed. Doing anything more could get people hurt. Cora hurt. Then Nick asked out of the blue, more or less to change the subject, “Are you sure she doesn’t have a boyfriend?”
Despite the mood, Adam laughed. “When I looked through Keith’s file, I didn’t see anything about a romantic interest, just info on her job, Jerry, and college.”
“Tell me.”
“That bad, huh? Well, she majored in journalism and aced about every class, then jumped right into a job here in Eugene. Keith had a lot more info on Jerry, but I think you know most of the boring details. The only new thing I read was that he lost his wife before working for Keith.”
That was interesting. And sad. “How?”
Adam didn’t answer right away. “It’s a little strange, she died of cancer.”
“Hmm.” Neither of them wanted to talk about the coincidence. “I’m about to pull up to the house. I’ll talk to you later.”