Page 9 of What Started In Deception

Yawning for the third time, she accelerated, heading toward Heights Elementary, which was two miles away, frowning when she noticed the black Ford pickup pulling away from the curb close to her house, following her. Her frown deepened when she recognized the driver as the bright morning sunshine hit his windshield. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

He was the reason that she’d lain awake all night. The jerk with the badge.

It still made absolutely no sense that he was investigating her family for possible improprieties. What did that even mean? She’d stewed about it into the wee hours of the morning and had yet to come up with an answer.

“No,” she said, adamantly shaking her head while she waited her turn to take a right, gunning it into the steady stream of traffic when she saw her chance, dismissing the notion that her uncle or cousin could have done anything so wrong that the FBI was involved.

“You’re unbelievable,” she whispered when Special Agent Corddry quickly caught up to her as he maneuvered his way around the other vehicles in the two lanes of traffic, using his blinker to ease his truck in behind her in Oliver Heights’ version of morning rush hour. The cozy town of forty thousand certainly had its busy moments, but it was nothing like the city.

“You can kiss my butt,” she said into her rearview mirror, waiting until the last second to move into the left-hand turn lane, hoping to throw him off, but he turned into the school’s parking lot seconds after she did.

“Crap,” she muttered when he slowed considerably as she pulled into her usual parking spot. “Crap,” she said again, sitting statue still, waiting for him to stop behind her, get out, and try to talk to her again, but he kept moving, driving toward the exit.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, still clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, before she glanced in the rearview mirror and realized that he was gone.

“Ignore him,” she told herself as she gathered her things with hands that weren’t quite steady. Eventually he would go away when he realized she had no intention of speaking to him or helping him in any way. She just had to wait him out.

Ty glanced at his watch in Heights Elementary’s parking lot, figuring that Lydia would head outside sooner rather than later. Her predictable schedule was off now that the kids were on their summer break.

Typically, he watched her hug or high-five her students as she sent them off to their waiting parents in the parent pickup line. Then, thirty to forty-five minutes later, she would head out to her own car, but today, the clock was ticking closer to the ninety-minute mark as the usual after-school commotion ceased to be a thing.

He glanced down at his jeans that he’d paired with a gray T-shirt, wishing that he’d opted for shorts as he sweated in the afternoon heat, but he perked up, forgetting about his discomfort, when he spotted Lydia making her way from the building to her SUV, dressed in denim shorts and a tank top when she usually wore more professional attire.

She dug into the front pocket of her leather bag, grabbing her key fob, stopping abruptly next to her door when their gazes locked through his windshield as he sat parked in the spot across from hers.

He tossed her a wave out the window as her lips moved in an unmistakable expletive, and her movements became hurried as she got behind the wheel. “You weren’t expecting that, huh?”

Normally, he kept his distance, but today, he was officially stepping things up. It was time to start getting in Lydia Monroe’s way. It was time for her to realize that he wasn’t going away.

She wasted no time backing up and heading for the exit.

He started his engine and followed in the blessed AC, maneuvering behind her in the busy afternoon traffic, watching her watch him in her rearview mirror throughout the two-mile drive.

Eventually, she slowed and turned into her fancy neighborhood, then pulled into her driveway moments later.

Instead of parking two or three houses down, he pulled up directly next to her house.

She came to an abrupt stop, not bothering with her garage door as she got out and stormed over to the driver’s side of the pickup.

He rolled down his window, sending her a friendly smile. “Hey.”

Her pretty hazel eyes were hot with temper as they narrowed to slits. “This is harassment. Stalking.”

“Actually, it’s surveillance. I’ve been following you for weeks. Today’s just the first day you’ve noticed.” Because that’s exactly the way he wanted it.

She huffed out a breath as she stood hipshot like she had yesterday. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not talking to you.”

“I need your help.”

She adamantly shook her head. “I’m not helping you.”

“Even if I have proof that something’s going on?”

“You don’t.”

He lifted the folder off his front seat, giving it a wiggle. “It’s right here.”

She visibly swallowed as she stared at the thin file. “There’s nothing you can say that will make me believe you.”