wonderful place for a honeymoon, she thought—if the lovers stayed in their rooms and out of trouble.
But these new, false honeymooners—Quinn and her? They would soon be out and about and looking for trouble … looking for what had happened to their real newlywed counterparts.
“You ready for this?” Quinn sat in the driver’s seat of the sedan they had rented after flying into Bangor, about fifty miles away. This was the first time she had seen him out of his uniform since the wedding … unless she counted when she had seen him in nothing at all.
The thought shot a plume of fire through her insides—from anxiety, she told herself. That was all. Before they had left Ft. Lukman, they had talked their plans over with Drew Connell. Since they were here very unofficially, he had agreed that it was better for them to really go undercover, take on alternate identities. Act as if they had nothing to do with the military. Or Alpha Force.
Honeymooners? He’d raised his eyebrows at that but hadn’t objected. In fact, he seemed to support the idea.
And despite Kristine’s deep misgivings, the pretense actually did make sense. They might get the same kinds of responses to their questions that the missing couple had been given. Be treated similarly by people they ran into here.
Learn something faster than if they pretended just to be acquaintances vacationing together.
They would therefore sleep in the same room. They would pretend, outside that room, to be lovey-dovey. Sexually attracted to one another.
One major problem, Kristine thought, was that it would be too easy for her to feign the latter …
“Sure. Let’s go in.” She responded to Quinn’s question with an assumed bravado.
She jumped out of the car, opened the door to the backseat and pulled out her backpack, which contained mostly clothes. It would have been hard to hide the Alpha Force elixir and light in carry-on baggage, so she had packed them in a suitcase and checked it. Even so, they had identified themselves as military to the Transportation Security Administration folks at the airport. These days, checked luggage screening looked for anything that could be turned into a terrorist bomb. An intense light might not get anyone’s attention, but the quantity of elixir might. So might the weapons they had packed.
They had given no explanation of their travel plans to the TSA people who had checked them out. Fortunately, no one had questioned them too closely. Not that they’d admit what they were up to—or that one of the tools they would take advantage of here, as soon as possible, was Quinn’s shapeshifting ability.
“I’ll take that, honey.”
Quinn’s deep voice behind her made her jump. Honey? The word shouldn’t give her shivers—at least not of pleasure. No, it was the harbinger of the night before them.
“No, thank you, dear.” She turned and gave him a couple of bats of her eyelashes, concurrently lifting her chin as if challenging him. “I can handle this, as long as you get our large bags out of the trunk and take care of them.”
“They’re on wheels.” His voice was no longer syrupy sweet. He evidently didn’t like her contradicting him. “You can pull yours.”
Too bad.
“I appreciate the offer, sweetheart, but as you know, I’m used to carrying my own backpack.” She reached over, patted his cheek that suggested the initial coarseness from the black shadow of a beard, then maneuvered the pack onto her shoulders. She started toward the door of the hotel without making sure he was dealing with the bags. She knew he would do just fine.
He caught up with her as she reached the registration desk. Amazingly, in only the short amount of time they’d had after making their decision and heading here, Quinn had already obtained fake IDs for them, including driver’s licenses and credit cards.
He had obviously maintained his contacts as a private investigator despite enlisting in the military—and not just his online skills and passwords. Maybe he intended his enlistment to be temporary. Very temporary.
She just hoped that would be the right thing for Alpha Force.
She, on the other hand, considered herself all military despite the civilian roles they played now.
“Hi,” she said to the woman behind the desk, who was clad in a brown suit and weary smile. “We’re the Scotts.” The first names on their ID cards matched their real ones, for ease of remembering them, but they’d taken on a false surname for their investigation. “Kristine and Quinn. Do you have our reservation?”
The woman, with a pin on her lapel that said she was Betty from Newport, began typing on a computer on the desk in front of her, and then her grin widened. “Yes, we do.” She ran through the formalities of taking a credit card—with their newly acquired IDs—and putting together key cards for their room. “Enjoy your stay,” she said.
“I’m sure we will.” Kristine made herself gush, even though she wasn’t a gushy person. Then she leaned toward Betty conspiratorially. “Do many other people come here on their honeymoon?”
“Why, yes.” By then Betty was beaming. “Another newlywed couple even checked in a few days ago. They’re gone now, though.”
“Did they have a good time?” Quinn asked from beside Kristine.
“I’ll bet they did, although I didn’t see them again. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay.”
On their way to the elevator, Kristine said, “Your seeing their credit card charge doesn’t mean anything. The way checking out is handled now at most hotels, with bills just slipped under the door during the last night of a reservation, there wasn’t anything suspicious about how Simon and Grace disappeared, except—”
“Except that word might have gotten around to the staff if they’d failed to take their belongings.”
“Right. So they apparently took their stuff. If so—”
“Where are they?” he finished.
Quinn had pretended not to notice Kristine’s dismay when they reached their quaint room with antique furnishings that suited the character of the converted mansion—and found only one queen-size bed in it. She hadn’t said anything except to thank him for hefting her suitcase onto one of the folding luggage stands.
They had already decided to unpack quickly, then leave right away to grab dinner at whatever spot the concierge at the inn said was the place he recommended most often to guests.
That meant it could be the place where he’d sent Simon and Grace.
Quinn and Kristine were there now, sitting at a table with a red checked tablecloth in the center of the main room. The BarHar Bistro was crowded, including the anterooms off to the sides. Apparently their concierge wasn’t the only one to recommend it—or locals already knew about, and frequented, the place. There wasn’t much space for the waitstaff to maneuver between tables, and the elbow room for diners was limited, as well.
Quinn hoped that the overcrowding was a sign that the food was good, not just that it was an in place where people dined simply because it was popular.
The place smelled tantalizing to Quinn’s enhanced senses.
