settled at the house, I can take care of that.”
The idea of him buying her clothes made her heat up again. That was an intimate thing for a man to do for a woman. She didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t seem to expect an answer. Maybe he bought clothes for women all the time.
She didn’t think so. He’d been a SEAL. Not a lot of department stores where they worked.
Would he ask her about sizes or simply do a visual inspection? Oh boy. She was edging toward hot.
“It normally wouldn’t be that far in good weather,” he said, oblivious to her temperature-control troubles. “It will take us longer today. But first there’s something we need to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Remember last night I told you that I thought the Mercedes Men were going to come back. We need to see if I was right.”
That was a bucket of ice water. “How do you propose we do that?”
“We need to get somewhere where we can see them and they can’t see us.”
She looked around. The palette was white with a little gray from the bare trees. But then she saw what might be a possibility. The hotel was on a service road, off the Interstate. It went for about a half mile before it reconnected with the highway.
Down the service road, about halfway to the Interstate, were two other buildings. She hadn’t noticed them the previous night. Of course, it had been dark when they’d arrived. It wasn’t another hotel. No, these were one-story cement structures, each with three big garage doors. The building closest to them had a partial second story made of wood, painted white, as if it had been added at some time.
From that vantage they would certainly have a good view of the hotel parking lot but would need binoculars if they wanted to see anything in detail. She realized she was tracking when he reached into the backseat, unzipped his bag and pulled out a pair. She looked at them closer. Military issue. Very nice.
“We still need to get into the building,” she said.
He put the binoculars to his eyes and took a long look. When he pulled them away, he said, “There are only two cars in the parking lot for two big buildings. Both are snow-covered. I suspect the cars were there all night. Now, it’s possible that somebody spent the night at work. More likely, I’d think, that the drivers were too nervous to drive their own vehicles and got a ride with a coworker.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if there are people inside.”
He shrugged. “Hopefully, we can avoid any interaction.”
“Hopefully,” she said drily. “But there may be more people coming. It’s a workday.”
“In Missouri, two inches of snow can bring the economy to a standstill. Eight to ten inches like this is a hundred-pound gorilla. People won’t be able to get out of their driveways. Anyone who can won’t want to travel any farther than the local store to get bread and milk. I’m going with the relatively safe assumption that anybody who works there has the day off.”
“There’s still the issue of the building being locked.”
He smiled. “Locked doors aren’t generally too much of a problem for me. Alarm systems, now, they can be a bit trickier. Let’s just hope there isn’t one.”
“So we’re just going to drive down there, park and hope for the best?”
“Something like that,” he said.
She had to admire his confidence that bordered on cockiness. And it certainly felt good to be doing something versus hiding out in a hotel room. She glanced at the road again. “A plow must have come through sometime during the night.”
“At 4:18 this morning,” he said, proving that she really had slept like a log once she’d finally relaxed. “The road is drifting shut again but we’ll be able to get through.”
It appeared the plow had done two swipes on the service road, one in and one out. It would have been a stretch to say they’d cleared both lanes. On each side of the road, snow was piled up high, probably four or five feet, making it look as if the road was a tunnel.
He was probably right. Most drivers would decide to stay home today.
She watched the plow driver finish clearing the hotel lot. “But their parking lot hasn’t been plowed. We’ll get stuck for sure if we try to pull in.”
“I know. That’s where I’m hoping we get a little luck.”
“In the form of...?” She let her voice trail off.
“In the form of this guy,” he said, indicating the man driving the plow. “I’m hoping that he’s a smart entrepreneur and has a contract to plow out all the businesses along this service road.”
That would make sense. It would make his drive to this area worthwhile. On a day like this, to a person who did that kind of work, time was money.
It took the plow driver another ten minutes to finish the hotel lot. She realized she was holding her breath as she watched him drive to the exit of the hotel. When he turned right, she let out a breath. Two minutes later, when he made another right into the other parking lot, she smiled. “Today’s our lucky day,” she said.
“That would be nice,” Cal said. He turned off the engine. “We’re going to be here a little while,” he explained. “I don’t want to raise suspicion if somebody looks out of their hotel room and sees us idling here for a long period.”
It made sense but without heat pouring through the vents, the SUV quickly chilled and she was grateful for Cal’s warm coat. Even though she’d protested, Cal had given it to her before they’d left the hotel. “No way to avoid your feet getting wet,” he’d said. “I’d carry you but somebody might see it and think it looked odd. We don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention.”
Her feet had gotten wet on the way to the car and now they were cold. But she didn’t complain.
It took another fifteen minutes before they saw the plow driver exit the parking lot, turn right and head away from them. They waited until they saw his truck merge back onto the Interstate. Then Cal started the SUV again. He put the vehicle in Drive and took off.
When they got close, she could see that the plow driver had done a pretty good job pushing the snow to the sides, although the people who owned the cars weren’t going to be happy. He hadn’t been as careful to go around the cars as he’d been in the hotel lot. Instead, there were big piles behind each car, effectively pinning them in.
Close-up, she realized that the two buildings were attached, similarly to how some houses were connected to garages. There was a small wooden breezeway between the two cement buildings. “That looks new,” she said.
“Probably has more to do with summer than winter. Missouri gets hot and the people who work here probably want to be able to move from building to building without ever having to go outside when it’s ninety-five degrees.”
Just that quick, she could see herself in a sleeveless linen dress, briefcase strap
