Shop and Let Die (11 page)

I’d invited them to join
me for my lunchtime shop at a popular Italian chain restaurant. I
hadn’t been certain Sophie would come, since she preferred quirky
un-chain restaurants where the appetizers were exotic—and often
expensive. I suspect those quirky high-end places weren’t the type
to follow rules, but to break them, like Sophie. She did the
jewelry shops, the high end spa shops, and she’d even done a cruise
shop once.

Celeste was a different
story. She was up for anyplace, anytime, and would no doubt have
just as good a time if we had bland food and a cute waiter as she
would if the pasta primavera was as good as the restaurant claimed.
She’d once done four coffee shops, six fast food shops, and a
quickie oil change shop in one day, and then gone out dancing with
her husband.

I was a minute late
pulling into the already busy parking lot. Fortunately, they were
both on time and had put our names in with the hostess so we got a
table right away. Because they were shoppers, they had also paid
attention to the time it took to get the table for me and emailed
me their notes before we had ordered.

“
I feel like a fancy
drink.” I declared.

“
Bad day?” Celeste eyed me
assessingly, and then grinned. “Or great night?”

“
Very good night,” I
confessed, with a grin of my own.

The waitress came up and
set down a big bowl of salad and a basket of breadsticks—that were
not on my low carb eating plan, of course — and I launched into an
account of my new dating life. Naturally, as soon as I said the
words “online dating” they were riveted.

“
You’re kidding? You went
on an online date with your husband sitting right next to
you?”

“
Technically, I didn’t go
on the date, Serena did.” I waggled my eyebrows
wickedly.

“
Did you see any good
catches?”

“
All we did last night was
set up the profile. Once we get some responses, then I’m sorry to
tell you I won’t be looking for the good ones—I will be trolling
for the bad boys.”

“
Oooh. Even better.”
Sophie was single after a divorce. She had kids but she wanted a
man again. Preferably one a little more responsible than her ex.
“Since you can’t use them because you’re so comfy cozy playing
stay-at-home-mom with Seth, why don’t you share with your good
friend Sophie.”

I laughed. “Are you into
bondage?”

“
Maybe.” She grinned
wickedly at me. “Is that darling husband of yours into
bondage?”

I frowned. “No. He’s still
into the whole real job discussion.”

Sophie waved her hand in
the air dismissively. “Just ignore him. He’s a man, he doesn’t get
it.”

“
What gripes me most is
that he wants me to get a full time job, but he doesn’t seem to
understand that if I do, something has to give. He sees it as
trading non-lucrative email for a nine-to-five paycheck and extra
bennies.”

Celeste nodded
sympathetically. “Maybe he’s jealous of your
flexibility.”

“
Maybe. But I think it
could be more. He may be up for a position as Assistant Dean. I
think he’s ashamed of what I do.”

“
That’s tough,” Celeste
agreed. She was a good wife and mom, totally devoted to helping her
husband climb his company ladder. She even cleaned her home well
enough that she could throw office shindigs once a
month.

“
The idea of having a
9-to-5 job and trying to juggle that around the kids’ lessons and
sick days, and activities just gives me the willies.”

I heard the whine in my
voice and sipped my drink. “There are lots of moms who make it
work, Seth’s right. But I don’t have the energy levels they do. I
need more down time between office and home than a short
drive.”

“
Just tell him so. You
know what you need.”

“
His steady money
discussion point is hard to argue though. Mystery shopping is hit
and miss at times. Some weeks I can work in twenty-five small shops
between carting the kids around. Some weeks I don’t get chosen for
half of the shops I apply for.”

“
Not to mention having to
wait for our pay,” Sophie murmured. “Do you know that cruise
payment just showed up in my account. I did that shop three months
ago.”

“
That’s awful. I hope Sue
pays me promptly for the date shop. I’ve already done most of the
work, although I have to monitor the responses to Serena and send
one email before I can complete the report. I wouldn’t have done it
if it weren’t for the bonus. Online dating is a little outside my
comfort zone.”

Celeste said, “Well,
better online dating than mall shopping these days, right?” She
broke out in a wide grin. “That reminds me. I got you something.”
She took a small bag out of her huge purse and slid it across the
table.

I opened the bag and
peeked in. Celeste gave awesome little gifts. Usually. “Pepper
spray?” I looked up, unsure what to make of it.

She shrugged. “For when
you shop the mall. I have one, too.”

Sophie shuddered. “Why
does anyone shop the mall when there are so many cute little
boutiques along the coast? I keep telling you two to start asking
for the big assignments. Cruises are wonderful.”

I smiled at Celeste, who
smiled back at me and rolled her eyes. We’d both heard Sophie’s
advice before, and we knew it was useless to tell her that not
every shopper was instantly awarded the high end shops. I put the
pepper spray in my purse. “Thanks. I think. But I don’t have a mall
in my immediate future.”

“
Anything interesting at
all in your future?” Celeste made her ‘share your secret agent
scoop’ face. This meant she was trying to keep the discussion on
the down low, so no one would overhear and accidentally out us as
mystery shoppers.

“
No, but I had an
adventure of sorts on one shop.” I told them about the job fair
shop, and the impossibly handsome green-eyed agent. They were
suitably impressed.

“
You should apply,”
Celeste said.

“
Juggling the FBI and the
PTA would make me lose my mind.”

She nodded. “Of course. I
didn’t say take the job. I said apply. That way you’d see what your
future could possibly hold. After kids.”

Celeste’s kids were in
high school, and she’d started talking about “after kids”
lately.

“
I can’t think about that.
All my future holds is tires,” I said as cryptically as
possible.

Celeste’s eyes warmed as
Sophie’s cooled. “Maybe you’ll run into a hottie like on that new
bestselling series about the mechanic and the housewife,
Fifty Weights of Oil
.”

“
I do not read erotica,” I
protested primly. “I read murder, mayhem, and
adventure.”

“
You’re missing out,”
Celeste laughed.

“
The only oil I like is
massage oil.” Sophie dismissed the subject immediately, tires — hot
mechanics or not — not being shiny enough to keep her
attention.

“
Don’t forget to keep your
pepper spray handy,” Celeste reminded me. Even though she was
smiling, I could tell she was also deadly serious.

CHAPTER NINE

Getting Lost in the Work

After lunch, I headed for the “Simple Five Minute
Shop” at the tire location. Celeste’s suggestion that I could run
into a handsome mechanic made it a little more interesting. At
first. But then I couldn’t find the place.

I’d heard that sometimes
the shop location wasn’t right, from my Secret Shopper Sisters
boards. But it hadn’t ever happened to me. Until today. I was
supposed to do an easy shop—just take six pictures of a tire store.
No biggie, no interaction, even. Just two shots of the entrance,
the customer service door, and the garage bays. Nothing simpler. Or
so I thought.

The shop was located on
“tire alley” in our town. A plethora of tire warehouse type stores
and industrial parks just outside town. Not a pretty place, but
Seth had gotten good tire deals there.

The only problem was that
Pete’s Tire Barn was not where the GPS had said it would be. I’d
passed Tire Warehouse, Sullivan’s Tire, Tire Lotto, but no
Pete’s.

There was one possible
building that could have qualified. The potential building had no
signs—and no numbers.

I surveyed the area,
hoping I’d just missed the obvious. There were lots of junk tires
stacked up, and rusting heavy equipment that looked abandoned to
the point of becoming avant garde sculpture in the parking lot. But
there was no one around to ask.

I had read the
instructions before I’d driven out, but they were buried in a pile
of papers in the trunk. I felt a little odd getting out of the car
in the middle of testosterone-ville, but since there was no one
around and I didn’t want to get a reputation for someone who
doesn’t complete a shop according to the directions (the kiss of
death for mystery shoppers), I pulled the car over to a big sign
listing all the shops in the industrial park that Pete’s Tire Barn
should be in. Pete’s was not listed.

I took a picture of the
sign because I vaguely remembered someone on the Secret Shopping
Sisters site saying that merchants wanted proof I’d been to the
site, even if the store wasn’t there.

At first the deserted
location spooked me out enough that I considered leaving without
being sure I’d followed instructions. But I was relatively new to
shopping, and a bad shop could mean that I’d only get little shops
from this company forevermore—the kind of shops that no one else
would take, so the company was desperate enough to assign
me.

I hesitated for a moment,
contemplating my options. Still wanting to be a good mystery
shopper, I then walked around to the trunk to get the complete
instructions. There was a part of me that hoped to read, “Say
Abracadabra and Pete’s Tire Barn will appear in front of your
eyes.” Maybe a little too Harry Potterish, but since I’d just had a
marathon reading session with the kids last night, it almost seemed
possible. Why would a company not know when one of their affiliates
went out of business?

As I rummaged through old
school papers that had fallen out of the kids’ backpacks and Seth’s
journals and papers that had not quite made it back to his office
yet, I heard the sound of a monster truck. I hoped whoever it was
wouldn’t be nosy. But the sound of the truck slowing told me I
wasn’t going to get my wish.

I bent low in the trunk,
hoping nosy guy (wasn’t likely to be a woman, not in a truck that
sounded like it could hit an elephant and not slow down) would just
cruise on by satisfied with a curious look. And then I thought
about how isolated this area was, and that the pepper spray Celeste
had given me was in my purse in the front seat. I had the random
thought that Celeste would not be happy if I got killed on a shop
without even using the pepper spray, just as the truck braked to a
stop beside me.

I grabbed the shop
instructions and folded them so nosy guy wouldn’t be able to read
them. I also grabbed a can of black olives that had rolled out of a
grocery bag sometime in the past, just in case nosy guy turned into
creepy guy.

He leaned out of his cab
and said helpfully, “You lost?” He was not James Connery handsome.
Dark brown hair, cut short, clean shaven, flannel shirt. Couldn’t
tell the color of his eyes from where I stood.

“
I needed something out of
the trunk.” I held up the can of olives out of habit—I’d learned to
keep my mystery shop instructions out of sight a little too well.
Paper would make more sense than a can of black olives way out
here.

He looked at me with a
gaze that catalogued me in one sweep, and I couldn’t help think he
belonged out on a western range somewhere, in chaps and a
Stetson.

He didn’t ask for an
explanation, but he didn’t drive on, either, so I gave him one. “I
just realized I forgot to give these to my husband for his lunch.”
Improvisation was not my strong suit, obviously. But nosy cowboy
guy was not inclined to do more than raise an eyebrow and see me on
my way.

“
I was looking for Pete’s
Tire Barn,” I ventured, in the hopes of finding out I’d been
looking in the wrong place.

“
Pete’s been gone two
years.”

“
Two years? I was certain
my husband said to get the tires at Pete’s.”

“
Might want to call him
and let him know Pete’s is gone then, when you tell him you found
his olives.”

“
Right. Will do.” I stood
there, my hand on the trunk lid. If I closed the trunk and got back
into the car, I’d have to walk close to his truck. For some reason,
this made me nervous.

“
Better get along, your
husband is bound to be hungry.” He leaned out the window a little
more and looked ahead and behind, at the deserted area. “I’m sure
he’d worry about you out here, with that Serial Killer running
around killing women.”

“
True.” I closed the trunk
and scooted into the car as quickly as possible, wondering if he
realized I thought
he
could be a serial killer.