More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [15]
She finally gave a little nod of her head and seemingly satisfied, went back through the kitchen and out the rear door. Once in the backyard, another camera that he had set up in a hanging flower pot on the patio picked up her movement toward the cottage. She entered, closed the door and lights snapped on inside.
“The Sparrow’s in her nest for the night,” he muttered and took another sip of the wine. He sat there, watching the silent screens, still pondering how he would get into the cottage to plant the other surveillance equipment.
There was generally too much activity during working hours. Every night for the past few days, Elizabeth had gone straight home after work, making it impossible for him to sneak in.
About half an hour later, he was still considering whether he could break in tomorrow between when he left the restaurant for the night and Elizabeth finally closing up, when he noticed the lights in the cottage snap off. The Sparrow was ready for bed.
Surprisingly, however, Elizabeth walked out of the cottage a second later, clearly not dressed for sleep. She had on a black form-fitting cocktail dress. Strapless, it exposed the paler skin of her shoulders and arms, and dropped down to only mid-thigh, gracing him with a view of those sinfully long and lusciously toned legs.
Aidan bolted upright in his chair. “It’s eleven-thirty. Where could she be going?”
“Homebody, huh?” Lucia quipped again, but Aidan glared at her.
“We need to track her.”
“Time for you to track her. Time for me to plant some cameras,” Lucia said and rose from the table.
Aidan grabbed the binoculars, turned on the infrared sighting and rushed to the windows. He immediately picked up her body heat moving down the walk leading from the restaurant to the street. Increasing the magnification, he could make out Elizabeth’s body shape turning onto the road before the building. “She’s coming into town.”
“It is Friday night, Aidan,” Lucia said.
When he faced her, he realized she had changed into all-black clothes.
“You’ll bug the cottage?”
She confirmed that she would with a nod of her head. “You’ll follow our little bird?”
Glancing at his watch, he realized he only had a few minutes before Elizabeth walked past the hotel. No time to change from the jeans and T-shirt he had donned upon returning to the suite. So he just slipped his earpiece back in and grabbed his leather jacket.
“Keep me advised of what’s going on,” he instructed and Lucia picked up one of the walkie-talkies set to the same frequency as the earpiece.
“I’ll need about half an hour,” she advised and he raised an eyebrow at her comment.
“Don’t think I can keep her occupied for that long?”
Lucia laughed and shook her head. “Come on, Aidan. So far you’re batting zero in that department.”
He was annoyed that she was right, but he had his reasons for not pushing too hard. If Elizabeth was the Sparrow, and there was little so far to contradict that possibility except his malfunctioning intuition, he couldn’t let himself rush things and maybe make a mistake. He had done that once before and Mitch had paid the price.
“I’m a patient man, Lucia. Some women can’t be rushed,” he responded.
“Whatever,” she replied with a flip of her hand. “Just give me half an hour.”
With that, she left the suite and he hurried after her, but took the elevator while she went to the stairs so as to remain inconspicuous.
He stood there, impatient, tapping his foot while he waited, hoping he wouldn’t miss Elizabeth as she passed by the building. Not that she would be all that hard to find. There weren’t that many places she could go on a Friday night at nearly midnight.
As the elevator arrived and he stepped in, he made a mental list of the dozen or so establishments he had noticed on one of his earlier walks, imagining which of those someone like Elizabeth might favor.
A nice quiet pub somewhere? Then he recalled what she was wearing. Not what you wore to hoist a pint with the locals. As he reached