The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Seven: Lauren, Saturday

"Yes. I docked my phone in it and it uses Wi-fi."

"What's your range on it?"

"Seven and a half miles."

Lauren blinked in surprise. "Seriously?"

"How much does something like that cost?" Sunny asked.

"Can I play it now?" Jordan asked, a little irritated.

"Sorry, go ahead."

He pressed play again. The house grew larger as the drone approached. The camera rose from the front door to the second floor windows and hovered at each one for a few seconds before moving to the next. 

"So, are you looking for her, here?" Lauren asked.

"Yeah. See, that's her room, there."

"Have you been in the house?" Sunny asked.

"No, she just showed me once from the street."

Lauren asked him to pause again, and said, "What's going on, here? Why is your girlfriend showing you the house she lives in with her husband? By the way, are there kids? Other extended family?"

He shook his head. "No kids, not yet. Thank goodness. If something happened to her, I couldn't imagine how that would affect her kids if she had them."

"Did they only just get married?" Sunny asked. "Do you only stay in the picture until they get pregnant and they suddenly look less appealing?"

Jordan grew beet red with anger, and Lauren said, "That's not helpful, Sunny." Still, Sunny had a point, and she wondered at Jordan's dating habits. The audacity of this man, to involve himself with two married women who might have met similar ends.

"You're right, Lauren," Sunny said. "I'm sorry, Jordan. My question was irrelevant and accusatory."

Jordan nodded curtly but didn't otherwise acknowledge the apology. "As for extended family, yes, they live with his parents. I think they were going to start a family soon. That's what also worries me. She could very well be pregnant."

Lauren looked at him for a long moment before asking, "Could the baby be yours, if she was?"

"We were careful," he said, which wasn't really an answer. "I know she stopped taking birth control, she told me. We still used condoms, but... I guess it's not a hundred percent, you know?"

"Oh, I know," Lauren said, maybe a little too emphatically, and Sunny looked a question at her. She was thinking of the arrangement Joe had with Joanie. Condoms and the pill. It might have been belt and suspenders, but it was the one thing saving their marriage from crumbling completely. The last thing she wanted was for Joanie to suddenly announce she was pregnant with Joe's baby, or for Joe to finally come home and bring an inconvenient dose of Chlamydia with him. It might have been a little rich for her to make those demands, since she never made Al wear a condom whenever they got together, and that thought made her feel a hint of dread, because the pill wasn't a hundred percent effective, either, and she'd have some explaining to do herself if she suddenly became pregnant while she was assuring Joe over and over again that she wasn't seeing him anymore. "So, did her husband suspect an affair between you? If she got pregnant, would he have demanded a paternity test?"

"I don't know if he suspected us. I don't even know if he knows who I am."

"So, why is she showing you her house?"

"We agreed it might be a good thing for me to know at least the external layout of the house if I was going to keep an eye on her."

"And this is keeping an eye on her," she said, gesturing to the footage. "She was willing to give up her privacy to you... why? What was she getting out of it, aside from sex with you? Was she really that unhappy with her husband?"