"You're Naira Sandhu?" Lauren blurted before she could stop herself. What the woman had said was so unexpected that she couldn't help it, and now here she was blowing their cover and throwing off their whole game before they'd even gotten started. Some professional she was.
Naira, apparently, raised her eyebrows, but she was still smiling. "Yes, that's me. I'm sorry, have we met?"
"No," Lauren said, chuckling sheepishly as she fumbled for an explanation for the outburst. "Sorry, I got you mixed up with someone else. Hi, I'm Lauren." She offered her hand, and Naira took it hesitantly.
"So, Lauren," she said, "are you looking for real estate in the area?"
"Actually, she's just here with her friends," Tej said, stepping forward and offering her hand, which Naira took. "I'm Tej Parhar, agent for Al and Rachel Mackenzie here," she said, gesturing to them.
"Hi!" Naira said, offering her hand to the potential buyers. As they shook, she noticed Sunny and said, "Are you their friend too?"
"I am, but I'm also the agent's husband," Sunny said with his dazzling smile. He offered his hand. "We all decided to come together and see the place. We're excited they might be living close to us."
"Oh, you live in the neighbourhood?" Naira asked excitedly as she shook it. "Isn't it perfect? So close to the Skytrain, but quiet enough to raise a family. Do you have a family, Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie?"
"We do, actually," Rachel said, grinning like a fool. "I can't believe I get to say that now. We adopted two teenagers not too long ago."
"Oh, how lovely!" Naira said, clapping her hands together. "Well, you'll be pleased to know there are four bedrooms in this house, in case you ever expand your family, or have a guest come to stay."
"Bathrooms?" Tej asked.
"Two and a half. You have an ensuite to the master bedroom, another full bathroom for the other three, and then a powder room on the main floor."
Tej's lips puckered as if she'd bitten into a lemon. Was she hoping for an extra bathroom? "Square footage?"
"Four thousand, but that doesn't include the basement, which is unfinished, so there's lots of potential."
Tej nodded thoughtfully. "How firm is the seller on the asking price?"
Naira smiled mischievously and said, "Well, I guess we'll have to see. We have lots of people here, so if we get multiple offers, this could go even above asking. Why don't you have a look around, see if you like it, and please let us know if you have any questions."
"Thanks very much, Naira," Lauren said. "Are you and your husband both agents?"
"We are, as a matter of fact. We like to work as a team."
"Oh, is that right? I only saw his business card in the stack in the front hallway."
Naira's smile wavered a little. "Yes, well, he's officially the agent on this sale, but I come to his Open Houses, and he comes to mine when I'm the agent."
"Good strategy," Tej said. "Two agents for the price of one."
"Exactly."
"That's very supportive," Al said. "How long have you two been married?"
"Uh... a year," she answered, doing her best to hide a grimace. Either Al had ventured too far into the personal, or she wished she'd come up with a quicker answer. In Lauren's experience, people married for a year knew without having to think about it that they'd been married for a year. The first year of any marriage was always the hardest, but also the most memorable, both spouses having to make hard adjustments living together, sharing finances, learning each other's habits around hygiene and negotiating who did what chores.
"Okay, well, we'll go have a look around," Tej said, striding toward the kitchen. Lauren and the others waved half-heartedly and followed her.
They gathered around the island, and listlessly opened drawers and turned on taps while casting glances at Naira, who'd returned to Birinder's side and was chatting up other buyers and agents. They spoke just loud enough to hear each other over the din of the crowd, but not so anyone else could hear them.
"What the fuck is going on?" Rachel asked.
"I don't know," Lauren said. "I never predicted this development."
"Either that really is his wife," Sunny said, "and Jordan was lying when he said Birinder filed a missing person's report, or Birinder is passing off this woman as his wife."
"Would he really do that though, if he filed a missing person's report?" Al asked. "Won't he have a lot of police attention right now? Wouldn't the police wonder why he was pretending this woman was his wife when his real wife was out there somewhere?"
"The last thing anyone with a missing spouse wants to do is something that would arouse suspicion, like passing off another woman as their spouse," Lauren said. "My intuition is that Jordan was wrong about the missing persons report. Maybe he didn't lie, necessarily; maybe someone gave him the wrong information."
"Then that woman really is Naira Sandhu," Tej said.
"So who is the woman Jordan's dating?" Rachel asked. "He said she works in IT with him; she's not a real estate agent."
"I need to talk to Birinder and Naira together," Lauren said. "I want to see his body language around that woman."
"He seems kind of busy right now," Tej said. "Why don't we look around the house and then find him later. Maybe we can chat him up while flirting around making an offer."
"Okay," Al said, "just as long as we don't make an offer. This house is nice, but it's far from where we want to live and, more importantly, way out of our price range."
They climbed the stairs to the second floor. Lauren found the layout of the house quite similar to her own, although this had an extra bedroom. This house would allow them all to live comfortably together, except if Joe returned to the fold he would insist Al leave, and that meant the whole family would leave. If only she could have them all live together in harmony. She loved the company. There was just no way Joe would accept Al into the circle that encompassed her, Joe, and even Rachel, a little, if she counted the one time Rachel had sex with Joe out there in the wilderness... it still made her queasy to think about it. Joe and Joanie had slept together many more times, yet the thought of Rachel with Joe made her want to squeal in indignation. She was well aware of the irony, since she and Al had no qualms about screwing whenever they could get the chance. Could that be the solution? Could she save her marriage by allowing Joe to be with Rachel in recompense for her affair with Al, as hard as it would be for her? She didn't think it would work, though. Joe wouldn't give Joanie up, and that would be her one condition for allowing him to be with Rachel. Maybe he didn't even want Rachel that way anymore. Maybe, as Joe said, it had been a one time only thing, never to be repeated.
"If those two are married," Sunny said, "then why is she caught on video leaving her house at three in the morning and getting on a bus?"
"There could be an explanation for that," Lauren said. "I just don't know what it is yet."
"If she really is his wife," Rachel said, "then what was she doing with the tracker that Jordan gave his girlfriend?"
"And if that woman is Naira," Al said, "then why would Jordan's girlfriend have shown him that she lived in their house, and why has she been tracked leaving that house by Jordan before?"
"All very good questions," Lauren said, as they all examined the master bathroom, which looked recently renovated. "Nice tub."
"This is going to go over asking," Tej said. "It's a good thing you two aren't interested in this place."
As they wandered into one of the children's bedrooms, all traces of a child's existence erased in the staging process, Lauren said, "If a missing persons report was filed, then the police would have put it in the media, wouldn't they? TV news, social media, that kind of thing. Maybe it's still early days, maybe they're waiting in case she comes home, but at the very least they should be able to tell us one's been filed if we ask them."
"You're absolutely right," Sunny said. "I work very close to the New Westminster Police headquarters. I'll ask them tomorrow. That way we'll know one way or the other."
"I'm still worried about this other woman, though," Tej said. "Who is she? Does Jordan even know? I wish we'd even gotten a copy of one of those photos he showed us, so we could at least keep an eye out for her."
"Yeah," Sunny said regretfully. He pulled out his phone. "Let me see if I still have his number programmed into my phone, it's been a long time since I ever had to call him."
He scrolled a minute, frowned, then touched his screen a few times. "I didn't have his number," he said, "but oddly enough I noticed I had some unread emails, and I discovered he just sent me one. Maybe he found it searching for me online, since it's my work email. It's got an attachment with the schematics of the GPS tracking device he promised to send us last night."
"Huh," Rachel said. "Do the schematics say anything about a vibrate function?"
"I can't tell," Sunny said, straight faced, unwilling to let Rachel get a rise out of him.
"So, he was telling the truth about that, at least," Al said.
"Write him back and ask for a photo of his girlfriend," Lauren said, "but don't tell him why, and don't tell him where we are or what we discovered. The last thing we want right now is for him to come here and confront them."
"Gotcha," Sunny said. He began typing with his thumbs. Once he finished his email, he put his phone away. "Should we see if Mr. Sandhu is free to chat?"
They all nodded and weaved their way past other potential buyers, then made their slow way back down the stairs. Birinder and Naira were still chatting with other people, but this time they waited until they became free.
Eventually new people showed up, and Naira excused herself to welcome them, and the couple talking to Birinder faded away, leaving an opening. As they sidled over to him, Birinder noticed them and gave them an encouraging nod.
Tej took the lead, introducing herself as the agent for Al and Rachel. Birinder's blatant appraisal of her from top to bottom would not have happened if Naira wasn't occupied a few feet away, Lauren surmised, nor would it if Tej had introduced Sunny as her husband. Lauren didn't fail to notice Sunny's hands curl into fists at his sides, and wondered if the man had ever been in a fight; when they were kids, he'd tended to rely on Joe for protection, but she wasn't around when he was a young man. Maybe he'd learned to look after himself.
"So, what do you think of the place?" Birinder asked.
"Well, the layout is good," Tej said, looking to Al and Rachel for confirmation. They nodded along with the rest of her assessment. "Nice open plan, updated kitchen and ensuite bathroom. One thing we would have wished for was for that extra half bathroom."
Birinder nodded shrewdly. "I get you. Everybody wants their own bathroom nowadays. This is an older build, back when they assumed people liked sharing bathrooms."
"Yes, and they packed kids two to a room. Those were dark times."
Birinder laughed at Tej's unexpected joke. He was charmed, as they all were by Tej, but he should have paid more attention to Sunny's face. "Hey, have you checked out the basement?" he asked. "Great potential for a rec room."
"Not yet, we started with the upstairs," Rachel said. "Naira told us it's unfinished."
"Oh, you met my wife when you came in?" he asked. When they nodded, he smiled again and said, "Yes, lots of storage space down there, you could even put in soundproofing for a studio if you want."
"Could you brick up a body between the studs down there?" Sunny asked.
Birinder blinked in surprise. "Sorry?"
Lauren feigned laughter while clapping Sunny hard on the back. "Don't mind my friend, here, he has a pretty dark sense of humour," she said, while quietly castigating her friend for his ill-timed and insensitive question. It had to be jealousy that made Sunny try to prod the man, but it hurt their cause.
Birinder grimaced. "Well, don't let me get on his bad side, then. So, Tej... is that short for something?"
"Tejinderpreet," she said, and Lauren learned something completely new about her good friend and one-time lover; she also learned she was a terrible friend herself for not asking Tej that question a long time ago. She'd just assumed Tej was her whole name and never thought to ask for its deeper meaning.
Birinder nodded shrewdly. "Meaning, 'One who loves the mighty God,'" he said. "Are you Sikh?"
"I am. You?"
He nodded. "Well, as you can probably tell, I haven't gone all in. Not like your dark-humoured friend here." He pointed at his head as if they needed more explanation of what he meant.
"Oh, you mean my husband?" Tej said with a smirk, and Birinder's mouth dropped a little before he noticed and snapped it shut again. "Yes, Sunil is very devoted," Tej continued. "I, though, like you, have fallen prey to Western corruption, at least where my hair is concerned. It's already hard enough to manage without it being floor length."
Birinder chuckled. Sunny crossed his arms and said, "Coconut oil and a little more combing, that's all you need."
"Is that why you always smell like summer?" Rachel asked. "I never knew."
Sunny grinned at her with that trademark twinkle in his eye and said, "I never knew you were smelling me." He lifted his arm and mimed smelling his armpit. "No B.O. What a relief."
Naira found her way back to them and brightened when she recognized them. "Oh, hi, Tej, hi Mackenzies. What did you think?"
"We were just discussing with your husband here all its pros and cons," Tej said, "and then my husband made a morbid joke."
Naira's smile faltered. "Do I want to know what it was?"
"No!" everyone said at the same time, and then they all laughed at the enormous jinx they'd all pulled.
Naira chuckled in surprise and said, "Well, like I said before, Tej, you and your husband know what a nice area this is, and New Westminster is such a hot housing market right now because people are leaving Vancouver's high prices for a city still central to everything. Your clients would do well to scoop this property up, if you want my opinion."
"And you two," Tej said, ignoring Naira's hard sell, "do you live in the area?"
"We live in Queensborough," Birinder said, "but it's just across the bridge, so we're well versed in both neighbourhoods."
"Oh, we know Queensborough," Rachel said. "We all grew up there."
"You did?!" Naira asked in astonishment. "All of you?"
"Well, not me," Tej said. "But these four did, and Lauren's husband, who isn't here today. They all grew up on Lawrence Street back in the late Seventies."
"Incredible," Birinder said. "And you've stayed friends all this time?"
"Well, we lost touch starting in the Eighties," Al said, "but we reunited a few years ago when we all attended the memorial for Martha Anderson, a woman who was sort of a benevolent elder on the street."
"I've heard of her," Birinder said. "Didn't they open a museum in her house recently?"
"They did!" Rachel said. "We've visited. It's... interesting. She was the neighbourhood historian, you know, so going through her house is like experiencing the whole history of Queensborough at once."
"My friends are too humble to mention this," Tej said, "but there's even a little display on the five of them. Back in 'Seventy-Nine, when they were about thirteen, they helped another boy escape from an abusive home, with Martha Anderson's help. The police got involved and everything. They got a commendation from the City for it."
Lauren was relieved Tej didn't mention the details: how Rachel was pulled into the house by Mr. Trybek right in front of Lauren's eyes; how Lauren sprinted back to tell Mrs. Anderson to call the police, because there were no such things as cell phones back then and it didn't occur to her to ask the neighbours on Boyne Street to use their phone; how she and the boys hurried back to the house and broke a window to get in; how she sliced off Mr. Trybek's penis with her grandfather's sword; why Mr. Trybek's penis was out in the first place.
"You're kidding!" Naira breathed, face alight with awe. "Child heroes! Does it feel weird, having done something so significant when you were young? Wait, I'm asking this wrong..."
"I think I know what you're getting at," Al said. "To do something worthy of commendation when we were still kids, and then grow up and live relatively unexceptional lives, getting jobs, paying bills, having kids... well, I suppose that's exceptional, I wouldn't know, I've never been at a birth."
"It is exceptional," Lauren said. "But I know what you mean, it's the natural order of things. It's almost expected when you're an adult, especially when you're a woman."
"I hear you," Naira said. "We only just got married and we're already getting pressure from our families to get started."
Was a year considered just got married? Lauren supposed it counted, especially from the perspective of someone married more than twenty years.
"Do you want children?" Tej asked.
Birinder put an arm tenderly around his supposed wife and smiled at her. "We've talked about it," he said. "We think eventually, down the road."
Was it just Lauren, or did Naira flinch? It was so microscopic that Lauren could have dismissed it as a trick of the light. "Yes!" Naira said, maybe too brightly. "Dooooooown the road."
"Enjoy your marriage first," Lauren said. "You have plenty of time. You're both so young, you have years to plan a family."
"We're in our thirties, so not that young," Birinder said.
"I was thirty-four when I had my first. Women can give birth even in their forties."
"Anyway," Naira said, clearly eager to move off the baby conversation. "Do you have a spec sheet for the house?"
"We do, and we have your card," Tej said. "We'll keep it in mind. I'm showing them a few others in adjacent neighbourhoods, but for now this is at the top of our list."
Birinder nodded as if he'd expected this hard-to-get play from the start. "Well, it was a pleasure meeting you Tej... and you, Sunil," he said, offering his hand to both of them. As they shook, he said, "We should collaborate on a future project. I'd love to get your read on the future of the city."
He was clearly still talking to Tej, who nodded encouragingly, but Sunny said, "As it happens, I'm running for a seat on Council this election. If I'm successful, I'll have a vote on the future of this city."
"Are you?!" Birinder exclaimed. "Fantastic! It'd be nice if Council represented the diversity in New West. Do you have a card? I'd like to see your platform."
Sunny and Tej both handed him business cards. "Just Google my name on the card," Sunny said. "I have a web page set up for my campaign."
"Oh, yeah, and I bet there's a donate button somewhere on that page," Birinder said with a mischievous smile.
Sunny shrugged coyly. "Hey, campaigns aren't cheap, and I can't fund it all myself."
After a final round of handshakes, they put their shoes back on at the door and left the house. On the sidewalk, Lauren said, "That was genius, you two. You now have an excuse to be in their orbit again."
Tej beamed with pride. "It wasn't hard to find a way in. Birinder was clearly smitten with me."
"He likes them older women," Rachel said. "It doesn't hurt that you're hotter than his wife."
"Supposed wife," Sunny grumbled.
"I'm sorry," Tej said, pouting and touching his face. "I know you were ready to punch him. Don't worry, you have nothing to worry about. I was just playing the part. He couldn't hold a candle to you anyway, my love."
That seemed to make Sunny feel better, because he relaxed and smiled. "Well, that was pretty productive, wasn't it. We learned at least one thing we didn't know last night."
"Yes." Al checked his phone and said, "We should probably go if we're going to make the open house for the property we actually want."
Rachel checked her own phone and said, "Good God, you're right. Sorry, guys. Can we talk later?"
"How about I send you any photos Jordan sends my way," Sunny said. "I'll also phone you tomorrow once I've talked to the police. Other than that, I think that's all we can do for now."
"Excellent. Have a good rest of the day, you two." Lauren opened the Versa with her fob and the three of them climbed in, waving goodbye to Sunny and Tej before they left.
As Lauren drove, Al, sitting in the back as usual, asked, "Do you think we should use Tej as our agent for the place in Burnaby? She was really good back there."
"I don't know, do they work in other cities?" Rachel asked. "She sold your place in New West when you first moved in with me, right?"
"Yes, and she cracked the whip on me to get my place decatified."
Lauren chuckled. "That place. You were deep down the cat-dad hole before you reunited with Rachel, weren't you."
"He was, but I miss Samson, and so does Emma," Rachel said. "I can't wait to get him back from Gladys when we get a new place." Gladys was Al's mom.
"He might not want to come," Al said. "He's gained weight living with her. He's a happy boy. Mom might not let him go either."
"Aw, if your mom wants to keep him, maybe she should," Lauren said. "She must be lonely living on her own."
"Yeah..." But Al clearly loved his cat and was hesitant to let go. He cleared his throat. "So, I heard you and Rachel had some fun with Tej back in Harrison Hot Springs."
Lauren gasped and looked at Rachel. "Have you been telling tales?"
Rachel shrugged sheepishly. "We tell each other about all our encounters outside the marriage bond, in theory, anyway."
Lauren gulped, wondering if Rachel knew about Friday after all, or if she was referring to what happened between her and Al at Harrison Hot Springs. "Well, yes, we kind of corrupted her," she said.
"She didn't need much convincing," Rachel said. "Not after that first make-out session in the movie theatre."
"Do you think you'll ever do it again?" Al asked.
"Why, do you want a front row seat?" Lauren asked, smirking at him in the rear view mirror.
He blushed and smiled guiltily. "Maybe."
She chuckled. Rachel threw him a frown.
"I don't know," Lauren said. "I think it was just something she wanted to cross off her bucket list, an itch to scratch. Besides, I can't see a time when we'll have the opportunity again."
"We always say that," Rachel said, "and yet, somehow, some way, an opportunity presents itself."
Lauren gripped her steering wheel tighter, resolving to be more careful with Al from now on.
Thanks for reading this far! Did the friends witness a perfectly ordinary husband and wife team, or a clever charade? You'll need to read on to find out. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" and leave a comment. To see what Sunny discovers at the police station the next day, click on "Continue reading."