Sunny spotted Lauren when she walked into the lobby of Westminster Law Group and immediately wished he hadn't called her to come today. It wasn't that she elicited any stares with the way she looked; on the contrary, she looked the way a lot of their clients looked when they walked into the office of a law firm that focused on divorce and family law: wrung out, her eyes red-rimmed as if she'd been crying. The problem was, she wasn't a client but a contractor, and Sunny felt the urge to escort her into his office as quickly as he could before his colleagues recognized her as a contractor and wondered why she didn't look polished and professional.
He closed the door behind them and pulled his chair out from behind his desk so he could sit on the same side as her. Seeing her in this state made his heart break for her, and he wanted to give her a hug, but then he remembered the long hug she gave him back at Harrison Hot Springs and thought it might be safer to just take her hands in his and look her in the eyes.
She frowned and said, "Um, you're not about to get down on one knee, are you? Because, you know, we're both already married to other people."
Sunny chuckled encouragingly at her attempt at humour, or maybe deflection, even though he could have reminded her that her marital status hadn't been holding her back lately. "No. You just look very sad, and I want to know why. Tell me the truth, were you in a marriage counselling session today?"
She sighed and said, "Yeah."
"Did it not go well?"
"Actually, it didn't at first, but it went better later."
"Well, that's encouraging. I guess all that airing of dirty laundry takes a lot out of you."
"It does, but then I went and had an argument with Rachel, and it was mostly my fault, so that didn't help matters, either."
"Rachel?" he said, stunned. "Why would you have an argument with Rachel? You're two peas in a pod."
"I know," she groaned, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Today made me realize, though, that I haven't been the best friend to her, and I think I need to do better if we're going to stay as close as we've been since we all reunited."
Sunny could only speculate on why Lauren hadn't been the best friend to her, but he had a pretty good guess, and it was probably the same reason Lauren and Joe were in marriage counselling. He wouldn't bring it up now, though, because Lauren looked miserable enough. "Tell me you reconciled before coming here," he said. "I couldn't live with myself if I pulled you away while you were still in a bad place with Rachel; if you two are on the outs, then there's no hope for the rest of us."
Lauren chuckled and shook her head. "We're okay, I think. I might have to grovel a little more to get back to being besties, but we're not on the outs."
"And she's staying with you, at least until they get a new place. That was being a good friend to her."
She smiled weakly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Now, where were we?"
"I guess we should go over the open files first, at least so we can justify the bill we'll get for this visit."
They'd almost finished when a knock sounded on the door and Tori poked her head in. "Am I interrupting anything?" she asked.
"Not at all, come in, Lauren and I were just finishing up."
When Tori entered, Sunny said, "I don't think I ever formally introduced you two. Lauren, this is Victoria Ramos, paralegal, and my campaign manager."
"Lauren, as in Lauren Hasegawa, partner at Justiciar Security and Investigative Services?" Tori said.
"That's right," Lauren said, standing and offering her hand. "I'm sure I've seen you around whenever I'm here, but it's nice to put a name to a face."
Tori shook her hand and said, "You too."
"So, Victoria, how is the campaign going, so far?"
"Please, call me Tori. Victoria makes me sound like a soap opera star."
"Fair enough," Lauren said, chuckling.
Tori said, "It wasn't bad, we had a meet and greet with the BIA on Wednesday, and we have the Rotary Club this evening."
"I thought you did a really nice job organizing that party last Saturday."
"Oh!" Tori said in surprise. "Were you there?"
"Yes, but we didn't meet, you were running around putting out fires, mostly caused by this guy here." She gestured to Sunny, who chuckled sheepishly.
"Ugh, yes." Suddenly something clicked in her mind, and her face brightened. "Wait, you're a P.I., right? Are you also involved in this thing he's been investigating?"
"Oh, Tori, I might not have mentioned Lauren is also one of my oldest and dearest friends," Sunny said.
Tori gasped and quickly closed the door to the office before whipping around and whisper-shouting, "That detective club thing you were in when you were a kid?"
Lauren chuckled and said, "It wasn't all that impressive. We found a couple of dogs."
"But you also stopped that man, right? You got a commendation. Sunny told me about it."
Lauren turned to him with a smirk. "Braggart."
He shrugged sheepishly. "Tori's like a little sister to me, I tell her everything."
Lauren cleared her throat and looked sidelong at Tori, who awkwardly ran a hand through her hair. Either they thought the endearment was a little too personal, or they both knew about Bishan but didn't know the other did too.
"Anyway," Sunny said to dispel the awkwardness. "Yes, Lauren is also here to coach me on what to do tomorrow."
Tori sat herself on the corner of the desk and leaned in eagerly. "Isn't he hard core? Going in undercover like that. I thought it was a bit risky, myself, but if it gets us any answers--"
"Us?" Lauren said with raised eyebrows. "So, you've got the bug, too?"
"I can't help it! A missing woman? Weird coincidences? A drone? This is stuff you read about in books!"
"I think I mentioned that Tori was with me at the police station on Monday," Sunny said.
"Well, as much as I'd like to say you're going to experience something out of James Bond," Lauren said regretfully, "I highly doubt anything is going to happen besides you and your family having a pleasant dinner with a husband and wife who are exactly who they say they are, or who will be doing their best to keep up appearances."
"Birinder's parents will most likely be there too," Sunny said. "He implied his mother would be making dinner."
"Even more unlikely, then, that anything unusual will happen."
"So, what should I do?"
"Just keep your eyes and ears open," she said. "Pay attention to what they choose to show you and ask yourself why they're not showing you other things. Keep the conversation natural. Don't go all question and answer, not if you don't want to raise suspicion. Pay attention to what they talk about and more attention to what they choose not to answer or what questions they deflect. For example, don't ask about his first marriage because if he knows we know about it he'll get suspicious. If he brings it up, though, that's fair game, and listen closely to his story."
He nodded and asked. "Should I try to sneak into any rooms?"
"Too risky, and too hard to explain away if you're caught. The exception, of course, is the bathroom, because everyone needs the bathroom eventually. Maybe the kitchen if this is a dinner party, but make it sound natural, like you want to drop off something you brought, or want to help clean up."
"What if I do find something fishy?"
"If you do, try to take a picture, but make sure no one's watching, and make sure the sound is off on your phone when you take the picture. A camera shutter is a dead giveaway."
"Should I record our conversation on my phone?"
Lauren smirked. "You're the lawyer, Mr. Parhar. Is it legal?"
"Of course not, not in his house. That only assumes he'll find out and press charges, though. We can't enter what they say as evidence in case he's implicated in something criminal, either."
"You know, we're still assuming Birinder is the responsible party," Lauren said. "What if it's Naira? What if it's his parents? We still don't even know if a crime has been committed."
"True."
Lauren sighed. "I'll leave the recording up to you. Anything you catch on tape can only be played for our ears, but you never know what you might get. Just don't get caught."
Sunny chuckled and said, "Okay. I'll think about it."
"So, Lauren," Tori said, "were you the one who..." Tori made a chopping motion with her hand, and Sunny felt the urge to cross his legs.
Lauren knew what she was asking. "Yup. I still have the sword in my office."
"Wow," Tori breathed, eyes filled with hero worship. Lauren had a new fan.
Later, in bed with Tej; he sat reading Debbie Macomber by the light of the lamp on his night stand while Tej flipped through a magazine. She looked over at him and said, "What is it with you and that author?"
"I'm addicted to her Cedar Cove series," he admitted.
"You know she's about as white as you can get, right? And a romance author?"
He shrugged. "It's not Harlequin, at least. They're good stories about ordinary people in an ordinary town. Her writing is clean, with hardly any swearing or violence, and the sex isn't graphic. It's a nice way of calming my head after a long day at work and on the campaign trail. I can't find comparable works written by Desi authors, and it's not from lack of trying."
"Because they're not publishing them. There's Nalini Singh, but she's more paranormal romance, and I think her characters get down and dirty."
"Reading those might make me randy, not calm." Sunny smirked and waggled his eyebrows. "Would you like me to start reading those?"
Tej hooted and playfully shoved him. "So, how was the Rotary Club?"
"It was fine. I didn't see anyone spinning in place, but they were a good bunch of people."
Tej frowned and said, "That has to be the worst joke I've ever heard."
"I have a million of them. I thought my humour was why you married me."
"Ha! No. I married you in spite of your humour."
He pouted and said, "Just for that, I won't tell you what happened with Lauren's visit today."
"Oh, she came by the office?" Tej asked, a little more excitedly than was normal. Sunny knew she liked Lauren and Rachel, but sometimes he wondered if it went beyond the normal bonds of friendship and parental camaraderie. Knowing Rachel and Lauren were lovers, now, and remembering the time Tej went up with them to Lauren's room at Harrison Hot Springs, and seeing, or thinking he saw, her grab Rachel's ass at the campaign opener, made him remember the kiss Lauren gave Tej at Rachel's party a couple of years ago, and the fact that Tej had never completely written it off as unwanted; advances like that sometimes drove friends apart, but the three women had only grown closer over the years, and now he was in the uncomfortable position of wondering if his wife was sexually attracted to the two women who also attracted him, and if she was, did it make him feel threatened or intrigued? He wasn't sure of the answer.
He cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, I asked her to give me some tips for tomorrow." He went over what he could remember her saying.
"I bet she wishes Birinder invited her over," Tej said. "She'd have that place scoped out."
"She has to work tomorrow anyway. The others said they'll have a presence down there, though."
"A real sting operation!" Tej said excitedly. "That's it, I'm glamming it up tomorrow, just in case secret agents bust down the door and we have to make a fashionable escape."
Sunny chuckled. "And, what, were you planning on leaving the kids behind?"
"No, they'll be tethered to me with bungee cords."
Sunny burst out laughing. "Maybe I married you for your humour."
She raised one eyebrow at him in that way that always excited him and made him wary at the same time. "I think you married me for a very different reason," she said.
He leaned in and kissed her gently on her soft, pillowy lips. "Yes, but I love the whole package, humour included."
"Good answer," she purred, and pounced on him. His paperback fell to the floor before he could mark the page. It didn't matter. He had the real romance right here, but Debbie Macomber wouldn't have been able to write what happened next, not if she wanted to keep her clean cred.
Thanks for reading this far! You might be wondering what argument with Rachel Lauren was talking about, but you'll need to read on to find out. Sometimes writing from only two points of view puts limitations on what you can show and when.
In the first novel of this series, "We Find What Is Lost," Sunny mentions that he reads Debbie Macomber, and Rachel isn't sure he's being serious; I thought it'd be cheeky to confirm it in a book from his point of view.
If you liked what you just read, please hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Before we find out what Lauren and Rachel were arguing about, let's flash back to when Sunny first met Tej, in the Fall following a summer shattered by a tragic event, by clicking on "Continue reading."