No Happily Every After (Mia and Roman Psychic Suspense #4)

Chapter Twelve

She’d been following the clueless Jennifer Lamb for the past hour. As she had the day before and the day before that. Really, she should have kept an eye on her from the moment the issue of the prenup was raised.

It still made her mad to think about. How dare they? She had the most perfect plan in the works, and Scott’s parents thought it was fine to go poking around and trying to take control of everything.

Well—they were in for a rude awakening, because no one messed with her.

She wasn’t sure which one of them was more deserving of the full force of her rage. Obviously, Thomas was the main reason for the revenge scheme in the first place. He’d started the whole chain of events and deserved what was coming and more.

But when it came to the idea of the prenup itself, it could have been Jennifer rowing the boat. She was so protective of her little Scottie. Which was hysterical when you thought about it. He wasn’t hers. She was just the stepmom. No blood ties whatsoever.

Jennifer had driven out of Nashville more than half an hour ago. At first, her follower assumed she was headed for the house on Crawford Lake but that didn’t seem to be the case since they’d sailed right by the main turnoff about ten minutes ago.

Since they were travelling along a small country road, she hung back and kept her eye on the screen of her phone. She’d had the foresight to hide trackers on all the Lambs’ various vehicles. The app showed the blue dot blinking and slowly inching along the road toward a town called Dalton.

Great. Jennifer was probably meeting friends for coffee, and this was all a giant waste of time. Still, she was here now, might as well stay on plan.

Dalton was small, seeming to only have one main street with a couple of traffic lights, but she supposed it was picturesque if you liked that sort of thing. Flower boxes bloomed on the widows of the storefronts, and all the fire hydrants were painted to look like tiny houses.

A banner hung across the road for the Dalton Fall Fair in September. She could picture it all so easily. The tiny carnival row of games like bean bag toss and ring the bell. Maybe a crappy Ferris wheel and a couple of whirly rides. The kind that made you want to throw up.

How did people live in a place like this? It was so … tame and boring. Like some left-behind 1970s town. There was a whole exciting world out there, people. Stop living so small.

Up ahead, she caught sight of Jennifer’s Tesla. She was driving so slowly sloths could have passed her without breaking a sweat. No one even honked at her. It was weird how the two drivers behind just followed placidly along going fifteen miles an hour below the speed limit.

Jennifer finally pulled into an angled parking spot on the curb in front of a bakery. She watched while the woman freshened her lipstick and patted at her hair before stepping out and disappearing inside the door to the left of the bakery.

She turned across the street and selected a parking spot directly opposite so she’d have a good vantage point but not be too obvious. After waiting for several minutes to ensure Jennifer wasn’t about to reappear, she got out of her car and wandered closer. ‘Mancini Investigations’ was stenciled on the door in small, black letters.

Aha. There you are, Roman Mancini, she thought.

When she’d discovered the Lambs had hired a PI it wasn’t unexpected, but a nuisance all the same. They were only weeks out from the wedding. So, so close to the finish line and she couldn’t afford to get cocky.

And she wasn’t cocky. Not really. While a PI wasn’t a full-blown catastrophe, it ranked up well above mid-point on the problem scale. She’d treat the situation with her usual attention to detail and shut it down in no uncertain terms.

She turned and walked briskly back to her car and snatched her phone from the console.

“Okay, Mr. Mancini, who the hell are you and how can I exploit every single one of your weaknesses?” she murmured.