Tenderfoot (Avenging Angels #3)

1. “The Prophecy”

ONE

“THE PROPHECY”

(TAYLOR SWIFT)

“A ll quiet on the Western front.”

“You were just dying to say that, weren’t you?”

“Well…duh.”

“Though, how do you know? You’re on the Eastern front.”

“Semantics.”

“Directions.”

“He’s late.”

“I’m not liking this.”

“Is this business usually this boring?”

In order, all the above was: Luna, Raye, Luna again, Jess, Luna, Jess again, Willow and Shanti.

My crew. My besties.

The Angels.

This convo sounded in my new ear thingy. One of the ones Arthur gave us.

It was fancy-dancy. It received and sent. In other words, it picked up my voice and the conversations I had. My girls could hear everything, and I didn’t have to speak into a wristwatch or something like that.

It was extra cool.

Then again, Arthur tended to spoil us, and as such, always got us the best stuff.

The ear thingies even matched our flesh tones so they’d be harder to see. Like really matched, as if they were made just for us. Mine was a peachy pink. Jess’s was an oliveish peach. Shanti’s was mocha. You get the picture.

Though, I wore my hair down, just in case.

I wasn’t taking any chances because, with this loser I was going to be dealing with that night, I was our only shot, and I couldn’t blow it.

He went for girls like me (and Willow), and one could say Raye, Luna, Jessie and Shanti weren’t at all like me (or Willow).

And since he was Willow’s ex, and he was giving her troubles, me and the other Angels were trying to shut him down.

It wouldn’t do for him to see my ear thingy and the jig being up.

It’d taken some doing to get to the point of this fake date, even if he didn’t know it was fake, including some reconnaissance (to others this might be considered stalking, though stalkers tended to stalk , and we were stalking as a means to an end—I liked to think that made all the difference so it didn’t feel skeevy).

It also included me signing up to a dating app (not my thing at all, when I found my guy, it’d happen like it was supposed to happen…organically) and arranging for me to be in his vicinity because the app he used to prey on women was one that binged with a possible match when someone was close.

Seriously.

Creepy, or what? (I’ll answer that…it was creepy.)

Why any woman would willingly allow strangers to know she was nearby, I had no idea.

I didn’t suspect that app was going to have a long lifespan. I’d messed around with it, and unsurprisingly, the vast majority of people on it were men.

And I suspected many of those men were what we weren’t but were forced to be under the circumstances: stalkers.

But there I was, after Kevin and I “matched.” With Willow’s guidance, the Angels created a profile for me he’d go for, and I had to admit, with no small amount of disquiet, what we wrote wasn’t far from the truth.

Me and Willow’s ex, Kevin, had been messaging each other for a week.

It was time for a meet.

Let me rewind.

My friends and I were the Avenging Angels. We were vigilantes (of a sort). We investigated crimes on our time off from being servers, baristas and bartenders at a fun, hip spot called The Surf Club.

We had a benefactor: Arthur. He was our Charlie. He seemed to have unlimited means, but none of us had met him, nor did we know who he was.

We also had a Bosley, but her name was Clarice, she was a high-powered, expensive lawyer, and she didn’t like to be referred to as Bosley.

I know this sounds crazy, and maybe to some, it was.

But surprise of surprises, even with zero training, we were really good at this investigating stuff.

It might be dumb luck, but I was an optimist, so I liked to think of it as good intuition.

Since we started doing this, we’d solved the mystery of women going missing, abducted by a human trafficking ring.

We’d then solved the mystery of people from homeless camps also going missing, kidnapped to be forced labor in drug dens.

Now, we were doing this.

It all started when Raye was triggered, because her little sister had been kidnapped and murdered when she was super young, and her entire family had fallen apart.

Raye descended onto a path of wreaking justice to injustice and eventually investigating the disappearance of a little girl (who, yeah, you guessed it, Raye found with zero training).

The rest of us got roped in (by “the rest of us,” I mean Jessie, Luna and I).

Recently, we recruited Shanti and Willow, mainly because Arthur picked Shanti, and she was tight with Willow, and Willow was having man problems, so we girls pulled her in because we figured that was what Arthur got us all together to do.

Not to mention, Willow was already a loose member of our crew. She worked with us at SC, we all liked her a whole bunch, she thought our Angel business was cool, so why not?

We had several storage units filled with cars we could use to get around without the danger of discovery of using our own with their pesky traceable license plates.

And one unit was all kitted out as our personal Angels Headquarters, and it was rad .

In fact, when we first got it, Arthur had put Andy Warhol-like portraits in it of all of us, including Shanti and Willow, so that was how we knew our numbers were going to grow.

We had equipment, and it wasn’t only the ear thingies.

We were totally official (unofficially), and we had Tasers and a laser pointer to prove it.

So, during our surveillance, we’d found that Kevin got his jollies (and his luxury sustenance, not to mention a few stolen wallets, designer purses or cell phones) by hooking up with chicks he’d matched with on the Stung dating app.

He’d ask them to dinner at a fancy restaurant, rack up a bill of hundreds of dollars on wine and food that he intimated was on him, then “nip to the bathroom,” only to disappear and leave the chick to foot the bill.

Alternatively, she’d nip to the bathroom, and he’d take anything he could grab and vamoose.

In the end, she’d be trying to foot that bill or deal with getting home without her wallet, phone or car keys.

Gross, right?

Oh yeah.

Totally gross.

Listen up girls, at the very least, take all your stuff when you use the bathroom on a first date. Maybe even a second (or third) one.

That wasn’t the only reason Kevin was far from a peach. From what Willow said, he was a total dick as a boyfriend too. He wasn’t a physical abuser, he was an emotional one, and that hurt just the same.

This meant that right then I was wearing a cute date dress that was off-the-shoulder with cap sleeves (that ended in tiny ruffles) and had a twirly, short skirt, all of this in a subtle floral print.

I had loose-curled hair, perfect date night makeup, and on my feet were high-heeled pink strappy sandals with poofy flowers at the backs of my ankles.

And my girls were stationed inside and outside Oceans 44 by Scottsdale Fashion Square, one of the hip, trendy, see-and-be-seen, expensive restaurants in that tony locale.

We were going to catch him in the act.

What we planned to do after that, I was a little vague on (a little, as in, I had no clue).

We had no authority to detain him. But Raye and Luna had a plan, and considering Raye and Luna were a little crazy (in a good way, but still crazy), I was thinking I was glad I didn’t know what they intended to do after we caught him.

“Wait, what?” Willow said in my earpiece. “What’s Trev doing here?”

“Trev?” Raye asked.

“Trev, Kevin’s best friend,” Willow answered.

“They’re Kev and Trev?” Jessie asked while laughing.

“I know, right?” Willow said, also laughing.

“I see him because he’s incoming, Lolo. He’s heading right to you,” Luna warned.

I watched the tallish, relatively good-looking, well-dressed guy walking toward me, attention right on me, and he was smiling.

“I’m not thrilled with this,” Jessie said. “It’s obvious he’s not here to be a lookout. He’s going directly to her.”

“Keep your shit sharp, Harlow,” Raye ordered.

I fought rolling my eyes.

I loved my girls, well and truly, but just because I was girlie (okay, ultra girlie) didn’t mean I was an idiot. I mean, obviously this change in plan meant I needed to stay sharp, but honestly, with what I was doing, I would be that anyway.

Though, truth told, Raye was probably just worried about this sudden change. My crew didn’t treat me like I was a moron. I was transferring, because there were other people in my life (Hi, Mom!) who did.

But it was good advice since the guy was headed right to me like his face had been on the profile of the dude I’d been messaging for a week, when it was not.

“Missy?” he asked as he made my table.

That was the name we decided for me to use undercover. We thought it was three parts uber-girlie, and one part being a guy might underestimate a woman named Missy.

I attempted to look confused, and when his smile broadened, I figured he bought it.

“I’m Jay, Bryan’s friend.”

Yep. They were using fake names too.

“He’s going to be late, and I was in the area, so he asked me to stop by and keep you company,” Jay/Trev continued.

Ugh.

Such a lie.

What were they playing at?

I pretended to shift anxiously in my seat. “I don’t feel really comfortable with that.”

Even as I said this, he slid into the chair opposite me.

“We’ll just have a cocktail,” Jay/Trev continued. “Maybe order some oysters. I’ll clear out when Bryan shows.”

Ah.

So, since Trev was “in the area,” he thought he could tag-team this and leave me with a bill that included Trev enjoying a twenty-plus dollar cocktail and some market price oysters.

“Abort,” Raye ordered in my ear. “This is bullshit and I don’t like it. We’ll regroup at the unit and figure out next moves.”

I pushed my chair back, saying, “Bryan has a phone. He could have texted to share you were coming. This doesn’t feel right. Tell him next time he’s going to spring a stranger on me, to?—”

“Holy shit.” (Luna)

“What the fuck?” (Jess)

“Where’d he come from?” (Shanti)