Girl Undercover 8 & 9: Traitor & The Smiley Killer (11 page)

KEEP READING. PART NINE IS COMING RIGHT UP. BELOW IS A DESCRIPTION SO YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT:

For the first time, Gabi sees what extremes Jonah is willing to go to when he wants to make an example out of someone. It becomes clear just how much power Jonah wields. As if that isn’t enough, Nadja disappears—and so does Burt.

GIRL UNDERCOVER

Part Nine—The Smiley Killer

Julia Derek

Published by Adrenaline Books

Copyright © 2015 by Julia Derek

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Published as an e-book July 2015 by Adrenaline Books.

To find out more about the author and to sign up for her new books release, visit
JuliaDerek.com

Cover design by Luly Blazek at
Kalosys Art.

Chapter 1

The dread in my stomach was close to unbearable as I rode the elevator up to Nikkei’s entrance. It had now been almost six hours since Ian and Burt had left my place to drive to the house in Philly, and my phone remained eerily dead. Was it possible that it wasn’t working properly?

As soon as I got out of the elevator, I called the club’s number, the rings going through in my ear. I watched how one of the front desk people picked up and answered.

“Good morning, Nikkei Sports Club. This is Andrea speaking. How may I help you?”

My heart sank.
So it is definitely working then.
I disconnected without saying anything.

I continued into the club, greeting the front desk people on my way. Having only a couple of minutes to spare before it was time to train my first client of the day, I took the elevator up to the trainers’ lounge where I would change into my trainer gear.

I’d barely entered the lounge before I spotted Jonah inside the locker part of it, changing out of his regular T-shirt and into his black trainer one.

I groaned inwardly. I was so not in the mood to talk to Jonah right now—well, I wasn’t ever, but today was worse—unfortunately I didn’t have a choice unless I wanted him to turn on me. In fact, since I had been avoiding him as much as possible lately, I needed to be extra friendly and loving so he didn’t suspect that I was playing him.

He pulled his trainer shirt over his head just as I entered the locker area, spotting me. Instead of breaking into a big grin like I had expected him to do, he glowered at me.

Oh, God, what is he mad about now?
I thought, but out loud I said with a smile on my lips, “Hi, Jonah! What a nice surprise to see you first thing in the morning.”

He didn’t return my smile. “A weird blond chick came to my house yesterday afternoon and looked for Burt. You know anything about that?”

I went cold; why was he asking me if I knew anything about that? What made him think I might know about it? Damn, had we underestimated his intelligence level? This was the last thing I needed to deal with at the moment.

I didn’t have time to ponder the reasons why he seemed to think I’d know something about this weird, blond chick; it was clear from his scowling expression that he wanted an answer immediately. I decided that my best bet was to play stupid.

“Um, no,” I began. “Why would I?”

“Because I’ve seen you talk to Nicki a few times. I know it was her. You’re pretty friendly with her, aren’t you?”

Now I really had no idea what the hell he was talking about. What made him think it was
Nicki?
She was one of the new trainers, a leggy blonde with all-American good looks, twenty-five years old tops. I very much suspected she was one of the super humans, she was so incredibly perfect-looking.

“Um, not that friendly,” I replied. “What makes you think she went to your house?”

His pretty blue eyes narrowed and he looked away, clenching his teeth and muttering, “This time she’s gone too far… Way too far.”

“Jonah, what are you talking about?” I asked, sincerely confused. I put a hand on his shoulder to make him face me.

His gaze found me again. “I’ve had enough of this chick stalking my buddy. She’s been after him for months, but she’s never had the nerve to come to our house and pretend to be his friend before. My doorman told me she spoke with this really fake Southern accent and wore ugly red glasses.”

Fake accent?
I couldn’t help but think. Maybe I had laid it on a bit thick then…

“And then she wormed herself into our place,” Jonah continued, “pretending to be worried that he was too sick to answer when they called up for him. She’s effing
crazy.”

“What makes you so sure Nicki was the person who came for Burt?” I asked at the same time as I was thinking that the only crazy person here was Jonah. Crazy and furious like I’d never seen him before. I could almost see the fumes coming out of his ears as he stood there.

“Because someone saw her leave the gym around four and head toward our apartment building,” he said. “She was obviously going to see why Burt wasn’t at the club yesterday. It had to have been her.”

“He wasn’t here yesterday?” I asked innocently. “Where was he? He’s like
always
here.”

“He’s sick,” Jonah said curtly. “But he’ll be back soon.”

I put on a worried face. “Sick? Really? What’s wrong with him?”

Jonah waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing serious. He’ll be all right.” I could tell that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I did. So I pressed on.

“Is he at the hospital?”

“Stop asking so many questions, Jamie. I told you he’ll be all right. Isn’t that enough?”

He glared at me with a red face. Yeah, this guy had an anger management problem. A bad one.

As if he’d been able to see into my mind, the anger displayed on his face vanished and was replaced with a more neutral expression. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply a few times, then looked at me, appearing almost serene now. He pulled me into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” he whispered into my ear. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I shouldn’t have done that. Burt will be fine. He’s just a little out of it right now and needs to be set straight. That’s all.”

“Oh,” I replied, forcing myself to return Jonah’s embrace and thinking that he must be referring to Janine having found out that Burt was dating Nadja, whom he shouldn’t be.

“But I’m really getting tired of Nicki’s behavior,” he continued, running his fingers through my damp hair. “She needs to be set straight, too. Made an example of, if you ask me.”

I frowned, glad that Jonah couldn’t see me right then or he might have guessed what I was thinking:
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“Right,” was all I said, needing to get going or I’d be really late for my client. “Hey, I’d love to stay here with you, but I have a client now and I have to change still,” I added.

He kissed my head and then let go of me. “I totally understand. See you for lunch? I have a break at twelve thirty.”

“Yeah, I think I’m free then, too,” I lied, unable to remember my schedule off the top of my head.

He said goodbye, then turned around and left me alone to change. Checking the time, I saw that it was five minutes past eight already. As fast I could, I removed my rain-soaked shorts and top and threw on my trainer uniform, all the while wondering what the hell Jonah had been talking about when he’d said that Nicki needed to not only be set straight, but to be made an example of, too. I had not liked the tone of his voice, either. It had sounded casual enough, yet it had managed to chill me all the way into the bone.

Well, I don’t have time to ponder that right now,
I thought. I needed to get out to my client, who was probably wondering where I was.

A couple of hours later, I received a text from my ten-thirty client, informing me that she needed to cancel.
Great,
I thought. It would give me some time to talk to Nicki—as long as I could find her on the workout floors, not training a client. I had spotted her on the gym floors already, so I knew she was at the club today. I would love to hear her take on all the nonsense Jonah had talked about earlier.

I kept an eye on my disposable while walking around the club looking for Nicki, hoping that I would finally hear from Ian. So far, that phone remained dead. It wasn’t until eleven fifteen and it was almost time for me to train my next client that I finally saw Nicki—in the wide passage that led to the women’s locker room. I tapped her arm lightly, which caused her to stop.

“Hey, I need to talk to you about something,” I said, looking into her doll-pretty face.

“What is it?” she replied with an impatient expression. “I have a client in five minutes and I need to use the bathroom, so make it fast.”

I leaned closer to her so that I wouldn’t have to talk loudly. “Jonah claims that you have a thing for Burt and that you’ve been stalking him. Is that true?”

She looked at me, her cheeks going a couple of shades pinker. “Well, I… yes, I do like Burt. But I haven’t stalked him. I’ve tried to talk to him a few times on the floor, but I don’t think anyone can consider that stalking.” There was a tentative look on her face. “Does Jonah think that’s me
stalking
Burt?”

“I’m not sure exactly what he means by you stalking Burt. All I know is that he thinks you went to their house yesterday, pretending to be Burt’s friend, worried he was at home sick. And that really pissed him off.” I shrugged. “You know how he can be.”

Her big, violet eyes had gone wide with shock. “What? He thinks I went to their
house?
Why would he think that? I didn’t do anything like that!”

“He says that a weird blonde with a Southern accent came to their apartment building yesterday afternoon and convinced his doorman to open their apartment to check on Burt.”

“Okay. But why would he think
I
did something like that? Just because I have a… a crush on Burt”—she looked embarrassed but made herself continue to talk—“and have tried to connect with him a few times? That makes no sense.”

“I agree,” I said. “He claims the fact that you left the club around that time and headed in the direction of their house was enough proof that you did it.”

Her delicately drawn lips dropped open. “All I did was head to the park for a jog! I never went to their house.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“I believe you. Unfortunately, Jonah seems convinced you were the one there. And he said something about that you needed to be set straight and made an example of. I didn’t like the sound of that, so I just wanted you to know what he said.” I grabbed her hand. “Please don’t tell him that I told you, though. I don’t want him to think that I go around telling his secrets.”

I wasn’t worried about Nicki revealing this conversation to Jonah—he already thought that we were friendly anyway. If she did, I’d just explain it away by saying we were doing girl talk, me wanting to know what she’d been up to with Burt. Then one thing led to another. It was more important that I acted worried that Jonah would find out now that I was his girlfriend. Most girlfriends would not want to go behind their boyfriends’ backs openly.

“Nicki?” I asked when she didn’t say anything, just looked at me with flat eyes, like she was somewhere else in her mind. “Are you okay?”

She made herself smile. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for telling me, Jamie. I’ve gotta go now. See ya.”

She moved past me and hurried into the women’s locker room. Shrugging, I walked toward the stairs that would take me up to the fourth floor where I’d meet my next client. I was halfway up the first staircase when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Hey.”

I swiveled around and saw Ian standing behind me, looking all disheveled. At the one hand I was beyond myself with happiness to find that he was alive, but on the other, I was annoyed that he was talking to me so openly at the gym. Had he already forgotten that Jonah had forbidden me to interact with him? Any second, my “boyfriend” could appear and see us talking in the stairs. Or someone else could see us and tell him; Jonah had lots of friends who seemed to look out for him.

“Meet me up on the sundeck,” I whispered and then continued up the stairs. The chance that a trainer would be on the sundeck at this hour was slim to none considering that it was still raining outside, so we should be able to talk undisturbed up there. As I reached the third floor, I went over to the bank of elevators as riding up in one would go quicker than me walking all the way to the top.

I reached it quickly and went out onto the rainy rooftop, hurrying over to a corner that was somewhat covered by a half open umbrella. The magazine I used to shield myself against the rain only partly protected me. Ian soon appeared on the deck and hurried over to where I stood, using a towel to shield himself, a much smarter choice than mine.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked the moment he was before me, allowing the anger and worry to show finally. “I thought you were
dead,
for Christ’s sake!”

“I got rain on my disposable and the damn thing broke,” he explained, looking genuinely apologetic. “I’m so sorry if I worried you. Truly.”

“It’s okay,” I said, not having time to be mad; besides, I should have figured the heavy rain might have played a part in his going MIA. “So everything’s okay with Burt and Nadja then?” I smiled as I imagined her face when she first saw him. “She must’ve been so happy that you brought him.”