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Lexi’s hand shook as she lifted her phone. A series of timed clicks captured the dawn scene beyond her windscreen. Blush polish decorated her fingernails. The colour blurred as she focussed on the camera’s view.
Her lips twitched as the ostentatious front door closed. Painted fire engine red against the grey wooden boards, it resembled a luscious mouth. An auburn-haired woman clattered from the porch on ridiculous heels. Her ankles wavered dangerously with each step. The passionate goodbye had left a stubble graze on her chin. Lexi blew out a breath filled with sadness and humiliation. This new client couldn’t know just how much he’d stitched her up.
The visitor patted her short skirt before opening her car door. Lexi winced as long, black nailed fingers snatched her underwear from between her buttocks. The woman shimmied before settling into the low seat of the expensive car. Lexi sighed. She’d caught it all on camera. The endless kiss, the reluctant goodbye, and the woman’s sleek, fresh-from-the-shower hair. She still wore last night’s clothes. Her distraction with her underwear suggested hours of satisfying, unbridled sex. Lexi bit back a curse and jammed her phone into its cradle.
She followed the woman, maintaining a decent distance behind her. She fought the urge to cry at the hopelessness which shrouded her. The early hour limited the traffic to shift workers. Another thirty minutes would change all that. Horns and exhaust fumes promised to gridlock Hamilton city with working families and frantic school runs.
Lexi made a call through the car’s audio system. Her employer picked up on the first ring. “Leon!” he barked.
“She spent the night with him.” Her tone held an uncharacteristic flatness. Tightness gripped her chest. She’d never seen the woman before but her betrayal still rankled.
“All night?”
“Yeah. I took photos.”
Leon’s voice rumbled as he took notes on a lined pad. He claimed to need the written stuff as much as the computer reports. No one knew why. His illegible scrawl resembled a dying spider’s trail. “Email me the pictures, yeah?”
“Okay.” Lexi tugged the brim of the baseball cap lower to hide her face. Her mark took a left turn into Flagstaff’s sprawling suburb. Trailing her there proved harder. She couldn’t follow as close, risking a missed turn as the woman flew through intersections. “I think she’s going home now.”
“Did you stay all night?” Leon demanded. Lexi imagined him totting up an invoice in his complicated brain. “You went onto his property?”
“Yeah.” Lexi sighed. She wished she hadn’t. “I have photos of their romantic dinner and sex session number one on the sofa. They closed the curtains when they went to bed.” Images flicked through her mind. She detested the voyeurism her job dictated. Leon encouraged her to cross the line, and she hated it. The job made him jaded. She didn’t want that for herself. “Too late,” she whispered as the mark turned onto Endeavour Avenue.
“What?” Leon’s tone softened. “You okay, Lex?”
“Yeah.” She hated lying to him, but saw no alternative. The love birds in the sweet dormer bungalow would think their evening flew by. It didn’t for Lexi. Each minute dragged like an hour.
“Be straight with me, Lex.” Leon’s jaded outlook hid a supernatural perception. “Did something happen?”
“Not to me.” Her voice carried a sing-song air. It masked the irony. She exhaled as the woman ahead pulled into her own driveway. “She’s home. What now?”
“Get some sleep, sweetheart.” His tone wavered. She pictured him running his fingers through his unruly hair. Another twinge tugged at the deep sadness, threatening to haul it into view.
“What about the client?” Sympathy set up a pitiful beat in her chest. Suspicious of his wife, the man paid Leon’s company to track her movements. One night. That’s all it took. His unexpected work trip sent him on a flight from Auckland to Singapore. His wife drove him to the airport but didn’t bother going home afterwards. She spent the night on her back, and in various other positions, at a house in Pukete.
Lexi slowed the nondescript Toyota to a lazy crawl. Its vomit green hues blended with the sun-bleached grass verge. She stopped just short of the woman’s driveway. Keeping her head down, she pretended to search for something on the passenger seat. Summer air coursed through the narrow gap in her side window. She’d cracked it open just before dawn. A million pollen beads danced in the air. Their delight with life jarred with her dark mood. She should feel elated this morning. The client paid up front. She owned her property outright. Her work fulfilled her hunter’s spirit. A grumpy ginger cat waited for her at home. Life seemed good.
“She’s gone inside.” A flat emptiness plagued Lexi’s soul. “I’ll head home for a while. Or do you need the car this morning?” She wracked her brain for loose ends. The client wanted photos, and she’d taken them. He’d asked for an address and he’d get that too. Tarant Leon proved a hard taskmaster. He didn’t tolerate rookie mistakes. Not anymore. And especially not from her.
“Bring it in this afternoon. I have the Landrover, but I can do all today’s jobs on the computer. Get some sleep for now. Did you email those pictures?”
“They’re in the cloud.” Lexi yawned and covered her mouth. “Where they always are.”
“Email them!” he demanded. “It’s another copy in case of disaster.”
Lexi tugged her phone from the cradle and clicked on the individual images. Her Gmail’s data limit meant sending four at a time. Her finger hovered over a clear picture of the wife’s illicit lover. Dark-haired and with mischievous blue eyes, he gazed down at Mrs Businessman with adoration. His tongue caught in the seam of his lips to add a sultry bloom to the photo. His left palm caressed her buttock through her short skirt. The other hand reached beneath the tight fabric. The camera captured the second she’d thrown her head back in a moan of ecstasy as he tugged aside her underwear and touched her sensitive place.
“How are you getting on with the online inquiry I tasked you with?”
“Good.” Lexi hid another yawn. “I’ve applied to join the community Facebook group he referred to. As soon as I get access, I’ll find the photo he mentioned and work backwards from whoever posted it.”
“Awesome. He’s paid a retainer, so it must be important.”
Lexi shrugged. “It’s an old guy who wants to find a friend via a local Facebook group. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just do it himself.”
“Because he’s paying us.” Leon’s voice became businesslike and clipped. They earned enough each month to pay Lexi’s salary and run the office. But the minor jobs, like genealogical searches and missing persons, financed surveillance equipment and unexpected replacements. Such as the tracking device, which Lexi accidentally dropped in the car park and then backed over just the day before.
Lexi stabbed the share icon on another photo and sent it to Leon. She added the most damaging of them all in a separate email. “Done,” she growled. Shaking fingers pushed her phone into her cradle.
And she was. Done. So done.
