LITMIR.BIZ

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sanctuary while leaving their backs protected.

      Barry’s reporter’s instinct kicked in. He wanted to know those reasons.

      While everyone milled around waiting for the missing matron of honor and cast anxious glances at the double doors behind him, Barry got on the Internet with his laptop to check out the groom’s background. He still had some active accounts at sites not publicly available, thanks to connections he’d made and kept.

      Smiling to himself, Barry clicked through the information he found. According to what he read, Augustus Hargrove, he of the threatening stare and suspicious friend, had a background as pure as the driven snow. Not so much as a parking ticket showed up. Right. The guy had to have drifted somewhere. Barry knew his type and his type always had an excess of testosterone that leaked out in a bar fight or something similar.

      The man was apparently a “security specialist” for pity’s sake. Everyone knew that was just code for ex-military or ex-secret agent. Really, once spies retired, what else could they do?

      Hargrove Security Systems was a relatively new business, so what had Augustus Hargrove been up to before that?

      The guy’s background had been whitewashed. Very nice job. The problem was that it was too nice. It didn’t fit a man who could look so threatening in a church.

      Barry dug around some more. Any story he uncovered that was connected with this wedding was playing by the rules as far as he was concerned. The managing editor couldn’t expect him to just ignore a hunch, could he?

      How had Little Miss Party Girl hooked up with the guy?

      Barry started in on Sally Shipley’s movements for the past year, oblivious to when the wedding rehearsal began, coming up for air only when people passed him on their way out of the church.

      Great. He’d pay for that later. But right now, he wanted to ask the groom some questions. So where was the groom? He hadn’t been with the bride and her friends as they’d passed by. Barry packed up his laptop and strode toward the front of the church.

      He was supposed to be concentrating on the bride, her bridesmaids and this afternoon’s trip to the spa. Barry didn’t want to miss the trip to the spa. That’s where most of the society reporters went wrong. The gossip factor was incredible once women got together with mud, or whatever it was, on their faces. Although he would never admit it, Barry booked manicures for himself to gain entry. Usually just a nail buffing, but being around had paid off big-time more than once.

      However, today, he was more interested in the groom. Too bad he couldn’t be in two places at the same time.

      In the church foyer, he spotted a cluster of men listening to Paula give them some kind of instructions. Though Augustus Hargrove wasn’t among them, Barry edged toward the men. As soon as Paula turned her attention to the bridesmaids, Barry began his usual interview patter along with the ceremonial flashing of the ID.

      “Barry Sutton, Dallas Press. Do you have time to answer a few questions?” He spoke to the group at large and waited for someone to answer him.

      Someone did. “Tee time is in a half hour, man.”

      “This won’t take long.” Barry took down their names and learned that they were all related to the bride. “And where is the groom?” Barry kept his smile casual and friendly.

      “Gus is out front.”

      Okay. Paula began herding everyone outside, so Barry followed. Two stretch limos waited next to the curb. Barry knew one of the drivers, but not the other. Quickly introducing himself, he made a note of the new guy’s name while the bridal party headed toward the white limo and the groom’s party piled into the black stretch Lincoln Navigator—an SUV on steroids.

      And behind that was an unmarked white van, prickling with antenna. Augustus stood next to it and as Barry watched, a man who might have been Gus’s twin in the cold, remote department emerged.

      “Oh, man, is he in trouble now,” said someone from inside the limo.

      Still watching the groom and the other man, Barry bent down. “Who’s that?”

      “Derek. He’s the best man.”

      Okay. Now things were cooking. Barry straightened and intended to approach the two men, but their body language stopped him. The groom was not happy—understandable, but the best man wasn’t looking any too thrilled, either.

      And that van. Barry swallowed a snicker. Why didn’t they just paint a big sign on the side that said Surveillance Van? Anybody who watched any cop show on TV would know what the best man was driving.

      That was one tense conversation going on beside the van. Barry took a couple of steps back and tried to melt into the giggling bridesmaids who were taking pictures of themselves by their limo, but kept an eye on the men.

      Shaking his head, Gus strode toward the Navigator limo.

      “Hey!” The best man—Derek—grabbed his arm and Gus promptly shook it off. “A few hours max.”

      “I’m getting married,” Gus called back.

      “Not until tomorrow,” Derek said.

      Their eyes locked.

      Barry tried to extricate himself from the bridesmaids, but they’d asked him to take a group photo. It took a few seconds, but in that time, Derek must have convinced Gus to do whatever it was he wanted him to do because when Barry handed back the camera and looked toward the other limo, the two men were walking together toward the pin-cushion van.

      Barry made a note of the license-plate number, then watched as the best man and the groom got into the van and the limos pulled away without them.

      The groomsmen were headed to the Water Oaks Country Club for an afternoon of golf. The van was following their limo, but Barry didn’t know if Gus and Derek were going to the country club or not. He suspected not.

      The white limo pulled away and Barry stared after it, torn. According to Paula’s schedule, the girls were going to spend the afternoon at the Alabaster Day Spa. Another top-notch place, a favorite of old Dallas society. He got on his cell phone and wheedled a nail-buffing appointment in an hour and a half with a nail-tech intern, and counted himself lucky to get it. He should have called a lot earlier and would have done so if the groom situation hadn’t distracted him.

      Well, he had an hour and a half to wait. For a nanosecond, Barry wrestled between following his reporter’s intuition and doing the job he was supposed to be doing, before getting into his own car and gently rolling out of the parking lot. Burning rubber was for teenagers.

      It didn’t take him long to catch up with the limo and the van. Barry rode along for a couple of blocks, almost convinced that they were all going to the golf course and Gus was riding with Derek just to have a private conversation when the van suddenly turned onto a side street. No signal, no nothing. Barry was caught off guard. That turn was something else. Barry had a split second to continue following the limo, or deliberately follow the van. It wasn’t as though he were driving a nondescript car, so they’d know he was behind them, but the two men couldn’t know he suspected them of…well, something.

      Before he could decide what to do, his hands, all by themselves, turned the wheel of his car. He was following the groom.

      And he did a bang-up job, considering they went faster and faster and red lights became more suggestions than actual rules. This wasn’t good. Barry didn’t like traffic tickets. And he didn’t want to antagonize the cops, since they’d proven to be a good source of material in the past and he was still trying to mend fences there. And yet, as the speedometer inched past the speed limit—then galloped past it—he kept up with the van.

      Ah, the adrenaline rush of a breaking story. He missed this.

      And then the van pulled a maneuver straight out of the Action Movie Stunt Guide for Beginners. Maybe Intermediates. It ran up onto the median, pulled a U-turn against a red light and entered traffic on the other side.

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