Girl Undercover 1, 2 & 3: Three-Part Bundle Read online

  My phone buzzed only moments later.

  It’s Clayton, the text in my phone said. Can you meet around 7pm?

  My floor shift wasn’t over until nine p.m. the following day, but I should be able to disappear for a short while. So I typed back: Sure, seven is good. I’ll be on the eastside, so we can meet in your area.

  I would not be on the eastside, but I didn’t want to risk anyone who might remember Annika spotting us as we met up. I’d just have to jump in a cab to get there quickly. If Clayton still lived on the Upper East Side, he should be okay with my request. My phone buzzed.

  How about Sarabeth’s on 83rd and Third?

  Perfect. See you there at 7! I responded.

  Excited to have nailed down a meeting with Clayton so easily, I flopped down on the big couch in my living room to relax a little. I had been running around all day and my body was tired from the hardcore workout I had given myself. I closed my eyes and the next time I opened them, it was five in the morning. Shocked to see that I had managed to fall asleep all on my own, I got up. It couldn’t have been more than nine when I passed out last night, which meant I had slept an astounding eight hours.

  Walking around in my apartment, I definitely felt rested. But in the quiet of morning, the sun not even up yet, thoughts of Nick returned to me and the constant ache in my chest made itself noticed. I turned on the TV and jacked up the volume, hoping this would distract me, drown the pain. I put on shorts, a workout top, a sweater and sneakers. I would go out for a run in the park, listen to loud club music. Nick had hated techno music, the electronic, sterile tunes they played in most clubs. Doing so had reminded him of his years with Cardoza. The married, forty-something drug lord loved going to clubs and had required that his most intimate soldiers go with him. So when he and I were together, there had never been any techno music around, only classic rock and R & B. Anything with a soft beat.

  I wasn’t a fan of techno, but listening to it did make me run faster and it also helped me to bury more thoughts of Nick.

  The day went by quickly and I picked up two new clients to train. If I kept up this pace, my schedule would be full in another couple of weeks. Rolf and The Adler Group should be pleased with me. I ran into Emma, who was back to her regular self, smiling warmly and waving at me, though busy as always, I didn’t get an opportunity to talk to her some more.

  When the clock was nearing seven p.m., I got ready to leave for my meeting with Clayton. I told the other trainers on shift with me that I would take my break in a few minutes; hopefully they wouldn’t notice just how long a break I would take. I didn’t think so; we were four trainers on and it was a busy evening at the club, so it was fairly easy to disappear for an hour. I didn’t dare give Clayton more time than that.

  I hailed a cab almost as soon as I got out on the street and quickly reached the eastside. I jumped out a few blocks below the café where I’d meet with Clayton so I could switch identities before seeing him. There was a Starbucks right there that I entered and walked into the restroom.

  In the restroom, I removed the navy ball cap from my head and replaced it with a platinum blond wig which straight tresses reached my mid back. Then I switched my green contacts to blue ones and put on some of the pale pink lipstick and bronzer Annika had favored. I also pulled a blue sweater with a turtleneck over my trainer shirt. Since I was going to lie to Clayton about my employment, I needed to hide it. I gave myself a few seconds to evaluate my swift transformation, make sure everything looked okay, then I left the restroom.

  Still breathing fast and my face hot from jogging over to Sarabeth’s, I strode into the hole-in-the-wall café so typical of the streets of Manhattan. I had barely entered when I spotted the tall, black, bald man wearing a jeans jacket over blue athletic pants inside the cozy establishment. I reminded myself that I needed to speak with a Swedish accent from now on.

  I walked up to him and tapped the back of his shoulder. He turned around and his face broke into a big grin at the sight of me.

  “Hi, Annika!” He took me in his arms and gave me a big, warm bear hug. Letting go off me, he eyed me up and down. “It’s so great to see you. You look exactly the same!”

  “So do you,” I said and grinned. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. Hey, let’s get a table. Unfortunately I’m in a bit of a rush. I’m flying to Miami at eleven, so I need to be back at my hotel at around eight. I booked the ticket this morning. Last minute deal.”

  “Really? You should have told me and we could have met another day.”

  “I might actually stay in Miami, so I thought it better not to reschedule.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, then let’s sit.” He turned around and asked the hostess if there was a table available for us. The young girl grabbed two menus and told us to come with her.

  When we were seated in a discreet booth and the hostess had left, I leaned toward Clayton. I didn’t have any time to waste. “I wanted to talk to you about Nikkei. I was planning on working there again, but after I spoke to the new manager and saw how few of the original trainers are still there, I’m no longer so sure I want to. I saw on Facebook that you work at one of the New York Sports Clubs here on the eastside now. Why did you leave Nikkei? I thought you loved it there.”

  Clayton’s caramel brown face darkened. “Yeah, I did love to work there and I still would if I could. But I was fired.”

  I frowned and gasped with outrage. Not that it had come as a surprise—he had simply confirmed what I’d already known—but it was wiser to act like I was shocked.

  “You were fired? Why would they fire a trainer as hardworking and with as many clients as you had? It makes no sense.”

  Clayton’s nostrils flared with anger, further confirming how devastating this had been to him. “I guess it did to them. A few of my clients quit the club when I told them, but most stayed and just switched trainers. So I had to start from scratch at New York Sports Club. Fortunately, it didn’t take me very long to build up my business. But working there is no way near as good as working at Nikkei. The old Nikkei.”

  “I hear you. What happened to the other trainers? When I looked at all the trainer photos, I saw that hardly anyone is there anymore. Were they all fired like you?”

  “From what I know, yeah, they were. It seems the only ones the new owners kept were the young, good-looking ones with lots of clients. Apparently, I was too old and ugly for them.”

  Clayton, with his fifty-eight years of age and average looks, was most likely right. But I didn’t have the heart to say that I agreed with his statement, not emphatically at least. It wasn’t like I thought they had been right in firing him for such shallow reasons. Also, it didn’t explain why Emma was still there.

  “Really?” I asked. “Do you really think so?” I made myself laugh a little. “If it was only a matter of looks, why is Emma still there? She’s no supermodel.” Though she was much younger than Clayton, but there was no need to remind him of that.

  Clayton laughed without joy. “No, she is not.” He sighed and shrugged. “I have no idea why they didn’t fire her too. She was never as busy as me or Ariel and Missy were. Is Ariel still there?”

  “Her photo is still there, so I guess she is, but I never bumped into her when I was there for an interview. I only spotted Emma. She looks the same as always.”

  A waitress came to take our order and we got lattes and sandwiches from the menu.

  I eyed my phone to get an idea how we were doing on time. It was almost seven thirty. I needed to leave by seven forty-five in order to be back at the gym in time.

  “What are you doing back here anyway?” Clayton asked. “I thought you were going to stay with your mother what with your father getting so sick. Is he…?”

  “Yes, he passed. Just a few weeks after I got back, so it was good that I left as soon as I did. Cancer’s a bitch for sure.”

  Clayton patted my hand affectionately. “I’m so sorry, Annika. That must have been so hard to watch.” />
  I pulled my lips into a smile. “Yes, it was no fun, but I’m done mourning now. And I really don’t want to live in Sweden as you know. My mother saw how miserable I was to be back in Stockholm, so she nagged and nagged me to do something about it. So I did. She’s not alone. My sister and our aunts and uncles all live there, which made it easier for me to feel okay with coming back here.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “About a week ago. And I went directly to Nikkei to see if Joanne would take me back. You can imagine my shock when I saw all of you guys, including her, being gone.”

  “Yeah, I can. Did the new managers offer you employment? I’m sure they did looking the way you do.”

  “Yeah, they did, but I don’t think I want to work there. They seem a bit too cutthroat for my taste. I really don’t like what they did to so many of the old trainers. Can’t you guys sue them?”

  Clayton shook his head slowly. “I guess we could try, but I don’t think we would win it. New York is an at-will state, which means the employer can fire whoever they want whenever they want without just cause. In other words, The Adler Group didn’t do anything illegal.”

  I had known this already, but it wasn’t likely that a Swedish person would. I tsked.

  “That really sucks,” I said. “I really don’t think I’ll be accepting the job offer. To be honest, you’re probably better off not working for them if they have such callous policies, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” He exhaled. “I just wish Millennium Partners hadn’t sold the company.”

  The waitress returned with our food and drinks.

  “They didn’t have a choice according to what Emma told me,” I said and had a sip of my latte. “I bumped into her on my way out. They were losing money.”

  Clayton grabbed his ham and cheese sandwich with both hands. “That’s what she told you, huh? That’s not what I heard.” He took a big bite and chewed.

  “What did you hear? Are you telling me she was lying?”

  He held up a hand and finished chewing.

  “Maybe. I just know that Millennium Partners were not doing as badly as everyone thinks. It’s a great company.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m very tight with the general manager. He showed me the stats when I asked him.”

  “So then why did they sell Nikkei and the other clubs to The Adler Group?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  As I walked out of Sarabeth’s ten minutes later, after having chugged my latte and devoured my sandwich—Clayton’s treat—I was deep in thought. A yellow cab with its available light on approached me and I raised an arm to stop it. It instantly slid up to me. I would change my look back to Jamie in the backseat, not worried that the cab driver would care at all. That was one of the great things about this city—the vast majority of New Yorkers had seen it all, so any time someone did something weird like pulling off a wig, switching contacts and outfits in a car—it was bound to not even get a raised eyebrow. As long as you tipped your cab driver well, you could get away with pretty much anything.

  I wasn’t worried that I would run into Clayton again or that he would contact me. We weren’t that close. Both of us had just promised each other to stay in touch out of politeness when we’d said goodbye. Besides, what would be the point if I was going to stay in Miami, which I had told him I was now convinced I would do.

  When I was done switching back to my Jamie persona, I called George.

  “Hey, Gabi. What’s up? Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to see if you could check something for me.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need to find out if Millennium Partners were making a profit running Nikkei or not. I’m being told different stories and want to know which one is true. Is there any way you could find out?”

  “I can always hack into their CEO’s emails and see what I find.”

  “That would be great.”

  Chapter 7

  I walked into Nikkei right at eight and was back on the gym floors five minutes later. No one seemed to have noticed that I’d been gone more than an hour, so I relaxed.

  I spent the rest of my shift chatting with members and my new coworkers, while keeping my distance from the old trainers. So far, every one of the new trainers I had interacted with was as nice as they were good-looking and bright. None of them behaved in the stuck-up way very attractive people sometimes did. The number of sessions done by each trainer I had read posted in the back of the trainers’ lounge suggested they must all also be hardworking. If those numbers stayed consistent, Nikkei would be doing better than ever.

  Maybe The Adler Group was onto something.

  As bad as I felt for Clayton, I couldn’t ignore the sense of sour grapes I had gotten from him. Was it possible his numbers had gone down and that’s why he had been fired? These new trainers were all doing as well as he used to do. Clayton would be much too proud to admit that he had lost his touch even a little bit.

  I was pondering our meeting as I went into the restroom in the women’s locker room toward the end of my shift. As I was done in the toilet stall, my phone rang. George was calling. I made sure I was alone in the bathroom before I answered.

  “Hey,” I said into the phone. “That was quick.”

  “Yeah, it was very easy to dig up information about Millennium and Nikkei in the emails. The company was tanking badly, so I’m not surprised they sold it. If you ask me, they didn’t really have a choice. Millennium Partners were in debt due to Nikkei and part of the deal was that The Adler Group would absorb their debt.”

  I grasped my phone more firmly. “Are you sure?”

  “Yup. I can send you over the documentation if you want to take a look for yourself.”

  “No, I believe you. Thank you so much.”

  A woman entered the restroom then.

  “Okay, I will see you on Monday at five p.m. then,” I said to George, pretending like I was speaking to a new client. “Looking forward to meeting you!”

  “Talk to you later, Longoria. Be careful out there.”

  “Absolutely. Goodbye.”

  I smiled at the woman and disconnected at the same time as I was leaving the bathroom.

  Walking toward the stairs that would take me to the workout floors, I considered the information I had just learned: “The company was tanking badly, so I’m not surprised they sold it. If you ask me, they didn’t really have a choice.”

  Now I was even more convinced Clayton had not told me the entire truth and that maybe there was nothing wrong with The Adler Group. They were just heavily invested in the bottom line and that had unfortunately not included Clayton.

  I could see why Clayton was upset, but I could also see why The Adler Group had made some serious changes to the staff. Some of the old trainers had been pretty lazy.

  I reached the end of the wide walkway I was on. Right as I was about to turn the corner and begin climbing the stairs, I froze—ten feet ahead of me, seated in the now quiet club cafeteria, was the sandy blond mystery man. Like the first time I had spotted him, he was sitting alone at a table and looking right at me, but he wasn’t scowling tonight. Instead, his features were neutral, neither sullen nor pleased as he took me in.

  I couldn’t move and was simply staring at him. What should I do? Go up and talk to him? I couldn’t let him escape a third time. This was an opportunity too good to miss and I needed to do something.

  It took me only another split second to decide that I would confront him, engage in a conversation with him. The way he was looking at me right now—with an open face and the beginnings of a smile—I could tell he wanted to talk to me, too. So I took a deep breath and walked toward him. In just a few steps, I would find out what this strange man wanted from me.