Deadly Deals by Fern Michaels Page A

now, as in today.”
    Outside, Maggie checked the busy road. The snow hadn’t let up in the slightest. She grimaced as she tied the strings to her jacket hood and started once more to jog down the street. Next stop, Baron Bell’s office.

Chapter 7
    A fter twenty minutes of wrangling, the quartet decided that Ted, Espinosa, Harry, and Jack would make the trip to Rehoboth together in Espinosa’s secondhand Range Rover. Espinosa swore that he could drive through anything but tire-high mud.
    A trip that should have taken no more than an hour and a half turned into a four-hour trek with the bad weather. Even though Espinosa claimed they were making good time considering their current circumstances.
    Harry grumbled and mumbled as he tried to figure out why Maggie wanted them in Rehoboth. “It doesn’t make sense to me if Snowden’s people are going to be there to do the breaking and entering. Are we going there because we don’t trust Snowden and his people? Or are we going because Maggie thinks Bell and Newsom are going to head there to get whatever Maggie thinks is hidden there? Ted and Espinosa I can understand. Photos and the like. I don’t like going somewhere blind, with no concrete plan of action. Been there, done that. Pumpkins,” he said ominously.
    Ted struggled against his seat belt to turn around. “I don’t like driving in snow any more than the rest of you, but you should know by now that—and this goes for you, too, Jack— Post employees, never, as in ever, question Maggie Spritzer. That goes for you, too, Harry. If Maggie thinks something is there that we need to either see or find, that’s what we’re going to do. Maggie trusts us. So why don’t you just sit there and be quiet or else sing us some Christmas songs in one of your languages? It is the Christmas season, you know.”
    Jack sighed. It was clear to him that he had to come up with some witty dialogue before Harry went nuclear. Harry hated to be confined to small spaces, and while the Range Rover was relatively spacious, it was still a box, however large, on wheels, and Harry still felt confined.
    While Jack was thinking, Ted bellowed that he had just gotten a text from Maggie. “She said Baron Bell was out of the office when she got there. She said the dragon manning the office said she had missed him by five minutes. Being as smart and astute as she is, Maggie hotfooted it back to Newsom’s office and got there in time to see the two of them getting into a chauffeur-driven Town Car. She was on foot, so she couldn’t follow them, and there were no taxis available. She thinks they might be headed to Rehoboth, which—by the way—is getting more snow than the District.”
    â€œThen they must be worried,” Jack said. “What does she expect us to do, Ted?”
    â€œTo act independently and do whatever needs to be done. And not get caught doing it,” Ted responded.
    Jack offered up a few choice words of disgust.
    â€œWe’re about fifteen minutes away from our destination according to the GPS,” Espinosa said, one eye on his GPS, the other on the road.
    Harry mumbled something that sounded terrible to Jack. Hoping to diffuse whatever Harry was about to do or say next, he literally bellowed, “So what are you guys getting the girls for Christmas?”
    A spirited dialogue followed and ended with what every woman in the world knew already—none of the men had a clue what the in Christmas present was that year.
    Since Jack considered himself an authority on women and their wants and needs, he said, “You can’t go wrong with diamonds.”
    â€œDiamonds cost money,” Ted growled. “Lots of money. More than I have, that’s for sure.”
    â€œThat depends on the carat weight,” Jack said knowledgeably. “I bet none of you know that women consider their ears as storage vaults. These days women have two holes