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Adam was in with the guys, figuring out how to stake out the location.
I hadn’t gone in to the office today. I was on suspension, and everybody at work seemed to have heard about it. Kirby had called with her message of sympathy this morning, and we’d commiserated about how awful Krause was for blaming me. Another two friends from the office had also called in the afternoon.
I didn’t trust either of them to keep their mouths shut as much as I did Kirby, so I avoided badmouthing Krause on those calls. The last thing I needed right now was to let my personal opinion of Helmut Krause get me fired before I even got back to work.
All I’d managed for lunch had been crackers and cheese. Even that little bit had come up this afternoon after the FBI crowd had arrived and I realized how dangerous this could be. If this was the minimum-risk outing that Adam had said it was, why did he need a dozen agents to help him? Not letting him see me shake had been my top goal today. If there was a chance I could help to catch Melinda’s killer, I owed it to her and the rest of the Smithsonian crew to give it my best.
“Arms up,” Rylie said. She snaked the wire from the tiny microphone at the center of my bra under my boob and around to the side where the tiny transmitter disk sat under the sideband. “How’s that?”
It wasn’t comfortable, but I had no idea how bad it had to be to complain. “I can deal with it.” The shakiness of my voice probably gave me away.
She rechecked the microphone placement. “You can put your shirts on now.”
I donned the loose T-shirt followed by the button up she’d helped me select. Two layers, she said, were best to keep the listening device hidden.
After I adjusted my clothes, she pulled out several long, thin gadgets of different colors, each with a clear plastic tube at one end. She held the first one up to my hair. “This is your receiver, so you can hear us. I just have to match your hair color.” She held them up to my hair one by one.
I stood still. “I thought you had little earplug thingies.”
“Only in the movies. Those are too easy to spot.” She held up the tiny thing. “I glue this to your hair, and this end…” She flexed the long, skinny end. “Goes in your ear. If someone is going to check you, you just swipe your hair away from your ear, and they’ll never see it. The problem with these is they don’t have much volume and don’t work well in a noisy environment. And, if you do swipe the end out of your ear, it’s not easy to get it back in place properly.”
I could remember that. “So the hair swipe is a last resort.”
“That’s right, and if you have a nervous habit of tucking your hair behind your ear, you have to control that too. That’s really important. Do you think you can do that?”
Another thing I had to remember. “I think so.”
Act casual, don’t be obviously talking to myself, no hair tucking behind the ear. It sounded easy enough, except that I’d also be scared shitless about meeting the Ghost.
She parted my hair above my ear and fiddled with the thin little thing and the glue.
“Where will you be?” I asked while she fussed with my hair.
“Oscar and I get to play a couple by the fountain.”
I noticed the wedding ring on her finger. “Is that a little awkward?”
“It goes with the territory. I might have to remind him to pop a Tic-Tac, though.”
I giggled.
“It’s like being in the movies,” she said. “If kissing is in the script, you have to get into character and do it, until the director calls cut.”
“And your husband?”
“He’s an air marshal; he’d understand.”
“So you won’t tell him.”
“I won’t lie about it, but it’s easier if it doesn’t come up.”
I contemplated her answer for a moment. She thought some things were better not discussed. Would it be better for Adam and me if I’d left his history with my brother alone?
She arranged the hair around my ear. “Now check yourself in the mirror and tell me if you can see it.”
Even though I knew where to look, the device was invisible to me. “Can’t see a thing.”
“That’s the idea. Now walk to the far end of the bathroom.”
