Free Silent Weapon by Debra Webb Page A

continued.
    The opportunity Chief Kent spoke of is a position within Hammond’s household staff. For several years now Hammond has used the same cleaning service. The service comes in twice a week and does the heavy cleaning, but Hammond requires a live-in maid as well. The duties are fairly minimal. Keep the small details straight, putting books back on their shelves, make the beds daily. No kitchen duty, he added hastily. The chef has his own assistant who takes care of those chores.
    We’ve nurtured a contact within the cleaning service. Kent took up the story from there. This contact is willing to place an undercover operative in the position.
    Sounded like a tremendous step in the right direction. I just couldn’t figure out what it had to do with me.
    As Chief Adcock mentioned, the traditional methods of surveillance don’t work on Hammond. He knows all our tricks. Kent fell silent a moment as if he needed to assess my reaction thus far before he went on. We need something he won’t expect. We need you, Miss Walters.
    For a moment I waited for him to say more, certain I’d misunderstood somehow. Abruptly I realized it was my turn to speak. “Me?” I’m sure the single syllable came out more a squeak than a word.
    With your…impairment, Chief Adcock explained, Hammond would never suspect you of listening in, if you get my meaning. He wouldn’t consider a woman such as yourself a threat.
    He had a point there. If Luther Hammond was half the monster the men in this room thought him to be, I doubted anything about me would threaten him in any way.
    If you choose to accept this assignment, Miss Walters, Chief Kent said, you will be working directly with Detective Barlow.
    Okay, now I was lost. “I don’t understand,” I confessed. How could I possibly help Detective Barlow? I knew nothing about Hammond or this case. Yes, I could see that the man would never in a million years feel threatened by me, but I couldn’t see how that fit into my accepting the assignment to work with Detective Barlow. Most likely anything I would be involved with would be behind the scenes. I had definitely learned the hard way that I lacked the necessary experience to do field work.
    The chiefs swapped another of those unreadable looks. Chief Kent took a stab at clarification. We would like to place you inside Hammond’s home, as his new maid. Our hope would be that your phenomenal lip-reading ability would prove useful in gathering intelligence on Hammond’s ongoing operations.
    I felt my eyes go wide at the same time my heart stumbled a couple of times before flopping back into a recognizable rhythm. Me? Go undercover in the home of a mobster?
    I realize we’re asking a great deal of you, Miss Walters. Adcock looked contrite and I realized then I’d uttered my questions out loud. This kind of sacrifice is far above and beyond the call of duty. But, to be quite frank, we’re desperate to bring down Hammond and his empire.
    Forcing my mind past the obvious, that I was untrained and completely inept in the field, I asked, “What’s to keep him from discovering my true identity?” Hey, I’d watched enough movies to know what happened to undercover operatives whose covers were blown. That was the part of the movie where I turned my head.
    We’ve set up a new background for you, Adcock explained. Since your work here as well as your life has been rather low-key, at least until recently, and we believe we have that incident under wraps, there is nothing to connect you to anything other than the cover we’ve arranged. If Hammond runs a background check on you, he’ll find that you’ve been employed by the cleaning service since you reentered the work force just over one year after the onset of your impairment.
    Chief Kent hastened to add, All you have to do is watch Hammond and his associates in your capacity as the live-in maid. Detective Barlow will arrange ways for you to pass along whatever you learn.
    I told myself this