Uncovered Undercover

Preparations

Chapter 2: Preparations

A few hours later, Hailey rounded a corner in the staircase on her way to the tech room. She had changed into her outfit for the night and wore a short, black dress that showed off a decent amount of cleavage and her legs with matching heels, gold earrings, and dark red lipstick.

Gripping the handrail tightly to steady herself, she descended the last steps and walked through the garage.

Jay was crouched down in front of a shelf in the tech room, going through the microphone and camera equipment. "I think the entire precinct heard you coming down those stairs, Hailey," he joked as he stood up and turned around, his movement halting slightly when he saw her.

His reaction didn't go unnoticed by her and neither did the way he looked in the tailored, black suit he was wearing.

"Shut up," she chuckled and walked over to him. "I still haven't figured out how to quietly and elegantly walk down stairs in heels. Not sure if I ever will."

"Well, you look very nice in them. In all of this," Jay said motioning up and down her body, then quickly held up the gadgets in his hands. "Which one do you want?"

"The necklace should be good," Hailey decided and took the gold necklace with a blue, crystal pendant from him.

"Okay, I'll take the phone to have additional audio and a tracker. I think the one camera in your necklace should suffice," he reckoned and returned the other objects to their places on the shelf.

"What's your take on Hansen?" Hailey asked as she put on the necklace. "It's not easy to get a good read on him from his file. In his early criminal career, he appears to have been pretty reckless and impulsive. He made careless and dumb mistakes which got him caught. The recent robberies, however, needed precise planning to go off the way they did."

"Maybe he just got older and wiser. Or it might be the influence and doing of the fourth unidentified offender," Jay mused and moved over to a table to take a seat on its edge. "Since we're meeting at Hansen's club, we'll probably be dealing with him, though. But even if we're meeting with someone else, I'd still assume that it will be relatively easy to get them to sell to us. They'd make a lot of money off us after all."

"Yeah, we'll see," Hailey agreed. "I'm guessing since they wrote that they want to do introductions at the club, they won't be ready to sell to us today, though."

"Probably not. That is if they're smart and careful. Today, we'll just put on a good performance, get whomever we're meeting with to like us and show them that we aren't law-abiding citizens," he shrugged with an amused half-smile on his lips. "It'll be easier for them to trust us if they think we run in similar circles."

"Should be fun," Hailey chuckled, and Jay's smile widened in return.

They tested the sound quality and GPS tracking of the phone Jay had picked first before moving on to the necklace. Hailey stood in front of Jay who held a tablet computer in his hands which he used to set up the video feed. She studied his face as he did so. His brows were pulled together, and his lips were slightly parted in a concentrated manner. She swallowed when her eyes lingered on his lips for a moment too long and moved her gaze up to his eyes just in time to meet them when he looked up from the screen.

"I'm not happy with the feed," he sighed and set the tablet down on the table next to him, then reached out for the necklace.

When he picked it up, his fingers brushed against Hailey's chest, causing her breath to hitch.

"Sorry," Jay murmured with a coy smile.

"That's alright," Hailey whispered as her cheeks heated up and looked down to watch Jay open the necklace and slide the tiny switch inside off and on again before closing the lid and letting go of the necklace.