"What's with the way you two are dressed?" Zander couldn't help but turn his head to look at the man in the passenger seat while driving.
Darnell, with his baby face and red lips, now looked bizarre. He had applied dark powder to change his skin tone, stuck two small mustaches under his nose, wore a baseball cap to cover his blond hair, used dark dye to conceal the parts the hat couldn't cover, and wore tinted sunglasses. Dressed in a luxury athletic wear and tight leggings, Zander almost drove past him without recognizing him when he waited by the set.
Cierra in the back seat was equally unrecognizable. Her fair skin was covered with dark foundation, her beautiful double eyelids somehow now looked single and small, and her nose was flattened with wide lips. Even if placed next to Cynthia, who had only seen her twice, she wouldn't be recognized.
"Zander, we're going undercover," Cierra answered for Darnell.
"Undercover?" Zander found it strange. "Are you filming?" He knew Cierra had recently entered the entertainment industry, but what was Darnell up to?
"No, we're going to a private club's gym. I got Aidan to help me make some connections. We just need to find a female coach named Lisa. I'll explain everything when we get home," Cierra said. Aidan was Darnell's model friend and a member of this private club.
Zander raised an eyebrow, looking worriedly at Darnell again. "Could it be dangerous? Should I come with you?"
"Sure, Lettie hasn't met you, Zander. You don't need a disguise. It'd be reassuring to have one more person with us."
Cierra remembered Darnell mentioning yesterday that they were going to the club where Lettie had taken her. This was because she had described Lettie's interactions with her personal trainer to him, and Darnell found them suspicious. Through friends in the entertainment industry, he discovered that Lettie went to the club every Wednesday at 7 PM, so they wanted to investigate.
Since they had formed an alliance, she couldn't refuse. They had sneakily applied their disguises in the makeup room on set. Only after getting into Zander's car did they realize that being a private investigator wasn't as easy as it seemed.
"But won't we attract too much attention with so many people?" Darnell worried that having too many people might blow their cover.
Cierra shook her head, thinking how dumb Darnell's question was. If Lettie discovered them, it wouldn't be because of their number but because they looked strange, right?
After finally finding a parking spot in a prime area of T city, the three arrived at the club at 6:45 PM. With Aidan having already made the arrangements, Lisa directly led them to the public gym area.
"It's not 7 o'clock yet, right?" Darnell asked while pedaling a stationary bike.
"Five minutes to go." Zander, a regular gym-goer, chose a lat pulldown machine for his workout.
Cierra was just there to kill time, so she casually chose a machine next to Darnell, sitting and counting down to see if Lettie would show up.
Sure enough, around 7:05 PM, they saw Lettie emerge from the women's locker room. Her assistant wasn't with her today. Only Eric walked diagonally behind her, his large hand resting on the curve of her waist and hips, as if pushing her forward. After they entered an aerobics room, the curtain on the transparent glass window was pulled down from the inside.
"Why pull the curtain?" Darnell licked his dry lips, unable to stop his thoughts from going astray.
"Maybe because of Lettie's high profile? She might pull the curtain to avoid being harassed," Cierra suggested.
Zander, however, looked calm. He had heard plenty of stories about shady dealings in certain gyms, so he was unfazed. "Why guess here? Let's get closer and see."
"All of us go?" Cierra frowned at the suggestion. Wouldn't the three of them going together be too conspicuous?
"I'll go check it out first," Darnell volunteered, pulling out his phone as if ready for action.
At that moment, a large hand pressed down on him. "I'll go. They haven't seen me before, so if I'm caught, it won't blow our cover," Zander said.
In the end, Zander pretended to go to the bathroom and headed toward the aerobics room. Once he turned the corner, Cierra and Darnell couldn't see him anymore, and they both felt a bit nervous.
"Do you think Zander will find anything?" Cierra looked both nervous and excited, which made Darnell think she didn't quite understand the situation. Did she think this was like an episode of detective drama?
"It doesn't matter what he finds. I want to know if they're really working out or just pretending."
Cierra was speechless. She had wondered about this before, especially after seeing the trainer rubbing Lettie's butt. Could Eric be her aerobics trainer and masseur to relieve stress from her acting career? She shared this thought with Darnell, only to be met with his disdainful snort.
"Inexperienced kids shouldn't guess. The adult world is much more complicated than you think."
Cierra wanted to argue. Not all of Cynthia's novels were plain and simple; sometimes there were hints of more. She wasn't completely naive, just didn't want to assume the worst of human nature all the time.
At that moment, Zander returned with a strange expression. "Let's go. It's done. Let's get out of here!"
Darnell's face was full of disbelief. Done? Finished? That quickly? This trainer named Eric must be exceptionally fast!
