by Tara Brown
I stared down at the locket. “It's just a necklace.”
He forced a grin. “Nothing about your dad was simple. He was a genius. Let's not talk about this again until we're out of here. They always have eyes on the house. We need to get out of here and regroup.”
“Okay.” I looked up, getting a face full of water. I sputtered, “I know where we can go.”
He nodded and stopped the water. We stood, dripping in the silence. He clenched his jaw. I forced my thoughts away from the fact we were nearly naked and so close to each other. His mouth opened to say something, but I interrupted whatever he was about to say, “Pass me a towel, please.”
“Sure.” He sounded weird. Not wanting any of it, I tried to push it out of my mind. Especially the part about Servario or the fact I was still thinking about him. The memory of his face in the parking garage tugged at me. As a spy, I’d enjoyed Servario. I liked his name and the way he walked like he owned everything. I adored how cute and cocky he was with his baby face.
We dried off, not speaking. Still soaked, I hobbled to the bedroom and changed into more of Luce's clothes.
Downstairs we met in the kitchen. “Who wants breakfast?” Coop asked.
Luce nodded and glanced at Jack who nodded back.
“IHOP?” Luce asked.
“Yeah, I love it there.” It was a lie. I hated all chain restaurants. I followed Luce to the dining room which was filled with black cases. She opened them and started putting guns in her pants and boots. I followed suit. It was weird to hold a piece again, it had been so long. I had only trained with them. I was never forced to work with one, ever.
The walk to the car was tense and awkward. If the eyes on the house were suspicious before, they would be increasingly so, seeing us leave.
10
Hot-wire my heart
The car we stole after we ditched the one we left in was a beater. The vibration was annoying. I frowned at Luce next to me in the backseat. “We need a different car.”
She laughed. “I know. We'll ditch this one and take another.”
“So?” Coop glimpsed back at me. “Where are we going? I got on the 80 like you asked.”
“Salt Lake City.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Yeah.” I muttered. “My uncle Fitz lives there. He'll know what the heck is up with the locket.”
"Why is that? Why don’t we have a record of a Fitz? I’ve never seen that name before. Is it short for something?”
“No, he's not exactly an uncle.” I answered Coop and contemplated seeing Fitz. It had been years.
“Your dad trusted him that much that you would go there now?” Jack sneered back. It was weird on him. His face was usually pleasant, patronizing but pleasant.
“It's a long story. I'll let Fitz tell it.”
Coop argued, “Uh no. We’re not walking into a trap.”
“You aren’t, trust me. He's not something I can explain. You just have to see it to understand.” I couldn't help but chuckle a little. Explaining Fitz was difficult.
Coop scowled at me in the rearview. I rolled my eyes and watched out the window.
His stare never left the rearview for longer than a few seconds. Coop was obsessed with whatever was behind us. He swerved off the highway and onto an off-ramp. I caught a blur of the word “Lovelock.” He drove like a savage, skidding around corners and through a neighborhood.
"I think we're being followed. We need another vehicle." He pulled into the driveway of a random house and parked the car. We jumped out—well, they jumped out and I hobbled after them. We crept along to the house next door and then through the backyard of that house. We ran through the backyards of four houses.
Coop moved quickly. My heart was in my throat. They moved as though they were born working together. I felt like the only non-agent, limping along behind them. They ran to a huge fence. Each did a pull-up and hopped over. I stood there, eyeballing the six-foot obstacle. There was no way I was going up and over. I grabbed the rough wood and instantly pulled my finger back. Approaching footsteps distracted me from the splinter I was about to pick out. I ran to the back corner of the yard and dropped to my knees.
I grabbed handfuls of weeds and dragged them out fast. My fingers cut and bled, but I ripped with savagery. I mussed my hair with my dirt-covered hands and then rubbed them across my face and clothes.
“What are you doing?” Coop hissed through the fence.
I threw dirt at the fence and hissed like a cat. “Psssst! Get outta here, pesky cat.” I pushed my hair back and smeared more dirt and blood from my fingers across my face. “Darla, keep that cat in your own yard.” I added a little Wisconsin flare to Darla, cat, and yard.
When I turned, I screamed, seeing seven men in black clothes. I held my head at a funny angle and made a face. “You get outta my yard. We don’t tolerate gang activity around here. I'm gonna call 911 if you don’t go. I'm tired of you hooligans thinking you can run this neighborhood.” I stared at them with my hands on my hips and dirt covering my hands and face. I stuck my belly out as far as it would go and slouched.
One of the young men gave me a horrified look and put his hands in the air. “Sorry ma'am. You didn’t happen to see some people run through here?”
I scrunched my face up and used my grandma’s word for what, “Wha? Wha? No.” My Wisconsin flare was getting stronger. “You get outta my yard.”
He scanned around and turned away, following the others around the house. My heart was pounding, but I shifted back and began picking weeds again with shaking hands.
After a few minutes, I got up and strolled around the side of the house to the garage. I opened the unlocked door and stepped in, closing it slowly and locking it. I leaned against the back of it and took in gulps of air.
They were agents. The agency was after us. We’d gone off the reservation and they were tracking us. I didn’t know what to think. What had I done? Why hadn’t I just stayed with Servario like they wanted? I had risked my kids and mother.
“Are you insane?”
I jumped and saw Coop in the far corner. “How did you—?” I gazed around the garage.
He was angry. “That was stupid. Why didn’t you jump?”
I huffed my words, “Because my old, lazy ass can't do a pull-up, dick. My ankle is still sore and I don’t jump fences. I have twenty-two-percent body fat and almost no upper body strength.”
He grimaced.
“That’s a respectable number for a woman my age.”
“Okay, keep telling yourself that. The car is around the block. Meet us there in five.” Coop walked across the floor toward me. I stepped out of the way for him to leave through the door.
The garage was empty. “How the bloody hell am I supposed to do that?” I mumbled.
The old Honda Civic in the garage gave me an idea. I climbed in the driver’s seat and pulled the wire box. I hot-wired the car and opened the garage door. For a second I paused to flip down the visor and check out the dirt stains on my face.
I backed out and closed the garage again. I pointed at the men in black in the driveway next door and shouted, “Stay outta my yard!” I drove away, grinning.
While I didn’t want my cockiness to give me bad juju, I couldn't help but laugh, if only a little. Bad-agent juju always ended up with the cocky person getting caught. In my case that would get me shipped back to Servario. The dirty part of my brain didn’t entirely object to going back. Servario had ways of convincing you that you wanted to stay. I had a horrid inkling that I’d only run out of fear of my feelings for him.
They’d secretly started a million years before and clearly had never gone away.
I rounded the corner and stopped the car behind the minivan they had stolen. Jack's dark head was visible in the tinted window so I jumped out and hopped in the back of the van.
Luce was laughing. “That was amazeballs, dude. Put it there.” She held her knuckles out. Obviously, amazeballs was a positive thing. Even Jack was sni
ckering. I patted the top of her knuckles with my hand, earning a crazy look.
“I hate you all.”
Coop growled and drove the van like he was late for his kids’ hockey practice. I mocked him behind his back with sneers. Luce grinned and motioned in his direction. “I thought he was going to have a stroke.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well I woulda had a stroke if I’d tried to jump that fence. My ankle is still sore and I'm out of shape.”
Jack nudged me. “You look great to me. My mom is really out of shape.”
My mouth dropped open. “I'm not old enough to be your mom, you little shit.”
“Oh uh. Really?” He blushed, contrasting his cheeks against his dark hair. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“No, I don't.” I glared at him. “How old is your mother?”
He swallowed and turned to Luce for help. “Uhm—she's forty-three. She was twenty when she had me.”
“Hmm.” I pressed my lips together, keeping the fact my best mom friend was forty-five to myself. “Whatever.”
Luce offered, “My mom's fifty if that makes you feel better.”
“It doesn't.” I shook my head. “Screw you all.”
She shrugged. “Did you hot-wire that car?”
“I did.”
Coop looked at me in the rearview. “Lucky it was an older model. They're easier.”
A laugh escaped my lips as I narrowed my gaze. “You're dead.” He smiled his cocky asshole grin, the one that made my blood boil.
I watched out the window as he drove and Luce played a game on her iPhone.
“Can't they trace that one?” I asked.
“No. I buy my personal shit from a guy who makes sure it falls off a truck and lands in a tech guy’s hands and then gets sold under a table somewhere.”
“Nice and legal, you mean?”
“Of course.” She winked. “It's the only way.”
“Why are they coming after us for going off the reservation?” I asked.
Jack glimpsed back. “We had no idea what we were getting into with you and your husband. We honestly thought this was a weapon to destroy the world, as it always is, and someone betrayed the government like they always do.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t lump me with my husband. He isn’t my husband. He's in this on his own.”
“Okay.” Jack's eyes glinted when he grinned back at me. “Regardless, we don’t think that’s the case anymore. We think your dad was in on some crazy shit and somehow you are being used to find whatever he hid a long time ago. We believe either James was privy to some crazy shit and is helping them find it, or he was being used to find the crazy shit. CI is likely working with Servario on this one.”
“Great.” I exhaled deeply. “What I want to know is why are they turning on us?”
He angled back around. “No clue.”
“We better find out.” I bit my lip and prayed Uncle Fitz would know what was happening.
We arrived in Salt Lake six hours later. I was passed out when the car finally stopped.
Blinking and stretching, I gazed up as Coop parked and I instantly felt my neck go out. I winced, rubbing the spot.
Luce too woke up and stretched. She yawned and smirked at me. “Crick in the neck?”
“I’m too old for this shit.” I got out of the car, trying to stretch but the pain in my neck was shooting down my spine. Coop walked over with his iPhone and held it out. “This is the map of the city. Where am I going?”
Jack got out and entered the corner store we were parked at, with Luce following him.
“Grab me some chocolate and flavored water, please!” I shouted at her.
She gave me a thumbs up and went inside.
I studied the map on his phone, rubbing my neck. Coop grabbed my arm and spun me around as he handed me the phone and started massaging. “Let me. You look at the map,” he mumbled.
I closed my eyes and let the warmth and strength of his fingers relax me. “That feels amazing.”
“Map.”
“Shhhhhhhh. Just rub.”
He chuckled. “Oh, the things I could add to that comment.”
“Let’s not add things.” I smiled but kept my eyes closed.
“Your dad was a good man, right? The reports are true, right?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
“He was the best. He sacrificed everything for this country.”
His breath tickled the back of my neck when he let out a long sigh.
I opened my eyes and dragged the map so it zoomed in on a spot. “Corner of Edison and Ninth, next to Randy's Record Shop.”
He increased the pressure, digging into my neck. I closed my eyes again.
“You're so tense.”
I scoffed. “Uh . . . yeah. Of course I am.”
“You need to remember your old ways.” He chuckled. “You gotta learn to roll with the punches a little better.”
“Stop calling me old.” I pulled away, perturbed. “And you know what else? You bury your husband and the next day get molested on a plane by an arms dealer and kill a fat guy who wants you to spank him and jerk him off—then tell me how YOU feel.” I climbed back into the van, exasperated.
He clenched his jaw and his eyes became steely. “He isn’t even really dead, and I said sorry about the plane. I had no idea.”
“Right.” I sneered. “Tell that to my kids. Oh wait, you can't. They’re being guarded by the witness-protection agency for mole operations because since I retired you all have lost your minds. Right, I forgot.” I slid the door shut and folded my arms. My neck still ached, but he seemed less than impressed, little shit.
Luce got in and passed me the small bag of snacks. I looked in and frowned. “This isn’t flavored water.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I know, but you shouldn’t eat all that artificial sweetener. It gave all the rats cancer, dude.”
While I wanted to snap at her, she was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back and I was losing my mind.
I took the cap off the bottle of no-name sparkling plain water and shuddered at the first sip. It was bitter and horrid. I glared. Her eyes widened. “What?”
“You drink it.” I snatched the orange juice out of her hand and passed her the water.
“I don’t drink this crap. It's bitter.” She reached for the juice.
“Then we compromise.” I swatted at her and sighed, taking the water back. I opened the van door and dumped some of the water out. I poured some of the juice into the bottle and passed the half-empty bottle of juice back to her.
She scowled. “You suck.”
“Yup.” I sipped my flavored water.
Coop climbed in, stuffing a protein bar in his mouth. When Jack got in, we drove to the spot on the map. It was a flower shop last time I came by. I frowned at the small sign.
“Lester's Art Hut?” Coop asked.
“I guess. Maybe he sold it. Or maybe he changed the name.” I climbed out.
Coop did the same. “Wait. What if they're expecting you?”
“They aren’t.” I limped to the front door. I opened it and smiled. It was Fitz's place for sure. It could’ve been the set of the movie The Birdcage.
Coop stalked in behind me, stopping and pressing his body against mine, probably not even noticing me. His mouth was agape as his eyes darted about. “Where the hell are we?”
It was decorated like a Pride float. I turned back, wincing at my sore neck. “Uncle Fitz's.”
“It said ‘Lester.’”
“It’s not.” I shrugged. “This is Fitz.”
I said his name and suddenly he came around the corner in a pale-pink bowling shirt and a beaming grin. “I knew that voice the second my ears heard it.”
His Jersey accent was replaced by a Southern one now, but I recognized him the moment I saw him. He was big on characters.
He spread his arms like wings and pulled me in when I stepped to him.
“Uncle Fitz,” I whispered.
“My g
irl.” He kissed the top of my head. “I heard you’re in some trouble, young lady.”
“Yeah.” I nodded into his silky pale-pink shirt. Hugging him was like coming home. “I’m in huge shit.”
“Oh my.” He chuckled. “Who is that sexy piece of military man-meat?” he muttered.
“Coop, Uncle Fitz. Uncle Fitz, Coop.”
His hand left my back and I felt the motion of them shaking hands.
“Pleased to meet you, son.”
Fitz swung an arm around me and waved his hand at Coop. “Tell them others to come in too.” He led me to the back of the store and through a dark hallway. “You are in serious shit. Your dad never wanted you to find this.”
I tried to look up but my neck was killing me. “What is it?”
He chuckled again. “Oh lordy, you are gonna be the death of me.”
11
Magic beans
The heat permeated my flesh and into my muscles. I moaned as it vibrated softly and massaged my aching neck.
“Got that thing off the Home Shopping Network. They sent it to me for free ‘cause I spent over a thousand dollars on there last year. It’s called the Magic Beanbag. You heat it in the microwave, then plug the vibrator in, put the beanbag in the holders, and voila—a heated massage.” Fitz smiled and passed us each a margarita.
“It’s lovely.” I drank the salty lime drink and moaned. “I missed you.” My voice had a slight tremor from the vibrator.
Coop watched him, still not mellowing out. “It’s a bit early for margs, isn’t it?” he asked with a defiant tone.
Luce scoffed. “It’s never too early for a margarita, and after the week we’ve had, we should have two.”
“See now,” Fitz beamed, “I like you!”
She grinned. “Likewise. New favorite uncle, right here.”
Jack smiled pleasantly as though he was listening to Bible study or watching a documentary. He never seemed to engage much, perhaps taking it all in.