My Super Sexy Spy

by Doyle, S.

  “Hey, pretty cool.”

  I shrugged, using my free hand to release the other one. “Small hands. They were good for pocket picking— Shit, now I have to think back and remember if the only pockets I’d ever picked were of some guy who just happened to have cash in his suit coat. Sent there by my father.”

  I stood and wrapped my dress around me like a sarong.

  “You met Gino,” Liam said. “He told me.”

  “Yeah. I met him. Don’t ask me how I feel about any of it. But what did you do with him? He’s really sick.”

  “He’s in the apartment below this one. Staying with some very nice Parisians who agreed to watch over your father while I checked out an emergency alert from the penthouse apartment.”

  “How did you even get inside?”

  “I have my ways.”

  I glared at him.

  “Fine. I broke into the apartment below this one and climbed up the side of the building to a window I managed to open. Easy.”

  “You climbed up the building?” I asked, incredulous. “What if you had fallen?”

  “I don’t fall,” he said casually. “But it’s not lost on me how much you care.”

  I shook my head. “We need to get him now and move him. The whole Amex trick isn’t going to work for very long. Because you know, the only thing that Amex does…is, like, pay for stuff.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “It was the USB that was also in the purse that I’m pretty sure has what you’re looking for. And that’s as safe as it can be. But we’re going to need that purse.” Liam walked over and picked it up where Dmitri had dropped it after he’d extracted the credit card.

  “Beth, there’s nothing in here but some euros, a padlock and a key.”

  “Let’s just say that’s a pretty important key.”

  Liam smiled and walked toward me. Reaching out, he cupped my face in his hands. “You’re pretty incredible, you know that?”

  I smiled and let his admiration wash over me. “Did you really lose your job over me?”

  He scowled and kissed my lips. “Long story. Now, let’s get a move on before The Douchebag comes back even angrier than before.”

  “Oh, we don’t have to worry about him. It’s clear Marta wears the pants in that relationship.”

  13

  Eight Days Later

  A Safe House Outside of Paris

  Liam

  I watched from just outside the bedroom as Gino struggled to breathe. Beth sat on the end of his bed and administered a few drips of the morphine so that he might better sleep. When we first got here, I had a nurse attending him, but Beth had insisted that she could do anything the nurse could.

  Outside of getting him in and out of a shower, which was my job.

  These past few days he didn’t even have the strength for that. And the drip dosages, which had started at a few every few hours, were now increasing to every hour he was awake as directed by the doctor who had prescribed the drug.

  Gino was slowly slipping from this world, but he was doing so in the care of his only daughter, maybe the only person he cared about on this planet. He didn’t ask what Beth did with his work.

  For that matter, I didn’t either. My job was just to make sure they were both safe and secure. Beth assured me that wherever the USB was, it was not in a place where Marta or Dmitri would ever find it and for now, that was good enough for me.

  Her hand over his heart, I could see how she counted out his breaths. Knowing that the time for goodbyes was soon. She kissed him on the forehead and turned out the light.

  I stepped away from the door, making my way to the kitchen where I could fix her a cup of tea. Giving her some privacy while she grieved a man she barely knew as her father.

  “You know, I always figured the person I would find dead would be my mother,” Beth said as she took a seat at the kitchen island and waited patiently while the mug of tea I’d pushed in front of her cooled. “This sucks. A month ago, I didn’t even know who he was and now…”

  “You want more time.”

  She brushed the bangs out of her eyes. “Yes, but mostly so I can rail at him more for not being around when I was growing up. It’s like…it’s like he would have been a cool dad. Smart obviously. A genius. But he’s also self-deprecating. He doesn’t care that he did this huge thing that can save so many lives. He only cares if it will make me happy. Any strength he has left he’s using it to ask me questions, instead of the other way around. Like my life is more important.”

  “To him it is.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she reached for the tea, which gave me this weird sense of pleasure. Like through that simple task I was able to give her some of the comfort she deserved.

  Walking around the island, I gave her shoulders a rub and she groaned and rolled her neck.

  “Hey, no groaning,” I said into her ear. “I’ve kept my hands to myself for over a week out of respect for your grief, but a man can only go so far.”

  “Sorry. You’ve been really patient with me. With everything. The USB, Gino. And what about your bosses? I know they’ve been calling you.”

  I shrugged and dropped my hands. “My former bosses,” I clarified. “They don’t have a say in this. Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I don’t want to make any decisions until…well…until it happens.”

  I gave her a kiss on the back of her head. “I think that’s a good idea. Why don’t you go get some sleep? I’ll set the alarm for his next dose.”

  “I should do it,” she insisted.

  “You haven’t slept a full night this whole week. Go, let me do this for you. If I can’t make you feel good, at least I’ll know you got some decent rest.”

  She climbed off the stool and I could see the lethargy in her body. Getting to know Gino while grieving him at the same time had taken its toll on her. She wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her cheek on my chest.

  I folded my arms around her and hugged her close. It was strange because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done anything like this. Hugged a woman without any sexual intent, but rather to offer comfort.

  I was in the line of work I was in because I was a hard-ass. A loner. I didn’t need human connections and messy emotions getting in the way of some of the hard decisions I had to make.

  People were tools or enemies or both.

  They weren’t whatever Beth was becoming to me. Someone I made tea for. Someone whose shoulders I rubbed. Someone I wasn’t fucking because it seemed wrong in this quiet house where a man was slowly dying in his bed.

  “Off to bed,” I ordered a little gruffly.

  “I don’t know what I would do without you this past week, Liam,” she said, squeezing me even tighter, which oddly I felt around my heart.

  “You would have done much of the same. Just without the tea and the extra gun.”

  She laughed a muffled sound against my chest, and I had to push her away, otherwise I was going to do something really disgusting and ask her to spoon with me in bed. Or maybe worse, ask her to be my girlfriend.

  “I’m serious. Go now, before you fall asleep standing up.”

  “Okay.”

  She lifted her face to me as if waiting for me to kiss her. Another habit we’d developed. A peck on the lips before sending her off to bed. A gentle kiss to leave her with good thoughts for the night.

  Like warm tea and shoulder rubs, it was meant to comfort.

  I took a step back and shoved my hands into my pockets. Looking away from her, I mumbled something about finding my phone so I could set the alarm. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her face after such obvious rejection.

  Affection. Comfort. Feelings.

  None of that I was comfortable with, never had been, until Beth. I was better off when I was lying to her or fucking her senseless. Those things I understood.

  “Okay. Goodnight.”

  “Night.” I was an asshole. But maybe it was better she began to u
nderstand that now.

  * * *

  Beth

  ME: Hey, you there?

  I sat in bed with a laptop that Liam had given me in case I needed access to the internet or wanted to write.

  Write. That wasn’t happening. My brain felt so thick it would be like trying to push words out of an extremely tiny hole onto paper.

  Word shitting. That’s what it would feel like, and even if I had the inclination to do it, what the hell was I supposed to write about? Getting kidnapped at the train station? Getting tied up in a pied a terre?

  Now, all I wanted was for Leigh to write back so I could pour my heart out to someone, because evidently Liam didn’t want anything to do with it.

  ME: Boys are stupid!

  I probably shouldn’t have been calling Liam a boy for the same reasons we shouldn’t call women girls, but that’s what this felt like. Something out of junior high where the guy decides he doesn’t like the girl he’s been kissing anymore, but doesn’t have the guts to break up with her.

  Not that we were a couple. Really. And we’d had sex only the one time! If I was going to be in a pseudo-relationship with a spy, I should have at least been having ridiculous monkey sex, but neither of us felt comfortable doing that while a man was dying.

  Not just any man, but my father. Sort of.

  LEIGH: I’m here. And don’t I know it, sister.

  ME: You’re so lucky you’re gay. You only have to deal with rational, reasonable women.

  LEIGH: Trust me, they’re not all rational. What’s up? You having problems with Pierced Dick?

  It’s what I’d told her. That Liam and I were simply having an affair and enjoying each other for some time before I had to go home. It sounded worldly and sexy. I only felt marginally guilty lying about everything, but it still made absolutely no sense to tell Leigh anything about what was really happening in Paris.

  ME: I thought things were going really well, but tonight he was strange. It felt like he was pulling away.

  LEIGH: Uh oh. I was afraid of this.

  That didn’t sound good. That his behavior was predictable.

  ME: Afraid of what?

  LEIGH: How you were going to handle the end of this affair. I mean, you knew it had to come at some point. You weren’t planning on setting up house in France and living on a vineyard for the rest of your life…were you?

  There it was in black and white. The end of the affair. Or in my case, the end of the non-affair affair. With a super sexy spy guy.

  ME: No. Of course not. It’s just that…he’s been so wonderful, and then it was like something changed.

  LEIGH: He’s probably coming to the same realization you are. That eventually this has to end. Maybe he’s trying to protect himself.

  I snorted. That didn’t sound like Liam. Protect himself from what? It wasn’t as if I was any kind of threat to him. Maybe he’d just gotten tired of coddling me.

  But damn it, after these past few weeks, I deserved a little freaking coddling!

  ME: He could have just said something. Been honest about it.

  LEIGH: See above…

  Right. Boys were stupid.

  ME: I’ll be coming home soon. I’m just waiting…well, let’s just say for a sign from the universe.

  LEIGH: It’s probably for the best.

  ME: You’re right. I’m going to go to bed. I’ll talk to you when I’m back in the States.

  LEIGH: Okay. I’m here though, if you need me.

  ME: You’re a good friend. Even if you are only a fake internet friend.

  LEIGH: Back at you, fake internet friend.

  * * *

  Liam

  ME: Back at you, fake internet friend.

  I put my phone down and figured that did it. She trusted Leigh to keep things real with her. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me. Now, when Gino’s time came, she would realize she had to go home and get on with her life. That she and I…well, we couldn’t be a thing. I simply wasn’t capable of it.

  As for me, I guess the only thing that made sense was getting my job back. And the only way to do that would be to get her to turn over the USB to me. Which would probably make her conclude that everything I’d done for both her and Gino had all been leading to one thing.

  She would feel she’d been played. Again. That nothing I had done or said had been real. Again.

  Not even the tea.

  “Fuck,” I whispered to an empty room.

  I picked up the phone and thought of a hundred things I could write to possibly undo what I’d done, but the absurdity of it, of using the fake relationship I’d cultivated with Beth through Leigh, to undo our breakup was too much.

  If I was going to change or fix anything between Beth and I, it had to be through me.

  Like me telling her I was Leigh the whole time.

  I groaned and fell back on the bed. Then I checked to make sure the alarm was set for three hours when I would need to give Gino another hit of the morphine. Then I let myself sleep.

  Only when the alarm went off and I walked into his bedroom, I knew he was already gone. There was a stillness about death that didn’t look at all like sleeping. It was a stillness I was too familiar with in my line of work.

  Beth had her sign from the universe.

  * * *

  A Cemetery in Paris

  Beth

  Liam had woken me up with the news. He’d woken me because the undertakers were on their way to remove the body from the home and he hadn’t wanted me to be startled.

  I didn’t look at Gino under the sheet Liam had pulled over him. I didn’t watch as they took his body away. I’d tried not to feel, but that seemed impossible.

  Almost as much as it did now, staring down at his tiny grave.

  He’d been cremated as per his request and placed here in this tiny plot in Paris that he’d chosen as his final resting place. You could see the Eiffel Tower from here, so it was a good spot. Liam had taken care of everything, and now, all that was left were my goodbyes.

  I stared down at the unremarkable stone placard which held simply his name, birth and death dates and the one thing I insisted Liam add.

  Nobel Prize Winner.

  Because people should at least know that. That he’d been important in life.

  “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us. I’m sorry you couldn’t be a real dad and maybe I’m sad I couldn’t be your real daughter. Maybe I would have stopped you from doing whatever the thing was that gave you cancer in the first place.” I kicked the dirt at my toes, feeling both foolish and sad. For so many things. “Anyway, thank you for what you did do for me and I hope…well, I hope I’m doing the right thing by you. I think you deserve whatever recognition you’re going to get for this.”

  I walked away and went to stand next to Liam. He was wearing a dark suit and had managed to find me an appropriate black dress for the occasion. It was crazy how much he’d handled for me this past week.

  Clothes that fit were miraculously in a dresser for me. Shoes that fit were laid out in a closet. Food was always in the refrigerator, and Gino hadn’t suffered a moment of pain because of the medicine Liam made sure Gino had.

  He’d taken care of the arrangements, the cremation, the burial, so that not a single burden fell on me.

  Down to my somber black dress and low heels. Easier for walking through a cemetery.

  And he’d done it all for one reason, and one reason only.

  “I’m ready. We can go get it now.”

  “Beth, it doesn’t have to be today. We can wait…”

  I shook my head, barely even making eye contact with him. “I don’t want to wait. I’ve already booked my flight to Philadelphia. It’s leaving in a few hours, so we have to hurry.”

  “I can make sure you get back…”

  “Let’s go. We’re wasting time,” I told him. I made my way to the car he’d rented to bring us here. A black town car, again very apropos for a funeral. I got in the passenger side and stared out the w
indow, hoping he would take that as my clue for not wanting to talk to him.

  “Beth, would you at least look at me?” he said as he got behind the wheel. “You don’t understand everything—”

  “I understand enough,” I said, cutting him off. “You made it clear the minute they wheeled his body out of the house. And since I agreed, I don’t see that there is much left to talk about.”

  “His work is important, Beth. Not just for our country, but for the world.”

  “Yup. Got it. Saving humanity. Now, if you could actually take us to where I told you, we can be done with this last thing.”

  He sighed, but did as I asked.

  Sure, I was in bitch mode, but he asked for it when the first thing he said to me after they took Gino away was that I had to turn over his work to the United States government. No tea, no hug, no Are you okay?

  Just, you need to do this for the good of your country bullshit.

  That’s when I realized everything he’d done for me had been leading to that request. His kindness, his compassion, his patience, all of it was just a ploy to get what he wanted from me in the end.

  Frankly, I’d preferred it when Dmitri was straight up about it and simply said he was going to torture me for it. At least he was honest.

  Forty minutes later, Liam pulled up at Gare du Nord, parking illegally, as if that mattered. I made my way through the crowds, confident Liam was right behind me. Making my way over to the rows of lockers, I stopped at number sixty-seven.

  “Did you bring the key?” I asked him. He nodded and fished it out of his pants pocket it. “Then open it.”

  He looked skeptical. “Really, Beth? You hid revolutionizing work in a locker at the train station? When you said it was safe, I thought it was safer than this.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve had years of spy learning. I only had a few hours.”

  He inserted the key into the lock and twisted it. The lock opened, but when he opened the locker door, he saw that it was empty.