The Spy Who Left Me

by Gina Robinson

  Seeing her struggle, Tita took pity on her. “Your throat! Of course. Let me get you something softer from the kitchen. What would you like?”

  “Scrambled eggs?”

  “Coming up.”

  The doorbell rang. Tita frowned, then hefted her girth toward the door, mumbling about the presumption of early-morning guests. A young Chinese man stood on the lanai, carrying a large woven basket filled with an assortment of Hawaiian goodies generously sprinkled with plumeria flowers. Treflee had to crane her neck to see him.

  “You have guest here by name of Tleflee Miller?” he asked in a thick accent.

  “In the dining room,” Tita said. “What do you want with her?”

  Without answering, the young man sidestepped past her to the dining room. “Miss Tleflee Miller?”

  Treflee raised her hand.

  “From Mrs. Ho.” The young man held the basket out to her. “She very sorry to hear of your accident and hope these gifts may help you as you heal.”

  The hair on the back of Treflee’s neck stood up. How did Mrs. Ho hear of my “accident”?

  Carrie shook her head. “News certainly travels fast.”

  “Mrs. Ho always knows what goes on on her property,” Tita said. “She never misses a trick.”

  Ty seemed unconcerned and unsurprised by the arrival. Which made Treflee wonder what he had to do with this sudden care-package delivery.

  When Treflee didn’t reach for the basket, Ty jumped up and took it for her. “Mrs. Miller doesn’t have much of a voice this morning, but she thanks Mrs. Ho for her thoughtfulness.”

  The Chinese man nodded and departed before anyone could reply or question him further.

  Tita shut the door behind him and came up to stand next to Ty, inspecting the goods. “Coconut oil, coconut soap, guava coconut lip balm, and Mrs. Ho’s prize candied pineapple. She’s very proud of that candied pineapple.” She snorted. “Her cook makes it for her.”

  Treflee studied Ty. Boy, he was good! She was now convinced he was involved with the arrival of the basket. She should have been so proud of her husband. Somehow, in the middle of the night while waiting for her in emergency, he’d managed to convince Mrs. Ho the “accident” had occurred, in the first place, and was her fault, in the second. And had gotten her to send a gift basket as verification of the story. Or sent one himself.

  Though the basket sounded like coconut heaven to Treflee, it brought up a tsunami of guilt. Unless Mrs. Ho had sent the strangler, she wasn’t responsible for Treflee’s injury and had spent a pretty penny for nothing.

  Ty was staring at her, trying hard to telepath her cover story to her. His eyes pleaded with her to say something, for heaven’s sake!

  Oh, yeah, she should probably play along. “How thoughtful.”

  Tita waved a hand. “Thoughtful?” She shook her head. “No, Mrs. Ho thinks only of harmony and avoiding a lawsuit. You got hurt on her property. Her harmony is out of balance. For her own sake, she owes you something to make you whole. She should have come herself to make sure you’re okay, not sent a boy with a basket.”

  “Speaking of the basket, I’ll just take this upstairs for you.” Ty turned.

  “Wait! I’d like a look.” Treflee tried to stop him.

  “It’ll be in your room.”

  This was the problem with being married to a spy. They were suspicious of everything. He was probably going to paw through it looking for bugs or who knows what. And she’d just bet he’d take the good stuff for himself.

  Treflee let him go. She’d find out what he was up to later. She smiled at Tita. “Even so, I’d better write a thank-you.”

  “First, you eat. Or you’ll never make it through your surfing lesson today.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back in Treflee’s room, Ty ran his handheld bug detector over and around the basket and its contents. NCS had been watching Mrs. Ho since before George’s death. The marriage-mart matron was the head of RIOT’s Hawaiian operations.

  Unfortunately, the dragon lady Mrs. Ho’s happy wedding establishment had so far proven to be impenetrable. NCS hadn’t been able to get as much as a delivery boy in. The Agency was sure she was buying the Pinpoint Project software from their rogue analyst Hal Rogers byte by byte and sending it to the Chinese branch of RIOT from Sugar Love. But NCS hadn’t been able to intercept it. Or get an invitation to tea.

  The best NCS had been able to do was feed Hal bad code and data. NCS had been trailing Hal for nearly a year now. The guy was a low-level geopolitical analyst for Langley. Flags went up when his bank accounts suddenly unaccountably grew.

  Hal worked on the Pinpoint Project, an analysis tool that used both open-source and intelligence data to pinpoint the location of enemy fleets, satellites, and missiles, and predict possible outbreaks of terrorism, violence, and even war. Since RIOT’s mission was to cause war between nations, in their hands, the tool would be a nightmare.

  Last night, Ty had sent Greg, his fellow “tour guide” and NCS agent, over to stage an accident with the clothesline and complain to Mrs. Ho about Treflee being injured. Despite Greg’s best efforts, she wouldn’t let him any farther in than the entryway. He’d gotten few particulars about the layout of the place. The lobby looked pretty much like Big Auau’s, a great place to hold a wedding reception.

  As a result of Greg’s encounter, Ty was staring at a basketful of Hawaiian body care products.

  His bug detector lit up.

  Bingo! An enemy bug was stuffed beneath the wood excelsior shred that filled the bottom of the basket. He swore to himself, removed the bug, and disabled it.

  It was Chinese, of course.

  There was no way to determine if it was from the MSS, the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence agency. The U.S. and China had been “cooperating” to bring down RIOT. But neither side trusted the other. China wanted the Pinpoint Project, too, and was certainly working on their own version. But it was always easier to steal the Americans’ technology. And nice to know your adversary’s technology and capabilities.

  The U.S., of course, had no intention of letting China get its hands on Pinpoint. It was part of Ty and Greg’s mission to make sure China kept its hands off.

  For their part, the Chinese were working with the U.S. to place an agent inside Sugar Love. Greg and Ty were awaiting a signal that they’d been successful.

  Or the bug could have been courtesy of Mrs. Ho and RIOT.

  RIOT, an association of terrorists, criminals, and crime syndicates, was headed by Archibald Random, a rogue American with a hatred for the United States government and a genius IQ.

  The Agency believed Random’s ultimate goal was to rule the world. It sounded crackpot, but that didn’t make Random any less dangerous. He was surprisingly cunning in his quest to control the world’s financial markets, obtain weapons of mass destruction, foment unrest, disrupt the flow of oil, cause distrust between allied nations, and even greater distrust among foes.

  RIOT had operatives in nearly every country. They mimicked foreign intelligence operations, pretending to be Chinese, Russian, American, Korean, Middle Eastern, Indian, South American, whoever suited their purpose at the time in order to best disrupt diplomatic relationships. Random would love nothing more than to start World War III and see the United States fall. He pictured a world where he was the superpower.

  The bug also could have come from the Fuk Ching, the New York street gang with Mafia-like protection rackets that had recently been filtering into Hawaii. RIOT’s mode of operation was to hire local crime organizations like Fuk Ching to do their dirty work.

  Although George had certainly died at Shen Lin’s hand, Ty’s mission was to find out who was ultimately responsible for George’s death—the Fuk Ching gang or RIOT.

  Despite Ty’s confident words to Treflee, it was possible RIOT had discovered his true identity and mission. Not probable, but possible.

  Ty’s cell phone beeped, indicating he had a top secret text. He logged in with his
thumbprint to retrieve the message.

  NCS confirmed that Treflee’s Lahaina Lei Strangler was definitely Fuk Ching. Just as Ty had suspected. He’d seen the Hawaiian Fuk Ching gang’s symbol tattooed on the attacker’s neck. NCS believed the gang was checking Ty out, wanting to make sure he was who he said he was, and the operative they’d sent to do so encountered Tref unexpectedly in his room.

  Good news. Sort of. Was Fuk Ching checking up on him on their own? Or were they doing so on behalf of RIOT?

  Now Ty had a new problem—what did the Fuk Ching think of finding a woman searching through his room? Who did they think Treflee was? A jealous lover? A PI? A spy?

  Damn that woman! He knew she’d go looking for her things. Which was why he’d hidden them and the strand of pearls he had bought for her. He just hadn’t considered she’d cause this much trouble doing so.

  * * *

  They took a van to Lahaina. You’d think after the disastrous dinner cruise the night before, the mood would have been subdued. But, evidently after you’ve been to war, worked in an emergency room, or policed the mean streets of a city, a single dead body turning up is not enough to put you off your fun. Even if fish were eating his face.

  Carrie and company laughed and joked as Treflee remained mostly mute and smiled along, plotting how to get to the Lahaina lawyer’s office after ten to pick up the divorce papers her attorney had sent over. All she had to do was sign them in front of a witness at the office and then convince Ty to sign them sometime before she went home to the mainland.

  Could a divorce be revoked or denied because one of the parties coerced the other into signing? Treflee really didn’t care. What was Ty going to do, blow his cover?

  Cheered by the thought, she smiled as they pulled up in front of the Don’t Drop-in Surf Shop on Breakwall Beach oceanside of Lahaina Harbor.

  “The Don’t Drop-in? Not very spontaneous, are they? I hope we have reservations,” Treflee observed.

  Greg sat next to her, dressed in loud board shorts. He smiled and slid the van door open, hopping out to help the ladies disembark. “‘Dropping-in’ is a surfing term.”

  “And it’s bad form?” Treflee guessed.

  “Impolite,” Greg said in his sparse way of speaking. “Might lead to a fistfight.”

  Treflee nodded as he handed her out onto the warm beach grass. The time of year was the fall equinox, and it was only nine in the morning, but the sun still had power. Carrie had planned her wedding for September twenty-sixth, the first Saturday after the equinox. She had some weird notion about perfect balance and a feeling that being married on a day near the equinox would lead to a harmonious married life. Shows what she knew. She hadn’t even made it to the altar.

  That didn’t necessarily jinx the twenty-sixth. Maybe it had just been doing its job restoring a balance to Carrie’s life that the marriage would have messed up.

  Ty piled out of the driver’s seat and opened the back of the van, grabbing the ladies’ beach bags. The lesson was supposed to last two hours and would be followed by lunch and more surfing or shopping. That’s when Treflee planned to make her break for the lawyer’s office.

  “Looks like we have a perfect day today—sunny weather!” Ty said to the group, but he was staring at Treflee.

  Though her heart raced at his words, she figured he was just pulling her chain, that he really was referring to the weather. In their code-speak, sunny weather meant “I love you.” She ignored him.

  There was a light breeze. The surf crashed in gently. Off in the distance, inside the surf break, a couple of middle-aged women stood on what looked like surf boards and paddled lazily with long paddles. It looked like heaven to Treflee, much more fun than possibly drowning in a wave.

  She pointed. “That looks like fun! Can we try that?”

  Seven pairs of eyes stared blankly back at her.

  Ty shot her a half-cocked grin, handed her her oversized beach bag, and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the surf shack. “Come on, Cousteau.” The way he caressed the famed oceanographer’s name reminded her of the inside joke they had about Inspector Clouseau and Cato. Purely intentional, she was sure. “You’re going to love this.”

  “Last time someone told me that, I ended up seeing tiny fish eating a dead man.”

  Ty didn’t even flinch.

  Inside the surf shack, they signed a bunch of papers, the kind that say if you’re maimed or killed, you won’t bear any ill will toward Don’t Drop-In or, more importantly, sue them out of business. The thought of dying in the surf, however improbable, was not pleasing to Treflee in the least. She still loved the idea of stand-up paddling.

  After signing the papers, they headed to the beach where their boards awaited them, neatly arranged in a line in the sand. There were six girls, four Don’t Drop-In surf instructors, and Greg and Ty, both of whom were also certified to give lessons.

  Treflee hadn’t even known her husband could surf, let alone teach. But she should have suspected it. He had brought several pairs of board shorts home from a mission one time, and there was the telltale hint of coconut oil on his clothes. Why had she imagined he’d merely lain passively around a boring chain hotel pool somewhere?

  This was not the kind of mystery that kept a relationship fresh. This was the kind of mystery best kept mysterious because it gave Treflee another beef with Ty. Was he off surfing “on a mission” while she was back home taking the garbage out? That hardly seemed fair, whether she’d prefer to stand-up-paddle or not.

  The instructors, whose names Treflee promptly forgot, but who would all answer to “dude,” were an all-sorts mix of eye candy in various shades of tan, sun-bleached hair, six-pack abs, and relaxed flattery. Any one of them would have made a normal woman swoon. So why did Laci have to remain fixated on Ty?

  Ty was, after all, a married man. Married to Treflee. And his explanation that he wanted to work with Treflee to keep an eye on her after her unfortunate dance with the clothesline should have sufficed. But, no. Laci had to give Treflee the evil eye.

  For her part, Treflee would have traded instructors in a heartbeat if she thought she could have gotten away with it. But Ty was building up to something, some new chapter in his cover story, something that would give him closer access to Treflee. She was as convinced of this as she was that the ocean waves meant her ill will. She wasn’t a good swimmer, after all.

  She’d once almost drowned in six feet of water in the wave pool of a water park. To be fair, it was the fault of those darn floaty rafts. One knocked her under an oncoming wave and when she resurfaced another got her with a sucker shot. She took in a lungful of water and panicked, sinking into the water, unable to find a raft-free area to surface in. If Ty hadn’t grabbed her and held her above the waves until the wave cycle stopped and the pool went calm, he’d be free to make a move on Laci right now.

  Treflee stuffed that lovely bit of nostalgia back beneath the surface. She didn’t like remembering she owed him her life.

  After some general instructions on safety and basics, they found themselves facedown on their boards in the sand, digging for China. Using her hands as sand shovels didn’t do her manicure any favors.

  “Hey, toss me a real shovel and watch me make a sandcastle!” she called to Ty in her husky voice.

  “Shut up and swim.”

  She cocked a brow. “Swim? Really? That’s what you call this?”

  The beach quickly filled with tourists and locals and other surf school participants. By the time they lashed themselves to their boards with a leash and got to practice paddling and mounting their boards in shallow water, Treflee was getting that crowded-wave-pool panic.

  And Ty was getting a little too familiar with the way he was grabbing her butt and brushing her breasts as he instructed her and helped her back onto her board when she fell off.

  “Act like you like this flirtation,” he whispered in her ear. “We need an excuse to be together. We want the others to believe we’re falling for each other.”r />
  “Are you crazy?” she hissed back.

  He laughed for the others’ benefit as if she’d just said something extremely amusing. “Don’t blow all my hard work by scowling. Give me a little flirty smile. I know you know how to do it.”

  She glared.

  “Fake it.” He stood in the water beside her, leaning over her and putting his arms around her as he showed her the proper position to lie on her board.

  “I never fake it.”

  He laughed again. “You never had to.”

  Now she laughed for real. “Cocky bastard.” He was such an arrogant scoundrel.

  “Okay, good.” He brushed her breast and slid his hand down her leg to check her leash. “You’re hot. You’re wet. I think you’re ready to mount.”

  The innuendo in his voice reminded her of sitting naked on him, breasts bouncing, hips undulating, her hair falling over her face and his as she bent to kiss him …

  Shake it off, Tref! Remember this man is no good for you. Someone tried to kill you because of him!

  She shook her head.

  “Now remember. You ride goofy.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that shove in the back so we could find out,” she said. They’d all stood in the sand and their instructors had given them a push in the back to see which foot they stepped out with to catch themselves. Left foot first is normal. Right foot first is goofy. Riding goofy foot means your right foot is forward in your stance on the board. Of course she was goofy. Clumsy and now goofy. She’d never live it all down.

  “My pleasure, my goofy girl.” He grinned. “Right foot forward when you get onto the board into the crouch. On the count of three … one … two … three!”

  She hoisted herself up and on, screaming with glee as she rocked and fought to keep her balance. She did it! She did it!

  Ty smiled up at her, and for just an instant, the ice between them thawed.