Jackson came over now, his arm around Cole’s shoulder as they shook hands. It felt like he’d been welcomed into some secret fraternity.
“Okay, it’s official,” Jackson said. “We’re doing this.”
Cole gave him a nod. “Yes, we are. All the way.” He looked at his cigar. It had gone out. “Sorry about the smoke, though. I guess I might have wasted it.”
“Nah.”
“I’m not huge on cigars; I was just trying to be polite.” He chuckled a little, forcing it out to smooth over the awkwardness. “I had no idea how expensive it was, though, so now I feel even worse.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jackson said. “If all goes well and we sew this thing up, we’ll have a real reason to celebrate. Not cigars, but whatever you’re into. What is it? Dirt bikes?”
“That reminds me,” Cole said. “My bike’s still in the back of that van. Don’t let them drive off with it.”
Jackson nodded. “You want me to take care of that?” He was pointing to Cole’s wasted Cohiba.
“Umm . . .” Cole handed it to him. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” Jackson said, walking off.
Annica stayed put, her body leaning slightly toward the wind and the sound of the waves, some of its salt and warmth kicking up through her hair in the dark.
“So, Cole . . . Shall we keep going?”
He looked at her face, still pale in the moonlight. Still soft and trusting. He wanted to reach out to her to feel that softness, his knuckles caressing against her cheek. He wanted to know if it was real. If any of this could really be as good as it seemed.
Who were these people that were so concerned? Who had all the answers? And who could potentially save his life?
He’d learned more than once not to be so quick to trust the kindness of others. Especially strangers who might in fact be government agents, or worse . . . black operatives grooming their patsy. So far, they’d seemed like experts in tracking and kidnapping. What else did they have in store for him?
The biggest question for Cole, right now, was about the kind of intentions that hid behind this pretty, smiling face. What went beyond that surface of innocence and stunning beauty? And what made her so attracted to him?
He was coming to understand what had been attracting him to her.
Some of it was coincidence and timing.
Some of it was the questions she’d asked.
A lot of it was how she proposed this last moonlit question . . . and how they walked on, silently, side by side, the beach and the night opening up ahead.
He found it incredible to imagine that just a few month-old emails could have led to this, cigars with the owner of DARC Ops, with a reporter by his side. One he could actually trust. A whole arsenal of weapons at their disposal, from firearms to computer viruses, and to whatever else. He’d likely not even know what to do with half of it. But with Annica, he knew exactly.
14
Annica
The wind was a relief, since Annica figured she still smelled like the garbage bin. There was supposed to have been some time in between for her to wash up. It was the first thing she thought of, crawling out of that stinking mess.
No, it was the third thing.
Getting to Jackson’s beach house alive was the first. But that was where the night really spiraled out of control, beginning with that first nervous drink with Mira. It was the kind of nervous that made her ask for second round, and a kind of buzz that kept her going long after that.
But it was the surprise of Cole’s arrival that really put her over the edge. Not drunkenness anymore. And not fear anymore, either. It was something wild and youthful. And stupid. She’d felt it most when observing Ethan and his notepad—a reminder: dereliction of duty.
She had that in mind on this path, her toes in the sand. Sand that got softer as they neared the ocean, the footpath opening up to the moonlit beach.
Her first and foremost duty was to her magazine, taking all the steps—like Ethan, she supposed—in sussing out all the fine details of this evolving conspiracy. Staying hungry and on it. She knew this, that her duty was to her story. To her readers. To herself.
Was that who she was looking after now? On this beach?
What did Cole smell like? Machinery, with the faintest hints of gasoline, perhaps from his dirt bike. It smelled slightly like her clothes did after cutting the grass, but better. There was something else to it, something indescribable even for a writer. It was Cole, perhaps. She imagined his arms smelled like that, too. Like work.
One of them, bare and tight with muscles, had brushed against her shoulder and immediately she’d felt like wrapping her own thin and noodly arms around it, clinging onto him as he strode the beach. But that wouldn’t be very helpful for her story. That wouldn’t be the strategy of someone serious about their work, serious about breaking what could be a life-changing story.
Her life was up for the changing. She needed that. And Cole, walking with him, listening to his silence, and reading his face—how it seemed to ache to tell her things—she knew that he needed a change, too. They could change together. For a Hawaiian weekend. For their story. It was for their story, walking like this, close like this.
“You can ask me anything,” he said, the words and their meaning surprising her.
“Huh?”
“I mean, not now if you don’t want, or whatever. But whenever.”
She looked at him, at his big, dark shape. She smiled. “What are you trying to say?” She was maybe still a little drunk. But was he, too?
“Maybe not right now, I guess.”
“Not what right now?”
“The questions,” he said. “But I just wanted you to know that you can ask me anything, when you want to.”
“Thanks,” Annica said. “And yeah, I will when I want to.”
Shit. Did that come out weird? Yes, she was definitely a little drunk. Her mouth felt it’s numbing and slowing effect. That was always the first thing to go: proper and clear verbal skills. Maybe she shouldn’t try working right now, after all. It felt too late for that.
Cole still sounded like there was more to say, taking a deep breath next to her. “And . . . I just wanted to say . . . I just wanted to thank you.”
“Oh,” Annica said, slipping her hand behind his back. “Yeah, of course.” She wasn’t sure what her hand was doing there, touching him like that. Though she was glad that he hadn’t flinched away. She ended up patting him softly—friendly, even—trying to regain some semblance of . . . professionalism? Maybe not that, but at least platonicism. She frowned. Was that even a word? She should know, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Was it platonic to notice his muscles? And how thick he’d felt next to the small of his back? Was it platonic, or professional, or anything else but lustful for her hand to linger there?
She pulled her hand away. “You don’t have to thank me at all. Anyway, what have I actually done for you?”
“You’ve done a lot.”
“Get you fired maybe,” she said. “Maybe also getting you killed.”
“Well, that’s why we’re doing all this, to put an end to it.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly, wanting to touch him again.
“Honestly,” Cole said. “If we don’t get these guys behind bars . . .”
He didn’t have to finish his thought. Annica knew the kind of danger he was in. “Cole.” She turned toward him. She wanted him to see her face, how earnest she felt. How much she cared for him, for his life. He wasn’t just a story.
“Annica?”
“You’ll be safe as long as you stick with us,” she said. “These guys are the best in the world at what they do.”
“I know. Jackson told me about New Orleans,” Cole said. “But I already had a suspicion it was DARC Ops. Security guys gossip more than you think.”
“Have you heard about me?”
“Huh?”
“They saved my life, in a few ways,”
Annica said. “But mainly when I was caged up next to a ticking time bomb.”
“You were serious about that?”
“About what? The cage?”
“Jesus . . .”
She felt his eyes on her. A warmth. It felt like he’d reached over and touched her, under her chin, tilting her gaze to him.
“I can’t imagine it,” he said. “Something like that, happening to someone like you.”
She chuckled softly. “Would it be okay for anyone?” It was best to make light of it. What else could she do with something so shitty?
“I wish I could’ve taken your place.”
“I handled it,” she said.
“I know you did.”
They walked in silence after that, Annica enjoying the open air, how it coursed through her hair, her clothes. How it moved between their bodies. The sand felt so good, so much softer near the ocean. She wanted to walk in it all night. With him.
It took her a moment to realize that he’d stopped. When she turned back, Cole stood in place, doing something with his feet, sliding his shoes off, it seemed. With one shoe already lying on its side on the beach, he reached down to tug at his sock, his balance faltering just enough to make him hobble twice across the sand. He laughed and said, “Hold on.”
“For what? You stripping down?”
“Huh?”
“For a swim.”
“Oh,” he said, stuffing socks into empty shoes. “A swim . . . Should we?”
Annica looked at her other preferred view, the ocean. It looked black and infinite. “Maybe later,” she said.
“I just wanted to match you,” he said. “Bare feet. It looked good.”
“It feels good.”
He walked up to her, smiling like a kid. “It does feel good.” He looked somehow innocent, like she’d not just encountered Cole the hired thug just a few hours ago. Like he wasn’t constantly strapped, shooting holes into office walls. Perhaps into worse . . . things that could bleed.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“What?” The smile disappeared as quickly as her image of his innocence. He looked vulnerable now, and barefoot. Wounded.
“Sorry,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean in your work,” Annica said. “The kind of work you do.”
“What about it?”
“Have you shot anyone?”
Cole seemed to want to continue walking. He’d already taken a few slow steps until she finally joined him, side by side at his hip. Despite the topic of conversation, she felt good there. But maybe that would change, depending on how he answered.
“I have shot someone,” he said. “More than one. More than once.”
For some reason, she kept walking right alongside him. It almost made no difference, like they were talking about something as harmless as how many college courses he’d failed.
But he never went to college.
Annica finally said, “Did they . . . die?”
“Are we talking about here, or overseas?”
“Oh, you mean in the army?”
“You know I’ve served,” he said.
“I guess I forgot.” She felt relieved, and still a little drunk. It was probably not the best idea to talk about this, but she couldn’t stop her curiosity. She couldn’t think or move in any direction that wasn’t Cole. She even swayed into him as they walked, her foot coming down on the sand wrong and sliding her off-kilter toward his large frame. The meat of his shoulder held her up. “Sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I’m just so curious about you.”
“That’s your job, isn’t it? To be curious?”
Oh, Christ, he was talking about her job.
“Isn’t it?” he said.
“I’m not working right now.”
He took a few more steps without saying anything. And then, “I’m not working, either.”
“Well, I hope not.” Annica laughed.
“Yeah. You saw what that was like.”
“I did,” she said. “You have poor aim.”
“Don’t worry, I never miss the second time.” He gave Annica a little shove when she didn’t laugh. She finally did, and shoved him back, her fingertips digging into his warm side.
“Watch it,” he said.
She pushed him again, her hand this time touching something hard next to his belt.
“Hey.” Cole pushed her hand away.
Their laughter faded as she remembered what they’d just been talking about. “Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t make me nervous.”
Was he joking?
She looked at his smile and knew that he was. “I never touched a gun before,” Annica said.
“You still haven’t. That was just the holster.”
It gave her an odd sense of relief. And a curiosity, also, about the other untouchable and dangerous hard objects hidden under his clothes. Emboldened by the drinks, and from an old habit of testing the boundaries of male authority figures, Annica pressed on, against him, this time losing her balance on purpose and falling into him with her arm wrapping tight around his waist. She held onto him, needing him.
“Watch it,” he said again, this time saying it a little more warmly, and this time with his arm coming around and holding her in place against his muscular strides. They walked together, hip-locked, warm, with no breeze in between.
“I’m only doing this because I’m a gentleman,” he said.
“Sure you are.”
“You don’t think so? What part?”
“What part what?” she said, laughing after the ridiculous sound of her words.
“I am a gentleman.”
“Okay.”
“Right now I’m holding you up because you’re wasted.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“You’re not a lady.”
“Heyyy,” Annica said without pulling away. Without doing anything, really. She clung onto him.
“I’m just kidding. You’re a fine, proper lady.”
“No, I’m really not,” she said. “And I didn’t care about that so much as the drunk part. I’m not drunk.”
“I know.”
“And I can walk just fine.”
“Mhmm.”
“I just don’t want to.”
“Tired?”
“A little,” Annica said. “You know, it would be better if you just carried me.”
“I’ll carry you into the ocean.”
She gripped tighter. “No.”
“That’s the price.”
“And then what? You just throw me in there and let the tide take me?”
“Yep. Who needs a gun when you can just throw a drunk woman in dangerous surf?”
“Oh, do you surf?”
Cole laughed.
“No? What’s so funny?”
Cole slowed his walk and took his arm back from around her. “Do you want to sit?”
They were close to the water. She could see the latest traces of waves on the sand below them, the faint crescents only slightly darker than the rest of the moonlit white.
“Just right here,” Cole said. “Who cares?”
She sat first, cross-legged and stifling a giggle with the back of her hand. She felt like a little girl, giggling over her first crush. She lowered her hand from mouth to the sand, cupping a little of it, letting it fall between her fingers. She scooped up some more as she watched Cole drop to his knees. His knees dug in the sand until he leaned back on his palms. Then he stretched his legs out fully.
“I wish I had shorts on,” he said.
So did she. For him and her. For his comfort, and for her view of his legs.
What did they look like, aside from muscular? She remembered, when he was on the deck, that one of the first things she’d noticed were his thighs. His build was obvious even through pants, him looking like an Olympic sprinter. A hurdler, perhaps, from the way he got around the deck railings of cargo ships. Eve
n that last time . . .
A retired hurdler, then. A man, a wounded man just trying to get on with his life somehow.
“So, Cole . . .” She wanted to ask him about it. She wanted to know. But she couldn’t come up with words that were precise enough. Delicate enough. She had been witness to perhaps his lowest, most vulnerable moment—Cole leaning off the railing of Batchewana, facing down to the same angry surf that they were both now staring at. She continued clumsily, but with a buzzed persistence: “So, um, how are you doing?”
“I’m good,” he said. “Right now I’m good.”
“Me, too.”
She looked out into the blackness in front of them. There were stars on top of the horizon, brilliant clusters of twinkling constellations. The heavens. A clear line separated it from the ocean, and their beach, and them. Below that line was just a single distant light, an ocean freighter perhaps, bobbing in the stark blackness of the ocean.
“We haven’t really talked about . . . the boat, or anything,” she said.
“What about it?”
“We haven’t talked about the interview, either. And why you skipped out on it.”
“You saw why.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“You saw me,” he said, “out on the deck. Over the rails.”
“Yeah,” Annica said. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t then, and I still don’t.”
“I understand if you felt . . . helpless.”
“Yeah . . .”
“I’d feel the same way,” she said, “if I didn’t see a way out.”
Cole nodded.
“But there is a way out. I was trying to offer you one. I was trying to help.”
“I know.”
“We were working together weeks, building trust. They were just emails, but I felt like I got to know you. I felt like I trusted you.”
“Of course,” he said. “Annica, I wouldn’t have even offered to meet with you if I hadn’t felt that way.”
“Felt what way?”
“Like I trusted you. That was never the problem.”
“So then what was?” Annica chuckled and said, “You didn’t think I was a good enough writer or something?”
DARC Ops: The Complete Series Page 136