by Diana Ryan
One day during the last week before school started again, I went up to Lower Two after my first tour to say hi to Nolan. I knew the second I entered the door that something was horribly wrong. His posture was off and he looked incredibly nervous.
My lungs felt like they had collapsed in my chest. “Hey, honey, are you okay?” I went over to him and put my hands around his waist. He kissed my forehead and then pulled away. It was a courtesy kiss.
He looked deep into my eyes as if he was trying to see right into my brain. “I’m good now. When are you off tonight?” But his voice was all wrong; something wobbled behind his voice box. Why were his eyes red and glossed over?
“We’re the first boat today. Our last trip’s at 5:15.” I grabbed his hand. Something was definitely not right.
He moved in for a hug and whispered in my ear. I could barely hear him. “We can’t talk here but you need to trust me when I say this...” But a middle-aged couple with some loud kids walked up to the booth at that moment and he quickly pulled away from me.
What? What was he saying? Nothing was making sense.
When the family left he said, “Can you come over when you are done with work? I’ve got...ah, something planned.” He smiled but it wasn’t the genuine smile I was used to. He was definitely covering, afraid to say what he needed to say.
He pulled me in again. “I can’t wait for this day to go by.” Then he kissed my forehead once more before some more customers approached the window. I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
The day ticked by so slowly, and it seemed that every time I went up to talk with Nolan, he looked more and more sick. He was continuously swamped with customers all day and we didn’t get to talk at all. I just needed a sign that everything was okay but I got nothing from him except a strange foreshadowing that heartache was right around the corner.
My heart felt like it was in overdrive all day, and by the time my last tour had finished, I was exhausted. I swept the boat in record speed, paid Jack for his share of the books sales, and then sprinted down the dock and up the stairs to street level. When I glanced back at Lower Two, I saw that it was closed up. I waved bye to Brian as I ran past Lower One and down the sidewalk to the parking lot.
I didn’t even stop at home to change. I drove directly to Animal Island and parked next to Nolan’s cabin. His car wasn’t there. I went up to the door and knocked and yelled for him, but there was no answer. The cabin was locked, and when I pressed my ear to the door, I didn’t hear a sound. I didn’t know what to do, so I walked around the back of the cabin, and that’s when I noticed the window right next to his bed was broken. I examined it and saw blood and tiny pieces of flesh stuck to the shards of glass.
I stood there stunned, confused, and panicked. Who was this man and what was going on? My body didn’t know what to do except drop to my knees and cry. I put my head in my hands and let the tears flow through my fingers and onto the unmown grass.
The briefcase! I should have confronted him!
It was almost fifteen minutes before Nolan found me. “Ava? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” He knelt down on the grass beside me and put his arms around my back. I wanted to throw them off me, but instead I let his arms pull me into his chest, and I melted into his body. He smelled so wonderfully, and his touch made me feel so safe. A million emotions flooded my heart. I was so scared, yet so in love with this man. I sat up and tried to look at him through watery eyes.
“Please, sweet Ava, tell me, are you hurt?” He brushed a flyaway piece of hair from my nose and held my face in his hands. I looked up at his eyes and saw they were filled with tears as well, and his left eye was all bruised and bloodshot. He kissed me hard and sweet. I gave into him, kissing him back with all my emotions, tears still streaming down my cheeks. Then, suddenly, he picked me up in his arms and carried me to the front of his cabin. He placed me in the front seat of his car, got in, and peeled away from Animal Island, spraying gravel everywhere.
He didn’t say a word as he sped down Minnesota Avenue past the post office and around the back of the swimming pool. I quietly sobbed as the summer sun was setting beneath the trees. He parked next to the baseball fields. Make Out Rock. He was taking me to the site of our first kiss. He shut off the ignition but stayed in the car, staring out the windshield with anger and frustration splashed across his face.
“I don’t want this to end. This has to end.” It was like two people were fighting in his head.
I didn’t know what he meant. Was he breaking up with me?
“I don’t want this to end either.” I reached for his hand, but he jerked it away. None of it added up. If he could just tell me what was going on...
He dropped his head into his hands and mumbled something I couldn’t make out. Then he lifted his head and screamed to the ceiling of the car, “I just can’t do it!”
“What?” I screamed back. This was it. This was the end. My heart cracked into a thousand pieces. What had I done to bruise this relationship?
Then he completely changed demeanor, like he had found the answer in his head. He leaned over and whispered to me, “Say nothing. Let’s get out of here.” He opened the car door, and I followed his instructions. He impatiently waited for me to come around the front of the car, and then he grabbed my hand and held on tightly. He pulled me until we were running towards Make Out Rock.
A train’s loud horn rang out down the tracks several hundred yards away. “Perfect,” he said. We jumped over the train tracks and ran the deep path until we were at the rock cliff. I turned to see the train speed by right as he grabbed me firmly by the shoulders and turned to look me straight in the eye.
His face was within inches of mine. “I don’t have much time.” The train was so loud he was yelling.
“What is going on? Tell me right now!” I screamed between sobs. “Nolan, I love you. You can tell me anything!” I willed his eyes to speak to me; they were flooded with tears again. The train wailed behind us.
“I love you, too.” Then he kissed me filled with emotion, but there was obvious confliction behind it. I held onto his lower back tightly, not wanting to ever let go. We could just stay on the rock forever, happily kissing, and everything would be okay.
Then it happened. He pulled away, looked me straight in the eyes, and with a shaken voice he said, “I’m so sorry it has to be this way. I truly do love you, Ava Gardner,” and then he let out a grunt, and I heard a strange metallic clinking sound as something fell to the stony ground. I yelled his name, but then doubled over in hysterics as I saw Nolan running away from me without looking back. As if he had timed it perfectly, he crossed the train tracks just as the caboose sped by and he ran off into the darkness.
My head began to pound violently. Why did this heartache feel like I was dying? I tried to tell myself to stand, to get my body up and pathetically return home defeated and broken.
The tears came down like a rainstorm as pain radiated through my whole body. I was convulsing and shaking, and abruptly felt extremely cold. Then came an excruciating pain in my side. I slid a hand down to my torso and, to my surprise, I felt a wet and sticky liquid.
Something shiny caught the moon’s ray on the rock a few feet away. It was a knife about three inches long. My bright red blood was slowly sliding down the flat layers of rock to the place where the knife was.
Nolan had stabbed me.
He was gone.
I knew in that instant that I did not want to live this messed-up life anymore. I was ready for death. So I let myself slip into the darkness in front of me.
Part Two
Chapter One
It was late afternoon when I arrived at the cabin I’d be staying in while working in the Dells. I parked my silver Audi in a short gravel driveway and stared at the site before me—a few broken-down, olive green, and incredibly small cabins sitting in a bed of overgrown grass.
I let out a loud sigh as I pulled my key from the ignition, but stayed in the car a moment, thinking. I looked
around. So this would be my home for a while. I guessed it wouldn’t be so bad.
I thought back to the unexpected events of my day—especially the Lower Dells boat tour when I first caught sight of Ava. She had displayed the kind of striking beauty that seemed to come naturally, like she didn’t have to work hard at it. I smiled at the thought of her.
You have a job to do this summer, Nolan. Getting a girl is not an option, my brain scolded. I shook my head trying to get the picture of Ava from my mind.
I grabbed my cell and the ring of keys Darren had given me from the console, and then got out of the car. Behind me there was a row of five more cabins identical to mine, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was eerily quiet.
I popped the trunk and took out my black work briefcase and the luggage I had packed that morning in Chicago before I left. It was unclear how long I’d be on this mission, so I had to pack as if I’d be here for three months.
Ava popped into my mind again. Her body was fit and she had nicely toned legs. All of that was wonderful, but her smile was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. My mind’s eye could clearly see her soft brown eyes under her long dark eyelashes. They were sweet, caring eyes that matched perfectly with her thin pink lips.
I slammed the trunk shut.
So what? She’s gorgeous. I can look, right? Just as long as I keep my heart out of it.
A worn path through the grass led to two wooden steps leading up to cabin three. I pulled open the holey screen door and swatted at a moth as it fluttered past my face, freed from the door’s captivity. The key fit awkwardly in the hole and I had to use some muscle to get it to turn, but eventually I got the old wooden door open with a creak.
The light on the ceiling flickered when I flipped the switch, and as I took a step into the small space my nose instantly filled with a musty smell. When was the last time anyone stayed in this cabin? The air felt stale and the whole thing was in need of a deep cleaning.
Hopefully I wouldn’t be here too long.
I set my bags down on the floor and sat on the couch across from the twin bed. Six bright blue Dells Boat Tour bumper stickers had been haphazardly slapped onto the wall outside the bathroom. My mind flipped back to my first boat tour. I had sat on the bottom deck waiting for the tour to begin, and had had the perfect vantage point to watch Ava untie the front of the boat. She leaned far over the rail on the dock and I followed her long, muscular, tanned legs all the way up the back of her shorts.
Damn.
Ava threw the rope onto the bow and I craned my neck, watching her walk all the way to the back of the dock.
“She’s single, if you were wondering.”
I snapped my head back towards Jack.
Woops. Busted.
I smiled and Jack flashed a mischievous grin back at me.
It would be hard to ignore this woman. I had absolutely no intentions coming into it, but my heart argued that perhaps this summer didn’t have to be all business. My brain intervened: Don’t even think about it, Nolan. This is work. You could be leaving at anytime.
My phone buzzed in my hand, jolting me back to the present. New text message from Agent Harper. I slid my finger across the screen to receive the message.
Intelligence indicates the source of radiation is within a 200-mile radius of your area. Continue ruse and stand by for further instructions.
A nervous bubble swelled in my stomach, but I quickly pushed it away. This was my first mission as a field agent, and I was not about to mess it up. A lot was riding on me being successful here, and I knew that for now my job was to lie low and play the ticket agent part for a while.
The Boat Tours had supplied some furnishings within the cabin including a limited supply of used cooking utensils and dishes in the kitchen, an overly soft couch, a hard twin bed, and, thankfully, a small flat-screen TV mounted to the wall outside the bathroom. I turned on the tube and it was set to a channel broadcasting commercials for attractions in the Dells. Before I could turn the channel, a big blue and white tour boat glided over the river through some tall, rocky cliffs.
“The Rocky Island Region,” I remembered from Ava’s tour. I was taken back to our conversation on the bottom deck of the General Bailey on the way back upstream, when I had been rendered speechless by Ava’s very presence.
I was losing my nerve. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I tried to remember my stress training. Could any of that apply here?
“Keep talking,” my heart instructed.
I managed to mutter something about cornfields.
Idiot! What are you, some kind of hick? Come on, pull it together and say something intelligent!
“Are you from the area? It’s so beautiful here.”
Well, that wasn’t half bad. Showing some interest is good.
I glanced quickly at her face. She was still talking, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying over the loud beating of my heart.
God, she was beautiful.
I swallowed hard, suddenly aware of my increasingly sweaty armpits and wondered if my cologne was too strong. I felt a bead of sweat falling from my hairline, so I nonchalantly looked out the window to wipe the sweat away and get myself under control.
I had been trained to stay as cool as ice in high-pressure situations, but somehow, Ava had some kind of power over me that was taking precedence. If some young college girl from small-town Wisconsin could affect me like this, what would I do when I was faced with real danger?
Dread filled my heart. I was failing at the very job I hadn’t even begun yet.
I continued to hide by looking out the window, thinking back to the last nine months in Chicago surrounded by underground offices, tall, urban buildings, and lots and lots of grey. The natural world around me was so refreshing. Part of my job would be to protect it.
Was I really ready for the career path I had chosen for myself? I knew it would be a life of loneliness, but the deeply rooted loyalty I felt for this country consumed my heart so overwhelmingly. My parents had had a large part in leading me down this career path. They had always been extremely patriotic and selfless in everything they did.
Being here now was only part of a minor mission—a way for the agency to see if I was worthy for the big leagues. All my hard work proving myself had brought me here.
During the boat tour I had noticed a classic all-American family sitting on the shoreline fishing—mom, dad, two kids, and a dog. They had a picnic spread out on a red and white checkered cloth and were laughing and splashing in the river water, completely unaware of the thousands of people behind the scenes that had committed themselves to defending and protecting the American public from real and horrific threats everyday.
This was what I was meant to do.
So I got to work. I entered my security code on the lock on my briefcase and it popped open with a loud click. My tablet was near the top of the collection of items inside, and it didn’t take me long to set up a hotspot and connect to the Internet. I pulled up my op files and began to review my mission.
Task Mission #23322: Assist in locating and identifying hazardous environmental threats to the health and safety of the American people by searching area environments and interacting with locals, extrapolating any relevant information and reporting it to the proper authorities of the CBB offices.
Pretty broad. I read on.
The agency has deployed agents in areas throughout the Midwest posing as false employees for various cooperatives around Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. All agents are to be ready to act as soon as intelligence acquires enough information to support the intended mission.
It would likely be many weeks, maybe months, for the agency to narrow down the area further, but nevertheless, we were to stay alert, keen to our task, and in shape.
An hour later I changed into some mesh shorts and a T-shirt for a run. I wanted to be in top physical shape in preparation for any kind of physical demand I may encounter. I had to prove myself to the agency. This was o
ne job I wasn’t going to mess up.
Chapter Two
I am an agent for the FBI.
I’ve always been somewhat of a brainiac. My parents and teachers decided I should skip the third grade. When I was seventeen I went to Northwestern University in Chicago and got an undergraduate degree in International Law in only three years. I’d always thought law was interesting, but didn’t think I would ever become a lawyer; it was just something to study for the time being.
While in college I became fluent in three languages, and at twenty I graduated summa cum laude. School had always come easy to me, and although I was younger than most of my peers, my personality and charm enabled me to thrive in any learning environment. I’m one of those geeks that everyone loves to hate because I didn’t really ever need to study, but I always got A’s. It’s like my brain takes a picture of the textbook or lecture, and I can remember it clear as day later on. Although I did take school seriously, I had my fun in college too, keeping a few good buddies and dating casually, but nothing stuck.
I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I went back to Northwestern to study for a master’s degree in genetics, another subject I found interesting. Two years later I was studying my notes at a wooden picnic table in the park when, out of the blue, I was recruited by FBI Agent Harper and offered a job in a special sector deep within the agency. I was shocked. Although my parents had always modeled the value of national pride, I had never considered a career in national security.
It meant major sacrifices in my life, including assuming a fake life to fool the people closest to me. I really did love my family and friends, and I would feel horrible having to keep such a secret from them. I was given one week to make a decision, and I don’t think I slept a wink those seven days. In the end, I figured I had nothing to lose. I had no real plans for my life at that moment, and I felt an overwhelming feeling that the FBI was my calling.