For Her Eyes Only (McCormack Security Agency)

by Curtis, Shannon

  Ryan looked up at the two women on stage who were singing as though the room was full of talent scouts. Deborah’s arm rose as she belted out a note. She doesn’t know.

  He glanced back at Hank. Jeffrey stood with his mouth gaping open, and finally shook his head. “For God’s sake, man, why?”

  Hank shrugged. “I had to. My parents are carriers for the Tay-Sachs disease, and I’m a carrier, too.”

  Ryan blinked. “I have no idea what the Tay-Sachs disease is, sorry.”

  Hank grimaced. “It’s nasty. I had two brothers affected by it. Both died before they were four years old.” He took a deep draught of his beer. “It’s not pretty, I can tell you that. When I found I carried the gene, I had a vasectomy.” He stared morosely into his beer. “I didn’t want any kids of mine to go through what my brothers did, what my parents did.”

  Jeffrey sat back on his stool. “That’s...intense.”

  Ryan indicated Deborah up on stage. “And you didn’t think to tell your wife?”

  Hank spread his hands. “When I first met her, she told me she didn’t want kids. I thought, great, neither do I. Now she’s doing fertility drugs, flying to clinics for treatments, it’s doing her head in, not getting pregnant. She’s had to start seeing a shrink.”

  Ryan grimaced. She was seeing a whole lot more of that shrink than Hank knew. “Why don’t you just tell her?”

  Hank rolled his eyes. “Tell me, how do you tell your wife, who’s twisted herself inside-out trying to get pregnant, that she can’t have kids because you annihilated your retarded sperm?”

  Jeffrey swallowed. Ryan thought he looked a little green. “Never admit fault,” the lawyer said. “Whatever you do, don’t tell her. If you weren’t already a eunuch, she’d turn you into one.”

  Ryan shifted in his seat. Talk about something else. “So why did you come to Ultima?”

  Hank finished his beer. “Deborah won the weekend through some draw at her shrink’s office.”

  Jeffrey straightened. “Hey, I won ours through a sales seminar. Jennifer told Margie that they were invited to trial it for Jennifer’s company.”

  Ryan frowned. That was a handy coincidence, except in this job, there were no coincidences. “I’m paying for ours.” He wondered if Kurt and Paula had a similar story.

  Jeffrey winced. “Ouch. Couldn’t believe it. I never win anything. It didn’t take much to convince Margie to come away for a retreat.”

  Hank leaned back in his chair. “I get the impression she would like to see you make partner...?”

  Jeffrey sighed. “Yeah. She was pre-law, had to give up college when she got pregnant.”

  “I didn’t realize you had kids,” Hank said, frowning.

  Jeffrey shook his head. “No, she was pregnant when I met her. She ended up giving the kid up for adoption. But she always regretted not completing her degree. That’s why she’s always riding me to make partner, I think—because she can’t.”

  Guess that explained the photo in the locket. Ryan glanced up on stage as Vicky and Deborah’s number built to a crescendo as they hit the final bars of the song, and the crowd roared.

  For a moment, Vicky looked almost happy. Then she looked over at their table, and her smile stuttered as she surveyed the group. He knew what she was thinking. One of them was responsible for the death of her friend, and her friend’s father. One of these beer-chugging, wine-sipping, vocally challenged couples had stabbed, sliced, and diced another human being. If he had any sensitivity, he’d probably be cringing, too.

  He rested his now-empty beer bottle on the scarred wooden table with a clunk. That was it, though. He wasn’t cringing. This was his job, this is what he did. Rub shoulders with sicko murderers. He was immune to the emotion of it. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d let it affect him. His grip on the bottle tightened until his knuckles turned white. That was a lie. He could remember. This job, this mission, for some reason, had pulled all those painful memories from the dark cave where he’d kept them hidden in his mind.

  Vicky slid into the chair at his side, and her smile brightened when she met his gaze. It was her. The reason he was plagued with an emotional echo he’d long thought gone was because of Vicky, damn it. Too many parallels that Gavin and Neil would have a field day with.

  “How is your knee?” She’d iced it and rested it during the afternoon session. Where possible, she was keeping off it.

  She smiled. “I think it was just a twist. The swelling is already going down.”

  He nodded and turned back to the stage as Margie sang a song, Vicky clapping along to the beat next to him. Paula sat down next to her.

  “That was a great number, Cassandra,” she said to Vicky, her words bearing the slight accent of her South American origins. But anyone could fake an accent. He did, all the time.

  “Thanks, Paula. So, tell me more about this business empire you want to start up,” Vicky said.

  Ryan listened with half an ear as Paula launched into convoluted detail about her ideal business, and how Kurt’s wealthy family were going to help with the startup costs. There was a lot of hand-rolling, a lot of “whatever”, and then a deep-throated laugh that had him turning to her. The woman had quite a vocal range. Yet she couldn’t hold a tune to save her life. Go figure.

  Kurt came up to the table with another round of shots for the guys, and a round of sodas for the women. Hank, Jeffrey and Elliot crowed their appreciation. They almost look like a bunch of rowdy frat boys. Ryan nodded his thanks when Kurt handed him his shot of some dark, lethal-looking liquor. Kurt raised his glass, and all the men followed suit, and Ryan smiled through gritted teeth. He couldn’t pour this one into the drunken plant behind him. He swallowed the liquor, and relished the slow burn down his throat that bloomed into his chest. Whatever it was, it was smooth, like velvet, with a punch like steel.

  Margie finished her song, and they all cheered. Jeffrey got up to greet his wife, and wobbled a bit.

  “Whoa, there, buddy,” Kurt said, catching him around the waist and supporting him. Margie shot him a look born of long-term tolerance.

  “I think it’s time we went home,” she told him, a patient smile crossing her lips.

  Jeffrey threw back his head and laughed, and Kurt dragged the swaying man closer. “I think you’re right,” Jeffrey said, grinning.

  Hank rose, and Deborah stood with him, holding onto his arm. “You, too, tiger,” she laughed.

  Everyone else started to make similar noises for departure, and Ryan rose with Vicky. She laughed as she ducked under his arm, and he tugged her closer, enjoying the warmth of her body against his.

  “Hey, big guy, you better let me drive,” she said, loud enough for the others to hear. He shook his head. He was fine to drive, having given most of his drinks to the now-floating plant behind him.

  “Nah, I’m good, sweetheart,” he told her. He knew exactly what she was doing.

  She shook her head, adamant. “No, I insist. You’ve all been drinking. I’ll drive us back to the resort.” She held out her hand, and he looked at her pale skin, her long fingers, then glanced up at the group. They were all looking at him expectantly. He had to go with the act, damn it, and pretend to be as drunk as the rest of them. And she knew it, the minx. He dug in his pocket, intentionally swaying against her as he did, yet still careful of her knee. She was good, she took it all in her stride.

  “Here,” he said, and dropped the keys to the car in her hand. She met his gaze, a low little twinkle that temporarily obscured her wariness and sorrow. She was playing with him.

  He grinned at her. Two could play at this. He leaned down and kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He swayed, and she had to clutch him to maintain her balance, as the group cheered them on. He slid his tongue inside her mouth, teasing, gliding. Her fingers tightened
on his jacket lapel, and her breath hitched. He raised his head and gave her a goofy smile. “Okay. You can drive.”

  Her eyes were closed, and she opened them, desire and confusion quickly swamped with an exasperation quickly hidden by a demure smile.

  “Damn you,” she whispered so that only he could hear. She would have looked like she was murmuring sweet nothings to him.

  “Right back at you, Buttercup.”

  She rolled her eyes and picked up her handbag, guiding him along behind the others who were already heading out the tavern door. He leaned lightly on her as they walked through the parking lot, trying to look like a standup drunk while helping his limping partner to the car. They waved to the other couples as one by one, they drove off. He chuckled as she struggled to keep him upright. She helped him to the passenger side and opened the door.

  “I’m all right to drive, you know,” he told her.

  She smiled sweetly. “I know.” She pushed him down into the passenger seat, his head bumping against the doorframe as he fell in.

  Hank and Deborah pulled up next to them. “Is everything okay?” Deborah asked. Ryan looked at Hank. The man looked like he was already asleep in his seat.

  “Everything is fine, thanks, Deborah,” Vicky said, grinning. Ryan felt the skin around his eyes tightening.

  “Don’t forget what I told you,” Deborah said, eyeing Ryan meaningfully.

  “Uh, yeah. Okay.” Vicky went to close the door, and Ryan had to move quickly to avoid breaking a foot. He watched as Vicky limped lightly around the front of the car, waving to Deborah as she drove off.

  “What was that all about?” he asked Vicky as she slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Never mind. Girl talk. Buckle up.”

  He fastened his seat belt and tried to look relaxed as Vicky started the engine and drove out of the lot. Snow had fallen, and the temperature had dropped dramatically. The roads would be icy.

  He didn’t know where to put his hands. He was riding in a car. Not driving.

  They turned a corner, and he clutched his seatbelt.

  God help him, Vicky was driving.

  * * *

  Drew walked past the door to the suite of offices and paused. He hadn’t checked there, yet. The glass swing door bore a frosted Ultima crest. The lights beyond were soft, muted. He pushed the glass entry door opened and stopped to listen. Silence. He wasn’t sure where the counselors or Meagan James were.

  He closed the glass door quietly behind him, and walked calmly across the plush carpet. He’d just opened the door to Meagan’s office when the woman herself breezed into the suite behind him. She paused when she saw him at her door.

  “You don’t happen to know where any of the guests are, do you?”

  Ryan had briefly mentioned a trip into town to a karaoke bar, of all places, but he wasn’t about to tattle on the AWOL guests. Leaving the resort, alcohol, and any other vice that could be had in town were strictly off the program at Ultima.

  “Er, no.”

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her tone abrupt. She wasn’t in a good mood.

  Drew thought quickly. What could he say? “Uh, yes, actually. I’m looking for Mandy, from Housekeeping? I can’t find her, anywhere.”

  Meagan’s eyes narrowed as she swept past him into her office. “Mandy? Oh, Mandy.” She turned to face him, recognition in her eyes. “Yes, I know Mandy from Housekeeping. She didn’t show up for her shift this afternoon.” Her lips tightened with barely controlled frustration. “I got a note under my office door from her.” She crossed over to a filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer, rifling through the contents until she found the file she was looking for.

  “Maybe you can help me understand,” she told him. She opened the file and held out a scrap of paper. He scanned the contents of the handwritten note, jagged lines on the long form letters suggesting a haste and impatience on the part of the note writer.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this, anymore. I have to leave, Mandy,” he read aloud. He frowned. She’d said nothing to him about a crisis, or a struggle to remain at the resort. In fact, she’d seemed quite happy, to him and to the rest of the staff, he’d asked around.

  Meagan stuffed the note back inside the folder, shoved the file back in the drawer and closed it with a bang. “She’s walked out in the middle of a retreat, damn it. She couldn’t give me one more day. Hell, she couldn’t even tell me to my face, but left a damned note.”

  The resort manager took a deep breath, as though trying to calm herself, and met his gaze, sympathy finally edging in.

  “You were close to her, were you?”

  Drew shrugged. “We were friends.”

  “Close friends?”

  “No, just friends.”

  Meagan grimaced. “Yet she didn’t tell you that she was leaving, either. Maybe none of us knew her as well as we thought we did.”

  Drew kept his expression calm. “Yeah, I guess. Well, thanks for letting me know.”

  Meagan nodded. “If she contacts you, can you please tell her to call me? She’s left her stuff, with no forwarding address.” The woman sighed. “I suppose she expects us to mail it to her.”

  Drew nodded and waved, and left her office, closing the door behind him, and rested against the paneled surface. Mandy was gone. That was a surprise. She hadn’t seemed overly stressed or anxious about anything. He sighed. That’s what happens when there were lies in a relationship. Surprises. Too many damned surprises.

  * * *

  Vicky kept her eyes on the road. Sleet was falling, little balls of ice that hit the windscreen like polystyrene balls from a bean bag. The windscreen wipers were nearly useless, the breeze pulling the ice back, then flinging it at the windshield in between slides of the blades. Thank goodness for snow tires. The conditions were challenging, but she loved a challenge. Getting people and items from Point A to Point B in the quickest possible time was her thing.

  “What did Deborah mean?” Ryan asked. She didn’t look at him, knew he still had a white-knuckle grip on his damned seatbelt as though he expected her to crash the car at any moment. Sheesh.

  “We were just talking about relationships in general,” Vicky said. In particular, about Deborah’s desperate need to have a baby, and Vicky’s Kiss of Boredom effect on the opposite sex, namely her husband. Well, the man posing as her husband. Vicky shifted in her seat. She’d kind of felt obligated to share once Deborah had virtually presented her heart in her palm while they were looking through the song lists. The woman had given her some tips on how to shake her husband out of his complacency. She blinked. Dress sexy, for starters. Anything that involved oysters, honey, chocolate or cream apparently worked well too.

  She kept her eyes glued on the road. She wasn’t about to tell Ryan anything about that conversation. Not after what had happened at the Christmas party. She didn’t think she could go for a second round of Ultimate Humiliation.

  “Hmm, there was a lot of that going around,” Ryan observed, and it took Vicky a moment to realize he wasn’t talking about her humiliation. “Hank and Jeffrey shared way too much information.”

  “Oh, like what?”

  “Well, that locket we found in Margie’s jewelry box? That was the baby she gave up for adoption.”

  Vicky’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, wait, there’s more. Hank’s had a vasectomy.”

  Vicky’s jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God! And Deborah doesn’t know?” A bright light, shining briefly, caught her eye in the rearview mirror. Headlights a fair distance behind them caught the mirror every now and then as they started up the long mountain drive to the resort.

  “Of course Deborah doesn’t know, otherwise she wouldn’t be trying to get pregnant,” Vicky answered her own question, focusing on the road again. She shook her head. “You
know, if they’re not the Maxwells, they’re still pretty screwed up. Fancy not telling your partner something so important.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Sometimes there are good reasons for keeping secrets.”

  This time she did look over at him. What secrets was he keeping from her? “And sometimes there are good reasons to trust,” she said, looking pointedly at his death grip on the strap across his chest.

  He reluctantly let go, his hands dropping to his lap, fluttering momentarily as though unsure what to do with them. “Well, I think we’ve learned some more details that will help us either verify their story, or trip up their cover.”

  Vicky frowned. “How are we going to prove Hank’s had a vasectomy? Sure, there might be medical records, but how does that prove that the guy here this week is actually Hank and not Simon Maxwell?”

  Lights in the rearview mirror loomed, this time much closer. She blinked. A lot closer.

  “I don’t know, Vic. Surely there’s some way to prove it.”

  “Well, yeah, you know...” Her brother had had a vasectomy after the boys were born. She’d had too many conversations with him on the subject. The only way she could think to test it would require getting to know Hank on a whole new personal level. She’d be happy to take his word for it.

  Ryan stared at her. “What?”

  She looked at him briefly. “You know.” She stared meaningfully at his crotch.

  Ryan’s expression of horror was almost comical. “Vic! No. Oh, hell, no.”

  Vicky shrugged. “Well, that’s pretty much the only way.”

  “No. Not happening. Let’s talk about something else.” He shook his shoulders, as though something cold and disgusting had settled on his back. “Damn, Vic.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t realize you were so squeamish.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “I have standards.”

  His words reminded her of their previous chat outside Margie and Jeffrey’s cabin, and she sobered. She’d hurt his feelings, and it had been bothering her ever since. “I know you do, Ryan. I’m so sorry, I never meant—”