An Unexpected Addition

by Terese Ramin

  Megan smiled, eyes hard and amused at once—the look, if she’d but known it, a carbon copy of Hank’s scary don’t-cornerme-or-we’ ll-find-out-who’s-tough challenge. A bead of sweat appeared on Danny’s upper lip, his eyes skittered over her face. Megan didn’t congratulate herself; she’d inherited a certain reputation as Zevo’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, but it didn’t take a whole lot of chutzpah to weird Danny out. Without visible effort, she twisted her wrist out of his grasp.

  “Go bite yourself, Danny,” she advised him evenly. Then she took Risto’s hand, turned on her heel and walked away.

  The sun was below the horizon, but the sky was still rippled with color: orange-gold-pink along the lip of the world, going up to almost white, fading into mauve and indigo above that; below, the earth burned with faintly retained daylight, fading quickly to dusk’s hard-to-see-through gray and black.

  Watching the sky, Hank pulled the scuffed S-10 pickup he’d borrowed from Tai into the small lot beside the yellow clapboard house and shut it off. The engine knocked with post-ignition noise, hiccupped, sputtered, then whirred to silence. An almost nauseating eagerness thrummed his veins, sent cocaine-like clarity rushing to his brain while his heart picked up speed and the bottom fell out of his stomach with the electric pulse of adrenaline. For the first time in five years he felt wired, alive, hyperfocused, fearless; wondered how the hell he could ever have given up this sensation, this arrogant, all-consuming knowledge that tonight he’d once again found his zone and could do no wrong. That tonight, every shot he took at the basket would swish through unencumbered and unquestioned.

  Then he remembered Megan and the electricity turned up a notch, took on subtly different overtones: fear, worry, doubt, anger.

  He wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and squeezed, channeling all his energy into a simple isometric reach for unfettered awareness and calm. He was a DEA agent in an assistant director’s suit, but he was not an agent tonight, he reminded himself. He was a parent. This was not a branch of a South American drug cartel he was after here, but his daughter, his child—and other people’s children. He was not a rodeo rider charged up to take on a killer brahma tonight; he had to gear down, keep it lowkey, remember that he had an entire tricounty area’s narcotics-enforcement team waiting on his signal to do cleanup. He was not out here alone, and though he would enter the house by himself, he didn’t think he’d come out alone. He was here to collect Megan—he hoped to hell she wasn’t inside—period.

  He was also here because of Kate—to protect Risto.

  At the mere thought of her, a dull, thick ache centered low in his loins, brought pain with the tightening of his jeans. He could almost feel the rub of her nipples through her loose T-shirt and modest brassiere when she stood behind him clipping his hair, sense the swell of her breasts much too close to his cheek—the memory and sensation enhanced, he knew, because like any addict, he was high right now on his own drug of choice, one created by his own body. Nothing like a good rush to bring the noblest intentions to their knees.

  Megan, he reminded himself grimly, you’re in this for Megan. Sex with Kate is not part of the program. Wanting to have sex with Kate is not part of the program. And even imagining making love and not just having sex with Kate is way too complicated and absolutely stupid. Idiotic. Out of the question.

  Torture.

  And not only that, but he wanted, with all his heart, to make love with Kate Anden and to hell with the consequences.

  Needed to make love with Kate, explore every facet of her body and her person, without worrying—or even thinking—about Megan.

  The timing of his needs, wants, desires had never been more inconvenient.

  Damn. He released the steering wheel and stepped out of the truck, easing his pants away from the uncomfortable stiffness in his crotch. He didn’t need this.

  He did not need this.

  So he slammed the truck door, reminded himself of the names he’d been given to get himself inside the blind pig and strode purposefully toward the entrance, concentrating only on the task of the moment.

  And not thinking about Kate.

  “I don’t believe you did that.” Risto exploded when he and Megan reached the steps down to the main floor. “You are crazy.”

  Megan grinned, exhilarated. “Yeah, but it worked, didn’t it? C’mon, let’s go downstairs, I’ll buy ya a drink.”

  “Ei kiitos.” Risto shook his head. “No, thanks. I don’t drink anymore in America. I promised Kate.”

  Megan peered at him. “You won’t drink, but you’ll gamble?”

  Risto looked away, guilty as questioned. “I didn’t promise about gambling.”

  “That’s splitting hairs, Speedy.” Thoroughly righteous, thoroughly hypocritical. “This is illegal, too. And you’re addicted to gambling, even if you aren’t to alcohoL”

  To his credit the youth didn’t deny the truth. “Oh, I’m a black pot, but you are a clean kettle, right?”

  Megan straightened, deliberately offended. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes you do.” His lip curled disdainfully. “You cannot have it two ways, Megan-terttu.” His nickname for her, the word meant “cluster,” referred, in his use, to the number of different people she seemed to pack into her singular personality. “You do not ask me to confess about me what you...” He paused, locating the word. “What you...nix about you.”

  “Nix?” she asked, mocking him and his command of her language. Avoiding a truth she recognized but refused to admit. “Don’t you mean deny?”

  Risto’s jaw tightened under her derision. “You are a bitch.”

  She grinned, accepting complaint as compliment. Moistening the tip of her index finger, she made a mark in the air.

  He flushed but continued, “I like the rush winning cards gives me, but you like danger. You didn’t stand up to Danny for me, you did it because making dangerous men look ridiculous in front of their friends gets you high.”

  She sniffed. “Danny’s not dangerous, he’s a coward.”

  “Ja,” Risto agreed seriously. “He is a coward. Being a coward is what makes him dangerous. He would stab you between the shoulders and you would never see it coming.”

  “He’d stab me between the shoulders, if I turned my back on him—if we were alone.” Megan corrected. “But I won’t turn my back and we’ll never be alone, so he can’t. Anyway, it’s not me he’s after right now, it’s you. How the hell did you lose a thousand dollars to him and how you going to get back your marker?”

  “I don’t know.” Worried, he shrugged his entire body. “And I think the cards are marked.”

  Megan tapped her upper lip thoughtfully. “Are they,” she said. Her eyes gleamed.

  Risto eyed her warily. “No,” he said emphatically. “Don’t help.”

  “But I want to.” She smiled. “It’ll be fun.”

  “No.”

  “Sure it will.” She caught his arm, tugged him down the steps. “C’mon, you can buy me a drink and we’ll talk about it”

  “Nej, no, nyet, non, ei, absotively not.” Vigorously Risto shook his head, dragging away from Megan’s hold. “You will not help. You will—”

  He stopped short, eyes wide. A single Finnish expletive hit the air. Loosely translated, the word meant “pig manure.”

  “What’re you bitchin’ about hogs for—” Megan began, turning back to him, then saw what he’d seen: Hank crossing the main floor toward the basement steps in company with Earl. She swallowed. “Oh, damn,” she whispered. Then anger hit. “Well isn’t that just kick-you-in-the-crotch-and-spit-down-your-neck fantastic. The bastard doesn’t trust me.”

  “I could guess why,” Risto offered helpfully.

  Megan quelled him with a glance, then hesitated, suddenly unsure which direction to go.

  Risto caught her hand. “You have a car?”

  She nodded.

  “Out the side,” he suggested.

  They went

  She wa
sn’t there.

  Neither was Risto.

  Hank didn’t know whether to be glad or concerned; the rush in his system dropped off briefly, then returned at a more intense level as the pure cop in him took over from the cop-parent. Not having to think about Megan being here, it was a high he could savor and fiercely enjoy. It wasn’t quite the same as kicking down doors and facing possible death on a supercharged DEA raid, but it was far superior to desk work. He wandered through the hazy rooms with one of the men whom the police were outside awaiting his say-so to arrest, noting the apparent ages of the participants, counting heads, taking it all in.

  The air was of one big party; the party goers of all ages and not, as Jamal thought, strictly teens to twenties. The youngest kid in the place appeared to be about thirteen, the oldest about fortytwo. High-school students—many of them with beers in hand, not a few of them blitzed beyond the ability to know what they were doing or that they were doing it in public—did, indeed, appear to make up the bulk of the underground nightclub’s patronage to the tune of about one hundred seventy-five partiers in all.

  Pulse rat-a-tatting to the beat of a variety of emotions, Hank observed several liquor and drug-paraphernalia sales, bought a beer out of a pop machine and a bag of marijuana and some cigarette papers from Earl before making one last sweep of the interior on his own. When it became indisputably apparent that Megan and Risto were nowhere on the premises, Hank went outside and turned his purchases over to the officer in charge who gave the signal to commence the strike.

  Among other items confiscated, the raid netted twenty-three thousand dollars in cash, controlled substances, narcotics paraphernalia, the pop machine filled with beer, twenty-seven bags of marijuana, pagers, gaming tables, a roulette wheel, computers and computer files pertaining to controlled-substance trafficking, alcohol sales and gambling activities.

  Of the 183 persons present, over a hundred were minors under the age of twenty-one. Forty-three under seventeen were ticketed for drinking under the zero-tolerance law; twenty were released to their parents and the remainder were eighteen or older.

  The bust gave Hank a grim buzz of satisfaction, the knowledge that, because the area was rural instead of urban and consequently less populated, he’d helped to put a real crimp—however brief—in the local narcotics pipeline. He felt for the unsuspecting parents called to collect youngsters from the scene, but at least they now knew where their children were. Which was a helluva lot more than he could say for himself.

  Damn.

  Megan dropped Risto off half a mile from Stone House so he could pick and choose his own route home while she went in another direction.

  She was flying high after their unwitnessed escape, talkative and jittery, buzzed on the ma huang—also known as ephedra, a major source of ephedrine—and faintly intoxicated from the tequila she’d had with Zevo. In other words, in no shape to encounter Kate, her father, Tai or even Li.

  It was too bad, really, because the way she felt at the moment she could deal with anything. Sometimes the inside of her head was like a bad neighborhood she shouldn’t go into by herself, an isolated village with no way out—unless she...medicated herself. And then she all too often paid for the indulgence in so-called sanity...later.

  At the moment, however, all the little pieces of herself that had earlier seemed as if they were going to fly off every which way and get lost so she’d never be able to gather them together again were now firmly cemented in place. The trouble, as always, was that she didn’t know how long the pieces would stay together. They had a bad habit of ripping to bits every time she turned her back on them. Right now she didn’t trust them farther than she could throw them—which wasn’t far. Nope, someplace else would be better than going back to Kate’s just yet

  Mind elsewhere, she gripped the steering wheel and casually veered her father’s car out of the path of oncoming headlights. The wail of a horn followed the other vehicle’s retreat. Megan shrugged, waggled a hand at the back window and giggled, giddy.

  “Don’t get your jockeys in a twist, buddy,” she yelled out the open window. “All’s well and all that rot, you know.”

  God, it felt good driving tonight. She threw back her head and whooped loud and long. Yeah, damn good. Probably didn’t have anything to do with driving a car she’d stolen from her father, either. Or leaving Hank hanging back at Danny’s and Earl’s with his thumb up his butt wondering where she was.

  “Whoo-hoo!” Laughing, she whooped again, enjoying the crudity, wishing Zevo were here to share it with. Adolescent male that he was, he appreciated a good laugh at her narco dad’s expense. And, God, the look on Hank’s face when he stood there lookin’ around and didn’t spot her—priceless! Totally stellar.

  She sobered for half a second, recalling how her father had looked with his head shaved, in his seen-better-days clothing...the expression on his face standing beside Earl. There had been a slow moment where she almost hadn’t recognized him. If she hadn’t seen him dressed to go undercover once when she was a little girl and supposedly in bed long asleep, she might not have. He “didn’t bring his work home with him,” he’d always told her when she’d asked. Home was for family, not what he did to maintain the family.

  In fact, she wasn’t supposed to know he’d ever been a cop undercover—and might not have if her mother hadn’t told her once when Gen had been in one of her “moods.” It was after this revelation she’d started spying on Hank whenever she could, trying to learn why he left them, what “undercover” looked like.

  Why he’d left her alone with a mother who often hadn’t been quite able to...maintain her balance in the world...when he wasn’t around. And how he could possibly not have known what his own wife was like.

  No. She shook her head. She wasn’t supposed to think about that. Her mother had been beautiful, perfect, exciting. Her mother had loved her to distraction when Hank wasn’t around, had told her secrets bigger than herself. And she’d been good to her promise and her mother’s memory and kept those secrets from her father, because who could talk to a man whose first wife was his work? Nope, Hank was the fly in the ointment, then as now.

  Now...

  Already wide, her eyes suddenly widened further as realization struck. Ohmigod, undercover. Security at Danny’s and Earl’s was slim to nonexistent, limited to keeping parents and other questionables on the main floor near the outer doors where there was little to see, but Hank had come in undercover to start the raid—and find her. Laughter perked and bubbled, burst in near hysterical giggles and guffaws that made her feel as if she had to wet her pants. Undercover, God. The big hotshot narc who’d gotten a busload of commendations for plying his talents and she’d beaten him at his own game! Damn, whoa, yes! She’d beaten him, yeah! What a picture. She was better at his game than he was. Not bad for a kid who felt as if she was flying apart inside her head half the time.

  Not bad at all.

  High from the punch of achievement as well as the liquor and herbs, she pushed the accelerator to the floor. She swerved the steering wheel again, this time around a deer leaping over a ditch and onto the edge of the road. Smooth. Damn, this felt righteous. She could drive like this all night, pushing the car to the limit, playing chicken with herself. Maybe that was what she’d do—at least until she sobered up enough to go back to Kate’s, and until enough time had passed that nobody would guess she and Risto had been out together. Had to keep them guessing...

  Of course—

  A little of the wind went out of her sails when the qualifier slipped into her mind. Of course, there was always the chance her father would get the police to issue an all-points for his car. And for her. It wouldn’t be cool to get caught by the cops in her current state. That might be worse than simply trying to duck Kate and company back at Stone House. She thought about it a moment. Yeah, that could be tons worse. She could lose her license and her freedom and...

  And any respect Kate might have for her, any of the trust she’d come to va
lue at the Andens’, any time with Bele or the Ilamas, her friendship with Li...

  “Damn.”

  Swearing, Megan pulled the car to the side of the road and rested her forehead on the plastic wheel. Intermittent traffic whooshed and rushed past her, kicking bits of sand and gravel through her window to sting her arm and cheek. She was seriously screwed up right now, beyond anything she wanted anyone to see, but the possible consequences of just driving on were more than she wanted to face. She didn’t care what Hank thought—She hesitated. At least she didn’t think she cared what her father thought about what she was doing tonight. But Kate’s and Tai’s and Li’s and Mike’s and Bele’s and Grisha’s and Ilya’s opinions meant something to her. More than something. A lot.

  “Okay.” She shrugged her mouth and swallowed. “Think, girlfriend. Use your brain. Get it in gear.” She thought for a bit, alternately folding her lips around her teeth and gnawing on a fingernail. “Okay, all right, here’s what you’ll do. Drive in to Speedway, put gas in the car, buy a toothbrush and toothpaste, use ’em, get a large espresso with ice, drink it and go home.”

  Hell. She grinned suddenly, enjoying the conjured picture. If Hank and the cops were as busy bustin’ Danny and Earl and roundin’ up everybody at the club as it looked like they’d be, it might even be she could get back to Kate’s before he did with a full tank of gas. And that oughta really keep him guessing.

  “All right.” Even white teeth flashed back at her when she eyed herself conspiratorially in the rearview mirror. “Let’s do it.”

  In a spitting shower of gravel and dust, Megan wheeled the car back onto the highway and headed for Speedway.

  Chapter 9

  Twilight was hot and restless, coated with clouds whipped around by hot breezes.

  Kate sat on a stool inside the female llamas’ night enclosure, eyes closed, meditating, while the hot and humid wind prickled her skin, drying sweat and replacing it almost simultaneously. The taste of brewing storms teased her mouth, sent unease skittering like ants underneath the sweetness of the silence she drew around herself, troubled her silent vespers.