by Josie Brown
Again, my best wishes to you and your new bride.
--Ryan
“Talk about cold.” Jack frowned. “I guess Ryan wasn’t a happy camper when he found out Carl dodged company protocol.”
“Why would Carl do that?” Emma asked.
“Great question. I presume the former Miss Shives holds the answer.”
She paused. “Have you met her?”
“Nope. And by the way things look, I never will, either. And neither will you. Ryan has given strict instructions that she’s never to know about this investigation. He’ll tell her after she agrees to join Acme.”
Emma nodded. “I don’t blame him for wanting it that way. It’ll be easier for her to say yes if the vetting has already taken place. In the time since Carl’s death, Ryan has gotten to know her pretty well, hasn’t he?”
“I guess.” Jack tipped his beer can at her. “Still, that doesn’t mean she’ll be his Femme Nikita.”
Emma clinked his can with hers. “Something tells me if push comes to shove, she’ll be able to take care of herself.”
He shrugged. “Look, I’ll bet you a pizza we’ll dig up something that takes her out of the running.”
Based on everything he’d already learned about Donna—including the stuff he left out of his final report on her husband’s death—he knew it was wishful thinking on his part.
Here’s hoping she won’t sacrifice the life she has in order to avenge Carl’s death, he thought.
“I’ll take that bet, in a heartbeat. In fact”—Emma rummaged around the desk until she found a specific file, and handed it to him. “I’ve dug up a couple of very interesting items already. One is her second grade teacher’s assessment. Another may or may not have anything to do with Donna. The person of interest is never positively identified, but considering the dates and locations, not to mention what we just saw on the video taken from the shooting range, I’m pretty sure it’s her.”
He looked down at the file, curious as to what it held.
“If we’re ordering the pizza now, you’ll have to front me the cash.” Emma smiled. “I’m living on an intern’s salary, remember?”
He sighed as he handed her a twenty.
As an afterthought, he added, “Anything but anchovies!” At the same time, she asked, “How do you feel about anchovies?”
In unison they countered, “Okay, half and half.”
The harder decision—and one he’d have to make himself, was what to do if Donna turned out to be right for the job.
He’d do anything to protect her.
He’d even lie about her to Ryan.
He hoped it wouldn’t come down to that.
From the look of the file Emma had handed him, he had a long night ahead.
[From the student record archives of the Pasadena Country Day School, Mrs. Lawson’s Second Grade Class Parent Correspondence Copy file:]
Dear Mrs. Shives,
A note of thanks for the basket of tasty blueberry muffins, delivered to me this morning by our sweet little student, Donna. I shared them with the other teachers and Principal Conklin, all of whom were very appreciative!
The note in the basket mentioned your apprehension that Donna isn’t endearing herself to the other second grade students, especially the other girls.
Sadly, there may be some credence to your concerns.
If you remember, the decision to allow Donna to skip a grade was one taken with great caution on both your part and that of the school’s. Her scores in both the Stanford-Benet and Wechsler Intelligence Scale tests were so impressive that holding her back would have been a grave discourtesy to her.
And while she lacks the social maturity that comes when a child’s beginning grade in school is the first as opposed to the second grade, Donna is certainly an “old soul.” Personally, I dislike this overused term. But in this case, I feel it is apropos.
Donna is indeed wise beyond her years.
She may not be as old as the others in the class, but she certainly takes on the role of “big sister” with some of the meeker children in the class. Unfortunately, her naturally sweet demeanor and strident sense of right and wrong have put her at odds with some of the more dominant children in the class.
Cases in point: One of our volunteer playground mommies was privy to an interaction between your daughter and some of the other second-grade girls, who don’t have her inclusive sensibilities. During one of the girls’ less thoughtful acts towards a shy little boy, this mommy likened Donna’s somewhat colorful chastisement of the clique to that of a “sailor on a drunken binge.”
In a second incident later that week, after this particular second-grade girls’ clique had cordoned off a section of the playground as their private domain, one of our student teachers watched as Donna coerced them into the janitorial shed and threatened to leave them in there to starve unless they allowed some of the other girls to play with them.
Rest assured, the girls were released from captivity by the end of the play period.
The complexity of the trap she set was certainly impressive (according to the report she dressed it up as a “Disney castle”), and would make any Cubbette scoutmaster proud. (I understand you head up the neighborhood troop for that age group). And frankly, I was more concerned when I heard the girls were drawing straws to determine which of them was to be eaten first, should it come to that.
Still, in light of these incidents, I think it’s fair to say that Donna’s skills at conflict resolution are certainly in need of fine-tuning.
That being said, I hope you can work with me in encouraging her to curtail her candid remarks and more strident actions during times of confrontation.
Yours truly,
Mrs. Lunsford
Lead Teacher – Second Grade
From the Los Angeles Police Department’s video transcript of the confession of Boyd Rutherford McGinnis, a.k.a. the Lover’s Lane Executioner:
McGinnis:
…and then I made him eat the barrel of my Beretta. His brains spattered all over the girl. That’s okay. I made his last few minutes on Earth pretty darn memorable, what with the way I rode that little lass—right there in front of him. “At least one of us got to break her cherry,” is what I told him. Turns out she really wasn’t a virgin, but he didn’t need to know that.
Detective Concha:
That would be the Dempsey girl, right?
McGinnis:
Yep. Little Debbie Snack Cakes is what I called her. Whooeee! How she loved them things! Was a two-fisted eater, too! Disgusting, like she was raised in a barn. Pretty damn funny considering where I buried her. She had enough meat on her bones that I kept her around for—let’s see now, six months? Maybe seven. She was a beggar, that one. That’s exactly what you want in a pet, isn’t it? She would do anything to stay alive, if you catch my drift? Well, at least it kept me off the streets for a while. You boys must have felt like you were on vacation.
Detective Concha:
Not exactly. Scum like you always resurfaces, somewhere, somehow. You know what they say, ‘Shit floats to the top.’ So, what you’ve just said would account for the gap between November and May of that year. But it wasn’t the longest time between killings. Of course, what we didn’t know at the time was you had been permanently retired. In fact, it’s been over thirteen, maybe fourteen years…Boyd? Jeez, guy! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
McGinnis:
I…Yeah, okay, actually there was an incident that made me reconsider my ‘legacy,’ if you will. Now that the doctors say I’m a goner anyhow, I guess if the world is going to know about everything—which, from what you’ve recorded already, you can see how you boys were pretty sloppy, picking up the pieces and all—
Detective Concha:
Trust me, Boyd. I only wish we’d caught you in the act. We would have put you out of your misery, and some of those poor kids would still be around today. So what happened? Did you get hit on that psychopathic head of yours and finally com
e to your senses? Or did the heavens open up and an angel descended, giving you salvation?
McGinnis:
Hell, no, wasn’t any angel! It was…it was…a she-devil! [Sobbing]…
Detective Concha:
Geez, Boyd, get a hold of yourself! Here, take a swig of your Coke.
[Silence...Gulping. A loud burp.]
McGinnis:
You’re right. The last killings were the Jamison boy and that big-titted girlfriend of his—the one with the red panties. Of course, you wouldn’t know what color they were, since I took them with me—as a souvenir. That one was a wildcat! Fought the whole time I was up inside of her. I saw right off that she would have made a lousy pet. Nothing else I could do but put a bullet in her head afterward. But then, I was so pissed at myself for losing the chance to take someone home with me that I broke my own rule—you know, at least six weeks between hunts—that I went out the very next week. It happened up in Laurel Canyon, on a dead-end street where a builder had a couple of spec houses with a great view of the whole city. But he must have gone bust or something, because the houses were never completed. The high school kids used to go up there and feel each other up. I thought it might be a great place to pick off a few, but…well, things didn’t go as I’d planned.
Detective Concha:
What do you mean?
McGinnis:
Usually I’d wait until they were down to their underwear, but this girl wasn’t having any of the boy’s shenanigans. She’d just slap his hands away, like some sort of prude. Hell, I don’t think he got as far as second base. Fine by me. If she were a virgin, I’d rather break her in myself. Besides, them kind of girls make the best pets. So I smacked the gun against the window. That scared the Bejesus out of them—well, the boy anyway. He was wetting himself even before he got out of the car. But not her. She just sat there, staring at me, as bold as you please. I yelled at her to come out, but she shrugged. So I slapped the cuffs on him, and then I took the gun and stuck it in his mouth, just to show her that I meant business. That usually had the girls begging and pleading. They’d rather give it up than watch the poor boys’ brains get spattered all over the place.
Detective Concha:
Yeah, I guess they figure it will give them a reputation as a cold-hearted bitch or something.
McGinnis:
I wouldn’t know myself, since I was always an outcast in high school. I would have taken any pussy that came my way, even from a mean girl.
Detective Concha:
For some reason, that doesn’t surprise me. So, then what happened?
McGinnis:
I wanted the boy to watch, but the idiot passed out. The girl, though, she was something else! She said, “Don’t mind him. We don’t need an audience. Come and get it.” Just like that, as if we were playing a game or something! No one had ever done that to me before—you know, come on to me. She smiled at me and waved me over, as if she’d been waiting for me all her life…Hey, that look on your face right now can’t be any more surprised than what I felt.
Detective Concha:
I doubt that. What did you do then?
McGinnis:
What the hell do you think? Of course, I went over to her. Before I could say anything, she came up real close, and started unbuckling my belt. I was so surprised that I just…I just stood there. “Thank God there’s finally a real man in my life,” she said. “I’m tired of all those little boys.” Then she’s pulling down my zipper, real slow and sexy like. Not at all scared like the others. As if she’s enjoying it...and I was, too. “Wow,” she said, “You’re so big!” No one had ever called me that. So I look down for just a second. The next thing I know, she’s slammed my hand against the car, and the gun goes flying. Then her knee comes up, popping me in the groin. When I buckled over, she punched me in the Adam’s apple. While I was gasping for air and down for the count, she saunters over to where the gun was, picks it up, and aims for my genitals. “Someone should neuter you,” she tells me. “I guess I’m elected.” I’m still doubled over in pain, and scared shitless. “This is going to hurt,” she says. “And there will be a lot of pain and blood. You won’t die, but you’ll live the rest of your life knowing you can’t hurt another human being. At least, not with that itty-bitty thing of yours.”
[Sound of suspect sobbing.]
When she did it, I must have passed out. But those kids must have called it in because I woke up in a hospital bed. The nurse said I must have tried to kill myself, and that they’d confiscated my gun. I’m ruined down there. But the girl was right. I never hurt anyone, ever again.
Detective Concha:
Wow. I’ve been on the force for thirty-three years, and I’ve never heard something like this. You wouldn’t happen to know her name, would you?
McGinnis:
It’s burned into my brain. When the boy was yanked out of the car, he called her ‘Donna.’
Detective Concha:
If she was, what, fifteen or sixteen then, that would make her around thirty now. Ha! Well, what do you know!
McGinnis:
I’ll tell you what I know! Now that I’m going to see my Maker, I pray I’ll never meet her again—either on this earth, or in the Hell that’s waiting for me in the great beyond. Every time I hear that name—Donna—I get chills up my spine.
Detective Concha:
Donna. Donna, Donna, Donna.
[Sound of Suspect, sobbing.]
Detective Concha to Prison Guard:
I got what I need. Get him the hell out of here.
Chapter 14
Naked
A spy acting without a cover, or backup, is said to be naked.
A person not wearing clothes is said to be naked.
A spy who has no cover, and doesn’t bother to cover up, is looking for all sorts of trouble, and will probably find it.
Jack was glad that Ryan had kept his promise to him—to have an asset on twenty-four hour surveillance in the house Acme rented across from the Stone residence.
“In fact, since you’re charged with Donna’s vetting, you should move back in,” Ryan suggested.
“That would make things easier,” Jack acknowledged. “I won’t be cramping the surveillance op’s style, will I?”
Ryan roared with laughter at the question, to the point that he teared up. Finally, after he collected himself, he sputtered, “Trust me, not in a million years. With the schedule you’ll both be keeping, you’ll barely run into each other.”
Jack wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn Ryan added, under his breath, If you know what’s good for you.
“Did…did you say something?” Jack asked.
Ryan looked up, surprised. “Me? No!” He dismissed Jack with a wave of his hand.
He heard Ryan laughing again as he closed the door.
The place hadn’t changed much since he’d taken up residence there last, except for the fact that the once-beige clapboard siding was now painted a bright canary yellow. The Acme asset living there must have had a green thumb. A riot of pink tea roses now draped the white picket fence that circled the yard.
As in most covert-ops organizations, Acme’s operatives and assets came in all ages, shapes, and sizes. Since Acme didn’t know if and when the Quorum would come knocking on Donna’s door, this agent’s long-term mission was to keep watch over the Stones until it was determined that they were out of danger, and to be their first line of defense in case trouble did come calling.
Although Jack’s host would be expecting him, there was to be a code word used, to ascertain he was the legitimate shadow: “I’m here to clean your pipes.”
The garage was to be left open, so that he could park his vehicle—in this case, a white cargo van marked Perfect Plumbing. As per his instructions, he shut the rolling garage door afterward, so that no one could see a second car from the street. Then he grabbed his duffel bag and walked around to the back, so that he couldn’t be observed by anyone else as he entered.
Li
ke all the backyards in Hilldale, the one for this home was expansive. In fact, it was large enough for a pool and an outdoor terrace.
So, this is what it’s like to score a babysitting mission, thought Jack. Sweet set-up, and on Acme’s dime, no less. Maybe I should consider something like this for my dotage—that is, if I don’t go out, guns blazing.
All Jack was told about his host was to expect a single female. He presumed she was middle-aged, and one of those quiet types you never gave a second glance, since her mission called for her to be a nondescript, unobtrusive neighbor and keep to herself.
As per his instructions, he knocked on the back door.
And waited.
Then waited some more.
He noticed a buzzer to his right and rang it. Then he rang it again.
Maybe she was older than he was led to believe. Had she forgotten to put in her hearing aid? He envisioned the elderly woman in some commercial he’d seen during one of his agonizingly long waits in some airport terminal. She’d fallen, and her feeble shouts, “Help me, I can’t get up...” weren’t heard by anyone, aptly bringing home the message that the purchase of an emergency alert bracelet was inevitable.
Jack was struck with the vision of having to help some old lady in and out of her Barcalounger when he should be making his case as to why Donna should never put herself in danger.
Hell, this is my nightmare, he thought.
Just then the door opened.
The blonde standing in front of him was tall enough that she didn’t have to be wearing the five-inch pink stilettos strapped to her feet, and certainly too young, and too drop-dead gorgeous to be living on some cul-de-sac in suburbia.
And she was definitely too naked to be answering the door to a stranger’s knock on her back door.
Granted, she was in the process of draping herself in a sheer gauzy pink robe, but it did nothing to cover up her perfectly sculpted curves, let alone her very large breasts, which at eye level seemed to defy gravity like twin zeppelins flying side by side.