His breath of relief floated over the line. “Thanks, Aydan. That would really be a load off our minds. I’ll tell Linda to start packing- …oh!”
“What?” I snapped, my heart thudding.
“Sorry, nothing bad, I was just thinking of Moonbeam Meadow Sky and Karma Wolf Song. We invited them to stay at our place so we can’t really leave…”
“No problem; they’re coming, too,” I assured him. “I invited them already.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Aydan. When do you want us?”
“Whenever you can come. I’ll be at Sirius in half an hour, so just stop by the office and I’ll give you my spare key.”
Spider and I said our goodbyes and hung up, and I hurried to the bathroom for the world’s fastest shower, cheerfully ignoring Frederick Labelle’s demanding messages.
A few minutes later I was clean, dressed, and chewing a too-large mouthful of cereal bar while I gathered my things together and rolled the laser flashlight into my sweater for its return trip to Sirius Dynamics.
I was halfway out the door when I remembered that Kane and Hellhound might need a private conversation with me today. Ducking back into the house, I grabbed a spare secured phone and noted its number, then dialled Kane.
His line rang busy, and I swore and dialled Arnie’s cell instead. It went straight to voicemail.
Of course, they’d both be doing phone interviews today.
I left a brief message, and headed for the door.
The drive to Silverside gave me ample time to worry about my upcoming meeting with Stemp but not quite enough time to come up with satisfactory answers to his potential questions. Lying about yesterday’s interviews with the moms seemed like a supremely bad idea. After all, Stemp had that high-tech lie detector.
And maybe he had a built-in lie detector, too. Moonbeam’s voice echoed in my mind: ‘Cosmic River Stone can see them, too’.
I couldn’t quite believe in auras, but something made Moonbeam spookily accurate in her ‘readings’. If Stemp had any of that talent, whatever it was, that might be why it sometimes seemed as though he was looking right through me. The thought made my skin crawl.
But telling him the truth didn’t seem like a much better option, considering I’d been ignoring his direct order.
God, what if the chain of command thought this was a serious enough breach of discipline to warrant locking me up?
I wrestled with my worries all the way to the Sirius parking lot without coming to a satisfactory decision. When I got out of my car, the slam of my door sounded like a drumbeat for my march to the executioner.
Chapter 31
When I tapped on the frame of Stemp’s office door, my heart tapped an equally rapid rhythm inside my chest.
Stemp looked up from his computer with his usual impenetrable expression and nodded me into the chair in front of his desk. “Close the door,” he said as I moved to obey.
Shit.
I turned back and closed the door behind me, then perched nervously on the edge of the chair before gathering my composure and leaning back to fake relaxation.
He eyed me in silence.
Bastard. Trying to make me nervous enough to blurt something out. He needn’t have bothered. I was already nervous as hell.
After a few long moments I raised an eyebrow, doing my best emotionless-Spock imitation.
The corner of his mouth quirked in response, but he said nothing.
I hesitated on the verge of breaking the silence, but the mule-stubborn part of my personality stomped its hooves and brayed.
You want to play games? Fine. Asshole.
I gave him a mouth-quirk of my own and leaned back in my chair, pulling my phone out of my waist pouch. Stretching out my legs, I brought up Solitaire and began a game.
With my gaze focused on the small screen, I monitored Stemp’s motionless form in my peripheral vision. He likely wouldn’t get pissed off and shoot me just for the hell of it.
But I wasn’t certain about that.
A few minutes later I ran out of moves and started a new game. The silence was a palpable presence, pressurizing the office until a single whisper would explode it. Nervy pinpricks scuttled down my spine like an army of ants and it took every ounce of my self-control to suppress the need to twitch and squirm.
I was an idiot. Nobody could ever win a battle of wills with Stemp. He’d sit there without moving or speaking for hours if necessary, until I went absolutely screaming batshit or peed my pants. Or both.
As if in response, my bladder gave an anxious twitch.
Goddammit, I wasn’t going to let him win.
I finished my Solitaire game and stowed my phone in my waist pouch with unhurried movements, hoping he couldn’t see my fingers quivering. Then I yawned, stretched, and rose to head for the door.
I honestly thought he was going to let me leave without saying a single word. My hand was on the doorknob; the door halfway open before he spoke.
“Where are you going?”
I managed not to flinch. Turning with what I hoped was an unreadable expression, I said, “Ladies’ room. I need to pee.”
“Ah.” The glint in his eye might have been humour or rage. His face was completely impassive. “Please return here when you’re finished.”
I nodded and went out the door, head high, heart thumping as if I’d just run a mile.
Inside the door of the ladies’ room, I gave a head-to-toe shudder and jammed my itchy back against the corner of the wall to gyrate like a bear with fleas. After a few moments of frantic twitching and squirming, helpless giggles overcame me.
That was possibly the stupidest pissing match I’d ever engaged in. Was Stemp secretly twitching and squirming in his office right now, too? The mental image made me giggle even harder, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle myself.
At last both the giggles and the creepy-crawly sensations subsided, and I tottered into a cubicle. Washing my hands a few minutes later, I practiced my deadpan expression in the mirror, but it kept cracking up.
Damn, I’d never be able to face Stemp now. The instant he gave me his robot-face, I was going to fall to the floor and lie there laughing helplessly.
An explosive snicker escaped me, and I clapped a hand over my mouth again. Get it together. You’re a secret agent, so show some professionalism…
That thought sobered me.
I had absolutely nothing to laugh about. Daniel could have been suffering horribly while I was wasting time in my sophomoric contest with Stemp. Somebody was trying to spoil Spider and Linda’s wedding, and their violence was escalating. And Frederick Labelle was bound to be just a tad cranky over the loss of his henchman. He might kill me out of sheer annoyance. Or hell, if none of those things happened, the chain of command might toss me in jail for getting sidetracked from my official mission.
I heaved a sigh and plodded back to Stemp’s office. When I tapped on the doorframe with a sense of déjà vu, he looked up from his computer and said, “Please come in and close the door” in his usual dispassionate tone.
I did as he bade and sat in the chair again, fully prepared to speak first if necessary. Somehow I wasn’t in the mood for childish games anymore.
Stemp spoke as though our previous power struggle had never happened. “Dr. Chow tells me you took one of his prototypes for testing yesterday. How did it perform?”
“Great. Blew out a tire in about five seconds, just like he said it would.”
“And yet we collected yet another dead body from your farm last night.”
I sighed and slouched lower in the chair. “Yeah. Sorry about that. It was the same guy who had been following me earlier in the day. I led him into Innisfail and then blew out his tires and left him there. That was the end of my tail for the day, but he was waiting when I got back to my farm last night. When he pulled a gun on me…” I grimaced. “I probably shouldn’t have killed him, but I just reacted.”
Stemp gave one of his tiny shrugs. “It’s easier to dispo
se of a dead body than to deal with a wounded prisoner.”
“God, this is one seriously fucked-up life.”
“Indeed,” Stemp agreed. “Have you spoken to Labelle yet?”
“No.” I hunched my shoulders moodily. “I figured I’d just let him stew for a little while. I’ll call him as soon as we’re done here. He must have sent the guy with the gun just to see what I’d do, so he’s probably convinced I’m not an undercover cop now. Maybe this will be enough to get him to start negotiations.”
Stemp nodded without comment and changed the subject. “Are there any developments on Daniel Kane’s case?”
I eyed him in silence for a moment. This was a test.
Well, fuck it.
“They think it might be a serial killer,” I said. “I finished up my official business in Innisfail yesterday around suppertime and then drove up on my personal time to interview three women who had also lost sons Daniel’s age within the past fifteen months. Sons who looked a whole lot like Daniel. And there were more down south. Six boys in total.”
“That’s sickening,” Stemp said quietly. “As you know, I can’t officially sanction you working on the case, but…” Another tiny shrug. “You have some leave time accumulated. If you choose to use it, your activities on your personal time are none of the Department’s business.” He gave me a look that was clearly a warning. “Nor are they the Department’s responsibility should you exceed the bounds of civilian law. And I strongly suggest that you keep your mission to reel in Labelle at the forefront of your priorities.”
“Uh… right,” I agreed.
Got the message, loud and clear: if I didn’t show progress with Labelle, I was going to jail. And I was on my own with Kane’s investigation.
“Have you spoken to Kane about debriefing?” Stemp asked.
I slumped back with a sigh. “Yes. He won’t take the time.”
“That is unfortunate.”
Something in the way he said it sent a chill down my spine.
“What… exactly… does that mean?” I asked cautiously.
“Though I have indicated to the chain of command that he is on personal leave, in fact he has neither applied for leave nor completed the mandatory debriefing for resignation.” Stemp was back in robot-reptile mode, his expression impassive and his eyes as flat and hard as a rattlesnake’s. “When an agent willfully ignores such requirements, the question inevitably rises: Has he gone rogue?”
I jerked upright. “Of course he hasn’t! You know damn well he hasn’t!”
“Do I?” Stemp stared across the desk, unblinking. “He hasn’t reported to me, nor to anyone in the chain of command. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing.”
“He’s at his condo in Calgary, and he’s looking for his son! Call him there if you don’t believe me!” I glared at him. “You know damn well he hasn’t gone rogue!”
“No,” Stemp said quietly. “I believe he hasn’t gone rogue. I have no evidence to support that belief, and very soon my stalling tactics with the chain of command will fail. The risk to Kane is rapidly going beyond the threat of disciplinary action to something considerably more serious.”
I swallowed cold fear. Serious; as in ‘life-threatening’. The last agent to go rogue had been executed by Kane himself.
“But they have to understand how traumatic this is for him,” I argued. “You can’t tell me they’d just show up for work like nothing had happened if their own child had been kidnapped.”
“Some would,” Stemp said. “But that’s not the point. This has gone beyond simply taking a day or two off.”
“That’s stupid!” I jerked forward in my chair, fists clenching with the need to throttle somebody. “They have to know what this is doing to John. After what he went through on his last mission with that abused child… Can’t you get Dr. Rawling to talk to them? Explain-”
“Explain what?” Stemp interrupted quietly. “Explain that an agent with a top-level security clearance and large amounts of classified knowledge is too mentally unbalanced to comply with the most basic administrative protocols? What effect do you think that would have on their confidence?”
Sick dread crawled up my throat. “I’ll talk to him,” I croaked. “I’ll make him come in.”
“Please do. I will continue to stall the chain of command to the best of my abilities.”
We sat in silence for a moment before Stemp spoke again. “I have the report on your assailant. He was on the payroll for Labelle’s company as a ‘consultant’, and he had a clean record. Either last night was his first foray into the enforcement business, or else he was very discreet in his previous work. I’ll forward the report to your email.”
I grunted, trying to hide the way my heart was still hammering. “Well, discreet or not, he’s very dead. I’ll read it over before I call Labelle. Was there anything else?”
“No. Dismissed.”
I rose, then hesitated.
I’d never get a better chance.
“One more thing,” I said.
His raised eyebrow indicated he was listening, and I drew a deep breath. “I’d like to ask you to reconsider about Moonbeam and Karma…”
His expression closed down.
“I said, ‘Dismissed’,” he repeated.
“Come on.” I dropped back into the chair and hitched it closer to his desk so I could look straight into his eyes. “I understand how much the whole Earth Spirit thing bothers you, and I’m not asking you to compromise your principles. It must have seemed like a huge betrayal when you were a teenager, but that was a long time ago and you’re no stranger to moral ambiguity now…”
I might as well have been talking to the wall. He stared through me without a flicker of expression.
I sighed and tried again. “Look, my parents are dead, and I’d give anything to be able to talk to them again. Yours are still alive and you still have a chance…”
He made a small sign of negation, and I leaned closer, willing him to listen. “They are your parents, in every way that matters. They love you, and it’s tearing them apart to lose you. And you’re wasting precious time. Someday they’ll die and it’ll be too late, but right now you can still make some good memories if you’ll just… try.”
His fist clenched, and I braced myself for an outburst, an icy dismissal, or a bullet. Or maybe all three, not necessarily in that order.
A moment later his stony façade melted into a heartwrenching mixture of bravado and pain. “I did try,” he gritted. “And look what happened. What else can I do?”
“You can try again,” I urged. “You can’t expect to get it right the first time after twenty-five years apart. It’s a process. Screw up, ask forgiveness, try again, screw up again. It’s what families do.”
“I don’t think this one does.” His chin came up, his shoulders squaring, but the loss in his eyes belied his determined posture. “And I don’t think there can be a compromise. It’s not reasonable to expect a person to change their fundamental belief system.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “So don’t expect that.” When he shook his head in frustration, I added, “Look, the Earth Spirit thing bothers you because it’s a lie and a manipulation, right?”
“Of course.” Stemp narrowed his eyes as if to peer through my skull into my brain. “And since I’ve read your psych evaluations, I fail to see why it doesn’t bother you, too.”
“Because they aren’t manipulating the other commune members for their own personal gain,” I said, tiptoeing into the minefield with my pulse pounding. “Think about it. They provide a safe environment and unconditional love and acceptance to all their members. The kids get top-notch schooling. They’ve got that great gym. They even bring in lecturers regularly for the adults. So if you can just put aside the harmless lie of the Earth Spirit for a minute, you can see how much good they’re doing.”
He sat slowly back in his chair, still giving me his unsettling scrutiny. After a long moment he asked, “You honestl
y believe my… parents… are worth the trouble?”
Hope fluttered up under my heart and I held my voice level, afraid to scare him off with too much enthusiasm. “Yes, I absolutely do.”
He stared through me for a few more seconds before letting out a long exhalation. “I have learned not to discount your character evaluations, no matter how improbable they may seem. I’ll think about it.” A wintry smile touched his lips. “Are you finished with your ‘one more thing’?”
I nodded, afraid to trust my voice.
“Very well, then. Dismissed. Again.”
I fled.
Back in my office, I sank into my chair and breathed slowly. Why the hell was I trying so hard? If Stemp wanted to make himself miserable, why should I care? He sure as hell wasn’t going to lie awake at night worrying about me in return.
But the hurt child hiding behind his eyes called to me. And Moonbeam and Karma deserved to have their son in their lives.
Hissing out a breath, I shook off the thoughts. I needed to call Kane. And it was time to deal with Labelle.
The phone rang just as I reached for it, and Lola’s number flashed on the call display.
Shit, I’d forgotten to return her call.
Clenching my teeth and wondering how much more bad news I could take, I picked up the phone and offered a fake-cheerful hello.
“Hi, Aydan, it’s Lola,” she said briskly. “I’m glad I finally caught up with you.”
“Uh, yeah, sorry I didn’t-” I began, but she was already forging ahead.
“I’m worried about Spider and Linda’s wedding on Saturday. With all the things that have happened I think it’s time we took matters into our own hands.”
“Um… what do you mean?” I asked cautiously.
“Well, we phoned the police and they can’t do anything. Other than the damage to Linda’s wedding dress they say no crime has been committed, and since there haven’t been any overt threats their hands are tied. But-”
“Hang on, Lola,” I interrupted gently. “Spider and Linda are going to stay at my place and have the reception there, so don’t worry…”
The Spies That Bind Page 25