I smiled at the voice, "This is Claire's assistant Kit." I held back the small giggle that threatened to come out.
The woman on the other line didn't pause, "Hello Kit, let me guess, blondie want almond chicken with three egg roll and extra chicken fried rice?"
I looked up at Claire, laughing harder as she shook her head at me, "Yes that is correct. I would like the sesame chicken and two egg rolls."
"You pick the best Kit; I will have it in fifteen minutes. Usual delivery. I will send Johnny." I could hear the woman scratching a pen across some paper, "You will love it Kit, but try to get Blondie to eat something else. I tell her every time that she needs to eat something with vegetables or she going to have a heart attack." Before I could say anything, "Be there in fifteen minutes; tell Blondie, Nina says welcome back home."
The phone clicked off before I could say anything more. I set the phone down, replacing it with my bottle of tea, "Fifteen minutes, Johnny will be here."
Claire laughed, setting the last fork on a plate, "He will be coming to the side entrance. It's not visible to the street and the safest access point." She folded her arms and looked at me, "Nina is a good woman. She used to be a double agent for the USA and China during the cold war. When the war ended, she opened up the Chinese restaurant two blocks down. Not only does she make the most incredible almond chicken, but she keeps her ears and eyes open for me. Ever since my attack in the Malibu house she has become slightly momma bear protective over me. She has proven to be very valuable in letting me know when people are getting too nosy about my business."
I took in a slow breath, "Does she know about your work?" I needed to know how many people knew about the two sides of Claire. It seemed there was no one she had helped around her or was willing to help if the time came, opening her up to more risk as she slowly revealed her true gifts.
Claire shrugged, "No, but I did help her with finding treatment when Johnny was ten and needed blood transfusions for a rare blood disease. I was able to make a few things happen in the Senate and call in a few favors to get him discounted, but excellent treatment. That's when Nina revealed to me her experience in the spy world. Said she gave it up completely when her son was born, wanted him to have a free life without having to worry about his mother, so she quit the CIA, but kept a few contacts on both sides of the fence."
Claire fiddled around with a napkin, "People tell you the deepest secrets when you help them without asking for anything in return." She set the napkin down, a strange look in her eyes before she focused on moving the plates to a perfect angle.
I waited to see if she would say more about her CIA friend, she didn't, she slowly let whatever was bothering go and when she looked up at me, she gave me a look, "What is it?"
I took in a slow breath for dramatic effect, "I need to tell you something, Claire." I added in an even more dramatic pause, ensuring I had the blonde's full attention, "Tonight is your last night of carry out food, Senator." I held up my hand, stopping the incoming protest from her. I then grinned, "Two reasons why I am making you quit cold turkey. I don't think I can keep eating this food and not end up becoming huge, so I am taking over the cooking from now on." I watched Claire's eyes question me, "I can cook. I have the best tater tot casserole handed down to me by my mother handed down to her by Betty Crocker from the back of a Reader's Digest."
"Tater tot casserole?" Claire squinted at me, "Does that have a lot of cheese in it? If so, I can handle that."
I laughed lightly, moving to stand off to the side next to her, "It does. I will make it tomorrow." My hand found her bare arm, marveling at how she was still wearing a short sleeve shirt in the icebox of a house, I let my smile fade a bit, "The second reason is that I read the email you forwarded, I don't think it's safe to have random delivery people coming to the house day after day. We need to be a little more focused on keeping threats to a minimum."
Claire's face never changed, she understood what I was telling her and surprisingly without the fight I was expecting from taking the junk food away from the junkie. "Nina will be upset, I usually only order from her when I am home. I think some days I am her daily sales with the amount of food I do order."
I smirked, "She told me, and I quote in her exact words, Blondie needs to eat more vegetables or you have heart attack." I leaned on the top of the bench curved around the small table, "I mean it Claire, we need to be careful. I don't want to smother you or lock you up in house arrest, but until we get one of the threats under control or removed." I paused as the dark cloud of reality and fear rolled across her blue green eyes.
Claire nodded curtly in agreement, turning back to the table and plates. "It's fine. I should probably start eating better. I don't have my teenage metabolism anymore."
Claire's joke came out light, but tinted with frustration. I knew it was hard for her to live in a bubble, more now that she had already faced two attacks in less than two weeks with another creeping closer and closer to her front door. I sighed, "Then tomorrow it will be a mac and cheese casserole with a side salad made from the massive, untouched pile of organic vegetables you have stacked in that fridge." I kept my tone light, making Claire smile at the motherly way I emphasized untouched vegetables. I wanted to break apart the clouds in her eyes.
Claire smiled, raising an eyebrow at me, "Okay mom."
The doorbell rang, filling the house with deep sounds of piano keys being pressed in an elegant three chord note. Effectively ending whatever comeback I had planned for Claire comparing me in the slightest to a mother. "Saved by the bell. Food's here." She pointed to the doorway off to the left of the fridge. "Through the mud room is the side entrance. The access code for that panel is 31379." Claire dug around in her back pocket, handing over three twenty dollar bills neatly folded in half. "Give this to Johnny and tell him he is all set."
I took the bills, about to protest that it was far too much money for the fifteen dollar order when Claire gently pushed me towards the mud room, shooing me away.
Gliding through the mud room, I pressed in the five digit code she gave me on the small metal keypad next to the door. When the door was happy with receiving the correct code, it clicked, giving me a green light. Before opening the door, I took a peek through the tiny peephole in the middle of the broad door.
Standing at the door huddled in a thick winter coat and a Washington Nationals beanie was an Asian boy about fourteen years old, holding two very full white plastic bags. I swung the door open and was met with a generous smile dotted with braces. The boy blushed immediately as his eyes roamed of their own free will over my tight shirt and the god given assets the shirt covered, teenage hormones directing his attention away from the task at hand in his hands.
The boy squeaked when he finally spoke, "Hi, I'm Johnny." His voice was trapped half in adolescence and half in the beginning of puberty. Johnny held out the order, trying to cover his almost beet red face, and recited the order from the white slip in his hand. He was very well spoken for his age and as I took the bags from him, I couldn't help but grin at his attempts to maintain eye contact only. "My mom told me to tell Ms. Avondale that there are extra cookies at the bottom of the one bag."
I nodded, lifting the bags around in my hand, amazed at how heavy they were as I set them down on the floor so I could pay the kid. When I looked up, I almost burst out laughing at the now blatant stares the kid was throwing at my boobs. I broke his stare when I handed the money towards him, "Tell your mom thank you and that Blondie will be eating more vegetables and less almond chicken."
Johnny nodded erratically, his eyes drawn to how interesting the tops of his shoes now where, "Okay. I gotta go back. Nice to meet you lady." Johnny snuck one last hard look at my chest before he jetted off down the side of the house, the snow crunching under his hurried steps.
I giggled, shutting the door and bending down to pick up the food. I couldn't blame the kid for his gawking. I was experiencing the same thing every time I could sneak looks and stares at Claire. S
he made my hormones race all over the place in the last day and it was hard not to stare and let my thoughts head in the wrong direction.
I lugged the bags back into the kitchen, dropping them on the table next to Claire, "Johnny said thank you after staring at my boobs the entire two minutes we spoke." I tore the bags open, lifting up the Styrofoam containers that oozed grease and fantastic smells.
Claire laughed, leaning over me to grab a rice container, her arm purposefully brushing across my chest, "I can't blame him one bit."
The blush climbed up my neck faster than I wanted her to see, so I busied my hands with dishing out the rest of the containers instead of busying them with grabbing Claire and kissing her, or more.
Slow, I must go slowly.
Near the bottom of the second bag there was a thinner white box with a C written in red wax pencil across the lid. I held it out to Claire, "These must be the extra cookies his mom gave us."
Claire's cheeky grin faded slightly, blue green eyes locking on the box, "I will take that." I released the box when she had a firm hold on it, throwing her a smirk, "Dessert first?"
Claire shook her head slowly, tearing open the lid she removed a thin stack of papers from underneath the two stacks of pale orange almond cookies. "If only." The tone in her voice told me that there was more to the cookies than just cookies. She unfolded the papers, her eyes scanning the pages as she read. Claire then set two pages down on the table, pages that held photographs of two men that looked rugged and rough. Kind of like the two men who followed her to my house that day. One of the men was photographed as he sat behind the wheel of a nondescript sedan. I stared at the man, trying to pick up any small details I could.
I almost didn't hear Claire when she spoke, "Cookies is Nina's code word for when she has something to tell me." I swung my head back to look at her, her eyes darting quicker over the sheet of paper in her hand. The way the light hit it, I could see Chinese characters scribbled over the length of the page. "Nina has spotted these two gentlemen hanging around the block the last few days. Asking a few too many questions about where Senator Avondale lives and if she ever eats at the restaurant." Claire sighed, handing me the page, "She said the one with the beard reeks of CIA even through his half ass attempt at a deep undercover disguise. The one with the buzz cut has taken to sitting in a moving van at the end of the street in front of the bakery. Only moving when the cops roll through at lunch time."
I held the paper filled with the elegant Chinese handwriting, looking over words I had no idea what they said, I heard another sigh from Claire. "Nina has pegged them as CIA deep undercover. This means the beekeepers are getting restless and antsy."
I looked at Claire, watching her shoulders sag in frustration and exhaustion. She was tired from the early start we had and the long flight, now this new information added a little extra to it all. I set the page in my hands down with the others on the table, pushing the almond chicken closer to her. "Claire, let's enjoy dinner and focus on that for now, maybe we can watch a movie and then call it a night." I raised my hand, running my fingers through her hair in an attempt to take away some of the frustration. "Tomorrow we worry about them and dig into who they are and what they want, but tonight let's relax as much as we can."
Claire closed her eyes, breathing in even breaths, nodding slightly in agreement before dropping down into the bench seat and flipping open the lid to her food. Digging in right away to her last greasy take out dinner. With every bite she took, the greasy food chased away more and more of her frustration, bringing a small smile back to her face when I sat next to her and dug into my own pile of greasy heaven. Telling her more about how Johnny couldn't keep his eyes in his head.
My last meal from Nina was devoured and I enjoyed every last heavy bite of the food. It was truly my last carry out meal for a while. When Kit told me no more take out, she was serious and I wasn't going to argue with her. She was right, constant deliveries to the house could be compromising even if I only ate Nina's four times a week.
I closed the lid on the empty container, fascinated that my body willingly accepted the almost three pounds of food I shoveled into it without argument. Kit was still nibbling away at her egg roll. Our dinner conversation had been light, primarily talking about Johnny and his gawking, which lead to discussion about our first crushes and our long standing celebrity crushes.
Kit tossed the last bite of her egg roll into the box, "I surrender! I am stuffed." Kit leaned back against the bench, her hands rubbing over her stomach as she sighed contently.
I picked up her container and mine, standing up to take it to the sink. "I will save the rest for you, or for me later." I set the food next to the fridge, digging in the cabinets for a small dish to dump her leftovers in. I glanced over my shoulder at the now groaning Kit, "Go get ready for bed, I have movies in the library and I think there might be a few shows I wanted to watch but never did, recorded on the DVR." I plucked a small plastic tub from the perfect stack in the back of one cabinet. I dropped the leftover sesame chicken in it, making sure I got every last delicious grain of rice for later. I was going to have a hard time not having this food for a while.
The chair Kit sat in scraped slightly across the floor. A second later I felt her hands on my side, holding onto me gently right under my ribs then sliding down to rest above my hips. Her breath was warm against the back of my neck, making me squeeze my eyes shut and take a slow breath in through my mouth. My heart and body literally began to hum from the feelings the simple touch her hands stirred up. Kit lightly tugged me closer to her body as she whispered, "It's still very cold in the house.”
I let out a nervous laugh when our apparent code phrase for wanting to share the same bed was spoken. I snapped the light blue lid onto the tub full of leftovers and turned in Kit's grip. Face to face, I reached up to push a few strands of her soft red hair that freed themselves from her ponytail back behind her ear, before I traced down her cheek and across her jaw lightly. "Change and I will meet you in my room. Be warned, I think the bed is still mess from when I left for vacation." I looked in her eyes as my fingers journeyed down her neck, making me swallow hard when I felt how steady and fast her heart was beating, mirroring what I saw in her eyes. Going slow with her was going to be harder than I thought.
Kit squeezed my waist and whispered an okay before she left me with a smile and a mild sweat forming all over my body. The attraction had multiplied and intensified in the last day. Pheromones and hormones mingling together to mix up the perfectly unbearable chemistry between us. She literally made my entire body tingle with the slightest look or touch that went beyond innocent.
When her footsteps no longer made soft sounds up the steps, I threw the plastic tub in the fridge and dumped the empties into the trash. I passed the table, scooping up Nina's notes, folding them up into my hand. I then emailed Ivan to get me everything he knew about Beekeeper and send it over. My brain was slowly shifting into overdrive.
There was a pattern starting to form with Beekeeper and the religious group suddenly crowding around me for attention. The CIA obviously had to know about the church, which made it strange that they weren't acting to remove their competition. The CIA could do it and do it quietly, brush the existence of the church under the rug with the thousands of others they had removed over the last handful of decades.
I trudged upstairs, my brain sifting and sorting through the information I had. Trying to place the pieces to give me a better idea of who would make the first move and when. I was heavy in the clouds of thought when I opened my bedroom door, my eyes rising to see my California queen sized bed covered in books and files from the last defense budget meeting before the break. I grumbled, forgetting I had fallen asleep in the chair the night before I left for Malibu, passing out with pie charts and line graphs in my lap.
I shuffled to the bed and started collecting the mess up. My room was a miniature library, I had more bookshelves lining the walls that faced the dresser and closet. Each shelf o
verstuffed with books and files. All of it was neat, but still had a maniacal look and feel about them. OCD in chaos as Rebecca once called it. More stacks of droll finance and statistical reports were about to find their new home jammed into whatever space I could find on the shelf closest to the dresser.
I slumped, shuffling slowly to the shelf, trying to eyeball the best spot. The weight of another emotional day was sagging heavily on my shoulders. I was growing more tired by the second aided by the weight of the food I had just eaten and I was minutes away from collapsing into bed, tossing the papers in my hand on the floor and leaving them.
The bedroom door whispered as it was pushed open. I looked over the stack in my hands at Kit, dressed in her purple hoodie, zipped up to the chin and a pair of grey sweatpants that seemed to swallow her in comfort. Even though she was swathed in thick cotton clothing, she was still gorgeous. Her hair up in a quick ponytail and no makeup, it all added to the simplistic beauty of the redhead, stirring up the butterflies that fluttered around my stomach and threatened to float up my throat. I swallowed them down before I finally did drop the thousand page budget review on the dresser. A loud and thick clap of paper that was better used printing out anything other than the endless arguments of who should get what in the government, made me sigh hard, "I obviously left things in a hurry."
I returned to the bed to grab the last two genetic biology books I had on the unused pillows of the bed. I hefted them up and off the pillows, letting them poof back up to their original size. I was now more eager to get to bed, the soft white pillows tempting me with their soft expanse. I held the books in one hand, turning to look for another empty spot for them when I caught Kit looking around my room, her eyes stopping at the small section of wall between the two large bookshelves covered in framed photographs.
Photographs of my family mixed with random other things that I hung up to keep some part of my life, my real life, in my sight. My bedroom was the only real place I kept my private and family life on display.
Redemptio Animae Page 36