Death by Latte

by Linda Gerber

  “I’ll show you.” Seth held the ring up toward the light. “Look. The names are etched into the back of the stone.”

  I squinted at the ring, searching. “What? Those little scratches?”

  “Yeah. You’d have to use a microscope or something to read it, but those little scratches could reveal the identity and alias of every sleeper agent in that organization.”

  “Wow.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Isn’t your family’s name on the—”

  He held up his hand, signaling me to be quiet. “Did you hear that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hold on.” He handed me back the ring. “I thought I heard something.” He crept toward the stairwell door and I followed close behind. We didn’t find anything, but it was enough to shake us up.

  I stuffed the ring into my pocket and took Seth’s hand. “Wait for the lights to die,” I whispered. “We’ll head outside.”

  We stood next to the wall until the lights clicked off and then climbed up the ramp to the street, keeping close to the edge so that the sensors wouldn’t pick up our movement and trip them on again. At street level, we had almost stepped into a puddle of light from the streetlamp when my attention was drawn to a car parked on the opposite side of the street. I wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for something glowing and red in the front seat of the car. It seemed to hover in the air, grow brighter red, then dull again. A cigarette. I pushed Seth deeper into the shadows. “Someone’s in that car.”

  Sure enough, the red glowed bright one more time before we heard the mechanical whir of the power window rolling down. The cigarette flipped from the car, drawing a red arc in the air. Seconds later, the stench of burning tobacco wafted toward us.

  “What’s he doing?” I whispered.

  “You think someone’s watching the apartment?”

  “Could be.”

  Just then, the driver lit another cigarette, cupping his hand over the flame so that the glow illuminated his face. I sucked in a breath. Same blond hair, same cold eyes. I drew back against Seth.

  “What is it?”

  My blood ran cold just thinking about him.

  “Watts.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Seth swore. “What is Watts doing here?”

  “What do you think?”

  Grabbing my hand, Seth pulled me back into the garage. He drew me against him again, but not romantically this time. We were both terrified. At least I was terrified, and I figured Seth was, too, the way his heart was racing.

  “We can’t go out this way,” he murmured.

  “You think?”

  He took my hand. “Come on. This we need to tell your mom and Stuart.”

  We felt our way back through the garage, not even worrying about the light this time. We ran up the stairs and burst into the apartment.

  Stuart must have been right at the door when it flew open because he jumped back, swearing. “Watch it!”

  “Watts is here,” I blurted.

  “What? Impossible.”

  “I saw him outside. He was—”

  “You recognized him in the dark?”

  “Yes!”

  Stuart looked to Seth. “Did you see him?”

  Seth nodded and Stuart’s face grew serious. “Where?” He turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Nat? We’ve got a problem.”

  Mom rushed over to where we were clustered near the door. “What is it?”

  I told her how we had seen Watts sitting in the car in front of the apartment building.

  “Was he alone?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark.”

  “I told you we should have cleared out long ago,” Stuart muttered.

  “Well, we’re clearing out now. Out back toward the locks. Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going to go?” I asked.

  “To the lake. We have a boat.”

  “What? You never said anything about a boat before.”

  She shook her head. “There was no need. We only share what information is necessary.”

  How could I ask anything else after she said that? Maybe I didn’t need more answers, anyway. If I thought about it, pieces began to fall into place on their own. I had assumed that the reason they had moved into that particular apartment building was simply that the apartment owner was gone on sabbatical, but they had purposely chosen a place on the waterfront.

  It made sense that they would have a boat nearby, and an alternative escape route. According to Ryan, the locks connected Lake Union with the sound and eventually the ocean. This way, they weren’t landlocked.

  Mom led us down the slope to a path that wound along the locks to the lake. As we neared the first dock, she instructed us to slow down. “Act natural,” she said.

  Seth threw me a pained look and I raised my shoulders. So it was cliché. It also happened to be smart.

  “Aphra? Hey, Aphra. Is that you?”

  I jumped and turned around.

  Ryan strode out of the shadows carrying a duffel bag. Sweat glistened along his hairline and he was breathing heavily, like he’d been running. “What a pleasant surprise to see you here. How’s it going?”

  I forced a smile. “Good. And you?”

  “Good.” His eyes strayed to Seth, then to Mom and Stuart in turn.

  “So,” I said, directing his attention back to me. “What are you up to tonight?”

  “Heading out.” He lifted the bag in evidence. “Game’s over.”

  “Oh. Right. Who won?”

  “Mariners by a run.”

  “Sounds like a good game.”

  “It was.”

  I could practically feel Mom’s eyes boring into my back. I shifted uncomfortably. She would be wondering how I knew Ryan, and the answer wouldn’t sound good. I snuck out of the apartment—not once but twice—discussed personal information with a stranger, and by so doing had compromised our clean escape. I had to get rid of Ryan without making it seem like that’s what I was trying to do, since it might draw more attention to our presence on the docks.

  I glanced up at the sky, where a handful of dark clouds blotted out the moon. “I better not keep you. It looks like rain.”

  “Naw, that’s nothing.”

  “Well, we should get going,” Mom cut in pleasantly. “Nice to meet you, Mister . . . ?”

  “Anderson, ma’am. Ryan Anderson.” He shifted his duffel to his left hand and extended his right. “I believe we’re neighbors.”

  Mom’s brows raised ever so slightly, but she maintained her smile. “Well, then. Perhaps we’ll see you around.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Good night.”

  Ryan dipped his head in farewell and walked off down the path, gravel crunching beneath his feet.

  I didn’t want to look in my mom’s face. Or Stuart’s, or Seth’s for that matter. I stared at the ground.

  “Let’s go,” she said, voice grating.

  We clomped down the dock to the last pier, where the boat—a small open utility boat with an outboard motor—was tied. Mom started undoing the moorings while Stuart reached down to start the motor.

  Hot white light flashed. The air felt like it was being sucked from my lungs, and my head rang as if someone had clapped their hands over my ears. Hard. I don’t remember falling, but the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the dock, head pounding. The boat was a mass of flames. Papers fluttered down all around us. It didn’t—couldn’t—register for a full second what had happened. I think I tried to scream, but my voice had lost its power. Mom lay crumpled around a pier like a broken doll. It probably saved her from being thrown into the water. I crawled over to her on my hands and knees.

  “Mom! Mom!” She didn’t respond. I twisted about in a panic, looking for Stuart. He’d know what to do. But Stuart was writhing on the deck, clutching his hand to his chest. Seth sat not far from where we were, shaking his head and looking dazed.

  “Seth, are you all right?”

  He nodded slowly, as if he was
n’t quite sure.

  “See if you can help Stuart!”

  Seth swayed to his feet and stumbled over to where Stuart lay and I turned my attention back to my mom.

  I felt along her neck for a pulse. I couldn’t tell if the pounding I felt in my fingers was my own pulse or hers. “Mom! Can you hear me?”

  She moaned and her head lolled to the side. I almost cried. At least she was alive. I checked her over quickly, looking for injuries. Even in the darkness, her face looked red, as if she were badly sunburned. Other than that, she seemed fine. No blood, no broken bones. The impact of the explosion could have knocked her out. Either from that, or slamming into the pier. The important thing was that she appeared to be otherwise unharmed.

  I wished I could say the same for Stuart. Once I had made sure my mom was okay, I turned to help Seth. What I saw horrified me. Stuart’s glasses tilted on his head, the right lens shattered. His face was black from the flash and he still cradled his left hand to his chest. His shirt was soaked in blood. Blackened, bloody stubs were all that was left of his ring and pinkie fingers.

  My stomach heaved and I looked quickly away. I wanted to cry, but that wouldn’t do us any good. The explosion may have alerted Watts. We had to get out of there. And then we had to get Stuart medical attention.

  “Aphra! What happened?” Ryan ran down the dock toward us. “I saw the flash. It sounded like an explosion.”

  But before I could answer, headlights swung over the lip of the road back by the path. Watts’s car. There was no time for explanations.

  “Ryan! We need your help!” I jumped to my feet and grabbed his hand. “That guy is after us.” He followed my gaze to where Watts—in a suit and tie now—jumped out of the car. “We need to get out of here!”

  He hesitated for a second, but when he saw Mom lying on the pier and Stuart’s injuries, he nodded gravely.

  “The plane,” he yelled. “I’m on the next dock over and already prepped to take off. Come on!”

  He scooped my mom up from the dock like it was no effort at all. “Help them,” he yelled, nodding to where Seth was trying to pull Stuart to his feet. “Let’s go!”

  I grabbed Stuart’s good hand and slung his arm over my shoulder. Seth propped him up from the other side. I tried not to look at Stuart’s mangled hand or the blood or his wide-eyed stare. “It’s going to be okay,” I assured him. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  We had to practically drag Stuart to where Ryan’s plane bobbed gently in the water. The whole time I felt like a huge, lumbering target. I glanced back to see Watts running down the hill toward the path. “He’s coming!”

  Ryan set my mom on her feet and motioned for me to hold her. Seth grabbed Stuart so that he wouldn’t fall over and I rushed to hold up my mom. She leaned heavily against me, moaning. At least she was coming to. Ryan clamored onto the landing skids and threw open the latch on the door. “Get in!”

  I handed my mom back to him and climbed through the door. He passed her to me and I pulled her inside, propping her against the wall of the plane. When I poked my head back out the door, I saw that Watts had reached the path.

  “Hurry! Hurry!”

  Seth pushed Stuart forward, but Stuart twisted and strained in his arms.

  “No,” he growled. “No!”

  “Get in!” Ryan ordered.

  “Nooooo.”

  Seth wrestled Stuart onto the skid where Ryan was waiting to hand him up into the plane. Stuart must have been crazy with pain, the way he kept screaming and resisting, but among the three of us, we got him inside.

  Ryan scrambled in after him and clanged the door shut behind him. He bolted up to the front, slid into one of the only two seats on the plane, and started throwing switches. The plane shuddered and vibrated as the engines roared to life and the propellers kicked in.

  “Hold on!” Ryan yelled as the plane began to glide forward.

  Hold on to what? We were crammed into an empty freight area, with nothing but a couple of cargo nets stretched floor to ceiling and a hand truck strapped to the wall. No jump seats. And more importantly, no seat belts.

  I grabbed the securing straps for the cargo nets and tethered my mom and myself to the wall. Seth tried to do the same with Stuart, but Stuart kept swatting him away. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his glasses and he squinted fiercely, growling obscenities. Finally, Seth gave up and wrapped a strap around himself. Stuart curled into a ball in the corner, hand tucked up under his armpit.

  Unsteadily, the plane jumped and skipped like a drunken albatross, wings dipping left then right before steadying and tilting upward, pulling us up into the air. My ears popped as we climbed and my head still rang, but we’d made it. We were alive and together. That was all that mattered.

  The plane steadied once we leveled off. I undid the straps and took a long look at Stuart. I was afraid he might go into shock—or that he already had. He seemed confused and disoriented and that wasn’t a good sign.

  “Ryan! Do you have a first-aid kit?”

  He didn’t answer. Probably couldn’t hear me above the roar of the plane. I crawled to the back of his chair and saw that he was wearing headphones. I gestured at him to remove them. “Do you have a first-aid kit?” I yelled.

  “In the corner!” He waved vaguely behind him. The plane wiggled when he took his hand off the controls and he quickly straightened it.

  My stomach flipped and I fought a sudden wave of motion sickness. I’d never experienced it before, but our resort manager Darlene got motion sick nearly every time she climbed into our helicopter on the island. It didn’t even have to be off the ground for her to start turning green. She always wore special motion-sickness bracelets to help her cope. I used to laugh at her for it, but now I struggled to remember what pressure points those bracelets hit because I really didn’t have time to get sick. I slid to the floor of the plane, leaning up against the back of the chair as I felt along my wrist with two fingers, like a nurse taking a pulse.

  Seth crawled over beside me.

  “Are you okay?” he yelled.

  “I’ll be fine. Just a little sick to my stomach.” I worked up a shaky smile. “Stay with my mom, will you? I’m going to try to help Stuart.”

  I crawled back to search for the kit.

  In the back corner I found a white plastic first-aid box with a small red cross on the front. It didn’t offer much more than a couple of rolls of gauze and some bandages, but at least that was enough for me to wrap Stuart’s fingers. That is, if he’d let me. He was still hunched over, cradling his hand and mumbling to himself.

  I approached him warily. “Can you let me see?” I shouted. “I want to help.”

  He just looked through me and shook his head like he was confused.

  “Let me see your hand.”

  He held it out to me. “My finger . . .”

  I hated to tell him it was fingers, plural. I just nodded sympathetically. “Can I wrap it?”

  He grabbed my hand with his good one and looked at me with wild eyes. “The ring?”

  “It’s safe.” I didn’t realize I’d let that slip until the words left my mouth. I held my breath, but Stuart didn’t respond at all. I pulled my hand from his grasp. “Let me help you,” I yelled. His eyes went vacant as he offered me his hand.

  Gingerly, I wrapped what remained of his fingers, hoping that I was doing it right. Explosions and amputations were not items covered in lifeguard certification.

  “Tuck it neatly,” he told me.

  I blinked at him. “Yeah, okay.” At least he was beginning to sound more like his neat-freak self. That had to be a good sign.

  I stayed with Stuart for a few moments, just to make sure he was lucid. For such a prissy guy on the outside, he was surprisingly tough when it mattered. He sat stone-faced, his bandaged hand in his lap, taking measured breaths. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “I—I’m not sure.” I took a quick look at Ryan. All I had cared about was getting away fr
om Watts. I hadn’t even bothered to discuss a destination. “He works in Alaska. Maybe—”

  Stuart narrowed his eyes. “We are not going to Alaska.”

  “I’ll, um, go talk with him, okay? You going to be all right?”

  But Stuart had already tuned me out. He stared vacantly at his hand, muttering to himself.

  I crawled forward to talk to Ryan, but noticed that my mom was awake and watching me. I scrambled over to her.

  “Hey. How are you feeling?”

  She held a hand to her head. “I’m . . . fine. What happened? Where are we?”

  “There was an explosion. Ryan helped us escape.”

  She frowned. “Ryan?”

  “We saw him on the docks, remember? He’s the guy that lives in your building.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “But . . . ” I shifted uncomfortably. “I met him yesterday. He lives next door to you.”

  “We ran a check on every resident before we moved in. He was not one of them.” Her eyes slid up to the front, where Ryan sat at the controls. “Where did you meet him?”

  “On the balcony.” My voice was so small it nearly got lost in the drone of the engines.

  “Oh, Aphra,” she scolded. “You know better than that.”

  I bit my lip. As much as she made me feel like a naughty six-year-old, she was right. I should know better. Especially after the thing with Hisako at our resort. People are not always what they seem. You can’t trust someone you don’t know. It’s just that Ryan seemed so nice . . . looked so nice. Ugh! How could I be such an easy mark?

  Stuart crawled over like a three-legged dog to join our huddle. “What is it?”

  Mom didn’t even have to say anything. Since she and Stuart had worked together, they were probably in tune enough that they were beyond words. She inclined her head toward Ryan and Stuart followed her gaze. He looked back to me. “Where is he taking us?”

  “I don’t know.” He cupped his hand over his ear to illustrate that he couldn’t hear me. Plus he probably wanted to make me admit it again, just to rub it in. He needn’t have bothered. I knew full well what a complete idiot I’d been. If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed how convenient Ryan’s appearance on the docks had been. And how quickly he showed up after the explosion . . . almost as if he knew it was going to happen. He could have planted the bomb himself, to entice us to climb into his plane. And I fell right into his trap. Mom would never have come aboard if she had been conscious. And Stuart . . . he tried to fight it, but we dragged him onto the plane anyway. I hung my head. “I’m sorry.”