Gone Duck

by L. L. Muir

  “Are you alright, Miss?” The cop was looking at the darker guy’s fingers wrapped tightly around her arm.

  She looked at the fingers, then up into the cheap suit’s eyes. He stared back, not caring what the cop might think of it. And she felt the ground tip beneath her as gravity pulled her over the top and down the first roller coaster hill. Her lungs filled, preparing for the scream.

  “You’ll be all right,” the darker one said, not taking his eyes off hers. “We can carry you if you need us to.”

  She dragged her gaze away and smiled at the officer. “Yes, I’ll be fine. It only hurt for a second. I must have stepped on it wrong.”

  He frowned. “If you’re sure.” And she knew he wasn’t talking about her foot.

  She kept smiling. “Yep. I’m sure. But thanks anyway.”

  “Well, I’ll be watching,” he said, “for the next book in the series.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. It should be out for Christmas.”

  The silence was awkward as they waited for another elevator. They’d already missed two. Her ankle started throbbing—punishment for lying, maybe. Or maybe it was anticipating some injury in the very near future.

  The doors opened. No one inside. No cops to assault. No crowd to make her safe.

  The three of them faced forward, a suit to each side of her. “Don’t do that again,” said the one in the lighter-colored.

  She had no idea how to reply, so she didn’t.

  The doors opened on a dimly lit corridor, and they were greeted by the sound of a barely restrained crowd. The suits shared a look, then reached for their weapons. The dark one took hold of her right arm and blocked the doors open with his foot while the other one stepped out. But Macey had no intention of getting off that elevator and leading a couple of nervous guns into that crowd. A loud murmur with spikes of high voices meant only one thing.

  Kids!

  Someone had decided it was Have Your Family Drop By the Station Day, she just knew it. She’d seen such ambushes before, only she’d been able to walk right through them without anyone knowing the man they were hoping to get a glimpse of was really the dirty-blonde scurrying for the exit.

  Thanks to Cop Dracula, she would never be able to slip past little mobs of readers ever again.

  Of course, she’d been hoping for a noisy crowd to get lost in, but this wasn’t it. Even if she wasn’t scared to death of facing her little readers in real life, with her real face—and getting rejected for that face—she couldn’t lead two gunmen their way. If the pair was ready to harm a cop, a kid making a wrong move wouldn’t matter to them much. And if there was anything you could count on, it was a kid making the wrong move.

  She backed away from the opening as far as she could, and the guy gripped her tighter. He frowned a warning, then strained to see his partner, his gun in his right hand, pointed at the ceiling. The elevator’s alarm went off, complaining the door had been open too long, but he ignored it. He quickly holstered his weapon and straight-armed one of the Duck Dynasty boys when the smelly one tried to get on the elevator.

  “Wait for the next one, sir,” the dark suit ordered.

  The bearded guy looked at the other man’s hand now pressed to his chest, then looked up slowly. His arms, however, moved like lightening. He removed the hand with his own right. With his left forearm, he slammed the dark suit’s elbow, forcing it to bend the wrong way.

  The dark suit released her arm and started screaming. Duck Man swung the contorted arm in a wide circle, spinning the suit around and knocking his face into the corner of the elevator opening. His scream was cut short by a karate chop to his Adam’s apple.

  While Macey stood in shock, Duck Man pushed a button on the elevator and the alarm stopped. The doors opened completely and stayed put while he dragged the insensible man out into the corridor and across to an array of large potted plants, where the dark suit’s feet tangled with his partner’s.

  “Hurry, now. Stay close,” Duck Man said, then started backing down the corridor away from the foyer, dragging her along with him.

  She might have been foolish to trust the guy, but she was much more afraid of what her last escorts had in mind. Foolish and alive sounded fine to her.

  “Halt!”

  She looked back. Cop Dracula was headed toward them. Apparently he’d seen the crowd as a possible complication too. Without slowing, he pulled his gun and shot at her!

  She stopped and looked down at herself, expecting blood to start spurting from somewhere. But before it could, she was pulled off balance by the Duck guy.

  “Run!”

  Another shot rang out, followed by a lot of shouting.

  Metal gates dropped in hallways as they passed. They were never going to get out! The outer doors would have been the first things to be blocked, wouldn’t they?

  They neared a glass door with a parking lot on the other side. Above it, a metal blind was trying to unroll into place, but it was stuck by a crowbar. Duck Man pushed the glass and held it open. She hurried past him and paused while he reached up and pulled the crowbar free. Only then did she stop to think.

  That went a little too well.

  And here she was, about to run off with some scary looking guy who knew more about Kung Fu than ducks?

  She stared back at the building that up until a few minutes ago, she never wanted to leave. What if she went back in, begged one of the local cops to hide her?

  “Macey!”

  She spun around. Duck Man was backing away, peeling off his beard as he went.

  “Come on, Macey. Just trust me one more time, okay?”

  Her jaw dropped open. Holy shit! It was Hot Neighbor!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Damn it, Macey! Run!”

  She didn’t think any more adrenaline could fit in her bloodstream, but it did. She ran—not from someone, but after someone. She was going to wring his neck if she could just catch up to him. He’d blown up her beautiful bookshelves. He’d led some kind of secret police into her perfect apartment, into her perfectly ordered world, so they could pick it apart. But worst of all, he’d been spying on her. Eavesdropping in her bathroom!

  And if it was the last thing she did, she was going to drag his butt back to the police and force him to convince everyone with a badge that she had nothing to do with him. And when that was perfectly clear, she would insist they do whatever it took to put her apartment back together and leave her alone.

  He glanced over his shoulder as they ran behind a deserted gas station and seemed a little surprised she was on his heels. He slowed and turned toward her, but before he could say anything, she attacked him, beating on his chest, slapping his head and then his hands when he raised them to defend himself. He braced his feet apart and let her do her worst. Eventually, she realized she was hurting herself more than she was hurting him, and she stopped. But she kept one fist ready in case he started laughing at her. If he did, she was going to punch him in the nose.

  But he didn’t laugh.

  He peeked through his fingers at her face, then her fist, and still he lowered his hands and held them out to his sides, fingers spread, palms up.

  “Go ahead. If it will make you feel better.” He tilted his head back, offering up his chin.

  So she hit him. Hard.

  She’d put everything she had into that blow. Her weight, her anger. She even remembered to follow through, and he didn’t so much as lose his balance. It did, however, hurt her wrist. Her knuckles hurt too, but her wrist took the worst of it.

  He touched his chin, wiggled his beard-free jaw, then hurried on. He waved for her to follow and stripped off his camo jacket as he went.

  She caught up quickly. “You have to tell them I have nothing to do with all this! You have to go back there and convince them.”

  He took her hand and pulled her around the corner of the long building. After looking back to see if they were being followed, he shook his head and started pulling hair extensions off his head. It was like watchi
ng Bigfoot turn into a regular guy.

  “That’s not going to happen. You do have something to do with this, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure it out.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t even know you.”

  He tilted his head and gave her a look that cried bullshit.

  She grunted. “I don’t know you well.”

  He shook his head and stuffed the extensions into a pocket of the camo jacket. “I’ll explain everything, but we have to get out of here first. Okay?” He held out his hand.

  After spending all her frustration on his lovely face, she suddenly felt like the bad guy—a bad guy who had just run out of adrenaline. She tried to tell herself that Mortimer Coffee wouldn’t feel guilty for socking a guy who deserved it as much as Hot Neighbor did. But it seemed her alter ego had called it a night and left her to her own conscience. The least she could do, it seemed, was to take his hand and do what he asked.

  For the moment.

  A dark SUV was parked on the far side of the station. Along the back window, there was a row of stick figures. A dad, a mom, three various-sized boys, and a little girl. Hot Neighbor moved to the passenger side and opened the door, then waited for her.

  “You stole this from a family?” She frowned at him as she climbed inside.

  “No. I bought the stickers. No one looks twice at a Mormon Assault Vehicle with stickers of a huge family.”

  She laughed. He was right. If they could just hire out some kids, they could stroll right past Pepperidge Manor on the sidewalk and no one would notice their faces.

  He tossed the remnants of his disguise in the back seat, climbed behind the wheel, and pulled away.

  She caught him wiggling his jaw and her chest tightened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  He glanced at the traffic, in the mirrors, in every direction but hers. “Don’t be.”

  With the sirens and news trucks swarming the block, it took a few minutes to get free of the congestion. When they had a few intersections behind them, she let out a long breath. She looked back and forth between him and the road, trying to make out his features in the dying light. She’d never really been that close to him before.

  He was too concerned with the rearview and side mirrors to notice her looking.

  He took a turn she wasn’t expecting and she bumped her head on her window. He might have done it on purpose.

  “I need to go back to the house,” she said firmly.

  “Lacrosse’s men are still there. We can’t go back.”

  “I have to go back. I need…clothes, among other things. And those other things I can’t do without. And just who is Lacrosse, anyway?”

  “I’ll explain later. We can’t go back. Trust me.”

  “But—”

  “But you need your rubber duck, right?”

  Her mouth hung open. How did he know? Oh, but she already knew the answer—he’d known because he had cameras all over her apartment. He knew everything.

  He smiled. “Back seat, CC.”

  “CC?”

  He nodded. “It’s short for CCND. Crazy Chick Next Door.”

  She laughed. “Thanks, Neighbor Dude.”

  “Please. Call me ND.”

  She laughed again, but apparently his joke break was over because his smile faded fast. He checked the rearview and side mirrors, then relaxed a little.

  Macey turned and found two backpacks. She grabbed the one from behind her seat and dragged it up front. She opened the main zipper and found Ducky sitting on top. The clothes beneath were hers.

  She picked up the duck and looked at the bottom. The secret door was still in place.

  “They didn’t look twice at it,” he said. “It hasn’t been touched.”

  Macey took a deep breath and sighed. Everything was going to be fine. Her files were safe.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I would have killed myself if—”

  “I know.” He reached over and laid his hand on hers as she clutched the most important thing in her life. “Keefer’s safe.”

  She hadn’t realized just how much her fictional character meant to her until she thought it might all be lost with a careless toss of some SWAT cop searching her house for who knew what. She also realized Hot Neighbor had gone back to the manor, where it was too dangerous to go, just to get her duck.

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Did he care so much about her then? Her imagination started dancing around. She ordered it back into its cage and forced herself to act normal.

  “Just because you saved my files doesn’t mean I’ll forgive you for blowing up my bookcase. Most of those books are—were—first editions. Some of them signed by the authors.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You wanna tell me why you’ve been spying on me? Why there is a trap door in my closet? Why you have my place bugged?”

  She was hoping for the least creepy answer possible, but she didn’t like the odds.

  “It’s a long story. I’ve put you in a lot of danger, and I’m sorry. But as soon as they figured out who you are, you were going to be in danger anyway.”

  She laughed. “They already know who I am. The internet is going to let everyone else know, too.”

  He shook his head, but said nothing as he drove her toward their neighborhood on the east bench of the city, by way of smaller neighborhood streets. They went to Twenty-first South, then backtracked, stopping in a church’s rear parking lot a couple of blocks from Pepperidge Manor. He pulled a two-way radio out of his pocket and turned it on.

  She nodded at the radio. “You have a team of bad guys or something?”

  He looked up, as if he was surprised she was still there. She chose not to be paranoid. He was probably just concentrating on other things.

  “You don’t seem too worried,” he said.

  “Probably still in shock.” It was the safest response. He didn’t need to know how much she trusted him—though he was getting a good idea—and he didn’t need to know she’d watched him a little bit too, especially when her eyes needed a respite from the computer screen, and he was outside mowing the lawn for their elderly landlord.

  His attention was back on the radio. There was just static, but he didn’t switch channels.

  “So, what is it for?”

  “I got it off the agent who’s tied up in our basement. I needed his uniform to get the duck.”

  “Pretty dangerous, going back for that.”

  “I was going to use it as bait, if necessary, to get you to come with me.”

  See? He’s too intelligent to be head over heels for a recluse and her duck.

  “And why do you need me to come with you? To keep me out of danger? Who do you think I am?”

  He set the radio on the dash and turned in his seat to face her. “You’re Mor Coffee.”

  “Yeah. Author of the Keefer Boone books. They know that already.”

  “No. They don’t know you’re Mor Coffee, from the note left by a dying man. A message he’d left for me, that he hoped only I would understand. And right now, Lacrosse is probably figuring it out, or he will soon. And he’ll pull you apart trying to get information from you.”

  “Wait. A note? What note? And which one is Lacrosse?”

  “The one shooting at you.”

  “Ah. I had a different name for him.”

  “Oh? What name did he give you?”

  She shook her head. “He never gave me his name, so I thought of one. Cop Dracula.”

  He chuckled. Then he laughed outright. “That’s perfect. But you’re great at coming up with the perfect names for people.”

  She wondered if he had any idea that in addition to calling him Neighbor Dude, she also called him Hot Neighbor.

  Duh! Of course he did!

  “Yeah,” she said. “And sometimes I’m completely off.”

  He frowned slightly as if he was trying to guess what she’d meant. Then he shook his head, giving up. “My
name is Shawn. I’m sure you already know that. The kids upstairs shout it often enough, when they see me outside.”

  She shrugged. He knew too much about her already. She didn’t need to explain anything to him.

  She changed the subject back to the important stuff. “Why do you think Lacrosse would have pulled me apart? I mean, the way he made his own men nervous was telling. I’m not saying I doubt he would hurt me, I just want to know why? And can FBI agents get away with hurting people?”

  Shawn nodded. “A: He’s looking for information that might help him find me. B: The information he really wants, that he’s about to realize you have, is inside that duck, along with your book files. And C: He’s not FBI or CIA. He’s WHOSO, baby. World Health Organization, Special Ops. And only a few people in the World Health Organization even know there is such a department. Horrible things are done in the name of national security, Macey. Can you imagine the things that might be done on behalf of the world’s security?”

  “I have a pretty good imagination.”

  “Yeah. Well. I thought I couldn’t be surprised. And they surprised me.” He turned forward again and checked all the mirrors. It was a Monday night, the night most Mormons spent with their families. The church was dark. The parking lot was like a ghost town.

  “You know them then? You’ve dealt with these WHOSO guys?”

  He was quiet for a minute. She knew he was trying to decide whether or not to be honest with her. If it took that much deliberation, she thought it might be better if he lied. She didn’t want to be involved with dangerous people. She just wanted her life back, her control back.

  She was about to tell him just that when he spoke.

  “I used to be one. Recruited from Secret Service.”

  Gah!

  She remembered one of the cheap suits talking into his sleeve, saying her name. She thought he’d been pretending, only the pretending had been that he was a federal agent of some kind. Then she remembered Lacrosse’s accent.

  “Is Lacrosse French?”

  “Spanish. Spaniards often sound French or Portuguese. He speaks so many languages, they all bleed together in his accent. That’s what makes him useful in a world organization. But the people he truly works for, people so wealthy they have no names, make certain his authority is absolute. That’s what makes him dangerous.”