He smirks, but picks up the phone and hits the speed dial button for Mack. I’ll take that as approval. Now I just have to ask Fyodor to meet earlier, and I should be done by eight at the latest. It’s not what Danny’s already got planned, but better than nothing. I really hope.
I decide to pull the same trick on Danny that he pulled on me today, and once I get off, I drive to his office. He works past 6 pretty regularly, and tonight’s no exception: 6:15 and his car’s in the lot. I park next to it, roll down my windows and rehearse what to say.
I don’t have long. Before I settle on a good script, I spot Danny coming down the aisle, chatting with a girl from work. Ariane. I’ve met her, and she’s as petite and pretty as her name sounds. Yep, that’s who I want hanging out with my boyfriend.
Just to see what they do, I watch for a minute. They get closer and their voices carry to me, but I can’t understand them — French. Right, because Ariane’s from Quebec.
It’s okay, I tell myself. I’m not going to start spying on him because he has a cute coworker. I face forward and turn up the radio to tune them out, focusing on what I have to do in the next two days: talk to Danny, pull off this elaborate and extremely rushed op with Fyodor —
A hand reaches through my window. My breath freezes. I don’t think. I snatch the nearest weapons: two pens. I grab the hand, leveraging one pen across the back in a Kubotan-like submission hold. My other arm wheels around, ready to stab with the other pen point.
My brain clicks into the right context. I halt abruptly and look. Danny. Super smooth.
“Ow?” He nods at the hand I’m holding. I’ve brought 300-pound men to their knees with that hold (well, I did put more pressure on it. Still). I let Danny go, but, hey, I was going for the jugular with the other pen, so if I had to pick one side to stop, I think I chose well.
He shakes out his hand. “What was that?”
“You scared me. You know I don’t like surprises.”
“I think I’m the one who got a surprise.”
Not sure how to take that until he smiles. A distant voice calls to him, carrying over the song on my radio. Danny waves and bids her goodbye in French, but his eyes never leave mine.
Danny. Is. Absolutely. Adorable.
He leans through the window to kiss me and I realize that’s what he was doing in the first place.
Spy training. Not always an asset.
Danny folds his arms on the edge of my open window. “So, what are you doing here?”
“We’ve spent like twenty minutes together this week.” This actually isn’t that strange — my job takes up at least three nights a week meeting with my sources — but I’m happy to spend more time with him than the few minutes we usually catch on the phone.
Also, I’ve totally lost the nerve to bring up the real reason I’m here.
“Have anything in mind?” Danny asks.
“Nah. Movie?”
“My place?”
“If that’s okay.” We’re careful not to spend too much time alone — we’re both really serious about living our church’s standards — but my options are limited. I hate sitting in the dark in public, the exit situation in most movie theaters is borderline at best, and I find Danny a bit distracting, so I stick to places that are defensible. I mean, safe. Plus, Danny lives outside my main operational area. I mean, on the Quebec side of the river.
Danny agrees, so I send him on two errands (a short, subtle SDR) while I pick up ingredients for dinner on my route. Before he has time to get home, I call him to buy something I “forgot,” making sure I beat him home to sweep his house. I’m pretty sure even if I ended up on someone’s radar, Danny would be safe, but I can’t let my guard down.
No, really, I think it might be physically impossible.
I do try when I’m with Danny, though. And everything is so good, so normal with him as we make pizza together, I totally almost forget what I’m supposed to bring up. But it’s not a bad thing to butter him up with a great date first, right?
We end up watching some stupid romantic comedy on cable that looked mildly amusing but suffers from a bad case of all-the-jokes-are-in-the-traileritis. We mute the second half of the movie and provide our own dialogue. Our version is a lot funnier, but probably only to us. Okay, we’re both dorks.
By the time our “dialogue” devolves into a contest to quote the obscurest movie, which Danny always wins, the worry has settled like a rock in my stomach. He’s going to think I did all this to soften the blow. He’ll be mad. Worse, he’ll be disappointed.
And I delay the inevitable. I curl up next to him on the couch, playing with his hair where it flips out behind his ear, until the silent movie rolls to its big finale in a chapel with a long aisle. Oh, great, a wedding. Before Danny can recite the entire ceremony from The Princess Bride (not obscure, but still impressive, even if he refuses to do the voice), I grab our empty popcorn bowl, the old maids rattling in the bottom as I head for the kitchen. “I do not buy this.”
I didn’t mean for him to hear, but Danny does and follows me. “What, that they’d get married in a church?”
“Well, yeah, but mostly that they’d do it at all.” I’m a traitor to my gender, I know, but my mom and dad’s messy divorce and fifteen years of their feuding makes me a little cynical about the future of couples who spend 90% of a movie fighting.
I trade the bowl for a clean glass and fill it at the fridge. Danny leans against the counter. “Hey, we thought Campbell would never get married.”
At the mention of his former roommate, we both glance at the stairs, as if he’ll appear though he moved out three weeks ago. He and Angela are one of five insane couples at our church who’ve met and married in the year Danny and I have dated. And no, I’m not exaggerating. “Oh, come on, we both know he only went for it because she was his last chance.”
“You obviously didn’t spend enough time with them and their cute yiddle baby tawk.” Danny’s voice climbs an octave before he rolls his eyes.
“I’m so gwad we don’t do dat.” I join him at the counter and paint on a grin that borders on psychotic. “Yes I am! Oh yes I am!”
“Sewiouswy.”
I kill the act first. “Still surprised they went through with it.”
“Campbell or — ?” He jerks his chin in the direction of the TV. The couple’s at the altar.
I turn away from the living room. “You watch. They’re going to run away.”
Oh crap. My stomach tightens. I have to watch what I say here. I’m not the only one with commitment issues, and I don’t want Danny thinking I’m belittling him for his.
“Cliché.” He borrows my water glass, apparently oblivious to my worries. “Come on, people don’t take that kind of plunge because they feel obligated to. When you love somebody like that, you can’t imagine not getting married.”
I am so glad when he says “you” he doesn’t mean me, or I’d have the second panic attack of my life. I get crazy about marriage because I’m afraid; Danny’s afraid because he almost married a crazy person. He brought up his failed engagement early on to warn me to keep my expectations low and my animal fear of the M-word was clear. I’m not gasping for a paper bag yet tonight, but I can’t seem to look back at him right now. I retreat to raid the pantry.
“At least that’s what Campbell said.” His voice is just loud enough to carry to me.
Between Mom and Dad’s flameout, my mom’s and brothers’ failed attempts at matrimony, and the jeopardy Elliott’s family is putting us in, I’m not sharing what I’ve seen of marriage. He might not believe ignorance is bliss, but then, he doesn’t know what I know.
By the time I return to the kitchen, empty-handed, the movie’s over. No idea if the couple went through with it.
Danny’s hopped up on the counter, leaning back on his hands, lost in thought. Something in the air is different. Probably my fault. I have to say something about our plans, but could Danny already know what’s coming?
I bite the bra
ss jacketed hollow point and sidle up to him. But Danny isn’t paying attention to the movie credits or me. He’s thinking. After a second, I have to resort to one of our lame jokes, pulling out a gold-and-silver $2 coin. “Toonie for your thoughts?” He gets paid to think and he commands a premium.
Like I said, our jokes are lame.
Usually he spouts off some random science-y thing like “Writing a new law of thermodynamics” or “Trying to get Pluto reclassified as a planet.” I think he’s joking. Usually.
But tonight, he just smiles. Peaceful. Serene. No idea what’s about to come. “Friday.”
Great.
“Danny . . . about that.”
He sits up. Anxiety creeps into his posture and his eyes turn wary.
If he were a target or an agent, I’d try to convince him it was much worse than it really is, so he’d be glad instead of let down when I tell him the truth. But honestly, I’m hardly ever tempted to play him like that anymore, though I can’t tell him the full facts about Friday.
So I tell him what I can. “We had a client call in and they can’t meet until six thirty Friday. And it has to be this week.”
Danny’s gaze swings around to his knees. I move to catch his eye. “But I should be done by eight. Eight thirty at the latest.”
“Oh.” His shoulders fall — but not because he’s sad. I know relief when I see it. “So we need to push back our reservations?”
“If that’s okay.” I offer my hand and a tentative smile.
He takes them both. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I can meet you there, too. That much less time for you.” And I don’t want to waste time driving back out to Gloucester plus the “scenic route” to pretend I was at the office if I’m already going to be near our destination.
Danny stares at his thumb tracing over my knuckles, clearly debating his options. “I guess.” He shrugs. “I just like picking you up because then I know I have you all to myself.”
It’s kinda cute, but kinda not: that’s the exact reason I don’t like it, and now I know it’s intentional, too. Though I’m not sure I blame him. “So where are we going?”
“The restaurant in the Château, Wilfrid’s.”
My eyebrows skyrocket. Danny makes good money, but he’d rather make his recently-doubled-without-a-roommate house payment than drop $50 a person on dinner.
I’m dating two men (sort of) who both take me (sort of) to Signatures and Wilfrid’s in the same week. I’ve never set foot inside the Château before today. How is it I’ll be there twice in a week? Do all aerospace engineers date alike?
“Talia?” Danny’s voice draws me out of my thoughts. I’m with him right now, and that’s all that matters. For personal time, a spy has to live in the present.
In this present, Danny is looking at me like I’m too good to be true, like he can’t believe I’m really here. “You know you’re beautiful, right?”
I laugh the compliment off and turn away, trying to silence my mental whisper. It doesn’t work, and the No, you’re not. Don’t buy it echoes too long. He wouldn’t lie to me, but somehow when he says that, I can’t quite push myself to believe him.
He slides off the counter, wraps me in his arms, and continues. “Know what I love about you?”
“Um, no. After this week? I honestly don’t.” I silently pray it’s not my terrible sense of direction or my forgetfulness or any other part of “me” that’s a lie.
Danny leans closer, his voice soft. Serious. Sincere. “You never give up. You fight for the things you care about, and you won’t let anything stand in your way.”
And those are all true.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For fighting for time with me Friday. For not canceling.”
I bump his leg with my hip. “It was nothing.”
“No.” He holds me closer, those warm, genuine eyes locked on mine. “It’s not ‘nothing.’ Not to me.” He trails a finger along my jaw to draw me closer for a kiss.
The second my lips touch his, I can sense there’s something more behind this kiss. An electric current flows into my heart and my lungs and my brain, until I’m so lost in this kiss that I can’t tell which way is up.
Something slams right behind me and I jump away from Danny, whirl around, ready to fight.
Nobody there. I look back at Danny, leaning on one hand on the counter. A hand he just slapped down to catch us.
Right.
I’m an idiot. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He wraps his arms around my waist again. I look into his warm brown eyes, and that same overwhelming feeling threatens me again.
I don’t know what he’s thinking or trying to say, but I definitely prefer being lost in his kiss to just being lost.
Danny presses his forehead to mine, placing us eye-to-eye. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” I kiss him this time and try to forget everything I’m afraid of, everything that could go wrong Friday.
I won’t let it.
At the office, we devote Thursday to tracking Mikhail Kozyrev — well, not at the office, exactly. Robby and César are out on his tail, and Elliott and I head to his two-story Tudor in the suburbs. After all, you can’t live on a boat year-round in Ottawa.
His locks and the security system are pretty challenging. Maybe the career in security is legit. But we manage to get in.
Raiding a house is easier when you don’t have to worry about putting everything back, but today we don’t have that luxury. Elliott starts in the kitchen, and I go upstairs to the bedroom.
The house is oddly neat for a man who lives alone. Maybe he hires help?
I search his nightstand. Only a pristine Russian edition of Mikhail Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don. I’ve already read it (thank you, RUSS 340), but Kozyrev hasn’t touched his copy. Still, I shake the book and flip through the pages: nothing.
The dresser: nothing. The closet: nothing. Even the bathroom and the trash cans: not a single piece of dental floss or receipt or note. No evidence a real person lives or at least visits here. Unless he has a very thorough housekeeper, this is a really bad sign.
I text Elliott downstairs to look for a maid service’s number, but the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me everything I need to know. This is too suspect.
I scan the room for the best place for a slick, the spy’s version of a sock drawer: an accessible but well-concealed hiding spot. The standard places like the door jambs and the baseboards look solid. In my apartment, I use an outlet hidden by a garbage can as my slick’s access point, and fake outlets are popular. But all Kozyrev’s plugs check out.
Where else? There’s the classic/cliché false drawer bottoms or hollow books, though I’ve confirmed the only book in sight is real. Under or behind drawers. Under the sink. High shelves in the closet. There could even be a door to the attic.
Kozyrev isn’t the real target in our investigation, and a search this thorough would take all day, at least. I groan and cover my eyes, sinking down to sit on the bed for a second of regrouping and restrategizing.
When I move my hands and take in the view through the bedroom window, I’m anything but ready for the beat-up black sedan pulling into the driveway.
Crap. My heart refuses to restart. Why haven’t César and Robby warned us? I jump up and straighten the bedspread. The room is just as pristine as when I came in.
I dash down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Incoming! Abort!”
The exterior garage door grates open. Elliott grabs a key hanging on the wall and unlocks the back door deadbolt. He takes the time to replace the key though we won’t be able to lock it behind us and half-drags me out the back and under the porch.
The cool of the shadows and the humidity settle on my skin. I peer up between the deck boards at the gray sky looming over us. “Did you hear from César and Robby?”
“Nope.” It’s hard to read the tone of a whisper, but I’m betting he’
s no happier than I am.
I guess none of us is immune to mistakes.
We slink around the house, out of sight of the windows, until we can make a run for the neighbor’s yard. But even once we’re safe, I still can’t relax. Nothing here feels right.
As soon as Timofeyev is taken care of, we’re getting a lot more eyes on Kozyrev.
Back at the office (for real this time), we get quite a reception: a list of contractors who might or might not have done Kozyrev’s remodel, the thermal imaging from Monday night (Thanks for making us a priority, Chief of Station Dixon. Not.), and a personal message for me from Mack at CSIS.
I can count the number of times Mack has called me directly on no fingers, and we did just execute a totally illegal search, so right away I’m worried. A glance at the imaging, my one valid way to stall, confirms our suspicions: Kozyrev & co. weren’t having a big party, eating all that food they’ve stockpiled. Nope, party of two, until they leave the locks.
And now I have to call Mack back. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” he says quickly. “Just needed to talk to you about your boyfriend.”
Man, that joke is lame. I slump further into my computer chair. “What about him?”
“Well, how has he been lately? Fairly normal?”
“I guess so. I’ve only known the man a couple days.”
Mack is silent a beat too long. A tone of apology lilts into his words. “It says here you’ve been dating since last August.”
I jerk back to sitting fully upright. “You don’t mean Fyodor.”
“Oh, no, no. Danny Fluker.”
“Right, sorry.” I rub my eyes and allow myself a little laugh. “Long week.”
Mack laughs, too. “That’s only understandable. So, Mr. Fluker?”
A suspicion this is way more than casual concern creeps — no, it freaking marches up my back. “Yeah, Danny’s fine. Why?”
“Nobody’s spoken to you?” Is that worry in his voice?
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 10