The landlord launches into a long speech about some obscure document he wants filled out, and shoves a packet of bright orange paper at me. I scan the Russian. An apartment inspection. Now. The cover sheet’s bold text leaves no room to argue. Obyazatel'noi. Mandatory.
If I fight, this guy will remember the whole emotionally charged episode. If I comply, we can get through this and he’ll forget me tomorrow. I hope.
“Vhodite.” I step back from the door to let him in. He grabs the papers from me and marches past. What little I gathered from the pages had to do with assessing the condition of the apartment because we’re new renters. The apartment we just christened with a 1.5" hole. Yeah.
I dare to look. Now in light disguise, too, with a new mole and a dark wig covering his fashionably mussed brown hair, Justin’s leaning against the wall maybe a shade too nonchalant, blocking the view of the hole. The landlord scrutinizes him, and the blood slows in my veins.
The repair fee can’t be that much, but getting caught? Alerting the neighbors? Disaster.
The landlord cuts his eyes my direction. “Pochemu on ne na rabote?”
Why isn’t he at work? Good question. Careful to keep from betraying the lie, I shrug. “Leniv.” He’s lazy.
“Trud cheloveka kormit, a len' — portit.”
I never want to play Russian proverb roulette again, but at least this one fits: work feeds the man, and laziness spoils him. Justin’s certainly spoiled. I grin; the landlord doesn’t. Justin starts to smile. Once the landlord’s gaze leaves me, I make a cutting motion across my throat.
Justin’s eyebrows twitch in the subtlest acknowledgment possible, and the grin melts into a glower. Good recovery. Now we need to get rid of this landlord before he gets too nosy.
Isn’t that kind of what “inspection” means?
Without a nod to either of us, the landlord marches back to the main bedroom. We — meaning the Agency — have only been in the apartment a couple days. No one’s living here, so we haven’t dressed the place with toothpaste smears and dirty laundry. Like ours, the apartment’s disguise is thin, a veneer that anybody being thorough would see through.
So I follow him down the short hall to the room. He’s already there, examining the cheap, pressed wood desk that comes with the apartment, as if it’s worth anything. He doesn’t seem to care the desktop is bowed or the door to its storage compartment always drifts open. We’re not complaining, either, but we don’t have to put up with it.
The landlord rounds the double bed to check out the night table. He stops short to inspect the hospital corners on the sheets. Worry tugs at my gut again. Too neat. We should’ve gone for more disheveled. We should’ve raided a thrift store for clothes to spread around.
The landlord barely glances at me. A hand lands on my shoulder and I jump before I realize it’s Justin. I shoot him a glare to try to send him out. Too weird if he goes back to leaning against that random spot on the living room wall. We can’t afford suspicion.
“I see he’s lazy in other ways, too,” the landlord mutters in Russian, like Justin’s not there. Or like the landlord knows Justin can’t understand him. I’m not sure I understand him either, until he adds a dirty joke to the jab. I scowl and shake off Justin’s hand.
I’ve got to get this guy out before he figures out we’re not living here. What’s the best excuse? I size up the landlord. Is he a hard smoker or drinker?
He’s Russian, so probably both, though he doesn’t show many outward signs. Wedding ring? Yep. I take a shot in the dark and in Russian: “Dmitri upset my mother.”
The landlord’s grunt speaks volumes. Who doesn’t sympathize with mother-in-law problems? I’m not married yet and I do.
He turns for the door leading off this room. Trouble. We’ve gone far enough to toss two toothbrushes in a glass, but if he looks for something as deep as, say, the toothpaste? Big trouble.
Justin wasn’t there when we set up. It was me and Robby, who’d come in handy now, since he does speak Russian. Justin has no idea what he’s getting into when he starts for the door. Is he stopping the landlord? What’s he going to say, when the guy can barely get out a Russian hi? I have to keep him from going into that bathroom.
Oblivious, Justin grips the knob. The landlord steps up to the plate. But it’s my pulse rounding the bases.
We can’t afford this attention. The neighbors hearing us is one thing; them knowing we don’t really live here is a different ball game. The landlord just became the bigger threat.
It’s time for a sacrifice play.
I yank out the dresser’s second drawer. It falls apart if you touch it, as I found out the hard way two days ago. Now the front of the drawer comes off, pulling out the drawer bottom. The plywood clatters to the floor.
Odds are good the landlord already knew this was broken — he’s probably here to pin this repair on us anyway — but it’s the best I’ve got. It’ll make him remember me, it’ll mean I have to stay away from this apartment building, and it’ll cost us the repair money. Still better than the neighbors hearing rumors about the fake couple next door.
The landlord swivels to face me. He gapes in horror like I beheaded his beagle instead of defacing his dresser. “You stupid cow,” he growls. “Don’t you know how to open a drawer?”
“It was broken when we moved in.” The defenses in my voice aren’t totally an act, because that dresser drawer’s empty. Another giveaway. My adrenaline level kicks up a notch.
Then the cover pops into my head. “We couldn’t even put our clothes in here,” I complain. “This entire apartment is defective.”
“Defective? Defective?” He raises the decibel level, forcing the argument into the next gear. “Did you have such an apartment in Russia?”
“With roaches and broken furniture?” I snort in a condescending laugh. “Yes, we did.”
“You inspected it before you signed the contract!”
Which we didn’t. As long as he’s angry, though, it doesn’t matter what he says. I’ll keep stoking that fire. “Now you’re inspecting it again, like we’ve destroyed it the first week?”
“Obviously you have.”
“Obviously we haven’t had time to do the damage I can see from where I stand.” I toss the drawer front onto the rest of the wreckage. “We’re moving out.” I turn away.
“You signed a contract. You can’t just leave.” The landlord latches onto my arm, hard.
The second he touches me, real heat flashes through my chest. “Watch us.” I jerk out of his grasp and march down the hall. The landlord practically races me to the door.
I fling the front door open and let it slap the wall. The doorstop’s defective, too. “What a surprise. Something else that’s broken.”
“You can’t just walk out!”
“Don’t make us drag lawyers into this.”
The landlord curls his lip and pauses in the doorway to wheel back to Justin, emerging from the hall. “You know where she gets this attitude,” the landlord sneers, as if my fake mother passed it down, a vicious family heirloom. “Good luck.”
Like my “husband” is supposed to stand in solidarity with the guy who manhandled his “wife”? Justin’s response is narrowed eyes. Good one.
The landlord flounces into the hall and I slam the door, appeasing a little of my anger.
“Going out on a limb here,” Justin says softly. “I’m guessing we can pack up the apartment before we go?”
“Good guess.” I don’t bother taking off the wig or glasses. I move back to the hole in the wall — which, fortunately, the landlord never noticed. “Let’s get this in and get ourselves out.”
Justin grabs the microphone placing stick and carefully repositions the contact mic in the clip on the end. I take up my listening post again, immediately picking up chatter in the room closest to us. Two people.
Now my pulse is racing for a very different reason. I hold a finger to my lips. Justin freezes.
I’m missing about a q
uarter of what they’re saying — exactly why we’re trying to get that contact mic in; it’s a lot better than my listening device — but the gist is clear. They’re talking about us. What happened. If they’ve ever seen us.
Yeah, great time to be making noise against their wall, even if their talking might cover it. Every second that crawls past, my anger cools into apprehension, and my heart rate climbs.
“Pack up first,” I barely whisper. The place’s thin disguise is supposed to be packable in fifteen minutes or less. I check the time on my phone. I don’t have fifteen minutes to spare, between our surveillance detection route when we’re done here and the boutique’s strict no-late-appointments policy. After I’ve texted Beth, Beth, Beth and Abby (we’re all so disappointed) (except not), Justin and I get to work stripping off the apartment’s façade of living.
As designed, fifteen minutes later, all “our” earthly possessions are heaped by the front door, and we’re back to waiting for our neighbors to walk away from the wall so we can get this thing in. I focus on my breathing to keep my mind off the possibilities: they hear us place the mic, the landlord still spreads crazy rumors about us that make this potential sleeper cell pack up and leave, the landlord comes back with a posse.
All unlikely, but I’m paranoid for a living. Despite my fiancé Danny’s attempts to convince me otherwise, I’m still not sure it’s possible to be too paranoid.
Finally, the voices fade, and I give Justin the nod. Placing the mic is the shortest part of the mission, and as soon as we patch up the hole (you wouldn’t believe our paint-matching kits) and pick up our gear, this apartment’s behind us for good.
Sacrifice the deposit? For a chance to listen in on a nest of potential spies? The Agency can take the hit.
We sneak past the lobby office, where I assume the landlord’s hanging out. Halfway through that surveillance detection route, Justin gets the text message we’ve all been dreading.
“Guess who’s coming to the office,” he chirps.
I level him with a scowl. Nobody’s excited to meet Will’s replacement and adjust to a new boss, but when Brett Dixon, the embassy’s old CIA Chief of Station, had a heart attack three weeks ago, even personnel issues had to be fixed on the fly. Will took over for him, leaving an opening at our office. An opening that’s about to be filled.
I try not to let my imagination get too crazy before we get back. Following protocol, we take the elevator a level higher than necessary and the stairs back down to our floor.
My heart is still going pretty good, though, and I doubt it’s the landlord argument half an hour ago or a flight of stairs that’s keyed me up. I pause in front of the wooden doors embossed with Keeler Tate & Associates, Barristers and Solicitors. (Canadian for “attorneys at law.”)
When I walk through those doors, the new boss will be there. Will definitely won’t be coming back. And he definitely won’t be bringing back Elliott, my de facto partner.
Justin, oblivious, plows ahead, past reception and the security card swipe, into the bullpen. Will is there. And so is someone else, someone new, his back to me as he shakes hands with Robby.
Will spots us at the door. “Just in time,” he calls. “This is your new boss, Vince.”
Is it bad if I don’t like the guy based on his cover name alone? A couple of us — me, Elliott — use real names with real law degrees to lend real credibility to our fake law firm. But most operatives in the field use cover names, even in the office, to prevent a mole from compromising us. A constant fear in Canada. Not.
Once Will’s introduced him, Vince turns around, and I swear he draws it out to make it slow and dramatic, like he’s expecting love at first sight with the only girl in our tiny office.
His gaze hits me like an arctic shockwave. That is not insta-romance. My stomach does a double barrel roll, and I fall back a step, colliding with Justin.
His cover name here in the field might be Vince, but I already know who he is. Ice blue eyes. Impeccably groomed stubble. Sun-kissed, golden curls and perfect tan, though I know they’re both from a salon. Because I know this guy. Brandon Copley. Brand, for short.
My ex-boyfriend.
In case you can’t tell, let me spell it out for you: it didn’t end well.
Brand’s ogling eyes trail down my legs, like that’s the only way he’ll recognize me. “Surprised to see me?”
“Yes, actually.” My mouth is working faster than my brain, trying to come up with something to show him I’m better off without him, something to put him in his place, something good. “Didn’t realize you’d last this long.”
His gaze take on a mischievous twinkle — the same twinkle he always got when he was about to deliver a blow of blatant innuendo he apparently considered clever or coy.
He goes for the quicker kill today. “Yeah, didn’t think you were really CIA material, either.”
I refuse to flinch, though my cheeks flare up faster than a burn bag full of sensitive documents. That slap is a paper cut to my soul. With salt. And lemon juice.
Will intercedes (thankyouthankyouthankyou). “Oh, you two know each other?”
“Worked together at Langley, years ago,” Brand says. Those icy blue eyes never leave mine.
“Briefly,” I add. Which is true. We didn’t work together long, and dated for even less time. But long enough that I kind of hoped to never, ever, ever have to confront him again.
Will observes us both for a second, one hand headed for his silver-haired temple. He drops it and straightens his shoulders. “Since I’m here, Talia, we should talk about your plans.”
I have plans? I nod like I know exactly what he means and follow him to a spare office.
“We dated,” I blurt out as soon as the door shuts. “But you know I’m not so immature —”
“As long as you do your job, it doesn’t matter to me.” Will’s all business, bringing back too many memories of meetings like this in his office a few feet away.
Now it belongs to Brand — Vince.
Will scrutinizes me another minute. If he’s expecting me to spill the rest of the story, he’ll be waiting a while. “Don’t let it get to you,” he says. “It was a long time ago, and I’ve never seen you let anything come between you and your work.”
I read his body language like I can tease out another meaning until Will smiles. He means exactly what he said. And if that’s not enough, he adds, “I doubt Vince will change that. You’re one of our best.”
Over the last four years, I’ve fought every day to make sure that the boys’ club, my coworkers and my boss, see me as more than a tagalong little sister. I’ve proven myself an equal, I think, but to have Will say it flat out? That respect and the little phrase of praise make all the work worth it. I hold in a grin and savor the warmth building in my chest.
I kinda want to hug him, but . . . boys’ club. So instead I say, “Thanks.”
“All right, then.” Will moves along in his agenda. “Haven’t gotten your travel form yet. Coming up, right?”
“I filed the request for time off to go home,” I say, though Ottawa’s as close to a home as I’ve ever had.
“That’ll be back soon. Honeymooning in the US, too?”
And now for the four words I’ve always hated to tell my boss: “I have no idea.”
Will’s stormy eyebrow creeps up an inch. “You don’t know if you’re staying in the country for your honeymoon?”
“Danny wants it to be a surprise.” Despite my efforts to control my expression, the eye-roll comes out in my voice.
Will blinks, slow, uncomprehending. “The Agency isn’t big on surprises.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Make sure he appreciates it, too.”
Yeah, let’s see, the man I dated for a year before telling him I was a spy? I’m sure he “appreciates” CIA surprises, too.
The form is sort of a formality — they’ll probably approve it around the time we get home — but it truly is the thought that counts. If
I don’t at least think of obeying the CIA’s regulations, they could make my life a lot more difficult.
Like, I don’t know, making my ex-boyfriend my boss. Coincidence?
“I’ll get you the form,” I finally say. Somehow.
“Good.” He pivots to leave, then stops. I’d almost fall for that if his casual act weren’t one click too calculated. “Oh, the examiner flew in today. He’s here till tomorrow afternoon.”
I don’t need any more clarification in this context: the polygraph man is visiting the embassy, and I have to meet with him. Except that I’m not the one getting “boxed.”
Danny is.
And he has no idea.
I know this situation is beyond Will’s control, and typical for this sort of thing, but still. “You know, my fiancé doesn’t enjoy surprises any more than the Agency.” I temper my tone with a tiny bit of titanium.
“Does he know what he’s getting into?” Despite Will’s murmur, the words hit like a slap. As if I haven’t wondered that at least weekly. Yes, we’ve dated for a year, so he knows how demanding my job is, but he’s only had a few weeks to get used to the idea of Talia, CIA operations officer, instead of Talia, barrister and solicitor. I mean, I just trained him that CIA employees are “officers,” not agents. (Yes, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, CIA employees are not agents. Agents are the regular people we officers recruit as spies.)
Will turns for the door again, back to the room where Brand’s meeting my guys. I take one little second for myself before I have to face the rest of our team sans Will and Elliott, plus Brand. Yep, there’s an Agency surprise. One none of us will appreciate.
Once Will’s gone, I manage to fill my afternoon with reports, follow-ups, and rescheduling my dress appointment with all the interested parties for tomorrow at lunchtime. Anything rather than interact with Brand.
Even the thought makes my heart dive.
I hate that he still has this effect on me. It’s been years — what, almost four? Though it didn’t end on an up note, it’s not like I’ve spent the last half-decade living on pure hatred. I can’t remember the last time he wandered through my memory. If he had, I think I would’ve hoped he’d forgotten me, never wondered where I was or looked me up on Facebook (I’m not there).
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 28