“That’s a load of crap,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s a wedding, and we’ll be lucky if half our own families make it.” Danny leans over the console and focuses his warm brown eyes on mine. “This one dress, this one day is way less important than the actual marriage. Our marriage.”
I keep watching him uncertainly.
“I don’t care if you have a wedding dress. You are more important to me than what you wear or what temple we get married in or any of the other details. You, me, temple, I’m good.”
I manage a weak laugh. “Why don’t we elope?”
“Yeah, how long do you want to alienate both of our mothers for?” He pauses a second, glances at me, and adds, “Don’t answer that.” Then he looks — truly looks at me. “If you’re really not okay, I need to know.”
“No, I —” Can I tell him? I search his face a second, like that’ll tell me how he’ll react.
“Do you want to get married?” he asks.
This time I don’t put up the front, don’t put up the fight, don’t put up the fake enthusiasm that’s propelled me through our last four conversations about wedding planning. “No,” I breathe.
Danny sits back in his seat. Stares straight ahead. Nods.
Crap, what did I just say? “It’s not that. I mean, if I marry anyone, it’ll be you.”
He studies me from the corner of his eye, skeptical. “Uh, thanks?”
“I . . .” My voice hangs there in the moment. Danny needs me. He needs the truth.
And I need him. I need to tell him this. For us. “It’s . . . the stuff with my parents.”
“Okay,” he says, with a tone of I can work with that. “Why did your parents get divorced?”
Are we playing stupid? (Yeah, I’ll win this game.) “Didn’t want to be married anymore?”
He blinks at me, waiting for me to take him serious. So I do. “Because . . . my mom’s pathologically incapable of thinking of anyone except herself, and my dad couldn’t save her.”
“Are you your mom?”
I consider that one a minute. What’s he trying to say?
“Here’s a hint: are you telling me all this stuff because you’re thinking about yourself?”
He has a point. “No,” I admit.
“Then maybe you don’t need to worry so much.”
The idea takes a strange shape in my mind. It might be one I could get used to. “It is my favorite hobby.”
Danny glances heavenward. “Yeah, I know. So are you going to be okay?”
“Still freaking me out a little, but . . . I think I can work on it.”
He leans forward, studying me a minute longer. “You can tell me the truth.”
I let that sink in a second. “I promise, I am.” About this. I offer my final evidence: “But there’s no dream dress — in fact, everything I tried was awful. Abby’s doing all she can to keep hope alive.”
He must see the truth there, because his Talia-melting smile dawns. He leans in the last few inches to kiss me, and I savor this moment.
I’m more important to him than anything else, and even if he hadn’t told me that, this kiss proves it. He finishes with a quick peck on my nose before pulling back into traffic.
“Honeymoon in Toronto, huh?” I joke. I give him the travel form.
Danny takes the envelope and grins, back in teasing mode. “You can’t resist the Canadian Air and Space Museum. Full replica of the Arrow.”
“You know me too well.” And sometimes, that’s the truth.
Starting to resolve some of my issues couldn’t come at a better time, because now I need to focus on my most pressing problem. Parked outside Will’s house three days later, I readjust my binoculars and slump a little lower in my car seat. It’s dark, I’m in a car he won’t recognize, and he should have no reason to worry, but I’m nothing if not careful.
Will’s not nearly as cautious as I am. (Seriously, no one is.) No surveillance detection run on the way home, no meetings, no signals, no nothing. In fact, this has to be one of the most boring surveillance assignments I’ve ever done. Brand. Is. Wrong.
The garage door to Will’s unremarkable stucco rambler rolls open and there’s everyone’s favorite CIA chief of station in a Mr. Rogers cardigan. Leaving for a meeting with an agent?
Will heads past his perfectly nondescript car: Canada’s most common make, model, and even color — Honda, Civic, white. He’s got a bag. I train my focus on that black garbage bag, less than half full. To anyone else, that’s just trash. To me, it’s something he doesn’t want people to see. My pulse picks up a tick. This could be important.
Will reaches the passenger side of his car. Opens the door. Leans in. He’ll stick the bag in there and drive off and betray everything he was ever supposed to stand for.
Or not. He straightens, pulls out a Tim Hortons sack and stuffs it in the trash bag. He deposits the garbage in the black plastic bin beside his house and goes back in.
No relief allowed yet. Could still be a drop off. A risky one, sure, but we’re in Canada. How secretive would a double agent from a friendly foreign country have to be?
It’s a long, long night until the lights go out at Will’s. I wait until he has to be asleep, each minute ratcheting the muscles in my shoulders, my back, my legs tighter. Finally, I open the car door and prowl along the hedgerow to check the back. Lights off.
I move to the garbage can and ease the lid open. Of course the bag is way at the bottom. Grateful it’s well after dark, I lower the can to the ground and crawl inside.
Yes, the real life of a spy puts James Bond movies to shame. Nonstop glamour. I drag the bag out and replace the trash can, hunkering down beside it to hide from the street. Normally, I’d take this and run (yes, I do this enough to have a “normally”), but I can’t risk Will noticing. I hardly need my flashlight to see that this is an unremarkable, sadly lonely load of kitchen trash: microwave dinners, desserts for one, budget meals. I almost feel bad for our $150 tab this week, like he’s been doing penance for his accounting gluttony.
Nothing incriminating here whatsoever. Okay, so Will’s trying to recruit Danny to the CIA. Doesn’t mean he’s gone to the dark side.
Could I have fallen for Brand’s strategy all along: put me on Will’s trail to keep me off his? Everything he’s been doing — all that talk about how I can’t be impartial, the “apologies,” those “genuine” gestures, siccing me on Will, if only for a few days — it’s not just Brand being obnoxious. It’s Brand being covert.
Yep, I’m an idiot. I reload the garbage bag, slip it back into the bin and head out.
I know what I have to do. I have to watch Brand, and I have to be extra careful to make sure he thinks everything’s fine.
The next day on my way to the office, I take one of my lesser-used surveillance detection routes, running through downtown. Mostly SDRs are a habit for me — one I’ll try to break after the wedding — but today I’m glad for the extra time to think, to hammer out my plan of attack.
On Brand.
So it’s definitely not a good thing when I reach the card shop that holds one of my postal boxes (I really do have six) and nearly run into the man himself, walking out the doors, blocking my path. I freeze. His eyes flicker wider the second he recognizes me.
I wish I could elbow past him, but even in New York City that’d be rude. “Sorry,” I say, throwing on my best Ottawan accent. “Didn’t mean to give you a fright.”
“No, I’m sorry.” He pats my arm, like he’s making sure I’m okay. “You just reminded me of somebody.”
“Somebody that you used to know?” I force my lips to smile, but don’t bother unclenching my teeth.
He watches me warily for another minute until I have to edge past him to get in. The sign registers when I pass underneath — I’d forgotten. The shop is named Between Friends.
Yeah, right.
Bizarre. In a metro area of over a million people, I’ve never run into anybody from work on a surveillance detection r
un. Of course he’d have to be the first.
I think I keep everything neutral at the office throughout the day, but when Brand calls me in again before I leave, my worry-meter pegs out. I march in and take a seat in front of his desk like nothing’s wrong.
Nothing is wrong — because somewhere between filing reports and filling out paperwork, I came up with a plan. I’m taking control. I’m taking Brand on.
Brand settles behind the desk, and I ignore the obvious power play of positioning. He’s got a nice chair. I’ve got a nice ball of anger building in my chest.
“You know, I got an email the other day.”
“Only one?”
He casts me an indulgent smirk. “One in particular I want to talk to you about.”
Seems unlikely Samir’s shooting the guy an email, and Brand made sure any of our friends from before aren’t so mutual anymore. It could still be work-related. Right?
“You pulled a trace on one of my bank accounts, didn’t you?”
Caught. My mouth goes dry. “Checking up on you. You’re the one who said Canada isn’t a promotion.”
He scrutinizes me. I try to swallow. No luck. “Being cautious?” he asks. “Or are you worried about little ol’ me?”
“Constantly.” I roll my eyes, and for once, that’s actually okay.
“Have you been working on that special project?”
We wouldn’t mention Will by name here. I dip my chin. “Last three nights.”
“Bet your fiancé loves that.”
I texted Danny Tuesday that I’d be booked solid. I search Brand’s gaze for that innuendo, like he’s probing to see if that one “little” thing we couldn’t “see eye to eye on” is still an issue. The overtones are buried so deep Brand may not realize what he’s saying. I wish I could put him in his place and put that outrageous question to rest — no, I’m not sleeping with Danny and yes, we take our religion’s moral standards seriously. But I have to look like I’m cooperating with Brand. “He’s very understanding.”
“I guess anybody would have to be.” He gets back to the subject. “Anything unusual?”
“Not yet.”
Brand adjusts his position, leaning over the desk. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this is all off the books. No official paperwork yet.”
Right. Keep it off the books, keep it unofficial, so he can manipulate the situation however he wants. Yep. “I got it.”
“So you’ll be on surveillance tonight?”
“I’ve got other meetings. I’ll have to get back to it.”
“Right. Can’t let your other cases drop.” Brand, always so understanding. I refrain from rolling my eyes again, tie up this meeting as quickly as possible, and take to my desk to look busy. Not hard; perusing my email is close enough until Brand leaves without a glance at me.
Perfect. Time to put my plan in action. I snag my favorite reversible jacket for pursuing someone, keys for a Company car, and a disguise kit and walk out after him. In the hallway, I hear the elevator doors sliding shut. Stairs it is. Faster than waiting for another elevator anyway.
I kinda regret that choice several flights later when I reach the ground floor. The jog winded me a bit, but I’ll definitely live. I ease the fire door open a crack.
As Hollywood as the tactic sounds, I use a little mirror to peek around the door jamb. The elevator arrives. Brand steps off, alone. More perfect.
I already know what Brand drives. If he gets in his teal Nissan, nothing might happen tonight. Though I’ve wasted the last three evenings watching Will lead a sad little lonely life, I’ll follow Brand and his sad little loneliness until he finds a listening ear. I.e. Samir.
Brand reaches the front doors, and I finally slip out of the stairwell to tail him. My shoes — comfortable flats, of course — still echo over the lobby’s marble floors, but Brand’s already outside. I gather my hair into a low ponytail first, then double it into a floppy bun before pinning my bangs to the side. My disguise kit provides a wig, light brown and waist-length, and I think my spare sunglasses are safe enough. By the time I reach the doors, I’m not Talia anymore. I hope.
Brand’s halfway through the parking lot. I time my feet to march with purpose (and a much springier step than my normal gait). On an SDR, you often ignore people with direction and an air of competence. They’re not the ones watching you; they’re too busy with their own lives. Or so I want Brand to think now.
I have to pass him getting into his Nissan on my way to a Company Civic (seriously, the most popular car in Canada for two decades). He doesn’t turn back, and my ribs release their iron grip. He might just pick up dinner and go home. Or he might not.
It’s not hard to stay behind Brand at a safe distance with the other people leaving our building now. And once he gets on the Queensway, traffic is heavy enough that he doesn’t have much of an opportunity to get away, though I doubt it’s crossed his mind. Yet.
Nope, nothing to fear from the little silver Civic. Keep driving, Brand. Keep driving.
I know a couple of the signal sites and rendezvous he and Samir set up in our one meeting. Our crash intro to tradecraft included simple lessons in signaling and dead drops. When I learned this stuff at the Farm, it felt like things I’d never use in the field, just part of the curriculum to satisfy any CIA trainee’s cloak-and-dagger dreams.
I was wrong.
The first signal site Samir, Brand, and I discussed is almost uncomfortably close to my home. (A kilometer is uncomfortably close to someone as paranoid as I am.) So when Brand takes the exit before mine, I can’t help but grip the steering wheel that much tighter.
He can’t seriously be this dumb, right? He hasn’t made a single surveillance-detecting stop. Totally against protocol to go straight from a CIA facility to any sort of active site, or a dead drop. You have to check for people tailing you. Every. Single. Time. Even if you’re in a friendly country because you never know who else there isn’t friendly.
I know every decent surveillance-detecting stop within five miles of my apartment. He hits a drive-through Tim Hortons for a donut — doesn’t count, dude — and navigates the surface streets.
Past the signal site we discussed. A belt cinches around my heart.
Into my neighborhood. The belt squeezes tighter.
Onto my street. Tighter.
Each cross street winnows the traffic between us further, until it’s just me behind Brand. Across the street from my building. Where he parks.
Tighter.
I continue down the block and park around the corner, so I can barely see him.
And then my phone rings. I snatch it up, hoping, hoping, hoping it’s Danny.
It’s Brand.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Hey, you still in the office?”
Oh crap. He knows. He knows. My phone has excellent noise canceling, but I can’t take the chance he’ll hear the car passing in the background and put it together with what he can see. I fill the silence. “Leaving now. Did you need something from inside?”
“Wouldn’t want to trouble you. I’ll call Justin.”
And speaking of background noise, if there’s anything loud right about now — a car horn, a dog, music — I’ll lose any semblance of cover.
Yeah, I’m not troubled at all.
Better make it clear that breaking into my apartment would be a really stupid move. “Well, better go. Gotta stop by my place first, and I don’t want to be late.” I barely wait to bid him goodbye and hang up. I grab the mirror I used at the office and find his car. Hard to tell from here, but I swear he’s got binocs out, staring up at my building.
For obvious reasons, I made sure I got a unit that doesn’t face the street. Now I’m officially glad I did.
Another possibility hits me like a bullet. If Brand knows I won’t be home for long, he might just wait until I leave to make an entry. And of course I already know exactly how difficult to breach my apartment isn’t for a trained operative. I’m too paranoid to p
ut my paranoia on display with multiple deadbolts, and though they just had to install new, more secure windows (and I’m a couple stories up), they’re always a vulnerability.
Brand gets out of his car. It feels like a hand’s closing around my throat. I don’t keep anything particularly personal up there. There’s no threat to any of my agents. No secret diary. No box of keepsakes from our short-but-sour relationship.
No, it’s just my home. My life. And I can’t let him go there. I won’t.
He leans against his car and pulls out his phone. The hand on my throat presses tighter and I hold my breath, waiting for mine to ring. Could he have spotted me, even around the corner, even through my disguise?
Wish I’d thought to bring a wireless interceptor. The nicest “parabolic” mic we have (like that, but better and classified-er) could pick up both sides of the conversation, but can I settle —
My phone rings.
Breathe. Don’t choke out the answer. Don’t take your eyes off him.
“Hello?” I think I almost sound normal.
“Everything okay?”
Yeah, guess I’m failing on that “normal” thing. But I know this voice — and it isn’t Brand’s. “Sorry, Danny, I’m in the middle of something.”
“Oh. Okay. Just figured you might like dinner if you were at the office.”
At the —? Brand’s second phone call. “Who told you I was at the office?”
“Isn’t that where you work? I mean, your car’s still here.”
“Yeah, had to borrow a Company car.”
“Ah,” Danny says. “Well, if you’re done any time soon, I’ve got pineapple chicken.”
Yep, he knows me too well. The thought of my favorite Chinese dish makes my mouth water — but my focus is back to Brand, chatting on the phone, watching my home. Could he be calling my super?
“You there?” Danny asks.
“Sorry, busy.” This is one reason we don’t usually bring our phone with us on ops. “Better go.”
“I’ll stick your dinner in the fridge.”
“Freezer.” I didn’t use to keep food at all, until that habit got to Danny. The tiniest little compromise, and it took us almost a month, but hey, I’m working on it.
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 38