Alien in the House

by Gini Koch

  “I don’t remember saying anything.”

  “Your expression was enough. Eugene told me how you wouldn’t speak to him any more. I realized you were right—what we were doing was wrong. Especially because I hadn’t told Edmund that I was unhappy.” She took my hand. “So thank you for your moral objection. It saved my marriage.”

  “No.” I hugged her. “You and Edmund saved your marriage, not me.”

  Girl bonding moment over, we were now both closer and feeling a little awkward. “Would you like to see the view?” Nathalie asked. “I can almost never get Edmund up there, but it would be a shame for you to miss it. And since we have no rain right now, it would be a good time.”

  “Sure. Edmund said the view was great.”

  We went up to the top, and I could see for myself that the Brewers hadn’t misrepresented the view. It was spectacular. “There are storm clouds coming.”

  “Maybe we’ll have a white Christmas,” Nathalie said.

  “Or just more rain.”

  We laughed and headed down. Beautiful view or not, it was cold at the top.

  Jeff and Brewer were waiting for us when we got back. “You want the scenic tour, too?” Brewer asked him.

  “Nah,” Jeff said with a grin. “I’ll save it for next time.”

  “And don’t you worry about those bills,” Brewer said. “Like I told you, I’ve already spotted the problems. They won’t be passing as long as I’m around.” He grimaced. “Too bad Wendell’s gone. We were working together to be sure to get these shot down.”

  “You told me that it only took a few to cause a bill to pass or fail. And there are some strong anti-alien lobbies out there now. Should we be worried?”

  “No,” Brewer said. “This kind of thing happens all the time, Kitty. As long as there are enough of us with pull around to ensure the undecided sway to our side of things it’ll be fine. Now, you two need to get going.”

  “We do?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff said. “Raj called me. We’re needed back home. The jocks are on their way to collect us.”

  I sighed. “Well, at least we had a couple of hours off.”

  Hugs all around and the promise to do this again soon made, Brewer escorted us down to the lobby. There were several people waiting for the elevator when we got down. Brewer walked us to the front doors. “I’m glad we took the time to really get to know each other,” he said as the boys pulled up at the sidewalk.

  “Us too,” Jeff said. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, we’ll be glad to attend the birthday party.” Brewer winked. “The photo ops should be great, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate more bodies there to block your daughter from the press.”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” I confirmed.

  “You going up?” a man called from the second elevator. He seemed to be holding it for Brewer.

  “Great tenants here, too,” Brewer said to us. “Coming,” he called to the man in the elevator. “See you both tomorrow,” he said over his shoulder as he headed toward the elevator.

  I turned to watch him and felt like something nudged into me and I teetered. Assumed I’d just lost my balance on the slick marble as Jeff steadied me. Diplomat or not, I wasn’t used to wearing heels every day. Brewer waved to us, and we waved back, as the elevator doors closed.

  We stepped outside and I realized something. “Crap, you left your hat. And coat.”

  Jeff sighed. “We can ask them to bring them tomorrow, baby.”

  Felt a pout coming on. I was becoming addicted to Jeff in the trench and hat look. “I guess.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Or I can inconvenience our hosts and ask them if I can run back up and get them.”

  “Oh, look, it’s a moot point.”

  Nathalie came out, carrying Jeff’s things. “You forgot these,” she said with a laugh.

  “Thanks, you’ve made Kitty’s day,” Jeff said as he took them and put them on.

  “Where’s Edmund?” Nathalie asked.

  “He went back up already.”

  “Oh, we must have passed each other in the elevators.” She pulled out her phone. “He tends to worry if I’m not where he thinks I should be.” She dialed. Her brow wrinkled. “That’s strange. He’s not answering.”

  My Megalomaniac Girl early warning signal started to act up. “I think we need to find Edmund, right now, Jeff. Boys, out of the car.”

  As they got out Len looked up. “Is that part of the building?” He pointed.

  We all looked up. So we were all able to see the man teetering at the edge of the rooftop.

  CHAPTER 79

  TIME MOVED SLOWLY. Nathalie was screaming, the boys were trying to get to her and me, I was trying to tell the Poofs to activate and do something.

  Jeff, however, had been the Head of Field for a lot longer than he’d been anything else. He took off into the building.

  But using the fastest hyperspeed available or not, I saw the man fall just as Jeff got there. Jeff grabbed for him and almost fell off the roof himself, though he managed to stay on. But he wasn’t Mister Fantastic, and he’d have needed elongating rubber arms to catch the falling man.

  Time might have been moving slowly, but gravity was on the case. The man hit the sidewalk with a sickening thud, cut off mid-scream. He was on his back, so identification was easy. Nathalie screaming even more and having to be held back by both boys made the confirmation. Brewer was on the sidewalk.

  No one was holding me, and I ran to him. “Ed, Ed, are you okay?” He’d fallen twelve stories; I knew he wasn’t okay. However, I asked anyway, hoping against hope that he’d fallen onto the soft concrete.

  His eyes were open and glassy. I touched his neck. Felt no pulse. My phone rang. I managed to get it out of my purse. “I almost had him,” Jeff said. “Is he . . .”

  “He’s very dead. And there’s no way in the world he went up there willingly.”

  “He was alone up here. There’s no way a human could have gotten to the elevator and past me, not at the speed I was moving at. And someone had to have forced him up there, because I had to jump up onto the ledge to try to catch him.”

  “Don’t touch anything and get back down here. Fast.”

  Jeff was with me by the time I’d hung up. “Why did you want me down?”

  “Because if a human couldn’t get past you, that means there’s only one logical explanation. I thought I’d lost my balance when we were in the foyer, but now I think someone brushed past me at the super-fast hyperspeed.”

  “Clarence,” Jeff growled.

  “Yes. So he ran into the elevator before the doors closed and forced Brewer up to the roof. He ran down the other staircase, or he ran past you and you didn’t notice.” A thought nudged. “I told everyone to get security on Brewer. Why weren’t they on the case?”

  “No idea. I’ll call James.”

  “No. Let me. You need to help the boys with Nathalie.” I dialed. But not Reader.

  “Yes, Missus Martini?”

  “Mister White, I need you at the Cairo five minutes ago.”

  “On my way.”

  Hung up and now I called Reader.

  “Kitty, what’s up?” Reader asked.

  “Edmund Brewer just fell to his death. There is no way this wasn’t foul play. Jeff tried to save him but he was just a moment too late. There are no guards anywhere and it just occurred to me to look around for them. Did you assign teams to guard the Brewers?”

  Jeff was holding Nathalie and he helped her over to Brewer’s body. I moved out of the way as she sobbed and Jeff held her.

  “Yes, I assigned four agents.” Reader’s voice was tight. “I’ll call you back.”

  White appeared. Raj was with him. “I see we’re too late,” White said quietly.

  “Yes, but I called you after. . . . I think Clarence was or is here. James said he had four agents assigned to protect the Brewers but I haven’t seen any sign of them.”

  “Rajnish and I will do a search,” White sa
id. “Keep the young men with you and on guard.” White and Raj disappeared.

  My phone rang. “The agents aren’t responding to any calls,” Reader said. “Sending more teams over.”

  “Richard and Raj are already here and searching. I need you to call the police and advise Chuckie. And whoever else needs to know. My mom. She needs to know. Probably.”

  “I’ll handle it. Kitty, are you okay?”

  “No. I’m numb with shock and horror so I expect to be really freaked out later. And right after that I’m going to be enraged. But right now, I’m just trying not to believe this has happened. I’m also officially more than done with people dying near me, especially people I know and like.”

  “We’ll find who’s doing this and stop them. I promise.”

  We hung up and I dropped my phone back into my purse. The Poofs weren’t there. Jamie had pointedly told me to bring them and now they weren’t around. Tried not to be upset with them and reminded myself that they tended to do their own thing, for their own reasons, all of which had worked out for the best in the past. Decided to trust them now, too, and sent a mental “be careful” message to them.

  What was in my purse, however, were the burner phones. Pulled out the one that was supposedly my new hotline to the Dingo and dialed. “Yes, Miss Katt?”

  “I need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Have you or your cousin killed a C.I.A. operative named Pia Ryan, put her and/or a car bomb into Clifford Goodman’s car, or shoved or caused Representative Edmund Brewer to fall off the top of the Cairo building?”

  “No. To all of those.”

  “I mean it. I need to know the truth. Frankly, if you’ve done all that, my life will be less complex, confusing, and stressful. So I want a truly honest answer.”

  “I am not lying to you. We have not harmed or interacted with any of those people.”

  “How about Representative Juvonic? Did you hit him with a blowgun dart tipped with the heart attack drug serum? Or something like that?”

  “What? Who? No. What’s going on?” The Dingo sounded genuinely confused.

  “Raul the assassin—is Raul his real name, or is it his assassin’s name? Like I know your parents didn’t call you the Dingo when you were growing up.”

  “That is his name in the business, yes.”

  “Do you know his real name? I know yours, at least, what the government assumes your last name to be—Kasperoff.”

  “Correct. But no, I don’t know his real name. I do know that he comes from Florida. Originally.”

  Leventhal Reid was from Florida. Time to make another leap. “Does he ever use the alias of Dier, or Reid?”

  “Dier, yes. I haven’t heard of him using Reid.”

  “Okay, so, when you said that Raul was around the Embassy the other night, he was disguised as a SWAT cop, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Amy and Caroline that?”

  “I am not here to help you arrest Raul for impersonating an officer of the law. I am here to protect you from him.”

  “Because he’s broken the rules, I know. What about his sister? Is she an assassin, too?”

  “I am not acquainted with any of his relatives, other than the late Bernice, who was indeed his wife.”

  “Are you planning on killing Raul, or are you merely planning to show him the error of his ways and appeal to his reason and sense of assassin’s honor?”

  “The former, why?”

  “Because I have a feeling that Raul is combining business with pleasure. I think he’s under contract, and that his sister’s in on the deal, too. Who normally hires him?”

  “The Central Intelligence Agency.”

  CHAPTER 80

  “IT SO FIGURES.”

  Heard someone talking in the background. “My cousin says that the police are on their way to a potential suicide. Are they headed to wherever you are?”

  “Yes, and it wasn’t suicide. It was murder.”

  “So you said. Murder and assassination are not the same. The end result is the same, but the motivations are normally very different.”

  “Yeah, I know. Need the truth again—have you or your cousin been killing off members of the House of Representatives in ways that look natural or like accidents?”

  “No. We have been working outside of the United States for the past many months. Because of your good advice.”

  “Okay. Good.” Logic said the Dingo could be lying outrageously. But I knew he wasn’t. The only reason I could give for why was that ACE always said that I thought right, and my thoughts confirmed that the Dingo wasn’t willing to sully himself by lying to me, whether out of honor or pride or a combination of both.

  Of course, thinking of this meant I was thinking of ACE. But there was no answering “think” in my mind. I missed ACE. A lot. And not only because if ACE were around I could ask him what was going on and get a clue. “I don’t know what to do to stop this.”

  The Dingo was quiet for a few moments. “If you look at the facts, and when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  “Sherlock Holmes said that.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a fan?”

  “Very much so, yes. You don’t believe people in my business read for pleasure?” He sounded amused.

  “No, I’m just sort of thrilled at the moment. Because I need help. And despite what every single person I know would tell me to do, I need to meet with you and tell you what’s going on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think I need Sherlock Holmes. Chuckie’s the Conspiracy King. I’m Megalomaniac Girl. We know there’s a conspiracy at work, and we know the person behind it is a megalomaniac. I think we even know the why it’s all happening, or at least a lot of the why. But the who is escaping us, and we’re running out of time.”

  Speaking of which, sirens were in the distance and coming closer. I was going to need to get off the phone soon.

  “Ah, I hear that you have company coming.”

  “You’re good. Or you’re close by.”

  “I am both.”

  “Did you see who shoved Edmund Brewer off the rooftop?”

  “Perhaps. Meet me in the cemetery, where we met before. Ten o’clock tonight. Don’t be late. Come alone.”

  “You know no one’s going to let me sneak out by myself, especially not now. And, let’s be honest, it’s sort of a stupid move to meet the two best assassins in the business in a cemetery at any time, let alone late at night.”

  “I do not wish to have someone attempt heroics.”

  “Noted. I’ll ensure that whoever I bring with me is in agreement that we’re coming to you for help, not to make an arrest. Deal?”

  He was quiet for another few moments. The sirens got a lot louder. “I should not trust you, but I do. I accept your terms. I will see you tonight, Miss Katt.” He hung up and I dropped the burner back into my purse and closed it up.

  So, the Dingo and I were in agreement that we shouldn’t trust each other but did. Couldn’t wait to share that with the people I was going to take to the cemetery with me tonight. They weren’t going to be my husband or either of my best guy friends, so I had a hope that they wouldn’t yell at me.

  White and Raj returned. They beat the police cars by seconds, but by enough that the officers wouldn’t realize they’d just come back from an excursion.

  “We found them,” Raj said in a low voice, while White went to greet the police and Len and Kyle went to help Jeff and Nathalie up off the ground. “They were all in some big trash cans nearby.” His voice shook. “All dead. Necks broken.”

  “It’s official—Clarence Valentino is alive and somehow well and he is here.”

  “I agree. So does Former Pontifex White.”

  “We all prefer first names, Raj.”

  “Right now, I prefer titles, Ambassador,” he said as the cops approached us. “Please allow me to do the tal
king.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, in this case, I’m going to be better at it.”

  CHAPTER 81

  RAJ WAS BETTER at handling the police because he played the Diplomatic Immunity card within a minute of speaking to the officers.

  White had a quick word with the boys, and I did with Jeff, so we were all on the same page. We all gave short statements to the police that left out Jeff running to the top of the building in less than two seconds and the fact that we’d had A-C Field agents here who were now dead.

  Nathalie was far too much of an emotional wreck to say much of anything and the police were understanding. When a woman sees her husband fall to his death, apparently her being incoherent is a given.

  There was no way in the world that we were going to leave Nathalie alone, though, police around or not. Raj gave the police our Embassy’s number and, once they’d gotten our statements and hers, we bundled Nathalie into the limo. Jeff hadn’t been able to let her go—the one time he’d tried she’d practically collapsed.

  Len drove slowly back to the Embassy, in part because we didn’t want to attract any more police attention. I tried calling Caroline, Senator McMillan, and Senator Armstrong. None of them picked up, all had the same locked-door meeting message going. Sent a text to Kelly McMillan.

  “They’re investigating it as a suicide,” Raj said. “And we’re going to let them, at least for now.”

  “There’s no way that’s true,” Jeff said.

  “I know. However, Congressman, we need to have you and the ambassador as removed from the situation as possible.” Raj stressed the titles.

  Jeff sighed. “Point made.” He looked at Nathalie then back at me. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to figure out who’s behind this and stop them. Permanently.”

  Of course, this was a hell of a lot easier said than done. I’d hoped to glean some insights from Caroline or either senator we were close to, but Kelly’s text explained why they hadn’t been available—they were all in a very high-level meeting regarding Armstrong’s presidential run. The presidential election was two years away, but was, like everything else, being affected by the government’s moratorium on elections this year.