I forced another smile. “Not yet. It’s still in the crates. The in-floor heating system is laid out, but the floor’s not poured. I thought it would be easiest to do the footings for my lift posts at the same time as the floor, but that was before I knew I was going to be gone for four months. Even if I got it all poured tomorrow, I’d still have to wait for the concrete to cure before I could put the lift on it. It’ll probably be June before it’s done. That pisses me off, because now I’ll have to do my spring oil changes the old-fashioned way with my ramps and jack stands.”
Hoping that had been enough chatter to allay his suspicions, I racked my brain for a way to encourage him to leave.
“Well, let me know when you’re ready for help getting it set up. You’ll likely need a few strong bodies. I can call some of my friends…” He shifted position as if to move toward the garage.
I calculated the sight lines, my pulse rate skyrocketing. From that angle he’d likely notice that the dark lump on my doormat had a leg attached to it…
I sidestepped in an attempt to block his view. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll be too big a job.” My voice came out sounding tight, and I cleared my throat and tried again, making a sweeping gesture toward the garage in the hope of distracting him with the movement. “You can see how high the roof is, and I’ve got anchor points in the joists. I’ll get a block and tackle on it so hopefully I won’t need an army.”
“Oh, good idea.” He smiled, looking perfectly comfortable and ready to stand there all day gabbing.
The thump-swish of escalating blood pressure surged rhythmically in my eardrums and I suppressed both the urge to scream and the mental image of my head exploding under the strain.
I dragged my lips into one more smile. “Well, it was great to see you,” I said brightly. “I’d better go grab that beer now.”
He hesitated, then took the not-too-subtle hint with a nod. “Okay, I won’t keep you, then.”
I drew a silent breath of relief as he turned toward his truck.
He wheeled suddenly to look back at me and my heart kicked my ribs hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Aydan…” he began.
“Yes?” I smiled as casually as it was possible to do with my molars grinding.
“Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? It would be nice to have a visit and catch up. It’s been a while.”
God, anything! Just get the hell out of my yard!
Desperation lent a squeaky note to my voice. “Oh, that sounds lovely! Thanks! What time would you like me to come?”
His slow easy smile made me clamp my teeth on my tongue to prevent myself from shrieking ‘spit it out and leave!’
“Why don’t you come around five?” he said. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Thanks! Me, too.” My smile hurt every muscle in my face. “See you then.”
He headed back to the truck with his leisurely long-legged stride and I balled my fists in my pockets.
Hurry up, goddammit! Get the hell out of here…
“See you.” He tipped his hat and swung into the cab.
I smiled hard and offered a wave that I hoped looked friendly as he drove down my lane and turned onto the road toward his farm.
When his truck vanished behind the trees that lined the creek I threw back my head and screamed at the inoffensive sky.
“Argh! Shit, shit, goddamn SHIT!”
Chapter 2
Finished my temper tantrum, I stomped back to my house and hesitated at the porch steps. Should I try to clean up the bloody footprints before the cleanup crew got here, or would my efforts only make their job harder?
A sudden thought tensed my shoulders. What if the analyst routed this up the chain of command and Stemp overrode my request?
Oh, God, he wouldn’t.
Would he?
Surely he’d only made me do it myself last time because he was afraid the bad guys had me under surveillance…
I scowled and kicked at the bottom step. He had probably watched the analysts’ camera footage and laughed his ass off at the sight of me labouring to scrape up half-frozen blood in the middle of winter. Bastard.
If he cancelled the cleanup crew this time, I’d drag this damn body over to his house and push it through his mail slot piece by piece.
A growl escaped my throat at the recollection that Stemp had no mail slot. Fine. I’d take it over there and shove it up his…
The crunch of tires on gravel rocketed my heart into my throat, but the vehicle slowing at my driveway wasn’t Tom’s truck returning. As a dark blue cube van rolled through my gate, two thoughts occurred in quick succession.
I’d closed and locked the gate behind me last night, so how did Mallard get in?
And what if the van held more assassins?
I sprang up the stairs. Letting the spring hinges smack the screen door shut behind me, I leaped over the body and flung myself into a crouch behind my kitchen counter. Glock in hand, I pressed against the cabinets and waited. This cupboard held my pots and pans. They might deflect bullets…
My heart hammered. Oh shit, there were so many ways this could go wrong.
If they were assassins, I’d know when the first of the bullets ripped through the walls. Or through me.
But what if they were innocent furnace-cleaners or something, lost and looking for one of the neighbours’ places? They couldn’t have missed seeing me dash in here, and the blood-soaked body was in plain sight through the screen door…
The phone rang.
Over six feet away. I’d have to scuttle unprotected across the open space.
Too afraid to leave the dubious shelter of my cookware, I sent a snarl in the direction of the still-ringing phone. “No shit, you guys! I know there’s somebody coming up to my house!”
The sound of footsteps on my porch made me hunker lower.
My answering machine picked up and an unfamiliar male voice spoke. “Your cleaners are waiting outside.”
I eased out a breath. Smart. Nothing incriminating on tape, but at least now I knew those weren’t assassins in the van.
Well, I was pretty sure.
Almost a hundred percent certain…
I eased my head around the corner of the cabinet, ready to jerk back to relative safety at the first hint of a threat.
The movement caught the eye of a bulky coverall-clad man peeking through my screen with equal caution. The corner of his lips quirked up.
“Agent Kelly? We won’t shoot if you don’t,” he offered.
I let out a breath and rose to totter over. “I’ll hold you to that. Come on in.” I nodded toward the body. “I guess I don’t have to tell you where to look.”
“Guess not.” He jerked his chin at his silent companion and they donned disposable booties, gloves, and hairnets before stepping over the body. Lowering a bulky backpack to the floor, they extracted a body bag. A few minutes later the remains of Drake Mallard were safely stowed in the back of their van along with Mallard’s shotgun, and the cleanup commenced.
Apparently the spokesman for the pair, the first man drawled, “Guess you surprised the hell outta him. Nice shooting.” He bent to extract cleaning products from his backpack and continued, “He had two shells in the magazine and a spent one in the chamber. Didn’t even have time to pump in a new one.”
“Hmph.” I shucked off my jacket and sank onto a kitchen chair, frowning. “Yeah, that’s a little weird. He blew off the lock and kicked in the door a second later, but pump-actions are quick. He should’ve had a fresh shell in the chamber by the time he got in.”
The man shrugged and turned away to join his mute companion beside the grisly puddle. “Nice when they’re dumb.”
“Huh. Yeah.” I eyed the proceedings curiously. “Do you mind if I watch?”
“Knock yourself out.”
I observed them in silence for a while before speaking. “So you’re armed?”
“Uh-huh,” he replied without looking up.
&
nbsp; I pulled my gun-cleaning paraphernalia toward me. “Okay, good. Then I’m going to clean and reload while you’re here. ‘Cause I’m not going to have my gun out of commission again for a good long time. And I won’t be listening to any more music, either.”
I rushed through a cursory second cleaning, my still-ringing ears straining for the sound of tires on gravel outside. Or footsteps.
Or God knew what. A paragliding ninja, or, hell, a radio-controlled exploding goose.
Right on cue, a vee of Canada geese winged overhead, their distant honking carrying through the screen door. Usually I enjoyed the wild lonely sound of their spring migration…
“Fuck,” I muttered.
The speaking half of the duo glanced up. “Everything okay?”
I blew out a sigh and pushed the reloaded magazine into the Glock. “Yeah.” I rose and tucked the gun back into my waistband. Even my ankle holster felt a little too far away at the moment.
“Here, you’ll probably want to take these with you, too,” I added as I pulled the nitrile gloves out of my pockets and handed them over.
He accepted them with a professional nod and a narrow-eyed look at my jacket. “You rub off any blood inside those pockets?”
“No idea.” I passed it to him and watched while he examined it with his special light.
“Clean.” He handed it back. “We’ll do your boots, too. Anything else?”
“I was wearing the gloves when I searched him, and I don’t think I touched anything else.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, I already picked one of your long hairs off the corpse. You ever think of wearing a hairnet?”
“Not around my house. But next time I have less than a second to kill a guy I’ll try to remember to put one on.”
He snorted either amusement or disgust, and I added, “You probably saw the bloody footprints on the porch, but I walked to the right of the sidewalk so there’ll be blood in the grass, too.” I hesitated. “I don’t know if it’s worth bothering about, though. There’s probably still a bunch of blood there from the last guy.”
That was enough to startle words out of the silent partner. “Thewe was anothew guy?” he demanded.
Okay, now I knew why he’d been keeping his mouth shut. Despite his bulk and stature, he sounded exactly like Elmer Fudd.
I held my face under rigid control. “Yeah. End of December. I did a fast cleanup, but all I could really do was scrape up the half-frozen blood and rinse the porch. There are probably still bullets embedded in the lawn, too.”
The spokesman sighed and returned to scrubbing grout. “We’ll clean the porch and do the best we can with the rest.”
“Thanks, guys.” I bestowed my warmest smile on them. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this. How about some fresh chocolate chip cookies?”
They both brightened, and I began to assemble ingredients. The soothing routine of baking and the mouthwatering scent of warm vanilla and chocolate calmed some of my ravelled nerves. A half-dozen cookies still hot from the oven along with a tall glass of milk completed my therapy.
While the cleanup crew worked outside I turned my attention to the damaged door and wall. A few trips to my shed procured some two-by-fours and a piece of plywood big enough to replace the door, as well as the necessary tools and materials for repairing the bullet holes.
Some time later I was mudding my drywall patches when a rap on my new plywood panel made me twitch so violently I dropped the taping knife.
A male voice called, “We’re done out here.”
“Shit.” I eyed the glob of drywall compound on my freshly-cleaned tiles before raising my voice. “Hang on; I’ll be right there. I’ll have to go around back.”
When I rounded the corner of the house, the muscle-bound Elmer Fudd was sliding into the driver’s seat of the Cavalier and the spokesman was already behind the wheel of the cube van.
I trotted over to the driver’s-side window. “Thanks again. Here are some more cookies for the road.” I handed over a bag. “Anything I need to know?”
“Nope. Thanks.” He eyed the bag appreciatively before tucking it into the console beside him. “Everything’s cleaned up, and we’ll file a report once we finish with the car and the body. Oh, and we retrieved six bullets from your lawn. That sound about right?”
I sighed. “No idea. There could’ve been up to ten, but some probably lodged in the body.”
“Jesus.” The driver frowned with professional disapproval. “Ever hear of overkill?”
“I wasn’t the shooter. Long story,” I added as his eyebrows rose.
He cast an appraising glance around my isolated farmyard. “You going to be okay out here?”
I shrugged. “As much as I ever am, I guess. Nothing short of a tank is coming through that plywood tonight. I’ve got two-by-four crossmembers screwed into the frame behind it. But if anybody really wants in, they’ll be through the windows in two seconds or less.”
He offered me a sympathetic grimace and a semi-salute. “Good luck, then.”
“Thanks.”
I watched them drive away before trotting up the lane to lock the gate behind them and change the combination, my usual appreciation of the open country spoiled by a nervous tingle that felt like a target on my back.
By the time I had finished the drywall patches and dragged the shot-up door to my shed, I was almost looking forward to Tom’s free meal.
But not quite.
Glancing at my watch, I let out a dismal sigh.
As far as I knew Tom was a good cook. He made great chili, anyway. But the thought of holding onto my cover all evening while avoiding anything that might be construed as an expression of personal interest in him…
I sighed again.
If only Kane and Hellhound were here. A meal with them would be full of easy camaraderie and black humour about the inconvenience of dead bodies. No need to conceal my weapon or my reaction to killing a man…
Hell. I’d killed another man. Two in a week. That was absolutely fucking sick. It had been them or me, but still…
I put that thought away to examine later and resumed my pity party with another sigh.
If Kane and Hellhound were here I’d be able to relax instead of twitching and grabbing for my gun every time the house creaked. But no, dammit; right now they were laughing in the California sun, cruising the highway with their knees in the breeze or relaxing at a roadside restaurant with good food and cold beer.
“Suck it up,” I said aloud, and went to put on clean clothes.
Hovering in front of my full-length mirror, I eyed my reflection anxiously and readjusted my waist holster. It didn’t matter what I did; if Tom decided to hug me when I wasn’t wearing my jacket, there was no way he’d miss my gun even with my sweatshirt pulled over top.
And I couldn’t object to a hug after letting him hug me this afternoon. Besides, he was such a nice guy. I’d feel terrible if I hurt his feelings, especially since I’d hurt him so many times before…
“This is a really bad idea,” I told my reflection. “I should just call and tell him I’ve got a headache. Or the stomach flu. Or leprosy or something.”
“Well, shit-for-brains,” my reflection replied with a scowl, “If you were going to do that, you should’ve done it earlier. Now it’s nearly five and he’ll have supper on already. And anyway, he’ll know you’re lying.”
“But it might have come on really fast,” I argued feebly.
My reflection fixed me with a skeptical gaze, and I sighed and turned away.
Pacing and muttering, I considered my options. Waist holster, risking almost-certain detection?
Ankle holster? Better concealment but not as accessible. And I’d needed every instant this morning.
Leave my gun behind entirely?
Never in a million years.
My steps slowed as another thought hit me.
Drake Mallard hadn’t had a personal vendetta. I’d never seen him before, and if he needed my photo with a descr
iption written on the back, he obviously didn’t know me. And the crisp two-and-a-half grand in his beat-up wallet told me somebody else was probably pulling his strings.
If that ‘somebody’ saw my car in Tom’s driveway, would they shoot up Tom’s place to get to me?
“Okay, that’s it. I can’t do this,” I said to my disapproving reflection.
“You’re a secret agent, dipshit,” my unsympathetic alter-ego snarled. “Figure something out.”
“I’m not an agent, I’m just a bookkeeper…” I trailed off, my spine straightening. That wasn’t true anymore.
“Okay, fine!” I snapped, and turned away to make my preparations.
Chapter 3
When Tom opened his door to my knock, his smile of welcome faltered.
“I brought dessert,” I volunteered, and proffered the last of the chocolate chip cookies.
“Uh… thanks…” His smile came back with a hint of a tease as he accepted the paper plate. “Come in. But you’re giving me some mixed messages here.” He nodded toward the shotgun cradled in the crook of my arm. “Are you going to shoot me if you don’t like my cooking?”
I laughed and followed his welcoming gesture into the warmth of his house. “No, I promise not to shoot you,” I assured him. I laid the gun on the floor with its barrel pointed in a safe direction and added, “It was such a nice evening I decided to walk over. I went down by the creek and through the woods, but I wasn’t sure if that cougar was still around from last summer so I thought I’d better carry the shotgun just in case.”
Not to mention that sneaking through the bush allowed me to arrive at his place unseen. And if we got attacked anyway, I’d have a plausible explanation for being armed. With any luck I wouldn’t have to pull my Glock…
“Good thinking. I like that you’re comfortable with guns and know how to use them,” he replied with a smile as he took my coat.
I eased out a breath as he turned away to hang it up on the wooden coat pegs behind the door. The shotgun had nicely forestalled the question of a hug, too. Bonus.
Kicking off my boots, I picked up the gun again. “I don’t want to leave it here by the door in case somebody drops by. I don’t have a shell in the chamber, but there are three in the magazine. Is it okay if I put it around the corner by the table?”
Spy Away Home (The Never Say Spy Series Book 10) Page 2