by Barb Taub
She smiled, but said nothing.
“Carey Parker!” His smile slipped. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“I didn’t hear a request in there. And maybe a bit of groveling would be in order.”
He groaned, and pressed his forehead to hers. “Would you please, please marry me? And I promise much groveling as soon as we have the time. Just, please, say…”
“Yes, of course.” She put the ring on her finger, threw her arms around his neck, and pulled his mouth down to hers. Several minutes went by before she breathed, “But I’ll hold you to the groveling.”
Picking up the Jack Daniels, she led a dazed, grinning Yosh to the staff lounge to search for juice. As she pulled the ice bin from the freezer and added various juice containers she found in the crowded fridge, he crossed the room to the larger refrigerator with the neatly printed Accounting sign. “Hey, this one is packed with all kinds of juice.”
“Yosh!” Her voice was urgent. “Step away. Do not touch anything. The Agency accountants are were-badgers.”
Carey thought it was just as well that he was still pale when they came back into Claire’s office. At least he no longer sported that ear-to-ear grin. They might get by with…
“Hey,” Zach piped up. “What took you guys so long, and why does Carey have that goofy grin?”
She groaned, and pretended to be absorbed in arranging the juice in the ice, and the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on Claire’s little conference table. If she just didn’t make eye contact with Claire or Marley for say, the next twenty years, she could, just possibly, avoid the…
“You’re engaged?” Zach turned from a whispered conference with Yosh, a huge grin on his face. His arms wrapped her in a bear hug. “Congrats, Cuz. When’s the wedding?”
And there it was, the W-word in all its horror. So much for secrecy. Leigh Ann squealed, Marley gasped, and Claire whooped. A second later, everyone was hugging her or shaking Yosh’s hand or pounding him on the back. Everyone except…She turned to her brother.
“I don’t know him.” Connor’s voice was soft. “I’m not even sure I know you.”
She kneeled beside his chair and took his hands. “I think you’ll like him. I think Gaby would approve. And…I love him.” Her arms were around him, and as he hugged her back, nine years melted away. “Plus, he’s promised to grovel as soon as we have time. So there’s that…”
Yosh held out a hand to Connor. “I love her. We’ll always have each other’s back.”
“I expect to see a wedding very soon.” Connor nodded and grasped the large hand in front of him. “And if you ever hurt her, even the little tiniest bit…” He grinned at Carey. “Also? I can kill you with my brain.”
Yosh nodded, his own eyes narrowed. “And if you aren’t honest with her…” He carefully did not look at Carey. “I can kill you with my bare hands.”
They dropped their hands, stared at each other for almost a full minute, and then each nodded.
Leaning on Zach’s arm, Leigh Ann staggered to the table. “If you’re done with the public displays of testosterone, can we get on with things here? I’m almost tapped out. Plus my nails are really going to need some intensive therapy pretty soon.”
Chapter Thirty-One
August 2011: Seattle, Washington
“What’s a Standing Directive?” Leigh Ann squinted at the scrap of paper, Jeffers’ bold handwriting currently upside down from where she squeezed with the others around Claire’s small conference table.
Zach peered over her shoulder. “Isn’t it that thing on Star Trek where they can’t interfere with alien cultures unless there’s a really hot alien chick?” He grinned.
Carey groaned. “That’s the Prime Directive. And please tell me you were adopted so there’s no chance we share any genetic material. The Standing Directive is something I’ve successfully ignored so far and don’t see any reason to change now.”
Claire laughed.
Peter looked troubled. “It’s Agency policy. We never exchange prisoners, pay ransom, or in any way make deals for the return of Agency hostages.”
“Except that’s not exactly true.” Connor’s voice already seemed stronger. “Jeffers did offer a trade. He sent a message that he was willing to make an exchange to get Marley back.”
“Who did he offer to trade?” Claire and Zach asked at the same time.
“Stop, Connor.” Marley’s voice, though still weak, was urgent.
Connor hesitated.
“Me.” Carey was unconcerned. “He offered to trade me.”
Yosh growled. Claire and Peter looked appalled. Even Anton seemed surprised. Leigh Ann just nodded, and reached down to scoop up Hell.
Connor’s jaw was set so hard his lips were a single white slash across his face. “That’s when I decided to get Marley out myself if it killed me. Which it damn near did.”
“I will kill him.” Yosh’s flat voice was the assurance of certain death. For the first time, Connor looked like he approved Carey’s choice of fiancé.
“You’re not going to kill him. He’s your best friend.” Carey’s voice was unconcerned, but she was watching the slight smile on Leigh Ann’s face as she petted the tiny dog in her arms. Not for the first time, she reminded herself to ask Claire about the timing of Leigh Ann’s early “good behavior” release from her Null City sentence.
Claire narrowed her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Because…it was your idea, wasn’t it? Jeffers would never have come up with something that insane on his own.”
Carey looked pleased. “It was my idea. We’d been waiting for the Outsiders to show themselves, and that wasn’t getting us anywhere. So I went to Kurt Jeffers and proposed the trade.” She smiled at the group in the room. “I knew none of you would let anything happen to me. But we had to draw them out.”
Yosh groaned. But as she continued to grin at him, the corners of his mouth lifted reluctantly.
“That’s it.” Claire slammed both hands down onto the table in front of her. “I’m so over this nobility crap. From now on, if anyone here starts to feel the urge to sacrifice themselves, you are to come to me first and I’ll slap you upside the head until you get over that. Right now, we’re going to figure out where we stand, and how we’re going to beat the Outsiders without anybody channeling their inner martyr. And do you know why?”
Yosh’s deep voice was full of laughter. “Because we’re just too pretty to die?”
“I knew it.” Carey punched him in the arm. “You’re a closet Joss Whedon fan. Admit it.” She whapped him again, trying to dodge as he grabbed each of her hands in self-defense. “I’ll bet you own every episode.” Carey’s voice was muffled by her face pressed against Yosh’s chest as he dropped her hands to wrap arms around her. She threw her freed hands up around his neck. “It’s like destiny. Those flying babies with the arrows and the bluebirds are probably all over us. The little perverts.”
Peter put an arm around Claire and pulled her in for a kiss before she could give voice to the inevitable snark. The imps and Anton nodded. Leigh Ann looked startled, and Zach clapped enthusiastically. Connor shook his head, but he was smiling too.
“Anyway, it worked. Kind of…” Carey shoved at the arms holding her. “We got Marley and Connor back. We have the message from Jeffers, and we know who the mole is.”
Yosh warily released her. “Now we just have to figure out why the Outsiders sent that text from Jeffers’ phone.”
Claire nodded. “If he’d already left the message in his desk, he wouldn’t have told me to come to my office. So assuming the message came from the Outsiders after Jeffers was taken, there is something here they want us to find.”
“And that brings us back to Sleeping Bastard here.” All eyes moved to the still unconscious Anderson.
“Why isn’t he dead?” As usual, Mike spoke for the imps standing guard over the sleeping traitor.
“Because A, we haven’t heard his side, and B, we can’t undead him if we need him later.
My apologies to teenage vampire fans everywhere, but there’s just no such thing as undead bloodsuckers. But don’t worry.” Carey’s voice was light, but she watched the imps as she smiled her most feral grin. “If he’s responsible for the ones who Tasered Ben and hurt Sid, and for all the dead Wardens? He’s already a dead man. His body just hasn’t gotten that memo yet.”
Mike shook his head. “No. What we mean is…” The imps looked at each other then back to her. “So far the Outsiders always die from the magic poison as soon as they’re captured, even if you’ve spelled them to sleep. Why is he still alive?”
Anton nodded. “The other Outsiders don’t make a choice. When they’re defeated or captured, they just die. If this one’s not dead, then he doesn’t have the poison. Maybe that means he’s here for a particular reason, and they want him alive until he’s done with whatever that is.”
Carey thought about it, automatically worrying at that blank spot in her head where her connections should be. Dammit. Yosh squeezed her hands, and she stood straighter. Okay. You’ve got this one, Parker. “I think everyone that Anderson hasn’t seen yet should be out of the room before we wake him up. No sense in giving them information they might not have. That means Claire, Peter and I will be here when Claire wakes him and I Oh-Daddy him. Oh, and before you go, Zach, I’m going to need your phone with the sound effects app open.”
To her surprise, although visibly unhappy, neither Connor nor Iax objected to the plan. She saw why when they both stopped exactly outside the office door, the others gathered in the hallway immediately behind them. Yosh set the door carefully ajar, out of sight but close enough to hear.
“He’s starting to twitch. I think he’s coming out of it.” Carey finished untying Anderson and looked up at Claire. “So do you have any way to hurry this along? Maybe a wake-up spell?”
“Nana always told me not to use magic when a little effort would be just as effective.” Claire lifted up her nose, the picture of Nana-approved virtue as she moved over to the ice bin and began pulling out the juice bottles. Peter grinned, picked up the bin full of ice and slush, and dumped it over the balding head of their sleeping captive.
Anderson sputtered awake, twitching and yelling his fury. When he saw the three of them, he stared, wet and shivering.
“Oh thank God you’re awake!” Carey purred her concern. “I think it must have been that blow to your head that made you pass out again. We tried everything we could think of to wake you up because we really need your help.”
She picked up a pile of napkins and kneeled next to his chair to dab at the water on his head and face. “Claire and Peter got a message to meet here, but the office is empty. We think Director Jeffers has been kidnapped.” She picked up the blanket from the couch and tucked it around his shivering form. “What do you think we should do?”
“It’s okay to be confused, Carey.” When he reached out to pat her arm, she gave him a brave smile. His arm eased around to wrap her shoulders. “During the war, I was constantly called on to analyze sensitive situations and make recommendations.”
You pompous fart. Carey suppressed a shudder. I’ll bet your sensitive wartime situations were anything that might move you closer to the actual fighting, and your recommendations were whatever would take you in the opposite direction.
Under pretense of turning to face him, she slipped out of his grasp. “But why did they want us to come here?”
He frowned, and she could practically see the wheels turning as he thought about how much they might know, what he should say.
Still on her knees, Carey opened her eyes wider and gazed up at him, letting her lips quiver slightly and putting a trusting hand on his arm but not —damn, you, Leigh Ann!— fluttering her eyelashes.
Here we go. She read it in his self-satisfied smirk and the hand he reached over to pat hers. Showtime.
“I think…” He cleared his throat. “I’m pretty sure there’s something here you…er…all of us need to see.” He made a show of looking around the office. “What could this office have that the others don’t?”
Carey had a bad feeling about where this was going. Her eyes met Claire’s as they widened in realization. All looked at her windows, the blinds secured against the expansive view of the bridge.
Claire turned off the room lights, Peter pulled open the blinds, and all stared at the illuminated Aurora Bridge soaring above. Over the past eighty years, hundreds had jumped to their deaths from its heights. The Accords Agency had contributed to a local organization lobbying for a barrier fence. But although approved, construction of the protective panels had run into delays and wasn’t completed yet. As the street and bridge lighting poured in, they saw the figures silhouetted against the bridge rails above. Wordlessly, Claire held up a pair of binoculars from her drawer. Carey and Peter pulled up their crossbows and looked through the sights.
Narcorial, his black hair secured back against the wind, was a dark figure next to Kurt Jeffers’ sandy hair and eyebrows. Both stood with the timeless grace of ancient statues of warriors or gods that might never need to move further. They could have been two friends stopping for a chat—if you didn’t notice that one of them was at the bridge edge where the unfinished suicide fence waited to be completed. Behind them, a group of figures strolled along the bridge as if they were tourists, somehow always keeping four or five bodies between the two waiting figures and the passing cars.
Claire looked at Peter and Carey. “Can you make the shot?” Both were already loading their bows.
“Windows don’t open.” Claire was lifting her office chair to smash against the glass when Carey stopped her.
“They’ve gone to the far side of the bridge. It was just a message.”
A phone buzzed, and Anderson felt his pockets, looking confused.
“Here.” Carey picked up the phone she’d taken from his jacket earlier and handed it to Anderson. He’d barely keyed in his password when she pulled it back to eye the incoming text. Ignoring his protest, she read out loud, “Tell the Parkers we will trade Jeffers for one of them or for Seer Rian.”
Narcorial. And he knows Connor is here. She handed the phone to Claire. “Text back from Anderson saying he’ll need more time to convince us.”
Claire had barely finished keying when the phone buzzed. She read the incoming text. “You have exactly one hour, Miss Parker. Meet at bridge north end. Or Kurt Jeffers dies.”
“I’ve got the count.” Carey looked at her phone. “Sixty minutes and counting.” Claire and Peter pulled out phones and did the same.
Carey turned back to the older Warden. “How do you suppose they got your number?”
“Maybe Jeffers gave it up.” He shook his head sadly. “No telling how he was tortured. But we have to do what they say. Jeffers is too important to let him stay captive. We’ll have to turn over your brother.”
“Why, Warden Anderson! Whatever are you talking about?” Carey’s voice was a sarcastic mockery of her earlier sweetness. “Don’t you remember the Standing Directive? We couldn’t possibly do an exchange, especially with a civilian.”
He blustered. “But…Director Jeffers. So strategic. No choice. And your brother… Well, he’s been on their side for a long time anyway. He’ll be fine with them.”
“Could I ask you something, Senior Warden Anderson?” Carey was still smiling, moving next to the older man, placing her left hand on his arm. To anyone peering in the windows it might look as if she was seeking reassurance. It took him a moment to register the feel of her blade between them, pressing against his abdomen.
“Did you ever study the works of the Marquis of Carabas?”
He blinked at her. “Who?”
“He was a kind of…military genius.” She smiled.
He flinched.
“His brilliant strategies have been studied for centuries.”
He blinked at her.
“My teacher, Marley—you remember Marley? The one your guys kidnapped and tortured? Well, she told me mos
t people remember the Marquis of Carabas as a devious trickster from hundreds of years ago. But actually he was a brilliant general who didn’t let absolute disaster stand in the way of gaining a kingdom and a fortune. Wouldn’t you like to know how he did that?”
As he instinctively shrank back from the blade threatening his belly, Anderson’s knees hit the chair behind him, and he sat heavily. Behind them, Peter closed the blinds, and Claire twisted her desk lamp to shine on them.
Carey leaned over the man in the chair, the light casting her face into stark planes of light and shadow from which her eyes glittered and her feral grin menaced. “Carabas said that success comes from knowing your own weaknesses as well as your opponent’s.”
She straightened and considered him, all the while playing with the long glittering knife in her hands, turning it so the blade caught the light.
“You know what, Senior Warden Anderson? I’m just realizing that we’ve worked together for years, we’ve shared meals and drinks. But I don’t really know you at all. So…why don’t we start with the preliminaries—your favorite food, music, how you knew my brother wasn’t with the Outsiders anymore?”
His chin dropped as he stared up into the merciless eyes of a predator. “I…Tony Montari must have said…”
“You mean before you so bravely sneaked up on him and shot him from across the room? What happened? Your shot didn’t kill him instantly, and he managed to jump you? Well, you won’t need to worry about that with me.” Her voice dropped to an eager purr. “I have a lot of practice.”
She stepped back as Peter and Claire finished tying Anderson’s arms and legs to the chair.
“Why didn’t you die from poison like the other Outsiders?”
“Null City.” He was gasping, his color looking worse by the second. “Went there after the war. Stayed a couple of years. So the…magic construct that governs the poison won’t work on me. When I came back here, Outsiders contacted me about making a little extra money.” He was breathing more easily now, believing he could convince them that he hadn’t done anything that terrible. Hell, maybe he’d already convinced himself. “All they wanted was to know where people were. Most of the time I just did my job. Helped people when they needed me. People liked me. I didn’t hurt anyone.”