by Sable Jordan
A left brought her past the remnants of a garden. Just a few stones now, a crooked border. What had grown there or how it survived was a mystery as just beyond it the scrublands extended for miles. If not for the few buildings and the bit of signage indicating what had once stood where, Manzanar would be little more than a nick on a nation with more scars than face. At least it hadn’t been turned into a shopping mall.
Arriving at her destination, Julie shut off the engine. Offering in hand, she stepped out of the vehicle. The heat was a heavy weight on her back that burned her fair skin. It would not deter her. Nothing would. Gravel crunched under her tennis shoes, punctuating her solo trek to the graveyard.
A lonely cenotaph stood against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, dwarfed, as though its importance would always be minimized. Three bold, black characters had been carved on this face of the stark white obelisk letting all who could translate know this was the Soul Consoling Tower. Over 140 “residents” of the camp died in this dry, empty place, yet every one of the thousands forced to live under scornful watch of armed guard had had their lives end here, too.
This tower, built by the hands of those it was meant to recognize, simply wasn’t big enough for the task thrust upon it.
More than dust brought moisture to Julie’s eyes. Blinking rapidly, she swallowed the lump in her throat and moved closer, clutching her gift. Other visitors had left colorful bows and bright ribbons at the memorial. Little splashes of color drowned out by the endless, drab brown sand. A bunch of carnations were among the lot. Left yesterday or last week? Hard to know. They’d scorched in the merciless sun, the life dried out of them.
Julie walked one full circuit around the tower, noting the two inscriptions on the back as she passed: Erected by the Manzanar Japanese, August 1943. She glanced up to see the Inyo Mountains, a reminder that, even here in the vast nothingness, everything had symmetry.
Four more trips around. Each time she tipped the water bottle and whispered, “As the rains fill the rivers and overflow into the ocean, so likewise may what is given here reach the departed.”
At the end of the final circuit she placed her own flower on the ledge, an oleander. She’d taken great care to craft the pink paper, ensuring each of the five inner petals had a slight twist, the outer five connecting to form a perfect star. And while each part held appeal, as a whole it was a beautiful specimen. She pulled a little beaker from her pocket, unstoppered it and left it on the ledge. A string circled its neck, and she centered the knot.
“They were all so thirsty.”
Her phone beeped in her pocket and she checked the GPS; headed back to her ride. The sadness that filled her on arriving was replaced with optimism. This trip cleansed her. And now that she’d done what she’d been sent there to do, it was time she left. There were other stops to make, other souls to remember.
One last look back at the monument and Julie lifted onto the sidestep of her SUV, hoisted herself into the driver’s seat. Shortly thereafter she exited the remains of the Manzanar internment camp. On the pole at the front, the tired American flag hung slack.
July 31st
Langley, VA
Rachel didn’t come over last night. In fact, Fletcher hadn’t seen Agent Hayford since she stormed—No, “stormed” was too strong. Drizzled? Yes, he hadn’t seen her since she drizzled out of his office. The last he’d heard was the echo of her sensible heels clicking on the building’s old linoleum.
Heaving a sigh, Fletcher dropped into his desk chair and slapped the notepad and papers from the briefing down on the tabletop. Nothing brief about the morning meeting. Bad enough it was delayed, but for his boss to drone on about the same old same… Fletcher shook his head and sighed again. There was a reason the CIA was dubbed the Center for Inefficient Assholes.
The clock showed 8:35AM. The request was made three hours before and a scan of his desk showed no new folders.
She must be really upset. But, as Fletcher often reminded himself, anything so obviously ancillary to the op was not open for investigation. Anything ancillary was inefficient, and Fletcher was not an asshole. Why couldn’t the woman be as sensible as those damn heels?
Gray skies filled the view through the room’s only window. It wasn’t a big window—the office was housed in the Original Headquarters Building and lacked the space and openness the new building boasted—but it was his window. He’d earned that narrow, vertical pane the same way he’d earned the certificates sprinkled amongst the framed pictures on his office walls: by sticking to the missions and ignoring all else. Would have been a damn fine field agent.
Rachel would never make it in the field. She entertained the thought once, and he entertained her by listening to the madness one night in the comfort of his bed. Then, as he eased into her heat, Fletcher gently steered her focus back to the importance of working her desk position. Her very safe desk position. Where she wasn’t required to make the split-second life-or-death calls field operatives had to make.
He wasn’t trying to stunt her growth. On the contrary, it was all for Rachel’s protection. She was too nice, too caring. Her kind heart too easily manipulated and there was no room for that in the trenches. Things got tough in there, what with the mud and blood and sweat and gunk field agents waded through in the holes where they fought. No way Rachel would stomach gunk on her sensible shoes.
Kizzie Baldwin? She was a different breed. Kizzie was made for gunk, it seemed. Fletcher had overseen her runs at Camp Peary a time or two—not that he would confirm or deny the existence of Camp Peary or its use as the training grounds for the CIA’s agents. However, on witnessing Kizzie in that particular element, Fletcher knew she was one of the tough ones, a pinpoint of focus in the surrounding chaos. Even at such a young age she had a steely determination the older, more worldly trainees in her class lacked. When Kizzie needed to do scary, she could do scary. And then tamp it down and say something snarky a second later like nothing ever happened.
Gave him the willies.
Rachel just didn’t have the brass Kizzie did—not that it was a bad thing. It took all types. But Kizzie had no problem with confrontation. Rachel, on the other hand, shrank from it at every turn. Kizzie saying she’d visit meant she’d pay him a visit. He wouldn’t know when or where, but she’d make good on it if he didn’t get what she wanted. Rachel couldn’t go two days upset with Fletcher.
On cue, soft clicks sounded on the linoleum down the hall. A grin curved his lips. He was about to be proven right.
8:47AM. He wanted the files on his desk by 9. Files he could have gotten himself or had any of the secretaries grab for him. Files he really didn’t need by any specific time, but wanted Rach— Agent Hayford to deliver.
She’d bring them through the door, he’d flash his best bedroom smile, and that would be that. He’d explain to her, again, that his job was to run ops, run the people in the field. They were his problem. Fletcher had a hard enough time protecting American lives without adding foreigners on non-US soil to the mix. She’d understand and this whole business with the kid would blow over like a tropical depression losing speed.
Kizzie and her visit? Fletcher could worry about that later. He’d ignored her calls, knowing she wanted Intel he didn’t have on a bomb that didn’t exist and a kid who wasn’t pertinent. No sense wasting energy trying to convince her otherwise.
Nope, Fletcher would focus on the steady clip coming up the hall and the curvy woman who owned it.
The sound grew louder…louder…
He worked the smugness from his mouth; twisted his head toward the door standing slightly ajar.
Any moment now Rachel would push it open and—
Thunk!
The metal mail holder was mounted on the back of his door and the weight of a delivery shook the wood. The clicking picked up again, just as evenly, moving away.
Got softer…softer…
His brows drew together and a slow chuckle shifted his shoulders.
Drizz
le?
It seemed a storm was a’brewin’.
And headed straight for Fletch.
Tokyo, Japan
Kizzie lay motionless in bed, eyes wide open, keeping the darkness company. Not a completely unusual circumstance; she and night were good friends. Darkness hid her when she worked and kept her secrets when she slipped away. Night usually made her job easier, made everything clear.
Not this night.
The covers rustled behind her, followed by more steady breathing. Her bad shoulder ached from lying on her side so long, staring at the soft glow coming through the split in the blackout curtains. Another night of sharing a bed with Xander. Nothing sexual, just sleep. Hell, he didn’t even touch her…well, not in bed, anyway—that’d probably be too vanilla for a Dom—and by all accounts this was as close to a gentleman as someone of Xander’s deviant makeup could be. He even wore pants! Xander wasn’t the problem.
Here in the dark, Kizzie shared another secret with her old friend.
This was comfortable.
Never get comfortable. Not on a job, not off a job, and damn sure not on a pseudo-job with one of your former jobs. But there was something very nice about having Xander’s big, warm body so close.
Not ten feet away, the second container of liquid tracer sat in her bag, untouched. So many squandered opportunities to get him tagged. A good agent would have done it by now. A good agent would do it right now.
Kizzie stayed put.
An hour before, she’d been watching him sleep. Code Red stalker shit? Probably. But it was the only time Kizzie could return the scrutiny Xander so often gave her. He lay on his back, one hand tucked under his head, the other splayed over his abs. She smiled at seeing him like that, relaxed and so damn sexy.
Phil was right, it was hard to forget. After a decade in clandestine ops, all evil did have one face. Families, pet hamsters, prom dates—those things made her targets human, and thinking of them that way made her vulnerable. So Kizzie studied their atrocities, made them the same monster in her head. And in her head, he was a monster—who in their right mind would sell a nuclear weapon on the black market knowing the kind of blanket destruction it would cause? But in her gut, Xander was different.
Too bad she might have to put him down when this was over. She couldn’t hesitate, either. The man who listened to classic hip-hop, the man who carried her out of tunnels rigged to blow, the man who occupied her thoughts more each day—and night—that guy couldn’t exist.
Except…he did.
Carbon monoxide. Slipped through cracks and burrowed in so deep Kizzie actually wondered what it would be like to be a submissive? His submissive.
The thought alone was foreign. Her grandmother always told her she was born bull-headed and impatient. Arrived in the world three days early just to prove the doctors wrong. “You were ready to get on with business of living, puddin’.”
She grinned at the memory.
Even before her granny’s death Kizzie had learned to be self-reliant, was a dominating figure in her own right. Given her past, and her present, she had to be. Depending on someone, having decisions made for her, taking orders from someone else just to please them…? Ranked up there with String Theory. She understood the concept but the details didn’t mesh. How did she reconcile the badass, knee-to-the-balls, guns and knives Kizzie with the bowing, kneeling, get-punished-for-misbehaving Princess? How could two complete opposites even be the same person?
Suppressing a groan at her newly discovered disorder, Kizzie carefully slipped from bed. Her silk shorts were twisted at her waist and her roommate’s tee shirt draped from her shoulders. It smelled of him, totally masculine. Like drowning in Xander. She couldn’t see the shore and wasn’t entirely convinced death by Xander was such a horrible fate. She padded over to the window and quietly paged the curtains. Lights showered the carpet of dark buildings below their room, newly cut diamonds winking on black felt.
Married. Kizzie seemed more concerned with it than he did. Personal aversion to commitment didn’t mean she lacked respect for the sanctity of a union. Yet, the knowledge he was off limits, even more off limits, wasn’t enough to quiet the shockingly large part of her that wanted him. Her blood heated at every touch, casual or intentional, and errant thoughts of all the things she wanted him to do to her owned most of the acreage in her mind. Was that why? Good girl—okay, semi-good girl—bad boy, and the temptation of forbidden fruit?
With a touch of her forehead to the cold window, the Intel they’d gathered diverted her thoughts and she choked back a laugh. Xander was right, too. When life got confusing, and she never let it get this confusing, she had the safety of her job to fall back on. There was always a mission to plan, something to keep her moving. But if doing safe kept her from doing Xander, safe got her vote, though the chad was hanging.
Two dead bodies put the situation firmly in the pattern category. No coincidence two women, with nearly identical tattoos in the same location on their bodies as Sumi’s, just so happened to wander into the afterlife only days apart from each other. Someone murdered them. Why?
And the red string. “Sacred,” Xander had said. Sacred how?
Searching the Hanabi Inc. website turned up nothing but Akari’s job title and description. She’d worked for Avery Hall as a senior logistics manager, ensuring shipments got from the facility in Japan to destinations around the world. Chiho Losu was sleeping with Hall. Did Sumi have a Hall connection too? He’d never married, was somewhat of a playboy even in his later years, but maybe he had a steady woman in his life. The Mistress? Did The Mistress even have Harvey? Did the Mistress even exist?
It was speculation from the start, bits of madness Kizzie had strung together from a raving Sacha hell-bent on peeling her skin from her flesh. So maybe Kizzie was wrong, and maybe there was no Mistress, and…. and…
And why the hell did Xander have to be married?
Did they go traditional, with the church and white gown and hideous bridesmaids’ dresses? Or did he marry her in secret, running off and eloping in a manner befitting two people cheesy enough to pull of the Parisian postcard?
A strangled grunt escaped her throat, soft breath fogging the glass. Kizzie fisted her fingers in her loose hair. First Xander messed with night and now he’d messed with safe. And hamburgers. Thoroughly ruined the concept of a shaped meat patty on a sesame seed bun. If she kept it up, there’d soon be very little Xander didn’t permeate.
Get it together.
Kizzie inhaled a deep breath, rolled her head to crack her neck. She was antsy, anxious. Unaccustomed to whatever this feeling was, erratic and undefined and fluttery. Like being drunk and teetering on the edge of vomiting, and as much as you don’t want to lose it you’re thankful for the release because once it’s out you’ll feel so much better. Not that she knew what that felt like. If she imbibed good alcohol it was staying down, dammit, but the analogy held.
Subtle movement from the bed stirred the longing low in her belly. She dragged the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down hard.
Clearly she was drunk on something, and there was only one man who could sober her up quick and fast. One man who could get these feelings out of her blood.
Fletcher.
Nothing like her favorite tight-ass desk agent to kill her buzz and bring on the post-binge headache. She’d send him Akari’s photos and get an update on the kid from the Galletti op. Kids were the epitome of defenseless. She’d risk her sanity and go back to Belém to find the boy herself in need be.
Turning to the clock on the nightstand, she snagged a glimpse at the time half a second before the ambient glare from outside lit the whites of Xander’s eyes. Her breath caught, thoughts whirled and— What had she been planning to do?
Xander lay on his side, arm outstretched in the space she’d abandoned. The blanket covered his lower half, leaving the broad expanse of his chest exposed. His face mostly bathed in shadow, she could still make out the sensual, seductive look. Was he
over there wondering why the hell he’d gotten married?
He dragged back the covers on her side, and moments passed like hours with Kizzie wedged in uncertainty.
Get the phone, send the pictures to Fletch.
She padded to the bed and grabbed her mobile from the side table with every intention of going out the door, but she sank onto the edge of the mattress instead. Her thumb hovered over the blank screen, and her mind matched it. The sequence she needed to unlock it—the one she’d programmed and repeated multiple times a day without so much as a thought—escaped her now. Xander’s chest brushed her back; his warmth, his scent, all of him invading her space in an instant. Her eyes closed at the sensation. She shouldn’t feel like this; shouldn’t feel anything.
Xander eased the phone from her grip. He angled away, a dull thump sounded somewhere on his side of the room. Then he was behind her again, a strong arm wrapped around her middle and sweeping her along as he moved toward the center of the bed. Kizzie settled on her side, little spoon to his big, hearts chatting in fluent staccato beats. His arm rested beneath hers, big hand molded to her belly. Heat enveloped her, seeping through the shirt and into her skin, through muscle and blood and bone and marrow.
She shivered, inhaled a breath—What are you doing?
Let it out slowly—Don’t do this.
Another breath in—The sub has the control, right?
And out—You’ll never be…his…
She shifted her hips to get comfortable and his cock jerked against her ass.
Yep, this was going to happen.
Just as she made to face him, Xander tightened his grip. “Just this, Princess,” he rasped.
Sweetest three words in the English language. Something in the middle of Kizzie’s chest melted and she smiled.
Her palm grazed down the back of his hand; fingers filled the spaces between his. Xander squeezed his digits closed, locking their hands together; tugged her closer still, their bodies connected soundly from torso to hip to leg. It felt good to be held by him; to not have to be a good agent; to forget about bombs and nefarious plots and the fate of the world for a night.