by Chris Mooney
“You’re right—I’m not. I’m a white male, which allows me all sorts of privileges—and all sorts of blind spots. I told Kelly he was talking to the wrong person.”
She turned to him.
“I told him that you don’t answer to me—that you’re your own person. That the decision, ultimately, is yours, and yours alone. I probably should have added that I wouldn’t hold any sway in your decision, because you are, without a doubt, the most stubborn person I have ever met, which is why I fell in love with you.”
“That’s the only reason? My pigheadedness?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Cody grinned, messing with her, and brought the glass to his lips, Ellie feeling herself relax a bit, having what was probably the first normal moment in the past twenty-four hours.
“Whoa,” he said, his eyes widening.
“How’s it taste?”
“Like burning.”
“Have some more. It’ll help you grow hair on your chest. You could use some.”
Cody leaned back and crossed his legs. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my brothers lately. About how all three of them married women who are perfectly content, fulfilled, what have you, staying at home and raising the kids. You’re the complete polar opposite. You’re . . .”
“What?”
“You’re . . . uncharted,” Cody said. “I could spend the rest of my life with you, and while I would never be able to discover everything about you? Every day I would discover something new, and I love that. I love the all of you, and I—” He cut himself off and snorted. Smiled. “You know, this sounded so much better in my head.”
“You’re doing great.”
Cody shot her a look that clearly said, Bullshit.
“I’m serious,” she said. “And I appreciate what you said. But I have a question.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Very serious,” she said. “Want to get naked?”
“Well,” Cody sighed theatrically, “if you insist . . .”
“I do.”
Cody got to his feet. Ellie remained seated.
“You know,” he said, “this usually works better when two or more people are involved.”
“Take off your shirt.”
Cody looked around the gloom to see if anyone was watching.
“We’re fine,” Ellie said, and picked up her glass.
Cody took off his T-shirt. He had the singular most perfect chest she had ever seen on a man—powerful, square-shaped pectorals like stone slabs, the stomach and waist ridged with muscle, everything on him perfectly proportioned, none of that freaky bodybuilder shit so many guys tried to get in the gym. He took a lot of pride in his body, but he wasn’t prideful.
“Come closer,” she said. “I want to get a good look at you.”
He stepped up in front of her, dressed in his flip-flops and shorts. Ellie crossed her legs and took a sip of her drink. Cicadas sang all around her, and she could hear Cody breathing.
“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked after a moment.
“Take everything off. Then stand right where you are. I want to sit here and admire you while I finish my drink. No,” she said when Cody opened his mouth. “No talking. Just do what you’re told.”
* * *
* * *
Ellie woke up to bright sunlight and the tendrils of a dream in which she had survived the shoot-out, just like in real life. Cody was there, at the house, and when she went to kiss him, he recoiled and looked down at her stomach. Then she did, too, and she saw that she was bleeding from gunshot wounds covering her stomach and chest. When she looked up, Cody was gone.
She blinked away, heard running water; Cody was in the shower. The door was cracked open, the bathroom full of steam.
“Hey,” she called out from the bed, the dream starting to fade but not the cold, empty feeling it had left in its wake. “You want to grab breakfast?”
“Yeah, but not at the diner down the road.”
“I love that place.”
“I don’t like the way they cook the bacon. Too soggy.”
“Don’t shut the water off. I’ll jump in after you’re done.”
“Why not come in now? I’ll wash your front and you can wash my back.”
“Be right there.”
As Ellie got out of bed, it amazed her that a guy who was so incredibly organized when it came to his life could be such a slob, never making the bed and always leaving his clothes on the floor—something he knew bothered her. How hard was it to fold a pair of shorts and a T-shirt? She picked up his shorts and in the front pocket caught sight of what looked like a black felt jeweler’s box.
Ellie was so exhausted and hungover, the thought swam away from her. When it came back, when she realized what might be in the box, she reached inside his pocket, her mind taking her back to last night, that business about his married brothers, Cody saying how much he loved her.
Had he been planning on proposing to her?
She found the answer sitting in the small box: an emerald-cut diamond ring.
If Ellie were a different woman, she’d call the commissioner and politely decline the undercover assignment—and, most certainly, any future spot on the Blood Unit. She loved Cody and supposed, even though she hadn’t given it much thought up until this moment, that she did, in fact, see a future with him. But if she went undercover, it would cost her months—maybe even a year or more—of her life.
Would he wait that long? Could their love survive that?
What if it didn’t?
The ring was a choice. Cody or J.C. Pick one.
In the end, Ellie made the choice she had always made: her brother. She wouldn’t abandon him again.
Thy Will Be Done
CHAPTER 13
ELLIE UNPACKED HER groceries in the kitchen of her studio apartment. She had been living in it for three months.
She listened to the satellite news on her phone, the anchorman talking about the wildfires raging across the state. They had brought out the Bible-thumpers. They were out protesting in droves, ranting and raving about how God’s judgment was upon them, punishing the sinners in California, the modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
Her smartphone chirped once. A text had been delivered. She glanced down at the counter.
The text was from the dry-cleaning-and-laundry service located two blocks from her building in Culver City. Her dry cleaning was ready for pickup.
The text was addressed to Faye.
That was her name now, Faye Simpson. Faye had an interesting backstory: she was twenty-four, born and raised in Las Vegas, and, until recently, had been a degenerate gambler. Faye’s thing was blackjack. She was a good but not great cardplayer and had racked up sizable debts before deciding, nearly one year ago, to tap the remaining equity from her dying mother’s small home—money her mother was using to pay for hospital and medical bills. Faye headed to the casinos, determined to win big and settle all of her accounts.
Faye lost every single penny.
Which forced her to come clean to her mother—not just about the money she’d technically stolen from the home equity line but also about the fact that she was addicted to gambling and now into the casinos for big, big money. Her mother had died heartbroken and disappointed in her daughter. Faye had hit rock bottom.
Faye had promised her dying mother she would get her act together, and she did. She religiously attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings in the basement of a Mormon church, and, working several jobs, paid off the loan from the funeral home to bury her mother and went on a payment plan with her creditors. When she had saved up a good amount of money, she packed up and headed to Los Angeles to search for a new beginning—and better earning opportunities.
Ellie’s attention was locked on the last line in the text: “Have a wonderful day!” An undercover LAPD officer w
orked at Clean & Dry. The word wonderful was code for her to drop whatever she was doing and meet her handler now. Something critical had happened—something that required a face-to-face.
Ellie went back to unpacking her groceries, taking her time—had to, because there was a strong possibility she was being watched right now. The LAPD believed her apartment, one of several Anton owned through various shell companies, was bugged with hidden mikes and cameras. It made sense. Anton had insisted she live here, and there was also the matter of the smartphone Anton had given her—the same model he gave to all his stickmen. Her phone, an Enigma Black, a model developed by BlackBerry and Enigma, the world’s top encryption company, was the same type used by spy agencies. Hers, the FBI had told her, came preloaded with special government-level covert software that turned it into a roving hot mike, allowing Anton to listen in whenever he wanted and, if he were so inclined, remotely turn on the phone’s camera. Every text and email she sent or received, every single phone call and every website she visited, was captured and recorded.
And because Anton required his people to have their fancy government phones on them at all times, he knew not only where they were at a given moment but also where they traveled throughout the day, the phone providing real-time GPS tracking information. Her new friends on the combined LAPD/FBI task force had discovered all sorts of interesting things about the technology Anton used to keep a close eye on his stickmen.
Live your life as though you’re on the world’s biggest movie set, her handler, Roland Bauer, had told her. Always stay in character, because someone is either watching or listening to you every single second of your day.
After Ellie finished with the groceries, she took her time straightening up a bit; then she grabbed her purse and a light white cashmere sweater and headed out. The weather was pleasantly cool but not cold. Christmas decorations were on display in store windows.
As she walked, she thought about Cody, wondered what he was up to right now, whether she was on his mind. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him in four months. No contact was allowed during what Roland called her burn-in period, to establish Faye Simpson’s cover, and she realized, again, just how much she missed him.
Her destination wasn’t Clean & Dry but a place three blocks away, a bar called the Alibi. Entering the bar was like walking through a time portal into the late 1990s: wood-paneled walls holding framed covers of vinyl records; autographed photos of dead actors and singers from insanely popular boy bands and the pioneers of a rock music category called “grunge”; and everywhere you looked, sprinkled on the shelves behind the bar and on the walls, these small stuffed animals called Beanie Babies. Everything old was new again, recycled like the movies, as though no one was happy with the present, everyone wanting to retreat into the past, when life had been simpler, maybe.
She was surprised to find the place so busy at three o’clock; then again, it was Friday. A pair of private security guards carrying ominous-looking Shockwave rifles, which fired nonlethal electrified rounds, manned the front door and watched the patrons to make sure no one got stuck with a needle.
The sight of the guards didn’t disturb her. Like everyone who lived in LA, she had gotten used to seeing them in bars, restaurants, malls, hospitals, airports—everywhere, even libraries. Still, she couldn’t escape the reality that she and everyone else in California were now living in a new version of the Wild West—only cowboys now drove cars and carried futuristic-looking shotguns and pistols.
Roland Bauer sat in his usual spot in the back, at the far end of the long bar, watching football highlights on ESPN on the wall-mounted TV directly across from him. He didn’t look at her as she approached, and she didn’t look at him.
What she did look at was what he was drinking: a bottle of Molson. A bottled beer meant she hadn’t been followed, that it was safe to approach.
Anton’s men had followed her a lot in the beginning, during those first few months when she had started working for him as a stickman. He’d had her thoroughly vetted, and while the backstory of Faye Simpson had added up, as Police Commissioner Kelly had promised her, repeatedly, that it would, it didn’t mean Anton trusted her. So he put people on her, to watch as she went about sticking people, finding out if they were carriers. Crowded places that served booze—bars, nightclubs, and concerts—these places had been her hunting grounds because, Anton had explained, they were the safest, the people there often so drunk or on their way to it that they didn’t feel the needle sting from a sticker. She focused on the fat ones. They hardly, if ever, even knew they’d been pricked.
Faye Simpson had collected samples without any incident, and she had discovered two carriers. The pair were undercover federal agents. Roland had supplied her with the same sticker devices Anton used, which proved they were actual carriers. She turned the devices, along with the carriers’ names and addresses, over to Anton.
Roland was still lying in wait for the moment Anton would go after them. When Anton did, the agents, tagged with special biologically implanted GPS trackers, would, hopefully, lead them to the one thing no one in law enforcement had, so far, managed to find: a blood farm.
Ellie slid into the seat beside Roland and, looking inside her purse, made sure her Enigma Black phone was tucked inside the special Faraday pouch woven into a side pocket. The pouch blocked RFID and cell signals, so she and Roland could talk privately without Anton or anyone in his crew eavesdropping.
Roland kept his attention on the highlights as he spoke. “Anton’s promoting you.”
Ellie read the bar menu. “To what?”
“He’s found a carrier, and he wants you to help collect him.”
Collecting a carrier was a big step up—a way to get closer to Anton’s inner circle and, hopefully, discover the names of the big players, maybe even the names of what they called the “blood barons”—the actual heads of the blood cartels. She felt excitement—and some apprehension, too.
“One of ours?” Ellie asked, referring to the pair of undercover agents posing as carriers.
Roland shook his head. “Don’t know the target’s name yet,” he said, “but it’s a guy.”
She didn’t ask how he’d come across this information, because she knew Roland had bugged Anton’s condo and his car. The FBI couldn’t bug his phone, because it was encrypted, and Roland wasn’t about to try to go the legal route and secure a wiretap, because the Feds didn’t know if Anton had any judges or cops on his payroll.
Roland drank slowly from his bottle. She’d been told he’d run a ton of successful undercover ops over his nearly thirty-year federal career, and everyone spoke about him with mystical reverence—Yoda dressed in Dockers, sockless in boat shoes, and the type of bland polo shirts and button-downs you bought at buy-one-get-one-free sales at Target. Ellie thought he deliberately picked out the clothes so he’d blend into the background, look, with his rimless eyeglasses and shaved head, like a middle-aged accountant. Get up close, though, and you could see the wiry strength in his torso and the steel in his eyes.
“It’s going down tonight,” Roland said, placing his empty bottle on the bar.
“How are you going to track this guy?”
“I’m working on that. You up for this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Might not be able to extract you in case shit goes sideways.” He took out his wallet and went through his bills, still not looking at her.
“I’m ready,” Ellie said.
Roland turned his head to her. When she met his gaze, Ellie thought he seemed disturbed, maybe even sad, as if he had glimpsed into the future and had seen tonight’s outcome.
* * *
* * *
The carrier’s name was Mackenzie Reynolds. He was twenty-three years old, a Silicon Valley brat who had been born and raised Los Angeles. Anton had supplied her with pictures and his destination. Tonight, Mackenzie was supposedly meeting up wit
h some friends at a trendy bar in Beverly Hills called Viva, home of the fifty-dollar martini.
Ellie worked her way through the bar, searching for her target.
Not only was the place a total sausage fest, but the guys in here, most of them in their forties and fifties, judging by the looks of them, were smug corporate types really interested in rattling off their list of financial successes, where they lived, and what kinds of cars they drove, as if laying out all these details was their ticket to getting laid. Ellie supposed it worked, though, because she saw a lot of women around her age actually reacting to this bullshit, giggling and fawning and flirting, looking to trade their bodies and youth for a lifetime free of financial worry.
Finally, she spotted him. Ellie eased up next to him and sparked up a conversation. It went well—so much so that he asked if he could buy her drinks, maybe even dinner. When she said yes he called his friends and told them that he wouldn’t be able to meet up tonight.
For the next two hours, over drinks and fancy appetizers, Ellie worked overtime, pretending to be dazzled by the story of how he had used a good portion of his trust fund to successfully invest in a lot of up-and-coming start-ups, Mackenzie telling it in such a way that he expected her to drop her panties right then and there. He was good-looking and he knew it, gave off that cocky frat boy vibe, like the world had been created solely for him, and when one a.m. rolled around he pretty much told her she was coming back to his place for a drink.
Ellie said yes. She had to get in his pants. Her job depended on it.
Mackenzie had had too much to drink, so instead of driving he ordered an Uber. She’d had a good amount of booze herself—top-shelf bourbon, all of it paid for by McDouche, as she privately called him. During the drive, while they made polite conversation, Ellie spent most of her time inside her head, strategizing the quickest way to knock him out and get him ready for pickup.
Mackenzie had been the perfect gentleman at the bar and in the car. That changed the moment they entered his house, which wasn’t really a house but a mansion in Bel Air. There was no way a twenty-three-year-old dickwad could have afforded such a palatial estate. He took her to the pretentiously titled “drawing room,” complete with its own bar and a pool table. Ellie saw her opening and took over the bartending duties.