Thor sighed. I knew that sigh. It was the kind of sigh that said, This is probably happening.
Zeus groaned.
Chapter 3
There’s more to a fake nose than just the nose part. A fake nose has a large ruffle of fake skin around it, and the challenge is to smooth enough makeup over the ruffle to hide where it meets your real skin. You have to use special, really thick makeup for it, and fuck, it itches!
Thor applied my new nose in the back seat of one of the cars we’d rented at the Chicago airport—the nose was in place by the time we’d passed through Pewaukee, Wisconsin, and by the time we’d hit Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, the thing was driving me insane—almost as insane as the Michael Jackson songs they kept finding on the radio.
But I’d do whatever it took. I was now Jackie Trent, insurance investigations manager from Allied National of Omaha. In addition to the nose, I wore brown contact lenses, a brown-haired wig, large glasses, and a new lady business suit. It was hard to get used to something so structured after the stretchy wraparound dresses I’d been wearing in Rome.
Zeus and Thor and Odin wore less awesome clothes, too. In Rome I’d been dressing them in beautiful Italian suits like my personal trio of superhot Ken dolls. Now they were low-rent Midwestern businessman Ken dolls in cheap suits, but it made me love them all the more. They were coming back with me. Home with me.
Insurance investigation subcontractors—that was our job. We made business cards in Chicago and everything. We paid a ne’er-do-well pal from Guvvey’s to answer a burner phone as Allied National in case anybody actually called the number on the business card.
Zeus had a military buzz cut, wire-rim glasses, and a temporary Marine Corps tattoo. His fake name was Marcus Dormand. Thor had put his beautiful hair in a small ponytail and put in really dark contacts, giving him the type of dark brown eyes now that looked like pure pupil. We gave him long stick-on sideburns and an earring. He was Henry Simonette, our hipster intern.
Odin, as insurance investigator Max Rayborne, had aged himself, adding gray to his hair and he wore the ugliest glasses we could find at a Racine, Wisconsin, drugstore, but of course, he still looked hot. Odin was like the eighth wonder of the world in that way. A mysterious vortex of hotness.
Being that I was not a mysterious vortex of hotness, my ugly glasses actually did degrade my looks, but they effectively obscured the makeup line around the fake nose.
“I’m the ugly duckling with three swans,” I said.
“You’re beautiful to us, goddess,” Thor said.
“And you get to play the boss,” Zeus said.
It was true. According to our cards, they were insurance investigators, and I managed them.
We rented a second car, which Thor drove alone, and headed on toward ground zero of my childhood. We passed through the towns I’d always heard of tornados going through, followed by towns my high school used to play in sports tournaments. Soon we hit Okanakee, Wisconsin, two towns over from Baylortown.
The edge of Okanakee was basically a Walmart with a lot of fast-food places leading up to it. It was definitely a far cry from Rome. After that was the historic town itself, old brick buildings that had knickknack stores, hairdressers, and taverns in them.
Then we got to the main residential street, Oak Street, which was lined with stately old trees and lovely—though somewhat decrepit—older homes. American flags waved from flagpoles sticking out of porches here and there.
Margie Mason’s Bed & Breakfast was one of the nicer homes on Oak Street, a two-story brick affair with white columns and a white-painted porch.
We’d chosen the bed and breakfast because it was near Baylortown but not in it, and the only other nearby options were deer-hunting motels, which were really just depressing concrete bunkers with sad and sometimes WTF furnishings. I wouldn’t put my guys through that.
Margie was at the door before we even got a chance to knock. She greeted us warmly. She was maybe fifty with bright blonde hair, really red statement glasses, and a colorful scarf, and I instantly liked her. She asked a lot of questions, and she liked that I was the boss. “Good for you, Ms. Trent,” she said.
I smiled. “Call me Jackie.”
“Jackie, then.” She asked us about the weather in Omaha, and the software boom there that she seemed to have read an article on. Her husband ran a land development firm, and he had a cousin in Omaha.
“We’re really from outside of Omaha,” I said.
She was full of questions. Just standing there, we had to give her our whole fake story. Usually when we had a fake story, we didn’t have to use it all.
“What are you investigating? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“We’re not supposed to discuss that,” I said. “Company policy.”
“Of course.” She proceeded to give us a tour of the house. Margie was a great lover of breakable-looking lamps and vases, but her true love was cherubs. There were cherubs in paintings and cherub figurines on every level surface. She asked whether breakfast at eight would be okay. Asked about our coffee preferences. She showed us the areas where we were allowed to hang out—the living room and dining room—and the staircase we weren’t to use—up to the Masons’ bedroom and TV room, I figured. Then to our staircase.
“We only have you down for three rooms,” she began.
I took Zeus’s hand. “We two will share.” We’d decided, when we heard she only had three rooms left, that it would be best to pretend Zeus and I were a monogamous couple.
“She’s the boss,” Zeus joked.
Margie showed Thor to his little room first. It was cherub madness, with cherubs on the shelves and even painted on the ceiling, flying among the clouds.
She showed Zeus and me to the largest room with a nice king-sized bed. Cherubs looked down on us from the ceiling, too.
Odin smirked. I narrowed my eyes at him.
Odin wasn’t smirking when I visited him in his room later on while Zeus was showering. He’d turned all of the cherub figurines around to face the wall, but there were cherub-in-the-clouds paintings on the ceiling, too.
I was just laughing. “Well, that’ll put a person right out of the mood for butt-fucking.”
“It’s not funny, goddess. I don’t know if I can sleep here with the cupids.”
This wasn’t good; he hadn’t been sleeping well without cupids staring him down from every angle.
His demons were coming back—that’s what Thor and Zeus had been saying lately. That was how they explained his backslide.
“I feel like they’re watching me,” Odin said.
I pushed him onto the bed and crawled over him, blocking out the view of the ceiling. “Is this better?”
“Much.”
I removed his glasses and kissed him.
He ran his hand over the side of my ribs. “How is it feeling?”
“Way better, just like the last zillion times you asked.” It had been over a week since the injury, and it really was getting better. “No more asking.”
“I’ll ask as much as I want, goddess.”
“Watch out—if you ask again, I might punish you!” I pressed his hands down onto the bed. “I’ll sexually torture you. I’ll sexually torture you until you’re begging me to stop. I will have you panting and begging, that’s how badly I will sexually torture you—”
“Oh!” Margie was standing at the door with a stack of towels. “The towels you wanted, Mr. Cleveland.”
I jumped off.
She averted her eyes and set them on the dresser.
“We were just kidding around,” I said.
She smiled brightly and left, shutting the door behind her. I went and locked it, mentally reviewing what part of I’ll sexually torture you until you’re begging me to stop. I will have you panting and begging, that’s how badly I will sexually torture you she probably heard. I turned to Odin and mouthed the word FUCK.
He put his hands over his face, but I kind of suspected he was trying not to laugh.
“Fuck!” I whispered, aloud this time.
Odin eyed me. “What kind of person are you, Jackie Trent? You’re barely settled in, and already you’re threatening one of your subordinates with sexual torture? And what about poor Max Dormand?”
“Do you not think she believed me that I was kidding?”
“No, Jackie. You were very convincing.”
“Stop it!” I collapsed on the bed next to him. “How am I ever going to face her at breakfast now?”
He turned and propped himself up on his elbow. “At least you made me forget about the cherub eyes.”
There was another knock.
“Yeah?”
“Let me in.” Thor.
I leaped up and opened the door. He walked in and scanned around at the cherubs. “She really doesn’t want people fucking in here.”
“It didn’t stop Jackie Trent,” Odin said. “Jackie was already threatening to sexually torture me. Even Margie witnessed it.”
“What?”
“It’s so not funny,” I said.
“Corporate America is really getting crazy these days,” Thor said. “It’s sad what bosses will do these days.”
I hit him, and he pulled me to him and kissed me.
“I should sexually torture you just for making fun of me. Because it’s so not funny.” I snatched Thor’s phone from his hands. “Is it charged up?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take a lot of pictures.”
Thor had set up an appointment to go out to the farm and actually interview my sister Vanessa about the case. We needed the story from my sisters before we went after Andy. Vanessa had been a little reluctant to agree to the meeting—she’d told her side of the story to the main insurance people already, as well as the FDA, the police, and the paper, but insurance investigator intern Henry Simonette could be amazingly convincing.
“I can’t believe you’ll actually be there. You’ll walk in that door. You’ll sit at our kitchen table with Vanessa. She must feel so desperate.”
Thor nodded.
“And even though there’s no way she was criminally negligent like they’re saying, I can promise you she feels guilty about that guy dying. Probably hauntedly guilty. And so scared.” I felt sick, thinking about how upset she must be. We’d looked into the case a bit more and learned that if a jury found that she’d intentionally sold bad cheese, she could go to jail for years. She’d endured so much already, it was unimaginable. And Kaitlin and Candace would have lost two sisters. “I want you to look at everything, memorize everything. But be nice. They’ve been through so much—”
“I have it under control, baby. I know what you’re thinking, but you have to stop. We’re going to keep your sister out of jail.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And if it seems safe, we’ll take you by on our way out. So you can see.”
“This is enough of a risk,” I said. “We’ll make Andy confess and tell why he’s lying and then leave, just like we planned.”
“I know it’s hard to be near your sisters and not see them,” Odin said.
“Oh well.” I bit back the tears and scooted around to be in back of Thor. I made myself busy taking his hair out of the ponytail binder. It really was best that Thor was going rather than Zeus or Odin. My sisters would find him cute and unthreatening. I arranged his blond hair around his shoulders. They’d always loved the band Hanson.
We headed down and found Zeus waiting for us in the living room with Margie. He came over and kissed me. “I was telling her about our vacation in Mexico.”
“Cool!” I linked my arm into his.
Margie shot me a stern look.
Erp. Did she think I was literally threatening Odin with sexual torture, or did she just think we were having an affair?
“Also, she suggests the Cobblestone Supper Club for steaks,” Zeus continued. “I got directions.”
“Steaks sound great,” Odin said.
I actually knew all about the Cobblestone Supper Club; it was a local fancy place. The most elegant restaurant in Baylortown.
Thor pulled out his phone and punched in the address and took off.
“Ready, honey?” Zeus asked.
I took his hand. “Thanks for the recommendation,” I said.
Margie simply nodded.
Chapter 4
Zeus took a plastic-wrapped breadstick from the basket on the table and began to unwrap it. The basket also contained plastic-wrapped saltines. The Cobblestone Supper Club hadn’t changed a bit in the two years I’d been gone. Looking around now, I realized it probably hadn’t changed a bit since the 1970s.
“What did you call this place on the way over? Was the word you used…elegant?” he teased. “Because I don’t want to alarm you, but somebody has replaced the bread basket with a basket of wrapped dried things.”
“They always had that.” I gazed around at the dark paneling. Red stained-glass lights hung from decorative chains. They’d had those lights back when I was a kid, and I really had thought it was fancy. I unwrapped my own breadstick and munched on it. Eating made my nose ruffle area maddeningly itchy.
“Goddess,” Zeus whispered. “I hate to tell you this, but the deer heads on the walls have cobwebs between the antler spikes. Or whatever you call them.”
“Points,” I said dryly.
Odin threw back a scotch. “At least they have top-shelf scotch here.” He caught the waitress’s eye and pointed at his glass.
“Slow down, cowboy,” Zeus said.
Odin gave Zeus a dark look. A back-the-hell-off look. That was bad.
It was Odin’s demons. Fighting with cupids had not improved them.
The day before we’d left Italy, I’d asked Thor why Odin’s demons would get worse during our Italian honeymoon, the first time we were finally able to relax in forever.
No, goddess, it makes perfect sense that this would happen now, Thor had said. When you’re robbing banks and running for your life, there’s no time to think. No time to feel. The demons are pushed down.
I’d asked him whether that meant Odin could never just be relaxed and happy.
Thor didn’t know. He only knew that vacations and peaceful times were the worst times for Odin, the worst time for many people with PTSD.
That had made me feel so sad. And then I’d tried to calm his nightmares, and what had happened? He’d ended up hitting me in his sleep, which had only made him feel more awful.
The waitress delivered his next scotch.
“And let’s munch on a basket of frog legs to start,” Zeus said, putting aside the menu. I winced as the waitress set off. He turned to me. “What?”
“I don’t know. They’ve been on the menu forever, and nobody orders them. They could’ve been in the freezer for decades.”
“Somebody has to order them, or why would they be on the menu?”
“Because this menu hasn’t changed since the 1970s.”
“But the prices had to have changed—”
“Dude. Are you not an elite ex-secret agent?” I pointed at the tiny stickers next to each food item. “They just change the prices.”
Odin swirled the ice in his glass. He really did look tired. “Do you either of you get the sensation that we’re being watched?”
I cast my eyes around at the few other tables. I wasn’t surprised we were attracting attention; this was a rural Wisconsin supper club, so anyone new would be a novelty. “We are new here.”
“No,” Odin said. “Not just curious citizens. There are eyes on this room. Nothing specific; just a feeling.”
“Damn,” Zeus said. He didn’t like this.
Odin had the best senses, the best intuition of the gang. If Odin felt extra eyes on us, it usually meant there were extra eyes on us.
My gaze rested on the deer head mounted on the wall facing us. There was a moose head on the opposite wall, just to the other side of Odin. Another deer head hung over the rustic gas fireplace at the center of the restaurant.
&
nbsp; Zeus was seeing the same thing. “Dude, is it the fucking deer heads?”
Odin scowled darkly at the mounted heads. “I don’t know. It’s fucking-g unnerving the way they stare.”
“They’re staring at the whole room,” I pointed out unhelpfully.
“Seriously, man, could it be that?” Zeus said.
“It could be,” Odin said. “I can’t tell. My radar feels screwed up right now. The baby cherubs and now this.” Odin swirled his ice, watching it sail around in his glass. “In the prison, they would always be watching you.”
Zeus and I both perked up. Odin never talked about his time in prison. His breaking of that silence was either a good sign or a really bad one.
“They had cameras. Always cameras behind Plexiglas. You couldn’t get at them to break them. Those in charge would make you suffer and then watch you after.”
Zeus and I sat there, suspended. Waiting. Would he say more?
“They would whip you sometimes and leave you tied so that the bugs would come. They would keep you in a dark hole and you would lose track of time. The more you tried to track it, the more you would lose track. But the cameras were somehow worse. They would throw you back in your cell, but those cameras…”
I waited, heart breaking. Odin was so strong. It was a hard blow that would’ve broken him.
“The cameras got into your head,” he continued. “You felt like you couldn’t repair yourself…or breathe or something. Part of repairing from something painful is having the alone time—the space—to feel that pain, but with the camera you never were alone, and you couldn’t let them see you sweat. They turned you inside out, those cameras.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It made you very…” Odin swirled his ice on and on, staring into his glass. “Exterior,” he finally said. “It would make you externally referented. Not in a good way. It was harmful.” He lifted his eyes to meet the eyes of the deer head. “Very, very harmful.”
“We need to go at this Andy Miller and get the fuck out of town,” Zeus said, alarmed.
I nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.” Though deep down, we were both thinking, get Odin out of town.
The Hard Way: Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers 5 Page 5