by Kathryn Shay
When she got her breath back, she said hoarsely, “Not much to laugh about these days.”
“Hopefully, the outcome of our stint here will make you smile for a long time.” He arched a brow. “Kelsey?”
“She’s upset about Luke’s changed behavior.”
Knees bent, Joe dangled his hands between them. “He’s doing his best, but he needs to get in with Duchamp.”
“I know. It’s just that she’s getting hurt in the process.”
“How?”
“Kids have power over teachers, Joe. Just like they have power over their parents. You invest in them, worry about them, and when they let you down, it hurts.”
She bent to the side to stretch again.
He did a few leg extensions. “I’m sorry.”
“I want to tell her.”
His movements stilled. “Tell her what?”
“About the undercover.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Just her.”
“No.”
“Can’t we discuss it?”
“No, it’s nonnegotiable.”
“Look, Joe, you just don’t understand what’s at stake here. Kelsey’s got issues with trust. She depends on me to be straight with her. By deceiving her this way, I’m undermining something that’s bound us together for years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But it doesn’t change my decision on this.”
“What’s the harm in her knowing?”
His face reddened. He was a man not used to explaining himself. “I’ve already gone through this with you, Suzanna.”
She didn’t say anything.
As calmly as he could, he reiterated all the things he’d told her about the importance of secrecy. He ended with “And specifically, what we’re doing now is tricky. We have to make Duchamp and some of the other kids believe Luke’s a punk, willing to piss off the teacher who likes him. If Kelsey knows, she won’t react as she should. She’s a teacher, not an actress. Kids sense things more than you imagine.”
“Then can I tell her after you’re all done? She’ll have trouble with the deception, but if I could explain it all to her then, it might be okay.”
“No. Like I’ve said before, we’ll go on to another school with no one the wiser.”
“Brenda Way knows.”
“Which is something that concerns me. You have no idea how many nights I’ve been up worrying that this operation won’t stay secret, that it will leak out.” His face was grave. “And that would shut us down, not just in Fairholm, but other schools we might need to go to.”
“I’m sorry this upsets you. But I have to protect Kelsey. She’ll not only think she failed with Luke when you leave, but if she ever found out by accident what I’ve kept from her, it would be cataclysmic for our relationship.”
“But she’ll be safe. So will you, and all your kids.”
Staring down, she slapped the mat with her hand, the sound echoing in the basement. “I hate this.”
“I know.” After a charged silence, he rolled to his feet. “Let’s start. You can channel that anger into the maneuvers.”
She stood, too. Quickly, she removed her sweats and pulled her hair into a loose ponytail. When she faced him again, the Secret Service mask was back. Only his usually hard-as-jade eyes betrayed the man inside the agent. They took in her shorts and coral T-shirt with a very male perusal.
She raised her chin. “I’m ready.”
“We’re going to concentrate on two techniques.” His voice was after-sex hoarse. He coughed to clear it. “An attacker can come at you from the back or front; you have to be prepared for both.”
“All right.”
“Always aim for the vital areas in either case. I’ll show you first. Lunge at me.”
“You, um, aren’t gonna hit any vital areas on me, are you?”
His eyes focused on hers briefly, a spark of amusement in his. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Then he added, “I told you I’d be careful with you, Suzanna.”
She’d had dreams of him saying that, in a different context.
“Let’s walk through this first.” He stood still, his arms loose at his sides, his feet spread far apart. “Raise your arm at a right angle like this.” He lifted up her arm. “This is called a side block.”
His other hand fell to her hip; his fingers flexed on her. Suzanna’s chest tightened. His rose and fell.
“Stay where you are. As the victim, I’d step aside, lift my other arm” —he raised his hand— “and go for the attacker’s mouth” —supple fingers swiped her lips— “or eyes” —he traced a brow— “or the bridge of the nose.” His knuckles grazed there.
Her breathing escalated like she’d run a marathon. Then she felt the world go out from underneath her.
Literally.
She fell to the mat, though Joe cushioned the fall by holding onto her arm.
“What the hell was that?” she asked.
He smiled down at her. “I brought my foot behind you and took you down, lady. Just like you’d do to your garden variety attacker.” Amused, he squatted. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She shook her head. “Just surprised me.”
“It’s good to surprise an attacker.”
She gave him a withering look.
“We have to practice this. A lot, so it becomes second nature. If you have to think about the move, you won’t be able to do it.” He stood, held out his hand and drew her up. They faced each other like boxers in the ring.
An hour later, Suzanna was dripping with sweat. Every muscle screamed for her to stop.
“You did great,” he said from the mat where she’d thrown him.
“Did you let me best you?”
“No.”
She smiled and dropped down beside him.
“I think that’s enough for tonight.”
She stuck out her legs, leaned over at the waist to stretch, and moaned. “I’ll be too sore for yoga tomorrow.”
Joe’s eyes darkened. “You go with Kelsey, don’t you?”
“And Brenda.”
“Remember what we talked about earlier.”
Irritated, she didn’t say anything.
“About the importance of secrecy.”
“I remember.”
“I want your word, Suzanna. That you won’t now, or ever, reveal this operation to anybody.”
She stiffened. “You have it.” Angry, she sprang to her feet. He came up behind her and turned her around. She only came up to his chin, and he was so big, so male, she felt encompassed by him. Her eyes were glued to his chest. She lifted her hand and touched it. The muscles beneath her fingers contracted, and he sucked in a breath. His hands went to her shoulders, slid to her biceps.
And then he drew her to him.
He was a wall of muscle, hard, damp, and very male. Suzanna couldn’t remember when she’d felt this safe. Arms of steel banded around her. One hand splayed against her back, bringing her closer. Another went to her hair, tugged, released the ponytail. His fingers threaded through the heavy mass.
His touch zinged all the way to her toes.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She didn’t ask about what. She didn’t comment on how naturally the endearment fell from his lips.
“That things can’t be the way you want them.”
Instead of answering, she buried her nose in his shirt.
He finished, “The way I want them.”
She nodded. She knew he meant that he’d leave here when he was done and, for the sake of the operation, have no contact with her ever again. That he was sorry about that.
Another hug. “You’d better go,” he said harshly.
At first, she didn’t answer, then finally said, “I’d better.”
Chapter Twelve
Nothing was quite like the inside of a New York City newsroom—the smell of stale coffee and ink, the clatter of the computers, even the buzz of excitement. Though today, Sunday, not much was happening in the
desk-cramped room. It was one of the reasons Jerry Wakefield had agreed to meet Brenda here. Though I don’t know why the hell you’d want to come back, he’d barked. Sometimes he was as gruff as his old friend Conrad used to be.
But Brenda knew why she’d returned. She needed the reinforcement today. She needed to remember why she’d started on this rocky path back to the top. After what she’d found out about Joe Stonehouse yesterday—and, hopefully, what the private investigator would tell her tonight—she needed the reminder.
Slowly she crossed to the feature editor’s office. Through the window she could see the battered desk. A worn leather chair. She could still see Conrad leaning back, feet propped up, his brown eyes sparkling. You can be the best, kiddo. Win that Pulitzer. Prove to them you can do it.
Juxtaposed to that she heard her mother’s whiny voice. You’re just like your old man. Always have to be right. Always have to prove yourself.
“Brenda?”
Turning, she found Jerry behind her. He’d gotten a gut, and lost more of his hair in the five years since she left, but his kind blue eyes still smiled at her fondly. He nodded to the office. “Hard to see this again?”
“Nah.” She stared ahead. “Remember when he got the promotion? He was so excited.”
“We celebrated all weekend.”
In some ways, their coworkers had been their families. Certainly, for Brenda, Conrad and the newspaper people were the only real family she’d ever had. He’d even left her all his money in his will. She’d been surprised by the legacy and shocked to find out what was in his stock portfolio.
He was her family in every sense of the word, just like Suzanna.
“Why’d you want to come here? We could have met at the restaurant.”
“Nostalgia, I guess.”
“You want to come back permanently, kiddo?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. Conrad had always called her that. “Maybe. I got a story I’m working on that’s going to shoot me to the top.”
He smiled. “You’re just like him.”
Linking her arm with his, she said, “Thanks for the compliment.”
Jerry turned as grim as a pallbearer when they slid into a booth at Perry White’s, a narrow, dark newspaper hangout and she ordered a glass of wine. “I thought you were off the booze, Brend.”
“I am. I indulge once in a while, on special occasions.” She gave him the once-over. “It’s so good to see you.”
He wasn’t derailed. “You know, he always saw you as the daughter he never had.”
Uncomfortable, she looked away. “He’d hate that I was let go from the Times.”
Jerry frowned. “He’d hate the booze thing.”
“I’ll be back, though,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’ll make him proud, in a way that’s perfect poetic justice.”
By exposing, she thought to herself as she sipped her Merlot, exactly the kind of thing that got Conrad killed.
o0o
Brenda was still drinking five hours later. She’d wandered around the city, taken in a Monet exhibit at the Met, and waited for her seven o’clock appointment with the Pl. The Big Apple turned cool when the sun went down, and she shivered in her raincoat.
The wine she sipped, as she took in the dark mahogany walls and sawdust covered floor of Dresden’s, warmed her. A seedy Times Square bar, it seemed suitable for her meeting with the PI she’d had occasion to work with years ago. She was hyped about what he’d told her on the phone Friday, so hyped she said she couldn’t wait for the written report and wanted to meet with him tonight.
She was also hyped about what she’d learned yesterday afternoon, thanks to her best friend’s slip after yoga class. Brenda hadn’t let herself think about it when she was with Jerry. She was very good at compartmentalizing her life that way. But now, ensconced in a booth with a drink, as she waited for more ammunition, her mind drifted back to Suzanna...
“You look like shit, Suz,” Brenda had said as they shared coffee before class in a new bistro that had just opened in downtown Fairholm.
“I’m exhausted and sore as hell.”
“How come?”
She’d rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. “Agent Stonehouse is giving me self-defense lessons.”
Brenda had stilled. “Does he think you’re in that much danger?”
“It’s precautionary, I guess.”
“I don’t like this, Suzanna. If you went public with the hit list and tire slashing, you could get protection openly, round up these kids he suspects, and quash the danger before it has a chance to erupt.” Brenda’s words were out of her mouth before she realized that her own agenda would be seriously altered if Suzanna did what she advised. But if Suzanna was really in danger, she remembered thinking, so what?
Suzanna had smiled in that nurturing way of hers, and shaken her head. “Thanks for the concern. I love how you worry about me. You’re such a good friend.”
“Don’t try to distract me.”
“Joe thinks this is the best way to proceed.”
“Yeah, the expert on school shootings. It’s impersonal to him, Suz. He doesn’t have the investment here you have. It’s just a job to him.”
Suzanna’s defense of the man had come out of nowhere, like a damn bursting. And it had all the force of a renegade flood. “No, you’re wrong. It’s very personal to him. He loves the kids...” At Brenda’s roll of the eyes, she said, “His niece was shot...” Suzanna’s voice trailed off then.
“His niece was shot?”
Eyes wide with horror at her revelation, Suzanna reached for her coffee; her hands shook as she held the cup. “Oh, God, I can’t believe I said that. I’m not supposed to tell you any of this. If I wasn’t so tired, it wouldn’t have slipped out.”
Brenda stared hard at her friend. “His niece was killed in a school shooting? When?”
“Brenda, please.”
“Suz, you already told me this much. I want the details.”
“I don’t know them. All I know is she was his sister’s daughter. It happened a few years ago, I think he said.”
“How many?”
“Three or four.”
Brenda had tried to calm herself, but couldn’t wait to get home and onto the Net. From there, it wasn’t hard to track down what school shootings happened a few years ago. She read the account with horror. Seventeen-year-old Josie Callahan, shot by a fellow honor student who felt too much pressure and had exhibited suicidal tendencies. The shooter had killed himself after he’d gruesomely gunned down four others. Survived by mother, Ruth Ann; two siblings, Mark and Shelly; father, Al; and a beloved uncle, Joseph.
There were myriad pictures, just like with Columbine, and even one of Joe; Brenda recognized the broad expanse of his back in the fitted Italian suit, though he’d covered his face with one hand and grasped his sister with the other...
Blowing out a heavy breath, Brenda retrieved a notebook she always carried with her. Suzanna had given it to her, saying it was just the right size for her purse, and was for sudden inspirations. She wrote: section devoted to the life of a Secret Service agent. What goes on behind the scenes? Personal history.
She cringed. The family’s grief would be flaunted for all to see. Okay, so she wouldn’t use names. But anyone could piece it together as she had.
And Joe would blame Suzanna.
Maybe that wasn’t half bad. Doodling on the pad, Brenda thought back to the events of the weekend. She’d been disturbed by Suzanna’s strong defense of the man. By how her face softened and she got all dreamy-eyed when she talked about him. Brenda was afraid Suzanna was falling for the guy. And that was not a good idea. He’d make her miserable. He wasn’t her type. He was tough, like Brenda; hard-nosed. Street-smart.
And, she thought as Harvey Meachum ambled through the door, she was about to find out why.
A wiry little man with eyes like a beetle’s, Meachum slid into the booth. “Jesus, Brenda, this is damn inconvenient for me.
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She signaled the waiter. “I told you there was an extra hundred in it if you’d meet me tonight for a prelim report.”
“Yeah. It’s the only reason I left Bambi’s bed.”
“Bambi? Oh, God, Harvey, you really are out of a grade B movie.”
They ordered drinks. Brenda said, “So, spill it. Where did Agent Stonehouse and Agent Ludzecky come from?”
Harvey drew a notebook out of his jacket pocket and peeled back the cover; he squinted in the dim light. “The kid’s a bust. Normal family life. They live in Queens.”
Hmm. Not far. Maybe she could get a peek at them.
“Seven sisters. Mother alive, father dead.” Harvey took a swig of his Molson’s when it arrived. “Don’t know how the guy survived living with all those women.”
It sounded like heaven to Brenda, who’d grown up with no siblings, an alcoholic mother, and an absent father.
“He’s twenty-six, graduated summa cum laude from Columbia in political science, applied to law school, got in but never went. He joined the Secret Service at twenty-one.”
She shrugged. So the adorable Agent L. was smart. Who would have guessed?
But she wanted the meat. “Tell me about Stonehouse.”
“That was tougher. His shit was buried deep.”
She rubbed mental hands together. “Why, has he done something?”
Scowling, Harvey shook his head. “Not like you mean. His record’s squeaky clean. What I could get of that. The government files were hard to access. But the personal stuff came up.”
“What?”
“He had the screwiest background. Was raised in Pennsylvania.”
“Don’t tell me he was a Quaker. Though it would fit his no-nonsense demeanor.”
“Nope, just the opposite. He lived in a commune.”
“A what?”
“A commune. Left over from the sixties. They even had the same mottos: back to the earth. Make love, not war. His parents were honest-to-goodness hippies. He was brought up by a whole group of ’em.”
“Wow. How come he turned so straight, I wonder?”
Harvey’s face darkened. “You know what happened in some of them communes?”
“No, do you?”
“Yeah. I had a hunch and ran down this one. A few of the original members are still alive.”