by Jody Klaire
“No, no. I like to make sure. It’ll just take a while.” He continued scribbling, nodding off, scribbling some more.
I wandered to the stairs on the right, wondering what was up there. I wasn’t the curious type though. Why’d it catch my attention?
Pain. So bad. Can’t move. I need help. Can’t reach the phone.
I glanced at the guy who was semi-awake.
“We need 911.” I met Renee’s eyes.
Her energy pulsed. She was up on her feet, cell out. “What, where?”
“Upstairs.”
The guy was wide awake now and hurrying over. “What you mean? There a fire? There’s no alarm.”
“Your wife. She fell down the stairs, right?” I met his eyes, seeing the double take. I didn’t have time for him to get to the right page. “The other day, she fell.”
He nodded. “Yes, yes . . . but how . . .”
“Broken neck,” I told Renee who was already busy talking to someone on her phone. “Two vertebrae, she doesn’t realize.”
Renee looked at the guy. “Where is she?”
He looked from Renee to me and to Aunt Bess as if she had some idea. “I . . . She . . . She’s gone to get her hair done.” He rubbed his chin. “She was in pain in the night.”
“Where?” Renee handed the phone to him. “Tell them exactly.”
He did so and Renee furrowed her brow. “We need to get through to the hairdresser. I hope she hasn’t had a cut and blow dry.”
I stared at her. Aunt Bess sucked in a breath like she understood.
“The sink. She’d have to lean over the sink,” Renee said.
My hands tingled at the thought.
The guy handed the phone back to her. “They are on their way.”
Renee nodded. “What’s the number of the place?”
His blank look was enough. I touched his hand, his wedding ring cutting into porky fingers. I read out the number, seeing it on the sign over the door.
He stared at me, snapped his hand away, and stared down at it. “How, what . . . how?”
“Go to her. We’ll file the forms and be on our way.” Renee touched his shoulder. “Best you don’t really say much about this.”
He was still staring up at me. “How . . . I . . . How . . .”
Aunt Bess leaned in. “She has a photographic memory. Saw it on the card on your desk. Go find your wife.”
The guy hurried out, yanking up his pants as he ran. I picked up the keys from the side, followed him out, and waited until he turned.
He jumped, gripping his truck as he caught sight of me.
I handed over the keys and smiled. “Kinda helps.”
He nodded, real slow, climbed in his truck, and screeched off.
I wandered back in, my head buzzing; Renee was firing instructions to the staff in the hairdressers; Aunt Bess was at the desk filling in the forms.
“You know how to do that?”
Aunt Bess waved her hand. “Concentratin’, Shorty.”
Renee raised an eyebrow at Aunt Bess but some kind of understanding replaced the curiosity and she continued her dialogue with some poor panicked hairdresser.
I wandered over to a beat-up old sofa in a corner of the office, sprawled out on it, and closed my eyes.
Have at it ladies, I was getting some rest.
Chapter 45
LILIA BREATHED A sigh of relief as she shredded the rest of Frei’s and Aeron’s files. She had replaced them with standard files with little information in her best attempt at German. She hoped the app on her phone had worked well enough to pull it off.
She had been relieved that Fleming hadn’t printed off Renee’s file. It was under Llys on Frei’s computer and her last mission under Worthington. It had all been to keep Yannick off track if he’d broken into the base.
Lilia scowled. Yannick had been a conniving piece of scum. She didn’t like to ask where he’d disappeared to but Frei had remained conspicuously silent on the subject when she’d asked. As long as he was no threat, she didn’t care.
She sighed. What that made her, she wasn’t sure.
“Human, hon, human.”
She smiled and felt a familiar wave of warmth. “I thought you were busy with Jessie.”
Nan hovered close, the way she always had when Lilia was a child. The simple feeling of her being near was enough to ease the ache that had come from losing her. “Kid’s outrun the cops, nice ride Icy has, but Icy ain’t doing so well.”
“I know.”
“She needs more help than medication.”
Lilia sighed. “I know.”
“Shorty can’t heal her.”
Lilia turned away from the shredder and walked to the window. “I know.”
Nan slumped down onto the table. “You know about Mousey?”
Lilia shook her head at the names. “Mousey? I take it you mean Jessie?”
Nan’s energy took a seat on a rocker. She could see her rocking, knitting out, hair bobbing.
“I know. Mamma, Frei hasn’t asked for my help. I had to learn the same lesson Aeron’s going through the hard way, remember?” Lilia perched on the edge of her desk. She’d not had the gentle guidance Nan could give her back then. She’d been scared and alone. And she’d had to watch Eli remarry and Aeron grow without her. The pain it brought still stung her eyes.
“Hon, you did what you thought was for the best. You ain’t made of stone.”
“Either way, I can’t do anything unless she asks.” Lilia would be ready to ensure she had the best help there was if she did. “She won’t ask.”
Nan tutted and her needles click, clicked away. “Now who’s bein’ all cranky. She has a lot of heart.”
“Yes, and she needs an operation.” Lilia rubbed the bridge of her nose. “She thinks she won’t be useful. She’s been conditioned to think that way.”
“A little bit of love can change that.” Nan clicked away. Lilia felt soothed by the sound—a trace of her childhood. All it needed was the waterwheel and her father chopping wood or whistling.
“Yes, but that involves trusting Dr. Andrews enough to tell him she needs help.” Lilia shook her head. “She has survived so much because she was fitter and faster, because she’s seen as a machine. Being seen as less than that isn’t an option for her.”
Nan tutted again. “She got different priorities now.”
“Maybe.”
Nan faded and Lilia turned, knowing it was in time for someone to enter the room. Her heart pounded into a sprint at the look on Fleming’s face, the anger and the tears in her eyes. Lilia dropped her gaze to the file in Fleming’s shaking hand and took a long, slow breath.
Oh dear.
“She’s alive?”
From one problem to another. The wonders of CIG. “Yes.”
Fleming stormed in and slammed the door behind her. “No one told me.” Her voice was too calm, too fueled with repressed pain. “She didn’t tell me.”
“I ordered her not to,” Lilia whispered. It was so hard to be in charge. Too hard.
Fleming’s eyes flared with anger. “Why?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Fleming narrowed her tear-filled eyes. “Then I’ll find out myself.”
Lilia shook her head. “The information wasn’t filed. I will tell you that I did not do it lightly.” She offered a sad smile. “Renee agreed after what had happened.”
Fleming threw the file on the desk. “She didn’t think I had a right to know?”
“Yes.” Lilia took a breath, maintaining her cool. She spent much of her career being yelled at, people demanding they know why something had been done. She had spent too many years having to pretend that their pain didn’t hurt her too. “The woman who we found, was not the woman you loved.”
“I don’t understand.” Fleming rubbed at her eyes. Lilia didn’t know if Fleming was more furious with herself for feeling or with the situation.
“I know you don’t.” Lilia held up her hand to stop the pro
test. “Please, it’s better you don’t.”
She held Fleming’s stormy, pain-addled eyes, as silent tears trickled down her cheek. “She know I married him?”
Lilia nodded. “She went to the church. I believe she left you flowers.”
Fleming’s shoulders shook. “What must she think of me?”
“I believe she was relieved that you were happy.” Lilia gave her a gentle smile. “She hated having to put you through the pain but it was better for everyone.”
“She’s Llys, she’s Worthington . . . She’s . . . with your daughter.” Fleming’s eyes narrowed once more. “A strange police report went through to my office. It didn’t take a lot to piece it together.”
“What does that mean?”
“A judge called in the authorities, accusing an agent that looked like your daughter and Renee of damaging his property.” Fleming fiddled with her wedding ring. Guilt was the major cause of her anger. “It made me go looking for Renee’s file. I had to know.”
“That’s all they had to go on?” Lilia tried to hide her forming frown. “Why would that come all the way through to you?”
Fleming clicked her tongue. “That was my thought, which is why we will do the investigating.” She met Lilia’s eyes. “If she’s in trouble, I want to know why.”
“Why would she be in trouble?” Lilia watched her for a moment, trying to read the fizzing aura. “Maybe someone is just trying to make it appear that way?”
“Which again begs the question of why.” Fleming wagged her finger. “And if someone is trying to muddy her reputation, I want to find out who.”
“Nothing to do with demanding answers from her?”
Fleming glared at her. “That would be unprofessional. I can scream at her when I’ve cleared her name.”
Lilia picked up her handbag and nodded to the door. It seemed fair. “After you.”
Fleming strode out. “You’re telling me that you don’t know why your daughter and Renee are causing damage to a judge’s property?”
Lilia allowed a wry smile. “I’m telling you that when it comes to my daughter, Agent Fleming, I’m utterly clueless.”
Chapter 46
THE FLIGHT TO Ocean City was in a dinky excuse for an aircraft. I mean, the only plane I’d been in before it was Frei’s and hers was way cooler.
This one was poky, rattled, and gave me a headache. Renee had laughed and told me that Frei’s plane was one of the most expensive private planes available. Anything would sound like a hunk of junk after that. I weren’t so sure but Aunt Bess just gave me a quiet smile.
I was starting to get the impression that she had seen and done a lot of things over the years. It was the way she adapted with such ease. I kept watching her through heavy lidded eyes, wondering how much of a story she really had. Being around her and Renee and hearing their small talk comforted me.
“How does she have a plane like that anyhow?” I asked, bracing myself as we bumped over more clouds. My stomach didn’t much like turbulence.
“I never dare asking.” Her aura jiggled like it was protesting at her being untruthful.
“You know it works better when you don’t want to tell me.”
Renee met my eyes. She’d been more smiley since the airport than the whole time I’d known her. I guessed she liked flying, a lot. “Can I just say that Urs was not only wonderful at her . . . job . . . she’s probably set every kind of record for it?”
I knew from the way the people in Caprock had talked about her that she’d been good but I guessed I never equated that to how profitable that had been for her. At least in a monetary sense. “How come she weren’t being chased by the authorities then?”
“She never stole from anyone who would tell them.” Renee’s aura did a serious hunker down, like she was in a team huddle. “I think she was much like your memory of her showed.”
I thought back to it. Frei had given Huber what he wanted but not before pocketing her own stash. “Did he know?”
“Probably, but the cretin adores her, or so Urs believes.” Her aura crackled with unspoken grumbles about the guy. “I think he knew what he had so let it go.”
“He did take care of her though.” Her gray eyes narrowed at me. I tensed. “He did. He even stuck his neck out at Caprock.”
Renee sighed. “He did but he wanted Kevin.”
He was welcome to the nasty little jerk in my mind. I didn’t know what issues that kid had but he was . . . just . . . nasty.
Renee started chatting to some guy in her headset and I stayed quiet as she landed us. It never stopped amazing me how good she was at so many things. She just oozed talent.
Getting off the plane was a lot less steady. I felt all kinds of faint and dizzy as I got up, so it took both Aunt Bess and Renee to help me onto the ground. We stumbled along and I took in the place. It was a bigger airport but still a private one. It didn’t have big jets just little planes and helicopters. They looked a lot nicer than the one we’d flown in on. I paused to tap the plane and thank it for a safe trip. It still felt surreal that a hunk of metal could get my bulk off the ground.
“If you two sit there, I’ll go and sort out the paperwork.” Renee had her case in her hand, her body language like she was carefree but her aura grumbled with worries.
“I got her.” Aunt Bess gave her a nod and held onto my biceps as I slumped onto a bench. “How you holdin’ up, Shorty?”
“M’okay.” I wasn’t. It had taken extreme effort to get that much out. I felt worse now we were on the ground than I had in the air. I eyed a water barrel next to me. It was water, maybe I could heal myself if I got in it?
“More sugar.” Aunt Bess tapped her pockets. Her cardigan, jeans, and frilly collared blouse made her look a lot older than her heart felt.
Cold. Cold and damp. Can’t breathe.
“Can you hear that?” I sat upright and frowned, straining to listen for what I thought I’d heard.
“Hear what, planes?” Aunt Bess continued rustling through her pockets. She pulled out a piece of candy and “ooh’d,” pulling off the wrapper and popping it in her mouth.
I leaned back against the wall. It was noisier here. Maybe it was just the planes. Maybe it was a memory of Frei’s?
“Want one?”
I stared down at the candy and shook my head with a smile. I didn’t know how long it had been in her cardigan but it was a safe bet it was as old as me.
So hungry.
“No, I heard somethin’.” I stumbled to my feet, trying to get my bearings enough to move.
“Shorty, I seen better land legs on a sailor.” She caught me before I face planted into the wall. “You need to sit.”
Don’t move. They might see. It hurts when they catch you.
I stumbled around. Searched for the source of the noise. Aunt Bess gripped on tighter to steady me as I staggered into an alleyway between two hangers. There was a dumpster.
“It’s comin’ from in there.” I frowned. Was I hearing things? It didn’t look big enough for anyone.
Run. They’ll catch you.
I threw my hand out and caught one furry thing by the scruff and hoisted the other into the air.
Cats. Two very skinny, globbed up, and mucky cats.
I shook my head. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
Two sets of eyes peered at me. The one dangling from my mitt quit wriggling at my words.
“You’re huge.”
I sighed, even the cats were at it now.
Aunt Bess gave a big “awww,” at the sight of the squirming ball of fluff. “Ain’t they cute.”
The cat eyed her and froze. “Run!”
I held on as the wriggly one tried scrabbling free. “I told you that I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
The cats looked at me, a little confused I could understand.
“Look, don’t ask but I ain’t leaving you cold and scared.” I met Aunt Bess’s eyes, seeing that she was just as much of a sucker as me. “They’re only babies.”
>
“What are you two . . . ?” Renee’s voice trailed off as she took in the sight of me holding up two bits of fluff. “Getting to know the local wildlife?”
“They need help.” I looked to Aunt Bess who nodded her support.
Renee sighed. “They could have all sorts. You could need shots—”
“They’re healthy.” I smiled as Renee’s eyes softened. She was a sucker too. The cats looked at me, still figuring if they needed to escape. “There’re just the two of you?”
The smaller one sat on my upturned palm and blinked a few times. “People hurt the others, they tried to drown us in the river.”
Renee shook her head at Aunt Bess cooing at the cat on my palm and muttered something to herself. She looked about ready to sit on her case in protest. “We need to get on with rescuing Urs . . . when you’re both ready?”
“If I heard them, they need my help.”
Aunt Bess nodded her support once more. “I’m with Shorty.”
Renee muttered again. “Fine. Just move.”
The cat dangling looked up at me. “Could you carry me a different way, lady, the blood’s pooling in my paws.”
“Oh, sure. No scratching.” I fixed it with a stare. “I mean it. Those things leave marks.”
Renee led us over to a pick-up. “I was hoping Urs might have a car or something here to use but the guy isn’t budging.” She sighed. “We’ll have to make do with that.”
Aunt Bess scowled. “That hunk of junk?” I tripped over my own foot. She stuck out her hand to catch me. The fluff ball in my hand dug its claws into my arm. “It looks fit for nothin’ but parts.”
“It was the only one he was willing to sell.” Renee rubbed her hand over her face, leaning away from the kitten peering at her from my arm. “And yes, I tried all manner of approaches.”
I raised my eyebrows. Didn’t much like the sound of that. For a start she was armed.
She shook her head at me as if reading my thoughts. “We needed transport. In.”
Aunt Bess shot me a “Don’t argue with the woman, just move” look and got in the back.