Cutting Loose

by Westlake, Samantha

  Sawyer stood up, dusted errant churro crumbs from his hands. “Don’t worry about clean-up; the maid will handle it tomorrow morning.”

  “You have a maid service?” I gasped. “But why did you make me do all the dusting yesterday?”

  He sighed, looked down in mock sadness. “The maids charge me extra to watch.”

  I laughed, even as I threw loose bits of sugar at him. “Get out of here, you rude ass!”

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  The next afternoon, around two PM, Eastman stepped cautiously into the Bean Scene café, looking around like he was stepping into a den of drug dealers. From the guarded expression on his face, I half expected to look down and find that he’d drawn his pistol.

  I waved at him from the table I’d secured. He straightened a little and acknowledged me with his eyes, but he didn’t seem to loosen up as he crossed the café’s floor and took the other chair at my table. He ran his eyes over the large binder that I had open on the table, covering most of the available space. A cup of coffee balanced precariously on the corner of the table, in danger of being knocked to the floor if I bumped the binder too hard.

  “What’s all this?” he asked.

  “Planning for the Institute of Art’s big announcement gala,” I answered. “I spent all morning trying to talk Rudy Neale out of some of the more far-fetched ideas, and now I’m trying to figure out how to combine all the things he can’t live without into some sort of organized party with a coherent theme.”

  I glanced up to see that Eastman’s eyebrows had risen up his forehead. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Don’t act so surprised,” I countered tartly. “I’ve been to plenty of these high society parties. I know how they work. If Rudy didn’t have so many crazy ideas and had settled for something more traditional, I probably could put this together with my eyes closed.”

  “Ah.” He sat there silently for a moment. “You hungry?”

  A peace offering? “Surprise me,” I told him.

  He made a soft noise that sounded like disapproval, but when I glanced up, he’d already risen and headed for the counter. I looked down at my pages of scrawled notes while waiting for him to return. Rudy had enough ideas for half a dozen different parties. The real challenge was figuring out how to combine all of these together into a coherent single party without proving overwhelming.

  Still, I had some ideas. If I placed the check-in table at a different location than the main party area, I could encourage guests to travel through a couple of the exhibits in small groups on their way to the main hall. From there, they could mingle and socialize, with carefully chosen groups invited at specific time periods to walk through the new gallery and its paintings. I’d need to do a lot of background research on the attendees to make sure that they were placed in groups intriguing enough to make the guests actually show up for the tours, but if it worked, it could help control the flow of guests and prevent any one area from becoming too overcrowded…

  Eastman returned and plonked a plate down in front of me. “What’s this?” I asked, looking at it.

  “Croissant,” he answered.

  I looked up at him. “Why a croissant?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I gestured to the pastry. “Why’d you choose this for me?”

  He shrugged, looking uncertain. “They’re fancy, aren’t they? I did some reading on your family last night. I figured that you probably didn’t want a bagel or a chocolate bar. Besides, if you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.”

  “You wouldn’t be happier with a donut?” I asked him.

  “Hey.” He waggled a finger at me as he took a sip from the coffee cup in his hand. “That’s cops, not the FBI.”

  “Aren’t you all the same? Lawmen seeking to bring criminals to justice?”

  “I guess so. And speaking of criminals…”

  I winced at how easily I’d let him change the conversational topic. “I asked Sawyer about his past yesterday, and whether he was intending to pull any sort of criminal job at the museum.”

  “And let me guess,” Eastman cut in. “He didn’t give you any specifics and assured you that the job at the Institute of Art is totally on the up-and-up.”

  “Well, yes,” I admitted, a little put out. “But what were you expecting? For him to stroke his handlebar mustache and admit that yes, he’d created a masterful plan for how he’d steal every piece of art out of the museum?”

  Eastman frowned at me. “Sawyer doesn’t have a mustache.”

  “What? You’re missing the point.” I glared at him. How could a man be so straight-laced and unreasonable? I reached out and picked up the croissant, took a big bite out of it.

  “Oh,” said Eastman after a second as I chewed on the flaky pastry. “You were making a joke.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” I said, although I hadn’t fully swallowed my mouthful of croissant yet and it muffled my retort.

  “Sorry,” he said, and my anger ebbed a bit. “I’m a bit distracted with some other stuff.”

  “Want to talk about it?” I offered, once I finally swallowed the bite of pastry.

  He glanced up at me. “It’s not very interesting. Office politics.”

  “Trust me, I could use a distraction right now.” I pushed the binder away from me, flipping it closed. “I’ve got a plan starting to take shape, but it’s going to fall apart if I keep worrying away at it right now. Come on, Mister Lawman, distract me with tales of how the big powerful FBI agents argue with each other as they look down on us mortals.”

  That got a snort out of him. “Right now, the ‘big powerful FBI agents’ are locked in bitter argument over whether an agent should have to pay for damage caused to their official vehicle by negligence.”

  “What? How is that a problem?”

  He groaned. “We’ve got a guy in my office who’s a great agent, excellent detective, but he was last in line when God was handing out driving skills. He’s hit three mailboxes – in the last quarter alone.”

  I tried and failed to cover my laugh. “How?”

  “I wish I could tell you,” Eastman admitted. “Anyway, he backed into the Lamborghini of a banking guy we were watching. We couldn’t let the suspect know that we’re with the FBI, so we’re treating it as a private accident – but that means that this guy is on the hook for damages. He’s insisting that the FBI pick up the tab, but we don’t want to tip off the suspect.”

  “Sounds like a real struggle,” I said, still laughing.

  He laughed along with me. He might be annoyingly straight-laced and unreasonable, but Eastman did have a nice laugh, at least. “Yeah. Not that big a deal in the long term, but it’s making me glad to be out of the office on this surveillance detail.”

  “Are you surveilling me right now?” I asked, reaching for the croissant again.

  He snagged a chunk of the pastry before I could pull it away. “Yup. Don’t confess to any crimes, Alice, or I’ll have to slap the cuffs on you.”

  His use of my name reminded me of my personal situation, and my smile faded. “What about if someone filed a missing persons report on me? Would you have to tell them that you’d found me?”

  “Is this why you wanted me to keep your name out of my reports?” he asked. “Someone is looking for you?”

  I winced. “Not exactly. They might be now.”

  He leaned forward slightly. “Care to explain?”

  “Stop acting like such a cop,” I told him, waving a hand at him. “Come on, I can practically see you drooling over the story here. I’m not guilty of anything.”

  After a second, he straightened up, took a sip of his coffee. “Sorry. Force of habit. After being an agent for so long, it’s kind of instinctual.”

  “How long have you been with the FBI?” I asked, hoping to change the topic onto his past, not mine.

  He smiled slightly. “I’m not letting you get away that easy. You tell me something, I’ll recip
rocate.”

  “We’re negotiating now?”

  His smile grew slightly wider. “You could think of it as plea bargaining, if it helps.”

  “It doesn’t.” I took a deep breath, trying to figure out what I felt comfortable telling Eastman. I didn’t want to share anything, but I probably owed him a little. If I didn’t say anything and stonewalled him, he might just start digging on his own, and he could get the wrong picture if he heard from my family.

  “If you looked up my family,” I said after a minute of silent reflection, “you probably know how much power they have, especially in Chicago. Trust me when I say that they didn’t get that power by being free or trusting to anyone – themselves included. And as much as they tried to control everything outside their family, it was worse growing up with them. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had my mother’s voice in my head. Not praising me or being kind, but snapping at me, telling me to always act properly, never say anything out of turn, always take every advantage possible to seize power in any situation available.”

  “That sounds rough.” Eastman’s eyes seemed softer when I glanced up at him, his posture less aggressive. “So you left?”

  “Just a couple days ago. And it’s been rough so far, and I didn’t plan it out at all, so I’ve probably already screwed everything up.” I fought the urge to just put my head down on the table. I pressed both my palms against my eyes instead. “And I know that my family, my mother especially, isn’t going to let me just walk away. She’ll come searching for me, try to drag me back.”

  I heard the soft scrape of Eastman’s chair on the floor. “She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he said softly.

  “You say that,” I replied, hands still pressed to my eyes, “but that’s not the way the real world works. You should know that. Is everyone who enters a guilty plea actually guilty? Or are they just trying to take the best choice in a situation where it’s impossible for them to win?”

  I felt something warm touch my wrist, pull my hand away from my face. Through the newly uncovered eye, I looked at Eastman, sitting closer to me now. He didn’t say anything, but he wrapped his fingers around my hand. He didn’t squeeze tightly, made it clear that I could pull my hand back if I felt uncomfortable.

  I didn’t pull my hand away. Eastman surely didn’t understand how much influence my family could exert – especially on me – but his quiet support somehow made me feel a bit better. I wasn’t ready to go do cartwheels down the street, but I pulled my other hand away from my face.

  “Things get better,” he said softly. “Trust me on this. I’ve got more experience than you might think.”

  I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I somehow knew that he wasn’t quite ready to share that detail just yet. Instead, I just let him hold my hand for a little longer. “Thank you,” I said softly.

  After another minute, the rest of the world seemed to creep back in on us, popping whatever moment we’d shared. Eastman let go of my hand, sitting back and taking a pull on his coffee as I looked down and brushed a few errant crumbs from the croissant off my pants.

  “Are you going to be working out of here pretty regularly?” Eastman finally asked.

  I glanced around at the interior of the Bean Scene café. I’d come back because the coffee sold at the Institute’s snack shop was atrocious, but I liked the atmosphere here. “I think so,” I said. “I like working somewhere that has lots of people bustling about. It makes me feel like I’m a bee, right in the middle of a hive of productivity. It’s nice.”

  He nodded. “I like it, too,” he said. “Look, I can’t keep pulling constant surveillance on Sawyer.”

  “Okay.” Why did I feel a little let down to hear that? Was I so desperate for friendship that I felt a connection to this FBI agent, who was probably just doing his job and trying to catch a criminal?

  “But,” Eastman continued after a breath, “it would be good for me to talk with someone on the inside, someone who’s very close to Sawyer and can watch him more effectively than I can.”

  “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Perhaps two or three times a week, I could come join you here for coffee, and you could let me know if there are any concerning developments?”

  The yes was already forming on my lips, but I held back. “You pay for the coffee,” I bargained.

  “Fine.”

  “And the croissants.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Fine.”

  “And I want immunity.”

  That pushed him too far. “For what?” he snapped.

  I beamed back, immensely enjoying pushing his buttons. “I haven’t decided yet. Come on, Agent Eastman, lighten up! Should I start calling you Jackson?”

  “Even my mother doesn’t call me Jackson half the time,” he sighed. “Look, I’ll see you here on Tuesday, three PM. Deal?”

  “What if there’s a crazy new development before then?”

  He rolled his eyes, but fished out a business card. “Here. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency. This is my work line.”

  I took the card, watched him get up and leave the café. Before he was out the door, I had my phone out, thumbs flying over the screen.

  Outside the café, I saw Eastman pause and fish out his phone as it chirped at him. He frowned at the smiley face I’d sent him, and then looked up through the window, back at me. I waited for him to glare or scowl.

  He did neither. Instead, he flicked his eyes both directions, as if making sure no one else was watching – and then, incredibly, stuck his tongue out at me!

  I gasped in shock. His face was back to its normal grumpiness in a heartbeat, and he briskly turned and walked away.

  A minute later, my phone buzzed. I looked down at his reply to my text message.

  “No one will ever believe you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  Over the next couple of weeks, my life began to return to some semblance of normal. I fell into a routine that I wore comfortably. I’d get up each morning, freshen up in the small bathroom next to my room, and get a ride over to the Institute of Arts with Sawyer. Sometimes, he’d stick around. Other times, he dropped me off and then departed for other destinations, none of which he ever divulged to me. I hoped that Eastman had someone else keeping tabs on Sawyer instead of just relying on my reports.

  I’d convinced Rudy to hire a staffing firm after I confronted him with an ultimatum – he could either have most of the ideas he listed in brainstorming, or he could use the normal museum staff. “There’s no way,” I insisted, “for you to have it both ways.”

  He balked a bit at the cost, but finally acquiesced when I told him that, overall, this would end up saving money because he wouldn’t have to pay the museum staff overtime to stay late. He wrote a check, which I traded to Sawyer for a credit card, and I now had a corporate account!

  If you’d asked me previously whether my life experiences gave me any relevant job skills, I might have laughed at you. How could growing up as a pampered and sheltered daughter of a rich, powerful, controlling family give me any sort of useful experience for a real-life job? The very thought would have seemed ridiculous.

  But now, thrown into a real-life job I’d never considered, I found quickly that I exhibited a surprising grip on some of the needed skills. I knew how to tell the difference between an expensive bit of décor and a cheap imitation – and when an imitation was close enough to the real thing to pass muster. I knew what color combinations were considered passé, and which flowers to select for the season. I knew which drinks belonged on the gala’s menu and which ones belonged in a dive bar. I knew how to choose a caterer, based on a covert assessment of their staff – I’d heard my mother deliver cutting insults to enough quivering, browbeaten waiters to spot potential concerns when considering who to hire.

  And bit by bit, accompanied by frequent consultations of the calendar I’d printed off, along with the occasional furt
ive dive into “Event Planning for Dummies” that I’d purchased from a local Barnes & Noble with a bit of my first week’s earnings from Sawyer, the party came together. I still didn’t have everything handled, but I had a caterer, a staffing agency bringing waiters, bartenders, and security, and a five-piece string quintet.

  The professional side of my life was going well, better than I could remember.

  My life outside of work, however, seemed to grow more chaotic by the day.

  The control I felt at work started disintegrating from the moment I climbed into the passenger seat of Sawyer’s fancy car and he turned to grin at me. “What’s for dinner tonight, chef?” he’d ask, smirking as I struggled to answer.

  The truth, I’d discovered ruefully, was that I’m not nearly as good at cooking as I naively expected.

  How hard could it be? That had been my original line of reasoning. After all, I heard from my less affluent friends, although we had something far more tenuous than a real friendship, that they’d been forced to cook for themselves during their college years. They made it sound like a grueling ordeal, but I’d tuned in to the occasional cooking show while working out in our private gym (my mother always teased me about how my “love handles were growing especially chubby” if I skipped a couple workout sessions in a row). On those shows, a smiling hostess effortlessly combined nice, pre-prepared little bowls of ingredients in a pot or pan and, with a smash cut from the camera, produced a perfect plate of food.

  Those Cooking Channel stars, I quickly decided, were monsters wearing human form, intent on tricking women into believing in the illusion that they had any sort of grip on the magic that happened in the kitchen.

  When I first started trying to cook, I picked dishes that sounded unusual or especially tasty. Lobster rolls quickly turned into spaghetti and meatballs, but even that proved surprisingly challenging.

  “And you’re sure that ordering takeout is off the table?” Sawyer asked, his smile entirely absent as he looked down at his plate of food. He poked it with a fork, his frown deepening. “I’m not sure how you managed to get this spaghetti to be rubbery and crunchy at the same time.”