by Emmy Grace
That makes me laugh. “Drop me a pin when he stops, okay?”
“Roger that.”
“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”
“I’m not the one who brought night vision goggles.”
“Hey, you never know when it might be handy to see in the dark. Besides, I worked hard to test those stupid things. Jumped out of a plane and almost got clipped by a falling dead dude. Those babies need to earn their keep.”
“Speaking of tests, I have—”
“Really? You’re going to hit me up with work now?”
“Why not? I’m following Tasty Cakes in the middle of the night, for you, for free. I think the least you can do is hear me out about your job.”
“You make an excellent point, bestest friend in the world.”
I hear her short bark of laughter. “Ha! Brown noser.”
“I will shamelessly own up to that. So what is it?”
“Well, after the absolute disaster of the suit today, I agreed to give you a product that Europe says the big boss personally agreed to have tested.”
“Wow! Sounds shmancy.”
“I think this one’s gonna be pretty cool. I forgot the full name of it, but it’s like an automater type thing.”
“An automater? Is it related in any way to a to-mater?”
I snort.
I think I’m funny, even if no one else agrees.
“Are you ever not thinking about food?”
I take a beat to consider her question. “Not that I’m aware of. Even now, when I think about where Liam might be going, I secretly hope it’s near a burger joint because I’ve been craving a cheeseburger all day.”
“Here’s a good question. Were you thinking about food, even when your head was covered with vomit?”
“Objection! You agreed never to speak of that again.”
“Overruled! I was just helping you think of a time when you might not have been focused on food.”
“You’re in contempt! A thousand lashes for you.”
“I’d take a thousand eyelashes. Could you imagine how they’d make my eyes pop?”
“Regina?”
“Yeah?”
“I think there’s seriously something wrong with us.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re probably right.” She hardly misses a beat. “So you’ll test the automater thingy?”
“Well, if I can’t eat it, I guess I’ll have to test it. I don’t know what else to do with it.”
“Good girl. I’ll bring it over in the morning. Assuming, of course, that we live through the night.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re here.”
“Where’s here?”
“He’s turning into a driveway. It leads to a really big house. It’s even gated. You’ll never get in there.”
I hit the accelerator. “Leave that to me. Just drop me a pin for where you are. And don’t move until I get there.”
“Roger that, Catfish.”
This time, I ignore the catfish thing. My focus has already shifted. I’m like a bloodhound on the trail of a scent, only with less body hair and shorter ears.
I’m coming for you, Liam Dunning. And you won’t even know I’m there.
8
I’m taking the curves like an Indie car driver so it doesn’t take me long to arrive on the street behind Regina. I cut my lights and roll up quietly behind her, and then I cut my engine, too.
I grab the goggles from the passenger seat, and then slide out and creep over to Regina’s window. I knock on the glass. Even though it’s rolled up, I hear her scream and see her grab her chest.
She frowns over at me as the glass whirs down between us. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“I guess I should be happy mine’s only pee then, huh?”
“What?”
“Never mind. So, he went in there?” I nod toward the wrought iron gate and the tall brick wall it’s connected to.
“Yep. He stopped at the little intercom thing and talked to someone inside I guess. A few seconds later, the gate opened and he went through.”
“Okay, I’m going in.” I put my night vision goggles on and snap them down. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
I can see that she’s grinning at me. “Wow, that’s a good look for you.”
“Shut up or I’ll tell you how clear your crows feet are through the color green.”
She gasps and puts her fingertips over the corners of her eyes to cover them. I laugh as I turn to slink off. From behind me, I hear her hiss, “Mean!”
I Mission: Impossible my way over to the gate. I see a camera pointed at the space in front of the intercom. I guess so they can see as well as hear whoever is requesting entrance. I stick to the shadows so I can avoid being spotted by that thing.
As I stare up at the gate, I see that there’s nothing for me to hold or climb onto, so I move on to the wall that’s to the left of the fence. Then back across to the wall on the right.
Not much to hold on either side. This isn’t going to be easy.
I note that I haven’t heard Regina leave yet, so I go back to her car. She’s sitting behind the wheel with her arms crossed over her chest. She looks both bored and smug.
I don’t even get my words out before she says, “You need help getting up there, don’t you?”
“Stop reading my thoughts, Cajun witch woman.”
She opens her door and gets out. “It doesn’t take a mind reader to know that you can’t get in there without help. It’s not supposed to be easy. That’s kinda the point.”
I grab her by the wrist. “Hurry up. You can gloat later. Just get me over that wall.”
“How do you plan to get out once you get in there?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead, but just off the top of my head, I could probably hide in the back of Liam’s truck and sneak out that way.”
In the green haze of night vision, I can read Regina’s expression perfectly. “I’m impressed.” And she looks it.
“Right? I was born to do this.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” she says with a grunt when I hop on her back, piggyback style.
From there, I give her directions. “Okay, move closer to the wall.” She does. “Now turn sideways.” She does. I reach up, but I’m still not close enough to grip that top ledge.
“Lucky, this probably only gained you two inches. You need to try to get up onto my shoulders.”
“Okay, put me down.” She does and I come around to her front. “So, what do I…”? I push her into a bend and try to get my leg up to her shoulders.
“I can’t lift you like that, you dork.” She springs upright like a jack-in-the-box. “You have to climb up on my leg first. Didn’t you ever watch Bring it On?”
“Of course, but it’s not like I took notes.”
Regina gets into a lunge position and pats her thigh. “Put your foot here.” I do. “Now give me your hand.” I do. “Now, like, sort of hop up and onto my shoulders, but don’t—”
I’m already doing it before she gets the “but” out. Unfortunately, I probably should’ve let her finish. I hop and put my foot on Regina’s shoulder, but she’s not ready, so when she tries to straighten, we go wobbling forward, then back, and the next thing I know, I’m in a bush with Regina peering down at me.
“I was going to tell you not to try to stand up until I’m ready.” She’s shaking her head as she helps me out of the shrubbery. “You’re worse with directions than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“It’s a talent,” I say, brushing off debris. “Let’s try again.”
We get into position, but Regina makes me stop. “Wait. Maybe we should get really close to the wall. That way if either of us loses our balance, we can grab onto it.”
“Good idea.”
We shimmy over, closer to the wall, and Regina drops into her lunge. I put my foot on her thigh a
gain and take her hand, but this time I wait. She says, “One, two, three.”
When she says three, I push off the foot I have resting on her thigh and aim to set my other foot on her shoulder, but I put it on her right shoulder instead of over on her left, which means when I stand up, I’m facing the wrong way.
I’m holding onto Regina’s hands with a death grip, and she’s wobbling beside the wall. “Let my hands go. I can’t grab onto the wall with you holding them.”
Regina stumbles forward and backward, then left to right. I’m holding on for dear life and my butt cheeks are clenched so tight my thighs ache. “Hold still! Are you drunk?”
I watch as the wall gets farther and farther away. “You’re going the wrong way!”
“Shut up, I can’t see like you can,” she says, weaving like she did that time she got vertigo from a roller coaster ride. She ran into a wall and busted her nose on our way to the bathroom that day. Beebee made me promise I had nothing to do with it. I told her I’d never get Regina hurt.
Not on purpose, anyway.
Regina turns at the last minute and stumbles right into the wall. Before I can even see it coming, it smacks me square in the face, jamming the night vision goggles into the orbits of my eyes. I yowl in a combination of surprise and pain. Tears immediately start to flow, kind of like when you have to pluck your eyebrows.
Unless you use a faulty automatic eyebrow trimmer like I did not so long ago. That thing painlessly took care of my eyebrows all right, but the result wasn’t exactly what I’d call desirable.
“Regina, stand still before you knock me out up here!” I loud whisper down to her.
“I’m trying. Having you up there is like wearing a giant hyper toddler as a hat.”
“I can’t keep my balance with you weaving all over the place like. You’re like Otis.”
I grin when I hear her say, “Five points for working in an Andy Griffith reference.”
“Score!”
I use what little upper body strength I have to leap/flop toward the top of the wall. The fact that I actually make it is probably a testament to all the training I’ve had flinging myself up onto Liam’s passenger seat. Who knew that was going to be such a workout?
My palms slap down on the ledge, and I pull up with all my might. Every muscle from my waist to the base of my skull screams in unison, but I ignore them and keep pulling because my feet are now dangling in midair. Regina has disappeared.
Before I can panic, I feel something hit the bottoms of my feet and push.
Regina’s hands.
BFF to the rescue.
“Climb, Lucky, climb!” Regina coaches.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
I push off one of her hands and dig the toe of my shoe into the wall, trying to find purchase. It’s brick, so there’s not much to latch onto, but I somehow manage to wedge the inside blade of my right shoe into a grout line and it gives me just the little bit of extra oomph I need to get my belly up onto the wall.
I’m breathing like a woman in labor by the time I straddle it and sit up.
I glance back down at Regina. She’s standing at the base of the wall, looking up in my direction. I’m sure she can’t see me nearly as well as I can see her with my handy dandy night vision.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I whisper down. “I think I sprained my boobs.”
“You can’t sprain a boob, Lucky.”
“I beg to differ. Both mine are saying they’re sprained. I feel like I’ve been milked.”
I hear her snort of laughter.
“Hey, too bad Europe wasn’t here for this. We could say you’re testing the goggles all over again.”
“Europe,” I snarl, and then we both sing a very hushed version of the Final Countdown chorus.
“Hey, Lucky?” Regina says when we’re done.
“What?”
“Do you really have time for this? You’re on top of a security wall. Maybe you should climb down the other side and, I don’t know, snoop. Or whatever it is you’re planning to do.”
“Oh. Right.” I look down on the other side. It’s just grass, but it looks really far away. I lean back over to say one last thing to Regina. “Don’t leave until I’m down on the other side, okay? If I fall and break my skull, you should probably call Liam.”
“Or 911. Hello?”
“It’ll take them too long to get here. He could probably perform field surgery on me in the driveway or something. I think he’s Jason Bourne.”
“Okay, fine. Just hurry up. You’re making me nervous.”
I’m just now making her nervous?
I shimmy over onto my belly and grip the ledge so I can keep a good handle on the wall as I lower my body down the other side. I straighten my arms until I’m dangling as far as I can without snapping my forearms in two. Then I count silently to myself.
One.
Two.
Three.
I tell myself to let go, but I can’t seem to make my fingers do it. What if the ground is still really, really far away? I could snap a femur or break a butt cheek.
I try to peek over my shoulder, but I can’t turn my head enough to see how far away the ground is because of my stupid goggles. But I need to get down there.
I take a few breaths through my mouth and count again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Still nothing.
I hear the low voice of Regina from the other side. “Are you down yet?”
“No.”
“What’s your deal, woman? Get down before they send some vicious guard dogs out here to eat your feet.”
And just like that, my fingers let go.
I hit the ground with a teeth-jarring thud, but nothing breaks, thankfully. I just stumbled back a few steps before I manage to right myself.
Phew.
“I’m over,” I tell Regina. “I’ll call you when I’m out.”
“Don’t get caught. Or eaten.”
“I’ll do my best,” I reply sardonically. Like anyone actually intends to get eaten. I doubt it’s on the bucket list of many sane people.
I pop back into stealth mode and sneak along the edge of the driveway, making my way toward a really impressive house. It’s a three-story beauty with a graceful set of stairs that sweeps from the circular drive toward the double-door entrance. If a house can have an elegant brick moustache, this one does.
I stop beside Liam’s truck and flip up my goggles. Light is shining from the front windows of the house, but it’s dim. It looks to be coming from deep inside the house. Maybe I should go around back.
I pull my goggles back down, noting how sore the area around my eyes is. Regina!
I move quickly around the left side of the house, but a wrought iron fence blocks the way. It matches the security gate out front and surrounds a very nice pool area. It’s almost chest high, though, with points at the top. I won’t be able to climb it as easily.
Not that the wall was easy by any means. But at least it didn’t have the means to impale me.
I scan the length of it as it traverses the back landscape. There’s a bit of a mound toward the rear, right around the big hot tub, and the fence stops on one side of it, then starts back on the other side of it. There are some decorative plants and flowers atop the mound, giving the spa a tropical, grotto feel, but to me it just looks like a way in. I can get through that stuff and down to the hardscape of the pool.
Surely.
I walk around and scramble up the small hill, then pick my way down the other side, trying not to destroy all the vegetation as I go. My goal is to stop about two feet from the hot tub and step onto some big rocks to the left and then hop off onto the paver patio.
It’s a good plan.
A feasible plan.
For anyone except me.
I’m making one of the last steps toward freedom when my foot hits something slippery and shoots out from under me. I bite back a yip as I wo
bble backward and then overcorrect to tip forward. I flail my arms and try to kick my one unstable foot out to the side to steady me. I totter wobble forward and then back, but, in the end, momentum wins.
Like a baby with a giant head, I go careening forward. One foot lands on the edge of the hot tub, my other foot on one of the big rocks, and the rest of my body just keeps going forward.
Right into the pool.
With a not-very-stealthy splash.
I come up sputtering. I tear my goggles off and hold them up out of the water, although it might be a bit late for that now. I cough and gag as I paddle my way to the side of the pool and flop my upper body onto the coping.
When my gasping dies down the tiniest bit, I become aware of other ambient sounds.
One is particularly familiar.
It’s the sound of irritation.
It’s the sound of exasperation.
It’s the sound of Liam.
“What the— Lucky?”
I don’t even bother to look around at him. I just throw up a hand and wave.
Busted.
9
I hear Liam’s footsteps as he rounds the pool to get to me. If steps can sound angry, his do. It’s like his boots are weighted as they smack the bricks.
Weighted with aggravation and hatred.
Okay, maybe not hatred.
At least I hope not.
I think the expression “loaded for bear” would apply here.
Or possibly, in this case, loaded for Lucky.
Considering his ire, Liam is actually fairly gentle when he reaches under my arms and drags me the rest of the way out of the pool. He hauls me all the way up to set me on my feet and then glares down into my face.
I feel like a kindergartner, in trouble with the teacher. No more eating glue for me.
I give him a tentative smile. “Uh, fancy meeting you here.”
He drops his head with a deep, put-upon sigh. “What are you doing here, Lucky?”
“Well, I, uh. Regina, uh. My car is, uh.” His expression gets more and more dubious. My shoulders slump. “Following you.”
“I told you—”
“I know, I know, but admit it. You’re impressed. Not only did I manage to follow you without getting caught, but also I scaled a wall and didn’t get eaten by guard dogs. How awesome am I?”