by David Archer
“So we’ll tell them it’s a second honeymoon,” Sarah laughed. “I’m pretty sure Thomas and his family have figured out we aren’t really who we claim to be, and Catherine Potts says they can be trusted to never let any secrets out. We’ll manage, but at least it would be a good setting. We could even hold the wedding there, and say they were reaffirming their vows or something like that.”
Allison looked over at Noah. “Your wife is either as tired as I am, or she’s just naturally giddy. She’s taking this whole idea a lot farther than I had thought it through, and I like her ideas.”
Noah nodded. “I usually like them, myself.”
Both women cracked up laughing, and Sarah decided it was time for everyone to go to bed. She walked Allison to the guestroom, then followed Noah to their own room. They took a quick hot shower together, then climbed into bed and were asleep in minutes.
* * * * *
Sarah called Renée the next morning and included her in, and the three women met for lunch at Charlie’s to start planning. They were all excited, and all were in favor when Sarah suggested they have the shower at her house.
“We’ll just have to get rid of the men,” Renée said. “Tell them they can go fishing or something, that’ll get them out of our hair for a day. Somehow, I don’t know that I could see Marco or Noah at a bridal shower. Neil, maybe, but then he’d find a way to hog all the food for himself, so he has to go, too.”
Sarah laughed. “Noah would sit there and try to figure out what was making us tick,” she said. “That’s what he does when he encounters something new, he analyzes it to see if he can use it to help him blend in better.”
“Okay, okay,” Allison said. “So, when are we doing this? We need to let Jenny know about it, so that she doesn’t have some other plans at the time.”
“The sooner the better,” Sarah said.
“Oh, yeah,” Renée agreed. “I’m thinking this weekend, right?”
“We could do it on Saturday,” Sarah said. “How about Saturday afternoon, right after lunch? I can tell Noah to just take the guys out on the boat, they can do some fishing and bring some beer and just let their hair down.”
The three of them agreed, and they finished up their lunch and went searching for Jenny. When they didn’t find her at the trailer, Sarah took out her phone and called her.
“Hey, girl,” Jenny said as she answered.
“Hey, yourself,” Sarah said. “Where are you? I need to get with you.”
“Well, Neil decided it was time to buy me a ring,” Jenny said, “but he thinks I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know, sometimes, how men can be so dumb. We’re parked three doors down from the jewelry store, and he seems to have forgotten that this truck has rearview mirrors. He went completely across the street and into the drugstore, then watched to see if I was looking before he slipped out and hurried down the block and across the street again to get into the jewelry store. I mean, I know what he is up to, and it’s sweet and all that, but I just hate having to pretend I’m that dumb.”
“Yeah, sometimes we have to, just to save their egos. Listen, how soon can you get free? I’m with Allison and Renée, and we want to kidnap you for a little while.”
“Okay, I guess,” Jenny said. “He just came out of the jewelry store, and is running across the street again. Give me about twenty minutes, and I’ll have him drop me off somewhere. I’ll call you.”
“Okay, we’ll be waiting.”
Sarah hung up the phone and turned to her friends. “This is going to be a blast,” she said.
Jenny called twenty minutes later, and told them to pick her up at the coffee shop downtown. They were already close by, so it only took them a couple of minutes to get there. When she came out and got into the car, she stared at the three of them, because they were staring at her with smiles on their faces.
“So?” Sarah asked. “Did he pop the question yet?”
Jenny grinned. “Not yet,” she said, “but I think he’s about to. I’m sure that’s what he was doing in the jewelry store, and he’s been acting nervous since last night.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty sure he’s going to, as well,” Allison said. “That’s why we’re already planning your bridal shower. He better hurry up, though, because we’re doing it this Saturday.”
“Saturday? Gee, okay,” Jenny said. “Oh, wait a minute, he’s calling.” She put her phone to her ear. “Hey, babe,” she said. She listened for a moment, then looked up at the other three. “Um, Neil wants to know if we can get all of you and your guys to let us take you out to dinner tonight?”
All three of the women started cheering silently, and they all said yes. Neil told Jenny to tell them they should all meet at the Sagebrush Saloon at seven, and that he’d tell her why later.
“Oh my gosh,” Sarah said, “he’s going to do it tonight! That’s the only reason he’d want all of us there, I’m telling you, he’s going to ask her tonight.”
“Okay, then,” Allison said. “It’s Operation We Don’t Know Anything, right? We all pretend to be surprised when he drops to one knee, ’cause the last thing we want to do is ruin this for him.”
* * * * *
Noah and Marco were perfectly okay with going out to dinner, especially since Neil was going to be buying for the first time ever. Sarah and Renée both barely managed to keep quiet about what they expected, so everyone was acting normal when they arrived at the Sagebrush.
The hostess had given them the biggest round table, with plenty of room for all of them. Marco and Renée, Noah and Sarah, Neil and Jenny, and then Allison arrived and everyone was delighted when she brought Molly along.
“Closest I could manage to a date on such short notice,” she said. “I hope it’s all right.”
“Of course it is,” Neil said. He and Molly had become good friends, and often played video games against each other.
They ordered dinner and drinks, and they all just made small talk until the drinks arrived. As soon as they did, however, Neil suddenly got to his feet.
“Okay, I know you all figured I was up to something,” he said with a grin, “so I figured it’s time to end the suspense. All of you know that Jenny and I have become very close over the last—well, I guess it’s going on a year now, right? Anyway, I’ve come to a conclusion and I wanted all of you, our closest friends, to be here for this moment.”
Everyone was smiling, and the smiles only got bigger when Neil Blessing turned to the lovely young woman beside him and got down on one knee. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small box that he opened, and Jenny’s eyes went wide and her mouth flew open when she saw the three beautiful diamonds that adorned the ring he held out to her.
“Jenny Lance,” he said solemnly, “I have come to realize that I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. You have made such a difference in my life, and while we can never know how much time we have to be together, I know that I want to spend every moment of it as deeply connected to you as it is possible to be. Jenny, will you be my wife?”
Jenny Lance, professional assassin, suddenly had tears streaming down both cheeks. She looked at Neil and began nodding, unable to speak, but finally she managed to say, “Yes! Oh, yes!”
The table erupted in applause, and seconds later the rest of the restaurant joined in.
Neil put the ring on her finger and kissed her, and then got back up into his chair. Jenny was busy showing the ring to everyone, and Noah, who was sitting beside Neil, leaned over to him.
“Good job, kid,” he said. “I hope you have a long and happy marriage.”
“Yeah,” Neil said, smiling. “Me, too.”
BOOK 12
UNKNOWN EVIL
PROLOGUE
Early-morning patrols usually left Police Constable Cedric Gilby feeling as if he had outlived his usefulness, and this one was no different. As he walked along the Tower Hamlets streets when the sun was barely even close to peeking over the horizon, the chance of coming across any
real crime was pretty slim.
Occasionally he saw the residual effects of something criminal that happened in the night, but usually, all of the miscreants had finished their mischief long before Cedric was on duty. On this particular morning, he didn’t expect to see anything more criminal than some graffiti, or perhaps a little bit of leftover vandalism from the over exuberant gangs that roamed the streets at night.
And then, of course, there were the occasional drunken sleepers. They would turn up on the side of the street or down an alleyway, sometimes sleeping in somebody’s flower bed. There were a couple of those up ahead, now, and he quickened his pace a bit. It wouldn’t do for Mrs. McGillicuddy to wake up and find delinquents among her roses.
“Oi!” Cedric said, kicking the first of them in the foot. “Get up, time to go home.”
There was no response, so he kicked the foot again. When that still didn’t elicit at least a grumble, he leaned down and grabbed the punk by the arm. A quick tug put him onto his back, and that’s when Cedric saw his face.
If you could call it a face. There was something terribly wrong with it, a dark cast of some sort over the skin around the cheeks and mouth.
“Here, what’s this?” He turned and looked at the second person lying there, and realized that that one had the same dark discoloration. He stared for a moment, stepped back and gathered his thoughts, then took up his personal radio. “Northumberland, twenty-seven. I need some help out here, I’ve got two dead bodies, some sort of discoloration on the faces.”
There was static for moment, and then the dispatcher came back. “Twenty-seven, did you say discoloration on the face?”
“Yes, that’s right. Some sort of dark discoloration on the lower part of the face, on both of them.”
“Twenty-seven, stand by. Twenty-seven, avoid all contact with other persons. Keep everyone away from the bodies and from yourself. What is your location?”
“Um—I’m on Chalgrove Road, where it meets Foyle Road. This is something I ought to be worried about?”
“Twenty-seven, stand by. Someone is on the way to you. Keep everyone away, and don’t get close to anybody.”
Cedric signaled that he would comply with the orders, then stepped away from the bodies a few feet. He looked down at his hands, especially his right hand, which actually touched one of the bodies, and wondered if he had somehow become contaminated.
A siren cut the air, its warbling sending a chill down his spine. Two patrol cars pulled out, followed by an ambulance and another vehicle, the hazardous material vehicle. Two men climbed out of that one wearing what looked like spacesuits, and they approached Cedric carefully.
“Those are the bodies, then?” asked one of the men. “Did you touch them?”
Cedric pointed at the first body. “Yeah, I grabbed his arm to roll him over. Is there something contagious about them?”
“Let’s see your hand,” the man in the spacesuit said. Cedric held it out, and the man sprayed something onto it, then held onto his wrist as he looked carefully at Cedric’s palm. “All right, good, looks like you didn’t come into contact with anything. Do you know if anyone else disturbed them?”
“Not far as I know,” Cedric replied. “Only they were like this when I got here, that’s all I know. Didn’t see anybody about, I just thought they were sleeping it off.”
“Yes, well, they’ll be sleeping this one off for a long time. You see that black stuff? We don’t know what it is yet, but it’s some sort of poison. If you’d gotten any on you, you probably would’ve been dead by the time we got here.”
Cedric looked at his hand, which was glowing pink from the spray the man had put on it. “But this stuff says I’m good, right?”
“Yeah, but I knew that already. Like I said, if you had touched any of it, you would have been dead before we showed up.”
Cedric looked at him, then watched as he and his partner laid out big plastic bags. The two of them picked up the bodies and laid them inside the bags, then sealed them tight with zippers and gaskets. Once they were sealed inside, they loaded them onto gurneys and rolled them into the ambulance. That was when Cedric noticed that even the ambulance attendants were wearing the spacesuits.
The vehicles rolled away and Cedric was left standing there. A constable stepped out of one of the patrol cars and walked up to him. He held out what looked like a surgical mask and motioned for Cedric to put it on.
“We’re supposed to bring you to hospital,” the man said. “You’re to wear that until we get there, and an inspector will be coming to speak to you while you are there.”
Cedric nodded, his eyes wide as he put on the mask. Without another word, he climbed into the back of the patrol car and let them drive him away while he stared out the window at the city rolling by. He wondered what it would be like if he had been exposed to whatever poison had killed those two young men. Would he feel a lot of pain? He tried to remember what the scene had actually looked like, but all he could actually remember was the dark, shadowy discoloration around their faces.
What kind of poison can do that? he wondered. Granted, he was not a real investigator, but there was something about this whole situation that was bothering him. Those lads were probably alive and healthy only a few hours earlier, most likely out gallivanting about and having fun. Could it be something they got into with drugs? Maybe it wasn’t poison after all, maybe it was just some sort of overdose. Surely there could be side effects like that to some of the drugs that were running wild on the street, couldn’t there?
The car pulled up in front of the hospital, and one of the policemen stepped out to open his door for him. He got out of the car and looked at the policeman, who simply pointed toward the door into the Accident and Emergency Department. Cedric nodded and walked through the door, where a nurse seemed to be waiting specifically for him.
“Constable Gilby?”
“Yes, that’s me,” Cedric replied.
“Come this way, please,” the nurse said, “and do not remove your mask until a doctor tells you to.”
“Have I been exposed to something?” Cedric asked as he followed her down a hallway. “Only I’d like to call my wife, if I’m in some sort of danger.”
“We don’t know as yet,” the nurse said. “At the moment, we’re waiting for word from the Medical Examiner as to just what exposure you might’ve had.” She stopped and turned to look at him, her eyes gentle. “Please don’t be alarmed,” she said. “It’s actually most likely that you’ve not been exposed to anything, but we have to take certain precautions. We actually don’t know yet whether we are dealing with a poison or some sort of biological agent.”
“But it was just two lads,” Cedric said. “Couple of Broadwater boys, likely. Who would use a biological agent?”
The nurse stood and looked at him for a moment, then sadly shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s something we haven’t figured out quite yet. The trouble is, there have been a few others who have turned up the same way. The first one was a young lady at Croydon Station, and we didn’t know to take these precautions, then. She had the same discolorations, but everyone who touched her came down with the same symptoms and died within a matter of minutes.” She cocked her head to one side. “How long has it been since you found the bodies?”
“Why, nigh onto an hour and a half, thereabouts,” Cedric said.
The nurse smiled. “Then I can safely say you were not exposed. Believe me, Constable, you would already be showing symptoms if you had. Come along, the doctors are waiting. They’ll just confirm what I’m saying, and you can be on your way.”
The flood of relief that went through Cedric almost knocked him down, but he managed to remain on his feet and follow the nurse. “Oi, I was told to expect a police inspector to meet me here. Is he here yet?”
The nurse glanced over her shoulder and smiled again. “She is,” she said. “She’s waiting with the doctors for you.”
Cedric felt his face turn a little red, because he had nat
urally assumed the inspector would be male. When they entered the examination room, he glanced around and spotted her, and then he felt faint once again.
“Good morning, Cedric,” Inspector Charlotte Winningham said. “You’re just always sticking your foot into something, aren’t you?”
Nervously, Cedric smiled into the face of the woman who had tried repeatedly to get him fired, then remembered that she couldn’t see past the mask. “Well, and it’s not my fault, is it? I was just doing my rounds, just like I was supposed to. Not my fault these blokes decided to drop dead on my beat.”
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m only here to get your statement, in case it’s too late to get it later.”
“Yes, well,” Cedric said, “no worries there. The nurse says I’m likely no danger, or I’d be showing symptoms already.”
Winningham smiled, but Cedric caught the hint of a scowl in it. “How wonderful,” she said dryly. “Then perhaps you could tell me what you saw this morning.”
“What I saw? I saw two dead blokes, and both of them with the skin around the mouth turning gray. At first I thought they were only sleeping, maybe passed out from the night’s revelry, but then I saw they were dead. Soon as I saw that, I called in and that’s when I found out they’d been poisoned or something.”
The inspector looked closely into his eyes. “And you saw nothing to indicate what might’ve happened to them?”
Cedric spread his arms in a gesture of bewilderment. “’S like I told you,” he said. “They were dead when I found them. I don’t know anything else.”
Winningham’s smile had faded away. “No,” she said. “Of course you don’t.” She started to turn away, then stopped and looked back at him. “Don’t discuss this with anyone else without my permission,” she said. “We are keeping this all rather quiet for the moment. It might be less than helpful for your career if the broadsheets were to get any information about it. Do I make myself clear?”