Chapter 6 #2
“No. She does this a lot.” Anjali rolled her eyes. “Like I don’t have anything better to do than listen to her problem-solve out loud.”
“You love it.” Vivian bumped shoulders with Anjali, then at John, and grinned.
Uh-oh. That particular grin meant she was about to take decisive action. Which would excite him if they were at home and half-dressed. But, here, in this context it probably meant her next move involved something risky, like—
“We need to go to Monte Carlo,” Vivian continued. “MacColl said there’s been chatter about auctions in Europe. Wonder if this is related?”
John’s neck tensed. “You planned to work on our honeymoon?”
“No.” Vivian twisted her lips. “Well, some.”
“She’s a workaholic.” Anjali propped her hand on her fist. “We all are.”
Vivian paced Anjali’s living room. “There are lots of eyes at airports.”
The answer was obvious to John. “We could go to the authorities and…”
“No.” Vivian and Anjali shook their heads.
“I’ve got it.” Vivian snapped her fingers. “Smalltimore to the rescue.”
“Another one of your random high school friends?” Anjali asked.
“What can I say? I got along with everyone.” Vivian flipped through her index cards, then punched a number into her burner. “And this person owes me a favor for keeping them out of the drunk tank after our last high school reunion.”
When her phone buzzed, Vivian held up a finger, then answered.
“Hey, Konnie! Glad you called me back. Any chance you’re flying internationally in the next twenty-four hours?”
She paused. Then her face split into a grin.
“Morocco? Tonight? Perfect. Where do I meet you?”
Nothing about the words Morocco and tonight equaled perfect in his opinion.
“Love that you still read comics. See you there.” She hung up and exhaled. “This is better than I hoped. I filed nonofficial travel for Denmark. People might be watching for us in European airports, but not African ones.”
“Us?” He backed away from her. “Jane—”
“Vivian.”
“I can’t run off to another continent with someone whose name I don’t know!”
She winked. “Stick with Gorgeous like usual, and we’ll be golden.”
Yesterday, that wink would’ve made his heart skip a beat. He’d always loved her cheeky confidence when navigating annoying situations with grumpy neighbors, parking inspectors dishing out tickets, or boorish art patrons. But now? When their lives were in danger?
Her confidence was delusional.
“Oh, barf,” Anjali said.
“Don’t be jealous.” She held out her hand, then wiggled her fingers when he didn’t immediately clasp it. “John, please. You’ve got to come with me. You’re not safe here. But I’ll fix it.”
He shifted his weight.
Until three hours ago, he trusted this woman implicitly. This was supposed to be the first day of the rest of their lives together, putting each other first, having each other’s backs. But he couldn’t trust someone who’d lied to him so easily.
Could he?
She had come clean. Plus, Ruckus loved her, and dogs don’t love bad people. His brother adored her too. John’s feelings were an unresolved question mark, but one thing was certain. Whether or not she was delusional, he’d never forgive himself if they parted and something bad happened to her.
“I’ll stick with you for now.”
Vivian dropped her pendant. “Good.”
“If you two are finished, here’s your code.
” Anjali handed the index card to Vivian.
“The README file indicates the code works for all three drives involved. It also says an executable file fires when you enter the code. There’s a self-destruct routine built into it.
Enter the wrong code twice in a row and it’ll wipe the drive. ”
“Noted.” Vivian took the drive back from Anjali.
An urgent knock sounded at the door.
* * *
“Beta,” Anjali’s mom said through the slim gap of the door. “Why are bikes in the garden? And why do you have the security chain up? Do you have a boy in there?”
If Vivian stayed, she’d dissolve into giggles. Anjali was thirty-two as well. Her mother’s vigorous policing of “boys” when her daughter defended democracy on the daily was hilarious.
Anjali flipped her the bird and pointed toward her bedroom. “Bikes, Amma?”
Vivian blew Anjali a kiss, then grabbed John’s hand to guide him to their escape route.
Whoa. The rightness of their joined hands neutralized her giggles.
The last hour caught up with her like a freight train colliding into a wall.
The very real possibility of leaving her, then getting him out of the crossfire, then dissecting the reason they were attacked…
she’d been laser-focused and in her head.
But his simple, warm grip had her back in her body. This—John—was everything she needed, He was her safe harbor, and he said he’d stay with her. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. A spark.
She’d take it.
“Through here,” she whispered as she unlocked the window and climbed outside. John followed. The slow metallic slide of the front door’s chain reached them through the open window. She pulled John down so they’d be out of sight.
“Come in, Amma,” Anjali said in an exaggerated voice. “Want some chai?”
Once the cottage door closed behind Aunty Meena, she and John crouched and circled around to the front, then quietly wheeled their bikes through the gate.
“That’s not the first time you’ve snuck out of her house, is it?”
“I used to crash here after boozy nights blowing off steam.”
John cocked his head. “But you don’t drink much.”
“I’m not a kid anymore. Tough to stay on my toes if I can’t feel my feet.” She shrugged the straps of her bag onto her shoulders. “Ready to roll?”
“Where are we headed?”
“To meet up with a friend and catch our ride to BWI Airport. But first, we need to change.”
They rolled back out to Bethesda proper, then docked their bikes. In an Exxon convenience store, she changed in the bathroom. A sleeveless jumpsuit to catch a lift in a cargo plane to Morocco was a better option than a shredded pantsuit.
She handed John the bathroom key attached to a hubcap, then shopped for durable snacks while he changed.
As she paid for the protein bars with cash, she glanced at the news onscreen.
Nothing about the attack on K Street. Casually she added a giant pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap embroidered with a faded DC flag.
Not entirely inconspicuous, but it would do.
John threw a Twix on the pile. “For when your sugar’s crashing.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Harshness she could take. Easier to push back against his judgment if he acted like an ass. But his kindness would undo her.
“Anything else?” the cashier asked.
“No.” In the small four-pump parking lot, she handed the hat to him, then popped on the sunglasses. “Basic disguise. People mostly pay attention to hair and eyes.”
Their conversation during the walk to the Bethesda North Metro station was muzzled. Too many ears. At Union Station, after a quiet food court lunch, they boarded the MARC train. She busied herself with booking her off-the-grid place in Morocco.
The quiet between them was killing her, but it couldn’t be helped.
How could she be great at her job—well, jobs—and a complete relationship disaster? Undercover government assignments required more than the average amount of trust from a partner. Most officers either married other CIA people or waited until they transferred home to start serious relationships.
That had been her plan when she first joined up.
Run around the world being fabulous and smart, save the country a few times, freeze her eggs at thirty-four, punch out of field work at forty, then boom.
Settle down.
But the universe gave her John about a decade too soon.
For his sake, she should’ve stiff-armed him.
But she’d been swept up in how easy John was compared to the operatives she’d dated over the years.
No brooding dark soul, no middle-of-the-night startles, no quiet disappearances she needed to have faith were work-related missions.
Nope.
John, with his broad shoulders, soft beard, kind laugh, and straightforwardness, was the antidote to her cynicism about a complicated world. Best of all, he wasn’t competing with her. He was a support, not a siphon. She’d learned to be a support for him, too.
Then she’d wrecked it by clinging to agency guidelines like a life raft.
She’d kicked the honesty can so far down the road it had disappeared. John was understandably pissed. She couldn’t ignore the wary look in his eyes as the Lyft they’d caught at BWI Rail Station dropped them at Cosmic Comix.
“This is where Konnie told me to meet them,” Vivian said.
John faced down the life-sized Superman cutout.
He held the door open for her. “Surreal day gets surrealer.”
At the store’s far side, three guys shot the shit.
Vivian’s oldest brother, Brady, was a die-hard comics fan, so she was familiar with these shops and their luscious papery ambience.
Personally, she’d always been drawn to the art.
Comics’ influence in pop and street art, from Roy Lichtenstein to Andy Warhol to KAWS, was undeniable.
Rocksy, too. But she expected that, since—
“Hey, Viv. You brought a friend?” Konnie thrust their bodybuilder arm at John. “Konstantin Sollon. Friends call me Konnie.”
“John Seymour.” They shook hands in a way that tested each other’s strength.
“Rusty, Dave, catch you next week.” Konnie collected their comics stack. “I’m this way.”
As the three of them climbed into the unnecessarily tall Ford truck, Konnie asked, “How do y’all feel about dogs?”
“Love them,” Vivian and John said in unison.
“Wow, did y’all practice that?” Konnie laughed. “The flight manifest just has me and my copilot. I can skirt around passengers by saying you’re escorting an animal, and we have two high-strung Pomeranians on board.”
“We’ll be your dog whisperers,” Vivian said. “No problem.”