Chapter 12- Lapse #2
“Maybe. If it is, will it get me snuggles and cuddles?”
“Snuggles and cuddles?”
“Yeah, I can't ask for kisses since some ass muncher hit you in that sexy mouth,” he said. “I'm glad you put a bullet in him so I don't have to go track him down and do the same.”
It was then that she smiled. She smiled wide with a lopsided, fat lip grin.
“I was trying to do the stupid math to take him down using the methods that Passion Fruit taught me because he was twice my size. He back handed me so hard, it lifted me off my feet. After that, I shot his ass then punched him in his ugly nose,” Helen said. “I think I broke it.”
“He's alive?”
“Jay, I'm not going to take a life for hitting me in the mouth,” she said, scowling. “I should have shot off his junk that was hanging out of his pants on the ready. Asshole.”
His eyebrows raised. “Are you good?”
“The comedown is hard,” she said.
“What do you need?”
“Just what you did. I love you so much that it scares me sometimes that you see me and get me,” Helen said. “Thanks for allowing the air to breathe before doing or saying anything. You helped me sort through the thoughts in my head and organize the chaos. Jay, I love you.”
“I love you as well,” he said, getting the squishy feeling in his gut.
She smiled at him again. The fat lip hurt, but the swelling was not as pronounced as earlier. “So, how was your day?”
He laughed and began to tell her about the new crop of students.
James, his coworker who liked to fish, was surprised when Mustang had signed up for the father son weekend, not knowing that Jay enjoyed camping or had a son, which he didn't correct.
Helen picked up on it as well. She said nothing, thinking of the unfurnished second bedroom which would be needed as room for the boy, but she wasn't giving up her craft room for anyone.
****
THE WOMAN’S CRAFTINESS needed to be admired.
Donovan arrived in Chicago at the Velvet Bunny Room, surprised to see so many cars in the parking lot in the middle of the day.
Curiosity propelled him to enter the club and pay the fifty-dollar cover charge at the door.
An all you can eat buffet was set up for men during the lunch hour.
He found it distasteful that in one hand a beer bellied bastard held a hot wing and in the other, sat rubbing his junk as a young Hispanic woman shook body parts at him from the stage.
A tracker he’d placed on The Cranberry’s car led him here.
He couldn't fathom why the woman would be at this club or a place like this, and in the parking lot, he didn't see the black Ford Explorer.
He spotted a similar vehicle, but it didn't have Michigan plates.
When he ran the plates on her vehicle, they came back to an unknown Alphabet Agency.
Initially, he didn’t think he'd located the right woman.
He most definitely didn't think his cover story would work to get him in the door of the other woman's house, let alone into her bed, but it did.
Oddly enough, The Cranberry didn't trust him, although she took care of his frostbite and him, in his time of cold weather injury needs. However, he was puzzled.
He'd been hired to track and find the woman, which he did.
It had taken months, and he just happened to have dated a crazy woman who was getting all up in his shit, which made the perfect cover story.
When the Chrysalis presented the pattern of what the woman was doing, spending time in each bowl with the Fruits of the Great Lakes, he logically deduced she would either head to Michigan or Minnesota next.
Michigan dead ended, and he tracked the money of the Sour Grapes to end up on her front door.
Looking at The Cranberry, he thought he'd gotten it wrong. That little, unassuming woman couldn't be a Technician; she didn't even seem like she had the hutzpah to pull a trigger. He was so wrong about her on many levels.
His phone beeped, indicating the tracker was on the move. He would give it at least fifteen minutes of lead time before making a point to follow it to the next stop, but he was also disappointed in himself. He'd messed up.
Sour Grapes’ sheer sexual need distracted him from the task at hand.
The woman Bella, locked in her head, reminded him of his Gran who had dementia.
All of it threw him off, and the morning Sour Grapes had arrived at his assigned man cave door, barely dressed and smelling like she was ready to take the horse for a lathered ride, had also thrown him.
He should have turned her down, but he needed the connection as much as she did.
A ride like that first thing in the morning changed the way a man viewed his day.
It also sidetracked him, and he didn't get a photo of The Cranberry, who said her name was Shenita.
He didn't believe her. Hell, he didn't believe the woman was a Technician until the cyber training started.
She looked at him as if she could see his soul.
The few conversations with her had touched him in a way he hadn't felt in many years.
He found himself actually liking the lady and wanting to get to know her better.
“It was them fucking biscuits,” he said, standing and leaving a ten spot on the table as a tip for the topless waitress and the drink he didn't finish.
The man who had hired him talked about the biscuits his daughter made, taught to her by the Technician no one knew.
Donovan went way back with Kurtzwilde and had done a few jobs for him in Central America finding things the man wanted.
As a skilled tracker, he was like a hound dog with a new scent.
He wouldn't stop until he found what he was searching for, and this time it was the woman.
In his vehicle, he used his phone to follow the red dot to a nice neighborhood with big houses with garages in the rear of the home and large flat driveways.
Domestics arrived via a bus from the main gate of the estates, not being allowed to walk or drive into the community.
The hired help all arrived simultaneously and apparently was escorted out at the same time.
It would take a bit of finesse to get into the neighborhood without credentials to follow the tracker on the vehicle.
He wanted this over. The black lady was nice and smelled wonderful and the soup she had made for him before her departure, he’d nearly drank the pot.
A woman like that could make a man want to come home at night.
Donovan wanted to find her. He wanted another conversation at least to apologize, for what, he was uncertain.
For the oddest reason, when she’d packed and left, he’d taken it personally.
She left because of him. The woman, Sour Grapes, referenced The Cranberry knew what they'd done that morning, and again, he felt ashamed for screwing his host's brains out.
The Cranberry's dismissal of him on the phone also threw him for a loop because she’d determined him to be unworthy.
The Cranberry had judged him to be an unworthy man to spend time in her light, and he felt off about her determination of his value.
A block away from the primary gates, he parked his vehicle.
A truck for repair work arrived, and he hitched a ride into the gated community, riding along, bundled up and hidden in the back.
The tracker was a block away when the truck stopped and he hopped off the back, jogging to the home.
A Land Rover was in the drive with a no necked man behind the wheel.
“Ain't this about a bitch,” Donovan said as Kurtzwilde came out of the front door. He spotted Donovan, and his eyes squinted.
Donovan walked over to the vehicle, scanning the underside to locate the tracker, pulling it off to show it to Kurtzwilde, who didn't seem to understand. He pointed at the tracker and stared at the man he’d hired to find the new fruit in the bowl.
Yes, the Fer de Lance had put out the word to not mess with the woman, but he only wanted a sit down with her. He didn't plan her any harm.
“Donovan, what are you doing at my home? I hired you to do a job,” Kurtzwilde bellowed.
“I did the job and found the fruit,” he said. “However, she is cleverer than I am. I placed this tracker on her vehicle, and she somehow managed to place the tracker on yours.”
Kurtzwilde’s eyes grew wide, “What?”
“Yeah, I tracked her to Minnesota,” he said. “I wasn't sure I had the right woman until she made them damned biscuits you talked about.”
“Well, did you tell her what I wanted, and I needed to speak with her?”
“Didn't get a chance,” Donovan said. “She assessed me, decided I was untrustworthy, and bounced. The burner phone I was going to use to track her was tossed in a trash can in Eau Claire. I followed the tracker I placed on her vehicle to your club in Chicago. She must have spotted you and placed the damned thing on your vehicle. She is something, I must say.”
Kurtzwilde didn't like it. The woman kept giving him the slip. “Well, do you have a photo of her, a handle, a name? Anything I can go on to get to her?”
“Her handle is The Cranberry. The name she told me was Shenita, but I don't think that's the name she's using now.
I didn't get a photo of her, but she is tall, thin, African American, all natural, and if I must say, lovely to look at.
The mass of hair is hers, none of those silly caterpillar eyelashes or acrylic nails.
She is a coffee snob and made us a pot of coffee before she left that I have dreams about.
Each time she wasn't working, she had a book in hand to read. She enjoys thrillers and murder mysteries. I do recall her commenting on the author not knowing how to handle a dead body, but other than that, I have nothing on her.”
He watched Kurtzwilde’s face go white. Donovan asked Kurtzwilde if he was okay and the man shook his head no. Kurtzwilde realized that the woman he was looking for to have a conversation, he'd already met.
“I've met her,” Kurtzwilde said. “She walked in that coffee shop big as day, sat at the table with me, and chatted like we were old fucking friends. I just paid you to find her so I could sit down to have a chat with her, and I already have. Don't this just beat all?”
“You met her and didn't know it was her?”
Michael Kurtzwilde was seldom surprised by people.
The Cranberry was changing his mind. She’d had coffee with him, found out what he wanted, and now he simply had to wait to see if she would come through.
He also found himself impressed with the woman.
She'd put one over on the third best tracker in America and brought the man to his front door, trussed up like a Christmas ham, making them both appear foolish for their efforts.
“What's next?” Donovan asked. “Do you want me to still go after her, locate the woman, and let her know you want a conversation?”
Kurtzwilde thought of the last tracker the Chrysalis had hired who’d located the woman. He’d found her, and evidently it went sideways. The man had packed up everything and hadn't been heard from again. He figured they'd better leave well enough alone.
“Not a damned thing is next. She's made her point. I had my conversation with her,” he said, thinking that if she came through, he was going to retire like he promised.
His next step would be to start closing his books.
He had the feeling she was going to grant his wish.
The rest of what the wily woman would do, he planned to sit back and watch.
He was no longer a threat to her; however, Swallowtail and Hornworm were going to be on her radar. Michael Kurtzwilde felt sorry for them.