17. Archer
ARCHER
We sat on the runway in the small private jet Sara had arranged for us.
The flight attendant who welcomed us aboard greeted us as Mr .
and Mrs . Young —aliases I assumed Sara had given them so that no flight logs showed our real names.
We had also purchased two one-way bus tickets from Atlanta to Las Vegas under our real names, so that if anyone from the Pagano Family was checking, they would see that purchase.
The flight would get us to Vegas safely and also quickly, so that we could get a few small things taken care of before we were expected to arrive.
After Sara and Vince had left last night, Ace and I had been alone in an awkward silence. I’d wanted to ask her about how all of this informant business came about, but the look on her face clearly showed she didn't want to talk about it.
Axel, Vince , and Sara were also on our flight.
Axel , because I needed someone I could trust to handle hacking, digging up intel, and assisting with the technology side of things while we were in Vegas .
Vince because he wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to assisting the mission.
Sara was here because there would be moments when Ace and I would need to be separated, and I was not about to leave her alone or unprotected.
Sara, while mostly on the managing and operations side of the FBI as a handler, was a fully trained agent and knew how to handle her shit and protect Ace .
Plus , if the Pagano Family had been following her for any length of time now, they would have seen the two of them together and would have assumed they were just friends.
When we boarded, Ace sat by the window, likely hoping Sara would sit next to her, but I quickly sat down beside her, foiling that plan. Instead , Sara sat in front of us, focusing on her phone—likely making sure all her ducks were in a row for when we arrived.
“There are literally half a dozen other seats to choose from,” Ace said, looking at me.
“I’m aware,” I told her. “ I’m sitting exactly where I want to.”
She stared at me, silently questioning why I couldn’t sit somewhere else.
“We’re going to be married again soon. I figured we could practice doing things that other couples do—like sitting next to each other on a plane,” I informed her, giving her a big grin in the process. “ Probably best to keep up appearances.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. I settled in, and she turned to gaze out of the window, likely in an attempt to ignore me. I let it slide because I wanted to go over a few more details in my head before we arrived.
First on the agenda was checking in to our hotel.
We had two rooms—one was the decoy, registered under Archer and Anna Papadopoulos , and would be set up with several hidden cameras to catch if anyone broke in.
The second room was our real room—registered under Percy McLovin —a joke that Sara thought was hilarious.
My old captain of the police department as well as one of Sara’s supervisors would be meeting us at our hotel to get any new information, as well as get updates on our plan.
After that, Ace and I were headed to the chapel.
Despite being divorced for nearly five years, the Pagano Family was under the impression we were still together—hence the hit out on both of us.
So we decided to play into that by renewing our vows.
Vince , as my cousin, would be my best man, and Sara would be Ace’s maid of honor.
The hope was that word would spread to the Pagano Family and they would make a move on what they believed was their territory, while the feds waited for the right moment to catch them in the act.
The plane began to speed down the runway, and we took off. We were merely a hundred feet in the air when I noticed Ace gripping the armrest as though her life depended on it. Her eyes were closed, but I noticed she was starting to breathe quickly.
“You all right?” I asked her.
“Not really, no.”
“You nervous about the plan?”
She sighed and squeezed her eyes even tighter as though in pain. “ I’m not a good flier. Normally , I have to take a gummy or some good anxiety pills to make me a better flier, but Sara advised against it, given the fact that we will need to be on alert the moment we touch down.”
Ahhh. That made more sense. I hadn’t known she didn’t like to fly, but as I was noticing lately, I had a lot more to learn about her.
I loved to fly, so I had no idea how you eased someone who had a fear of such things. I reached over and grabbed her hand, running my thumb over hers softly. I would love nothing more than to distract her with my mouth, but I figured a more G -rated distraction would work better in this situation.
“Tell me something,” I said while still rubbing softly over her thumb. “ If you have to act like a bimbo sometimes to get people to trust you, how does that work with your coworkers? Talia and Dan seem to know you well enough to know if you were putting on an act—at least I think they would.”
She sighed, looking over at me but still fidgeting with her free hand, likely out of nervousness. I was about to try another tactic when she finally spoke up.
“Dan almost caught on once. Sara hooked me up as a speaker for this charity event, but some of them were very shady, and we thought they might not take too kindly to a news anchor hosting, so I convinced Dan to co-host with me. Everybody loves sports, and I intentionally gave him most of the lines to read so it looked like he was the main host and I was just the pretty face next to him.”
I could see people thinking that if they didn’t know her. Ace was very intelligent, but she was also stunningly beautiful, and many people would focus on that and not look deeper.
“People love talking with Dan ,” she continued. “ He’s very unassuming, very charismatic, and I was just a bimbo he brought with him, so people thought nothing of it.”
“I hear that and totally believe it, but I’ve met Dan , and he’s perceptive, so I’d like to think he would catch on to your act,” I told her.
“I spent the first twenty minutes we were at the event getting the information that I needed by chatting with various individuals,” she explained.
“ When I came back to join him, I was carrying a glass of wine with me. I gave him the impression that it was my third glass of wine, so he just assumed my weird behavior was because I was just drunk.”
“But I’m guessing it was your first glass of wine, not your third?” I guessed.
“Actually, it was just grape juice,” she said, and I smiled at her creative flex. “ It’s also why he never fights me anymore when I tell him I don’t wanna drink, because he thinks he’s seen what I’m like when I’m drunk.”
I thought back to his comment at the restaurant after curling about some women not being able to hold their liquor, so it was a good idea that Ace had that rule in place.
“Did you get what you needed to put whoever the bad guys were behind bars?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning to me, and I noticed she had stopped nervously fidgeting.
“ They don’t always give me all the details.
In that particular instance with Dan , it was a fundraising event for an evangelical charity.
They were marketing holy water that could bring you luck and redemption—for a small fee of course. ”
“Why, yes. Of course.”
“The water was supposedly blessed water from the Holy Land but was actually, in fact, tap water from this man’s cabin in Idaho . The same cabin where he was also cooking meth.”
“Wow,” I said, a bit shocked. “ Did not see that twist coming.”
“Same,” she agreed, her phone buzzing in her lap.
It buzzed several more times in quick repetition.
“Is that work?” I asked, assuming that’s what the rapid-fire buzzing was from.
“No, it’s likely my sisters,” she said, swiping open her phone to a text thread marked The Chosen Bunch .
“Clever group name,” I told her.
“Oh, just wait. Gale started it, so this oughta be good.”
She leaned into me, putting her phone between us where we could both read it as she scrolled and responded.
Gale:
I have a question.
Iris:
The answer is no.
Gale:
You don’t even know what the question is!
Cora:
Doesn’t matter. We know you, and the answer is no.
Ace:
The last time you asked a question it was to see if you thought Mom and Auntie would be mad if you bought a peacock for the farm.
Gale:
Peacocks are underrated as pets
Iris:
The answer is still no.
Gale:
I was actually going to see if you all wanted to get together for a girls’ thing, but okay, guess the answer is no.
Cora:
Bullshit. We’ve been trying to get you to do a girls trip for years, and you never want to.
Hazel:
Where did you have in mind?
Iris:
I just moved to Vegas . You could all come here!
The last line had me pausing.
“Your sister lives in Vegas ?”
“Yeah, she just moved there a few months ago for her new job,” Ace replied, though it was not the answer I wanted to hear. “ She finally got her dream position at the National Weather Service office there, but I haven’t been able to visit her yet.”
Oh shit. My stomach sank as I realized we now had a new complication to add to the mix.
“Does Sara know this?” I asked her, though I was guessing she didn’t.
“Umm, I’m not sure. Usually , we just talk about cases and work. I don’t really talk much about personal things. Why ?” she asked at the end, likely picking up on my tension as she started to go alert.
“Sara,” I called out, and she popped her head up and turned to acknowledge me.
“Did you know Ace’s sister, Iris , just moved to Vegas a few months ago and is now working there at the Weather Service ?” I said nothing more because I saw Sara’s eyes and knew she’d realized the same thing I did. Axel and Vince likely did too, since I heard Vince’s curse from beside me.
“What am I missing here?” Ace asked, loud enough for all of us to hear.
“Is her last name O’Hara like yours?” Sara asked.
“Yes, she…” Ace began to answer before stopping as realization set in.
“Then, while it’s a long shot, it’s possible the Pagano Family could make the connection,” Sara pointed out.
“The Paganos were known for using family members as leverage to get what they wanted,” I informed Ace .
“Thankfully, O’Hara is a common enough last name and you look nothing like your sisters, but let me make some calls,” Sara added. “ Bare minimum, I’ll get someone to put eyes and ears on her until we can clear any threat.”
* * *
We had just checked into our room when we were greeted by one face I recognized and one face I didn’t.
Captain Kerrigan —who had aged since I last saw him in person—along with a man named Corey Coleman . He was Sara’s contact in Vegas and would be assisting us with our plans.
Kerrigan informed us that they’d had a couple of men over the years go undercover with the Paganos , but one died, one went missing, and the third hadn’t reported in to his handler in over two weeks.
That could either mean he had also gone missing or the situation got too dangerous for him to check in regularly.
“There’s no safe way to reach out to him?” Ace had asked.
“Technically, he no longer reports to LVPD ,” Kerrigan informed us.
“ Because this family commits a lot of suspected crimes across state lines, the FBI took jurisdiction, so the officer was temporarily given the status of agent, which would allow him more legal cover. But it also means he reports to them now and not us.”
We ran down the two scenarios that we had come up with and got input from both men as to how we should proceed. I took the lead in answering what I thought would be best, especially since I knew Vegas well, having worked the streets here for years.
I heard Ace huff beside me and turned to look at her.
“I can answer for myself, Archer ,” Ace declared, clearly a bit agitated.
I was answering for her, but it was because I knew the captain better than she did, and I wasn’t going to take a chance on someone hurting her.
“I know you can, but I’ve got this,” I replied.
I continued to make a few suggestions to Captain Kerrigan , when Vince interrupted.
“What’s that look on your face for?” Vince asked.
Was he talking to me?
“Oh shit,” Sara said, staring right at Ace , who had a weird grin on her face when I looked up.
“What?” I asked.
“I know that look,” Sara added, continuing to stare at Ace .
“She’s just sitting there quietly smiling,” Vince pointed out, clearly not comprehending what Sara was saying.
“The deadliest mammal on the planet is a silent, smiling woman,” Sara said with a growing grin, and then her voice dipped quieter as though she was simply voicing her inner thoughts out loud. “ Oh , to be a fly on the wall when they’re alone tonight.”
She clapped her hands together and made her voice loud enough for all to hear. “ C’mon , boys. I think we’ve done enough for today. Let’s leave the angsty lovebird newlyweds alone.”
Everyone stood to leave, and Ace spoke up. “ Sara …”
“Nope,” Sara interrupted her. “ You two talk and figure things out. Your second wedding is set to take place in three hours. This plan only works if you two look like you actually like each other. Figure it out. I’ll meet you back here in one hour to go dress shopping.”
Sara walked away, chuckling to herself, as the men followed her out, leaving Ace and me alone in the hotel room.
I had dreamt about having Ace alone in a hotel room with me, and I finally had my chance. But now I’d changed my mind. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anywhere near her with that look on her face and Sara’s cryptic words.