6. A Latte of Secrets Brewing
CHAPTER 6
A LATTE OF SECRETS brEWING
DAISY
I don’t know what it is about today that has made all the customers come in at the same time, but there are so many here at once that I don’t even have time to look out at the line. So I don’t even realize that Ollie has come in until I hear his voice telling Nora , “ A medium pumpkin-spiced chai latte, please.” I look over at him and smile. His return smile is so cute.
When I hand the customer before him her drink, Ollie steps into the spot where she had stood, and I grab his cup, drawing a smiley face in the O . This time, I add a pair of sunglasses over the eyes, a fedora on the head, and attempt to draw the shoulders and neck of a trench coat, like the spy emoji, to get him thinking about yesterday again. I had a lot of fun with him, and I’d really like to see him for more than just his morning chai .
“ So ,” I say as I start making his drink, “ I take it you liked the pumpkin-spiced chai yesterday?”
“ I did! It was great. Plus , it feels like the right flavor for this time of year.”
“ I hear it pairs well with clandestine side quests.”
The smile that Ollie tries to hide as our eyes sparkle with the shared knowledge of yesterday is downright adorable. “ I can confirm that it does. Yesterday was a good day for you to recommend I try it.”
“ Speaking of this time of year,” I say, glancing up at him as I put the steam wand into the milk, “the fall festival starts today. Are you going to go?”
“ I was thinking about it. Are you going to go?”
I nod. “ I was thinking about it, too.” I pour the steamed milk into the spiced chai, topping it with froth and sprinkling on spices. Come on, Ollie ! Ask me to join you! I don’t say anything as I finish up his drink and put on the lid, giving him ample time to ask. He doesn’t. He just rubs his thumb in circles over and over against the laptop he’s holding.
When I hand the cup across the counter to him, he grabs hold of it with one of his fingertips slightly over mine. He holds it there for a moment, the cup paused between the two of us, his mouth partly open like he’s about to say something. I am mentally rooting for him so hard! I am a cheerleader, waving my pompoms, calling out, Go Ollie ! Go , go, go, Ollie !
Eventually , he says, “ Thanks ,” and turns to walk over to his normal table.
Maybe “ Go Ollie ” wasn’t the best mental cheer, because that’s exactly what he did. Next time, I’ll have to mentally chant, Come on Ollie , ask me out. I’ll say yes, have no doubt .
Apparently , everyone came early for their coffee this morning because as soon as we get through the huge line of people, we have no one in the line. Which was good, because behind the counter got to be a mess in my hurry to help everyone. Plus , it’s giving me lots of chances to glance at Ollie as I wipe everything down. There is something about this man that has been exciting me in a way I haven’t been in such a long time.
He’s doing something on his computer, looking all studious, and gives his glasses a nudge up. I’ve always wondered what kinds of things are going through his head as he’s working on his laptop or reading a book in the mornings. He’s an accountant—maybe he thinks in numbers the same way I think in words.
I happen to be looking in Ollie’s direction (again) when a man in a suit strolls into the Coffee Loft . He doesn’t come up to the counter to order—he goes straight to Ollie’s table. It’s the same guy who came and sat down at his table yesterday.
Then it hits me—this is the guy! The spy, I mean intelligence operative ! I’m pretty sure Ollie called him Jace . Ooh . He does have a bit of a Pierce Brosnan / 007 quality about him. I watch Ollie to get clues as to how he feels about Jace showing up again today. Several emotions cross his face in rapid succession, and within the first minute of Jace being at his table, I’m pretty sure every emotion has crossed Ollie’s face at least once.
I wish I could hear their conversation. Maybe if I go out to wipe off the empty tables, I can overhear a few things. Oh , but I did that yesterday while Jace was here. Will he suspect that I’m trying to eavesdrop if I do it again today?
Probably so. He’s an intelligence operative, after all. He’s trained to notice things like that. The guy doesn’t have a coffee. Maybe I could make him one and take it over to him. Tell him it’s on the house. A free sample. Pumpkin spice lattes are really popular right now. But they’re also one of those love-it-or-hate-it kinds of things. Maybe a maple cinnamon latte. What’s not to love about those? Actually , he looks like a honey almond latte kind of guy. I could do that.
I’m about to start making it when I see Ollie glance at me before his eyes are back on Jace , and I’m frozen, cleaning cloth in hand, mid-wipe. He’s talking, and I’m sure they’re talking about me. Ollie is probably telling him that I was the other voice Jace heard through the listening device. Hopefully , I didn’t get Ollie into trouble by going with him. I’m betting that it was a secret mission that I didn’t have clearance or whatever to know about .
Then Ollie’s eyes meet mine again, and this time they stay on me as he raises an eyebrow and motions to come over.
“ Nora , I’ll be right back,” I say as I abandon my cleaning cloth, head around to the other side of the counter, and walk to Ollie’s table.
Ollie stands and pulls out one of the chairs at his round table for me, and I take a seat right between him and Jace as he introduces us to each other.
“ So ,” Ollie says, “remember how yesterday you said, ‘ We should do this again sometime,’ and I said that if the opportunity to be a spy arises again I’d let you know?”
I sit up a little straighter. “ Yeah ?”
Ollie motions to Jace , and Jace says, “ Just before five o’clock yesterday, Ollie’s coworker met with the client that we suspect is aiding a terrorist group.”
“ And they met in the records room?” I ask.
“ They did. Thank you for placing the bug.”
I grin at Ollie , and he grins back.
“ From that meeting, we discovered that Ollie’s coworker planted some paperwork inside an older file in the records room that he knew would never get looked at again. Which was smart, because if they were suspected of anything, investigators would only search that client’s file for information, not others. So it’d stay well hidden.”
“ Do you know what is on the papers?” Ollie asks .
“ From their conversation, we have a good idea. We think it’s some original contracts between the client and a shell company that is funding the terrorist organization. The documents contain details about seemingly legitimate transactions that, in fact, are not. Since they’re contracts that may be necessary later, they don’t want them destroyed but they do want them kept in physical form to avoid digital files that could be traced. So they hid them in a place they think is safe.
“ We believe that those contracts contain the name of the shell corporations, bank account details, and maybe even references to individuals that could provide us with some new leads. So we really want a copy of those contracts.”
Ollie leans back in his chair like the air was sucked out of him. “ I can’t believe that Tad is aiding terrorists. I mean, he’s always tearing me down and I know I’ll do an actual happy dance when the day comes that I no longer have to work with him, but still.”
“ It may not all be as it appears when it comes to Tad ,” Jace says. “ Based on some smacking sounds we heard during their meeting, we think that maybe his client is a honey trap.”
“ A what?” Ollie says.
I sit up straighter. “ They were making out in the records room?!” This is getting even more interesting.
Jace nods. “ They weren’t helpful enough to spell out their whole arrangement or anything, but from what we gathered, she told him that she’s divorced, that her ex-husband is a bad man, and that he’s trying to steal her company out from under her. Tad believes he’s helping her funnel money to a trust fund for her daughter.”
“ How can he not know?” Ollie asks. “ He may not be the most brilliant accountant ever, but he should still be able to figure that out.”
Jace shrugs. “ He wouldn’t be the first guy to have his thinking impaired by a beautiful woman who’s willing to make out with him in a records room.” He turns his attention to me. “ I’ve asked Ollie if he will get me a copy of those contracts. He asked me if it’d be okay if I read you in and if you could join him on the mission today.”
“ If you want to,” Ollie says. “ I mean, you don’t have to. But I want you to.”
A smile spreads across my face. Okay , this is a start. It’s not exactly Ollie asking me out, but it’s leaning in that direction. Plus , this will be fun. “ I want to,” I say to Ollie . Then , I turn to Jace . “ What information do you need from me to vet me for this mission, or whatever you need to do?”
“ You’ve already been cleared.”
I narrow my eyes. I saw the look on Ollie’s face when Jace walked in. He wasn’t expecting him, so he likely didn’t talk to Jace at all after our “mission” yesterday. “ How did you clear me? You didn’t even know who I was. You didn’t even know what my voice sounded like yesterday, so you couldn’t have recognized it through the bug.”
“ I’m good at piecing clues together.”
This is starting to sound a little on the sketchy side. I have always been the fun-loving sister. Laurel is always the responsible one. Since Laurel moved, though, I’ve been working on being fun-loving and responsible. And as my new and improved responsible self, I feel the need to check things out more. “ What clues?”
Jace leans back, not fazed at all by my question. “ I could tell by your conversation in the records room that you weren’t an employee. When I was in here yesterday morning, I saw a vibe between you and Ollie . Like you were two teammates who didn’t know they were on the same team yet.
“ I know that you take coffee and pastries to the managers at Pacioli and Blackwell every Wednesday just before their three p.m. meeting. Ollie had a woman unexpectedly start helping him at three-oh-five. It wasn’t hard to piece it together. Or to guess that Ollie would want you to join him again after I asked for his help today.”
Whoa . “ You knew all that?”
“ He’s a secret agent,” Ollie says. “ They know stuff.”
I can see that Jace is trying to keep a straight face. Then , he shrugs. “ Plus , Ollie said your name in surprise when he first saw you outside the records room.”
The guy is giving off a trustworthy vibe, but I’m channeling my sister here. I turn to Ollie . “ Okay , but do you know if this guy is legit? Who does he work for?”
“ That’s classified.”
“ Yeah ,” I say, “or he could be someone looking to do corporate espionage and he’s having us do the dirty work for him.”
Ollie shakes his head. “ He’s not.”
“ How do you know?”
“ Because I know him. And his family.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“ When I was a sophomore and Jace was a senior, we were in the same AP Calculus class. And it was a tough class. The teacher told us to expect that a good ninety percent of all our homework that year would come from her class alone, and she hadn’t been wrong. I don’t know why, but calculus came easy for me, even when it didn’t for anyone else.
“ We weren’t far into the school year when I started tutoring Jace a couple of times a week. After a few weeks, I knew very well exactly how hard the class was for him. We were coming up on finals for that term. It was the last term’s grades that colleges would look at when determining acceptance and scholarships, and Jace told me how vastly important it was to him to get a good grade on the final.
“ Then he got the flu and had to miss class on the day of the final. A couple of days later when he could come back to school, he stayed after to take the test. The teacher had to leave for a few minutes during his test. I was a T.A . for that teacher, and I was in a small office that was connected to her room, doing some work for her. I couldn’t see Jace , and he didn’t know I was in there.
“ Not long after the teacher left, someone Jace knew came into the classroom and must’ve slipped Jace a piece of paper. I heard Jace say, ‘ What’s this?’ The other student, a kid whose voice I recognized as another T.A . for our teacher, said, ‘ Dorsey had me grading the final. I knew you hadn’t taken it yet and needed an A , so I wrote down the answers for you. You’re welcome.’ Then the kid left as quickly as he’d come.
“ I went to the doorway to peek at Jace . He hadn’t even looked at the paper. He just crumpled it into a ball, got up and threw it in the trash, then went back to his seat and did the work. He could’ve cheated. He knew the test was going to be hard and that it might impact college for him. But he didn’t. He didn’t take the easy way out, even when no one was looking. Even when it really mattered and no one would’ve found out.”
My eyes have stayed on Ollie throughout the entire story, even though he’s telling it about Jace . So many kids in high school look up to the school’s sports stars, or the popular students, or the ones who showed the greatest confidence even if they thought they were better than anyone. I love that Ollie looked up to the classmate who showed integrity. It tells me so much about him.
“ You saw that?” Jace asks, sounding bewildered.
Ollie nods. “ Yep . That’s how I know you can be trusted with anything.”
Without taking my eyes off Ollie , I say, “ I’ll do it.”
His smile is one I want to put in my pocket and take with me everywhere.
“ What time do you get off?”
“ Three ,” I say.
A quiet alarm goes off on Ollie’s phone telling him it’s time for him to go to work. I know it is, because my watch buzzes, too. It didn’t take me long to realize that Ollie leaves Coffee Loft every day at the exact same time, so I set my watch alarm so I wouldn’t miss saying goodbye to him. I’m glad that Ollie didn’t notice that my alarm went off, too. I glance at Jace long enough to see that he noticed. Of course, he did. He’s an intelligence operative. He’s supposed to notice things.
“ I don’t want to do the mission until closer to the end of the day,” Ollie says, “because I don’t want to keep stolen documents at my desk a dozen feet from Tad . Can you meet me in the lobby by the elevators at five minutes to five?”
I tell him yes, so we ask Jace what the plan is to get the documents to him. He says that he thinks that the town’s fall festival will be the best place to do the handoff and to meet him by the carousel at 5:45 .
“ But there will be so many people there,” I say. “ Aren’t you worried about them seeing?”
Jace shakes his head. “ Sometimes , the best place to hide is right out in the open.”
Ollie and I both nod, and all three of us stand. Jace thanks us and leaves, and before I head back behind the counter to help Nora with the customers who are starting to get backed up, Ollie gives me a smile that causes a bit of a dimple on his right cheek and gives me a bit of a flutter in my stomach.
Then he takes a deep breath and, seeming a bit unsure, says, “ Do you think we can pull this off?”
“ We absolutely can, teammate,” I say. I don’t know if we can, but I like being able to give him a gift of a bit of confidence.
He smiles at the word “teammate.” Then he picks up his laptop and his pumpkin-spiced chai latte, and says, “ I’ll see you later today, then.”
I stand there, watching, as he walks out the door. As soon as it’s closed, I whisper, “ It’s a date.”