Chapter 6 #3
Sandra leaned back on her arms, making it look like her pregnant belly was a ball pinning her down.
Jana held a tiny little girl with a shock of dark hair sticking straight up in a pink bow, and Melanie gazed out at the playground, watching the kids before, I presumed, she passed the task to me.
All around us stood an assortment of baby gear: Jana’s off-roading stroller; another just like it but bigger that belonged to Sandra; tote bags sprouting spit rags, teething rings, toys that looked like they made obnoxious sounds; our wagon with toys for older kids: balls, buckets, plastic shovels.
We even had a platter with strawberries; something Sandra brought, which looked home baked and crumbly; and little juice boxes.
Once the camp was set, Melanie looked at me expectantly. She nodded at the playground where her children had already tangled themselves on the jungle gym, as if dismissing me to chat with her accomplices.
I would have given anything to dive behind a tree to stay and listen.
I dutifully returned her smile and headed off toward the woodchipped play area where a dozen or so kids flung their bodies at play equipment.
Kaden and Karli both hung upside down from their knees on a metal bar, their faces tomato red and giggling.
I wasn’t sure what to do but followed an instinct and tickled Karli.
She sent a shrill shriek of laughter into the air when I caught sight of a familiar figure in the distance.
Agent Bray stood under a tree next to the playground. In an effort to blend in, he had worn a hat and sunglasses, and I had been right: He looked fantastic in a tight T-shirt.
But still.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“What?” Karli asked, her voice wobbly and hoarse from being upside down.
Bray caught my eye and nodded his head like he wanted to talk.
I shook mine as discreetly as I could and turned my smile back to the kids. “I said you’re like a monkey in a tree.” I attacked her with more tickles and sent her into a giggling tizzy.
“I’m a monkey too!” Kaden bellowed, and I moved my tickling fingers to him.
I spent the next ten minutes climbing in and out of the jungle gym with them, pretending to be a jaguar, because Kaden declared it so.
I felt my phone intermittently buzzing in my pocket throughout those ten minutes and knew Bray was texting me because I could see him tapping his phone across the park.
I was about to grab my phone and text him STOP IT or maybe a string of middle-finger emojis, when my phone began buzzing with the sustained cadence of an incoming call.
I internally rolled my eyes that Bray had graduated from texting to calling—Wallace never would have done either with my targets so close by.
When I looked to the tree to silently scold Bray, he wasn’t there.
Wherever he was, he desperately wanted my attention, and he wasn’t going to stop.
“Be right back, guys,” I said to the kids as I climbed out of the jungle gym and pulled my phone from my pocket. To my shock, it wasn’t Bray calling but Unknown.
Without even waiting for the kids to respond, I strode away from the playground and hid behind a tree to answer the call.
“There you are. What the hell, Wallace? You snatch me out of the middle of a job in New York and send me across the country to this? I know you were born without a sense of humor, but is this some kind of joke? You’ve got me out here playing nanny with the Real Housewives of Del Rio and Agent Paw Patrol trying to micromanage me.
I swear to God, if I have to change one dirty diaper, I’m—”
The call dropped with a telltale boop boop.
“Wallace? Hello?” I frowned at my screen. “Damn it.”
A sharp whistle caught my attention. I looked up to see Bray waving at me from over by the bathrooms. I glanced at the kids to see they had returned to the picnic blanket for snacks. I gave Melanie a wave and gestured toward the bathrooms. She nodded back.
“What are you doing?” I whispered at Bray as I took in the sight of him.
Up close, the T-shirt looked even better.
I saw the vague outline of toned muscles beneath it, and those biceps were on partial display.
I also saw my angry scowl reflected in his aviators, and I gave him an ounce of credit that at least he didn’t have SPECIAL AGENT branded across the front of his hat.
“I’m blending in, like you said.”
“Yes, I see that. But you’re still here. What happened to backing off and letting me handle this? And what the hell are you thinking being a dude in a hat and sunglasses alone in a park full of kids?”
“I—” His face paled and he pulled off the shades. His gray eyes were sharp in the morning light. “You’re right, I totally see that now. But I really need to tell you something.”
“Then tell me, Agent Bray, before someone calls the cops, and we find ourselves in a very complicated situation.”
“Wallace is dead.”
And just like that, the world as I knew it stopped spinning.
“What?”
“I found out this morning. He was found …”
His voice turned into the white noise of a TV with no signal. I didn’t hear anything else he said.
My whole adult life, I had never known a world without Wallace instructing me what to do next. He was the only real relationship I had, the only person who really knew me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
The disbelief suddenly sent me hurtling back to earth like an asteroid as a thought struck me.
“Wait.” I cut off Bray. “That’s impossible. He called me a minute ago.”
Bray stopped talking and gaped at me. “He—he called you?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. When I finally was able to track down the information this morning, I found out he died two days ago. I have a guy on the inside who was able to confirm. There’s no way he just called you.”
A chill hit me like the sunny day turned to a blizzard. “Two days ago?” My mind scrambled to piece together a timeline as Bray nodded.
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I knew you’d want to know.”
The earth seemed to crumble beneath my feet. Two days ago lined up with the night I had left New York. That phone call. Was I the last person he spoke to? An uncomfortable warmth pushed its way up into my eyes and blurred my vision.
“How did he die?”
Bray searched my face, looking pained and like he didn’t want to answer.
“Bray, how did he die?”
“They’re saying heart attack.”
I pictured the man I knew to be in good health. It wouldn’t register. A heart attack? None of it made sense.
I looked down at my phone, confused. “If he’s dead, then who called me?”
We didn’t get the chance to discuss because Sandra Whitley came around the corner holding her little boy by the hand. His face was screwed up like he badly needed the bathroom. “Lauren?”
Bray peeled off around the other corner out of sight. I tried to compose myself, and in failing, slipped into the first lie that came to mind and let myself cry.
“Oh, honey, are you okay?” Sandra asked, her face folding with concern.
I held up my phone and sniffled. “Yeah, sorry. I just got news my uncle passed away.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry to hear that.” Her son danced at her feet, looking like the bathroom was higher priority than his mother’s condolences.
“Thank you. I think I need to head home for the rest of the day. Would you please tell Melanie and Jana I had to run?”
“Of course. Don’t you worry. And again, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Her son pulled her into the bathroom so she couldn’t have said more even if she wanted to.
I wiped my eyes and turned the corner to run straight into Bray’s chest again. This time, he gripped my upper arms so I didn’t lose my balance.
“Whoa there,” he said. “You know, you’re a really good liar.” When I kept my eyes down instead of returning some sass, his voice softened with concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
I looked up at him and fought the tears burning my eyes. We stood under the overhang outside the bathroom, half shielded in shade. Still, the sunny day framed his handsome face and his look of honest sympathy.
“Do you want to, um … Do you want to go get some coffee or something?” he asked.
I had never socially hung out with my handler; it was a surefire way to blow my cover. But I had just lost one of the only people in the world who knew who I really was, and I had never felt so impossibly alone.
“Yeah,” I told Bray. “That would be nice.”