2. Unkillable
unkillable
Mirren
“No, Sir. I completely understand.”
“If it ever happens again...” Brody Daxton’s threat dangles, and I plop my forehead into my hand before remembering the call is on camera. So unprofessional.
Lifting my head and spearing him with my gaze, I vow, “It will never happen again.”
He knows me. He knows how serious I take my word. And my job.
“It will never happen again,” I repeat as much to him as to myself. “And I respectfully request I never be assigned with June Jones again.”
Daxton chokes back his laugh. “Noted. I’ll do what I can, Jones. Keep me posted.” The screen blanks without the courtesy of a goodbye.
The alphabet agencies don’t do courtesy or formality. We work. We dig. We extricate threats and make this world safe… for those who deserve it. And even sometimes for those who don’t.
Cartoon me drops her head to the table and beats it like a proverbial wall. Real me expels an exhale that could blow the house down.
My mother… I was right. She left a mess for me to clean up. But fuck if she didn’t get the suspect—all without blowing her cover or mine, or risking anything or anyone we love.
And that’s part of the problem. She’s so damn good at this. The woman is brutally efficient, lethal in the extreme, and appears the picture of southern civility. Tall, thin, and lithe, she moves gracefully in most situations.
Then there’s me. Short, stacked with muscle, and fit, but I’d never be confused with something as feminine as being called lithe.
Mom’s ballet. I’m beach volleyball.
She’s slippery. I’m sticky.
She’s yoga on the pier. And I’m… mud runs.
I’ve never been accused of being quiet, mindful, or Zen. I am, however, a woman who will outwork everyone in the room. Tenacious might as well be my middle name. And since I have no middle name, I’ll claim it.
A ding brings me back to the present.
A new rental, this time for a week, will arrive around lunchtime. Strider Anderson. What kind of name is that?
My little cottage is already clean and ready. I’ve taken to living in the apartment above the garage as a matter of habit. It’s the reason I’m working at the small oak dining table that was once a circle and is now a half-moon mounted against the kitchen wall.
Small is fine. I was accustomed to the barracks when I was in the Army. When I bought the house, it was so airy I found myself living in one room at a time, never fully spreading out. Occupational hazard, I guess.
And, as weird as this sounds for someone who qualified with pistols and rifles, who has hand-to-hand combat experience, spent time in the sandbox and who knows that South Alabama isn’t that, it feels easier to defend.
It is. One entrance and exit. Five windows.
One fireman’s pole in the closet no one knows I installed that drops right into the garage “bathroom,” just in case.
And it’s mine. The walls are a buttery yellow that radiates sunshine and threatens happiness on rainy days. My bedroom is the same with a verdant green and some white. Add a few unkillable plants, and it’s practically homey.
Unkillable is imperative with my job. Not that Mom wouldn’t come water them, but she’ll nose around at the same time and that’s got its own problems.
I set my computer to search for my new renter and run downstairs to double check everything at the house prior to the person taking occupancy.
The smell of lemon and lavender greets me as I enter. I pop on a couple of lights and start the ceiling fans to get the air moving. There’s nothing worse than musky, closed-up-house smell when your livelihood rises and falls on reviews.
And to my brothers—all five of them—this is my livelihood. The young, though not helpless, baby sister who stretches dollars and pinches pennies to keep her house.
It’s not like I can tell them I’m a spy. Or an operative if we’re being technical. Nor can I mention I rake in what they do in their lines of work. A sly grin hits my lips.
Besides, if they know, I’ll never get the cheap labor of a guilty brother doing repairs for me.
And they’ll expect back-up for their terrible decisions.
They have it anyway, but that’s only because watching them fumble is hysterical and the best entertainment money can’t buy, not because it’s coerced or expected.
They don’t know I’m a badass. A badass with a bum right knee and a paid-for house. But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
Strider
Fairhope’s charm can’t be overstated. Nor can the cottage as the listing referred to it. It’s no cottage. Aside from white paint, the wrap-around porch, and the flowers stubbornly reaching for the sky, nothing about this home is a cottage.
It’s a two-story revival with gleaming windows and no hint of the green, mossy mildew that seems to have a life of its own down here. The lawn is manicured and pristine and invites a visitor to come a bit closer.
Retraining my eyes on my phone, I pull up the Airbnb message.
Welcome to the cottage. We’re ready for your arrival and are pleased you’re staying with us.
A QR code on the console table in the foyer will give you more details about the home and some things to do around Fairhope.
We genuinely hope your stay with us is the easiest and best part of your trip. The door code is 779325. Welcome!
The pale blue of the porch’s ceiling washes everything in a cool hue as I input the code and enter my home away from home for the next week, dropping my bag in the foyer.
Yeah, cottage is a misnomer. This place is bright, airy, and modern, all the while keeping the elements that make me think of those spreads in Southern Living.
Don’t judge me. Too many days off of school growing up means I learned to cook, I can fix most things around the house, and that I read almost anything I could get my hands on.
When that wasn’t books, it was magazines my mom had lying around.
Besides, that particular one has some dessert recipes Mom would whip up, master, and even go so far as to improve upon.
I won’t brag, but I’ve got skills in the kitchen. Not to mention my early-iteration feminist mother felt if it was good enough for me, it was good enough for her daughters. And vice versa. So she didn’t teach them anything she wouldn’t teach me.
Some kids spent their sick days watching “The Price is Right” and drinking Sprite. That was not my childhood.
I also wasn’t that kind of sick.
Sliding a hand across the marble kitchen island, I wonder what it would be like to have a place like this.
A huge, open floor plan. Natural sunlight chasing shadows cast from the limbs of the old oak trees across the wood-plank floors.
Maybe a child or two, sitting atop bar stools doing homework, asking questions I have no idea how to answer.
More so, I wonder about this house in particular.
The first time I visited Fairhope was nine years ago. I came after a hurricane when neighborhoods were throttled and infrastructure was decimated. The call went out that all available tradespeople were needed.
That was me. That is me.
I run Electric Peoria now, but Dad founded the company before I was born on respect and honor. That looked like knowing the operation from every aspect. My bachelor’s degree in business took five years because Dad insisted I work.
And by work, I mean pull wire, join the union, learn what it takes to be an electrician, first residentially, then commercially. I worked when I wasn’t in classes and then worked some more.
I wanted to be carefree, to go on trips, date casually… to be a normal kid. Instead, I learned. Now, I’m thankful. Back then I hated it.
When you consider what my youngest sister did schooling-wise, I think I had it easy.
But this house called to me when I was here. In the handful of times I’ve been here since, I’ve driven by, trying to picture inside. The old real estate listings were sketchy. When I saw it on Airbnb, there was no way I’d book anywhere else.
It’s always been the house that got away, even if I wasn’t chasing it. Seriously, one hundred and twenty years old, and two flights and a rental car away from home—it’s not like it’s within reach anyway.
I’m apparently getting sappy in my old age.
Sliding my glasses off my face, I wipe my eyes and replace the frames.
I wander the house, wondering first about the cooling requirements with the windows and the solar load.
It’s an occupational hazard. The energy demands must be substantial, especially in the summer.
More so, it almost grates how comfortable I am here. As if my mind conjured the perfect living space and placed it at my feet. Living space. If only it weren’t eight hundred plus miles away from my job, Mom and Dad, my—
My what? Is that all I have? A job and my parents? My sisters flew the coop. My dating life is non-existent. Sure, it’s convenient-ish to world-class doctors in Chicago and St. Louis less than two hours away, and my high school buddies. And, yeah, there’s the running club, but…
I stare out the front door, through the lead-pane glass, past the porch, and into nothingness. Is my life that empty? Just a nine-to-five, Sunday dinners with the fam, and an occasional beer with a high school friend?
It’s a good job, and a good family, and decent beer with good friends, but damn.
I find the QR code and scan it, perusing the scads of data provided.
There’s a restaurant downtown that’s only a mile’s walk or so and the name is intriguing.
After looking at their menu, walking is a must. Down-home cooking with Creole and Cajun recipes means more butter than I typically consume, but the menu is mouthwatering and the name is great. Fat Bottom Grill, here I come.