Chapter 3
Thursday, 10:20 a.m., Greene household
W hat was the CIA doing at her house? Her mind reeled with visions of drug cartels, secret codes, and Claire Danes pursuing the truth at any cost in outfits remarkably similar to the women on her doorstep. She had zero clue, less than zero, what the CIA was doing at her house. Had she called Ted Cruz too many times? Everyone she knew did that. He had been her whipping boy throughout the whole divorce.
“Is this about Ted Cruz?”
The short-haired agent flashed a look of confusion.
Duh. Ted Cruz would be a Secret Service issue. Any woman with a buzz cut didn’t have time for Ted Cruz’s bullshit. She had Clint Eastwood energy.
It was something else… All those cheap products she’d been ordering from suspicious websites for almost nothing. Gabby stood back to let the CIA agents enter. “I know I shouldn’t have ordered that face mask.” It was too good to be true—$3.99, made of gold, and shipped from Russia. It was probably made out of plutonium or cocaine. “I have to stop clicking on my Facebook ads.”
Standing in her entryway next to a pile of kid shoes and backpacks, the agent with Clint Eastwood’s stare said, “My name is Agent Alice Strong, and this is Agent Valentina Monroe.”
Agent Monroe didn’t just look like Sofía Vergara, she had a name to match. Gabby loved Modern Family .
Gabby swallowed a lump in her throat and looked directly at Agent Strong. “What is this about?”
Agent Strong glanced around the entryway that led into a comfy living room. “Where can we talk, ma’am?”
Gabby walked toward the kitchen. “If you don’t mind a mess.” She was starting to shake.
Agent Strong stared pointedly at the coffeepot, and Gabby responded, “I’ll get us some coffee.”
She was about to be interrogated by the CIA in her kitchen wearing nothing but a robe with “MOM” emblazoned across the right breast. They hadn’t even asked a single question yet, and she was sweating like she was forty-five minutes into a spin class. A coffee wouldn’t help, but she shoved the pot under the basket of grounds and flicked the red button to ON .
They stared back.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked.
“No thank you.”
The women looked out of place at the table. Agent Strong peered down her nose at Kyle’s biology homework. Agent Monroe sat in front of a large plastic place mat featuring a cheerful map of the United States complete with cartoon Mount Rushmore in the center and a smiling alligator over Florida. “You’re probably used to more detailed maps,” Gabby quipped.
“Please take a seat, ma’am.” They were telling her to sit down in her own kitchen. It hit her, maybe they were here because someone else was in trouble.
“Is it Phil?” Was he some kind of white-collar criminal and she’d never known it? Last time she’d seen him, she’d barely recognized him in skinny jeans, a tight shirt with a flipped-up collar, and a fake tan with a radioactive glow. The divorce was wearing him.
“Relax, ma’am, and take a seat.”
Gabby moved a lunch box off the chair. In the chaos, Kyle had forgotten the leftover ramen she had begged to take. School lunch was fine for Kyle. Lucas not so much. Between all of his allergies and his gluten intolerance, she needed to take a Xanax to let anyone else feed him. The woman who looked like an honest-to-God Bond girl started pushing papers in front of her. “Please sign here.”
Gabby tried to stop shaking, but her signature came out like her grandmother’s, overly careful but still squiggly. “I got syrup on the paper. Does it matter?” The pages were definitely going to stick together.
Bond Girl blew out a breath, clearly exasperated. “Initial here and add your date of birth, please.”
Gabby didn’t have enough time or focus to read any of the documents. She caught glimpses of words: Nondisclosure, National Security, Secrets, Severe Penalties, Punishment, Jail Time.
She looked at their belts for handcuffs and guns. Who was going to take Kyle to horseback riding tonight if they arrested her?
Alice Strong looked like her name, all hard angles with a severe face, the kind of woman who didn’t ever need help opening jars, the kind of woman who probably didn’t even need to open jars because she only ate takeout at her desk.
Gabby looked between them. “I’m sure whatever I did was an accident. I’m very prone to accidents.” They stared back, and she kept going. “Give me a simple task, and I’m bound to turn it into a national security problem.”
As she laughed nervously at her own joke, the women exchanged a look, and Gabby said, “See. I can’t stop putting my foot in my mouth.” All they needed to do was feed her a few details, and she’d confess to anything.
Gabby started straightening up, making piles of paper that should be recycled, just for something to do with her hands.
Loud and slow, Agent Strong explained, “You’re not in any trouble.”
“Yet,” Valentina said sharply.
Agent Strong cautioned the other agent with a look. In a dead-serious tone of voice, she said, “We’re here to offer you a job.” She didn’t appear to be kidding.
Gabby dropped the paper she’d been straightening down on the table. When she saw it was the schematic of all of her flaws, including the distance between her boobs and her navel (4.5 inches), she snatched it back.
“What?” She couldn’t have heard them right.
“The CIA needs your help.”
Hadn’t they noticed her double chin? “You’re kidding.”
Alice Strong looked at Gabby, the same way Gabby looked at the kids when she was at the end of her rope. “Kidding? This is no laughing matter. We need you.”
Gabby had seen movies where the CIA approached genius college students who knew tae kwon do and had brains like supercomputers. Gabby had just burned pancakes. She was eight credits shy of having an English degree she would never get.
The CIA had interrupted her while she was inspecting a mole on her inner thigh and trying to remember the signs of cancer: irregular edges, color variations, growth. Maybe the CIA needed a mom who could solve problems with a ramped-up anxiety level and mastery of WebMD.
“I do need a job,” she said. “I got divorced recently, and you know how that goes.” She looked up to see two blank faces. Alice and Valentina looked like they had no idea what she was talking about. “I was thinking of something at a department store over the holidays, but I guess, if the CIA wants me.”
Agent Monroe looked like she was trying hard not to roll her eyes.
Agent Strong said, “This is serious, Ms. Greene.”
“But really, I don’t understand. Why on earth do you need my help ?” She fingered the corner of Kyle’s biology homework. Kyle had gotten a B minus.
Valentina slid a photograph across the table toward Gabby. “This was Agent Darcy Dagger. We need a replacement for her.”
Gabby didn’t have a sister, but that’s what she would have looked like. They had the same wide-spaced hazel eyes and heart-shaped face. If Gabby had red hair and a better haircut, they could be twins. Although this woman had what Gabby’s grandma would call “a schnoz.”
Gabby could barely focus as Alice went on about facial recognition software. “Facial recognition measures the shape of the face, the distance between features, the similarity of the features themselves, as well as a person’s expressions,” Alice explained. “We did a thorough search of social media profiles to come up with a facial match to Agent Darcy Dagger. Except for the nose, you and Agent Dagger are nearly identical.” Agent Strong scanned Gabby’s face. “You both have that weird little divot in your chin.”
This was surreal.
“The nose isn’t as significant of a difference as it appears. It’s one of the easiest features to disguise. A simple prosthetic will do the trick. A different face shape or smile is much more difficult to hide.”
“You want me to replace Agent Dagger?” Gabby’s world was spinning. She glanced at the clock. Normally she’d be heading to the grocery store or throwing something in the Instant Pot so she could focus on the kids in the evening. Instead the CIA was asking her to replace an agent who did who knows what. In her photo Agent Darcy Dagger looked straight into the camera with a confidence Gabby had never known. Her look said, “I’m ready to save the world, one mission at a time.”
Gabby could make a beer can chicken.
“You’re kidding, right? This is a joke.” If they were still married, she would have suspected Phil. If Alice and Valentina were men, she would expect them to pull off Velcro pants and start singing “Happy Birthday.” Or maybe Ashton Kutcher had started filming Punk’d again. Anything was more likely than the CIA recruiting her.
“What did Agent Dagger even do? Was it hard?”
Agent Strong took a sip of coffee from Gabby’s “World’s Greatest Mom” mug. “Darcy was working undercover to take down a Russian shell company masking itself as an American investment business.”
Shell company—Gabby wasn’t sure if she could use that term in a sentence.
“The company is laundering blood money.”
“When you say ‘blood money,’ you mean someone died?”
“Yes.”
Gabby blinked. The more they talked, the less sense they made.
Agent Strong continued. “They are laundering blood money through the business and sending it back to Russia.”
Gabby tried to put it all together, but it sounded like the two-sentence description of a movie Phil would love. She usually fell asleep or scrolled through social media until she ended up watching a girl slightly older than Kyle give a detailed makeup tutorial. Then she would ping-pong between being upset at the expectations Kyle would have to face and wondering if she should order new mascara.
If she was going to consider working for the CIA—how had that thought even crossed her mind?—she needed to make sure someone was around to help with the kids. Lucas couldn’t make his own after-school snacks yet, and Kyle needed a ride to horseback riding. Bonding with an animal was supposed to help with her self-esteem. Gabby picked up her phone to dial her mom. “Let me just check and see if my mom can come to town and watch the kids after school.”
Valentina reached across the table and grabbed her phone. “Ms. Greene, you don’t understand. You cannot call anyone.”
“What if I can’t find someone to watch the kids?”
Valentina looked her dead in the eye. “Ms. Greene, this is a matter of national security. You absolutely cannot tell anyone anything.”
“But—” These women obviously didn’t understand how difficult it was to find childcare.
Agent Strong leaned forward with her elbows on the table, getting uncomfortably close to Gabby. “If you breathe a word of this, you will be charged with multiple counts of unauthorized disclosure of secrets related to the national defense. I will not hesitate to bring you in.”
“Oh.” She dropped her hands to the breakfast table.
“Can I have an extra day to think?” She didn’t want Kyle and Lucas to grow up without a mom because she joined the CIA on a whim over coffee.
“Yes, but we have to get an agent back in the field as soon as possible.”
Gabby nodded dumbly.
“Lives are at stake, Ms. Greene. We have to move fast.”
Before they left, Gabby thought to ask, “What happened to Darcy?”
With no affect, Agent Strong stated, “She was taken out.”
“Taken where?” Gabby asked.
Alice stared back, not even bothering to answer the question.
Gabby turned over “taken out” in her mind. Could that mean what she thought it meant?
She looked down at the picture of Darcy Dagger. Valentina’s words echoed in her mind: “This was Agent Darcy Dagger.”
Was…
Past tense. Darcy Dagger was dead. Gabby was staring at the face of a woman who had been killed. She hadn’t died in a car accident or of cancer. She’d been “taken out” while serving her country. Gabby’s stomach dropped to the floor next to all the vegetables Lucas had been trying to sneak to the dog.
As tempting as it was, she had to say no. This was not one of those jobs where she could try to massage her résumé to look like a reasonable candidate. Cooking, cleaning, and chauffeuring kids could not be built up into spy credentials. Not to mention, she couldn’t even keep on top of the laundry. How was she going to be an undercover operative? Gabby had two children. She needed to be there to pick them up from school; she needed to be there to watch them grow up. Agents Strong and Monroe could take a chance on her, but Gabby didn’t take chances. She played it safe. It was part of being a good mom.
With her kids in mind, she said, “I’m so sorry, but I have to say no.”
Agent Strong didn’t react, so Gabby kept talking. “Thanks so much for the offer. I would love to, but it’s just not going to work.” She sounded like she was turning down a dinner party invitation.
Agent Monroe looked relieved, but Agent Strong narrowed her gaze and moved a step closer. “Are you interested in the salary?”
She lit up inside. Money—she needed that. “How much is it?”
The corner of Agent Strong’s lips quirked up. Like it was nothing, she said, “A full year’s salary, eighty thousand dollars. Plus benefits. We will pay for the full year, regardless of how long the mission takes.”
The number punched a hole a mile wide in her resolve, but Gabby tried not to let it show on her face. She said, “Okay, I’ll take that into consideration,” which made it sound like she would make a methodical list of pros and cons. In reality, she would probably hyperventilate a little and think, “Holy shit! What do I do?” over and over for an hour before she had to pick her kids up.
Gabby walked them to the door, Mr. Bubbles trotting beside them in his ridiculous bow tie and freshly styled hair, highlighting just how different her world was from theirs.
“Thanks again,” Gabby said, always an accommodating hostess.
Agent Strong simply said, “You have until the end of the day to decide.”