“Isn’t this romantic?” Cole batted his eyelashes at me while I scratched my head with the pencil eraser and tried to wiggle my butt into a more comfortable indentation. Unfortunately thousands of asses before mine had pretty much formed Concourse C’s seats into an endless succession of hemorrhoid triggers.
Ignoring his come-get-me-mama tone, along with the thirty or so people sharing our waiting area misery, I said, “What’s a four letter word for futile?”
“I have no idea. Do you really like crossword puzzles or did you come to Cleveland Hopkins all set to ignore me?”
I dropped the magazine to my lap. “Dude, we’ve got two hours to wait for a ten-hour flight, after which, guess what? We get to drive across London so we can fly some more. What else am I supposed to do with my time?”
The second he began to grin I felt my teeth clench. Jaz, really, you can’t kill him before the mission’s even started. What would Vayl say? Granny May, playing bridge with Jim Henson, William Shakespeare, and some white-wigged lady whose cleavage could’ve doubled as a vase, led with a King of Spades while she waited for my reply.
I considered ignoring her, but talking about Vayl was the closest I’d gotten to him since our last mission. Because he’d taken off for Romania when it ended. In fact, tomorrow when he met us at Gatwick Airport would be the first time I’d seen or spoken to him in over three weeks. And the closer I came to that moment the harder it was to wait. Which was why the crossword book, along with a handful of Sudoku.
I’d love to hear what Vayl would say. In fact, it would almost be worth it to . . .never mind.
Cole had taken my silence for cooperation and begun gathering up our carry-on crap. “I have a surprise for you.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“Sure you do. You’re a girl.” His grin widened. “And a hot one at that.”I felt my lips twitch. Couldn’t help it. When Cole smiled he managed to let you know this moment was the best one he’d had in his life so far, and he was damn glad you were there to share it with him. I grabbed my black pack from his outstretched hand.
“Okay, I’m in. But if this involves mud wrestling, you’re the one wearing the bikini.”
He laughed. “That’s a deal,” he said, draping his arm around my shoulder as he led me away from the faded blue seats and the bored pre-flighters who had no idea they’d been in the company of two of the CIA’s finest assassins.
Part Two
We strolled past Cleveland Brews, the News Connection, an ‘open-air’ restaurant, all of them full of future flyers, most of them bored out of their minds, a couple so damn nervous they couldn’t stray three feet from the bathroom before they had to duck back in for another round with the porcelain. My first clue that Cole had pulled a fast one was when he led me toward a phone kiosk in Concourse D, where a pony-tailed girl wearing a green apron and sensible black shoes stood waiting with a key and that I’d-do-anything-for-you look in her eye.
“Hi, Marie,” said Cole.
Her cheeks went hot pink and she fell back against the partition, her straight brown bangs parting to reveal a fine spray of acne. “Hi Cole.” Oh. My. God. If she slid to the floor, I was just going to leave her there.
Cole said, “Thanks again. I mean, I know your family needs the money, but you’re really putting yourself out there doing this, and that means a lot to me.” If he put any more syrupy sincerity into his voice, I was going on a diet.
“It’s my pleasure.” Yup, I could tell from the Colemania gleam in her eye she’d be fantasizing on this one for a year. In fact, she was already so far gone Cole had to hold out his hand before she remembered to give him the key.
He said, “We’ll be done in an hour.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
“Absolutely.” Cole’s grin actually caused her to close her eyes, as if she was receiving a kiss. We walked away before she opened them again.
When I was sure she couldn’t hear I said, “What is it with you? She’s like a little sponge back there, soaking you in until she’s all gross and squishy.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Girls like me.” He gave my shoulders a light squeeze, just enough to demonstrate that he was sensitive enough to recall I’d recently recovered from a collarbone break. “And I like you. A lot.” Before the moment could get uncomfortable he quickly added, “Which is why I wanted to do something really memorable for our first date.”
“Date?”
I would’ve stopped, but he pulled me forward. “Yeah. Remember? The one you promised me?”
“Uh, of course.” Oh, crap. What am I gonna tell Vayl?
Nothing. All couples have secrets. This could be yours.
He stopped in front of a coffee shop called Monda’s that still had its gate locked across the entries.
“Cole?”
“Surpise!” He stuck the key into the padlock.
“It’s, like, four p.m. Why hasn’t this place opened yet?”
“It’s been doing business all day. Marie just rented it to us for the next hour.”
“The whole store?”
“Coffee machines and all. It’s going to be great. Now you can make yourself that frappuspressolatte
with extra foam like you’ve always wanted.”
“How much did this cost?”
“Don’t worry. I’m writing it off.”
“Pete is going to crap a lung!”
Cole threw open the gate. Grinned at me over his shoulder. “They have muffins.”
My stomach growled. “Blueberry muffins?”
“With this crumbly brown sugar topping—Jaz! Wait for me!”
PART THREE
I don’t know what it was exactly. Probably a caffeine overdose combined with a blueberry/brown sugar high. But twenty minutes later Cole and I were grinning like lunatics as we pretended to leaf through issues of Popular Mechanics at the News Connection while we took turns watching our quarry and then rolling our eyes at each other.
Stalking a perfectly innocent civilian had been my idea. We’d been talking about old cases when, through a mouthful of muffin, I’d said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to follow somebody who doesn’t have a mass murder agenda penciled into their Daily Planner for once?”
And Cole’s eyes had taken on that dastardly twinkle that makes me think he’s walking a little closer to the line between good and evil than he’d like any of us to realize. He’d said, “Why not? And by that I mean, why not now?”
So we’d moved our date from Monda’s serving counter to the security checkpoint, where we’d picked up the most boring tail possible, a pot-bellied man wearing a cheap suit and dark-rimmed glasses. His wedding ring pinched enough that we knew his marriage had outlasted his hair, and his battered suitcases said that he took his wife to Hawaii every Christmas on his frequent flyer miles.
“OMG,” Cole whispered. “Is he actually buying a newspaper? Doesn’t he know people don’t read those anymore?”
“OMG? What are you, a valley girl?”
“I’m just trying to stay hip.”
“Believe me, your hair is all you need.”
Cole started to fluff his do, but he was instantly distracted. “Look! He’s buying two papers! Hasn’t he ever heard of the Internet?”
“Maybe he likes whatchamacallit on his fingertips.”
“You mean . . . ink?”
“Yeah. That. Crap, I can’t think when I’m flying on eighteen ounces of frappuspressolatte.”
“He’s moving.”
“He’s heading to the bathroom. Go after him.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ll bet you twenty bucks he sits down to pee.”
“You’re on.” Cole slithered out of the store, so obviously sneaking that if the guy had been the suspicious type he’d have cut and run by now. Five minutes later he met me in the hallway and slapped twenty bucks into my hand. “You’re amazing.”
I smiled up into those dancing blue eyes and said, “Don’t you forget it.” When he turned serious I wished I could’ve swallowed my words.
“Not for an instant,” he said.
Gulp. Why did we always have to come back around to this moment? The one where I could almost hear his heart cracking? I begged him silently. Don’t make me do this to you.
He said, “We’re a great couple.”
“Not in the right ways.”
He made a growly noise deep in his throat. “Vayl?”
I shrugged. “You don’t know me like he does. You still have this dream of taking me home to share the holidays with your family and—”
“Why not? Why couldn’t stuff like that work for us?”
I stepped closer and threw back my head to stare him in the eye. When I spoke he had to lean down to hear. “One of my first hits after Matt died was the aide to a Cabinet member. She liked pretty things and quickly discovered selling top secret information to the Russians could buy her plenty. An arrest would’ve stirred up way too much controversy. So they called me in. I made her drink a bottle of wine and drowned her in her own pool. She had four kids, Cole. So what I’m telling you is, I’m not the girl you bring home to mama, because if my bosses tell me to kill mama, I will.”
He stared at me for a while. Finally he asked, “Who found her body?”
“The maid.”
“Why her?”
“I arranged for the husband to take the kids out of town.”
He nodded. “See, you do have a heart.”
Yeah, and that was the problem. My ticker was thumping double-time for an undead creature with silk in his voice and fire in his hands. And when I saw him tomorrow it was going to take every bit of restraint I could muster to keep from throwing myself into his arms. I sighed. “Come on, let’s go back to Mondo’s.”
Cole’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t tell me you want more coffee?”
“Nope. I need chocolate.”
The End
- jenniferrardin.com
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