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Nine
BY THE TIMEwe made it back to Jack’s house in the city, I was ready for some relief.
Everything about that trip to the country was destabilizing—from the dress I was wearing to the cow attack.
I was not going to love being undercover.
But the team had taken the day to finish outfitting the city house, and so the garage was now set up as an onsite security headquarters. More surveillance cameras were up and operational—mostly outside, around the perimeter, in spots where stalkers were most likely to lurk, supplementing the ones at his back door, the patio, and inside his front hallway.
We wouldn’t be here all the time. He was only threat level yellow, after all. I’d put in a regular, twelve-hour shift and then Jack would be on his own for the night. We’d instruct him, again, to read the handbook and make good choices on his own—and we’d monitor the security cameras for significant movement. Different members of the team would be on call.
All this was standard.
Once we got back to the house, I could fall into my normal role. I changed out of the dress, which somehow felt too fluttery to allow me to do my job right, and back into a pantsuit, and then I stood just outside Jack’s door in the at-ease position. Me and the fiddle-leaf fig.
The plan was this: On normal days in the city with Jack, I would be the primary agent, staying with him wherever he went during my shift. Doghouse was the secondary agent, as backup. And then there was a remote team of Taylor and Amadi doing light remote surveillance—mostly monitoring the cameras.
Kelly wasn’t involved. Glenn had decided the socks with Jack’s face were a dealbreaker.
Robby wasn’t on the team, either. I wouldn’t have expected Glenn to pass up an opportunity to force us to work together. Glenn was a big fan of punishment. Especially if he could mete it out himself.
But it wasn’t my job to question him. No Robby was fine with me.
On the days that Jack and I had to visit his parents, the teams would flip: Taylor and Amadi would be primary agents, doing heavy surveillance remotely with Doghouse, and I would be secondary, a set of eyes and ears on the inside, but mostly just there to not blow my cover.
It goes without saying that I preferred being primary.
I also preferred being able to do my job right.
How exactly was I supposed to compete for London, if all I could do was stand around in a cotton dress?
Being back in town felt good. Standing guard at a front door is not always the most thrilling use of time, but compared to feeling useless while being menaced by cattle, it was surprisingly comforting.
At one point, Jack popped his head out to see if I’d like a cappuccino.
I didn’t meet his eyes. “No, thank you.”
“You sure?”
“Don’t break my concentration.”
Toward the end of my shift, Taylor and Robby showed up at the property to make a few notes on the garden layout.
“What are you doing here?” I said to Robby. “You’re not on this assignment.”
“Everybody’s on this assignment,” Robby said. “This is a team effort. We’re a team.”
“That’s not how it usually works.”
“We don’t usually have clients this famous.”
IT WAS ALMOSTtime for me to punch out, and Taylor and Robby had been gone a while, when I decided to give the surveillance cameras one more check. We had the monitor set up at a makeshift desk, but I didn’t even sit in the rolling chair. I just leaned in to scroll through the camera views—just for a quick all-clear before heading home—when I noticed something on the monitor.
Down in the corner of “Pool 1” camera view I saw what looked like a pants leg and part of a shoe.
All my hackles went up. I enhanced the image to get a better look, and then I adjusted the camera angle to the right.
And that’s when I saw something I never, ever would’ve expected to see.
