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What the...fuck?
My silver scar started to pound and my left hand twitched uncontrollably.
We hadn’t known what we’d find in the box, so Hamid had supplied a good, old-fashioned shoebox. Must have been from his preferred running shoes, because I knew I didn’t wear a man’s size 12. I slid the entire wax sculpture into the shoebox, carefully put my bag over my good shoulder, and banged on the glass door to indicate I was done.
Cole tailed me all the way to the door, obviously trying to get a whiff or sniff or some idea about what had been in the box. Hamid abruptly placed himself between the two of us.
“Back. Off,” Hamid growled.
“Don’t get involved,outsider,” Cole hissed.
“This is neutral ground,” I told Cole. “Don’t make me file a complaint. Remember what job you’re actually doing.”
He growled at me. “I remember.”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice, “Then I’m going to remind you what my last name is. I’m going to remind you why you hate me: because I’m a Mortcombe. And I am certain it would take me ten minutes to find exactly the right person to complain to about how aggressive and hostile you were that my bodyguard felt the need to get between us. Then we’d just watch it all burn down, wouldn’t we?”
“This is why you’rehated,” he hissed.
“You’re here onneutral territory. You’re wearingthatsuit. You want to break an assortment of laws, you go right ahead. Don’t howl when I make you regret it.”
And Iwouldmake them regret it.
Promise Me
The plane glided through the darkness.
I stared out the window. City lights had appeared below, starting in little speckles and proceeding into more densely packed lights. My phone sat on the table. I debated for the ten millionth time that day using it to at least text SterlingI miss you.
But the silence was a cork. A plug in a drain. And once I opened the box, I wouldn’t be able to close it again. As long as I kept the anguish deep, deep down and didn’t give it a voice, I could ignore it. Mostly. Because invariably, as I cast my mind’s eye at it, I saw an empty future so empty broke my resolve into shards.
Patrick came and took my teacup. “We’ll be landing soon.”
Landing? We’d only been in the air four hours. We weren’t even halfway back to Virginia. Hamid folded up his newspaper.
“Hamid,” I said. “Where the hell are we going?”
“We have to make a stop in Seattle, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“Crew change due to duty hour limits. So we’re stopping in Seattle to change flight crews.”
At least it wasn’t something like a gremlin on the wing that might attract a news crew that might plaster my face on the evening news.
We overflew Seattle proper—at least, I guessed it was Seattle proper from the sea of lights—to land at a smaller airport a few miles south of the city. Hamid gathered up his jacket and coat as the plane braked by the terminal. The hull shivered as the engines strapped to it powered down with a soft, whining sigh.
“Ma’am.” Hamid held my black coat.
“We’re not waiting here?” I asked.
“No, ma’am. Turn around will take about ninety minutes. I made arrangements for you to wait somewhere more comfortable.”
“I wish you’d told me.” I didn’t like surprises these days.
“I’m sensitive to the particulars of your situation, ma’am. This is all throughly documented and justified. I will inform you of any future plans down to the detail.”
His way of sayingit’s not in my job description to bother you with the details of how I accomplish the mission. “It won’t go over well if I go back to Virginia and don’t have a precise explanation as to why I made a stop in Seattle.”
