by Amy Vansant
Charlotte chuckled. “With her, probably literally.”
“How about you? The cloned phone is huge. Anything else?”
“Tilly hooked me up with everything we need.”
Seamus had closed his eyes, his hands crossed over his belly. Cormac sat studying Gryph’s phone like a child with a new toy. Feeling Charlotte’s eyes on him, he glanced up.
“Has she used her phone? Do we know this works?”
Charlotte nodded. “She used it twice on my way over here. Her assistant called to let her know she has a flight booked tomorrow morning at eight forty-five. I haven’t had the chance to look up the gate but that will be easy enough.”
“You got a flight number? Did she say what airport she’s leaving from?”
“She mentioned the flight number and I matched it with the leaving and arrival times to find the airline. She’s leaving Buenos Aires to come here.”
Cormac grimaced. “It’s tempting to have her picked up there, but no. We need to catch her in the act, and better to get her on American soil to avoid complications.”
Charlotte perked. “Oh, that reminds me. We need eyes on her from the moment she steps off the plane, which means we need to buy tickets to get to her gate.”
Cormac nodded. “Not like the good old days when you could roam wherever you wanted in an airport. I’ll send some men.”
Charlotte shook her head. “She’ll spot FBI a mile away. We don’t want her on her toes.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yup. I have two women perfect for the job. Jamie will spot them within seconds of getting off the plane.”
Cormac’s brow knit. “You just said I couldn’t send in my men because they’d be spotted.”
“Yes, but spotting agents and spotting two doddering old ladies inspire very different reactions. Jamie’s not stupid. She knows this could be a trap. If she sees my ladies, she’ll think I’m trying to trap her. She’ll laugh to think I’d try. If she spots guys talking into earpieces...whole different ballgame.”
Cormac sniffed. “Hm. I don’t love the idea of using civilians. How will your spotters be spotted? You’re going to have them wave at her?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll just tell them not to be spotted and it’ll happen naturally.” Charlotte smirked. “Plus Jamie might recognize one or both of them by sight. I don’t know how much she’s researched my friends while planning to slaughter them all. Either way, she’ll know they aren’t a real threat.”
Cormac stood and thrust his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground as if in thought. “And we have someone to bug her?”
Declan groaned. “Don’t say bug.”
Charlotte chuckled, nodding. “Once the spotters see her, they’ll notify Pandora, who’ll drop the tracker on her.”
“Who’s Pandora?”
“My pickpocket. She’ll tag her without her knowing.”
“You have a personal pickpocket now?” asked Declan.
Charlotte grinned. “I think I do.”
“Why not just have Pandora meet her at the gate? Tag her there?” asked Cormac.
“Even with a disguise, Jamie might recognize Pandora—she’s one of her witness protection clients. Better to have Pandora do her thing at the pickup curb where it’s busy and she can move away quickly. Plus, by then, Jamie will have spotted the two women following her and think she’s already one step ahead.”
A rattling snore ripped from Seamus’ gaping mouth and Cormac kicked his foot. Seamus opened his eyes with a snort.
“Huh? What? Did I miss something?”
Cormac shook his head and returned his attention to Charlotte. “You said Jamie made two calls?”
“She made a call to someone asking for what sounded like a Barrett? He said he could get it for her on this side. I assume he meant this side of her flight.”
Declan’s chin lifted. “A Barrett?”
Charlotte nodded. “I think so. That call was a little hard to hear. You know what that means?”
Declan grimaced. “It’s a sniper rifle.”
“Did you catch a name? The number’s on the phone?” asked Cormac, picking the cloned phone off the table again.
“The number should be on there.”
“I’ll run it through the system and see if it’s a known arms dealer.”
The phone in Cormac’s hand rang and everyone straightened, except Seamus, who had fallen back to sleep, a thin line of drool slowly rolling from his mouth.
Charlotte jumped to her feet and showed Cormac where to tap on the listening app. Cormac hit the speaker and a woman asked if the recipient of the call was willing to accept a call from prison. The woman on the other end of the line agreed.
“Hello?”
“Stephanie,” lipped Declan. Charlotte nodded.
“So you’re free?” asked a new voice. Charlotte recognized it as Jamie.
“No. I mean, soon. They, uh, caught someone else I think,” said Stephanie, stammering.
“Really? Well, that’s good. I guess Charlotte did her job.”
“I guess.”
“I thought I’d come see you.”
“Why?”
“I’m your mother. I need a reason?”
“You’re my mother. You do need a reason.”
Jamie ignored the comment. “I have something for you.”
“What?”
“Something that should help you going forward. In case they don’t have someone else to pin this on.”
“What?”
“You’ll see when I get there.”
Stephanie sighed. “Fine. It’s not like I can stop you.”
“You know that big fountain outside the Baptist church down the road from your office?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s meet there. I’ll bring a little lunch for us. It will be a nice picnic spot.”
Stephanie barked a flat laugh. “You want to have a picnic with me?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Fine. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. I already have a flight scheduled.”
“Okay.”
Stephanie hung up and the line went dead.
Declan chewed at his lip, looking as if his mind had packed up and taken a vacation.
“What are you thinking?” asked Charlotte.
His gaze snapped to hers. “There’s an office park not far from that fountain Jamie mentioned. The one building is tall.”
“Tall enough for Jamie to snipe from?” asked Cormac.
Declan nodded. “It would be perfect.”
“So this is it. We know where Jamie’s going to be at one o’clock tomorrow. She’ll be on that roof.”
Charlotte lowered herself back on to the edge of her seat. “And even if you have trouble pinning Jamie to her other crimes, you’ll have her on the attempted murder of her daughter.”
Cormac grinned. “Exactly.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Wait. I need to get an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel.” Mariska veered away from Darla’s side and headed for the airport kiosk.
“Now? You have to eat now?”
“My blood sugar is low.”
Darla clucked her tongue. “You don’t have blood sugar problems.”
“Yes I do. And who knows if her plane will come in on time. We could starve to death waiting for her. She’s coming in from Mexico.”
Darla’s expression pinched. “I think Charlotte said her flight was coming from Buenos Aires.”
Mariska nodded. “Right.”
“But you said Mexico.”
“Same thing.”
“I think Buenos Aires is in South America somewhere. Our tickets are to Rio de Janeiro. I think this is the South American wing of the airport.”
Mariska paid the woman and took her pretzel. “Right. Mexico.”
“Give me some of that.” Darla tore a hunk of the pretzel for herself as they continued to Jamie’s gate.
“I should punch her in the nose,” sa
id Mariska.
“Who?”
“This Jamie person.”
“We’re supposed to be sneaky for Charlotte’s plan. Punching the woman in the nose as she’s stepping off the plane wouldn’t be very sneaky.”
Mariska took a bite of her pretzel. “I know. We will be sneaky. But after what she did to Bob and me—kidnapping us from our homes in the middle of the night...”
“You’re right. You should punch her in the nose.”
“I should.”
“But we have to stick to the plan.”
“I know.”
“We—” Darla spotted another kiosk. “Hey, do you want some lemonade?”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll probably get thirsty from the salt on the pretzel.”
“Does this have salt on it? Or just sugar?”
“Both, I think. We’ll get thirsty either way.”
The women veered toward the kiosk covered with images of dancing lemons and ordered their drinks.
“They have lots of good stuff in airports. We should come here more often,” said Darla, poking a straw into her drink.
They headed toward Jamie’s gate again, both sipping in silence.
“This is it,” said Mariska as they grew close.
Darla surveyed the area, searching for an inconspicuous place to settle camp. “Let’s sit over there across the hall. We can still see where they’ll be deboarding, but we won’t be too close.”
Mariska followed where she pointed and nodded her approval. “Good idea.”
They wandered to a large bank of empty chairs and sat down.
“I have to pee,” said Mariska the moment her tush hit the seat.
Darla looked at her watch. “You better hurry. She’s going to be here soon.”
Mariska stood and tottered back down the hall. Darla looked over her shoulder at Jamie’s gate feeling nervous butterflies dancing in her tummy. Would they recognize her? Would she be wearing a disguise?
Darla slapped her leg and let out a groan.
A disguise. We should have worn a disguise.
How could she have missed a chance to wear a disguise? She’d been looking for a chance to wear the blonde wig she bought for Halloween three years ago. Stupid.
Darla spotted Mariska returning with another woman in tow.
“Is that your friend?” said the other woman, pointing at Darla as they neared.
What fresh hell is this? Weirdos seemed to gravitate to Mariska and this lady didn’t look like the brightest bulb on the tree. She wore one tall white and one short red sock beneath the bells of her flapping blue pants.
“Come sit with us,” Darla heard Mariska say.
Darla groaned. “What’s going on? Who’s your friend?” she asked, with what she hoped was enough strain in her voice to make it clear to Mariska she shouldn’t be involving random women in their spy operation.
Mariska didn’t seem to notice. “This is Mindy. She’s from Detroit. I met her in the bathroom. We think her grandmother and my grandmother might have known each other.”
“No kidding. Hi, Mindy.”
“Hello to you.”
Mindy sat across from them and ruffled through her purse. Darla leaned as Mariska took a seat beside her.
“What are you doing?” she whispered through gritted teeth.
“If there are three of us, we won’t look so much like us,” whispered Mariska. She tapped her temple with a bright pink ceramic nail. “Pretty sneaky.”
Darla rolled her eyes.
Mindy pulled her phone from her purse.
“I’ll show you my crafts,” Mindy announced as if they were in for a treat. She flipped through the photos on her phone, thrusting out the screen for Darla and Mariska to glimpse every third or fourth photo.
“I made this vase for my granddaughter. You can see the glitter on it. She likes flowers. I painted it purple because purple’s her favorite color.”
Darla nodded and glanced over her shoulder. Jamie’s plane had arrived at the gate.
“These are placemats I made by weaving together recycled plastic,” said Mindy so loudly Darla’s head jerked back in time to have a phone thrust toward her nose. Her eyes crossed trying to see the photo on the screen. “I cut them from clothes-washing bottles mostly. Some soap and some softeners, but you can use anything and it helps save the environment.”
Darla glared at Mariska but Mariska refused to make eye contact with her.
Even you know what you’ve done.
Mindy clearly had decided she didn’t want her new friends to miss any of her photos. She held the screen toward them as she flipped through, her nails clicking on the glass as she tapped and slid photo after photo.
“That’s outside my house where we were digging a new septic system. That’s my daughter-in-law, that’s me and my favorite horse, that’s my Maltese when I painted her pink with food coloring for an Easter party, that’s the duck pond when it froze over—”
Darla saw a flash of red slide by. “Was that blood?”
“Hm? Oh...” Mindy flipped back a few photos to what looked like a scene from a horror movie. “We slaughter our own pigs at the farm.”
Mariska gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “I thought you lived in Detroit.
“Just outside the city. It’s a working farm.”
“For the love of—” Darla pulled her gaze away and noticed the woman at the counter in front of Jamie’s gate was changing the city of departure behind her to Bogata.
“Something wrong. It says Bogata.”
Mariska followed her gaze. “I think that’s in Africa. I’ll go check.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Darla standing quickly. “You stay here with Mindy.”
“Did I show you my Imperial Shitzu?” asked Mindy.
Darla strode across the hallway to the woman at the desk.
“Is the plane from Buenos Aires still coming in here?”
The woman shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, they’re coming in at gate twelve now.”
Darla checked the gate number on the wall behind the woman.
“But this is gate forty-eight.”
“Yes. They moved the flight.”
“But how far away is twelve?”
The woman smiled. “Oh. It’s pretty far. Maybe an eight minute walk?”
Darla gasped. “Which direction?”
The woman pointed back the way they had come. “That way.”
“Is it still on time?”
“It came in about five minutes ago.”
“Holy—” Darla heard a little scream escape from her lips and covered her mouth to stop it.
We’re going to ruin Charlotte’s whole plan.
She turned and saw Mariska still looking at Mindy’s phone.
No. Not us. Mindy and her phone scrapbook from hell is ruining Charlotte’s whole plan.
Darla walked as fast as she could back to Mariska. She could hear Mindy flipping through photos as she approached.
Tic tic tic.
“They changed the gate,” she said, grabbing her purse.
“What?”
“They changed the gate. She’s coming in at gate twelve and the plane’s already been there five minutes.”
Mariska yipped and began rocking back and forth until she’d revved enough momentum to propel herself from the chair.
“We have to go, Mindy. I hope you have a nice trip.”
Mindy frowned. “You have to go? That’s a shame. I didn’t get to show you our chicken coop.”
“I don’t want to see your damn slaughtered chickens,” said Darla breaking into a jog.
“Slow down! I can’t walk as fast as you,” called Mariska.
Darla turned to see Mariska trailing behind her and motioned for her to hurry.
“You’re going to have to walk faster. We’re going to miss her.”
“I can’t!”
Frantic, Darla twirled like a whirling dervish, searching for a way to move Mariska faster. As if an
swering a prayer, a man appeared in the hallway before her, driving a small motorized cart. He parked beside her, nearly clipping her hip as she spun. Lumbering from the cart’s torn plastic seat, he made his way on bowed legs toward a woman who appeared to be waiting for him at one of the gates.
The cart remained beside her.
Key in the ignition.
Unattended.
“Cart,” she said, grabbing Mariska’s arm as she came up beside her, panting.
Mariska huffed. “Oh good. You got us a driver?”
Darla glanced at her. “Sure. Yep. Get in.”
Mariska moved toward the passenger seat, Darla prodding her in the back as she climbed. Once she was secured, Darla ran around the opposite side and hopped in the driver’s seat.
“You’re the driver?” asked Mariska.
“Yep.”
“I don’t understand. Did you rent it? Do you put quarters in it to make it—whoop!”
Darla stomped on the pedal and Mariska flew back with a squeal.
Mariska steadied herself by leaning on Darla’s shoulder. “You’re stealing this,” she hissed.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to get us arrested.”
“Can’t help it. We have to get to gate twelve. Charlotte will never forgive us if we mess this up.”
Darla wove through commuters and vacationers on their way to their gates. The car wouldn’t go very fast but it moved speedily enough that avoiding people unprepared for her approach became a challenge.
A man wearing a large sombrero wandered directly in front of her, and Darla swerved hard to the right, nearly taking out a suitcase rolling at the side of a woman wearing form-fitting running clothes.
“See? Mexico!” said Mariska, pointing at the sombrero as it flew from the man’s head and rolled down the hall.
“Move it! Move aside!” barked Darla.
As they closed in on gate twelve, Darla spotted a woman matching Jamie’s description ahead of them.
“Is that her?” she asked, taking her right hand off the steering wheel long enough to point.
Mariska’s hand appeared from her purse holding the image of Jamie that Charlotte had provided them for identification.
“I can’t tell. Does she look like this?”
Darla glanced at the flapping photo, trying to compare it to the woman ahead of her. There was a scream as a woman dove out of her way and Darla shifted her attention back to driving. In her attempt to avoid the cart, the screaming woman stumbled into a man whose backpack swung from his shoulder and fell to the ground in front of the vehicle.
