The Single Lady Spy Series Boxset

by Tara Brown

  “Precisely.” She leaned in and barely spoke when she murmured, “He thinks they're working with Servario. He thinks you were Servario’s demand for working together.”

  My stomach dropped and my voice lowered, “all joking aside, I honestly did just get whored out by the fucking government to the arms dealer who is being blamed for my husband’s fake death? And on the day of my dead husband’s funeral?”

  She nodded against my face. “We think James is still working with Servario. Or maybe even CI. We’re starting to think the shit has been piled on us. Like the mission was a fake too. Something to appease Servario.”

  My skin tingled and my brain worked overtime. Had my husband just agreed to let a criminal have his way with me? Had he let that same criminal take everything away from our family? His children’s food and money? I felt like I was about to burst out of my skin and go in every direction at once. “You got running clothes here?”

  “Upstairs.” She pointed at the ceiling.

  I tugged at the robe and hurried from the kitchen. I took the stairs several at a time. My feet screamed but I didn’t care.

  I burst through the bedroom to find Coop standing in the middle of the floor with his shirt off.

  Cringing, I stopped. “Sorry.” It was hard not to notice the cut of his abs and the thickness of his chest. His arms were veined and bulky. He was strapping and brawny without a shirt on, but still cut nicely enough that he didn’t seem overly huge or too beefy in clothes. I noticed the single round blue and orange tattoo on his right hipbone, the one I’d caught a glimpse of before.

  His eyes met mine with cold blue fury. He strode past me and out the door, leaving me with the smell of his deodorant and the scent that was just him.

  Annoyed, I walked to the duffels and found things I could make into running clothes.

  I strapped on Luce's runners, which were a half-size too big, and headed for the front entrance.

  I slipped out the door and burst like a shot. It wasn't how I ran, fast and furious. I was a distance runner but I was also angry as hell.

  My feet slapped the cement in horrid amounts of pain, but I pushed it.

  The sound of someone else running made me glimpse back to see Coop, and he was gaining on me. His legs were thick and strong. Good for the short spurt. Mine were long and lean. I could carry a distance, he couldn’t. I knew that simply by looking at him. I sprinted ahead and let my stride widen.

  He caught up almost instantly.

  His face was red and angry.

  “You won’t last with me, Coop.” I gasped for air. I loved it.

  He huffed along. “I think I'll surprise you.”

  “I'm older. I’ve got better stamina, built up over time. I've been running for a long time.”

  He grinned. “I got your stamina in spades.” He licked his lips. “I think I could outlast you easy.”

  I laughed. “You're a perve.”

  “I want to hear it. I need to hear about it.”

  “What?”

  “I want to know what happened in the hotel between you two.”

  “No.” My chest tightened. I stopped running and wheezed, putting a hand up. “You don’t.”

  He paced around me with his hands on his hips. “I need it. I need to know.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He grabbed my arms and pulled me in. “You’re different than you were before. I wanna know why.”

  “I’m not different.” I shoved him back.

  “You are.” He continued, “I watched you. I saw it. The mundane, bored-fucking-crazy housewife to that prick, James. Goddamn, Evie. How are you so smart and so clueless at the same time? James never loved you. I saw that the first time I watched all of you.”

  I huffed for air as his angry eyes fought the things he wanted to say. “I saw it right away. You were so lonely and sweet. You did everything for everyone else. When was it ever going to be your turn? They were sucking the life out of you. All three of them just took and took and took. Like leeches.”

  I shoved him harder, letting rage fill me. “It’s called being a parent, dumbass. You make your kids first.” Momma Bear was starting to surface. I put my finger in his face. “YOU wanna know so bad for your fucked-up little game of whoring out bored housewives? Fine. He fucked me. He fucked me on the plane and he fucked me in the hotel. It was fabulous, if you must know. Happy?”

  “No.”

  “You were watching me and my family? That’s fucking creepy.”

  I turned back to the house, but he grabbed my hands and held me tight. “I HAD TO WATCH, IT WAS MY JOB! IT BECAME MY WHOLE LIFE TO WATCH YOURS SUCK! TO WATCH YOU BE SO PERFECT AND SO AMAZING AND GET NOTHING BUT THOSE LITTLE MOMENTS ALONE OR ONE FUCKING NICE WORD FROM YOUR KIDS!”

  I slapped him, hard.

  His eyes lit up as he grabbed my hands. “You feel better?”

  “NO, GODDAMMIT!” I ripped my arms from his and spun around and stalked back to the house.

  How the fuck did a frat boy see so many things I had missed? “Don’t talk about my kids like that,” I muttered, noting the wind being sucked from my sails. An instant pain ripped into my ankle as I lost my balance and went down onto the grass. The fury ended completely with that.

  “Fuck. I wore those stupid six-inch heels without an issue, and now I've twisted my ankle in runners.”

  He plopped onto the grass beside me but was silent for a few minutes as I rubbed my ankle. “You’re different. I can see it,” he finally spoke.

  I sighed it all out, suddenly deflated. “You were right. I was lost in it. I let them get bigger than me, all of them. I’m an extremist. I do everything one-hundred percent. It’s why I quit CI. I could never be a mom and an agent. I need to be the best and I block out one world to be in the other. I don't know how to have balance. Even now, I’m not focusing on my kids.” The words burned me but it was the truth. "You have no idea how much that hurts me, to not think about them day in and out."

  “You can’t hate yourself for having a career and a family. I think the balance comes with time.”

  “Maybe.” I was not taking parenting advice from a man child while my ankle was burning. I lay back on the lawn of the strange house I was in front of and gazed at the desert sky. “Is it ever this blue back home?” I asked, not wanting to discuss any of it anymore. The whole drama was exhausting.

  “Not in Boston. But then again, my home is Hawaii, so it has its moments there.”

  I turned my head. “You’re from Hawaii?”

  He nodded and turned his face to me.

  “Is the symbol on your hip Hawaiian?”

  He seemed to shut it off when he spoke the words, “My little brother drew it for me when he was eight.”

  There was something there he didn't want to talk about so I let him have the last word. The sentence had too many emotions he wanted to stay hidden. Instead, I asked the obvious, “So you think James is alive?”

  “Shit’s happened in the last couple of days that makes no sense, so yeah.”

  I flinched. “You think they traded me for a reason?”

  “I have no idea what. I realized something was up when they let you ride on the plane with him. That’s a huge risk for an agent. But then to make you kill the fat man who, by the way, should have done time for bad things with a fourteen-year-old girl in Havana.”

  “Thank you,” I said, relieved.

  “Then for them to make you stay in the hotel with Servario? Why? For what? To kill Derringer—a lame agent who means nothing to anyone? No, none of this is adding up. Servario isn't going to spill anything to you and you don't know anything about the Burrow. Something else is going on here and they're not telling me what.”

  “No.” My brow knit together. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know. I mean what's so special about you?” he said and paused. I laughed as he backpedaled quickly, “I mean—well, you know, he's like a rich arms dealer and you're—a regular—”

 
; “The word you’re looking for is cougar?” I gave him my most offended expression and shoved him.

  “Yes.” He laughed and pointed. “Admit it.”

  “I already admitted it.” I crossed my arms under my flattened chest. “You're right. He can buy any girl he wants. Why me?—and did James trade me to Servario? I’m not a prostitute. And why is the government in on it?”

  He rolled over and faced me. “What about what James was working on?”

  “No idea.” I shrugged. “You know as well as I do, he never told me shit.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “We’re missing a piece of the puzzle and somehow you're the key.”

  “The key?” I glanced back at the house we were in front of and then back at him. “We need to get off these people’s grass. I would be flipping out if I were them.”

  He laughed and stood, offering me a hand. “How's the foot?”

  “Sucky.”

  He bent down. “Get on.”

  “What?”

  “Get on. Piggyback ride.”

  “No, that's okay,” I replied, brushing myself off, but he backed into me until I wrapped my arms around his thick neck. He lifted me as though I was nothing and carried me.

  “Feels like a camel ride.”

  He chuckled. “Focus. So what kind of gigs did you have as an agent?”

  I closed my eyes and remembered. “We mostly worked the September 11 attacks back then. It was fresh. That was our major goal. Servario was a gunrunner; we focused hard on anyone who was involved in weapons.”

  “Did you uncover anything you shouldn’t have?”

  “No.” I laughed. “I was fresh off the farm. I ran coffees and got into the field for basic shit. I never was a big player, ever.”

  He tapped his fingers against my calves. “Weird. You don’t recall seeing anything and thinking this is weird or anything like that?”

  I shook my head and wrapped my legs and arms tighter, sighing.

  “You enjoy having me between your thighs?” he asked sarcastically.

  "Shut up."

  He peered back. “You know you like it."

  “Yes, you're right." I said sarcastically. "I can't wait to tell all my older-lady cougar friends that I rode on you.”

  “If you want, I can give you something to tell them about.”

  “Stop.” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t do the whole notch on the belt thing, Coop. Wasn’t my thing fifteen years ago and it's not my thing now. I’m not even the person I pretended to be in that hotel. That doesn’t happen to me, ever. You may have been a gigolo in Sweden, not me. I ran coffees and intel.”

  He crossed the street to the safe house and trekked up the driveway. He opened the door and carried me in.

  “You can put me down.” I slapped his shoulder.

  He squatted and let me climb down. I limped to the single couch in the room.

  Luce gave me a nod. “You hurt yourself?”

  “Twisted ankle.”

  She carried in my purse and dropped it in my lap. “This thing has been vibrating so much, I almost stuck it down my pants.”

  Coop grimaced and pressed an ice pack he'd grabbed, on my ankle. I flinched from the cold and opened the stupid wristlet to pull out the phone. “Twelve missed calls.”

  Something silver caught my eye. I’d forgotten I had put it in there. I reached in and clutched it in my fingers. It always made me feel stronger.

  “What's that?” Luce asked.

  I opened my palm and ran my thumb across the engraving. “It’s a locket from my dad for graduation.”

  “What's it say?” She smiled sweetly, making her face light instead of intense.

  I beamed back. “It's his grad date and mine. We both graduated from Fort Huachuca, thirty-five years apart.”

  “Yeah? Cool. Your old man was well known. He ran some crazy ops back in the day. The Cold War had to be awesome.” She sat on the folding chair across from me.

  “Yup. He worked a lot during the Cold War.” My level of pride for the man was immeasurable.

  Coop leaned his head in. “You want me to help you with your shower?”

  “No.” I was about to throw my shoe at him, but he winked and scratched his head almost like he was signalling me.

  “Come on. I don't bite.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.” The house must’ve been full of bugs. I slipped the locket around my neck.

  He came and picked me up in his arms. “You can't walk to the shower with that bum foot.” He grinned.

  Luce chuckled. “You wouldn’t rather my help with the shower, Evie?”

  “Uh yeah.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Pretty sure I would rather it, but apparently I have a disturbing desire to see what he's got going on.” I joked.

  Luce laughed. “You know it’s one of two things, Evie, and neither is a good thing.”

  I laughed.

  “Really?” Coop winced. “And you guys say we're dirty.”

  “Payback. We owe you for the centuries of oppression and abuse,” Luce retorted.

  He climbed the stairs muttering to me, “Do not even get me started on the things you owe me.” He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door without speaking again. He started the shower and turned on the fan.

  I didn’t know what was happening, but he pulled his shirt off and reached for mine, lifting it off. I lifted my arms to cover my bra as he dropped his jogging pants but kept his briefs on.

  He reached forward but I quickly slid my pants down so he wouldn't help. I stepped out of the runners and socks gingerly, noting my ankle was quite swollen, though just twisted. At least it wasn’t a sprain or a break. I stood in only my panties and bra and shivered slightly.

  “It’s no different than a bathing suit, Evie,” he commented as he lifted me up and carried me to the shower, turning on the water. Our skin against each other’s was hot and sweaty. He closed the door and whispered, hovering slightly above my nape, “I was a part of something about your dad once. That locket reminded me of it.”

  “What?” My stomach sank. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed. “I saw files once on a mole op your dad was heading up. The review of the op basically didn’t happen until after he died. They were looking for something. They suspected he’d kept vital information from his reports, purposely. Always the same set of circumstances. Missing scientists and weapons.”

  None of it was about James or me. It was about my dad. I was a pawn. Was that possible? “My dad was a hero. He never betrayed his country. He died for this country.”

  “I didn’t say he was a traitor. I said he kept things from the files purposely. He might’ve been keeping it safe from eyes and ears for a reason. I was new when it happened and, honestly, the locket is the only reason I remember it.”

  “Why the locket?”

  His eyes trailed down my throat to where it rested. He reached and grabbed it between his fingers, grazing the swell of my chest. “There was a receipt for a locket, he bought it a couple weeks before he died, custom made. The surveillance team had seen him go into the specialty shop to buy it. We never found it though. A team was sent to your parents’ house. We searched everything, the safe, the cellar. Nothing was ever found. They were pissed about us not finding it. I remember that. I also remember that James let them conduct a thorough search of your house and nothing turned up there. It was way back in the day. I was brand new. We were interviewed separately afterward, about the things we found and the ways they were handled.” His eyes twinkled. “Weird way to handle a deceased man's effects. Especially when he’s a national hero.”

  I whispered, “You have a photographic memory, don't you?”

  “Yeah. I do and I remember everything like it was yesterday. They took all your dad’s things into custody. Nothing was cleared for your mom to have from his office. We were cataloguing it and boxing it up. Everything was considered suspicious and we were to run all documents through known codes.”

 
; “Codes?” I frowned. “He wasn’t a mole. He was a good spy.” I hugged myself harder. “But I'll admit it was kinda weird he gave the locket to me the week he died. He’d already given me tons of things for graduation and it was years after the fact, so it seemed strange he was giving me this too. But when I saw the dates, I was pretty excited. He came and picked me up in a weird car I’d never seen before, and we drove to a place by the water. We sat in the car in the rain and he gave the locket to me and told me he was glad I was going on leave. He never wanted this life for me. I thought it was because he assumed I couldn’t do it, which hurt.”

  Coop’s eyes burned down on mine. I couldn’t help but pull back and stop the moment we were obviously having. He wiped the water from his face. “Maybe he wanted you safe from it all.”

  “Yeah.” I stared up at him. “Maybe. I think he wanted me out of that life and away from James. At least if I wasn’t at work, I wouldn’t be the laughing stock of the office.”

  He seemed conflicted about things. “We need to run those dates and see if it's some kind of code.”

  A terrible feeling bit into my stomach. “Are my kids safe?” I asked, the nerves filling me.

  “You remember the orders I gave?”

  I nodded, preparing myself for the worst.

  “That was FBI. It wasn’t CIA or military run. I have a friend in the FBI. No one will know where they are. I don’t even know. I gave the orders because Martin's team specializes in mole operations. I wasn’t sure what we were dealing with, and he’s the best. They make the snap decision in the air and the pilots are members of the team. When you wanted them hidden, I had a hunch you knew something was wrong.”

  I finally breathed. “Oh my God. Thank God. You're much better at this than I've been giving you credit for.” The move was smart. It was something my dad would’ve done. He never trusted anyone. I looked up at Coop. “Where are we going?”

  His voice stayed low, “Not a fucking clue. If we leave here and you don’t go back to Servario, we won’t have any help or resources and they'll be hunting us, wanting to bring us in. The people searching for answers in your dad's shit were my bosses, our bosses. They told me not to take you from Servario. I disobeyed a direct order. Until we have some answers, we need to be off grid. This shower is the only place they can’t hear us if we whisper. Not to mention, we probably have about an hour before they arrive here and take us into custody.”