“He won’t let me kick it in the net,” she complained.
“Honey, he’s playing goalie. You are supposed to try to kick it where he can’t catch it. However, you are not supposed to hit him when he does.”
“That’s not fair,” Weather said, adding a foot stomp for effect.
“Actually, it is fair. Those are the rules. If you want to play the game, play by the rules. Otherwise, you can play by yourself or help me by watering the garden.”
Satisfied that her options were thoroughly explained, Weather transformed from disgruntled preschooler to perfect child in a flash. She stuck out her hand and smiled sweetly.
“Can I water the garden, please?”
“Yes, you may.”
Despite the display of manners, Rainey held fast to the nozzle. “Water hose rules: no spraying me, or Danny, or your brothers, or the dog, or anyone. Just spray in the beds where we planted the vegetables Ernie and Henry gave us.” It was best to be specific.
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
An impatient sigh preceded Weather’s, “I promise.”
Rainey made sure the nozzle setting wouldn’t allow Weather to destroy the tender seedlings and then handed the hose over with some trepidation.
Pointing at the raised beds, she said, “Go. Farm. Be one with nature.”
Danny McNally chuckled as he followed Rainey through the backyard.
He commented, “The behavioral analyst in me finds these little developing personalities fascinating. The man in me finds that little girl’s prospects almost chilling. She’ll win her share of battles simply by willing it so.”
Rainey smiled over her shoulder and said, “I’m married to her mother. It’s a shared genetic trait.”
In the outdoor kitchen, Rainey checked the beef ribs on the grill. They had been smoking since early morning. Turkey burgers for the kids waited in the fridge, having been cooked while the coals were glowing hot at sunrise. She made potato salad, coleslaw, and started the baked beans during naptime, finishing just before Danny and his girlfriend, Cathleen, arrived.
As Danny peered over her shoulder into the grill, he said in a horrible attempt at imitating Sir David Attenborough’s naturalist narration, “Look closely at the thoroughly domesticated Rainey Blue Bell in her natural setting. She cooks, she wrangles kids, and she solves cold case crimes in her spare time.”
“What spare time? I have a never-ending stack of cases to review. Sadly, the cold case business is booming. I took the day off because you were coming in and Katie had a full day of meetings after preschool this morning.”
Danny and his girlfriend had flown down from DC earlier in the day. Danny had decided to extend a formal visit into a mini-vacation. An official request had come from the FBI, asking Rainey to interview a prisoner, Chance Hale. She agreed if only to facilitate the BAU getting a crack at the one she let get away. It had been nearly twenty years since Alyson Grayson went missing. The albatross still hung heavy on Rainey, after all these years.
Danny tossed his empty beer bottle in the trashcan and fetched another from the little refrigerator under the bar. “Do you need a cold one?”
Rainey shook her head. “No, I’m good. I have to sip until I’m off kid duty, then I’ll throw a few back with you.”
“I understand. If you don’t mind, I’ll get a head start. I’m trying to wash the DC bullshit out of my throat,” Danny said. “Same reason Cathleen needed a shower. Washington leaves a stench these days.” He stared across the yard into the waning sun and then changed the subject. “They sure are growing up fast. Five years seems like a minute ago.”
Danny engaged in superficial conversation, but his deeper thoughts were elsewhere. Rainey could wait him out. He’d talk when he was ready.
He covered his dark mood with a chuckle and asked, “Which was harder, working at the Bureau or raising kids?”
“The Bureau was less unpredictable than keeping up with three five-year-olds,” Rainey said. “Having Weather in the mix adds a further degree of difficulty. She’s definitely the ringleader when trouble is afoot. Though I observe her corruptive powers over her brothers with more curiosity than concern.”
Danny grinned at Rainey. “Ah yes, a brilliant strategist or a criminal mastermind?”
“A bit of both, I’d say. I’ve found it best to be straightforward with Weather. The boys are easier, both motivated by praise and eager to please.”
“I have observed the group dynamic of triplet-land from the beginning. Jolly, momma’s boy Mack, taller and thicker than his brother, is the muscle. Lanky, serious Timothy is the thinker. Together, they form petite and charming Weather’s minions.” Danny nodded in the little girl’s direction. “She isn’t necessarily an obstinate child, but she is willing…”
Rainey finished the description for Weather’s Godfather, “to push every boundary, ask unlimited questions, and apparently prefers debate to compliance until satisfied all alternatives have been exhausted.”
Danny tipped the top of his beer toward Rainey. “I was going to say, like you, Weather sometimes weighs the punishment against the reward and goes for it.”
“Let’s hope her lessons are not as painful as mine.”
Rainey did a surveillance sweep of the yard almost without thinking about it. The soccer ball lay forgotten in the back of the net. Fifteen feet away, Timothy and Mack were on their knees, heads pressed together and noses six inches from the grass. They were engrossed in the activities of a tiny living creature of some sort. Rainey hoped it would not end up in a pocket to be found later by an unsuspecting parent. It took a good full-body shudder to be rid of the memory of the warm, but very dead toad in the tiny pocket of Mack’s recently vacated jeans.
Carl was nose down in the grass near the large cedar play set. At almost eighteen months old, he was being the part hound dog that he was, which involved sniffing out the cat’s hiding place. Freddie, the cat, watched from his perch atop the slide. Theirs was a relationship still in development. Clearly, Freddie’s advantage was age and wisdom, along with the fact he did not desire to be Carl’s friend, now or ever.
All of her charges accounted for, Rainey took a quick glance to assure Weather still had the hose aimed at the plants.
“Hey, Weather. Move to the next bed, honey. I think that one is wet enough.” Rainey gave Weather, who was soaking wet from her belly down, a thumbs-up and a big smile. “Good job.”
Just behind her, verifying what Rainey already knew, Danny’s warm baritone said sweetly, “You have a beautiful life.”
Rainey turned back to face him, smiling widely. “I really do. I could not have dreamed this life. In fact, I’m quite sure it never crossed my mind until it happened.”
Weather said, “I’m finished, Nee Nee,” as she dropped the hose in front of Rainey. “Mommy’s home.”
The landing of the hose at her feet engaged the handle on the nozzle, which showered Rainey with a quick cold blast to the face.
Rainey gasped.
Weather giggled.
“Good one,” Danny said when he high-fived Weather as she ran by.
After the initial shock, Rainey grabbed the nozzle and chased her delighted daughter a few steps. She stopped, adjusted the nozzle to jet spray, and then fired the hose at Weather’s heels, just to hear her squeal and cackle with laughter as she ran toward her mother.
Katie had entered the scene with a cell phone pressed to her ear. Rainey shut off the hose, which stopped the squealing in time to hear Katie respond to the person on the phone with, “My religion?”
Politics, it would seem, had not yet lost its grasp today. Though the thought of a very public and politically engaged Katie Bell-Meyers sent Rainey’s paranoia meter into the red, she was riveted to her wife’s every word. Danny was too. Katie had a gift and a calling. People had suggested she use that gift and run for office.
A former Republican politician’s wife—albeit a serial killer whom Katie swore would have been a rock s
tar in the current administration if she hadn’t blown a hole in his chest with a shotgun— Katie Bell-Meyers was now a poster child for activist, Democratic Party women; one with connections across the aisle. Katie knew where weaknesses lay and skeletons rattled, which enabled her to motivate a stubborn state legislator when she had to. It scared Rainey to death.
She and Danny could hear only Katie’s side of the conversation.
“Hmmm—Do you mean a particular system of faith?”
Katie placed her oversized purse on the patio table, smiled and waved at Rainey and Danny with her free hand, and knelt to receive the triplets running her way, one of whom was more than slightly damp. She did all of this while giving the conversation its due attention.
“Ah, yes, I see. Well then, I suppose I do. My ‘religion’ is my faith in the basic goodness of man, my belief in the importance of overcoming ignorance, and the recognition of human rights for all regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexuality; the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among them.”
The kids crashed into Katie, knocking her off kilter. The four of them became a ball of giggling triplets wrapped around their mother, rolling about in the grass.
She laughed into the phone and said, “And now I have to go spend the weekend with the family you want to vote out of existence. Do you hear that laughter? That’s the generation that will make dinosaurs like you obsolete. Good night, Senator.”
#
“That’s not what happened,” Rainey contended, as she leaned forward to stoke the outdoor fire pit.
“Then you tell it,” Danny retorted.
Danny’s girlfriend Cathleen Augustine laughed. “Somebody tell it. Don’t leave me hanging.”
“Katie was stressed out and scared. She had too much to drink, and Cookie should have—”
The back door opened, and Katie reappeared carrying the two-way baby monitor. The talkback button was a necessity in a three-story house. Mommy, as an ever-present voice, squashed rebellions before they made it down the stairs most nights.
She noticed the conversation stopped on her arrival and asked with a grin, “Were you talking about me?”
Without seeing the grimaces on Danny and Rainey’s faces in the dim firelight, Cathleen answered, “They were telling me about the time you punched out a reporter.”
“We’ve known you two years, and they’re just getting around to sharing that? You two are slacking,” Katie said to Danny and Rainey, followed by a genuine laugh.
This relieved Rainey, but she still defended herself. “Danny was telling it. I was correcting him.”
“Right. Throw me under the bus,” Danny said.
“You don’t have to live with her,” Rainey countered.
Katie sat down next to Rainey on one of the patio loveseats, as she commented, “I should think you’d be glad I did it.”
“I am,” Rainey said. “I’ve wanted to punch Cookie Kutter a time or two myself.”
Cathleen laughed. “Her name is really Cookie Kutter? That isn’t a joke?”
Rainey chuckled too. “Nope. That is what her parents named her.”
Cathleen laughed louder.
“I know, right?” Rainey said.
In Rainey’s estimation, Danny was trying to smooth over his retelling of one of Katie’s least favorite memories when he said, “It wasn’t really all that bad, Katie. I’m not so sure Cookie didn’t overplay the moment for the camera.”
Rainey chuckled. “Well, the blood was real.”
Katie elbowed Rainey in the ribs. “There was no blood.”
Rainey teased her. “Just a little drop, in the corner of Cookie’s mouth. That was quite the right hook.”
Katie playfully chucked Rainey’s chin with her fist. “You should be careful then.”
Rainey gave Katie’s fist a quick kiss. “Always.”
“Besides, I thought you were happy that video exists, so I can never run for any kind of political office,” Katie said. “Can you imagine the airplay that one drunken moment would receive?”
Cathleen interjected, “You’ve forgotten who is in the White House. A squeaky clean past isn’t necessarily a requirement for election anymore.”
Danny mumbled something Rainey didn’t catch but knew wasn’t pleasant commentary on the current political atmosphere in DC.
Katie explained to Cathleen, “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m not usually a violent person. There were mitigating circumstances. In addition to the alcohol, I was under many new stressors. I had recently recovered from a major trauma. I was taking hormone shots leading up to the procedure that produced the triplets. A crazed killer had put a severed head that looked a lot like me on the dock by our old house. I wasn’t yet used to the constant threat of obsessed serial murderers lurking about.”
Cathleen responded, “That sounds like a lot to deal with. I can understand your distress. I would have hit someone too.”
Katie lifted her wine glass for a toast. “Well, no one has tried to kill one of us in almost two years. Things are looking up.”
Cathleen indicated her compassion and knowledgeable understanding with her comment, “I’m sure the diligence weighs on you both.”
Rainey changed the subject’s tone with, “It’s not so bad now that we have an exit plan.”
Danny looked surprised. “An exit plan. Why don’t I know these things?”
“It wouldn’t be a good exit plan if people knew where we were going, now would it?”
“We decided to stop talking about it and make real plans to relocate if necessary.” Katie laughed when she added, “It seems the moment we prepared for the worst, the danger subsided. I was kind of looking forward to waking up as strangers in a strange land.”
Rainey hugged Katie to her side and said, “Even though you came up with the most excellent exit plan, be careful what you wish for.”
Danny and Cathleen inclined out of their chairs to clink glasses with Rainey and Katie.
Danny said, “To exit plans and not having to use them.”
Rainey watched as Danny added a smile meant for Cathleen and an extra clink of only their glasses. They leaned back into the cushions of the loveseat obviously sharing a secret.
Other than his mother, Rainey thought she probably knew Danny better than anyone else—until Cathleen. Twelve years his junior, an intelligence analyst with the National Security Agency, Danny’s girlfriend was smart, and behind those hazel eyes, Rainey surmised, Cathleen was a tad playfully dangerous. She’d kept Danny interested for two years. That was a record.
Katie also had been paying attention and lacked Rainey’s patience for an explanation. She asked, “What’s up with you two?”
Danny seemed to ignore her question and asked one of his own, “I saw the “SOLD” sign on the house next door. Do you know who your new neighbors are going to be?”
“No, not yet. I think it sold yesterday,” Katie said. “And you’re ignoring my question.”
Danny shifted his eyes to Rainey. “How about you? What do you know?”
She shrugged and answered, “I guess I’ll find out when security tells me. I’m told my presence is part of the disclosure on the property, due to the multiple alarms and the body-dump several years back.”
“Don’t forget your mom shooting Gunny when she tried to kill you,” Katie reminded.
Cathleen chuckled. “I’d say disclosure would be reasonable. It would certainly take the right kind of buyer knowing all of that.”
Rainey caught the grin Danny was trying to conceal. She leaned forward and asked, “Did you quit, Danny? Are you coming to work with me?”
“You kept asking, and then Cathleen started looking at jobs down here too. One thing led to another. I’m officially done after we wrap up this Hale thing.”
Katie sat up on the edge of her seat. “Danny, you bought the house next door!”
Danny answered, “Yes, we did, and she’s agreed to marry me. Can you believe it?”
>
Katie jumped to her feet. “How absolutely wonderful.”
In an instant, they were all standing and exchanging hugs.
Rainey hugged Cathleen and whispered, “Welcome to the family.”
Katie was next. “I’m thrilled we’re going to be neighbors. I’m dying to see inside that house. I missed the open house. I understand it’s gorgeously modern.”
“We love it. I took pictures this morning. They’re on my...” Cathleen’s words trailed off.
Rainey could not remember how many times she apologized already, but she did it again. “I’m so sorry about your phone. I think we recovered it from the bathtub in time and we put it in the rice right away.”
Katie added, “I have no idea why that child is so obsessed with phones.”
Cathleen did not appear upset. In fact, she never seemed flustered at all by much of anything.
She responded with a smile, “It was an accident. She didn’t mean to drop it, and I should not have brought it with me to bath time. Lesson learned. Besides, if I can’t recover the info from a waterlogged phone, I’m not very good at my job.”
Katie hugged Cathleen again, saying, “I just love her, Danny. Nothing fazes her. We’re going to need to knock a hole in the ‘Great Wall of Rainey.’ I mean really, don’t you think that eighteen-inch thick brick fence is a bit much?”
Rainey cut off Katie’s criticism of the fortress she built, asking Cathleen, “So, are you leaving NSA?”
“Officially, yes. Unofficially, I’m going to work in development with PBG in Research Triangle Park. We need more tools to combat hackers, so I’m going into the private sector to help build them.” She smiled up at Rainey and said, “Bill Wise says to tell you, ’hello,’ and it’s time to go fishing with the kids again.”
“I’ll have to do that. Bill is a great guy. I think you’ll enjoy working with him. You’ll probably be working with Joey and Graham too. You met them at Molly’s house on your last visit.”
“Graham is the young man with you when Ellie Paxton tried to drown you in that lake, right?”
Rainey with a Chance of Hale (A Rainey Bell Thriller Book 6) Page 8
