Saving Mr. Perfect

by Tamara Morgan

  Simon wouldn’t have been willing to speak to me under any other circumstances. But now that we’re both here…

  He holds my gaze for another long moment before releasing all of his anxious, uneasy energy in a long breath. He even leans back against the seat, his tight-pinched nostrils taking on a normal human shape for once.

  “I guess you’re better than nothing,” he decides. “How much do you know?”

  “Very little, unfortunately. Despite your fears to the contrary, Grant doesn’t come home every night and tell me all the FBI’s secrets. Getting information out of him is like pulling a falcon’s teeth—and yes, I’m aware that birds don’t have teeth. That’s why my metaphor works.”

  “No.” His face is perfectly grave. “It still doesn’t work.”

  That Simon. Always a barrel of laughs.

  “All I know is that after I told Grant about Tara being back in New York and about how she and Agent Leon seem to be on a first-name basis, he reacted like I’d punched him in the face,” I say. “Then, yesterday…”

  I stop, unsure how to frame this next part. Simon and Grant are best friends, and I’m sure they have some kind of bro-camaraderie in which conversations about our life together take place, but I like to think our marital problems aren’t part of them.

  He doesn’t need to know that Grant backed me into a corner or that I spent the better part of last night figuring out how to wriggle my way out of it. After all, I may not be a great wife, but I am good at extricating myself from tight spots. My husband wants me to promise to lead a clean, happy existence for the rest of our days together. In exchange, I get one last opportunity to be an active part of his life.

  At first glance, it looks like a bad deal—a terrible deal—trading one moment of glory for a lifetime of the opposite. I’d have to be a fool to take it. But there’s more at stake here than the state of my fingernails, I’m sure of it.

  I just need to find out what.

  “Yesterday…” Simon prods.

  “So I came up with this plan for going undercover with my grandmother, right?” I say, leaning forward with an eagerness that takes him aback. “It’s not much, but she’s going to show me around, take me to parties—the normal society stuff she’s done her whole life, only this time, she’s doing it with her favorite granddaughter in tow. It’ll allow me to keep an eye on things from the inside without drawing anyone’s suspicions.”

  Simon nods as if that makes perfect sense, and I have to prevent myself from swelling in triumph. I knew it was a good idea.

  “But when I mentioned the plan to Grant, he freaked out. He told me it’s not safe because Christopher wants to cut me up and store the pieces of my body in his freezer—or, you know, something along those lines. I’m paraphrasing.”

  He nods again, and a frisson of alarm moves through me. Wait—that’s a real possibility?

  “Leon has always shown an unhealthy amount of interest in you,” Simon says. “You and Grant both.”

  “What? So there really is a crazed, rogue FBI agent out for my blood? Why has no one mentioned this before?”

  “Oh, calm down,” he says with an air of disgust. “I’m sure you’re not in any real danger. If that were the case, Grant would pack you up and ship you out at the first opportunity.”

  I swallow heavily. He would certainly try.

  “And if anything, it’s Grant who’s in trouble, not you. I never had many personal dealings with Leon, and I was moved off the Peep-Toe Prowler case early on, but something about that guy doesn’t fit.”

  “He was nice to me,” I venture optimistically.

  Simon quells that optimism with a glance at the envelope in his hand. “Most people are, when they want something.”

  I can’t argue with that. “So what does he want?”

  “Your contacts? Leverage over Grant? Who knows?” He shrugs. “I won’t go so far as to call him a double agent, but I can say for sure that Leon attempted—unsuccessfully—to get access to you when Grant first started investigating your father. From the looks of it, he’s attempting the same thing now. He’s a brave soul for trying, I’ll give him that much. I can’t imagine you’re worth that much trouble.”

  “Maybe he has a crush on me.”

  The scorn with which Simon refuses to answer that says it all. “Look, I wish I could be more help, but my hands are tied by bureaucracy. I’ve already been reprimanded for fighting the reassignment, and I’ve been warned against trying again. Pushing too hard now could end up hurting Grant more than it helps him.”

  “So that’s it? You’re going to let him move forward with this on his own?”

  He releases a sound that’s a borderline snort. “If I were capable of stopping Grant once he gets an idea in his head, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  There’s no mistaking his meaning. If Simon were capable of stopping Grant once he gets an idea in his head, I would have been removed from the picture—and Grant’s life—years ago.

  There’s a finality to that truth that clatters hard in my chest. I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I don’t care for Simon’s stringent personality, but I’ve always felt confident knowing he’ll protect Grant in the field—even if it means doing so with his life. But he couldn’t protect Grant from me, and he can’t protect him from Christopher Leon.

  We bad guys can’t be trusted. There’s no telling to what depths we’ll plunge to get our way.

  My heart sinks. “How much danger is he in?”

  Simon doesn’t have to ask what I mean. “Some. Enough. More than I care for. When it comes to finding answers, you know how little he cares for his personal safety.”

  “And there’s really nothing you can do?”

  “Officially? No. It’s out of my jurisdiction. But if you want my opinion, the sooner this case is wrapped up and Leon moves on, the better it will be for all of us. If history has proven anything, it’s that Grant won’t take Leon’s interference lying down.”

  I believe him. Grant’s tenacity is a thing to be feared and admired. Witness the lengths he’s willing to go to reform his criminally minded wife.

  “As much as I hate to say this, you and your friends might be the best chance we have of settling things quickly. You have access we don’t—both legal and illegal.” Simon shudders, as if even saying the word illegal causes him pain. “Do your thing, Blue, and do it fast.”

  Any thrill I might have felt at being imbued with such responsibility—especially from Simon—is cut short by his next words.

  “Oh, and one more thing?”

  It’s almost too much to bear. What’s next? An offer to crown me queen?

  “If there’s anything I can do to help—unofficially, I mean—all you have to do is ask.”

  16

  GRANT

  “Tell me he’s a known terrorist. Tell me he’s robbed six banks. Give me anything I can use to get that man out of my life for good.”

  The empty café where Mariah waits for me isn’t one I normally frequent, but I drop into the seat opposite her knowing full well not to order coffee. The brew they serve here tastes like black tar steeped in horse shit. Most of New York knows it and avoids the place accordingly.

  In other words, it’s a great place for a clandestine meeting between friends.

  “Hello to you too, Emerson. I see you’re feeling particularly vengeful this morning. Bad night?”

  She has no idea. It’s not every evening you spend bargaining for your future with the love of your life. “Let’s say it was interesting.”

  “I like interesting things.”

  “So do I,” I say, not falling for it. I like Mariah, would even call her my friend, but I’m not about to explain the subtle nuances of my marriage to her. Some things are best kept between spouses—especially when those things involve blackmail and life-or-death ultimatu
ms. Or, as we call it, a regular Tuesday. “What do you have for me on Leon?”

  “You’re no fun, you know that?” she grumbles. She turns her attention to the laptop screen in front of her. “Most agents who ask me for risky and highly illegal favors give me at least a little entertainment in exchange. I don’t leave the office very often. If I want to live at all, I have to do it vicariously.”

  “You’re out of the office now, aren’t you?”

  “Only because I didn’t want anyone to hear your screams when I show you what I found.”

  It’s preamble enough for the both of us, and she angles the screen so I can see what she’s pulled up. It’s not, as I expect, the most up-to-date record of events. The words on the scanned article are almost impossible to read, a newspaper story that was poorly printed to begin with.

  “Is that Leon?” I lean forward, doing my best to make out the picture at the top, which looks to be around a dozen years old. In it, a grainy youth hangs his head, his arms behind his back in a telltale gesture of defeat. “Is that Leon…getting arrested?”

  “Sure is, boss man. And for armed robbery, no less.”

  Holy shit. I lean closer, but proximity doesn’t change the facts.

  Armed robbery is big—it’s something not even Penelope and her friends can lay claim to. It’s also something I rarely deal with, as most of my criminals use brains rather than brawn to achieve their ends. Even in my wife’s heyday, she never used anything more dangerous than a lighter and whatever chemicals Jordan happened to be carrying in her purse at the time.

  “I don’t understand. It took you all of twenty-four hours to uncover this information. How can the FBI not know?”

  “What makes you think they don’t? It wouldn’t be the first time they overlooked a few criminal details in the name of justice.”

  She doesn’t have to say the rest—that she’s a prime example of a record being expunged by the powers that be, that my own marriage skirts the line of reasonable personal risk. The longer I work for this organization, the more I’m coming to learn that we all have something to hide—and the things we hide might be what make us so valuable.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like that guy.”

  “And here I thought you were jealous because he’s better looking than you.”

  I casually flip Mariah off, but my insides aren’t so dismissive. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not Christopher Leon is the world’s most handsome man—but whether or not he’s the world’s most dangerous man is particularly relevant. Especially since I may have willingly sicced my wife on him.

  “How much time did he serve?” I ask.

  “Uh…” She scans her screen. “It looks like a hundred hours of community service. He was only seventeen at the time, and he pled out, so he was never officially charged. The two guys who were with him got five years each.”

  “Of course they did. Was he the one who turned them in?”

  Mariah nods with a wince. I don’t know why she feels bad about it. It’s all too easy to picture a fresh-faced Christopher Leon smiling as he sent two men to do the time for a crime he committed.

  “So what else did he do?” I ask. “Skin animals? Throw rocks at toddlers on the playground? On a scale of one to serial killer, how bad is he?”

  “A negative three? Sorry, Emerson—that one brush with the law is all he’s got. From there, his record is nothing but awards and accolades and ass-kissing of a magnitude I’ve never seen before.”

  “Tease.”

  “I don’t create the facts. I find them.”

  “So that’s the whole story? He was a little shit of a kid who made a mistake, turned his friends in, and became one of the good guys to make up for it?” I shake my head. “No, that doesn’t fit.” It doesn’t explain why he’s acting so suspiciously toward me—toward Penelope—now.

  “Don’t lose heart. There’s an interesting pattern to his behavior you might want to take a look at.”

  “You are a tease!” I push my chair closer to hers. “What’d you find?”

  “The police never recovered the jewelry he and his friends took. Don’t get too excited—it wasn’t anything noteworthy, just some necklaces and rings worth around ten grand—but if there’s a plea bargain involved, it usually means the items are returned.” She pulls up another screen, this one showcasing two columns of addresses. “I thought that was strange, especially since he and his mom moved into a pretty nice apartment after that.”

  I sit up. “How nice?”

  “Nicer than a waitress and a juvenile delinquent can usually afford. About ten thousand dollars nicer, if you ask me. And there’s no father listed on his birth certificate, so I’m guessing it’s not delayed child support kicking in.”

  I sit up even straighter. The tale of a low-income woman raising a son on her own isn’t foreign to me, nor does it lower Christopher in my eyes. If anything, it brings him up a few pegs. My own mother worked countless double nursing shifts to make sure my childhood wasn’t lacking. From the day my dad walked out on us, she became everything to me—mother, father, financier, friend. Our home had also been a modest one, more comfortable than grand.

  Of course, I was always up front about that fact. And I didn’t wave a gun at innocent people when things got tough.

  I think about the suits Christopher wears, the names he drops, the car of my adolescent dreams he’s driving around town as we speak, and say, “Well, that’s interesting. He’s always made it seem like he comes from money.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if that’s only what he wants us to think.” Mariah scrolls down, pointing out the similarities between the two columns. “Look here. The addresses on the left are all the places he lived over the next two years until he went to college—without a scholarship or loan package, I might add. The man paid cash for an Ivy League education. The addresses on the right are unsolved home invasion cases over the same period of time. Notice anything interesting?”

  I do. Not one of the addresses is situated more than a few miles away from the other; most share a zip code. It’s hardly enough to convict a man, but if that map hanging on my office wall means anything, it’s that proximity and opportunity are usually related.

  “So we think he made his journey up the Bureau ladder the easy way?” I’d always assumed his personal connections were the cause, but there are a few of our good leaders I can imagine being open to a friendly bribe. Considering how bad Christopher is at his job, it would make sense if he greased the way with stolen money.

  “If you call a life of crime easy, sure.” Mariah’s tone indicates that she disagrees, but that’s an argument for another day. “It might even explain why he entered law enforcement in the first place. Getting away with theft is a hell of a lot easier when you lead the investigation yourself.”

  And there it is. The clincher. Everything I need to convince me that I’m on the right path, that Christopher Leon is the Peep-Toe Prowler, despite the fact that he wears size eleven wingtips. He’s got access and information to pull off the jobs in the first place, resources and connections to cover up his tracks afterward. It would even explain why he’s so sloppy at the crime scenes—he’s purposely confusing the evidence.

  But… “All right, if we go with that theory, it doesn’t explain why he wants Penelope to be involved,” I say, brow furrowed. “Unless he’s stuck and wants her help, but she would never do that.”

  “No?” Again, Mariah’s tone is less than conciliatory, but I ignore her. Not because my wife is fully reformed—far from it—but because she would never lower herself to be someone else’s sidekick. Christopher might need her, but she definitely doesn’t need him.

  “Of course, he might not know she’s unwilling,” Mariah muses. “Or he might have other plans for her, like needing another close friend to take the fall.”

&n
bsp; I push my chair out with a start, heart leaden. “Fuck me.”

  “No, thanks. You’re not my type.”

  I kick the leg of Mariah’s chair, but it does little to alleviate my feelings. I’d need to smash about fifty such chairs to do that. “It wasn’t an offer. It was an observation. That’s not a bad theory—it fits almost everything.”

  She makes a slight bow from her seated position. “Thank you. I’ll be here all week.”

  “Do you happen to know what other cases he’s worked since he started at the FBI?”

  “No, but I could find out for you. Why?”

  Because if Mariah is right about Christopher—if I’m right about Christopher—then I may have stumbled onto something huge. A powerful man who takes what he wants, when he wants it, and then sets up other criminals to do the time for him. No one is in a better position to pull that off than a federal agent, a man whose crime spree has gone unchecked for years, a man who’s growing bolder and braver with each passing success.

  Like I said before—he’s nothing more than a toddler pushing his boundaries.

  Too bad this boundary has every intention of pushing back. I told him before that he’d put Penelope behind bars over my dead body, but that wasn’t wholly accurate. If he’s trying to pin these thefts on my wife, it’s not my death he should be worried about.

  It’s his.

  “Just get me a list and case details,” I say. Since my voice is hard enough to scare the café waitress into hurrying back behind the counter, I amend it with, “Please. If that’s something you can do.”

  “I can pull that up in my sleep. Next time, you should try and get me a real challenge.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. And Ying?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t mention this to anyone, okay? No need to start blowing smoke before we’re sure there’s a fire.”