A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  Maybe Shapiro was a mistake, I thought grimly, but the rest weren’t.

  Not moving the gun from its position, I reached over for the phone by Xander’s sofa, praying there’d be a dial tone. I dialled 911, and waited.

  A is for Apple

  Chapter Fifteen

  As so often, there was a soundtrack in my head as I turned around and said good morning to the night. Elton John again. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters—well, right now, I wasn’t much of an oil painting. I guess that made me a mad hatter.

  It figured.

  The NYPD had taken quite a lot of convincing that, although I was the one holding the gun, I was the good guy in this equation. It had taken most of the night to explain the over-complicated situation to them, and by the time Marc and Amber had been fitted into an ambulance and driven away, and I was released (without the gun; Docherty would not be pleased), the sky was getting light.

  “Hey,” a voice stopped me as I trudged towards the subway on 14th and 8th. Didn’t know if it’d be open; right then, didn’t care. “Subway’s no way for a good man to go down.” Docherty paused. “Or a good girl.”

  “Do I look good to you?”

  He hesitated.

  “No, I don’t,” I answered for him. “Did you find Lucy?”

  He nodded. “She wouldn’t have jumped. She’s in custody now. With her friends.”

  I felt sorry for Lucy. I had the feeling she’d been swept up a bit. Like Clara had said, she was a sheep.

  Poor Clara. What would she do now, all on her own?

  “Where are you headed?” Docherty asked.

  “Hotel.”

  “Why?”

  I blinked. “To sleep. I’ve hardly slept in days.”

  “So sleep on the plane.” He looked at me for a moment, unruffled and dark and handsome in the early morning light. I must have looked like a train wreck, yet here he was, just as sexy as ever. It wasn’t fair. “They’ll manage without you. Do they have SO17 contacts?”

  I nodded. “I told them to speak to Harvey.”

  “Good girl. So go home. There’ll probably be a flight out soon enough.” He stepped out in the street and raised his hand, and a yellow cab came to a halt not far away.

  “How much to JFK?” Docherty asked the driver.

  He shrugged, looked me over. “Fif—seventy dollars. Plus tolls.”

  Docherty handed me a couple of hundreds, like Monopoly money. “Don’t spend it all at once.” He pulled me towards him and kissed the top of my head. “Safe journey.”

  I sniffed and nodded. “I’ll pay you back.”

  He gave me a slight smile. “You will,” he said. “You will.”

  Uh-oh.

  I dozed off in the back of the cab, and then again on the flight home. When I landed it was dark, and I couldn’t remember what Clara’s car looked like. God knows how I made it home without collapsing at the wheel, but I eventually did, and fell into bed, exhausted.

  I was woken in the morning by the phone ringing. Groggily, I ignored it and let it go to answerphone.

  Karen’s voice rang out.

  “Sophie Green, you will answer your phone! What’s wrong with your mobile? When you get home, call me.”

  And that was it. Karen wouldn’t leave a message that would get her in any trouble.

  I looked at the clock and was surprised to see it wasn’t morning at all. It was nearly three in the afternoon.

  I pulled myself out of bed and made some coffee, and when I felt I could stand up unaided I made myself stand under the shower until all the travel dirt had gone down the drain.

  Dressed, fed and made up, feeling a little more prepared for the world, I heaped loads of food into Tammy’s bowl (thank God she’s a vicious little killer, or I’d worry about her starving) and replayed Karen’s message. Then I called her.

  “I’ll need a full report,” she said. “I’ve been contacted by the New York police, who are not happy that you left Manhattan—”

  “Bully for them,” I yawned. “If I stayed there any longer I might never have got out.”

  “Can you come in now?”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “Your point being?”

  My point being, my plans for today involved sitting around crying into my cat’s fur, then going to Luke’s house in order to smell his pillow and clothes, staring at pictures of him, and sobbing uncontrollably.

  “I have plans.”

  “You’re going to see Luke?”

  I blinked. I wasn’t that macabre.

  “I—she found him, then?”

  “Yes. And just in time.”

  The world sort of whooshed to a halt around me, as if the earth had stopped spinning and everything was still.

  What?

  I forced myself to breathe, and it sounded very, very loud, even over the pounding of blood in my ears.

  “Just in time?” I said, and my voice sounded surprisingly normal.

  “He woke up this morning. I—well, I was quite worried. There was a subdural haematoma, but they’ve operated and apparently the outlook is good.”

  Outside, a tree swayed.

  “And I have to say I was surprised at you leaving him, Sophie. I’m not sure if I'm impressed or not.”

  I dragged in a wheezy breath. “He’s alive?” I croaked.

  “Well, of course he is.” Karen sounded puzzled. “You thought he was dead?

  Duh.

  “I—I saw him die, she smashed his head. There was blood…”

  “He’s alive,” Karen said more gently. “And I think he’d like to see you.”

  I needed no second bidding. I was back in Clara’s poor little Nova in a shot and up at the hospital as fast as the one litre engine would allow me. I swear, that car’s only horsepower was supplied by old nags. I rushed along the corridors, getting lost several times, hot and flustered, knowing I looked a wreck. And when I found the ward, I was stopped by a nurse who said I couldn’t go in.

  “But I need to see him,” I said urgently. “Luke Sharpe. I have to see him.”

  “Are you family?”

  “His family hate him,” I said dismissively.

  “Then I’m afraid—”

  “Please, can’t you go in and ask him?”

  “It’s really not up to him.”

  I sniffed.

  “Look, can I take your name,” the nurse asked, not unkindly, fetching a clipboard, “and we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Sophie,” I told her. “Sophie Green.”

  She stopped, and looked up in surprise.

  “What?”

  “You’re Sophie?” She put down the clipboard. “Why didn’t you say so? He’s been asking for you.”

  “He has?”

  “Yes. Even in his sleep. You’re his girlfriend?”

  I was too tired to lie. Adrenaline had drained me completely. “Ex.”

  “Oh.” She looked surprised. “Not very ex?”

  “No. Not very.”

  She led me to a private room—lucky Luke—and I stood in the doorway, looking at him for a while.

  He looked appalling. I don’t know what kind of shoes Amber had been wearing when she kicked him across the dock, but it looked like they’d broken his ribs. His bare chest was crisscrossed with wires and he was hooked up to a lot of things. One of his hands was wrapped tightly in a splint and the other had a drip feed stuck in it. I winced at the thought of the needle, but not as much as I winced at the sight of Luke’s face.

  For a start, his head had been shaved, and there were several rows of stitches running across his scalp, along with the mother of all bruises. His face was bruised too, badly, one side of his jaw and cheekbone almost deformed.

  He looked to be sleeping, so I said a very soft, “Hey,” and prepared to leave. But his eyes opened, he looked at me, and one side of his mouth moved in a tiny smile.

  He lifted a hand and waved.

  “You okay?”

  Yes, I know it was really stupid question. Lu
ke’s look said he thought so too.

  “How come you’re so talkative?”

  He tapped the air above his bruised jaw.

  “Is it broken?”

  He shook his head and pointed to a pad and pen by his bed. I handed them to him, and he looked at me patiently, waving his splinted hand, until I realised he wanted me to hold the pad so he could write. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling surreal.

  “Not broken,” Luke wrote. “Fucking hurts tho.”

  I smiled. “And the rest?”

  “Dunno. All hurts. Lost teeth.”

  A wound more to his vanity than anywhere else, I guessed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Y?”

  Good question.

  “Because I left,” I said. “I should have stayed.”

  There was a pause, and I thought Luke was going to tell me to go. But then he wrote, “Did you get them?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh. They’re in custody. Marc and Amber and Lucy.”

  “Lucy? Surprised.”

  “Me too. She tried to top herself.”

  “You stopped her?”

  “Docherty did.”

  Luke said—or rather, wrote—nothing. The silence went on too long, and eventually I blurted, “I thought you were dead.”

  He blinked. “Really?”

  I nodded. “I saw her hit you—”

  I broke off, because Luke’s pen was tearing through the paper: “It was a girl?”

  I laughed. “Amber. She played rugby, if that’s any consolation. And she had a spanner.”

  He looked sulky under his bruises. Finally he scribbled, “Bloody girls.”

  I laughed again, and it felt good. “Hey,” I tried out a Buffy quote, running my fingers along his arm, “you’re all covered in sexy bruises.”

  Luke scowled. “Not going 2 dignify with answer.”

  I smiled.

  “Girl helped me,” he wrote. “Blonde dreadlocks. Who she?”

  “Clara. She helped me out a bit too. She even let me nick her car.”

  “What car?”

  “Nova.”

  Luke winced, and I smiled. Then I remembered something, and my smile faded.

  “What?” Luke wrote.

  “I left you.”

  “Yeah, and still mad at you. Even if did only just find out.”

  There was that half smile again. It was heartbreaking.

  “I left you to do my job,” I said, and I know I sounded heartless for it, but I meant it. And I even hated myself for it, but it was true. “And I’d do it again. I had to stop them. It was more important than…”

  Luke dropped the pen and covered my hand with his. There were tears pricking my eyes and I sniffed.

  “God, I’m such a bitch.”

  He nodded sympathetically, making me laugh, then he picked up his pen and wrote, “Is OK. Did right thing. I’m OK.” Was he really? “Mostly.”

  There could be complications, I knew. Massive head trauma was never a good thing. It was only because of his unusually thick skull, I surmised, that he’d survived at all. But then there were complications for me, too. I was still awaiting the outcome of blood tests. Then there was Laurence, probably still in his coma. If he died it would bode even worse for the terrible trio in New York.

  Luke was writing more, but he wasn’t looking at me as he did.

  “Would have done same.”

  “Oh, cheers.”

  Half of me wanted to believe I was more important to him than his job. That was the heart part. The head part of me said, of course his job’s the most important thing to him. He doesn’t need to choose. That’s why he’s such a good spy. You’ll never be heartless enough, Sophie.

  But didn’t I dump my boyfriend and leave him for dead? Isn’t that heartless?

  My head had no answer.

  “I should go,” I said, and Luke grabbed my hand again.

  “Don’t,” he wrote.

  “I have a million things to do. I still have to talk to the police in New York. They don’t believe I’m a spy.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. He twirled his pen for a few seconds, thoughtfully, then wrote, “Are we” and stopped, frustrated. But I knew what he meant.

  I took a deep breath. “I think we’re over,” I said carefully. “I think neither of us can do our jobs properly if we’re thinking about each other.”

  “Will still think about you,” Luke wrote, and there was a note of pleading in his eyes. I nearly cried.

  “Bye,” I said, and slipped out before I said anything I didn’t mean.

  I went to the office and made out a report, or half a dozen. I spoke to fast-tempered NY cops on the phone. I called Clara and arranged to return her car. The school was on hiatus now that parents and teachers had been informed of the trio in America.

  And then I went home, feeling lost, nothing to do and no one to do it with. I thought about going up to Angel’s to see how Xander was getting on, but I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the idea.

  I couldn’t even really be bothered to watch Buffy.

  So I fed Tammy and cleansed my poor grubby face of all the New York dirt my shower didn’t seem able to clear, and I massaged my feet and I rubbed arnica into my bruises.

  And then, for want of anything better to do, I went to bed.

  It was late when the knock came. A sure, hard knock. Not someone who was going anywhere without me answering.

  I tried to peek out of my bedroom window but it was raining and dark, and I could see nothing. So I got my gun and rearranged my pyjamas into something more respectable, and I went to answer my door.

  Docherty stood there, tall and dark, his eyes all over me.

  “You’re back,” I said, stupidly.

  “I am.”

  His shirt was plastered to his body. His excellent body.

  “You’re wet,” I stood back to let him in, wondering when my brain had gone on strike.

  “I’m that, too.”

  We stood and looked at each other for a while. My gun was loose in my hand and my heart was thumping.

  “Did you want something?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  Docherty nodded, and moved closer, and cupped my face.

  “I came to get my apology.”

  Oh, boy.

  A is for Apple

  About the Author

  To learn more about Kate Johnson and Sophie Green, please visit www.KateJohnson.co.uk or visit Sophie’s MySpace at www.myspace.com/sophiesuperspy. Send an email to Kate Johnson at katejohnsonauthor@googlemail.com.

  A is for Apple

  Look for these titles by Kate Johnson

  Now Available:

  The Twelve Lies of Christmas

  I, Spy?

  Ugley Business

  Never underestimate the blonde.

  I, Spy?

  © 2007 Kate Johnson

  “The British spy is elegant, suave and sophisticated. The British spy is not blonde, built, and confused.”

  But Sophie Green is, and she’s just been hired by a highly secret government agency. She drives a car the colour of bile and is obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She doesn’t know which end of the gun to fire from and her hair hasn’t been natural since she was twelve. But that’s not going to stop her from trying to save the day, once she figures out who to save it from.

  Sexy spies, plane crashes, firebombs and multicoloured cocktails—they’re all in a day’s work for Sophie. Roll over, Bond, there’s a new bombshell in town. And it’s got Sophie’s name on it…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for I, Spy?

  Okay, I can do this. This is not a problem. This is what I’m trained for. I can stay calm in a crisis.

  Only, the crisis was I switched my alarm off and now I had twenty minutes in which to get out of bed, washed, dressed, up to uniform “neat and tidy appearance” standards, gulp down some coffee, find my keys and get to work.

  It takes me twenty minutes to find a frigging parking space.
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  I hit the first hurdle when I couldn’t find my uniform shirt. Not by my bed. Not under my bed. Not in the laundry basket. Not in the washing machine. Christ, I only took it off yesterday, where the hell could it have gone? I found myself looking in the most insane places—under the sofa, in the shoe cupboard, the oven—everywhere—before I finally found it in the first place I’d checked. Stale and creased in the laundry basket.

  I sprayed some Febreze on it, shook out the creases—I couldn’t even remember where my iron’s supposed to be, let alone where it might actually have ended up—and slung it on. I nearly strangled myself with my scarf before I got it right. Making some heroically quick instant coffee with half cold water, I nevertheless scalded my tongue and the roof of my mouth gulping it down.

  Tammy, my little tabby cat, watched with a total lack of interest as I hopped around, swearing and moaning at the pain.

  “Keys,” I slurred, and she blinked at me. There was no logical place for my keys; why would there be? I was nearly crying by the time I found them on the kitchen counter. A quick check of my watch told me it was ten to five—even if I raced up to the airport and left my car on the front concourse, I’d still be late.

  “So why am I rushing?” I asked Tammy.

  Tammy didn’t know.

  Finally, finally finding my shoes, gulping down some mouthwash as an alternative to toothpaste (and nearly choking myself in the process), I ricocheted out of the house. Seven minutes to. This was not going to be possible.

  At least the roads would be quiet—but no, against all reasonable laws, I got stuck behind some ancient grandpa doing two miles an hour in his Rover. Finally leaving him behind as I took the back road to the staff car park, I skidded up to the car park barrier—and realised I’d left my security pass at home.

  Shit, fuck and bugger. With a side order of bollocks.

  Slamming the car into reverse with no thought for who may be behind me—thankfully no one—I zoomed back home, startled Tammy by grabbing said pass from the back of my bedroom door—well, where would you keep yours?—and left again.