Code Name: Daddy

by Marilyn Tracy

  The miles to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, seemed to whip by, and all too soon she could smell the salty tang of the ocean, could see the gray-blue grasses that presaged the silken-soft beaches. Though the sands were empty during the off-season, the gulls still patrolled the highways, swooping down at the car as if asking what delectable treats these autumn comers might have in store for them.

  Nag’s Head, a city with a small-town atmosphere, charmed tourists by the thousands each spring and summer and still managed to appear quaint in the cold, stormy-gray days of autumn and winter. Beach cottages, boarded up for the off-season, looked forlorn and wistful, and tall, elegant condominiums along the waterfront seemed abandoned, like relics from another, more gracious era.

  Alec echoed her thoughts, a knack that still had the ability to rock her. “It’s beautiful even in gray,” he said. A half smile played on his lips, but he didn’t appear anything but sad.

  Something stirred in her that she couldn’t identify. A quickening, a low hum of discomfort that rippled across her shoulders and tingled deep within her. Did she love him? Was that what the strange sensation was? No, this was an ache, a pain of some kind, made worse by its lack of identification.

  Before crossing the Virginia border they had once again stolen a car. Alec had pulled the sedan in to a parking space at a large shopping mall and had found another car with keys in it within a matter of minutes. Thirty miles later he’d stolen yet another set of plates and switched them with the tags on their new acquisition, a compact Chevrolet.

  They’d also stopped at a department store and picked out wigs, a few items of clothing, some extras for Allie, a medium-sized pet carrier and a remarkably realistic toy dog that wriggled all over when a button was pressed on his belly. Allie loved it.

  Alec drove the car around the block several times before deciding the area looked devoid of FBI. But to be on the safe side, he turned the car over to Cait some three blocks from the animal shelter. He helped her arrange a sleeping Allie in a makeshift bed inside the pet carrier, then, with a long, lingering look at Cait, sauntered down the street in a loose-gaited, easy stride, his long, blond hair blowing softly in the breeze and a wriggling Lhasa apso in his arms.

  Cait shook her hands several times to get them to stop shaking, then finally put the car in gear. It was hard not to slow the Chevrolet when she passed Alec and harder still not to stare at him in the rearview mirror. Even she, who had spent every moment with him during the past two and a half days, wouldn’t have recognized him.

  She hoped she was equally disguised. Her wig was a honeyed gold in color and brushed against her neck. And she wore a pair of simple, wire-framed glasses that did nothing more to her vision than obscure it with the unfamiliarity of wearing them.

  She pulled to the front of the animal shelter as if she came there on a regular basis. After retrieving the pet carrier and her still-sleeping daughter from the back seat, she forced herself not to look around as she made for the front doors.

  Alec had given her explicit instructions. “A tail will be on the lookout for any suspicious behavior. If you were really taking an animal into a shelter, you wouldn’t be worried about who might be watching you, following you or anything else for that matter. You’d be focused on getting the animal inside. Once you’re in, you can glance at anyone in the lobby, but don’t do more than that. Walk straight past the front desk, act as if you own the place and hope like hell you’re not stopped.”

  She got in the front door without waking Allie and did precisely as Alec had told her to do. She couldn’t tell if either of the two people waiting in the lobby were FBI agents or not.

  “We’ll be back for her, ” Alec had said. His jaw had been clenched and the rigid set of his features had lent the words the flavor of a desperate vow. She clung to that single phrase as she rounded the reception desk, thankfully unmanned, and made for the back offices.

  Now, inside their destination, she had to fight an urge to keep walking, straight through the building and on out the back door, carrying her baby with her, escaping the danger, the fear, by just running and running and never looking back. And she warred against a need to pull Allie out of the pet carrier and hold her tightly to her breast, to grip her little girl with all the ferocity of a wild animal fearful of losing its young.

  In the end, she only turned left at the end of the hall and carried Allie through the doorway leading to the kennels, narrowing her nostrils against the ammonia odors and trying to close her ears to the raucous call of forty or fifty excited dogs and cats. She was so focused on not falling apart, on keeping things together, she almost walked right past her aunt Margaret.

  “Oh, my God, Cait, I’ve been worried to death!”

  Cait’s aunt Margaret looked so much like her that Alec knew he could have picked her out of a hundred other fifty-six-year-old women standing in a fluorescent-lighted animal shelter obviously guarding the door against intruders.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the lobby, sir,” she said firmly. “Unleashed animals aren’t allowed in this section of the shelter.”

  Alec’s lips twitched at her clever put-down. “I’m Alec MacLaine.”

  She eyed him up and down before stepping back and allowing him through the doorway into a small cubbyhole of an office. Cait, different but still as beautiful in her strange hair, sat in a chair in the corner of the room, hugging Allie and rocking her a little.

  Cait’s eyes were shut and tears seeped from beneath her lids. Ah, what had he done? Because he’d so needed to see her, he’d placed her life in the gravest of danger.

  “You’re thorough. I doubt most people would have thought of bringing a dog to a shelter as a cover,” Aunt Margaret said.

  “It’s a toy.” He handed it to her.

  “How clever. Looks like the real thing. Probably brighter, though. Lhasas are notoriously sweet and shockingly stupid.” She petted the toy before setting it down on the square, shabby desk. Turning back to him, she held out her hand. “Margaret McBride.”

  “Thanks for doing this,” he said, taking her hand, liking her firm grip, her cool touch.

  Aunt Margaret gave him an odd look, then closed the door, shutting out most of the animals’ cries. Alec thought her office smelled like the rest of the place—that combination of animal fear, wet hair, cat and dog food, and something medicinal.

  Aunt Margaret moved beside Cait in a clearly protective stance, but her eyes were on the man accompanying her niece. “You look remarkably healthy for a dead man,” she said coolly.

  He didn’t try pretending he’d misunderstood her comment; she was clearly asking why he had let Cait believe him dead for two years. “I thought Cait was dead, Ms. McBride. I came to Washington the minute I found out she wasn’t. Unfortunately, some people seem to want me to really be dead. And they followed me to Cait’s.”

  He decided an FBI interrogator couldn’t have looked more skeptical than Cait’s aunt. She scrutinized him carefully, and he was reminded of Allie’s first good look at him. Like his daughter, Aunt Margaret didn’t smile, nor did she frown. After a few seconds she turned her head, and Alec had the feeling that he’d survived some test. Not passed it, necessarily, just made it through alive.

  “You’re bringing them to me for safety?” she asked.

  “Just Allie,” Cait said.

  Margaret McBride pursed her lips over this, then shook her head. “No. I’m not letting you go with him, Cait.”

  Cait smiled faintly, apparently at her aunt’s parental tone. “I have to, Aunt Margaret.” Her eyes were free from tears now, though her face was still wet and shiny. “They can get to Alec through me.”

  “It’s more than that,” Alec said. “If she’s spotted, they wouldn’t believe she didn’t know where I was.”

  “The police?”

  “It’s the FBI that’s after us, Aunt Margaret,” Cait said. She shifted a waking Allie to her lap. “But they won’t believe Allie would know anything.”

 
“Kitties?” Allie asked, accurately judging the scents in the small office. “Kitties, here?”

  “In a minute, darling,” Aunt Margaret said. “And me? Why wouldn’t the FBI believe I wouldn’t know where you are?”

  Alec answered. “Because they’re not going to know we’ve been here. And they’re not going to know you have Allie with you.”

  “I’m a reasonably bright woman, Mr. MacLaine—”

  “Alee.”

  She nodded in his direction, though she didn’t use his name. “It taxes my imagination to see how I could keep a baby hidden away forever.”

  Alec didn’t wince at her implication that they wouldn’t be coming back, though it flayed him to the quick. “You won’t have to. If all goes well, it’ll be a few days. Tops.” He outlined their swiftly concocted plan utilizing the pet carrier and told her what to look out for in the way of bugging devices and how to neutralize surveillance toys.

  She looked from him to Cait. “Keep curtains drawn. Look for different knobs on my lamps and electronics. Television going all the time. Taped animal sounds. All right, I can do all that. My neighbors will think I’ve gone completely round the bend, but then, that’d be nothing new. But I still don’t see why Cait has to go with you. We could use the same ploy with her.”

  “I won’t fit in a pet carrier,” Cait said. As an attempt at humor, Alec thought it fell sadly flat, but he felt she deserved a Medal of Honor for trying.

  “We could use some other ruse,” Aunt Margaret offered. “I have friends visiting all the time.”

  Alec didn’t have to say the words, and was relieved when Aunt Margaret sighed. “I know, I know, it would look a little too convenient, my having a young friend come stay with me right at the time my niece disappears. And not a soul I know would think anything of my carrying one more dog or cat into my menagerie.”

  No one said anything for a moment, then Alec said gently, “We have to go, Cait.” He ached to have more time with Allie himself and knew saying goodbye must be killing Cait. But it would look odd if either of them stayed any longer; unless they worked at the animal shelter, as Aunt Margaret did, they would be far more likely to simply drop off a critter and leave. Separately, of course. He’d arrived on foot, he’d depart that way. And the tears sure to be streaming down Cait’s lovely face could simply be attributed to leaving a sick or dying animal behind.

  So far, their plan was working, but with each passing second his tension escalated and he found himself with his arms already loosened and his knees slightly bent, ready for action. Several times he pressed his arm to his side just to assure himself the gun was still there.

  Cait rose to her feet and lifted Allie to her shoulder. “Kiss me goodbye, sweetie. You’re going to stay here with Aunt Margaret for a while. And see...the p-puppies... and kitties.”

  “Kitties!” Allie crowed happily:

  The sorrow in Cait’s face was breaking Alec’s heart and he was afraid it was mirrored on his own. He felt suffused with a hitherto unknown pain, a purely paternal, unfamiliar sense of his own mortality, his inability to make the world perfect for his little girl. And he felt deep and utter shame for bringing this into Cait’s life. Into Allie’s.

  He’d promised Cait things would be all right. He’d promised her they’d be back for Allie. She’d been right to tell him he couldn’t. But if ever a man would try, it would be him. Now. For Cait and Allie and Aunt Margaret. For a family he’d never thought to have, for a future Cait had made clear didn’t even exist.

  There might not be a future to look forward to, but he was determined to do everything in his power to set a small chunk of the world back to rights again. In a perfect world Cait wouldn’t just be the mother of his child, the stranger he’d connected with two years ago—she would be his partner, his wife. And the child passing to her aunt’s wise and loving arms would have his name as well as his genetic code and he would have her love, her trust.

  He’d held Allie, felt her fingers on his large hands, talked with her, played with her in the course of two perfect days. He’d even changed her diaper. But he hadn’t thought what it would feel like to say goodbye to her, hadn’t guessed the intensity of the pain that would produce.

  At Cait’s moan, Alec instinctively wrapped his arm around her, clasping her sagging body into him. He knew she was unaware of him, that her entire focus was on saying goodbye without breaking down.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Aunt Margaret said.

  “No, don’t!” Alec and Cait said simultaneously, although for vastly different reasons. He knew Cait’s instinctive cry came from agony, an undiluted need to walk away without looking back. His own came from the knowledge that danger waited for them on the other side of the door.

  “You go first, Cait. Wait for me where you dropped me off before.”

  Without another word, her hand over her mouth and tears freely spilling down her face, Cait grabbed the nowempty pet carrier and stumbled from the room. The sound of the door closing behind her reverberated in Alec’s very soul.

  “You had better take care of her, Alec MacLaine,” Aunt Margaret said sternly.

  “With my life,” he said slowly. A promise.

  She eyed him narrowly. “You had better,” she said. “So go.”

  “Goodbye. Thanks.”

  She nodded.

  “Bye-bye,” Allie said.

  “That’s right.” Aunt Margaret approved. “Say goodbye to Daddy.”

  Allie held out her arms to her father, wrapped her chubby, warm limbs around his neck and planted a large, openmouthed, wet kiss on his cheek. “Bye-bye,” his daughter chirped.

  Baby-soft tendrils of her hair tickled his nose. Tears pricked his eyes. “Goodbye, little one,” he said hoarsely.

  Chapter 13

  Monday, November 12, 3:30 p.m. EST

  By the time Alec walked the three blocks from the animal shelter to rejoin her, Cait had managed to quell her tears and dry her face. But the pain of leaving Allie would be marked on her and, she was sure, on Alec for a long time to come.

  For the first time, in the act of handing their daughter over to Aunt Margaret for safekeeping, they had become “parents.” Allie was no longer just “her” daughter, but “theirs.”

  She moved to the passenger side and Alec scooted the seat back so he could fit behind the steering wheel. He didn’t look at her as he put the car in gear and pulled out into the sparse traffic.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked before reaching the highway that would take them back to Washington, on to uncertainty.

  “No,” she answered. “I would choke.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Do you really think it’ll work? That they won’t suspect Allie is with Aunt Margaret?” She’d asked the question before.

  His answer was the same. “It has to.” He pulled the blond wig from his head and tossed it into the back seat. He ran his hand through his hair.

  Cait did the same and some of her tension ebbed as the constrictive wig was discarded.

  He took the car onto the highway without saying anything more. And the farther they went from Kitty Hawk, the more comfortable Cait felt. She hadn’t realized how deeply afraid she’d been for Allie’s safety. Each moment that had passed, except for the time spent in Alec’s arms, she’d feared something happening to Allie. A stray bullet, broken glass, the trauma of witnessing her mother’s murder.

  None of those things could touch her daughter now,

  “Are you okay?” Alec asked. She knew the question was purely rhetorical. She couldn’t answer him honestly and he didn’t want her to.

  “I’ll do,” she said. “And you?”

  He flicked her a tight glance. “I’m fine.”

  She had the distinct feeling they were hiding behind lies and banalities. She couldn’t talk openly with him now, partially because her emotions were too close to the surface, but more likely because she didn’t fully understand what, exactly, she was feeling. For a stunning moment she longed for th
e communication of passion, to let her lips and hands tell him how she hurt, how she feared the future, how she longed for surcease from all thought.

  “We have to talk, Cait,” Alec said slowly.

  “No,” she said with some panic.

  He studied the road instead of looking at her. His hands rested heavily on the steering wheel, his jaw muscle worked and belied his impassivity. “Cait...”

  Her heart pounded in sudden, fearful thrums. She didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to say. She tucked her cold and shaking hands between her legs, as much to control their trembling as to warm them.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she said abruptly, uttering the raw truth, afraid of anything he might say now.

  He shifted his eyes from the highway to meet her gaze squarely, directly. She felt that intimate and so very rare contact to her soul. He might as well be kissing her, running his hands over her body.

  “We have to,” he said roughly. He shifted his gaze and she felt a pang of regret even as she breathed deeply in abject relief. Nothing about her was cold now, but everything quivered.

  “If — when — all this is over, I want to be a part of Allie’s life. Yours and Allie’s. Even your aunt Margaret’s. Do you understand me, Cait?”

  She understood him perfectly, but even as it shot a burst of pure adrenaline straight to her heart, she shook her head. “Which ‘all this’ do you mean, Alec? This particular situation with the FBI coming after you? Or you taking on another new name? Or you going undercover for another mission?”

  “Assignment.”

  “What?”

  “We call them assignments.”

  She felt a blast of fury work through her. “Damn you, Alec. Are you listening to me? I don’t want to wake up every day wondering if this will be your last. I don’t want to have Allie around guns. I don’t want —”