Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy)

by Jordan McCollum

  Now I know exactly how that feels. I can’t see how I’ll survive the searing pain threatening to slice me apart.

  The bus passes my stop. A security measure.

  Right. I stare up at the chain, gathering the will and energy to finally pull it and stand two stops after mine.

  If I thought being without my phone made me feel disconnected, I don’t know how to describe this. I’m not attached to my body anymore. It walks down the street to my building, up the stairs to my bachelor. My hands set the pie box on the floor. My feet carry me to the hinge side of the door.

  I unlock the door and throw it open, hard. Nobody jumps or cries out from behind it, like always. My back to the wall, I trudge through the apartment, halfheartedly checking the pantry and kitchenette and closet. Under the beds, in the shower. Et cetera.

  First I get felt up by Fyodor, and then dumped by Danny? This is worst night of my life.

  I finish my search and my cell vibrates in my purse. I pull it out, hoping it’s Danny, but the dire LOW BATTERY warning blocks most of the screen. At the top, though, I see the name on the incoming text before the phone gives up the ghost: Elliott Monteith.

  I.E. not Danny.

  I retrieve the pie from outside the door and finally close and lock it. And then it really hits me. Danny is gone. Gone. Over. And he’s right. I haven’t been fighting hard enough.

  In the space formerly occupied by my heart, embers flare to life. The tears start, but I know no amount of water will put out this fire.

  There’s only one thing to do now. Scrub away the tears and eat. I grab a fork from the kitchen, sink onto my bed, and dig into the pie again. Somehow, it doesn’t taste nearly as heavenly eating alone in the dark. But as a Mormon, I don’t do alcohol, tobacco or drugs, which leaves me chocolate and sugar for self-medicating.

  I chew slowly, waiting for that undercurrent that’s followed every breakup of my adult life: relief. Relief that I got out before it got serious. Relief that I’m single. Relief that I’m free.

  It doesn’t come.

  After another two slices, I start to feel sick. More sugar. Some chocolate syrup from my extreme emergency stash ups the ante and I keep plowing through the pie.

  When I opened the box, I had no intention of eating the whole thing. But suddenly there’s only a quarter of it left and my blood has thickened to the consistency of the pecan pie filling.

  And that barely scratches the surface of the pain now threatening my chest with a level-three burnout.

  Eating isn’t helping. I stuff the pie into my fridge. I’ll make a food-storing exception, just this once. I’ll probably need it for the next rough patch. Like when I wake up in the morning.

  An entire day — an entire life — without Danny looks like a Russian winter. Barren. Blinding. Bleak.

  I can’t even consider that. My fingers undo my shoes’ ankle straps, but that’s as much as I have the will to undress. I throw myself facedown on top of the sheets to wait for the tears.

  Instead there’s a knock at my door. But I know it’s not Danny. It’s not Elliott. It’s not worth getting up and pretending like everything’s okay. It’s not.

  By the time the person at the door gives up, the tears come, but not like I expect, as if I’ll open the gates with forty feet of water waiting. Just in a steady stream. And I’ll let them run onto the pillow until finally my eyes are either so puffy or tired that it’s no use trying to keep them open any longer. The best I can hope for now is to sink into numb nothingness.

  Until the window shatters.

  Hot ice courses through my veins. The blink of an eye is the difference between the Talia who can’t imagine facing tomorrow and the Talia who will go hand-to-hand with anyone who tries to stand between me and the next sunrise.

  I try to clamp down on the fight-or-flight reaction. Think. Fast. I slide off the bed and crouch by the wall. The would-be burglar clears out the glass from the frame. The lights are off, and I have the terrain advantage.

  Burglar? It could be anyone. My neighborhood’s recovering from a couple sordid decades, and some blocks are improving faster than others. This guy might not know who I am, what I do. He might’ve been the one knocking, making sure no one was home. He might be going after an easy, empty target.

  Sure.

  “Gde zhe ona?” comes a voice. Russian. Where is she? Definitely not just anyone. My system takes another hit of adrenaline.

  This is the exact reason I made sure my apartment had two accessible exits: when one is cut off, I can use the other. The shadow — no, shadows, there’s more than one of them — fall across my bed. I duck and crawl to the corner. Think.

  I can run or hide. But they’re searching. They’ll find me if I hide. No choice: run.

  To get out, ten steps and undo the lock, I tell myself. Then freedom. Grab my go bag? No, I can’t afford that much time. Just run.

  My breath comes in short, silent gasps. The Russians scan the room, but don’t see me in the shadows. One slips into the bathroom, the other into my closet.

  My chance.

  Energy rushes into every muscle and I launch myself toward the front door.

  The shout behind me says they notice right away. Still in the lead, I rip the chain out of the lock, flip the deadbolt and throw open the door.

  Blocked. Someone’s standing in the doorway. I power through the pan-flash of panic and deliver a right cross to the guy’s neck. I drop to my knees to pull his ankles out from under him.

  Before I can leap over him into the hall, one of the guys behind me grabs me, one arm over my shoulder, the other around my waist. I fire an elbow up into his face. It connects with his nose. He releases me and I shoot out of the apartment.

  Right into another man. A short, fat Russian. Mikhail Kozyrev. My heart jumps into my throat and I can’t hear anything but my rapid-fire pulse until he speaks. “Zhzhyonova.”

  It takes a second to figure out he means me — my cover’s last name. Trouble.

  “You know this man?”

  He holds out his phone. The screen shows a picture of me and Danny crossing the Plaza Bridge, mid-argument. Kozyrev changes to the next photo, us on the lock gate, Danny handing me the pie box.

  No. No. No.

  He scrolls to the next picture: Danny getting out of his car. At his house. “You want him hurt?”

  Fear crawls down my back like an ice cube running its slow, cold course. The wound is fresh, but I would still protect Danny with my life. And that’s exactly what they’re asking.

  “You will come with us.” And this time, I know it’s not a question, or a choice.

  In the car, I stare straight ahead for the short ride to Dow’s Lake. I don’t know how Kozyrev or the men wedged beside me did it, but obviously something has gone very wrong. Fyodor must know, too, though no one has mentioned him. Of course, two of the henchmen are too busy to talk, nursing their wounds and eyeing me with heavy suspicion.

  It’s less than ten minutes from my place to the round pavilion where Kozyrev docks. The lackey with a bloody nose only has one hand to pull me out of the car. It’d be so easy to take him out, or the one rubbing his purpling neck. Even the one leering at me with the yellowed teeth of a lifetime smoker couldn’t be that hard to escape. I could make a break for it at any opportunity.

  But that’s not worth Danny’s life. Kozyrev’s lackeys march me onto his boat, then into the cabin.

  Our 3-D modeling is accurate, but the pictures didn’t do the cabin justice. Leather banquette seating for at least eight, with a wedge-shaped rosewood table in the dining area. Curved countertops, solid granite, with custom cabinetry and a fridge to match. Are they going to have me sit here and bask in their wealth and secondhand smoke? Right.

  The henchmen parade me past the kitchen area to the bedroom. My stomach seizes. Anything but that.

  But they don’t pause, taking me straight to the head. To the massive shower. Not exactly more reassuring compared to the bed. One lackey opens the glass
door.

  “In,” Kozyrev says from behind me. I glance back; he holds up the last picture again. I can’t see Danny’s face — his back’s to the camera — but the angle of his shoulders is thoroughly depressed.

  Surely they can tell we were arguing, that the evening didn’t end well. Surely they’ll leave him alone if they know we’re not together anymore. “He doesn’t want to see me again.”

  “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  I’m not sure what that threat is supposed to mean, that they won’t go and get him, or that they’ll kill me or keep me here indefinitely?

  No, I remind myself. They don’t know who I am. I’m some Russian-Canadian chick who two-timed a friend. And could fight pretty well. But if that’s the case, why bother with this?

  Kozyrev gives up on the waiting game and shoves me into the shower.

  Inside, I turn around. “You know this isn’t the safest place to keep me. What happens if I break the glass?”

  Kozyrev slams the door between us. I jump. The door bounces back, reverberating from the impact. Totally intact.

  The modifications. Security measures. Who reinforces a shower? I can feel my options slipping through my fingers.

  “Shatterproof. Bulletproof.” As if that reminds him, Kozyrev turns to a henchman and orders him to frisk me. I set my jaw and fix my eyes on the wall, but the search is mercifully brief. I don’t even have shoes to check, and it’s not like I stuffed a gun under my dress.

  Satisfied, he shuts me in the shower. His henchman hands him a heavy chain. Kozyrev runs the chain through the door handle and a fancy exterior water pipe, then padlocks the links together. He tests the door. It moves only a fraction of an inch.

  “Enjoy your stay with us.” Kozyrev leads his men out, all of them grinning like demented jack-o’-lanterns.

  I’m alone. Again. For five long seconds, I teeter on the edge of despair, the ache in my heart slowly gaining strength. I’ve already given into the grief once tonight — deservedly, I think — but the stakes have changed now. If I slump down and sob myself into a stupor, there are a lot more serious things that could happen than waking up congested and puffy.

  If I wake up at all. Obviously their primary goal isn’t to take me out; they could’ve done that through the window at my place. But what they do hope to accomplish by kidnapping me?

  I don’t intend to stick around to find out, if I can help it. According to our 3-D model, I’m in the least accessible place in the boat, right behind the front deck. No windows, only one door, and no other escapes.

  I have to think my way out. I have to save myself, alert the rest of my team, cover my . . . Danny. Just Danny. No title. No “my.”

  No. I need to focus, not rub salt on my broken heart. I’m in a shower. What can I use to my advantage here? I look up. A handheld sprayer would make a good weapon, but no, Kozyrev had to opt for the expensive “rain” style head recessed into the ceiling. Using my few resources, I angle the wide, flat showerhead toward the door. If he’s got a good water heater, I might be able to hurt someone. If they line up and try to come through the door one at a time. Yeah. Great.

  There are at least four of them above deck, and possibly more on shore. Could they have someone sitting on Danny’s house?

  How did they find us in the first place? Did I do something wrong? I didn’t watch Fyodor leaving Strathcona Park, but I did go all over downtown to detect any tails.

  Of course, I did the same thing on my way home, and obviously I was a little distracted.

  I have to focus. Get out. Not get bogged down in my thoughts. Does it matter how I was compromised right this second? No.

  Time to take stock of what I’ve got. I’m in a shower. The floor-to-ceiling door, the one Kozyrev slammed to show off the solid glass, has a seal around the edge. The smooth white fiberglass half of the shower has a low wraparound bench (definitely not sitting there, shudder), and there’s a chromed out control panel on one wall. It must take a manual the size of War and Peace to figure out all these buttons.

  Steam. There’s a button for steam. And it has to come out somewhere, right? Without circulation to the outside, the whole shower would fill up with steam. Which might also make a good cover, if I had the terrain advantage.

  I don’t.

  I try to get a visual on the ventilation, but nothing looks like an air return, and I know those pretty well now. I turn back to the control panel and push the steam button. Within a minute or two, a hot cloud billows up from a chrome cylinder near where the glass and fiberglass meet, a foot above the floor.

  The steam gathers at the top of the shower stall, the scent of lavender wafting to me. Perfect. That smell drives me nuts. Gives me a headache every time.

  The hot cloudbank begins to creep down to reach me. Not venting out. I sit on the floor and keep an eye on the encroaching steam level.

  Of course. It’s a steam shower. It’s designed to hold steam as long as it holds you. I groan. I guess I get the appeal, but to me, that doesn’t seem luxurious. Despite my Finnish language background, I’ve never gotten saunas. It all just sounds sweaty.

  There must be ventilation somewhere else in the bathroom. I stand to push the button again and the steam stream peters out. To release the lavender-scented cloud, I wriggle my fingers between the seal and the door. I can push it open half an inch before the chain yanks it to a halt. The steam is hard to follow against the white walls, but it wafts upward. And collects along the ceiling. And goes nowhere.

  I wipe a bead of sweat from behind my bangs. That’s one idea down. How many more will this place eat before they tell me why they’ve got me here?

  Something jerks in the pit of my stomach, and it isn’t fear or nausea or three quarters of a pie. No, we’re accelerating. We’re going somewhere. We’re leaving.

  That’s bad. That’s really bad. There’s some chance the CIA might be able to trace me here, but the further we get from the pavilion, the harder it’ll be to find me. And no, we don’t implant GPS trackers in operatives (yet).

  Now I’m definitely going to have to swim for it. But from where?

  The door swings open. One of Kozyrev’s goons walks in. The steam billows into the bedroom until the door closes again.

  The lackey starts undoing his belt. The hairs at the back of my neck jump to attention. I am not going there, and I don’t care what happens to my cover. I’d die first. I would.

  I try to read this guy’s expression, but he doesn’t look at me. He hardly looks up at all. Crap. Is he trying to avoid my eyes, making sure he doesn’t see me as a person, only a victim?

  He doesn’t approach the lock or the shower door. He turns away — and opens the toilet? And pulls out a newspaper?

  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. The little knots of tension gathering in my lower back release, and I turn away to take a seat on the floor, my back to the guy.

  Seriously. You’ve got to be kidding me.

  Either Kozyrev has no kids or he expected his henchmen to be responsible and visit the toilet before we left, but no. After we get underway, I spend an hour — an hour — trapped in the only bathroom aboard the boat, and I’m not alone. You don’t want me to go into more detail than that, but my two minor consolations are turning my back on the rest of the bathroom, and that the shower is somewhat airtight. I do wish the soundproofing extended to the shower itself, but I have to settle for covering my ears and humming every song that comes to mind, all the way back to childhood. I know I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel when I get to “Porsaita Äidin Oomme Kaikki,” “We are all mother’s little pigs” sung to a Finnish Christmas tune.

  I’m completely out of songs by the time the third henchman’s washing up — yes, an hour for three guys. And I thought it was bad growing up with four brothers.

  I turn my head slightly to watch the henchman in the mirror. He’s loosely tied an icepack on his throat with a splotchy handkerchief. Average height, dark hair, brown eyes, scar over left eyebr
ow. If nothing else, we’ll get their descriptions in our databases when I get back. When. No ifs.

  The henchman dries his hands until the boat slows to a stop. Could we be as far as the locks? An hour and a half to get down, and then we hit the river. An hour and a half until we become a lot harder to find. And I don’t know if anyone realizes I’m missing.

  The henchman walks out, and I’m alone. Just like I have for the two minute reprieves between “guests,” I jump to my feet and into my personal inventory again. The only other things I’ve managed to accomplish are to turn the shower temperature up to 50° Celsius (that’s over 120° Fahrenheit, though it’s not on right now), and rule out taking apart the shower door hinges (they’re recessed in the floor and ceiling and I’m not getting them out without tools). Now I turn to what I’ve got on me.

  My bedazzled pointed hoop earrings might double as brass knuckles, though they only fit over three fingers. I pull a couple bobby pins from my hair, but I’m pretty sure they’re not going to do much good with the hinges. Really wish I’d gone for utility over appearance tonight.

  By the time the door to the bathroom swings open again, it’s been ten minutes, and I’m pretty much done with the inventory and the hinges. With one bare foot, I sweep the pins I’ve gathered against the glass wall, where Kozyrev and co. won’t see the evidence.

  Kozyrev and another guy step in. Did I do something that convinced them I’d be this easy to handle? Because I turned my back? Who wants to watch people use the bathroom?!

  “Hello.” Kozyrev’s greeting is pleasant, as if we’re meeting in Gorky Park instead of on opposite sides of a glass prison. He resembles a shorter, younger Boris Yeltsin (except in real life, Boris Yeltsin was more like Ben Affleck as a young man, and Kozyrev does not look like Ben Affleck in ten years).

  I cut to the chase. “What do you want from me?”

  “Can I be honest?”