by Fiona Quinn
“That’s not a debt, Lacey. Seriously. You don’t owe me anything.”
“No, it doesn’t feel like a debt to me. You haven’t asked me for anything. As a matter of fact, you keep asking me for what I want. That’s really kind of special, you know? A gift, really. A gift that you keep giving.” She paused. “I like that you’re not making decisions for me – that you trust my judgment.” She sent him a confused smile, as though her lips didn’t know whether they should go up or down. “And my integrity . . .”
She was quiet for a long time. That last little bit had sounded to Deep like she was trying to work things out in her own head and wasn’t looking for a conversation. The radio was off in the car, and they drove in silence. Deep thought she needed some integration time for herself. At least she didn’t freak out when he said he loved her. That had to be a plus.
He was coming off the ramp to drive toward the restaurant when she said, “Love. It’s such a strange word. It covers everything for my feeling about vanilla ice cream to I guess . . . no, I don’t guess. Huh.”
“What’s that?” Deep asked.
“I was going to say it covers everything from my feeling for vanilla ice cream to you. But that can’t be right, can it? There should be a different word for what I’m feeling. Something that’s precious and beautiful. And not at all delicate. Sturdy. It should be a sturdy word, something that won’t be weathered or wilted or abraded. Something that will stand the test of use and time. That’s how it feels to me, like . . . Oh, you know, like a church pew from a renaissance cathedral.”
“In Italy.” Deep raised an emphatic brow.
“An Italian cathedral. Yes, of course.”
“Weathered wouldn’t be bad. I’ve seen some things that I thought grew more interesting if not more beautiful through use. The sharp edges rounded. The finish becoming soft as satin. More distinctive and interesting to look at. I wouldn’t mind becoming weathered with you, Lacey.” He pulled into the parking lot and turned to her.
“That’s so sappy.” She laughed with tears in her eyes.
Deep leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. But his heart contracted hard when he pulled back and saw the look in her eyes. He saw the same thing there as the day they had met. “You are home. You belong here.”
Chapter Forty
Deep
Wednesday Night
Deep lay on the king-sized bed with his arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He thought they were pretty safe here for the night. The hotel was a good-quality chain. Not so expensive that the employees were falling all over themselves to impress you by using your name, not so mainstream that he questioned their security. A “just right” in the Goldilocks hunt for a hideout.
This would have to be their last night on their own. When Lacey came out of the bathroom, he’d need to talk to her about heading in to Iniquus, probably right after they talked to Dr. Jones in the morning. Having the pictures of the children and not actively searching for them and bringing them to safety was a huge stone in Deep’s gut. And too, there was the ongoing arts con.
The art should be going into place in the Alexandria gallery annex right about now. Something bad was supposed to happen Friday evening after the agents were photographed with the art pieces they represented. Deep had looked up the building on Google Maps. The rented space sat on street level in a high-dollar neighborhood. Over it were seven floors of apartments. In order to make sure all of the paintings were destroyed, the conspirators would have to pretty much obliterate the whole show space where the oils were hung. Deep couldn’t imagine anything other than explosions or fire that would do that, and that meant all of those people who lived above, and all of their stuff, their photos, their family treasures, could be destroyed as well.
There was a restaurant around the corner from the space. And from what Deep could tell, that meant the kitchen shared a wall with the gallery annex. Last summer, his teammate Randy had headed to the West Coast to LA to pick up some evidence – a CPA’s computer. When he got there, he discovered that the whole block had come down in an inferno when the gas stove blew in a neighborhood eatery at just the wrong time of day. The morning traffic jam kept the responders away for too long. By the time the LA fire crew arrived on scene, it was an issue of containment and cleanup. Too late for anything else.
As he lay there with his sock feet stretched out in front of him, a steady thumping began on the wall behind the king-sized bed. Deep sent a knowing smile in that direction and went back to his thoughts.
Washington had its issues with gridlock. But not in the timeframe they were looking at. The destruction would have to take place between the Friday night event with the agents and the Saturday show opening, if Deep followed what the counterfeiter had said on the phone.
If he were asked to come up with a plan to take out the space, Deep would cause a gas explosion in the kitchen of the restaurant and make sure that there was an accelerant left against the annex’s side of the wall. There were plenty of things that would make sense in that space—the bar set up with plenty of big plastic gallons of alcohol, for example. Add in something like mineral spirits or some other things that might be used around the paintings, and that space could blow big.
Even if that’s not how this was going to go down, in order to keep the insurance claim clean, he’d guess the destructive event would originate in one of the buildings on either side of the annex. And whatever that event was, it would have to be huge to ensure success. That certainly wasn’t information he could sit on. He couldn’t assume that the FBI knew about the impending strike and was taking action. No. If Deep had learned anything in his career, it was never to assume.
Of course, Lacey would have to make her own decisions about how she wanted to move forward, but for him, he planned to return to the mothership with as much detail about this whole intrigue as possible—as soon as possible.
Deep was trying to focus on a plan, but his thoughts were interrupted by the velocity of action from the room next door. Someone was hitting the mattress hard, and in a cadence that meant the guy surely couldn’t keep it up for much longer. Every once in a while, the noise would stop and the murmur of a man’s directive would come through the thin wall board. Ah, the joys of being in a hotel. Could be worse, Deep thought; it could be a screaming infant. Screaming infants usually went on for hours, if not all night long. No guy he knew had that much stamina. So hopefully this would be short-lived.
The door to the bathroom opened and Lacey emerged with a billow of steam. She was wrapped in a towel. Her skin looked warm and pink, and inviting. She focused over Deep’s head at the wall. Deep peeked up to make sure the painting above him wasn’t dancing with the vibrations. The last thing he needed was the ribbing he’d get from the guys if he couldn’t make it over to the landing-zone Monday because he was held up by a concussion from a picture in a motel room. That didn’t even make a good bar story.
“Sounds like someone’s having fun,” Lacey said.
“The guy’s got stamina, I’ll give him that.”
“It’s been going on for a while?” She quirked a funny little smile.
“Since you went into the bathroom.”
Lacey stared at the wall. “You’re kidding, right? They’ve been going at it like that since I started my bath? That poor girl’s probably sending up smoke signals from her girly-parts.”
Deep looked at her, then burst out laughing. He crawled to the end of the bed with mischief in his eyes. “I’ve studied human anatomy, and I don’t remember learning that particular body part. Can you show me what girly-parts look like?” He gave the bottom of her towel a little tug.
Lacey squealed and held the towel tighter around her. “Shhh. Stop, they’ll hear you.”
“Me shhh? I’ve been listening to them thumping the wall for the last forty minutes.”
The woman on the other side began moaning and begging loudly, “Oh baby, give it to me. Give it to me.”
The pink
of Lacey’s skin turned a bright shade of red that made Deep laugh even harder. But he was thankful that the couple next door seemed to have hit their crescendo and were on their way down. At least the bed had stopped thumping against the wall.
“Our turn,” Deep said, pulling Lacey into his arms.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Lacey said in a scandalized voice as he fell backward onto the mattress with her in his arms.
“Why are you saying no, beautiful?” Deep asked as he tucked her hair out of her face.
“Because you’re going to get all competitive and see if you can’t go at least five minutes longer, and maybe put the bed through the wall instead of simply banging it into the wall. That’s why. ‘Be all you can be?’ Isn’t that the Marines motto?”
Deep spun until he’d pinned Lacey underneath him, and though she had said, ‘Oh no,’ her legs had wrapped up on either said of his hips, and she had let her towel fall open. He kissed her nose.
“That’s the army. The Marines’ motto is ‘Always faithful’,” he said softly. “And I do my best to live that motto.” He kissed her chin. “But when a girl says no, it means no.” He kissed her lips very lightly. “Do you want to rethink your answer?” Before she could respond, he kissed her lips again. “Besides, that guy was having sex like an army infantryman. They throw on a pack and hump their way to their destination. Usually it takes a long, long time, and it’s damned boring. That’s not how I was trained, ma’am.”
“And just how were you trained, Marine?”
“I’m special ops. I home in on the target, I get it into my sights, right? Then I work with skill and efficiency to make sure my mission is completed satisfactorily.”
“Satisfactory? Not exemplary?” Lacey asked with a little pout.
“I don’t like to brag, but I have a number of shiny medals that they’ve pinned to my chest that say I’m one of the best of the best.”
A coy smile spread across Lacey’s face. “I’d agree with that.” She strained for another kiss, but Deep kept his mouth out of range.
“I’m sorry, but you said no.”
“It’s a lady’s prerogative to change her mind,” Lacey said.
“Then say the magic words.”
Lacey batted her eyes like Scarlet O’Hara and offered up a perfect Cupid’s bow smile. “Pretty please, with sugar and cream on top?”
Chapter Forty-One
Lacey
Thursday Morning
Deep and Lacey pulled up to the 1960s-style brick utilitarian building.
“Lacey, when we’re done here, we need to take some time to regroup and make some big decisions.”
Lacey looked over at him and tilted her head.
“We’re going to have to move on our intel. Figure out somewhere safe for you to go. . .”
“Okay.” Lacey’s heart gave her a weird little knock. Deep’s words sounded like he was done. Ready to wash his hands of this problem. Her problem. Her. He was ready to wash his hands of her. She was a burden that needed to be sorted and stored on a different shelf.
She got out and looked up at the sky. For the first time in days there was an expanse of blue, though the sun was only a dim globe. Lacey stomped her feet to keep her toes from freezing as the chill crept up from the sidewalk and through the soles of the tennis shoes Lynx had bought for her. Even with their grip soles, her heel slipped out from under her on the icy surface, and she flailed to keep herself upright. Deep was laughing as he caught her around the waist to steady her. She grabbed hold of the door handle as she came upright and waited while Deep moved around to the back of the Rover to gather the paper bag with the live rock, then came around toward her. With an arm around her waist, they started up to the glass doors, where they could see a figure waiting for them.
“Hello. Hello. I’m Dr. Jones.” The man’s enthusiasm was a little overwhelming as they moved into the lobby. Lacey wished she’d had a moment to adjust to the new environment before being bowled over with the man’s big personality. “I understand that you want to talk about live rocks and boiling water. So interesting.” He set off at a trot down the corridor, and she and Deep hurried along behind him. Lacey wondered whether Dr. Jones had swigged a pot of espresso for breakfast. Normal people didn’t have his kind of energy.
He was thin and a good six-foot-five, towering over Deep. The hem of his pants hit above his ankles, showing one blue and one brown sock. The cuffs on his shirt and lab coat didn’t quite make it all the way down to his wrists. He was elastic, and his movements were expansive. He reminded Lacey of one of those performers at Disneyland she’d seen on TV, dancing on stilts in the parades.
Dr. Jones burst through the doors and stretched his arms with a wide flourish. “My lab,” he said, then stood in the center of the room. A self-satisfied grin spread wide across his face.
Lacey moved into the space and gasped. “Dr. Jones, this is spectacular.”
The room was long and thin, like the professor. On the two longest walls were a series of aquariums on two levels. The upper aquariums held various configurations of coral and marine fish, and underneath were tanks that looked like they held sea weeds. The scenes in each aquarium were glorious, and for Lacey it was like walking through a living arts gallery. Incredible beauty — the movement of the water, the oscillation of the anemone and other sea creatures, the brilliant flashes of fish.
Lacey exhaled. Amidst the reefscapes, the stress in her body seemed to gain weight and substance that could now be identified by gravity and pulled down her spine and her limbs until it puddled on the floor. Lacey stepped forward. “Dr. Jones, this is simply exquisite. It must feel like you’re on vacation every time you come to work,” she said with a smile.
Dr. Jones was now rocking back and forth on his feet like a Jack-in-the-box that had sprung out and was dancing on its coil. He laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly right. I have the best job in the world. They pay me to play. Isn’t that marvelous?”
Lacey smiled at the infectious joy that Dr. Jones exuded. While over the top, he didn’t feel manic to her, just like he somehow had learned to embrace happiness. Like a marine sciences joy-guru. Lacey smiled at the thought. She wondered what it would be like to live or work with someone like him. Would it wear off on you, or would it wear you down? She looked once again at Dr. Jones’s mismatched socks and thought they probably reflected more of his distraction that morning than color blindness or lack of aesthetics, because whoever arranged these tanks did so with a flair for color and texture. She pointed at a crazy-looking fish and smiled up at the professor.
“That’s a pajama fish—one of my favorites. It looks like he was drunk when he was getting dressed.” Dr. Jones laughed. And indeed, it was a bizarre combination of polka dots and stripes and colors. It even had red eyes.
“Are these corals?” Lacey pointed at the bright bursts of color in the tank.
“Those there?” Dr. Jones asked, moving closer to peek into the tank. “No, that’s a common mistake. People think that they’re corals and even call them soft corals. Those are Palythoa, which are related to coral, but they are not actually corals.”
Deep joined them in front of a massive aquarium that held an amazing garden of bright colors. Florescent orange, acidic green, neon purple in variations of tiny passion fruit-like flowers all mounding in soft pillow structures on the skeleton of rock. The rocks in the tank looked exactly like the rock that she and Deep had stolen from the Zen garden at Radovan’s home.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they? This animal is very popular with salt water aquarists,” Dr. Jones said.
Deep leaned over the top of the open aquarium. “They look like the flowers you’d see in a science fiction movie.”
“They do, don’t they?” Enthusiasm and energy rolled off Dr. Jones as he spoke about the animals as if they were his children, and they had accomplished something spectacular. “Those Palythoa are extremely dangerous. You wouldn’t know it by looking at them, but they produce the second-most deadly
toxin known to man.”
“Deadly?” Lacey asked.
“Yes. Oh, yes.” Dr. Jones nodded emphatically. “One gram of palytoxin can kill one hundred million mice. Yes, oh yes, deadly. On contact, even in the smallest amount it can have an effect. It can, for example, cause a tingling sensation, and it can give someone a metallic taste on their tongue. Exposure can make you feel like you have the flu. With an increase in toxic contact, it increases blood pressure and decreases respiration. If exposure continues, it can put you into a coma, and at high enough doses, it will kill you. High enough doses, mind you, are miniscule.”
Lacey and Deep both squatted down to see into the aquarium and the tiny flowers that glowed beneath the specialized aquarium lights.
“As a matter of fact,” Dr. Jones continued, “we know that ancient societies would harvest the palytoxins to put on the heads of their spears, darts and arrows to kill their enemies. Of course, they wouldn’t have wanted to put it on their weapons when they were killing their food supply. As the blood stream carried the poison into the body of the animals to effect the death, it would poison the muscle tissue, rendering it dangerous to eat.”
“Huh.” Lacey put a steadying hand on the aquarium’s shelf. “It reminds me of that scene in Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is dancing in the poppies, relishing their beauty, when in fact they were dangerous.”
“But only to make Dorothy sleep. If I remember the movie correctly, the good witch cast a spell, and it snowed on Dorothy, which negated the Wicked Witch’s spell. That’s not possible here.”
“People have aquariums in their homes that hold the second-most deadly poison in the world?” Lacey asked, rising to her feet.
“Known to man. We’re discovering new and wonderful things every day.” Dr. Jones slapped his hands together and rubbed them, looking thoroughly pleased. “But yes, right in the homes of saltwater aquarium owners. And it’s not an uncommon experience that hobbyists will run into problems. For example, they’ll be fragging. Now, fragging is short for fragmentation. If an aquarist wishes to share a fragment with a fellow aquarist, or he wants to sell a piece, or he’s trying to propagate the species in his or her own tanks, they go through the fragging process. It’s really quite easy, let me show you.”
