Covert Alliance

by Linda O. Johnston

  He liked that she sounded completely out of breath when the kiss finally ended.

  He didn’t do much better—especially when he couldn’t help pulling her back into his arms and kissing her again.

  For show, he told himself, even as his body, which had already responded, grew even harder.

  But soon Kelly backed off once more.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said, then opened her door and got in.

  Chapter 6

  Kelly took her time starting her car, hoping it appeared to Alan that she was having a bit of trouble with the old and ailing vehicle—but it was mostly because she kept looking at him and smiling, even as she glanced beyond him to the door into the bar.

  She hoped to see Stan, as foolish as that might be.

  If she did, was she going to fling open the door and chase after him? Accuse him of doing horrible things to his own son, even though she didn’t fully understand the implications Alan had made to the kinds of abuse Stan might be subjecting Eli to?

  No. She couldn’t do that. Besides, she knew from Eli’s web posts—and that spot on his face—that things weren’t great. Maybe what Alan had learned was just more of the same.

  Much more than it ever should be...and she was going to fix it. Somehow.

  For now, she made herself grab hold of her emotions and get the car started.

  But she couldn’t resist glancing again toward the bar door, just in case...

  No Stan. Good. She would have to get her emotions fully under control so she wouldn’t attack him physically or verbally next time she saw him, most likely at the Haven.

  That was more his specialty, although subtly, very subtly—as he had done to Andi before she disappeared. Or less subtly to Kelly herself, despite her inability to prove it.

  Plus, she intended to get more detailed information from Alan on the pretext, at least, of needing to know what Eli had recently gone through so she could find a way to fix it—despite being a stranger to him now.

  Pretext? Not exactly. She definitely needed to know what was going on now. And as she’d considered before, if it took ruining her own cover to make things right for her poor nephew, so be it.

  Okay. It was time. She opened her window and called to Alan, “Good night. See you tomorrow.” She smiled and waved.

  “Good night,” he called back.

  She blew him a kiss, staying in the character he was establishing for them, then backed out of the parking spot.

  She pulled down the driveway between the two one-story buildings and onto the street. She took a deep breath, attempting to calm her nerves enough to proceed carefully.

  The drive to the large Havenly residential development outside of town where her small one-bedroom apartment was located didn’t take long. There was no traffic at this hour—not that Blue Haven had a lot of traffic even during rush-hour times.

  Her building was one of four arranged in a square, with a parklike area in the middle. Her apartment was on the top floor, with a view not of the pretty center but of the sometimes-busy street.

  Those apartments were less expensive.

  She parked in the spot designated for her unit and sat in the car for another moment, trying to chill her nerves once more. Hey, she was home—or what passed for home now. She’d had a long, emotionally draining day, as most were since she had returned to Blue Haven. Although this was the worst so far, partly thanks to Alan and his non-confrontation of her.

  Was he right? Could they work together? Should they make it appear to people here that they had a romantic relationship so no one would think it odd if they happened to chat with each other now and then?

  Most of all, could she trust him? Work with him to bring Stan down? Allow him to help her ensure that things would be okay for Eli?

  Well, she wouldn’t figure all that out tonight. She exited the car with determination and entered the building, then headed toward her unit.

  Trudging slowly up the apartment stairs, though, she couldn’t keep her mind completely on track.

  It kept returning to Alan.

  Heck, he was one sexy guy. He knew who she was, and he’d admitted to being with the CIU.

  Could she trust him?

  Or maybe she should do what she had been avoiding all along.

  Maybe, tomorrow, she would call Judge Treena to report in, accept the scolding that would undoubtedly occur...and ask a few important questions.

  * * *

  The next day started out very ordinary—or at least, despite its low points, as ordinary as any had been since Kelly’s arrival back here in Blue Haven.

  No breakfast visits from any city council members.

  No orders to bring a large lunch to Government Plaza.

  Boring. Worrisome. Frustrating that she wasn’t accomplishing anything to help Eli, let alone find out what happened to Andi.

  But that was part of the problem with going undercover like this. She had a role to play, as she did with the new persona that the ID Division had created for her.

  She’d needed that to save her life.

  She needed this one to possibly save her nephew’s.

  Which made her want to do something. Fast.

  For now, though, she had to be patient. Somehow.

  At the moment, she waited near the kitchen to pick up a large breakfast order for a group of accountants who’d come in to eat and discuss how to handle the next tax season for their corporate clients. Kelly had overheard part of their discussion and, as tired as she was considering how little she’d slept last night, she wondered if she would fall asleep right on her feet waiting for them to give her their orders.

  But she didn’t. She even gritted her teeth as she approached the table with some of the food, and managed to continue smiling and acting pleasant while the men in the mostly male group ran their eyes up and down her body, just like so many other male customers seemed to do.

  It made her wish she could go back to her apartment and grab a sweatshirt and long pants while working this job.

  Or maybe she should call Alan to come here and assume his role as her new guy-friend and make sure all the staring men around here knew it.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” said the next fellow she approached with a plate of eggs and toast. “I’d love a fresh cup of coffee now. Can you get it for me?” His gaze moved up her body toward her bustline, then back down to her butt.

  Oh, yes, she would get him some coffee. But it would take every bit of her willpower not to dump it, steaming hot, onto his lap.

  It was all she could do not to stomp off—at the very least.

  But fortunately she had a way of dealing with this that shouldn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers—much. Not even her boss, Ella, could object. She looked around, then hurried away from this table and toward a line of booths along the front of the restaurant.

  She had spotted her coworker Lang Elgin, dressed as usual in a white shirt and dark pants—same color combination, basically, as the women servers here, but definitely not sexy or feminine.

  He could handle this table without being subject to any ogling, probably not even from the nearby women, thanks to his age and paunch. And Kelly definitely needed a break right now.

  “Hey, Lang,” she said after catching up with him. “Could you take over that table for me for a while?” She nodded toward the group of chattering accountants.

  “You need a potty break or a pincher break?” His wide grin bisected his round face, and Kelly just laughed.

  “Guess,” she said.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “As you must know by now, I’ve been the backup for a lot of women working as servers here for quite a while.” He leaned down toward her. “It’s fine to ask me now and then,” he said, “and I’m always good for it. But Ella, on the other hand...”

  “I understand,” Kelly said. “I won’t ask you again...for another ten minutes.” She smiled back at him, then told him who wanted coffee. She then headed in the direction of the restroom, willing to use t
hat as her excuse.

  No, better yet, she decided to use the back door and go outside. She had her cell phone in her pocket.

  She had a call to make.

  But Judge Treena didn’t answer right away. And Kelly didn’t feel comfortable leaving a message. Her burner phone number would undoubtedly show up as a missed call on the judge’s line. Her Honor might call back soon, but Kelly needed to choose the time and place to talk to her.

  Too bad she couldn’t just erase her number now from Judge Treena’s line. But, like the judge, she didn’t have to answer a call as it came in.

  The sound on her phone was already turned off. It was on vibrate. That was a good thing.

  Had Alan already discussed her with Her Honor? Was he under orders to send her back? If so, he wasn’t showing it—yet. But despite his suggestion that they work together, she couldn’t trust him.

  She returned inside quickly, headed for the restroom as her cover, then hurried back into the restaurant, where she signaled to Lang that she was back and ready.

  “You okay?” Tobi asked. She had been near the front of the restaurant serving maybe a dozen tables. Kelly wouldn’t have asked her for help anyway. Tobi, around her age but slimmer than Kelly, would have been subject to the same unwanted attention at the accountants’ table.

  “I’m fine...now.” She glanced toward where Lang was walking around refilling coffee cups.

  “I get it,” Tobi said. The pretty server grinned almost wickedly at Kelly. “You mean flirtation isn’t your first wish of the day?”

  “Hardly.” Kelly smiled back.

  For the next couple of hours Kelly managed to do her duty, which was a good thing, especially when Ella emerged from her office and started issuing orders to her waitstaff.

  No meeting at Government Plaza to attend to, fortunately, but a change in who was serving which tables.

  Why? Probably just a demonstration by Ella of who was in charge.

  Kelly was at the front of the restaurant waiting on the tables that were previously Tobi’s purview when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Since she had only recently bought her burner phone, hardly anyone had her number. She assumed it was Judge Treena, after seeing that number on her own phone.

  This wasn’t a good time to call her back.

  Kelly ignored the vibration for now. She would, as she’d told herself before, have to choose when and where to try calling the judge again.

  But the phone vibrated again almost immediately. Fortunately, she had just finished jotting down the orders of a man and woman seated at a booth near the door. She needed to go place the orders in the kitchen anyway, which she did.

  After looking around to ensure that only the couple of cooks at this hour, two middle-aged guys, were in the kitchen, Kelly edged over to the wall and extracted her phone from her pocket.

  The number it showed for the calls she had missed were not the judge’s. No, she had traded numbers with Alan, and his showed up twice.

  Was something wrong?

  Surely he wouldn’t be that persistent just to follow up on their plan to appear that they were attracted to each other.

  As she stood there, her phone vibrated again. Yes, it was Alan.

  Glancing around to make sure that Ella wasn’t in the kitchen and that the two cooks’ attention was on the stove, Kelly turned toward the wall and pushed the button to answer.

  “Hi, Alan,” she whispered into the phone, although she supposed that if the cooks heard her it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  “Hi, Kelly. I’m starving. I need you to bring me a chicken club sandwich right away.”

  Really? But Kelly understood there must be an underlying message for him to make such a demand.

  Right?

  “Er... I’d be glad to if I can get the okay. The thing is—”

  “The thing is there’s a really good reason for you to bring it to me. Now. And in fact, bring several. Different kinds are fine. There are some people here right now that I’d like to treat to lunch—and not just my security associates. Are you coming? It’s really good timing.”

  And then Kelly finally understood.

  Eli must be back at Government Plaza.

  * * *

  “Of course I’ll bring over some sandwiches.” Kelly’s voice over the phone now sounded ecstatic. Clearly, she got it. “Chips, too. I don’t think I’ll be able to carry drinks, though.”

  “That’s fine.” Alan almost laughed, but at the moment he was in the small, desk-filled office that served as security headquarters in Government Plaza, and there were other guards with him. He had already figured that Kelly was intelligent and motivated, but she was also insightful and resourceful.

  She clearly understood what he hadn’t said.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Then she hung up.

  One hurdle met. The next was to make sure that those whose lunches would arrive soon remained to eat.

  And talk, at least a bit.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” he informed his associates. Two women and one man, all dressed professionally in suits as he was, were huddled around one desk in their assigned room at the plaza, genially arguing about who was most likely to get hired first by a genuine government security organization, and not just work for this very nice—read that as schlocky—private security company. Their boss, Nevil Hancock, wasn’t present so they could talk this way.

  With Alan’s genuine government security background, he doubted that any of them were qualified, but he wasn’t about to tell them so. But their argument was a good thing, since they hadn’t been paying attention to him. No one would expect their lunches to be delivered.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Dodd Frankler. The senior guy hadn’t been involved in that conversation, either realizing he might be too old or overqualified, or both, to worry about changing jobs just now.

  He might expect lunch, or not. Either way, Alan would make sure he was happy.

  He liked the guy, considered him an ally of sorts, though Dodd didn’t really know who Alan was or why he was there—except to help out with security for the city council, which was fine.

  Right now, Alan nodded at Dodd, stood and headed past the unoccupied rows of desks to the office door. After opening it, he checked both ways down the hall and stepped out.

  Alan had last seen Eli Grodon when he was on his most recent patrol of the facility about twenty minutes earlier. Eli had been walking down the hallway upstairs that contained the city council members’ offices, along with Cal Arviss, clearly his best friend. As they had passed Stan Grodon’s office, Eli must have heard something inside since whatever conversation he’d been having with Cal stopped as his eyes grew huge and he hurried forward.

  His father must not know he was here. Eli was probably on one of his quasi-internship missions that day and didn’t want him to know.

  Councilwoman Susan Arviss had been walking behind the two youngsters and helped usher them to her office. The hard glance she leveled on Alan as they entered looked both defiant and as if she was warning him not to say anything.

  Of course he wouldn’t. But he really did want to know what was up between father and son.

  Would whatever it was help him to find the hard evidence of what had happened to Eli’s mother—and prove, if it was true, that she had been murdered by her husband?

  Without informing Dodd where he was going, Alan headed for the stairwell and walked up the flights to the building’s fourth floor, where the council members’ offices were, one story beneath the mayor’s offices. That was part of what his detail did anyway, so it wouldn’t surprise Dodd.

  It was nearing noon, so many of the workers up here might already be out to lunch. Nevertheless, Alan started out in the opposite direction from Councilwoman Arviss’s office and paused outside each closed door, listening.

  That was part of their orders. They were to check things cursorily unless there was any evidence of a problem. If so, they were authorized to
open those doors and ensure that all was well.

  Or, if not, they were to make things well, which might include contacting the local police department.

  Fortunately, nothing captured Alan’s attention on the patrol. Even when they reached Councilwoman Arviss’s office, he didn’t hear anything, but he had a reason to enter anyway, so he knocked on the door.

  In a few seconds, Cal Arviss opened it. “Hi,” he said, sounding tentative.

  “Hi,” Alan said back. “Nothing’s wrong.” He wanted to reassure the young man. “We’re just doing some random checking—plus...well, can we come in?”

  “Sure.” Cal still sounded worried.

  Eli sat behind the secretary’s desk near the door. He didn’t look up but continued to stuff envelopes with letters. His eyes shifted for a moment in Alan’s direction and he seemed to take a deep breath, as if in relief.

  What was wrong? Would Alan be able to find out?

  “Can I help you?” That was Councilwoman Arviss, who stood up from behind her own desk and walked to the side of the secretary’s desk where Eli was. She sounded pompous, in charge—and irritated at the interruption. But there was an expression in her eyes that made Alan wonder what she was really thinking.

  He merely smiled. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve ordered lunch to be brought in from the Haven Restaurant for myself, plus a few more meals. I saw you arrive earlier and figured you might be interested in joining me. Okay?”

  Cal was now with Eli behind the secretary’s desk, and both their faces lit up. But they looked toward Susan Arviss for her okay.

  “That’s very nice of you,” she said, but her tone sounded curt, as if she didn’t believe that niceness came without a price.

  Alan shot a glance at Dodd, who was now beside him also looking curious, as if he wondered what was really going on. Then he said, “I’m just very impressed by what you seem to be doing with these guys, Councilwoman. I had a mentor when I was about their age who did something similar, and I...well, I want to encourage you and them. So at least for today, I’m feeding you lunch and would love to hear even more about what you do.”