Tell Me No Spies

by Diane Henders

  “r u there? r u there?”

  “Yes. J might have a contract out on Kane.”

  “u mean a hit?”

  “Yes. Make sure he’s careful. And he needs to protect D. Might be a contract out on him, too.”

  “who’s D?”

  Shit, of course he wouldn’t know who Dante was. I racked my brain for Dante’s last name and came up completely blank. Surely Nichele had mentioned it, but I hadn’t been sober at the time. I hissed frustration through my teeth.

  “Dante. Sorry, don’t know his last name. Friend of N’s. Underwear model.” I felt a pang as I imagined Spider’s blush, wondering if I’d ever see him again.

  My fingers trembled over the keyboard for an instant before I added, “Find out if D’s still alive.” I couldn’t bear the thought that he might be dead, but I had to know. I swallowed hard and pressed the Send key.

  Dave’s arm settled around my shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Aydan,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I swallowed again and turned back the screen where Spider was again demanding my attention.

  “r u there?”

  “Yes.”

  “u need anything else?”

  I was just about to type ‘no’ and sign off when a thought occurred to me. I took a deep breath. If anybody could find out, it would be Spider.

  “Can you find out,” I hesitated, afraid to ask the question, afraid to hear the answer. Dave’s arm tightened around my shoulders as I took another deep breath, hands frozen above the keyboard. I let the air leak out between my lips. “…if S killed my parents and Uncle R, too?”

  “WHAT??”

  I saw no need to repeat myself. “I’ll check back later. Over & out.”

  I logged off and cleared the cache, then stood staring at the screen for a few seconds. I barely prevented myself from jerking in shock when Dave pulled me gently to him and kissed me. A soft, vanilla kiss.

  He stroked my hair back with a tense hand and leaned close to whisper in my ear. “There’s a guy watching us.”

  “Thanks, Dave, let’s get out of here.” I pulled away and smiled at him, and he slid his arm around my waist as we turned to stroll back to the parking lot.

  Inside the car, I shot a look around. “Do you see him?”

  “No. He didn’t follow us.” Dave’s hand closed over mine as I reached for the ignition. “Aydan?”

  “Yeah?” I turned to face him.

  He flushed. “Uh… Could I, uh, could I… kiss you for real?”

  I felt heat rising in my face as I gawked at him, wondering what to say.

  “Sorry, never mind,” he muttered, blushing scarlet. He turned to stare out the window, his ears fiery red. “Forget I said that.”

  “Dave…”

  “It’s okay, forget it. Let’s go.” His fingers closed convulsively on the hem of his T-shirt, bunching it in his fist. The muscles in his forearm rippled as he worked at the fabric.

  Oh, God.

  “Dave, you have been kissing me for real.”

  “I meant…” More abuse of the T-shirt. “…Like maybe you’d kiss me because you want to, not because you have to.”

  I spoke to the back of his head. “I’ve never had to kiss you. If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t let you within ten feet of me. And I sure as hell wouldn’t be tongue-wrestling with you.”

  His fingers stilled, but he didn’t turn. “Oh. Uh.” A long pause. “But you’re not really, uh… enjoying it. Are you?”

  I grimaced, resisting the urge to pound my forehead against the steering wheel. Tact. Summon up some tact, for once in your life.

  “Dave, I’ve been too shit-scared to think about enjoying it. This isn’t the movies, and I don’t get off on danger.”

  My conscience twinged as I flashed vividly back to Hellhound in the passenger seat. I bit my lip and ploughed on. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been giving you some really mixed messages. I really do like you, but…”

  He turned at last and met my eyes briefly before dropping his gaze to study the torn carpet on the floor of the car. “But not that way,” he finished matter-of-factly.

  “I…” I stared at him, struggling for something kind to say. But not too kind. Complimentary and encouraging, but not… encouraging. Goddammit…

  “It’s okay. Just had to ask.” He shrugged. “We better go.”

  “Dave…”

  “Forget it.”

  I watched him for a few seconds, but he didn’t look up. I sighed, reached to guide his chin to me, and leaned over to kiss him. Plain vanilla. I didn’t rush.

  When I pulled back, I met his puzzled eyes. “I wanted to do that,” I told him.

  He smiled. “Thanks.”

  I fired up the car and listened to its smooth, soothing rumble for a few seconds. I love cars. They’re so uncomplicated.

  “How are we doing for time?” I asked.

  “Forty-five minutes before we have to call Hellhound or get back there.”

  “Good. I want to stop and grab something for supper. I’m starving.”

  I chose a large, busy grocery store and gave Dave the mission of raiding the deli while I grabbed some apples, cereal bars, and juice. When we met at the checkout, he eyed my basket. “Sorry, guess I didn’t do so well with the groceries earlier,” he muttered.

  “No, you did fine. I just like to have the juice in case I need a quick blood-sugar boost, that’s all.”

  “Is this okay?” He held his basket out for inspection. My stomach growled audibly.

  I clapped a hand over it and grinned at him. “Gets my seal of approval.”

  I dug into my waist pouch for my wallet, feeling Dave’s eyes on my dwindling sheaf of bills. Back in the car, I consulted my watch. “Good, we’ve got enough time to get gas. I don’t want to let the tank get too low.”

  “What’ll we do when we run out of cash?”

  “Worry about it when the time comes,” I told him with more confidence than I felt. “Maybe Arnie has some.”

  “Yeah.” He fell silent as we pulled onto the road.

  Back at the industrial park, I waited for a couple of trucks to vacate the parking lot before I parked in front of the overhead door and trotted over to the keypad. I punched in the number and relaxed when the door began to roll up.

  I was turning back toward the car when motion flickered in my peripheral vision. I sprang back, twisting to face the movement, and tripped over my own feet.

  Chapter 25

  My butt hit the pavement as a tire iron whistled by inches from my nose. I yelped and rolled, vaguely aware of Dave’s shout as he started to scramble from the passenger seat.

  My short, skinny assailant swung again and I scuttled crabwise on my knees and one hand, scrabbling for my ankle holster with the other. He might not be big, but those sinewy arms could sure swing.

  I jerked away from his next attempt, and the iron swished through the ends of my hair where my head had been seconds before. Rolling frantically, I managed to fumble my gun out of its holster. Dave was hobbling toward us, yelling.

  Everyone froze when I swung the Glock up.

  “Drop it,” I gasped, and stood carefully, trying to keep the gun steady. “Back in the shop. Slow.”

  God, where was Arnie? If this asshole had harmed him…

  The asshole’s prominent Adam’s apple bounced as he gulped and dropped his weapon.

  I steadied the Glock with both hands. “Back up. Nice and slow, into the bay.”

  I panted open-mouthed, trying to catch my breath and slow my pulse. As he backed away, hands in the air, I followed, maintaining our distance.

  “Dave, pick up that tire iron and drive the car in. Don’t get in my line of fire.”

  I didn’t spare him a glance, just kept my eyes locked on my target. I registered movement out of the corner of my eye and heard the car door close. The Caprice eased forward at the same pace as I did.

  When my captive reached the door of the bay, his gaze flicked sideways.

 
“Try it and die,” I barked.

  He paled and swallowed again, and I took stock of him while we continued our slow progress inside. Grubby sleeveless T-shirt. Skinny legs encased in dirty jeans. A skull-patterned black do-rag that didn’t conceal the strands of greasy hair that drooped to his shoulders. Bad skin and a weedy moustache. Ground-in dirt on his hands. Blotchy blue tattoos on his forearms. And now I knew the true meaning of ‘shifty eyes’.

  A LeSabre convertible was parked in the middle of the bay. Dave snuggled the Caprice up to it and got out slowly.

  “Close the door, Dave.”

  I heard the door roll down behind me. My arms were beginning to tire with the strain of holding the gun steady while my heart tried to hammer its way out through my backbone.

  “Where’s Arnie?” I snarled.

  Do-rag’s eyes widened. “Jesus, lady, why didn’t you say so? He’s in the shitter.”

  “Dave, go find him.”

  Dave was spared the trouble when Arnie appeared through the grimy door at the end of the bay.

  “Fuck, Weasel,” he snapped. “What the fuck’re ya doin’? I told ya they were comin’.”

  “What do you mean, what the fuck am I doing?” Weasel protested. “This crazy bitch pulled a gun on me, man!”

  I blew out a breath of relief and let the Glock down.

  “Don’t you dare call her that!” Dave stumped furiously over to shove his glare into Weasel’s face. “She should have shot you, you scumbag!” He turned to glower at Arnie. “He tried to kill her!”

  “Ya tried to kill her?” Hellhound loomed over the other man.

  “Jesus, no, I wasn’t trying to kill her!” Weasel’s gaze darted between the three of us, looking for an escape route. “I was just -”

  “Swinging at her head with a tire iron,” Dave finished grimly.

  “I wouldn’t have hit her,” Weasel denied. He turned to Hellhound with a self-righteous expression. “It wasn’t my fault. She didn’t say she was with you.”

  “Ya fuckin’ dumb shit,” Hellhound said with resignation. He turned to me. “This’s Weasel. In case ya didn’t figure it out already.”

  I eyed Weasel. “I’m Jane. This is Dave.” I moved to the car and pulled my waist holster out of my backpack, then made a show of putting it on and stowing the gun in it.

  Weasel’s gaze skittered to the LeSabre and back to my gun. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  “No.”

  He relaxed visibly. “Want a beer?”

  “Yes.”

  He hurried toward the front of the bay.

  “So. Jane.” Hellhound raised the eyebrow that wasn’t obscured by bandages.

  “Yeah.”

  “Weasel’s a slimy little shit,” he said. “But he’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  “Just playing it safe. What happened to your pants?”

  “Wet. Tryin’ to get the blood out.”

  I gave him an up-and-down look, grinning. “Nice kilt.”

  He did a slow three-sixty, and I admired the way the thin material of the former T-shirt showed off his assets as he turned. He plucked at the crusty, tattered fabric and gave me a lopsided leer. “Like it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Dave groaned. “Didn’t need to see that.” He limped over to one of the chairs and lowered himself carefully into it as Weasel returned with the beer.

  “You’re lucky,” Weasel said. “When I came in, he was balls-ass naked. Like I wanted to see that. Jesus.”

  He strolled over to pass a cold one to Dave. “No hard feelings?”

  “I’ll think about it.” Dave shot him a dark look and accepted the beer.

  I tottered over to the chairs, too, knees quivering with my massive adrenaline overdose.

  Dave glanced over as I sank down beside him. “Need to eat, don’t you?”

  I took a shaky swallow of beer. “Yeah, probably.”

  He was beginning to hoist himself up when Arnie limped over. “I’ll get it.” He reached for the grocery bag lying beside the chair.

  “No, we got better stuff,” Dave said. “In the car.”

  Arnie nodded and leaned in to extract the new batch of groceries. “Good.” He nodded approval as he handed me an orange juice. “Here, darlin’, drink this first.”

  “Thanks.” I sipped at the juice while he unpacked the roasted chicken and tubs of potato salad.

  “That’s more like it,” he said as he tore off a drumstick and took an enormous bite. “Got forks?” he mumbled through the mouthful.

  Dave and I exchanged a sheepish look. “No.”

  Hellhound shrugged. “No problem.” He pulled a knife out of his boot and scooped some potato salad out on the blade. He tipped the salad into his mouth and offered me the knife.

  “I’m good.” I delved into my waist pouch and pulled out my own sturdy folding knife.

  Dave eyed me with askance as I tore off the other drumstick and dug into the potato salad. “How many weapons do you carry?” he asked diffidently.

  “Just these.” I carefully ate the salad off the razor-sharp blade. “Oh, and I have another jackknife with some tools in it.”

  He nodded, looking uncertain, and dug into his pocket to come up with a penknife. Hellhound shot him a pitying glance and pulled the knife out of his other boot. “Ya want a real one?”

  Dave’s gaze tracked from the boot, to the knife, and back to the boot again. “No. Thanks.”

  Hellhound shrugged and stowed the knife again, and we all settled in to devour our food while Weasel hovered, apparently fascinated.

  “Any luck, darlin’?” Hellhound inquired at last.

  “Made contact.” I reached over to wipe my greasy hands on the cleaner part of his makeshift kilt, nobly refraining from leaning over a little farther to sneak a peek between his widespread knees. I took a deep swallow of beer. “I’ll need to go back later tonight.”

  “Shit.”

  We finished eating, and when I drained the last of my beer, Weasel took the empty bottle out of my hand, his grubby fingers brushing mine. “Another?”

  “No, I have to drive later.”

  “What time’re ya gonna go?” Arnie asked.

  “Around ten, I think. That’ll give Spider enough time to find out what I want.”

  Weasel rested his elbows on the back of my chair and leaned into my personal space to eye me inquisitively. “Spider? Friend of yours?”

  I kept myself from recoiling from the miasma of stale cigarette smoke that surrounded him, and gave him my best dead-fish eyeball. “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” He leaned a little closer. “Damn, you smell good.”

  Hellhound shot him a menacing glare. “Back off.”

  Weasel straightened and shuffled his feet. “Uh, guess I’ve got work to do.” He meandered toward the LeSabre. “I could use a hand,” he threw over his shoulder.

  “The less we know about what you’re doin’, the better,” Hellhound growled. “All I know is, you’re workin’ on a car. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Weasel bobbed his head. “Okay. That’s cool, man.”

  We turned our backs on him as the din of pneumatic tools filled the bay.

  Several hours later, my head was pounding. The air was polluted from Weasel’s chain-smoking. Conversation was sporadic between the bouts of noise from his efforts, and there really wasn’t much to talk about anyway.

  Both Dave and Hellhound had helped themselves to a couple more beers, so I was reasonably certain they were enjoying themselves more than I was. Other than the fact that they were both probably in quite a bit of pain. I didn’t envy them that.

  When the hands on my ancient watch finally dragged around to ten o’clock, I got to my feet gratefully. “Time to go.”

  “…’Kay.” Dave tried to struggle out of his chair and failed. He frowned, shuffled forward in the seat, and hauled himself onto his feet, his back still bent.

  I took his arm and helped him straighten slowly. Furrows of pain etched his face, and he
rested a heavy hand on my shoulder, staggering sideways a half-step.

  I grabbed him around the waist, and he turned in my grasp, his eyes unfocused. “God, you’re byoo’ful,” he slurred. “Th… think I love you…” He staggered again and wrapped his arms around me. “Le’s go…” he muttered into my neck. “Le’s go an’… an’…”

  His knees buckled, and I jerked my arms tighter to keep him from falling. His back popped under my grip and he cried out in agony.

  “Help!” I strained against his dead weight as he slithered toward the floor.

  “Got him! Get him to the couch.” Hellhound jerked his chin in that direction, and together we half-dragged, half-carried Dave over to it.

  As we laid him out, he peered up at us through half-closed eyes and giggled. “Beauty… an’… an’ the Beasht…”

  “Fuck, Dave, how much did ya drink?” Hellhound demanded.

  “Didn’… Jush a couple…” Dave blinked and screwed one eye shut, apparently concentrating intensely. “Took… some pills… Oopssssh…” His other eye slid closed and he started to snore.

  Hellhound glared down at him, fists on hips. “Shit.”

  I did a quick inventory of the empty beer bottles beside Dave’s chair. “He really did only have a couple. The pills must’ve been pretty strong to knock him out like that. Maybe it’s some prescription for his back pain. We’d better check and find out what it was.”

  Hellhound shrugged. “Well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna put my hand in his pocket. That’s more than I wanna know about him.”

  “I’ll do it. We might need to phone Poison Control or something.” I knelt beside the couch and gingerly slipped my hand into the nearer pocket of Dave’s jeans. He snorted and sighed, but didn’t wake. I came up empty, and reached across him for the other pocket.

  This time my fingers contacted a jumble of change and other unidentifiable objects, and I groped through them, hoping I’d be able to recognize the shape of a pill container.

  Dave let out an aborted snore. “Yeah, honey…” he mumbled. “Lower… Don’ shtop…”

  Hellhound snickered, and I froze until Dave’s snoring resumed in a few seconds. Some more careful exploration yielded a small pill bottle. I let out a breath of relief at the sight of the label.