Wrong Question, Right Answer

by Elle Casey

  Lucky’s eyebrows go up. “What’d you say?”

  I shrug. “Pretty much what you just said. I also might’ve mentioned that May shouldn’t be the one going out in the field because she doesn’t belong there.”

  Lucky winces. “Ouch. I’ll bet he didn’t like that.”

  I laugh sadly. “Nope. Not at all. He called me out for questioning his authority.”

  “Well, whatever. He’ll get over it. But you should be allowed to go out into the field just like you used to.”

  “You’re not worried about me messing up because I’m pregnant?”

  He shakes his head, looking right at me. “I know you’re just as capable as a pregnant person as you are being a non-pregnant person. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about your safety.”

  “Why now if you weren’t worried about it before?”

  “Who says I wasn’t worried before?”

  “Because you never said anything.”

  “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried.” He stares at me and I stare back. The temperature in the car rises.

  “I really wish you’d let me move in with you. I promise I won’t step on your toes.” He looks so hopeful, it’s almost painful.

  “I think I just need my space.” My words are meant as an apology, but he takes it as caving in.

  He sits up straighter, leaning toward me a little. “I promise I’ll give you space. All that you need. I’ll sleep in a different room, I’ll eat my meals at a different time . . . You’ll hardly even know I’m there.”

  I can’t hold back a smile. “What would be the point of you being there if you’re going to be a ghost?”

  He smiles. “Hey, if you want me to come sleep with you, I’m in. I’m just trying to make you happy. Whatever it takes.”

  My face goes warm hearing all of his thoughtful, kind words. He’s trying so hard. To keep denying him would be bitchy. Part of me doesn’t care, but the other part of me, the one that made a baby with him, does a little.

  I sigh in defeat. “I guess we could try it. Maybe for a little while.”

  “Let’s call it a trial period,” he suggests. “I’ll take the room down the hall, and you won’t even know I’m there unless you want to.”

  “I’m not going to get all dressed up and put on makeup just because you’re there,” I say. He doesn’t know this about me, but I can be seriously ugly when I don’t put my mind to looking otherwise.

  “So what? I’ve seen you without makeup a hundred times.”

  “But you’ve never seen me at my worst.”

  He blows out a breath. “You don’t care about me because of how I look; why should I be any different?”

  “Maybe I do care about how you look.” I’m teasing him now, but I’m surprised to see his face fall. He doesn’t say anything, so I nudge him in the arm. “I’m kidding.”

  He shakes his head, looking cocky again. “That’s it. I’m growing a beard.”

  I laugh. “You’d better not. You’ll be totally ugly and then I’d have to kick you out of my house.”

  “Good. I’ll find out if you really do like me for who I am or if it’s just my pretty face you’re after. I don’t want to be any chick’s arm candy.”

  I hiss out a laugh. “You are so crazy.”

  I look out my side window, and the parking lot disappears. In its place is a dirt lot, and there’s a barrel in the corner with cans lined up on it. I can still hear Lucky’s young voice coming from the spot just next to me. “Watch this one,” he says, smiling at me with those buck teeth of his. “I’ll nail it right in the center.”

  “Bet you can’t,” I dare. I love watching him focus, his eyes squinting and the trigger under his finger. He’s so serious when he shoots. When he’s not shooting, though, he’s either smiling or laughing. I like the juxtaposition of one personality against the other. It’s like there are two people inside him, making him a total mystery.

  All this time I thought he was trying to practice being a sharpshooter when he was probably just trying to impress me. I picture him wearing the gun in a homemade holster and it makes me go all warm inside again.

  “What’re you thinking right now?” the grown-up Lucky asks me. The parking lot comes back into focus.

  “I was just thinking how much easier life was when we were kids.”

  “I bet you never thought you’d be making a baby with that guy holding the BB gun.” His voice is soft, almost vulnerable.

  “Nope. I didn’t think I’d ever be making a baby with anybody.”

  “I’m glad it was me.”

  “Me too.” It almost kills me to admit that, but it’s true. I didn’t want to do this, but if I were going to do it with anybody, Lucky would be the one I’d choose.

  He takes my hand and holds it. The only sound in the car now is my heartbeat. I wonder if he can hear it too.

  “We’re going to be okay,” he says. “No matter what.”

  “Not if you grow that beard,” I say, looking at him and holding my breath as I wait for his response.

  He pokes me in the side and makes me laugh. Then he pokes me more and I have to work at fending him off. He succeeds in dragging my attention away from my imagined dirt lot as we start wrestling. I get a few good jabs into his ribs before he captures my hands in his and pulls me up against him.

  Our faces are just inches apart, and I can smell old coffee on his breath.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks, frowning at me. “Is it my breath?”

  “No. Yes. Maybe.”

  He grins. “Aww, you just tried to be nice to me, didn’t you?”

  I attempt to pull my hands out of his grip. “No.” It’s silly how he can make my heart beat faster so easily.

  “Yes, you did.” He leans in. “Give me a kiss.”

  “Shut up. No.” I’m acting like I want him to go away, but I’m not giving it much effort. Even with his stinky coffee breath, I find him pretty much irresistible.

  “Come on. Just one. I’ll close my eyes.” He does just that, his lids going down as his eyebrows arch up and his lips pucker.

  I can’t resist. I lean in and lick his cheek before thrusting him away from me.

  He opens one eye, letting my hands slide away from his. “Wow. That was a good one. Lots of tongue. Just how I like it.”

  “You are so sick.” I turn the key in my ignition and shift the car into reverse.

  “Hey, you have to let me out.” He puts his hand on the door.

  “Just one thing, first.” I reverse out of the parking space at high speed and then slam the car into gear.

  “Oh, shit,” he says, buckling his seatbelt and bracing himself against the door and the dashboard.

  “Hang on, hot stuff!” I shout as I throw my car into a righteous donut, sending tires squealing and rubber burning. The outside scenery spins past our windows as I simultaneously brake and accelerate, swinging the wheel around so we’ll burn a perfectly arced three-sixty.

  “Ahhhhhhh, you crazy . . . woman!”

  Lucky screams like a girl and I laugh like a maniac.

  The sound of law enforcement sirens is what finally stops me, but not before I’ve left some serious tracks on the asphalt.

  “Hit it!” Lucky yells, pointing at the street.

  “Yes, sir!” I yell, coming out of a turn with the car heading toward the exit. We slowly make our way out onto the road, going the speed limit. We’re just calmly turning right at the first stoplight when a cruiser comes around the far corner, headed for the scene of the crime.

  I hold out my hand for a high-five and Lucky doesn’t disappoint; our palms meet with a loud crack. We roll down the avenue, both of us grinning like fools.

  “Please don’t ever do that again,” he says, coughing after like he’s dying of bronchitis.

  “Just had to do it once more, get it out of my system.”

  “You ready to be a boring pregnant lady now?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Might as well. I am pregnant
, after all.”

  “Yeah, but you could never be boring.”

  I look over at him, wondering if he’s regretting that about me. “I could try.”

  His expression is pained. “Please don’t.”

  I can’t stop grinning, all the way back to the parking lot so Lucky can retrieve his car and follow me back to the warehouse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lucky leaves me to finish my desk duty alone. I’m glad he’s giving me space. That moment we shared was a really big deal, and I could use some mindless surveillance data-crunching to get my mind off it. It’s not that I didn’t like it, but it’s more emotion than I generally deal with on a regular day.

  Soon enough, I lose myself in the process. Frame after frame of video goes by, and I take notes of anything that I deem significant. Most of the day feels like a waste of time, but near the end of the video feed, after the sun has gone down and the infrared function comes on, the activity picks up at the target house and I gather some usable information. Matching it up with the data Jenny found and what I’m seeing in the police department’s dispatch logs, it’s starting to paint a picture of their operation. It’s pretty slick, if I do say so myself.

  Now I can confirm with relative confidence that every time someone in their group tweets that there’s a full moon, someone or several someones leave the house where we saw Marc and drives off within five minutes. When they tweet that the wolves are howling, there’s some sort of gathering happening on enemy turf. And when their messages say the hunter’s got game, Marc’s group has done some damage to their enemy, either a drive-by or a mugging or something. The only problem is that I haven’t been able to identify Marc in all of it. I can’t be sure he’s calling any of the shots.

  Regardless, all of the social media messages line up with what we’ve recorded and the dispatch logs we received from the detective in charge of the case. With this information, it’s possible the cops can catch them in the act and make some arrests. Maybe they won’t get Marc himself, but they can put a big dent in his operation, and that’s great news. Even though Ozzie gave me a serious dressing-down today, I’m glad I won’t disappoint him with my report. We’re getting closer to shutting this whole thing down, and it was me who put it all together. I’m almost glad I didn’t go out with Thibault today.

  As I’m signing off the computer, the telephone on the cubicle desk rings. I stare at it for a few seconds trying to figure out what’s going on. Nobody ever uses these phones.

  I lean over and pick up the handset. “This is Toni.”

  “Toni! Hey, it’s me!”

  She doesn’t have to say anything else. I would recognize May’s enthusiasm anywhere.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Just finishing up.” Is she checking up on me? Does she think that she’s Ozzie’s right-hand girl now, in charge of what I do?

  “Okay, cool. When you’re done, could you come upstairs?”

  I take a few seconds to calm myself down before answering. “Ozzie already told me I need to bring the report upstairs and put it on the table. I don’t need a reminder.”

  “Uhhh . . . okay.” She sounds confused.

  Now I feel bad. Maybe she wasn’t bossing me around. “I’ll be up in a few minutes. Just let me type the report up.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  She’s hurt. Dammit. I sign back onto the computer. Truth is, I actually forgot that Ozzie wanted me to put the report up on the table. Usually he’s okay with me doing the work from home and emailing it, but I don’t want to push any more of his buttons tonight. I’m not sure if he knows that I took off after he told me to get to work, but if he did see me go, I don’t need to give him any more reason to be angry with me.

  Using our standard template, I quickly type up the report, filling in the notes section with all of the timestamps that show significant activity. I share my thoughts on what I saw and then finish it off with a summary of the amount of time and the days that I reviewed.

  “That should make him happy.” I sign off the computer for the second time today and stand. Stopping on my way out of the cubicle area, I grab a copy of my report off the printer. I only made one, but I’m sure that’ll be fine. If Ozzie wants someone else to see it, he’ll share it himself; there’s a copy of the file on the network accessible to anyone on the team.

  As I’m walking past the workout area headed to the stairs, a voice comes out of the darkness to my left. “Hey, Toni! Think fast!”

  I’ve heard those words shouted out in this warehouse a couple hundred times by now, so it doesn’t take me by surprise. I spin around with my hand up, getting into position just in time to catch a singlestick flying through the air at me. It smacks the palm of my hand and carries a sting. I drop my papers and shift the weapon to my other hand.

  “Bring it on, punk,” I say, bending my knees and getting into fighting position.

  Out of the shadows comes the giant Dev, and he’s carrying his own singlestick weapon.

  He has no idea how ready I am for this. I’d been trying to come up with ways I could work off all this anxiety, and my opportunity has magically presented itself. Yeah, buddy. I swing my stick around awkwardly, acting like I’ve forgotten all my training. I’ve seen May bring Dev to his knees enough times to know his weak spot. Make him underestimate me. That is how I’ll win.

  I barely register the sound that’s coming from behind me, I’m so intent on bringing Dev down, but after it repeats itself twice, the voice finally breaks through my kill-mode and stops our sparring before it even really begins.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Thibault demands.

  Dev straightens and drops his arm down, his weapon hanging by his thigh. “What’s it look like we’re doing? We’re sparring.”

  “Ozzie wants you upstairs. Pronto.”

  Dev is too busy looking up at my brother to pay me any attention, so I take advantage of the situation. “Think fast!” I throw the singlestick at him.

  Unfortunately, Dev isn’t nearly as quick on the draw when the stick is coming at him as he is when he’s sending it off. The heavy end catches him in the nads, and he immediately doubles over in pain.

  “Awww . . . damn . . . Right in the jewels.”

  “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry.” I can’t help it; I start laughing. The look on his face is classic dude-in-pain.

  He drops his stick and then waves his hand feebly at me. “Don’t worry about me. Just go on about your business. I’ll be fine.”

  “You need some ice?” Thibault yells down at him.

  Dev hobbles away with his hands between his legs. “Nope . . .” he groans out, disappearing into the shadows. “Just going to save the trouble and have them surgically removed this time, I think.”

  I grab my scattered papers and mount the stairs with a huge smile on my face. It wasn’t pretty, but I won that challenge. I’m sure Dev’ll be lying in wait for me again, but at least this time the points were all on my side.

  I get to the top of the stairs to find Thibault shaking his head at me.

  “What?”

  “You play dirty.”

  “He’s the one who came after me. Rules say we can defend ourselves however we need to.” I walk past him, ignoring his judgment. He should know me well enough by now to realize that I always play to win; dirty or clean, whatever it takes.

  “Did you get your report done?”

  His words grate on my last nerve. “Yes.” I hold the papers above my head as I walk through the room and head toward the kitchen area. “Right here.”

  Thibault follows behind me wordlessly. Thank goodness, because if he dares say anything else to me about my work, I don’t know what I’ll do to him. I am so not in the mood to take any more shit from anyone today. Who knows what May is going to say to me when I get in here, but if she even thinks about telling me how I should be doing my reports or spending my time, we are going to have some words. And Ozzie had better not back her up, or I’m outta here. I’
ve been on this team a lot longer than she has, and everyone knows I’m a hell of a lot more qualified to do the work than she is. She and Ozzie had better respect that.

  I enter the room and immediately feel like I’m interrupting something. Ozzie and May are embracing near the stove. When they see me, though, they break apart.

  “Toni, you’re here!” May comes over and hugs me, not bothering to find out if I want to return the affection first, as usual. She’s acting like she hasn’t seen me in months.

  When she’s done she pulls away but she keeps her hands on my arms. “You look so pretty. You’re seriously glowing.”

  I roll my eyes. “Give me a break.” I sidestep and walk around her, intent on putting my report on the table so I can get out of here. I need to go home and get into the bathtub or something. Anything but hang out and intrude on their little love-fest.

  “I’ve got your report right here.” I put it down on the table, pausing when I see that there are two gifts there. They’re beautifully wrapped with bows and everything. Each one has a little card attached to it, but I can’t read what either of them says.

  I turn around to look at Ozzie. “Did I forget somebody’s birthday or baptism or something?” I’m suddenly worried. Is the pregnancy already messing with my memory? The book I was reading last night said that happens. ‘Pregnancy brain’ they called it, just like Lucky said.

  He just shakes his head at me, his expression neutral.

  May walks up to me and grabs one of the gifts, holding it out at me. “It’s for you! Open it up.”

  I look down at it, confused. “For me? It’s not my birthday for another couple months.”

  She giggles. “It’s not for your birthday, silly. Just open it.”

  My hands lift slowly with no conscious thought coming from my brain. It’s either I take the gift or have it shaken in my face for the next five minutes. I think May is prepared to shove it up my nose if necessary.

  I use my finger to push the card over and see the writing, reading it aloud when it comes into focus. “For my partner in crime. Congrats. Keep being kickass. Love, M.” I look up at May and then Ozzie. “I don’t get it.”