Mercenary

by Jennifer Blackstream

  Drexler’s eyes bulged, and he made a strangled sound deep in his throat. I pushed myself out of the booth, careful not to trip over Scath, and stood facing Barbara.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to use the little girls’ room. When I get back, perhaps we can move the conversation forward.”

  Barbara nodded silently, her eyes flitting from me to the discombobulated lawyer beside her. There was a short hallway at the other end of the restaurant near the front door, and I could see a sign that said “Ladies Room” on the left.

  Scath padded in behind me, and as soon as the door closed behind us, I stood in the center of the small, single stall room to grip the counter and stare at myself in the mirror. The room’s walls were a pale cream color, except for the wall that held the mirror and the toilet, which was a vibrant shade of maroon. A pink shape circled the air over my head before landing with a thud on my scalp.

  “Something’s wrong,” Peasblossom announced.

  “Something’s wrong, all right.” I flicked on the water and started washing my hands. “Flint didn’t say anything about a lawyer, and he didn’t tell me I was going to have to audition for this job. I don’t have any papers to prove my education, and I didn’t have time to come up with a list of people he could contact for a reference.”

  “Nice move naming the vampire,” Peasblossom agreed. “I think Drexler choked on his tongue.”

  “I figured he’d know Anton. And my confidentiality agreement with him specified I couldn’t share details about the job I did for him, not that I couldn’t mention I’d worked for him at all.”

  “Well, proving your qualifications aside, you have bigger problems.” Peasblossom’s little pink face pinched with concern. “That couple in there? They have guns.”

  Tension seized my shoulders. “Both of them?”

  Peasblossom nodded.

  I turned off the water and leaned against the counter, letting my hands drip into the sink for a moment. “All right, so assuming they’re not just diners who are enthusiastic about the second amendment, that means they’re either protecting Barbara or they’re spying on her.”

  “If her husband is as paranoid as Flint says, they might be bodyguards,” Peasblossom suggested.

  “That would be my guess. If they were here to hurt her, they would have sat at the booth to the right. That way they’d be out of sight but could still listen, and when Barbara left, she’d have her back to them.”

  “I don’t like it.” Peasblossom hugged the top of my head, pressing her wings against my hair. “There’s too many guns out there.”

  “I don’t like it either.” I met her eyes in the mirror. “How confident are you in that stabilization spell?”

  “Very.”

  I nodded. One benefit to Flint’s insistence on making me train half to death had been Peasblossom’s renewed determination to take an active role in keeping me alive. She’d trained alongside me, and she’d managed to learn enough focus to cast a stabilization spell if the situation called for it. “Good. If I get shot, you can keep me stable until I can get a healing potion.”

  I glanced down at Scath. “I appreciate the help you’ve given me, but please don’t get yourself shot on my account.”

  Scath snorted. I couldn’t tell if it was agreement or annoyance that I’d tried to tell her what to do.

  “I still don’t like it. never mind that you might get shot, Flint didn’t give you another potion after that last training session, and you haven’t had a nap. If this is going to be dangerous, you need to be in peak condition.”

  I stared at my reflection, smoothing down my hair and straightening my white button down blouse and black business slacks.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “If worse comes to worse, I can drop Scath’s glamour. That should buy us enough time to get out if things go south.”

  Together, Peasblossom and I looked at Scath. Unfortunately, the beast still seemed disinclined to offer any sort of reassurance, and just stared at me with a black, expressionless face that didn’t look right on her canine countenance.

  I gave up on the cat sith and winked at Peasblossom, trying to ease her worries. She still didn’t look happy, but she slid down the side of my head to hide under my hair again.

  I left the restroom with a renewed sense of purpose. I’d come here wanting to help, expecting to find a woman in need. But it seemed as if Barbara had enough people protecting her. What she needed now was convincing that I was the right person for the job.

  I could be convincing.

  “I hope you’re not offended by all the questions,” Barbara said as I retook my seat. “It’s really all just a technicality.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “You have to take your safety and reputation seriously. I understand that.”

  “I’m so glad.” Barbara took a sip of her water, looking genuinely relieved that I wasn’t upset. “I can’t quite place your accent,” she said conversationally. “Where are you from?”

  Telling her I was from a kingdom called Sanguennay was out of the question, so I focused on unwrapping my silverware and gave her my standard answer. “I’m from England originally, but I moved around a lot. I’m afraid my accent is a bit like a mince pie—a little of this, a little of that.”

  “And how is it you’ve come to be in this business if you’re constantly moving around?” Mr. Drexler asked. “Connections are crucial to executive consulting.”

  Barbara’s gaze darted side to side, as if the lawyer’s directness made her uncomfortable.

  “I’m not a big picture person,” I explained curtly. “I’m a window to the soul person. It’s not my job to know who’s doing what, or who knows who, or what so and so was doing ten years ago with whom. I’m not here to make a problem go away.” I took a sip of my Coke. “In fact, it’s usually helpful that I don’t know the players involved. It makes it easier for me to see what others have missed.”

  Drexler frowned. “How so?”

  I leaned forward, pouring a charm into my voice. It was time to get past the guard dog. “It’s my job to get the measure of a person, feel out their emotional state. And I’m not talking about asking them how they’re feeling. I read them, figure out what it is they’re saying but not saying. Body language, behavior patterns. It’s my job to understand how they’re feeling better than they understand themselves.”

  Barbara tilted her head. “Are you a psychiatrist?”

  “Not exactly.” I relaxed in my seat, one hand still on my soda. The purple thread between me and Drexler stretched, but didn’t break, the charm still melting past his defenses. “The fact is, when someone is feeling unstable, they have a natural desire to fix it. No one wants to feel anxious. It’s my job to project competence, so when I meet someone and I tell them I’m there to help, they believe me.”

  “So your job is to get people to tell you their secrets?” Mr. Drexler asked. “And you expect them to open up to you about their anxiety, their deepest fears that they themselves aren’t ready to face, just because you’re confident?”

  Despite his words, he didn’t sound as cold as he had a moment ago. I pushed my Coke away, folded my hands, and stared at the lawyer until he met my eyes, focusing on the thin purple thread of power stretching between us. The thread pulsed with light when I spoke again, feeding it more magic.

  “When I talk to someone, I don’t hide anything. I don’t hold back, I don’t stutter, and I don’t promise anything I can’t deliver. When I speak, they know they can trust what I say. When I say that I can help them, they believe me. They also know that if they lie to me, I’ll know. Good liar, great liar—professional liar. I’ll always know the truth.”

  Molly chose that moment to arrive with our food. As was the case with most restaurants, the cooks had dusted my seafood Alfredo with parsley. However, Barbara’s food was green-speck free. As someone who had been out to dinner with more than one child—and many more picky eaters—I knew that to avoid getting the
parsley, you had to request it be left off.

  Barbara had made no such request. Which meant either Molly was a telepath, or she knew Barbara well enough to make sure her food didn’t get the parsley.

  Which would mean Barbara had lied when she said she’d never been here.

  Now that I thought about it, Drexler had done most of the talking. He was the one to demand my references and identification, he was the one to refuse giving me more information until I passed the interview. In fact, he’d interrupted Barbara more than once. Not that it was unusual for a man to talk over a woman, but I had to think that it took a certain kind of woman to be married to a fixer. Not easily shocked. Certainly no wilting flower like the woman Barbara had been playing thus far.

  I stared at Barbara, letting the purple thread between Drexler and I snap. I was charming the wrong watchdog. “I’m done talking to the bad cop.” I stabbed a shrimp, raising it to my mouth without taking my eyes from my future employer. “I’m going to enjoy my meal now. If you’d like to drop the charade and speak to me like an adult, that’s grand. We can discuss your case in the privacy of the restaurant you went out of your way to reserve to make sure we were alone.”

  Drexler stiffened.

  Barbara tilted her head, a worried crease appearing between her brows. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I—”

  “If you’re going to keep lying to me, then this is pointless. I enjoy the good cop, bad cop routine as much as the next person, but I’m tired now.” I ate the shrimp, shaking my head as I twirled a bit of linguine with my fork, then speared a scallop to hold it on. “If you want to have a nice lunch and leave it at that, that’s fine. I can eat, and then we can go our separate ways. But I’m done talking to him.” I gestured at the lawyer with my fork, then stared hard at Barbara. “Do you want my help or not?”

  Something tapped my leg. I grabbed my napkin and wiped my mouth, then looked down as I resettled it in my lap. Peasblossom was on the seat beside me, her eyes wide as she gestured wildly at Barbara under the table. As I watched, she held up her hand with her thumb up and her pointer finger out.

  Like a gun.

  I raised my attention to Barbara. She was no longer fidgeting, no longer feigning discomfort with her lawyer’s rigorous questions. She sat straight, with her chin out and her eyes staring directly into mine. At some point she’d dropped her hands into her lap. Before I could act on Peasblossom’s warning, Barbara raised a hand and pointed a gun at me.

  “All right, Ms. Renard,” she said calmly. “Let’s talk.”

  Chapter 4

  “You can go now, Fred,” Barbara told Drexler.

  The lawyer stood immediately, lifting his suitcase like a shark-skinned robot. With a small “nothing personal” nod to me, he turned on his heel and marched out the door without a word.

  When Barbara’s eyes slid back to me, I felt the shift in the mood. The shy politician’s wife vanished, replaced by a politician’s partner. An equal. The wrinkle between her sleek brown eyebrows smoothed out, her back straightened, and she lifted her fork from the table like a surgeon retrieving a scalpel. The hand holding the gun never wavered.

  “I expect what I’m about to share with you to be held in the strictest confidence,” she said, twirling a bite of linguine. “I don’t have a formal contract for you to sign—paper trails, you understand. But if you betray my confidence, the consequences will be severe.”

  She punctuated the last sentence by stabbing a piece of perfectly grilled chicken. After my first experience with Anton Winters and his version of a confidentiality agreement, Barbara’s threat lacked a certain panache.

  But the gun helped.

  “Understood.” I dug around the pasta for another shrimp, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. “Tell me how I can help you.”

  Barbara finished her bite of linguine and nodded. She lowered the gun to her seat, out of sight but not out of mind. “On May 17th, my house alarm went off at 10:15 in the evening. I came downstairs in time to see my husband slam the door, lock it, and then scramble to reset the alarm. Before I could ask what was wrong, he bolted from the room.”

  She stabbed her fork into the bowl again and twirled another bite of pasta. “We’ve had the same security system for years, and Roger has never set it off by accident before, much less struggled to turn it off and reset it. I was already concerned when I found him in the study. Then, when I saw the state he was in…”

  Her eyes met mine, and she held my gaze as if she could force her next words directly into my brain. “My husband is never hysterical. He’s been in situations that would curl your hair, but he is always composed, always calm.” She continued to wind the linguine around the fork with sharp, vicious twists. “But hysterical is the only word to describe the state I found him in. When I entered the study, he was guzzling vodka as if it were water and he’d just run a marathon. Wild-eyed, his hair sticking out every which way, his clothes rumpled. Screaming and raving about monsters.”

  I tightened my grip on my fork, shrimp hunt forgotten as her last word echoed in my ears. “Monsters?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her glass of water and took a drink before continuing. “My husband is not a judgmental man. He analyzes companies and people, but that is on a strict risk-assessment basis. It is not a moral judgment. However, there are some men whose evil cannot be justified, or excused. This is not the first time I’ve heard him refer to someone as a monster.” She put her glass down with a wet thump. “But he has never been so shaken.”

  She assumed he called them monsters because of their behavior. The fact that Flint had brought me in to investigate suggested she was mistaken. “What did he say, exactly?” I asked carefully.

  Barbara tightened her grip on her fork as if she needed something to hold onto. “’Oh, God, he’s a monster. They’re all monsters.’” She repeated the words as if they’d been branded on her brain. “I tried to touch him, to ask him what was wrong, and he grabbed me and screamed, ‘They’re not human! Barbara, they’re not human! They’re monsters! All monsters!’”

  My heart pounded, and I took a sip of my Coke, buying myself a moment to consider my response. “Did he say who he was talking about?”

  “No. No, he didn’t give more detail than that. He just kept screaming it, and drinking.” She poked at her food, but made no move to take another bite. “I have never seen him so scared. So out of control.” She shook her head. “I called Ian immediately.”

  “Ian?”

  She nodded. “Ian Walsh. He owns Underhill, one of the private military companies Roger works with, one of the best.” She took a bite of her food, chewing and swallowing before she continued. Her shoulders gave up a little of their tension. “He’s become a family friend.” She pointed at me with her empty fork. “That didn’t happen overnight. We aren’t in the habit of getting close with the companies my husband oversees. But Ian maintained an impeccable record for more than ten years. Roger trusted him more than any other military company, and that’s saying something.”

  “He must be a good friend if you trusted him enough to call him about Roger’s…emotional state. Did you tell him what happened?”

  Barbara waved her fork and took another sip of her water. “Yes. I told him that earlier that day, Roger called me to say he’d gotten an anonymous text claiming that one of the PMCs he’s been using has been torturing American citizens—on American soil, no less. Roger didn’t think there was anything to the claim, but in his business, he can’t afford to ignore something like that. He told me he’d be out all night on a stakeout, and he was taking Jeff with him.”

  “Who’s Jeff?” I asked.

  “Roger’s best friend. They’ve known each other since they were kids. Jeff is a sniper in the Rangers. Occasionally when he’s in town, if Roger has work, he recruits Jeff to serve as backup.”

  “Did he say where they were going?”

  Barbara sighed. “No. As I said, I don’t think he took it seriously.”

&n
bsp; “Seriously enough to ask Jeff to come along as backup,” I pointed out.

  “Roger always took backup, no matter what. On the rare occasions he didn’t have someone there to physically back him up, he would give me the information and instructions on how frequently to check in with him and who to call if something went wrong.”

  “And who would you call if something went wrong?” I asked.

  “Ian,” Barbara said simply.

  I tapped my fork against the bottom of my dish. “All right, so Roger went out around eight to investigate the anonymous tip. He took Jeff with him. At some point, he saw something—someone behaving monstrously. Do you know anything else?”

  Barbara nodded. “Ian told me he’d received a call from Jeff saying that Roger was attacked. He said the anonymous tip was a set up, and the people who attacked Roger had given him some sort of hallucinogen. He was screaming about monsters, and there were two men chasing after him, trying to drag him to a van. Jeff shot one of them, and in the confusion, Roger was able to get away and run to his car. Jeff called Ian to take care of Roger while he found out who was behind the attack. There was a safehouse Roger and Jeff used to meet at if a job went wrong, he told Ian to meet Roger there.”

  She frowned. “But Roger must have come straight home instead of going to the safehouse. When I called Ian he was already on his way here, worried about Roger. He said he didn’t find him at the safehouse and he wanted to know if he’d made it home.”

  “And did Jeff find out who was behind the attack?” I asked.

  Barbara put her fork down and folded her hands, squeezing them until her knuckles turned white. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard from Jeff since that night. But that doesn’t mean he’s dead,” she rushed to add. “If he found out who did this, he may have gone to ground while he figured out how to expose them. In this business you never know whose phone is tapped, or who might be watching your house.”

  Despite her words, it was obvious Barbara feared the worst. Part of me wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate it.