The Widow (Federal Hellions Book 1)

by Gray Gardner

  The position and his hand resting on her back felt a little, well, sexual to her. God, she couldn’t have those kinds of feelings at that moment, could she?

  “Hello, yes, is this Katrina Nelson?”

  Sexual feelings gone. George whipped her head around and found that not only was Dr. Thomas on the phone with her boss, he had her on fucking Face Time.

  “Yes, it is. Oh, hello, Dr. Thomas, this is unexpected.”

  “Aunt Katrina!” she called, leaning her head up from her humiliating current position and trying to catch her boss’s eye. “Please tell him you don’t believe in corporal punishment!”

  Dr. Thomas actually chuckled as he looked down at the cute backside of his stunned student and then at her aunt on the phone.

  “Jane is getting a spanking from me for continuously disregarding my rules. If you prefer though, Ms. Nelson, I’ll take her to the dean and let him deal with her according to the school’s handbook.”

  “I give my consent,” Nelson replied as she saw the top of Jane’s head pop up in astonishment. Nelson waved her hand at the room full of agents in front of her to be quiet so that she could finish the call without blowing her cover. Oh God, Jane would never live this down and it was fucking hilarious. “As her aunt and sole caregiver I never thought I could punish her, but she needs it. I give my consent to flip her skirt up, too.”

  “Aunt Katrina!” George yelled, glaring over her shoulder at her boss’s face on the screen of the iPhone. Traitor!

  “If you don’t mind, for legal purposes, can I keep you on the line?” Dr. Thomas asked, angling the phone against his computer monitor.

  “Oh my God, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening to me,” George was muttering, gripping Dr. Thomas’s silk-woven navy pants in her sweaty hands as she stared at the worn pattern and scratches in the hardwood floor. Both her boss and one of her marks had managed to mortify her in a matter of minutes. Thank God Nelson was alone in her office.

  Dr. Thomas noticed she sucked in her breath as he flipped the skirt of her dress up over her back. Sensible white cotton underwear with lacey trim and a cute little bottom. The underwear said it all. Jane was a good kid behaving badly. She really did need this.

  He smacked his hand down again and again. For all of the times she had a cell phone, was out of bed after hours, for trying to be bad with James and Christian, for smoking, for drinking, for talking back, and for lying. He had to press down on her back pretty hard to keep her from flying off of his lap, but for a kid who’d never been punished that was pretty normal.

  George squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply until he stopped. She made up her mind right then and there to get the op finished and make some arrests before she would ever let herself get a spanking again.

  “I think a bright red bottom ought to keep her out of trouble, Ms. Nelson,” Dr. Thomas finally said, looking down at the hot pink handprints peeking out from her underwear on her creamy skin.

  “Thank you for your patience, Dr. Thomas,” Nelson replied, ending the call before the room exploded in applause and laughter from the twenty or so agents present at her meeting.

  George waited for a lecture, but instead found herself sitting on his lap, one of his hands naturally holding her back and the other resting on top of her folded hands in her lap. She couldn’t look him in the eye, not after that. She just looked down, thoroughly confused. She thought the butterflies in her stomach would have gone away after being manhandled like that, but they were still there, fluttering wildly as she sat on this resolute yet tender man’s lap.

  “Look at me, Jane.”

  She shook her head once.

  “Please,” he gently said.

  Biting her lip, she didn’t turn her head, just her eyes. Why did he have to look so fucking calm all of the time?

  “You’re thoroughly punished, and now it’s over. Let’s start tomorrow brand new. What do you say?” he asked, trying to make her feel better. It was always embarrassing getting spanked, he knew, but an audience usually made it worse.

  “Yes sir,” she quickly replied, turning her eyes away again. She couldn’t look at him any longer. Not because she was angry. Her muscles were tightening all the way down to her groin and she was worried that for some crazy reason she just might lean in and try to kiss him. Insanity, yes, but she couldn’t deny the way her body felt.

  Mercifully, he let it all go with a smile and a nod.

  Then he escorted her to her room. Not to her dorm, to her room. Then he told her that if she wasn’t at soccer tryouts the next day, he would make her come and do personal chores for the faculty, which apparently was the new replacement punishment for kitchen duty since a drug scandal was running rampant at their prestigious school.

  It sounded unpleasant. Chores? Maybe even more unpleasant than a spanking. Maybe. She nodded and shut the door. This op was a total disaster.

  At about four am the following morning, dressed in black and wearing a ski cap, she crept through campus and climbed into Christian Whitman’s room. She couldn’t find the starch or the pure heroin, but behind a baseboard in his closet she found a few thirty gram bags and about a kilo of coke. Damn. Could he really move that much? That was the Majors, not Pee-Wee. She carefully took a couple of samples to send back to Nelson so that the lab could determine how it was cut and maybe even where it was cut.

  Unlike prescription pills, she couldn’t just take all of his shit and flush it. Whoever was supplying him would kill him if he couldn’t pay them. Maybe that was what had happened to the Quinton kid. Street value for coke and heroin tripled that of prescription pills.

  So, Whitman let Clancy handle the small things while he handled the rest. The real money was in the hard stuff, anyway. Retail, cocaine was currently going for $150 per pure gram. Heroin would have been just as much.

  With Whitman back at school things would start to heat up.

  “Can I please take another liberty this weekend?” George mumbled into her cell.

  “George, I’m too busy right now. We got Patron to roll on another high-ranking officer in the FARC and I’m trying to monitor any activity. There! Go faster, Cramer! Gotta go, George.”

  Nelson hung up on her and she had no choice but to turn around and keep walking towards the soccer field. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia were probably the DEA’s biggest enemies, so she understood and even felt a little jealous as Nelson pursued them. She wished she could have been in on that bust, too, instead of where she was at that moment.

  She paused at the edge of the soccer field and adjusted the long black shorts and long sleeved white jersey she had to dress out in. She joined the other girls on the field, all dressed identically, and stood in the long line to sign in. It seemed like everyone who had girl parts was trying out for the team. She didn’t have to guess why. Dr. Thomas spotted her and grinned as he walked over.

  “I already signed you in, Jane,” he greeted her, turning her around and pinning a number to her back. “Ready?”

  “No,” she frowned, as he pulled her out of line and got her to start stretching with the other contenders.

  As it turned out, federal training had prepared her for a full contact sport like soccer. She couldn’t really handle the ball, but she was more than equipped to stop it from getting by her. Needless to say, whether it was to keep an eye on her or because she deserved it, George made the team along with two other girls. They instantly took a liking to her, too, following her around the refectory and to the dorms. Good God, did she have two shadows now? This job was getting too hard for her.

  Revealing Slash, Interns, and Jesus

  The next week it snowed. George longed for the heat and humidity of Colombia as she continued meeting with Whitman by the pond amongst the wet slush and icicles. She kept digging for more information, but he was hard to crack. He kept very tight lipped about everything in his personal life, unlike Clancy, who she’d learned had become so enterprising because his dad had lost his job
and could barely afford to pay for school.

  Whitman had been in boarding school since he was six, according to Clancy, and that was all she’d gotten on him. It couldn’t have been easy to be away from his parents so much in his formative years, but still, it was no excuse for getting mixed up in illicit controlled substances.

  The days were getting shorter and George didn’t want any kind of suspicions forming on his side, so when it was dark enough for them not to be seen, they smoked a couple of times in the starlight, and actually talked a little bit. Nothing too revealing, unfortunately, but she was building a nice blanket of trust with him. It was fine, it just made homework and DEA business a little harder. And well, funnier.

  Director Nelson had also gotten back to her, and with bad news, of course. Analysis had returned. The heroin had definitely been cut by some home operation and not on the streets of DC or any metropolitan area within driving distance. That either meant Whitman was sneaking off somewhere to do it or he had a partner somewhere close to campus. She really hoped it was the former.

  Fortunately, though, since snow was not conducive to soccer practice, she’d gotten a tiny break in that arena. Dr. Thomas still found excuses to keep her after class, though. And she had to admit, sometimes she helped him along a little bit. The time they spent together was nice.

  And he hadn’t spanked her again.

  “Did I see you eating with Bella today?” he asked, as they graded more papers at his desk in the late afternoon. He smiled as he said it. He wanted her to make friends, and he loved talking with her about it. He loved talking with her about everything, really.

  “Yeah,” she nodded, eating a yellow Skittle out of a bowl on his desk, papers stacked around her.

  “Good,” he replied, with a satisfied look on his face. “Bella and Cricket will be good influences on you, Jane.”

  “Yes, very good,” George said and smirked inwardly. Bella had told her about a trip a bunch of them had taken the summer before. A trip to James Clancy’s lake house, which wasn’t too far away. It was thin, but it was a lead.

  “How’s your new book coming?” George asked, sucking on the lemon candy.

  Dr. Thomas sighed loudly, throwing his red pen down and leaning back in his chair. “I’m totally stuck.”

  “Well, what’s the premise?”

  “I can’t discuss it with you.” He grinned, looking over at her.

  “What, is there some sort of writer-editor confidentiality agreement?” she smirked, eating another yellow candy.

  “No.” He grinned, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. “It just has adult themes and my publishing group prefers that I don’t discuss works in progress.”

  “Are they going to put you in writer-jail?” she asked, throwing a Skittle at him. “Come on.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled, leaning forward and turning back to his papers. The racy sex scene in the second chapter would be way above her head. He hoped.

  “Okay,” she huffed, looking at him as she fiddled with her red pen. “But maybe talking about it will unblock your writer’s block. Or maybe even discussing a book you’ve recently read. Get some ideas for plot twists and stuff.”

  “Plot twists?” he asked, smiling. She always had such interesting points of view.

  “Oh sure, a story isn’t complete without a good no-fucking-way moment,” she grinned, suddenly leaning back and averting her eyes. “Sorry.”

  Crap, she wasn’t ready to have his powerful hands on her ass yet. Her fragile emotions couldn’t handle the duality of her feelings about it.

  “No, no, you actually make a good point,” he sighed, rubbing his whiskers. And she did. He was completely clueless as to how he could make the story more interesting and really grab the reader halfway through. As of now, the story just kind of lulled in neutral.

  “So what have you read lately?” she asked, grabbing the candy bowl. He had to have read interesting books. Authors always do.

  He frowned as he looked over at her. “Actually, I’ve been so absorbed in writing this book that I haven’t read anything since the semester started.” He surprised himself when he realized that.

  She nodded and ate another lemon Skittle, so he asked what she’d been reading.

  “Well,” she began, mentally scanning through all of the books she’d devoured. “Jane Austen, of course, but those don’t count because everybody tries to imitate her. Phillipa Gregory, but I take it you aren’t into writing historical fiction, and right at this moment I’m reading a funny story about a New York debutante and her misadventures when she finds out she’s broke.”

  “What?” Dr. Thomas asked, as the last book surprised him. “You’re wasting valuable learning time with chick lit?”

  George frowned over at him. “Jesus, Dr. Thomas, don’t be such a snob.”

  “Excuse me? I’m not!”

  “Sure you are. Look at you being all uppity about a book. It’s just a book. Reading isn’t supposed to be all about profound themes and thought-provoking discussion. It’s supposed to take you away from your own life and show you another point of view. Don’t you think that entails being able to smile and laugh while you’re reading a story, too?”

  He stared at her. Again, she surprised him. She made a really good point. He really had been acting little superior. He suddenly felt very smug and conceited as he realized he’d brushed a lot of people off for that one small reason alone. A whole lot of people. He broke a small grin.

  “You’re absolutely right, Jane.”

  “I know.” She huffed, continuing to grade the papers. She rolled her eyes inwardly. God, quit flirting and get back to work, harlot!

  The next day she was thinking about a way to help him with his book while trekking through the snow to her music class when she felt a vibration on her back. She quickly ducked between a couple of buildings and pressed against a cold brick wall as she dug out her phone.

  “George,” she softly said, as people walked by in the distance. She shivered as she stood in a snow drift up to her knees.

  “We checked out Clancy’s lake house.”

  “Was it clean?” George sighed, knowing the answer already.

  “Yeah. It’s definitely not happening there,” Nelson said. Then she called to someone at her door, “Come in.”

  “Okay, I’m—”

  “Gotta go, Agent George. Meetings with the other division heads. We’ll talk later.”

  George sighed and stuffed the phone back in her bag. The deeper she went into this assignment the more distance she felt between her and Director Nelson. She was flattered at the trust, but she also wanted just a little more help. As of now, practically everything was up to her. The independence was a nice change, sure, but things were getting very twisted and complicated.

  “Cooky’s out sick and wants us to have a jam session today,” a couple of kids said to George as she entered the music hall. Their teacher’s name was Ms. Cook, like the chef, but they all called her Ms. Cooky, like the nut, since she was absolutely crazy about music.

  “And we can’t skip because she wants us to record what we come up with,” the other kid sighed.

  “Okay,” George sighed, setting her bag down in the large sound proof room. She really needed this time off, but she had to play by the rules if she didn’t want to get expelled. “What am I playing?”

  “I can only play the piano,” the tall boy said, sitting at the baby grand in the corner of the small sound studio.

  The other kid sat at the drums. “I’ve never played these before, only bass drums, but I really want to.”

  “So that leaves the guitar,” George sighed, plugging the electric guitar into the amplifier and looking back at the guys. There were a million other things she could be doing since their teacher was out sick. She didn’t have much time for this, but the kids seemed pretty eager. And she really did love music. “What are we playing?”

  Dr. Thomas had some free time on that Friday morning, so instead of sitting in front o
f the blinking cursor on his computer and not writing a damn thing, he thought he’d go and check out a few of his students. Yesterday he’d checked out the equestrian team, but that was in the early afternoon. During this period two of his students were in the music hall, so he was curious to see what they played. One of them was Jane, and he was definitely curious to see her play another instrument besides the piano, although she played that beautifully.

  If he was honest with himself, he was interested in anything Jane did.

  He stood behind the soundproof glass in a dark room and watched, arms folded across his chest as a smile broke across his face. This was exactly what he needed to brighten his day. He put on the headphones sitting on the rack next to him and turned up the volume.

  Yep. Her cousins were right. She really did think she was Slash.

  George picked a song that contained a piano solo, a guitar solo, and a nice beat. It was also in C Major, which meant no sharps or flats, and it would be easy for the two guys to keep up. Of course, it was Guns ‘n’ Roses’ November Rain, but the other kids could actually keep up with her and it was pretty fun. At the end the kid on the drums was banging his head, the kid at the piano was slapping his fingers all up and down the keys, and she had jumped on top of the piano and was on her knees, bent over the guitar and playing wildly. Just fun. It reminded her of college. She had no idea they had an audience.

  And she would have never known if she hadn’t missed a problem on her quiz in math class and had to stay late again. The other kids who scored below par stood in line at Dr. Thomas’s desk, figuring out a time that they could come and help file papers in his office or rearrange his shelves. Working off bad grades. She made sure she was last in line.

  “Any new ideas for your book?” she asked, standing on her toes and erasing the boards. She’d grown accustomed to their routines after class and had started really enjoying their conversations. She couldn’t explain why since it was supposed to be a punishment.