Justified Means (Book One) (The Agency Files) (18 page)

The cliffs overhanging the ocean would provide diversion. He’d be able to take her for walks along the cliffs. Erika would like that. The dossier said she’d never been to either coast; at least he could give her a new experience or two. Maybe, once the coast was clear—he snickered at the unintentional pun—they’d be able to take her down to the shoreline and let her walk along the beach. It was a small consolation prize for two or three weeks of her life lost, but she still lived. Regardless of their failures, they’d kept her alive. Helen Franklin was alive, and they thought they’d have Anastas and his crew in days.

As it was, they had over half of the most important people under constant surveillance. The minute everyone and everything dropped into place, the nightmare would end, and Erika and Helen could have their lives back. That meant success—two lives saved from the greed and lawlessness of people who used others as a means to their own gain. That’s what hurt the most—seeing people as disposable or as slaves to fill the coffers of the insatiable.

As nervousness churned in his gut again, Keith frowned. It made no sense.  Then again, this was a second chance to finish the only job he’d been removed from and do it right this time. Anyone would be nervous—wouldn’t
he? He needed to quit overthinking things. Ever since the trip to Columbus, he had developed the obnoxious habit of uncertainty. Second-guessing everything drove him crazy. Something from that trip still unsettled him, and despite Mark’s assurances to the contrary, he knew he’d missed something.

Just as he heard the soft whap, whap of the helicopter blades, his new cell phone buzzed with a text message to announce their arrival. He grinned at the one
-word message. CATCH. That had to be Erika’s influence.

Duffel in hand, Erika ran from the helicopter just as it rose from the ground and headed
farther up the coast. She stopped just short of him and gave him her trademarked—at least he thought it should be—disgusted expression. “I told you to catch.”

“Well, that’s true but you jumped before I could get out there.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

Keith jerked his thumb into the house. “Make yourself at home.” He grabbed her duffel bag and followed her into the house. “Pick a room
—any room.”

Her eyes traveled around the house as she entered. “Swanky.”

Eyes rolling, Keith pointed to the hallway. “Room service is about to end. Take your pick, or I’m picking for you.”

“I’ll take this one.” She stepped into a pink and purple unicorn-infested nightmare of a little girl’s room. “It’s sweet.”

“You’re going to be butchering those things in your sleep.”

Erika shrugged, took the bag from him, and tossed it on the be-ruffled bed. “Some people count sheep, I slaughter horses. What’s the difference?” His dubious expression prompted the appearance of surrender, but Keith was skeptical—even when she added, “Ok, so I figured out that having the best as your guard
-slash-warden is a little better than having a half-crazed psycho.”

“Isn’t the definition of psycho something akin to completely crazed?”

“Tell me there’s food.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “There’s food. Seriously? You didn’t eat before you got in the ‘copter?”

“I did, but that was several hours ago. They made a stop every four miles all the way up the coast from Mendocino. It’s like a very loud, very bad rollercoaster ride.”

“They’ll continue all the way to Vancouver too. Smart.” Impressed, Keith pulled out a couple of kiwi fruit and passed them across the counter. “Karen said you like these.”

“Yum! Want one?”

“Um, hairy b— well, I can’t say what they look like, but it’s gross, so no.”

“Grow up. Here, where’s the potato peeler?”

After
digging through several drawers of various utensils, Keith pulled out what he decided must be the Cadillac of kitchen gadgets. “This?”

“Nice. How’d we score this place?”

“I think Karen is feeling guilty about Corey.”

“She should,” the visible shudder was unmistakable, “that woman is insane.”

“They’re sending her for a psych eval and a few other things. She’s never done anything like that before.” Keith took the green, slimy, slice of fruit and tried to ignore the seeds that looked like little black ants mocking him. “She’s really one of the best.”

“You can’t
all
be ‘one of the best,’ and Karen says you’re
the
best.” Erika stifled a snicker as Keith tried to swallow the slice whole. “It’s sweet. Chew.”

If he closed his eyes and pretended he didn’t know what it looked like, Keith had to agree. It was a little like honeydew with a hint of sourness—for which he blamed and complimented the seeds. However, it was difficult to ignore the seeds as he chewed them. “Do the seeds have to look like bugs?”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. Man, what a—”

“I thought you just said I was the best that the Agency has. If I’m the best, I’m not the wuss you want to make me out to be, so stuff it.”

Between bites of kiwi and snickers at his expression, Erika gave him a rundown of her week with Corey. “She didn’t like pacing.”

As he thought about it, that made sense. “Yeah, you’re right. She doesn’t like that. I think better when I pace, and I think it annoys her.”

“Well, I paced for five days straight. My legs are still sore.”

“You did what?”

He waited for her to say something that indicated she was teasing, but Erika just shrugged and said, “Look, she was annoying. I wasn’t giving her an inch
or
a mile.”

“And now you’re paying for it.”

“Oh,” Erika continued as if he hadn’t just shown her who really was tortured by the pacing, “and she made it very clear that you’d never be interested in a girl like me. For the record, you like very feminine girlie girls who like to sip sweet tea in large hats and jump at spiders.” She winked. “So don’t get any ideas. Corey has determined that we are incompatible.”

“Got it.”

“I thought about pointing out that you’re too smart to get caught up in a drama machine like her. I mean, yeah, I get that I’m not your type. I can take that. I’m not looking to do the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing anyway, but if she thinks a guy with sense is going to fall for—”

“I was attracted to her before the cabin, Erika. When I say she was unrecognizable there, I’m not exaggerating.” Whether she didn’t believe him or was too disgusted to discuss it further, Keith didn’t know, but the subject changed so fast it took him a minute to follow.

“Did you know she kept me chained twenty-four seven? Were you guys even trained at the same place?”

He had a choice, and it was a hard one. If he defended his co-worker, he risked annoying Erika when he most needed to regain her trust. Then again, displaying too much disloyalty to an agent and the Agency was a great way to imply they’d made a mistake, and that was sure to stick in her mind. After one of the fastest and most nonsensical prayers he’d ever made, Keith tried to walk that very fine line that usually meant straddling a very sharply picketed fence.

“Look, you know I disagree with how Corey acted about some things. She let her emotions interfere with her reason and it made things more difficult than they had to be, but—” Keith shook his head as Erika started to pounce on his words. “On the other hand, she hadn’t built a trust with you like I had, and she’s a woman. She’s not as strong or as fast as I am. Women typically have to rely more on restraints and locks than men do. It’s a simple fact of the job.”

“She was rude.”

“Unquestionably.”

“Arrogant.” Erika’s eyes dared him to contradict her.

“I’d never deny it.”

“And brutal.”

“I can’t agree with that. You are here, healthy, and uninjured. You weren’t as comfortable as you could have been, yes. You would have been more comfortable with a man, yes. You would have been more emotionally comfortable with someone like Karen, without a doubt.” He swallowed and waited, allowing his words to sink into her mind. “But Karen, alone in the house, would have had to use the same restraints in nearly the same way.”

With movie in hand, Erika strolled from her pink and purple prison. Why she’d been so obnoxious as to insist on that room, she didn’t know, but her pride resisted allowing her to request a change. The look of dread on Keith’s face as she waved the movie suddenly made Karen’s dismay clear. Keith didn’t like action movies. That was odd for a guy, but tough luck. She’d missed it in theaters, thanks to losing three employees at once, and she’d missed the debut on DVD, thanks to whatever she knew or shouldn’t know—or something like that.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I’ve been dying to see this for months.”

Keith nodded and took the box, visibly preparing himself for the contents, and then jerked his head up to meet her eyes. “Wha—”

“Ok, so I’m sorry. Sue me. Sheesh.”

“Why are you sorry? This was the best movie of the year. I love this.”

“You didn’t look like you loved it, and Karen seemed bothered…”

He pulled the wrapper from the movie, popped it open, and inserted the disk into the DVD player. “Karen was hoping you’d make me watch
Kiss and Make Up
.

“Oh, ew. Everything that Wendy Panther is in is just nauseating. I bet she grovels. She has to. It’s like her trademark or something.”

“I think you just passed up Donald on the fun scale.”

A sense of satisfaction washed over her as she settled into an overstuffed chair. She’d upstaged the comedic codger. That was something. It wasn’t much, but after two weeks of mere existence she’d take what she could get.

“So, is the secretary on the good side or the bad?”

“I’m not telling; watch the movie.” Keith hardly took his eyes from the screen.

“I’m watching, I just want to know if I’m right.”

“You’ll find out when the director wants you to.”

Erika sent a pillow flying in his direction, but his reflexes—wow. Without taking his eyes from the screen, Keith caught it one-handed, and whirled it back at her. It bounced off her head before she could catch it. “How do you do that?”

All throughout the movie, Erika asked questions, made observations, and proposed hypotheses with abandon. She could see it drove him crazy, but if anything, it spurred her on
to greater heights of irritating achievements. His hands balled into fists and gripped the arms of his chair. Her mouth twisted as she watched his jaw clench and his lips tighten.

“Be amused all you want.”

“How do you
do
that! That’s insane. You never took your face from the screen.”

“It’s called peripheral vision. Mothers and teachers use it to keep kids in line. The military and law enforcement use it to watch their back, and I use it to ensure that if someone is outside lurking, I’ll notice.”

“Ok, so what is Jett going to do now?”

“He’s going to show you in about thirty-two point seven seconds. Watch.”

An explosion ripped across the screen, sending Erika’s eyes back to the plot unfolding before her. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, starting with why Corey had let her call Mark in the first place. It made no sense.

At the end of the movie, before the first line of credits rolled, Erika punched the remote, cutting off the noise. “Why did Corey call Mark? I demanded all kinds of things that she ignored. Why did she do that one?”

Keith sat silent for the better part of a minute before he stretched and stood. “Because we’re required to. If you ask to speak to someone over us, the only way we can deny it is if we’re in the middle of a crisis, and even then, we’d better be able to prove it would put our client at risk.”

“Da—”

“Come on, Erika. Really?”

“Fine.
Darn
. Is that better?”

Without answering, he strolled into the kitchen and returned with the garbage can. “So, is it garbage or trash?”

“Ok, ok. You win. How about um…” she thought for a moment. “Oh, forget it. I can’t believe we’re quibbling over darn vs. da—”

Keith glared.

“Fine.  Whatever. Back to the point. I’m ticked. If I’d known that, I would have demanded to call at every meal and bedtime too.”

“I’m sure you would have had fun with that, but you could have been taking him from his focus on keeping very real people such as yourself alive. Don’t be selfish—even to annoy people who probably deserve it.”

“Does that include you?”

“Especially me.”

Without another word, he returned the garbage can to the kitchen.  Seconds later, the sounds of dishes being loaded into the dishwasher followed. Though she felt she should offer to help, Erika strolled toward the front door and tried to open it. Locked. As she realized there wasn’t a way to unlock it, she looked for an alarm panel, but found nothing.

“Behind the silhouette of the little girl. Today’s code is 7-2-9-9-3-2.”

“You’re giving me the code?” Even as she asked, Erika punched the numbers in to see if they’d work.