Whiskey Sour (23 page)

Chapter One

Friday, Four Days Earlier…

“Fif—ty…”

I flopped back onto my yoga mat with a thud and a
whoompf
of expelled breath, and I stared longingly at the cup of coffee I’d placed at the edge of the kitchen counter for inspiration. Too bad I didn’t have the energy to get up and get it, not to mention it probably wasn’t all that hot anymore.

“Go-go-gadget arm.” I flung my limp hand out toward the coffee cup, but much to my continual disappointment, that saying never worked.

My abs burned like fire, and it felt like someone had rearranged my intestines. I stared at the clock for a few seconds, waiting for my vision to come into focus, and I groaned at the time. “Fifty sit-ups in eight-minutes and fifty-two seconds. A personal best. But still pathetic, Addison.”

It was never the first thirty sit-ups that gave me any problems. I could do thirty in about two minutes. It was the last twenty that had me using every creative curse word I’d ever heard as the daughter of a cop. I couldn’t seem to get over the hurdle. And my time was running short.

A couple of months ago I’d lost my job as a teacher in the small town of Whiskey Bayou where I’d been raised. It hadn’t come as that big of a surprise since I’d gotten caught stripping at a gentleman’s club in an act of desperation to bring in some extra cash. It hadn’t mattered that I’d been the worst stripper ever born or that I’d only managed to hold the job for the minute and a half I’d been on stage. It had been long enough for my principal to see me and snap off a couple of photos.

I’d like to think I could’ve bribed or blackmailed him into keeping my secret safe, but by the time I’d made it to the parking lot he was already dead. I fell over him quite literally, and the rest, they say, is history. Once the police became involved there was no way my secret wouldn’t get back to Whiskey Bayou and the residents there who thrived on gossip as if it were mother’s milk.

Needless to say, my financial situation hadn’t improved since the loss of my job. My unemployment benefits were only good for another couple of months, and I had regular rent payments I had to make and all the bills that went along with living in a house. Not to mention credit cards I was still paying off from a wedding that never took place.

It was a good thing I’d been moonlighting at the McClean Detective Agency to bring in a little extra cash before my unfortunate dismissal from James Madison High, otherwise I never would’ve had the opportunity to talk Kate into hiring me full time. I wasn’t exactly a full time employee yet. I did contract work and a lot of background checks—spying on adulterous spouses and the occasional case of fraud. Savannah, Georgia was a hotbed of lust and debauchery if the cases that crossed my desk everyday were anything to go by.

I’d basically caught Kate at a low moment when I’d convinced her to hire me on as a full time private investigator. The only stipulation for my employment was I had to pass all the tests at the top of my class.

I’d spent the last couple of months taking the Citizen’s Police Academy classes once a week, studying manuals thick enough to use for kindling, practicing my shooting at the range, and…exercising. I’d passed my conceal to carry test with flying colors, mostly because my dad had taught me how to shoot when I was still in diapers. A cute little H&K my mom and her new husband had bought me as a congratulations gift sat in my purse on the counter. Though if anyone had tried to break in at the moment I would’ve been too tired to grab it. 

The written exam I had to take the week after Christmas would be a piece of cake as well. I was an expert researcher and test taker thanks to my degree in history.  I could recite rules and regulations out the wazoo. The problem was my mind didn’t always want to follow those rules and regulations. Sometimes a situation called for thinking on your feet instead of going by procedure. I just made sure to leave the thinking on your feet parts out of any reports I had to write for Kate. Bless her heart, she was a rule follower through and through. She always had been, even when we were in grade school.

The only section of the test I couldn’t quite seem to master was the physical fitness portion. At the rate I was going, I wouldn’t pass at all, much less be in the top of the class. The requirements were a two-mile run in under thirty minutes, followed immediately by fifty sit-ups in five minutes, followed by 10 pushups in however long it took you to do them. And those were just the minimums.

I rolled over onto my hands and knees, thinking I probably needed to run my yoga mat through a car wash since it was soaked with sweat and smelled of things that no southern lady should ever smell of.

A whimper escaped my mouth, and I crawled from the living room to the kitchen where my cold coffee waited for me. I managed to use the drawer handles as a way to lever myself to a standing position. My hands shook like a wino’s in a dry spell, but I managed to wrap them around the cup and bring it to my lips, only spilling a little down the front of my sports bra.

The cobwebs started to clear little by little and I groaned as I realized I still had to fit in a run. I’d finally made it to the mile mark without having to stop and throw up in someone’s yard, so I was at least making progress on that front.

I grabbed the binoculars from my kitchen drawer and went to stand at my front window, just like I did every morning. I cracked the blinds just the slightest bit and then put the binoculars to my face. They were already adjusted exactly how I needed them to be.

When I’d rented this house a couple of months ago, it was at the suggestion of a very sexy FBI agent I’d been working with at the time. His name was Matt Savage and I’d never met anyone whose name fit more perfectly. He looked like the love child of The Rock and Pocahontas—dusky gold skin stretched over sharp features and muscles that would make any woman sit up and take notice. I’d taken notice all right. But as much as I liked Savage and as much as I was curious to find out what he looked like under those black suits he always wore, I’d decided to keep my distance.

Savage was a nice guy, but he wasn’t someone who’d be great for the long term. He liked to play fast and reckless, and there was an element of danger about him that not even I was comfortable with. And that was saying something.

But when he’d made the suggestion about the house I was currently residing in, I’d had no idea he lived just across the street. This caused me a lot of anxiety. Mostly because I was currently single and every time he got in a five-mile radius my hormones started to sing. So I’d gone out of my way to make sure I had as little contact as possible. That didn’t stop him from coming over with takeout or mowing my lawn like clockwork every Saturday, but I was still trying to make an effort.

Men like Savage were no good for small town girls like me. And as odd as it seemed as a woman in twenty-first century America, I still had hang ups about casual sex. I couldn’t do it without there being some kind of emotional attachment or hope that something long term could come from it.

I held the binoculars up to my face and watched Savage’s house for a few minutes. He liked to run first thing in the morning before he went to work, and I tried to coordinate my schedule so he was already gone before I took my turn through the neighborhood—mostly because I didn’t want him to witness my resemblance to an arrhythmic heffalump.

There wasn’t a car parked in the driveway, but that wasn’t unusual since he normally parked in the garage. The blinds were all closed up and I couldn’t see any lights on throughout the house. I let out a relieved breath and scanned the street in both directions just in case he was still out running, but I was pretty sure the coast was clear.

It was on my second scan down the street that I got a weird tingly feeling at the back of my neck. Usually that was my internal warning that something bad was about to happen, but considering the results of my morning workout, it could’ve been nerve damage as well.

I don’t know what made me glance at my neighbor’s house—the one directly to my right. It was a little square of a house almost identical to mine, only it was painted canary yellow with white shutters. I’d never even met who lived there or seen them for that matter since my work hours were on the odd side.

The binoculars stopped of their own volition and straight into a large square window with slatted blinds that were all the way open. Another pair of binoculars stared straight back at me, wide blinking eyes magnified through the opposite end of the lenses.

“Jesus,” I screeched, stumbling back a step and tripping over a rug so I landed on my ass. My lungs heaved as I tried to suck in oxygen and figure out what had just happened.

Obviously my neighbor was a peeping Tom. The only problem was technically so was I, and I couldn’t exactly make accusations. I crawled on hands and knees back to the windows and closed all the blinds.

A knock at the door had me biting back a scream, but I realized I needed to get a grip. I was supposed to be a professional for Christ’s sake. Adrenaline gave me an added rush of strength and I vaulted myself toward the kitchen and pulled my gun out of my purse before skulking to the door and looking through the peephole.

I didn’t recognize him, but I had a sinking feeling I was about to meet my new neighbor. He was probably an inch shorter than me and had a face soft with baby fat. His eyes were very round in his pudgy face and I couldn’t tell if he had eyelids because he didn’t blink. At all.

Black hair stood in wild tufts around his head and a pencil thin mustache I was pretty sure he’d drawn on sat just above his lip. He wore khakis that were at least a size too big and a Star Trek T-shirt, and his binoculars hung around his neck.

I stood as still as possible, wondering what I should do, and praying he’d get tired of waiting and go back to his own house. He kept staring at me through the peephole, never blinking, and when my fingers cramped I realized I was squeezing my gun too tight.

“I can hear you breathing,” he finally said through the door.

I let out a sigh as I unlocked the deadbolt and undid the chain, but I didn’t bother to hide my weapon.

“You’re Addison Holmes,” he said, and I was slightly taken aback by the fact that he not only had been spying on me but also knew my name. “Agent Savage speaks highly of you, but I had to see that you would fit in for myself. We don’t just take anyone off the street you know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Neighborhood watch.” It was then I noticed he had a folded T-shirt in his hand and a dayglow orange vest, and he shoved them both at me. “I’ve been watching you since you moved in, and I could tell this morning that you have a good eye for what’s happening in the neighborhood. We try to keep crime to a minimum here. I’m Leonard Winkle, but everyone calls me Spock. I’m the president of the NAD Squad. It’s your turn to host tomorrow since you’re the newest member. We’ll be here at 9am sharp. Wear your shirt. Mrs. Rodriguez likes cranberry muffins.”

With that he turned on his heel and headed back across the small expanse of lawn that separated our houses.

“What the fuck?”

I closed the door and locked it up tight. I put my gun back in my purse and tossed the ugly vest on the counter before holding the shirt up in front of me so I could see what it said. NAD was spelled in giant block letters in the same dayglow orange as the vest across the front of the shirt. And underneath it was the word SQUAD in much smaller letters.

“NAD Squad,” I murmured. I turned the shirt around so I could read the back. “Neighbors Against Delinquency. Of course that’s what it means.”

I tossed the shirt on the counter and poured another cup of coffee, deciding to take it into the shower with me. Running wasn’t going to happen this morning. In fact, I was contemplating just crawling back under the covers and starting the whole day over again. Unfortunately, Kate was expecting me at the agency for a meeting.

She’d called me the night before driving back from the airport and reception had been spotty, but I’d caught the words sperm and billionaire, so it was enough information to have me sufficiently intrigued. Though a part of me was wondering if Kate was trying to set me up on a blind date.

Jana DeLeon
!

Chapter One

I stepped off the Learjet at the private airfield just before dawn. I’d been on the plane exactly seventeen hours, twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds, wearing the same eight-hundred-dollar dress I’d worn when I killed a man twenty-five hours earlier. One of my shoes hadn’t made it out of the desert, and I clutched what remained of the other shoe in my right hand and my nine millimeter in the left. Apparently, eight-hundred-dollar dresses didn’t come with pockets or holsters, and I didn’t have the kind of cleavage that made a viable hiding place.

A black Cadillac DTS with limo-tinted windows waited at the end of the runway, so I took a deep breath and headed for the car, steeling myself for the ass-chewing I knew was coming. But when I opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat, the angry, balding man I’d expected to see was nowhere in sight. Instead, a slightly overweight, fiftyish, African-American woman frowned at me, shaking her head.

“Girl, you are in one heap of trouble,” said the driver, Hadley Reynolds, CIA executive assistant extraordinaire.

“Did he have a heart attack when he heard?” I asked, wondering why the director had sent Hadley instead of coming himself. “I figured he’d be here to run me over with the car.”

“He had a moment there during that phone call when I wondered. His face turned so red, I thought he was going to pop, but then he rushed out yelling at me to pick you up and take you to meet him as soon as you arrived.”

I sighed, my fleeting thoughts of a real meal and decent clothes slipping from my mind. Not only had the plane been stocked with healthy food, it hadn’t contained an ounce of alcohol. “I guess picking up a burger and six-pack on the way is out of the question?”

“It’s six a.m.”

“Not in the Middle East,” I pointed out.

“This is Washington, D.C., not some giant sandbox. Besides, you’re meeting at a café. You can have all the fat and carbs you want.” Hadley looked down at her own plump figure then over at me and frowned. “You know, I rarely ask for anything although I do a lot of favors—and God knows, I’m never going to fit in one of those size-four dresses they put you in—but why can’t you be kind to the shoes?”

I looked down at what was remaining of the Prada shoes and felt a bit guilty. When I’d opened the box containing the shoes at CIA headquarters, I thought Hadley was going to pass out. She’d stared at them as if they were magical. My reaction hadn’t been exactly the same. “I’m sorry.”

Hadley raised one eyebrow.

“I swear. I’m sorry. That entire situation got a little out of hand. I didn’t plan on ruining the shoes.”

Hadley sighed and patted my leg, like she’d done since I was a little girl. “Honey, I know you didn’t, but you keep having these
situations
. I’m afraid that one day I’m going to be picking you up in a box.”

“It’s my job.”

“The risks you take are not your job and you know it.” She paused for a couple of seconds. “You don’t have anything to prove…not to him or anyone else.”

I just nodded and looked out the window, not wanting to get into a discussion about my late father, the “him” in her statement. Even though he died when I was fifteen, I could still see him frowning at me and shaking his head. Unfortunately, I couldn’t blame him. Super CIA agent Dwight Redding had never made a mistake, never blown his cover, and never killed someone who wasn’t on the hit list.

Dwight Redding had been perfect. The golden boy at the CIA.

Changing mental channels, I focused on the current situation. “Why a café?”

“The director didn’t say.”

I studied Hadley’s expression, but she was telling the truth, which worried me even more. If Director Morrow wanted to meet with me somewhere other than CIA headquarters that could mean only one thing—he was letting me go.

I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to prepare my defense argument. Best to hit him with it first, before he could pull the trigger—play to his sympathies. Yeah, that was it. If, of course, I could figure out exactly what his sympathies were before we got to the café. Eight years of working for him hadn't provided a single clue.

Hadley made a sudden turn and pulled up in front of a dingy storefront with the day’s special painted right on the grimy window. “You sure he’s not going to kill me?” I asked, giving the neighborhood a quick once-over. It looked like the kind of place where no one would blink over the sound of gunshots.

Hadley shook her head. “If the director doesn’t kill you, the food in there probably will.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I climbed out of the car, leaving the broken shoe behind, and headed into the café.

I spotted Director Morrow and another agent, Ben Harrison, in a booth at the back of the single room. Otherwise, it was completely empty. Morrow frowned as soon as he saw me walk in. As I got closer, he noticed my bare feet and downed his entire glass of water. I glanced over at Harrison, trying to get a read on Morrow’s state of mind, but he gave me an imperceptible shake of his head. Not good. Time for defense mode.

“I had to kill him,” I said as Harrison rose and allowed me to slide into the booth across from Morrow. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Harrison made a choking sound, sat down next to me and had a fake coughing fit into his napkin.

“Your personnel file,” Morrow said, “is full of those ‘no choice’ situations. Your hit count makes Attila the Hun look like a pacifist.”

“But he was going to sell that girl to the sheikh. She was only twelve years old and -”

“I don’t care if he had Siamese twins with puppies. You
always
maintain cover.” He held up two fingers. “Two years worth of work blown in less than a minute. It’s a new record, Redding.”

“I can still salvage it. Just put me back in.”

“How do you propose I do that? You were
supposed
to be the distributor’s new eye-candy. All you had to do was deliver the money, collect the drugs, and leave. But no, you had to kill the brother of the boss…an arms dealer who shot his wife for walking in front of the television during American Idol. Do you really think he’s going to give you a pass on killing his only sibling?”

“Not to mention,” Harrison added, “that most hoochies don’t go around killing people with their shoes. He’s probably figured out you’re not some ditzy gold digger.”

I glared at Harrison, who only seemed to have diarrhea of the mouth when it involved me. “There wasn’t any place on my body I could hide a gun—not with that sleazy dress I had to wear. And that shoe had a spike on it. What the hell else is it good for?”

“Jesus, Redding.” Harrison laughed. “Haven’t you seen a movie, a magazine ad…another woman in public? Stilettos are common among people with estrogen.”

“Which explains why
you
know what they are, and I don’t. Why don’t you play the girl on the next mission? You’re obviously better suited.”

“There is no next mission,” Morrow said, cutting off the argument altogether.

I whipped around to face the director. “You’re firing me? You can’t do that.”

“I could do that if I wanted to, but that’s not the problem. We got news from Intel this morning. Your face has been distributed to every drug and arms dealer that does business with Ahmad’s organization. He’s offering one million to anyone who brings your body to him. Ten million if someone brings you in alive.”

“Jesus,” Harrison said, all antagonism gone.

I felt the blood start to drain from my face, and mentally tried to force it back up.  “So? It’s not the first time an agent has had a price on their head,” I said, hoping my voice sounded stronger than I felt.

Morrow shook his head. “We’ve never had a case this bad. Seeing you dead has become the personal agenda of one of the biggest arms dealers of the decade. I have no choice but to make you disappear.”

“No way am I going into witness protection. They’ll stick me in some bank teller job in Idaho.”

“I agree that witness protection is out, but not because I care what job you’d be asked to perform.” Morrow leaned across the table, his expression a combination of serious, concerned, and just a hint of fear. It was the fear part that made my breath catch in my throat. 

“There’s a leak,” Morrow said, his voice low. “I know it’s coming from inside the CIA, but have no idea how high up it goes.”

I gasped, my mind trying to grasp what he’d said. It wasn’t possible. A traitor in the agency? 

“No way!” Harrison jumped up from the booth and paced in front of it. “I don’t believe it.”

Morrow sighed. “I didn’t want to believe it, either, but the reality is, someone put Ahmad’s people onto Redding before she ever set foot on that boat. That whole scene with the girl was intentional—trying to force Redding to blow her cover so they could be certain. They knew she didn’t have a gun, but apparently didn’t factor in how dangerous she was in high heels.”

“Shit,” Harrison said and slumped back down in the booth.

Morrow looked at Harrison then back at me. “Both of you know that information about the mission could only have come from our office. According to Intel, Redding wasn’t supposed to make it off that boat at all, much less alive. And that whole shoe incident upped the stakes astronomically.”

“She can have plastic surgery,” Harrison said. “It’s done all the time, right?”

“No way!” I argued.

Morrow held up a hand to stop the exchange. “You’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies. Plastic surgery can’t change her height or her bone structure, not enough, anyway. Ahmad’s security equipment is top of the line. A single photo taken by one of his cameras, and they’d have the bone structure pinned right back to Redding. We still have another operative inside. We can’t afford the risk.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I asked, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in. “You’re telling me I’m not even safe at CIA headquarters? Where am I supposed to go?”

Morrow pushed a folder across the table. “I have an idea,” he said somewhat hesitantly. “It wouldn’t be official. Only you, me, and Harrison would know about it. That’s why I’m speaking to the two of you here. I can’t trust anyone else, and there’s the possibility that my office is bugged.”

Harrison glanced over at me and nodded. “Whatever you think, sir. I’ll do whatever you need.”

“All I need from you, Harrison, is to keep your mouth shut and remember this information in case something happens to me. For the obvious reasons, there will be no paper trail. Redding, on the other hand, is going to have to do a bit of maneuvering to pull this off.”

“Pull what off?”

“My niece just inherited a house from her maternal great-aunt. She’s scheduled to spend the summer at the place, going over the contents and getting it ready to sell. She’s never been there before, and my understanding is the aunt wasn’t the picture-hanging kind of gal, so there’s very little risk of anyone catching on.”

“Catching on to what, exactly?”

Morrow blew out a breath. “I want to send my niece to Europe for the summer, and I want you to go to Louisiana and pretend to be her. It’s the perfect cover. No one will be looking for you there, and no one in the town has ever met my niece. They just know she’ll be arriving sometime this summer to settle things.”

“Louisiana…you mean swamps and alligators and hicks?”

“I mean a small town with lovely people and a slower pace. Just until we've removed Ahmad. The hit on you is personal. Without Ahmad in charge, the hit will likely go away.”

My mind began to whirl again. “But that could be weeks…months. You can’t expect me to live in the middle of a swamp for that long. What in the world would I do? They probably don’t even have cable television. Is there electricity? Oh my God, isn’t that where they filmed
Deliverance
?”

Morrow shot me a dirty look. “You’ve spent days crawling through the desert with only a rifle and a bottle of water. Don’t tell me a couple of blue-haired old ladies and some mosquitoes are going to be the death of you. This is a vacation compared to your norm.”

He pointed to the folder. “This is some background information I put together on my niece. Her aunt probably talked about her, so the townspeople will be looking for someone meeting that description.”

“What about the Internet?” Harrison asked. “Most people are all over it.”

Morrow shook his head. “She had a stalker situation when she was a teen that scared her senseless. She’s been diligent about keeping herself off the Net. I’ve already checked and it’s clean.”

Morrow looked at me. “I need you to be ready to leave by tomorrow.”

I reached for the folder, making note of the fact that Morrow was looking off at the wall behind me rather than looking me in the eye. Not good. A feeling of dread washed over me as I opened the folder and started to read.

Sandy-Sue Morrow.
Good God, the name alone stopped me cold.

I kept reading and felt the blood drain from my face. Finally, I looked up. “I can’t do this.”