In which the author uses a bad plot device to recap and get the characters straight.
I got home without incident and stashed my blood in the freezer underneath a package of tater tots. It wasn’t well hidden, and I didn’t think I could pass it off as frozen cranberry sauce if anyone saw it, but there was no other place for it. I had to keep it here, and I had to keep it frozen. Besides, if someone was rooting through my freezer I had bigger problems than explaining a stack of bags of blood. I fixed myself a quick sandwich and then hopped in the shower to wash the smoke off. I hadn’t stopped to change clothes and make sure I didn’t have a tail, and I could only hope that I’d managed to sneak back to the apartment unobserved. I was too tired and had developed a slight cough, and was anxious to wash the dust and grime off.
After a quick shower I filled the tub with water and some lovely almond-scented bubble bath I found under the counter, and settled in to soak and think. The number one priority was to figure out exactly who I could trust. Because I wasn’t sure I could go this alone. If I was right, and there was a bigger plan that had been set in action by Jason’s actions, then I needed someone on the inside. I no longer had access to the databases and files, nor was a privy to the gossip dished out at the water cooler. Someone who was could provide the key to solving this whole mystery.
I could trust Jake, I knew that, despite our break up. I knew I still had feelings for him, and I was pretty sure he still had feelings for me. But the job had come between us. Too many secrets, too many lies, and he just wasn’t willing to put up with it. Not that I blame him. I had, once, been required to kiss a man in the course of a courier job. It’s not that I wanted to, but it was the only way to keep my cover from being blown. I don’t think Jake knew about that incident, but I’d felt guilty and I’m sure he picked up on that. I wouldn’t want to put up with dating a spy, even one with as boring a job as mine. Sure, at first I was angry that he just didn’t understand. Then I considered quitting my job for him, but that made me angry because why should I have had to do that to make him happy? Never mind I didn’t really like my job, it was still mine. The whole thing dissolved into a series of chilly encounters until we finally called it quits. But now… maybe if I really was out of the business, it could work. I but my lip and slid further down in the tub. Except he wasn’t connected, and I might need him to sell my story to the police. And the only way for him to really sell it would be for him to believe it.
Jason… Jason I could not trust. He had some hidden agenda and was using me as a pawn in his little game. It was rapidly becoming apparent that I needed to distance myself from him as much as possible. Whether he was on the mob’s side, the agency’s side, or his own side, none of those were my side. I did need to find out what he was up to, and for that, I needed some inside information. That left me with one of my ex-coworkers, or… Robert.
I dismissed the idea of contacting any of my old cube-mates as soon as it crossed my mind. There was a reason most of them only had level-one clearance and were given the most menial of tasks. It’s not as if any of them could be trusted to keep a secret. Well, perhaps that is too harsh. They could, and did, keep agency secrets from the rest of the world quite well. But personal secrets flew about the room faster than the wicked witch’s monkeys. You always knew everything anyone said about anything in that room. If I told one of them I was still alive, then they’d all know. And the fewer people involved, the better.
That left Robert, a complete unknown. He’d proven himself very smart, dropping just the right clues. Someone who wasn’t part of the agency wouldn’t have understood what he’d been saying, or understand how to use that number. So if I wasn’t what he thought I was, there was no harm done. But if I was… he’d just extended a helping hand.
The water was starting to get chilly, so I got out of the tub and dried myself off. I was tired, and though I really should have started working on my plan, I tumbled into bed and almost immediately fell into a light, troubled sleep. I tossed and turned, and dozed fitfully until I heard the key in the lock turn. I quick glance at the clock told me it was 3 am. An odd time for someone to make an unannounced visit. I slipped soundlessly out of bed and crept to the bedroom door just as the front door swung open and Jason walked in.
He made a quick sweep across the room with a flashlight, and I shrank back into the darkened bedroom as the light flicked down the hall. And when he started heading for the bedroom, I scurried noiselessly back to the bed and buried myself in the covers. I slowed my breathing to deep, sleep-like breaths just as the bedroom door creaked open. Though my eyes were shut, I could still see the sweep of light as he played the flashlight over the walls and around the room, though never directly on me. I kept my breathing even and let a little drool slip out of the corner of my open mouth. Still, I felt him hovering over me, watching me, waiting for some indication I wasn’t asleep. I didn’t give him any, and finally I saw the beam of the flashlight focus on one corner of the room. I’d had the foresight to feign sleep on my back, so by cracking my eyes ever so slightly I was able to barely make out what he was doing.
He glanced back my way a few times, but I did avoid the rookie mistake of quickly closing my eyes. There’s no way, at that distance and in that light, he could tell that my eyes were ever so slightly open. But he would have been able to see the movement of me trying to close them. So I watched as he fiddled with the side of an antique dresser, exposing a hidden drawer. Still glancing back periodically, he pulled something out of his coat and placed it in the drawer. It closed with a tiny snap, and then he rose and left the room. A moment later I heard the front door open and close, but no sound of the lock. I stayed where I was, still breathing deeply and rhythmically, the puddle of drool growing. And then I heard it, the faintest scuff of a shoe against the hardwood floor. He hadn’t left, not yet, he was waiting to see if I sprang up and checked what he had done. I forced myself to remain still and eventually, my exhaustion caught up with me. I fell asleep for real while waiting for him to leave.
The next thing I remember, the bright sun is streaming in through the bedroom window. Checking the clock, I see it’s just past nine. Not as early as I would have liked to be up, but it had been a rough night. I suppressed the urge to jump right up and run over to the hiding place, instead I stretched leisurely and went out to the kitchen to make some coffee, and to make sure the apartment was deserted. The front door was securely locked and nothing appeared out of place. So I set the coffee maker to brew and ran back to the bedroom to open the secret compartment in the dresser.
This proved more difficult than I’d hoped. In the dim light, and through barely-opened eyes, I hadn’t been able to see exactly what he’d been doing to open the drawer. And in the bright light of day, I still couldn’t even see that there was a secret compartment there. The intricate carving and scrollwork on the dresser camouflaged any obvious seams. The only way I finally determined the approximate location of the drawer was to look inside the dresser and find out where there was missing space. Then I got up, got myself a cup of coffee, and settled myself down to a long morning of poking and prodding every piece of the dresser until finally a small drawer slid out.
The item he’d placed was there, still wrapped in a men’s embroidered handkerchief. The initials proclaimed that it belonged to one ‘E. G.’ and it was wrapped around a small, ivory-handled pistol. Handling the gun with the handkerchief only, I sniffed the barrel. It had been fired, and recently. I gently re-wrapped the gun and placed it back in the drawer, being careful that it looked exactly like it had when I found it. I slid the drawer back into place and took my now-cold coffee into the kitchen.
I flipped on the television, and it was on a local station. The newscaster was telling me there was breaking news. A man had been found shot to death, execution-style, in a back alley. Nothing unusual about that, except this man happened to be one Edward Gaust, the head of the biggest crime family in the city. And, you guessed it, the person Jason had been sent in to get the goods on.
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