Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) Page 2

  Now, it wasn’t even that. Rather than a reliable, comfortable setting that provided stability, it now felt like nothing more than something that was holding me back.

  Before leaving earlier that morning, Watts had told me he would need a few days to take care of something. He didn’t say what it was, and I didn’t ask. I trusted him. I knew he would be back for me.

  Still, the three days I didn’t see him felt more like three months.

  Tuesday was a busy day in the mail security facility. Tara and I barely had a chance to talk until we broke for lunch.

  “When do you see Mr. Mysterious again?”

  If only she knew just how appropriate her new nickname for Watts was.

  “Probably this weekend,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d seen him last night. I was feeling like I needed to be more secretive with each passing hour.

  All day I’d felt like I was being watched. Of course, I was always being watched, considering the numerous cameras throughout the building. But this felt different, like someone was on to my secret. I knew it was just paranoia, which may not be such a bad thing to feel sometimes, especially when you’re harboring a secret like the one I had.

  “That sucks,” she said. “I mean, it’s good for you. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But I was going to invite you to my aunt and uncle’s lake house in Virginia this weekend.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I tried to make it sound as genuine as I could, but I’m not sure I pulled it off. Either way, Tara let it slide.

  “Hey, we have all summer. You’ve got to see this place. It’s so beautiful. There’s so much to do there.”

  I closed my locker. “That sounds really good. Sure.”

  “Going to your bench?” she asked. “I could meet you there. I’m going to pick up a sandwich or taco or something from one of the food trucks.”

  “Actually, I need to make a phone call. I’m sorry.”

  She looked a little disappointed and I felt bad. But I needed some alone time.

  I got to the Mall, only to find a family sitting on my favorite bench. The sun was high and bright, a cloudless day, and I’d been looking forward to sitting in the shade. I managed to find a spot, sat on the ground, and got my phone out.

  I texted Watts: I miss you.

  He wrote back almost immediately: Couple more days. You won’t be missing me then. You won’t be able to get me off of you.

  I smiled for the first time that day.

  Tuesdays weren’t my normal day to go to the shelter, but I felt like it was what I needed. They never turned away help, anyway. I fed some of the dogs in their crates, refilled their water bowls, then took a few out for a short walk.

  When I got back, I took Winnie to the grooming room and spent an hour washing her, drying her, clipping her nails, and before it was all over I tied a little red ribbon around her left ear in the form of a bow.

  “You look so pretty,” I said to her. She panted hot dog breath back in my face. “And you’ve just been pampered more than I’ve pampered myself.”

  I never felt strange talking to dogs. They always listen and they never tell your secrets.

  Later that night, I managed somehow not to text or call Watts. It took all the resolve I could muster not to reach out to him, tell him that I missed him something awful, and wished he were with me, by my side all night.

  Instead, I lost myself in a book and drifted off to sleep early.

  Chapter Four – Watts

  I woke up early Tuesday morning, rented a car, and set out for Alexandria, Virginia, just on the other side of D.C.

  It was where the next operation was going to go down, and it was where I was going to meet Chris Spencer. We hadn’t talked in over four years, and the last time I’d seen him was a decade ago when we embarked on the mission to Chechnya.

  Staying in Alexandria for a couple of days also put me closer to Catherine’s apartment. Without much to do until Spencer arrived, I drove by her place a few times Tuesday morning and afternoon.

  Call it paranoia. Call it whatever you wish. The situation was changing rapidly and I was growing more and more concerned for her safety. Aside from the work I was doing for Atherton, I had never felt that kind of vigilance.

  For her own good, I hadn’t told her where I was going. For all she knew, I could be in Tennessee or Connecticut.

  I wasn’t expecting an FBI raid on her house, or a drone strike. I hadn’t quite let my concern grow that much. What I did worry about, though, was someone snooping around her place at the behest of McDowell. I knew he had done all manner of surveillance on other operatives and people they were associated with. Not much of it seemed like anything Mr. Atherton would have directed, but I couldn’t be sure of that, either.

  What I was facing was almost cliché—a threat from within, someone who was supposed to be on my side.

  That also made me wonder if I had been given the real story behind McDowell’s decision to send Spencer to work with me on this operation.

  . . . . .

  My suspicion didn’t diminish when Spencer arrived just after 1 p.m. He had called and said he was about thirty minutes out, so I went to Savio’s, an Italian restaurant in Alexandria, where we had planned to meet.

  I got a table in a back corner and ordered an appetizer and a beer, and it wasn’t long until Spencer entered the restaurant and approached the hostess stand. His eyes scanned the place until he saw me.

  I stood when he got to the table, extended my hand to shake his, but he pulled me into a hug.

  “So good to see you, mate.”

  “Good to see you, too,” I said.

  “Hey, drop the fake American accent for a little while, huh? Loosen up, Watts.” He laughed and we sat down.

  I smiled. “Second nature now, you know?”

  “What’s that, the accent or your uptight nature?”

  “Fuck off, Spencer.”

  “Same old Watts,” he said, looking around, as the waitress came out of the kitchen. “Beer, please. Same as my friend here.”

  We ate lunch and talked about the old days, such as they were. A decade isn’t really that much time, but when you have lives like ours, it can seem an eternity sometimes.

  Spencer and I had become fast friends when training for the mission in Chechnya. He had lost a brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces in the terrorist attack. He’d had a rough go of it early on during the training. We stayed in the same room on nights when the team slept at Atherton’s farm, and on more than one occasion, I had heard him shouting and thrashing around on his bed. Nightmares.

  I’d never had them. Not a single one. I don’t know what to attribute that to.

  Spencer had a tendency to take out his anger on the dummy targets on the shooting range, often going out there at night and emptying multiple clips in them. Our trainers said he was just working out his anger. We were all angry, but none of us were as volatile as him.

  We were all worried about it fucking up the mission, but he pulled through just fine like the rest of us. And afterward, he changed. He was no longer angry, but from that point forward just determined and dedicated like the rest of us.

  Our whole team watched him make the transformation. As the years passed, I had come to think of Spencer’s situation as an act of catharsis for the team. Maybe even more necessary than any of us realized at the time. It refocused the rest of us on discipline, and we pulled him along with us.

  Since then, he’d been a damn good operative judging from the periodic reports I would get from his sector of the United States.

  Even with the minimal contact we’d had over the years, I had come to know the new him as a happy guy, always ready with the sarcasm and jokes, very easy to get along with. He worked as an independent personal trainer, a job that suited him well.

  And as he sat across from me in Savio’s that afternoon, he was just as I’d expected him to be.

  I briefed him on what I knew so far about the operation. He filled in some of the hol
es with last-minute information he had received.

  Later, the conversation got more personal than I’d expected.

  “Holy fuck, Watts, I’m in love,” he said after we had finished our meal and wrapped up the reminiscing part of our conversation.

  “Really,” I said flatly. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. His breezy nature made him so different from me—he dated, for one thing, and he had apparently become part of a tight-knit group of guys where he lived.

  He shook his head back and forth. “I can hardly believe it myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought I’d settle down and start a family. But I wasn’t planning on it now.”

  “Pregnant?”

  He nodded slowly. “Couldn’t believe it myself, but when the fourth test came back positive, well, there was no denying it. And before you ask, because I know you want to know, we weren’t exactly trying very hard to prevent it.”

  “It’s going to change everything for you.”

  He knew what I was getting at without my having to say it bluntly. He shrugged, as if he didn’t care. “It’s time to move on from all of this.”

  “How much does McDowell know?”

  He laughed heartily, throwing his head back. “Fuck McDowell. I’m going straight to Atherton about it after you and I are done with this one.”

  I signaled the waitress and caught her eye. “Another beer, please.” I’d planned on having only one and had switched to Coke as we ate, but I had a craving for a second one. “You know McDowell probably already knows.”

  “So what? He hasn’t come to me about it, and I haven’t volunteered anything. Like I said, I’m done after this op, so his time to torment me is running short.”

  I almost told him about Catherine right then. I wanted to tell him the situation, and how McDowell had given me an order. But I didn’t want the conversation to open up to an exploration of my private life.

  For one thing, I was still slightly suspicious about the possibility that McDowell had planted Spencer with me to dig for more information, maybe even talk me out of continuing things with Catherine.

  But more than that, I still had a lot to sort out for myself without input from anyone else, least of all Spencer. His advice to me would have been a form of justification for his own current situation and decision. I didn’t need my thoughts clouded by that.

  The waitress stopped at our table and cleared some of the plates. “Separate checks?”

  “No,” I said, “I’ll take it.”

  She smiled and said she’d be right back with it.

  “Thanks, mate,” Spencer said.

  “It’s the least I can do, considering you’re going to be buying diapers and baby food and new clothes every year and paying college tuition—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said. “I know you’re a distant, jaded man, but that’s a bit much, isn’t it? I’d think a little congratulations would do just fine.”

  “You’re right. Sorry.” I sipped the last of my second beer. “And congratulations, of course.” I held my glass up and he raised his. We toasted, and I was even more relieved that I hadn’t reversed course and told him about Catherine.

  “I’m serious, Watts. You’re too cynical, too isolated. There’s no woman in your life?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “See, that’s your problem right there. And I’m not just talking about getting some pussy, either. I’m talking companionship, trust, love. Three things you’ve denied yourself for over a decade now.”

  He was right, of course. I had deliberately deprived myself of those things. While I always told myself that such denial was all a matter of security because of my job, there were times when I felt the truth pushing through a little, telling me that I was depriving myself of relationships as a matter of personal, psychological security. You can’t lose what you don’t have.

  I leaned forward, placing my elbows on the table. Lowering my voice, I said, “You live your life, I’ll live mine.”

  He raised his hands, palms out. “Fine, fine. Just trying to help.”

  “You can mail me your bill, Dr. Spencer.”

  Spencer laughed. “This session is on the house. But okay, let’s forget the personal stuff. All business from here on out. Deal?”

  I nodded. “Let me pay the bill and let’s get the fuck out of here. We have work to do.”

  Chapter Five – Catherine

  By mid-afternoon on Thursday, I needed to vent. Not seeing Watts was frustrating, but not even hearing from him on our usual timetable was even worse. When work slowed down a little, I said to Tara, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I know I’ve been a little short with you the last couple of days. And, seriously, the lake house idea sounds great. It does. It’s just that right now, I have so much on my mind.”

  We had cleared most of the bins. Only a few remained, and they were not even half full. Tara turned off the conveyer belt. “What’s the matter? Anything you want to talk about?”

  She knew so little about my life. She only knew that I kept to myself a lot, and that I had very little experience with men.

  “Have you ever told a guy you love him before he tells you?”

  Her eyes got wide behind the large plastic goggles. “Um, yeah, once. But back the truck up here, honey. What the hell is really going on with you two? Is it that serious?”

  “I almost said it the other night. I think he was about to as well. Actually, I think he was saying it, just…not in so many words.”

  I would have felt ridiculous talking to anyone else about this. I was twenty-six years old, feeling like I was sixteen. But Tara had never judged me.

  She waved her hand and made a sound like Pffft, then said, “You mean a guy not saying what he’s feeling? Breaking news. I’ll call the media.”

  I laughed, needing it badly.

  “So,” she continued, “it really is that serious. That’s awesome. But yeah, I don’t know about saying it first. I mean, if you want to and it just happens, then it just happens. But I’d wait for him to say it.”

  “Didn’t work out when you did it?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It was during sex. Big mistake. But after that, he got really distant and I think I saw him two or three more times and all we did was have sex. Then he disappeared. Poof. Whatever.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I liked him a lot, but honestly we weren’t meant to be. We didn’t like the same kind of movies and not much of the same music. And he liked to watch sports all the time, even baseball, which is more boring than anything in the world.”

  “But you liked him a lot, maybe even loved him?”

  “At the time,” she said, “yeah, I thought so. That’s what it felt like, anyway. But honestly, I think it was just because the sex was so good. He’s still in my Top Five.”

  Watts and I had so much more than that. The sex was amazing, no doubt, but it certainly wasn’t the center of our relationship. It might have been in the beginning, but so much had changed in such a short time. The history we had—all the emails over a six month period—provided us with a good foundation, and it only grew more from there once we finally met.

  “I’d wait,” Tara said. “He’s not going anywhere, right? You have all kinds of time. Plus, if he was hinting at it the other night, he’ll say it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You know what you need?” she said. “You need a drink, some lights, some loud music… And before you answer, you should know that I’m going to ask every day this week until you say yes.”

  I smiled as I thought about Watts urging me to go out and have fun. “Okay, you win.”

  . . . . .

  After work, we went to an Irish tavern called O’Malley’s.

  “The name is a little corny,” Tara said. “I mean, as long as I’ve been coming here, I’ve never heard anyone mention that last name. Like an owner or anything. And I’m not just saying that b
ecause I’m of Irish descent and I feel offended. I don’t. I’m just saying they should have gone all out and called it something like Lucky Charms Blarney Stone Irish Spring.”

  We were walking down the sidewalk as she chattered away. It was a good distraction for the evening, and she was the closest thing I had to a friend. No, she was my friend.

  “Maybe you should tell someone that,” I said, grinning at her.

  She stopped at the front door and pulled it open. “I’ll put it in the suggestion box. With your name on it.”

  We sat at a bar table, both of us drinking from big glasses that contained a thick, dark lager.

  “So, what do you normally do after work at night?” she asked.

  “Go home, eat, read…” Damn, that sounded boring and pathetic when I said it out loud.

  “And see Mr. Mysterious,” she said.

  “Right. Oh, I also volunteer at a no-kill dog shelter.”

  She didn’t seemed moved by that at all. In fact, she totally dismissed it. I wasn’t looking for recognition or a pat on the back, but still I thought it was one of the more interesting parts of my life. Aside from Watts, of course.

  She took out her phone. “Did I tell you they said I had to buy a new one? Remember how it wasn’t getting texts and I couldn’t send any, either?”

  I had forgotten, but remembered now as she reminded me. “Yeah.”

  “Hate this fucking thing. And it’s just barely over a year old. Ugh. Anyway, see, I was talking to this guy I met…I don’t know, like two weeks ago. Did I tell you?”

  I was glad to be talking about something other than me. “You didn’t, but I want to hear all about him.”

  She told me the story of meeting the guy on the metro. She’d dropped her phone—that’s when she thinks something happened to it—and he picked it up and handed it to her.

  “That’s how we got to talking. When we got to his stop, he said I should call him sometime. I would have given him my number, but whatever. So he tells me his name—Trent—and gives me his number. I put it in my contacts. But I can’t text him or call him and I haven’t seen him on the train since. Doesn’t that suck?”