Page 6 of Baby One Last Time
“I’ll let her know to come see you.”
A few minutes later, I erected the inflated birds and waited for the old lady to join us. Derek hadn’t been wrong about her being pissed that her contact had disappeared. The hard set of her jaw and glint of anger in her eyes gave me pause, and I’ve stared down some bad-asses in my day. But when she saw the flamingos holding air and restored to their glory she clapped her hands together.
“Oh Sandy, that’s marvelous!” Her smile faded, and my Spidey senses tingled.
She turned slowly toward me. “Sandy. Sandy Klauson. What a ridiculous name.” She shoved her hand into the pocket of her loose, flowered dress.
I had the dart ready and didn’t wait for her to wrap her withered, old hand around whatever was in her pocket. I pressed the dart into her neck and primed the button, pumping her full of tranquilizer. “For someone named Gladys, you sure are judgmental.”
She fell and I caught her in my arms and laid her gently on the ground. She might be a liar, a criminal, and a front for Russian mobsters, but it’s not like she’d tried to cop a feel.
“Nice.” Derek bent beside her, checked her pulse, and pulled open one eyelid to look at her pupils. “But I have to agree. What kind of name is Sandy Klauson?”
“You’ll have to take that up with X. On second thought, don’t. Don’t mention you even saw me.”
“It’s a little late for that, Kessler,” said a woman from behind me.
Oh shit. I pasted on a smile and what I hoped passed for an expression of innocence and turned to face her. “X, what a surprise! I heard you were vacationing in the French Alps.” I shot a murderous glance at Derek.
“I was, and I should have stayed through the end of the holidays, but I received word Gladys was preparing to disappear before the end of the year, so we sped up the timeline.”
“We. The timeline.” The cobwebs were clearing, but I didn’t like what was hiding behind them. “It was a set up. This whole thing.”
Like last year in Vegas. Fool me once… What the hell, just go ahead and fool me all the time, Derek.
“Yes and no.” X crossed her arms over her chest and watched as TJ and one of his men carried off Mrs. Leary or whatever the hell her name was. When it was just X, Derek, and me, she continued. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were reckless and impulsive and a danger to yourself and others.”
“Hey, that ambassador had it coming.”
She frowned, pinching together the brows on her narrow, birdlike face, made all the more severe by the way she wore her dark hair, wrapped in a tight bun on the top of her head. The ambassador wasn’t the job she was referencing, and we all knew it. “Lots of people have lots of things coming, Cynthia, but we’re not their judges or their juries.”
“Yes ma’am.” We’d already had this conversation, but the four weeks I’d spent away from HEAT had given me enough perspective to appreciate it now. “I understand why you had to let me go.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath and spoke the next words as though they pained her. “After your performance today, you’ll understand why I’m bringing you back.”
My heart pounded with joy, but my brain put on the brakes. “Not so fast. We need to discuss the matter of back pay.”
“No need. You’ve been paid all along. Deposits went straight into one of your accounts. That’s one of the reasons I wanted you frozen out of your assets. That and to make sure you didn’t quit the decorating job before we completed the mission.”
Which I’d figured out a few minutes earlier. Still, I took advantage of the opportunity to scowl at Derek, who threw up his hands defensively.
“I just heard about all of it this morning, I swear. If I’d known earlier—”
“He’d have wanted to tell you everything.” X shot him a withering look, but he took it like a man and only wilted a little bit. “He wouldn’t have done it, but he would have been second-guessing the mission, and we all know how that can end.”
Another dig at me. I took it slightly better than Derek: like a woman.
“Now that this is wrapped up, your next assignment awaits,” X said. “You’re already behind on the details, but Derek and TJ will get you up to speed.”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest and held my ground. She wasn’t getting off that easy. Or that cheap. “I’m not going to come running back just because you snap your fingers.”
“If you’re waiting for an apology…”
I wasn’t that stupid. I shook my head. “More like cold, hard cash. A twenty percent raise.”
One of X’s eyebrows shot up.
“That’s my price,” I said, and I meant it.
