Page 7 of Agent Zero
“Thank you,” he said again, and turned about-face as if on the parade ground.He could hear her heartbeat murmuring along under the traffic, and even when he got outside in the stinging-cold rain his head didn’t clear.
He made it back to the apartment, forcing himself to check and double-check everything, and fell onto the bed, into velvet blackness.
That maddening smell followed him down.
FIVE
“I don’t like it.”Holly frowned at the table, crossing her arms.Her back ached, a deep drilling pain.
“It’s forty-eight bucks for nothing.Take it.”Barbara cracked her gum again.Doug hummed something in the kitchen, obviously over his morning snit.
“Who leaves a fifty for a cup of coffee?He looked hungover, Barb.Or sick.”Probably a junkie, one who hasn’t gone down the drain yet.Bad news.He seemed too...with-it, though, to be on drugs.
“So?He left it, it’s yours now.Pay your light bill.Donate it to charity—I’ve been looking at a pair of nice shoes lately.”Barbara’s nicotine-yellowed grin lit up her whole face.“I think he likes you.”
Now Holly knew what a slug felt like when salt was poured on it.Everything in her curled up at the thought of someone else who might miss her when she finally disappeared.“Oh, God.You see them everywhere.”
“Not my fault you’re terminally single.I keep trying, you know.When the fleet’s in there’s good pickings.Can’t be gun-shy forever, Holls.”
Terminally single.If you only knew.“If I wanted to date, I would.”How ironic was it that she didn’t even want to right now?She was just too tired, and whatever time she had left was better spent elsewhere.Holly didn’t talk about the divorce, either, especially with inveterate gossipers.If Barbara wanted to draw conclusions, well, let her.The fifty lay there, bearded old President Grant looking vaguely worried and disapproving just like her father.The temptation to take the money was well-nigh irresistible, even though she had her arms firmly folded.
She finally swept it up, though, and Barbara blew a vile pink bubble in triumph.
Holly restrained the urge to roll her eyes.“I’ll put it in the envelope and talk to him about it if he comes back.”
Barb’s grin probably wasn’t meant as predatory, just the glee of a congenital meddler.“Which he will.Seriously, Holl, I think he really likes you.He’s always watching.”
I noticed, thanks.“Creeptastic.”She sighed.“You want fills or spills?”
“I’ll do both if you clean the board.When Ginny gets off break she can do the restrooms.”
“Fine.”It wasn’t a fair division of labor, but it got them off the subject of Mr.Watch Her and Leave a Huge Tip.For now, because Barb would no doubt circle back.She was like a terrier: just couldn’t leave anything alone, and since she had no shortage of boyfriends, she apparently wanted to share the wealth.A woman wasn’t complete withoutsomethingin that direction, apparently, and Barb felt it her sworn duty to help Holly realize her potential.
Getting so tired she never even registered the lack of sex was an unexpected side benefit to being...sick.Always look on the bright side, Holly.Daddy would be proud.
Nowtherewas an unwelcome thought.
The ancient cash register glittered under fluorescents as Holly wiped everything down, bleach water stinging her raw, much-washed hands.The next time she passed that slice of counter she dug in the shelves underneath, pushing aside the mittens someone had left last week and stacks of fresh and leftover order pads.Register tape, fire extinguisher, a pair of rain boots that fit nobody employed here now—a real wonderland of the lost and just-in-case, most of it so familiar she didn’t even see it anymore.
The envelope was right where she’d left it.She frowned at the numbers scribbled on the front, tucked the fifty in.The twenty went into her tip pocket, a reassuring weight as she rang the coffee through, sighing a little as another twinge went through her lumbar region.Even cushioned shoes didn’t help.It’s a symptom, Holly.Deal with it.
She was about to put the envelope back when she stopped, grabbed a pen, and wroteReeseon the back flap.It went back into the dark, and she told herself it wasn’t anything.Just a name.
Still, it was more than she’d known before.Maybe Barb wasn’t the only waitress at Crossroads who liked a mystery.And with so little time left on her clock, why couldn’t a girl think about what she pleased?
“Goddamn it,” Ginny yelled from the other side of the diner, “why do I have to do restroomsagain?”
SIX
A single filefolder was all it took to finish destroying Jacob Heming’s career.He was the first to find out, and his reaction—to pour a nice stiff drink with shaking hands—was perhaps too cliché for his taste, but it went unwitnessed.No, here he was in a crappy little apartment instead of his house on the bay, because Connie had gotten the houseandalimony, most of every paycheck from even this cushy position, and even the dog, for God’s sake.The windows here didn’t look out on anything but Sixteenth Street and headlights, the rumble of traffic a constant reminder that he’d married that bitch and was now taking his lumps.
He poured himself another two fingers of Glenfiddich.Might as well, what the hell.He turned around, a balding man with glasses wearing a pair of baggy boxers and lightly sweat-stained undershirt, the garters holding up his socks rubbing at his calves, a familiar, ignored irritation.
You weren’t supposed to take charts home.Data breach, security issues, the whole nine.But you couldn’t keep up with all the damn paperwork unless you spent hours in those cube offices, with Bronson breathing his halitosis over your shoulder and that ghostlike secretary of his moving silently in his wake, and the damn nurses skipping out on work to go do whatever it was they did—probably chase all the brawny military types.
Just like Connie and that tennis coach.He actually listens to me, Jacob.
Why anyone would pay attention to her cheese grater of a voice was beyond Hemings, despite the fact that he’d graduated summa cum laude.He’d left the university just before tenure because the offer from the defense contractor had been too good to ignore...and now here he was.
