“How do you say? Money talks.”
So true. In this case, the bucks had come from Albert himself. “What are we, the Russian Space Agency?” I demanded. “Selling seats on our trips haon our to the highest bidder?”
Vayl said, “I realize the shock is only now wearing off. Once again, I want to assure you that I would have warned you. But Pete did not inform me Albert would be joining us until he called just before I met you in London. Apparently your father felt you would strenuously object to his presence—”
“Ya think?”
“Thus the secrecy surrounding his joining us at Gatwick.”
“He must’ve known I’d have thrown him off the plane in Cleveland,” I muttered. I realized I’d taken my hand out of my jacket and Vayl had used the chance to curl his fingers around mine. No romance in that touch. He was probably just trying to keep me from reaching again.
I sighed. “Okay, I won’t kill him yet. But you get those pictures out of his claws, and keep him away from me, and—”
Vayl slid his fingers up my arm, sending trickles of awareness shooting through me. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything but his touch. A deliberate move on his part—underhanded and mean. I kinda loved it. “I never thought I would say this,” he murmured, leaning in so his lips nearly brushed my ear. “But I would suggest you spend the rest of this flight concentrating on Cole.”
Who? Oh. Damn, Jaz, would you kick your brain into gear? Remember Cole? Your third for this piece-o’-crap job? The one Pete has decided to fund using your dad’s 401(k)?
Jerking my arm from Vayl’s hand so I could think, dammit, I began plotting a revenge so intricate and satisfying I barely heard him say, “I will deal with your father.”
“Fine.” Wait, maybe not. “Um, Vayl? Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Be discreet, will ya? He doesn’t know about . . . us . . . yet. And I think I should probably be the one to tell him I’m involved with a vampire.”
Chapter Two
When I retire I’m going to write a book. Not about the CIA. I know too many secrets that could get me killed. Or worse, elected. Nope, this one’s going to be called My Dad Is an Asshole: The True Story of a Shithead’s Daughter.
As I stared out the window, using Cole as a buffer between the butt-flap and me, I knew I should be trying to figure out his game. Mostly retired consultants to the Agency don’t just pop into the field whenever they feel the urge for some exercise. Especially ones who’ve just recovered from a major vehicular collision. But I was still too pissed to follow any logical train of thought for long.
I heard Vayl say, “Perhaps we should stow your album under the seat for now, Albert. I understand we are about to land. And we have had so little time to discuss football. I understand you are a Bears fan?” At which point I decided I owed my sverhamin an elaborate dinner that would not include any of the gross dishes I’d heard some native Scots preferred. Haggis? Who eats something that sounds like an eighty-year-old husband-beater who sees Jesus’s face in her porridge every morniwou„ng but devours it anyway?
“When do you think they’ll let me get my cell out?” Cole asked. “I promised Mom I’d text her as soon as we land. I’m going to stick my phone up some guy’s kilt, flash a picture, and then challenge her to guess what she’s seeing.”
“That is so disgusting.”
“What? I’ll get his permission first.”
“Sending dirty pictures to your mom?”
“She’ll laugh so hard her teeth will probably fly across the dinner table. She lost them in a car accident, you know.”
“Really?”
“She was drag racing. Oh, I’m supposed to tell you she won. She made me promise to always say that when I mention her dentures.”
I shook my head. Not just because Cole probably needed psychiatric help. But because he liked his mom. And she reciprocated. Weird concept, that. Mine had suffered a fatal heart attack. Currently the unburiable part of her resided alongside the other skeptics and unrepentants in a version of hell I never wanted to see (or smell) again. Oddly, that reminded me of Matt. One of our last conversations had been about my parents. I’d been bitching about my dad.
“He’s all right, you know,” Matt had said between bites of the burgers we’d just grilled on the little deck outside our cozy country-themed duplex. “Once you get past all the bark there’s a quality human in there. Your mom’s the one to watch out for.”
I’d violently disagreed with him about Albert. After all, he hadn’t grown up listening to the man’s lazy-ass lectures. “Get your lazy ass off the couch and do your damn chores!” But he’d had a valid point when it came to my mother. What a depressing duo.
“Your mom can bake too, right?” I asked Cole.
He nodded. “Like a pastry chef. She said Grandma Thea made her try a bunch of girly hobbies after the car crash, and baking was the only one that stuck. She and my dad run a little coffee shop in Miami that’s famous for its homemade desserts. In fact, she likes to say her cinnamon rolls put all four of her boys through college.”
“You got any sisters?”
“No. Why?” Cole turned curious blue eyes my way, his bronzed face and surfer’s ’fro making me long for a pristine beach and a bottle of SPF 80. Anything that would put thousands of miles between me and my dad while preventing skin cancer had to be a good thing.
I shrugged. “I thought your folks might like a daughter. As in me. I’m in the market for a new set.” When his glance wandered below my neck I punched him in the arm. “Of parents, you nimrod.”
“Then we’d be siblings,” he said. “Which would make what I want to do with you illegal.”
I sighed. “Dude, you can’t still want to marry me. Now that you know I’m with—” I jerked my thumb toward Vayl.
“Why won’t you say his name out loud if you two are such a pair?”
igh" widthI yanked my tray out of its upright position and depocketed the poker chips that had become a balm to my troubled spirit ever since I’d had to give up my playing cards. As I divided and recombined them, the familiar clack of clay against plastic eased the kinks out of my knot-infested muscles. “My dad doesn’t know.”
When I felt Cole’s shoulder shaking against mine I glanced over. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t make a sound. As soon as he paused for a breath, the plane’s cabin would be filled with the echoes of his mirth. And I’d have to kill him too.
I whispered, “You make a sound and I’ll tell Pete you compromised this mission and should be reassigned to a desk. Forever.”
The giggles blasted out of him in a single shocked whoof. “You wouldn’t!”
“Okay, not forever. Two weeks, max. But, believe me, it feels like eternity.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Remind me never to break my collarbone. Apparently all the forced rest causes you to peel the skin off your face and reveal your inner monster.”
“It was more of a crack than a break. And I’ve been perfectly reasonable—”
“Save it. I didn’t want to believe the rumors, but now I have to think they were true. You really did come off sick leave three weeks early to answer the phones at the office, didn’t you?”
“Martha hadn’t had a vacation in years. So I just thought—”
“Is it true that you repainted the whole floor? One-handed?”
“The walls were turquoise. Who can concentrate with that color looming over them all day long?”
“Did you, or did you not, reorganize all of Pete’s files so now he can’t find anything?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t see what the big deal is. Most of it’s just backup for what’s on his computer. But that was when he sent me to Florida, which, in my own defense, I’m pretty sure he was planning to do anyway—”