High-Caliber Concealer (6 page)

“Mmm,” said Nikki around a mouthful of hot
dog. “I got it from my first partner at Carrie Mae.”

“Man, you would have had to pry the keys to
that baby out of my cold dead fingers,” he said cheerfully.

“I dropped her off a bridge in Thailand,”
said Nikki, swallowing a suddenly dry chunk of hot dog. Donny
started to laugh and then took a second look at her face.

“Damn it, Nikki. I think I’d feel better if
you would lie.”

“Sorry,” said Nikki, forcing a laugh. “I’ll
try lying next time.”

“You and this Z’ev guy are going to have
problems,” Donny blurted out, and then laughed guiltily.

“No!” lied Nikki, “we’re fine. Mostly,
anyway.”

“Yeah… right now, but Nikki… Well, I’ve
worked undercover stuff for a while now. Like I was saying earlier
about lying and being a liar.”

Nikki quietly eyed him over her hot dog. She
didn’t like where this was going.

“It’s really hard to maintain a relationship
when you’re hiding parts of your life from your significant other.
Even if you think it’s for their own good, you’re still hiding
yourself from a person that you should be the most open to. I’m not
trying to bring trouble on you guys and I don’t really know what
you’ve got going on with your Carrie Mae stuff there, I’m just
trying to tell you from my own experience.”

Nikki shrugged awkwardly. “How do you manage
it then?”

“At the moment, I don’t,” he said, with a
shrug. “Sorry, I know that’s not very helpful. I think the thing
that my ex kept asking for that I wasn’t able to wrap my head
around was that she didn’t want details of what I’d been out doing.
She didn’t need to know all the horrible stuff I’d seen. She wanted
to know how I felt about it, where I was going, who I was, what I
wanted. And I kept saying that everything was fine. Fine isn’t a
real answer, you know?”

“Yeah, but if you say something else, they
might get mad or leave,” said Nikki.

“She left anyway,” said Donny. “I should
have taken the chance.”

A black Ford Explorer rolled into the
parking lot and stopped in front of the Impala.

“I think this is my ride,” said Donny.

“It better be,” said Nikki, “I’m not packing
and they’re blocking the exit.”

The door opened and a man in a Hawaiian
shirt stepped out. Nikki slid off the hood and landed on the
pavement with the solid click of her heels hitting ground. She
recognized him as the man Z’ev met at the beach.

“You must be Joe,” she said, and he
grinned.

“Nice to meet you. And believe me, I’d love
to stay and chat about how you managed to get our friend Coralles
wrapped around your finger, but I’m working on a bit of a timeline.
I need Fernandez. Now,” he turned to Donny, “If you’re done with
dinner and a date, do you think we could get this show on the
road?”

“Thanks for the ride, Nik,” he said, leaning
over for a hug and kissing her cheek.

Nikki hugged back. “Tell everybody hi for
me,” she said.

“You bet,” said Donny. He jogged over to the
Explorer and got in. Joe followed Donny into the interior, shutting
the door after them. Nikki waved as the Explorer left the parking
lot.

“Nicole Lanier!” Nikki pulled the phone a
few inches away from the overly loud greeting.

“Donald Fernandez!” She barked back and
Donny laughed.

“Hey Nik, where you at?”

“Tijuana airport.”

“For reals? Cool, I guess. You and the big
brah take a little vacay?”

“No, he’s still away on assignment. I’m
helping out the Tijuana Branch.”

“Still? He’s not following the budiquette of
how to treat your best chick very well.”

“Donny, have you been undercover with
stoners?”

“Sorry, it’s a hazard of the job. I busted
some total bro brahs last week and I can’t seem to lose the
surfer-dude patois.”

“Well, keep using words like
patois
and you’ll ditch it in no time.”

Donny laughed again. “Well, I’ll definitely
ditch it soon. I’m on my way home for a couple of weeks. Mom
demanded I come home after scaring the crap out of her with my
disappearing act last month. Of course, when I go back to work,
I’ll be all Spanglish, all the time. Which is unfortunate because
the guys already call me
Telemundo
.”

“What is it with cops and nicknames?”

“We’re stunted emotionally,” said Donny.
“Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that I wanted to see if you were
possibly thinking about taking a little trip to the old stomping
grounds, too?”

“Did my mother call you?” Nikki
demanded.

“No, I swear,” said Donny laughing. “Why,
has she been after you?”

“Yes, I’ve been dodging her calls for weeks.
She keeps saying that my grandmother would love to see me.”

“She probably would,” said Donny.

“I don’t need the guilt from you, too,” said
Nikki. “I would love to go visit Kaniksu Falls. I haven’t been back
in years. But it’s not feasible with work right now.”

“What, you never get to take a
vacation?”

“Yeah, I can take a vacation. But my boss’s
husband had open heart surgery and now she’s out on sabbatical to
take care of him and her temporary replacement is kind of having a
rocky time of it. I need to stick around and make sure things go
OK.”

“Except that you’re in TJ,” objected
Donny.

“Only for a few days. There was a
situation.” Nikki didn’t add that she thought Darla, Mrs. M’s
replacement, had sent her to Tijuana simply to get rid of her, and
she didn’t add that it had been over a month since she’d heard from
Z’ev. She also didn’t add that it had been almost the same amount
of time since the team had officially been together. Darla had sent
her to Mexico a lot lately. Not that the Tijuana Branch couldn’t
use the help, but even they were starting to think it was more than
a bit ridiculous. To be perfectly honest, she was about one more
trip to Mexico away from telling Darla where to get off. She didn’t
add these things because, while Donny was her friend, this was an
open phone line, and well, he wasn’t one of the girls. “Anyway,
don’t get me wrong, I’d love to fly home and keep you from freaking
out over the fact that the nearest Starbucks is two hours
away.”

“I get weird when I’m too far from the
mother ship, man.
Por qué, no
?”

“Porque tengo un
trabajo.
.”

“Ah, man. Sad face.”

“Seriously, did you just speak an emoticon?
Stop hanging with stoners.”

“Well, I also have a job. And periodically
it requires me to assume the guise of a hapless youth devoted to
the pursuit of narcotics. I am what I am. I’m a yam.
Que será, que será
.”

Nikki laughed.

“Oh, wow, dude. Are you watching the news?
Someone killed an RCMP?”

“What?” Nikki picked up her carry-on and
moved closer to one of the lounge TV’s. The closed captions were
scrolling in English on the bottom of the screen with a one second
lag time behind the announcer.

“The car chase ended with one man, who may
have been a member of the Canadian Mounted Police, dead at the
scene. The RCMP have refused to comment at this time,” said the
announcer. “But they have confirmed that one officer is dead and
that they are working an ongoing murder investigation. Although,
they would not confirm that the car chase, which ended near the
Canadian US border, and may have involved the woman shown here –”
The video footage flipped to a frozen and blurry photo of a
fifty-something woman leaving a gas station.

“Oh crap,” said Nikki. The footage was
blurry, but she still recognized her co-workers when she saw them
on the TV.

“…was directly related to the investigation
currently being conducted at the residence of Officer Douglas
Pearson.” The video feed switched to an aerial shot of a suburban
house that had been cordoned off with crime scene tape. Officers in
windbreakers were carrying boxes out to a large police van.

“What did I say? I said, don’t do anything
stupid,” said Nikki. “Why don’t they ever listen to me?”

“Uh, Nik? You’re kind of losing your nut
over there. What’s going on?”

Nikki pulled the phone away from her face
and looked at it blankly. She’d forgotten she was still on the
phone with Donny.

“I have to go, Donny. I think I need to get
on an earlier flight.”

It really was a damn international incident.
Nikki read through the report with the deliberate pace of a turtle,
all the while Darla’s red nails tapped on Mrs. Merrivel’s desk.

Nikki’s team was behind her, sitting in the
row of chairs against the wall. They looked rather like a gang of
unruly Catholic school girls who had been called into the
principal’s office. Ellen sat with stone-faced stoicism, her eyes
fixed at a point somewhere near the ceiling above Darla’s head,
refusing to acknowledge her accuser. Jenny fixed Darla with an
eye-burning stare of hatred, blinking at a reptilian rate. And Jane
was playing Fruit Ninja on her phone. Leave it to Jane to protest
through sound effects.

Nikki knew she could skip the rest of the
report, save them all some time and start the dialogue. She should
really be the grown-up in the room. Mrs. Merrivel was counting on
her, after all. But it had been a long two months and Darla had
been hell-bent on putting Nikki and the team in their place. So
instead, Nikki counted to ten, pondered her grocery list, and tried
to remember if she’d bought toilet paper on her last trip to the
store. Then she turned the page with infinite slowness and read
every single word.

Eventually, Nikki finished the report and
tucked the pages back into their manila folder, tamping the edge to
align the papers neatly. She wanted to turn around and yell at
Ellen and the girls. She’d been away for two lousy days. The last
thing she said was, “Don’t let Darla goad you into doing something
stupid.” And what did they do? The high-speed chase—not that
bright. Illegally extracting Ellen from Canada—kind of dumb. And
last, but not least, running over a fricking mountie—definitely
something stupid.

“So?” demanded Darla. She was a
forty-five-ish reddish-brown brunette, short and stocky, with a
sensible haircut and sensible shoes. The only real Carrie Mae thing
about her was her manicure. Her nails were bright red and perfectly
rounded in a gel manicure and a tiny incongruous flower had been
painted on the pinky. It seemed out of character, but the look had
been carefully maintained for the entire time Darla had been in LA.
Nikki clung to the idea of that flower as an indicator that Darla
was more interesting than her plain exterior would indicate.

“Sorry, what was the question?”

“Were you, or were you not, aware of their
activities.” Darla pointed an accusing letter opener at the women
behind Nikki.

“I’m not going to answer that question,”
said Nikki. “If I say yes, then you’ll blame me for the entire
incident. If I say no, then you’ll say that I’m an incompetent team
leader.” Darla’s lips pinched tightly and her eyes, smoldering with
fury, showed that Nikki’s assessment was accurate. “Here’s a
question for you: do you know why you have this job?”

Darla blinked.

“You have this job because I saw you speak
at the Leaders in the Field conference last May.” The sword
swooping noise from Jane’s phone stopped mid-swoop.

“I went to that conference,” said Jane. “I
don’t remember her.”

Nikki addressed Jane without turning her
head, keeping her eyes locked on Darla. “Well, that’s possibly
because only ten people showed up to listen to her speak.” Nikki
saw Darla wince. “And I think you went to the symposium on mass
hypnosis instead. Ellen was sitting on the Future of Weaponry
panel.”

“Where was I?” asked Jenny.

“I think you were in the bar,” said
Nikki.

“Oh, right! That dentist conference was in
the same hotel. That was hilarious.”

“What’s your point?” said Darla.

“My point is: do you think I couldn’t do
this job? And more to the point, do you think it wasn’t offered to
me?” Darla looked uncertain and Nikki continued. “I was running the
division while Mrs. M was in Turkey, so why wouldn’t I continue to
run it while she helps her husband recover from heart surgery?”

Darla looked uncertain and wary, but didn’t
speak as Nikki continued.

“Because if I’ve learned anything from Mrs.
M, it’s that we have to think of more than just the immediate
problem. If we want Carrie Mae to move into the future we have to
put women with new ideas in positions of power. I heard you speak
at the conference and I knew that you’d been buried. You were never
going to get any higher than being a city branch leader in
Utah.”

Darla’s lips twitched angrily.

“But I thought your ideas were big. I
thought they had promise. I thought if you could prove yourself
here in LA, you might have a shot at moving up the food chain.
Instead, you moved into the big desk and started acting like you’re
strictly Utah.”

For a moment, it looked like Darla might
explode and then her shoulders sagged.

“What’s the point?” she muttered, her eyes
drifting to the window. “Everyone hates me here. They all think I
stole your job. How am I supposed to get anything done, when for
every order I give they just look to you to approve it?”

“I didn’t realize it would be this much of a
problem,” said Nikki.

“And none of that changes the fact that your
team killed a cop,” said Darla snapping back to angry.

“From a certain point of view,” said Nikki
with a shrug. “Another way of looking at it is that they stopped a
serial killer who was preying on First Nations women because he
knew their deaths were less likely to be fully investigated.”