Operation London (5 page)

She grinned at his assumption of camaraderie
. "My father is from Ecuador. He was actually a professional dancer and teacher."

"Is that so?" Miguel asked, grinning at his good guess.

"Yes. He's very famous. I took my middle name as my last name, so no one ever realizes he is my father. He is Paolo Medrano."

Miguel's mouth gaped open
. He closed it and opened it again.

"You are Paolo Medrano's little girl!  God sent me an angel!  You are kidding!" he cried, staring at her in amazement.

Ava laughed at his crazy behavior. "Yep. That's me. Why are you so amazed?"

"You're a computer consultant?  That's a waste of genetic talent," he insisted.

Ava laughed out loud. "You have no idea. I could be a horrible dancer!"

He narrowed his black eyes at her
. "But you aren't. Horrible. Are you?  No, I'd say you're probably very good."  His voice smoothed over her like oil, and she put her hand on her neck self-consciously to control the burn rising to her cheeks.

"Yeah I'm a good dancer
. But I'm better at lots of other things," she said quietly. The car interior had become intensely quiet as they thought about each other, their mutual longing entangling itself in the tension of the small space long before either realized how deep it was.

"A left here, Ava," Miguel said a few minutes later
. Hearing her name from his lips gave her an intense satisfaction. She wanted to hear her name from those same lips many more times. At the same time she was terrified to even be thinking such crazy things so fast.

"That's my building, up ahead," he pointed
. Ava pulled up to the place and turned to look at the man who had ignited so much inside of her in such a short amount of time.

Her hand reached up to fix the loose knot in his tie
. He tensed visibly as her knuckles grazed the rough skin of his jaw.

"I've got a bad habit of pulling on my tie," he grinned, and that warm smile caught her off guard again
. "One request?" he asked playfully.

"Name it," she managed to choke out
. She had the uneasy feeling that saying no to this man would be pretty difficult for her.

"Let me see your eyes?" he asked, moving a cautious hand to her face like a man trying to touch a wild animal
.

Ava moved in ever so slowly, allowing him to pull her sunglasses down
. She was looking down at his hand and slowly lifted her heavily lashed eyes to meet his.

"Gorgeous," he breathed.

"Do I get one request?" she asked as their eyes locked.

"Anything," he said easily, a cocky smile on his lips.

Ava leaned in and kissed him, a long solid kiss full of all the yearning that had built up all her months on the force and underlined with the intense desires that had accumulated the past two hours since Miguel had come into her life.

His hands reached up and pressed themselves into her hair, caressing the base of her neck with need
. He deepened the kiss, making her gasp as his mouth became ferocious on hers, starved and needy. She pushed up into him, allowing whatever happened to happen.

Suddenly she felt a warm heat washing through her like a dam had burst and let out all of her desire
. Hands set firmly on his chest, she ended the kiss, breaking away with what she hoped was a flirtatious smile.

"Good luck, Miguel
. Don't be late," she said, turning her eyes back to the tan steering wheel. His eyes didn't leave her face as he reached back for his bag. He reached one hand over and gently pulled her face to his to meet her gaze.

"Ava," he smiled
. "Ava London. My mystery. This won't be the last time."  He winked and got out of the car, sticking his hand in his pocket nonchalantly as he watched her pull away.

Back on the highway Ava rolled down the window and screamed with joy and passion
. She was relieved to feel again, to have real emotions coursing through her again. Miguel!  She felt like drawing his initials with hers in a heart. She felt like dancing pressed against him. And she definitely felt like waking up against his naked body in the morning.

"Slow down, tiger," she said to herself, once again realizing that there was a little bit of terror mixed in with her glee
. This was all moving so fast, she didn't know if she could contain everything she was feeling at once.

The entire day bore down on her like a weight, and suddenly home seemed like the only place to be
. Ava began paying attention to the road signs and the written instructions the realtor had emailed her. The road home was, happily, quite direct, and she soon found herself pulling down a winding driveway to a little yellow cottage with a clapboard roof.

Once Ava turned the car off she stepped out and surveyed her new home
. She had ordered her furniture from storage shipped over and the movers had been kind enough to deposit everything inside. Ava made an immediate beeline for the mattress.

Tonight a mattress alone would be fine
. Box spring worries would plague her mind tomorrow, but for now a soft place to lie down was all she needed. She found the bag containing her bed sheets and comforter, scented with the dried lavender she had favored in college. It had been such a long time since she had lived in her own semi-permanent home that she had forgotten what her preferences were.

Holding the soft sheets to her nose she breathed deeply
. It was all wonderful, all amazing. Looking around the room she noticed plenty of interesting nooks and crannies, high ceilings and long hallways. It wasn't the big city excitement she was used to, but she would need to make it something she loved if she was going to recover successfully from her loss.

Ava walked through the house, made her bed, brushed her teeth and collapsed into a contented sleep, her dreams a tangled web of scaled buildings and a man with coal black eyes.

Morning dawned overcast and gloomy. Ava peeked out her window and groaned.

"Looks like Texas is welcoming me with open arms," she grumbled, making her way to the bathroom
.

Going through her morning rituals, she tried to decide what she would do with her long, free day to herself
. The most obvious thing would be to take some time to relax, but the life of an agent had left her with a palpable addiction to excitement. Adrenaline was one of the five senses for her, and she honestly felt disabled without it.

A knock at her door gave her an excuse to take her mind off of her empty schedule
. On the porch a tanned man in brown held a large box.

"Ms. Ava London?" he asked with a debonair smile.

"That's me," she smiled back, signing her name to the clipboard he held out.

"Very nice doing business with you," he said, nodding his approval before he whistled back to his truck and pulled away with a happy flourish.

Well, it was definitely nice to be noticed again. The whole low profile angle of the agent business had always been hard on Ava's nerves. Unfortunately all the deliveryman did for her was bring back exciting images of Miguel and her forward attack on him in the car.

Inside the package was the assortment of running clothes and a good pair of cross trainers Ava had ordered
. Rushing inside, she drank three glasses of water, stretched out energetically and pulled on her new clothes. She was already jogging by the time she hit the porch, and it felt so good once she began she couldn't keep track of how long she was running for.

The landscape crackled before her, dusty sage and warm sand offset by the biggest, bluest sky she had ever laid eyes on
. Morning gloom was beginning to burn away and the famed Texas heat was left in its wake. She breathed in the hot, arid wind that threw dust into her nostrils and lifted her hair delicately. Her heart pumped at a deliciously fast pace, making her strain each and every muscle in order to go farther faster. Squinting her gray eyes behind the reflective shield of her sunglasses, she paused to breath, resting her hands on her thighs.

Her watch read eleven fifteen, meaning she had been running for two solid hours
. This was in no way abnormal for Ava, but she was in completely alien territory, adjusting to a new, extreme climate. Her better sense told her to head home immediately. But something more fundamental to her personality than better sense convinced her to jog a little farther down the road. She had to pee badly and it would be so much better to take nature's call behind, say, a clump of cacti. Making a beeline for the flora, she surveyed the perimeter before she squatted down. Once she was done, she got up and stretched once more, only to notice a pair of glasses in the dust.

Stooping to pick them up, she turned them over gently, in her hand
. They had fallen with the arms open, so they were not accidentally dropped out of a pocket or bag. The dust on the lenses was minimal, so Ava felt she could safely assume they were deposited relatively recently. Looking around, Ava saw nothing but the bare brown of the desert and the shimmer that began to rise from the black road as it was cooked by the merciless noon sun.

The heat was getting to Ava as well, pounding its own pressure onto her unprotected skin
. Better sense was again pleading with her, telling her to turn around and leave what was not her business. She had a new life now, one that did not include searching the desert for clues. But what if the owner of these sad looking glasses was still alive somewhere, alone somewhere, in need of help?

The problem, as far as Ava could discern, was that this flat country played an open hand
. If it wasn't in front of her face then she wasn't sure where to look. Closing her eyes she prayed it wasn't below this sandy expanse that she should begin her search.

Now that she wasn't part of any division, the game took on quite a few more risks
. There was no backup, no gadgets, no immunity. Every action she took was an action for and by herself. As scary as that thought was, it was made her blood sing. Maybe she had wanted her freedom all along, maybe that's why she always failed to stick to the rules with Division Lynx. This could be her chance to shine.

Ava wished this mystery was somehow linked to a computer instead of out in the wilderness
. She felt most comfortable in front of a screen, and all this traipsing about in the dirt was unfamiliar to her. Looking near where she had found the glasses she saw marks in the sand, indentations and depressions that looked like someone had been dragged. Following the marks she came to a site where the grass and plants had been burned. The smell of gasoline still hung in the air. There was no definite shape to the burned area, and no evidence of blood or human remains.

She surveyed the ground until she was sure there was nothing she had missed
. The afternoon sun was making her feel like a fried egg, sizzling from the inside. It was time to turn back.

The run in the morning had been peppered with excitement and possibility
. The run back home in the afternoon was tempered with impatience and exhaustion as well as an evil foreboding. Panting back into her yard, Ava collapsed on her front step, bathed in a thick sheen of sweat. She made her way into her house for more water and a shower before she settled down to map out the rest of her day.

First she would do well to buy a local paper and see if any crime reports had made it in
. Next she would see if an optical center could tell her anything about the glasses that she wouldn't be able to tell just from looking at them. Last she could contact the fire station and see if anyone had reported anything about a fire that week. The burn center might be another good place to try, though she hoped sincerely that her hunch was off on that one. Stretching her firm arms up above her honey colored hair, lightened already from her long run in the brutal Texas sun, she made her way to her clothes box to root around and find something normal to wear.

A half an hour later clad in tight boot cut jeans, a tight tank top and a white button down shirt, Ava was speeding from her house in her Audi, singing along at the top of her lungs to the only rock station she could find amid what seemed like hundreds of country options
. Hugging the turns and curves on the road, she sailed into the city and prepared to do a little legwork.

The glasses were Hugo Boss, thin wire framed
. She had devoured the phone book, asking each optical center if they carried Boss. Unfortunately, she had twelve positives out of a possible fifteen.

She marched into the first center and breezed across the somber gray rug, leaning over the counter to address a thin, pimply boy working there.

“Hiya,” she smiled. He responded by brushing his limp, greasy hair back with his hand nervously.

“Hello
. Ma’am. Can I. Help you?”  he asked with a crooked smile, halting to clear his throat.

Ava put on her best pout and wrinkled her brow in confusion
. “Maybe you can?  I’m a lifeguard at the pool at the Embassy Leisure Club, right outside of town?  And my boss told me to be very careful about giving people things back when I agree to hold them?  But I said I’d hold a couple pairs of glasses for some people using the pool and I forgot to give them back!”  Ava worked her best face of alarm, opening her gray eyes wide and fashioning her mouth into a confused O of surprise. It was pretty nauseating, but apparently effective.