Spy High (2 page)

The curly cord jerked taut and I barely
managed to catch the receiver before it hit the floor. “This shitty
old phone!” I stuffed it back under my chin.

“Why don’t you just use your cell
phone?” Nichele asked, her words blurred by the crackling of the
bad connection. “It’s such a pain to call you on the land line.
Nobody can ever find you and they’re lousy at taking messages.
We’ve talked, what? Twice in the last four months?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I’d use my
cell if I could, but the commune doesn’t allow them.”

“How would they know?” Nichele scoffed.
“If they can’t even find you, they can’t possibly know if you sneak
a cell phone in there.”

“Yeah, but…” I paused, ransacking my
brain for a plausible reason besides ‘I can’t use it in case some
bad guy tracks its signal and comes to kill me’.

“Um, I just don’t like to go against
their rules,” I mumbled, and changed the subject. “Anyway, I can’t
believe I fell for that ‘paradise’ bullshit. I knew damn well how
rainy the west coast of Vancouver Island is in winter. If I have to
listen to the pitter-patter of raindrops on canvas one more day I
swear I’ll go insane.”

Nichele’s giggle danced above the
static.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” I snarled, my
acrimony only half-feigned. “I haven’t been completely dry in
months. There’s mould growing in my underwear drawer, for shit’s
sake!”

“Girl, if you’ve got mould in your
underwear it means you’re not getting enough action,” Nichele
teased. “Why haven’t you found some artsy hippy-type guy who’s into
all that tantric sex stuff? And anyway, I thought you said
Hellhound and Hot John were going to come out and visit you.” I
could imagine her grin and bouncing eyebrows. “You can’t tell me
the two of them weren’t enough to burn the mould off your
panties.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Your
fascination with my sex life is downright twisted.”

“What sex life?” she demanded.
“Somebody should pay attention to it, ‘cause you obviously
aren’t.”

“Mm.” My smile faded. “John was here a
couple of months ago…”

“
Really?
” Nichele’s squeal
coincided with a moment of clarity on the line and I jerked the
receiver away from my ear, wincing. The static promptly returned,
making me strain to hear her next words. “Oh-em-gee, he is soooo
hot! Why would you even need underwear if he was there?”

“He was convalescing,” I protested. “He
was in pretty rough shape because he’d fallen on some ice and
broken a rib a few weeks earlier.”

The cover story left a bad taste in my
mouth. It wasn’t fair to make Kane sound like an accident-prone
wimp, but revealing that he was really a secret agent recovering
from a gunshot wound would tend to negate the ‘secret’ part…

She interrupted my thoughts with a
lascivious purr. “Anybody with a bit of imagination can work around
a broken rib.”

“Yeah…” My word floated out on a sigh.
“But we didn’t get a chance to try. He’d only been here a few hours
when he got a call saying his dad had been taken to the hospital
with chest pain, so he left right away and flew out to Winnipeg.
His dad had stents put in and he’s fine now, thank God, but by the
time things settled down John had to go back to work instead of
coming here.”

“But you’ll see him when you get home,
right?”

I held in another sigh. “Probably not.
We aren’t working together anymore and he has to travel a lot for
his new job. I haven’t heard a thing from him in over a month. I
don’t even know where he is.”

My gut clenched. He could be anywhere
in the world, in danger I’d never know about unless I got a call
that began with the words ‘We have bad news’…

“So, um… what about Hellhound?” Nichele
inquired cautiously. “You’re not going to spoil what you’ve got
with John by sleeping with Hellhound again, are you?”

“There’s nothing to spoil. John and I
are just good friends…” The half-lie sounded feeble, but I forged
on regardless. “…and I told you, I don’t know…” I bit off the word
‘if’. “…when I’ll see him again. And I haven’t seen Arnie since I
left in December. We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times, but
he’s been too busy with his P.I. cases to come out here.” I kept my
tone light, hiding my twinge of hurt.

Apparently I hadn’t hidden it as well
as I’d hoped. Nichele snorted. “Well, fine. Forget those losers,
then. Why not sample the herd there?” A wicked grin lurked in
Nichele’s faux-innocent tone. “Aren’t any of those skinny
granola-fed guys up to it?”

I glanced around the corner to be sure
I was alone before lowering my voice as I slid down the wall to sit
on the floor. “Finding somebody who’s interested isn’t the problem.
They all are. They’ve got this sixties-style free love thing going
on, and everybody sleeps with everybody else. By now every man here
has made a pass at me including Skidmark, who I’m pretty sure has
lived here for seventy years and been stoned the whole time.”

“
Every
man?” Nichele’s voice
rose to a squeak of revulsion. “Your
uncle
propositioned
you?
Eeeeuwwww!
”

“No, no!” I amended quickly. “No, of
course Uncle Karma didn’t, and all the other guys just asked nicely
and it was no big deal when I turned them down. But still…”

“Yeah, still. Skidmark? Eeuw.” She
giggled again. “Why do they call him that? You mean, like, he has
skidmarks in his underwear?”

“Jeez, Nichele! I don’t even want to
think about his underwear! Until this moment I was perfectly happy
believing everybody calls him that because he’s the closest thing
to a mechanic they have out here in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere.
Funny, though, he’s the only one who doesn’t have some hippy-type
name. Everybody else is Flower this and Rainbow that.”

“I still think it’s hilarious that you
have these freaky-deaky relatives you didn’t know anything about
until this year. ‘Uncle Karma and Auntie Moonbeam’. What a hoot!
I’d love to come out and meet them!”

“No!” I converted my yelp of dismay to
a calmer but still discouraging tone. “You’d hate it here. It’s
really primitive. We only have power four hours a day and we get
hot showers on a twice-a-week rotation, so just about everybody
reeks of body odour. And anyway Karma and Moonbeam aren’t really my
aunt and uncle. They’re cousins of my aunt, but they were close
friends with my mom before she died…” I let the lie trail off
before I could dig myself in any deeper.

“That’s so weird.” Nichele sounded
dangerously pensive. “I was at your place pretty much every day
when we were kids. They must have visited if they were that close
to your mom, but I don’t remember them. And I know I’d remember
wacko names like that.”

Shit, shit! Time for a distraction.

I hurriedly reintroduced the
apparently-fascinating topic of my sex life. Or lack thereof. “Um,
one of the guys here is kind of interesting…” I let the sentence
trail off tantalizingly.

Thank God, she took the bait.

“Oooh, Aydan, that’s awesome! What’s
his name? What’s he like? Tell me, tell me!”

I drew a silent breath of relief.
“Everyone calls him Orion Moonjava. I don’t know what his real name
is; Moonbeam gives everybody a new name when they arrive at the
commune and she’s such a sweetheart that everybody just plays
along…”

I bit my tongue. That wouldn’t help
discourage Nichele’s visit. I returned to my distraction. “Anyway,
Orion’s probably too young for me, but-”

“How old is he?” Nichele demanded.

“I don’t know, maybe mid-thirties? Or
maybe a little older, but it’s hard to tell. He’s in really good
shape.”

“Mid-thirties isn’t too young. Half
your age plus eight years, that’s the rule. So
thirty-one-and-a-half is your bottom limit.”

“There’s a rule?” I massaged my
blossoming headache with my free hand.

“Of course there’s a rule. Now dish,
girl! And please tell me he doesn’t reek of B.O.”

“He doesn’t reek of B.O.,” I parroted
obligingly before reeling off the description I’d provided in my
secret report to Charles Stemp. “He’s about six-foot-one, brown
hair, green eyes, athletic build; maybe one-seventy-five,
one-eighty pounds. He sounds just as Canadian as the rest of us,
but every now and then there’s a turn of phrase or a funny… I don’t
know… cadence or something in the way he talks that makes him sound
British.”

Which was why I’d flagged him in my
security report. He just didn’t quite fit in with the
back-to-the-earth types around here. And now I’d overheard that odd
conversation…

Nichele’s voice interrupted my
thoughts. “Oooh, British! I loooove a man with an accent! Is he
hot?”

I diverged from my official report.
“Smokin’, and he’s been flirting with me ever since he got here in
January. But like I said, he doesn’t really have an accent.”

“But he’s young and hot and interested
and you’re turning him down?” Her voice rose to an incredulous
crescendo. “Girl, are you
nuts?
”

“Probably.”

I was definitely nuts. And I was also
under orders to observe Orion Moonjava without engaging him, but I
couldn’t tell Nichele that.

“Well, if you aren’t going to give Mr.
Smokin’ Hot Brit an entry visa and you hate it there, why don’t you
just come home?”

I crossed my fingers to dilute my lie.
“I can’t yet. The commune is in the middle of an audit. They’re
hippies, not bookkeepers, and their books are a total disaster. I’m
trying to help them but it just keeps dragging on and on.”

“Aydan, that’s a load of crap and you
know it!”

My heart stopped. Oh shit, how had she
found out it was all a cover story? Had Dave blabbed? Shit,
shit
…

Before I could blurt out anything
incriminating she went on, “You were supposed to be back by the end
of February. It’s nearly the middle of April, and I don’t care if
you’re getting a free vacation in their so-called paradise; they’re
taking advantage of you. They never bothered to say boo to you for
forty-some years of your life, and now all of a sudden they want to
be your favourite aunt and uncle until you solve their financial
woes? Tell them to stick it.”

I drew a secret breath of relief and
tried to keep the tremor of adrenaline out of my voice. “I’d love
to, but I can’t.” I hoped the sincerity of my desire to escape was
sufficiently concealed by my fake concern. “They’re really nice
people…” At least that part was the truth. “…and I just can’t
abandon them in the middle of this mess.”

Nichele’s voice softened and I could
hear the smile in her words. “You’re such a pushover. But if it
makes you feel any better, there’s still a foot of snow here in
Calgary and we’re freezing our asses off. You couldn’t start your
garden anyway.”

“Thanks, Nichele, that’ll keep me from
screaming for one more day…” I glanced up as a wrinkled apparition
in a rainbow tie-dyed caftan floated around the corner. “Aunt
Moonbeam needs the phone so I have to go now. Take care, and say hi
to Dave.”

“I will, and you take care, too. And
have a little taste of Britain. Seriously, girl, I mean it. You’re
cranky as hell. You need to get laid.”

“You are ‘way too interested in my sex
life. Pervert.”

Nichele’s giggle dissolved in the click
of the disconnect as I hauled myself upright to replace the phone
in the cradle.

Moonbeam’s sweet face crumpled into
concern. “Oh, Storm Cloud Dancer, I didn’t need the phone. You
didn’t have to hang up on your friend.”

“That’s okay, we were done.” I
hesitated. I knew there wasn’t much hope, but I had to try. Again.
“Storm Cloud Dancer is such a mouthful. Why don’t you just call me
Aydan? Or Storm like everybody else does?”

“Oh, no, dear, the vibrations are all
wrong. With your aura, you need a name that emphasizes your
artistic expression. In numerology that’s a three, so you need C
and L and U.”

“Are you sure about that aura thing?” I
asked as deferentially as I could. “I haven’t painted in thirty
years and I wasn’t any Picasso back then. I don’t write poetry or
play a musical instrument or anything. I couldn’t carry a tune in a
bucket. I can’t even draw stick people.”

“Well, of course. That’s exactly what I
mean.” Moonbeam nodded as though we were in perfect agreement. “By
the way, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but did I hear you call me
Aunt Moonbeam?”

“Um.” I tried to suppress the guilty
flush that warmed my cheeks. “I… um, didn’t want to explain to
Nichele why I was here so I kind of… fibbed a bit. I told her you
and Karma were my distant aunt and uncle. I’m sorry.”

“Oh…” She hesitated. “That does explain
the grayish overlay on your aura. It always indicates deception.”
Lines of concern furrowed her forehead. “But why are you concealing
the truth from your friend? There’s no shame in retreating from a
trauma to heal, and a true friend would support you through the
process.”

“I, uh…”

Damn cover stories. I cast my gaze down
to my toes, hoping I looked traumatized instead of guilty. “I’m
not… ready to talk about it yet.” I changed the subject. “I’m sorry
if my lie bothered you. I’ll call her back and confess if you want,
but…” I gave her my best pleading big brown eyes. “If you could
just play along as Aunt Moonbeam and Uncle Karma, I’d really
appreciate it…”

“Oh, my dear, it’s quite all right.
We’d love to adopt you. But please, it’s Aunt Moonbeam Meadow Sky
and Uncle Karma Wolf Song. Shortening our names…”

“…messes with the vibrations,” I
finished with resignation. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember.”

“You’re completely forgiven.” She
hugged me, her arms remarkably strong despite their apparent
fragility in the billowing caftan. She smoothed the hair away from
my face with firm hands. “Please don’t hold guilt, Storm Cloud
Dancer; it makes your aura so murky.” She gazed at me, her faded
china-blue eyes focused somewhere beyond my physical form. “But
your aura is much clearer now than when you came, thank the Spirit.
And I notice you’re sleeping better, too.”