Versions (The Blacklist Series Book 1) (3 page)

Nate slammed his whiskey, and another, and another. When it became apparent she’d be the taxi home she slid her now freezing-cold Delilah’s across the table. One for her childhood crush turned best friend, since she wasn’t his type. One for her best girl friend who taught chemistry—of all things—at Nate’s school in the burbs.

Gregory whistled. “I might need someone to walk me home after this one.”

“I’d offer to do it, but I’m looking to get laid,” Jen said. “And you picked the wrong team for my needs. But Zach will walk you home.”

“Sure thing. Just remember, if you go in for a kiss, I like them slow and sultry,” Zach deadpanned.

Rin’s side ached by the time she could breathe without an ab-clenching howl. It was the laugh they all needed to get back on level ground. Nate slid his hand under her hair and massaged her nape in easy caresses.

As the crowd faded so too did their spunk. “We’re not as young as we once were, kids,” Gregory said with a yawn. “Who’s ready for the check?”

“I’m ready for my smooch,” Zach joked.

“I’m ready for one too.” Jen’s head swiveled, surveilling the remaining restaurant occupants.

“You two could just help each other out,” Rin suggested.

“Not drunk enough.” Jen’s lips pursed.

“Me neither,” Zach agreed.

“While y’all work out the details of Jen’s love life, I’m going to take a piss,” Nate announced.

“Need a hand?” Jen asked, just drunk enough to forget herself. She covered her mouth and looked at Rin with wide eyes. “Sorry. It sounded funnier in my head.”

Nate left, accustomed to their friend’s episodes. “It’s fine,” Rin assured her.

Jen buried her face in Gregory’s neck. “How about you and I split a cab?” he suggested.

“But you only live a few blocks from here,” Jen whined.

While they worked out transportation, Rin seized the opportunity to talk to Zach. Of all the group, they had the least in common. But, working with Nate, he’d have an insight into his work life. “So, Zach, that health class you guys subbed for, did the teacher have her baby yet?”

“She popped the thing out a few months ago.” He grinned. “I haven’t had to talk venereal diseases in quite some time now.”

“Maybe you should,” Jen giggled.

“A doctor could explain the redness,” Gregory squalked between heaving roars of laughter.

“Jesus, we need to leave before they kick us out. I could hear y’all in the bathroom.” Nate sat, pulled out a hundred dollar bill, and set it on the table. “Ante up, kids.”

After they worked out the bill she and Gregory walked out the restaurant arm-in-arm. “You really okay?” he asked.

Rin found her gaze searching out the scary waiter, even though she didn’t want to find him. She didn’t. “Just deep thinking.”

“About your mom?” His strong arms tightened around her.

“No. Not my…” Rin’s brain blinked out, completely on the fritz. The first line of the text flashed in her mind.

The CAL urn came back negative for human remains.

“No,” she whispered. It couldn’t be. The CAL urn. Her mother had been cremated after the incident. Her mother, whose name was Cara Ann Lee.

O
n the street
in front of her condo, Rin kissed Nate and tasted the spearmint of his toothpaste as opposed to last night’s whiskey. “Drive safely.”

“Yeah, you too, babe. Want me to give you a ride?”

“I’ll stretch my legs and breathe some fresh air before I’m held captive at my desk all day.”

“See you tonight.” He pinched her hip and headed for his car sandwiched front and center between two sedans. After making the block several times with no luck the night before, she’d sacrificed her prime spot. Moving her Civic to a lot at the back of the block and parking his in her place seemed easier than steering his wavering steps all that way.

Nate nodded, dropped into the low-slung car, and revved the engine to life. She waved him off and started down the block. Her heels struck the concrete in angry taps. Why’d she have to be such a coward? She’d lain in the dim bedroom staring at his phone, its shiny black case gleaming in the filtered moonlight. His breathing had evened, and then the snoring began. Still she hadn’t been able to make her thousand-pound arms move. Fear had held her immobile while curiosity fended off sleep.

In those long hours every possibility that paraded through her mind seemed the perfect content for a D-list Hollywood movie. The more she walked the higher her ire rose. Rin was far from helpless, and it was about damn time she quit running so hard from her past she forgot that important fact.

Her gaze darted down the street, left, and then right. Finding no sign of Nate’s loudly painted red car, she spun on her camel-colored Nine’s and practically sprinted back to the condo.

If she didn’t want to be late for work, she had fifteen minutes and she planned to make them count.

Rin slipped into the foyer, checked the street once more—for what she didn’t really know—and then slipped her key into their door as quietly as she had when executing a B&E. She ducked her head into the long strap of her leather briefcase, stowed her keys in the outside pocket, and locked the door behind her. With a quick turn she assessed the living quarters, not as a proud owner, but as a thief, carefully gauging the best locations for items no one wanted found.

She opened the coat closet with only a whisper of sound and then bent low. A fancy collection of dust bunnies greeted her, tumbling with the current of air to the back corner. One by one she removed the soldier-neat line of winter boots. She shoved a hand down each, feeling for anything out of the ordinary, but came up empty. Next she caressed the wall seams and only succeeded in coating her fingers with a layer of dust.

Upper lip curled, she rearranged the shoes and made a note to clean the closet Sunday. While Nate often opted for Sunday-Sleep-Day, she caught up with laundry and household chores. Jackets next. She patted down the pockets and hems. Nada. Determined more than deterred by the let down, Rin unbuttoned her constricting jacket and gripped the edge of the top shelf. She stretched on tiptoes and felt around the contents.

Plastic, tall and cylindrical, cooled her touch. A pack of tennis balls. The racket she’d bought and had yet to use wedged into the back behind it. She exhaled and elongated her torso a bit more. Beneath the softly-wrapped handle, a thin, long wire piqued her attention.

Rin relaxed back and eyed the white four-top dining table, and then zeroed in on a chair. She took one step in that direction, but the recognizable boom of footsteps battered the floor just outside the painted wood of her entryway. Heart in her throat, she tucked protectively into the closet’s frame and perked an ear toward the entrance. A key sounded in the lock.

“No,” Nate said from outside. “I told you it’s the safest place. She’s at work until this evening.”

“You better be right,” a stern female voice retorted, her r’s curling with the slightest hint of an accent.

Rin’s gaze studied the closet for the best place to hide. She yanked the heels from her feet, clutched them to her chest, and stepped into Nate’s knee-high boots. Silently she pulled the closet door closed and sank back into the thickness of fleece and wool, making certain the longest coats covered her knees.

With several deep breaths she steadied the hideous mixture of anger and anxiety. Her throbbing pulse roared, but not so much that she didn’t hear the front door open and two treading sets of footsteps enter. Nate’s and a woman’s.

She’d channeled her inner delinquent for this? Sure, her blood began the slow boil that only adultery could instigate. But honestly, after the insidious trail her mind had taken last night, the thought of a little boinking, even in her own bed, deflated her balloon. Apparently the crazy text had been code for “let’s screw at her place while she’s at work.”

“You shouldn’t have contacted me,” the prettily harsh voice reprimanded.

“I’m sorry, but I’m in the dark here. I didn’t have a choice,” Nate countered.

“There’s always a choice, Harlow.”

Woah, did this slut not even know his name? I mean, talk about wham-bam forgot you, man.

“And I choose to know if I should expect a bullet in the ass.”

“You should always expect a bullet. It’s part of the assignment. And if she’s watching, she’s got the crosshairs centered on your forehead, not your fit buns.”

“So, you think she’s behind the information breech?”

A high-pitched
snap
reverberated on the other side of the door like someone had dropped a book or slammed a heel on the hardwood. “You’re not hearing me. I’m not here to soothe your shaky nerves. I’m here to catch a very dangerous woman.”

What? The? Hell? Rin’s waning heartbeat kicked up a notch.

“Now, Harlow, tell me, is this place bugged?” Her cadence, more than the accent, threw Rin for a loop…another loop. The woman sounded like she’d been transported from a different country and time.

“Of course. But with Rin I couldn’t take the risk of cameras. It’s only audio. If Lee comes snooping I need to know about it.”

Well, Rin snooped all right. Damn good thing she did it quietly. Though, she got the feeling they weren’t talking about her.

“If you live to see next year,” the woman laughed, “you’ll know that she could prance around here in your boxer briefs for hours and, if she didn’t want you to, you’d never know. Don’t underestimate her just because you do the same to her daughter.”

Rin’s knees quivered, but strength forged in the battle of life kept her from teetering.

“I’ve masqueraded as a doting fuck-buddy for half a year. I handle Rin just fine.”

“Yes, from the looks of things you service her very well, but meeting here says you’re slipping.”

“I want out.”

“Keep this up and you’ll find the way into a body bag. Stay close to Darinda. It’s been almost seventeen years, but now that she’s resurrected it’s possible she’ll make contact. Especially if she thinks her child is in danger. Don’t contact me again and don’t fuck up and let her daughter get suspicious. If I need you, I’ll contact you.”

Dainty heels strode across the floor to the door.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Nate barked.

The clack of heels ceased. “Actually, you did.”

“The CIA, yeah, but not to play gigolo-in-state. We’re not even supposed to operate within our borders.”

“Listen here, school boy, you signed up to do whatever the hell I want you to do. Screwing a pretty young woman is hardly a hardship. I’ll make sure you know what adversity is on your next assignment.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t mean to—”

“Take a close look,” the woman spat.

Nate’s in-draw of breath penetrated the dense wooden door and the swath of winter wear.

“Suffering is seven years in a North Korean prison. It’s snuggling up to a drain brimming with human feces because it gives off a hint of warmth in the otherwise miserable concrete box. It’s getting so familiar with pigeon torture by day that the muscles in your arms rip and knot, leaving you permanently deformed. It’s denying the only scrap of food offered you in days in hopes that starvation will finally shut down your organs and take you away.”

Clothing rustled, and then the front door opened. “If I hear you complain ever again, I’ll fly you to hell and kick you out of the plane. Trust me, you’ll curse ever opening your parachute.”

The door slammed and Rin wanted nothing more than to collapse into a pile of sweat, tears, and utter confusion. But Nate seethed just outside, his ragged pants threatening to blow the house down. Her hand stung from her desperate grip on the shoes.

A deafening blow ricocheted off the wood through the tiny confines. “Fucking bitch,” Nate hollered.

Rin jerked, bumping her elbow on the wall. Breath stalled in her chest and she stared, eyes swollen, in the dark, awaiting his attack. Any noise she made Nate’s continued tantrum covered. She’d never seen him rival a two-year-old for hysterics. She didn’t now. But she pictured every stomp and agonized shout. And she couldn’t muster one dust-mite’s worth of sympathy for him.

The affection that once warmed her for the overstuffed bear of a man siphoned from her chest. A chill she shouldn’t have experienced in the suffocating confines froze her marrow. The steam of lust he frenzied in her only hours ago transformed to a searing fury that rivaled the sun.

And at the same time she didn’t exactly understand the cause for her anger. Was it the fact that she’d been screwing an exceptional liar for the past several months and not had an inkling about his duplicity? Was it the fact that, according to the faceless woman, her mother was alive? Was it that fact that if her mother was alive she’d never contacted her in all these years? Or was it the fact that her mother was a woman so crooked the CIA broke its own rules to try and capture her? Or did they want to kill her?

Warm tears ran down Rin’s face, surprising her almost as much as the conversation she’d just overheard. Tears didn’t solve anything. They were reserved for the sheltered and innocent. Not her. She billowed a slow breath through her lips in a daring attempt to harness her wild, rearing emotions.

The front door opened and slammed shut again. She should have waited a minute or ten before escaping the closet, but she couldn’t breathe. Disbelief strangled her with a friendly embrace. With a quick turn of the knob, she careened from the coat coffin. The oversized boots caught on her clogs and she landed with a resounding
thud
on the cool floor, a spike wedged against the side of her boob.

Whether he was caught up in his own frustration or the timing of him exiting the building just worked in choreographed perfection with her tumble, through the large open window the top of Nate’s head bobbed past without a backward glance. Rin slumped to the ground, letting her cheek smash onto the wood. Well, his surveillance had certainly recorded that.

“Go fuck yourself, Nate, or whoever the hell you are, because you won’t touch me.” Her chest huffed on confounded outrage as her holler echoed off the glass and painted brick, smacking her eardrums. “Not ever again.” The quiet snarl rasped her throat.

She pushed from the floor, sprinted to the table, shoved the dining chair toward the gaping closet door, and pounded atop it. A neat black wire lay at the back crease where the wood shelf met the plaster wall. It ran from a hole in the wall across to another hole that led to the high bookshelf facing the kitchen.

Rin peered through the living room windows and didn’t see Nate or his car. She tugged one end of the wire and a small grey microphone, matching the color of her walls, slipped from the sheetrock. “Bastard,” she breathed. Balling a fist, she knocked, not nearly as forcefully as she’d have liked, on the back of the closet. A hollow
thump
sounded in return.

Pulling a pen from the outside pocket of her briefcase, Rin used the instrument to pry at the joint. On the second attempt a false front gave way along with her stomach. An old-school recorder and orderly row of maybe twenty tapes nestled in the void. The ones on the left were labeled with dates and times, while the ones on the right sat in their wrappers.

Nate had a stack of these in their closet. He’d said the coaches used them to take notes on the games, which she’d never seen. Any time she’d offered, Jen had concocted a girls’ night out and demanded her attendance. Nate had all but pushed her to go, citing her dislike for the sport and his long hours atop the hour it took to get to and from the school.

“You don’t coach a team. You’re a player in a game though.”

And Jen? With her foul mouth and vulgar tendencies, a school had always seemed the most unlikely place for her to work.

“Oh my God.”

Reality nearly knocked her to the floor again. Jen and Zach were her friends because they’d been Nate’s friends. He “worked” with them. He’d introduced them. So, it stood to reason they worked with him. Adolescents with pocked faces and bad attitudes were the least of their concerns. They dealt in espionage and shit.

Rin leaped from the chair, thundered through the living room, past the kitchen, down the short hallway, into the bedroom, and through to the closet. She grabbed her gym bag and stuffed clothes and shoes inside, hardly taking the time to match the number of tops and bottoms. She did make sure not to take too much, so Nate wouldn’t be able to tell. Crossing to his side, she grabbed a tape from the large stack. The plastic crinkled as she ripped the cover off and shoved it into her bag.

Heart chugging, Rin hurried back to the closet. She exchanged the tape in the recorder for the new one and shoved the evidence of her meddling into her trouser pocket. Sweat beaded and sucked the cotton of her button down to her skin. Carefully, she snapped several pictures with her phone before replacing the false wall, cord, and chair with the stealth of a ghost. Thinking of ghosts brought her back to her mother.

The last time she’d seen Cara Lee her blue skirt had billowed over her shapely legs as Rin watched her plummet from the roof of the Washington Golf and Country Club. Her head shook in denial. No. She couldn’t go there. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Rin tossed the room as neatly as she could manage. But, if Nate was a professional, he’d likely pay closer attention than the average Joe. She turned up nothing of interest, but really, wasn’t a bug in your own home, the knowledge that the person you thought you knew didn’t exist and one you thought didn’t exist, might… Wasn’t that enough for one day?