Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) (3 page)

Chapter Five –
Catherine

By mid-afternoon on
Thursday, I needed to vent. Not seeing Watts was frustrating, but not even hearing from him on our usual timetable was even worse. When work slowed down a little, I said to Tara, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I know I’ve been a little short with you the last couple of days. And, seriously, the lake house idea sounds great. It does. It’s just that right now, I have so much on my mind.”

We had cleared most of the bins. Only a few remained, and they were not even half full. Tara turned off the conveyer belt. “What’s the matter? Anything you want to talk about?”

She knew so little about my life. She only knew that I kept to myself a lot, and that I had very little experience with men.

“Have you ever told a guy you love him before he tells you?”

Her eyes got wide behind the large plastic goggles. “Um, yeah, once. But back the truck up here, honey. What the hell is really going on with you two? Is it that serious?”

“I almost said it the other night. I think he was about to
as well. Actually, I think he was saying it, just…not in so many words.”

I would have felt
ridiculous talking to anyone else about this. I was twenty-six years old, feeling like I was sixteen. But Tara had never judged me.

She waved her hand and made a sound like
Pffft
, then said, “You mean a guy not saying what he’s feeling? Breaking news. I’ll call the media.”

I laughed, needing it badly.

“So,” she continued, “it really is that serious. That’s awesome. But yeah, I don’t know about saying it first. I mean, if you want to and it just happens, then it just happens. But I’d wait for him to say it.”

“Didn’t work out when you did it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It was during sex. Big mistake. But after that, he got really distant and I think I saw him two or three more times and all we did was have sex. Then he disappeared.
Poof
. Whatever.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I liked him a lot, but honestly we weren’t meant to be. We didn’t like the same kind of movies and not much of the same music. And he liked to watch sports all the time, even baseball, which is more boring than anything in the world.”

“But you liked him a lot, maybe even loved him?”

“At the time,” she said, “yeah, I thought so. That’s what it felt like, anyway. But honestly, I think it was just because the sex was so good. He’s still in my Top Five.”

Watts and I had so much more than that. The sex was amazing, no doubt, but it certainly wasn’t the center of our relationship. It might have been in the beginning, but so much had changed in such a short time. The history we had—all the emails over a six month period—provided us with a good foundation, and it only grew more from there once we finally met.

“I’d wait,” Tara said. “He’s not going anywhere, right? You have all kinds of time. Plus, if he was hinting at it the other night, he’ll say it.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You know what you need?” she said. “You need a drink, some lights, some loud music… And before you answer, you should know that I’m going to ask every day this week until you say yes.”

I smiled as I thought about Watts urging me to go out and have fun. “Okay, you win.”

. .
. . .

After work, we went to an Irish tavern called O’Malley’s.

“The name is a little corny,” Tara said. “I mean, as long as I’ve been coming here, I’ve never heard anyone mention that last name.
Like an owner or anything. And I’m not just saying that because I’m of Irish descent and I feel offended. I don’t. I’m just saying they should have gone all out and called it something like Lucky Charms Blarney Stone Irish Spring.”

We were walking down the sidewalk as she chattered away. It was a good distraction for the evening
, and she was the closest thing I had to a friend. No, she
was
my friend.

“Maybe you should tell someone that,” I said, grinning at her.

She stopped at the front door and pulled it open. “I’ll put it in the suggestion box. With
your
name on it.”

We sat at a bar table, both of us drinking
from big glasses that contained a thick, dark lager.

“So, what do you normally do after work at night?” she asked.

“Go home, eat, read…” Damn, that sounded boring and pathetic when I said it out loud.

“And see Mr. Mysterious,” she said.

“Right. Oh, I also volunteer at a no-kill dog shelter.”

She didn’t
seemed moved by that at all. In fact, she totally dismissed it. I wasn’t looking for recognition or a pat on the back, but still I thought it was one of the more interesting parts of my life. Aside from Watts, of course.

She took out her phone. “Did I tell you they said I had to buy a new one? Remember how it wasn’t getting texts and I couldn’t send any, either?”

I had forgotten, but remembered now as she reminded me. “Yeah.”

“Hate this fucking thing. And it’s just
barely over a year old. Ugh. Anyway, see, I was talking to this guy I met…I don’t know, like two weeks ago. Did I tell you?”

I was glad to be talking about something other than me.
“You didn’t, but I want to hear all about him.”

She told me the story of meeting the guy on the metro. She’d dropped her phone—that’s when she thinks something happened to it—and he picked it up and handed it to her.

“That’s how we got to talking. When we got to his stop, he said I should call him sometime. I would have given him my number, but whatever. So he tells me his name—Trent—and gives me his number. I put it in my contacts. But I can’t text him or call him and I haven’t seen him on the train since. Doesn’t that suck?”

She
was so much bolder than I could have imagined myself being just a few months ago. The chance meeting on a train like that was cute. It stood in stark contrast to the way Watts and I had met, which made me think of the only reason we ended up meeting in person. It was that email that I had sent, suggesting that we meet. I had come so far. All because of Watts.

The rest of the night went much like that—conversation, laughter, and all of it making me
think of him. Wondering what he was doing. Worrying about his safety. And the occasional tug of fear reminding me of the very real possibility that something could go wrong and I’d never see him again.

Tara spoke, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Oh, did I tell you about what they’re starting next week?”

“At work?”

“Yeah,” she said, stuffing a napkin into her glass. “Random lie detector tests. Some new beefed up security bullshit.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t have if I wanted to. My arms and legs tingled with a wave of trepidation and my throat went suddenly dry. Watts and I had just discussed this very thing, and now it was happening.

. . . . .

I texted Watts later that night after I got home, changed, and slipped into bed:
I need to talk to you ASAP.
Wish you were here.

Thirty minutes passed. An hour. Two hours.
I called and it went straight to his voicemail. I left him a quick message, asking him to text me back when he had a minute, and that I just wanted to hear from him.

He didn’t text
or call back. I barely got any sleep that night.

Chapter Six –
Watts

Spencer
and I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday running surveillance on the house. We had rented a white van and he had brought along magnets to put on each side of it that read “Bluewave Satellite Installation” complete with a fake phone number. A ladder was fastened to the roof of the van.

It was the perfect cover. Nobody was going to talk to us because nobody wants to face the onslaught of an independent contractor’s sales pitch regarding television service.
They’d go out of their way to avoid us.

All of the intelligence we’d received was panning out, until we discovered that this cell wasn’t staying in one house, but two. The seco
nd one was about two miles away, so we split up.

Spencer
took the second place, I took the first. There was more action at my scene. It was definitely the place where they gathered to meet and plan and bang prostitutes.

E
arly on Wednesday morning, Spencer had driven over and covered me while I slipped into the house and placed four microphones around the place, as well as cameras in the den, and in two of the bedrooms.

We monitored the
terrorists’ activities on my laptop in the van.

“It’s like a goddamn porno,”
Spencer had said at one point, referring to the revolving door of prostitutes they were bringing in and out of the place at all hours of the night. “These guys are so devout, huh? So pious and righteously devoted to their God.”

“Remember the 9/11 hijackers,” I had said. “They spent a lot of time in strip clubs in the days leading up to the attacks. So, yeah, they’re devout…when it suits them.”

A stakeout can be rather boring most of the time, especially when you’re doing it alone. But this time I had a partner. We spent a good amount of time talking on our pre-paid cell phones. Mostly it was Spencer talking about Stephanie, the woman in his life, which eventually turned once again into a lecture on how I’d been living my own life.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Watts, let me tell you.”

I held the phone away from my ear, rolling my eyes. His gushing over his newfound love was starting to sound like platitudes. I knew the guy was sincere, but he was laying it on a bit thick.

“Don’t you ever wonder what will happen once you’re, say, fifty?” he asked. “You can’t go on your whole life fucking random women. When you’re that old, the hot ones aren’t going to fuck you,
Wattsy. You’re going to have to pay them to do it.” He laughed.

“I’d never pay for it,” I said.

“That’s what you say now, but when you’re older you won’t have a choice.”

“Is there a point to this?” I asked, reaching over to the pass
enger seat and opening a pack of almonds.

“The point is this:
You need to find a woman and start to get your life back.”

I was getting tired of hearing his take on my life. He had it so wrong,
and only because I hadn’t corrected him. He had no idea what was going on with me. I had held off for a couple of days until my suspicion about his being here dwindled down to nothing. There was no way McDowell had sent him here to sabotage my relationship with Catherine.

So I told him.

“There
is
a woman, Spencer.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Then, “Bullshit
, mate. You’re telling me that to shut me up. I know you better than—”

“You don’t know me,” I said, cutting him off. “You know what I’ve wanted you to know.”

“Ah ha, so it is true. I may not know the details of your life, but I do know that tone. So who is she?”

I gave him only the basics—how we met, how we finally actually met in person, how much time we’d been spending together, and most importantly, just her first name.

It was late afternoon, going on toward four o’clock. The neighborhood had been bustling an hour earlier with the arrival of several school buses. Parents waited on street corners. Kids got off the buses and ran, their too-large backpacks weighing them down. A couple of young boys had started tossing a plastic football. All of that had cleared up inside of five or so minutes, as I told him about Catherine, and the neighborhood had quieted down once again.

“Daniel Watts, you sneaky fuck.”

“I get paid to be sneaky,” I said. “And let me remind you that you do as well. This stays between us.”

“No problem. I’m sure our fine Mr.
McDowell knows?”

I was silent for a moment
, drifting away in thought. I watched two cars go down the street. One was a real estate agent, the other a minivan with those little white stickers on the rear window indicating how many people were in their family. An exterminator truck rounded the corner, heading my way.

“You there, Watts?”

“Yeah, McDowell knows. He knows it all, just like he always does. And he doesn’t approve.”

“Fuck him.”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I watched a woman walking a dog down the sidewalk, letting the animal stop and squat in one of her neighbor’s yards. The woman had put her hand into a plastic bag and used it to pick up after the dog. Another woman, a younger one several doors down, walked down her driveway to the mailbox, talking on the phone as she went.

Just a normal day in suburban America.
Nice lawns. People out for a walk and getting some exercise. Others in their cars on the way to the grocery store, perhaps. And a house full of Chechen terrorists right down the block. Jesus, the things people don’t know about their neighbors. Or anyone, really, which brought me back to Catherine.

“There’s more to this,” I said
to Spencer. “She works at the FBI.”

Now there was silence on his end, but only
long enough for him to come up with the question that I knew he would. “Are you using her for inside information?”

I laughed. “No. I knew you’d ask that, though, which is why I didn’t tell you what she does there.” I explained her job to him.

“That sounds boring as all hell, but I can see why McDowell’s pressing you. So what’s the plan? What are you going to do?”

I didn’t respond.

“Hello, hello? Damn cheap phones.”

I said, “I’m here. Hang on a second.”

I sank down in my seat, lifting the camera, zooming in to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was. A Fed-Ex delivery guy rang the doorbell, then knocked, and got no response. He went back to his truck and stacked several boxes on the front porch.

“What’s going on?”
Spencer asked. “Everything okay?”

“Give me a minute.”

I got out of the van with clipboard in hand, wearing work boots, navy blue pants, matching shirt and jacket and a baseball cap. If anyone tried to talk to me, I was prepared to launch into a sales pitch for satellite TV.

I had my shoulder holster concealed beneath a
blue jacket, my gun ready.

I walked up the sidewalk
to the front porch, got the name of the company off the label and returned to the van. I quickly Googled the company name and confirmed what I’d been thinking on the walk back.

I knew what was inside the boxes from the
ir shape and the obvious weight of them from watching the Fed-Ex guy lift them.

“We’re not going to find any bom
b-making materials in the house,” I said into the phone.

“What do you mean?”

The six boxes contained ammunition. “They’re not going to blow up anything. It’s going to be a mass shooting.”

“Christ,” Spencer said. “Two houses, and now this method? Yo
ur team is going to walk into a virtual ammunition depot. How complicated is this going to get?”

It didn’t have to get more complicated. Not if we acted faster than we had planned. We had talked about doing the job inside of a week. Now we were going to have to do it in a matter of days.

. .
. . .

There wasn’t much action at the house, so I left about 3 a.m. and headed back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep. Spencer said he was staying put outside the house he was watching.

I slept for about four hours, waking just before 8 a.m., and realized I had been so tired and so focused on the change in our mission that I’d forgotten to check my personal cell phone for messages.
An odd thing, having Catherine slip my mind for more than a few minutes.

I read her texts and listened to her
messages. She sounded stressed, and had been vague about why she needed to talk to me ASAP. I dialed her number.

She answered with: “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. What’s the matter?”

I heard her let out a deep sigh. “Oh, my God. I was so worried when I didn’t hear back from you. I don’t like that at all.”

“Catherine, I’m fine. What’s so urgent?”

She told me about the planned polygraph examinations.

I was barely awake. My eyelids were heavy, my mouth was dry, and my body ached from the few hours of tense sleep. “When is this happening?”

“I don’t know. I guess…it could be any time?”

I sat up on the edge of the bed. “Have you left for work yet?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re going to have to miss another Friday,” I said. “I’ll pick you up shortly.”

“
Shortly?
When? Where are you?”

“J
ust be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen? You’re nearby?”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, Catherine.”

We hung up and I called Spencer.

“I’m going to be away for the next day or so.” He was just as experienced as I was, and perfectly capable of watching the place alone for an extended period of time.

“Okay,
” he said. “I got this.”