Never Say Spy (6 page)

Hellhound chuckled hoarsely.  “Darlin’, if ya did any more damage, they’d be haulin’ me off in the fuckin’ bone wagon.”

Kane regarded me seriously.  “You did fine.  You escaped from an assailant who was much larger than you.  You hit hard, and then you ran.  Those were the right things to do.  In fact, the only way you could improve on what you did would be to make more noise and try to do as much painful damage as possible.  You should be screaming and scratching.”

“Screamin’ an’ scratchin’, an’ moanin’, ‘Oh, Hellhound, oh, baby!’” Hellhound added dreamily, batting his eyes at me.

“You’re out of line, Helmand!” Kane snapped.

But the ridiculous leer on Hellhound’s ugly face made me laugh out loud.  The sheer relief of being warm and safe had made me giddy, and I couldn’t resist.

I shook my hair back sensuously and leaned across the table to give Hellhound the full bedroom-eyes treatment.  I made my voice throaty and breathy as I purred, “Oh, Hellhound, oh, baby!  Are you done
already
?”

Kane barked out a guffaw as Helmand’s jaw dropped.  At his look of frozen shock, both Kane and I started to laugh in earnest.  After another moment of paralysis, Hellhound joined in, bellowing like a laryngitic bull while we all convulsed with mirth, blowing off stress.

When we subsided, Helmand wiped his eyes.  “Darlin’, if ya gimme those big brown eyes an’ say my name like that one more time, I will be done already!”

It had to be done.  “Oh,
Hellhound
,” I breathed, giving it all I had.

He threw back his head and let out a guttural grunt.  Then he winked at me.  “Darlin’, I’m done for the night.”  He got up and laid a couple of toonies on the table for his coffee.

“Ride safe,” I told him.

He looked surprised.  “Always do, darlin’.  Later, Cap,” he said to Kane, and left.  We listened to the Harley erupt to life and roar off into the night.

“Why does he call you Cap?” I asked, emboldened by our shared laughter.  “I get the feeling you two go back a long way.”

“We were in the Forces together.  I dared him to join the army when we were both eighteen, and he couldn’t back down,” Kane responded.

“So I take it you made Captain.”

‘Yes, that was as high in the ranks as I wanted to advance.  The upper ranks have too much paperwork and bureaucracy.”

I shot him a quizzical look.  “I could have sworn I heard a drill sergeant back in the parking lot.”

Kane chuckled.  “That would be my dad.”

I laughed and shook my head.  “I can’t imagine Hellhound saluting anybody.”

Kane laughed, too.  “He has issues with following orders, as you may have noticed.  He used to keep his nose clean for a while and advance a rank, and then he’d get in trouble and get busted back to Private again.  By the time he got out, he’d made Corporal for about the third time.”

“How did he ever end up as a private investigator?”

“I left the Forces a year or so before he did and went into RCMP training.  It was a good fit for me, so when he got out, he tried it, too.  But there’s no room for Hellhound’s maverick brand of independence in the police force.”

Kane drank some coffee and continued, “He took away what he’d learned from the training and set himself up as a private investigator instead.  He marches to his own drummer, and as long as he doesn’t overstep his civilian rights, he gets along fine.”

“Speaking of the military, there’s something I want to ask you,” he added.  “Just before you hung up earlier, you said ‘Roger that’.  Were you in the Forces, too?”

I laughed.  “God, no.  You think Hellhound has a problem following orders?  I’ve got him beat.  They’d shoot me for insubordination before the first day was over.”

“What then?” he persisted.  “You usually don’t hear that phrase from a civilian.  Pilot’s license?  Ham radio?”

“No, Uncle Roger.”

Kane shot me a baffled glance.  “What?”

“Uncle Roger was a radio operator in the Navy.  It always tickled his funny bone to be named Roger and say ‘Roger’ on the radio when he got a message.  Now, you had to know his wife, my Aunt Minnie.  She was... tough.  Think, cross between drill sergeant and wolverine.”

Kane grinned.  “Most drill sergeants I’ve known have been part wolverine.”

“Put one of them in a dress, and you’ve got Aunt Minnie.  She had a short fuse.  She’d ask nicely, once, and if Uncle Roger didn’t hop to it, she’d belt out an order at the top of her lungs.  And Uncle Roger would snap to attention and throw her this magnificent salute and bark out, ‘Roger that!’  And then he’d cackle like a hyena.”

I smiled at the memory.  “You had to hear Uncle Roger laugh.  You just had to laugh yourself.  So it became a family joke.  Any time somebody rapped out an order, we’d straighten up and say, ‘Roger that!’  I hadn’t thought of it in years, but when you ordered me to drop the phone and run, out it came.”

He chuckled.  “Your Uncle Roger sounds like quite a guy.”

“He was,” I replied, still smiling.

He sobered.  “The night’s getting old.  I need to take your statement, and then maybe we can both get a bit of sleep before our drive tomorrow.”

I looked at my watch.  “Yikes, a quarter to four.  Can we start our trip a little later tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, I think we should make it ten o’clock.  I’ll need to file some paperwork before we leave.”  He opened his notebook.  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“When I got back to the house from the morgue, I realized my security system wasn’t working,” I began.

Kane glanced up sharply.  “Has that ever happened before?”

“Once or twice.  I phoned the security company and they said there was no trouble indication on their end, but it obviously wasn’t working at my end.  That was strange.  Usually they can tell from the control centre if there’s a problem.  Anyway, I felt pretty paranoid about it.  At the time I thought it could have been just coincidence, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep unless I had some kind of warning system.”

“That explains the tins on strings,” Kane interjected.  “The uniforms at the scene were wondering about that.  Why didn’t you just leave and stay with a friend?”

“I just couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain everything.  And I was too cheap to go to a hotel.  And I honestly thought I was probably over-reacting.  I felt silly, and I didn’t want to give in to fear.”

“Sometimes it’s smart to trust your gut,” Kane said.  “This time it was.”

“Yeah.  I guess it doesn’t count as paranoia if you actually need all your elaborate preparations.  Then it just looks like clever advance planning,” I joked.

Kane smiled in response.  “So walk me through your elaborate plans.  The tins were your warning system.  Then what?”

I described my activities, pausing only to gulp down the last of my cooling eggs.

“Too bad I didn’t think to charge my cell phone,” I continued.  “Oh!  Can I get my phone back?  It’s a smartphone, and it’s got my entire schedule and contacts list in it.”

“Tell me where you left it.”

I did my best to describe the location, and Kane made a note in his notebook.  “I’ll ask the officers to check for it tomorrow morning when they’re back in the neighbourhood,” he said.  “We’ll retrieve it if we can, but you shouldn’t carry it or use it until we know for sure what we’re up against.  You should buy a disposable cell phone tomorrow.  Carry on with your story.”

“Um... where was I?”

“Walking through the neighbourhood.”

“Right,” I mumbled.  My stomach was full, I was warm, and my entire body felt like lead.  I struggled to organize my thoughts.  “So I walked out into the neighbourhood like I owned it.  I didn’t want to attract attention, and the only plausible thing I could think of was a teenager coming home from a party.  That’s how I got to the mall, and that’s how the misunderstanding with Hellhound happened.  I think you know the rest.”

“Yes.  Let’s wrap this up,” he said, closing his notebook.  I delved into my backpack for my wallet, but Kane stopped me.  “I’ve got it,” he said, handing the waitress a twenty.

I was too tired to argue.  “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”  We rose, and he waited while I pulled on my hoodie again and moved toward the door.  I stopped at the pay phone near the entrance.

“Who are you calling?” he asked.

“I’m going to call a cab to take me to a hotel and see if I can salvage some sleep.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” he countered.  “Until we know more about who’s targeting you, I’d prefer to take some precautions.  I’ll drop you at a hotel myself.  It’ll be faster, and I’ll know where you are so I can pick you up in the morning.”

“Okay, thanks.”  My head felt stuffed with cotton, and I was glad to let him call the shots.  All I wanted was safety and sleep.

I sleepwalked out to his SUV and we drove in silence to Macleod Trail, where there were a number of hotels.  Kane chose one seemingly at random and pulled into the parking lot.

“I’ll come in with you,” he said, rousing me from my stupor.  “I’ll register under my name, and I’ll come up with you so it doesn’t look like you’re alone.  Can you pretend to be Mrs. John Kane for a few minutes?”

Something about that question seemed like it needed a smart-ass response, but I was too tired.  I nodded mutely and followed him into the lobby.

The desk clerk was far too perky for four-thirty in the morning.  “Where are you folks coming from this late at night?” she chirped when Officer Kane stepped up to the desk.

“We’re driving through from B.C.,” Kane lied easily, handing over his credit card.  “We had planned to be in by supper time, but we had car trouble.  My wife’s asleep on her feet.”  He laid a casual arm around my shoulders and snugged me gently against him.

Memory stabbed me in the heart.  I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be held like that.  A flash of pain must have shown in my face, because the clerk was immediately solicitous.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” she inquired.

Kane glanced down at me with concern, and I forced myself to sound wry.  “Just a back spasm.”  I slipped my arm around Kane’s waist and let my head fall against him.  “Are we done yet, Hon?”

The clerk handed us two card keys and gave us directions to a room on the fourth floor.  We disengaged ourselves and wandered to the elevator, hand in hand.  Once the elevator doors closed, we stepped apart, not speaking.  My exhaustion temporarily forgotten, I tried to settle my whirling thoughts.

Sneaking a glance at his profile, I swallowed hard and looked away quickly.  This man rang all my bells.  He’d never make the cover of GQ.  His nose had been broken at some point and re-healed with a bump in the bridge. When we’d sat in the coffee shop after my carjacking, I’d noticed the scar that sliced across his left eyebrow.  Combined with the broken nose, I was reasonably sure he’d played hockey, sometime before face guards became mandatory in the sport.

His face and jaw were square, striking but not classically handsome.  That was fine with me.  I’d never been attracted to those well-groomed ‘metrosexual’ types.  But I was a sucker for broad shoulders and a fabulous chest.  There was no spare tire around that taut midsection, either.

The floor indicator dinged, rousing me from my lustful reverie.  I stepped out without meeting Kane’s eyes and admired the rear view while I followed him along the hallway.  When he stopped at the room and slid the card key into the slot, my overtired brain made a detailed suggestion that I firmly ignored.

He opened the door and stepped into the room, towing me behind him.  “Stay here,” he said, placing me just inside the door while he matter-of-factly checked the bathroom and then the rest of the room.  He crossed to the window and looked outside before closing the drapes.

“All right,” he said.  “You should be fine.  Relax as much as you can and get some sleep.  Nobody knows you’re here.  Don’t leave the room.  Don’t even open the door until I come to get you at,” he checked his watch.  “Ten o’clock.”  The words came out on a poorly concealed sigh.

“What about breakfast?” I asked with alarm.  “I can’t function without breakfast.”

He looked perplexed.  “You just ate an enormous platter of eggs and french fries.”

“But five hours is a long time, and then we’ve got a two-hour drive,” I replied in my most reasonable tones.

“You’re right,” he said with a hint of a smile.  “We’ll grab something on the way out of town.”

“Okay, thanks.  See you in the morning.”

He turned to leave, but hesitated at the door.  “Thanks for cutting Hellhound some slack earlier.  He’s the best friend you could ever ask for, but he can be...” he paused, obviously searching for the right word.

“Rude, crude, lewd, vulgar, obscene, and generally offensive,” I supplied.  “I like him.  He reminds me of Uncle Roger.”

Kane grinned.  “Thanks.  Lock the door behind me.  I’ll take the stairs so it looks like I’m still here.”

He went out, pulling the door closed behind him.  I threw the deadbolt and the privacy lock, and listened until the sound of the stair door told me he was gone.