Nightstalkers (22 page)

“Smart move,” Nada acknowledged. “About the only way you’ll be able to move around here armed and concealed.”

“Think golf clothes, gentlemen,” Moms said, with a nod toward one of the staircases. “Then think golf club bags.”

“And golf cart,” Eagle said. “There’s one parked in this little garage next to the big garage.”

“We can modify it,” Mac said. “We can probably get the extra flamer and Roland’s M-240 rigged on one. Laser designator. I saw an ATV in there, too. I can merge them.” Mac was getting excited at the thought of playing with these toys.

As Moms picked her MP-5 up, the team trudged upstairs to even the score. Winslow had apparently been a pretty fit guy, but none of his golf clothes would fit Roland. The weapons man had to search for the largest pair of sweatpants he could find along with a hoodie with a yacht club logo. Mac and Eagle looked like mismatched golfers, in shorts and loose shirts, which allowed them to strap their MK-23s underneath them. Doc, not having dedicated his life like the others to staying fit and trim, had to do
a bit of searching to find a shirt that would fit. Nada saw Eagle reaching for a pair of black silk socks and simply said: “No.”

“How many feet did this guy have?” Mac asked, noting the socks in their neat bundles and the rows of shoes that lined one entire wall.

“Check this out.” Roland had opened another one of the unending supply of doors and a small room with a wine fridge and microwave sat next to a small copper sink. “You could live in here.”

“How many wrists did this guy have?” Mac asked, looking at the watch winder.

The team trooped back down the stairs closest to the bedroom and Moms couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing seeing her team of Nightstalkers trying to blend in, while she was tugging on the skirt to get it lower.

“Not fair,” Nada said. “We didn’t laugh at you.”

Moms sighed, looking at Roland. “You were right, Nada. I’ll call Support and have them bring us some appropriate clothes that fit.”

Nada pointed, and Mac and Doc went upstairs to pull over-watch security on the street and backyard.

Then the doorbell rang and they all scrambled for weapons. Nada went over and peered out a side window and saw the girl from the garage roof earlier in the morning. He unlocked the wheels and rolled the baby grand he’d put as a barricade out of the way and opened the door, while the rest of the team—except for Moms—was diving for cover to face this new “threat.”

The girl’s hair was short and blue with a couple of barrettes hanging at angles. “I’m selling Girl Scout cookies.”

From behind the big vase, Eagles muttered over the net: “I like the ones that are minty.”

The girl strode in with the confidence of someone used to interrupting and said: “Just kidding,” as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Moms stepped up. “Excuse me. Who are you?”

She ignored Moms, which made Roland take a step forward from his hide spot in a closet. That finally paused her for a moment as she took in the large man dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants that were strained to the breaking point.

“You know, you all look cray-cray.”

“What?” Moms said.

The girl scratched at an old mosquito bite on her arm. “Crazy.”

“We don’t fit in?” Moms asked, and the girl rolled her eyes.

“Hello. The whole place is crawling with new faces this morning. New guy on the gate, new guy delivering the paper, even new guy raking the sand trap.”

Moms had their cover story ready. “I don’t know about that. We’re a group of postdocs from the University of Colorado, and Doctor Winslow is letting us stay here so we can coordinate our research with his staff while he and his wife are on vacation.”

The girl pulled up the piano bench. “Yeah. Tell me another.”

“Excuse me, young girl—” Moms began, but the girl pointed.

“Your legs are hairy. You haven’t had a wax in a looooong time, if ever.”

Nada looked over at Moms’s legs, professionally this time, and the girl was right. Standing by the window he could see the light layer of hair that cancelled out the tennis skirt.
Smart kid
, he thought. He watched her dig at the bite on her arm and noted her fingernails were painted bright green. She chewed her nails and cuticles but she took time to personalize her nails.

“What do
you
think we’re doing?” Nada asked.

She looked up with the surprised expression of someone who was seldom asked her opinion. “Well. You’re in Doctor Cray-Cray’s house—”

“Doctor Winslow.”

“I meant the wife, Lilith. She’s a doctor, too. And you killed Skippy and—”

“That wasn’t your dog, was it?” Nada almost seemed concerned, which caused a surprised look to cross Moms’s face.

“Do you think I’d have a dog named Skippy? Hellooooo?” She shook her head. “Listen, I know this place sucks, but it’s my place and I don’t like weirdos dropping in—like literally dropping in—and killing dogs, even dogs who are cray-cray and—”

“Could you please stop saying that?” Moms implored.

“I love your lip gloss.”

Moms looked stunned for a moment.

“Just kidding,” the girl said.

Eagle was laughing now over the net, the concept of Moms wearing lip gloss tickling his warped sense of humor.

Moms forgot they were on the net. “What’s so funny?”

And Nada shocked everyone with his answer. “You’re too good-looking to be wearing lip gloss or worrying about waxing your legs.”

Moms flushed, everyone one beat off by the presence of the girl. Roland was hoping a Firefly in something really cool, like a six-hundred-pound bull, would come crashing through the front door right now because all this attention toward Moms was making him fidgety and killing things calmed him down. Except they did have the Wall up. Still, a man could hope.

“So we’re really not blending in?” Nada asked, to cover his gaffe.

“Yeah. And you killed a dog, so that’s like seven sore thumbs.”

“Seven?” Moms asked.

“I can count,” the girl replied.

“We saw you last night,” Nada said.

“’Cause I wanted you to, helloooo?” she said, and Nada looked helplessly at Moms. “I’m just guessing here,” the girl said, “but I think you’re a bunch of government dudes—and dudette,” she added, nodding at Moms, “and something really cray”—she caught herself—“odd is going on around here. Those people left here in a hurry last night and there was some screaming.”

“How old are you?” Moms asked.

“Sixteen. How old are you?”

Moms didn’t reply.

“So you’re thirty-five.”

Mom’s cheeks flushed and that’s how the team learned that Moms was thirty-five. They all owed Doc ten bucks.

“What do you think is going on?” Nada repeated.

The girl stopped scratching at her arm and started gnawing at a cuticle and Moms knocked her hand away. “Don’t do that.”

“No touching, bitch, I ain’t cutting myself.”

Everyone tensed and the girl noted. “Cool. So you’re in charge. Love that.” She leaned forward and parted her blue hair a bit. “My curling iron did that to me this morning.”

They could all see the angry-looking burn hiding in the blue. Then she held up her hand, the one she’d been chewing, and said: “And Skippy bit me. He’s, was, a mean dog, but he never bit me before.” There was an angry gash, half-concealed with an inadequate Band-Aid.

“Doc,” Nada said into the throat mike. “Down here with your kit. Eagle, take upper rear over-watch.”

The girl continued. “Granted, Skippy was a ditz of a dog, but I’ve always been good with dogs and he nipped me last night.” She swooshed the wound with her little green-painted fingers.

Other than Eagle leaving, no one was moving and she looked about. “Helloooo?”

Doc came in with his med kit. “Let me take a look at that.”

The girl stared at him dubiously for a moment. “You really a doctor? I mean a doctor who, like, treats people rather than makes things in a lab? ’Cause we got lots of doctors around here who wouldn’t know the right end of a scalpel.”

“I’m a real doctor,” Doc said, and everyone on the team was surprised he didn’t add in the usual about his four PhDs on top of his MD.

“What about your curling iron?” Moms asked.

“It isn’t my curling iron anymore. Am I getting warm?”

Moms nodded and Roland reached behind him and pulled out his golf bag of weapons and began strapping up.

“Whoa,” the girl said as Nada and Moms pulled guns from under their shirts and chambered rounds. “Liftoff.” She smiled. “Just kidding.”

“Where are your parents?” Moms asked as Doc worked on her burn and bite.

“At work. Helloooo? The mortgage is ten grand a month. Where do you think they’d be?”

“Why aren’t you in school?” Nada asked.

“Spring break?”

“Seriously,” Nada said. “Is it spring break?”

“Yeah, you’re a bunch of grad students for sure. It’s summer. Fourth of July soon?”

Nada sighed. “So there are a bunch of kids home without parents around?”

The girl laughed. It was the youngest thing about her, the laugh. “Helloooo. Swim practice, Bible camp, violin, piano, dressage, traveling soccer and baseball and dance team? Nobody here
but me. All the mommies and daddies are at work to pay for all the nannies driving everyone everywhere all the time.”

“Why aren’t you practicing something?” Moms asked while Nada was on the net, telling Eagle and Mac to come down and prep for a Firefly swat.

The girl did a remarkable series of three backflips across the marble floor, ending up in front of the piano. She leaned over and started to play. It wasn’t perfect, but the message was clear: don’t have to practice when you can do. Her green-tipped fingers were flying across the ivory as Eagle and Mac came down, golf bags on their shoulders, weapons in hand. Roland had his flamer on his back and machine gun in hand.

“Can you play the violin?” Doc asked.

“Can you?” she asked him, not missing a stroke on the keys.

Nada started to laugh and the team turned toward him because Nada never laughed.

“She’s our Asset,” Nada said. “Our Scout.”

“Oh,” the girl said. “I love love love that movie.”

“What movie?” Mac asked as he checked the fuses he was putting in the pockets of his golf shorts.

“Really?” the girl said. “Scout and Boo Radley and just nothing?”

“And Atticus,” Eagle threw in.

“We get it,” Moms said, trying to get the derailed team back on track. “The curling iron.”

“You want me to get it?”

“NO!” Everyone said it at the same time, causing the girl to actually pause in her playing.

“So, we all cross the Rubicon?” the girl asked.

Nada looked at Moms. “I like her.”

Moms gave him a look.

“I mean, she’s young,” Nada said, “but she knows the area and is quick and—”

Scout slammed the lid over the keys and sang at the top of her lungs: “
Love it, love it, love it, the lady is in charge. The boys have to ask
.” She turned toward the front door. “Let’s go to my house.” She looked over her shoulder at the group, loaded with weapons, explosives, and flamer. “Might not want to walk across the street like that.”

The team scrambled to jam everything back into the golf bags, tennis racket bag, and shopping bags (eco-friendly, they boasted) that Eagle had uncovered in the garage. When they were done the team stood in the foyer and Scout shook her head. “Better, but not going to fly. You look like a bunch of government people hiding your weapons in a tennis racket bag, golf bags, and supermarket bags.”

“What do you suggest?” Nada asked, earning him a hard look from Moms.

“I go over there with one of you to protect me from my curling iron—I cannot believe I just said that last part—and I open the garage, and the rest of you drive from here to there in your big black gas-guzzlers. It’s not far. I think you can make it without getting lost.”

Moms sighed. “All right, Roland, you escort—”

As soon as Roland stepped forward, Scout was shaking her head. “No, no, no, and no.” She wrapped her arm around Nada’s bicep. “I prefer this gentleman.”

Roland frowned, Moms sighed once more, and Eagle laughed again.

“He ain’t no gentleman,” Mac said.

“He’s been nicer than any of you,” Scout said, the seriousness of her tone causing everyone to shut up for a little bit and feel the truth.

“I don’t fit in here,” Nada said.

“We meet anyone, I’ll take care of it,” Scout promised.

“Tell them I’m the new gardener?” Nada asked.

Scout laughed. “I can do better than that.” She tugged on his arm. “Come on, before that curling iron burns down my house.”

Moms opened her mouth to say something, but Scout already had Nada out the door, the heavy wood slamming shut behind them.

“Well,” Moms said.

“I’ll get the SUVs ready,” Eagle said, heading for the garage.

“I’ll load the gear,” Roland said, gesturing for Mac to help.

“I’ll help load, too,” Kirk said.

Moms was left standing alone in the foyer, staring at the closed front door.

Nada walked across the street next to Scout. He noticed that while her house was on scale with most of the others—ridiculously large—the one to the right of hers was on a scale all its own, at least twice the size. Looking more closely, he also noted a lot of things that troubled him. A small security camera was tracking them. As if on cue, the sprinklers came on. All of them, surrounding the house in a wall of water.