Two Lies and a Spy (22 page)

His lips twitch. “I’m sure you do.”

“Glad we understand each other, Evan.”

He winks at me. “I’ll just sod off then, shall I?”

I point at the door. “You shall.”

It’s only later that I thank him for getting me and Charlie into the G.I. program. Evan Kincaid is not all bad.

Just mostly.

•  •  •

I sleep for twenty-six hours straight, and when I wake up, Charlie is next to me in one of the vinyl chairs, still wearing the set of women’s green scrubs that they gave him the day before when he “supervised” the other operation. They’re huge on him, with the legs rolled up about five times.

His fingers are flying over the keyboard of a laptop.

“Morning, kiddo,” I say, sleepily.

“It’s afternoon,” Charlie tells me, still clattering away. “Hey, you want to see a gall bladder operation?”

“Gee, let me think. No.”

“But it’s so cool . . . especially the part where they cut into the guy with the scalpel.”

I shudder. “Not really my thing, Charlie Brown.”

“Fine, but you’re totally missing out.”

“And I’m okay with that. Really.”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Better,” I lie. “Feels almost like new.”

Charlie stops typing and pats his pocket. Something rattles. “I forgot to show you.” He pulls out a plastic pill bottle and makes quick work of the “childproof” lid. He shakes an object into his hand and holds it up between his thumb and index finger.

It’s a bullet.

“This is what they dug out of your shoulder,” Charlie
tells me.

I probably turn a little green. I feel green, anyway. “And you wanted it as a souvenir?”

Charlie nods. “The doc gave it to me.”

I’m shaking my head at this when the doctor himself comes in. He’s tall, thin, and bald with wire-rimmed glasses, bright blue eyes, and very white teeth. He high-fives Charlie.

“How’s my best OR supervisor?”

“Good,” Charlie says. “By the way, I’m going to recommend that you get promoted.”

The doctor grins. “Well, thank you very much. That’s generous of you.”

“No,” Charlie assures him. “It’s entirely based on merit and skill.”

The doc’s lips twitch, and he nods, then turns to me. “Hello, young lady. I’m Dr. Travis. How are you feeling?”

I grimace. “Not quite ready to water-ski.”

He laughs. “We’ll get you there.”

“Yeah.”

Charlie drops the bullet back into the pill bottle and closes the lid.

“Thanks for entertaining my brother and giving him that grisly memento, by the way. He treasures it.”

“My pleasure,” the doc says, rocking back on his heels. He takes my chart and flips through it, looking at various vital signs. “Good, good. If everything continues to look like this, then there shouldn’t be a problem discharging you and clearing you for travel tomorrow.”

“Travel?”

“Yes. I understand from Mr. Kincaid that you’re going to Paris. In confidence, of course.”

This is definitely news to me. “Right,” I say, looking to Charlie to see if he knows anything about this. He nods, his eyes bright.

“Hey, doc,” my brother says. “Ask me how
I
feel.”

“How do you feel, Charlie?” Dr. Travis asks, good-naturedly.

“Eiffel!” Charlie shrieks with laughter.

The doc and I groan.

Satisfied that his patient is recovering well, Dr. Travis leaves, promising to look in on me early tomorrow morning.

A nurse comes in and gives me antibiotics and a pain pill. I have a sudden craving for Peanut M&M’s and beg Charlie to go get me some from a vending machine.

He does.

I’ve just opened the bag, popped three or four into my mouth, and crunched down when Evan ushers in Luke, Lacey, Rita, and Kale.

“Luke!” I can’t stop myself from beaming a huge smile at him. “Rita! Kale! Lacey. I can’t believe you’re all here. . . .”

“Oh. My. God.” Lacey says, staring at my mouth. “That is disgusting.”

“Seen a dentist lately, love?” Evan inquires with a wink.

Luke bursts out laughing as I cover my mouth in
horror. Then, to my shock, he walks up and kisses me—right on the mouth. Chocolate and nuts and everything.

Charlie whoops.

Lacey covers her eyes. “Oh, barf.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Luke says, setting a big bouquet of flowers on the nightstand, then taking my hand and squeezing it.

Luke Carson just kissed me! Voluntarily. And he’s holding my hand! I’m going to die. Explode with happiness. If all I had to do was get shot in the shoulder for this to happen, I’m ready to sacrifice my other one too.

I know that there are three other friends here to see me, but I can’t seem to look away from Luke. He’s wearing jeans and a forest-green shirt that defines the muscles in his arms and shoulders and brings out the color of his eyes. The hand that’s holding mine is warm and strong, and I want him to never let go.

“Completely unfair,” remarks Evan, to nobody in particular. “I kiss her—just to hide her face from potential bad guys, mind you—and I get kicked into a wall for my trouble.
Luke
kisses her, and she clings to him like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.”

My face heats up, and Luke turns red too. “Yeah, I heard about that.” He levels his gaze on Evan, as if to warn him not to do it again.

I seriously think my heart is going to explode. Someone can shoot me in the left butt cheek, and then I’ll present the right one, if only Luke will be my boyfriend.

“I figure I was taking my life in my hands by planting
one on you,” he teases me. “But I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time, Kari.”

“Y-you have?” I squeak.

“Yep. But I thought you were dating that guy.” He jerks a thumb at Kale.

“Oh. No.” I blink, hard, as I notice that Kale and Rita are holding hands. “Uh . . . am I seeing things or—”

“The brat decided to try slumming with me for a while,” Kale says, grinning.

“The truth is that I felt sorry for the grease monkey,” retorts Rita.

He pulls her close to him, slides his hand down, and pinches her on the bottom.

“Hey!” she squeals, and hits him with a huge purple teddy bear that she’s evidently brought for me.

“What did I tell you?” Evan says, shaking his head. “They were hot for each other.”

Kale’s brought me balloons that he ties to the rolling tray the staff puts my meals on. Rita sets the bear on the end of the bed, and I laugh at its goofy expression. Someone glued one of its eyes higher than the other, and it has a little pink tongue that hangs out the side of its mouth.

“I couldn’t find a Kung Fu Panda,” she says. “But I thought this bear was cute.”

“Definitely,” I agree. “Thanks.”

Kale shoves his hands into his pockets and shakes his head at me. “Mighty Mouse,” he says. “I know you’re a big hero, but did you have to jump in front of that bullet?”

“Guess so.”

“You are all such dorks.” Lacey elbows him out of the way, steps forward, and gives me a wrapped gift.

I’m taken aback. “Thank you.”

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?”

Obediently I tear off the wrapping paper. She’s given me one of those all-in-one travel makeup kits, a nice one. It’s Estee Lauder. I wonder where she stole it?

“Just for the record,” Lacey declares, “I didn’t buy it with the five-fingered discount.”

“Lacey, this is so sweet of you.”

She tosses her hair and hands me an envelope. “Don’t even try to use it until you read my instructions and look carefully at the diagrams.”

Rita cackles.

“Say,” asks Evan. “Does that have eyeliner and mascara in it?”

“Shut up, Evan.” I glare at him.

“I’m out,” Lacey says. “But I understand that you’re going on a trip, so I wanted to say good-bye and good luck. And that you have my permission to date my stinky brother if you really want to—but only from a distance.”

Luke’s face and neck flush bright red. “Thanks, Lace. Appreciate that.”

My face feels like it’s on fire.

“But you still owe me that two hundred bucks,” she says as a parting shot. She gives a little beauty-queen wave as she exits my hospital room. “Don’t forget!”

Everyone laughs. But I realize that I have no idea where my backpack has gone . . . with all that cash in it.

“Evan?” I query. “Is this G.I. thing a paid gig?”

He nods.

“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure how many French kids I’d have to babysit to make two hundred dollars. And I wouldn’t even be able to understand them.”

“I’ll take care of my sister,” Luke says. “You don’t owe her anything. Besides, this is her only outing for a very long time. The two of us are grounded for life plus twenty years.”

Oh, ouch.
“I’m so sorry that I got you into all of this . . . are you all in big trouble with your parents?”

Kale shrugs. “No martial arts classes or tournaments for a whole year.”

I sigh. That’s going to devastate him, no matter how casual he’s acting about it.

My gaze shifts to Rita. “You?”

Rita grimaces. “I’m forbidden to use any kind of technology for six months. No laptop, no cell phone, no iPad . . . I’m going to go nuts!”

I gape at her. “How are you going to write papers?”

“On an AlphaSmart.” She pronounces it as if it’s a dirty word. “My parents are pissed off with a capital
PO
, especially because I embarrassed Senator Dad professionally.” She tosses her ponytail and rolls her eyes behind the red Prada glasses she has on.

“It turns out that when you try to hack into the Agency director’s laptop? Well, ‘Backtrack’ trips security—and then the Agency watches your every move. They must have been laughing at us the entire time. They
let
us walk in there. That security guard, Jake? He knew the minute
Lacey took his badge. They just played along.”

“Kinda sucked for the agents who got beat up, though,” Kale says, with a smirk.

I grimace as I think of Mitch. “Some of them deserved it.”

“Hazards of the job,” Evan muses. “And actually, they were quite impressed with us—especially you, Kari, regarding your unusual skill set and having the nerve to break into Langley. The Agency is actually a little pissed that Interpol is taking you, but they don’t have a similar training program for kids, so their hands are tied.”

Evan looks around at my friends. “Speaking of Interpol, I’ll have to ask you to say your good-byes now. Kari’s got to rest, as we leave tomorrow. She’ll be in training almost immediately, fractured shoulder or not. G.I. students have to be at the top of their game, always.”

Rita and Kale hug me.

“Got Skype?” Luke asks.

I look at Evan.

“We’ve got everything,” he says. “You’ll even be able to do a virtual snog, if you must.”

Luke looks puzzled.

“Kiss,” Evan says, in irritated tones. “Make out. Suck face. Whatever you Yanks call it. Bloody hell, do I have to translate everything?” He walks to the door.

Luke comes and sits next to me on the bed. “I think the real thing is better,” he says, softly. “Don’t you?”

And then he lowers his head to mine, covers my mouth with his, and kisses me like he really means it. I almost
pass out.

“Christ, aren’t you done yet?” Evan calls over his shoulder as he slouches against the doorway.

“Not nearly,” Luke murmurs against my lips.

Finally he raises his head and cups my face in his hands. “But to tell you the truth, I kind of miss those M&M’s.”

Evan grants one last request before we leave for Paris and G.I. He drives Charlie and me to our house to get some of our things and promises that the place will be well taken care of by a property management agency.

I look at our home through different eyes now. The old red bricks look to me like lies, piled one on top of the other. The black door seems ominous. And the fake red impatiens in the window boxes speak for themselves: Nothing was ever real around here.

Mr. Carson has released some very disturbing information to me over the past few hours. I was probably an accident that forced my parents to get married. And Mom’s old e-mails show that she deliberately set out to have Charlie because her KGB2 bosses wanted her to get into the analyst’s side of the Agency. They even gave her money toward in vitro fertilization, believe it or not.

It’s so wrong, so awful, so inhuman that Charlie came into being this way—not as a baby who was wanted and loved, but as a tool for duplicity and crime and betrayal.

And he’s such a little miracle, my brother.

One thing is for sure, I will never, ever tell him how he came to be born or why. It would be cruel, and it doesn’t matter now. He’s adorable and brilliant and loving and loyal—to me, and to his country.

We go inside the house, and I find myself shaking with anger and revulsion. I want to knock all the beautiful things off the walls and smash them. Each item represents a stretch of weeks that Mom and Dad neglected
me and Charlie for some mission in a faraway place.

It’s one thing to leave your kids in order to serve your country. It’s another to leave your kids so that you can steal and smuggle information to people who are their sworn enemies.

Oh—and use your children to do it.

My charm bracelet tinkles on my wrist as I push the door closed behind us, and I’m seized with a pathological need to get it off my body, away from my skin. I yank on it until one of the links breaks, and I walk it into the kitchen, Evan and Charlie following curiously behind.

“Kari, what are you doing?” Charlie asks.

In answer, I walk straight to the kitchen sink and turn on the water, then the garbage disposal. I tear one charm at a time off the bracelet and drop it down the black rubber hole, listening as the steel teeth chew up the soft silver.

First goes the Roman Colosseum.

Then the little Spanish bull.

Followed by the Greek Venus de Milo. And so on.

“You could be disposing of evidence,” Evan says. “Pun intended.”

I shake my head. “No. These are just the copies. Sophie took the real ones, and the Agency has quite a few of them, as you know. If they’d wanted these, they’d have taken the bracelet from me before now.”