Reach For the Spy (3 page)

I kept looking at my
watch, unable to concentrate. I wasn’t due to see my clients at the
Greenhorn Cafe until ten o’clock, and I was anxious about my first
afternoon at Sirius Dynamics, the business that concealed the
secret government defence research facility. Why hadn’t I told them
I’d be there in the morning instead of at one o’clock? The nervous
anticipation was killing me.

The ring of the phone
made me jump. When I answered it, a male voice spoke in my ear.

“You the
bookkeeper?”

“Yes.”

“Taking clients?”

“Yes.”

“Bill Harks at the
Silverside Hotel. When can you come?”

“I’ll be in town this
morning. How about nine-thirty?”

“Fine. Don’t be late.”
The phone crashed down in my ear.

Well, that was short
and sweet. I’d tacked up my business card in the post office, and
I’d managed to get several clients since I’d arrived in March. So
far, all my new clients had ranged from pleasant to downright
delightful. Apparently the law of averages was about to kick in. I
frowned thoughtfully at the phone.

Well, I didn’t need to
take his business if he was an asshole. But maybe he was just
pressed for time. Heaven knew there were days when I’d have
appreciated a concise conversation. I shrugged and went back to
work.

By nine o’clock, the
jitters drove me out of my chair and into my closet to change. I
usually tried to overcome my natural slobbish tendencies when
meeting a potential client for the first time, but I surveyed my
neatly organized business clothes with distaste.

Already, the heat of
the day was building in the light breeze that wafted through the
window. I would have loved to just go in the baggy jeans and ratty
T-shirt that I was wearing.

I sighed and selected a
pair of beige dress pants and a cream-coloured sleeveless top that
set off my red hair. I’d leave it loose for first impressions. Most
guys liked long red hair, and the curt conversation I’d had with
Bill Harks suggested that any advantage would be helpful.

I tossed the waist
pouch that served as my purse into a larger, cream-coloured
handbag, and headed out the door.

I had a brief moment of
self-consciousness when I stepped outside and realized that I was
on camera, but I pushed it aside. The bugs had been in place for a
few days already, so undoubtedly the cameras had also been
recording my comings and goings. I’d just have to remember not to
scratch my ass or anything when I was outside the house. For most
women, that wouldn’t be a problem. Not so for me.

In my garage, I
wistfully eyed my half-restored 1953 Chevy. Before Stemp had
decided that I was the world’s most dangerous weapon, I’d been
looking forward to taking some time off this summer to tinker with
my cars and suck back some cold suds.

Now I had a bad feeling
that my summer was going to be filled with tedious computer work at
best, and, at worst, danger and terror like I’d experienced the
previous week. I shrugged as I made my way to my faithful ’98
Saturn. At least I hadn’t actually gotten tortured last week. And I
hadn’t had to kill anybody, either.

My perception of silver
linings had changed a bit in the past four months.

I hopped in the car and
drove out my long lane, carefully locking the gate behind me.
Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling into the tiny town of
Silverside.

I strode into the dingy
lobby of the Silverside Hotel just a few minutes before
nine-thirty. The deafening blare of a soccer game assaulted my ears
from the sports bar that doubled as the hotel’s restaurant. A
couple of elderly patrons stared blankly at the giant TV screen in
the dim room, but the place was mostly deserted.

I walked over to the
reception desk and rang the bell on the counter. After a short
wait, I rang it again. Nobody responded.

I shrugged. Small town.
They probably didn’t get too many hotel guests on a Monday
morning.

Wandering into the
restaurant, I headed for the girl behind the counter. She looked
barely old enough to work in a licensed establishment. Her face was
plastered with petulance and too much makeup. Her hair was dyed
inky black, and piercings winked from her cheek, nose, eyebrow, and
lip. Tattooed spiders crawled over her generous cleavage.

“Hi,” I yelled over the
noise. “I’m looking for Bill Harks.”

She sneered. “If you
find him, you can have him. He’s a shithead.”

Great. Just what I
needed to hear.

“Where is he?”

“Door behind the
reception desk. Knock before you go in. He’s probably jerking
off.”

“Nice.”

She shrugged.
“Whatever.”

I retreated from the
din into the comparative quietness of the lobby and eyed the door
behind the reception desk uneasily. It was closed. I’d rung the
bell twice. This probably wasn’t worth the trouble. I really prefer
to avoid interrupting a man who’s on a hot date with Rosy Palm and
her five daughters.

My dilemma resolved
itself when the door swung open. An enormous man shambled out and I
took an involuntary step back. He was at least six foot six, and he
must have weighed well over three hundred pounds. His arms looked
like hams. With no neck to speak of, his close-cropped hair gave
him a troll-like appearance. His bullet head swivelled slowly
toward me and he peered at me out of deep-set eyes.

I put on a noncommittal
smile. “I’m looking for Bill Harks.”

“You found him.”

I stepped forward,
trying to look confident. “I’m Aydan Kelly, the bookkeeper. We had
an appointment for nine-thirty.”

I reached out to shake
his hand. Serious mistake. I’ve got big hands for a woman. My hand
disappeared and he gave a thin smile as he crushed it in his.
“You’re late.” My knuckles popped and agony shot through my hand as
my arthritic thumb bent back.

I clenched my teeth and
kept my face impassive.

He stared down at me
for a long moment before releasing my hand. “Come into the office.”
He turned his back and trundled through the door behind the
reception desk. I followed him with the distinct impression that
this was a bad, bad idea.

Harks gestured to the
chair behind the piled-up desk. “Sit. It’s all there.”

I tried not to visibly
detour around him as I walked past. The smell of stale beer and
cigarettes overwhelmed me when I perched gingerly behind the desk.
He came around behind my chair, and apprehension crawled up my
spine. I hate having my back exposed.

The chair sank as he
leaned his elbows on its back. He loomed over me, much too close
for comfort, and gestured to the computer screen with his free
hand. “There you go.”

Forcing myself to
ignore his unpleasant proximity, I focused on the program,
squeamishly moving the filthy mouse to view the entries. God only
knew what was caked on that mouse. I sure as hell didn’t want to
know.

I squinted at the
smeared screen. The last entry was from December of the previous
year. “Is this the latest data entry?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have all your
receipts and bank statements for the last seven months?”

“Yeah, I told you. It’s
all here.” He stirred through the mess. A fossilized sandwich fell
on the floor with a clunk, and he kicked it under the desk. “So how
much do you charge?”

“That depends on what
exactly you want me to do.”

His cold smile came
back, his eyes like pebbles. “What services do you offer?”

I ignored the innuendo.
“What I meant was, once all the entries are caught up, will you
want me to work once a week, or once a month, or quarterly? And can
I take the work home with me, or do you need me to do it here?”

“Once a week. Here.
Where I can keep an eye on you.”

Marvellous.

I thought about it for
a moment before quoting him a price twenty-five percent higher than
my normal rates.

“You’re expensive.”

I stood and turned so I
could look him in the eye. “Yes. And it’ll cost you quite a bit up
front until I get all the entries caught up. Once everything’s up
to date, it’ll probably be a couple of hours a week.”

He straightened and
looked me up and down while I suppressed the urge to tell him I’d
changed my mind and I didn’t have time for any new clients after
all.

He nodded once. “Okay.
You can start right away to get caught up. Then once a week after
that.”

“I can come by tomorrow
at nine.” I beat a hasty retreat without offering to shake his hand
again.

Back in my car, I did a
whole-body shudder and squeezed liberal amounts of hand sanitizer
on my hands. When I arrived at the Greenhorn Cafe, I slipped into
their tiny bathroom and washed my hands. Twice.

I greeted the owner,
Jeff Latchford, as I stepped out of the washroom. His young,
fine-featured face lit up in welcome.

“Hi, Aydan! How’s it
going?”

“Fine, how’s the
restaurant business this week?”

“Great!” He beamed at
me. “I’m so pumped you’re doing our books. Can I get you anything
while you work?”

I returned his smile.
“No, thanks. But I’ll come sniffing around the counter at lunch
time, you can be sure of that.”

“See you then.” He
waved me through the building, and I carefully mounted the rickety
stairs at the back to knock on the door of their apartment above
the cafe.

His wife, Donna, opened
the door smiling and ushered me through their spartan living room
and into the converted bedroom that held the dilapidated computer
desk. “We’re so glad you’re doing this,” she said, and left me to
my work.

I sat down at the
computer with a smile of my own. Their enthusiasm and gratitude was
the perfect antidote to Bill Harks.

About an hour later, a
tap at the open door roused me from my concentration, and I glanced
up to see Jeff hovering in the doorway.

“What’s up, Jeff?” I
inquired absently, still half-following my interrupted train of
thought.

“We’re doing another
fundraiser for the volunteer firefighters,” he said. “Would you
like to buy a raffle ticket?”

“Sure, how much?” I
mumbled, eyes on the computer screen.

“Twenty-five
dollars.”

What the hell, it was
for a good cause. I knew Jeff and Donna had worked hard on the last
fundraiser, and the firefighters had gotten some much-needed new
equipment.

“Okay.” I scrounged in
my waist pouch for my wallet and managed to come up with
twenty-five dollars in cash. He wrote my name on the ticket and
handed me the stub, and I tucked it into my pouch without looking
at it, already focused on the next entry.

I was thankful for the
absorbing task of data entry, but nervousness set in again as
lunchtime approached. At noon, I got up with a sigh and headed
downstairs, locking the apartment door behind me.

Jeff and Donna were
busy behind the lunch counter, and several people stood in line. I
took my place in the queue and surveyed the menu board eagerly.
When I’d finished the tasty meal, I dragged my feet out the
door.

I eyed the bland stucco
facade of Sirius Dynamics despondently. Nothing good had ever
happened to me here. It seemed highly unlikely that today would
change that.

I shifted my weight
from foot to foot before squaring my shoulders and walking up the
steps into the main lobby. The guard looked up from his post behind
bulletproof glass when I approached the security wicket.

“Ms. Kelly,” he greeted
me noncommittally, and spun the turntable around to disgorge my
security fob and the sign-in sheet.

I duly signed my life
away and hovered in the tiny lobby, too tense to sit in one of the
four chairs that were its only furnishings.

Promptly at one
o’clock, Kane arrived. He greeted me pleasantly, and I did my best
not to ogle the broad shoulders and bulging biceps that strained
his black T-shirt.

The rear view was
almost as good when he stepped up to the security wicket to claim
his fob. As he turned back to face me, I determinedly tamped down
the memory of the firmly-packed black briefs I knew he wore under
those dark jeans. I didn’t know if I’d been successful in
controlling my face or not, but if he noticed my glassy eyes, he
gave no sign.

“Let’s go on up,” he
said. “And you don’t need to wait for me anymore. You can just go
on in whenever you get here. You work here now.”

I sighed. “Don’t remind
me.”

We waved our fobs at
the prox pad next to the doors, and they released to give us access
to the office areas.

“Second floor?” I
questioned, and Kane nodded. I felt some of the tension leak out of
my shoulders. “At least we’re above-ground.”

He smiled down at me.
“Yes. I know how hard it would have been for you to have to work in
the secured area.”

“I honestly don’t know
if I could do it,” I admitted. “I can manage it for short stints,
but if I had to be down there for days at a time...”

I banished the thought
as my heart sped up. Underground bunkers are not happy places for
claustrophobics.

When we arrived at the
meeting room, Stemp was already seated at the table, his reptilian
features expressionless as always. Clyde Webb rose when I entered,
his lanky arms and legs seeming only loosely attached to his skinny
body. His youthful face split into a grin, and I greeted him with
pleasure.

“Spider, how’s it
going?”

“Great! Thanks to the
IPs you gave me last week, we’ve already been able to track down
those two Fuzzy Bunny sites. We’ve got them under surveillance now.
I can hardly wait to see if you can track down any more.”

I hid my nervousness in
a smile. “Guess we’ll find out.”

I gave Stemp a hard
stare as I sat down. Nerves twitched in my stomach. We eyed each
other for a few seconds before he spoke.