Thea burrowed down under the covers. There were crackers in the bed, or parts of them, and cheese stick wrappers. There might have been a wine bottle or two on the floor near it.  the doorbell had been ringing but James’ parents weren’t bringing Seb back until at least next week and everyone else could just go away.

The police had been yesterday. They’d stepped in the door and said they’d been called on a wellness check. Thea had yelled down that she was fine and they could go away. So they had. She had another week to stew in cracker crumbs and cheese wrappers before she had to take a shower frequently enough to qualify as a human and figure out how to be a single parent.

Kay had called yesterday, after the wellness check—which probably meant that had been her idea—and Thea had texted back that she was fine and she’d call in a couple of days.

The blanket ripped off her, light spilling into her cocoon and Thea buried her face. She hadn’t even heard the door open. The curtain rings grated loudly as they rushed across the rod and her bedroom turned into the surface of the sun.

Weight landed on the mattress next to her. “I was always your friend and not his.”

Thea blinked at Kay, miraculously back from wherever she’d been working and sitting on the edge of Thea’s bed.

Kay shifted uncomfortably, crumpling a cheese stick wrapper in her hand. “And I’m not saying you can’t be…as sad as you need to be.”

She rolled over, and threw an arm over her face, sniffling. She wasn’t sure she was even sad any more, not actively. It was more…numb. She’d cried until her tear-ducts cramped, and then it’d sort of stopped.

She’d managed to keep herself moving for the first three weeks, and get them through the beginning. And then Seb had gotten out of school and he was there and she was trying and he was…he was a kid. Kids were rubber bouncy balls. She didn’t doubt he was still grieving, or that he wouldn’t keep grieving.

She didn’t doubt she could have managed. But when James’ parents showed up and said they wanted to take him for a month during the summer, and he’d wanted to go, she’d happily sent him.  

“I know you.” Kay swallowed. “You were going to rock out of this bed in a week, guilty and hurt because Seb needs his Mom and you need…time.”

Thea rubbed her eyes, and puffed out a breath. “I don’t know what I need.”

“I know you need to not crawl under your bed. I don’t think that’ll make the world make sense again.”

“Seb?”

“I picked him up, he’s unpacking his clothes.” Kay shifted, folding her legs on the bed. “I told him I got leave unexpectedly.”

“How long?”

Kay watched her quietly, and glanced down at her hangs, fiddling in her lap. “Until I think you’re okay when I go back.”

“Kay—“

“You didn’t answer your phone. I actually called in a well-check and you told them to go away and still didn’t answer your phone.” Kay sniffled. “You aren’t okay, you couldn’t be okay. And Seb…your in-laws barely know me, and they sent him with me, Dottie. He wanted to come home, but nobody wants to make this harder for you and…and maybe me being here is only a paper moon, so you can pretend to not be broken for a while.”

Thea sat up, sighing. “But I have to start somewhere.”

​Kay handed her the cheese wrapper. “Start with being presentable enough for your kid. I bought fried chicken from the scary place on the highway so you know it’ll be awesome.” 


​Come back tomorrow for Q

“You could let me in,” David muttered, standing on her porch, sheltered from a dripping rain.

Thea stepped back automatically, letting him past the door. She’d been on the phone when the doorbell rang and hadn’t really thought to look through and see who it was before she opened the door.

That was stupid, and something she’d been taught very seriously not to do. Even before all the secret in their lives, Kay had insisted they watch way too many true-crime shows in their younger days. Even in college Thea had been keenly aware how quickly someone’s life could become a statistic. She’d always locked the garage door to any house she was in, and all the windows, and found front doors with windows in them, not just peep holes, and all the other ridiculous safety measures that’d seemed overkill and annoying at twenty-five.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be in town.”

Thea swallowed. “I said I’d be back the next week.”

“That was a month ago, and you certainly wouldn’t have told me if you left again.”

She had, technically, even if she hadn’t left the country. She wouldn’t have told him about Monterey either. Sharing just led to questions and…well, if they weren’t permanent she was probably better off not telling him anything. “Did you…need something?”

He pulled a bag off his shoulder and held it out. “These were your things.”

“My things?” Thea took the bag from him, confused. She’d never really spent time at David’s place. It was difficult, with Seb.

She spent so much time away from him for work she didn’t like to leave him for more than a few hours when she was home. There’d been dates with David, but other than a weekend or two away not a lot of other times.

She opened the bag and peeked in at an assortment of toiletry bottles and an old hairbrush.

“When we went to that cabin while Seb was at camp.”

“Oh.” Thea nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

She didn’t need any of it, and he could have called rather than driving all the way to her house. Unless he wasn’t making the drive to return an old brush and some half-used toiletries.

“I wanted to—“

“You—“

They both stopped, and Thea rubbed the back of her neck. “Go ahead.”

David crossed his arms over his chest and rocked on his heels. “I guess I just wanted to see if things were still awkward even when you were here.”

She frowned at him. “When have they not been awkward?”

He laughed, relaxing a bit, and shaking his head. “There were a couple of moments.” He looked around him, and watched her for a second. “We can be friends, right?”

“Of course.” Not that she had any idea what that meant.

He nodded, and stepped up to kiss her on the cheek. “Good. Be careful with yourself, D.”

“Yeah. You too.” She swallowed. “Thanks for bringing my stuff.”

David walked to the door, and stopped. “Just…answer one question for me?”

She blinked. “I can’t promise.”

He rolled his eyes. “Does Seb know what you do?”

That was the million dollar question these days. She’d gotten much less serious about keeping secrets from him, but she still didn’t volunteer information. More for his own safety than because she thought he was going to tell anyone.

“Whatever you think is enough, it probably won’t be any more when he gets older.” David smiled sadly. “People who care about you don’t like to be locked out of your life, D. Just some friendly advice.”

“Thank you.” She managed not to give him the death glare that went along with the power suit, but she still shut the door smartly behind him.

So what if he was right.

​

Come back tomorrow for P: Paper Airplanes.

On paper Thea did the charity side of things, too.

The part where people within Cornucopia Ltd wanted to invest in one charity or another so they forwarded it all to them—her—and the fund did the legwork to determine whether or not the charity was up to snuff.

To date the worst charity—and coincidentally the only one Thea had actually had to get involved in severing themselves from—was a library organization in Nicaragua. If it’d only distributed books it would have been lovely.  

Cobalt Grove Rehabilitation Center had knocked that little monster off the 'only' list.  

Someone had forwarded Cobalt Grove to the fund because a personal friend was involved with the place, and had asked for a donation, and the member involved thought something just didn’t feel right. On paper that was woefully little information, but Alice had gotten just as good at picking the horrors out of the pile as Thea had over the years. She’d looked at that message, and flagged it for Thea.

Thea had looked at it and booked herself a flight to the trendy southern California spa-slash-retreat.

She’d stumbled on Detective Hal Stone trying to quietly survey the facility. The middle aged police detective was tired of trying to get people to talk to him about these girls, and he'd taken a chance on Thea. Especially when she'd seemed inclined to believe him that there was a problem. When she hadn't assured him they were all addicts. They’d just left the treatment program.

“So what exactly is your involvement in this?” Stone asked, for probably the fifth time, dumping half a bottle of some local red sauce over his taco-like thing. She hadn’t really paid attention. He had an old school detective name, and apparently the way he tripped people up was to just keep asking the same question over and over again.

She liked him, and she wasn’t sure if that was because he was getting soft, or she was.

“I don’t have one.” Thea wiped her hands on the paper napkin and met his gaze. He’d insisted she needed to eat just as much as he did, and the dining room at the center was going to poison one of them. She’d been a little inclined to agree. “The organization I represent offers a service to our members where-in we…vet charitable organizations if they’d like to donate to them. Someone with Cobalt Grove asked them for a donation.”

He snorted. “Asked them in such a way the company fixer dropped out of the sky on them.”

Thea couldn’t help her cold smile. A week on, if she could just burn Cobalt to the ground—without anyone in it, obviously—she might. There was no clean way this ended. She could keep it from touching them, the member in question hadn’t donated anything yet so there was no real connection. It was becoming increasingly likely that no matter how they shut down Cobalt Grove, the masterminds behind it were going to get away.

“If I could just find the money,” Stone muttered.

Thea’d leave him a card, and take one of his. He was years from retirement, and she obviously wasn’t going to stop looking. There were three young women--that they knew off--who'd checked into Cobalt Grove and just disappeared into smoke.

One was understandable. Two was unusual, but possible. Three was a pattern.

“Well, I hope you’ll tell the people with your fund not to invest here.”

Thea cocked a brow at him. “Did you imagine I hadn’t already?”

He watched her, crinkled gray eyes in the California sunset. “No, Ma’am. I imagine you did that before you even got here. I did think about asking why you came.”

“But?”

He laughed softly, and crumpled his trash. “You wouldn’t tell me.”

Cobalt Grove Rehabilitation Center folded by the end of the week, and Thea added it to the file Alice called “Not Over Yet.”




Come back tomorrow for O! And don't hesitate to leave feedback :) 

Edit: So...Somehow the web monkeys got confused and put M out on the 14th and L out on the 15th. I promise I know the order of the alphabet. 

On the plus side I'm not sure it'll make a lot of difference to your reading experience. 

Boo, Web Monkeys.

Kay liked to joke that Thea was born with the ability to stare people down. Just you wait, someday they’ll find it’s a gene.

It was probably more apt to say that Thea had learned young not to give away more than she had to. The only way half of the things she did for the day-job worked was because no one had to remind her not to over-explain her position. Kay had done six months of elite para-military training on how to keep her mouth shut when she was negotiating.

The few people who knew her thought Thea came out of the womb that way. Reticent and reserved.

She hadn’t called anyone, to tell them Moira had been to see her. She’d sent them a simple, impersonal email because…well, she didn’t really have a why. Moira hadn’t come to her because it was Thea’s job to find a replacement. It wasn’t, at least not on paper. But Moira had gone, and Thea had agreed to inform the others—at least the ones who needed informing before it was time for Moira to retire—and she’d sent them a simple email.

Six hours later she was ready to crawl under her bed and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

-----------: You should have realized they were going to panic.

Kay. Thea rubbed her face and stared at her phone. Had they panicked at Kay? They had every right to panic at Kay—again, sort of and not on paper—but secret societies were complicated. Generally, she or Moira got panicked at so Kay wouldn’t, unless it was about Thea.

TheA: Yeah, I realized the email was a bad approach when Alice called.

-----------: Ha. We do love Rabbit. I do still think I should be allowed to call you Tigger.

Thea smiled, and dropped her head forward.

TheA: If anyone’s Tigger it’s you.

-----------: No proof.

Seb walked into the kitchen, game headset still on, talking to a school friend while they tilted at the alien menace, and she watched him critically. She’d told him about Moira. It wouldn’t have helped to keep it a secret, and he was fond of Moira.
He stuck his tongue out on his way back to his game, and she returned the favor.

-----------: Are you okay?

TheA: I don’t know. It’s not like I haven’t been here before.

-----------: That’s why I’m asking. Have you told squirt?

TheA: Yes. He’s fine. I think we’re a little too adjusted to death, actually. I’m sure that’ll be an issue eventually.

-----------: Well, at least you have money for therapy. Do you want me to tell them to lay off you?

TheA: No, I should have handled it better. I think it’s done now anyway. Are you good?

-----------: Peachy. I’d tell you what I was doing, but…

TheA: I think we’re already on enough watch-lists. Let’s not add treason to our potential legal problems.

-----------: About that. Do we have a trustworthy person before tax-time? If I need to put in for leave I need to know soon.

TheA: I have a couple of thoughts that should be able to handle the position and all it’s attendant issues. Go do you’re *redacted content in redacted place*. Thanks for checking.

-----------: You do realize it doesn’t make them less nervous when you redact yourself.

TheA: Made you laugh though. :)


Come back tomorrow for M:Mating Pairs.

Six Months Ago:

“I just don’t understand why you can’t tell me.”

Thea resisted the urge to rub her forehead again. Or possibly bang her head on the nice mahogany desk. “Because I can’t.”

“You work for a hedge fund, D. It’s not as if it’s a state secret.”

“Just because it’s a hedge fund doesn’t mean they don’t make me sign a non-disclosure agreement.” They didn’t, because how would that have even worked? It was a secret society. If they couldn’t trust you to keep their secrets than you probably shouldn’t be in it at all. Its existence was secret, even if it wasn’t a particularly well kept one.

“I’m pretty sure those don’t apply to your life partners.”

Well, not if I’m serious about them. Thea swallowed, and didn’t say the words because that wouldn’t make this agreement go away. If anything it would make it a million times worse. It wasn’t that she didn’t like David. He was generally interesting, bright, unthreatened by the fact she presumably made more money than he did. From the outside, with all the criteria she was supposed to be considering--he was attractive, solid and dependable—he was definitely a catch, especially for a thirty-something woman with a pre-teen in tow.

They hadn’t been together long enough for her to figure out if the consistent need to know everything she was doing was a trust issue, or a control issue. The fact was she didn’t have a lot of space for either of them.

“How hard is it to tell me where you’re going?”

An ambulance chased down the street below her window and she stopped for a second, hoping he didn’t realize it didn’t sound right. European sirens still threw her a little, and somewhere in all the moves she and Seb had lived in London for six months.

“All I can tell you is that I’m out of town for meetings until next week.” She’d told him that three times already. “If you’re still speaking to me when I get back and you’d like to go to dinner then, great.”

“And you can’t tell me where.”

Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. “Goodnight, David.”

“Well, I hope you have a safe flight to wherever, and yeah, I’ll see if they can move the reservation to two-weeks from now. Goodnight, D.”

She swallowed the desire to tell him to stop calling her “D,” too. She did like David.

A knock fell on the door right as she hung the phone up, and her Interpol connection waited with strained patience. She was supposed to meet them in the front lobby five minutes ago.

“I wanted to be sure you had not been kidnapped,” the stoic German woman said. Erika Strauss was about her age, working fraud cases for Interpol about as long as Thea had been…whatever she was. They’d bumped heads a few times.

Erika certainly didn’t like Thea, but she seemed to trust Thea’s ability to get results.

“I apologize, I am ready,” she answered in probably broken German.

Erika blinked. “It’s better but you should still stick with English.”


Come back tomorrow for N:? Um...so I promise I haven't run out of planned plot. Just, you know, letter associations. I've got oodles of time, right?

Thea was prepared for anything, when she was on the job. She had to be, that was the nature of what she’d agreed to do.

“Hello, dear,” Moira said, sitting in the shaded rocker on her front porch.

Thea blinked at the older woman, and resisted the urge to check her phone. No one had told her Moira was coming. Did anyone else know Moira was coming? “Hello.” She shifted the twelve bags of groceries she’d carried from the car.

“Would you like me to take some of those?”

“No.” Thea moved to the door and juggled the bags and the lock and stumbled through the door less than gracefully. “I’ve got it.”

Moira laughed gently, leaning on her cane as she pulled herself up from the chair and shuffled toward the house. “I’m sorry to drop in on you.”

Thea swallowed. “That’s okay. Um…”

“I would love a cup of tea, if one were offered.”

“Of course.” She sat the bags in the edge of the kitchen. “Have a seat and let me turn the kettle on.”

The older woman took herself to the same padded chair she’d chosen on her last visit. It’d only been a couple of months, but she looked thinner. Paler. Thea popped the cold goods in the fridge, and got her tea things out. The kettle dinged gently when the water was done boiling, and she poured water over the good Earl Grey teabags. The ones Kay had sent from England every six months.

It took her a moment to find the box of ginger snaps in the shopping, and spill a few onto a plate before she put both the cups and the plate of cookies on a tray and carried it in to the living room. “I know you just like lemon in yours.”

“I do.” Moira gratefully took her cup. “Thank you darling, you always do a credible service.”

Thea smiled. “I learned well.”

They fell silent, and Thea wasn’t sure what to do with the situation. Moira was there for a reason. She had to be. Did Thea push her to talk about it, or just let them drink their tea?

Moira sipped hers delicately, and sighed. “I’m dying.”

Thea blinked, heart stopping in her chest, tea cup frozen halfway to her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I was trying to find a more delicate way to start that, but I’m not sure there is on.”

Thea put her cup down, and pushed out a tense breath. “Usually not.”

Moira looked at her hands in her lap. “I thought about telling Jane first, I know on paper she’s supposed to be the person I come to with this.”

“But?”

“But I thought you might handle it better.” Moira patted her hand gently. “I’m not sure I could handle tears.”

Thea swallowed, and squared her shoulders. “Okay. What do you need from me?”

“I need you to help me choose a replacement. I need you to help me tell the others.” Moira smiled sadly. “I need you to be you, darling.”

“Okay. Can I ask how?”

“Cancer. It’s stage three right now, but it doesn’t seem to be responding to treatment.” She puffed out a tired breath. “And even if a miracle happens and it starts…”

“I understand.” Thea nodded. “Okay. I’ll herd some canidates together so you can cast an eagle eye over them. Next week?”

Moira grinned at her, eyes crinkling. “You were already making a list, weren’t you?”

She flushed. “You came and asked me about what we’d do if you retired. I assumed I should be prepared in case you wanted to.”

​Moira patted her hand again. “I know it’s strange to say we’re lucky to have you, but we are.”

“I’m quitting.”

Thea stopped, pulling the phone away from her ear for a moment. Scotty’s Pest Control showed on the screen. And it’d been Kay’s voice, but when your friend with a super secret job called out of the blue and started the conversation with that… Well, if you were smart you started looking to cover your bases.

She checked that Seb was still immersed in his videos and stepped out onto the back patio, shutting the sliding door behind her. “Okay.” Thea swallowed. “Like…quitting as in…what do you need?”

Kay huffed. “I’m not calling about your day job. I’m not in trouble. I’ve just decided.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There was a beat of silence.

“That’s all you have to say?” Kay asked, upset.

Thea rubbed her face. “What am I supposed to say. You said you were fine last time we talked.”

“I am fine.” Kay paused for a minute. “Well. Maybe you were right. I’m tired of it. I’m going to finish out my term.”

“Yeah.” Thea smiled wryly. “I’m not sure you’d know what to do with yourself without five million secrets to keep, but okay.”

“Is it really?”

She considered her answer for a minute. It wasn’t the concept of Kay not wanting to do…whatever she did anymore that make Thea uneasy. If she wasn’t running away, if it didn’t involve setting things on fire—possibly literally—and jumping out the window, Thea didn’t have a lot of room to object. “This isn’t an answer, but what’ll you do instead?”

Kay was silent for a second, and Thea let it hang.

“There are all sorts of things I should be doing with Cornucopia, assuming I don’t take the company retirement plan.”

Thea hadn’t ever been clear on what the company retirement plan was, exactly. It wasn’t Cornucopia Kay had duties with, but the line wasn’t that secure. “How long do you have left?”

“A year. Why?”

“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t have to start cleaning out the box room now.”

Kay snorted. “I’m pretty sure Mom would disown me if I didn’t stay with them for at least a little while. And then yeah, I’ll probably wind up in your box room for a while, but just while I’m finding a place. You’re supposed to be getting serious about the boyfriend and moving on with your life.”

She sighed. “You need to stop talking to my son about my romantic life.”

“That would require you having a romantic life. Or a life. And work doesn’t count.”

“Hello, pot, I’m kettle.”

“How is David?”

“Daniel.”

“Daniel then. You never talk about him.”

Thea leaned back against the sliding door, and stared out over the empty yard. “He’s…He’s…”

“Uh oh.”

“It’s complicated.”

“How?’

“He’s perfectly nice but ‘getting serious’ about him isn’t an option.”

“Why?”

“Because he definitely can’t handle the level of secrecy that exists in my life. If I cancel dinner he’s stroppy for a week because I won’t tell him why. If we were serious he definitely wouldn’t handle it well.”

“If you were serious you could tell him.”

“Weren’t we talking about you?”

“I’m deflecting,” Kay insisted. “Humor me.”

“When I was twenty and James was…James and it took us years to hammer our way into a healthy relationship where I didn’t have to give more for equal treatment that was fine. But I’m not twenty, I’m not even thirty any more. I’m too old to pretend to be something other than what I am to reel someone in.”

Kay huffed. “There’s me told. Obviously if he doesn’t think you’re awesome he doesn’t deserve you.” There was a beep in the background. “I have to go. When I know timeline I’ll tell you.”

“Okay. Take care of yourself.”

“You too. Tell the squirt I love him.”



Come back tomorrow for K: Kakapo

They’d lost their roots when they lost James.

It probably wasn’t unusual to feel cut adrift when someone entered widowhood before thirty, but Thea had the added joy of having lost both of her parents within two years of losing James. They hadn’t died young, just younger than she’d have liked them too.

James’ parents were wonderful, of course. They visited at least once a season, no matter where Thea moved she and Seb to. They took Seb for at least two weeks in the summer, sometimes home with them in Minnesota, sometimes on exotic vacations.

And they had Kay, but Kay wasn’t any less itinerant than they were.

When James was alive they never had a “box room.” If they moved—which hadn’t been often—everything had to be unpacked right away, and put in its rightful place. They definitely had a box room now. For about a year, when her father had been in steady decline and in and out of nursing facilities, she and Seb had lived with him. But there hadn’t been room in her parent’s house for all her stuff, and when they’d sold that house and moved again she just hadn’t really unpacked.

She’d unpacked all the things they actually needed. Their clothes, the few family pictures she hung on the walls wherever they went, books. The rest she just…hadn’t. There were at least three boxes of blankets she kept telling herself she was going to donate, next move.

She was pretty sure the cardboard file box taped all to heaven was actually Kay’s, and she wasn’t sure she’d moved it yet. It just kept finding them. Some things she knew better than to ask questions about.

“Do you know which box it’s in?” Seb asked, standing next to her and staring in horror at the stacks of boxes.

He needed baby pictures for a school project, and she had virtual piles of cell phone snaps, or pictures that’d been posted on Facebook. But somewhere in one of these boxes were four small scrapbooks, each covering a year of Seb’s life in pictures, that her mother had made during her early retirement crafting phase.

Thea blew out a breath. “We had them out on the shelf at Grandpa’s. The U-Move boxes are from there.” She grabbed a smallish box with a blue label. “These are from the last one, so they’re probably behind them.”

Seb slid the last box across the floor, and waited for her to shift the next stack, and eventually they worked their way to the middle of the room. He pointed at one of the U-Move boxes. “That one says bookcase, is that where they were?”

“No, those are the spiritual books from Grandpa’s bookcase.” She shifted it down. The one under it said bedroom, and it’d obviously been opened. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’re in here.”

Thea hadn’t really had a ‘bedroom’ when they lived with her dad. The house only had two, one had been her parents and the other Seb slept in because him having a door was more important than her not living in the basement. Several of the things in the box she’d marked as her bedroom had been keepsakes and family photos and things that’d just been in the basement with her.

“Woohoo!” Seb crowed, and grabbed the small photo books. “Awesome.”

Thea smiled at him, and stretched her back. “There you go. Are you good?”

“Yeah.” Seb frowned down at the box, and bent and picked up a cast iron train. “Is this a toy?”

“I don’t know. Grandpa had it on a bookcase forever. It might have been his, or one of his father’s.”

Seb scrubbed at the smokestack with his thumb. “Can I keep it?”

“Of course.” Thea closed the box up. “He’d like that.”

​He raced off with his new treasure, and Thea looked around her at the boxes. Maybe they hadn’t lost their roots so much as lost their soil. It was probably time to think about settling somewhere. Seb was in fifth grade, he was getting too old for her keep to dragging him along behind her.

Come back tomorrow for J--Jolt

November, four years ago.

Thea’s alarm went off, and she reached out blindly and turned it off. If there was ever an excuse not to get out of bed, it was having the flu. Adele, the temporary au pair James’ parents had insisted on hiring—James had only been gone a year and a half, and they’d wanted to make sure she had help—could get Seb ready for school. Thea would have to pay her more, since she’d been solely responsible for Seb for the last day or two.

She wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d been sleeping for. Seb would tell her when he came in before school. She thought he’d said it was Thursday yesterday.

Her door opened, and she pretended to be asleep for Seb to crawl across the bed. So when a full grown adult dropped by her legs it nearly bounced her off the bed, and she sat up to make sure she didn’t wind up on the floor.

Thea blinked the crust from her eyes, and her heart stopped.

Kay folded her arms over her chest, eyes bright and hard.

“What day is it?”

“Sunday.”

Shit. “I missed check-in.”

“Missed check-in? No, darling, you more than missed check-in.” Kay paused, drawing a breath. “No one knew where you were. You weren’t answering your phone. Either of them. Your car wasn’t moving. Your accounts didn’t show activity.”

“I was just sick.”

“How, in the name of all things holy, was I supposed to know that?”

They’d talked about her position with Cornucopia being dangerous. Granted, generally, Kay didn’t have a lot of call to lecture her about safety. But Thea could see how her dropping off the face of the planet for six days would be concerning.

“I expected to find you dead,” Kay breathed.

Thea winced. “Sorry probably isn’t enough, is it?”

Her best friend deflated. “Can we institute some sort of thing where you tell people when you start feeling sick, and…I don’t know. Give Seb a phone? Some way for him to tell me Mommy is in bed sick, not missing or lying in a puddle of blood somewhere.”

“I’m not sure about giving my six-year-old a phone.” Thea rubbed her face. “I’ll talk to him about calling someone. Or the au pair.”

“I sent her away for the weekend.”

Thea blinked. “Why?”

“Because your ass hasn’t been out of bed in days and Seb was running her ragged. I’m here now. I’ll stay for a few days.”

They both flopped back onto the bed then, and Thea suffered through the cough that’d been building for a while. “You had your flu shot, right?”

“Yeah.” Kay yawned. “And I turned your feral child loose on a new construction set.”

Thea glanced at Kay, trying to imagine her flying back to them in a ratty t-shirt and yoga pants. “Are those my clothes?”

“I didn’t exactly stop the pack a bag, darling,” Kay muttered.

Which was valid. “How much of a problem is this?”

“Oh.” Kay shifted. “I was between assignments or I might not have noticed as quickly. Which is also a problem.”

Thea rubbed her face. “They’re all going to stalk me now, aren’t they?”

“Just tell yourself it’s because they don’t want your job.”

“Sure,” she answered dryly. "That's totally it."


Come back tomorrow for I:Itinerant!

Spring, 2008, an undisclosed location near Chicago, IL

Text from Unknown: Do you know what you’re doing? I’m serious Dottie.

Thea stared at the burner phone she’d paid a teenager to buy her from the convenience store next to the airport. That was the million dollar question—literally—wasn’t it? She knew she didn’t want to be using her phone. She knew Dottie couldn’t do this.

It’s under control, she typed back.

Unknown: That’s not what I asked.

Well. You can’t come do it. I guess I have to.

Thea checked her hair and makeup in the bus station mirror. She’d grabbed the most severe black suit she could find, and worked her hair into the kind of bun she hated. It pulled, and eventually it gave her a headache. She suspected this day was going to end in a stress headache anyway.

Assuming it didn’t end in a gunshot wound.

Unknown: Just stay focused, stay calm. If they get the money we’ll worry about it on the back end. Don’t get shot.

You aren't helping, she texted back. She looked in the mirror one last time, and squared her shoulders. Going now. Comm dark.

Unknown: Check-in expected in forty-five minutes. Forwarded timetable to white rabbit.

It took her twenty minutes to make the warehouse across town. The FBI was with the Senator’s family, and she was alone and she could do this. She had to do this.

“Who the fuck are you?” someone shouted from dark corner to the back of the warehouse.

She watched him for a long moment, before she answered. “None of your concern. Where is the girl?”

He was less scary, face to face. Probably her age, tattoos all over his face—not the professional kind, probably done with an ink pen in the county jail—and a dirt spattered jacket. He stumbled into the light, pulling the girl with him.

She wasn’t in wonderful shape, but she was clearly breathing and conscious.

“She’s right here. You have my money?”

“I have the ransom.” Thea held the bag up. “Three million, as agreed.”

He didn’t need to know there was a camera in the handle of the case, it would transmit its last picture when she let go of the handle. And a transmitter they could turn on later if this turned out to be more organized than it'd appeared from a distance.

He moved forward, and she took a step back. “I have held to all your demands. You will release the girl. Once she is here with me I will leave the case here. Once we have left you may retrieve the money.”

He froze, and pointed the gun at the girl’s head.

She tuned out the uptick in crying, and stood still and stiff. Acting like she cared if the Senator’s daughter took a bullet to the head wouldn’t help either of them. “If you harm her I take the case and leave. If I don’t call her father from the car in five minutes he informs the authorities. You have a very finite window.”

He swallowed, agitated, and looked around the building. “You leave the case there.”

“I do. As soon as she reaches me, I set the case down. You stay where you are, once I shut the door behind us you are free to do as you please.”

“How do I know the money is in there?”

She blinked at him. “How do I know you won’t shoot us both and run as soon as you check it?”

He pushed the Senator’s daughter at her, and the girl shuffled and sniffled her way across the room. Thea would have much preferred to drop the case and run to the car, but the girl was crying too hard to stand or apparently pay attention to where she was going. She wrapped her arm through the girl’s bound wrists, and gently sat the case down.

Thea didn’t turn her back, she watched him until the door to the warehouse closed behind her before efficiently pushing the girl to the vehicle waiting next to the building. She opened the back door. “Lay down.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked you to,” she answered coldly.

Thea heard him yell, apparently having opened the case, as she slammed the car door and peeled away from the warehouse. Four black, non-descript SUV’s streamed passed them as she pulled away.

She had promised the Senator she’d make sure no one opened the case before they were away.

White.Rabbit: Ten minutes until check-in.

Thea rolled her eyes. Readjust to thirty, exchange is made. All clear.

“Who are you?” The girl whispered from the back. “Are you FBI?”

“No.” Thea merged onto the highway. “I represent a friend of your mother’s. Please stay down until we reach the house.”



Come back Monday for H: Hellfire.