Call Out (22 page)

Quinn looked from Brian to London and back
again. “Did she tell you what she meant? What would happen?”

Brian shook his head and looked away. “She
showed me.”

“Oh, God,” London croaked, his eyes wide. He
staggered to his feet and across the room, dragging another of the
armchairs close to Brian’s, and put his hand on his friend’s
shoulder. “It won’t happen,” he promised. “I won’t let it.”

I saw the muscles in Brian’s jaw clench,
watched him stroke Dylan’s cheek, and I knew that she was the bait.
I went to join them, sinking down to sit where I could hug London’s
leg and still hold Dylan’s hand.

Ashe moved to stand over us. “Don’t go
getting any ideas, Stretch,” he said. “We don’t need you deciding
to play the martyr.”

“Not going to happen,” London said, but I
wasn’t sure anyone believed him. In fact, I think we all knew that
if it came down to a choice between him and Dylan, he’d do whatever
it took to protect her, not only for Brian’s sake but because he
believed it was the right thing to do.

Quinn didn’t give us time to dwell on the
situation. He gave us a crash course on surveillance and broke us
up into teams of two: him and Ashe, followed by Adrian and Dylan,
then Brian and me. I figured he set up the teams that way to
minimize the potential for distraction. Quinn and Ashe settled down
in front the monitors, and the rest of us wandered into the massive
living room.

London sprawled on one of the sofas, and
Adrian plopped down on one end of the other couch. Brian dug out
his guitar and took a seat on the edge of the heavy wood coffee
table. Somehow I got the feeling that this wasn’t an uncommon scene
for these guys. Dylan changed things up a little though by sitting
down at Brian’s feet and laying her head against his knee. Brian
paused his playing to run a hand through her hair a few times, then
he went back to his music. I watched everyone for a long moment
before curling up on the other end of Adrian’s sofa.

A few minutes later, when Brian paused again,
Adrian asked what song he had been playing.

“Just something I’ve had in my head,” Brian
said.

Adrian looked thoughtful for a moment, and
then wandered off without another word. He came right back with his
guitar. In the next instant, the world outside of the two of them
and their music disappeared.

With a little shake of her head, Dylan got
up, tapped me on the knee, and gestured toward the far door. I got
up and followed her into the kitchen.

“I’m freakin’ starving,” she said. “No
breakfast, no coffee, and that goddamn little whore fucking with
Brian...could a day get off to a better start?”

I shook my head and joined her in poking
around in the fridge and cabinets to see what we could find.
Thankfully, the fridge was empty except for bottled water and
sodas. Nothing nasty lurking in there, half-forgotten. We found a
lot of in-date nonperishables in the cabinets and pantry, including
some high end, gourmet kinds of things, but no coffee. On a hunch,
I checked the freezer, and sure enough – coffee. Gourmet stuff
again.

I left the coffee-brewing to Dylan and took
stock of the kitchenwares. I also found the stash of oversized
coffee mugs. When the coffee was done, I poured a cup for Ashe, and
as an afterthought I poured another for Quinn. If any of the other
guys wanted coffee, they could get it themselves.

Dylan sipped her mug and sighed a happy sigh.
She looked from her cup of gourmet coffee to the cold Pop-tart in
her other hand and then at me, and we both laughed. Shaking my
head, I headed to the library with my offering, which both Ashe and
Quinn accepted with many ‘thanks’.

Back in the living room, Adrian and Brian
were still working on their song. I thought it was starting to
sound pretty good. Dylan had reclaimed her seat at Brian’s feet,
despite the overabundance of squishy chairs and sofas in the room.
I didn’t blame her. In fact, I understood completely.

I bypassed all the other seating and headed
for the sofa where London lay. He looked exhausted and miserable,
and I considered urging him to go find a bed. I figured it would be
futile though, and went back to plan A.

“Sit up a minute,” I told him.

He looked up at me, his face blank, like he
could hear me but not understand what I was saying. Then he closed
his eyes, shook his head like he was trying to clear it, and sat up
long enough for me park my butt on the sofa. He lay back down and
turned over, his head in my lap and his back to the room.

“You should try to sleep,” I said, combing my
fingers through his hair. “Quinn and Ashe seem to think you’re safe
for now.”

“From outside influence,” London countered,
“but not from what’s in my own head.”

“Um....think happy thoughts?”

I could see the corner of London’s mouth turn
up in a smile. “Not that easy.”

“Maybe you just need a distraction. Something
else to focus on.”

He turned to lay on his back, so he could
look up at me. “I think we determined last night that distraction
is out.”

It took me a second to realize what he was
talking about, but when I did I rolled my eyes. “Sex is not the
only distraction. Honest. Besides, you’d so fall asleep just when
it was getting interesting, and I’d develop a complex. We’d end up
hating each other and have to go on the Dr. Phil Show. Or Jerry
Springer.”

London laughed, and I smiled back at him. We
were quiet for a while, listening to the boys work on their music.
All the while, I tried to think of something to help disengage
London’s brain. If music wasn’t doing it, what would?

Sometime later it hit me. I touched London’s
cheek to get his attention, and he turned away from whatever he’d
been staring at to look at me.

“Meet me in the bedroom,” I said. When he
opened his mouth to speak, I laid a finger across his lips. “No
questions. Just go.”

London looked up at me for a minute, then
dragged himself to his feet and wandered off toward the bedroom I’d
chosen for us. I followed, detouring by the kitchen on my way.

When I stepped into the bedroom, London was
sitting on the foot of the bed, looking a little lost. I
half-hugged him as I walked past, and told him, “Lose the shirt.” I
dug my iPod out of my backpack to plug it into the docking station
on the bedside table. The bottle of almond oil I’d liberated from
the kitchen went on the table, too. I queued up a playlist of soft,
soothing music, and then turned my attention back to London. He was
lying face down on the bed, having figured out my plan.

Using just enough of the oil to keep from
chafing his skin, I started working the kinks out of London’s back.
I didn’t have the first clue about massage techniques or any of
that jazz, but I knew how to give a good, basic backrub. So I
did.

I started by using my knuckles and a good bit
of leverage to loosen up the knotted muscles, and followed up with
long, slow strokes meant to soothe. I found myself moving in time
to the mellow music and just went with it. Soon enough, I felt
London relax under my hands. I continued the backrub for a few more
minutes, just to make sure he was all the way under. When I stopped
and he didn’t protest or open his eyes, I figured he was out.

I stepped into the adjoining bathroom to wash
the remnants of oil from my hands, and when I went back into the
bedroom, London hadn’t moved an inch. Definitely out. I hesitated,
uncertain. I wanted to crawl into bed beside him, but I didn’t want
to risk waking him. I made myself turn away and head back to the
living room.

“Maybe something like this,” Adrian said as I
stepped into the room. He played a series of notes on his guitar,
and Brian nodded and played them back on his own guitar.

Dylan glanced up from where she still sat at
Brian’s feet, now holding a heavy, hardbound book in her hands.

“Anything good?” I asked her as I plopped
down on the sofa near her.

She held the book up so I could read the
cover. “Found it in the library.”

“I can’t believe you’re reading ‘War and
Peace’. Again. What is it with you and Tolstoy?”

She just shrugged and went back to her
book.

With everyone else occupied, I was at a loss,
so much so that I found myself looking forward to sentry duty. I
decided I would switch with Dylan and take the next shift – and
dare anyone to bitch about it. I knew she wouldn’t mind since it
would mean she could, possibly, drag Brian off for some alone time.
My grand plan was foiled, however, by the arrival of
reinforcements.

Quinn left Ashe alone on duty long enough to
introduce his agent friends to the rest of us.

“Agents James Carmichael, Ron Peterson, and
Martine Rochon,” Quinn said, indicating each of the new arrivals in
turn. He introduced us in the same brief, no-frills fashion, ending
with, “And where’s London?”

“Sleeping.”

“Good. Could I get you guys to help them
carry in the provisions they brought us?”

“We got it covered,” Carmichael said,
surprising me with a deep-South drawl. With his spiky bleach-blond
hair and designer sunglasses, I would have figured the
twenty-something agent as anything but a southern boy.

The rest of us protested Carmichael’s
assurance, of course, and my friends and I brought in bags and bags
of groceries, leaving the agents to juggle suitcases and weapons
and things I couldn’t identify. Adrian gave up his room – the
second twin-bed room – to the agents, and they dumped their gear
there, with the exception of their holstered sidearms. Peterson,
who I couldn’t help noticing was good-looking in spite of his
perpetual frown - went to take over sentry duty, and the others
came into the kitchen to help us put things away.

“I hope somebody knows how to cook,”
Carmichael said. “Martine can,” he said, nodding toward the woman
whose perfect café au lait skin and long legs I envied, “but she
won’t. And Peterson is worse than useless.”

“In more ways than one,” Martine added, her
voice deep, rich, and sultry with more than a hint of what I
thought might be a Haitian accent.

“Yeah, well, he’s here to work, and that he
can do,” Carmichael said, handing a jar of spaghetti sauce to
Adrian who found a place for it on a shelf.

“So what about you?” I asked, rearranging the
food in the small freezer to make more room. “You not a cook
either?”

Carmichael smiled, the expression spreading
across his face in the same slow-motion way that his words tumbled
out of his mouth. “Well, I can use a microwave, a coffee maker, and
a toaster. That’s about the sum total of my culinary skills.”

The bizarre combination of the backwoods
Georgia drawl and the phrase ‘culinary skills’ had me and Dylan
both giggling. Even Martine cracked a smile, the simple upturn of
lips and crinkling of eyes transforming her model-perfect face into
something truly beautiful.

“We shouldn’t have sent Kenny home,” Adrian
chimed in.

“Apparently his cooking skills are
legendary,” Dylan added.

“Shame he ain’t here, then,” Carmichael
said.

“My skills might not be legendary,” I told
him, “but I think I can manage something.”

We kept up the idle chitchat while we
unpacked, stored, rearranged, and rearranged again. Dylan was
unloading the last bag when her unexpected peal of laughter brought
our conversation to a screeching halt. She hefted the jar in her
hand and tossed it to Brian.

“I think that’s for you,” she said with a
grin. “It was probably meant as a joke, but I seem to remember you
actually liking the stuff.”

Brian grinned, too. “Yeah, I do,” he said,
setting the jar on top of the fridge.

I looked up at it, and laughed, too.

“Vegemite?” Carmichael asked. “I thought that
stuff was just an urban legend.”

A brief conversation about vegemite and the
band Men at Work ensued, followed by a vegemite tasting party. To
my utter surprise, the stuff tasted really good, though not
everyone agreed with me on that. Afterwards, we all went our
separate ways again. Brian and Dylan shut themselves up in their
bedroom, Martine joined the other agents in the library, and Adrian
and Carmichael found some sports network on the living room TV. I
considered my options for about two seconds before snagging a book
from the library and then heading for the bedroom to curl up next
to London and lose myself for a while.

Chapter Twenty

Ten people in a house the size of the one in
Winter Park wasn’t such a bad deal. There were enough beds to go
around – if you counted Adrian’s sofa – and plenty of room to
scatter. But anytime people are confined to the indoors, cabin
fever will set in sooner or later. When you’re rubbing elbows with
more than half a dozen other folks, some of whom you don’t even
know, and you’re just sitting around twiddling your thumbs and
waiting for the other shoe to drop....well cabin fever sets in
right away. We all struggled to find ways to fill the empty hours,
with varying levels of success.

I emailed my teachers, and to my surprise
they all responded with variations on the theme of ‘you can get
caught up after you’re done dealing with your family emergency.’ My
favorite professor even asked if there was anything she could do to
help. Hers was the one class I really enjoyed and missed. I was
also in charge of the kitchen, more or less, and spent a lot of
time on culinary experiments, a few of which were truly disastrous.
The rest of my time was spent with books, on my computer, or curled
up with London to sleep or watch TV.

Dylan made obligatory phone calls to her
sister, her parents, and her employer. When she called in sick on
Monday, her boss had been out. She’d explained to the office
manager that she was stuck in Florida for the foreseeable future as
part of an ongoing investigation. The manager had been shocked and
awed, and she had promised to deal with Dylan’s boss.