Diamonds Are Truly Forever: An Agent Ex Novel 2 (10 page)

“Good! I want to scare it to death. Death to spiders,” she screamed back. “Get it! Shoot it!”

“I’m not putting a hole in the wall just to take out a spider. The Agency has a thousand-dollar deposit on this place.” He shook his head and set the safety on his gun. “This little guy won’t hurt you. He’s not even a black widow.”

“Don’t give me any ideas.” Staci sounded as if she remembered full well that black widows ate their mates. “Just kill it.”

He reached for a tissue to grab the spider with. Staci stopped screaming. Just as he knelt and lunged for the little beast, it took off toward the tub and scampered up the shower curtain.

Seeing it rush toward her, Staci let out another bloodcurdling scream. The spider froze halfway up the curtain.

“On second thought, keep screaming. It seems to calm the savage beast.” Drew reached for the shower curtain just as Staci smacked at it with the toilet brush in an apparent spider-killing frenzy.

The blow glanced off Drew’s shoulder. A second blow hit him square atop his head. He covered his head with his hands and took a step back. Right into the puddle of shampoo. Where he promptly lost his footing and took another step back. Into more slippery shampoo.

He grabbed for the shower curtain to keep his balance. And pulled down the compression shower rod and the curtain with it. He was still stumbling and fumbling, unable to see a thing with the shower curtain on his head. He banged his knee on the toilet and started cursing.

“I’ll save you!” Staci jumped on his back, pummeling him with the toilet brush as he stumbled and slid toward the door and safe, nonslippery carpeting.

He reached the bedroom and dumped Staci onto the bed. He’d just gotten her off and shrugged the shower curtain onto the floor when Staci screamed again.

“It’s on your foot!”

Sure enough. He froze and the damn thing ran up his leg, disappearing beneath his boxers, tickling as it went.

Spiders were one thing. Spiders up his boxer shorts and into his family jewels was pure torture.

He screamed, dancing around, trying to pull his shorts off before the thing bit him in his manhood. He didn’t relish the thought of showing a bite like that to a doctor.

Staci bounced up off the bed to help him, still waving her weapon of choice. “Hold still! I’ll get it.”

“Not with that toilet brush, you won’t. You’ve already clobbered me with it twice.” He backed away and banged into a dresser, cursing some more.

“Why not? It’s clean. I’m sure it’s never been used.”

“Now’s not the time to get kinky.” He twirled away from her and screamed, doing a dance as he felt the spider in his crotch.

Staci tossed the brush away, ran up behind him, reached around him, nestled up against his back, and stuck her hands down his boxers, groping around for the spider.

He’d been way too long without sex. Even with a spider making a pass at him, his wife dressed in the thickest layer of cotton he’d even seen and ugly monkey slippers on her feet, at her touch he grew embarrassingly long and hard.

“Hey, I said,
Hold still!
” She hitched up her sleeve. “I’m having trouble maneuvering in this fluffy robe.”

He tried to spin away again. Staci got hold of his shorts and pulled them to his knees.

“There it is! I see it!” She reached between his legs and flicked at the creepy-crawly thing as he waddled around with his flagpole at attention.

The spider flew across the room, heading toward the baseboards, and disappeared into a crack beneath them.

Drew kicked his shorts off. “Jump on!”

He hiked Staci onto his back and ran for the door, slamming it behind them when they were safely in the hall. Staci leaped off, shrugged off her robe, took a long look at his towering Roman pillar of manhood, and tossed him the robe.

“Here, cover yourself. I’ll be right back.” She dashed into his bedroom.

Chivalry is not dead,
he thought as he put on the one-size-fits-all pink monstrosity.

He turned to follow her in just as she reappeared with a blanket. She knelt and stuffed the blanket up against the door. “That should hold him.”

As Drew tied the belt of the robe around his waist, he thought that brief touch couldn’t hold him at all. Flushed with excitement, exercise, and adrenaline, even wearing modest men’s-style pajamas, she made him hot.

“I can’t stay there.” She pointed to the guest room door.

“No, absolutely not.” He stuffed his gun into the robe pocket. “We’ll get that arachnid in the morning. And all his little friends, too.

“I’ll call the exterminator and ask him to gas that guy with the full power of his strongest spider spray.” Drew cleared his throat. “You can stay with me. We’ll share the bed. Just promise to stay on your side.”

“Deal.” She looked at Drew and started to laugh.

“What?”

“You look so fluffy in that thing. Like pink cotton candy.”

“Shut up.”

She cocked her head, and her lips twitched as if she was trying not to laugh. “Drew, baby, I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders. You screamed like a girl in there.”

“I was trying to keep the spider calm. Shrill screaming seemed to frighten him into submission.”

“Liar.” But when she looked at him, her eyes were shining with admiration, not derision. “You should have seen yourself. The way you were dancing around.” She laughed.

Her laugh was contagious. In retrospect, it was funny. Before he knew it, he was laughing so hard he couldn’t stop.

They both laughed until their sides hurt. Finally, Staci wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and went suddenly serious. “Attacked by mad snipers hired by who knows whom and lecherous spiders. It’s been some day, hasn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Drew?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming to my rescue. Twice.”

He nodded. “No problem.” He paused. “Stace?”

She looked at him.

“Emmett told me about the spiders in Paraguay. Everything considered, you were brave in there, going after that spider with the toilet brush and reaching into my shorts after it.”

She continued wiping her eyes. “Yeah, it takes a brave woman to reach into her estranged husband’s shorts.”

He grinned. “All the same, thanks for coming to my rescue.”

“No problem.”

He led her into his bedroom, regretting, not for the first time, that his new bedroom hadn’t been big enough to accommodate a king-size bed. A guy could lose his wife in a king-size. His queen-size was a little too close for comfort. It was going to be hell sleeping next to her without touching her after all they’d been through together in the last fourteen hours. And the way she’d touched him looking for that spider.

She climbed into bed on her usual side. Drew walked around to his and tossed off the fluffy pink robe.

“You’re not planning to come to bed without taking a shower, are you?” She looked aghast.

“What?”

“I can’t sleep with a man who’s been on intimate terms with a spider.” She shivered. “And besides, you have shampoo on your feet. The least you could do is condition them, too.” She smiled and ducked under the covers before he could hit her with a pillow.

*   *   *

Drew’s alarm woke Staci from a sound sleep. She couldn’t believe she’d drifted off so easily. After surviving being shot at by a hired killer, being practically held against her will by Drew, taunted by a common house spider, trashing a bathroom, and having to share a bed with Drew, sleep didn’t seem like it was going to be easy coming. Even if she was exhausted.

Staci hated to admit it, but she felt safe with Drew. Even if he was afraid of spiders. It was nice to know the man feared something.

Drew slapped his alarm, rolled out of bed, and stumbled off to take his second shower in eight hours, his hair standing on end. She watched him until he closed the bathroom door. A few seconds later, the shower came on, bringing with it the cozy, reassuring white noise she loved and found so calming.

And she needed calm. She had to face her mom today with the big lie. The mere thought raised her blood pressure, even in the midst of the calming white noise.

She rehearsed various scenarios in her mind. All too soon the water shut off and Drew emerged from the shower looking flushed, freshly scrubbed, and yummy.

Yummy
really wasn’t the way a nearly ex-wife should think of her nearly ex-husband. But Staci had always loved Drew fresh out of the shower. As he put on his work clothes—a buttondown shirt and slacks—he looked like the man she’d fallen in love with and married. The regular guy, before she knew he was a spy.

She supposed she was an anomaly. Most women probably preferred Superman to Clark Kent. But not her. She wanted Mr. Everyday. Mr. Calm and Normal. Mr. Nine to Five. James Bond and his reckless, devil-may-care sense of adventure scared her. And so did Drew.

He could play whatever roles he pleased, taking on cover persona after cover persona. She wondered why he couldn’t just put on the persona she fell in love with and run with it. Permanently. What, after all, was so bad about leading an ordinary life?

No more sniper attacks. Having children and not worrying someone would try to kidnap or hurt them. No more lies, at least not the big kind. It all sounded like heaven to her.

Drew buttoned his shirt and turned to her. “They’re delivering your car at nine. Remember the plan and stick to it. Directly to the Red Café, lunch with Linda, home.”

He gave her a description of the guys who’d be delivering the car and how to get her keys. Then he delivered a lecture on security, awareness, and how to arm the security system.

“You remember what I taught you about how to spot a tail?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“And how to lose one?”

She nodded.

He reached into a dresser drawer, pulled something out, and tossed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Your very own Kubotan. Put it on your key ring. If someone grabs you, stab them where it hurts—the neck, the thigh, the ribs, anywhere you can get them. I’m confident you’ll be at least as competent as Mandy is.”

*   *   *

As Drew pulled into a parking spot at Hook House, his cell rang. He shut off the engine and checked the incoming encrypted text. It was from Emmett.

The sniper who took a shot at Staci is dead. We recovered his body. We believe SMASH got him. Keep an extremely close eye on Staci. If RIOT is involved, they won’t stop until she’s dead.

Drew swore beneath his breath. SMASH was RIOT’s death squad. They had a perfect kill record. The name SMASH was RIOT head Archibald Random’s play on SMERSH, the old Soviet death squad. SMERSH was a Russian acronym for “death to spies.” SMERSH took out anyone they suspected of being a double agent, a traitor, or a defector, not to mention anyone who screwed up or just grew tired of playing the game. No one left the Soviet machine alive.

SMASH operated much the same way. Smashing anyone who screwed up, anyone Random ordered eliminated. So it wasn’t surprising SMASH had taken out the sniper who’d missed. But Drew felt the chill all the way to his soul. Why was RIOT after Staci?

Drew glanced at his watch. There was still time to call Staci and tell her to beg off her lunch date with her mom.

He frowned. Staci would never go for that, and he didn’t want to scare her. RIOT would have to be desperate to strike in public. She should be safe. As long as she stuck to the plan.

CHAPTER SIX

The Red Café sat in a strip mall full of eateries—restaurants, a cupcake shop, and a convenience store that sold sandwiches to go—on the outskirts of suburban Woodinville. At lunchtime, it was filled with Microsoft employees and other urban professionals. Not the kind of people you’d ordinarily suspect of dangerous, subversive behavior. Or of taking a shot or two at their neighbors.

Staci’s senses were on high alert anyway, thanks to Drew. It would have been nice to have a regular nearly ex-husband who simply told her to drive safely rather than warned her to be on the lookout for tails.

The Kubotan on her keychain jangled against her steering column as she pulled into the parking lot, reminding her that danger lurked everywhere. And not to park next to panel vans. Too easy for villains to jump out and grab you. Had Drew told her that, or had she seen it on a talk show?

Even though Staci arrived five minutes early, it took her twice that long to find a suitable, and safe according to NCS regulations, parking space. Feeling rushed and flustered, she caught the skirt of her peach-colored sundress on the edge of her seat, nearly ripping it as she got out.

May weather in Seattle is unpredictable and can be downright cold. Fortunately, it was only cloudy, not raining. A gentle breeze cut through her lightweight sweater. She cruised into Red and found her mom waiting for her in a chair by the window, next to the hostess desk.