17. Doolittle Fights a Different Evil

Chapter seventeen

Doolittle Fights a Different Evil

P retty sure that stupid cat had meant my parents when he said evil and not the triplets. Because they showed up at my apartment before we had even gotten out of bed. Mother fuckers.

"Henry!" My mother's voice could rival a banshee.

Mr. Wiggums flew into the room and scrambled under the bed. "You're scaring the cat, Mum. I'm getting up."

Then she was in the doorway, leaning against the jam. I'd barely sat up and rubbed the sleep crud out of my eyes. "Well, who is this?"

"I'll tell you later. Get some boundaries. Go fix some coffee for the love of Egypt." I wanted to throw a pillow at her, but K was desperately trying to hide under it. And it would also get me in a lot of trouble with the parents.

"Fine then." She stormed off, leaving a trail of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.

K mumbled something unintelligible.

"What?" I pulled the pillow off his head.

"Was that your mother? I think I'm going to die."

"No."

"It wasn't your mother?"

"No, it was my mother. But you're not going to die. I need you to run interference."

He hit me with the pillow. "What the hell? Why is she barging into our room? And why doesn't she know who I am? Did you not tell her we're…" He flipped his hand back and forth. "What? Dating? cohabiting?"

"That's new and you haven't even brought your stuff over here yet. So, no. Besides, I don't talk to them much."

"Them?"

I chuckled. Knowing my parents, Dad wasn't far behind. He trailed after her like the perfume she insisted on over-wearing. Normally, a pleasant scent. I'd swear she bathed in the stuff, making too strong an understatement. "Come on. Get dressed and come meet my parents. Otherwise known as the evil Mr. Wiggums was talking about last night."

"Like he knew they were coming." He grumbled, but at least he got up and grabbed a pair of basketball shorts from his duffel bag. I wanted him to have a drawer, half my closet, and to take over my entire life.

"He might have. Don't question a cat."

From under the bed, I heard, "I wouldn't have stayed if I'd known. Get rid of them, human."

I chuckled. "Okay. You're right. He wasn't talking about them. I smell coffee." It was the only good thing about the day.

My father stood in the kitchen, sleeves of his fancy dress shirt rolled up as if it took that much effort to make coffee. His jacket was probably draped over furniture somewhere else in my apartment. He was getting chunkier as he grew older and wore a beard now to hide it, but that was starting to salt, and his dark hair was not only going gray but retreating as well. That was something that had never worried me before, but now I wondered if I would look like him when I got that old. Probably not, though. I resembled my mother more.

She stood in the living room, a gentle sway to her hips, making her wide-legged pants flow around her legs. The suit was elegant and lightweight, and her dark hair styled in a fancy updo. You would think they were going out somewhere formal, but I knew better. This was a normal day for them.

"Mother." She smiled gently. "This is, ah…Kyler." I nearly said Special K. That would have tipped her off that we worked together, and I didn't want to give her that. Not yet.

"Ah…Kyler?" She lifted an eyebrow and tilted her head. "Don't you know his name?"

I was about to tell her how well I knew his name when Kyler put his hand over his mouth and gave a little snort. "What?"

"Now I know where you get that."

"Get what?"

"That look." He giggled—downright giggled. Then stretched his hand out to my mother. "So nice to meet you. I'm Kyler Copeland."

She shook his hand, looking a little less skeptical. "Nice to meet you as well. I'm glad one of you has manners, Henry." And she threw me another pointed look. I wasn't going to win.

I tossed my hands up. "Kyler. This is my mother, Avery-Jane Whitlock. And my father, Denison Whitlock."

My dad joined us in the living room and shook K's hand. "Denny. Please."

After the introductions, my mother flounced back to the kitchen and began pouring coffee into four familiar-looking mugs. I scowled, seeing what she was using. They were from a dish set I'd packed away. A part of my inheritance I had never planned on using, and I wasn't entirely sure where she'd found them. "I had your father wash these up." That totally explained his sleeves. She put the tray on the table. "A lovely set. You don't have cream or milk or anything, so black and sweet it is." Her words sounded innocuous, but they were said with such a disdainful expression that I knew she was totally judging me.

I grabbed a cup because confronting Avery-Jane without caffeine was a stupid mistake. Confronting her at all could prove deadly. But I dove in. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your company this morning, Mum?"

A pair of evil glares from the parent camp. "Son." My father gave his obligatory paternal warning.

Mother patted the air between them as if calming him. It was all an act. I wanted to jump up and say get on with it, but I didn't want to give K an even worse impression than the one he was already getting. "We are merely checking on you. No calls, texts, visits in a while now. Not since you finished your training ." That last word was accompanied by an eye roll. She hated that I had lowered myself to the level of working for a government agency, especially one like SPAM. Of course, I couldn't tell them how I was practically blackmailed into joining. I only said I needed to do something worthwhile. Not that any of us thought SPAM was actually that.

"Mum, I can't really talk about my work." As if it was all classified—well, most of it was, but I'd use it as an excuse to not talk to them about it every time.

"I'm not concerned about your so-called work, dear. I want to know how my son is and who he spends his time with." She smiled sweetly at K, but I could see the fangs she didn't show.

"K means a lot to me. But it's new."

"K? This is your pillow-name? Perhaps don't share that with the rest of the world, Henry." My mom was all sass today.

I covered my face with my hand, but not before stealing a glance at K. He blushed furiously. I wanted to protect him as I had said the night before. From all evils, including and especially my mother. "Don't." I put my hands in my lap. "Do not embarrass him. I'm not going to have it."

"Relax, Henry. I'm not here to embarrass him or you or anyone." But something in her tone told me otherwise.

"Why are you here then?"

She huffed. "I told you."

"Great. I'm fine. You can see that." I held my hand out. "Life is great. I'm simply busy. And I do have work today. So maybe we can table this discussion until another time." I stood, attempting to give my mother her cue to leave, but in pure Avery-Jane style, she wasn't having any of it.

She leaned back in her chair, sipped sweet coffee from her mug and glared. But that wasn't the end of it. "I thought I raised you better than this. I told you when you joined this organization of yours. It's unacceptable to run and hide, Henry. For God's sake, you are a doctor of archaeology. You're a learned man, and you're wasting all of it playing your adventure games. If you want to help the world, go back to archeology. Call that Lauren girl and go back to work. Real work."

"That Lauren girl? Mother, please. Lauren stopped taking my calls a long time ago." I'd followed my colleague's career, though. She was the head of the Archeology department at the New York State Museum and had a standing residency at New York University. Very prestigious and out of my league. Especially now. "There is no way I can go back into the field, and I don't think I want to."

"Well, you're certainly not living up to your potential now."

K grabbed my hand and stood beside me. "Excuse me, Mrs. Whitlock, but you don't know that."

"It's Doctor Whitlock. And I think I do." She probably did. Mom had all kinds of connections, both professionally and socially. And I wouldn't have put it past her to have infiltrated the top ranks of SPAM to find out exactly what I was doing. "Using your special gift to talk to animals doesn't contribute to anything. Anything, Henry." Then she turned on K. "And you. My son's little surprise. I don't know who you are, but you bet I'll find out."

"No, you won't." Attacking me was one thing, but not K. Never my K. "You're done. Get out. Sorry, Dad, but get her out of her before I lose my cool. Please."

My dad didn't normally interfere, and I don't know what he saw or felt that made him understand that I was serious, but he stood. "Dear. Henry is right. It's time to go. We have places to be."

She started to protest, but Dad was grabbing his jacket and handed her a purse. "Fine." She pointed at me. "Get your life together."

"It's pretty much together, Mom. I'm happier than I've ever been. Can't you accept that?"

"No." She pursed her glossy lips together and practically snarled at me, but she said nothing else. She left with Dad trailing in her wake as usual.

I went straight for the liquor cabinet and poured a vodka neat. And slammed it back.

"Doo." His hand was warm on my bicep. "It's okay."

"It really isn't. This is my life. My parents. That's what's in store for you by getting together with me." I was waiting for him to start running—fast and far and away from me.

"You are not your parents. Come sit down. And put that bottle down. It's not even ten o'clock."

I didn't give a fuck what time it was, but I listened, setting the bottle down and following K back to the sitting area.

He pulled me down beside him on the couch. "Listen to me. Okay?"

"Sure. But…"

He rubbed my thigh and knee and held my hand. "I've been thinking about Wren a lot—"

"This isn't about—"

"Shut up. Hear me out, okay?" He waited until I nodded, then continued. "Thinking about Wren. You know why, but the whole time your parents were here, he was swirling around back here." He made a whirly motion with his finger pointed at the back of his head. "But what you don't know is what happened after Wren died. The changes in my parents. They went from loving to ice-cold. They never wanted to talk about it or anything. They went through the motions of raising me, but they weren't there. Especially my mother. She hurt so much from losing him. Blamed herself. But there was no one to blame. It was something that happened that no one could control. But from the funeral on, there was no comfort from them. They couldn't even comfort themselves."

"Why are you telling me this? What does it have to do with anything?"

"Doolittle. Because families are hard. You don't pick them. You can't control them. You still love them, though. Because they're family."

That was the moment my feelings became crystal clear for me. I had been dodging, delaying, unsure, and afraid. Not anymore. We could lose each other. Like he lost Wren. Like he lost his parents—there but not. I wouldn't wait. I pulled him to me, grabbing his shoulders, wrapping around him, rubbing his back.

"Kyler…I love you. My parents are crazy. Like literally batshit crazy, especially Mum, but they love each other. They love me in their weird way. I wanted to tell you last night, but I was afraid. But I can't wait. I love you."

He pulled back and gripped my shoulders, staring into my eyes. "Life is hard. Love may be hard too. But I want to do it all with you. I love you, too, Henry."

And then he kissed me. His kiss was the same, yet entirely different. It was my Special K, but there was more there. More warmth and the entirety of his love. And I tried to give him all that back and more.

I ran my hand up his t-shirt, needing to feel bare skin, and K kissed down my neck. I leaned into him, going for a make-out session in the living room, and pushed him back on the couch. I wanted to be on top of him, protecting him, loving him.

Then, our phones started beeping. "Damn it."

"Get off me." He shoved at my shoulder, so I sat up, and we searched out our phones. We both had messages to meet at HQ immediately. There had been a break in the case.

As we were getting ready, I remembered the cat. I squatted to look under the bed, and there he was, curled up and snoozing. "Cat. Mr. Wiggums. We're going out, so unless you want to use the litter box, let's go." He hated the litter box. He yawned and glared at me. "We have to go."

"Fine. Miserable humans." He slinked out from under the bed and straight over to K. He rubbed against K's legs. "First, my head must be pet, human."

"He wants a head scratch."

K swooned and picked the cat up. He gave him scratches on his head and made cooing noises. Then let him go, and I opened the slider. "Bye, Mr. Wiggums. We'll see you later. I'll bring you a treat."

The cat glared at me. "He better. I hold you to that."

"He will. Now get out of here." The cat scampered out the door, and I shut it behind him. "That reminds me. I need to get a cooler and some chicken for the alligator. I promised."

"Case first, then I'll help you."

I made a mental note to look into some animal rehabs or other organizations that might want to adopt my friend. I knew Howey the gator would be happier back in captivity. Oddly. But if that would make the gator happy, I would work on it. Even gators needed happiness.

Back in the conference room, but this time the screen wasn't on. Instead, we received interrogation results. Turns out, they had a mentalist who broke into the triplet's head and found out all sorts of nasty shit. Not who they were working for or what their human trafficking efforts were funding, but who their clients were and what they were doing with their victims. Most of it was beyond our pay grade, and other teams were working on following up. But what else we learned was the locations of several other ports around the area where the triplets could offload their merchandise. And four more victims were abducted in Gainesville right under our agents' noses.

"We have to stop them." K practically jumped up from the table.

"Sit down, Special K. We have teams watching every port. You and Doolittle are going out on a boat with a few other agents to patrol the bay until we figure out which location. Then you're the last line of defense to stop them from escaping by water. We have agents at all the ports, ready to report in. Now go."

Within twenty minutes, we were on a boat. I scanned the sky for seagulls or pigeons, hoping to catch back up with Docks. But most of the birds around ignored me. One nearly shit on me while I was trying to get information. "Fuck those birds." K looked over at me with sympathy and humor. "Whatever." I tried to be grouchy but couldn't contain my smile. That analyst had changed me. Got under my skin and made me happy when I hadn't thought it was possible. I thought my life would suck forever, but with K around, it was bright and cheery. And maybe I was liking that a lot more.

"We've got the go. Hold on." The captain of our vessel put the boat in gear. And it was a fast boat, but also built like a tank. We'd be able to catch any getaway boats we came across and ram into them if needed in order to stop them. And we would stop them.

The wind whipped through my hair and stung my eyes. The contacts to stop the triplets from hypnotizing us itched like crazy to start with, but the wind made it worse, even with my sunglasses on. The smell of salt water made me thirsty for margaritas, but I needed to focus on what was ahead. Because, at the end of the day, I was a SPAM agent. Regardless of how or why, I'd signed on. I'd trained. And this was my case. Our case. Mine and K's, and I wouldn't let him down. I was proud of what I was doing for the first time in as long as I could even remember.

The port came into view, and the captain radioed that we were in place. Then the fun started.

Field agents moved in, but it was a trap.

The triplets had reinforcements. This thing was going sideways fast. "We have to get in there and help."

"I called for backup." The captain motioned for us to go.

"Stay here and do not let any of them get away by boat." I pointed at him. We weren't losing them like that again.

"I've got this. Go."

We jumped off the boat and onto the dock he had pulled us next to. The boards tapped under my boots as we ran into the battle. I pulled my gun for the first time. I didn't want to shoot anyone, but this was getting serious. K ran beside me, but I couldn't tell if he'd pulled his. "K. Do whatever you have to. Protect yourself."

"You too, man."

That's when the miracles started happening. First, the dogs were there from the first port, and they were heading straight toward me with snarling faces. I could hear them cursing. "Shit, K, run."

Before that happened, a tiny voice called, "Get ‘em boys." A flock of pigeons and a trio of seagulls started diving at the dogs. Again. Shit was flying, literally.

"Duck and cover, K," I yelled. But we were separated by the commotion.

Dogs and birds running and flying between the triplets' goons and our SPAM agents, fighting and chasing each other. It was chaos.

I looked around, trying to determine where K had gone and where I would go, when a bird landed on my shoulder. A dark-gray pigeon, in fact. "Hey, human. Bread for this?"

"You got it, Docks. And it's good to see you, buddy."

"Heard you were looking for me. Saw the trouble. Called my friends. Oh, you fucker!" Docks took flight and dive-bombed a dog who had been sneaking toward us.

With the animal contingent in hand, I needed to find K. I pushed into the foray, elbowing people out of my way. But I didn't know where he was. Then Docks landed on my shoulder again. "Found your person. Evil one has him on the far side. Follow me. Hurry."

Shit. The cat was right.

I raced after Docks, dodging the fights. A goon grabbed me, and I turned and punched him as hard as I could in the jaw. He flung backward, but I didn't wait to see what happened to him next. I had to keep sight of Docks. He guided me to the edge of the fighting and over to a small shed. On the far side, K was playing tug of war with one of the triplets, but I didn't know what they were fighting over.

Then I realized the triplet was pulling K, trying to get him to a vehicle, and K dug his heels in, pulling back.

Oh. Fuck. No.

Mesopotamian gods of animals help me now. You owe me .

And I called out with everything in me. "Help!" I hoped someone answered the call, but I didn't know if any would. And I couldn't rely on it. Docks fluttered in the face of the triplet, and K pulled out of his grip, landing on his ass in the sandy dirt. The triplet got a hold of Docks and flung him. I was going to kill this mother fucker.

I felt the weight of my gun in my hand. As the asshole was leaning in to grab K again, I lost it. I saw red. I aimed and fired.

The triplet collapsed on top of K, who shrieked.

Or wait.

That noise was coming from the remaining triplet. He dropped to his knees beside the small van they were trying to pull K into. And the fighting stopped. One of our agents jumped on top of him, pushing the last triplet to the ground and cuffing him. I suspected the fighters had all been hypnotized. But I left it to the other agents to figure it out. I had to take care of K and Docks. Neither was moving.

"K! K!." I grabbed the body, dragging it off of my partner. "Are you okay? Kyler…"

He moved. He gasped. "Doo." Then I had his face between my hands. I kissed him hard and passionately. K grabbed me and kissed back. When we pulled apart, there was massive relief flooding my veins.

"Docks. He's here. I think he's hurt."

"Go."

I jumped up and rushed to the bird. He was getting up and shaking his feathers out. "Docks. Are you okay?"

"I-I think I am alive." He fluttered his wings. "Need bread."

I chuckled. "You'll get that for sure. Promise."

"Okay." He jumped and flew into the sky. Other pigeons followed him into the air. "Meet up later."

I sighed. We got the bad guys. Docks was okay and demanding food. And Special K was…I glanced over to see the head of the operation standing beside K. And he was glaring at me.