Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

A t ten, I made sure the shop door was locked, stuffed Max's washed clothes, including his now-mended t-shirt and sleeping bag, in the dryer—needle and thread I can do, even the heavy duty stuff—and put the dried dishes away. Then I got my antique paregoric bottle with the doll's head on top and my glue and my big box of junk that was Poppy's old toys and old jewelry and oddments from the things that Ozzie had brought back from his trips for the shop, carried it all into the kitchen, and put it on the table and tried to think of what was next. An idea about the real me that I should glue to a bottle.

The only idea I had was to go up and knock on Max's door. At least some ill-advised sex with a stranger would give me something that wasn't Poppy or Ozzie to stick to the damn bottle.

And that was when my phone buzzed with a text from Lian.

Come to Coral's, PLEASE

I got my coat and before I went out the door, I remembered that shirt of Pike's I'd promised to mend and grabbed my small sewing kit, too .

Then I went next door to Ecstasy.

The bakery was closed, of course, just a single light behind the counter, but I could see Coral there pouring something into cups and Lian sitting at the front counter with her head in her hands. She was usually very cool and collected, even when running down the street with a pink taser, so now I was really worried. I rapped on the door, and Lian looked up and then practically ran across the shop to let me in.

"What's going on?" I said as soon as she'd locked the door behind me, but then Coral said, "Over here, Rose," and we both went to sit at the table she'd just put teacups on along with a plate of butterkuchen . Butterkuchen saves souls, I'm convinced of it.

"Pike's shirt?" I said to her. It's always good to have something in your hands when it looks like things are going to get tense.

Coral went behind the counter for Pike's ripped shirt and then sat with us at the table, teacups and slabs of butterkuchen in front of us, me sewing the pocket Pike had ripped while I waited for them to get to the point.

Coral looked at Lian and said, "So. What is this problem?"

Lian took a deep breath, and I saw the cup in her hand waver a little until she put it down. "I need help. I wouldn't ask, but it's Mei."

"Of course," Coral said. "You should always ask. Right, Rose?"

"Absolutely," I said, watching Lian, so clearly in hell right now. "Anything, Lian."

She looked so tense, so I stopped staring at her and went back to Pike's shirt.

Lian took a deep breath. "A couple of months ago, Mei's father called me."

Whoa. I'd never heard Lian or Mei talk about a father. I noticed that Coral's eyes narrowed and got the feeling she knew more about this than I did.

Lian went on. "He wanted to see her. I said no, but . . ." She swallowed. "He's a very powerful man. So I went to Oz for help, and he said he'd take care of it, and he must have because I didn't hear anything from Mei's father. But today he called again, so I went to Pike. I asked him for help, like Oz, and he said . . ." She swallowed, and I realized she was trying to keep from crying. She never cried.

"Go on," Coral said.

Lian swallowed. "Pike said that it wouldn't hurt to let him see Mei, just once. I tried to make him understand, but Pike won't protect us, and now there's nothing standing in the way of that man meeting my daughter."

There was a part of me that kind of agreed with Pike; I do believe kids should at least have knowledge of their parents, even if only for medical histories. Of course, I hadn't heard from Poppy's father since he'd gotten me arrested to save himself, the bastard, but if he came looking for her, I'd have to let him see her, that was just rational.

But Lian was always rational, so if she was blocking this guy, it was important that he not get to Mei.

"You can move in with us," I told her as I put careful stitches along Pike's pocket edge. "Ozzie's apartment will probably be empty tomorrow. If he can't find you?—"

"He can find us anywhere." Lian looked at Coral. "She needs to know. Especially since Ozzie is dead."

Coral looked away for a moment then nodded. "Yes."

I stopped sewing. "I need to know what?"

Lian sipped her tea, put her cup down, and said, "I used to work for this dark division of the CIA. Mei's father was my boss."

"You were CIA ."

Lian nodded. "He's above the law. I know that, I worked for him creating ways around legal blocks." She met my eyes. "I know it was wrong, but we were doing good for the country. I thought."

"Oh, I'm not judging," I told her. "I was just startled. There's been a warrant out for my arrest for nineteen years."

She blinked then slowly nodded. "I wondered what kept you here."

"This man, Mei's father," Coral said, and I realized she'd been uncharacteristically silent .

Lian nodded. "His name is Herc."

Coral nodded.

Lian looked surprised. "You worked for him, too?"

"No," Coral said. "I met him when I was very young. He taught me things and then got me a job with some people he knew in Germany."

"Oh," Lian said. "Were you . . . lovers?"

"For a short time." Coral sipped her tea.

I began to get a picture of this Herc, clearly an oversexed jerk.

"You worked for the CIA, too?" I asked Coral, and she waved the question away so I shifted back to Lian. "You can move in with us. Poppy and I will help protect you."

Lian shook her head. "You can't get involved. The minute he finds out you're blocking him and there's a warrant, he'll have you arrested. I didn't know . . ."

"Nineteen years," Coral said. "Isn't there a statute of limitations?"

"Not if you were actually arrested." I went back to finishing up Pike's pocket. "I escaped from custody after my arrest. There is no statute of limitations for that."

"Did you kill someone?" Coral said, as if that were a normal question.

" No. The guy I was with, Poppy's father, was scamming people." I took a deep breath and started again. "When I was a senior in high school, this magic show came to town, and the headliner was Malachi Grace, and I fell for him and left town without graduating and traveled with him for twelve years. And then when I was thirty-one, I found out I was pregnant, and he told me to get rid of it, and I wouldn't, and he decided to get rid of me. So when the cops came to arrest him for swindling grieving people by telling them he could talk to the dead, he told them it was my idea, so I was arrested with him. And then he told me to claim it was all me since I was pregnant and would have an easier time in jail. And I had hysterics and they took me to a hospital and there'd been a major accident and it was a mess there so I just walked out when nobody was paying any attention to me."

I stopped to breathe again. I was finished with the pocket so I looked for more rips. If there weren't any, I'd embroider Pike's name on the damn shirt just to keep my eyes there.

Lian looked at Coral. "You knew?"

She nodded.

I found a loose cuff and kept working. "I got on a bus that stopped here and I got off to go to the bathroom and the bus left while I was in there. I walked down the street and the lights were on in here, and I knocked on the door and Coral let me in, and she fed me and told me everything would be okay and got Ozzie to give me a job and a place to live. And that's how I ended up in Rocky Start."

And that's why I will do anything for Coral Schmidt forever , I did not add.

"So Poppy's father doesn't know where she is," Lian said.

"I doubt very much he remembers he's a father. Very selfish man." I finished the cuff and stopped to sip my tea, relieved my confession was over, relieved I'd finally told my two best friends the truth. "Which is not the problem. I will still take you and Mei in. If the cops come, they come."

"No," Lian said. "It wouldn't do any good. The only ones who could stop him would be Oz and Pike. Oz is dead and Pike isn't the same without him. Unless . . ." She turned to Coral. "Can you talk him into helping us?"

Coral grimaced. "Oz's death has hit him hard. But if he told you to let Herc see Mei, he has his reasons. Oz was always the one to deal with Herc. The balance of things has been upset. Why did Herc suddenly call you months ago?"

Lian explained. "I think he saw Mei dancing with Poppy on TikTok when Mei won that political science essay contest. He knows now she's smart and she's pretty, and he'll try to use her."

"He knew before," Coral said. "Herc never lets go of anything. He has had somebody watching you both. All of us. He has eyes on Rocky Start at all times."

"Well, that's creepy," I said, but Lian shook her head.

"I don't care. I do not want Mei involved with him in any way, involved in his world in any way, ever. "

Coral nodded, no argument. "We will think of something, but I do not think Pike is the answer."

"We don't have time ." Lian turned back to me. "Do you know why Max is here?"

I was taken aback. "To pick up boots at the post office. He hasn't said a word about Mei."

"That would be smart," Lian said. "If Herc sent him here to set things up, he wouldn't show any interest at first." She leaned toward me. "I should have seen this as soon as he got into town. He has that look. The same look everybody else has around here."

"Not everybody," Coral protested.

"What look?" I said. "There isn't any look that I've noticed."

Lian and Coral exchanged a look, as if each was daring the other to reveal some great secret.

Coral finally spoke. "Since Oz is dead and that man claiming to be his son has come to town, you need to know. Oz was an ex-player."

"A what?"

"An ex-agent," Lian clarified. "Sort of."

Coral went on. "Oz and Pike worked for Herc. Until Oz got something on Herc that was so bad it meant that he could quit. Then he and Pike found this place and bought up most of this town. Rocky Start is full of ex-agents, Rose. Have you not noticed how odd some of these people are?"

"It's a small town in the South," I said. "And people in small towns are odd everywhere. So, wait, what do you mean by ‘agents'? All the people here are spies?"

"Not all," Lian said. "Maybe ten percent. Lots of normal people here, too. But yes, retired spies. And chemists. Code-breakers. Assass?—"

"Stop." I looked at Coral. "You were a spy?"

"No. I did wet work. I killed people." She said it like she was saying, "I did some waitressing." No big deal. "I started when I was fifteen. A man followed me and dragged me into an alley to have his way with me, and I grabbed a piece of broken glass and cut his throat. And then it turned out that he'd been followed by another man, and that man recruited me because I'd been so efficient. He taught me my knife skills." She looked at me without blinking. "I'm very good with a knife."

"You started that young?" I said, appalled.

Coral nodded, still lost in thought, rubbing her palm. "Even after all these years, there is a scar."

Yeah, I thought. I bet that left scars.

"The guy who recruited you was Herc, wasn't it?" Lian said.

"Yes," Coral said.

"And you were lovers," Lian said.

"Briefly," Coral said.

"At fifteen ?" I said, pretty much reaching my limit on appalled.

"He was only twenty," Coral said. "Terrible lover. Selfish, I learned later when I could compare. Now, what are we going to do about Mei?"

"Max is here for her," Lian said, and I lost my breath. "I would bet any amount of money that Herc sent him for her."

" No ," I said. "I don't know what Max is, but he doesn't kidnap teenagers." I thought about him with Poppy. "He would not do that."

Coral and Lian ignored me, which was fair. I'd known Max for about seven hours, and most of that time he hadn't even been with me. He just didn't seem like that kind of guy.

Yeah, I know, he probably was.

"Ten percent of the town, huh?" I said, but they weren't listening to me.

"Rose will think of something," Coral was saying.

They both turned to look at me, and I was dumbfounded, even more dumbfounded than I was about living in a town full of spies. I could fix jewelry and mend shirts, solve arguments and arrange reconciliations, fix any number of other small problems, but if they thought I could go up against some CIA mastermind, they'd lost their grips.

"I believe in you," Lian said, and Coral nodded.

"I'll work on it." I handed Pike's now-mended shirt to Coral and went back to Oddities, completely mind-blown .

How had I missed the spy thing for nineteen years? I'd assumed Ozzie was on the run from the law, so he hadn't been a clue. Everybody else hadn't been chatty about their pasts, but then neither was I. I started thinking about who definitely wasn't a spy. Sweet little Mrs. Baumgarten who loved ugly teacups and kept a support llama. Steadfast Luke, Darius's dad, the most straight-shooting man I'd ever met (metaphor, I'd never seen him with a gun). But I wouldn't have put Coral in that group, and Lian, and here they were, telling me they'd been an assassin and a lawyer for a dark part of the CIA. What did I know?

Well, now I knew I was living in a town of retired spies, and my best friend's daughter was being targeted by her absent father, an evil mastermind, and a total stranger had shown up with his mother to evict me, and I had just invited another stranger who was possibly a spy to stay the night in the apartment next door, and I didn't have a clue as to what to do next.

Fixing this was going to take some intense thinking.