High-Caliber Concealer Page 5

  Nikki laughed.

  “Oh, wow, dude. Are you watching the news? Someone killed an RCMP?”

  “What?” Nikki picked up her carry-on and moved closer to one of the lounge TV’s. The closed captions were scrolling in English on the bottom of the screen with a one second lag time behind the announcer.

  “The car chase ended with one man, who may have been a member of the Canadian Mounted Police, dead at the scene. The RCMP have refused to comment at this time,” said the announcer. “But they have confirmed that one officer is dead and that they are working an ongoing murder investigation. Although, they would not confirm that the car chase, which ended near the Canadian US border, and may have involved the woman shown here –” The video footage flipped to a frozen and blurry photo of a fifty-something woman leaving a gas station.

  “Oh crap,” said Nikki. The footage was blurry, but she still recognized her co-workers when she saw them on the TV.

  “…was directly related to the investigation currently being conducted at the residence of Officer Douglas Pearson.” The video feed switched to an aerial shot of a suburban house that had been cordoned off with crime scene tape. Officers in windbreakers were carrying boxes out to a large police van.

  “What did I say? I said, don’t do anything stupid,” said Nikki. “Why don’t they ever listen to me?”

  “Uh, Nik? You’re kind of losing your nut over there. What’s going on?”

  Nikki pulled the phone away from her face and looked at it blankly. She’d forgotten she was still on the phone with Donny.

  “I have to go, Donny. I think I need to get on an earlier flight.”

  August II

  Something Stupid

  It really was a damn international incident. Nikki read through the report with the deliberate pace of a turtle, all the while Darla’s red nails tapped on Mrs. Merrivel’s desk.

  Nikki’s team was behind her, sitting in the row of chairs against the wall. They looked rather like a gang of unruly Catholic school girls who had been called into the principal’s office. Ellen sat with stone-faced stoicism, her eyes fixed at a point somewhere near the ceiling above Darla’s head, refusing to acknowledge her accuser. Jenny fixed Darla with an eye-burning stare of hatred, blinking at a reptilian rate. And Jane was playing Fruit Ninja on her phone. Leave it to Jane to protest through sound effects.

  Nikki knew she could skip the rest of the report, save them all some time and start the dialogue. She should really be the grown-up in the room. Mrs. Merrivel was counting on her, after all. But it had been a long two months and Darla had been hell-bent on putting Nikki and the team in their place. So instead, Nikki counted to ten, pondered her grocery list, and tried to remember if she’d bought toilet paper on her last trip to the store. Then she turned the page with infinite slowness and read every single word.

  Eventually, Nikki finished the report and tucked the pages back into their manila folder, tamping the edge to align the papers neatly. She wanted to turn around and yell at Ellen and the girls. She’d been away for two lousy days. The last thing she said was, “Don’t let Darla goad you into doing something stupid.” And what did they do? The high-speed chase—not that bright. Illegally extracting Ellen from Canada—kind of dumb. And last, but not least, running over a fricking mountie—definitely something stupid.

  “So?” demanded Darla. She was a forty-five-ish reddish-brown brunette, short and stocky, with a sensible haircut and sensible shoes. The only real Carrie Mae thing about her was her manicure. Her nails were bright red and perfectly rounded in a gel manicure and a tiny incongruous flower had been painted on the pinky. It seemed out of character, but the look had been carefully maintained for the entire time Darla had been in LA. Nikki clung to the idea of that flower as an indicator that Darla was more interesting than her plain exterior would indicate.

  “Sorry, what was the question?”

  “Were you, or were you not, aware of their activities.” Darla pointed an accusing letter opener at the women behind Nikki.

  “I’m not going to answer that question,” said Nikki. “If I say yes, then you’ll blame me for the entire incident. If I say no, then you’ll say that I’m an incompetent team leader.” Darla’s lips pinched tightly and her eyes, smoldering with fury, showed that Nikki’s assessment was accurate. “Here’s a question for you: do you know why you have this job?”

  Darla blinked.

  “You have this job because I saw you speak at the Leaders in the Field conference last May.” The sword swooping noise from Jane’s phone stopped mid-swoop.

  “I went to that conference,” said Jane. “I don’t remember her.”

  Nikki addressed Jane without turning her head, keeping her eyes locked on Darla. “Well, that’s possibly because only ten people showed up to listen to her speak.” Nikki saw Darla wince. “And I think you went to the symposium on mass hypnosis instead. Ellen was sitting on the Future of Weaponry panel.”

  “Where was I?” asked Jenny.

  “I think you were in the bar,” said Nikki.

  “Oh, right! That dentist conference was in the same hotel. That was hilarious.”

  “What’s your point?” said Darla.

  “My point is: do you think I couldn’t do this job? And more to the point, do you think it wasn’t offered to me?” Darla looked uncertain and Nikki continued. “I was running the division while Mrs. M was in Turkey, so why wouldn’t I continue to run it while she helps her husband recover from heart surgery?”

  Darla looked uncertain and wary, but didn’t speak as Nikki continued.

  “Because if I’ve learned anything from Mrs. M, it’s that we have to think of more than just the immediate problem. If we want Carrie Mae to move into the future we have to put women with new ideas in positions of power. I heard you speak at the conference and I knew that you’d been buried. You were never going to get any higher than being a city branch leader in Utah.”

  Darla’s lips twitched angrily.

  “But I thought your ideas were big. I thought they had promise. I thought if you could prove yourself here in LA, you might have a shot at moving up the food chain. Instead, you moved into the big desk and started acting like you’re strictly Utah.”

  For a moment, it looked like Darla might explode and then her shoulders sagged.

  “What’s the point?” she muttered, her eyes drifting to the window. “Everyone hates me here. They all think I stole your job. How am I supposed to get anything done, when for every order I give they just look to you to approve it?”

  “I didn’t realize it would be this much of a problem,” said Nikki.

  “And none of that changes the fact that your team killed a cop,” said Darla snapping back to angry.

  “From a certain point of view,” said Nikki with a shrug. “Another way of looking at it is that they stopped a serial killer who was preying on First Nations women because he knew their deaths were less likely to be fully investigated.”

  “The evidence on that is… it’s not definitive. They killed a Canadian police officer!”

  “The skeletons in his basement are pretty definitive. What you really mean is that I embarrassed you in front of your Canadian friend,” said Ellen, through clenched teeth.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Darla.

  “It was pretty clear you were real cozy with the Alberta Branch leader,” said Jenny. “Of course you’d cover up for her.”

  “You’re the ones with something to cover up,” bellowed Darla. “Maybe if you’d actually filed a report or followed the chain of command, I could have done something, but no… you’re Nikki’s team, you don’t have to follow the rules!” She threw up her hands in outrage, and sat breathing heavily into the silence that followed.

  “I did file a report,” said Ellen icily. “You buried it.”

  “I did no such thing!” Darla’s eyes widened in outrage. “I do not bury reports.” She stabbed a finger into the desk with each word.

  “S
omebody did,” said Ellen, glaring.

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” Darla shot back.

  “Actually,” said Jane, clearing her throat nervously. “There might be a way to check that.”

  “Talk to me, Jane,” said Nikki.

  “Well, every time a report is generated it’s given a unique file number. Even if the file is deleted that file number is never repeated. Sometimes files get deleted for perfectly legit reasons, but the person who deletes it has to put in their ID number. That number and the ID number of the report originator get stored in a computer somewhere. They’re still retrievable.”

  “I filed it when I was in Canada,” said Ellen, looking worried. “The first time I saw Officer Pearson, when I was in the middle of that other mission, I came back and I filed a report, but no one did anything. Can you access Canadian files?”

  “I don’t have clearance,” said Jane. The unspoken thought clear on her face was that she could probably hack into the Canadian system, but a nervous glance at Darla showed that she didn’t want to say it.

  “But I do,” said Darla waking up the computer. “How do I do it?”

  Jane dropped her phone and moved to the other side of the desk. Talking quickly, she walked Darla through the process. Nikki watched as Jane’s jet-black head bobbed next to Darla’s cinnamon-colored one. Darla was right about one thing, as long as Nikki and her team were in LA, the branch was never going to follow Darla. Darla ought to be able to have support from the women in her command. This incident would never have gotten this far if everyone had been talking to each other. For the good of the company, she was probably going to have to do something. The question was, what?

  “That bitch!” growled Darla, slamming her palm down on the desk, then looking at Nikki. “I sent your team to Alberta as a personal favor—and this is how she repays me? I knew I couldn’t trust her.”

  “I thought you and the Alberta Branch leader were friends,” said Ellen, exchanging looks of confusion with Jenny.

  “She saved my life once,” said Darla shaking her head. “I owed her. She said she needed a sniper, and I figured if I sent you we’d be square. She’s the one who deleted your report.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen. “I thought it was weird for you to be friends considering that she was such a racist and you seem fine with…” Ellen paused and blushed.

  “And I’m married to a black guy?” finished Darla. “Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to get clear of the debt I owed her. I don’t like being around her.”

  “Check this out,” said Jane, pointing at the screen. “Ellen’s report isn’t the only one she deleted.”

  “I’m going to file a formal complaint,” said Darla, her eyes sparkling. “Threaten me, will she? Can you print out a report on this?” she asked Jane, pointing at the screen, and Jane nodded. “And then I need you to start tracking down the agents who originated the reports. I need more ammunition.”

  “Give me a minute,” said Jane, already reaching for the desk phone.

  “It won’t be enough,” said Nikki, perching on the windowsill, and leaning back against the glass, warm in the afternoon sunshine.

  “What do you mean?” asked Darla, looking as if she’d just remembered Nikki were in the room.

  “It’s an international incident, right? If it had stayed between you and what’s-her-name in Alberta, it’d be fine. But she’s already filed a formal complaint against us, hasn’t she? It’s going before the Council.” The Council was the international ruling body of Carrie Mae. From there the organization forked into smaller and smaller units: divisions, branches, units, teams, and finally the lowly agent.

  “It doesn’t matter. Not with this information. I can fight back.” Darla’s eyes sparkled with the prospect of holy battle.

  “We’ll still be a liability,” said Nikki. “I told you. We’ve got to think about the future.”

  “I’m not going to fire you. That cop was killing girls and one of our own people ignored it.”

  “The Council is old school,” said Nikki, shaking her head. “They already think Mrs. M and ‘her girls’ are troublemakers.”

  “Do they?” asked Jenny, looking surprised. “You never told us that.”

  Nikki shrugged. “Mrs. M never considered you, or your actions, a liability. She didn’t want you to behave any differently.”

  “I can put you on two weeks unpaid leave,” said Darla slowly. “That way I’m punishing you—addressing the infraction in-house—but during the course of my investigation into your actions I’ve discovered several breaches in protocol on the part of the Alberta Branch. Breaches that The Council should address. It’ll change the focus of the investigation.” She sat back in her chair, and eyed Nikki. “I should have come to you before now. I misinterpreted your intentions.”

  Nikki shrugged. “I don’t really want the job.”

  “I don’t know why not. The big chair is kind of cushy.” She bounced up and down for emphasis, and Nikki laughed.

  “Too cushy. It sucks you in.”

  “I’ve got the girls running down the missing reports,” said Jane, hanging up the phone. “It may be that we can find duplicate copies that weren’t deleted because they weren’t connected to the same server. We’re also looking for the agents who filed the reports. Once we’ve got a list of names I can send some people out on interviews.”

  “Good. Make sure you update someone on the case before you leave.”

  “I’m leaving?” Jane looked at Nikki, panic stricken.

  “You’re not fired,” said Nikki, and Jane sighed in relief. “We’re on unpaid leave.”

  “And you should probably leave the state,” said Darla matter-of-factly.

  Jane looked horrified. “No, no, no. Remember what happened last time you tried to make me take time off?”

  “I remember you disobeyed orders, hacked into the computer of an international arms dealer, and got stuck in a German hotel eating sausages,” said Jenny. “You obviously don’t know how to vacation, and require my assistance.”

  “Do I really have to go on vacation with Jenny?” demanded Jane, turning back to Darla.

  “Frankly, I don’t really care,” said Darla. “But I want you out of reach of any council investigators. Outside of Nikki, you’re not exactly political animals. I can’t trust you to say the right thing. Leave town, and stay out of sight for at least two weeks. I’ll call you if I need it to be longer.”

  “Sweet,” said Jenny.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing the girls. And didn’t you say your mother’s been bugging you to come visit?” asked Ellen, turning to Nikki. Nikki made a face. She didn’t need reminding.

  “But,” said Jane, looking distressed. “I can’t leave the state. My computers… my research… my giant crossword puzzle…” Her eyes bounced to each of her teammates in turn, looking for help.

  “Honey,” said Jenny, standing up. “You clearly need Cancun more than I do. Come on, Nikki, help me get her outta here before she chains herself to the desk in protest.”

  August III

  Empty Bed Blues

  “Hey,” said Nikki, picking up the phone as she fumbled for her keys.

  “How’d it go?” asked Mr. M.

  “We’re on unpaid leave for two weeks while she handles the political stuff. Does your wife know you’re asking about her work?”

  “I’m asking about my friend’s life. It’s a clear distinction,” said Mr. M primly. “I can’t help it if your life happens to involve her work.”

  “You argue like a lawyer,” she said affectionately.

  “How fortunate that I am one,” he said, and she could hear his smile over the phone. “Look, it’s not my fault that the two of you have decided to work for an international corporation who take its motto, ‘helping women everywhere’ a little too seriously. If you would just work for the CIA like I did, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

  Nikki laughed. “Actually, I was thinking about your wife’s edict to avoid an
ything stressful.” She climbed the stairs to her apartment, pausing to check the mail.

  “I don’t find you stressful,” said Mr. M. “What I don’t understand is why she’s not checking in on you herself.”

  “She called while I was in the car,” said Nikki.

  “Ah! That explains her mysterious, sudden trip to the grocery store.”

  “I think it’s taking all she has not to call Darla and meddle,” said Nikki.

  “I really wouldn’t mind if she worked,” said Mr. M. “She doesn’t have to be home every minute to take care of me. I had surgery. I’m not incapacitated.”

  “You had open heart surgery,” said Nikki. “With complications. And let’s face it, left to your own devices, you’d probably be chowing down on bacon and trying to run a 5k or something.”

  “I would not,” said Mr. M. “I dislike running.”

  “I notice you didn’t comment on the bacon.”

  “I try not to lie,” he said, as she unlocked the door, letting it swing open with a bang, waiting for a welcoming yell from further inside. “Any word from Z’ev?” he asked as if anticipating her next thoughts. The apartment remained echoingly empty.

  “No,” said Nikki. “I got a letter last week. Forwarded from work, which meant it had half the letter blacked out. I suppose it’s better than nothing. At least I know he’s alive.”

  “Still thinking of breaking up with him?”

  When Nikki thought of her boyfriend the last thing she wanted to think about was breaking up. On the other hand, it was becoming increasingly difficult to lie to him about what she really did for a living.

  “Mr. M, you’ve got to stop bringing this up. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to pester you. I just think it’s a shame to throw away a good relationship.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m pretty sure your wife, my boss, thinks I should break up with him.”

  “Miranda is not as romantic as I am,” he said matter-of-factly. “She doesn’t trust Z’ev not to expose Carrie Mae to the CIA and I, as a romantic, think that you should take the risk.”