Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

At first, Phoebe let Ian talk.

But then her silence started to feel weird and unnatural, so when he told a very convincing story of how they’d met, involving a dog, a storm, and a downed power line, she spoke up to add some colorful details.

“It was a Boston terrrier!”

“The hail was the biggest I’ve ever seen!”

“But then a rainbow appeared—right over Ian’s head—like a sign from above!”

Somewhere in the telling, he’d pulled her down so she was sitting on his lap, which was much too comfortable.

And then, because she didn’t want to look too stiff and unnatural sitting there, Phoebe started playing with Ian’s hair, which was deliciously soft and thick. And the way he sighed and leaned into her touch was really quite perfect, too.

Ian went from how they’d met to where they’d married—Vegas.

“Oh, don’t tell the story about the soft-boiled egg.” She widened her eyes at him, actually starting to enjoy herself a little, because he was very, very good at this game.

He smiled back at her. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said. “I promise to leave out all of the unfortunate and embarrassing room-service incidents.”

“The whipped cream fiasco, though, was pretty funny,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

Ian laughed at that. “It was,” he agreed, following the primary rule of improv. Agree with everything.

“We ordered berries and cream,” Phoebe explained to Vanderzee, “and the room service waiter came up and wanted to do the whole thing with setting up the table in the room, but we were … in something of a hurry, so Ian just signed for it all, right at the door, and took the tray. It wasn’t until much later, when we left for dinner, that we saw this neatly covered bowl of strawberries outside of our door. And we realized that neither of us noticed that there hadn’t been any berries on our tray—we were a little, um, involved with the whipped cream. The poor man must’ve come back and knocked and knocked—”

“I didn’t hear anyone knock,” Ian contributed as he smiled up at her.

Laughter lines, sparkling eyes, beaming smile—if this man ever really looked at her like this, she herself would probably never hear another door knock again. Phoebe leaned down to kiss him, but then had to clear her throat before she could tell the Dutchman, “He finally must’ve just given up and left that bowl at the door.”

It didn’t take much to imagine being locked in a hotel room with Ian Dunn and a bowl of whipped cream—full hours spent licking it from various outrageously attractive body parts.

Ian, too, had to clear his throat.

“So you were married in Las Vegas,” the Dutchman said, clearly wanting more details, and when Ian looked at Phoebe, she knew he was a little lost.

This was not a man who’d spent much time—okay, any time—dreaming of his wedding day.

Phoebe, however, could picture the perfect scenario for a ruggedly handsome con artist and the woman who’d captured his heart.

“The wedding itself was a total surprise. Ian planned everything,” she told the Dutchman, who smiled back at her as he sipped his wine. He’d opened a very nice Merlot from a boutique winery in Napa, and had poured a glass for Phoebe, too. Ian was having club soda, which shouldn’t have been a surprise, and yet somehow still was. There was something slightly off in his reaction to her having a glass of wine, too, so she only took pretend sips. “He made all the reservations—hotel, restaurants, the most romantic wedding chapel. I mean, you tend to think Vegas weddings are tacky. Like, an Elvis impersonator officiates. Ah now pronounce you husband and wife. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

She realized with a flash of both hot and cold, even as she did her best Elvis and everyone laughed, that neither she nor Ian were wearing wedding rings, and her left hand suddenly felt suspiciously naked. Her lack of a ring was one of those details that the devil was in, as Ian had mentioned in the shower. Had he thought of that? He probably hadn’t. And maybe the Dutchman wouldn’t either, but maybe he would. Of course, some men just didn’t wear a wedding ring. But why wouldn’t a woman wear a ring—especially one who was as clearly in love with her husband as Phoebe was pretending to be?

She heard herself talking, still telling this story as her mind raced. “Or you dress up like, like … Sonny and Cher, or Spock and Uhura …” She was just babbling now as she glanced at Ian. “But, seriously, it was lovely. And of course, because I was not expecting it at all, when he said, Hey, we’re going to Vegas, pack light, but bring something nice, I brought a bathing suit, a pair of shorts, and some sexy lingerie.”


“Which was very nice,” Ian said, right on cue, as if they’d rehearsed it.

“But not for what he had in mind,” Phoebe finished the story. “He ended up buying me the most beautiful dress. And oh, my God! The ring? It’s gorgeous—a huge diamond in a beautifully simple setting. It’s in our safe deposit box. That’s where we keep it when we’re working undercover like this.”

She heard herself say the words, and yes, it was an answer to the question Why aren’t you wearing a ring? But it was not the only answer. It couldn’t be. Still, she couldn’t think of another reason, other than I’m painting my house, but even then, she would’ve put her ring back on after she’d washed her hands.

Still, maybe her words would go right past the Dutchman. Maybe he didn’t hear. Maybe …

“You work with Ian?” the man asked, pouncing directly upon it. He looked from Phoebe to Ian and back. “That’s … not really that much of a surprise, as I think of it.”

Ian’s smile had tightened. “Oh, it was for me,” he said. “I was very, very surprised.”

“It really is the perfect match,” Phoebe said, even though she knew she’d already said too much. But maybe she could fix this—make the fact that they worked together somehow more believable. “There are things a woman can do that a man can’t. That’s just a fact. Places I can access, because I’m not perceived to be a threat.” Inspiration struck. “Plus, Ian always says when I’m around, I bring him luck. I’m his good luck charm. Can’t beat that, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ian said, gazing up at her, now with murder in his eyes. “I am so lucky.” He took her wineglass from her hand—yes, there was definitely something wrong with her drinking wine—and he set it on the table beside them, before hoisting her to her feet. “Why don’t you go check with the housekeeper and see if our laundry is dry?”

“Ooh, getting rid of me to talk business,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him while simultaneously trying to send him an apology.

“Please go,” Ian said.

So she went.

Up the stairs. Figuring she could check the clothes herself, rather than searching for one of the women who drifted like ghosts around the big house.

She could hear the murmur of Ian’s voice as she turned on the laundry room light and opened the still-spinning dryer.

There were, in fact, dozens of reasons why a woman wouldn’t wear her wedding ring, other than I’m working some kind of illegal job, undercover, with my husband or I’m painting my house. She could well have taken off her ring for safety’s sake before going into a dive like Henrietta’s. That would’ve explained it quite neatly. Or maybe the ring was so gargantuous that she only wore it out, or in the evenings. Maybe she was a potter, and worked all day throwing clay. Or she was a painter—but not the house kind. Or a dental hygienist, who had to wear latex gloves.

Except why, then, wouldn’t she at least wear a simple gold band? Unless she was pretending that she wasn’t married, while working some kind of con with her devious husband.…

Maybe Phoebe had said the right thing, after all.

Inside the dryer, their clothes were mostly done. Ian’s jeans were still a little damp, so she left them in as she took her underwear back into the guest suite’s bathroom to pull it on beneath her robe. Her jeans and T-shirt hadn’t been bloody, and she’d hung them on the back of the door. She put them on, too—Ian really had bled far less than she’d thought in those first terrifying moments in the car.

God, she’d been scared.

At the time, Phoebe had been certain Ian simply hadn’t realized how badly he’d been injured. She’d imagined him dying in her arms, while she was completely unable to help him.

It made her uneasy—knowing that Davio Dellarosa’s men were actively looking for Ian.

And maybe, the next time they found him, whoever was aiming the rifle wouldn’t just graze him.

Phoebe suddenly needed to sit and put her head between her legs—she was dizzy, just thinking about it.

But she couldn’t show any sign of weakness. She’d just been downstairs talking and laughing and pretending she was Ian’s wife.

Ian’s wife wouldn’t go all girly and light-headed.

Ian’s wife, married in Vegas to the man of her dreams, was made of sterner stuff.

But Phoebe was not Ian’s wife.

In fact, Phoebe had to pee rather badly.

She looked at the garishly colored frame where Ian had said the bathroom camera was hidden, and channeling Ian’s wife one more time, she flipped it the bird and blew it a kiss.

Then she put the bathrobe up and over her head, covering herself in a terrycloth tent as she pulled down her jeans and panties and sat, completely hidden from the camera’s view, on the commode.

* * *

“I’m going with you,” Aaron announced.

Francine looked up from her replay of the FBI surveillance video, streaming in from the Dutchman’s house, in which Ian told their suspect that he had a standing order for his second-in-command to pick him up between eight and midnight at a bowling alley in Miami Gardens, should he ever go missing like this. Since Vanderzee had access to a second embassy car, he was going to drive them over and drop them there. Although, this time, his bald-headed bodyguard was going to ride along.

Francine now looked at Shel and he met her eyes, before they both looked back at Aaron.

Francie spoke first. “Ian implied that I should pick them up—”

“He didn’t say I shouldn’t go,” Aaron pointed out.

“How was he supposed to say that you shouldn’t go,” Shelly asked as he kept Rory quiet by rocking him back and forth, shifting from one foot to the other, “while he’s having a conversation with the Dutchman? I think we can take it as a given that he doesn’t want either one of us leaving this house while Davio’s still actively hunting both you and Ian.”

“Well, what about what I don’t want?” Aaron asked. “I don’t want Francine going anywhere near Ro-freaking-berto—and I’m a little taken aback by the fact that you actually seem to consider it an option.”

“What?” Shel said. “You want me to pull an Ian and tell her what she can and cannot do? She’s a big girl, and if she wants to do this—”

“No way does she want to do this,” Aaron countered. “But do you honestly think she’s going to admit that?”

“Hello, she’s standing right here,” Francine said, but neither looked up because they were both so intent on widening this terrible rift between them—a rift that she had, in part, helped to create.

They’d been monitoring the conversation between Ian and Georg Vanderzee, and Francine knew—from the skeletal description of the alleged “job” that Ian had described, that he was intending to take heavy advantage of the latest olive branch that Berto had extended to her.

I’m working a deal with Berto Dellarosa. I can’t go into details until I clear it with him, but our buyer has just backed out. So we’ve got product that we need to move, fast. With your contacts, I’m certain you can connect us with someone who wants what we’ve got—at a deeply discounted price. And, of course, you’ll collect a finder’s fee.

After hearing that, Francine knew that after they got Ian safely back here, he was going to ask her to contact Berto and arrange a face-to-face—get him to be a major player in this con.


And Berto was going to say yes.

She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, but right now she didn’t have the time or energy to sit and explore her vast array of emotions. She was going to have to settle with Seeing Berto again was going to suck. But then again, nearly everything in her life sucked, so how could it be all that much worse?

“Look, I’m going to go pick up Eee,” she told her brother and Aaron, taking Martell’s car keys out of the bowl on the counter and going to the equipment closet to grab the bug sweeper. Knowing Ian, he wouldn’t be willing to say more than Hey, how’s it going until he and the lawyerette had been swept clean—and until he was certain they weren’t being tailed. That should make for a really shitty, tension-filled ride. Whee. “I’m just going to the contact point—the bowling alley—and back. If you really want to come along, knock yourself out.”

“Well, I’m not going to go, because someone’s got to keep Rory safe,” Sheldon said, heavy with the snit.

Aaron was already heading for the door to the garage, where Martell’s car was parked, and he didn’t look back.

“Please say good-bye to me,” Shel called after him. “Aaron!”

But Aaron didn’t stop and the door closed behind him.

“I’m so sorry,” Francine told her brother. “For what it’s worth, I’ll keep him safe. I’ll bring him back in one piece.”

“Don’t bother,” Shelly said as he started to stomp away. But then he stopped and turned back, holding tightly to Rory. He kissed the top of the baby’s head. “I don’t mean that.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“And you don’t have to have any contact with Berto,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t want to, and I’m related to him.”

“I think I might,” Francie said. “Want to. Is that weird?” She didn’t wait for her half brother to answer. She just went out the door. “I’ll call when we’re on our way back. Lock this behind me.”

“Tell Aaron I love him.”

Francie looked back at her baby brother. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“You’re right, he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve any of this crap,” Shel said, then closed and locked the door behind her with a click.