“Then we’ll have dinner tonight.”
It was another way of claiming. I knew that. It shoulda made me mad. Instead I laughed softly but shook my head. “I got not one single idea how to take coffee or dinner with a man, you stupid cat. Not one! It makes my stomach go all sick just thinking about it.”
“Food goes to your mouth, usually via fork or spoon, you chew and swallow. Eatin’ ain’t that hard, Nell, sugar.”
I blew out a laugh, feeling the unexpected tears gather again. “Dating is more than just eating.” I stared out at the traffic and the fog that hung a few dozen feet above the road. “At least Ben would know what I can and can’t do for conversation and for fun and such like. He wouldn’t ask me to dance or play loud music or buy me a martini. I don’t know how to be what you want me to be.”
“Martini?” he said, sounding incredulous. “Who the hell said anything about a martini? I don’t want you to be anything other than what you want to be, Nell. Question is, do you want to go back to what’s old and safe or try what’s new and adventurous? You want the easy way or the hard way? The easy way is to keep being a churchwoman. I’m new. I’m different. I’ll be hard to date. And I’m not your church.”
“Not my church. Not ever again my church.”
“Then why are you talking to a churchman?”
“He ain’t precisely a churchman. Well, he is, but he went away to college.”
“And then went back inside? When he didn’t have to?” Occam asked.
I thought about Ben’s statement that he had gone away to school and then returned to the church so he could effect change from the inside. How much change? How much did a man grow and evolve his thinking patterns? I had lived away from church lands for over a decade and I still found myself falling into patterns of thought and actions that were church-bound. I remembered Ben’s hands on my shoulders, the feel of them through my T-shirts. That had felt nice. It had been years since anyone had touched me. Except Occam, caressing my cheeks gently. I looked down at my lap.
I remembered the feel of John’s hands touching me in the dark, under the covers. Rough and calloused. Nothing gentle about him, nothing tender or passionate. He hadn’t been cruel. He had just been a man with his own needs, leaving me with the discomfort of my wifely duties. Ben would understand what I had been through. What I had done to survive. It was the way of women in the church. Would Occam understand if I flinched? If I pulled away?
Softly Occam said, “I know you ain’t human, Nell, sugar. Does Ben?”
I firmed my lips and looked away. I had asked myself that question already. But no matter what happened in my life, I would not be pushed into a corner and forced to take something or someone I didn’t choose myself.
When the silence had stretched too long, Occam said, “You’ll have plenty of backup on the op, in the coffee shop, one inside and extra surveillance outside.”
He was talking work talk, not the intensely personal stuff from only minutes past. I wasn’t sure how to make the jump from dating to work. Occam didn’t seem to have that trouble. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say so I nodded but didn’t look at him, fighting tears I didn’t even understand.
“JoJo spent some time digging deeper into our source’s social media history and discovered that our dissatisfied DNAKeys employee is probably a plant. Candace McCrory’s ID is as fake as your own persona, an identity created to see who might be looking for info on the company. Look at the file, Nell. You need to see it.”
I forced down my confusing emotions and turned on my laptop. I pulled up the file and the report in question and read Jo’s summary. “Okay,” I said softly when I was done. “Did Rick consider canceling the meeting when the fake-out was discovered?”
“Yes. But he called Soul. The up-line powers that be decided to keep it. Soul said there was a flurry of interest, as if the attention on DNAKeys had been a sign to someone. Soul is interested to see how it falls out.” He went silent and drove for a while, weaving in and out of cars. “This could be a trap of some sort. You keep your wits about you, Ingram.”
I blinked at the use of my last name instead of Nell, sugar. A name that meant important law enforcement work. That meant I was trusted to do that work in spite of my gender. Tears filled my eyes again, but I didn’t turn to him. I didn’t know what to say or do and doing nothing seemed a safer alternative.
? ? ?
I was sitting at a tall table in a corner window in Remedy Coffee, reading a book, a romance novel JoJo had insisted I carry as part of my undercover persona. She had placed the paperback book in my purse, which had come from her too. I didn’t carry a handbag, especially not a huge, eggplant-purple leather satchel. Inside it, in a specially constructed holster, was my service weapon and an extra magazine. In the bottom of the bag was a small makeup kit, hand sanitizers, breath mints, a small bag of travel-sized hair products, a travel sewing kit, and a change purse. All that was JoJo’s. Besides the gun, I had my cell phone and my small leather bifold ID wallet with my badge. And the wire. All hidden in special pockets.
This meet and greet was being recorded, videoed, and witnessed, with Unit Eighteen’s SAC sitting at a nearby table, his black eyes focused on his work, tapping on his laptop, looking like a hip college professor taking a break. He was wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a flannel shirt, and khakis. His hair, which grew fast when he shape-shifted, hadn’t been trimmed since reconnoitering the DNAKeys’ property, and it curled over his collar and around his ears, hung down his forehead in small ringlets. JoJo, who had approved his persona and his wardrobe, called him swoon-worthy. This close to the full moon, all I could see was his cat.
I used the darkening windows to check out the coffee shop and had a moment to think through all the coffee shops that had suddenly permeated my life. If I could get over my ingrained church reflexes I might actually become a townie—a city girl.
Turning the page in the romance book, I glanced around. I couldn’t pinpoint anyone in Remedy who might be Rick’s opposite number, a spy from the company, as no one seemed to be watching me. I checked my bun, repositioning the hair stick holding it in place. Stopped fidgeting. Deliberately checked my cell for messages. Waited.