Okay, I think my paranoia has reached a new level.
I honestly thought I was getting better (once I tried the blonde wig there was really nowhere to go but up). But now the fear that’s been quietly simmering on the back burner of my brain has roared into full flames again.
I think I’m being followed by a redhead.
The only reason I notice her is the hair—rich copper that catches the light in amber streams. It hangs straight and thick to her waist. She’s even got matching eyebrows, pale skin, and a dusting of freckles to authenticate the look. This color came from no bottle.
I first catch sight of her when I stop off at Forever 21 to pick up my latest paycheck. Miraculously I make it to the register without picking up new merchandise. That’s like running the fashion gauntlet and emerging with all your limbs.
My Barbie-clone manager Tanya is nearly finished ringing up a purchase for a pair of sullen teenagers. Every time I see Tanya, her tan is darker and her platinum hair lighter. No one has the heart to tell her she’s looking more and more like an Oompa Loompa.
Tanya sends off the teens with a bright smile before turning to me. Instantly the smile vanishes. “Jack,” she says. It sounds more like an accusation than a greeting.
My own smile is hesitant. “Tanya.”
Barbie’s twin has never been my biggest fan—not since she took over as manager and I asked at orientation why we were required to wear heels while on the sales floor. Her response was, “Because it makes us look hotter!” To which I joked, “I thought we were selling the clothes, not ourselves.” The other girls laughed, but Tanya’s gaze turned icy, and I knew I’d made an enemy.
Not only was I questioning her new authority, I was mocking her personal mantra that women should always look flawless. She’s been married for something like six years now, and I doubt her husband has ever seen her without perfectly teased hair and four-inch heels. She probably wears stilettos to pull weeds.
Tanya’s animosity increased once I got engaged. I’ve always adhered to the “Heels only” rule but once arrived for a shift in a sweatshirt. I’d been up all night with the stomach flu, but Tanya was more horrified by my “heinous choice of wardrobe” than the fact that I might vomit on the customers.
Seeing me with someone like Damon—with the good looks and the boyish smile—seemed to be too much for her. As they shook hands, I could see her mentally debating whether to blurt out, “She wears sweatshirts, you know!”
But before he left, I distinctly heard her mutter to him, “You could do better.”
“What brings you in?” she asks, perfectly pink lips pursed. “I thought you were done until after your . . . honeymoon.”
I can literally feel the love radiating from her.
“Just here to pick up my check.”
“Oh, right.” Reluctantly she starts rummaging in the drawer where she keeps the paychecks. “I guess you’ll need this for your . . . honeymoon.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Tanya was related to Aunt Muriel.
“It will help, yes,” I agree.
While Tanya takes her sweet time “looking” for my check, my gaze roves across the back of the store, still on alert for any small item that may have escaped when I pillaged the sales floor. That’s when I notice the hair gleaming bright copper under the lights. She’s near the fitting rooms, thumbing through a rack of jeans, her back to me. It gives me a full view of all that hair spilling down her back.
Her wardrobe is unique. In a sea of T-shirts and leggings she’s wearing a dark buttoned trench and spiky boots. Not that a trench coat is so unusual in the late spring. But I’m familiar enough with retail to know she didn’t get a trench that nice in a store like this. That’s straight up designer.
When she turns to another rack, I catch a glimpse of her profile and her sharp, almost feline features. She’s like what I imagine that cartoon Carmen Sandiego would look like in real life if anyone could locate her.
“Here,” Tanya says, pulling me away from my weird staring. She’s holding out my check in a sealed envelope.
“Thanks.” I tuck it into my purse and give Tanya a smile. “And . . . have a good couple of weeks.”
Her expression screams the opposite as she says, “You too.”
Having escaped my place of work, I continue sifting through my checklist. After an hour I’m carrying three bags and ticking off several items. I’m striding out of a shoe store, sandals in hand, when I notice her again.
She’s perusing the display in the window directly across from the shoe store, back to me once again. Still I think nothing of it. It’s a popular mall. Although, based on her outfit, I doubt that skater-punk style she’s looking at is really her thing.
I suffer a pang of jealousy at the length and sheen of her hair before continuing on, preoccupied with my list once more.
Within another hour I’m checking off the remaining items while I wait in line at Chick-fil-A. Knowing the French fry abstinence is nearly over, I’m able to order a salad almost cheerfully. In just twenty-four hours I’ll be married.
Marriiiiiied!
I get almost hysterically giddy every time I think about it.
Seated at a single table, fork in hand, I rush through the salad while reviewing what else has to be done today. Manicure and pedicure. I have an appointment for those later with my sisters, right before they come over to help me deep-condition my hair.
Finish packing is at the top of the list. I glance at my watch. Still time to get back to the apartment and toss everything into a suitcase before I have to meet up with Bridget for final decoration prep. And Damon should be arriving at the apartment anytime now to unload his stuff.
His stuff.
I can’t believe I’m going to be actually living with Damon. That feels almost weirder than knowing I’m going to marry him.
Of course I know there will be adjustments once we’re living together. It’ll be a big change for two people who have never lived with anyone but roommates and siblings. But I’m hoping Damon won’t steal my Jetsons T-shirt or use all my bubblegum nail polish.
Still, I’ll be living with a man. The thought makes me feel terribly grown up and freaked at the same time. He’ll be there. All the time.
I’ll wake up to him. We’ll brush our teeth at the sink side by side.
I really love that idea—seeing his face the minute I open my eyes. Having to share a bathroom and plan our meals together. I just hope he doesn’t save all his used cotton swabs or something. Or that he isn’t driven away by my own little quirks.
We’ve already had a few dustups. Like when he found that bottle of shampoo in my bathroom trash can. He asked why I threw it away when there were still two inches of usable shampoo in the bottom. So I admitted that when toiletry bottles get nearly empty I usually just . . . throw them out and buy a new one.
Damon claimed this was “unnecessary waste.” My argument that it was a pain to do “all that shaking, especially when the new bottle is sitting there all full and pretty” didn’t hold any weight with him.
So now my new tactic when a bottle gets low like that is just to use up the old stuff as fast as possible so I can legitimately move on to the new one. At least that way it’s not waste.
And I’ll be the most hygienic bride ever.
I really need to get to the apartment to show him where the empty drawers and things are.
I’m scarfing the remainder of my salad when I spot her again. That hair is eye-catching even under fluorescent lights. She’s sitting about halfway across the food court, back to me, a tray in front of her. I can see her elbow working as she raises her fork to her mouth.
Something similar happened right after Vegas when my paranoia was still in full swing. I came to this very mall with Bridget to take our first gander at wedding dresses, and I kept seeing this one girl everywhere. She was totally unassuming, with a ponytail, print leggings, and a colored tee. Every time I saw her, she was chatting with a small group of friends. Nothing suspicious about her.
The problem was I literally saw her everywhere. Every store we went into, walking from one store to the next, at the chocolate counter while I was admiring truffles, there she was, always with her friends and that swishy ponytail, looking like any other college girl enjoying a day at the mall.
But the more I saw her, the tighter my nerves stretched. By the time she and her friends sat down at a table just two over from ours in the food court, I was convinced she was connected to the Solokovs somehow. And if she was an impostor, it meant her friends were questionable too. Maybe they were the daughters of the assassins I’d helped put away, raised on knife-throwing and blow-darting, here for their revenge.
Bridget tried to talk me through it. Once we finished lunch, I agreed they were probably just normal girls out shopping and were probably not going to trap me in Claire’s and strangle me with a rose-gold chain.
Then they made the mistake of exiting the food court at the same time we did. They stepped through the exterior doors to our left just as we took the parallel doors on the right. We arrived on the sidewalk at the exact same moment.
And I . . . lost it.
I vaguely recall shrieking, toppling over a bench, and babbling something like, “It wasn’t my idea! I just walked into the hotel at the wrong time—please don’t assassinate me!”
Security was called, and Bridget had to explain I wasn’t nuts or trying to cause trouble. I was just going through a tough phase.
They were all very understanding. Even the beefy security guard, like a stampeding bull when he arrived on the scene, gave me a sympathetic wave as he went back inside, saying, “You feel better soon, sweetie.”
I haven’t had an outburst since, but I’m still embarrassed. And Bridget is reluctant to return to the mall with me.
I will not overreact to the redhead the same way I did to ponytail girl. She’s shopping in the same mall—so what? The last thing I need is to have a second nervous breakdown in public. I have no doubt the security people will remember the girl ranting about Russians and snake-bottle liquor. That’s not someone you forget.
So I push down my paranoia, finish the salad, and dump the empty carton into a trash can on my way out of the mall, stoically ignoring the redhead the entire way. Except for the split second when I glance back at her on my way out. She’s eating sushi, eyes on her plate. Obviously she doesn’t know I exist.
Shaking my head, I hurry to my car. No more crazy, I tell myself. No more staring at innocent redheads or confronting a random passerby. Focus on your wedding, Wyatt.
When I pull up to the apartment complex, I don’t see a moving truck anywhere. This stairwell is closest to my place, so if Damon was going to park it somewhere, it should be here.
I drag my shopping bags up the stairs. He must be running late. Although that’s very un-Damon, it’s possible. Loading the truck always takes longer than expected. At least it did for me. Usually because I was standing on the curb arguing with Jen about that “hideous chair” I refused to give up.
When I reach the second floor, the apartment door is propped open. A moment later Damon appears to remove the rock holding the door ajar.
“Hey there, bride.” He grins. “Come on in.”
“Hey!” I accept his kiss and toss my shopping bags on the table. “How’s it coming in here?”
“Good.” He smiles. “Pretty much done.”
Perplexed, I look around the living room. There are maybe six medium-sized packing boxes stacked on the rug, two duffel bags on the coffee table and a single rolling rack of suits standing in front of the TV.
I raise my eyebrows at Damon. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?”
“Your stuff.”
He shrugs, glancing at the boxes. “This is it.”
I walk over and prod a box neatly labeled, Kitchen: Bowls, Cups, Utensils, and Pans with my foot. Surveying the other boxes, I bluster, “This cannot be all of it!”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s hardly anything here! I find more crap than this when I clean out my car.”
Damon looks amused. “Jack, I’m a man. What did you expect?”
“But I’ve seen your old apartment,” I insist. “There were couches and end tables and lamps—”
“All rented.”
“Rented?”
“Yeah. The Bureau helps with housing for agents who might be in town temporarily. I got my position on a trial basis at first, so I took over the lease from another agent who was transferring.”
“So none of that stuff was yours?”
“Well, some of it.” He lifts a few picture frames from an open box. “Mementos, dishes, clothes. The stuff I brought with me.”
Still bewildered, I finger the sleeve of one of his suits. “It’s just so sparse.”
Again he shrugs. “For a long time I just took the two bags whenever I switched assignments. Changing cities gets old when you’re dragging your whole life around. Men don’t need much. Shoes, pants, toothbrush. And it’s a good thing,” he teases, wrapping his arms around my waist. “If I had any more, it would never fit in here.”
I flick his ear. He always goads me for having a lot of stuff. But I downsized for him to move in. Delia came over for a grueling de-junking a few weeks back. We scoured every closet, drawer, and shelf while she asked, “When’s the last time you used this?” By the end I had about twelve bulging garbage bags to donate to the thrift store.
Now, seeing what Damon’s actually brought, I realize we may have been a little overeager.
“It’s fine,” I say at last. “We need to get some new stuff anyway. Stuff that’s ours, not just yours or mine.”
“I’d like that.” He smiles. “Maybe make things a little more masculine.”
“What do you mean? How is my stuff too feminine?”
Damon grins. “Well, for starters, I haven’t slept in a princess canopy for years.”
“It’s Indian,” I counter. “It’s exotic.”
He winces. “It might make me feel like Aladdin or something.”
“And what’s wrong with that? Aladdin was awesome. He parkoured all over the city and defeated an evil vizier. You’d be lucky to be like
Aladdin.”
“Oh, my mistake.”
I heave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. We can . . . think about getting rid of the canopy.”
“You are so generous.” He rips the tape off the nearest box of kitchen stuff and starts lifting out spatulas and serving spoons. “Want to tell me where these should go?”
I guide him to the open cabinets, debating whether or not to mention the redhead. I’m sure it’s nothing. But it did ping on my weird radar.
Before we were engaged Damon told me about “the radar.” He said as an agent you learn some things are just plain instinct. A guy on the street might look suspicious, but you can’t really nail down the reason. While baseless suspicion is not encouraged, his trainer had cautioned him to listen to those instincts.
He was amused the instructor had tried to come up with a logical explanation for these blips on internal radar. Damon was convinced they were something he’d been familiar with since childhood—the Holy Ghost speaking to him. Damon felt that promptings from the Spirit, blips, and agent instinct were all the same thing. He’s tried to listen to them as an agent, and it has served him well.
Once while off-duty he spotted a guy in a corner mini-mart. The man looked pretty clean-cut and regular, but he blipped on Damon’s radar. So he discreetly followed the guy through the store. And when Average Joe reached the register and pulled a gun on the cashier, Damon had already drawn and called for backup.
“You’ve got to follow those feelings,” he told me. “They’ve kept me alive during more than one operation.”
“I doubt I’ll be going on many ops.” I’d laughed at the time (before Vegas, when I was still a naive idiot).
“Doesn’t matter,” Damon insisted. “It’s the same with self-defense, how you live your life day-to-day. I had a Primary teacher who called it the ‘Uh-oh Feeling.’ It’ll keep you safer if you pay attention to it.”
Maybe that’s what bugged me about the redhead. There was no real, logical reason to be suspicious of her. But when I glimpsed that Carmen Sandiego profile, some intuitive sensor took notice.
Still, I hesitate to bring it up. After the Solokov bust, as I spiraled into suspicion, Damon plunged into guilt. He felt every nightmare and irrational fear I suffered was his fault. Because if we’d never started dating or he hadn’t agreed to let me pose as Carmella, my life still would’ve been free of those things.
I said blaming himself was ridiculous, but when the nightmares were particularly bad, I half-expected him to break off the engagement. It would be just like him to do something noble and incredibly annoying like remove himself from my life in an attempt to do the “right thing” for me.
For a long time I saw the wheels turning in exactly that direction when he looked at me. The last thing I want is to bring on more guilt and doubt the day before we’re meant to walk down the aisle.
Not that there actually is an aisle in the temple. But, you know.
So I keep my mouth shut and help him unpack.
Between boxes he checks his email and breaks into a grin. “Rod’s pretty sure he’ll be able to come tomorrow. He can only get away for a few minutes, but at least it’s something.”
I’ve been hearing about Enriqué Rodriguez, Damon’s first partner at the Bureau, since we started dating. If Damon’s stories about him are half as wild as the truth, this guy puts 007 to shame. Damon asked Rod to be his best man months ago, and Rod accepted. But recently he was put on a case that has him working around the clock. Damon understands, but I hate that the friend he wanted there most will only be able to make an appearance.
“My sister, Sabrina, will be a great fill-in ‘best man,’” Damon assured me when we found out. “I think there’s an unspoken rule that the best man has to have given the groom a swirly at some point, so one less thing Sabrina will have to do tomorrow.”
It takes no time at all to fit his meager possessions into the framework of the apartment. Quite suddenly he’s all moved in, all but a single duffle still on the coffee table.
“What about that one?” I ask, pointing to it.
“That’s my bag for tonight.” His eyes are twinkling. “Tuxedo’s in the trunk.”
Tonight. His last night as a single man before this is our home. It makes me giddy all over again.
My phone breaks into song: Peter Cetera’s 1986 classic, “Glory of Love.” I fish the phone out of my purse and silence it just as Peter croons into the first chorus.
“Call?” Damon asks.
“No, just an alarm reminding me I have four thousand things to do still.”
He chuckles. “You and that song.”
I purse my lips. “What’s wrong with that song?”
“It’s just a little . . .” He shrugs. “Cheesy.”
“It’s a classic!” Off-pitch I bellow the next line, picking up where my alarm left off.
“You thinking of starting a band?”
“You never know. I could dye my hair blonde and get a perm for the full Peter Cetera look.”
He laughs. “Sounds hot.”
“Besides, I don’t trust your opinion on music anymore.”
“Oh, here we go . . .”
This is an argument we’ve playfully had about a hundred times now, but I launch back in. “If you think ‘Lost’ is our song and not ‘Everything I Do’—”
“Michael Bublé is better than Bryan Adams,” Damon argues. “Bryan Adams is overrated.”
I grasp at my heart, scandalized. “Okay, I love me some Bublé, and he is a genius. But Adams ‘overrated’? You just spat all over the 80s.”
“Did I?”
“Billy Idol would be ashamed of you.”
We’ve been disagreeing about our wedding song for months now. Damon once softly sang Michael Bublé’s “Lost” to me while I was in agony with a stomach flu, and it’s now my go-to comfort to ask him for an encore.
But I maintain our song is “Everything I Do” by Bryan Adams. We shared our very first dance to it at the stake dance during the Natalie Paul case. It was the first time I admitted to myself I had feelings for stuffy Agent Wade and he silently acknowledged his feelings for maddening Jacklyn Wyatt. It’s where our story really started.
Damon insisted “Lost” is about who we have become as a couple and that if I wanted our first married dance to be to a song by Bryan Adams, I was crazy. To which I said something super mature like, “Your face is crazy!” And we’ve been disputing ever since.
“We really do have to work this little detail out,” Damon says. “Since the reception is . . . you know, tomorrow.”
“Observant for a man who can’t see that our song is obviously ‘Everything I Do.’”
“Oh really?”
“You jumped into a fire for me,” I remind him. “And there was that other little thing. What was that? Oh right!” I snap my fingers. “You leapt off a balcony for me!”
Damon cocks one eyebrow. “Your point?”
“You’re totally Robin Hood with the catapult! That song was written about us!”
Suddenly he’s nodding. “You know, you’re right. I did jump into a fire for you.”
His agreeableness is making me suspicious. Slowly I say, “Yes . . .”
“And I did leap off a balcony for you.”
“Mm-hmm . . .”
He grins. “So I should get to pick the wedding song.”
My jaw pops open. “Really? You’re playing that card?”
Damon looks pleased with himself. “I knew I was saving it for something important!” He glances at his watch. “I need to get Sabrina so we can pick up Mom at the airport. She’s arriving from Vegas in about an hour.”
“You sure you don’t mind staying at the hotel with them?” I ask.
“No, I’ll be fine on the rollaway.” He hefts the overnight bag onto his shoulder. “It’ll be one last hurrah with the Wades.”
“But wait.” I pull him back as he turns toward the door. “Is this the last time I’m going to see you?”
“Well, no.” His eyes are amused as he slips his free arm about my waist. “I have you penciled in for the rest of eternity, actually.”
“I mean today.” I twine my arms around his neck, petulant. “I’m not going to see you again until the wedding.”
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to do the whole ‘groom can’t see the bride before the wedding’ thing.”
“It’s tradition.”
“I’m up for it because you want it. But I don’t like being away from you.”
“Mmm. Pretty soon you won’t have to be away from me at all.”
Damon’s arm tightens. “It’s all I can think about.”
He’s swaying with me a little, like a dance without music, and after a minute I push him back. “Okay. Now you gotta go.”
“Hey.” He chuckles, drawing me back in. “You’re the one who stopped me from leaving—”
“I know. But now I think you’d better.”
“Why?”
“Safety.”
“We are pretty alone, aren’t we?” Leaning in, he kisses me only once but draws away quickly. “Okay,” he agrees, nodding. “Yep. Time to go.”
I’m laughing as I walk him to the door. “Just until tomorrow.”
Damon kisses the tip of my nose, smiling gently. “See you at the altar.”
I can feel myself grinning goofily back. “See you.”
As the door closes behind him, I lean against it and sigh gustily like the silly female I am. I’ve become just another giddy, twitterpated girl. Getting married tomorrow.