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I WAS DREAMING OF MERLIN. Not Carter, not Ida Belle, not Gertie. But Merlin. In the dream I had snuck back to Marge’s house to get him. I crept up the stairs and entered the bedroom. Ahmad was sitting in a side chair, holding a gun to his head.
“I’ve already taken care of the deputy and the two old ladies,” he said. “They begged me to spare them.” He laughed. “Now it’s the cat’s turn.”
I woke with a start, my neck stiff and painful as I straightened up in my seat. Harrison was driving.
“Bad dream?”
I nodded and groaned. Though it was still dark, I could see the outlines of trees. Some hills. A lighted billboard caught my eye advertising an ice-cream store in Brenham.
“Where the hell is Brenham?” I had my “morning” voice. Deeper. Sexy, if I do say so myself. A voice I had hoped to someday share while waking up next to Carter.
“An hour and a half outside of Austin.”
“Something tells me that’s not where I’m ending up.”
He shook his head.
I took a moment to fully awaken before asking, “Do I get the privilege of knowing where that will be?”
“In the glove box,” Harrison said.
I flipped on the overhead light and opened the glove box. Inside I found a plastic pouch containing a wad of cash, a couple of credit cards and a phony California driver’s license issued to “Delilah Garrity,” age 29.
“Delilah? Don’t tell me, this is another relative of Morrow’s.”
“Nope, this one’s on my side of the family. She’s a daughter of one of my mother’s cousins,” Harrison said. “Her Aunt Olive passed away and, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, you’re there to sell her trailer.”
“I didn’t hear you right. Did you say trailer?”
“Yep. A fifty-five-plus trailer park in a town called Superstition City, located fifty miles in the desert outside of Phoenix.”
“You hate me, right?”
“It’s a double-wide,” Harrison said, defensively. “Three bedrooms, big screen TV, air conditioner. And you have a little plot of fake-grass lawn with a couple of folding chairs. Just, you know, don’t walk on it in your bare feet. It’s about a hundred and twenty degrees there right now and the plastic grass will melt the skin off your feet.”
I shook my head. “You got this together pretty quickly. When did the aunt die?”
“About a month ago. I set it all up then as a possible cover in case we had to move you. My mom said the real Delilah is scheduled to go there in the fall and sell the trailer, so you’ll have the place for a couple of months if need be.”
I read the sheet of my new bio. I work as a waitress in a restaurant in Los Angeles while waiting for my big break in Hollywood. I’ve worked as an extra in several films and TV shows, most notably as a cadaver in an episode of a popular crime show. In addition, I’ve also had some paying gigs as a voice-over artist, specializing in crying babies and cat meows.
“Crying babies? Tell me this is made up.”
Harrison shook his head. “I remember meeting Delilah once. She has a different cry for wet diaper and one for hunger. Ask her about it and she’ll demonstrate. Again and again and again.”
“I want it noted that I think all of this is unnecessary.”
During the night Harrison had filled me in on why Director Morrow thought I had been compromised. The “intel” had come from a snitch with the nickname of “Cube.” I’d worked with this guy before and found him to be a serial liar. Harrison ignored my pleas to take me back home.
“Look, you’re still a CIA agent. If Morrow says we get you the hell out of Sinful, that’s what we do. He just wants to be cautious.”
“I have friends in Sinful. You and I both know that doesn’t happen for me very often.”
“I know,” he said softly. “And I really hated taking you away.”
I knew he did.
“We’re hoping it won’t be long. But, in the meantime, no contact with anyone back there. I mean it.”
He dropped me off at a bus station in Austin for a 10:45 AM Greyhound to Phoenix, where a rental car waited in my new name. Before he said goodbye, he handed me a case containing a laptop.
“Let me know when you get there. Your bio has my new email address. You have one as well. CryingBaby007.”
We hugged before he left. “I’m really sorry,” he whispered.
For the next twenty-four hours I sat on a bus staring at the countryside, thinking of Carter, thinking of Ida Belle and Gertie, thinking of Sinful.
And yes, I was treated to a real crying baby, sitting with her mother across the aisle from me. And I learned something. The cries for wet diaper ARE different than for I’m hungry. If anything strengthened my resolve to quit the CIA, this was it.