Down to the Liar(26)

You rly want me stuck in your house with nothing to do?



I’d nearly typed at home because it’s shorter, but, well, no. It’s not my home.

Buzz.

Serious this time.



Tap.

Suuure.



Buzz.

1 week. No phone.



Good lord. That’s like saying “No coffee.”

Tap.

Ouch.



Buzz.

No Dani.



Ha. I’d like to see him try to stop her. For real, I’d probably pay admission. Dani is a nineteen-year-old mob enforcer. She does exactly what she wants, and no FBI agent, let alone Mike, is going to get in her way. I’m not even sure she would listen to me. In fact, I know she wouldn’t.

Tap.

Good luck with that.



Now he’s calling me. I sigh and tap the Answer button. “Who is this and why do you keep stalking me?”

“Funny,” he says. “I could consider this a violation of your probation, you know.”

“Blowing curfew by accident is not grounds for probation violation.”

“Blowing curfew repeatedly is good enough grounds to try.”

“If you wouldn’t insist on instituting these silly rules, I wouldn’t be forced to break them.”

“The point of these ‘silly rules’ is to keep you safe. You know, from vengeance-seeking Ukrainian mobsters.”

“Spending years up to your neck in a covert government agency has skyrocketed your paranoia. No one’s conspiring to kill me.”

“Yet,” Mike growls. He’s probably referring to himself rather than Petrov, the mob boss I took down last October.

“Seriously, Mike, if it were two in the morning, I’d understand. But ten o’clock? Middle schoolers are still out peddling Girl Scout cookies.”

Mike echoes my earlier sigh. I can see him in my mind’s eye rubbing his bald boulder of a head in agitation. “I don’t want to babysit you. Believe me, I have better things to do with my time. But I can’t follow you around to keep you out of the crosshairs either. I’m responsible for your safety. The ten o’clock curfew is the best compromise I can make.”

None of this is new territory. Since I moved in with him and Angela, we’ve had multiple arguments about my safety. But if Petrov had wanted to make a move to hurt me, he’d have done it by now. I remind Mike of this, but he shrugs it off.

“Whether Petrov is out to get you or not, you’d better get your butt back home in the next half hour or I really am grounding you this time.”

“All right, all right. I’m leaving now,” I say.

“One more thing,” he says. “I’m leaving town for a couple of weeks. I have a bank robbery assignment in New York.”

“Bank robbery? Aren’t you in the organized crime division? And anyway, doesn’t New York have its own FBI agents?”

He pauses. Just a tiny fraction of a pause no one else would notice. But I notice. “It potentially relates to one of my cases here in Chicago, so I’m going to check it out.”

My gut says he’s holding back. “Anything having to do with me?”

He chuckles. “It was the pause, wasn’t it? Look, kid, not everything is about you. I’m just worried about leaving you here without somebody to hassle you when you don’t make curfew. I don’t want you to feel alone. I am coming back.”

Ugh. I hate it when I’m blindsided by sappy crap. Especially when it’s tough-as-a-tire-iron Mike trying to be sensitive to my abandonment issues. Yes, my mom left me when I was eight. Yes, my dad’s now in prison for the remainder of my high school years. That doesn’t mean I’m going to break down when the closest thing I have to a parental unit is going on a business trip.

“Don’t worry about me, G-man. I’ve got this.”

“I know,” he says. “Just make sure you keep Angela up to date on where you are.”

I hang up and quickly email the insurance scammer report and video to the insurance investigator. I’m pulling on my jacket when the tarnished bell hanging over the door rings.

“We’re closed,” I say as a joke, because I assume it’s Dani checking up on me.

When there’s no acerbic comment in return, I look up. But it’s not Dani’s black-clad, steel-sharp form standing in the doorway. It’s a woman in her early fifties with chestnut hair and a haggard expression.