Frailty of Things Read online

  “The woman is Isabelle Parker, Jonathon Parker’s sister. They’re talking about that international oil scandal where the company was charged with facilitating the raping of women and the pillaging of villages along the pipeline. Kit seems to be asking her all sorts of questions about how the multi-national company worked, who hired who, and that sort of thing.”

  “And Jonathon?” Caleb asked.

  “Just weighing in with his opinion. If he’s giving her some sort of coded message, it would be a very subtle one since the opinions he’s expressing, as far as I can tell, aren’t all that different than general public opinion.”

  In silence, they sat and watched for another forty-five minutes, Garret occasionally passed a comment or two to Caleb, though nothing the three at the table talked about seemed to relate to anything Jonathon Parker might do, or had done, professionally. Still, the fact that Kit had met with not one, but two foreign intelligence officers within hours of each other was something that boggled Garret’s mind. And if the moody tension coming from the driver’s seat was anything to go by, it was bothering Caleb too.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the three diners rose from their seats and began donning their winter-wear. Kit and the Parkers exchanged cards, and Isabelle and Kit gave each other a hug as they prepared to part ways.

  “What are your thoughts?” Caleb asked as Kit and company exited the café.

  Garret knew one or the other of them would need to trail her and since Caleb was driving, the task would, thankfully, fall to him. He was about to exit the car, but Caleb held out a hand to stop him so he turned back to the scene. Kit and Jonathon were still talking as Isabelle made her way toward the Tube station on the corner. After a bit, Kit and her male companion started walking in the opposite direction. They weren’t far from the hotel, maybe a thirty-minute walk, but the most direct route wasn’t a path he and Caleb could drive because of various one-way and blocked streets.

  “Now follow her,” Caleb ordered.

  Garret was more than happy to slip out of the car and make his way down the street in her direction. From his following distance, about a block behind and on the opposite side of the street, they looked to be doing nothing more than walking and talking. On occasion, Jonathon would point to something or other, but they continued on toward the hotel.

  They reached a large roundabout and at this peak traffic time, Garret was beginning to get annoyed at the number of times he’d lost sight of Kit due to some bus, or five, blocking his view. He had just reached the edge of the circle himself when he jogged around the back of a bus, expecting to see Kit and Jonathon ahead of him on the street leading back to the hotel.

  Only he didn’t see them. His heart skipped a beat as he craned his head around, searching for them everywhere. He scanned the buses and cars in the area. Chances were, she couldn’t be taken from the street, not in this traffic, but there were any number of things a man like Jonathon Parker would know what to do with a person—willing or not.

  The panic started to settle in his stomach and he darted between the cars, ignoring the blaring horns, and made his way toward where he had last seen them. Again, he scanned the area, looking for Kit’s hat in the crowd. The darkening night and dim streetlights didn’t do much to help, and he was just about to reach for his phone when he saw her rise from the sidewalk.

  A wave of relief swept through him, followed closely by one of confusion. It appeared that Jonathon Parker had fallen down; Kit and another woman, presumably someone who had stopped, were helping him rise.

  When Jonathon was standing upright again, Garret watched as he and Kit said something to the woman—something that looked like thank you—and then the woman walked away. Kit turned to Jonathon and seemed to be speaking to him; Garret couldn’t see what she was saying, she was too far away and her back was him, but she had a hand resting on Jonathon’s sleeve in a gesture of concern. Jonathon shook his head and said something in return. Kit didn’t seem to like this answer, shaking her head as she pointed something out to him on his other arm.

  Whatever else occurred in their exchange was lost to Garret as yet another bus passed in front of him as it exited the roundabout. When it finally moved out of his line of sight, all he could see of Kit was the back of her coat as she entered a nearby pharmacy.

  ***

  Kit all but dragged Jonathon into the pharmacy two doors down from where he’d fallen. He hadn’t wanted to come, but she’d threatened to make a scene if he hadn’t. She wasn’t sure if she would have followed through on it, but thankfully, he hadn’t pressed the issue.

  She glanced over at her companion who was standing meekly at her side, cradling his injured arm. For the moment, he looked okay, even if his eyes were looking everywhere but at her.

  She hadn’t a clue what had happened. One moment her hat was blowing off in a sudden gust of wind created by a passing bus, and the next Jonathon was on the ground, bleeding from his upper arm. He tried to tell her he’d simply fallen. She wished she could believe that, but even though she saw no indication of anything else, the way he tried to rush away made her think something else was going on.

  As she reached for some antiseptic and bandages, she noticed her hands were shaking. She knew she’d hold it together, but she didn’t like where her mind wanted to go. Jonathon was a spy. A spy who was being investigated for something—she didn’t know for what exactly, but chances were that if Drew had gotten involved, it couldn’t be good. And now he was injured. From a “fall.”

  Fall, her ass. He had no more fallen than she had.

  “I’m fine. If you’ll just let me go, I’ll take care of it,” he said with a gesture of his head toward her shaking hand.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she snapped. The fear of the unknown was putting her at less than her best. He sighed as she reached for some first aid tape, the last item she needed before cleaning him up. If she’d had a first aid kit in her hotel room, she would have just insisted they walk the short distance remaining, but as it was, she had nothing that could do the job.

  “Fine, Florence Nightingale. You go pay for those things, then meet me at the loo in the back of the store. I have a few calls to make,” he said.

  She turned and met his gaze. He was a man that her mother would have called classically handsome, even in his mid-fifties. His hair was still a rich brown color, but it was streaked with enough gray to make him look even more distinguished than his strong cheek bones, above-average height, and trim figure did. She knew his brown eyes, eyes that appeared soft and warm, saw more than they let on. And though his manners had so far been faultless, she was beginning to hear a bit of an edge creep into his voice.

  “You’re not going to run away, are you?” she demanded, trying to get a better look at his arm as he twisted away in an attempt to prevent the same thing.

  “I assure you, Kit, that I do not run away.” His British accent held that trace of sarcastic condescension that Brits were so good at. She glared at him. He sighed again. “I promise you, Kit, that I will be in the loo, and I will let you have a look and bandage me up.” His voice had become much gentler, more sincere. It crossed her mind that he was a spy and probably more adept at lying than she.

  “Promise?” she asked again. Although she wasn’t sure what a promise from a man like Jonathon might mean.

  But he nodded and turned, heading toward the back of the store. She watched his figure retreat behind a half door and then enter the bathroom the cashier had pointed out when they’d first entered the store.

  Kit took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. She grabbed one more item, then managed to make her purchase and explain to the cashier that her friend had been hurt in a fall so she was going to help him clean up his wound. The young man with the four eyebrow rings seemed singularly disinterested so without another word, Kit made her way back to where her charge was waiting.

  When she entered the room, she turned and locked the door. Jonathon slid his phone int
o his jacket pocket and made a gesture indicating that he was at her mercy.

  “Sit,” she said, pointing to the closed toilet lid. “And take off your jacket.”

  He sat and after a minimal amount of male wincing, his jacket was off and lying across his lap. Gingerly, she fingered the rip in his shirt. It was a straight rip about three inches long. Under the torn material was a gash in his bicep almost as long as the rip—a gash that was still oozing blood. Following the line of his shirtsleeve, she could see the trail it had made as it tracked its way down his arm. When her eyes landed on his hand, she noted there was much more blood than she had anticipated, and though mostly dry, it was caked around his knuckles, fingers, and nail beds.

  “Your shirt needs to come off too,” she sighed.

  He sighed too. “If only that were said under different circumstances, luv.”

  She laughed a bit at that. “If circumstances were different, luv, I wouldn’t be so polite.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” came a voice from behind her.

  Stifling a scream, Kit spun, even as Jonathon rose to push her behind him. For a split second, they froze in that tableau, until her mind processed what she was seeing.

  “Garret? What are you doing here?” she demanded. He nodded to her and relocked the door he had somehow managed to get open.

  “Kit?” Jonathon asked, still keeping her behind him.

  “He’s, uh,” she paused and gave herself a mental shake. Even though she could no more explain what Garret was doing there than what had happened to Jonathon, she knew she needed to get the introductions done quickly so both men would stand down.

  “He’s a friend of my brother’s,” she said. “They uh, they work in, well, I don’t really know what they do, but it’s a lot of stuff for the government that neither of them can tell me about,” she managed to say.

  “And what is he doing here?” She heard the suspicion in Jonathon’s voice and mild panic set in. She didn’t want to put Drew’s friend in danger, nor did she want to find herself in a position where Drew was wrong about his friend and she, or Garret, ended up paying the price. The thought really hadn’t crossed her mind until now. Until now, their conversations had been about politics and the weather and the royal family. But with these two men in the same room, the dynamics had changed. A lot.

  “I’m watching over her,” Garret said.

  “Why?” Jonathon said.

  And at the same time, she asked, “You are?”

  “Because obviously, she needs it,” Garret shot back at Jonathon, ignoring her question. “If that is what I think it is, you’ve been shot, my friend,” he added with a nod toward Jonathon’s bleeding arm.

  Shot? That thought hadn’t occurred to Kit and she moved in to get a closer look. She’d never seen a gunshot wound before, but as soon as Garret mentioned it, she realized that it looked exactly how she would have expected it to look—how she would have expected a graze from a bullet would look. She felt a little ill.

  “Kit, you need to sit down,” Garret ordered. Once the tone of his voice had sunk in, she looked up and glared at him.

  “You, I will talk to later,” she said, pointing to Garret with the hand carrying antiseptic. “You,” she said, pointing to Jonathon, “sit.”

  She saw Jonathon look to Garret, more in question this time than in assessment—asking whether or not he should listen to her or if Garret wanted to deal with the situation. She spun around.

  “Garret Cantona,” she said with a very pointed look at him, “if you even consider trying to whisk me off somewhere because of some lame male caveman thing, I will make sure you regret it every day for the rest of your life. He’s been shot, I just want to clean it up and make sure I don’t need to force him to go to the hospital.”

  She saw a hint of hint of something, maybe promise, play in Garret’s eyes, then he lifted a shoulder and grinned.

  “You heard the lady, Parker. Sit.”

  She turned back to Jonathon and would not have been at all surprised to hear him say “We are not amused” as his eyes bounced between them. But like a good spy, he sat and began to remove his shirt.

  Ten silent minutes later, Kit taped the last piece of gauze around Jonathon’s bicep. She’d cleaned it up, made him wash his arm and hands in warm water to the best of his ability, and used the antiseptic before closing the wound with butterfly bandages. Then she covered the whole thing with gauze.

  She pulled a clean, white t-shirt from the bag of stuff she’d bought and handed it to him. “It’s not as nice the one that’s ruined, but at least it’s clean.”

  Jonathon said nothing as he stood, handed her his jacket, then pulled the t-shirt over his head, sliding his injured arm gingerly through the sleeve. Once it was on, he held his hand out and she handed the jacket back, frowning at the tear in the sleeve. “Are you sure you’re alright, Jonathon?” she asked.

  She watched him wince as he slid his arm into the sleeve of his jacket; then he straightened his collar and looked her in the eye. “I will be fine, I promise you. I’ve made a few calls and though I hate to say this, I would like for you to have some company, at least until you leave for Rome.”

  “Company?” Kit asked, arching an eyebrow at him. “Is that your way of saying you’d like me to have protection?” The thought was both ridiculous and sickening.

  Jonathon’s eyes went to Garret then came back to hers. “Yes, I would. And while under different circumstances, I would volunteer for the job—”

  “Not happening, Parker. Not for a whole list of reasons I’m not even going to go into,” Garret interrupted.

  “No,” Jonathon replied, his eyes never leaving Kit, “Perhaps that isn’t the best of ideas. But I think you shall be in good hands with this one,” he added with a nod toward Garret. “Now, if you would both excuse me.”

  Kit stood silently as Jonathon leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He then nodded to Garret, unlocked the door, and walked out. Kit was fairly certain she would never see him again. But truth be told, that didn’t bother her all that much. She’d liked him—he’d been interesting to talk with, but there were any number of people she’d met over the years of working for Drew that she’d never seen again. And she tended to trust that it was for the best.

  “Kit?”

  Garret’s voice brought her mind back to where she was. She turned her head and met his gaze. She couldn’t begin to understand what he was doing in London and why he’d been keeping an eye on her. She didn’t think it had anything to do with Drew; neither her brother—and there was no doubt in her mind that her brother was behind this somehow—nor Garret had ever met Drew, as far as she knew, at least. And, come to think of it, she hadn’t done any CIA work since meeting Garret five months ago.

  But the alternative was something she didn’t want to think about. Because the alternative reason for her brother and Garret following her was likely something she’d been avoiding for over a decade. She swallowed and pushed aside the memory of Caleb asking her about Henry Michaels.

  “Kit? Let me get you back to your hotel. We can talk there.”

  Numbly, she nodded. She didn’t want to spend any time with Garret, and remembering Henry Michaels made her want to hide from everyone. But she knew she needed to get back to her hotel. And since the chances of him not accompanying her were slim to none, she decided not to fight it.

  Out on the sidewalk again, she took a deep breath of the cold, night air and burrowed deeper into her jacket. Garret walked between her and the street, and for the most part, she was able to ignore him and try to figure out what she needed to do next.

  About halfway back to the hotel, her phone rang. Garret glanced at her for a moment before returning his vigil to the streets. She reached for the device and recognizing the number, she answered.

  “I heard what happened,” Drew said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she mumbled, not sure how much Drew wanted her to talk in front of Garret.

&n
bsp; “And Garret Cantona is with you now?”

  That surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn’t have. “Yes.”

  “Good. I assume your brother is also there, so don’t be surprised if you see him too.”

  Garret shot her a look when a sardonic laugh escaped her. “Yeah, Click and Clack, those two. I haven’t seen him but assume he’s here somewhere,” she answered, referring to Caleb.

  “Good,” Drew said again. “Don’t head back to your room yet. Make an excuse, go for a drink or something, just give me another hour and I’ll have someone else in place to stick with you.”

  She slid a look at Garret who was, despite looking like he was out for an evening stroll, radiating tension. “Uh, I don’t think that’s going to be very easy.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it’s not. But I have faith in you. You’re a younger sibling, surely you have some devious tricks up your sleeve.”

  Kit gave this a moment’s thought. “Yeah, I suppose I might.”

  “Good, then use them. I don’t need long and I’m actually going to give you permission to tell your brother and his partner everything about what you’ve been doing, but I need you to give me until tomorrow morning before you do. Can you do that?”

  “Everything?” she asked. The unspoken question was, even about Parker?

  “Yes, everything. I’ve looked into your brother and Cantona, and I’m comfortable with you telling them whatever you feel comfortable telling them. I just need you to wait until tomorrow morning,” he repeated.

  Well, this was new. But Kit didn’t need to think too much about it. “Of course.”

  “Thank you. And like I said, I’m sending someone to look after you for tonight, so don’t be too surprised.”

  And before she could ask who, he’d hung up.

  “Who was that?” Garret asked as they approached the hotel. The doorman held the door for them and she walked in ahead of her companion.