Spy Now, Pay Later Read online

  Spy Now, Pay Later

  Book 8 of the NEVER SAY SPY series

  By Diane Henders

  Published July 2014 by PEBKAC Publishing

  Smashwords Edition v.4

  ISBN 978-1-927460-17-7

  The town of Silverside and all secret technologies are products of my imagination. If I’m abducted by grim-faced men wearing dark glasses, or if I die in an unexplained fiery car crash, you’ll know I accidentally came a little too close to the truth.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Please respect my hard work by complying with copyright laws. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. You may not resell this e-book under any circumstances.

  Thank you for reading!

  Copyright © 2014 Diane Henders

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Books in the NEVER SAY SPY series:

  Book 1: Never Say Spy

  Book 2: The Spy Is Cast

  Book 3: Reach For The Spy

  Book 4: Tell Me No Spies

  Book 5: How Spy I Am

  Book 6: A Spy For A Spy

  Book 7: Spy, Spy Away

  Book 8: Spy Now, Pay Later

  Book 9: Spy High

  Book 10 to be released late 2015

  More books coming! For a current list, please visit www.dianehenders.com

  Or sign up for my New Book Notification list at

  www.dianehenders.com/books

  For Phill

  Thank you for being my technical advisor and the most tolerant husband ever. Much love!

  To my beta readers/editors, especially Carol H., Judy B., and Phill B., with gratitude: Many thanks for all your time and effort in catching my spelling and grammar errors, telling me when I screwed up the plot or the characters’ motivations, and generally keeping me honest.

  To everyone else, respectfully:

  If you find any typographical errors in this book, please send an email to [email protected]. Mistakes drive me nuts, and I’m sorry if any slipped through. Please let me know what the error is, and on which page (or at which position in e-versions). I’ll make sure it gets fixed as soon as possible. Thanks!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 1

  Choking on frantic sobs, I yanked the lever of the last remaining fire extinguisher. Only a few droplets dribbled out, sizzling uselessly in the flames that ravaged Kane’s motionless body.

  It was too late. He was already dead.

  I had killed him…

  “John!” I bolted up in bed, my scream ripping the dark silence.

  Panting, I wrapped my arms around myself. “Oh, Jesus. God…” I sucked in a shuddering breath and drew my knees up to rest my sweaty forehead on them. “Shit, stop it! He’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s okay, nothing bad is happening…”

  Another deep breath. “Okay. It’s okay…”

  I flopped back on the pillow, pawing my tangled hair away from my face with a shaking hand.

  “Okay. Breathe.”

  I stopped babbling to follow my own advice. Eyes closed. Belly breaths. Nice and slow. In, two… three… four. Out, two… three... four. Ocean waves rolling in…

  At last my heart consented to resume a more-or-less normal rhythm, and the end of my exhalation turned into a groan when I opened my eyes to the glowing numbers of my bedside clock.

  Six A.M. Just over an hour since I’d last woken screaming.

  “Fine,” I croaked. “Screw this. I’m done.” I hauled myself out of bed, hissing quiet but sincere obscenities when the two-day-old bruises on my knee and elbow reminded me of their presence.

  I was tottering toward the bathroom when the ring of the phone slammed adrenaline into my veins. I spun, tripped over sleep-clumsy feet, and sprawled across the bed to snatch up the receiver.

  “Ow! Shit! What?” My raw-throated rasp drew an instant of silence at the other end of the line.

  “Is this Aydan Kelly?”

  “Yes! Who-”

  “Surveillance cameras just picked up Paul Hibbert heading for your front door. Looks like he’s carrying a bouquet of flowers.”

  “Shit!” I dropped the phone and snatched my gun from under the pillow before lurching to my feet to grab for the jeans and sweatshirt I always kept beside my bed.

  “What the hell does that asshole want?” I demanded in the direction of the receiver as I jerked the clothes on.

  The faint crackle of the analyst’s response was drowned out by the sound of my doorbell, and I yanked the spare blanket off my bed and threw it around myself. Hurrying for the door, I draped a fold of blanket over my gun hand.

  The doorbell rang again, and I hesitated. What the hell was Hibbert up to? I couldn’t imagine him bringing me anything but poison ivy in an exploding vase, unless I had somehow misinterpreted ‘I’ll get you, bitch’.

  Maybe he’d meant to say ‘I’ll get you flowers, bitch’. I snickered despite my pounding heart.

  Loud knocking made me twitch my gun into ready position.

  “Flowers from Mr. Parr!” Another barrage of knocks rattled my door. “Open up, bitch! I know you’re in there!”

  Yep, Mr. Sweetness-And-Light as usual. But he wasn’t kicking the door in. So far, so good.

  “Fuck off!” I yelled.

  “Open the fucking door! Parr will chew my ass off if I don’t deliver these flowers right into your hands!”

  “Stick them up your ass! He can enjoy them while he’s chewing!”

  The door shivered under what sounded like a vigorous kick. “Open the fucking door or I’ll dent every square inch of it!”

  Well, wasn’t that interesting? He was threatening my door, but not me. Parr must have thrown some serious fear into him.

  A series of loud thuds convinced me to make a decision, pronto.

  “All right, I’m coming! Take a pill already!” I tucked my blanket-wrapped gun close to my body and unlocked the door left-handed, stepping back rapidly. He probably wouldn’t attack me, but…

  The door swung open and Hibbert shoved a magnificent bouquet in my direction. “Here. Choke on them.”

  He let go of the flowers so fast I had to make a two-handed grab to save them. Fortunately he was already wheeling to stalk away, so he couldn�
�t have heard the muffled clunk of my blanket-wrapped gun against the heavy vase.

  Christ, that vase looked like crystal. What the hell…?

  I swung the door almost shut against the frigid air and watched through the crack while Hibbert stomped down my lane into the darkness, his shoulders hunched around his ears. A few minutes later the slam of a car door shattered the country silence like a gunshot and headlights blazed to life on the opposite side of my gate. I closed the door on the angry revving of his engine as his taillights receded down the snowy road.

  Shivering, I propped the vase awkwardly in the crook of my elbow while I re-locked my door, then trailed over to place the ostentatious bouquet on my kitchen table and extract the card from its blown-glass holder.

  The creamy envelope was lined with rich metallic foil, and the heavy matte paper of the card would have screamed ‘big money’ if it hadn’t been far too well-bred to communicate in anything but a discreet murmur:

  ‘Dear Arlene – I hope you are recovering. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything. Sincerely, Nick Parr’

  Shit, Parr had written it personally. I had thought he was in Vegas or Ibiza or Monte Carlo, but maybe he had come back to do damage control…

  I sank into a chair and drew my icy bare feet up under me, my tired mind groaning into reluctant action. Why would Parr send me flowers at six o’clock on Christmas morning? And why the hell would he send them with Hibbert when he knew about our mutual loathing?

  The flowers and note supported Parr’s carefully-cultivated façade as the respectable and philanthropic CEO of Fuzzy Bunny’s international toy empire, so that made sense. Just a good PR gesture, buttering up a distraught passenger after a fire on their corporate jet. But he wouldn’t send flowers at an ungodly hour on a holiday. That had to be Hibbert’s little gesture of goodwill.

  So maybe Parr was testing Hibbert’s loyalty by assigning him a demeaning delivery-boy errand. And since Hibbert had to know that crossing Parr was a good way to end up dead, waking me with insults at six A.M. would be his passive-aggressive way to goad me without too much risk to himself.

  Dangerous game. But no more dangerous than the one I was playing. If Parr found out I wasn’t really Arlene Widdenback the cheesy porn star and fraud artist, I’d end up unpleasantly dead, too…

  I shook off that thought with a shudder and rose to stumble back to the bedroom. The phone still lay on my bed, and I hurried over to pick it up.

  “Hi, are you still there?” I asked.

  “Of course.” The surveillance analyst sounded peeved. “Is everything secure there?”

  Poor bastard. He must be low man on the totem pole if he had drawn surveillance duty on Christmas morning.

  “Fine. Thanks for being there.”

  “You’re welcome.” He sounded slightly mollified, and I hung up and hauled myself to the bathroom.

  The mirror reflected a baggy-eyed hag who looked closer to sixty-seven than my actual forty-seven, and I sighed and dragged a brush through my tangled hair before throwing my shoulders back, sucking in my gut, and pasting on a fake smile.

  Better. Now I only looked ten years older than my real age.

  My reflection twisted its face into a rude grimace, and I retreated to the heavenly embrace of a hot shower.

  Forehead pressed against the cool tile, eyes squeezed shut while the steaming water cascaded down my back, I summoned the previous evening’s happy memories, hoping to calm the weak trembling of too much adrenaline and not enough sleep.

  Just relax. Think good thoughts…

  …Spider’s and Linda’s faces glowing with happiness, their eyes sparkling as brightly as the brand-new diamond on her finger. The sound of Christmas carols and the lively chatter of their family and friends. Eggnog blessing my tongue with its creamy caress. Jack and Germain stealing a kiss under the mistletoe, her golden curls gleaming like angel wings against his black hair. And Kane, tall and strong and miraculously alive, his smile and murmured ‘Merry Christmas’ still warming my heart…

  I let out a long breath, the knots slowly easing from my shoulders. “Merry Christmas, John,” I whispered. “I hope you’re having a better Christmas than this.”

  A smile eased my lips. I knew he would. He was headed for Calgary this morning for some precious family time with his dad and Arnie.

  When I emerged from the shower at last, I was alert enough to consider the flowers with renewed suspicion. Even after a reprimand from Parr, I wouldn’t put it past Hibbert to sabotage the bouquet. Hell, I’d be shocked if he hadn’t sabotaged the bouquet. And pissed on my doorstep, to boot.

  I considered calling the surveillance analyst and asking about the state of my doorstep, but I decided I didn’t really want to know. Instead, I threw on some clothes and took out my bug detector, feeling slightly foolish at my own paranoia.

  My heart clutched when the indicator light blinked red.

  Long intervals between flashes. The listening device was in my house, but probably not in this room.

  I had just cleared the house last night.

  So that’s what the flowers were for. Parr had bugged the bouquet. Or Hibbert had.

  As I moved toward the kitchen, the cadence of the flashes accelerated. Heart pattering, I halted in the hallway to think.

  What if there was a surveillance camera in the bouquet, too? My cover would be completely blown if I walked around the corner with classified technology in my hand.

  A sudden thought made my mouth go dry. God, had I kept my gun concealed the whole time I was in the kitchen?

  I must have. I had still been wearing the blanket when I’d gone back to the bedroom to pick up the phone…

  I tucked the bug detector into the pocket of my jeans with an unsteady hand and drew a deep breath before strolling into the kitchen.

  My face felt frozen in an ‘I’m-on-camera’ stare, and I tried to relax it with a fake yawn as I approached the table. I coaxed my stiff lips into a smile and murmured, “Let’s see, where should I put you beauties?” as I picked up the vase, turning it in my hands as if admiring it.

  Sure enough, the gilt sticker on the bottom of the vase looked too thick. But not thick enough to hide a camera, and anyway, Fuzzy Bunny probably didn’t have a burning desire for a close-up of my tabletop.

  Just a bug, then.

  Unless there was a camera hidden in the flowers…

  “Maybe I should trim your stems,” I added for the benefit of my audience, and proceeded to dismantle the entire arrangement, diligently trimming stems and scrutinizing every bloom, leaf, and stalk.

  When I finished reassembling the bouquet, it was a sad caricature of the once-beautiful arrangement, but I was certain it didn’t contain a camera. I sent a mental apology to the high-priced floral designer who would undoubtedly blanch at my desecration, and replaced the vase in the middle of the table. Then I threw on my jacket and boots and hurried out to my heated garage.

  A check of my bug detector revealed a reassuring green light, and I extracted a secured phone from my car’s glove compartment and pressed the speed dial button.

  The phone rang and rang, and I braced myself for Dermott’s wrath. At last, the connection clicked open.

  “What?” he snarled.

  “It’s Kelly,” I said crisply. “Parr just sent Hibbert over with a bugged flower arrangement for me.”

  “At six o’fucking-clock on Christmas fucking morning?” Dermott sounded like he’d been gargling battery acid and wouldn’t hesitate to spit some my way, so I refrained from pointing out that it was actually almost six-thirty.

  “Just sharing the joy,” I said instead. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. Or disinformation; whichever you want. We can discuss it in the briefing with Stemp. Merry fucking Christmas.” The line went dead in my ear, and I sighed and retraced my steps to the house.

  Only two more days of Dermott’s crankiness. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking forward to having Cha
rles Stemp back in his rightful position as director. Stemp might be a ruthless bastard, but at least he was instantly alert at any hour of the day or night, and his customary emotionless façade precluded any displays of temper.

  Inside, I shed my jacket and boots and shivered over to ransack the cupboards. A bowl of cereal soothed my growling stomach, but the early-morning blackness outside the windows encroached like a malevolent presence.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered, and crept to the bedroom to burrow back into bed. I was floating on the hazy edge of slumber when the phone jolted me awake again, and I stared in disbelief at the clock.

  Seven-thirty.

  “Jesus, seriously?” I fumbled the receiver to my ear, clamping my eyes shut. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Aydan, it’s Germain. I hope I’m not calling too early…” He trailed off uncomfortably.

  I prodded my Little Miss Sunshine persona into reluctant wakefulness. “Hi, Carl! No, it’s fine, I’ve been up since six. Merry Christmas!”

  “Oh, good.” Relief warmed his voice. “Merry Christmas to you, too. I knew you were a morning person and I was afraid I’d miss you if I waited any longer. I really hate to ask you this, but I was wondering if I could borrow your truck today. My car won’t start, and I have to be in Calgary by eleven. I called Kane hoping to catch a ride, but he’s already halfway there.”

  I ground the heel of my hand into my forehead. “Well, normally I’d say sure, but when I was on my way home last week the steering started pulling. If it’s a ball joint or tie rod end, it’s not safe to drive. I was going to get it up on the hoist and look at it, but I haven’t had time yet.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll risk it. I have to be there.” His uncharacteristic intensity made my eyes pop open.

  “I’ll come and give you a boost. Maybe that’ll do it. ”

  “No, I already got the hotel manager to boost it. It didn’t help. The starter’s probably gone.”