Spy Away Home (The Never Say Spy Series Book 10) Read online

  Spy Away Home

  Book 10 of the NEVER SAY SPY series

  By Diane Henders

  Published September 2015 by PEBKAC Publishing

  Amazon Kindle Edition v.1

  ISBN 978-1-927460-28-3

  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 © 2015 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: Spy Away Home

  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 Rick and Sandy H. at Hand Crafted Images: Your talent makes my covers extra-special, and your sense of humour makes photo sessions fun even for a camera-hater like me. Thank you!

  To Steve A. and the staff at The Shooting Edge: Thank you for lending us your excellent facilities for our cover photo sessions. You guys rock!

  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 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  A Request

  Book Links

  About Me

  Since You Asked…

  Chapter 1

  I inhaled the pleasant tang of gun oil and smiled at my little Glock 26, disassembled on the kitchen table in front of me. “There you go, baby,” I cooed. “All cleaned up after that nasty humidity. Isn’t that better?”

  My grin widened as I flipped my ponytail over my shoulder and leaned back in my chair to indulge in a lazy stretch, soaking up the comfort of my country home. After living in a canvas tent in the B.C. rainforest for the past four months, I’d almost forgotten how wonderful it was to be warm and dry.

  Blue Alberta sky filled the window over the sink, and the morning sunbeams caressed the scuffed hardwood floor. My ancient CD player shuffled its contents before filling the room with the lively notes of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet.

  Letting out a sigh of pure contentment I bent to the uncomplicated task of reassembling my pistol, belting out ‘Mack The Knife’ along with Louis despite my complete lack of vocal talent.

  The phone rang as I was finishing the assembly and I grunted annoyance. Ignoring the summons, I did a final check of the slide’s action and reached for my soft polishing cloth. Whoever it was, they could damn well leave a message. This peaceful morning was all mine…

  A thunderous impact shivered my front door.

  I leaped to my feet and slapped the Glock’s magazine into place, sucking in an adrenaline-charged breath. Lucky I’d reinforced the lock on that door…

  A shotgun blast hammered my ears and the wood around the lock exploded into splinters.

  Shit!

  Time slowed. Everything sprang into hard-edged focus.

  I jacked a bullet into the Glock’s chamber as the shattered door swung wide under a second kick. The shooter lunged through the doorway, his shotgun swivelling and rising to find me.

  My pistol snapped up. Two shots kicked my hands.

  The intruder staggered, his face slackening under a brand-new hole in his forehead. His body thudded to the floor with an impact I felt through my feet but couldn’t hear through my gunshot-deafened ears.

  He lay still.

  A slow crimson puddle oozed from under the sprawled body, creeping over my doormat to dribble into the grout lines of my tiled entry floor.

  I stood frozen open-mouthed, my gun still trained on him.

  The phone’s continued ringing was a tinny thread of sound almost lost in the bulging cottony quiet of my overloaded hearing. Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice sang a macabre accompaniment. My answering machine played its outgoing message, adding to the jumble of sound.

  I worked my jaw a couple of times in an attempt to get my ears functioning again. Prying my left hand loose from the Glock, I kept the body covered one-handed while I tottered over to the CD player and silenced it.

  The voice emanating from my answering machine barely overcame the high-pitched buzzing that was replacing my deafness. “Aydan, I’ve been thinking of you. Pick up if you’re there!”

  I didn’t recognize the tense voice, but the code words made me draw a breath of relief. My surveillance crew checking up on me.

  Still left-handed, I picked up the handset and thumbed the Talk button.

  “Hi.” My voice came out ridiculously calm and level. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

  “Thank God!” The nameless analyst on the other end let out a whoosh of breath, and I spared him a moment of sympathy. He must have had only seconds to spot the incoming threat on t
he hidden surveillance cameras that monitored my front porch. “Thank God you’re okay,” he repeated.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” I still sounded utterly emotionless. “Send me a clean-up crew ASAP, would you please?”

  The analyst drew a deep breath before speaking with clipped efficiency. “Dispatching them now. They should be there in about twenty minutes. Glad you’re okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I repeated mindlessly. “Thanks. ‘Bye.”

  I clicked off the handset, still staring at the intruder over my pistol sights. He hadn’t moved. A puddle of urine spread to meet the blood, feathering swirls of red into the clear liquid.

  “I think I got him,” I said aloud, and a shrill hysterical giggle leaked from my lips. Smothering it, I eased my trembling gun hand down.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Nice and slow. Just like ocean waves.

  I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the dead man. The shotgun still lay in his outflung hand. His finger was too damn close to the trigger.

  Heart thudding, I took one slow step after another until I was close enough to nudge the shotgun out of his grasp with my foot.

  His hand flopped over and I leaped back, my gun jerking up to aim at him again. Panting, I clutched the Glock in a white-knuckled grip.

  After a long moment I shook my head and forced out a cracked laugh. “He’s dead, for fucksakes,” I quavered. “Take a pill, woman.”

  Lacking any pills to take, I drew another deep breath instead and tucked my gun into the front of my jeans with shaking hands.

  The slowly-expanding pool of body fluids jolted me back to reality.

  “Shit!” I yelped, and sprang for the rag-bag I kept under the kitchen sink.

  A few moments later I rose from my makeshift dam. The shallow gory puddle had turned my boots into islands beside the door, but at least I’d stopped the mess before it got to the hardwood or trickled under the baseboards.

  “Asshole,” I growled, eyeing the bullet holes and blood spatter on my wall before scowling at the corpse again. “What the hell’s your problem, anyway?”

  Nothing like shooting first and asking questions afterward. Another hysterical giggle welled up.

  I drew a deep breath.

  Do something productive.

  Keeping my breathing slow and controlled, I willed the tremors out of my hands and went to collect a pair of blue nitrile gloves. I pulled them on with a pang, wistfully recalling the days when my only messy jobs had involved paint or engine grease.

  Crouching, I reached across the puddle to rifle through the intruder’s pockets. My search yielded a set of car keys, a worn but fat wallet, and a perverse sense of satisfaction at the placement of my second bullet in his chest.

  One to the head; one to the heart. Nothing wrong with my snap-shooting reflexes.

  I let my shaking legs drop me to the floor outside the dam of rags, and sat cross-legged while I perused the contents of the wallet.

  Holy shit, that was a serious wad of cash.

  The twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills were so new they stuck together when I counted them. A twenty, ten, and five looked as though they’d been around the block a few times. I frowned at the body. Who the hell carries over two thousand bucks in cash?

  Time to find out.

  I extracted a driver’s license bearing the name Drake Mallard, and snickered in spite of myself. Either he’d been trying to be funny when he chose his alias or his parents had a twisted sense of humour.

  The smile slid off my lips at the sight of the only other item in the wallet. My blue-clad fingers trembled as I raised the photograph to eye level. Brown eyes bracketed by crows-feet looked back at me from under long, mostly-still-red hair.

  Shit.

  I had really been hoping this was a random home invasion. No such luck.

  I turned the photo over to see ‘Arlene Widdenback, 47, 5’-10”, 160 lbs’ scrawled across the back, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  At least it didn’t say ‘Aydan Kelly’. So my cover identity was still intact.

  My recovering ears caught the sound of a vehicle slowing on the gravel road and I jerked to my feet to peer out the screen door.

  Frantic dismay clutched my throat, driving my voice up half an octave. “Damn-damn-shitfuckdamn!”

  Dropping the wallet and photo, I jammed my feet into my boots. The treads slid greasily on the blood-slicked tiles as I flung on my jacket and zipped it over my gun. A couple of kicks at the dead man’s legs and some more frenzied swearing allowed me to close the remains of the interior door, but that would make its damage even more obvious from the outside.

  Shit!

  I swung the buckshot-riddled door open again and hurried out onto my porch, letting the screen door slap closed behind me as a familiar 4x4 half-ton rolled to a stop in my driveway.

  Bounding down my front steps, I jumped the last stair to land in the soggy April-brown grass beside my walk. My bloody footprints might not be obvious against the rust-coloured paint on the stairs, but the pale concrete sidewalk was a different story.

  I waved and summoned a face-cracking smile while I hurried toward the truck, surreptitiously shuffling my feet between strides to clean my boots.

  A lean figure topped by a cowboy hat emerged from the truck, his handsome face creasing into a smile that crinkled the weathered lines around his sky-blue eyes.

  “Aydan!” His smile widened and he swept me into a hug.

  Shit! The Glock was small, but he was sure to feel its hardness pressed between us.

  My brain spun its wheels in frantic thought. How could I explain the hard spot? A small but rigid waist pouch? An industrial-strength hernia belt…?

  My mind went completely blank as he stepped back, still smiling.

  His hands slid up my arms to clasp my shoulders warmly, and my relief spilled over into a broad smile of my own. Thank God for my bulky jacket and his big-ass rodeo belt buckle. He mustn’t have felt my gun.

  “Hi, Tom,” I chirped far too brightly. “It’s great to see you!”

  “It’s great to see you, too. Welcome home.” He relinquished my shoulders to take one of my blue-gloved hands, turning it over with a grin. “Is this the new fashion out in B.C.?”

  “Uh… I was getting ready to do some painting,” I stammered, desperately hoping there was no visible blood. Retrieving my hand, I pulled off the gloves and stuffed them in my pockets. “How did you know I was here?” I added. “I just got home last night. I didn’t think anybody knew I was back.”

  He chuckled. “I wasn’t actually expecting to find you here, but while you were away I’ve been driving up to check your place whenever I’m out. I was just coming home from town, so I popped by. I saw the gate open and a strange car in the drive so I thought I’d better see who it was.”

  “Oh. Uh, thanks… you’re such a good neighbour…”

  I shot a wild-eyed glance at the rust-pocked Cavalier parked with its front wheels half off the gravelled drive. Didn’t that dipshit know you should hide your car if you were going to shoot somebody? Goddamn amateurs…

  I sucked in a breath and blurted the first explanation that came to mind. “Um… that’s my nephew’s car. He just dropped by…”

  My words trailed off as Tom’s forehead creased in puzzlement. “I thought you said you didn’t have any brothers or sisters,” he said. “How could you have a nephew?”

  “He’s, um, not really my nephew; I just call him that…” I snatched a lame explanation out of my ass and flung it down between us. “He’s actually the son of a close friend who, um… died a few years ago…”

  Tom’s lean features softened in sympathy. Thank God.

  “…and I kind of adopted him as my honorary nephew,” I finished.

  Hell, what if he wanted to meet the fictitious nephew? If he moved even slightly to the side he’d be able to see my wrecked interior door through the screen. And since he owned a shotgun himself
, he’d instantly recognize the damage of close-range buckshot.

  I glanced involuntarily toward the house and gulped down panic at the sight of the dead man’s foot, a dark lump behind the screen.

  “Um, he’s kind of a… an odd kid,” I embellished frantically as Tom began to speak again. Talking over his words, I continued, “He won’t stay long. I was just going to give him a beer and chat with him for a while before he goes. There was no beer in the house so I was going to get one from the fridge in the garage. I mean, not that I’d let him drink and drive or anything…”

  Shit, don’t over-explain. I bit off my babble and went for a rueful shrug. “He’s probably just here to ask me for money. Kids.”

  “I’m sorry to hear he’s having problems,” Tom said. His blue gaze searched my face. “Do you feel safe with him? You seem nervous.”

  I managed a laugh. “Of course I’m not nervous. He’s my nephew.”

  “Would you like me to talk to him?” Tom gave me an understanding smile. “My son Cory went through a messed-up phase quite a few years ago, too. It’s pretty common for teens whose mothers have passed away. Maybe I could help.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s really kind of you,” I gabbled. “But I don’t want to bother you, and I don’t think he’d appreciate it. I’m just going to have a quick visit with him and then he’ll be on his way, just like always.”

  He assessed me, those blue eyes seeing too much. “If you’re sure you’re okay…”

  “Fine, thanks!” I gave him another too-perky smile.

  He relaxed, rocking back on his heels to hook his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. He nodded toward the addition on the end of my garage with a smile. “So how’s the garage work going? Have you got your lift in yet?”

  Shit. I had been so excited about the addition that would house my new hydraulic car lift that I’d talked his ear off about it before Christmas. He’d know something was wrong for sure if I brushed off the subject now.