Do you see it, Walter? she wanted to ask him. Do you see it?
Finally, he nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.
She sighed with relief, but it didn’t last long, because she heard the padlock on the other side of the door jingling. Lucy tensed against her and she had every right to, because the door opened a moment later, and Jack stood in the open frame.
“Time to go to work,” he said.
Chapter 4
The woman was staring at him in a way that unnerved Jack as he stepped into the room, but he didn’t let it show on his face — or, at least, he didn’t think he did — and said, “Time to go to work.”
She sat against the far wall, the teenager in her lap. The man sat next to them, and he tensed noticeably as Jack entered the room and rested his hand on the butt of his holstered sidearm. It wasn’t exactly the most subtle of moves, but Jack was aiming for effectiveness.
“What do you want?” the woman asked.
He ignored her question and pointed at Walter. “You. Come with me.”
“Why?” Walter stammered.
“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Jack said. While the man staggered to his feet, Jack fixed the woman with a hard look. “I’m leaving your arms and legs free as a sign of good faith. Make me regret it, and I’ll have both of you tied up and gagged. Understand?”
“That’s very decent of you,” the woman, Allie, said.
He smirked. “You’re his secretary, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t look like a secretary.”
“What’s a secretary look like?”
“Not like you.”
“Maybe you just haven’t been around enough secretaries,” she said. “You don’t strike me as someone who spends a lot of time in offices…Jack.”
He smiled. Of course she knew his real name wasn’t Jack. A woman like her…
Which was what, exactly?
Jack flipped through what he remembered of the woman’s file in his head. It wasn’t much, just a couple pages including a list of surviving family members (none) and jobs (probably more than the average early-thirty-something, but nothing that really stood out), and the last year at Gorman and Smith as an executive assistant for one of the higher-ups. Dan something. There was nothing about her life that had set off any alarms, to him or the client; or, at least, nothing that would explain why she wasn’t more afraid of him or what was happening to her at the moment.
And that, more than anything, disturbed him.
He knew a problem when he saw one, and Allie Krycek was giving off all the signs of a troublemaker. The smart thing would be to remove her now before he was proven right, but he couldn’t do that. Not yet. There was a chance — a small one, but a chance nonetheless — that Walter might not cooperate the way they needed him to. When that happened, they’d need incentives. Like a daughter…or a girlfriend. He could make do with just the daughter, but why settle for one when he had the option of two? If one insurance policy was good, two was better.
Still, maybe he was making a mistake. This woman, staring back at him right now without an ounce of fear, might be more trouble than she was worth.
Or was he overthinking things again?
“Come on,” Jack said, and beckoned for Walter to move faster across the room — the man kept looking back at Allie and the girl, Lucy. “They’ll still be here when you get back.”
“What do you want with me?” Walter asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“I want to know—”
Walter was close enough that when he got the word “know” out, Jack was able to lean into the punch, sinking a balled fist into the other man’s gut.
“Dad!” the girl screamed and tried to get up, but Allie grabbed her and held her back.
He ignored them and grabbed Walter as he was falling to his knees. He caught the man halfway down and pulled him up again, Walter’s body trembling, his breath coming out in short, labored gasps.
“Take it easy,” Jack said, patting Walter on the back. “In and out, in and out. There you go.”
When Walter’s breathing had (mostly) returned to normal, Jack looked across at the fifteen-year-old glaring at him from Allie’s lap.
“Relax; he’ll be fine,” Jack said. “He’ll do a little work for us, then the three of you can go back to your vacation. You want that, don’t you?”
The girl didn’t answer him and instead leaned against the woman. Allie slipped one arm around her smaller shoulders in a protective move.
“The daughter and girlfriend don’t get along,” someone had noted in the files. “You should probably keep them apart so they don’t cause you unnecessary problems.”
They’re getting along pretty damned well now, Jack thought.
He heard footsteps behind him and glanced back as Jones and Jerry filled up the doorframe.
“Take him next door,” he said, and pushed Walter toward the two men.
“Come on, you, time to make me rich,” Jones said as he clamped one massive hand around Walter’s arm.
“Shut up,” Jerry said.
“What?”
“Need to know.”
“Oh, relax; gonna be over by morning anyway,” Jones said as the three of them disappeared down the hallway.
Jack looked back into the room at Allie. She hadn’t made any attempts to get up or tried to stop him from taking Walter. In fact, she didn’t seem to have moved from her spot at all, and had just sat there processing everything.
“You’re no secretary,” he said.
“Aren’t I?” she said.
He shook his head. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“Then I must have imagined the last year of my life.”
“Oh, I’m sure that was a real job at Gorman and Smith. But I have a feeling you were settling.”
“That’s an interesting theory. Would you mind telling my boss? Maybe I’ll finally get that raise so I can move out of my shitty one-bedroom apartment.”
“I’ll get right on that as soon as we’re done here.” He winked at her, just to show her that he was still in control — though by her reaction, he wasn’t sure if he actually succeeded — before turning to go. “Until then, be very good girls and sit tight.”
Jerry was waiting for him in the hallway, leaning against the wall between the two rooms, as Jack closed the door and put the padlock back into place.
“Good to go?” Jones asked, keeping his voice low.
“Good to go,” he nodded.
“What’s the deal with her?”
“The woman?”
“Yeah.”
“No deal.”
“That’s not what Jones said. He’s telling me you think she might be trouble.”
“Jones talks too much,” Jack said, and walked past Jerry and into the next room.
Jones was already inside with Walter, who sat in the same chair Jack had occupied earlier, in front of the bulky laptop. He was staring at the screen as if he didn’t know what he was looking at, but of course Jack knew otherwise.
“What is this?” Walter asked.
“I need you to do something for me,” Jack said. He fished a small metal container out of one of his pockets and snapped it open, revealing a flash drive about half the size of his thumb inside. It was metallic and durable, and wouldn’t have cracked if he ran a car over it. “You’re going to need this.”
He tossed it to Walter, who caught it, if just barely. It was like looking at a man who had just learned how to use his hands for the first time, struggling to put it to use. Jack had a hard time reconciling how a woman like Allie had ended up with a doofus like Walter. The whole secretary job (Just a secretary? Fat chance.) notwithstanding, Walter was definitely dating up.