A Thin Disguise by Catherine Bybee

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Neil and Sasha walked in the misty afternoon while AJ drove the doctor to the airport.

“AJ and I aren’t leaving,” she announced.

Neil knew better than to argue with the woman. “What’s your reasoning?”

She pulled up the edges of her coat, kept talking. “The collarbone break. Those happened all the time at Richter. It was a badge of honor when it happened to you. It showed you went at a sparring match hard or ignored the kick of a gun that was too powerful for you. If Olivia remembers Richter, she’s a half a breath from who she really is.”

The more he learned about the military boarding school they’d gone to, the more he wanted to return and burn the place down. Although he’d been assured they’d changed their ways, that didn’t stop him from sending in one of his people from time to time to check.

“How does her remembering how she broke a bone equate to you and AJ sticking around?”

“I think we need all hands on deck. When her memory comes back, she’ll bolt. But will she be pissed that none of us tried to help her remember and come out swinging, or will she slip away?”

Neil had thought of how Olivia would disappear on many sleepless nights. “What does your gut say?”

Sasha shook her head. “Before coming here . . . she’d be like this fog. Here one minute, gone the next. Now? After Leo . . . after eating meals with the group and joking with the guys about seeing her in her underwear? She’s softer.”

“That was the objective,” Neil said.

“But . . .”

Neil glanced over his shoulder, waited for Sasha to continue.

“The feral look in her eyes when she thought she was threatened . . . the way she slammed into kill or be killed? That wasn’t Olivia. Maybe it’s who she’d become since we brought down Richter. I don’t know. How often did you see her?”

“I didn’t. We spoke over the phone. She refused to meet me in person. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel her watching me . . . us.”

“What do you think about who she had become?”

Neil collected his thoughts before he responded. “I think you’re right. Her voice grew colder, harder over the last year. But she was the one reaching out. She wanted the connection. She’ll remember that when she’s back with us.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“We did what we had to. Eventually she’ll see that.”

“Eventually. But the gut reaction could be violent. And we’d do well to remember that.”

Neil had considered that, too. “She wouldn’t want to hurt any of us.”

“She might not be in control,” Sasha said. “That said, AJ and I aren’t going anywhere.”

Leo’s shift at the monitors was blissfully short, unlike the rest of the team, who sat down in the situation room six hours at a time. He volunteered for a dinner shift while the rest of the group sat around the dinner table upstairs.

He watched and he listened.

And he started a journal of his own.

In order to determine who Olivia really was, he needed to find clues in the people who knew her.

He started with Sasha, a mysterious woman herself. Leo compared the two.

Both women were fit. While Sasha hadn’t tried to fight her way out of a bathroom in her underwear, there was no mistaking the definition in the woman’s body when she wore black spandex.

Which she did all the time.

But neither woman resembled a bodybuilder. More like a yogi who could do a handstand using only two fingers.

Leo already knew Olivia was an operative for Neil.

But not really part of the team.

Why?

He wrote a question mark on the page where he wrote his notes.

It wasn’t for lack of the team wanting her. Look at what Neil was doing to keep the woman safe, the effort and time all of them were giving up.

Just watching them during dinner made Leo feel like he was watching a family.

Cut from the same cloth.

Neil, Isaac, and Lars . . . all retired military.

AJ . . . husband to Sasha, but how did he fit?

Of all the people in the house, AJ had been the most aloof. It helped that he and Sasha spent most of their time together. But Cooper had apologized after a reference to being facedown in a river. Sasha started talking in German.

Who had ended up facedown? Leo wrote the question and circled it several times.

Leo knew that Sasha and Claire had the same alma mater. Something elite in Germany, but that was the extent of what he knew. Claire accepted Sasha as an aunt, although he knew that was a self-proclaimed title and not given by blood. Claire was an orphan. Neil brought her in and treated her like his daughter. Something Leo and Cooper had spoken of a few times since it was Cooper’s intention to ask Claire to marry him and he knew he’d have to ask Neil’s permission.

Leo looked closer at the scene in the dining room, making observations. Sasha ate with her fork in her left hand, just like Olivia. Just like every European he’d met.

No one was missing Olivia.

The people who knew her were at the table eating dinner. Was Olivia an orphan as well? Was the school that Sasha and Claire attended a school for orphans?

Leo wished now he’d asked Claire more questions instead of catching a buzz with new friends the last time they all went out for happy hour.

Ultimately the question Leo asked himself many times over was . . . What kind of secrets could Olivia be hiding, therefore Neil and the others hiding for her, that Leo couldn’t ignore?

Something unlawful, that was a given.

But what?

The weather was turning from wet to cold. The morning fog blanketed the cabin and valley below, and frost had already started to kiss the ground and windows.

There were two fireplaces in the house, one in the grand room and the other in Olivia’s bedroom. Leo roped AJ into helping him split some firewood to add to their limited entertainment in the evenings.

The group had gotten into the habit of finishing dinner and pulling out one of the many board games the homeowner had stacked in a closet.

Neil and Sasha were making a run into town for supplies, Olivia and Pam were going through the physical therapy exercises the doctor had left behind well over a week ago, and Lars and Isaac were both in the situation room.

“Why the FBI?” AJ asked after they were in a few logs.

He was setting them up, and Leo was swinging the ax with the intention of trading off.

“I ask myself that question all the damn time,” he said with a laugh. But since AJ asked the question and opened up the “get to know me, get to know you” questions, Leo elaborated. “Started out with a love for action flicks.”

“Really?” AJ asked.

“Kid you not. There was always a theme . . . military heroes, cops, undercover agents . . . I told my parents I wanted to be a cop.” He swung the ax, waited for AJ to push the split logs away and stack a new one.

“What happened to that?”

“Nana. ‘Why the hell do you want to work that hard and get paid so little?’” Leo did his best grandmother impersonation. “Since she was the one footing the college bill, and I wasn’t ready to go out and adult at eighteen, I went. Took a lot of different classes and eventually ended up with a degree that gave me the opportunity to get a job with the feds.”

AJ set up a log, stood back. “Do you like it?”

He nodded. “I do. There’s a lot of diversity in my fieldwork.”

“Like pretending to be a high school teacher?” AJ asked.

“I tell you what . . . I liked that job.” He took a moment to reflect on it. “Early in my career we’d had extensive training on school shootings and profiling potential at-risk kids that do that kind of thing. Some of the videos . . . the stories . . .” Memories of those videos swam in his head. The images . . . the carnage and misery left behind would rip any sane person in half.

“I can’t imagine,” AJ offered.

“It’s awful shit. I found myself asking for casework at the high school level. I thought if I could stop just one kid, just one, from going there, I could go to my grave knowing I’d done something with my life.”

“Putting Mykonos away should feel the same.”

Leo pulled himself out of his thoughts. “Different, but yes. It does.” He took a swing, handed the ax over, moved positions, and switched the subject back to AJ. “What about you? Were you in the military like everyone else here?”

AJ shook his head. “No. I hated all authority growing up.”

“How did you end up with Neil?”

“Can’t say that I work for Neil. Yeah, I help out when he needs it. Like the night you planted the bug to flush out Claire. I followed you home, gave the intel to Neil.”

Claire had infiltrated the school Leo was undercover in, and after a few weeks he became suspicious of her and the people she spent time with. Leo had planted said bug without realizing that her team had cameras watching everything.

“Claire made a convincing teenager,” Leo said. “She’d make a great agent.”

AJ laughed. “She is . . . just for a different team.” He lifted the ax overhead and brought it down hard.

“Is it safe to assume you met Neil through Sasha?” Leo moved the wood, pulled over another log.

“Yup.” He didn’t elaborate.

Leo stood back. “So if you don’t work for Neil, what do you do for a living?”

“I dabble in some investigative endeavors.”

Leo laughed. “Okay, Mr. Cryptic.”

AJ didn’t apologize or clarify. “Truth is, Sasha and I really don’t have to work. I, too, had a grandmother. She had money. Sasha has a fair amount. So we pitch in when Neil needs a hand. It’s philanthropic without giving away money.”

Leo hadn’t expected that answer. “Neither one of you are getting paid to be here?”

“Does that surprise you?”

Hell yes. But then he saw how this team worked. “I guess not.”

“Why should the mafia be the only ones with extended families you’d do anything for?” AJ asked.

“Good point.” Leo liked the concept, although he’d never seen a mafia-like family be anything but criminal. “So do Lars and Isaac get paid?”

“Oh yeah. Claire, Cooper, Jax. Neil has a lot of people on payroll. But if they all won the lottery tomorrow, they’d still pitch in.”

Another log. Another cut.

“That’s saying something about the boss.”

“It’s about the work, too. Bringing down Mykonos? Who wouldn’t want to see a dirtbag like that get what he deserves?”

Leo peeled off his jacket when AJ handed over the ax.

“I have a question for you,” AJ said.

“Go for it.”

“I seem to remember a child’s room in your decoy apartment. What was that about?”

Leo brought the ax up in both hands. “Part of the disguise. A single new teacher would likely socialize with his colleagues more than a bitter divorced man with a son. My older sister has a son. My nephew offered a lot of fodder for a single father. I kept a couple pictures of him on my phone when people asked.”

“I thought it was strange that I didn’t see any photographs in the apartment.”

“You went into my place?”

AJ looked at the sky. “Not in a ‘breaking and entering’ kind of way.”

Leo pinned him with a stare.

“Slightly wiggling a lock. Besides, we weren’t sure you were legit at the time.”

Leo smiled, swung the ax. “Nothing I wouldn’t do.”

“We know.”

He laughed. “What about you? Do you have siblings?”

AJ paused. “Had. Sister. But she’s gone.”

Leo let the head of the ax rest on the forest floor. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s been a long time.”

But not so long that AJ didn’t have that look of grief in his eye. “I’m guessing this is what had Cooper apologizing the other night.”

AJ looked at him. “Why do I get the feeling I’ve just been interviewed?”

Leo shrugged. “It’s hard to be cooped up in the same space without information exchanging hands. I’ve determined a lot of things about all of you. None of which strikes me as irreversible criminal activity. If anything, it seems as if you all have justifiable reasons for your actions. Maybe someday my character will prove I’m worthy of knowing everything.”

AJ opened his mouth right as the sound of a gunshot rippled through the air.

They instantly crouched and ran to the side of the house for cover.

Leo reached for his weapon as adrenaline shot through his system like wildfire. “Sounded like a shotgun,” he said.

Leo took the lead and motioned for AJ to follow him back into the house.

A second shot echoed through the forest, the location of the weapon difficult to determine. Not that either of them wanted to stay in anyone’s range to figure it out.

Leo pushed through the downstairs door, and they both scrambled inside.

Isaac stood at the bank of monitors scrolling through the feeds. “Where is it coming from?” Leo asked.

“All of our circuits are clear.” Isaac pushed his glasses farther up his nose and started typing. They heard a third shot.

Leo’s entire body stood on alert.

A noise from the floor above made him look up. “Where is Olivia?”

Isaac pointed to one of the cameras.

Olivia and Pam were in Pam’s room, both sitting on the floor behind the bed and away from the windows.

Lars stood by their door, a weapon in hand.

Another shot.

“I don’t think it’s on the property,” Isaac said, punching keys.

“Might be a local hunting off-season.”

“Four shots?” Leo asked.

AJ lifted his hands. “Target shooting?”

A radio on the desk crackled, Lars’s voice came through. “Any idea what’s going on?”

A fifth shot and three sets of monitors set off alarms one after the other.

“Something is running fast,” AJ said. He moved to the weapons room and grabbed a rifle.

Leo turned toward the stairs. “Better view up there.”

Isaac lifted a hand. “Hold up.”

The sensors around the house sounded, and a running deer dashed by one of the outdoor cameras.

Isaac pushed around AJ and grabbed a drone from a shelf. “I bet it’s some yahoo screwing around.”

They heard another shot, not any closer than the last.

Leo started to loosen his grip on his weapon.

Isaac turned on the drone and set it right outside the door. Back inside, he moved to the computer, pressed a few keys, and grabbed the remote for the drone.

The phone on the desk rang.

AJ put it on speaker.

“What’s the situation?” Neil’s voice boomed over the line.

“We’re all safe,” Leo started. “Six shots fired. Sounds like a shotgun. No evidence that they are aiming at us. Isaac is sending up an aerial view now. How far out are you?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

The camera on the drone fed the center monitor.

The cabin quickly came into view. Isaac circled to catch anything close by.

The firewood and discarded ax lay right where Leo and AJ had abandoned them.

“The deer was running from the north,” Leo said.

Isaac moved the drone in that direction.

The mist in the air accumulated on the lens, but not so much that they couldn’t see the woods below.

Another shot fired, this one sounding farther away.

Leo kept his eyes on the images flashing by the drone.

Isaac held the drone in place on the edge of the property line.

“Can it go up any more?” Leo asked.

Isaac brought it higher, spun the camera.

A flash of movement caught his eye.

“There,” Leo said, pointing at the monitor.

Isaac positioned the drone and focused the camera.

“Talk to me?” Neil said over the phone.

Leo had forgotten he was still there. “Looks like an old truck, a Ford,” Leo told Neil.

Isaac zoomed in on the plate, and AJ wrote it down.

Abandoning the gun he’d grabbed from the closet, AJ sat at a computer and typed. “I’m sending the license plate number to headquarters now,” AJ announced.

Leo and Isaac looked at the movement on the screen at the same time. Isaac reported as he moved the drone closer.

“Two males. Young, wearing green camo and shouldering shotguns.”

Both men looked up at the same time.

Isaac snapped a picture.

“They see the drone.”

Leo shook his head as the young boys started running toward the truck.

“Isaac was right. Looks like a couple of kids out shooting for fun.” Leo put his weapon away.

Leo heard relief in Neil’s voice. “Follow protocol. Sasha and I will return after we visit the owner of the truck.”

When Leo left the situation room, Isaac was still following the truck with the drone, and AJ was talking to someone on Neil’s team in Los Angeles.

Leo found Olivia and Pam halfway down the stairs with Lars at their side.

“Target shooting? Really?” Pam questioned.

“Or deer hunting.”

Leo opened his arms to Olivia when she hit the bottom step.

She moved into them and rested her head on his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.

“Surprisingly,” she said, her voice even.

“Probably good this happened. Keeps us on our toes.”

Leo hugged Olivia tighter before letting her go. “I’d prefer your bandit raccoons over gunshots.”

“Me too,” Olivia said.

The two of them looked at each other.

Although Olivia seemed calm, there was a twitch in her eyes, the way she was blinking, that told him she wasn’t unaffected. “Let’s make some coffee.”

She agreed with a nod.