The Operator

“That apron isn’t hiding anything,” Jack continued, clearly enjoying her irritation as she looked down at the cream-and-black cotton that said uniform. “You think these suits are here for your glass four-gen connection?”

“I said stop.” She hadn’t seen Jack in three weeks—not since some fool kid had tried to pull a stab-and-grab. She’d thought Jack might be gone for good. Yet there he sat at her counter, looking like sex incarnate, his expression earnest in question as his blue eyes watched her, half-lidded behind his tousleable blond hair. His stubble was thick—just the way she liked it—and she could imagine the whiff of electronics he so excelled in. My God, he’d been good. They both had been. Maybe he’s here because I saw Silas.

That had been four days ago, but her diary—hidden among her cookbooks for the first three days—had kept him at the forefront of her thoughts until she’d given in to the nauseating will-I, won’t-I and cracked the binding last night. That she’d found nothing in the first few pages but classes and grades had been both a shock and a relief. Just the briefest mention of Allen and Silas. Apparently Silas had been so stricken by his girlfriend’s death that he hadn’t seen her as anything other than a chair that wasn’t empty. It was obvious her naive self had been honored to have been chosen to help rout out the corruption in Opti, perhaps a little egotistical even. But most special ops agents were. They had to be to survive.

Embarassed by her past gullibility, she took the to-go cup, sashaying around Jack to pluck a sheet from the store’s printer in passing. “Leave,” she muttered as she headed to a window table.

Did someone make a pass at me and I didn’t notice? she wondered, her fingers rising to touch her felt-pen pendant as if it were a security doll. The one time that had happened, she’d nearly broken the man’s wrist, catching herself before causing permanent damage; the man’s lawyers made more than he did, which was saying a lot. Hand clenched around the pendant, she went over the last few hours. They were all accounted for. Every last second. Why is Jack here?

Chuckling, Jack returned to his crosswords, ignored by the impeccably dressed business clientele scattered about the upscale coffeehouse.

Peri had worked hard to divorce herself from her past, and yet she still found herself breathing in the expensive cologne of the suits she served as if it were a drug. She eyed their leather briefcases and high-end purses, knowing their cars were as shiny as the fob resting beside their state-of-the-art phones and tablets, all so new they smelled of factory. She knew the simplicity she’d built around herself was a lie as she lured in everything she missed, all the while pretending she’d made a clean break from what she didn’t want to be, what she couldn’t be. Even so, she’d been able to ignore it until Silas had shown up.

I’m sick, she thought as she stopped before a thin man in a suit. “Headed out, Simon?” Peri asked, and he glanced up from his tablet, startled. It was hard to tell by looking, but he was worth between eight and ten million depending on the day. She’d done a search on him the first time he’d come in, worried he might be someone he wasn’t. “How about a refill?”

The early-forties man waved closed the weather map on his tablet, his brow still holding his worry for the coming snow. “Yes, thanks, Peri. You know me better than my wife.”

She set the cup beside the rental-car fob, her focus blurring when his faint Asian accent brought a flash of memory of hot sun and smelly river. Bringing herself back with a jerk, she glanced at Jack. He’d been there. She was sure of it. Even if she didn’t remember it. “That’s because I see you more than she does. Going home this weekend?”

The man blinked as he rolled his tablet into a tube and tucked it in a front pocket. “How did you know?”

Smiling, she handed him his ticket from the printer, and he laughed. “I almost forgot that. Your phone dies one time at the terminal and you never trust it again. Thanks. I’ll see you on Monday.” But she’d known he was leaving before the printer had come alive. His socks were the same he’d worn yesterday, his hotel card wasn’t in his phone case when he’d paid, and his hat was in his satchel, not sitting on the nearby chair with his coat like it had been every other morning.

The scent of his cologne rose as he began to gather his things. A longing—an ache almost—filled her, and she reached for his coat, the lapels still damp from the snow. Anyone watching would assume she was angling for a bigger tip as she held it for him and slipped it over his shoulders, but her eyes closed as she breathed in the smell of linen, stifling a shiver at the sound of it brushing against silk and the clicks of his weather-inappropriate dress shoes on the worn oak floor. She was a God-blessed junkie, and she took sips of her poison where she could. First class from Detroit to New York will have breakfast.

“See you next week,” Simon said, saluting her with his coffee and heading for the door.

“Watch yourself out there. It’s a jungle,” she said in farewell, but he was gone, the door chimes jiggling behind him. In an instant he was lost in the snow-slow maze of cars and foot traffic. She smiled at the big-engine cars pushing their way through the snow. The electric vehicles Detroit was known for tended to vanish in winter, replaced by the beefier combustion engines she’d grown up with until the temps pulled out of the negatives. Seeing them on the road, getting the job done, made her feel connected, home.