“Anything to drink?”
“Two cokes.”
“I want a milkshake,” piped Shee.
Mick frowned, but she held his gaze, hoping her expression said, maybe a milkshake will make up for the syrup. When he didn’t immediately respond, she scratched at her wig as if she were about to rip it off, which wasn’t far from the truth.
His shoulders dropped a notch. “Fine. One Coke and a milkshake.”
Shee grinned at the waitress. “Chocolate.”
The woman nodded and left.
“That was blackmail,” said Mick.
“What?”
“Scratching at your wig like that. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing when you’re doing it.”
Shee smirked.
The tarnished brass bell above the diner’s door tinkled again and a lone man entered. He carried himself as if he were tired; black smears crisscrossed his blue t-shirt as if he’d been whipped with licorice.
“Is that him?” she whispered.
Mick put his finger over his lips and pretended he was rubbing them. His opposite hand hovered at the edge of the table. He rapped the top, motioning for her to slump down.
Shee stopped craning her neck to see and slouched to make herself small.
The man clomped in heavy work boots to the counter and sat directly across from them.
A different waitress, this one thinner and hawkish, approached the newcomer from the opposite side of the counter.
“Hey, Gerald.”
Shee knew the name. It had been in the dossier she’d insisted her father make for her for the mission. He’d been right. The staff knew him here. Gerald was a regular.
Gerald muttered something she couldn’t hear and the waitress moved away.
“Now?” she whispered to her father.
She saw him reach down and knew he’d just unstrapped his service weapon with a flick of his thumb.
“Now. Just like we practiced. And then get away.”
Shee nodded, her body alive with electricity. This was the first time her father had let her help with the in the field portion of his job. If she messed it up she’d be relegated back to his research department.
She slid from the booth as smoothly as possible with the ragged leather biting at her flesh and stepped behind the man. With a measured inhale, she shaped her eyes wide and soft. She’d practiced the look in the mirror for an hour the day before, imagining sad puppies in her mind.
Here goes nothing.
She tapped Gerald on the spine.
He twisted to look down at her.
“Daddy?” she asked.
Shee had read the phrase went white as a sheet in books before, but this was the first time she’d seen it in practice.
“Vickie?” Gerald whispered the word.
He reached for her, his eyes glassing over, lower lip trembling.
Shee jumped back and caught motion at her nine. With one long stride, her father appeared between her and the man.
“Richard Chapman, you’re AWOL and wanted for the murder of your wife and daughter.”
The man didn’t seem to register Mick’s presence.
His gaze remained locked on her.
“Vickie?”
Shee’s giddy elation over the completion of her mission suddenly felt like a ball of snakes in her chest. She didn’t know what the man was thinking, but she could feel something had snapped in him. He vibrated, seemingly unbound by the laws of nature, as if he could will himself to her, over oceans and through mountains.
“Vickie?”
Richard dropped from his stool and struggled against her father as if Mick were a wall he needed to climb, straining, reaching for her.
“Vickie?”
Shee jerked at the pins holding the wig to her head. She knew her dark hair had escaped its prison when the man’s expression shifted from hope to horror.
He recoiled, seeming to notice her father for the first time.
“You sonofabitch. You—”
Mick jerked the man’s hands behind his back and shoved Richard’s hips against the table where they’d been sitting, bending him over it.
“Hold still. Don’t make this worse than it is.”
“You’re a monster!” screamed Richard, his face red, spittle flying.
Mick pressed his prisoner’s head against the table. “Right. I’m the monster.”
The man broke into wracking sobs, looking very much human now. Shee found herself out of air and gulped a breath. Looking down at her side, she noticed her hand shaking and balled it into a fist.
“Outside,” said her father.
She led the way out of the diner. Behind her, Mick alternated between pushing the man in front of him and holding him up when he threatened to collapse to his knees.
I did it.
Captured. Richard Chapman, alias Gerald Toomer. Fugitive. AWOL. Killed his wife with a shotgun while on leave from the Navy and accidentally killed his daughter with a second blast as the girl ran to help her mother.
My first collar.
Her father pushed his captive outside, where shore patrol waited to take Richard Chapman to the Naval brig in Jacksonville, Florida.
The master-at-arms, a tall bald black man, glanced at Shee and did a double take. His gaze shifted to Mick.
“Did you have your daughter dress up as his dead daughter?”
Mick shrugged. “Seemed the easiest way to make him show his hand.”
The man chuckled, shaking his head. “Damn, Mick. That’s cold.”
Shore patrol led raving Richard Chapman away. Mick smiled down at Shee, his hand outstretched to shake.
“Good job, sailor.”
She reached out, her grin fading as she noticed her own hand still shaking. She looked to see if her father noticed.
“It’s adrenaline. It’ll stop,” he explained. His voice dropped to a mutter. “It’s scarier when it doesn’t happen anymore.”
He squatted to pull her tight to him and she threw her arms around his neck, suddenly unashamed to hug in public.
“You know I’d never let anything happen to you, right?” he asked.
“I know.”
“Good.”
He stood and she glanced back at the diner.
“Can I go back in for my
