Like today.
It wasn’t my moral or ethical duty to intervene beyond making a call to the police.
I could have gone inside and alerted the restaurant that the woman was in danger.
But I didn’t.
And I helped.
There was risk. I’ll have to admit, things could have gone very badly. One of those blows could have landed. Blue had me off my feet. Shoved into the back of the car and held by the three men might have turned out to be all kinds of horrific.
Yeah, I didn’t want to think about it.
“You can’t do that anymore, Lexi. You just can’t. And you’re going to be mad at me for threatening you, but so be it. If this happens again, I’m going to talk to Command.”
“And tell them what? I was doing my job.”
“That your job needs to be constrained to the Puzzle Room and to outside meetings with our contractors in their offices.”
I didn’t know what to say to his threat. I understood it, I guessed. He meant it from a place of concern. My knee-jerk reaction to this threat was pretty juvenile—I’ll show you who you get to boss around. The reality was that he loved me and wanted me safe. What happened to me had ramifications for both of us.
Granted, his job was a heck of a lot more dangerous than mine. But there was only one time I’ve ever known him to get injured. Shot. It took me days to speak to him. It was a weird way to cope. But that’s what I did.
Would I ever say to Striker, if you get hurt, I’ll tattle to Command?
Not the same.
He didn’t have ongoing health issues like I did. Two traumatic brain injuries put me at high risk for awful things now—depression, anxiety—and really awful things later—Parkinson’s, dementia.
Command had instructed me not to play with violence of action. No daring deeds of do or die.
But honestly, when I replayed the scene this morning, anything I did had its downsides. If I’d run inside, the time it took me to raise the alarm, they could have scooped Barb up and been gone.
Life was life.
I couldn’t go around swathed in bubble wrap.
Striker reached over and squeezed my shoulders. “I was blowing off tension when I said that. I’d never go to Command behind your back. You’re a hero, saving that woman today. I’m proud of you.”
“You're conflicted about me.”
“Absolutely. But only about some things. I don’t want you in harm’s way because I love you.”
“Okay.”
“Mad at me?”
“If I am, you're pretty far down the list. I’m still dealing with the adrenaline spike from this morning, mourning my mom, and then I got upset after passing by the spot where Dad died. Now, we’re headed to the CIA, and they’re on my shit list. But I have to smile and help them with their problems.”
“Is that why you dressed like Nancy Drew?”
I smoothed my hands over my skirt. “You think I look like Nancy Drew?”
He tugged at a curl. “Mystery of the Fire Dragon.”
I stilled. I was a huge Nancy Drew fan when I was little. There were childhood pictures of me wearing bright yellow Playtex gloves as I went through my day. I was ever concerned that I would come upon crime scene clues and destroy evidence when I left my own fingerprints behind.
I had inhaled Carolyn Keene’s work, and I knew precisely the cover he meant.
Young Nancy was in a yellow dress with a scoop neckline, a matching belt around her waist, and a full skirt. Around her neck, she had a simple necklace. I reached up and touched my own strand of cloisonné beads. He was right. It was a Nancy Drew dress; only Nancy had much shorter hair than I did.
“You recognize this dress from a Nancy Drew novel. And you even remember the title?”
Striker sent me a grin. “Yeah, well. I had this babysitter.”
I chuckled at the thought of Striker being so young that he needed someone to watch him.
“She was reading that book when I met her. It was the first time in my life when I had a sexual impulse.”
“Toward Nancy or the babysitter?”
He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure that I can tell you. But what I did was hide the book and a flashlight under my pillow when I went to bed that night.”
“To read?”
“To look at Nancy’s boobies on the cover and to want a Nancy all my own.”
“Ha.”
“And so my babysitter would need to come back and get her book. It was a win-win in my six-year-old world.” He cuddled me into his arms. “See? I got my wish.”
“Well, Nancy Drew or not. We have a meeting with a crime to solve.” I sent him a wink. “I just need to put my magnifying glass in my purse. It’s the role I plan on playing. Speaking of roles, you ready to roll on out of here and go to the CIA?”
“Yeah, I’m just going to use the head, then we’ll head on.”
I smiled at the play on words because he wanted me to.
Striker turned toward my guest bathroom. “Are you ready?”
No, actually, I wasn’t.
No part of me wanted to be helpful to the CIA when they were failing to live up to their promises to me.
Now, I needed to see if there was anything about this meeting that might give me leverage. I needed the CIA color code group to follow through with their promise and help me get a divorce from Angel.
How could I get their attention?
Chapter Eleven
Sitting next to Striker, I adjusted his passenger seat back a bit, leaning my head on the rest.
“I don’t like the idea of
