Kyle rushed toward me, teeth bared.
Now.
I grasped the edge of the secret door that led into a hidey hole in the walls of the inn—the same place that Jordan Ames had been hiding when we’d first found him—and ripped it open at the last second.
Kyle slammed into it face first.
The sickening crunch that followed gave me no pleasure, but my ex-husband dropped like a stone.
I scrambled around the hidden door and dragged him into the hidden wall compartment, noting that he’d broken his nose, was bleeding but still breathing.
“Nobody messed with my inn,” I whispered at his unconscious form, then shut him inside the wall. I doubted it would hold him for long, so I dragged one of my grandmother’s heavy antique chairs in front of that section of wall, followed by a table and another chair. I stacked them as best I could, my pulse racing.
Gamma. Special Agent in Charge Grant.
I had run upstairs and left them to fight their own battles. What if they were…?
The scene that greeted me downstairs was organized chaos. But it wasn’t unpleasant.
Gamma had tied up Jordan Ames using cable ties, and the agent who had attacked Grant lay unconscious and restrained in the corner. Special Agent in Charge Grant was in the dining area on the phone, likely calling in back-up.
“There you are, Charlotte,” Gamma said, casually checking her gun’s safety before holstering it. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t need my help. Where’s that lowlife ex-husband of yours?”
“Upstairs. Trapped in a wall. Remember that compartment Jordan was hiding out in when we first find him?”
“Ah. A stroke of irony, though I’m sure Turner won’t appreciate it.” She came over and drew me into a hug.
Not one for much affection, I took the embrace and squeezed her back, enjoying every minute. “He won’t appreciate it,” I said, “because he’s out cold. I don’t know how much time we have until he wakes up, though.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Special Agent in Charge Grant said, approaching us and off the phone now. “I’ve got agents moving in as we speak. This is going to be one heck of a cleanup, but you did a good job, Mission.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I tried.”
“Everything legal and illegal, in and out of the book,” Grant said, in that blustery Pitbull tone. “I can hardly fault you given that we were overwhelmed from within.” He nodded toward the man in the corner. “Took us by surprise, drugged me, killed the others. It’s shameful.”
“It worked out in the end,” I said. “What’s going to happen to them.”
“Let’s see.” Grant cleared his throat. “He’ll be charged with treason and sentenced accordingly. They’ll all be sentenced.”
“Charlie?” Brian burst out of the kitten foster center and into the inn’s foyer. “Charlie, are you—whoa. Special Agent in Charge Grant. You’re—”
“Alive, thanks to these women,” he said, nodding to my grandmother and then to me. “And this is over, at last. Kyle Turner in our grasp. Let’s go upstairs and get him. Want the honors of arresting, him Agent Mission?”
“I think I’ll stay down here,” I said, studying the interior of the inn. “I’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do.”
Gamma burst out laughing.
27
Two weeks later…
What felt like an eternity had passed since that fateful night with Kyle. I stood in front of the sink in the kitchen at the Gossip Inn, peeling potatoes for the roast lunch Lauren had decided on for our guests.
There were plenty of them. After our cover story—the exorcism—had made the rounds in Gossip and people had responded with intrigue and excitement, Gamma had decided to approach an online publication about it.
Now, articles about the once haunted inn had been shared by people all over Texas and in neighboring states, and with Halloween on the horizon—albeit distantly—Lauren had come up with the idea to host ghost hunts in the inn.
What with its amazing hidden passages, perfect for capturing rogue spies, and creaking floorboards, it was the perfect setting.
I hummed under my breath and dumped the peeled potatoes into water.
“It’s good to be back here again,” Lauren sighed, smiling at me from in front of the oven, her bright red pigtails bobbing as she turned her head.
“It’s good to have you back.”
And it was good to be free of pressure and fear, and the constant niggling worry that Kyle would find me. He was gone for good. Him and his associates, and the NSIB was undergoing an extensive audit to flush out any of his remaining allies.
Dr. Barry Briggs had been tracked down and arrested for his involvement, as well.
I was safe.
The inn was safe.
A meow from the hallway drew my gaze, and I laughed. Cocoa Puff sat in the doorway, Sunlight next to him, both kitties peering in but not daring to enter. Lauren didn’t permit cats in the kitchen.
The kittens were back in the kitten foster center, safe and sound, and I had already started the adoption process with Sunlight. Soon, he would be my kitty and another cat that lived in the inn. Thankfully, Cocoa and Sunlight seemed willing to share my bed as a napping spot.
My choice to adopt Sunlight was based on the fact that I had quit my job.
Good heavens, it felt weird to think that.
I was no longer a spy-in-hiding. I was no longer a spy at all. I was simply Charlotte Smith—after all, there might still be enemies after me or my grandmother—the live-in maid and assistant at the Gossip Inn.
And I was pretty darn happy about that.
Gamma strode into the kitchen and got an apron down from a hook behind the door. “Where do you need me, Lauren? I’ve got twenty minutes to help before I have an interview with that abhorrent Jacinta Redgrave from the paper.”
“You’re talking to her?” Lauren asked. “After all that nasty stuff they wrote in The Gossip Rag about you?”
“Definitely,” Gamma said, grimly. “I want the Gossip
