Free Active Shooter by Eduardo Suastegui Page A

thin
sheet, no longer a tangled mess, swiping on her phone. She stopped
with a frown.
    “Something interesting?” I asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Care to share?”
    She looked up with a smile. “Sure. How much
is it worth to you?”
    “I’m not that kind of a morning person.”
    “Bummer.”
    “Well?” I pressed.
    “New developments in that story I’m here to
cover.” She looked down at her phone, then back at me with a raised
eyebrow. “More details to come.” She got up, releasing her
one-handed grip on the sheet and walked past me.
    From the bathroom she said, “You guys still
having a drought here?”
    “Always,” I replied.
    “Then how about we take a shower together,”
she shot back with a playful voice. “I wouldn’t want to bust your
water bill.”
    By the time I entered the bathroom, she'd
already stepped into the shower. She turned on the water, then
waved for me to come closer.
    I closed the door behind me, waved her off,
and sat on the toilet, next to the tub-shower. She knelt down
inside the tub and rested her arms on her knees. With the curtain
open, water spray flying off her back and steam going everywhere,
she stared at me.
    “You're shivering,” she said.
    Only now did I notice it, the trembling that
rises from a tremor deep inside your stomach, the kind that grips
you when you feel the world strangling you.
    “Why don't you come in?” she said. “The water
will warm you--”
    “I can't do this,” I said.
    “Can't do what?”
    “Whatever you and your source are scheming,
if that's what's really going on here.”
    Bridget shifted her weight to sit and wrap
her arms around her calves. “What's really going on here,” she
said. “You still think I might be working for someone.”
    “You are. You're working for her, whoever she
is.”
    “You think she's manipulating me, pulling my
strings.” Bridget looked up to draw in one long breath, then looked
back at me. “We think alike. I can't assure you she isn't driving
the show. In a way she is. But you and I, we're smart people. We
know how far to go.”
    “We do? Just exactly how far is far enough?
Can you define that for me?”
    Bridget closed her eyes and leaned her head
back to let the water run through her hair. Still in that position,
she said, “She wants to meet. Not with me. With you.”
    “When?”
    “Today.”
    “How do you know this?”
    She brought her head forward and smiled at
me. “Life happens on Twitter, does it not?”
    “She encoded a message for you, like those
links--”
    “You know how it goes,” she said. “We can't
reveal specific operational details. But you have the general
gist.”
    I looked away, back toward the bathroom's
door. Her wet hand came to rest on my forearm.
    “Why don't you come in?” she said. “You're
still shivering.”
    ***
    An hour later, after I rushed to concoct a
breakfast of overcooked scrambled eggs, a sliced tomato and some
toast, we drove off in Bridget's rental. She drove while I used her
scanner to verify we had no listening or tracking devices in her
car. I gave her a thumbs up when the scan came up clean.
    We'd left our civilian cellphones in my
apartment, and the secured one in my pocket wouldn't do much
tracking unless I told it to. I was thinking about how my buddies
in command central were reacting to all this when my secured cell
buzzed.
    “I have to get this,” I told Bridget.
    With eyes on the road, she smiled. “Sure
thing.”
    I answered it, and as soon as I heard the
voice on the other side, I held up three fingers. “W” for Walter.
Bridget nodded.
    “Is she there?” Walter asked.
    “Yes,” I replied when I really wanted to say
“You should know.” But I had a part to play.
    “OK, we talk carefully, and I pitch you the
yes-no game.”
    “OK.”
    “I noticed your phones stayed in the
apartment.”
    “That's right.”
    “But she let you take the one we're talking
on.”
    “Yes.”
    “Because you told her it was an untraceable
burner you kept