Free Tell Me No Spies by Diane Henders Page B

the breath
I’d forgotten to draw and stiffly guided the car down my
driveway.
    The persistent
‘recruiter’ from U of C, when I was in Grade 12. He’d tried so
hard, seemed so irritated when I chose to take drafting at SAIT
instead of… what had he wanted me to take? Computer science. And
then Robert had shown up a few months later.
    I pulled into my
garage, hands trembling on the wheel. How long had they been
controlling me? Since childhood? My father died of a heart
attack … Oh, God, had they killed him, too? And what about my
mother? I was only seventeen when she died in that car accident.
They told me it had been an accident…
    I was gasping jerky
breaths, hysteria building. Trapped. Utterly controlled by others.
No allies left. All my family dead. No way to find the truth.
    I clamped down hard on
control. Suck it up. Nothing had changed. The dead were long dead,
and nothing would bring them back. I was doing valuable work,
helping to protect our country. Never mind that I’d been
manipulated into doing it. It was still the right thing to do.
    Logic didn’t help.
    I had to know if
they’d killed my family. I had to know if they had been controlling
me all along. I needed more information, and I knew I wouldn’t get
it from Stemp.
    Idiot. I should have
stayed in the network and gathered all the information I possibly
could. By now, Stemp would have locked everything down.
    I shook myself and
peeled my fingers loose from their deathgrip on the steering wheel.
I had one faint hope left. One distant family member they’d missed,
as far as I knew. It was probably too late, but I had to try.
    And maybe, just maybe,
I could find an ally. If Arnie would help me.
    I strode for the house
as quickly as my trembling legs would carry me.
    My mind whirled while
I stuffed my mouth with leftovers, swallowing without tasting. I
had to get to my one remaining aunt before anybody else did. I
could drive to Calgary tonight, spend the night, and head for the
coast in the morning. Sirius owed me some time off, and Kane was
always encouraging me to take it. Fine. Their precious decryptions
could wait a few days.
    I jammed my dirty
dishes into the dishwasher and went into the bedroom to stuff some
clothes into my backpack. Minutes later, I was on the highway. I
stopped in Drumheller to buy some snacks for the road, then hauled
out my cell phone to dial Hellhound’s number.
    “Yeah.” His sexy,
gravelly voice tickled my eardrum.
    “Hi, Arnie, it’s
Aydan.”
    “Oh… Hi, darlin’.” He
sounded wary. My heart sank.
    I kept my tone light
and cheerful. “I’m heading into town tonight. Are you going to be
around?”
    “Uh… no, I’m tied up
tonight. Actually, I’m gonna be busy all week. Sorry ‘bout that.
Maybe next time.”
    Shit. I knew the
brushoff when I heard it.
    I held my voice steady
as I replied, “Okay. Maybe next time, then. Take care.”
    “You, too. ’Bye.”
    I resisted the urge to
pitch my phone across the parking lot. Goddammit! I’d never known
Hellhound to turn down a chance to get laid. Now my last hope for
an ally had faded, I didn’t have a place to stay, and I hated to
run up my credit card by getting a hotel room in Calgary. This trip
was going to be expensive enough as it was.
    I fumed for a few
minutes before heaving a deep sigh of resignation and dialling
again reluctantly.
    The perky hello at the
other end made me wince. I just knew this wouldn’t end well. Maybe
I should go to a hotel after all…
    “Hi, Nichele.”
    “Aydan!” Her squeal
made me jerk the phone a few inches away from my ear. “How the hell
are you, girl? I haven’t heard from you for so long, I thought
you’d fallen off the face of the earth!”
    I couldn’t help
smiling. She had routinely shoved me far outside my comfort zone
ever since we were kids, but Nichele’s fearless and flamboyant
personality still made her one of my favourite friends. And it
didn’t hurt that her aggressive investing as my stockbroker