Page 19 of Duplicity

He glanced at Cat. “Huh?”

“Sorry.” She winced. “I saw her name on your phone earlier. Thought she might be someone…”

Like a girlfriend? What did it mean that she’d wondered that?

He said, “Talia’s married. Her husband is a Secret Service agent. I work at Vanguard and that guy scares me, so that’s saying something about how huge he is. He would bury me in some frozen part of Canada, and no one would ever see me again. But that’s not the point. Talia is great. She’s an NSA agent on a counter-terrorism taskforce, and we bounce ideas back and forth. Mostly math equations. We wrote our own app like Wordle and send each other challenges every day.”

He hadn’t even checked it this morning.

Simon said, “They have three kids. Talia is great. She’ll call you ‘honey’ and ‘child’ and read you the riot act while she’s looking at more gold purses online, finding a deal with some obscure coupon, and buying them for herself for some occasion she just made up.”

Cat chuckled. “I have a cousin like that. She scares me, but at the same time I also want to be her.”

Simon had to laugh with her. “So you feel my pain.”

She glanced over. Words escaped him. Maybe they did understand each other. Could it be true? Cat Alvarez was the kind of woman he’d be able to trust. History didn’t have any bearing on how she would treat him. He wouldn’t jump in with no clue what he was in for, but she intrigued him in a completely unexpected way.

He typed a reply to Talia about the communication network and all the messages they’d found earlier before he had to leave. He wasn’t about to tell her about Jasper’s ridiculous ultimatum, so he hadn’t shared where he was. From what they’d discovered, there was something locally being passed around the network. Some kind of signal that something was going down tonight.

Instead of wondering what on earth that was, he’d much rather be doing something good with a woman like Cat. Helping the community.

Almost felt as good as seeing a student suddenly grasp a concept that had eluded them before he explained it.

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled onto a street lined with police cars. Flashing lights. People gathered around. Cat parked and reached over for the glove compartment. She drew out a badge and a holstered gun, sliding both on her belt as he walked beside her to the source of all the attention. Simon had his backpack, just in case.

He scanned the crowd for familiar faces, hoping he saw none but, at the same time, hoping people he trusted were working this.

The officer on the tape recognized Cat. “Alvarez.”

“Hey, Paul. Romeo here?”

“Sis!”

Simon glanced beyond the tape to see a uniformed officer walking toward them. The guy said, “She’s with me. Let her in.”

Cat thumbed in Simon’s direction. “He’s with me?” The doubt in her voice made it sound like a question.

“Tech support from Vanguard. If needed.” Simon didn’t have anything else to offer. Just the one thing that made him valuable to the company he worked for. And the bad guys they were always trying to take down.

He glanced back over his shoulder but saw no one that made him want to run away screaming in terror. Romeo Alvarez was a stocky guy the same height as his sister. They’d met a couple of times.

Romeo nodded, not hiding his confusion at the fact Simon was with his sister. “Simon Olson.”

Cat said, “I guess I’m the last to know.” She kissed her brother’s cheek and moved around him. “I’ll be inside.”

Simon watched her go, careful to keep his face impassive. Before Romeo could ask, Simon said, “I’m working a job at the school. Nothing to do with Cat, and she won’t be in any danger.”

“You can’t possibly guarantee that nothing will happen to her.”

Simon shrugged. “Maybe not, but I can tell you that the scope of what I’m doing goes nowhere near her.”

“Then maybe you should follow suit.”

“You know, I’m gonna go inside. See if they need any tech help.” He walked by Romeo, half expecting the guy to pull some tough guy move like shoulder-checking him.

Simon headed down the front walk, cracked concrete flanked by bare, dry grass. Kids’ scooter. One beat-up running shoe that looked like a dog had chewed it.

To the front steps, where the door swung open before he even got there.

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