Page 58 of The Angel and the Agent

“Who’s our driver?” she asked.

“About that,” Ethan began, but from the front seat Jones turned around and spoke to her.

“All right there, Melly? Find your knick-knacks and girly dos?”

“It’s Jones,” Amelia said.

“It turns out cars are easier to find than drivers,” Ethan explained.

“It’s only a frog hop. Just five hours, and we’ll be there,” Jones said.

“Five hours,” Amelia repeated. “I can’t hold my hands over my ears for five hours, Ethan.”

“Come on, Melly, this is the good part of the trip. Right roads, and all,” Jones said.

Ethan tapped him. “You don’t call her Melly; that’s what I call her.”

“Right, that’s what you call her. And that’s what I call her,” Jones said.

“But I call her that. I’m the only one who calls her that,” Ethan protested.

“You patent the name, gent?” Jones asked.

“I think you lost this one as soon as we opened the door and got inside the first time and he asked if he could sniff us,” Amelia said.

“But…” Ethan started, but she interrupted him.

“Ethan, the man keeps a stuffed kangaroo in his pocket, and I’m not sure he doesn’t know it’s not real. So I think it’s okay to let this one go.”

“As I told you before, we don’t have ready access to medical care here. It would be dead helpful to have someone who could sniff out infection and make a diagnosis, yeah?” Jones said, shamelessly eavesdropping on them again. “And I know the kangaroo’s not real. It’s in memory of a real kanga I used to know. He met a bloody end one day when…”

Amelia started to put her hands over her ears, but Ethan intercepted her. “Let me show you the car’s best feature.” He pressed a button and a glass divider went up between them and Jones. Better still, it was also tinted.

“Can he see us back here?” Amelia asked.

“No, I checked,” Ethan said.

All the windows were tinted; no one could see them.

Amelia eased closer and slipped her arms around him. “You know what I want to do right now?”

“I think I do,” he said. “You want to take a nap.”

She nodded, yawning.

He eased her into his lap and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m sorry. It’s just so cozy and warm, and I’m so sleepy,” she said, yawning again.

“It’s almost like you didn’t sleep well last night,” he said.

“Strangely, I feel like I hardly slept at all, like I ran a marathon for a few hours. Can’t imagine why,” she said.

“Jet lag finally catching up with you, probably,” he suggested.

“If that’s jet lag, I’ll become a record holding frequent flier,” she said, and he laughed.

The divider rolled down. “All right back there, mates? Sounded like a sea bird choking on a biscuit.”

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