Page 29 of Stilettos and Outlaws

Mom and Dad yelled in unison, “Sit down.”

We sat.

“Bedroom now,” Dad ordered, yanking the door open.

Mom stomped past him with Miss Kitty on her heels.

“Get to work,” Dad instructed and slammed the door.

I let out a whistle. “Holy cow! I haven’t seen them this worked up in a while.”

“Me, neither. You don’t think they’re gonna…” Julie grimaced. “You know, do it?”

“As bad as he smells. No way.” I inserted the thumb drive and sighed. “We have fifty prints to run.”

“Send me half and once we’re done, we can sneak into Dante’s room.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I sent Julie her half and started running the fingerprints through the database. Two had outstanding DUI warrants, three had arrest records for theft, but most of the prints belonged to hardened felons with long criminal histories ranging from assault to attempted murder to gunrunning and cattle rustling. I sent those to Dad’s computer.

“Holy hell! The CIA just locked up my computer,” Julie cried.

“What?” I slid my chair over to her console. Crap! A red warning bar flashed at the top of the screen. Evidently, we were in violation of all sorts of espionage laws, and we needed to call the number listed immediately. Whoever Eric Roberts was, the CIA wanted him badly.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Julie’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “They’re trying to breach our mainframe.”

I grabbed a thumb drive Mom called The Hail Mary and inserted it into my computer. The red warning bar appeared at the top of my screen too and gobbledygook scrolled across the screen. “Crap! The Hail Mary isn’t working.”

An alarm sounded and a mechanical voice announced.“Breach imminent! Breach imminent!”

“I can’t shut it down! I can’t shut it down!” Julie yelled.

Typing frantically, I accessed our mainframe and tried to block the malware infiltrating our system. “This bastard is good.”

Wearing only a towel, Dad burst into the room and hit the main power switch. The lights died. Thirty seconds later, the backup generator kicked in.

He glared at us. “What did you do?”

“Us?” I bristled. “Nothing. We were running the fingerprints through the database like you wanted and wham! The CIA was trying to breach our computers. It seems they’re really interested in some dude named Eric Roberts.”

Loathing filled Mom’s voice, “Eric Roberts? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I eyed Mom in alarm, not only was she sopping wet, but her melting mascara gave her a scary, killer clown mask. “Who is he?”

Dad rubbed a hand over his face, trying to hide his smile. “He’s a rogue CIA agent who tried to kill us thirty years ago.”

“This time he won’t come back from the dead,” Mom promised darkly, ignoring the water dripping off her.

Okay, Mom had to get rid of her killer clown look. I handed her the box of wipes and gestured to her face. She ignored me. Mentally throwing my hands up in disgust, I interjected, “I think the question is: Where has he been hiding for all these years and why is he back now?”

“Revenge. We need to warn the others,” Mom said, tapping away on her cellphone. “I sent a Defcon One alert.”

Dad nodded. “And we need to prepare for a visit from the CIA or their FBI attack dogs.”

Miss Kitty trotted into the room and meowed.

Dad stomped his feet and yelled, “Git!”

Miss Kitty hissed at him.

---