Page 10 of Operation: Silent Angel
“Last year you tricked the tracker system with a battery-powered bypass. I need access to that, and I need you to help me pull it off. I have to slip away for a little while, and Shepherd can’t know where I am or what I’m doing. An old friend asked me for a favor.”
“If someone is asking you to deceive Shepherd and lie to him, they’re no friend,” Michaela said.
A grin that Michaela couldn’t decipher curved over Yvette’s face. “Please?”
“You don’t want to do that, Yvette. Trust me. I was really stupid for doing it, and it almost cost me my life. Whatever it is, you can trust Shepherd,” Michaela said.
“I know I can trust him, and I know he’ll help. That’s the problem. His helping could put him in danger and expose the agency. If I do it my way instead, neither him nor the agency is exposed.”
“Here’s how I’ll help,” Michaela said. She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her shorts and hit dial.
Yvette didn’t know who she had called until three sentences into the call.
“Yvette needs a favor. She’ll be there in about ten minutes. Are you in the penthouse?”
Yvette groaned. Shepherd. She’d called Shepherd. There was silence as Michaela listened.
“Yes. I’ll tell her. Thank you.” Michaela replaced the phone in her back pocket. “He’ll be waiting in his penthouse for you as he and Diana are just finishing dinner.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Yvette said, rising from the table. As Michaela approached, she held Stephanie out for Michaela to take.
Michaela embraced her rather than taking the baby back. “You are one of my best friends. I did what’s best for you. And Shepherd deserves better. I wronged him once by doing exactly what you’re asking me to help you do. I promised him I’d never do that again.”
“Well, I’d never ask you to break a promise to Shepherd,” Yvette squeaked out, choking down her emotions. She was an expert at that.
***
Yvette thought about what she’d say to Shepherd on the short drive back to HQ and as she rode the elevator to the tenth floor, which was Shepherd’s penthouse. She was one of the few people who had access to it. That fact was not lost on her. She was trusted by him, and Yvette was right. What she’d originally planned in her ask of Michaela would be a crappy thing to do to Shepherd. He did deserve better.
She knocked at the door to Shepherd’s penthouse. She was a little surprised when his wife, Diana, opened it. “Hi, come in. Sam is in his office,” she said, pointing to the hallway that Yvette knew led to his home office.
“Thank you, Diana. I’m sorry to interrupt your evening,” Yvette said. She knew their time alone and uninterrupted was precious as they rarely had uninterrupted moments.
“If it weren’t you, it would be something else,” Diana said with a smile. She wasn’t bitter about it. She was quite accepting of Shepherd’s demanding job. She was a chiropractor with her own demanding practice, so she understood that career often had to come before personal time. “Charlie Team expects fireworks during their Op this evening. I know Sam is keeping an eye on their situation.”
Yvette nodded uncomfortably. She truly liked Diana and didn’t think anyone else could have been as understanding that the agency and its business would always come first with Shepherd, but her thoughts were still on the impending conversationwith Shepherd. “Thanks, Diana,” she said, stepping towards the hallway.
Her gaze penetrated the open doorway and into Shepherd’s office before she entered. Shepherd looked up from the papers on his desk at the same moment. Their eyes locked momentarily stunning her. Or perhaps that was her own guilt stopping her in her tracks. She forced a pleasant grin, knowing Shepherd would know it was forced. “Thank you for seeing me this evening,” she said. “It probably could have waited until tomorrow.”
“My question is why was it Michaela asking and not you?”
Yvette stepped into the room and took a seat in the chair beside the desk. “Because I asked her for a favor she would not grant.”
Shepherd’s eyebrow arched up with that statement, but he didn’t speak.
Yvette told Shepherd the entire story, leaving out the part about having sex with Mac, of course. “I know that if you help Mac, it would put this agency and you personally in a compromising position.”
“Damn it, Yvette, that’s my decision to make. Not yours.”
“Regardless of your decision about agency involvement, I want to help him. I owe him that,” she said.
“Why didn’t Mac contact me directly? Certainly, he knew coming to you to draft this agency,” he paused. “But you were going togo it alone at first, would have if Michaela hadn’t said no and contacted me on your behalf.”
“He asked me to help convince you to help him, fearing you would say no,” Yvette said. “I agreed with him you would decline. Then I convinced him I could recruit a few Operatives I knew outside of this agency to help and assured him I would run an Operations Center to cover them.”
“Why, Yvette?”
“Shep, this has the potential to blow up in his face. Interpol turned him down. Someone’s protecting Ruiz. The question is who? And why?”
