“Henchwomen.”
“Hench-whatever told you not to? Divide and conquer, baby. That’s what the enemy does. But I’ll be damned if I’m leaving your side. We’re going to find these pricks, take ’em out, and end this.”
“Then what? You go back to spy school and I go back to my life?”
“First of all, I haven’t been to spy school since I was a teenager. Second, you don’t have a life.”
“Seriously?”
“You work at a daycare and watch monster movies with Addy. What else do you do except razz me for entertainment?”
She opened and closed her mouth.
“Exactly. Now me? I like long walks on the beach. I like being catered to in a house with a view of the Sound. I like burying myself in a hot blond everyone wants but can’t have. And I like thinking up new names for Little Dee while Hammer’s on diaper duty.”
“That’s all clever and funny, but what about after? When you go back?”
“Who says I’m going back so soon? I have some time to kill. Not literally, I just meant I’ve decided to take a real vacation when I’m done with this op.”
“Oh?”
“And, uh, I was planning to take it here. With you, if that’s okay.”
She blinked at him. “Like stay in my house? Eat my food? Mess up my guest room even more?”
“Look, I do my own laundry. I cook. I look good in everything I wear, or don’t wear. I’m practically perfect.”
“Practically.” Her scared, wide-eyed panic had abated, and she seemed more relaxed. “I guess you could stay with me. Until you go back, that is.”
“Right. Just until I go back.” Which he didn’t intend to do anytime soon. Granted, he’d started this thing with Noel by taking time off from work, but he had so much leave stored up it wasn’t funny. When Big Joe had learned what they were dealing with, he put Deacon and Hammer back on the clock to solve this particular mystery. Deacon was on the job as he spoke. But what a job it was.
Just him and Solene Hansen.
And a mistake to put right—wiping Romero Burleigh off the face of the Earth.
