“Keep moving.” As if the demand wasn’t enough for Blayne to start walking again, there was a little nudge from what he assumed was the muzzle of a gun pressed into his back. “I’ll ask you one more time. Where is she?”
“I’ll keep walking, but I need to know who you are seeking. If you’re looking for my mother, I’m guessing she’s at home in Plainview. I can’t guarantee she’s there. She could just as easily be at her church doing something ‘for God’,” he said in the best imitation of his mother’s West Texas twang. His parents might live in West Texas now, but his mother had grown up in Southeast Texas, in Beaumont, near the Louisiana border, so her accent always was a bit different compared to other West Texans, who had an accent all their own. “Or are you looking for my grandmother? My mom’s mother is in a cemetery in the Galveston area. But my dad’s mom? She’s alive and well, retired in—”
“Corpus Christi,” the woman replied. “I know.”
“You and your people seem to know a lot of things. I take it you’ve lost someone?” There was a swat across the back of his head—not enough to make him stumble, but strong enough to let him know she wasn’t messing around. In the distance, Blayne could see the Dream Bean. “I’m heading for coffee. Would you like coffee? My treat.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the voice behind him said. “Don’t make me kill you.”
Blayne considered it briefly and tested a hypothesis based on something Dr. Hennigan had said. “Your organization has stringent protocols for killing someone. Correct?” There was a grunt of surprise behind him, but Blayne acknowledged it. “Well, since you don’t have an order to kill me and I’m not a threat, I’m going to go in, order two coffees, then we can sit down and converse like two civilized people.”
“Don’t make me shoot you again.” For added emphasis, she grabbed him around his upper arm and placed pressure on his still-healing wound. Blayne winced, but he didn’t make a sound. He was glad the woman couldn’t see his face.
“Ahh, so you were the sniper?”What the hell am I doing? If I tell her outright where Dr. Hennigan is, am I dead? If I keep her talking, am I dead?He just kept walking, taking long strides. One of the nice things about being so tall was that most people needed to take two steps to keep up with one of his, so he could hear the woman moving quickly behind him to keep up. He could smell the fresh coffee roasting in the back about fifty yards from the Dream Bean.
The woman slipped in beside him and wrapped her arm around his back while poking him in the side of his stomach. “What do you think you’re doing?” The woman jabbed him in the side a little more with each word.
“I figure you’re a friend or you’re a foe. If you’re a friend, we’ll sit down, have coffee and we can talk. If you’re a foe, I’m dead if I talk and dead if I don’t. So, why would I talk? And if you’re really the woman who tried to shoot me last month, then I’m guessing you’re more in the friend than the foe category. Besides, if you shoot me right now, enough people are milling around that you’ll be seen, which is something I don’t think you want.”
“There is a third option.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m neither friend nor foe, but I’ll still happily shoot you in the back. In fact, the larger the crowd is, the better. I shoot you in the back, scream for help and escape during the ensuing panic. It’s always easier to escape when people are scared and rarely remember who screamed first. Sure, they’ll know it was a woman, but that’s usually all they know. Memories are unreliable after a traumatic experience.”
They climbed the stairs to the outside patio in front of the coffee shop.
“So, what can I get you?” Blayne asked, looking at the woman who was no longer holding a gun to his side. He wasn’t sure what he expected the woman to look like, but the woman standing next to him wasn’t it. She was slender and came up just past his shoulder. She had brown eyes that matched the color of her short hair. The first thought that came to his head was ‘androgynous’. The woman wore an ill-fitted suit coat. She could easily have been mistaken for a teenage boy if not for the glint of makeup she had on.
“Coffee, nothing in it. And suppose you talk to anyone other than the barista. In that case, I’m putting a bullet in that person first, followed by you and a couple of extra people in here, just for good measure.”
The look on her face told Blayne everything he needed to know. She’d follow up on that threat and not lose any sleep.
Blayne reached out and opened the door before waving the woman in ahead of him. “I think not. I can hold my own door,” she said, cocking her head.
Blayne shrugged and walked in, not bothering to see if the woman grabbed the glass door after he’d let go. He walked over to the counter and found one of his students working.
“Hey, Mr. Dickenson,” Todd Rice started as Blayne approached. “What can I get for you today?”
“Two tall coffees. One black and the other with half-and-half.”
“Easy enough.” Todd turned his back to Blayne, grabbed two paper cups and started pouring from the commercial coffee maker on the shelf. “Sorry I missed class today. I got stuck here on a double shift when one of my coworkers didn’t show up. She didn’t even bother calling in to let us know she wouldn’t make it.”
“It happens,” Blayne replied absently. He leaned against the counter to keep one eye on Todd and another on the woman, who stood near the front door. She had positioned herself so she could easily see outside while keeping track of everything inside the coffee shop. Blayne knew little about the world she lived in, but he had a sneaking suspicion she was quite good. The woman was very unassuming. If he’d had to draw a picture of who he thought shot him, this wouldn’t have been the person. The woman had been exotic in his head, a cross between an Amazonian and a Mossad agent.
“Here you go, sir,” Todd said as he returned with the coffees. “The one with the stick has the half-and-half.”
“How much?” Blayne asked as Todd rang up the order. After a quick exchange of money, Blayne stepped away from the counter.
“I forgot to ask. Did I miss anything?” Todd called after him.
Blayne looked at the woman, who was now clearly staring at him. He turned back toward Todd. For the first time since he’d gotten to the counter, Blayne couldn’t see the woman, even though he knew her eyes were burrowing a hole in his back. He took a deep breath. “Honestly, Todd, both of my classes today are in slightly different places. I would email one of your peers. I really can’t talk. I have business I need to attend to now.”
“The creepy girl hanging out near the front door?” Todd asked in a low voice.
She does stand out a bit here.“Yep. She’s another graduate student. We’re working on a class project ourselves,” Blayne lied. Todd just gave him a weird look. Thankfully, another customer stepped up to the counter, so Blayne made his getaway. He didn’t wait. He exited the coffee shop, headed over to the exact table where he’d been shot and sat down.
The woman was there instantaneously, sitting down.
