She slipped on her fluffy pink “MOM” robe. Being divorced andslathering on toning cream was better than pretending to be appreciated. She knew that much. She wrapped her wet hair in a towel, slipped some gold under-eye masks on that were supposed to help with bags (spies don’t have dark circles), and walked downstairs to make sure everything was shut down properly, a last walk-through to turn off the lights and double-check that the doors were locked.
Bubbles took their nightly patrol seriously, trotting ahead of her and smelling every corner, growling into the shadows. Was it bravery or fear? She wasn’t sure, but she liked the company. “Good boy, Mr. Bubbles.”
In the living room, the TV was still on a “Would you like to continue watchingNailed It!?” message from Netflix across Nicole Byer’s face. “Night, Nicole. Night, Jacques,” she said with a final click. They’d watch the Halloween episode tomorrow.
Bubbles, a caricature of a dog made out of cotton balls and painted partially blue by an eight-year-old, barked and ran toward the door like he was a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound mastiff. Little man syndrome—he had it bad. She should have named him Napoleon instead of Mr. Jonathon Bubbles. That’s what happens when two kids under ten name a dog, though.
“Bubbles, shhh!” she whispered loudly. “Don’t wake up the kids.”
Bubbles was an overenthusiastic guard dog, especially at night when the lights were out. He alerted her to every gust of wind, every unauthorized toilet flush, and God forbid a car should actually drive by. Working at the EOD had her a little more on edge. No one seemed to suspect she wasn’t Camille Walker, regular-old executive assistant, but still… Her hair stood on end, and she felt her parasympathetic nervous system kick into high gear, a sudden flood of adrenaline heightening her senses. Quickly, she ran through the list of everything she knew from the EOD.
Brace yourself, bend your knees, drop to the ground, and roll if someone grabs you from behind. What a joke—she wasn’t going to drop and roll to safety. All of the other spies had actual weapons. She peeked out the dining room windows at the front through the blinds. Nothing. Her new job had just kicked up her imagination. Everything was fine on Avocado Avenue, unless you counted Shelly’s dead cat in her closet.
“It’s fine, Bubbles,” she said, more to herself than him, but he continued to growl low in his throat.
Sure enough, there was something. Just outside the front door, a small box was nearly hidden next to her potted yucca. She almost missed it in the shadows. Apparently, Bubbles wasn’t completely unreliable.
She tucked the unmarked box under her arm and made her way to the kitchen. There was no name or address for the sender or the recipient, just a box on her doorstep. Had Phil dropped it or was it from the EOD?
Inside, she found a tiny earpiece buried in tissue paper. A note read, “Good job today. I’ll be back in your ear tomorrow.”
Gabby smiled to herself. Today had been hard, and things had gone wrong, but she’d managed. Markus might not have given her a gold star, but he’d sent her a new earpiece meaning: 1) she didn’t get fired, and 2) she didn’t have to go it alone tomorrow.
As soon as she took out the recycling, she was going to get some rest, after she took a handful of melatonin, because it was going to take a while to come down from the adrenaline rush of receiving an unmarked package. Talk about a reminder that she needed to chill out.
She slipped on some bright orange Crocs with a few Croc gems and shuffled into the driveway with the recycling.
Just as she tossed the recycling in, a van pulled up, dark gray and brand-new. It looked like one of the fleet of EOD vehicles. Markus—he’d probably turned around after dropping off the box. Who knows why—more specific instructions, just a debriefing about her day. He really needed to text her next time. She was in a robe with a towel wrapped around her wet hair like a turban. Oh well.
She cinched the belt on her robe tighter, and just to look busy, she picked up the second bag of trash. That was probably a dumb impulse—but she committed. She strode over to the van to share a strongly worded admonition that he needed to text before he dropped by next time, a bag of leaky trash in her hand for emphasis.
Her admonition caught in her throat as both doors slid open and three guys dressed in black jumped out and charged her. A scream let loose from her involuntarily. She was a mom. Her kids were in the house.
She could not let these men get past her.
Just like she’d practiced, she bent her knees slightly and braced herself. The only weapon at hand—a bag of kitchen trash. She gripped the plastic red straps on the store-brand kitchen bag.
Kyle and Lucas were sleeping peacefully, and she could not let these assholes touch a hair on their heads. Her mind was focused on that and that alone—keep her kids safe.
“What are you waiting for? Put her in the car.”
“You can try,” Gabby said, playacting at being the spy she wasn’t.
When he stepped closer, she leaned back and swung the trash bag as hard as she could. Since Phil left, she’d gotten pretty good at swinging heavy trash bags into the bin. Right in this moment, it paid off. The bag smashed into her assailant’s face. It might nothave packed a lot of force, but her thriftiness was what really got him. The generic bag didn’t have super-stretch technology, and the contents exploded all over him.
“Ugh!” he screamed, and backed off, horrified at the fish juice and squid pieces that had splattered all over his brand-name spy outfit.
“Take that, asshole!” For a second time, she thanked Justin for making bouillabaisse. It was weapons-grade leftover fish smell.
Another one started laughing. “Housewife’s got some moves.”
That’s right. If they thought they were going to get into that house, they had another thing coming. She had a tube of mascara in her pocket from that time she’d tried to sell Avon and had just ended up buying $200 worth of products. She took the wand out and palmed it like a shiv. It wasn’t a gun, but any woman knew that a wand to the eye could take down a full-grown man.
“Come on, sweetie, we just need to talk. Come with us nicely, would you?”
She smiled, but when he got close, she jabbed him in the eye with the mascara wand.
“Fucking bitch! Enough of this. Throw her in the van.”
