“There are so many problems with that statement, I almost don’t know where to begin,” I said with a shake of my head, “starting with how you know about seals in Russia. But I’ll restrain myself and go with the most obvious. He’s not my client.”
Anna shrugged with a smirk. “Given the state of his security system, he probably will be soon.”
“Oh, that’s right, I saw him at Cipher. He was pretty,” Shane said as she dropped into a seat in the cockpit, “and flirty. Darius was going over there today to check out his house.”
“Guess who designed his security?” Anna said as she navigated past the markers.
Shane shrugged. “Not us, presumably.”
“McCallum.” Anna sounded pleased, or maybe smug. I wasn’t sure which.
“Mmm, I don’t like coincidences like that,” Shane said. “Any connection to Alex Karpov, no matter how tenuous, is bad news.”
“You and Alex Greene connected Karpov to McCallum after the T-rex incident, right?” I asked with a straight face. Shane had actually seen Anna in her safe room break-in costume, and she laughed as she nodded. Anna merely concentrated on navigating away from the harbor.
The boat picked up speed, and I retreated from the wind, dropping into the cockpit with them. “By the way,” I added to Anna, “no sea lion sightings.”
The giant, floppy green Yoda ears on Anna’s hat bobbed ridiculously in the wind as she shrugged. “It’s okay. I just didn’t want to take a chance on hitting one. Darius usually drives, so I’m the spotter.”
Shane and I sat facing Anna at the wheel, and Shane was the one who turned to me to continue the conversation. “Karpov had his fingers in politics, big data, micro-targeting, blackmail, and murder. He could have snuck back into the U.S. anytime in the last six months. It makes me nervous to have his name and tech tied to any company that operates in our territory.”
I looked at Anna. “Did Curran have the McCallum system installed on purpose?”
She shook her head. “He inherited it.”
“Like everything else,” I muttered.
“’Splain,” Anna said with a glance at me.
“It’s plain, or explain?” Shane raised an eyebrow at Anna.
“Both, obviously,” she said with a grin.
“It’s plain,” I answered, “because he’s a privileged, hipster-handsome, top-of-the-food-chain guy whose parents are, like, philanthropy superheroes who have raised more money for the environment than the GDP of small countries. He’s a Harvard legacy, spent his youth living all around the world, travels to exotic locales with beautiful friends, makes pointless photo apps and sells them for a bazillion dollars, and believes he’s God’s gift to womankind.”
Shane stared at me with an open mouth, and Anna sputtered in laughter. “Tell us how you really feel,” she said.
“Quinn told me to research him as a potential client,” I said a little defensively.
Shane nodded. “Yeah, he’s trying to cut down on the private clients, so he’s being rigorous about ethics.”
“I don’t think Curran will hire us anyway,” I said. “He thinks he’s immortal.”
“I think I am too,” Anna said with a grin, “and I’d hire us.”
Shane laughed. “Yeah, but you’re special. What other grown woman would wear that hat?”
“It’s cool, right?” Anna said proudly. “Darius asked his friend Amy to crochet it for me. It makes him laugh every time I wear it, so I make sure he catches me in it when I’m naked.”
Shane burst out laughing. “Naked Baby Yodanna!”
Anna flapped her Yoda ears. “When I can make Darius laugh, he looks at me like I’m chocolate and movie night and browned butter all rolled up in one.”
I shook my head. “Until you came along, I never saw Darius laugh. It’s good that you married him.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a grin. “I mostly married him for his mom, but also for browned-butter looks. And Baby Yoda hats.” Anna looked at Shane. “What does Gabriel do best?”
Shane looked a little dreamy-eyed, and a pinprick of jealously stabbed my back. “He talks to me. His voice is like a thick, creamy salve you put on sunburns when you don’t want to be touched, and when I get sunburny like that, his voice feels like fingers running through my hair—which he does too, by the way.”
“So, you’re saying he’s like a wolf whisperer. You get mad, which is usually fear-based, and he talks you down, petting you to calm you out of whatever fear made you mad,” I said, a little surprised at myself for speaking so intimately to her. Shane looked surprised too, but not at me.
“I never thought of it that way, but you’re totally right. He calms me out of my fear, and I stop being angry,” she said with a hint of wonder.
“What about you, Dallas?” Anna asked. She stood at the wheel of the wooden cruiser, looking a little like a geeky little Norse warrior withstanding the onslaught of wind chill. “What’s your equivalent of a browned-butter look?”
I turned away from her gaze to look out at the choppy water.
“It’s okay—” Shane began.
I didn’t let her give me an out, though, maybe because I wanted the out too badly. “I picked up my grandfather’s habit of talking about people like they’re wolves, maybe because it’s the best way to understand them. Like, people are confusing, but wolves have clear rules of behavior.”
I thought about late-night conversations with Grandpop, and tried to reconstruct one that had landed with me. “The hierarchy in a wolf pack is all about survival. The elders lead, the young learn from everyone, and dominance is just a personality trait, not a gender thing. Pack is protection and warmth and food and family, and without it, wolves die.” I inhaled, trying to pretend it was the cold air and not memory that ached in my chest. “Lone dominants are tolerated, but not really welcome, so they have to leave to find their mates and start their own packs, because pack is everything.” I shrugged, and let the cold wind be my excuse for watery eyes. “I guess my version of browned butter is … pack.” I exhaled. “Family.”
“You want kids?” Anna asked.
I shoved the wave of longing back firmly. “You know I was just in Mexico for a couple of months, right?” They both nodded. “My client was dealing with all kinds of threats from the worst of the bottom-feeders. It was scary for her, and there were a lot of times I felt like a really expensive babysitter—not just for her, but for her two little ones.” I shook my head, trying to clear the images out. “They hired regular security for their new place, so they didn’t need me after Mexico. Leaving that baby and her brother was way harder than it should have been.” I shrugged. “It just makes me think about some of the choices I’ve made, and what I might do differently now.”
I blinked the wind away and turned back to the two women with a faint grimace. “Sorry for the overshare.”
Anna’s Yoda ears flopped in the wind as she waved away my embarrassment. “Nah. This is just sharing. It’s what friends do.”