The House on Broad Street

I understood why Frank and Jodie chose this house and area. The folks around here looked out for each other. When Frank had to go away on company business, the whole neighborhood looked after his wife and daughter. Just as I understood the other question still hanging in the air, why was I single and living in a family home?

On my walks around the area, even when shopping or at the mall only a couple of miles up the road, the local wives recognized me but I was always alone. Some commented on it as we stopped by an elevator or were at the same coffee shop. So far, I had managed to deflect the question by asking after their husbands or children, but deflection is a cousin of curiosity and politeness only went so far before the folks around here would look at me with more than just open curiosity.

My boss had already had a couple of inquiries about why I was here. Even though Detective McKenna had used the friend of a friend network to dig into my past and present, he was meeting with silent resistance. Not to mention bosses coming down on their people asking questions that don't concern them or even need answering.

"I assume you've spoken to Fiona Becton?"

Monica chose not to hide anything from me as her next comment proved. "Oh yes, us girls had a nice chat with Fiona the day after the 'for sale' sign came down."

Her eyes hardened, the smile was still on her lips but only through practice.

"After the death of Frank, Jodie and Alison no longer felt safe here, despite the crime rate figures of the area being the lowest anywhere. They moved away Mister Harrison and you trying to find them is going to be a waste of your time."

It was clear, even to me, that other than waterboarding Monica, she wasn't going to tell me anything. I couldn't blame her or any of the other wives. Inadvertently I had saved Naomi from being taken by her father, rescuing her, and in my eyes acting in self-defense, I killed Harlan Bowden. That meant little to nothing in this woman's eyes. Jodie Parsons was out of my reach and it seemed both women planned to keep it that way.

My body was telling me it had been a long day, and I was wilting fast. Leaning over to the coffee table, that alone caused the pain threshold to rise a little, I slid open the drawer and pulled a pen and pad out of it. A minute later I was done. Some would call this a Hail Mary. I just prayed it worked as something was telling me I was running out of time and options.

My standing up caught Monica unawares. "If you will excuse me Monica, I have to rest as per the doctor's orders. Please see yourself out."

Watching the security system a few hours later was enlightening. Monica watched me leave, waited to see if I would return, when I didn't, she pulled a sheet of paper from the middle of my notepad and copied down what I had written. What amused and stunned me at the same time was that she had washed the cups before she left.

As I rested once again, I started to think that even at the age of thirty-one, I'm getting too old for this shit.

It was clear to me that Monica may not know where Jodie was, but you could bet your bottom dollar that she knew how to contact her. My message truly was a Hail Mary, at least to anyone else, but to Jodie it sure made no sense at all.

'Tango Two-Six. Elevate and blossom'

*******

My thoughts had seeped back to my first and only meeting with Jodie. It had been one of those mishap meetings. Frank had come to the city with his wife for a long weekend. A hotel then a show, followed by a meal and a long layin before the journey home the next day. Frank came out of a door when I heard a noise behind me, it caused my attention to divide and I collided right into him. Both our guards lowered when recognition was instant, the downside was that Jodie was with him. When Frank introduced us, an unmistakable tingling shot through my arm, when I held Jodie's hand in mine. As I locked onto the unassuming gaze of her sea-green eyes I knew she would have been 'my girl' had the circumstances of our meeting been different.

The show was forgotten at the insistence of Jodie, and I got the third degree from her over dinner that evening. Frank tried to run interference of course, but a woman in pursuit of information? Frank may as well have left the building.

It was only when we looked around and found ourselves to be the only people left in the restaurant that we made a sharp exit, not without leaving a hefty tip as a thank you of course.

Once we were again on the sidewalk, I turned my attention to Jodie. Frank knew what I was going to say next, he just looked so grateful that I had initiated it.

I took Jodie's hand, raised the back of it to my lips and kissed it. "Jodie you've known what Frank does because he's told you what he was allowed to. You know I'm part of his team and it's because of that we can never meet again. It's been a lovely evening but I'm sorry to say, we won't ever meet again. The rules were broken when I walked into Frank and we stomped all over them back at dinner this evening. It's been a pleasure meeting you and thank you both for your time, not to mention the lovely dinner and of course, the company."

I got a hug from Jodie, poor Frank got the million and one questions when they both returned to their hotel room.

That was eighteen months ago and now I'm standing in what is now my house rather than Frank and his family's.

*******

Monica lived up to her reputation as she rallied the ladies of the area. I seemed to have 'dinner on a plate' on a daily basis. I shuddered to think what the men folk thought of all this. It was a week into all of this when I got a visit from a cute little girl wrapped in the arms of her mother. The mother's bruising was fading to the point that the parts you could see, make-up took care of.

Of course, Monica came with her, which I understood, as this poor woman went to hell and back keeping her child out of the hands of her ex-husband. The only thing keeping him from leaving with the child was me. From the conversation I had with both women, I learned that the funeral only had the padre in attendance, although she did mention that she would have turned up if she had been allowed to push the button that sent his body into the fire. When I looked at the little three-year-old girl and again at the mother, both were on the mend. She had the women of the area looking out for both of them.

It was only when her child lay in my arms, courtesy of her mother's insistence, that my heart melted just a little. She was going to be a heartbreaker when she grew up if her own mother was anything to go by. They stayed for an hour and they asked if they could come back another time. We both found ourselves looking at Monica. She took the coward's way out and shrugged her shoulders.

Paranoia along with a mental reminder of what and why I was here came to the fore in me once again. I had checked the house but I couldn't be obvious and wave an electronic wand over them both.

Her face changed the longer I held my silence. My elbows rested on my legs and I said, "I really don't think that's a good idea. Your ex is dead, please draw a line under that and live the life you have been given. Monica's support network is waiting in the wings to help you. Please, for the sake of Naomi, use it."

Her face was changing with almost every word I spoke. The atmosphere between us was getting colder by the second. She choked, then grabbed hold of Naomi and ran out of the house.

Monica watched everything, yet saved her comment only for me. "She's not coming back, you're dead to her."

We both knew she wasn't talking about Naomi's mother. This time I made no pretense of what I was doing when I pulled a drawer out from under the coffee table and sat the little black box on the table, only the green light blinked.

"Monica, I sense you've been privy to information that you're clearly not entitled too. Frank and all but me of his team are dead. Their bodies were impossible to recover. I'm not going to tell you why, but they were. Certain people want to talk to Jodie, some just want to talk to her, but others want to see her as dead as her husband."

As she stood her eyes never left the little black box. "She hates you because you're alive and Frank isn't. She won't take that back, you're dead to her."

I watched from the now open door as she left and walked back to her house. Closing the door, muttering to myself that 'that went well' only added to my frustration over all this.

Monica seemed to have brought the day of reckoning forward. She must have spread the word because the 'dinner on the plate' brigade disappeared overnight. I'm sure the husbands were pleased. I just went shopping again rather than have it delivered. The exercise helped so I increased that by walking down to the park and walking around the jogging track. The ladies that used to wave as I passed them no longer did. Monica's influence knew few bounds, it seemed.

********

It also felt like it was time to ramp things up. I checked my watch and did the calculations about time zones in my head before dialing. My boss picked up on the third ring of his office phone. "How's it going?"

I spent the next fifteen minutes going over what had happened. He knew about the hospital of course so I just skimmed over that part.

He was quiet for a moment then said, "What do you need from me?"

This was when I paused. The conversation could go either way from here on in. "I need an outsider that can fake a decent American accent. I know I'm being watched, so while they are trying to get a handle on my visitor they're leaving me free to keep an eye on the rest. I need you to assign Alexandra Jeffers for an unspecified period."

The line went silent for a moment. I heard an exacerbated sigh before he said, "I agree, I will make it happen."

Still thinking outside the box I asked my boss to talk to Alexandra and tell her she needed to bring 'the tape' with her.

The pause in our conversation was new to us.

"Do I really need to know about this tape?"

I'm so glad he couldn't see me smile. "If I were an American, I would be claiming the Fifth amendment right about now, sir."

He paused again. "I will send along your request, but if she asks what tape? I'm claiming the same Fifth."

Replacing the phone to the table, I stood at the window and watched the world go by for a few minutes. My mind still wandered. In the few months that I had been here, I had come to see why Frank and his family lived here. It wasn't just the house, the whole area had everything, from shops, to amusements and even mountain walks, if you took the car on a half an hour drive to it of course, which is still local in my mind. Us English have a word for it and it sprang to mind as I looked out that very window. Idyllic.

My phone rang again later that evening. "It's been agreed, she gets on the overnight in a few minutes, she will be with you around four in the afternoon your time. I've told her to plan for a big entrance."

*******

When I spotted the cab pulling up outside, there were three residents walking the street. By the time the cab driver and myself had taken all of Alexandra's suitcases into the house, that number trebled. The cab driver got a really impressive tip, hell he actually broke into a sweat, he deserved it.

Alexandra had joined MI6 the same day I did, we connected instantly and that friendship has lasted all these years. We had used the married couple scenario on a few cases we had been on. She also knew she was safe with me, I was at her wedding to her now wife. To any red-blooded male, Alexandra was truly sex on legs. She met her now wife when we all took the mandatory self-defense classes. Her wife is the chief instructor at MI6's training school, black belt second-Dan, as well.

Donna spent the day throwing Alexandra around on the mats, come the afternoon of that very day, she asked Alex out. Alex blinked once and then agreed, they have been together ever since.

I made us both a coffee and paranoid that I am, I waved an electronic wand over her. She pouted but held out her arms. When I nodded an okay, her arms went around my neck and we kissed. The same type of kiss that her wife had seen us use on each other many times.

"Okay, so what's going on? I've never seen a hurry up operation go this fast before. I had to ask Donna if I could bring the tape, she's not happy you know about it."

*******

Thinking it best to be honest with her, I sat her down and recounted a tale that started three years previously. A CIA team was ambushed almost halfway into their operation, no survivors. Six months later a deep cover MI6 agent was dragged out of his apartment, placed against the wall and shot. Close to a year later a joint team of MI6 and CIA were ambushed in the middle of the jungle, again all found dead by the search team that went looking for them.

Alexandra stared at me open mouthed. "So Frank and his team were next?"

I nodded but quickly added, "Frank had his own suspicions before that, so he took it higher. A couple of the people he had talked to refused to believe it, more like they were too afraid of the fall-out if they did believe it. The third person Frank went to believed him. Frank had a contact that was feeding him all this information. He refused to tell anyone who it was."

Eventually Alex sat at the kitchen isle while I made us both a coffee, as I was wandering back and forth I recounted that fateful day. We all got the 'call to arms' call for our next mission, Frank gave us the run down, we were to insert into the jungle at a set grid reference. As lead scout, I started towards the grid reference he gave me. Two hours later Hell came to earth.

"So where were you?" Alexandra broke my revelry, she wasn't being accusing, it was a genuine question.

"In situations like these, I was Frank's lead scout remember. The reason we got on so well was that he didn't expect me to be three feet in front of the team. At times and dependent on the ground, I could be up to a mile in front of the team for example. When Hell came, I was a mile from the grid reference and just shy of three quarters of a mile in front of Frank's team."

Alex looked confused. "You keep saying that, what Hell?"

I took a breath. Once again my mind saw Hell visit the earth.

"They had seeded the ground with some sort of compound, tasteless and no smell at all, but when you light it up, it burns at an incredible heat. These people didn't believe in a fair fight. The team never stood a chance. By the time I made it back, all that was left was ash."

"So what's all this about Jodie?"

I shrugged. I was in the realm of guesswork now. "At best guess, Frank gave her a list of do's and don'ts. The CIA couldn't give her a body to bury. She smelt a major rat and grabbed her daughter and ran, using documents and money Frank gave her in case this happened."

"However, you survived. Don't you think she's thinking that's suspicious?"

I had to agree with her.

"I need to believe that I survived for a reason, and that's to look after Jodie and Alison. Someone high up is responsible for this, for them both to be really safe, we have to find that person and then be nice and hand them over to the proper authorities."

Alex stared at me. The look she gave me had me feeling that she thought I had lost my mind. Then it dawned on her, and she practically fell off her seat laughing her ass off.

The best I could do was wait her out that took a while, as well. Every time she looked at me, she lost it again.

"So what's the plan?"

"Firstly, I haven't got a clue where she is. Frank would have drilled that into her, so no one does, but one person on this street has a way to contact her. I got Jodie's attention when I bought the house. Now, I need to get her attention again by bringing in the love of my life and setting up a loving home."

Alexandra looked long and hard at me, finally her eyebrow raised. "I know I don't need to remind you I'm married, my wife and I invited you to the wedding."

I had that faraway look in my eyes as I said, "I remember it well, and even the three gay chaps who spent half the wedding trying to get my phone number."

The smirk came next, as her own memories confirmed those very events happening.

"You would have looked beautiful hanging off of any of those men's arms."

Thinking it best to drag this conversation away from gay men, I tried again. I told Alexandra about the times Frank and I had talked about Jodie, when she first saw the 'for sale' sign for the house she had practically dragged Frank over to see it. Frank could see the potential for a family home, while Jodie was already a couple of years ahead in her own vision of the place.

Frank told me that there were only three times he had seen his wife shine so bright from within. The day he got down on one knee, the day of their wedding and the day Alison was born. Owning the house would have been number four, Jodie never wanted to move, she had told Frank that she intended for them both to grow old together here.

"Jodie must still see this as her house, we need to spread you around, introduce you and make her see you're the new lady of the house," summing up my conclusion based on what I had just recounted to Alexis.

Her eyes opened wide, the smirk came quickly after. "So that's what the tape is for."

That's when I nodded. "It gets warm at night around here, folks sleep with windows open, noise travels far along silent streets."

By eleven that night Alexandra's orgasms traveled with the late night breeze further and further around the area. The Police were banging on the door after an hour and Alex's sixth orgasm, a rather disheveled Alex and I answered the door. The conversation was straight to the point, close our windows, the neighbors are getting envious. Alex apologized and promised to bite the pillow more often from now on, seeing that both officers spent most of their time talking to her bedsheet-wrapped chest, we got the desired effect.

When she closed the door, I took the first shift of surveillance from the spare bedroom that looked out over the street and as far down as the stop sign. Alex took the tape out of the machine and placed it back into her suitcase before getting some sleep.

*******

The next few days earned us both an awful lot of stares. The park got hit on, since we both needed to stay fit. The mothers watched and a few jaws dropped as we passed them, a few of the husbands blatantly stared, causing the wives to slap them. More so when the smirks came from the husbands when they figured out how I had 'introduced' Alex to the husbands and wives around us.

It took three days. It must have killed her to do it but Monica was standing in the middle of the running track at the park, the first time Alex and I parted and went around her. She was more blatant about it on our second lap and stood in front of Alex on the second lap. Monica sure must have been feeling brave that morning, it's also a relief that I filled Alex in on Monica.

Rather than run right over her, which would have been Alex's first instinct, she stopped in front of her. Languages were never my forte, hell I still struggle with the 'King's English' and I was born in the damn country. Alex was like a savant when it came to languages, she spoke four languages, and due to spending two years living in Houston Texas in her teens when her father was sent there on company business, she could hold a conversation with a lifelong Texan and he wouldn't know the difference.

"Can I help you?" Alex asked, and that Texas drawl was alive and well, and just flowed from her lips.

The staring match was interesting.

It took a moment but the smile came to Monica's lips, her hand came away from her side and she said, "I'm Monica. I'm afraid it was me who called the police, although I should be thanking you. My husband was somewhat turned on by your performance, he was ever so nice to me that evening. He just couldn't get back to sleep and I reaped the benefits."