Kingston Kidnappings (What Happens In Vegas Book 3) by Matt Lincoln (great book club books .txt) 📗

a corner around a cluster of trees, I spotted a young family having a picnic in the shade. The couple looked like they were in their twenties, and the baby napping between them couldn’t have been more than a few months old. I felt a pang of loneliness as I passed the trio, and for just a moment, I wished that I had someone to spend the day before a mission with the way Wallace intended.

It was a peculiar system he’d enacted, and unlike any I’d ever experienced in any other place of work. Nelson had once mentioned in passing that the reason Wallace was so adamant that his agents take time to spend with their friends and families before a mission was because of something that had happened when they were both younger and still police officers. He hadn’t elaborated with any details but had only said that it was very important to Wallace that we all take care of ourselves mentally as well as physically.

It was a little sad that despite all of his efforts, he’d wind up with a bunch of antisocial agents. I thought it was ironic that Charlie, who was arguably the least sociable agent working for the Las Vegas branch, was the only one who actually spent the day before a mission with his family. Miranda had left home and joined the Marines at eighteen, Fiona had been bullied her whole life and never learned to make friends, Junior was apparently a child prodigy who was so busy going to school he never developed a social life, and I… well, I did what I had to in order to survive. Nevertheless, it was nice having a boss who was so concerned about the well-being of his employees.

The rays of the sun were beginning to beat down on me in full force by the time I made it back to my house, and I sighed in relief as the cool air hit me when I stepped through the front door. Just as I was toweling the sweat off my brow and getting ready to have a shower, my phone went off.

The name shining at me from the front of my phone’s screen belonged to a man I had been seeing casually for the past two months. My finger hovered over the answer button for a moment before I changed my mind and set the phone down on the bathroom counter, letting it ring until it went to voicemail.

I watched my phone light up as an icon indicating I had a missed call flashed across the screen, and I wondered if maybe this was the reason I was alone. The truth was that I got bored very easily, of people, of places, of jobs even. Relationships were always fun when they were new and exciting and full of anticipation, but once familiarity and routine set in, I always lost interest. The same was true for jobs, which was why it was so surprising that I’d been with MBLIS for nearly two years now. After I’d left my job as a consulate or the American Embassy, I’d hopped from place to place, always chasing a new and exciting opportunity. The thing about working for MBLIS was that it never got boring, so I never felt the urge to drift away.

As I stepped into the shower, I wondered whether I should call Sean back. He was a nice man: kind, intelligent, and he treated me like a princess. It was good for my ego, but honestly a little boring. I tended to agree with the assertions that opposites attract, so being with a man who just agreed with everything I said or thought wasn’t stimulating enough for me. Maybe that’s why Miranda and Charlie seemed to be getting along so well lately.

I didn’t have any solid evidence that they were seeing each other, but I was adept at noticing minute changes in behavior or routine. If they were together, they were doing a rather good job of hiding it, but I’d still noticed the way Charlie seemed to roll his eyes at her less and actually paid attention when she was talking. Miranda was no longer the first one bouncing out of the office to head to a bar or club in the evening. On the contrary, she always seemed to wait until after Charlie had left before gathering her things.

I decided to ask Charlie about it tomorrow on the plane ride down to Jamaica. It wasn’t really any of my business, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a bit of gossip now and again. The idea of messing with Charlie sounded fun too.

In the end, I decided not to call Sean back and spent the rest of the day inside watching old movies and crocheting. The run had helped ease the anxiety I’d had over the idea of bumping into my parents, and now that I wasn’t nervous anymore, I was beginning to feel excited about the prospect of going to Jamaica. I did have other family there aside from my parents, and it would be nice to see some of my aunts and cousins again. I’d escaped from my parents’ control a long time ago, and I wasn’t about to let them kill my enthusiasm now.

16

Charlie

The plane ride the morning of the mission felt uncomfortably quiet. It would take us about eight hours to get to our destination of Kingston, which was thankfully much shorter than the sixteen-hour flight I’d had to take to Japan a few months ago. I was used to going on missions with Junior, who was typically content to read or play a video game while I napped, so traveling with Patel felt strange.

She was sitting straight up in her chair, with perfect posture and her hands folded neatly in her lap. That, in itself, wasn’t all that unusual for Patel, who always carried herself like royalty and had the attitude to match, but something about