Playing Jacks

vii. Life is a Trade. Part 2

Agent Callan had been sitting on the faded wooden stairs, his elbows resting on his knees, as he waited for the couple to return.  He hadn’t looked particularly happy to see them; but then, he hadn’t looked particularly unhappy, either.  Sophie shuddered and turned away to open the apartment.  There was simply something unnaturally removed about that man. 

“He’s been here before,” Callan notes. “Look, he didn’t even touch her purse.  None of her coats.  The desk is still intact.  All the usual places to keep something valuable- they were left alone.  Even the jewelry box isn’t upset.”

“I think we interrupted the search,” Jacks admits. “The back window was open when I looked through the place.  Someone was running off, but I can’t even tell you enough to say it was a guy or a gal.  Nothing.  Just the shadow of someone in the distance.”

“Either way, I’d say he’s been in this apartment before.  Maybe more than a few times.  And I can tell you that he’s getting desperate.  He wants to find whatever he’s looking for- otherwise he wouldn’t have tipped his hand.”

Sophie sinks weakly into a kitchen chair and stares into the ether. 

Violation: he’s been here, in her space, how many times? How is it she never noticed?  The ring she’d misplaced.  Maybe she’d never misplaced it.  Maybe he’d moved it.  The reality sinks through the haze of her thoughts, making her stomach queasy.

Was she ever home when he searched?  Defenseless and asleep?

 Fear: he’ll be back. 

“Ms. Amando, is there anything you’re not telling me?” Agent Callan asks. “Related to this case or not- if it’s this important, we may be able to provide protection . . .”

But Sophie defiantly shakes her head, her eyes wide with the panic she feels.  Reflexively, she looks to a nearby window, as if expecting someone to be there, listening.

“Alright,” Callan drawls. He presses a fresh card into Sophie’s clammy hands. “Don’t wait until your dead to call.  I can’t help you dead.”

Sophie swallows, her mouth suddenly dry, and watches the FBI agent take his leave.

Sophie woke alone with an abrupt, adrenaline-laced shock of awareness.  Sunlight and her own force of will reigns in the fear; but her hands tremble as she drives herself into her morning routine.

Last night, in the heat of her anger, Jacks’ attentions were the ultimate revenge.  His kiss heat her blood and blurred her reasoning; but when she’d finally recognized that his threats had far more substance than simple words and show, she faltered with shock.

He’d truly meant to take her to bed.

So, despite his efforts to set her apartment to rights; despite the guard he kept while she showered in naked vulnerability; despite the company he offered after the witching hour, watching old movies, she didn’t ask Jacks to stay.  It was far better to lay in wait of danger than to step into it.  And Jacks was dangerous- her foolish heart much too willing to condemn her to another, entirely predictable mistake.

 Refusing to acknowledge the emotion that knots her gut, Sophie carries her shoes into the living room and stops abruptly when she finds Jacks stretched over the too-narrow, too-short, and terribly lumpy couch.  The sight makes her simultaneously tear-up and giggle.

Comforted, Sophie moves through the apartment with a dance-like bee-bop and ties her shoes.  It’s not that she likes to run.  Masochistic, really: to force your body past comfort, past discomfort, past burning, wheezing, and sweating . . . ugh.  But she’d started the practice when she was trying to get down into that elusive size 6- ah, heck, that elusive size 10- and she may not stick to anything close to her diet now, but she wasn’t going to lose all the ground she’d gained.