The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Spy Games, pt. 1

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER I WAS DRINKING A LATTE AT A STARBUCKS, two hundred yards farther down Spring Street, in the heart of Soho, and Sadie was on the phone with her American Express Centurion concierge. Five minutes after that, by some wonder of wonders, we had a reservation at the Trump Soho for the two-bedroom penthouse suite. About 150 feet away.

I idly thought: One day, when this is all over, if this were going to be my brother's life — following a beautiful girl around on her crazy adventures and landing in paid-for penthouses — I might find myself just this side of jealous.

But I digress.

We went to the Trump and were guided to one of the most elaborate penthouses I'd ever seen. The whole thing was floor to ceiling windows with a perfect view of the river and Fendi — yes, that Fendi — leather headboards on the beds.

I never wanted to leave. Sadie was on the phone again as soon as we got in the door. "Yes, we're in New York. In Soho. Yes, that's where he lives. Why does that matter?" Sadie was on the phone again as soon as we got in the door. Silly Everett. He was getting so much better at understanding her — and trusting her and being a fucking grownup in his relationship with her —then he'd take a jillion steps backward. Me alone with her, in Cole's town . . . he was probably going crazy. I wondered if he didn't have something to do with the separate bedrooms. What did he think I was going to do, sleep with her?

Come to think of it, that's probably exactly what he thought.

I rolled my eyes, although no one was watching, and kicked back in one of the leather chairs that faced the windows.

"The book has to be somewhere," I heard her say. "You went down to the Crow Reservation, did you not? And nothing?" Pause while he said something undecipherable. "Everett, I don't know. Then just see where other Linderman books are sold. Please. Do something." Longer pause. "I can't come there. What Mark and I are doing here is important. Can't you understand that?" Pause with slightly louder muffled sounds I could have understood had I wanted to. Then, "Everett, you are not helping. At all. Ugh! I'll find it myself."

Then she hung up, an unusual move. They'd been mostly lovey dovey ugh-y since Canada.

"Trouble in paradise?" I mused.

"Don't start," she said, clomping off to her room in particularly loud heels. She closed the door.

I knew my job was Sam — and believe me, I'd work that out — but I felt the need to help Sadie first. I did a Google search for Pretty-shield and found the same book Everett did, by Frank B. Linderman, written in the 1930s. I knew Linderman. I'd read a lot of his stuff. He had a pretty comprehensive catalogue of frontier life, and I'd gone through a phase when I wanted to know more about the mythical Wild, Wild West. I'd read Indian Old Man Stories and even Plenty-coups about the legendary Crow warrior chief, in an effort to know more about the tribe the Red Bloods had a long animosity toward. But I never read Pretty-shield. I had the feeling that book wasn't as popular as his others back then. There were almost no stories about women in Native American literature, in tales of the West, or Native American literature as a whole. Not in the early twentieth century.

I kept searching Google, looking for sites that had more to do with Linderman than with the Crows, and then I found something interesting. In the Central School Museum in Kalispell, not twenty minutes from the Survivors' City, there was an exhibit on him. I rang up the gift shop, asked politely if they could tell me if they had a copy of Pretty-shield on hand. They did, and I put one on hold for Winter.

I projected to outside the Museum, went in, paid the admission, went to the gift shop, obtained my book, walked out, and projected back in five minutes flat. I got up out of the leather chair to hand Sadie the book she so desperately wanted. Then I thought of how I kept swooping in and being what Sadie needed, kept doing the things my brother wished he could do for her but often couldn't.