“Listen, do you want the day off? Are you that sore?”

I sit up with effort. “No.” The word comes out sounding like it was uttered by an eighty-year-old woman. “No.” The second time is better. I feel stronger. Humiliation is giving me wings. “I don’t want a day off; don’t be ridiculous. It’s only my second day.” Felix climbs into my lap, and I absently play with his ears.

“But if you’re too sore . . .”

“I’m not. I’m totally not. I’m fine. I’ll see you in an hour. Sorry I called you. I won’t do it again.”

He says nothing.

“Okay, so see you later. Bye.”

“See you later . . .”—he pauses—“Bo Peep.”

I press the red button and fling my phone into the covers. “Bo Peep. Bo Peep. I’ll give you Bo Peep.” I lift Felix off me and swing my legs out of the bed, groaning the entire way. I never knew before how many of my abdominal muscles, back muscles, arm muscles, and neck muscles are necessary to complete that small motion. Wow.

A ten-minute shower and liberal coating of my body in lotion to facilitate a quick self-massage go a long way toward getting me more mobile. I can actually walk with only a small limp now. But every step down my staircase brings a whimper to my lips. By the time I’m at the bottom, I’m basically just falling down the stairs. I grab the railing at the bottom to keep from collapsing on the floor. Felix runs next to me, I think concerned for my welfare. He keeps looking up at me and whining.

“Don’t worry, Fee. I’m not going to die today.”

I let him out in my small yard to do his business, fill his bowl with kibble, and leave him there to play doggie takeout.

Four anti-inflammatories have me singing about walking on sunshine when I drive into the warehouse a half hour later. I lose a little of my good cheer when I see Dev standing in the middle of the floor with a singlestick in his hand. When his eyes lock on me, he grins real evil-like and smacks his palm with the weapon.

Fine. He wants to play it that way? Fine. Finer than fine. I pull into the corner of the warehouse and park, grab my Taser out of my purse, and climb out of my car. I’m headed in his direction before the door is even shut.

“You even think about touching me with that stick and I’ll shoot you up with so much electricity, you’ll be able to power this entire block with your finger in a socket.” I hold it out in front of me with two hands, since one arm is too weak to do the job on its own. I could possibly look like an FBI badass.

Everyone starts laughing, including Dev.

He puts the stick on the table and opens his arms. “Come to Papa, Bo Peep. I knew you had it in you.”

I sigh with relief and lower my weapon, limping forward to join my team.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I gotta give you props,” Toni says, turning the wheel of the van slowly so we can park on the side of the street half a block up from our surveillance target. “That was a great approach with Dev this morning.”

“It’s not like he gave me any choice.” I tuck my hair behind my ear and swivel in my seat to watch her as she moves around in the back of the van. It’s a tiny command center, with two short stools set up in front of a bank of screens and two laptops on a very narrow shelf built into the side of the van. I was relieved to learn that the entire thing is bulletproof.

“You had plenty of choices. I had money on you turning around and leaving.”

My smile falls. “Oh.”

“Buuut you’ll be happy to know everyone else thought you’d stick.” She’s messing with wires under the shelf, frowning when something isn’t doing what she wants it to do.

I don’t want to dwell on her lack of faith in me, so I change the subject. “What are you doing down there?”

“Trying”—she grimaces—“to find”—she yanks on some cords really hard—“the power supply”—a cord comes flying out and hits her head—“for the computers.” She sits up and smiles at it. “There we go. You can run, but you can’t hide, you little bastard.” She plugs the laptops in and opens the one in front of her.

“So what exactly are we doing here today?” I shift in my seat so my leg muscles aren’t quite as cramped. Pretty much any position I pick isn’t going to work, though. My body is in full broke-down mode.

“First we need to assess which type of surveillance is going to work with what we have here on this street, and then we need to get it set up. Deadline to finish is tooo-day.” She looks out the front windshield. “You should come back here with me and pull that curtain.” She gestures at a spot behind the front seats.

I move to the back part of the van and unhook the black curtain from its tieback behind the passenger seat. It runs from right to left via a metal track imbedded in the ceiling. Once it’s in place, the back room goes dark except for the laptop’s screen. Toni leans forward and presses a button on the panel in front of her, and a dim overhead light goes on.

“This is so super spy,” I say in a whisper.

“If you say so.” She’s too busy tapping on her keyboard to look up at me.

I turn around and drag the hard plastic case full of equipment closer to me. “I guess I’ll go through this stuff.”

“Good idea. Try a couple lenses out. See if any of them can get into the house.” She pauses and reaches over me to get to the curtain. “You can pull down this little flap and put the lens up there. Try not to let it down until you’re ready to fill the hole with the lens.”

The black curtain has a camera spy hole. Cool.

The first lens I select does the trick, as much as any camera lens can, anyway; when I place it up to the hole in the curtain, I can pick up the small mailbox attached next to the front door. The faded nameplate says “Juarez.” It looks like our targets haven’t done any housekeeping since the house was built in the sixties, though, so seeing into any of the interior probably isn’t going to happen.

“I’m not sure how much I’m going to see through those brown windows,” I say. “Reminds me of My Cousin Vinny.”

She surprises me when she jumps right in. “Love that movie. One of my favorites. The two ‘yoots.’” She laughs, shaking her head with a sigh.

I try not to get too excited over the fact that we share the same taste in cinema. Whenever I start thinking she and I can be friends, she throws me a curveball. Like betting against me this morning. I wonder what it’s going to take to earn her respect. I hope it won’t involve me getting shot.

The front door of the house opens. “Someone’s coming out!” My pulse starts beating hard, and suddenly it’s difficult to breathe. I’m both excited and scared to death. What if they see us? What if they know exactly what we’re doing? Is a bulletproof van bombproof too?

“Take some shots!”

“Oh, right.” My finger presses the shutter button. I quickly focus on the subject and do my best to catch him in profile and full on. He turns in our direction to get to his car, parked just a few vehicles down from where we are.

“Oh my god, I’m getting some great shots right now.”

“Keep going. You can never have too many.”

“Thank goodness for digital, right?”

“Yeah.” Toni’s moving around behind me, but I can’t stop to figure out what she’s doing.

“Listen, if he gets closer, you should back off the curtain and close it up.”

“How close?” I’m still taking shots.

“Within ten feet.”

I take a few more pictures and back up, pulling the camera out of the hole and shutting the flap.

The entire van is pitch-black inside. Toni must have shut off the light when I was busy taking a hundred pictures in ten seconds.

“Next time, warn me when you’re going to do that,” Toni says.