“Impressive.” He handed me my new life story stuffed in a faded navy-blue ripcord wallet with Velcro tabs. Swell.
“Everything’s backstopped and will stand up to a fairly rigorous investigation.” He added a set of keys on a battered brass stirrup keychain to my booty. “Now, I’ve arranged to have an old Ford Focus modified with a steering wheel accelerator so you can drive it.”
Because my right foot was missing, making it difficult to feel the pedal, I had to have a special modification to drive. God, I hated driving, but a groom wasn’t likely to arrive at a minimum-wage job in a chauffeur-driven limousine. “You think of everything.”
“That’s what they pay me for, darling. I also have this.” He reached into a drawer and took out a cell phone and a silver locket. He dangled the locket from his index finger. “It doesn’t look like much so the risk of having it stolen is practically nil. If you press the front like so.” He demonstrated by pressing his thumb against the diamond chip in the middle of the rose scroll and set off an alarm on his computer. “We’ll get an SOS signal and be able to come to your rescue. Of course, that’ll work better once you’re back in the city, but we’ll be able to keep track of your movements in Connecticut. It’ll just take us longer to get to you.”
Somehow that didn’t sound as reassuring as it should.
He secured the locket around my neck, then flipped open the phone. “This is really a small computer in disguise. With this, you’ll be able to transmit pictures back to me, record conversations should you need to and, using the sliding keypad, record whatever information Renee needs. Plug it in the recharging base every night. At 2:00 a.m., it will automatically transfer whatever you’ve entered in the computer to our mainframe here. If you need to send something before, just dial Hal’s number and he’ll take it from there.”
Hal being the mainframe. Did I mention Alan loved movies?
“I have a cell phone that can do most of that.”
“This one encrypts communications. And this one is registered to Ally Cross.”
“Good point.”
Alan smiled at me as he handed me the gadget. I stuffed it in the knock-off Dooney & Bourke purse Kristi had given me as part of my disguise. “You can call me anytime by pressing the number one on the speed dial function.” He scooped up a plastic bag at his feet. “Here are a couple of videos from last year’s Grand Prix jumping events. That should bring you up-to-date as to who’s who in the jumping world. I’ve also included a book on horse care and grooming. You’re a quick study so getting the procedures down pat shouldn’t take you long.”
I clutched the bag to my chest. Although I’d never personally attempted the feat, cleaning stalls wasn’t rocket science. “Great. Thanks.”
My last stop was to see Jimmy “The Heartbreaker” Valentine, the agency’s personal trainer. I loved him. Of course, so did every other agent, even though “Backbreaker” would be a more apt title for him. He’d worked for the CIA and didn’t take any of the crap we dished out. And I can honestly say that none of us have made Jimmy’s job easy.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Jimmy said as I walked into his gym. He stood in his black shorts and sweat-stained gray T-shirt in front of the mirror doing bicep curls with thirty-pound dumbbells. “How’s my girl?”
I fluffed my frizz. “As you can see from Kristi’s work of art, I’m going undercover.”
He broke out into a face-eating grin. “Congratulations, I know you’ve been waiting to lead a case for a long time.”
“Well, it’s not exactly what I had in mind.” I flopped onto a padded bench beside the neat rows of dumbbells on a rack.
“You can do it. I have faith in you.”
And his boat-wide smile made shoveling manure suddenly sound like a true opportunity rather than a punishment.
Jimmy was the only one who understood how hard I’d had to work to hide my condition and make my handicap look effortless. He understood because his older brother, Mario, had an arm ripped off above the elbow in a motorcycle accident when he was eighteen. Jimmy had grown up watching Mario endure the long process of fitting an artificial limb and the painful and frustrating hours of practice that went into rehabilitation.
“Hey, guess what?” he said.
“What?”
“Kara’s pregnant.”
For whatever reason, Jimmy tried to reassure me every time I came to the gym that if an ugly, one-armed, junkyard dog like his brother could find a beautiful woman to marry him, then my finding a partner was definitely in the cards. I’m not sure he understood how superficial men in my social circle could be. “When’s the baby due?”
“Right before Christmas.”
“Give him my congratulations.”
Jimmy put both hands up and backed away. “Heck, no, he’s already feeling too proud of himself.”
I laughed and picked nervously at a nail that Kristi had so thoughtfully stripped of polish and clipped nearly to the quick. “So, what do you think?”
He frowned and that meant I wouldn’t like the answer. “I think you should wear your workout leg.”
“Oh, no, please, Jimmy. It’s so ugly.”
He sat beside me on the bench and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “The pretty leg will crap out under the load and your residual limb won’t be as comfortable. You’re heading for hard work, sweetheart. You’ve gotta take care of yourself.”
Coming from Jimmy that didn’t feel like a reproach, but the straight truth. I leaned against his shoulder. “How will I hide it? No one’s supposed to know who I am.”
“Wear pants. Now that it’s getting warmer, that’s a bummer, but it’s the best option. I had Kristi find you a couple of pairs of boots and fitted them with Talux feet.”
I sighed. The carbon active heel would help me walk with a fluid, natural motion in a variety of terrains. Most of all, the unit could withstand moderate impact activities that my lifelike, silicone-covered cosmetic leg couldn’t—even with its computer controls. But none of that altered the fact that the metal workout leg was butt ugly.
Jimmy scrunched his bushy eyebrows and got all serious on me. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“You gotta promise me you’re gonna take care of yourself. Two of my three kids are down with some sort of spring flu, and Linda’s driving me crazy as it is. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”
Linda being his wife who only drove him crazy because he loved her so much. Sometimes I wished he wasn’t married because, with him, my leg would never be an issue.
“I promise.”
“You’ll be expending more energy than you’re used to, so you’re gonna have to increase your calorie intake. If you lose more than five pounds, your prosthesis won’t fit properly and you could end up with all sorts of problems.”
Keeping weight on wasn’t a new issue for me. “I promise I’ll eat.”
He glared at me with the ball-shrinking gaze that was said to have cowered more than one CIA recruit. He forgot that it didn’t work as well on women. “Three squares. No skipping.”
I nodded. “I’ll pack energy bars.”
“That’s my girl.” He stood up and clamped his hands to his hips. “Now get on the mat and let me take you through the exercises I want you to do every day to keep your core strong and balanced.”
He understood me, but that didn’t mean he cut me any slack.