The Short Drop Read Free

couldn’t figure men out in general and Gibson Vaughn in particular. He didn’t spend penny one on himself, his only luxury the gym membership. Although, to be fair, that was money well spent.
    Not that Vaughn was her type. Far from it. Sure, he had a rough-around-the-edges charm about him, and the way his pale-green eyes stared through people fascinated her. But she could still see the chip on his shoulder that had landed him first before a judge and then in the Marines. No matter what he’d been through, there was no excuse for the way it continued to haunt him. You couldn’t allow your past to define you.
    She ran her tongue over her front teeth. It was a nervous habit. It irritated her whenever she caught herself doing it, but she couldn’t make herself stop. Which only irritated her more. Where was Hendricks with her coffee?
    As if on cue, Hendricks appeared at the door with two coffees and a cruller. He had to have twenty-plus years on her; she guessed he was north of fifty, but it was only a guess. After working with him for two years, she still didn’t know his birthday. His hair had receded to the crown and vitiligo had carved out white patches at the corners of his mouth and around the eyes that stood out sharply against his black skin.
    “Still in there?”
    Jenn nodded.
    “Like clockwork, that boy,” Hendricks said. “Regular as a bowel movement.”
    He handed Jenn a coffee and took a big bite of his cruller.
    “They ran out of jelly doughnuts. Believe that? What kind of bakery runs out of jelly doughnuts before nine a.m.? This whole state needs a chiropractor.”
    Jenn contemplated mentioning Virginia was technically a commonwealth and thought better of it. Needling Hendricks only provoked him.
    “Today’s the day,” she said instead.
    “Today’s the day.”
    “Any idea when?”
    “Soon as we hear from George.”
    They were on standby and were finally going to make the approach to Vaughn. Their boss George Abe would handle it personally. She knew all this, of course, but steering the conversation back to business usually kept Hendricks from going off on a rant.
    Usually.
    Eight years in the CIA had taught her the art of working with men in close quarters. The first lesson was that men never adapted to women. It was a boys’ club, and you either became one of the boys or you became a pariah. Anything regarded as feminine was considered soft. The women who thrived were the ones who cursed louder, talked more trash, and showed no sign of weakness. Eventually, you got branded “one tough bitch” and earned a grudging tolerance.
    She’d earned her “tough bitch” merit badge the hard way. On some of those forward bases in Afghanistan, she’d gone weeks without seeing another woman. Out there alone, you could never be tough enough. You were always going to be the only woman for a hundred miles. She’d seen men’s eyes go from hungry to hostile to predatory, and she’d learned to sleep very, very lightly. It was akin to prison, everyone sizing you up, sniffing for vulnerability. It had gotten so bad on one base that she had contemplated sleeping with the CO in the hope that his rank might shield her. But the idea of being someone’s prison bitch hadn’t sat well with her.
    Jenn ran her tongue over her front teeth again. They felt real enough, although her tongue remained unconvinced. The dental surgeon had done good work once she’d been medevaced to Ramstein Air Base. The experience would have been even more traumatic if she’d known that it was her last real day in the CIA, but that took months to dawn on her. She missed the Agency more than her teeth.
    The man who kicked them out hadn’t needed a dentist. Hadn’t needed much of anyone except maybe a priest. His partner had made it home, though. He was still on her to-do list, along with one or two of the higher-ups who’d turned on her when she refused to play ball. She’d wanted her attacker tried, but it would have meant