Several years ago when the other two stories appeared on LJ, Skyesurfer12 made a comment on one of the Ghosts that Haunt chapters to the effect that it could be interesting to see what might happen with Victoria's gene pool. I was reading ahead, deciding what to use and what to ignore of what I'd already written, and opened and early draft of the epilogue where Casey mentions that sneaky had become the adverb of choice for Victoria listening to grownups. It had possibilities, and I wrote this.
Maybe it should have just stayed possibilities. I may have made Casey remark in Ghosts that kids can't keep secrets for shit, but as I've now learned, kids are damned hard to write. So if this sucks, blame me not Skye.
Victoria the Spy
Victoria Reagan Casey had the best daddy in the world. She knew it absolutely. He loved her and her mum more than anything else. She knew that because he told her so. He was also tall and handsome. She knew that because she heard her friends' mummies say so. When he worked at his office, her daddy wore a uniform to work almost every day, and Victoria liked how the weird, dull, kind of greeny-brown color and the tan shirt made his blue eyes look even more blue, how it made him look a little like the superheroes in the comics her uncle Chuck read.
Best of all, her daddy was a spy.
So was her mum, but her mummy was tired.
She wasn't sure why Mummy was tired, but her aunt Dena and her aunt Julie said so one afternoon when she stayed with them. They were in their kitchen when they talked about her mummy being tired from spying. Victoria thought her mum was never tired. After all, Mummy always had time for her and always played with her when she asked her to. If her mummy was tired, Victoria didn't think she'd be able to do those things, let alone all the grown up things she had to do, like clean the house, do their laundry, and cook meals for Victoria and Daddy.
Her daddy wasn't tired, but he was a Marine.
Victoria wasn't exactly sure what a Marine was, but she knew it was because he was one that he wore the uniform and went to work with that mean, redheaded lady general. Billy Sanders said a lady couldn't be a general, but Billy didn't know anything. Victoria had heard her mummy and her daddy call the lady General Beckman, so she had to be a general, which meant ladies could be generals. Her uniform wasn't as pretty as her daddy's, though it had more ribbons and stuff on it, and it definitely wasn't as pretty as the blue one Daddy sometimes wore when Mummy got all dressed up and they left her with Aunt Dena and Aunt Julie at night.
Her mummy didn't have a uniform, but she had some really pretty dresses.
Victoria wondered if it was the uniform that made her daddy a spy.
Uncle Chuck and Aunt Walker didn't wear uniforms, though, and they were spies, too. She knew Daddy spied with them sometimes.
As she crept into her daddy's office, Victoria decided she would have to ask Uncle Chuck about that. Uncle Chuck always told her what she wanted to know, even when it made Daddy cranky.
Apparently, her daddy was the tired one. He was stretched out on the sofa in his office at the back of the ground floor of their house with his eyes closed. Victoria bit her tongue and stepped carefully forward, just like her daddy had taught her after the night Mummy sent him to rest her when she got out of bed. Mummy worried about her when she got out of bed at night. Victoria wasn't a dumb kid, despite what Billy said, so she never left the house at night. When she couldn't sleep, though, it seemed like the longer she lay in her bed, the harder it was to sleep. She liked to go downstairs and watch television for a little while until she was sleepy again.
Mummy or Daddy always seemed to hear her when she got up in the night, and usually one of them came to get her. When Daddy told Victoria Mummy sent him to rest her, he had scooped her up, dangled her from his arm and taken her back to their room where Mummy was still in bed. Victoria giggled when Daddy tossed her on the bed next to Mummy.
She watched her mummy smile at her daddy. "Mummy, Daddy says you made him rest me."
Mummy had given Daddy a look that wasn't really mean but anyone who didn't know her might have thought it was. "I'm going to 'rest' Daddy in a moment."
"Don't worry, kiddo," Daddy said, when Victoria turned to look and see if he was in trouble with Mummy after all, "your mother has no jurisdiction here."
Victoria wasn't sure what that meant and was about to ask, but then she remembered something her grandpa always said. "Grandpa says Mummy can kick your ass."
Mummy made a noise that sounded kind of like she was choking and kind of like she was laughing, but Daddy just gave Victoria a stare that said he would give Grandpa a Talking To. "That so?"
She firmly nodded once.
"Your mother probably can," her daddy said softly, "but it's not very nice to say so."
Victoria frowned. "But Grandpa said it." Since he'd told her that, it had to be okay to say.
"Little girls shouldn't say ass," Daddy told her, a growl roughening his voice.
"But Grandpa said it," Victoria repeated. It had to be true if Grandpa said it, so she didn't know why Daddy didn't like it.
"Your grandfather says a lot of things," he told her, "but that doesn't mean you should repeat them." One of his eyebrows went way up, and he gave her a hard look. Daddy meant it when he looked like that, and while Victoria didn't know why it wasn't okay to say, Daddy was really cranky about it. He'd admitted Mummy probably could kick his ass, though, so maybe that was it. Of course she'd heard Daddy say that her sister Alex kicked his ass once, so maybe he was really mad that girls could beat him up. Victoria knew boys got mad when girls did things they didn't think girls could.
Now, though, in his office, she was careful not to let her shoes squeak or make a sound, careful not to let her clothes rustle as she took one cautious step after another toward her daddy's desk.
Daddy kept chocolate in his desk drawer—the one on the bottom on the far side. He only let her have some if she could get to the drawer without him knowing. He told her it was cheating if he wasn't there, and the chocolate disappeared for a long time once after she snuck in and ate it while he was at work. Victoria didn't want the chocolate to disappear again because it was one of the really good kinds her mummy liked. It came from some place called Scissorland.
Victoria didn't know where Scissorland was, but sometimes her mummy and Aunt Walker talked about visiting Geneva there. She also didn't know why Taylor's mum was in Scissorland, and she didn't care. Victoria didn't like Taylor very much. She was one of the mean girls, and it was because Taylor told her mum that Victoria's mum was a spy that she had gotten a Talking To from her daddy, who had been kind of mad that Victoria told Taylor her mummy was a tired spy.
Taylor made fun of her because she called her mother Mummy. Victoria thought it weird that Taylor called hers Mommy. Her daddy said Mom instead of Mum, but her mummy said Mum.
Daddy said it was because Mummy was Canadian and didn't know any better.
Mummy threatened to make him sleep in his office.
Victoria stopped just behind her daddy's desk chair and leaned so she could peek around it at him. She wondered if he'd made fun of Mummy being Canadian again and if that was why he was taking a nap before dinner on the sofa across the room from her.
She eased the drawer with the chocolate open, but before she reached in to take one piece (Daddy made her promise she'd never take more than one), he said sleepily, "Bring me a blue one."
Grabbing a red one for herself—she liked them best—she also plucked a blue one from the box and closed the drawer before she ran across to her daddy and handed him his piece. He moved over and pulled her up on the couch next to him while they ate their chocolate.
When Daddy handed her his wrapper, she took it and hers and put it in the trash can behind his desk. He got up, walked over to her and said, "Let's see how long it takes you this time."
She ran over to the big black cabinet on the other side of the room. Daddy had been teaching her how to crack a safe. She didn't really crack it because it was metal, and she was just a little girl. She wasn't strong enough to actually break it. Sometimes her mummy and daddy used the wrong words. Daddy brought his tools to her and sat on the floor next to her to watch. She wouldn't need them this time, but Daddy didn't know that yet.
Victoria knew her mummy didn't like it when Daddy showed her "craft," as he called it, but she also knew Mummy didn't completely mind or she would make him stop it. Her daddy always stopped doing things her mummy didn't like if she insisted, and Victoria liked doing spy stuff—though Daddy had made her promise not to do spy stuff where other people could find out. Victoria knew he meant not-family people when he said that, because her family all knew her parents and her grandpa were spies, so it wasn't exactly a secret. Spy stuff, though, was supposed to be secret, which was why she couldn't do it where people might catch her.
It only took Victoria a few seconds to open the safe, and when she turned to face Daddy, he stared at her. Victoria knew that look on his face, though. He usually wore it when someone surprised him. For a minute, Victoria thought she might be in trouble, but then Daddy grinned and put his arms around her and hugged her, kissed the top of her head. "Wanna explain that, kiddo?"
She looked up at him and considered telling a lie. Victoria liked this game, liked figuring out how to break into Daddy's safe, though she knew not to touch any of the guns inside. Guns were bad for little girls. Mummy and Daddy agreed on that, so Victoria knew it must be true. Mummy and Daddy also agreed that lies were very, very bad, so she chose to tell the truth. "I changed the combination."
It was easy to see that that surprised Daddy more than her opening the safe without really trying did. He had that look on his face, the one where he kind of pouted and his brows rose.
"You changed the combination."
That should have been a question, Victoria knew, but her daddy didn't say it like one. "I watched how you did it," she explained, her brow creased with worry since she didn't like it when Daddy was mad, "and I wanted to do it."
She relaxed when Daddy made that funny noise through his nose that sometimes meant he was laughing even though it wasn't really a laugh. He pressed a kiss on her cheek and then gave her the look he gave Uncle Chuck when he did something Daddy liked but didn't want to admit he liked it. "Show me," he ordered, so Victoria did.
Daddy made his heh noise and then put his hands on her shoulders. "You know, Victoria, that you shouldn't do things like that, right?"
Her face felt hot, but she nodded, worried she was about to be in trouble.
"You know not to touch the guns inside, too, right?"
She nodded again because he expected her to, though she would have thought that with as many times as he and Mummy had told her that by now he should know she did. She wasn't a moron like Uncle Morgan, after all. Victoria didn't really know what a moron was, but she knew it wasn't a good thing to be. She also knew not to call anyone that because Mummy had been really angry when Victoria told her the neighbor's cat was a moron.
Daddy got off the floor and then bent down to pick her up, and, as he often did, dangled her over his arm by her waist against his hip, and said, "Don't tell your mom you know how to do that," as he walked with her to the kitchen where Mummy was making dinner.
Victoria wasn't sure whether he meant that she cracked the safe or that she could change the combination on the lock.
Grownups had no idea how easy it was to sneak up on them and listen to them. Victoria was really good at sneaking up on them, mostly because Daddy had taught her how to move quietly, but most of what grownups had to say was really boring.
Sometimes she could hear her parents talking at night when she was supposed to be asleep. Mummy was closet phobic, so she didn't like to sleep with their bedroom door closed. Victoria knew phobic meant afraid, but she didn't know why her mummy was afraid of closets. It seemed a really silly thing to be scared of even though Mummy and Daddy's closet was really big and really dark if she forgot to turn the lights on. She asked Daddy once, and he told her Mummy didn't like dark places or ones she couldn't see out of. He didn't tell her why, though.
Mostly her mummy and daddy talked about what had happened during the day when they were alone in their room at night. Once they had an argument, but Victoria wasn't sure what it was about because one of them had shut the door so she couldn't hear unless she went and listened outside it, but they would get mad if she did that and got caught. They had an argument downstairs in Daddy's office one time after Mummy taught Victoria how to hotwire Daddy's car. Neither of them were happy with her when they found her listening outside. It was one of the only times she could remember her daddy yelling at her instead of just giving her one of his Talking Tos.
Mummy had been the one who gave her the talking to that time.
When her mummy and daddy went to their room and it wasn't bedtime, her grandpa, if he was visiting, usually said that Daddy did unspeakable things to her mummy. Sometimes he said Daddy did things he'd really rather not think about to her mummy, but he always said it was okay because her daddy loved her mummy.
Victoria wasn't a dummy, so she knew Daddy loved Mummy. Grandpa always said it, though.
While she didn't know what unspeakable things meant, Victoria had had a bad dream one night and decided to go get her daddy. Daddy was the best when she was scared, and he was big and scary enough he could make all the bad things go away. After all, as Uncle Morgan said, Daddy was one of the Good Guys even if he looked really mean sometimes.
Usually when she got up at night, the lights were out in her parents' room, but there was a light on that night. Daddy lay on top of Mummy, but he wasn't exactly squishing her. He kissed Mummy, but it didn't look like they were wearing their clothes. They kissed each other a lot, but they usually wore their clothes when they did it. Victoria frowned, tried to figure out why Mummy was definitely not wearing her nightgown as usual when Daddy moved his hand and touched her in one of the places Victoria had always been told not to let somebody touch.
"Daddy!"
Mummy kind of yelped, but Daddy said a very, very bad word.
"Outside, Victoria," her mummy said in that firm voice that made even Daddy do what she said.
She almost reminded Mummy she was outside, but Victoria knew her mother meant to move where she couldn't see. She stepped to the side so the wall blocked the inside of their room and heard Daddy softly say some other really bad words. Mummy made a kind of laugh, and Victoria relaxed a little. If Mummy was laughing, she wasn't going to be that mad.
Daddy only had his pants on when he stepped into the hall, but Mummy wore her nightgown. They took Victoria back to her room. Daddy held her covers, and she crawled to sit against her pillow. Daddy put the covers over her legs and sat on the edge of her bed while Mummy sat down on the other side from him.
Her daddy looked like he didn't know what to say, and his face was kind of red. Mummy was a little red in the face, too, but she looked kind of like she did when she made fun of Daddy.
"Victoria," he asked, "why were you out of bed?"
She tried the big blue eyes. Daddy sometimes didn't get mad when she gave him what Mummy called the puppy dog eyes. "I woke up." One of his eyebrows went up. "I had a bad dream."
Mummy was about to ask about what, but Victoria didn't really want to remember it. Instead, she looked at Daddy and asked, "How come you were lying on Mummy naked?" Victoria narrowed her eyes. "Were you trying to squish her?"
Daddy's face got redder. Mummy made a funny noise, so Victoria turned to look at her. Mummy was redder, too, but she looked like she wanted to laugh. Victoria looked back at Daddy, but it was clear he wasn't going to answer. Sometimes Victoria thought Daddy just didn't know what to say.
Her mother was good at explaining, though, and she usually knew exactly what to say, so Victoria turned back to her. "Victoria," Mummy said, "your father wasn't squishing me."
Daddy snorted, but it wasn't the kind that said he thought it was funny.
Mummy smiled. "Okay, he was." Her smile got bigger when she looked at him. "Your father's awfully heavy, after all."
No one could call her daddy fat, but he was a lot bigger than either her or her mummy, so Victoria nodded, even though Daddy growled, "Hey!"
Victoria, like her mother, ignored Daddy, even after he muttered something about not everyone being a runt. Instead, she asked her mum, "How come Daddy touched you in a bad place?"
Mummy looked surprised, and not the good kind of surprised.
"Answer that, Einstein," Daddy grumbled to Mummy, but he didn't sound all that cranky now.
When she looked back at her mother, it seemed that for once Mummy wasn't sure how to explain. "Listen, Victoria," she said. "You must never let anyone touch you there."
"But you let Daddy touch you there."
She didn't understand why her mother would let him do that if it was bad for him to do so.
"Victoria, I love your father," her mummy told her, "but . . . ."
"Your mother's trying to tell you that it's okay when you're married."
"But you aren't supposed to touch girls there," Victoria reminded him.
"No," he agreed, and then he stopped, looked at her mother, "but your mother likes it." Daddy gave that funny little smile of his, but now Mummy looked kind of mad at him when Victoria looked at her. Her mummy wasn't a bad person, so she couldn't imagine why Daddy would say she liked something he wasn't supposed to do to her.
"John," her mother said in her warning voice.
Daddy sighed then, and told Victoria, "Grownups who love each other and are married can do that." There was something in his voice that said it was all either of them would say about it. Victoria figured she'd ask Aunt Julie. Aunt Julie told her lots of things about Daddy he wished she wouldn't. "See to it no one touches you there," he added gruffly. "Ever."
Mummy took Victoria's chin gently and turned her to face her. Mummy's face was very serious. "You saw something very private between your father and me," she said quietly. "That's our fault for not closing the door. Your father did nothing wrong, Victoria, and I know it's confusing, but he's right. No one should touch you like that, at least not while you're a little girl."
She noticed after that, though, that her parents closed their bedroom door when they went to bed. When she asked Grandpa about it, he made a face and then grinned at her. "When your parents are alone in their room, they like to do things I'd really rather not think about, Victoria, but they're things that make grownups happy." He frowned a moment, and then he added, "It's how grownups who love each other show that."
It still didn't make any sense, but Victoria decided it must be only okay when Daddy did it to Mummy and decided not to think any more about it.
Victoria practiced listening to grownups because that's what spies did, and she planned to grow up to be a spy like her parents. Grownups really were awfully boring, though. She pretty much never heard anything interesting when she used her sneaking skills to listen to them. Mostly they talked about stuff like work and how much they hated it. Sometimes they talked about things like money or other grownups. Victoria understood that she shouldn't repeat things she heard grownups say to other people because one time she told Mummy she'd heard Taylor's mum tell Billy's mum that it wasn't fair that Mummy managed to snatch Daddy up. Mummy had a funny look on her face, so Victoria also told her they said that they often wondered what Daddy could possibly see in Mummy and whether or not he might be interested in something they called "extra-curricular activities."
Mummy looked really mad then, and she said it wasn't nice to listen to grownups talking when they didn't know she was there. She also told Victoria it really wasn't nice to repeat things grownups said to one another.
Victoria expected Mummy to give Billy's and Taylor's mums a talking to, but she didn't. Instead, she was extra nice to them, and when they all went to a barbeque at Taylor's house, Mummy made more of an effort to look really pretty. She stayed near Daddy, who touched her more than usual. He also kissed Mummy, smiled at her more than he usually did when other people were around. She figured Mummy told Daddy what the other mums had said because those other mums didn't look very happy.
Sometimes she listened to family. That's how she found out about Alex's mum and how Daddy used to be named Alex, too. That confused Victoria—not that Daddy and Alex's mum had been going to get married because lots of people's parents had been married more than once, but that he used to be named Alex, too. She asked Daddy once why she wasn't named John since Alex had been named after him, and then she had to explain about using the sneaking to listen when Alex and Uncle Morgan were talking. Daddy told her he had only pretended to be named Alex, and that he and Mummy had chosen her name together because they liked it. Alex's mum had chosen her name after her father.
Victoria really didn't understand all of it, so she asked Alex the next time she stayed with her. Alex had smiled and told her about Daddy and Kathleen like it was a fairy tale. Victoria didn't think it made a very good story since it had a bad ending, though she thought maybe it was a good ending for her, at least. Daddy married Mummy, after all, instead of Kathleen, but she still didn't know why Daddy got to play pretend as a grownup or why it was fair when no one knew he was playing pretend.
She asked Mummy that, but her mother had just smiled, laughed a little and said that Daddy's job meant he often had to pretend to be someone he wasn't to catch bad guys.
Victoria wondered who he pretended to be, but she didn't ask Daddy. He never talked about his work even though he taught her how to do some things he had to do at work.
She did, though, decide to see if she could find bad guys like Daddy did, and that's how she got caught. Mummy took her over to Anna Dale's for a play date. Victoria liked play dates okay, and Anna was kind of fun most of the time. There were a lot of mummies and a lot of kids. Victoria, though, got bored playing princesses, so she sneaked into the house where the mummies were talking and listened in.
It wasn't hard to wedge herself into a space beneath a corner table just beside a door to the room where they all sat. Mummy didn't say much, and Victoria wondered if she was spying on them, too. Mostly they talked about their kids and their husbands. Maybe that was why Mummy didn't say much since Daddy was a spy, which was supposed to be a secret. Victoria didn't understand much of it, especially when one of the mums talked about how her husband was a rat bastard and wouldn't stay away from someone named Linda who worked in his office.
Victoria knew the rat bastard worked where Daddy worked, so she wondered if he knew Linda and if Mummy would get mad if he didn't stay away from her. Most of the women said very bad things about Linda, who lived nearby, and Victoria wondered why they did since her mummy and daddy told her it wasn't nice to talk badly about people. Mummy said nothing, though, so Victoria figured Mummy was following the rules. After all, Daddy often teased Mummy about following rules, which made her mad at him sometimes. Other times it made Mummy turn red, which seemed to make Daddy happy.
She wouldn't have been caught if one of the mums hadn't walked into the room where Victoria hid and listened. The first time, she walked right past where Victoria was without seeing her, but when she came back through the room, she did.
The woman called, "Mariah?" and Mummy came into the room. "Did you know Victoria is hiding there?"
Mummy bent and looked at Victoria. She made a beckoning gesture, and Victoria obeyed. When she was standing next to the table where she had hidden, Mummy asked, "Why weren't you outside?"
She didn't want to explain with the other mummies listening, so she just looked at Mummy, hoped she wouldn't make her say while the others were there. Mummy looked at her expectantly, and Victoria finally blurted, "I was being a spy like you and Daddy."
The room felt different as the mothers all stared at her, including her own mother. Victoria thought Mummy looked more embarrassed than mad. She suggested Victoria go play, and as she ran out the back door, she heard Mummy say, "She's been watching too much television."
She wondered why Mummy lied.
That night, Daddy gave Victoria a Talking To. He sat her on a chair in his office after dinner and sat at his desk. "Victoria," he began, but she knew what he was going to say.
"I shouldn't listen to grownups," she sighed.
Daddy had a funny gleam in his eye, the one that generally meant he was about to do something that would make Mummy give him a stern look and say his name in that way that meant he wasn't supposed to do or say whatever he had. "No, you should listen to grownups," he corrected her, "because sometimes it's important to know what they say, and if you hear something that is dangerous, you should always tell your mom or me. But you shouldn't listen to grownups who don't know you're there, and you certainly shouldn't tell people your mother and I are spies."
"But you are spies."
"Your mother isn't," he corrected her, "and it's against the law to tell people who the spies are."
Victoria frowned at that. Daddy talked about law sometimes, but Victoria wasn't completely clear what that meant. Her sister Alex was studying law, and she had explained to Victoria that laws were rules everyone had to obey. Victoria made her admit that the reason she was studying law and the reason their daddy was a spy was because not everyone obeyed the law. Victoria wanted to ask Daddy why she had to obey rules when lots of people apparently didn't, but she was afraid he'd tell her she got that from her mother.
"Listen, kiddo," Daddy said, "you can't tell people that other people are spies because it can make things dangerous for them."
"The people I tell or the people who are spies?" she asked because sometimes Daddy wasn't very clear and she wanted to be certain what he meant.
"Both," Daddy told her. "If, for example, you told someone Uncle Chuck was a spy, they might kill him."
Sometimes Daddy tried to scare her, but she didn't think he did it on purpose. He was just used to scaring people like Uncle Morgan with what Mummy called the worst case scenario and something she called Daddy's Death Glare.
Victoria just knew a worst case scenario was a very bad thing. She also knew the Death Glare was very, very scary, but Daddy had never used it on her, so she figured this must be a worst case scenario talking to. It would be really bad if someone killed her uncle Chuck or aunt Walker, and if someone killed Daddy, Victoria's grandma Ariel often said that Mummy wouldn't survive it. Victoria didn't want that to happen, and she didn't want anyone to kill Mummy because Daddy was miserable when she wasn't around, and so was Victoria. So she agreed not to listen to grownups without them knowing it because that would make Daddy happy. She figured, though, that it was still okay to listen to grownups if they ignored her as they often did kids.
"Victoria, if the wrong person found you eavesdropping, they could hurt you," he told her. Because he was being serious, she knew that worried him.
He wasn't very happy when she said, "But I was spying, Daddy, just like you taught me. I sneaked up on them, and I hid and stayed really still and really quiet, like a good spy."
Daddy rubbed his hand over his chin. "Apparently, we need to work on your concealment skills," he finally said so quietly Victoria knew she wasn't really supposed to hear that. Victoria wanted to smile because that meant the spy lessons wouldn't stop, but she didn't, because Daddy might change his mind.
"Next time you have to explain," he said, in the tone he used with Uncle Chuck when Uncle Chuck got that weird look on his face and then just blurted out something he shouldn't have, "just say you were being sneaky."
Learning to play what Mummy took to calling Advanced Hide and Go Seek was almost as boring as listening to grownups, Victoria decided, but Daddy liked that she was really good at it, and he pointed out to Mummy that she might need that particular skill.
That made Mummy lose color and look scared, but she didn't stop Daddy from teaching Victoria how to make sure no one could see or find her. Sometimes Mummy taught her hiding tricks, too.
Every once in a while, though, Victoria did hear something interesting when she was being sneaky. For example, she overheard some people at Daddy's work talk about some woman named Ilsa and how she was Daddy's girlfriend. Victoria was pretty sure her daddy didn't have a girlfriend because he had a wife—Mummy. She supposed he could be a rat bastard like the man who wouldn't leave that Linda alone, but she didn't thinks so. When she asked Mummy about Ilsa, Mummy got a look on her face that she didn't hide fast enough for Victoria to not know that Mummy didn't like Ilsa. Mummy wouldn't explain why. She had a feeling she'd better not ask Daddy about this Ilsa.
Once she was being sneaky at Uncle Chuck and Aunt Walker's house when they had an anniversary party and overheard a friend of Daddy's talking to one of the women Mummy didn't like. She was tall and had kind of red hair and was one of Aunt Walker's friends. Daddy didn't like her much, either, and neither did Victoria. She made snotty comments to her Daddy and was mean to Mummy, and she treated Victoria like she was just a stupid baby. She also made Alex mad, maybe because Uncle Morgan used to like her.
Victoria had quickly taken cover inside the armoire in the den when she heard them coming. Daddy would be proud because she had done just what he said: found cover that was unlikely to leave her exposed (that had been what went wrong at Anna Dale's, after all), got inside, and remained as still as possible so as not to be detected. She listened as that redhead talked to Daddy's friend.
"She's useless," the redhead said, "and why Casey can't see it, I'll never fully understand."
Not sure who that woman thought was useless, Victoria knew Casey was her daddy. Lots of people called Daddy by his last name instead of his first. Victoria wasn't sure why.
"There's a lot of evidence that says she's a better option," Daddy's friend said. "Bartowski is too closely guarded and far better at protecting himself."
"Chuck's got Sarah," the redhead snorted, "but otherwise he's just a putz with a talent for computers." Victoria wondered what a putz was, but it was true that Uncle Chuck was good with computers. "Your biggest problem is Casey."
"He's getting sent to Afghanistan," Daddy's friend said, and Victoria's chest hurt. That mean lady General was sending him there, and it made Victoria mad. Mummy wasn't going to be happy, either. "She'll be unprotected."
The redheaded woman laughed, but her laugh sounded ugly. "Casey isn't going to leave his precious wife unprotected."
"She's his weakness," the man said, and Victoria frowned in her dark space. She didn't understand how Mummy made Daddy weak. "She's an exploitable weakness," he added, and Victoria heard the kind of thoughtfulness in his voice that reminded her of when Daddy puzzled something out.
"Which one are you going to exploit?" the woman asked.
"Good question," the man said. "The wife can be used against Casey, possibly her father, which means we might get what we're after. The daughter, though, works against all three."
That confused Victoria, and she grew impatient for the woman and the man to leave so she could go ask Daddy what they meant. What she did understand was that they were threatening Mummy and that there was something they wanted from Daddy or her grandpa that they thought they could get by using Mummy. Then she was mad. According to Uncle Chuck, Mummy was pretty good at kicking ass, and when the man said the redhead's name, she realized her mother had kicked the woman's ass once.
Despite the fact that she wasn't supposed to, Victoria had been practicing her hiding and listening skills at her aunt Ellie's house in Chicago, and she had heard Uncle Chuck tell Uncle Morgan that Mummy kicked Carina Miller's ass. He had told Uncle Morgan he was there when it happened, so it must be true.
Uncle Morgan had asked about some pictures of Daddy in his underwear, but Victoria couldn't figure out why anyone would have pictures of Daddy in his underwear.
She'd once heard Mummy and Daddy talking about Carina, and it was obvious neither of them liked her. She wasn't exactly a spy, but she did stuff like what spies do, Victoria remembered. Daddy didn't like her because she didn't follow rules.
Frowning, Victoria decided maybe that was why he married Mummy since Mummy followed rules and he loved her.
Then she wondered if that was why Daddy loved her mother.
The man used a word Victoria had heard before, intersect, and she frowned over that. Uncle Chuck, Aunt Walker, Daddy and Mummy often talked about something called "the Intersect," but they had never really said what it was. Victoria knew what an intersection was, but she wasn't sure what an intersect was. Maybe it was just another one of those things where grownups used the wrong words. As she listened, though, the man said that Uncle Chuck had one, and then he said Mummy did, too.
Carina added, "The brat might as well."
She wasn't sure why she knew that Carina meant Victoria when she said brat. That made her even madder. Victoria was not a brat. Taylor was, and so was Billy. Even Tommy was a brat, but Victoria was not.
She was going to get Mummy to teach her how to kick that redhead's ass.
"There's time to choose a target," she heard the man say. "We can't do anything until Casey's gone, after all."
After she was sure they left, Victoria left the armoire and went looking for her daddy. She didn't see him at first, but she finally found him in a corner of the backyard talking to Uncle Chuck. She knew she wasn't supposed to interrupt grownups, so she stood impatiently next to Daddy and waited for them to stop talking so she could. She stuck her hand in Daddy's. He looked down at her.
"What's an intersect?" she asked.
Uncle Chuck did that nervous laugh of his, and his face kind of twitched so it looked like a cross between a smile and being really scared. Daddy just looked like he wanted to say really bad words.
He ignored Uncle Chuck, who was stammering at that point, and asked Victoria calmly, "Where did you hear that, kiddo?"
She bit her lip and looked up at Daddy. The temptation to lie was strong, but she knew she'd have to confess when his eyes hardened. "I was being sneaky—in the living room. That Carina and Captain Garrett were talking about it. They think Mummy and Uncle Chuck have one, and they think when you go to Afghanistan they can get it."
Daddy knelt next to Victoria and said softly, "Tell me exactly what you heard them say, Victoria."
One of the things Daddy was proud of was the fact that Victoria could repeat back anything she heard exactly as she heard it. He told her she had something called eidetic memory, though sometimes she didn't quite hear how something was really pronounced and got it a little wrong—like when she was littler and thought for a long time Mummy said basketti when she actually said spaghetti. Mummy had the eidetic memory, too, but hers wasn't for what she heard but what she saw. Victoria told him what she heard.
When she finished, Daddy's eyes looked mad, but his face didn't. "Find your mother and stay with her." Then he and Uncle Chuck went looking for Aunt Walker.
Victoria stayed with Mummy as she talked to Aunt Ellie and Uncle Captain Jockstrap (though she knew not to call Uncle Devon Captain Jockstrap even though Daddy did when he wasn't around). Clara came up and asked her to play, but Victoria shook her head. She'd take care of Mummy until Daddy came back. Mummy tried to get her to go with Clara, but Victoria refused. Finally, Mummy asked her why not. Victoria repeated what she told Daddy.
Mummy went pale, kind of like Uncle Chuck did when she had said intersect, but Mummy, at least, looked a little mad like Daddy had done. She didn't say a word, though. Aunt Ellie rapidly changed the subject after telling Clara to go play.
That night, Victoria heard Daddy and Mummy talking while she got ready for her bath. That Carina was in trouble, and it sounded like it wasn't for the first time. Daddy told Mummy she'd probably find a way to slip the noose again, whatever that meant. Mummy seemed more worried about Captain Garrett, but Daddy told her he wasn't going to make any trouble for her or Chuck. Mummy asked if Daddy was really going to Afghanistan. Daddy told her no, that mean General Beckman had changed her mind, but he was glad she apparently hadn't told anyone else that.
Hearing that made Victoria happy. She liked it best when Daddy was home with her and Mummy.
"You know our daughter stopped Garrett's little plot, right?" Victoria could hear that Daddy was happy about that.
Mummy wasn't happy, though, from the sound of her voice when she answered Daddy: "I don't want her in the business, John."
"She's good at it, Riah," he told her, "and it'll keep her safe."
"I don't care if she's good at it," Mummy told him, and she sounded a little cranky. "I want her to be normal. When she's grown up, she can decide what she wants to do."
"I notice you've augmented the skill set a little," Daddy said, and Victoria thought he sounded like he thought that was funny. After dinner, Mummy had taught her some ways to get away from people who tried to grab her.
"Be careful, John," Mummy warned, "or I might teach her a few things you will definitely not enjoy."
"Like what?"
"Like how the Canadian government is superior to the U.S. since it actually believes in providing for its citizens rather than building a fascist, military-industrial complex that drains funds that could be used better for things like education—so you'll quit falling behind in science and technology, leaving the way clear for the rise of China. Like how their increasingly narrow perspective on world affairs and the attempts of your government to frighten its citizens by demonizing—"
It went really quiet, and Victoria, worried that Daddy might have done a bad thing since those were ideas that made him really, really mad, went to check on Mummy. Daddy was kissing her. Mummy looked like she was enjoying it, so Victoria decided this must be one of those unspeakable things Grandpa went on about since Mummy had said things Daddy definitely considered unspeakable.
"Bite your tongue," Daddy said in a kind of rumbly voice when he finished kissing Mummy, but Victoria saw he didn't let her go.
"Bite it for me," Mummy suggested, though she didn't sound at all mad.
Daddy made one of his growls, one of the good ones that meant he liked something. "After our daughter goes to sleep, I'll bite anything you want."
One of the things Victoria had learned being sneaky and listening to grownups was that they were just weird. She sighed, put on an innocent face (which was what Daddy wore when he'd been being sneaky and listening to people), and went into the bathroom to get her bath over with. Then Daddy would read her a story while Mummy cleaned up, and they would both tuck her in, kiss her goodnight, and go do things her grandpa really didn't want to think about.
As she snuggled into her pillow and closed her eyes, Victoria wondered why her parents would want to bite each other. Biting hurt, so she couldn't imagine why grownups liked it—and it had sounded like her parents liked it. Maybe she ought to give up listening to them. Maybe listening to kids would be more interesting and a lot less confusing.