Chapter Six
"Alright," Tanya said in an American accent as she applied her make-up. "Your name is Jacqueline Jones. Your friends call you Jackie. Your date calls you Jackie. He knows no other name for you, even though tonight he'll ask you how you came by your funds. You will say that you inherited them from several late relatives, combined with several menial jobs such as waitressing, though the money mostly comes from the inheritance." She blotted her lipstick on a square of toilet paper and tossed the crumpled wad into a waste bin. She walked back into her bedroom and, on a whim, strapped on a garter with a knife in the hilt. Thankfully Riley wasn't taking her to a place where she would be guaranteed a strip-search.
She smoothed the skirt over the garter and checked in the mirror to make sure the knife was completely invisible to even the most observant. Even when she knew it was there, she had a hard time locating it. She smiled and strapped up her shoes. She grabbed a jacket off the back of the sofa and opened the door to find Riley standing there, his hands in his pockets and a half-smile on his face. "Hey, you," she said. She felt it. She was fully Jackie. This was Jackie's time, her date, possibly the rest of her life. With a pang, she realized she might have to discard or assimilate her true self altogether, but she pushed this thought aside, stepped out of the apartment, and closed the door both on the apartment and on her self.
"You ready?" he asked.
"You betcha," Jackie replied. She followed him out of the apartment complex, and he held open the passenger door of his red Ferarri for her. "Why thank you, kind sir," she said in an exaggerated accent as she climbed in. He laughed, walked around the front, and got behind the wheel. He playfully revved the engine a couple times before pulling out of the parking lot and turning onto the street.
"I'd give you Ben's spiel on this restaurant we're going to, but I wasn't paying very much attention," he said. "I never do."
"Somebody did something in history and had fun."
"Exactly. That's exactly it."
"That's all you really need to know, really."
"Yeah, really," he said with a laugh. "Anyway, I picked it because of the mac and cheese."
"Good choice. I'm a huge fan of that stuff."
"Alright, then we're pretty well set. You know what, you're the first girl I've had a date with since my junior year in college."
"What?"
"I'm serious. Apparently I'm too much of a computer geek to have a girlfriend, or get a job outside of a windowless cubicle without the help of a history nerd and a rich, psychotic British dude."
"I read about that. Pretty much right from the start."
"So you know about how Ben kidnapped the President?"
"Yeah. He gets away with a lot, I think. I kinda feel bad for Ian Howe, though. Goes to prison and shit for the same damn things Gates did. Sorry, I try not to go off about this, but I feel very strongly."
"I think Ben singlehandedly divided the nation. Either love him or hate him."
"What about you? How do you feel?"
"He's my best friend."
"Doesn't answer my question."
"I think I'm the only one in the gray area. I get dragged into his cockamame schemes more often than not. I don't know how I do it."
Jackie laughed and glanced in the rearview mirror on impulse. A pair of headlights was right behind them. "Turn right," she said, "and then make a left."
"What?"
"I want to check something out first. It'll just take us a little longer to get to the restaurant."
"They're not gonna hold the table forever."
"I know. This is just a little test." Riley turned right. "After you take the left at the next corner, find your way back to the main road."
"Why are you doing this?"
Jackie looked in her mirror. The car had followed them. Riley turned left, and the car followed again. "We're being tailed." She settled back in her chair. Her hand drifted to the thigh where her knife lay in wait under the fabric of her skirt.
"We're being tailed?"
The car in the mirror gained some ground on them. Jackie risked a glance over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of somebody in the passenger seat reaching for something in the glovebox. Jackie reached for Riley's, opened it, and rifled around. "You don't even keep a gun in here? You know you can never be too careful, right?"
"What the hell is going on?"
Jackie took a deep breath, wondering if it was truth time. She glanced behind her again, at the car in pursuit. "We might not survive this," she said, watching a gun appear out of the car's passenger window. "Either we get shot outright, or they make it look like a car accident at the risk of one or both of us surviving."
"What are you talking about?" She noticed that his hands were shaking and he was gripping the wheel until his knuckles showed white.
"Somebody sent a couple cronies to kill us."
"What? Why?"
Her control shattered almost instantly. "Because my brother's Ian Howe and these are the blokes that beat him up and they work for my father and he wants us both dead or to give him something but we have no idea what and Ian's in no position to do anything about it and I've been in hiding for five years. There, I said it." She panted and stared, wide-eyed, out the windshield, waiting anxiously for Riley's reaction. "Oh," she added softly. "I hardly level with you at all. My real name's Tanya."
"Wait, you're British?" Riley asked. "Since when?"
"Since birth."
"Okay, help me out here. Why'd you change your name and accent?"
"Because everybody and their brother is convinced that my brother stole the bloody Declaration of Independence. By the way, turn right. This is a dead end." Riley obeyed. The car followed, trying to get close enough. He sped up instinctively. "I didn't want you to find out this way. In fact, I didn't want you to find out at all. The only other person that knows Tanya Howe is still around, outside of Ian and his men, is Sadusky. Once my brother was released, the plan was to become Jackie Jones completely, live in an apartment, work low-paying jobs, and live out the rest of my life as an average American, perhaps persuing citizenship at a later date."
"All that because your brother's in prison?"
"Do you know how much bad press I'd recieve? How many people would come after me with cameras and recorders and microphones and questions? How I would constantly be harrased, day after day, simply because I'm a Howe, because everyone thinks I know something about my brother's plan? Riley, that's my reality. That could be my life. It could be me run off the road because of paparazzi. Don't you get it?"
"Excuse me for being too freaked out to feel sorry for you."
Tanya removed the knife from her holster and held it to Riley's neck. "If you're not going to listen to reason, I'm going to force you to do what I want. Turn left."
"To make a bad situation worse," he muttered as he turned. "Is this really necessary?"
"What do you think?" A bullet ricocheted off the seat. Tanya ducked and swore. "Give me your phone."
Riley began patting himself down with one hand, finally finding his cell phone in his breast pocket. He handed it to her, and with her free hand, she dialled a number. "Hello?" Powell asked.
"It's me. We're in a little trouble. Help us get to your flat." Another bullet bounced off the Ferarri.
"Alright."
Through Tanya, Powell gave directions to Riley, who somehow managed to drive reasonably well in spite of the fact that his date was pressing a knife to his neck and somebody else was shooting at his beloved car. But the nervousness was not hidden: he'd broken out in a cold sweat, and despite the fact that he had the steering wheel in a death grip, his hands were shaking violently.
One turn nearly tore Tanya out of her seat and almost clipped the pole of a street light. "Just so you two know, we're probably breaking sixteen different traffic laws right now," Riley said.
"Alright, I see you," Powell said. Tanya looked and spotted a form on the sidewalk, between to street lights, a gun in hand. "Suggestin' you pull over."
"Pass him," Tanya said to Riley, tipping her chin to Powell on the sidewalk. "Then pull over. And try not to take out anyone's azaleas." Riley eased toward the sidewalk amid bullets on both sides of the fight and braked smoothly despite the situation, not ten feet past Powell. Tanya grabbed the keys, pulled Riley out of the Ferarri with her, and threw him onto the grass in front of Powell's building. "Stay here. If you squeal on them or him to anyone they're tracking, you're dead."
"W-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh. Wh..."
The car, a black Hummer, most likely lent out, parked almost immediately behind the Ferarri, and the two occupants were on the sidewalk almost before it was in park. The man in the passenger seat was still brandishing his gun. Objective, Tanya thought. Disarm. She kicked off her shoes and tossed them behind her. "Powell, cover me."
"Are you nuts?" Riley asked.
"Just go with it."
The man with the gun stepped toward her. She recognized the groundskeeper, Duncan Kelley. Sparing only a moment to breathe, she slashed at his arm, spun, and slashed his throat, grabbing his gun on the outspin. Kelley sank to the grass, bleeding profusely, and Tanya turned the gun on Rich McCaffrey, who threw his hands up and stumbled backward. She guided him toward the Hummer and said, "I suggest you get your friend out of here." McCaffrey grabbed Kelley and helped him into the truck before climbing in and pulling out. Tanya handed the gun to Powell and turned to Riley. "Alright, it's over now."
Riley blinked. He'd lost all color, and his skin looked clammy, but at least he stopped shaking. Or was he shaking so fast she couldn't see it? When she grabbed him by the sleeve, she found this wasn't so, so she dragged him into Powell's apartment, on the second floor. At least he tried to stumble his way up the stairs.
He sank into one of the chairs around the kitchen table, his arms dangling at his sides and his eyes wide and blank. "I must've rocked him pretty bad," Tanya said, turning to Powell.
"Well, we did ruin your date," he replied. "Least we could do is let him stay here."
"Yeah." She looked at him again. "Riley?" she asked. "You alright?"
"Still shaken from being shot at, but I'm okay. Thanks for asking," he replied, his voice as flat as his eyes.
"No problem. Sorry about lying to you. I want you to know that it's nothing to do with you. I'm not trying to con you. I needed to reinvent myself for personal reasons. Do you understand?" Riley nodded.
"The part I don't get is the paparazzi part. You want to avoid a bunch of guys with cameras because they piss you off?"
"Yes. They're fiends, Riley. Fiends."
"Okay, that makes sense."
"Fantastic. Need to know anything else?"
"I don't know how much else I can handle right now." Tanya nodded and leaned back in her chair. "That was pretty cool, a little bit ago, you against those guys."
"Thank you."
"Can I have my phone back?" She handed him his cell phone, and he called the restaurant. She walked out to the main chamber, where Powell was slouching on one end of the sofa, channel surfing. An open beer can sat on the table next to where the arch of his foot met the table's edge. She walked to his dresser and then to his bathroom, where she changed into a pair of his jeans and one of his tee shirts, and then she returned to the sofa and took a seat at the other end.