Couples

Chapter 105

Christine is totally frustrated to know that Richard Castle and his daughter are in the front of the house, and she has no time to greet him. Of course, he's meeting with Mark as well as table hopping with writer regulars and new patrons. And Lily has her Punkin. Christine could hear the toddler's request from the kitchen, but the sous chef has a lot to keep an eye on.

She supposes that it's a compliment that Chef Auchincloss left her and went off to check on arrangements for his new restaurant. Unfortunately, he did it just before an unexpected surge in orders. Christine's barely had time to breathe. Still, if this is a taste of what's to come, she's glad she'll be meeting it with her eyes open. Chef Auchincloss is right. She'll have to handle a lot more than making a great sauce.

With a mix of pleasure and dread, Rick scrolls through the pages of a chapter-in-progress of one of the newer writers. Supporting work this good gives him the warm fuzzies – up to a point. In a couple of years, the young buck may be knocking Richard Castle off his perch as top-seller at Black Pawn.

Rick looks down at a crumb-covered Lily and can't help smiling. There are more important things than hanging on to the top rung of the Black Pawn ladder. Lily is worth more than all the book sales in the world. He just has to make enough of them to support her and give her the best start in life that he can. Which means he'd better get home and get busy.

Kate's on a stakeout, but with any luck, she'll be calling him around lunchtime to check in. It would be nice to be able to truthfully say that he's toiling away as well. But he's going to stick his head in the Imagination Patch kitchen to say hello to the great sauce maker before he goes. Who knows? She might have a new creation for the family to test.

Christine has no idea how it happens, but a bowl full of freshly whipped meringue hits the floor just as Richard Castle enters the kitchen. Fortunately, the bowl is copper and dents rather than breaking. Still, sweet white stickiness spatters everywhere, including on the proprietor and his daughter.

The sous chef turns the color of her marinara sauce as she sputters her apology. Rick licks the tip of his finger. "I was hoping that we would be enrolled in another taste test. This wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it's delicious."

Christine thanks her lucky stars that Auchincloss insists on eggs from salmonella-free chickens. At least Castle won't get sick from the raw ingredient. Still, this is hardly the impression she wants to make of taking charge in Chef's absence.

"Hey," Rick urges. "Don't worry about it. Around Castles, messes are a way of life." He gestures at Lily, white-dotted and still clutching what's left of her cookie. "And not just around this one. Do you need help cleaning up?"

"I'm fine, Mr. Castle. And I really am sorry."

Rick chuckles. "And it's really no problem. Lily and I will avail ourselves of the stash of wipes in the back office and be on our way."

Christine sighs as Castle wheels Lily out. As understanding as the restaurant's owner was, this is not the way she wanted her day to go.

When Eli gets enough of a break to check the news on his phone, his lips can barely contain the words that are scorching his throat. He's the one running for office. Assholes of any age can say what they want about him. He put himself in the line of fire. But they have no right to attack Lana when she, unlike them, follows the rules and enforces the law. He tries to reach her, but she doesn't pick up. He hopes she's not up to her neck in press. The lawyer/candidate would be deluged with questions if Markway allowed it, but the judge closed the courtroom to press and visitors.

Eli sends a supportive text and hopes Lana gets a chance to read it. A plan is beginning to form in his mind. It's crazy, but it would get the venom spouters where they live. He has no idea if Lana will want to go along or if she's even close to making that kind of commitment. But whether he wins or loses the election, he's going to ask.

Jack waits impatiently after Azra disappears into the communications room on the Ukraine base. He wants to pace, but his leg hurts – more than he'd admit to her. He takes a seat in a folding chair in what passes for a mess hall and sips what claims to be coffee. After 20 minutes, Azra takes a seat opposite him. "Did you get your orders?"

She nods. "I got them."

"And?" he presses.

"I can't tell you. I'm sure you expected that. How about you?"

"I'll be back in the states for a while, probably get a dressing down, maybe even a reprimand. Rescuing you wasn't part of the director's plan. After the incident at our extraction, the Russians know I'm here. They'll make diplomatic noises for a while about the invasion of their compound. That presupposes the Crimean annexation was legal, which of course, neither the Ukrainians nor we accept. But they'll use it as an excuse to make demands, maybe even launch another misinformation campaign."

"So you're in trouble for saving my ass," Azra assumes.

"That's the thing. If I officially saved an illegally captured agent, that would be sanctioned. But since you're still on the record as dead, our people will have difficulty explaining what happened. And the Russians will claim it was straight-up espionage."

Azra nods. "I see the problem. I can tell you that my orders may, in part, address it."

Jack grimaces at another sip of his rapidly cooling container of sludge. "Good to know. So when do you leave?"

"Soon. Whenever my transportation can arrive. You?"

"About the same."

"So, you want to spend whatever time we have before then catching up on the last few years?" Azra queries. "At least the redacted version?"

Jack shrugs. "Might as well. Or it might be more fun just to make something up. The stories would be better anyway."

"They probably would," Azra agrees. "All right, I'll start. Once upon a time, the ghost of a dead agent emerged from a rebel-constructed tunnel in Afghanistan. The agency wasn't big on giving assignments to ghosts, but they didn't mind lending one out. And someone who spoke Urdu and Pashto was needed on the border with Pakistan to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of a certain terrorist. The ghost covered herself from head to toe and blended in, feeling even more of a ghost than she had before. She played the servant until she was as invisible as a shade should be. And while she went unnoticed, she heard Pakistani elders making arrangements for a dialysis machine to be delivered to a compound in the town of Abbottabad."

"A dialysis machine needed by a certain terrorist leader who was known to have kidney failure," Jack inserts. "I think I know what happened next."

Azra winks. "You know the stripped-down version. But the details are the fun part."

"The real details or something a ghost is about to make up?" Jack asks.

Azra lays a hand on his arm. "I'll leave it to you to figure that out. It will give you something to do on the plane."

"What I'm going to do on the plane is sleep," Jack insists. "But sooner or later, I will put together the real story."

"That," Azra replies, "I don't doubt."