When Perfect Meets Crazy

Chapter 26: 25 - Blessing in disguise or plain old curse

I perched at the edge on of Parker’s desk, stretching my legs out in front of me as my eyes did a quick

sweep of our surroundings. No one seemed to be listening or paying any attention to me. Not even

Parker himself who had his attention buried in the case file in front of him.

“Hey.” I tapped his shoulder for good measure.

He was known for his laser-like focus. It rivalled mine even. He once read through a fight that broke out

between a criminal and another cop right in front of his desk and didn’t know at all even though it got so

heated a shot was almost fired. He was that good at tuning out background noise.

I tapped him again. He raised his head up slowly, eyeing me up, then down.

“What are you doing here?”

Although his tone was less than friendly, I didn’t mind. I understood where he was coming from. I also

hated being pulled out of studying. Or worse, reading a novel.

“Stopped by to drop off the Sheriff’s jacket,” I lied.

After Masked Idiot ran off without confirming my theory, I decided if I had to wait, my brain would

explode and engineered this trip to drop off a jacket that was in fact sitting in the basement back home,

waiting to be washed. If anyone but my dad asked though, that was my cover story. As for my dad, I

lied I was looking for a paper, an assignment, that might’ve gotten mixed up with his documents. I

hadn’t expected him to be around since he mentioned having to meet the mayor today but, apparently,

the meeting was a short one. I had to improvise the lie on the spot when I ran into him on the way in.

He wasn’t pleased but he allowed me to search his office. When I came up emptyhanded –as

expected-, he curtly showed me out of his office, ordering me to ‘be more organized next time.’

And now, I was finally at Parker’s desk. The entire reason I had engineered the trip to begin with.

Parker nodded distractedly, gathering up the papers in front of him into the file.

“What do you need?” He went straight to the point.

It was one of the main things I liked about him. I wasn’t one for small talk unless my mom was present

and expected it of me. It was why I didn’t have so many close female friends. The come-over-and-

hang-at-my-place type. Such hangouts were usually full of small talk and it was a character trait I didn’t

seem to have been born with. Well, that and I never knew when my dad would start acting up nor could

I trust them not to do something my mom would find ill-mannered like not hang their coats properly or

leave their shoes lying around haphazardly were the reasons I rarely ever had friends over.

Compartmentalizing was much safer. Keeping my school life separate from my home life was just

better.

“This guy,” I showed him the picture of Masked Idiot on my phone, “could you help me look into him?”

“What did you do?” He stopped, dropped everything and gave me his full attention.

I stiffened, watching raptly as a frown blossomed on his face.

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

“Nothing? Then, why do you want me looking into a Fed for you?”

“You know him?” My eyes widened. Fed? My guess was actually correct?

“I ran into him a couple of times at the... hold on a sec, how do you know him? And why the hell are

you looking into him?”

“We... just met. He seemed a bit sketchy, that’s all.” I shrugged innocently.

His eyes narrowed, his lips pursing with disapproval.

Parker, unfortunately, happened to be one of the two people on earth that I couldn’t successfully

bullshit. Not without effort, at least. My mom was at the top of that very short list and that was all.

“Try again,” he said flatly.

“Fine.” I huffed. Bending the truth would have to suffice. “I thought he was criminal. You know, he’s...

big and brawny and he kept popping up and disappearing randomly. I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t

keeping the wrong kind of company.”

“A Fed is the wrong kind of company,” he chastised.

“You were a Fed.” I rolled my eyes. “And before that...” I trailed off, letting the implication hang between

us. Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

Rumor had it that before becoming a Fed, Parker had been part of a drug cartel or some brutal gang.

Normally, I would’ve written it off as exaggerated gossip but I believed this particular tidbit. It fit. Parker

didn’t have any family as far as anyone knew and for someone on his second job, he was too young

and too infamous in the law enforcement world for there not to be something fishy going on behind the

scenes. Plus, he reeked of a dark tormented past. I once caught him having a PSTD induced panic

attack and apparently, no one else knows he gets them.

“And now I’m a cop,” he said flatly. “Feel free to befriend this guy if he decides to become one too.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes.

“Are you ever going to tell me why you quit being a Fed only to still work in law enforcement? It’s so

dumb it screams ‘there’s dark twisted reason here’.”

Another thing I liked about Parker was that I could be blunt to the extent of being borderline rude and

he wouldn’t bat an eyelash. I didn’t have to watch my wording or say only the socially and politically

correct things. I could just say whatever I wanted and it’d be okay.

“Never.”

“Not today,” I amended, mentally reminding myself to stay on track.

I came for Masked Idiot. Parker’s sketchy past could wait.

He wisely refrained from objecting, knowing fully well that it would only spur an argument. He knew me

so well. I couldn’t help but smile. He mirrored the expression, throwing in an eye roll for the sake of his

pride.

“That all?” he inquired.

“I’d love it if you could make a call and tell me whatever I’m allowed to know about this guy.”

I threw in my most innocent wide-toothed smile to seal the deal. He took it in and arched an eyebrow

as though to say, 'Nice try.'

“Only the barest basics,” he said flatly.

“I know.” I rolled my eyes, giving up on the smile. “What I want is just basic information. ‘Is he working

on something right now? Is he trustworthy? How long has he been an agent?’ That kind of stuff.”

Parker’s expression fully communicated distrust. He knew me well enough to know there was more I

wasn’t telling him but it also meant he knew I’d be smart about whatever was going on and wouldn't

reveal any sensitive information I got from him. I found it hard to disclose even trivial things like what I

had for lunch. My first thought was always ‘why do you want to know? What’s it to you?’ I wasn’t a very

trusting person. Not by nature and definitely not by nurture.

“Be careful,” he muttered a few beats later.

“Always.”

He pushed away from the desk and got to his feet. The phone was pressed against his ear, already

dialling before he even started walking away. He was a lifesaver.

I sighed, relief washing over me as I waited for him to return. It felt really good to know for sure that I

was right. That Masked Idiot wasn’t a threat but one of the good guys. That I wasn’t putting myself in

danger by having him around. Knots I hadn’t previously noticed loosened in my shoulders.

Thank God for small miracles, my dad’s bag of tricks, and Parker and his informative contacts.

I took out my phone, busying myself with reading new texts, replying those that warranted replies and

ignoring the rest. Mae, my closest friend, was going to Finch’s party and wanted me to come along. To

be a bridge between her and her current crush.

I heaved a sigh.

He was never going to be interested. Zach was too hung up on conditioning and keeping up with the

division one college he had gotten into but what was reason and common sense in the face of a

burgeoning crush. Mae was stubbornly remaining blind to all reason where Zach was concerned.

I had nothing better to do anyway. Masked Idiot was unlikely to show up for the rest of the day. I had

finished the series I was reading last night and nothing really appealed to me on TV these days.

Sure, I texted back.

Her reply was instant; a thumbs-up emoji, the dancing lady emoji and a party face emoji. I smiled

inwardly, pocketing my phone as Parker came striding back.

“So?” I urged. “What did you find out?”

He rolled his eyes in exasperation even as a reluctant smile spread across his lips.

“Your guy is not an actual agent. He’s a civilian who got pulled onto a case by accident.”

Makes sense. It explained why he was so bad at everything; keeping secrets, thinking on his feet,

telling believable lies and everything in between.

“What else?”

“It’s a big case. A very dangerous one. Don’t go sticking your nose into it,” he cautioned.

I stifled the urge to roll my eyes. Too little too late.

“I know my limits, Park,” I lied smoothly, openly beaming at him. “Thank you for the info.”

“Be careful,” he added.

“I know.” My tone conveyed exasperation. It was time to get out before my dad started to get

suspicious. I absolutely did not want to deal with another one of his episodes later. “I’ll see you...

whenever. Party. Bye.”

He rolled his eyes at my slapdash skeletal explanation.

“Have fun. See you whenever.” His attention was back in the file before I even stood up.

I smiled, skipping jauntily to my car. Things were finally looking up.

• • •

“She knows,” he breathed.

His eyes were wide and desperate like a trapped animal. His agitated pacing further reinforced the

trapped animal aura.

The man paused, the fountain pen he had been writing with pressed hard against the paper, creating a

growing black dot. Every muscle in his body drew taut.

“Who knows?” His voice sent a shiver down Ian's spine. “Can you seriously not go two weeks without

blowing your cover? Damn it, Ian!”

The boy sighed, raking a hand through his hair. It was obvious to any who so much as glanced at him

that he’d done that at least twenty times in the last two minutes.

“Still her. Avyanna. She figured out that I--”

“That you what?”

The ice in the man’s tone could cool an erupting volcano. The boy immediately rethought his ‘disclose

all’ policy.

“She... she uhm... she figured out that I have a partner.”

He swallowed, praying he wasn’t making a mistake by keeping the rest a secret.

“Figured?” The voice cut through the room like a whip.

“Yes.” He met the man’s gaze with a cold hard one of his own.

“A teenage girl just figured out all on her own without any--”

“Yes. I just said that.” The boy bit out, flames leaping into his eyes.

His pacing ground to a halt as he faced the man squarely, shoulders rolled back in military stance.

“Forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” the man drawled in all condescension.

“It’s not like she’s a regular kid. She’s some kind of genius, right? Borderline whatever.”

The man inclined his head grudgingly. She was a borderline genius according to her records.

“And the sheriff’s daughter,” Ian added.

“Investigative skills and deductive reasoning aren’t genetically inherited,” the man rebutted immediately,

even as he found himself wondering if they actually were.

Oh well, he thought, the truth wasn’t important anyway.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But she was raised by him. She obviously knows how to think along that line.” Ian

shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage.

If the man wasn’t so caught up in his own anger and bothered to pay even the tiniest bit of attention,

he’d have noticed the tense set of Ian’s shoulders. Ian knew that so he delved into his brain for a

distraction and found himself suppressing a wry smile at the mental image of her daring smile when

she announced that she had a theory she needed his input on. He’d blanked out when she said it. She

was one of the smartest people he knew. More so now, after she easily deduced everything. He

couldn’t imagine her needing his help with academics or anything really. Only for her to strip him of all

his carefully kept secrets like it was tattooed in scarlet ink on his forehead. She’d make a fine detective.

She could practically read minds. ‘Inclined towards sophisticated wit?’ What the hell was that even?

“What is funny about this situation?” the man snapped, his eyes narrowing with disapproval.

Ian was pulled out of his musings. He was really starting to get tired of the older man’s fits.

“Nothing,” he lied smoothly, wondering why it was never as easy to lie to her.

Practice, he decided. He’d had more practice lying to the man than to her.

“So what did you tell her?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Nothing.”

To be specific, he told her that if he were working for a government agency, he wouldn’t be in a place to

disclose it since covert operations were to be kept covert and she didn’t have the clearance. In his

defence, he did try the nothing card on her. She laughed in his face and told him to try again which he

did severally -all of which she called him out on- until he came up with the covert-no-clearance answer

following which she smiled like the Cheshire cat and simply nodded.

Her response bothered him. A lot. Unfortunately he couldn’t tell the man that. She was full of herself,

overly sarcastic and enjoyed driving him up the wall and while he still wasn’t sure she was as harmless

as she claimed to be, he couldn’t bear the thought of her -or anyone really- getting hurt. The man had

been lashing out a lot lately. Ian didn’t trust him, not enough to risk her safety on it. Especially not after

she claimed she felt evil intent on the days the man was on watch.

She had been right about him needing to catch up on his real life on certain days. He had training

matches, conditioning and to actually show up, fight and win at the real matches. He couldn’t tail her

everyday even if he wanted to. On days he had to condition and train, the man did the tailing. On the

days he had matches, he gave himself the beginning of the day off so he did the tailing depending on

when the match ended. The days she claimed she felt evil intent were the days the man tailed her.

Only those days. He wasn’t comfortable with the odds. He was doing this to right a wrong but the man

had more at stake. Ian couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the voice telling him to keep the rest a secret.

“That was all that happened but I think I should be the only one keeping an eye on her from here on

out,” he said.

His voice was steady, his expression flat. The man had no reason to doubt him.

So he continued, “If anyone follows and sees us, at worst they think she’s my girlfriend and we’re

sneaking around because her parents won’t approve. The guys from the arena will buy it. The actual

cops might too. I can get off with that lie. You can’t. It’d be suspicious. The cops will think child molester

and the guys...” Ian trailed off, levelling the man with a look that said more than words could.

If only she could have seen him, she’d realize with the right motivation, he actually could be a great liar.

“Fine. Fuck,” the man hissed, leaning his back against the chair in a way that showed that even though

he agreed, he hated every part of agreeing.

Ian arched a brow, wordlessly asking; what do we do now?

“Just... You have to keep watching her. We can’t...” The man sighed, dragging a hand over his face.

“We have to wrap this operation up as soon as possible. She’s too smart for her own damn good.”

You don’t know the half of it, Ian mused.