Heather Jenkins

My cell beeped as I was getting ready for bed. It was a text from work asking if I could come in tomorrow. I sent a text back telling them I would be there. Questions about the days events kept me awake until zero hour, but once I got to sleep I was dead to the world.

When I went to leave in the morning, the same Suburban was sitting in my driveway. The brunette behind the wheel politely offered me a ride to wherever I was going. Intrigued by the offer, I got in the rear and gave them directions to my day job.

My office at Stern, Stanton, and Finch was earned. After I publicly left FinCEn, they had an opening for the best accountant in the Midwest. Only Dylan knew that I still moonlighted for my old boss, and he had but one condition: Treat every account like an attorney would, keep the lives separate.

One of the brunettes, May, asked to accompany me to my office. I agreed on the condition that she stay outside, my work was private. Dylan came into my office as I was checking my email. "Are you in danger, Heather?"

"Just a bodyguard," I shrugged. "What's up?"

"We received a request for you specifically to audit the books of an organization. The requestor seemed to know that you were back in town."

"I am on vacation, Dylan," I said. "I came in because I was bored. What's the name of the client?"

"Carla McCauley, on behalf of the National Lesbian Alliance," Dylan replied.

Carla, really? "I can't do that, Dylan. Conflict of interest. Severe conflict of interest. I slept with the woman for Christ's sake."

"She told me. This would be a preliminary audit, not an official one."

"Dylan, do you remember when you first hired me, you set one condition? Your request violates your one condition."

"Heather, the request came because they are being investigated. She does not know about...that."

"I will look at the paper. No connection to the firm at all. No pay, no commission."

"The commission is a million two for the firm. Six hundred even for you," Dylan countered.

Six hundred thousand? "There is something seriously wrong here, Dylan. That amount alone should raise eyebrows. No."

"You're done here, Heather. Pack it up."

"You're firing me on my day off? What the fuck, Dylan? You'd fire me over one account that you won't get paid for now, anyway? This firm won't last the year if you treat all your executive-level accountants like this."

I went over to my closet and pulled out some bankers boxes that I normally used for clients and started packing my momentos. Then I realized there wasn't really anything personal to pack except a picture of me and Laura and another picture of me and my brother. Nothing in the drawers was personal, nothing on the walls save my degrees. I packed the frames holding my degrees and the picture of me and my brother. The other picture went into the trash. The nameplate on my desk went into the trash next. "Happy?"

"Out."

I grabbed my box and yanked open my door with my free hand, startling May. Dylan was there when I turned around, he actually cringed when I reached past his head to slide my nameplate off the door. Just for a second, I thought of smacking him on the head for good measure, but there were witnesses.

May offered to carry my box in the elevator while I fought off the tears. Nobody in the creepy Suburban offered any sympathy, and I didn't want any. When we got to my house, I stormed inside and slammed the door behind me. I got as far as the living room sofa before I fell over crying.

There was no understanding what was going on. How in the hell did one account refusal rate Dylan firing me? It wasn't even all that much of an incentive pay! There had to be another angle to the audit, there had to be. I reported my firing and reason to Loman's message box and went to bed.

I got a brief reply from Loman the next morning. The FBI was leaning on Carla to have someone go over her books, and they were also leaning on Dylan to have me do the audit. The FBI couldn't lean on FinCEn, because that was a good way to get every one of their special agents audited. Loman told me that it was my choice to look at the paper and that she would help me find a job at any firm of my choosing whether I did the audit or not.

I read the message twice before I shut down my computer. What was so important about the NLA that the Feds would pull strings to force a back-channel audit?

Even if I decided to pull the paper, who would I go through? Not Dylan, not that fucking fucker I had trusted. I wouldn't go through Janne, either, she had to be a bitch about the whole thing. Loman didn't want to get involved with those books and I needed to save that offer for a job.

Did the women in the Suburbans know anything? Would they cooperate? I went out to check, tripping over the box of stuff from my office. Kimberly was behind the wheel, she had the window rolled down by the time I got to the truck. "Why are you here?" I asked.

"To watch and observe," she replied. "You're always welcome to drive yourself, if you want to."

"Do you know how to get ahold of Carla McCauley?" I asked.

Starr chuckled from the passenger's seat. "You spent two days and nights with someone and didn't get her number, Heather?"

I didn't have Carla's number, but I did have Ai's. "Thank you, ladies."

"Always a pleasure, Heather," Kimberly said.

There was a certain amount of danger in calling Ai. If the FBI was tapping my phone, I'd probably get another sitting in Janne's chair.

I dialed anyway, Carla picking up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Bring the books, seventy-four eleven North Broad Street. Two hours."

"Heather?" Carla asked. "Why are you calling now?"

"You cost me my job, Carla. Don't expect me to be chatty. Two hours, the big white door on the warehouse." I hung up. I was pissed.

Kimberly obviously sensed my mood coming out of the house, because she had the Suburban backed out of my driveway by the time my garage door was fully open. I wasn't going into that neighborhood in my Beemer, but my little Pontiac would work just fine.

At some point on the journey, the one Suburban had become two. They followed me into my warehouse, backing up to the wall after I had. My three watchers had become six, and they were all armed. Kimberly assured me that I was safe and that none of them were cops or agents. That didn't make me feel any better.

Kimberly and three of the women followed me up to the second floor. This floor was completely open, occupied by tables everywhere. Clearboards on stands in the middle, whiteboards on the walls. The walls, the floors, and the ceiling were painted sterile white, the bulbs in the lights a warm white color. The support beams, evenly spaced, were marred by red stripes. These marked my fire extinguishers, which was my concession to the Franklin County Fire Inspector. This was my auditing sanctum.

"Nice place," Kimberly said. "You're everything we've heard about and more."

"Who is 'we?'" I asked.

"Later," Kimberly promised. She was beautiful, that's why I gave her a pass on the answer.

I went around the tables, checking my markers and making sure all my pencils were sharp and ready. My notebooks, one per table, were all new. Whenever I did an audit, all the paperwork was destroyed with the records. There was nothing digital in this room, no hard drives to wipe, no computers to crush. My audits were analog.

Carla arrived with her boxes ninety minutes later. I showed her where the elevator was and her crew started bringing them up to the second floor. As the boxes arrived, I started carrying them to the tables in my special sequence. Kimberly watched me for a few minutes and then grabbed a box from the next load. I started to object, but she put it at the correct table, lining it up just like I would have.

There was clearly more to her than body armor, a gun, and a pretty face. She was a plant, but why? Why would she reveal herself like that?

Carla's helpers brought up the last pallet of boxes while I was in what passed for a kitchen getting some water. When I came back out, Kimberly was directing her people to move the boxes and where to place them.

"Thank you," I told her.

"Thank you. I am more than a pretty face," she said.

Carla was watching our exchange with interest. Was she jealous of Kimberly? I sighed and told everyone to gather around. It was time to lay down the rules, and I needed them followed exactly or my whole game would be thrown off.

"Listen up, all of you," I began. "I am not used to this many people here, so I'm going to share my rules. If you smoke, you'll have to leave the building and stay gone. Foods that smell are not appreciated. There's restaurants, bars and such within six blocks. If you go outside the building, leave the guns here. I'm sure most, if not all of you are proficient in hand-to-hand. That should be enough. That includes the roof. No guns shown outside, understood?"

One of Carla's guards made a comment to another in Mandarin: "She's really cracking the whip. Could you imagine what she'd be like..."

"Quiet!" Ai snapped.

"What's going on?" I asked Kimberly.

Kimberly gave me a curious look, almost as if she knew I understood the language. I saw the light come on over her head. "I think the little one over there wants you to crack the whip on her," she chuckled.

"While I am working, stay out of my way. I'll be moving around alot, and I don't want to run into anybody. There will be music. If you don't like it, there are plenty of quiet spots in the building. Turn off your phones in this room, I don't want to even hear the buzz. Some of you are wearing nylon gear, take it off or keep it from rubbing. Fifteen minutes."

Kimberly followed me through unpacking the first year I stopped at. She beckoned to me and I watched her set up another year. I had to admit, she knew what I was going to do before I did it. She wasn't some plain bodyguard, she had brains and knew numbers. There was the pretty face and nice body, I had to find out what made her tick.

Eighteen minutes later, I was set up and ready to rock. In the center if the room was my sound system. It was a record player and an amplifier that had once belonged to my dad. The first album of today was going to be a piano sonata by Mozart. It helped me to organize the numbers, both in my mind and on the tables. Accounts payable, receivables, donations, payroll, petty cash, everything.

The alliance had been founded in nineteen ninety-five but the records didn't start until ninety-six. It was over twenty years ago, so I let it slide. The initial capitalization was seventeen million dollars; not unusual, either. I worked my way through that year and decided to give myself a break.

Kimberly was the only one who had remained in my work area. She was studying my scribblings on the clearboard, from the back. "Can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"Why do you use clearboards in the center?"

"It's a pattern analysis tool, for the most part. For the other part, I like that they cast little or no shadows in the room itself. Clarity."

"Interesting,*

"I'm gonna to go get some water and an orange. You want anything?" I asked.

"Sure. Let me see what else you have in your fridge."

Most of the women were in the waiting area, everybody was relaxed. Ai and Carla were in a corner on a laptop. I started to approach them, and one of their bodyguards-slash-assistants interposed herself between me and them. Ai snapped a command and the woman backed off.

"Yes?" Carla asked.

"I just wanted to thank you for costing me my job. The way my supposed friend of five years fired me was particularly entertaining." I sat in one of the free chairs, they were my chairs at my tables after all. "This place will probably end up being my home before long."

Carla wrinkled her nose. "Why would you say that? Everything you have is paid for, and you're just above comfortable on the wealth scale."

"Soon my neighbors are going to be agents of every alphabet agency in the country. All because I got paid a visit by a Culture Minister from the Chinese Mainland."

"Culture Minister," Ai snorted. "That is my former, not current, occupation."

"You're also very rude," I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Pointing your little honeypot at Laura and setting her off."

Carla and Ai shared a scared look. They knew exactly what I meant but not how I knew it. "Your new friends are well-informed," Ai said.

"It was actually old friends that filled me in," I countered. "Let me get to the point: Why did you go through such great lengths to have me go through your books? There are more than five thousand accountants just inside the outerbelt!"

"We wanted the accountant," Carla said. "Laura never stopped bragging on you, Heather, even while she was planning on stabbing you in the back.."

"The Accountant runs around with a fifty caliber long gun. I am just an accountant, one of many," I retorted.

I heard a burst of giggles come from the other women in the room. Absent a good conversation to share between themselves, all of them were paying attention to ours. "What a mess," Carla mumbled.

"Carla, what happened to you wanting my heart?" I whispered. "Was this all a setup?"

"That was my fault," Ai said. "When I started looking for Carla, my first target was Laura the speechwriter. She made an offhand comment about Carla going off and putting one and one together..."

"To make three," I finished. There was another burst of giggles, and I considered asking them to go play in traffic. "And then you went in search of an accountant for what reason?"

Ai waved me closer. I didn't see any harm in her action, so I obliged. "I believe there is illegal activity being done by the NLA and I need to find out what. The FBI is muddying the water as if someone at the bureau is involved." She sat back in her chair. "There you have it."

"So you," I pointed to Carla, "were chasing me because you wanted my heart, and even had Kaylee brought in to lure Laura away from me..."

"Kaylee was just a test of Laura's desire for you," Carla countered. "I was sure I could be a better better half for you, so I used power and influence to get my chance."

I rolled my eyes, "That's life, I guess. So Ai needs her books done, and she decides to try and kill two birds with one stone by coming up here. And be my companion?"

"Sure," Ai answered. "It would have been fun, I think."

"Companion my ass," I sighed as I stood "It was a nice thought."

Kimberly was busy peeling a second orange when I made it to the refrigerator. "Play in traffic, seriously?"

Huh? "I didn't say that aloud."

"Yes, you did. If not the little chickadees wouldn't have shut up," Kimberly held out her hand. "Orange?"

I gave her a dubious look and took the orange from her. I got two more years done before I called it quits for lunch. The patterns in the ledgers were pretty much the same, donations in, expenses out. I made notes on their projects so I could check them later to see if they were legit.

Kimberly walked with me to a local restaurant, where I had chili hotter than the pavement on North Broad Street. The food was so good, I didn't know I was wearing some of it until Kimberly pointed out to me. I was embarrassed, to say the least. If I were working alone, it wouldn't have been a problem, but I was the center of attention and I was going to have to change.

"I'll make you a deal," Kimberly began. "In exchange for having one of my assistants bringing you a new outfit, I get to help you change."

"You're so full of it. I will bet good money that you already have somebody on the way with a new outfit, and let me make a mess of myself so you could make your little deal."

Kimberly shrugged. "You made the mess, not me."

"You get to watch," I wagged a finger at her. "No touching."

"Deal. I spring for the outfit, you get the check."

The athleisure outfit that Kimberly brought to me was perfect. The sports bra was a tad small and had hooks in the back. I could have gone without the bra as I wasn't doing any high-impact workout with no tits at all, but I allowed Kimberly her touch. It was pleasant, her hooking the back of the bra and straightening it out. The absence of her hand left me wanting, and I had to get away from her so I could finish my work.

By the time I decided to call it a day, it was dark outside. Kimberly asked to ride with me after Ai and Carla left in their car. Five pairs of eyes watched as I opened the door on my faded little Pontiac to let her in.

The Suburbans fell in behind us as I pulled onto Broad Street. "So, who are you really, Kimberly?"

"I don't work for the government," Kimberly said.

"Any government? You know what I mean," I prodded.

"No, I don't work for any government. I work for an organization. I can't tell you the name, either."

"It's fair to say you have my best interests at heart, playing my drivers and assistants? What do you get out of it?"

"When you get done with this job, I'm authorized to offer you another one. Until then, we'll keep you safe," Kimberly replied.

"What do you mean, safe?" I asked.

"Free from harm," Kimberly shrugged. "I can't do anything about the emotional harm, but physical harm."

I had no idea why Kimberly would mention emotional harm until i pulled into my driveway alongside Laura's car, a burgundy Bug that I had helped her buy. Kimberly gave my hand a squeeze before she opened her door. "Win or lose, I'll see you tomorrow."

Laura was sitting at my kitchen island, having a beer. There was a second bottle on the counter, telling me there was someone else with her. "Bring some help with you, Laura?" I asked.

"Carla asked me to come. I was going to snag a couple things, but your ninja wouldn't let us roam through the house."

"I wouldn't let you roam through my house," I snapped. "Where's Carla?"

"Right here. I just had to use the bathroom." Carla sat in the chair closest to the second bottle of beer. "She wouldn't let me go by myself."

A woman stepped into the room. She was dressed all in black, complete with pistol. Definitely a little ninja, standing about five-foot two and maybe a buck ten in weight. "Thank you for securing my house."

"You're very welcome ma'am," she smiled. "I'm Nadia."

"Could you excuse us for a moment, Nadia? We need to talk privately," Carla said.

Nadia looked at me, and I nodded. "I'll be right outside if you need me, Madame Heather."

Laura waited before the front door closed before she spoke: "What the hell is going on here?"

"That's none your business. You're not in my life now, and you never really lived here. Why the hell are you in my home?" I demanded.

"They could be listening," Carla said.

"Even if they could listen, they wouldn't," I countered. "Again, why are you in my home?"

"I just came to get some of my personal things," Laura explained. "Where's my laptop?"

"You packed it. I saw it in your carry-on," I replied.

"My old laptop," Laura clarified.

"That thing got recycled. It didn't work anymore, Laura, remember?" It wasn't totally recycled, the drive was still in my office collecting dust.

"I'd like to get the clothes. It's not like you can wear them, right?" Laura asked.

"Laura, it's been a long day. I will pack your things up when I have a chance and send them to your place in Grove City, or wherever you're going to be staying. Leave your keys."

"Heath..." Laura began. "Why are you being like this?"

I squinted at her and then turned my attention to Carla. "Why are you here?"

"Do you know who those women are?" Carla asked. "Why they just traipsed into your life?"

"Their appearance might have something to do with the women Ai had following me around. They only appeared after Ai came to pay me a visit, and they are not FBI."

"That woman Kimberly, she's..."