Page 95 of Code Name: Harbor

Her smile falters. “Giving what up?”

“The work. All of it. I’ve decided I’m getting out.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“I mean it.”

“Finn… you can’t give it up. You’re too good at it. Nobody’s ever been as good as you. And the money—” Her voice catches on the word the way it used to catch on rent and electric bill. “The money, baby. You know what that money means. You know what it’s like to not have it. You’re going to walk away from all that money?”

And I’m confused, the deep underwater confusion of dreams, because she’s right. I do know what it’s like to not have it and to only want it. How do I explain to the woman who reuses tea bags that I’m going to walk away from more money than she could have counted in ten lifetimes?

And then I think about Josie.

I think about the two of us in the dark in my bed, her head on my chest, her finger tracing shapes on my skin. The way she told me in a sleepy voice that all she really wants is a home filled with love, a white picket fence around the border, a dog and laughing children. She laughed at herself telling me, embarrassed, like it was too small a dream for a woman who decrypts intelligence for a living.

I found it endearing and realized it was a dream that never once crossed my mind. But I’ve been thinking about that white picket fence and all the things that could be held inside it, and it’s what I want too. I’m sure of it.

I look at my mother across the card table. “I found something better, Mom.”

“Better than being the best in the world?”

“There’s this woman.”

My mother’s eyes go wide, her mouth curving into a smile.

“Her name’s Josie. And she’s got this dream. A house, a fence, a dog, some kids. Nothing special. The most ordinary thing. And I want it more than I want to be the best at anything I’ve ever done.”

My mother looks at me for a long moment.

And then her face breaks open into the smile I’d have done anything for, the one that used to make this whole falling-down house feel warm.

“Oh, Finn,” she says. “That’s so much better than being a smuggler.”

“You think?”

“I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever told me.” She picks her tea back up. “Get the girl. Get the fence. Be done with the rest of it. I’m so proud of you, baby. I’m so proud.”

And I’m happy. In the dream I’m as happy as I’ve ever been, sitting at a card table in a kitchen that smells like powdered creamer, my dead mother telling me to go get the ordinary life. And somewhere under all of it a phone is ringing.

A phone is ringing…

I surface.

The room is dark and Josie’s warm weight feels so very good against my side. The phone is going off on the nightstand, the screen throwing light at the ceiling, and for just a moment, I’m in two places at once… my mother’s kitchen and my dark bedroom.

My eyes slide to the bedside clock. Three fourteen a.m.

Nobody calls at three o’clock in the morning with good news.

I’m instantly awake, my mind hyper-alert as my hand closes on the phone.

Unknown number, local area code.

Josie stirs as I swing my legs over the edge of the bed.

“Finn?” she asks sleepily, but I ignore her, instead connecting the call.

“Marlowe.”