Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twelve

At the use of his last name, my father’s eyebrows rose and Woods let out an actual laugh.  Yeah, you read that right.  Woods laughed!  Dad turned to her and looked back to me as if checking to see that I heard it too.  “Oh Goode,” she said with a sigh.  “If you’re against changing the rules, then I highly recommend you chose a different profession.”

It was eerie hearing her say those words in that moment.  Woods never laughed when she was giving out lessons.  She couldn’t risk anyone misinterpreting that anything about a spy’s life was a joke.  But right then, she’d broken one of her rules and I suddenly got the feeling that Woods had been waiting for that laugh.  That she’d been dying for one.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that if she weren’t laughing, she’d be doing something far worse.

Sometimes I still get tired and that night, I realized that sometimes Woods does too.  “Yes ma’am,” was all I said.

She studied me then, her laugh fading into a smile.  It was almost like she’d been caught—liked the mindreader had suddenly become the mindreadee and she didn’t know how she felt about her secrets being out there.  

“The two of us are going to be choosing your captains this year,” Dad announced.  Woods and I both turned to look at him and whatever moment we’d had was lost to the night, fading faster than the sun.  “Charlotte, you may have the honors of first pick.”

“Honors?” she scoffed, and just like magic, Woods was back to her old self.  “You just want to see who I pick so that you that you can find the right opponent.”

“Whaaaat?” Dad said, his voice jumping an octave.  “I would never—”

“Save it, Goode,” she said, sticking a hand in his face.  “I know all your tricks, remember?”

It occurred to me that she was telling the truth.  The one hundred percent, absolute, undiluted truth.  Woods did know Dad’s tricks.  She knew them all.  I didn’t know when or how or why she had learned them, but she knew them, and she wasn’t about to let him forget that.  Which was just as well.  I got the feeling that Dad wouldn’t have had it any other way.  “The ladies will be following Morgan Goode, tonight,” she said, looking straight at me.

My father was hit by an invisible gunshot, playfully throwing his hand to his chest in a flair of feigned agony and sending each of my classmates into laughter.  The whole thing made me want to crawl up behind a rock somewhere and die from the embarrassment that came along with a father as dramatic as mine.  “My own flesh and blood!” he exclaimed.  “You dare turn my own offspring against me?”

God, what a nerd.

“You’re move, Mr. Goode,” she teased.

When you’re a spy, you have to see all possibilities.  You have to line up all of the solutions to any possible scenario and prepare for things that, in all likelihood, wont happen.  You have to account for the fact that the undercover arms dealer you’ve been tailing might have access to a fleet of aircrafts or that one of your assets is really working against you.  You have to be aware.  You have to see the possibilities, no matter how unlikely.

As one of the top agents the CIA has to offer, Zachary Goode is a pro at predicting the unlikely, but in that small park at the center of Baker’s Garden, my father seemed to be especiallyprepared for the possibility that Charlotte Woods was going to pick me to captain her team.  There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation as he pointed straight at Will and said, “Mr. Kidd.  You’ll be leading the boys.”

Will’s eyes grew wide.  His hands moved to his chest as if Dad’s pointing were wearing a hole in him.  “You mean me?”  he asked.

“You’re the only Mr. Kidd standing in front of me,” Dad said.