The Ties That Bind: A Scarecrow and Mrs. King Continuing Story Book 1

Chapter 7

Day 2

So, they were lovers, were they? Huh. It didn't actually surprise him. Even when they'd denied it at Nedlindger's several years ago, he'd thought they'd protested too much. He wondered how long they'd been romantically involved. Well, no matter.

What really surprised him was that the recording seemed to have zero effect. He really thought the Agency would at least pretend to dissolve their working relationship. But no. As usual, Scarecrow did the unexpected.

He slapped his hand against the bare concrete wall. Now what was he going to do? Clinching his hair in both hands, he paced back and forth down the length of his cell. It wasn't like he couldn't think of other ways to get revenge, but this had seemed a perfect way to get someone else to take the fall. He ran his hand over his hair and scratched his head. No, there still had to be a way to make this work. He just needed to get creative. Yeah, that was it. He paused to process his thoughts. Yeah...just make some adjustments to the plan.

He sat on his bed and leaned his elbows onto his knees. First, he supposed he'd still need to get rid of Amanda King, since it didn't look like the Agency was going to do that dirty work for him. Hmmm. There was an interesting thought. He sat straight up as inspiration struck. Yeah! Since she and Scarecrow were lovers, getting rid of her in a more...disturbing...manner might make things quite entertaining. He should be able to work out the details in the next day or two and pass them on to his contact. A smile slid slowly across his face; he was feeling better already.

________________________________________________________________________________

"It feels terrible going through all these documents and reports on our co-workers." Amanda sat on the floor of their office with her back up against the brown, leather sofa. A computer console sat on the coffee table in front of her, and files were spread out around it.

Scanning a file in his hands, Lee sat on the sofa to her right. "Yeah, I hear you." He let out a sigh and dropped the file rather forcefully onto the coffee table. "Reminds me of that time three years ago when we had to do an internal investigation and found David Benson was leaking everything we did to the Bulgarians." He reached up to rub the back of his neck. "I hated it then; I hate it now." He leaned over her shoulder. "What are you going through right now?"

Amanda closed her eyes and rolled her head in a circle trying to loosen up her neck muscles. "Well, I thought I'd start by going through the personnel files to to look for any background information that might connect someone to one of our old case." She sighed and dropped her file. "But it's like looking for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack."

"Yep." Distracted by the scent of her shampoo, he gently moved her hair aside and leaned in to kiss the nape of her neck. "Well, I've..." He sprinkled kisses up her neck. "...been going through our back casefiles to make a list of people who've either been thrown in jail or who've died during an investigation. We can get a list of surviving relatives to cross-reference later."

"After four years, that's going to be a lot of names." Smiling, she turned her head just enough to allow him to kiss the corner of her mouth. "Because you are not bad at what you do."

"What?" Lee sounded offended. "Not bad?" He sat back and held his hand to his heart as if wounded. "I seem to recall a time you told a kid I was one of the top agents in the country."

"Did I say that?" She raised an eyebrow and pointed to herself. "Nooo, I didn't say that."

"Did, too."

"Really?" Pushing herself up from the floor, she sat on the sofa and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Okay, yes. Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall that."