Welcome to Paths Not Taken, the thirteenth Operation Quickline story. When a sting operation is set up on the resort owned by Lisa Wycherly’s father, she and Sid Hackbirn find themselves revisiting their high school jobs. And hoping their covers don’t get blown. You can read the first chapter here.

The next morning, Tuesday, was Sid’s and my day off. We’d debated what I’d found for some time but could come to no real conclusions about it. After all, the wire could have been deadly had the TV been plugged in, and it could have just been a loose wire. Not to mention that Lipplinger could have burned his hand some other way, and he’d died of a heart attack like we’d originally supposed. The one thing we decided was not to tell Hattie about the wire.

I took the floppy disk to Hattie’s room as soon as I’d eaten breakfast.
Hattie pounced on the disk. But once she booted her brother’s computer and opened the file from the disk, she groaned.
“These are the dummy plans.”
I looked at the text on the screen.
“Right there.” Hattie pointed. “That line of code in the notes section. It references the Valiant system, except that it’s not spelled correctly.”
She was right. The word on the screen was spelled “Valient.”
“Are you sure it’s not a typo?” I asked.
“That’s the idea,” she said. “Anyone knowing about the system, and there are good odds someone does, would look at this and just see a minor error. But Miles made it very clear that the dummy plans include this specific misspelling.”
I made a face. “Okay. At least, we’ve found those. I guess it’s still possible that your brother didn’t bring the real plans with him.”
Hattie sighed. “They’re not where he was living. Marian called me yesterday, asking what to do with Miles’ things. We sent him to London after that time you had him. I asked about anything like that, and Marian said that there was nothing in the files related to this project, and darned little related to any of the projects he may have been working on. Bloody inconvenient, she called it.” Hattie squeezed her eyes shut. “She has no idea.”
“I’m so sorry, Hattie.”
Her smile was wan as she shook her head. “Lisa, darling, I appreciate that you’re trying to be sympathetic. Sadly, sympathy will not get us those plans back in our safe-keeping, and that is our priority.”
I sighed. “I’ll keep searching as best I can.”
“I know.”
I left, sighing. I knew Hattie was worried, but she had to know that I couldn’t just magically produce plans, especially if said plans had never come to the resort in the first place.
As I got to the bottom floor, I saw Judy Osbourne heading for the activities center and thought I’d say hello and maybe find out about the wire I’d seen on the TV from Lipplinger’s room. I was about to go into the room when I heard Ms. Wannamaker’s voice.
“The cops were here yesterday about it,” the older woman said. “You know what that means. Something’s up. It wasn’t just a natural death.”
I tried not to groan. That was the last thing the resort needed, let alone Sid’s and my mission.
“Uh-huh,” Judy grumbled.
“He was a professor, a Professor Lipplinger, they said,” Ms. Wannamaker continued.
“Never heard of the guy.” Judy’s answer came much too quickly.
I went into the room. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
Judy looked at Ms. Wannamaker, then me, and gulped. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
She rushed from the room as I gaped after her.
“That’s suspicious,” said Ms. Wannamaker with a smirk.
“What are you talking about?” I growled.
“The cops were here yesterday. It had to be about the old man that died last week.”
“Will you please?” I looked around. Fortunately, the hallway and the room were empty. “We don’t want the guests freaking out.”
“Oh! You’re right.” She giggled. “I’m sorry. It’s just so interesting, though. I’m researching police procedure for my book.”
“Book?”
“Yes. I’m writing a mystery novel.”
I bit my tongue darned near in half. As much as the vision of smashing Wannamaker’s head into a wall filled my brain, I really do prefer non-violence. A mystery novel? I shook my head to clear it and checked my watch.
It wasn’t even ten a.m. on my day off. I had laundry to do, and I really wanted to get some sewing in. I make a lot of my clothes, and since Mama still had her sewing machine at her house, I’d brought up one of my machines and was taking advantage of it. Sewing is my therapy.
But that morning, I knew darned well I was going to be doing housekeeping spot checks in between loads of laundry. Housekeeping spot checks were my excuse for searching guests’ rooms. It was necessary, but certainly not one of my favorite things to do. Then again, I needed to do the spot checks, anyway. It was part of the job.
I started on the third floor of the main lodge, Motley at my side. Neither of us found much, nor was I surprised. The rooms, thank God, were completely empty of people. I even searched 305, where Hattie was, and only found some of our normal equipment and a .45 automatic pistol.
However, I was almost done with room 306 when I heard the key in the lock. I quickly went back to wiping down the bathroom counter when Ms. Sanchez walked in.
“Hi,” I told her. “I’m the housekeeping manager. I’m just checking the room to make sure that it was cleaned to our standards.”
She smiled, then looked at Motley. “With a dog?”
I shrugged. “He’s a great dog, and it makes the job a little easier.”
She put her hand down for Motley to sniff. “Oh, he’s very sweet.”
Motley sat and looked up at her with his big brown eyes. She laughed and gave his head a good scratch.
“It looks like you’re his new best friend,” I said, smiling.
“I love dogs,” Ms. Sanchez said, also smiling. “He is such a good boy.”
Motley flopped down and rolled onto his back.
“Oh, my god,” I laughed. “He does not do that for everyone.”
Ms. Sanchez bent and scratched Motley’s belly. His back paw pedaled in ecstasy.
“Well, who wouldn’t want to scratch this sweet boy’s tummy?”
I couldn’t help chuckling, then headed out of the room, Motley trotting alongside me. A quick check of my watch told me that I also had a load of laundry to get out of the dryer if I wanted to finish that job before next year. Day off, my left foot. Even without the spot checks, I was working just as hard as if it were a regular workday.
I hurried across the resort to my parents’ house, took Motley’s leash off, then pulled the load of dark clothing from the dryer, set those aside and got the light clothing out of the washer and into the dryer. The next load in was the white clothing.
My next problem was figuring out whose underwear was whose. The polo shirts weren’t that big an issue since we’d more or less assigned colors to each person, with me wearing green, Janey wearing pink, and so forth and so on. Nor was my dad’s, my stuff, and Janey’s such a problem. Sid’s and Nick’s underwear was. They both wore colorful silk boxer shorts of the same size. And both of them were somewhat grossed out by the idea of wearing the other’s underwear, even Sid, who concedes his private parts have been some pretty interesting places. My problem was telling apart whose shorts were whose, because even if they were all different patterns, I could never remember if Sid had the turquoise paisley and the green window pane blocks or if Nick had them.
The khaki polished cotton slacks that both were wearing in the restaurant were also a problem. The only advantage I had there was that Nick’s legs had gotten longer than Sid’s. I had marked the insides of the waistbands with permanent marker, but that afternoon, I realized the marker hadn’t been so permanent. So, I had to measure each pair of pants against the others to sort them out.
Early on that summer, I’d asked Conchetta Ramirez, our housekeeper back home, how she’d kept straight the undershorts, pants, and other clothes the guys wore. She told me that she washed Nick’s and Sid’s stuff separately, mixing those items in with mine, depending on how much there was to fill out a load.
Which goes to explain why I glared at my father when he wandered into the dining room where I was sorting laundry because the table there was big enough measure pant lengths and so on.
“What are you doing?” Daddy asked. “Today’s your day off.”
“Like that matters. These clothes aren’t going to clean themselves,” I grumbled.
“Not getting enough rest and burning yourself out isn’t going to help, either.” He looked closely at me. “I heard you were doing spot checks today.”
“I have to.” I kept my eyes focused on measuring pant legs. “Even if Lourdes does them, the rest of the crew knows she’s not going to confront anybody, and they slough off. Beatrice does it all the time, and we even got a complaint last week about one of her rooms.”
“Beatrice is doing just fine.” Daddy folded his arms across his chest. “At least, Mira thinks so. And I do not want you working on your days off. It’s not healthy.”
It may not have been, but I couldn’t tell him that you don’t always get days off in the spy biz. I let Sid and Nick sort out their own undershorts, though. As I watched, I decided to stitch a ribbon marker into Sid’s slacks, then realized I could do the same thing with his undershorts. Sid took one look at me and decided that would be fine.
Daddy took us all to dinner and to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which had come out the month before while Sid, Nick, and I were in Europe. I don’t know why we hadn’t gotten around to seeing it earlier that month. [We were too tired. – SEH]
It was a fun evening and just what we needed. But I didn’t get any time to talk to Sid alone until it was time to go to bed. As we got undressed and under the covers, Sid asked me about my day, and I told him.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said as we cuddled. “Daddy doesn’t want me doing spot checks on days off, and Hattie’s worried sick about those missing plans.”
“I know.” Sid nuzzled my ear. “She said the same to me today. I had to explain to her that we could only do so much. We have our covers to keep intact. Besides, I’m not entirely sure that random searches are going to turn anything up. I mean, we’ve had a pretty solid turnover of guests since they went missing. Did you find anything?”
“Just some pot. I think it’s the Winslow kid’s. Her parents seem too uptight to be smoking it.”
“Not sure who they are.” Sid sighed. “I don’t know that it’s important.” He suddenly frowned. “Unless she’s Nick’s current flame.”
I shook my head. “No. She’s a little too vague for him to be interested. That’s the other reason I think it’s hers. But we’re getting off the subject. We’ve got a problem trying to get rooms searched. I’m the only one who can do it because I’m the one with the excuse to go in. But you’re right about random searches. There’s just too much ground to cover and there is no way to do spot checks on every room and cabin here in one week, even if I do them on my days off.”
“We’ve got the Delgados, but they can’t do room searches.”
“Not easily.”
Sid thought for a moment. “What if we could get some help doing background checks on the guests and maybe some of the employees? That might give us a better idea of whose room or cabin to search.”
“Sounds good, but how?”
Sid smiled. “Getting the resort computers talking to each other and integrated. It’s like I was telling you yesterday. Everything is on a different system, and it would work a lot better if it were all connected. So, if we can get a couple software specialists in to do that and they just happen to be experts at doing background checks, that would help, wouldn’t it?”
“I can see that.” I frowned. “Are you thinking Desmond Moore?”
“And Esther.”
Esther Nguyen is one of Sid’s and my dearest friends. Desmond isn’t nearly as close, but still a friend. Both are part of our organization and insanely good at computers and software and even the hardware in Esther’s case.
“That’s an idea.” I rolled onto my back and stretched my neck. “She’s still looking for her great consumer application.”
Esther worked as an engineer for a defense company and badly wanted out of that industry.
“I know.” Sid kissed my shoulder. “Not to mention, trying to get this place wired will give her and Desmond an excuse to search places they otherwise couldn’t.”
I rolled back onto my side, facing him. “What about Frank?”
Frank Lonnergan is Esther’s husband.
“He can help with tailing Dusty.”
“That would be good.” I stroked the scar on his left bicep where a bullet had grazed him back in 1983, then kissed it.
Sid kissed the scar over my eye that I’d gotten that same case. I smiled at him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“That big trip we took our first year together.” I reached over and scratched his chin to appreciative purring. “I remember that first night having to share the bed. I couldn’t have conceived of laying here like this next to you.”
“I couldn’t have, either. And yet, here we are.”
“I’m really liking being married to you.”
Sid laughed softly. “Really? Finally?”
“Well.” I winced. The last thing I’d wanted to do with my life was get married, and I’d spent the first year after the wedding getting used to having done it. “It’s just that this past year or so, I really haven’t had time to think about our marriage or anything but grad school. I think that’s one of the things that’s got me off-kilter with this case. It’s that I miss working with you. I know you’re here and all, but we’re each doing different things, not working together.” I made a face. “I miss that.”
“We worked that way in Kansas.” That case had only happened the year before, in the winter of ‘87.
“Yeah. But I hadn’t had an entire school year of being out of the house, going to classes, doing reading and papers, not being able to do any freelance writing.” I sighed. “It’s good that I went back to school. I’ve been wanting to get my doctorate for a lot of years and now’s as good a time as any to do it. But I am feeling the separation, I guess. And working like we are now is only exacerbating it.”
Sid chuckled. “I know what you’re saying, and I suspect you have a point, my beloved. But I can’t help it. One of the many things I love about you is the fact that you not only know how to use a word like exacerbate, but that you actually do in conversation.”
“Hmph!”
If I snorted in response, it was that my extended vocabulary had become something of an issue at a Liturgy Committee meeting earlier that year. Some of the members had thought I was showing off by using some fancy words that I considered utterly normal. Apparently, according to one “nice” person, that wasn’t in the least bit normal. I was shocked. I am a PhD candidate. Sid is a writer. We’d damn well better have good vocabularies and if it leaks into our spoken language that isn’t a problem. It’s just normal for us.
Sid laughed full out, and I laughed as well. The next thing I knew, he was kissing me full on. Yes, it was lovely being married to him.
The next morning, Sid and I took Nick and Janey with us to go running near the lake. When we got back, I hid out in my mother’s sewing room and sewed labels into Sid’s pants and undershorts, then put some time in on a blouse I was making from some gorgeous silk I’d gotten in Paris and a pattern from a German sewing magazine that had been translated to English. Sid popped in just long enough to tell me that he’d left lunch for me.
“Esther and Desmond are on board,” he added. “But they want to know what is already here, so Daddy and I are going down to the main lodge to try to figure it out. Nick and Janey are already down there.”
“Okay.” I glared at the two pieces I was pinning together. “Oh, peewaddles.”
Sid laughed and left.
Around one, I went and got my lunch, but then Daddy called from the main lodge to ask me to go down there and tell him what we could use on the housekeeping side of things.
“Take your time, honey,” he said. “Eat your lunch first. We’ll be in the office.”
I rolled my eyes. My father was well aware that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but he still tried to take care of me. And, I guess, I was possibly working too much. [You most certainly were. We both were that summer. – SEH]
I ate and washed my dish, leaving it in the drainboard, then got ready to leave the house by snapping a leash on Motley. Bowser wasn’t in his crate, so I guessed that Nick and Janey had brought the puppy with them to the main lodge. Richmond snoozed on his pad next to the couch and Spot was outside somewhere. I put Richmond out just in case none of us got back to the house before Richmond had to go. Richmond curled up next to the picnic table and promptly went back to sleep.
I cut through the cabin paths and saw Lita on the edge of the playground watching her kids. She caught my eye and I sauntered around the edge of the playground as if I were going that way, anyway.
“You’re one of the managers, aren’t you?” Lita asked.
“Ms. Delgado, right?” I smiled. “How can I help you?”
Lita stepped a little closer. “I’ve got to tell you, this place is really great. The kids are having a blast.” She bent to pet Motley, then lowered her voice. “I mean that.”
“So, what’s up?” I said softly.
“See the guy on the lounge at eleven o’clock your time? The one with all the papers in his lap?”
He had brown hair and a deep tan.
“I think that’s Mr. DiNovo,” I said.
Lita nodded. “His wife is Francine. He doesn’t interact well with his kids and his wife practically ignores him.”
“As in, they may not be a real family.”
“Exactly.” Lita petted Motley some more. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two parents in the restaurant together, either, and we’ve eaten here the whole time.”
I smiled broadly, then let my voice rise a little. “Well, thank you, Ms. Delgado. I appreciate your comments.”
“More than happy to.” She grinned as I moved on.
I went first to my father’s office, but neither Sid nor he were there.
“I think they’re in the restaurant,” Irene told me.
“Thanks, Irene.” I paused. “Oh. I almost forgot. I need to verify a room check on the DiNovo family.”
Irene clicked keys on the computer in front of her. “Yeah. Here they are. Cabin Three.”
“How long are they staying?”
“They’re reserved through August thirteenth.”
“Thanks.”
I went through the front of the restaurant for some reason. Heading toward the back, I passed Ms. Sanchez eating by herself. The Deng family was at the next table, and their toddler suddenly started screaming. Ms. Sanchez smiled, then turned to the toddler.
“Why are you screaming, young lady?” the older woman asked.
Startled by a total stranger speaking to her, the toddler shut up.
“Is it naptime?” Ms. Sanchez asked the little girl. “I’ll bet it is. You seem very tired.”
“It is,” said the child’s mother, looking pretty tired herself. “I’m so sorry she disturbed you.”
Ms. Sanchez laughed. “She didn’t bother me in the least. I know how it goes on vacation. They just get so overwhelmed.”
She made a funny face at the little girl, and Mr. and Ms. Deng both smiled in relief as the toddler laughed. I moved on.
Sid and Daddy were in the breakroom, huddled over a yellow legal pad.
“Well?” I asked.
They had me go over everything on the housekeeping end. Lourdes had offered some suggestions, and I had to agree that they were good ones. I had little more to offer, though, and took off to see where Nick and Janey were.
I found them in the activities center playing their guitars for a group of about ten kids of all ages. Bowser puppy lay at their feet, chewing on a chew toy. I thought I recognized the tune Nick and Janey were strumming, but couldn’t quite place it.
“Here’s a little song I wrote,” Nick sang. “You might want to sing it note for note.”
“Don’t Worry. Be happy,” Janey and the rest of the kids sang.
Now, I know that tune was recorded acapella, with Bobby McFerrin singing all of the parts on different tracks. Somehow, Nick had figured out a guitar part for it, and I was pretty sure it was Nick who had done it. He does stuff like that.
The odd thing is, Nick almost never plays his guitar except with our family or for himself. Janey is only slightly more likely to play for her friends. They don’t see themselves as that good at playing music.
It’s understandable. Both are surrounded by some talented musicians. Sid and Stella both teach classical piano to gifted students. Stella’s lover, Sy Flournoy, is head of the strings department at Juilliard. My sister Mae, who is Janey’s mother, is a very gifted singer and while she’d put that aside for a lot of years, she was getting back into it. Then there is Darby, Janey’s older brother. He and Nick are the same age and best friends, too. Darby is also an exceptionally talented violinist, as in we fully expect him to become a professional performer.
I smiled as I watched my niece and son playing. Once the tune was finished, Ms. Wannamaker announced it was time for painting class, so Nick and Janey put their guitars away in cases. Janey went to help get the paints, brushes, and art pads distributed. Nick picked up his guitar case and Bowser’s leash and came to the doorway.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie.” I smiled as I brushed back the lock of hair that almost always fell over his forehead. “It looked like you were having a good time.”
“I was.” He shrugged and nodded toward the group of kids sliding into the hall. “They don’t care if I’m not that good.”
“You are that good, Nick,” I said, holding his cleft chin. “Even your dad says that. You’re just not a professional, nor should you be.”
“That’s what Darby says.” Nick made a face. “It’s more about having fun than it is about being good. Of course, that’s easy for him to say.”
I chuckled. “It is. But that doesn’t mean you’re not a good guitar player. In fact, you’re a darned good guitar player. You’re just not a whiz-bang, super-talented guitar player. On the other hand, you are a whiz-bang, super-talented chemist, and I’m very proud of you for that, too.”
He shuffled a little. “Thanks, Mom.”
I gave him a solid hug, and he hugged me back as only he can.
“Hey, guys.” Sid came into the hall and walked up.
“We’re doing a hug moment,” I said, then looked at Nick. “Is it okay if he joins us?”
Nick smiled. “Sure.”
The three of us did a group hug. Yeah, things were a little rocky between Sid and Nick. But ultimately, we all loved each other so very much and I knew that would eventually win out over the adolescent angst. I squeezed both my guys, utterly grateful that they were in my life.
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.