Chapter 1

April Carlisle sat down in the expensive leather chair and gave her companion, Raphael Colson, the most enticing smile she knew how to give. She was dressed elegantly – cocktail dress, some jewelry, but she was very well turned out. Her hair was under control, and, for the first time in a long time, was her natural red color.

The Maitre 'D pushed her chair in and Raph sat down, after doing the half bob thing that men often do when women are seating – half standing up and half sitting, to show respect, but not push their chair out.

"You look ... stunning," said Raph, breathlessly.

It was all too bad. It was going to make what he had to do that much harder.

"Why thank you, kind sir," she whispered back. She took one of his hands across the small intimate table and squeezed it. "Let me be clear on one thing, Raph. I'm very very easy. For you, anyway. Take the pressure off. You are going to get lucky."

Raph eyes flicked away for a split second and in that instant April knew where this was going. She had microseconds to decide what she was going to do, and in that instant, she just decided 'to hell with it.'

"So, were you planning on telling me now or later?" She spoke in a conversational tone, taking a sip of water and waving off the wine waiter.

Raph's eyes blazed for a second and he looked directly into her eyes. She was non-threatening, but closed. And then he just shrugged and smiled ruefully.

"I dunno. Honestly, hadn't thought it all through, apart from the part where I was going to tell you we are done."

April sat back, playing with the water glass with both hands, and just looked at Raph, and then she said, "Can I ask why?"

"Do you really have to? April, I like you. You know it. I've used the L word twice so far, and all it got me was a blowjob. A great blowjob, to be fair, but that's it. We both know you won't use it back. And we both know you heard me, or you wouldn't have swallowed."

April's face didn't move a muscle. She wanted to see how he would do this.

"Right. From the look on your face, I can see that word isn't likely to come out of you anytime soon. The fact is, where are we going? Where is this relationship going? I wanted to take you to meet my mom, in Sacramento, and then you had this thing to do and I've not seen you in what is it, eight, nine weeks? I get the occasional call and email once in a while, and that's it. What the hell did you expect?"

Guilt trip, then. She put the water down and leaned forward.

"I expected you to be happy. When I'm here, I'm all yours. You know the deal. I explained all that when we first got together. I won't lie to you, but there is a lot I can't tell you. You knew that going in. That was the deal."

"Well, that deal might work when you are just casually dating, but we aren't. At least I'm not. I love you, April. I have since the moment I met you on that bus."


They'd met on the rental bus at O'Hare airport. She'd just finished her assignment – dealing with a high court judge who'd been dumped by his wife for the court stenographer, of all people – and was on her way back to DC. She'd got on the rental bus back to the terminal and seen him immediately. He'd had the gumption to actually smile at her, genuinely, and she'd shivered. In her line of work, she saw all sorts of pick-ups and come on's, and this was unusual. Someone who put themselves out there and just smiled, opening themselves up. She decided such audacity needed to be rewarded and she'd smiled back, then sat down.

She was aware of him staring at her the whole time, and she didn't return his stares, but allowed a smile to play on her lips. If he was any good, he'd know what the smile meant, and he'd come after her. And sure enough, as they were standing in line at the United check-in desk, somehow he managed to be next to her.

She decided to have some fun and she suddenly turned to him and said, "Excuse me, do you have a smart phone?"

He looked at her, holding his ticket in his mouth, a garment bag over one shoulder, a roll on bag at his feet and another backpack – the kind with laptops in it – and, realizing he couldn't speak, he nodded. Then he put all the bags down and fished around in his pocket and handed her a brand new iPhone. He said, removed the ticket from his mouth. "You aren't going to call anywhere expensive are you?" His voice had a very sight southern twang.

She just smiled at him, got the camera app loaded and took a self picture – what the kids were calling a 'selfie' these days, and then handed the phone back to him.

"There," she said. "That should be enough for you, and it'll never go away. Now you can stare at that, instead."

They all shuffled forward as he looked at the picture and then hemmed and hawed and then he said, "No, I don't think that's enough. I need several. In different outfits. A bikini shot, for example. No, I think what's needed here is a number of dates, in different outfits, and we can take a picture at each one, and then I'll have a collection."

April actually laughed at that and said, "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you, slick?"

He spread his hands and said, "Honestly, what have I got to lose? You are about to get on a plane and fly out of my life, most likely. Might as well go for broke."

April considered for a moment then said, "Where is home?"

"D.C."

"Ok then, consider yourself reprieved. I live there too."

"Alrighty then!" he said, in the manner of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura.

She raised an eyebrow and said, "Seriously?"

"Oh, you'll love my Jim Carey. I do a good Jack Nicholson too."

"Hmm. I can see why you aren't married."

The guy got a shocked and hurt expression on his face.

So she said, "I take it back. We can't date if you don't appreciate good movies."

[Insert a line of dialogue from Raphael here.]

"Oh, I appreciate them as much as the next girl, Mr... ?" she waited for him to fill in the blank space and he did.

"Raph Colson. Raphael, if you are my mother. Which you aren't. Thankfully. Going on dates with her would be awkward. She's just not that cute any more."

"Well, Mr. Colson, I think I can safely say that I both like movies and I will not be emulating anyone's mother any time soon. I'm April, by the way."

The banter had gone on. They'd ended up on the same flight – not sitting next to each other, but the person she had sat next to had realized very quickly that Raph was interested in her, and offered to switch seats, and she got subjected to his sense of humor the entire way home, which wasn't the worst thing; he did make her laugh.

By the time they touched down, he had her number and a date, and she was wondering if she was really going to go through with it.

They'd dated eight times before she had to inform Ingrams of her status, and instigate the background check.

April worked for Ingrams & Associates, a semi secret private group that indulged in clandestine aid – usually of a sexual nature – to people who would never accept the help openly. They were available for hire for governments, agencies, large corporations; anyone who could afford their rather high rates. They worked behind the scenes, gathering profile information on the target and the situation, then they injected a field agent into the lives of the people who needed their help, to work behind the scenes and help repair the damage they were there to fix.

Usually they were hired by top level execs, looking to prop up a VP whose marriage had disintegrated and who was questioning their own position in life, or by agencies like the CIA, who were bringing in agents from longer term deep field assignments, who returned only to find their spouses pregnant with some one else's baby, or by governments, whose chief scientist had just discovered his own bi-sexuality and was completely confused about what to do about it, bearing in mind he had been married for twenty years, and was therefore ripe for blackmail.

The assignments were varied, and usually there was a large degree of investigative elements involved. Ingrams was secret, the field agents very well trained, and it completely fucked the social lives of the employees, and the company made no bones about it.

Generally, field agents lasted four to five years in the field before burn-out occurred, or, worse still, godhood was declared by the agent in question, who was so used to manipulating others around them, they couldn't do anything else.

Lies and deceit were the order of the day, and it made being part of normal society very difficult. April had been with Ingrams almost two years at this point, and was still a relative newbie. She had four operations under her belt and was feeling good about her performance in the last one, which, for once, had gone off without a hitch - and she'd met Raph in that high and decided to go for it. He was cute, he was smart, he made her laugh, why not?

She sat across from Dermot McDonald, Ingrams operations manager and second in command, at lunch one day and told him she was in a relationship and she needed them to do the first background check. Dermot was a large bluff man, with a kind face and a red nose, white hair in a tonsure [what is that?], and he still had some degree of his original Scottish accent, despite being in the US for almost thirty-five years now.

Ingrams had strict rules about relationships that developed while employed by them. What Ingrams did was more than flirting with the law. They broke it with an axe on occasion. Part of why they were so secretive was because of this, but it was also because the work they did, by definition, was clandestine.

They had rules for the field agents – no photos on the facebook page, no blogs, in short, be as off line as they could realistically be in the 21^st century.

And if they dated, Ingrams had to know about it. There were three levels of relationship status, each with their own set of policies. The first was a casual relationship that was moving into exclusivity status. At that level, there was a positive vetting of the prospective partner – Ingrams basically reviewed the public knowledge of a person's life and attempted to prove that what they said about themselves was, in fact, so. Where they went to school, where they lived, who their family was and so on.

When told of this stage, April had been surprised to learn that almost twenty percent of prospective partners failed this part of the process, to a greater or lesser degree. As Doctor House says, "everybody lies."

The second stage was a declaration of intent – a marriage proposal, or moving in together. At this point, they'd do a deeper vet of the proposed spouse, looking for all the dirt that most people like to keep quiet. The bitter ex's, the drug charge, the illegitimate child in the shadows.

The third stage was an ongoing every other year vet – looking for changes in the status.

Ingrams did all this to protect everyone — themselves, the field agent, their charges. What they did more than skirted the law and a field agent could find themselves compromised easily due to blackmail of a spouse or if the spouse himself either discovered what went on at Ingrams, or had his own agenda.

It was a shitty thing to do to any employee, but it was clearly indicated before an new worker came on board; this is what we do and you know about it and accept it.

What was more interesting was that even though Ingrams told their employees what they were doing, they did not share the results with them, unless the person they were dating was considered to be a direct threat to Ingrams, and the relationship needed to be terminated. It was considered to be a huge invasion of privacy and while they had to do it, the employee would not be given all the inside scoop on their partner that Ingrams found. It was thought to be too much of an unbalancing situation, where one partner would know everything about the other, but not vice versa.

So far, in all the years that Ingrams had existed, they had only once asked an employee to break off a relationship, and that was because they'd discovered that the man in question was in actual fact Naval Intelligence. The Navy knew of Ingrams. All the major agencies did, and they were obviously attempting to penetrate it via the Captain, and he was succeeding. Ingrams needed to send a message back, and the employee was only too happy to send that message, once she realized she was being used.

In fact, Ingrams had only had to do a second background review six times in their entire history – one had failed outright and the others, while passing, the relationship had failed either just before the intended betrothal, or just past it.

Ingrams even had a specific set of protocols in place for what operatives could tell their intended. While it was a nice idea that the spouses be brought in and have everything explained to them, as a company it was just too dangerous of a possibility. What person could handle suddenly finding out that their intended was a trained sex counselor, and was often out in the field, applying those skills to try and bring resolution to other people's relationships? What relationship could survive that? Worse still, what might happen once that spouse knew what went on at Ingrams? Ingrams would have no leverage, and they'd have one pissed off spouse spoiling to get back at them. As a company it made no sense for anyone to be told the realities of what Ingrams did – and they just had to trust their field agents would understand that and not reveal themselves without authorization.

When asked, if a field agent was not on an operation or had a cover identity constructed, they informed whomever was asking that they were therapists, working with high profile clients, and as such they wouldn't talk about it – therapist / client confidentiality. And as such, it wasn't a lie – Ingrams, like most other clandestine organizations, knew that the best lies were the ones made of some truth. Some degree of truth was necessary here, and as such, what they revealed was enough to deter most people from going too much further. As such, April had explained to Raph that she was a psychologist and therapist, and that she couldn't talk about it much, both because of who some of the clients were, and also because discussing it just wasn't either legal or right. Raph had accepted it, or seemed to.

It was common knowledge that traditional relationships were all but impossible to maintain, given what the field agents were required to do as part of their duties – quite apart from the sexual aspect, agents were expected to be self sufficient in the field and that also meant they couldn't maintain any external relationships. You can't pretend to be a secretary named Martha Jones if your boyfriend was calling the office and calling you April. However, almost all agents tried at least once; it's human nature to want the companionship of another. From where Dermot was sitting, hearing April announce she was in a relationship and needing to make them aware of it, was his first indication that she was hitting this wall.

He took a sip of his diet coke, looked around from where they were sitting in the brew pub April had selected, and said, "Ok. I understand. I'm going to tell you this now April and I don't expect you to believe me, nor do I expect to change your mind, but I've got to say it, if only for my own conscience. This won't work out. You might want to think about doing yourself a favor and walking away now, because it'll end badly. These situations always do. Now I don't expect you to understand that; you'll need to go through this and come out the other end with more respect for the emotions. But just know I'm looking out for you and I'll – well, we'll all be there for you at the other end.

"Now, give me his details and I'll get started. Enjoy it while you can."

April had sat there and looked at him and not known what the best response was. She knew he was just looking out for her, but she also considered it too much. It was too much judgment. Too much parental advice. It was just too much. She was going to do it, she was going to prove them wrong and she was damn well going to enjoy it in the process. In the end she just smiled brightly, masking her thought processes and gave him the details she had.

A week later, while she was working operations for a mission Megan was on, Dermot stuck his head around the door of the operations room – a large room with monitors and computers and people looking busy all the time – and said, "April, got the background. Go ahead. He's exactly what you think he is. One manager of a mall jewelry store, nothing more."

Dermot didn't even wait till she responded – she was squinting into the light from the doorway after being confined to the dim light of the operations room; he just popped his head around the door frame and was gone.


That had been five months ago. And now, here they were, having dinner after April had just returned from an operation in Seattle, where she'd been second string to Desiree Richardson, who had been the principle player in their little drama. April had been required to concentrate on pulling a twenty one year old out of his depression, following the revelations that his mother had been abusing him for years. His mother had attempted suicide, after his father had discovered what was going on; how she's had a sexual relationship with her son for the past three years. This kind of situation was more common than was believed and as such, they would have been left to fend for themselves, had not the father in this situation not been the lieutenant governor of the great state of Washington. What was worse, what was not commonly known was that the actual governor was a figure piece – someone who looked good that people could vote for, but was actually utterly incompetent. His team knew it, he knew it and it was the lieutenant governor who actually did all the work.

When this situation was discovered, there was frantic scrambling to figure out what to do, and Ingrams had been approached.

The task had taken seven weeks to get everyone back on an even keel, and she'd been out of touch for quite some time. And that's when the rubber had met the road.

This was the second time she'd had to leave Raph, with barely any explanation. She'd made the decision that she wasn't going to lie to Raph barefacedly – she may omit a lot of what she should have told him, but she wasn't going to make things up, unless absolutely forced to.

When she left the first time, for a five-week operation, she'd just told him she had a high profile client that wanted to be treated in his own home. She couldn't say more; she just had to go – this is what her job was.

The second time, in Seattle, she'd said virtually the same thing. She could see Raph was less accepting the second time and she knew she'd have her work cut out to make him happy on her return but she didn't mind that. She knew how, and she really did enjoy making him happy. It gave her something she didn't get from the professional engagements she had. She knew she wasn't in love, but she knew she was getting more from this relationship than she was putting into it. She also knew she had to do something about that. Balance was very important to April and she knew she was short changing Raph.

When she'd gotten back, she'd made a vow to herself to make it up to Raph, to give him a few nights he'd never forget. She was even considering asking Megan to join in. And then they'd sat down for dinner and she could see it all coming to an end.

"Where do you see this going, April?"

She was sitting there, trying to decide how to answer.

"I don't know. Somewhere, I don't know. I mean, we are happy, right? What we have now?"

"See, that's just it. You won't look to the future because you know there isn't one. You go off on your secret little jaunts and do god knows what – April, you are a therapist, not the CIA. What are you doing for eight weeks? Where the hell were you? I understand there's stuff you can't tell me, but to get nothing out of you for weeks at a time? How am I supposed to deal with that? What happens if we get married? Am I supposed to have a wife who just vanishes for months at a time? What if we have kids? What then, April?"

April knew she had no answers. She'd deliberately not thought about this, or when she had, she kidded herself that the relationship would just chug along, as it had done, and everyone would be happy. This was her job. This is what she did. Why couldn't he accept that? When she was here, she was his, unreservedly. When she was gone, well, she had things to do. It was what her job required. He would never know, so what difference did it make?

But it did, and she knew it.

"Kids? You've got us married and with kids, and we've only known each other six months, Raph?"

"No, we've known each other three and a half months April. You've been gone for the rest of the time."

She knew it was done. She wasn't going to change her job. She liked Raph, but in a show down between her job and him, he was going to lose. And she knew that she'd have to do it, just like Dermot had said.

She took a deep breath and decided that she had to let him off the hook easy. This could go quite nasty and she'd rather it ended in a way that he didn't absolutely hate her.

"OK. I understand. I think you need more than I can give you right now Raph. I'm sorry, I just ... I don't think I can give you what you need. I guess I was just hoping we'd maintain the status quo, but I can see why you want more. I get that for you, a relationship is a series of levels and you want to progress to the ultimate one. For me, it's more of a background thing. It's what it is, and it's there to support me in my goals and things I want to do." She acknowledged the elephant in the room.

"See, even that April, it's vague and unclear. 'Goals'? 'Things I want to do'? What are those? You've never shared anything like that with me. I have no idea what your goals are, what you want to do. We don't talk about stuff like that. And I don't think we can. I think that whatever it is that you do won't let you. I'm seriously starting to think you have some second life that needs to be kept separate from the first, the way you behave."

That alarmed April a bit, since he was pretty much spot on.

"So what do you suggest?" she asked, trying to pull the conversation back on track. If he was going to break up with her, might as well lance it now.

"I dunno April. What do you suggest?"

She took a sip of her drink and said, "Mexican standoff, then?"

He laughed. It was a phrase with them – anytime she wanted to do something and he didn't, and vice versa, they had called it a Mexican Standoff. She'd even bought them big mustaches and sombreros one weekend and dressed up while making breakfast.

"I guess. I suppose I came here looking to see if there was a higher direction for this relationship to go in. You're right, I do want more. You are awesome and I want more of it. But from your demeanor and reaction, I don't think it's on the cards, is it?"

April bit her lip. "Raph, you are such a great guy. You really are. But this is what I do, and I love it. I trained hard for it, and now I have it. We don't have the kind of relationship that will enable me to give it up right now. I do see that this is mostly my fault though; I just wanted to say that. We can't have the relationship you want because it would mean me giving up what I do, and I'm just not there yet – in terms of our relationship, nor doing what I set out to do. I've only been at this eighteen months and I'm just getting into my groove. I see the catch 22 of this, but I don't really know what to do about it. I'm sorry."

Raph sighed and his eyes dropped to the table.

"I figured. Well, worth trying. No hard feelings April, ok? I hope that one day you find what you are looking for."

He held out his hand over the table to April who just looked at it. She pushed her chair back, got up and came round the table and grabbed Raph, pulled him and up and crushed him to her, kissing him hard.

"You are very special, Raph. There will always be a place in my heart for you. I'm here if you need me."

Raph hugged April tight, then gently disengaged himself, stepped back and said, "We could have had it all. I just don't think you are ready for that. Be happy April. See you."

And with that, he turned and left, not looking back. April sank back into her seat and then the tears did flow.



A week later, April was sitting in her office, finishing up the expense reporting from the last mission, when Dermot knocked on the doorframe.

"Knock knock," he said, smiling in on her.

"Hey Dermot. What's up?" said April, looking up from the mess of receipts on her desk.

"Got a live one for you." He held up a folder bulging with documents.

April sighed internally. Since her break up with Raph, she just didn't seem to have the same zest for life. She knew she'd made the right decision – she simply didn't have the feelings for him that he had for her - but in doing so, it had made her face some realities in a way she'd never had to before.

It's one thing to sit in a meeting and be told, "This will destroy your social life", while you are still very excited about the opportunity being placed in front of you. In that situation you generally aren't thinking about what you are giving up, just what you are gaining. But eighteen months later, when the true cost of what you have given up is made clear to you, it sucks more than most will admit.

April knew she was feeling sorry for herself, and she also knew that perhaps a new mission was what she needed. If she did have to give up a normal relationship, perhaps what she needed was a reminder of what she gave it up for.

"OK!" said April, artificially brightly. She could see Dermot pick up on it as a cloud covered his face.

"You ok? I know that break up must have been tough..."

"Yeah, I'll be fine. You were right. I just ... need something to focus on, you know? What have you got for me?"

Dermot came into the room and sat down in the chair opposite on the visitor side of the desk. He put the folder down on the desk and pushed it towards her, trying to avoid all the little clumps of receipts April had arranged.

"Interesting one. South Pacific seas. Know much about Fiji?"

April made a face. "Coconuts? Diving? A volcano?"

Dermot laughed and said, "Not far off it. But I'm jumping ahead of myself right now. You are going to need a bikini for this one, but let me get back to the beginning. Ever heard of Northwestern State Bank?"

April thought hard. "No, I don't think so. Should I?"

"No real reason you should. They are based around the Pacific Northwest – Seattle, Portland and so on. They were originally a merchant bank who then got into regular banking when a bunch of banks went bust in 2010 in that area. They have about sixty or so locations now, which is fairly big. Lots of expansion in the past two years. Anyway, they do this ... thing. It's a reward thing for the managers of the top eight performing branches. They've been doing it for the past four years.

"The CEO and majority owner of Northwestern has his own private island down in the south pacific. It's anchored in a bay at Kadavu Island, which is just south of Fiji. So once a year, he lends it out to the top eight performers to go down and spend a week soaking up the rays, do some snorkeling and so on. The island itself – it's built by an Austrian company called Osoros – has four levels, houses eight luxury cabins and five cabins for the staff. There's a cook, a butler, two maids and a masseuse on staff. This thing is awesome – the details are in the packet. It's got solar power cells all over it, batteries in the bottom for storage, a backup generator – it's even got its own desalination plant built in, so there is no lack of fresh water."

April pursed her lips, sitting back and listening to the details. "Sounds awesome. What's our involvement?"

"I'm getting to it. So basically, this get away has pretty much devolved into a sex free for all over the past couple of years. All the managers there know what goes on, and there's fierce competition to get on the island."

"Ahhh," said April, starting to see the angle. "But ok, what are we fixing? What is going wrong?"

"It's complicated. There are two things. The first is that several of the marriages of people who've been on these jaunts have disintegrated. I mean, to a certain extent, you go to a sex orgy on a private island and you aren't prepared, well, that's to be expected. But coupled with that, several of the branches of this bank have been robbed over the past two years. There's a large overlap of those banks being robbed and those where marriages of the managers have disintegrated. The CEO - Tom Patterson – is convinced there is something going on at the event at his Island in connection with the marriages breaking up and banks being robbed. He's convinced that these are inside jobs – all of the robberies went smoothly, the robbers knew exactly where everything was, how much money was on hand and so on."