Under Age and Undercover: A Hannah Clark Novel (under edit)

Seaport

A double update for y'all today- lucky you! ;) This one's a bit boring but I promise the story will pick up again in the next couple of chapters.

I caught another cab to downtown Seaport, grateful now more than ever to the fact that I wouldn’t be meeting with the governor of California alone. I felt terrible after my meeting with Christine and another standard lie-to-their-face meeting was sure to make me feel even worse.  I called Shane as soon as the driver dropped me off while sitting down outside of a cute little music box boutique. He and I had agreed to meet in the plaza so I stayed only for a moment to gather my surroundings then got up and made my way to the square.  Shane wasn’t due to meet me for a few minutes so I took my time to observe the happy families and awestruck tourists smiling up at the sun and enjoying the simplicity of life. I was overcome with jealousy that I could never be so blissfully oblivious to my surroundings. While they walked with a lazy gait and smiled at the simplicity of life I was calculating the seconds it would take me to run from where I stood to the end of the alleyway and make an escape atop the roofs of the shops if need be, as well as counting the number of vantage points from where I stood that I could potentially be shot at from.

“Hannah!” I heard Shane call to me, and found him waving to get my attention from across the square. I forced a smile and waved back, grateful that Shane managed to deter my thoughts from the complications of my life for a moment.  As we walked towards our rendezvous point Shane and I remained silent, giving each other time to organize our thoughts.  I spent most of that time trying to anticipate and work out answers to the governor’s questions.  We bantered back and forth after a while, asking each other the hardest questions we could think of, and I came to appreciate having another person to bounce ideas off of.  We reached our destination, an Italian restaurant we agreed on meeting the governor at, five minutes early.  The server brought us to our reserved table as soon as the door to the restaurant had shut. The governor came moments after we sat down flanked by two very burly men-obviously bodyguards. I found it very ironic that a man as big as he was needed two body guards to meet with us when the petite Christine I just met with did not even need one to stand by her side while she and I spoke.  Granted we were in a private room when I met with her, and she wasn’t the California state governor. We chatted aimlessly for a little while, talking about the weather contrast between California and home, travel plans for the summer and past vacations, etc. The governor was quite the conversationalist. Once our food arrived we dove into more relevant topics, most questions he asked being similar if not the same as at my previous meeting. This session went much smoother than the last, what with having Shane to back me up and myself having already gone through a similar process less than an hour ago. He was also much more laid back than Christine, which made answering questions much less awkward. We gave our farewells and headed back towards the middle of the plaza to go over notes and continue with the day’s agenda. Shane was abnormally quiet the whole way back, so as we sat at a park bench I kindly asked him what had him so bothered.

“I wouldn’t say I’m particularly bothered.” He told me, “The governor just reminded me a lot of my father.  He used to be as talkative as Governor S and businesslike at the same time. It’s a rare trait to come by.”  I smiled stiffly.  Like most agents, I wasn’t a fan of sharing family information and Shane bringing up his father only brought back bitter memories.  “He died when I was ten in a car accident on his way home from a business conference.  Turned out the accident was a set up by a foreign agency that had a long-standing grudge against the family.  Finding that out is what motivated me to join the secret service.

“I never really knew my dad,” I began, trying hard to keep my emotions in check. “My mom was never married. According to her my biological father lives somewhere on the east coast but I’ve only really met him twice. When Bryce was born he sent a child support check, but my mom refuses now to have any contact with him. I’m not sure why, having two kids of his, but she hates him. I hate him for what he put my mom through all alone.” Shane looked shocked by my confession but took it in stride.

“I’m sorry Hannah.” He said with a sad smile, only sounding a little forced. The topic obviously made him uncomfortable. “That must be really hard.” I shrugged; afraid that if I spoke my voice would crack and give away my impending mental breakdown. We sat again in silence for a few moments, regaining our professional and composed demeanor; pretending to forget each other’s personal life story.  I took a deep breath and swallowed my pent up anger that had threatened to spill out from the mention of my father.  What I didn’t tell Shane is that my father was also the reason I joined the FSS.  My motivation was hardly as valiant as his though.  We both walked out to the parking lot so that Shane could relieve Monique of her babysitting duties while she and I attended two more meetings to wrap up the day.

A short drive later Shane and I found ourselves walking upstairs to our room, meeting

a shockingly calm Monique at the door.

“Hey!” She said exuberantly. “How were your meetings?”

Confused by her enthusiasm (from my experience with Matterson I expected her to be ripping her hair out by now), I gave her a look that said ‘how do you think?’ and shrugged my shoulders.

“Definitely no walk in the park.” Shane replied, smirking at his own wit. We had, in fact, taken a walk in the park just that afternoon.