Stealing Home

The radar gun clocked him at ninety-two miles per hour. Fast, but not fast enough.

Elena adjusted her surveillance mirror, watching the pitcher from the rental car across the street. This wasn't how she'd imagined her thirty-fifth birthday — parked outside a minor league ballpark in Akron, tailing a man who might be selling military secrets to the highest bidder. The irony wasn't lost on her. She'd spent five years running down corporate spies for a private intelligence firm, and now she was doing the same dirty work herself.

Her phone buzzed. Mark, asking if she'd pick up cake for the twins' baseball team. She typed back: 'On it.' Lies came easier these days.

The pitcher wound up and fired. A strike. Elena remembered teaching Mark to throw, the way his small hand had gripped the ball, the pure joy in his eyes before everything fell apart. Before the divorce, before she'd taken the job that paid enough for solo parenting but demanded enough of her soul that she sometimes forgot who she'd been.

Running — that's what she told herself she was doing. Providing. Protecting. But really, she was just running in circles, rounding bases that led nowhere.

She'd crossed her own line last week, slipping a tracking device onto a competitor's laptop. Industrial espionage, they called it. Espionage. The word had tasted like ash in her mouth. Her boss had smiled, said, 'That's how the game is played, El.'

The game. Always a game. Baseball. Spycraft. Marriage. You stole bases, you stole secrets, you stole moments of happiness before the other team noticed and put you out.

The pitcher checked a runner on first. The lead-off, the threat of motion, the possibility that everything could change in a heartbeat. Elena felt that same tightness in her chest every time she logged into her secure email, every time she kissed Mark goodbye with the lingering taste of fabrication on her tongue.

Her target emerged from the ballpark, laughing with a woman who wasn't listed in any of his surveillance profiles. Elena snapped photos anyway, her finger finding the shutter release with the practiced ease of someone who'd stopped asking why long ago.

The runner stole second. The crowd roared.

Elena started the car, another successful day of running down people who were probably just running from their own mistakes. She'd deliver the photos, collect her paycheck, buy the cake, and lie to her children about what Mommy did all day.

Safe at home. That's what they called it when you touched the plate and nobody tagged you. But Elena knew better. You were only safe as long as you kept running. And eventually, everyone gets caught.