Mrs. Undercover -

“Oh, how lovely,” Ellie said, taking the dish. “Won’t you come in?”

Ellie grabbed a butter knife, popped the lid off the dish, and stared at the tangled mess of wires inside. Red, blue, yellow. Standard. But the Serpent never did standard. She saw the trick—a secondary loop hidden under a blob of what looked like congealed cream of mushroom. Mrs. Undercover

That was the problem. After ten years of marriage, three of them deep undercover as a wife , Ellie had become her disguise. The Agency had stopped calling. Her handler, a chain-smoking cynic named Harris, had retired to a shrimp boat in the Gulf. She was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. “Oh, how lovely,” Ellie said, taking the dish

“Good.” Ellie watched Leo and Mia climb onto the school bus, safe and oblivious. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a casserole to return.” Standard

Brenda raised an eyebrow. “Glitter glue?”

It was 10:47 AM. The kids were at school. She was scrubbing a grape juice stain out of the rug when the doorbell rang. On the porch stood a woman in a floral dress, holding a covered dish.