“But he left out some details?”
“He was careful. I look back now, and I realize how careful, how precise. He even brought me home to meet his mother. Everything he’d said lined up. Eventually, he convinced me to move in with him. There was a part of me that wanted what everyone else has—a real home, family, security. I wanted to be normal.”
“What made you realize something wasn’t right?”
“I think moving in together was his failing.”
“He couldn’t be as precise about what he let you see, not with you right there all the time.”
“The first time he lied was when I saw him end a call and I asked him who it was. He said it was a telemarketer. I knew him well enough that I caught the lie immediately. But I didn’t want to suspect him of something wrong. I told myself it was innocent—maybe he was planning a special date or something. I noticed little details but kept telling myself I was being crazy, that I could trust him. But then he asked why I wouldn’t consider seeing my family.”
“How much had you told him about them?”
“Not much, but enough that he knew that topic was off-limits. At first, I tried to tell myself he was just concerned about me. But then I started thinking—he put so much emphasis on family our whole relationship. He talked about his all the time, how great they were and how he valued those relationships. He talked about having children and how his mom would be so excited to be a grandma. All of it had sounded innocent, and quite frankly, lovely. But he didn’t keep pictures of his family anywhere, not in his wallet or on the walls or even in his phone. Nothing. It was all a façade, an amazingly precise and planned façade.”
She paused. They ambled through the abandoned orchard, and Mac ran through the overgrown grass charging at birds and even climbing one of the trees. She felt bad for having him cooped up all the time lately. Lyndon quietly walked with her and gave her space to think, to be ready to keep talking.
“Once I realized something was wrong,” she said, “I started planning. I didn’t want him to see me hustling people at the shooting range, so I’d stopped, which meant I didn’t have much cash. I was so angry at myself for allowing myself to get into that situation. I started going to a range to raise cash, but I had to be careful. He called me a lot. I had thought it was sweet that he missed me, but now I see he was just keeping track of me. I couldn’t very well answer the phone at a shooting range. It took almost a week to get enough money together and find someone to make me another fake ID. On the day I planned to leave, he didn’t leave for the morning appointment I knew he had. I asked him didn’t he need to go.”
“Had he figured it out somehow?”
“I don’t know if he just knew me so well that he noticed a difference, though I was sure I hadn’t let on. Or maybe he caught wind through the guy who made my ID. But I think most likely it was some kind of tracker. He was a cybersecurity expert—he definitely had the expertise. I’d picked up my ID the day before, and he’d have had to do just a little research to figure out what I was doing at that location.”
“He might be the one helping to track us through cameras and probably facial recognition.”
“Now that I know he’s involved, I agree.” The thing still bugging her was, what was the likelihood someone she knew was somehow involved with this mastermind woman?
“What happened next?”
“I tried to pretend I needed to go out and get some groceries, but he wouldn’t let me leave. It got ugly pretty fast.”
“Was he capable of forcing you to stay? Not too many people would have a chance against you.”
“He wasn’t, no. But then my father showed up.”
Lyndon stopped walking. “James was a plant? The whole time?”
Kadance looked out across the road and nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Kadance.” His voice was so kind, she could almost believe he understood how hard it’d been. Devastating.
She turned her attention to Mac to distract herself. He bounded across the grass and through the trees, zigging and zagging. Every so often, a bird would flee out of the grass. Then he changed direction and came trotting toward her. He stood up on his back paws and reached up her leg with his front paws.
“Are you tired now?” she asked him.
He meowed.
She reached down and picked him up, and he wrapped his arms around her neck and laid his head on her shoulder.
Lyndon smiled. “He hugs you like a person.” He moved closer and petted a hand down Mac’s back. “He seems to know when you need a hug.”
“He always has.” She leaned her head against Mac. “He found me just after I escaped.”
Lyndon continued slowly petting his hand down Mac’s back. Mac purred in her ear.
“How did he find you?” Lyndon asked. “Did you have to fight your father?”
She sighed. “No. Thankfully. When my father walked in our townhouse, I pulled my knife from my belt, grabbed James in a choke from behind, and held the knife on him. Both of them—they both seemed to think I would never hurt James. They were so arrogant about it. But I would have.” She paused. “I’ve never felt that out of control.”
“Of course you did.”
Hearing him say that, knowing someone understood, was an odd feeling.
“But you didn’t hurt him,” Lyndon said.
“I wanted to. I’d never felt that before. I’ve killed a lot of people. They were evil. They hurt other people for pleasure. But I never wanted to kill anyone. I had a job to do, and I knew my job was to help protect innocent lives. But it was never enjoyable. It always hurt.”
There was a softness in Lyndon’s eyes, and then he looked out across the field dotted with trees. “How did you get away from them?”
“They both kept telling me I would never hurt James. He was too important. He was my first kiss, my first romance, first . . . everything. They seemed to know how much all of that had affected me.”
“But they’d tricked you, manipulated you to the ultimate degree. I can’t imagine the kind of rage that would produce. You’ve never had anyone, you finally let yourself feel something for someone, and then you find out not only were you betrayed, but it’d never been real in the first place.”
“Not real for him.”
Lyndon’s voice quieted. “But real for you.”
Her throat tightened, and she nodded.
Mac wrapped his arms around her neck more tightly.
“Did you hurt him?” Lyndon asked gently.
She took a slow breath and smoothed a hand down Mac’s back. “I backed James up into the kitchen. I had him off-balance—he couldn’t fight. I managed to open the back door. I plunged the knife into his thigh and ran. Thankfully, I’d plotted an escape already. I’d practiced. So I could run it even with . . .”
“Even with tears in your eyes.”
She didn’t answer.
“It’s okay.” His voice was soft. “You don’t have to be Superwoman for everyone. I’m not James—I won’t twist your emotions in some game.”
Her voice barely made a sound. “I know.” And she did know. She wasn’t sure how it’d happened, how she’d allowed it to happen, but she trusted him. Panic started to rise—her fear that she’d allowed it to happen again. She’d decided never to trust anyone. Ever. She’d learned her lesson. But she’d been diligent with Lyndon. She hadn’t let her loneliness win. She’d analyzed every single one of his actions. He actually was trustworthy.
The realization was surreal, like the world was all of a sudden a different color.
She made herself keep talking. “I was on foot, so I’d planned several hiding places just in case. I ended up stopping in an alley in a slummy area of town. I’d been running for a couple of hours, and I needed to rest for a while. I was confident I’d lost them. I climbed behind a dumpster and tried to sleep. But my mind wouldn’t stop.” She looked at Lyndon. “I think I understand how you feel, when your mind won’t slow down, and your head just aches like an
overexerted muscle. And that’s when Mac found me. I heard a noise and stared at the end of my little nook behind the dumpster, and around the corner comes this huge orange cat. He stood there and just stared at me. It was the weirdest thing. I’d never been an animal person. Too much responsibility, too much commitment, too much everything. But I put my knife away, held my hand out, and called him over. He came straight to me. But then he started meowing. You know, that really demanding tone he has. It scared me—I was still in flee mode, still afraid to see my father’s face peer around the corner. I grabbed up the big cat to try to quiet him, and he reached his paws around and hugged me. Just like this.”
“I bet it felt nice.”
She just nodded.
She kept talking to push her emotions away. “We stayed the night there. By morning, my urgency to flee had calmed and I could think more clearly, more calmly. I snuck out of the alley with Mac. He had a big abrasion on his back and several cigarette burns. I found a vet for him, used the little money I had. He healed, and he hasn’t left me ever since.”
Lyndon just smiled. “So, why did you name him Mac?”
“Multiple reasons. Mack truck, mac and cheese, Mac computers.”
“So, big, orange, and smart.”
“Exactly.”
Lyndon’s eyes turned soft again, and he looked away.
“What is it?” she asked. “You keep trying to hide your expression from me.” She tried to sound more curious than demanding.
He paused for a couple of seconds.
twenty-six
THEN LYNDON FACED KADANCE. “You should be cold-blooded. You were literally raised to be a killer. Your soul should’ve died a long time ago. But here you are.”
She had no idea how to respond.
He walked away and meandered back through the field toward the car.
She watched him walk, that masculine but understated stride, the way he held himself with confidence but not arrogance.
Mac lifted his head, looked at Lyndon, and meowed.
Kadance started toward the car as well.
They both got in the car, and Mac climbed over to Lyndon’s lap. With a gentle hand, he pulled a couple of leaves out of Mac’s fur, and then he rested his hand on Mac and rubbed his thumb over his soft orange coat. “Looks like he tired himself out,” Lyndon said.
Kadance realized she was watching him and started the car.
“Back at the VPE meeting,” Lyndon said, “I threw out the word cleansing while I was talking with different people to see if I’d get a reaction.”
Kadance was sure he’d heard all of her conversations while holding his own conversations at the same time. “Any reaction?”
“None. I watched carefully. I honestly don’t think any of them had any idea. Which makes sense seeing as how Josh doesn’t appear to be in the loop either.”
“I agree.”
“Do you think James could be this ‘son’ she’d mentioned in her correspondence?”
“His real mom is still alive, as far as I know. And there is no way she’s the person we’re looking for.”
“Maybe, like you said, this son is someone she’s molded, not an actual son.”
She appreciated that he trusted her assessment of James’s mother. “That could be. Might seem a little weird if his mother is still alive.”
“It does seem a little odd.”
“But I don’t think we should rule it out.”
“Never rule out a hypothesis without doing the proper research.”
“Yes, professor.”
“Doctor, not professor.” He adjusted his glasses just so.
The corner of her mouth tweaked into a slight smile.
He started to smile but then focused out the windshield. “Is there anything about James we can research—maybe look into a company he worked for, anyone he might have ever mentioned?”
“He was an independent consultant the whole time I knew him, and he never mentioned having done anything else. The only people he ever mentioned were family, surely all part of the plan to manipulate me. I met them all—I don’t think there’s any kind of lead there.”
His brows pulled together. “What do you think the likelihood is—”
“That someone from my past is involved in what’s happening now? Especially since you and I came together by pure chance?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. I suppose it could all be a weird coincidence.” She shook her head. “But we should keep our eyes open. I’ll keep thinking about anything we could research about James.”
“Thank you.” Then he added, “I’m sorry this is bringing up bad memories.”
“Nothing you can do.”
“I can listen if you want to talk.”
They were quiet for a while. Still on Lyndon’s lap, Mac laid his head down and fell asleep. Lyndon kept gently stroking his fur. A wild thought entered her head that she wanted to feel for herself how gentle Lyndon’s hands were.
She blinked hard to try to shove the thought out of her head, but she couldn’t quite get it out. She’d been close to only one man, and she’d vowed never to get close to anyone again, especially a man, and most certainly not physically. She’d started slipping down the slope of closeness with Lyndon—he knew so many of her secrets. But she would not allow it to develop past friendship.
No matter how lonely she was.
No matter how wild her thoughts got sometimes.
When Lyndon started talking, Kadance sat straighter in her seat and tried to concentrate on what he was saying, not what she was thinking. “James knows your past, right?” he asked. “So why doesn’t this mastermind person seem to know anything about you? I know your family doesn’t know you were CIA, but they thought you were an army sniper, right?”
She glanced over at Lyndon and then back to the windshield. “I assumed my family told him about my past, as much as they know, but maybe they didn’t. James would’ve pushed for details before getting so involved, but maybe they lied to him.”
“He knew you pretty well—would he have realized you weren’t just some random beautiful woman?”
She ignored how his matter-of-fact statement of her beauty made her feel. “He’s very smart. I didn’t talk to him about my service, but he knew I had a past.”
“And not something else, like a bad relationship or similar.” Then he added, “No, there’s no way he’d have confused you for a fleeing battered woman.”
“Are you saying I’m more like a batterer than a batteree?”
“I’m saying even an idiot would realize you’d likely rip off a man’s testicles if he tried beating you.”
“Why, sir, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He grinned.
She focused out the windshield.
They drove for hours. Eventually, he insisted on taking a turn driving so she could rest. She thought about refusing. It wasn’t unusual for her to drive for fifteen hours straight. But she decided to let him be kind—he seemed to enjoy it.
When did I start caring about making him happy?
When they were parked on the side of the rural highway, Lyndon stood from the passenger seat and lifted Mac with him. Mac gave an annoyed meow. At the back of the car, Lyndon gently handed her Mac. Their hands brushed.
Mac yawned and laid his head on her shoulder.
In the passenger seat, she kept ahold of him, and he fell asleep within a few minutes after the steady hum of the car continued down the road.
“I stay on this road for how long?” Lyndon asked.
She explained the route she’d planned.
“Do you have the whole country memorized?”
“You’re one to talk about memorizing.”
“The major freeways I understand,” he said. “But why do you know the rural routes as well?”
She hesitated to answer. The convincing lies that came so easily stopped at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t like lyin
g to him.
“How many times have they found you?” he asked.
“Enough.”
“But how? You use fake IDs, you keep to yourself, you’re virtually invisible.” He glanced over at her then turned back to the road. “You stop them. When you find out about a new assassination, you race there and stop them. Don’t you?”
She looked out the side window. “You’re dangerous to be around. Do you realize that?”
“You don’t need to hide from me.”
Several seconds of quiet.
He added, “I understand it’s been necessary most of your life, but it’s not necessary with me.”
Barely a movement, she nodded.
“But it’s second nature at this point.”
She continued staring out the window into the darkness. “You already know more about me than anyone ever has.”
He paused, and then his voice was quiet. “I’m honored.”
They were quiet again.
The fields and trees flashed by. Eventually, she fell asleep.
It felt like a while later when the slowing of the car woke her. He was parking outside a large white church in a very small town. “How close are we to DC?” she asked.
“About an hour.” He turned off the phone screen, a map program. “We should both try to get some decent sleep. Once we get into town, there’s no hiding.”
There would be cameras everywhere. “I don’t see a hotel. We can just sleep in the car.”
“It’s a little cramped in here, at least for me. I was thinking we could stretch out on a couple of pews.”
“In the church?”
“Small town like this, the church is probably unlocked all the time so the parishioners can visit with God whenever they need to.”
She looked at him closer to try to determine if he was joking. It was too dark to see his face clearly. He stood from the car, and she followed. Mac shifted in her arms, and she put him down so he could stretch properly. She and Mac followed Lyndon into the church.
Inside was dark. She looked around, curious.
He turned, surely about to say something, and paused. “You’ve never been in a church, have you?”
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