by Juno Rushdan
Sanborn had come across Willow at an NSA briefing, pulled her to the side, and asked her a bunch of questions. Next thing she knew, he’d added her to his Gray Box collection. That was what Sanborn did—collected those with special talents from across the board: NSA, CIA, Special Forces, DEA, even MI6, the British foreign intelligence service.
The driver’s-side door opened.
“What are you doing?” The harshness in Gideon’s voice made her jump.
Heart racing, she licked her lips. “Looking in your glove box.”
Gideon climbed in and snatched the envelope from her hand. He stuffed it into the glove compartment and slapped the door shut. “Were you going through my things?”
“Yes.”
He flinched as if the honesty had stung him like a bee. “Did you open it?”
“No.” In the chaos of the accident and the comfort Gideon offered, her guard had slipped, and she’d overstepped. If she’d been thinking, she would’ve remembered the rules she needed to follow to keep others relaxed. “Are you angry at me?”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t like people going through my stuff.” His head dipped, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I need to take you home. Where do you live?”
“I could put it in the GPS.”
With a nod, he started the car. She punched in her address, glancing at him.
“Sorry I went through your things.” Willow waited for a response to guide her in what to say and do, but silence reigned.
As her dizziness subsided, the time to reach her house on the GPS display counted down. She was used to the awkwardness at the beginning of the end. Not that they had ever begun.
Boys were chatty at first until they discovered she was different. Then they were quiet. Except for two. Michael Dutton in college, who had been in a rush to touch her as if autistic meant easy. She’d been overwhelmed and frightened by his groping and hit him, giving him a black eye. Afterward, autistic meant dangerous.
And there was Simon Peterson at the NSA. He had been nice and as nervous as her. The second he got her in his bedroom, everything popped off at lightning speed. Including him.
“I owe you an apology,” Gideon said, his fingers tightening and loosening on the wheel.
“Apology for what?”
“I was concerned about the cut on your face and tried to touch you at the office without thinking. It upset you. The card in your wallet said to avoid touching you.”
“No, the card is for the police. You can touch me.” Touch is good. It happened so infrequently since her mother died, she wasn’t used to it anymore and needed warning. There’d been a time when her parents had showered her in affection and she’d loved it.
She pulled on an uneasy smile, but he didn’t look at her or smile back.
Her heart sank. “I didn’t expect it at the office. I wasn’t prepared.” Tapping her purse, she lowered her head. I may be a bit sensitive, but I’m still a woman who likes to be touched.
Heat rose, flaming in her face, and she wrung her hands.
“You did good slowing your car by dragging the tires against the curb. Nice job not losing your head. How did you know what to do?”
“Sanborn makes all the analysts go through a watered-down version of the defensive driving course the field officers go through. Once my head cleared from the sensory overload, some training came back.” She retained lots of details that an analyst should never have to use, like how to lose a tail if you were being followed or how to fire a gun.
He pulled to a stop, and she looked up at the quaint three-bedroom house she called home. Four-bedroom since her father had converted the basement into a mini apartment for her.
“Thanks for the ride. For helping me.” She let out a heavy sigh, grasping the door handle. “I appreciate it.”
“Do you mind if I come in for a glass of water?”
The heaviness in her chest lifted. “Yes, please.” Grinning, she struggled to open the door. The handle was nothing like the one in her VW.
Gideon emerged on her side and opened it for her. She jumped out, dropping several inches to the ground. At least he wasn’t running for the hills. She didn’t know what Gideon wanted from her, if anything besides extra help at work, but she wanted to find out.
Turning, she faced the house. The white curtain in the front window drew back, and the most cantankerous man alive appeared, watching them.
Chapter 05
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Thursday, July 4, 8:15 p.m. EDT
A wheelchair ramp led from the front door to the driveway, where a van with a handicap sticker was parked. The curtains in the bay window drew apart, and an old man peered out at them.
“Who is that?” Gideon asked.
“My dad.” Her voice turned brittle.
The mark on her cheek, the way she’d evaded answering his questions at work, the man in the window—it all connected. Painful memories clawed up through him, and he stiffened under a flare of protectiveness. “Is he the reason you have a cut on your face?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “It was an accident. He didn’t mean to hurt me.”
All too common for a child to defend an abusive parent. He’d seen it before, had once lived and breathed the agony of it. “Do you have many accidents?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “Of course not. He’s been sick and hasn’t been himself. This last recurrence of Hodgkin’s hit him hard. His temperament seesaws between that of a petulant child to being depressed.” The compassion in her tone touched him, inclined him to relax.
Gideon had never seen cuts or bruises on her before today. Not that it wasn’t possible to hide marks. Maddox did it all the time thanks to her job in the field, but he believed Willow.
“Your father lives with you?”
Surprise flitted across her face. “No one ever framed it like that. People usually ask if I live with my dad, like there’s something wrong with me.” She pressed her lips in a grim line. “But I do live with him. There’s nothing wrong with me. It just sort of worked out that way. I take care of him, without help from my sisters. They’re too busy, and they hate me.”
“I’m sure your sisters don’t hate you.”
“How can you say that?” Her nose wrinkled. “You’ve never met them.”
“No, but I know you.”
“You know I’m a good analyst. That people call me the Factinator behind my back, like I’m a machine instead of a person. Aside from that, you don’t know me.”
“You’re the sharpest analyst I’ve met, yet humble.” He wanted to caress her cheek or shoulder and erase the lonesome look on her face. “You speak frankly, but you’re never mean.”
She kept that air of sweetness and quiet strength even under pressure. The harder she tried to fade into the background at work, the more he noticed little things about her. Every day, she brought a chicken salad for lunch. She always wore those classy pearls and the same blouse and skirt but in different colors. At first, he’d thought she randomly rotated, but he’d figured out her system was based on calendar dates. On the fourth—like today—it was a dove-gray blouse and navy skirt. Besides being beautiful and the best kind of quirky, she was brilliant, but the most telling thing about her was that whenever she made a mistake, she owned it and apologized without hesitation. That spoke volumes, considering one of the tenets of their profession was CYA—cover your ass.
He wasn’t a closet sleazebag or a stalker. She just piqued his curiosity, and there was still so much about her he longed to puzzle out.
“You’re doing the tough work of taking care of your dad by yourself. I don’t see how anyone could hate you, especially a sister.”
A pink flush crept up her face. She smiled, pure and unrestrained, holding his gaze with a glimmer in her eyes. Training and a complement of experience had taught him to compartmental
ize emotion, to be the storm that devastated and washed things clean, but in that moment, he wanted to think less and feel more.
For a few seconds anyway.
She didn’t deserve to be accused of treason and definitely didn’t deserve to have her life invaded by him—a professional liar and bloody butcher by trade.
Their traitor was skilled at subterfuge and manipulation. On the off chance Willow was an Oscar-worthy actress, pretenses faltered under strain. Like in the high-stress situation she’d just been through. She wasn’t the mole, but he needed to prove her innocence beyond a doubt.
And then he’d stay far away from her.
The old man banged on the window. “Willow! I’m starving!” He disappeared, the curtains falling back into place.
She hustled up the walkway to the front stoop, Gideon staying a stride behind her.
As she fumbled with her key, the door swung open. Her father sat in a wheelchair, blocking the entryway, his liver-spotted face pinched in a grimace.
“You’re almost two hours late and you didn’t call. I have to take my medicine. Where’s your car? And who’s this?” He scowled at Gideon.
Willow shooed her father back with both hands. The house was a moderate twenty degrees cooler than the oven-baked temp outside.
“Sorry I’m late, Dad. I had a car accident and I didn’t think to call.”
“You hurt? Got whiplash? Concussion?” Withered from age and sickness, the gray-haired man rolled to the kitchen. He wore a bathrobe and cotton pajamas. An IV bag hung from the back of the wheelchair. “I keep telling you, women are lousy drivers.”
She tossed her purse on the tile countertop and washed her hands. Gideon hovered in the natural divide between the eat-in kitchen and the living room.
“My car was towed.” Willow dried her hands. “But I’m fine, thanks to Gideon.”
And luck. The situation could’ve played out much differently, where she didn’t walk away. After he’d deflated the airbag, seeing her swamped with fear and shock had twisted something inside him. He’d wanted to gather her in his arms and make sure she wasn’t hurt.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Harper. I’m Gideon Stone.” He proffered his hand. “The accident wasn’t her fault. Your daughter handled the situation remarkably well.”
Her dad stared at Gideon’s extended hand, then cut his eyes back to Willow. “Why didn’t you bring me a double bacon cheeseburger and fries if you were going to be late?”
Gideon dropped his hand, taking in the understated furnishings situated to accommodate a wheelchair. The homey living room was spotless, devoid of clutter, like the kitchen.
“It’s bad for your heart.” She sighed. “Why didn’t you microwave a frozen meal?”
“You promised to cook for me every night this week. And you have chicken à la king labeled for Thursdays in the freezer. Last time I took a meal out of order, you got all squirrelly.”
“It’s tuna, not chicken.”
His mouth twisted, nose scrunching. “Tastes like à la friggin’ ass. I won’t eat it. I want a damn burger.” He pounded a wrinkled fist on a round yellow Formica table the seventies rejected. “I’m dying. I can have a burger once a month. I’ve earned it.”
“I’m only doing what’s best for you, following the doctor’s advice.”
Gideon preferred to make things easier for her after the hell she’d been through earlier, but he had a job to do. “A burger or pizza sounds great. I’m starved. May I have a cup of water?”
Her shoulders bunched. “Glasses are there.” She pointed as she dug into the freezer.
He ventured into the kitchen, ignoring her father’s flagging glower, and opened a cabinet. Spices and seasoning were arranged in alphabetical order. Organization taken to the nth degree. He grabbed a glass from the next cabinet, filled it with tap water, and took a sip.
“Even what’s his name is in favor of a burger. Or pizza. Sounds so good.”
“How about a Friday meal, Dad? Tortellini surprise. I bet you’d like that one.”
Her sweet optimism—despite Mr. Harper barking complaints and Gideon’s deliberately inciteful suggestion—was another reason he admired her. She had fortitude.
“I like good surprises,” said her father. “The kind that make me happy. Not the ones you keep frozen in those Tupperware containers.”
With the distraction in full swing, Gideon asked, “Willow, where’s the bathroom?”
The father wheeled back, eyeing him as if his presence was an invasion of his territory.
“Down the hall.” Willow put a meal in the microwave. “Second door on the left.”
“Don’t nuke that,” Mr. Harper said. “Order a pizza. Or make waffles. I’ll eat those.”
“Breakfast for dinner again?” Her voice dipped low and turned pleading. “Not while I have company. Please, eat the tortellini.”
“I’ll eat it without a fuss if you give me some whiskey to wash down the unpleasantness.”
As Willow fought with her father, holding her own against the ornery old bulldog, Gideon headed down the hall. He poked his head into two bedrooms, both outfitted with the basics of spare rooms. Bypassing the bathroom, he ducked into what appeared to be the master. Pill bottles lined the low dresser and an oxygen tank sat in the corner. Her father’s room.
He eavesdropped on the chatter in the kitchen. Willow mentioned putting a movie on for her father. Gideon had a little time, but not much. He darted down the stairs into the basement.
Hopper windows partially illuminated the space. The walls were a warm white with a touch of beige. It had a bright, refurbished look of a modern apartment. He hesitated to walk on the plush cream carpet with his boots, but he didn’t have seconds to spare removing them.
He trod lightly to the desk at the opposite side of the large room. Three computer monitors sat side by side. Papers piled in untidy heaps were the first sign of any mess in the house. She probably had some order in the apparent chaos. He tapped a button on the keyboard.
A prompt on the middle screen awaited a password. He inserted the cloning flash drive and hit the Enter button, activating it. A red light blinked. The download was in progress.
He fingered through a stack of magazines. Clean Eating, Simple and Delicious, Cooking Light. He shifted his attention to the loose sheets of paper and fingered through them. Programming code, algorithms, grocery lists, questions to ask doctors about her dad’s health.
A file cabinet drawer was closed but unlocked. Noise from upstairs sounded as if she’d turned on a television. He flipped through folders of recipes, medical information about her father, and hospital bills. Her world revolved around work and her dad—innocent enough, even heartwarming—but she had a mountain of debt. Money was a classic motive. Opportunity for her to access classified data without detection had already been established.
But Willow wasn’t a murderer. No way she’d killed Novak.
A green light popped up on the USB drive. He ejected it, shoving it into his pocket. Turning, he noticed a full-sized bed made neater than a pin in the next room. He palmed the door open wider. Her tight bedroom only had extra space for a dresser and nightstand.
He went in, opened the bedside table drawer, and found a leather-bound book.
Diaries always led to trouble. Any secret worth keeping shouldn’t be written down, not even shared with a trusted friend. People were fallible and could be compromised.
He leafed through the pages. Doodles. Algorithms. A circular pattern of intricate lines repeated—a maze with a bull’s head drawn in the center. Words on one page stayed his hand.
Briarwood
Bridge of Sighs
Symphony
The Ghost
Names of previous ops over the last three years that’d had hiccups. All due to their mole?
The Ghost, Aleksander Novak, had co
nfirmed the leak. In exchange for immunity, Novak had agreed to give details about an information broker who bartered secrets using a global network of spies. One name—the deadly spider controlling a funnel-web of traitors. But they’d failed to keep Novak alive long enough to talk.
Their team had pored over previous ops, looking for a link to their insider, any indication other missions had been tampered with. But they had no idea how far back to look. No clue how long they’d had a traitor among them. Gideon turned the page and his breath stalled.
More mazes drawn around a single word. Babel. A code name for the operation to kill Daedalus, one of Gideon’s solo missions. He’d volunteered for it to get distance from the problems smothering his marriage. Less than twenty-four hours after he’d returned, Kelli had been killed in a car accident. Guilt still weighed on him.
A keen analyst would connect the dots between compromised ops, searching for a pattern, a common thread tied to the leak. But this list of classified missions in an unsecured place violated protocol 101. It could also be notes of someone looking to wrap up loose ends. That’s how Ares or Alistair would see it if either of them got their hands on it.
Except evidence left in a notebook in a bedside table would be sloppy, too careless for a traitor who had, thus far, been pathological about covering their tracks.
Why had she written Babel? Nothing had gone wrong on his op to terminate Daedalus.
“It’s only fair for you to go through my stuff after I looked through your glove box.” The angelic lilt of her voice made his pulse spike.
He didn’t turn at once, taking a beat to decide on his approach, and looked at her. She sauntered toward him with a guileless smile. There was nothing flirtatious about it. She moved divested of the surety of purpose she carried in the office, now seeming uncertain and unguarded.
Willow eased into the narrow space beside him with her back to the wall.
A gentleman would’ve moved away, not taken advantage of her raw emotions in the wake of the car crash, but he was no gentleman. And she was a job.