“Sebastian.” She sounded more than ready.
“I want you, all of you. I want to push into your heat until we both explode. I can’t wait any longer.”
“I want you now,” she said.
“I climb onto the table and hover over you. I pull your legs apart and lower my mouth on top of you, tasting your heat, your sweet, sweet heat. You call out.”
“Sebastian.” The need for him in her voice—almost too much.
“My tongue…”
“Shit.” She interrupted him. “ I can’t.”
“What?”
“It’s Cole… On my phone… I can’t ignore this call. Not after what happened this morning.” Panting. “I’m so sorry. We were so close.”
Her words hit him like a fucking glacier. “Damn, I hate doing it on the phone. We keep getting interrupted.”
“We’ll make up for it, in person,” she said. “I promise.” She used a sultry voice she knew he liked.
He exhaled noisily. “Soon, baby, soon.”
Silence.
“Gotta go…” She clicked off.
4
Chapter Four
“What the hell, Sadie.” Cole sounded angry.
When Sadie picked up the call, she expected to hear Cole’s usual salutation, “How are you doing sugar,” spoken with a distinct southern drawl, but not today.
“Don’t blame me.” She had heard her handler angry before, but never quite this angry. She smiled. It was kind of fun to rankle the savvy master spy’s cool. It made him seem almost human. Almost. She tried to slow her breathing. Sebastian had set her on fire and now she had to talk to her boss.
“You shot a drone in a public park in New York and you didn’t call me.”
“I was going to…” But given the choice of hot sex or a reprimand from her boss, she had chosen sex. Her cheeks still burned with pleasure. “I had to get Beatrice and the dog back to safety. Then I called and you were in a meeting with the big-wigs, so I sent you a text. I was just about to phone you again.”
Cole went quiet. Not a good thing. She imagined him at the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, dressed in a Wall Street suit with a well-pressed white shirt open at the color, sitting in his well-worn office chair. Every strand of his salt-and-pepper hair would be in place. His steely gray eyes would be scanning the monitors on the wall as he spoke, not losing a detail of the global information passing before him. His desk would be well-organized: a laptop, a cup of Earl Grey tea and a small chessboard with a game in play. No paper. Cole was an enigma of a man and liked it that way. Scary at close range and scarier now he was mad.
“Cole?”
He grunted. “Sadie, you were on a call to Sebastian. Do you think I wouldn’t know that?”
Fudge. Double fudge. Double fudge sundae with a cherry on top. He knows who I’m talking to? Did he know what they were doing? A rush of anger rose within her, constricting her throat and her thoughts, but she beat it down, reminding herself that while the intrusiveness of the CIA could be annoying at times, it had also saved her life. She swallowed. “I needed to talk to him.”
“I told you to break it off.”
“I tried.”
“How’s that going?”
“Not so well, Jeremiah.” She used his first name on purpose, hoping to break through the hard crust of the weathered spy-master and reach the heart of a real man. “I love him.”
“It doesn’t matter. You have to end it.” He grumbled. “But now is not the time to be talking about your love life. Who targeted you?”
“No idea.” She told him the details of the event, clearly, succinctly and without emotion, the way he had trained her to report.
Silence resumed. Fucking silence. He knew too much about her life. Way too much. Probably knew how many thongs she owned. She bit her lip. “It’s them, again?”
“Most likely.” Cole never guessed. He took in information like a computer, analyzed it and came to a hypothesis. He was rarely wrong. In the business he was known for having good hunches, but she knew they were never really hunches; they were well-processed concepts.
“What do the police know?” She knew he would have already talked to them.
“Not much. They’ve collected a few cell-phone pictures and videos from people who were there. So far they have only found one that has an identifiable image of you on it, and it has been taken care of.”
“Thank you. I’ve told Beatrice to keep quiet about it.”
She swore she could hear him nod.
“There’s no new intel on the KOTL, but I have an operative working on developing a relationship with an inside man”
Sadie pulled a hand through her hair. “Someone has to know something.”
Cole probably winced at the overused line, right out of a cheesy B movie with a mystery theme. She had thought last Christmas of giving him a plaque with the saying on it, for his office, just to bug him.
After a moment, he said, “I need you in one piece.”
“My, my. Is that affection in your voice or do you need another cup of tea?”
He grunted. “Take all precautions, sugar.” He clicked off.
Sadie hit the shower. All precautions? Of course she would. Who wouldn’t after someone tried to kill them? And it wasn’t the first time. And she was a trained operative. What’s with Cole? The hot water on her aching muscles felt so good it slowed her rant and for a few minutes of bliss she let the crazy world spin on its own.
When she slipped on her robe, reality slipped back into her brain. She tried to count the number of times Cole had used the precaution line on her. It was a common term in the business and she knew what he meant by it, but… She wrapped towel around her hair and put it on top of her head, like a turban. Shit. He’d never used that line on her before. Coffee. She needed caffeine.
Her company phone rang. Jeremiah wasn’t the chatty type. What could he want now?
After she clicked her phone on, she said, “I’m still wet from my shower.”
“So?”
“What is it, Cole?”
“I’ve been reading through the KOTL file, wondering how you could possibly be linked to them.”
“And…”
“Did your mother leave you any stuff?”
Sadie swallowed. Her mother had died ten years ago, on a wet Seattle night, when a drunk driver in a big SUV skipped the center line on the I-5 and plowed straight into her. A head-on. She didn’t have a chance. She winced at the memory of that night. Damn, she hated talking about her mother. An alcoholic with many a sad tale to tell, she had not had much of a life. Death had been the last lousy-break in a life of lousy breaks for her. She gathered them like a magnet, but Sadie knew better than anyone that her mother was a good woman at heart. Just fragile and worn from her journey. Sadie loved her then and now. She just preferred to not talk about her. “Stuff?”
“You know, family mementos.”
“My mother didn’t collect anything that required dusting. She threw out every picture I drew for her. And there sure as hell were no family jewels. If there had been she would have sold them for booze.” She hesitated, “But…” The image came to her mind.
“What?”
“She did keep an old chest in her closet. A big, blue metal one with a lock on it. I used to imagine it held secrets.”
“Did it?”
“I took a brief look into it before I put it into storage ten years ago. It has photograph books and some old papers. Nothing important.” As she spoke an eerie sense of knowing trickled through her mind and down her spine. She shivered.
“Where is the chest now?”
“In a storage unit in Seattle.”
“Give me the details. I’ll send someone to open it up and take a look.”
“No.” She didn’t mean to say it so loudly. It wasn’t her place to command. “I… I don’t want anyone in her things. Have them send it to me.” She gave him the address of the storage company. Would he respect her privacy? Mmm, may
be.
“It will be sent today.”
“Thanks Jeremiah.”
“Sugar,” he said in his honey dipped southern drawl, “be careful.”
5
Chapter Five
April 2
The next morning at ten, a man wearing jeans low enough on his hips to make her eyes linger down there, where no woman likes to be caught looking in public, delivered her mother’s chest. Pulling her eyes up his body, she tried hard not to stall on his killer smile. It should be banned by the Global Warming initiative. She could fault herself at noticing his good looks, but as her best friend Mitch liked to say, “No harm in window shopping.” The man was a gorgeous hunk of humanity.
Looking at him, perhaps too closely, Sadie stood in her doorway, with her right hand on her gun in the pocket of her robe. No makeup, no shoes—a bit of a disaster. She felt drabber than drab. Why did Cole send this Greek God guy?
The answer clicked into her mind: because he wanted to distract her. Get her away from Sebastian. Her mouth broke into a big smile. Nice try Jeremiah.
The man’s green eyes looked her over without apology. Undoubtedly, he knew her code name was Mata Hari, and had heard stories, possibly many stories about her escapades. The unmistakable, carnal heat in his gaze put the question in the air.
Was she interested in a morning romp with a handsome stranger?
Running a hand through her mane of hair, she gave him a pleasant smile, the kind you give your kid brother when he’s washed your car for you. “Let’s get on with it,” she said.
He nodded. “Have the cherry blossoms bloomed?”
Which moron came up with these lines? “On the streets of Seattle,” she replied.
“Never had a flower line before.” His voice low and all too inviting made her feel like a woman wanted by a man, but there was only one man for her.
Sadie opened the door wider and he brought the chest into her apartment. “You can put it there for me,” she said pointing to the spot right in front of her sofa. “Thank you.”
The smell of his leather jacket lingered after he left, as did the image in her head of what she had turned down.
But what secrets hid in her mother’s treasure chest? An old piece of luggage, it looked weathered and beaten as she expected, but smaller than she remembered. In her imagination it had been large enough to contain all the family secrets, all their pasts. In reality it was about two by three feet, made of battered, cheap metal and felt cold to the touch.
She’d seen it before, many times, but the palms of her hands sweated. Get a grip, Sadie. You’ve handled killers and arms-dealers and… you can handle a box. But family secrets can hit harder than anything else in the world. Secrets remain hidden for a reason. Did she want to know all of them?
The old-fashioned, high-school combination lock was still in place. That made her smile. If the CIA had tampered with it, they had done a fine job of putting it back in place. Maybe Cole had respected her on this.
With trembling fingers she worked the lock using the combination she remembered: the year of her mother’s birth, the year of her own birth and the year the Seattle Seahawks joined the NFL. She pulled down and the lock opened. Sadie swallowed.
The lid lifted easily and she peered inside for the first time in ten years. After her mother’s death, she had been too paralyzed by grief to delve into it. After she packed all her mother’s things and donated them to the Salvation Army, she had intended to go through this box. But she put it off, figuring she could do it later. Then later grew and it ended up in storage. Someday, she told herself, she would go through it and save the old pictures of her mother.
With the chest open, the faint smell of Lily of the Valley, her mother’s favorite perfume, rose into the air. A tsunami of memories flooded Sadie’s mind. Sweet Jesus, it would be easier to face a firing squad than this box. She bit her lip. What had her mother kept hidden all those years? She knelt on the floor in front of the chest gathering her determination which threatened to seep away from her.
Her chest tightened. It was as if she was a little girl again and her mother was in the next room. Only she wasn’t little anymore, and her mother wasn’t, and never would be, in the next room.
Shit. She needed to be focused and calm. She would think of it as an assignment. Her life might rely on it. Gritting her teeth, she pulled out an old, blue, silk scarf her mother used to wear on special occasions, a treasured present from her father. Soft and elegant, just like her mother. Tears trickled down her face. Sadie tried to rub them away with the back of her hand, but they kept coming. Why did my mother have to die so young? It wasn’t fair.
Life isn’t fair, Sadie. Get on with it. Beneath the scarf sat an odd collection of things, layered in a haphazard pattern. Sadie decided to pull them out one by one. On the right side three photo albums had been stacked on top of one another. She pulled them out and set them on the coffee table to look through later. A life could not be summed up in three albums, but they were all that was left. Her breathing caught. Later, she would look later.
On the left side of the trunk, sat a pink, velvet, jewelry box, which once belonged to her grandmother. Opening it, she found her mother’s wedding rings and an assortment of favorite necklaces and a set of origami, swan earrings. Sadie remembered those earrings well. She had made them for her mother when she was twelve. She held them up to the light. She had no idea her mother treasured them so much.
Underneath the jewelry box lay her grandfather’s, fisherman-knit sweater. She pulled it to her nose to breathe in his familiar scent: wood smoke, salt and a touch of after-shave. As she pulled the wool garment close to her, a brown, leather-bound book tumbled to the ground.
She had never seen this book before and when she touched it, she knew it was what she was looking for. That made no sense, but she knew. She just knew.
Written on the first page: “Emma-Mae’s journal 1913-1915.” That would be right around the time of the First World War.
Emma-Mae? That would have been her great-aunt on her mother’s side, her grandmother’s spinster sister. Hmm. Her mother rarely spoke of her family, but she did know this aunt was considered a bit strange. Never married, never “conformed” as her mother said. The woman lived a wild life as a flapper and travelled around the world with men. Her independence hadn’t sat well with the family, which had been as old-fashioned, waspy as they come. Fun of any kind was kept strictly at arm’s length, because it might let the devil in, and all that crap. But Emma-Mae’s life had intrigued Sadie.
Turning randomly to a page, she noted the woman had beautiful handwriting, a lost art. Dated Sept. 4, 1915, the entry said:
“I’ve been sent to Egypt to pick up a parcel, but as usual they aren’t telling me what’s in the parcel.”
An awareness hit Sadie like a hammer between the eyes.
6
Chapter Six
Leon examined his technical drawings for Avenger. Through years of study at MIT and work in his own lab, he had mastered more than the basics of robotics. His killing machine should have worked and yet a single, well aimed shot exploded it into a million pieces. But then how could he have predicted she would have a gun? Perhaps if he had increased its speed once it recognized her.
Perhaps. What did it matter? He failed. Again. He was a failure. A useless, over-educated idiot. Those were just some of the names his father had used over the phone. Leon put his glass of cognac down on the table. How could he fix things?
He wanted to strangle Sadie Stewart with his bare hands, but knew he didn’t have the stomach for violence. He had trouble killing flies. Sending out Avenger had been more difficult than anything he had ever done. It had required a lot of cognac and endless rationalization.
Leon didn’t want to kill her, or anyone else for that matter. Murder wasn’t in his blood. He picked up his cell phone and punched in his father’s private cell number.
“Have you killed her yet?”
“About that.”
“I’m not good at killing people. We should hire someone who is good at it.”
“Let me remind you. If you don’t kill her, I’m cutting you off.”
The silence lasted longer than he wanted it to. “Father?”
“Son, you have more at stake than you know.”
“What do you mean? You’ve already threatened my income and my inheritance. What else is there?”
“You must understand. You have to kill her.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“The KOTL take care of loose ends. If you don’t succeed, you will become a loose end. If you want to live, you must kill the woman. If you fail, you will be killed.”
“A loose end?”
“I will not be able to protect you. You must kill the woman.”
“What if I found another way?”
“There is no other way, son. You must kill her and there must be proof that she is dead.”
7
Chapter Seven
Once Sadie opened Emma-Mae’s journal she couldn’t stop reading. She started at the beginning:
∞
February – 1913
Dearest Diary,
God that sounds awful. Sappy and overly sentimental as if I were the type of person who would keep a journal about their life! Diaries are for mothers who want to relish in the memories of childrearing, or retired Generals who want to relive their victories. I am not a mother or a general.
They write with the belief that someday their descendants will want to read about their lives. Rather narcissistic, but there you have it. I imagine their writing makes them feel more important, more whole, more engaged with the universe and the meaning of life.
I have no stories about my baby’s first steps, or how to make my husband’s favorite meal. Nor do I have stories about arranging an army for battle.
No this will not be a normal diary.
Let me introduce myself. I am Emma-Mae Jones, daughter of Edgar Jones, a clerk in a barrister’s office in London who died too young to achieve his main ambition of becoming a lawyer himself. My mother, Elouisa Mae Jones, is a bit of a puzzle to me. She refuses to talk about her past and now survives in a small flat in London. I send her money regularly. I have one sister, Elizabeth, who is much more normal than me and determined to be married soon.
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