“I need a best man, Connor. Will you fill in?”
Was the guy trying to make him into one of Lara’s pansy-assed guitar strumming wimps? “I fucking hate you, Bond.”
“I know, but you’ll do it.”
“Of course I will. And I’ll do it Mad Crawford–style, so you should expect we’ll need a corporate jet and likely a really hefty bail fund.”
“Unless you want to go for the double wedding because this shit is getting expensive. Do you have any idea what they charge for freaking flowers?”
Connor chuckled. “You’re not pulling me down with you. When I marry that girl we’re going to do it right. Short trip to Vegas and then a long couple of weeks on a very isolated beach.”
“You said ‘when.’”
“I meant if.” He shook his head. “No. I didn’t. I don’t know what it is about her.”
“When you know, you know,” Gabe said. “I knew immediately I wanted Everly and I knew it wasn’t going to go away. Can you really see yourself not wanting her?”
He shook his head. He didn’t want a world in which he couldn’t have her. Being with Lara made him feel alive in a way that scared him, but he wasn’t about to give it up. “But I think she’s lying to me about something. I don’t think I’m going to handle that well.”
“You’re lying to her about your name and occupation and friendships and past. Need I go on?”
“It’s not the same. I’m doing what I’m doing to protect people I care about.”
“And she’s not?” Gabe pointed out. “If she’s anything like you described, she’s a crusader. She’s doing the exact same thing as you. She’s trying to protect her country. She simply does it with words and stories. She puts herself on the line to show the public the truth. You’re actually quite similar. You’re both fighting the good fight.”
Was he high? “I fight the dirty fight.”
“Someone has to. If you didn’t, the nation would be weaker for it. And if Lara didn’t do what she does, the nation would be less informed. So if it turns out she’s lying to you, cut her some professional slack. Trust me. I know what it’s like to love a woman who needs more freedom than I feel comfortable giving her. Everly wouldn’t be happy as a society wife. She needs to work, and that work sometimes puts her in danger. I have to take a deep breath and trust that she won’t do anything foolish.”
“And if she does?” Lara doing foolish things wouldn’t end in a higher credit card bill or a silly mix-up. It could end with her dead or in the hands of the very men Connor had pissed off weeks ago. Surely the Russians knew who had taken out their New York operations by now. Not only did they think Lara knew something she didn’t, they would think she might be the way to get to him.
They would be right.
“Then we’ll have a serious talk, but I’m certainly not going to walk away from her because she does something that’s simply in her nature to do,” Gabe explained. “I love Everly because of her spirit. I don’t want to break her or change her. I just want to love her.”
Connor turned back and sure enough, Everly had switched seats and was right beside Lara, laughing like they were old friends. “See. I told you.”
Gabe looked into the condo. “I would not have bet on that.”
“It’s impossible not to like Lara. I think they’re plotting.” Now that he’d gotten all the mushy shit done with Gabe, he could return to the main problem at hand. Those women were bonding. It clearly spelled trouble for him. “I don’t think Everly’s going to be a good influence on Lara.”
Instead of getting offended, Gabe threw his head back and laughed. “You should totally tell her that. Because I’m not going to do it. That woman is very good with a gun.”
Connor stared back in, wondering what they were talking about. He hoped it was tea and weddings and stuff. He was fairly certain it wasn’t. “Is Dax supposed to go to dinner with you guys tonight?”
“Yeah, we’re eating in the private residence. You should come. The Scotch is way better there.” He still downed what was left in his crystal tumbler.
As much as he could use a good fifty-year Macallan, it would have to wait. “I can’t and I’m going to have to cancel for Dax, too. I need him tonight. Something tells me I need to keep eyes on my girl and that means Dax is going to have to do a little breaking and entering.”
Gabe took a sip and sat down on Lara’s elegant bistro chair. “It’s always interesting when you’re around, brother.”
Connor watched the women. It wasn’t always fun, but it could be an adventure. He just hoped this one ended with him feeling like a fool because he was wrong about Lara’s intentions. Otherwise, the evening was not going to go well for her.
TEN
Lara took a deep breath as she slipped out of the building and into the alley. The dark air held a cool bit of fall. She’d donned a black hoodie and jeans, along with a pair of sneakers, which allowed her to blend in with the night.
She thought about Connor. Even now, he was on the second floor, quietly breaking into Freddy’s condo. She’d told him to be very careful because the place was probably booby-trapped. He’d promised her he could handle it.
Until now, they’d had a quiet, companionable evening. Connor had had groceries delivered. He’d grilled a steak for himself and a lovely portobello mushroom for her. She’d made a salad and followed with poached pears for dessert. She’d told him all about Everly Parker and he’d said he liked her fiancé. But beneath the comfortable calm, she hadn’t been able to forget that Connor was willing to commit a crime for her. And she was repaying him with lies.
It’s not really a betrayal, she told herself as she looked around the alley for her partner in crime. She was just trying to gather necessary information. He had a job to do, but so did she. If she didn’t find Natalia Kuilikov, she would never know the truth about Hayes—and neither would Connor or the public. And now she wanted to do it to help her new friend. Otherwise, Everly Parker might never really understand why someone had blown up her half brother’s plane.
“Hey,” a quiet voice said. “You ready?”
Everly had gotten the black-on-black memo, though she wore a coat that hung loosely around her frame. Lara was pretty sure it was more in deference to the cache of weapons Everly wore than because of the weather.
“Are you sure you want to do this? Won’t your fiancé be upset?”
“I can handle it. I think in this case everyone will agree it’s better I go with you than let you go alone.” She glanced down at her watch. “We have fifteen minutes to make the meeting, then another fifteen to get back here and have you safely ensconced in your apartment. To be safe, you shouldn’t talk to our CI for more than ten minutes, in case we run into traffic. Set a timer on your phone so you don’t get lost in conversation. You remember what questions we agreed on?”
She had them memorized. “Yes. Let’s go. I want this over with.”
She didn’t like lying to Connor but she didn’t see another way.
“Come on. My car is parked around the corner. I’m sure you would rather take the Metro, but we’re close and this will be so much faster. Surely at this time of night I can find a place to park.”
“It’s only a few miles.” Even as she spoke, she was climbing into Everly’s rental. It was two miles from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial and at least another two from her condo to the Mall. She had been planning on taking a bus, and now she could see where that might have failed spectacularly. The nearest Metro stop was Foggy Bottom and it was a thirty-minute walk from there. The bus would have been quicker, but it had to be timed to perfection.
Even at this hour, there were still tourists walking the streets. Everly pulled out onto Independence Avenue.
Behind her Lara heard the rev of a motorcycle. Her heart screeched to a halt as she twisted around, trying to catch a glimpse of the bike. Was it the same man on a motorcycle who had first tried to kill her? Had he been out there, lurking in the shadows, just
waiting for his next opportunity? Was he following her even now?
“You okay?” Everly asked beside her as the motorcycle disappeared from view.
She forced the panic down. “Just some old fears. I’m good.”
She couldn’t have an attack now. Before yesterday, she hadn’t had one since she was a teenager and some of her high school friends had decided to play a prank on her. They’d lurked outside her parents’ place and called her à la Scream. That had been a truly embarrassing visit from a couple of EMTs.
She’d been able to handle the most recent one because Connor had been with her. She’d focused on his voice and found a way to turn back the old childhood panic.
Of course if he’d been with her now, he wouldn’t have been saying sweet, soothing words. He would likely be the one threatening to kill her.
“I see a spot up ahead. It’s close, but not too close. I don’t want Deep Throat to see us getting out of a car together. I’m going to stay behind you, but I’ve got eyes on you. When you’re done, walk straight back toward the car and I’ll join you. I had Gabe take me here after my meeting with you and I found the perfect place to stake out the memorial.”
Everly parked the car and Lara heard the roar of the motorcycle again as it headed toward Arlington Memorial Bridge. She breathed a little sigh of relief.
Everything was going to be okay. Within ten minutes it would be over. Soon after that, she would be back in her condo, waiting for Connor to finish up his job.
Easy peasy.
She pulled the hood over her head. “All right. I’m going in.”
Everly locked the car and fell into step beside her. “I’ve got binoculars. I’ll be watching the whole time. What’s the signal if you get into trouble?”
“Besides screaming my head off and running away?” Lara had decided Everly was really into the spy stuff.
“Yes, besides that.” Everly also didn’t give in to sarcasm.
“I stretch my left arm twice and you come running.”
Everly took a turn to her left. “Be careful.”
Lara walked on alone, deeply aware of the night around her. Up ahead, the amber glow of the lights from the Lincoln Memorial beckoned. She jogged up the path, wanting more than anything to get this over with so she could get home to Connor.
She’d lived in that condo for two years, ever since her breakup with Tom. It had been her refuge, and now she couldn’t think of the place without seeing Connor in it. She would never be able to walk into her bedroom without picturing him asleep in her bed, his big masculine body so incongruous against her dainty pink and yellow comforter. She wouldn’t be able to walk into the kitchen without envisioning him there, a mug of coffee in his hands.
She was in love with Spencer Connor. She had to get him to come around on the name thing. She couldn’t go the rest of her life calling him by his last name, though Spencer didn’t seem to fit him.
Lara hiked up the stairs that led to the memorial. She appreciated not being completely alone, though the homeless man sitting on the steps with the hood of his jacket covering his face didn’t really give her a warm and fuzzy feeling. She usually stopped and tried to talk to people so obviously down on their luck, but something about this one made her hurry along. She swore she could feel his eyes on her despite the fact that she couldn’t see his face.
A couple holding hands strode down the steps beside her, and she convinced herself to look away from the man in the hood and continue on. After all, Everly was out there. Even though she’d only just met the woman, they’d connected. Lara’s gut told her she and Everly would be good friends.
Hopefully their closeness would come from shared adventures and not because Everly had to shoot people to save her.
She reached the top of the steps, only slightly out of breath. At this time of night, the rangers who conducted tours were gone. She looked up the length of the Doric columns of the memorial and then behind her. The reflecting pool stretched between the Lincoln and Washington Memorials. Somewhere out there Everly was watching.
“You made it. I wondered if you would.”
Thank god. She was worried he’d draw her inside the monument where Everly likely wouldn’t be able to see her. She turned to find her confidential informant standing near the entrance. He looked thoroughly unremarkable—average height and weight, hair a nondescript brown, probably in his midthirties. As he had the last time they’d met, he wore a tweed blazer, button-down white shirt, and khaki slacks. An old-school fedora perched on his head, as if he’d stepped out of a forties-era film. It struck her as a little costume-like, but then she suspected one had to be a bit dramatic to schedule midnight meetings at national monuments.
“Of course I came. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I noticed you’ve been keeping some interesting company.”
“Oh, you’re talking about Connor. He has nothing to do with this. Don’t worry. I can handle him.”
“Do you think so?” He gave her a faint smile that suggested she was delusional and it sent a little tremor of unease up her spine. “Have you continued looking into Joy Hayes’s death?”
She hadn’t mentioned that to him before. “How did you know about that research?”
“I know a lot of things. I hadn’t planned on sharing this with you. I had selected one of your neighbors to be my point person for that. Fredrick Gallagher is a very curious character. He’s a big player in the ancient alien world and he sure does like his conspiracy theories.”
“He’s not a crackpot.” Her mind was reeling with the thought that this guy also had his eye on Freddy, who had obviously been his first choice. Why? How did he know Freddy? Nothing made sense.
“Oh, he is, but unfortunately, he’s a highly intelligent one and he’s onto something. I started tracking his movements. After he visited three television stations in the Midwest and shared some of his findings with you, I knew you were the perfect partner to bring into this, especially since Freddy can’t function in the real world.”
“I thought you wanted to use Capitol Scandals.”
“Not at all, but once I realized you were already involved, I decided you and your platform were the better choice. You can eventually be my go-between with many people. If you haven’t yet, there’s another woman I want you to meet.”
“Everly Parker.”
A hint of a smile lit his face. “Very good. I like to see my girls getting along. You understand that this goes far beyond her brother’s death.”
“I understand that Natalia Kuilikov is very important. I don’t understand what she has to do with Maddox Crawford’s death, and I definitely have no idea how she’s tied into Joy Hayes’s assassination.”
His smile widened. “I’m glad to hear you using the right words. The papers all called her death a tragic accident. But we both know Zack Hayes was never the target.”
The evidence haunted her nightly. “No. He wasn’t. Did the president kill his wife?”
“Now if I told you that, we wouldn’t need to have these charming meetings.”
“I’m almost out of time. Is Natalia Kuilikov alive?”
“Yes. Does Connor Sparks have you on a tight leash?”
“He doesn’t know I’m gone and I would like to keep it that way.” The question replayed in her mind, and Lara realized what he’d asked. “Sparks? His name is Spencer. Spencer Connor.”
The informant scoffed. “That one doesn’t have much of an imagination. I assume he showed up just as the Russians started tracking you.”
“Russians? It’s a Russian who’s trying to kill me?”
“Kill you? They certainly wouldn’t want to kill you. They want to track you.”
“You’re wrong. Someone already tried to shoot me in broad daylight at a bus stop.”
“Maybe someone’s gone rogue.” He shrugged. “But the Russians know I’ve been in touch so you have to be smarter than their organization. They want exactly what you want—Natalia Kuilikov’s location. You need to beat
the Russians to her and find out where she hid Sergei. She’s the only one who knows. Without that information, you’ll never find the truth.”
“Who is Sergei?”
“Isn’t that the million-dollar question? All I can say is Sergei is the man who will destroy the president someday. He will take down everything Zack Hayes holds dear. If you want to know why, you’ll have to find him.” He held out a slip of paper. “These are five known aliases used by Natalia. She’s likely using something else now, but we’re all creatures of habit. Find her. She can lead you to Sergei. And be careful with Connor Sparks. He isn’t what he seems.”