He disappeared around the corner of the house, and Eve slowly turned to look around. Tall pine and Douglas fir trees rose toward the dark sky. They were obviously in the mountains, though at what elevation she couldn’t tell, and since she hadn’t paid attention to the direction Zane had been driving, they could be in Canada for all she knew. There were no other vehicles anywhere close. No other homes that she could see, either. Just dense forest growing darker by the minute, and ominous clouds that mirrored her mood.
Dead.
Her stomach rolled again. Pain wrapped knotted, gnarled fingers around her chest. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose to keep from getting sick once more. Carter was dead. Because of her. Carter and Natalie. Probably Olivia too. If those were the same men who’d taken her sister, there was no hope for Olivia’s return now.
She’d dealt with death before, but this hit too close to home. This was too real. This was her fault.
Footsteps echoed close, and Eve managed to open her eyes just as Zane came around the corner. He held something shiny in his hand. “Got it.”
Seconds later they were in the house. Light pine floors ran from the massive entryway toward a two-story family room and, beyond that, an industrial-sized kitchen. A curved staircase rose to the second floor. Wide windows covered the entire back wall of the great room, looking out over the enormous back deck, the grass, and the pristine blue lake.
He closed and locked the door behind him, then grasped her hand. “Come on.”
He led her into the great room. Plush furnishings surrounded a huge rock fireplace that ran to the ceiling. An elaborate mantle stretched from one side to the other. Above, an enormous flat-screen TV was mounted to the wall. Past the kitchen on the right, a large round mahogany table sat in a bay of towering windows, looking out toward the lake. He pulled out one of the ten chairs around it and pushed her to sit. Then grabbed the arm of her left sleeve and pulled.
Fabric ripped. Startled by the sound, Eve looked down where he was kneeling next to her. “What are you doing?”
“You’re hit. Hold still while I see how bad it is.”
The white sleeve was stained with soot and blood and dirt. She stared at the jagged wound across her biceps, swollen and red, not even feeling it.
“It’s just a scratch.” He pushed to his feet and disappeared. “Stay here.”
She looked around the room, feeling numb inside. She should get up. She should be trying to find her sister. She should be tracking those men who’d blown up that park and killed her friends. But she didn’t have the energy. Didn’t have the drive. Didn’t have . . . anything anymore.
Dead.
Zane knelt next to her again. “This might sting.”
Something cool brushed her arm, but she barely registered the sensation. He cleaned and bandaged the wound, then pushed to his feet. Seconds passed before he said, “I need to move the car. You gonna be okay for a few minutes?”
Was she okay? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t answer.
Footsteps echoed across the floor. Then the door opened and closed. Minutes later he was back, shaking the rain from his hair and locking the door once more. When he moved back into the room, she heard him mutter, “God, you’re a mess,” but she didn’t have the energy to fight with him or even look his way.
“Whose house is this?”
He moved into the kitchen and flipped on a light. “A high-profile client. It’s a vacation home in the Cascades. No one will find us. We’re safe for the time being.”
For the time being. That didn’t do much to bolster Eve’s mood. She turned and looked out at the water. “I thought you weren’t speaking to your boss at Aegis.”
“I am now.”
He didn’t elaborate, and Eve couldn’t help but wonder what else had happened in the hours she’d been out of it, but she still didn’t have the desire to ask.
“Is there”—she swallowed the lump in her throat—“any news about Olivia?”
“No, none. I’m sorry.”
None. She didn’t expect there to be. Olivia was dead. Just like Natalie. Just like Carter. Just like that child in the street in Seattle.
All because of her.
She closed her eyes again. Focused on the sounds. The fridge opening. A cupboard door slapping shut. A pan landing on a burner. Familiar, normal sounds.
Just don’t think. Just don’t feel.
A click echoed in front of her, and she opened her eyes to see a plate of scrambled eggs on the table.
“Eat,” Zane said.
She didn’t feel like eating. And just the sight of food made her stomach roll. He went back into the kitchen and returned with his own plate and two glasses of water.
Water. Water she could manage. She picked up the glass and downed the entire thing.
“There’s something you need to know.” He waited until she put the glass down before going on. “Jake Ryder, the CEO of Aegis Security, and ADD Roberts went to school together. I don’t know all the details, but they don’t get along. Aegis was passed over on the defense contract for the Guatemala mission. Ryder got pissed and told the government they could go fuck themselves. He makes enough money off private security where he doesn’t need the State Department’s kickback. But it was a big deal at the time. And then, surprisingly, a few weeks later, Aegis was awarded the contract.”
Slowly, Eve turned to look his way. And a tiny part of her brain kicked into gear. “You’re telling me the assistant deputy director at the CIA is the one who set Aegis up to take the fall for Humbolt’s death.”
“That’s the way it’s looking.”
“And by that theory, ADD Roberts is the one after Humbolt’s formula.”
“Yes.”
“My boss.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In counterintelligence.”
Zane exhaled a breath and rested his forearm on the table. “Think about it. If he really did set Aegis up because of some vendetta against Ryder, and he sent you in to get the drop from Smith, then his hands are all over a lot of sticky shit.”
Eve considered for a moment. She worked for the world’s greatest spy agency. She knew there were double agents in the organization. Knew there were compromised agents. Hell, her job was to find them. And though there were a variety of reasons a person could turn, usually they were focused around money, ideology, coercion, or ego. ADD Roberts was, as Carter had pointed out, a mover within the Agency. Eve couldn’t see any of the above four reasons compromising his chance at one day being director of the CIA.
“How did you know the op in Guatemala was compromised?” Zane asked.
Eve’s brain was suddenly spinning way too fast. She pushed her untouched eggs away, rested her elbow on the table, and rubbed her throbbing head. “I got a call from Langley. A researcher who’d originally helped me pull info on both you and Carter before I went to Beirut.”
“And he or she said what?”
She rubbed harder. “That word of the raid had leaked, and that the op was compromised.”
“But no info about how or where it was leaked?”
“No.”
Zane was quiet for a second and then said, “Ryder’s on his way here. He’s digging up info on Roberts so we can figure out how to play this.”
She dropped her hand, and her gaze snapped his direction. “Here?”
He pushed back from the table and took his plate into the kitchen. “I figure it’s time we brought in some help on this.”
Eve’s stomach rolled all over again. Did they need help? She wasn’t so sure. The only out she could see at this point was total surrender. “Carter was right. I need to call Langley and turn myself in.”