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GAZING OUT AT THE SEA, I thought about my life. It had been hard growing up surrounded by people who only wanted one thing from me. I had been pushed to excel as an assassin and taught that nothing else mattered. When I’d graduated from Abernathy’s school, there were only a few acceptable career options. I could join the CIA, the FBI, or the NSA. As long as I stuck with a government agency that could provide Abernathy with a window into the halls of power, he was agreeable.
He didn’t want us to join the military because he was afraid they would disrupt all his careful training. We were shown countless examples of people who went into service and came out dedicated to law and country rather than Abernathy’s personal whims. On the other hand, we were permitted to go into business for ourselves, to become freelance killers, or in Lukas’s case, leaders of underground organizations.
I’d chosen the CIA because I had my pride. I didn’t want to be a hired gun, and the thought of working for the greater good appealed to me. And the farther I got from Abernathy and my foster siblings, the less I thought about them.
Now it seemed that I would have to partner up with Lukas in order to take down Regg. Not knowing how far into the British and American governments the rot went, I was forced to fall back on the people I thought I’d left behind. Worse, Theo was forced to trust them, and I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with that or not.
I turned around to find him watching me. I waved, and he waved back. All was right between us, even though I was keeping secrets. I turned away from the beach and climbed the stairs back to the house. Theo held a hand out, and I took it, squeezing his fingers in silent approval.
We would be all right, I told myself. We were going to make it. No matter what happened, nothing was strong enough to split us apart. Not even death could stop us, as evidenced by our ability to break free of its grasp and come back together. I had to remind myself that Theo wasn’t going anywhere. I could trust him not to let me down, even though we were going through a rough patch.
“I think I’ll go investigate the boat,” Theo said, standing up.
“Any particular reason?” I asked.
“I just want to make sure it’s in good shape,” he replied.
I couldn’t tell if he was being evasive or not, but I decided not to push it. Wandering into the house, I found Nana Gretchen organizing her magazines in the living room. I smiled at her, thinking how quaint it was that she still had paper reading material. Although from a glance, I could tell that some of them were very old indeed.
“Did you enjoy your walk?” Nana asked.
“Yes, it’s beautiful here,” I said.
“I want to show you something,” she replied suddenly, straightening up to her full height.
“Okay,” I agreed.
There was a sparkle in her eye as she led the way through the kitchen to what I assumed was a basement door. Ordinarily, alarm bells would be ringing if someone offered to show me their basement. I was unarmed at the present moment, wearing only the dress that she’d loaned me the night before. But I wasn’t worried. No matter what was on her mind, I knew she didn’t bear me any ill will.
“You asked about how I kept up with the current state of affairs,” she said, reaching into her pocket to produce a key.
“I was just thinking that Theo and I were looking forward to getting off the radar,” I answered dreamily. “If we lived out here, I don’t know if I would even want to stay up to date.”
“Trust me,” Nana said, sliding the key into the lock and opening the door, “after a while, peace and quiet gets old.”
“I wish I knew,” I replied, following her down the stairs.
We plunged into darkness, and it took my eyes a while to adjust. There was a tiny bit of light poking in from the corners of the ceiling, evidence that the basement wasn’t exactly waterproof. It looked like there were a bunch of storage jars and a washer/dryer set in one corner. I almost thought that Nana had been mistaken. Maybe she was growing senile and thought she had something down there worth sharing.
She reached for a light cord above her head and pulled, casting the basement room into stark relief. I immediately noticed that it was too narrow for the length of the house, meaning that there was something significant behind the far wall.
She went to one of the shelves that held preserves. Or so I thought. Moving a box aside, she reached past the assorted jams and jellies and twisted a hidden knob. The shelf came away from the wall, sliding open on hinges. I realized then that the jars were only for show. They likely contained stuffing and food dye, glued to the surface so they wouldn’t move.
So much for the ordinary grandmotherly figure she presented. I knew that she had been every bit as dangerous as I was in her prime. That didn’t make me worried, though. Unless she had another assassin hidden within the secret room, I could take her.
The thought of getting into a fight with Theo’s grandmother was laughable. I covered my mouth with one hand and chuckled. Nana turned around to see what I was laughing at. I shook my head, unwilling to share the joke.
“This is my technology center,” she announced, stepping aside to reveal a perfectly sealed server room complete with RADAR, SONAR, and satellite imagery. It was a command center to rival what my foster father had in his mansion, what the CIA had at their field offices, and what MI6 had shown me during my brief visit to their headquarters. In fact, short of a military occupation, I wasn’t sure this amount of hardware could be assembled anywhere else on the planet without a certain amount of work.
“This is amazing,” I said, wandering into the room.
I was momentarily distracted by all the flashing lights, running my fingertips over the dials to check in on distant shores. There was so much information available here, no wonder Gretchen had been able to keep tabs on us. She probably just came down here one day, turned on the radio, and located us. Considering Linc had a tracking device on him and that Theo had apparently been monitoring it over the airwaves, it was just dumb luck that Nana was the only one who found us.
“I’m glad you like it,” Nana said, beaming with pride. “This is what I’ve been doing with my time. Some people knit; I collect intelligence equipment.”
“But how did you get all these pieces?” I asked, noticing that none of the hardware was off the rack. Either she’d bought it on the Internet and thereby revealed her location, or she had an in somewhere in the technology market.
“Some of it’s dark web,” Nana said, relishing the look of horror I gave her. “Some comes from George.”
“So he isn’t just a gardener,” I extrapolated.
Nana smiled guiltily. “No, he was a contact while I was still with the agency. He followed me here to keep an eye on me and help me out with day-to-day stuff.”
“Is there anything romantic going on between you?” I asked, surprising myself.
“Goodness no,” Nana said, waving her hand as if the idea was ludicrous. “He’s young enough to be my son.”
“Have you ever brought anyone else down here?” I wanted to know. It seemed special, but I couldn’t tell if she had other island friends she opened up to.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “Most people nowadays think I’m a reclusive writer. It’s very rare that I get to talk about my history, and even rarer to show someone what I’ve been up to.”
“Then why show me?” I asked. There had to be some reason she was favoring me with this experience. She hadn’t brought Theo down; she’d waited until we were alone to show off her private hobby.
“Men will always try to be our keepers, even when we can outsmart them at every turn. I made sure me and mine were taken care of, and honestly, I got a little bored during my retirement,” Gretchen said. “I’m showing you to tell you that you don’t need permission to follow your own path.”
There was something else that she was saying that I couldn’t quite decode. I didn’t think that her granting me permission to make my own choices had anything to do with Theo. It was obvious that our relationship was balanced. What other relationship then could she be talking about that had to do with gender politics and my place at the bottom of the heap?
I turned the puzzle around in my head for a long time, until the silence grew uncomfortable. I glanced at the walls and spotted a picture of a younger Gretchen with her arm around a very attractive man.
“Is that your husband?” I asked, pointing.
“Yes. His name was Mark. He taught 11th grade English at a high school in Oklahoma.”
“And he had no idea that you were a spy?” I questioned. The possibility seemed remote as far as I was concerned. To live with someone who was off on international trips with no explanation seemed ludicrous.
“He had no idea,” Gretchen confirmed. “Although at times, I thought he might have suspected. It’s possible to have a life outside of the job. Always remember that.”
“When Theo and I retire, I’m not ever going back,” I said.
“It will happen,” Gretchen promised. “And when it does, I hope you’ll remember what you just said.”
I pondered that morsel of wisdom as well. Though I trusted Theo’s grandmother, it seemed like there was something she was keeping from me. Of course, she had a lot of practice being in a loving, yet secretive relationship. I only hoped that her hidden agenda wasn’t quite as big as the one she’d managed to hide from her husband.
We went back into the storage side of the basement, and I watched as Gretchen closed the secret room. When she replaced the box over the doorknob, there was no trace of the command center. Only a trained eye would realize that there was space unaccounted for. I considered myself lucky to have been read into the situation and decided not to violate her trust by mentioning it to Theo. If Gretchen wanted to tell her grandson, she would.
Walking back upstairs, we found Theo on the phone with someone, his composure chaotic. I nearly interrupted to ask him what was wrong, but he held up an impatient finger. Glancing over at Gretchen, I found the older woman looking nearly as upset as her grandson was.
