CHAPTER TWELVE
THIS IS ABOUT the most extreme case of avoidance I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even a psychologist!”
The voice came from below Jenny, at the bottom of the climbing wall where her best friend, Aria, was belaying her. A harness hugged Aria’s lower body, webbing attached to a clip on the floor. She stared up at Jenny, her voice having echoed throughout the entire massive climbing center at the Edina GoSports facility.
Good thing it was after nine and Aria needed a little de-stressing after a long surgery. She’d been easy prey for Jenny’s restless energy.
She just had to shake off her frustration, and nothing helped her work a problem like a 5.12 route. Even if it did only drop to a spongy floor some sixty feet below.
The entire center resembled a gigantic cave, with vertical and overhang walls for both climbing and rappelling. Beyond the glass windows were two stories of exercise equipment, from treadmills and ellipticals to rowing machines and cycles. In the next room, a second-story track rounded a massive Olympic-sized pool, deep enough for scuba lessons on the far end.
The Minnetonka location had a cold room for ice climbing, but tonight, she needed the heat to match her mood.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No!” Jenny said as she reached for a jug just above her left fingers. This particular route included an overhang, one that she had yet to nail. She’d spent the past two weeks trying to figure it out. Figuring out her hand holds, her movements, her weight distribution, trying to figure out why Orion had just stared at her when she’d bared her heart to him.
“I had an abortion.”
Those words had emerged from her mouth, right? Because she had a very vivid memory of the acid pooling in her gut a moment before she admitted it.
That and declaring her love for him, just in case they died.
Both times he’d ignored her.
Or just . . . didn’t care?
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not going to go climb Everest with you just because you’re in denial,” Aria said.
Jenny caught her fingertips on the jug and worked her grip in, then moved her foot to an indentation and twisted to press up. “I’m not in denial. I’m just moving forward.” She shoved her right hand in a crack near the overhang.
“You haven’t talked to Orion since you got back from Italy two weeks ago. This is hardly moving forward.”
Jenny clipped her line into a carabiner hooked into the wall. “He has a cell phone. He can call me.” She found another handhold and pressed out, smearing up the wall before her left foot found a lip.
“Jenny. Call him. It’ll be easier than trying to climb this stupid wall every night.”
Jenny traded hands in the crack, then twisted her hips in and reached for another jug. Her right foot found the top of an undercling, and she pinched it with her left. “Listen. I bared my soul to him and the guy just looked at me—”
Jenny wiped her forehead with her arm. “I know. But I used all my emotional energy saying it the first time. I’m not saying it again.” Her arms shook, sweat dripping between her shoulder blades. She reached up for a slope with her left hand and cupped her hand over it. Her hand was slick, though, slipping fast.
“Why not?”
Jenny looked down at her. “Really?”
Aria’s mouth closed. “It’s just . . .”
“If you tell me to give him a chance, I’m going to—”
“What? I have your life in my hands,” Aria said, grinning.
Jenny stuck out her tongue at her.
“I just think you were both under a lot of stress and—be careful!”
“I got this!”
“You’re almost there!”
She moved her left foot onto the top of an undercling and pivoted to the outside edge, moving her center of gravity in.
Oh, her entire body had started to shake.
“You can do it!” Aria shouted.
Yes. She needed a win today, something to make her stop thinking about whether Orion wasn’t calling her because, well, because she’d been right all along.
He wanted a wife who didn’t come with her kind of scars.
Her kind of sins.
A wife who could give him a family.
She shoved her right finger into a pocket to steady herself, then moved her right foot out to a slope and used the dynamic energy to grab a jug with her left hand and walk up the wall, pressing hard for the overhanging ledge above.
Really, she didn’t blame him. He wasn’t the first guy who’d walked away from her. And he probably wouldn’t be the last.
No, he would most definitely be the last.
Her right hand closed over the skinny ledge and she wrapped her thumb around her fingers for extra support.
There, see, she—
Her foot slipped.
She careened off the rock, swinging in midair.
Aria caught her. “I saw that coming.”
Jenny looked down at her. “I almost had it.”
“Yeah, you did,” Aria said as she lowered Jenny to the mat. “You okay?”
“Are you?”
Aria wore her dark hair back, no makeup, her brown eyes bright despite a full day at work. Jenny blamed Jake for her best friend’s constant happiness. “Yeah. But I promised to meet Jake tonight, so I don’t have time for another go.”
“Really?”
“He taught a scuba diving class tonight. I haven’t seen him all week.” She worked off her harness. “I really think you should talk to Orion.”
Jenny grabbed a towel, wiping her face. “That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”
“Jenny—”
“Listen, I get it. I took the chance that he’d walk away from me when I told him, and now I just have to . . .” She blew out a breath, refused to let the ache pool in her chest. “I just have to live with it. I’ll be fine.”
She made to move past her, but Aria caught her arm. “But he won’t.”
Jenny stilled. “What?”
“He’s not okay, Jenny. According to Jake, he really hurt his knee in the assault, and he’s been working out for two weeks trying to get himself put back together.”
“Could it be that maybe there’s something going on inside his head that isn’t about your conversation and might just be about the fact that he didn’t protect you?”
Jenny could barely form the words. “You think Orion is staying away from me because he thinks he should have protected me?”
“Heart doctor,” Aria said quietly.
“Huh,” Jenny said. She picked up her water bottle and headed toward the door.
Scarlett stood at the glass on the other side. She wore a pair of yoga pants, a workout jacket, and running shoes. Her hair was wet.
Jenny opened the door. “I didn’t know you worked out here.”
“Yeah. I just started,” Scarlett said. “North got me fixed up with a membership. I came to swim. But I saw you two climbing. Good job. I’m not much of a climber, but that looked hard.”
“It is,” Aria said. “You headed home?”
“Actually, no. I need to talk to Ham, but I don’t know how to get ahold of him. I’ve called a couple times, but his phone goes to voicemail.”
“He’s up north, at his cabin,” said Jenny. “I think it’s off the grid.”
“Jake says he has a sat phone,” Aria said. “He can probably get you the number. Why?”
Scarlett made a face.
“We know about the NOC list, Scarlett,” Jenny said. “And that you were working on decrypting it.”
“That’s the thing. I gave it to a hacker friend of mine who worked on it.”
“And?”
“I think Ham’s in danger.”
Jenny looked at Aria. Back to Scarlett. “What do you mean?”
“That woman who had the list—”
“Yeah. His wife.” Scarlett shook her head. “She’s lying. And not just about Jackson. Signe Jones is a terrorist, and Ham is in serious trouble.”
“Come at me again.” Orion’s voice emerged on a hard breath. Sweat dripped down his face, his back. He took a step back, shook the acid out of his arms, facing North, breathing hard.
“Seriously, Ry. You got this—”
“Again!” Orion’s voice nearly thundered through the MMA arena of the downtown GoSports location. While a pair of boxers worked on one of the center rings, North and Orion grappled on one of the massive mats. Night poured through the tall windows that surrounded the building. The entire place contained a Gold’s Gym vibe, with a loud weight-lifting room, a sauna, and plenty of hanging bags.
Orion preferred a real human being coming at him. Someone he could grapple with, someone he could fight.
Someone he could pretend was an angry Russian thug.
North wore protective gear—a padded head wrap, shin guards, body protection. Orion too wore gear, especially since his nose still hurt. He’d wrapped his knee and padded his hands, but mostly he wanted to be free to move.
He had to figure out how they’d taken him down so fast, and how to never, ever let it happen again.
He couldn’t get Jenny’s scream out of his head.
“Ready?” North asked.
“Just—”
North rushed him, and Orion sidestepped him, pivoted, and slammed his fist into his ear as the man went by. Shot his knee into his leg, then swept it.
North hit the mat. Stared up at Ry. “I think you got this.”
Orion danced back. “Again.”
North got up. Unclipped his head wrap and dropped it on the mat. “Nope. I’m tappin’ out. You’re a lean, mean, fightin’ machine, and I need a burger.”
Orion picked up his water bottle and squirted water into his mouth. His knee hurt tonight. But he needed a little hurt in his life to remind him of his stupidity. He’d been off his guard, a little lovesick, thinking way too much about Jenny and her arms around him as he’d driven them through the city on that Vespa. Thinking about their future and whatever it was that still stood between them.
Then, Bam! He’d been flattened and—
“Shake it off, Starr. You’re okay. Everybody lived.” North tossed a towel at him.
Orion looked at him. North had a quiet, almost lethally cool manner about him. He never got rattled. Not even in Afghanistan with his buddies dying around him.
If it hadn’t been for North, Orion might not have made it home, so he respected the guy. But it was still a little unfair that North didn’t walk around with any demons.
North peeled off the rest of his gear. “Is this about Jenny?”
Orion was unwrapping his hands. “It’s about me being off my game. Letting a couple Russians jump me. I know better. I trained better.”
“You’re not a one-man army,” North said.
“What you mean is that I’m not a SEAL.”
North grinned. “Yep.”
Orion threw one of his gloves at him, and North ducked, but he grabbed his water bottle and headed toward the locker room.
Jerk. Especially since the PJs went through Hell Week and spec ops training too.
But Orion was trained to save people under fire. Not to start the battle. Still, he should be able to take down a couple untrained street fighters from Moscow. Sheesh.
Orion followed North into the locker room. North had already stripped down to a towel and was heading to the sauna. Orion joined him.
They sat in the heat for a while. Then, as the steam rose, “Jenny had to negotiate. She traded our lives for the kid’s and his mom’s freedom. But she was ready to die—”
“That’s not on you.”
Orion leaned back on the cedar bench, let the sweat drip down his face. “Who else am I supposed to blame?”
“Royal climbed back inside your head, didn’t he?”
Orion lifted a shoulder.
“I knew it. Your knee went out on you, and it only brought back the fiasco with Royal and Logan on the mountain.”
Orion drew in a breath of hot air. “We should have never left them behind.”
“We couldn’t get to them, man. Don’t you think I still have nightmares about leaving them?”
Orion looked at him, met North’s dark eyes. Huh. So maybe North did have a few chinks in his cool Viking armor. Still, “You went in after them. I sat in a German hospital and tried to walk again.”
North hung a towel over his head. “You gotta make peace with it, Ry.”
“Royal’s still not home, is he?”
North leaned forward, his arms on his knees, head down. “I guess not.”
A beat. Then, because North wasn’t looking at him, “I thought I made peace with it. Or at least learned to live with it. I even convinced myself that by proposing, I was moving on.” Orion scrubbed his hands down his slick face. “But the truth is, I’m not at peace. Not until I find him.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I keep hearing her scream, you know? And I’m just sitting there, trussed up like a pig, unable to move, listening for you guys to save us. It sits in my gut every night. I haven’t been able to face Jenny.”
“You think she blames you?”
“I would.”
North nodded, pulled off the towel, and leaned back.
“She was talking with Martin—I can’t wait until we find him—and I told her to wait for my signal and all the while I was thinking, What if one of the Russians comes after her? My stupid knee was twisted, and I was working my hands loose, but I knew I couldn’t stop them. And it made me crazy. If you guys hadn’t showed up—”
“But we did.”
Orion shook his head. “I nearly lost her, now, twice, because I couldn’t take care of myself. And there’s no guarantee that my knee isn’t going to crap out on me again.” He got up. “I’m an invalid. I wouldn’t want me either.”
North made a noise of disagreement, but Orion ignored him and pushed out of the sauna, headed toward the showers. Yes, he probably owed Jenny an explanation. But the last thing he wanted was her pity. He made himself a little sick thinking about the conversation. She’d tell him she loved him, that it was okay, that they made it and that was the important thing. And maybe it was.
He still couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. Or dial her number.
He finished the shower, wrapped his knee, and dressed. “I’m headed home. Thanks, North.”
“Anytime, bro,” North said as he packed his gear.
Orion walked out into the cool night. Overhead, the stars hung bright in the cloudless sky. The wind lifted the collar of his jacket.
Let it go.
Not hardly. Because North was right. Royal had climbed into his brain like a specter, and Jenny’s screams only kept it alive.
If he wanted freedom, he needed to find Royal. Then maybe he and Jenny had a chance.
If she could forgive him for not protecting her.
Orion got in his Renegade, threw his workout bag on the passenger seat, and headed to the three-bedroom house he shared with Jake. The guy had purchased it only a couple months ago, on his sister’s recommendation, but it sat in a quaint St. Louis Park community, right across from a park, and Orion figured Jake had Aria on the brain when he’d put in his offer.
Jake pretty much always had Aria on his brain.
Orion lived in the basement bedroom, with Jake in the finished attic bedroom. So far, neither of them had killed the other.
But Orion had been thinking about houses too, before the trip to Italy.
Now he was just thinking about ice for his knee and maybe a bowl of cereal.
He pulled up beside Jake’s Subaru in the alley garage. So, back from his date with Aria.
The back light was on over the deck and Orion came in the back entrance. Set his bag on the floor.
Heard voices and froze.
Oh no.
He closed the door just as Jake came around the corner. “Hey. Took you long enough. We gotta talk to you.”
We? His gut tightened as he walked into the front room.
Jenny sat on Jake’s sofa, next to Scarlett, peering into a computer open on the coffee table.
When she looked up, she wore the same stripped, panicked look he was probably giving out. “Hi.”
“Hi.” His throat tightened. I’m sorry I didn’t call—the words lodged in his throat.
Thankfully, Scarlett spoke up. “We need to contact Ham.”
Oh. Orion looked at Jake, who was standing near the fireplace, his arms folded. Aria came out of the kitchen, holding a glass of water.
“Hey, Ry.”
He nodded, then turned to Scarlett. “He’s still up north, at his cabin. But he has a sat phone. We can call him if we have to. But he’s trying to reconnect with his family—”
“We think he’s in danger,” Jenny said.
Orion frowned. “Why?”
Scarlett scooted back and turned the computer around to face him. “This is the NOC list.”
She could have punched him with less effect, until—
“And Signe is not on it.”
“Are you sure?” Orion sat on a nearby chair and pulled the computer toward him. “Did you check aliases? She came into the country as Stephi Jones.”
Scarlett nodded. “Ford’s sister, Ruby Jane, is a CIA analyst. She was able to get a list of all Signe’s known aliases. We ran it through the database. And yeah, we got a hit, but not on this list.”
Quiet. Orion looked up at her. Then Jenny, Jake, and back. “What?”
“She’s on the disavowed list,” Jake said quietly. “The CIA issued a burn notice on her over a year ago.”
“Basically, it means to disregard all intelligence gathered by her,” Scarlett said. “Because she’s untrustworthy.”
“Then how did she get through passport control?”
Scarlett raised a shoulder. “Maybe they saw Ham’s name, and hers matched, so it didn’t raise any flags.”
“Which means she used Ham to get into the country,” Jake said, his expression grim.
“And what about the story about Jackson?” Orion asked.
“There’s no decryption signature package in the coding, so that was a lie, according to my hacker source,” Scarlett said. “Ruby Jane said that they were sending someone to take her into custody.”
“Ham is going to lose it,” Orion said quietly. “We need to warn him.”
“And what if she runs?” Aria asked. “Who knows what her plan is, and if she takes off, we’ll never know.”
“You really think she’s a terrorist?” Jake said. “Ham seems to trust her.”
“Ham wants very desperately for his family to be put back together,” Jenny said quietly. “That can cause you to make bad decisions. Overlook truths.”
Orion looked at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“She did run, in Italy,” Orion said. “What if Martin was telling the truth?”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t believe it. There was something about him that just . . . it didn’t feel right.” Now she met Orion’s gaze. “Didn’t you sense that?”
He had nothing except a siren of panic resounding in his head. “Jenny, the truth is, I wasn’t really paying attention to him. I was just thinking about how we were going to survive.”
She just looked at him. “Really?”
“It’s all a big haze to me. I do remember you offering to let him kill us, though.”
And that shut down the room. Jenny’s mouth tightened. Then, “Truth is, in the back of my mind, I thought . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I guess I thought you’d save us. You were acting so weird, though, I couldn’t be sure . . .”
He stared at her. Swallowed. And he knew it. He’d failed her.
“It could be that this Martin guy thought you were in league with her,” Scarlett said.
That broke the spell. Jenny turned to Scarlett. “What are you going to do with the list?”
“Ruby Jane works for Isaac White, on a special task force, and she’s already handed it over. He’s sending someone here, right now, to meet us.”
“And they want us to lead them to her,” Jake said. He folded his arms. “I don’t like it.”
Orion looked at Jenny. “What do you think we should do?”
“I’m not sure we have a choice. If Signe has been using Ham to get into the country, then she’s betrayed all of us, especially him.”
Orion nodded. “We need to get there first. At least Jake and I do. And we’ll keep her there until you guys show up.”
“I’ll give you directions, Scarlett, but try to delay them,” Jake said. “We need to give Ham time to figure this out.”
“Let’s hold on to the hope that she hasn’t played us all,” Jenny said.
Orion got up, but Jenny had also found her feet. “Ry?”
He looked at her. Jake and Aria went into the other room. Scarlett was typing.
“Yeah?” Wow, she was pretty. Always, but not having seen her for two weeks took a slice out of him. Sometimes he couldn’t breathe around her. Now, she wore a pair of loose jeans and a white fleece jacket, her blonde hair back, her blue eyes shiny.
I’m sorry. The words filled his chest. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you—
“Stay safe. She could be dangerous.” She swallowed, and it seemed her eyes glazed. Probably thinking of the way he’d been practically helpless on the floor.
“I love you. You are my hero, now and forever.” The words whispered in the back of his head, like a memory, but he shook them away. Wishful thinking.
He nodded and gave her a bland smile. “Don’t worry, Jenny, I got this. Just, please, stay out of the way, okay?” He managed not to wince as he walked down the stairs to retrieve his gear.
By the time he emerged, packed and ready to go, she was gone.
For the first time in two weeks—maybe longer—Signe woke up without the nightmares. Without Tsarnaev and Jackson chasing her through shadowed, cobbled streets or down narrow alleyways. Without the quickening of her heartbeat as she opened her eyes, trying to get a footing on her surroundings.
Today she woke up safe. With the glorious sunshine whispering through the gauzy curtains and across the carpet of Ham’s master bedroom suite. With the geese honking as they flew overhead and the smell of bacon—
What?
That’s when she noticed Ham’s absence in the bed beside her. They hadn’t quite made their way back to intimacy, Ham holding fast to his idea that they needed to know each other better. But he’d burst into her room one night after she’d screamed in her sleep, and she’d convinced him to stay.
She’d fallen asleep with his arms around her, and she hadn’t slept so soundly in years.
So yes, she’d give him time. She was just happy hearing the sound of his breathing every night.
And the timbre of his voice, singing hymns in the morning, as he made breakfast.
Now, she could hear his voice downstairs, even if she couldn’t make out the words, and Signe guessed he was talking with Aggie, probably telling her one of his many childhood stories, censored and embellished for her ears.
Your mom had this dog named Caesar . . .
She lay there, watching the overhead fan spin. So, this was what happily-ever-after felt like. No pounding headache, no hyperventilation, no sense of dread in her gut. Just glorious golden skies and the man she loved—and oh, how she loved Hamilton Jones—making her breakfast.
Bacon. Yes. She’d started eating it again this week, and maybe that’s what had broken her free. The realization that Tsarnaev no longer had a hold on her.
She wasn’t leaving. She’d made that decision on the doorstep, seeing Ham’s broken expression, hearing his heart.
She believed him when he said he’d keep her safe. When he said that they could create their own version of normal.
They’d spent the past two weeks doing just that—hiking, playing games with Aggie, making meals together. Ham had even taken them fishing, and Aggie had spotted a real moose in the reeds. They’d watched movies in his basement theater, drank hot cocoa by the fire, roasted marshmallows on the beach, and listened to the waves crash upon the shoreline.
Somehow, the trauma of the past decade had started to recede, wash away with the tide, leaving behind only the skeleton of her regrets. But even those were beginning to crumble.
This was her future. Her new life.
The one she’d been too afraid, really, to believe in.
The smell finally beckoned her out of bed, and she threw on a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt, pulling her hair up in a messy bun.
She was exiting the bedroom, on her way down the stairs, when Ham’s voice rose, something lethal and dark in it. “Over my dead body.”
Then the stairs moaned under her foot and the conversational hum in the kitchen stopped.
She peeked over the railing, expecting—or hoping, maybe—to see Aggie swirling her pancakes through syrup.
Her breath caught.
Orion and Jake sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. A plate of bacon sat in the center of the table, and both had messy egg plates, already finished with their breakfast.
They looked up at her, something of a stricken look on their faces.
Then they looked at Ham.
He was leaning against the peninsula countertop, his arms folded over his chest, wearing such a wretched expression it looked like someone had died.
Maybe—and in the back of her brain, something was clicking, but it didn’t form before she asked, “Did you find him?” She came down the stairs. “Did you find Martin?”
Except, it occurred to her just as she hit the landing, that Ham would be packing, anxious to interrogate the man—so, no. Something else . . . “What’s going on?”
He looked back at Orion. “I don’t believe it.”
“Ham,” Jake said, something of warning in his tone, but it didn’t stop Ham from turning to her.
“You’re not on the NOC list.”
She cocked her head. “What?”
“They decrypted the NOC list. You aren’t on it.”
“Oh.” Huh. She slid onto the bench across from Jake and Orion. Reached for a piece of bacon. “I guess that’s why Tsarnaev didn’t kill me.”
Jake just blinked at her. Orion’s mouth opened, closed.
“And you guys came all the way up here to tell us that?” She grabbed a napkin. Looked at Ham, frowned. “Is your sat phone not working?”
“It’s working. It’s just . . . there’s more, Sig.”
It was the way he didn’t move, the way he was looking at her, no through her, that made her set down her napkin, smooth it on the table. “What?”
“You’re on the disavowed list,” Jake said quietly.
The words sifted through her. Silence.
“Scarlett has connections with a CIA insider—”
“I told you that you can’t trust the CIA!” She didn’t mean to raise her voice, but this—this moment—was exactly why she should have run.
Probably without Aggie.
“She’s working separately, on a special task force for Isaac White,” Jake said.
Signe’s mouth opened, closed. “Ah, I see. And you came up here to tell Ham not to trust me. That I was lying.”
They said nothing. Jake looked away.
Orion, however, stared at her, his jaw hard.
Wait. No. “You came here to protect Ham. I would never—”
“Calm down, Sig. They came here to warn me, so we could think up a plan.”
She got up. “Did the CIA send people? Are they on their way?”
Ham nodded. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let them take you.”
“Seriously. Ham. What are you going to do? Form a perimeter and have a standoff?”
His mouth tightened.
Oh boy. And this was worse. A standoff with her daughter and her husband—yes, husband—caught in the crossfire. “Why don’t I just go? The border is only an hour away—”
“No!” Ham came across the room, and she startled at his burst of emotion. “You’re not leaving.”
She recoiled, and because his tone had sheared off her protective layer—actually, hardly any of it remained, anyway—tears raked her eyes.
Get. Ahold. Of. Yourself.
She was tougher than this. Compartmentalize. Think.
“You’re right.” She held up her hands, backed away from him. “If I run, then they’ll take you and Aggie in and . . . I can’t have her terrorized that way.”
Ham caught her arm. “Stop. It’s going to be okay—”
“In what world?” She shook out of his grip. “I knew this would happen. Jackson did this—she disavowed me. She’s behind this whole thing! Did you not see her name in the decryption key?”
“There was no key,” Orion said quietly.
“No . . . no . . . that’s not . . . I know there’s a key.”
“How?” Jake asked.
She looked at Jake. Back to Ham. “Because when I got the list, the first thing I did was contact my former handler, someone I trusted. Sophia Randall. I told her about the list, and Jackson, and my fear that there was a rogue group inside the CIA. She told me to hang on to the drive because all NOC lists come with a key.”
“Not this one,” Jake said.
She swallowed. “What if this one was a decoy?”
Silence.
“Why would Jackson give Tsarnaev a decoy?” Orion said.
“Maybe he knew it was false,” Jake said. “What if it’s not about the list, but about you. Maybe they were counting on you coming to America with it.”
“Maybe you have something they want,” Ham said quietly.
She looked at Ham. “What? How would . . . I’m nobody.”
Ham’s mouth tightened. “Not to me.”
“What if this is about you, Ham?” Orion said. “White did send you to get her.”
Ham stared at him for a beat. Then, “No. Isaac sent me because he was there when I lost her to Tsarnaev.” Ham held Signe’s gaze. “He knew what it would mean to me to find her.”
Her chest tightened. “If it was fake, then this was all a setup. I was played.”
Ham took a step toward her, but she turned away from him, her hands around her waist.
And that’s when she spied Aggie standing at the end of the hallway. “Mama, are you okay?”
Signe held open her arms. Aggie walked into them and she stayed there, holding her, as a car drove up outside.
Ham put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not going to let them take you.”
She kissed Aggie’s cheek. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
Orion had stood up as well. “Ham, we got your back.”
“This isn’t a standoff, Ry. We’re just going to talk.”
Outside, car doors closed. Signe turned to Aggie. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go make a fort for your animals in your room?”
Aggie’s eyes widened, but she nodded and headed down the hallway.
Signe turned as a knock came at the door. Took a breath.
Ham opened the door. Jenny Calhoun stood there with two other women she didn’t know. But it was one of two men in suits that made her still.
“York?”
She didn’t recognize the one with sandy brown hair, green eyes. The other, however, had blond hair, cut short and tight, and she would know that scar anywhere—the one that ran from his ear halfway along his neck. York Newgate. US intelligence officer and one of her former contacts.
Rumor was that he’d been on the disavowed list. So apparently this was a meetup of sorts, of former operatives left out in the cold.
He too paused, hesitated. Looked over his shoulder at a dark-haired woman, then back to Signe. “Stella?”
Oops. She made a face. “Signe. Jones, but yes.”
“You’re behind all this?” He walked into the house, followed by the other man. “You brought in the NOC list?”
“Yeah. What are you doing here?”
“How do you know each other?” Ham said, but before she could answer, he looked at the dark-haired woman behind York. “Ruby Jane Marshall?”
“Hey, Ham,” she said. She wore a pair of black dress pants and a blouse, her dark hair up. “This is York, by the way.”
Ham shook his hand. “So you’re the one.”
Signe had the distinct impression she was missing something. Ham turned to her. “Remember that woman who was framed for shooting General Stanislov? This is her.”
“The one who mysteriously escaped Russia with the FSB on her tail?” Signe shook her hand. Then looked at York. “Now it makes sense. You were a part of that, weren’t you?”
“It’s a long story,” York said. “Ruby Jane is a former CIA analyst who got caught up in something. But we’re here about you. What’s going on?”
“No—first, how do you two know each other?” This from the other man, with brown hair.
About that time, Orion said from behind her, “Logan Thorne? What are you doing here?”
Logan looked at him. “Orion. Last time I saw you, you were fighting fires in Alaska.” He shook his hand.
“Last time I saw you, I helped sew up your gunshot wound. How’d you get back to the Lower 48?”
“Took a chance on love.” Logan smiled. “Now I work for Senator White. I’m the head of an off-the-books group looking into this mess with the CIA and any connection to Jackson.”
“See!” Signe said. She turned to Logan. “You need to talk to Sophia Randall.”
The intake of breath from Ruby Jane made Signe turn. She wore a stricken expression. “Sophia Randall?”
Signe nodded, but it was the added expression of horror on York’s face that formed a knot in her gut. “What?”
“She was my boss,” Ruby Jane said. “She was murdered about two months ago.”
Signe reached out for the table. “What?”
“We think it was by a rogue officer named Martin, but we’re not sure,” York said.
“We met him!” Jenny said. “In Italy. Chasing Signe.”
Signe hadn’t seen her walk in. Or the other woman, with short dark hair.
“Wait. So Martin killed Sophia, then tried to kill you?” Logan asked.
“I have history with him too,” York said. “Once upon a time we worked for the same organization. But our roads diverged when he nearly killed me.” He pointed to the scar at his neck. “He works for Jackson.”
“See?” Signe said. She turned to Ham. “I’m not lying.”
“Of course you’re not,” Ham said quietly. “It’s possible Jackson stripped off the decryption key to hide her involvement with the sale of the NOC list.”
“That makes sense,” Ruby Jane said now, nodding. “But how do you know Sophia?”
“She was my former handler, a contact in the agency I thought I could trust. When I got the list, I called her and told her everything.”
“About four months ago.”
Ruby Jane looked at York. “That’s about the time she went missing. Now we know what started her search.”
Signe drew in a breath. “Did I . . . did I get her killed?”
“No,” York said. “She got herself killed. She dug too deep. Just like Tasha.”
Signe stared at him, feeling punched. “I’m so sorry, York. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah.”
“Who is Tasha?” Ham asked.
Signe turned to him. “I met York about three years ago at a resort on the Black Sea. I was there with Tsarnaev. York came with his girlfriend, Tasha, who was a reporter for an underground newspaper. I think she was trying to get dirt on Tsarnaev. Meanwhile, I handed off information to York about an upcoming terrorist attack.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, I also handed it off—to the wrong people. The attack happened on Russian soil,” York said.
“What happened to Tasha?” Signe asked.
“She reported a rumor about a Russian general sleeping with an American senator. Apparently, Tsarnaev was bragging about how he’d set them up.”
That shut down the room.
“Tasha was killed by an assassin for hire, a few months later,” York said quietly. “We’re not sure who was behind it, but we suspect Martin.”
“Which leads us back to Jackson,” said Ruby Jane.
“Why are we not freaking out that Jackson is running for vice president?” Jake said, having stood up to join the group. “The election is in three days!”
“I know,” Logan said quietly. “And so does Isaac White. But it’s too late to pull her from the ticket, and if we did, we couldn’t regain the ground lost. Isaac will get elected, then work from the inside to confirm our allegations. Then he can decide what to do.”
“We can’t have a traitor in the White House,” Jenny said.
A beat, then Signe turned to York. “Are you here to take me in?”
York looked at Logan. “He’s in charge.”
Um, not by the expression on Ham’s face, but she said nothing.
Logan was shaking his head. “No one but a small circle knows you’re here. Until we get to the bottom of this, we’d like it to stay that way. But I do need to hear everything. And, I need you to stick around, okay?”
Ham took her hand.
“Yes,” she said, squeezing Ham’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere. And I promise . . .” She looked at York, then Orion, Jenny, and Jake. “I’m going to find out exactly what is going on.”