Bourne waited for Abbey outside the Malibu house. He sat in one of the Adirondack chairs on the balcony that overlooked the woods and the ocean. After midnight, when he saw headlights approaching on Highway 1, he knew it was her. The car turned up the long driveway, and Abbey parked outside the garage. As she headed for the front door, he called to her. She didn’t look surprised to hear his voice.
She joined him on the balcony and took a chair next to him. Her mahogany hair was lush and loose. She wore a zipped nylon jacket over tight blue jeans, and her white sneakers were black with dirt and ash. He could smell smoke emanating from her body, and he knew she’d been at the site of the fire again.
“Still working on the book?” he asked.
“Still working on the book.” Then her head swiveled, and her lips pushed together in a pale pink line. “No, actually, that’s a lie. I’m sorry. I’m switching topics. The fire hits too close to home for me now. But I needed to see it again. I needed to see the place where I killed my husband.”
“You didn’t have a choice. Garrett put you in that position. This is on him.”
“This is on Treadstone,” Abbey said.
He couldn’t really argue with her. Everything bad between them began and ended with Treadstone.
“They’ve been listening to you,” Bourne told her. “And watching you, too. I went through the whole house. I took out all of their devices.”
“Unbelievable.” Abbey shook her head. “No, totally believable.”
“I saw moving boxes inside,” Bourne said. “Are you leaving?”
She sighed. “Yeah. I’m done here. No book, no need to be in this place. Plus, it has too many memories. I may go back to Canada for a while. Quebec. That’s still home to me, and I need to be home right now.”
“I understand.”
“Do you think I’m safe being there, Jason? Am I safe anywhere? Or will Treadstone be keeping an eye on me?”
“I’d have your place swept on a regular basis,” he admitted. “They may leave you alone, but they may not.”
“Even if we’re not together?”
“Yeah.”
“Once I’m part of that world, I guess I’m in it forever.”
“Hopefully not forever. If I’m not with you, they’ll stop eventually.”
Abbey stared at the distant ocean, looming like a black-and-gold shroud under the moonlight. “Did you save that woman?”
“I did.”
“Good for you. I’m glad.” She looked at him again, her face darkening with concern. “But if they had my place bugged, they knew what you were going to do. You told me your plan. They knew you were going to trade the Files for her life.”
“Yes, they knew. But it all worked out. Johanna was there.”
“Johanna?”
“She’s the one I told you about.”
Abbey’s eyes widened. He tried to read the emotions crossing her face, but he couldn’t. “Oh. Johanna. Pretty name.”
“It’s not really her name.”
“Of course it’s not.” She seemed eager to change the subject. “Who ended up with the Files?”
“No one did.”
“No one? After all that?”
“They were destroyed.”
Her brow furrowed. “Really? Are you sure?”
Bourne thought about Shadow and the webs she spun to trap everyone around her. He pictured the enigmatic look on her face and the secret satisfaction in her eyes. You’re taking this all rather well. “No. I’m not sure at all. On some level, I can’t help but wonder if I was played. But for now, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Abbey got up and went to the redwood railing, her back to him. She put her hands on her hips as she studied the darkness.
“No sling,” he called. “Your shoulder’s okay?”
“Better. I’m doing all right. My leg got better, too. Did you notice? From the car bomb last year. They thought the limp might be permanent, but physical therapy helped. I’m like ninety-five percent now.”
“I noticed.”
“So I guess I came out of my time with you alive and relatively unscathed.” She glanced over her shoulder. “That was a joke.”
“I know.”
He joined her at the railing. They stood side by side above the woods that led down the hillside to the Pacific.
“I guess this is the talk, huh?” Abbey said. “This is where we lay it all on the line.”
“I guess so.”
She inhaled a slow breath, as if summoning her courage. “In Quebec a year ago, I said I couldn’t live with you. I mean, with your world. With what you do. I was in love with you, but that wasn’t enough. Since then, I’ve been running away from you as fast as I can. But when you showed up here—”
“You almost got killed. Again.”
Abbey bowed her head, laughing quietly. “At least you’re consistent.”
“A year ago, I said you were smart to leave me,” Bourne reminded her. “Nothing’s changed.”
“No, one thing has.”
“What?”
“I’ve lived a year without you. I don’t like it. I miss you. When I see you, I want to be with you. And then as soon as I take a step toward you, I want to run like hell again. It’s crazy. I don’t know what to do.”
Jason leaned in and kissed her forehead, which was warm and soft. “What you need to do is say goodbye.”
“What if I don’t want to?” She took his face between her hands, and her gaze was intense. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d lost himself in that stare. “What if I tell you to kiss me for real right now, Jason? And spend the night with me? What if I told you I wanted to try again? Despite everything. Despite who you are.”
He shook his head. “We can’t do that.”
“If you’re trying to save me, I don’t need to be saved.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
Bourne took a long look at her face. In that look, he saw their entire past, from the moment he’d seen her in his binoculars on the boardwalk in Quebec City, to the wrenching of his heart when he thought she’d died in a car bomb at the hands of Lennon, to the rage of seeing Rod Holtzman put her in danger again. It was hard for him, not having a past, to turn the page on any part of the past that he still remembered.
But he had to be honest with himself. And with her.
“Abbey, when I saw you again, I wondered the same thing about us. I thought it was fate. I thought we were brought together to be together. But in a year apart, everything’s changed for us. I saw it in your eyes that first night when you looked at me. You miss me, like I miss you. You miss the past, you miss what we had. So do I. But the past is over. If we tried again, all we’d do is fail again. Because you’re not in love with me anymore, Abbey.”
He saw a glistening in her eyes, but she didn’t deny it. She stared at him through the shine of tears and said, “What about you?”
Jason couldn’t run away from the truth anymore.
He had to say it out loud, as much for himself as for her.
“I’m in love with someone else.”
*
The Mediterranean sun burned, even in February. Johanna felt the heat on the back of her neck as she strolled along Via del Brigantino in Positano, Italy. The stone walls of hotels and villas climbed the terraced hillside over her head. She avoided the teeming crowds by walking barefoot in the sand near the sparkling bay. She had two canvas bags slung over one shoulder, filled with supplies from the local grocer to get her through the next week on the water. Loaves of bread. Prosciutto and Parma ham. Pecorino, parmigiana, and mozzarella. Orecchiette pasta. Bottles of wine.
Each week a different port, a different country, different meals. One day on land, six days at sea. She’d never been happier. She’d never felt so carefree in her life.
Until two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, they’d started following her.
The first time she realized it was on the island of Santorini. She’d been on the hilltop high above the water, strolling among china-white buildings, when she spotted a young Greek man watching her from an outside table at a taverna. He was handsome, with a broad nose, blue eyes, and oily slicked-back dark hair. He looked at her, smiled hawkishly, then looked away. That wasn’t unusual. Men looked at her wherever she went, and European men hadn’t been cowed into impotence like the Americans. They were open about what they wanted, and they wanted her.
But the Greek man was handsome enough that she remembered his face. She’d seen him before. She’d seen him in Athens when she was having dinner in the Plaka. She’d seen him at the fish market in Enez in Turkey. And then Santorini.
Three times in three different places.
Who was he?
He was definitely not Treadstone. She knew the type. So far, Shadow seemed to be leaving her alone. But if it wasn’t her, then she had no idea who would be on her trail. Or why. Or how anyone had found her.
Now, in Positano, the Greek stud was back. He smoked a cigarette and admired the beachside watercolor paintings for sale at an open-air kiosk. People came and went around him, but he stayed where he was, thirty feet behind her, moving when she moved, stopping when she stopped. The same man.
Johanna didn’t let on that she’d seen him. She felt no threat. If she wanted to take him, she could. She wore an oversized orange button-down blouse over jean shorts, and the loose top hid the Ruger in her belt. She could have ambushed him in the crowd with her gun or her knife, but killing him wouldn’t have given her any answers. If she could have gotten him alone, then she could have sweated him for the truth, but he’d been careful to stick to crowded places. As if he knew she wouldn’t dare go for him there.
What did he want?
She was tired of not knowing. She reversed direction. Time for the hunted to be the hunter. She headed straight for him, no longer hiding that he was in her sights. Their eyes met. He gave her a wolfish grin, then turned around, retreating. She followed, pushing through the crowd, keeping him in view as he moved in and out of the chattering tourists. He climbed the steps to Via Regina Giovanna and followed the cobblestoned walkway beside the water. He knew she was behind him, but he acted as if she wasn’t there. He didn’t hurry. Instead, he flirted with the tanned girls in bikinis and greeted the fishermen like friends.
Johanna closed the gap. He let her come.
Ahead of her, he climbed more steps, up the stone walkway that straddled the cliffside, with the rocky wall above him and the water slapping at the coast below him. There were fewer people here. The higher they climbed above the sea, the lonelier it became, until it was just him and her and no one else.
Why would he let her trap him? It made no sense.
Except when the trap finally sprang, it was on her.
She focused her attention on the Greek man, who was almost within reach, and she missed the man crouching on the stone wall above her, hidden by trees. His body hit her like dead weight, taking her to the rocky path, crushing the air from her lungs. In an instant, he had her on her feet, back against the wall. There were two of them now—the Greek, who’d retraced his steps, and his partner, who also had olive-colored skin, but was older and fatter. The Greek took her gun. The fat man, with a big nose and a scar down his left cheek, took her knife and pushed it hard against her throat, until she felt blood dripping down her chest.
His reptilian eyes showed no emotion. His mouth breathed tobacco in her face.
He said three words. “Where is Cain?”
Jason!
Oh my God. This was about Jason. She should have known. She should have anticipated it all along. They weren’t looking for her.
They were looking for him.
“I have no fucking clue,” Johanna spat back at the fat man.
“Liar! Of course you know. Tell us where he is, or I’ll cut open your throat right here.”
“I. Don’t. Know. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
She didn’t wait for the next threat against her. Lightning fast, she drove her knee like a hammer between the fat man’s legs, making him stumble backward with a howl of pain. Before he could recover, she jabbed her fist into his throat, and in the same motion, swung her arm hard and smashed the handsome Greek’s head into the cliffside rocks. He crumpled, and she grabbed her Ruger out of his hand as he fell. Then she thumped the metal frame of the gun into the fat man’s face, and he slid sideways to the ground.
Johanna ran.
Where there were two, there might be more. She sprinted along the cliffside walkway, then slowed as she reached the crowds by the water. Her eyes were alert, her adrenaline pumping. She hiked off the street onto the sand, and she kicked down the beach past dozens of sunbathers to find the teenager waiting at her Zodiac. She’d paid him not to move until she got back.
With a snap of her fingers and a quick glance behind her, she handed him five hundred euro and hissed, “Non mi hai mai visto! Andare!”
The kid ran up the sand without a word. Johanna splashed through the surf and dragged the Zodiac into deeper water, then climbed inside. She putt-putted past the yachts and sailboats docked in the harbor, and when she reached open water, she gunned the motor, the prow rising high as her speed increased. As the Italian coast grew smaller behind her, she began to breathe again. A few minutes later, she saw the white skybridge of her Fairline Squadron 65 looming where she’d dropped anchor. Around her, she saw no other crafts that might be closing on them or watching them, just the blue wide sea.
Her boat was called Stormy Weather. It seemed to be untouched. As she pulled up behind it and cut the Zodiac motor, she leaped to the stern and dragged the small craft onto the transom. Not hesitating, she ran to the upper helm, turned over the engines until they growled to life, and weighed anchor with the push of a button. She eased down into the leather seat and steered the craft at full speed south into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
She didn’t slow until all the land was gone and the radar was clear. The breeze swirled her long hair, and she closed her eyes. Her heart finally slowed.
“Trouble?” said a deep voice behind her.
Johanna got up from the wheel. She crossed the varnished deck and wrapped one arm around his waist and slid the other behind his neck. He leaned into her, and she kissed him with hungry lips and felt him kissing her back. It was a kiss that could have gone on forever, but when she was sated and breathless, she pushed him away. Her blue eyes darkened.
“Someone’s looking for you,” she told Jason. “I think they know you’re with me.”