LARK ORDERED IN pizza for lunch, which Shelby ate mostly in silence. Trevor and Lark chatted, which was to say, Trevor listened as Lark chattered. Shelby couldn’t even pretend to care.
Her entire world had just tilted on its axis.
Picture the one person you would die for.
Which of her family or friends did she care the most about? Trevor’s question had seemed so simple, but it was one for which she had no answer.
There was no one.
She’d tried to pay attention while Trevor taught them something called a palm strike. Hold an imaginary pie by her hip, then smash the pie into the bad guy’s face. Aim for under the chin or into the nose. He also taught them how to knee someone in the groin for maximum effect. Grab their shoulders and yank them forward as she drove her knee in and up. Do it until the attacker dropped. Her focus had been fractured. Trevor had noticed, but had mercifully given her space.
Picture the one person you would die for.
She was not close to her family. She’d left the insular world of Coon Bluff behind long ago. The poverty she could have handled. But the small-town hypocrisy had sickened her to the point of fleeing as soon as she was able. The gossiping, rampant intolerance, and holier-than-thou attitudes, while those same good folk cheated on their spouses and beat their children. Singing hymns on Sunday and gay-bashing on Wednesday. Everyone in everyone else’s business, with dirty little secrets passed down from generation to inescapable generation.
Her family hadn’t understood or supported her desire to leave home, go to college, build a career. Her rare visits were awkward and uncomfortable, punctured by crude attempts to set her up with some local boy so she’d come home, get married, and have babies. She had nothing in common with them. Eventually, it had been easier to stay away.
Her friends were also her coworkers. She had no husband, no lover. She’d allowed her career to consume her. And until now, she’d been happy with her decision.
After lunch, Lark resumed her computer research. Too keyed up to sit still, Shelby wandered from kitchen to living room and back again. Trevor lined up all six handguns on the coffee table and inspected them one by one, breaking them down and examining each piece. With nothing better to do, she curled up in one of the armchairs and watched him. The absolute expertise of his motions reassured her.
“This lot is filthy,” he said, gesturing to the weapons he’d confiscated from the Bedlamites. “And the firing pin on the Springfield is worn. Doesn’t look like Eric ever made them maintain their equipment. We’ll have to pick up some cleaning supplies to make sure these don’t jam up when we need them.”
When. Not if. A chill slithered down her back.
“Have you ever fired this thing? It looks brand new.” He held up her Beretta, grip loose as he pointed it toward the ceiling.
Shelby flushed. “Er, uh, I took a class when I bought it.”
“Not good,” he said. “If you’re going to have a handgun, you need to know how to use it. You need to practice regularly at a firing range. If not, you’ll likely freeze at the worst possible time, and have it taken from you and used against you.”
“Okay. I understand.” Maybe she’d get rid of the thing. It had seemed like a good idea when she’d broken things off last year with Bruce. For a while he’d virtually stalked her, demanding that she resume their engagement. Verbally abusing her until she was afraid he would physically attack her as well. Now, though, she couldn’t imagine herself shooting anyone.
“All right, kiddies. News update time.”
Shelby leapt to her feet and hustled into the kitchen, Trevor right behind her. “What did you find?”
Lark beamed at them. “Good stuff. So Max garners sympathy votes as an apartheid orphan. In fact, he’s been vocal about the black violence in South Africa that killed a lot of whites—innocent victims, according to him. Contrary to popular belief and his official biography, Max’s mother did not die in South Africa. Turns out she’s alive and well and living in a nursing home in Kent.”
Trevor tipped his head to the side. “Are you certain it’s his mother? Could it be another relation?”
Lark puffed up indignantly. “No, it’s his mother. I found a passenger manifest from 1977—and believe me, it was not easy to find—for a Nandi and Maxwell Whitcomb, traveling from South Africa to London on a cargo ship called the Cape Queen. The ship was German-owned, registered in Angola, and had an all-Portuguese crew. No one to know or care about just two more apartheid refugees.”
“Maybe a sister? Aunt?”
Lark blew out an annoyed breath. “Max is an only child. I found nothing whatsoever to suggest any other family in South Africa. His father had a brother here in England, but that’s it. I could be wrong, but I’m not.”
“All wonderful information,” Shelby said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. There are no records of Nandi after she and Max docked in London. Nandi must be short for something fancy. Amanda? Anastasia? I couldn’t find her birth records because her last name doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere, so I’m wondering if she went back to using her maiden name for some reason. But I did find a birth certificate for Max. Born in Cape Town in 1962. He went to live with his paternal uncle in 1977 at fifteen years old. From there on out, every reference to his parents shows them killed in a black uprising in 1976.”
Shelby frowned, disappointed. “Well, it proves he lied to the public. But having a mother who’s alive isn’t a crime.”
Lark flashed a smile. “It’s a start, though. I’m combing through a lot of data. There’s a reason Max wanted his mother out of the public eye, and I’m gonna find out what it is. Here, I found an old photo, though. It’s Max’s grandfather with Winston Churchill. How cool is that?”
She handed Trevor the picture centered on photo paper. It was a grainy black-and-white, but the man standing next to the former prime minister was a dead ringer for Max Whitcomb.
“Maybe it’s really him. Maybe he’s one of the immortals from Highlander. ‘There can be only one.’ Maybe he’s the one.”
Shelby laughed. “You watch too many movies.”
“Not possible,” Lark replied promptly.
Shelby studied the photo over his shoulder. The two men stood in front of a courthouse. The former prime minister wore a suit with his trademark polka-dot bowtie. The elder Whitcomb wore a plain black gown and barrister’s wig.
“Is he still living?” he asked.
“Nope. He croaked about ten years ago.”
Trevor clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he contemplated the woman in front of him. “Hmm. Given what you just discovered about his mother, how can you be certain his grandfather is really dead? Or his father, for that matter?”
“I anticipated that question,” Lark said. “The grandfather is dead because otherwise he’d be a billion years old now. A hundred and seventeen, actually. Still. As for Max’s dear old dad, I traced his death record through Ancestry dot com. While there’s no actual death record for Nandi/Amanda/Anastasia, Nicholas is recycled worm food. Definitely.”
“It might have proved useful to talk to him. I want to talk to the mother, certainly.”
“Certainly,” Lark mocked. “We can do that after I make a store run. I guess you guys need to eat and all that. And Trevor here wants to Pledge the shit out of my place. I’ll be back in about an hour. Make that two.”
Shelby sighed heavily as she shut the door behind Lark. “I could really use some fresh air. Couldn’t we go for a walk?”
Trevor pursed his lips together. “I appreciate your patience with this, Shel. I know this must be difficult for you. You’ve been a real trooper.”
She glanced toward the window. “I take that as a no.”
“I’m truly sorry. I don’t want Jukes finding Lark. It would put her in danger.”
“No, I understand. I don’t want that, either.” She flopped inelegantly onto the sofa. “I just . . . I need to do something.”
“Believe me, I understand.” He exhaled a soft laugh. “One of the hardest parts of training for me was learning to be still.”
She curled her legs under her. “Tell me.”
He joined her on the sofa. “Part of the training for Selection takes place in Borneo. Jungle training, as I’m sure you can imagine. We did survival exercises, a good deal of patrolling, that sort of thing. We also learned observation techniques. I remember one exercise that lasted three days. The objective was to monitor and report on movements inside an ‘enemy’ camp. We worked our way in close enough to get a good field of vision, each of us in a different area around the camp. Once we were in position, we literally did not move a muscle, for fear of being detected. We were that close.”
Shelby raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t move a muscle for three days? How is that even possible?”
“A matter of determination and discipline. A lesson I needed to learn.”
Curiosity piqued, she leaned back against the armrest, resting her head on a fist. “Camp, as in a campfire with people sitting around roasting marshmallows? I mean, I know that’s not what it was, but I don’t really know the specifics of military training.”
“This particular camp housed roughly a hundred and twenty men.” Trevor stretched his legs out in front of him, lacing his hands behind his head. “It simulated a Soviet mechanized infantry unit. Armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, anti-tank missiles. Our task was to identify their capabilities and their chain of command. Record the comings and goings, not only in and out of the camp, but also internally. Measure morale, identify dissenters who might be exploited. That sort of thing.”
Shelby chuckled. “That sounds like exactly what I do in political circles. Minus the anti-tank missiles, of course.”
Trevor laughed, as she’d hoped he would. “I think you walk a minefield every day you go to work. Politicians can be more lethal than any commando.”
“Public image is so very important to the folks I work with,” she agreed. “Sometimes I feel as though some of them would kill, just to maintain their reputations. But the truth is politics is mostly about bluster and bluffing and deal making. That’s nothing like what you’re trained to do. Jungle survival training, eating bugs, and sleeping in the mud. Doing that thing where you have to endure capture and torture?”
The contrast between gentleman and tough military man fascinated her. He appeared open and relaxed as he shared his stories with her.
“SERE. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. A lot of candidates fail during that portion of training.”
She shuddered. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Selection is all about self-discovery, learned at the very brink of human endurance,” he said. “You’re tested in training so you won’t fail in the real world. Every man on a team is an expert. Anyone not up to scratch is a liability to the team and could get someone killed.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly that it dimmed the finality of his words. She reminded herself that this man had been trained to do far more than eat bugs. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Of course.” He gave her a warm smile. Was there something more flickering in his eyes? Hope? But it wasn’t that kind of personal question.
“You’ve killed.” She made it a statement, not a question. “Does it ever bother you? Some veterans never get over their war experiences.”
He sat up abruptly. “No. Never.”
“I’m sorry. I—” Shouldn’t have asked. Had she crossed some sort of line?
Resting his elbows on his knees, he clasped his hands loosely between them. “It’s tough for an outsider to understand the SpecOps mindset. I do what’s necessary for the operation. If I have to take out a target, it’s not a person. It’s a terrorist or a criminal or an anarchist. It’s not an enjoyment of killing; it’s accomplishing the mission. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. It’s just not easy to explain to a civilian.” He gave a tired smile. “Who Dares Wins.”
“The SAS motto.”
He nodded. “When you said you wanted to ask me a personal question, I was expecting something else.”
There it was again. The bright question, the hope in his eyes. She didn’t know what it meant. But she could finally tell him what she’d wanted to since their argument in the hotel room. Her shoulders tensed as she steeled herself to say it.
“I only went out with Hugo—Gunnery Sergeant Bisantz—three times. The last night, at dinner, he told me he was happy to play second fiddle if I just wanted to talk, uh, talk about . . . you, but that we should just plan on being friends, because I . . . I was obviously still hung up on you.” She couldn’t look at him. His silence made it so much worse. She drew a ragged breath and forced herself to continue.
“I never slept with him. I couldn’t, not after what you and I shared. I lied to you. In the hospital. When I told you it meant nothing. You were lucky to be alive after being shot, and I—” She stopped, unable to push any more words through her clogged throat.
Trevor reached for her, tugging her toward him across the cushions so she ended up sprawled across his chest. For a moment, they simply stared at one another, hers fearful and his full of yearning. He slid a hand into her hair and guided her mouth to his, kissing her so softly she barely felt it. Without volition, her lips parted, inviting him in. He angled her head and fused their mouths together, but still so slowly, so tenderly she wanted to cry.
When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead on hers. “I get that you were scared. Can you tell me why?”
She pulled away and sat up, every cell in her body screaming for her to remain exactly where she was. In his arms. He deserved an answer, though.
“I’d just broken things off with Bruce two months before I met you. We were together for two years.” She risked a quick glance at him. “Having feelings for another man so soon, and so strongly . . . and having that man abandon me at the drop of a hat . . . I’m sorry. I do understand. But you did, and it hurt. You never came back. Anyway, having a man in my life would put all sorts of chains on me. So I’d sworn off relationships.”
“Chains? That’s an odd word.”
“Expectations, then.”
He settled his shoulders against the back of the sofa. “Can you give me an example? I’m not quite following you.”
She thought about it for a minute. “Oh, say for instance I’ve been invited to a friend’s baby shower, and my boyfriend has a fundraising dinner at the same time. I’m expected to drop my plans to accommodate his. Like that.”
He didn’t say a word. When she finally lifted her head, she found him examining her, eyes narrowed and frowning.
“Tell me about Bruce.”
And reveal her stupidity in trusting a man like him? No.
“Shelby. Please.”
The soft entreaty dissolved her resistance. “Oh, fine, then. I interned with the Public Affairs Office within the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department. He met with the director a couple of times, and finally told me he kept making up excuses to come into our office so he could see me. At first, he was charming. Charismatic. Knew how to treat a lady. His words, actually.
“After we’d been dating a while, he started to change. Instead of letting me order in a restaurant, he’d order for both of us. When I told him I preferred to make my own choice, he told me to stop being difficult. That he couldn’t treat me like a lady if I didn’t act like one.” Now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words. “He’d be sweet one minute and sarcastic the next. Made fun of me in public. One time he disappeared for five weeks with no explanation, and when he came back, he just expected us to start up where we’d left off. I guess I’m a really slow learner.”
“Or he’s a horse’s ass.”
“Or that.” She forced a chuckle. “He was furious when I accepted the posting to Ma’ar ye zhad. Azakistan is on the other side of the world. How come I can’t be like a normal woman? Didn’t I love him?”
“Yes, definitely a horse’s ass.”
This time, her laugh was more genuine.
“One hundred percent, grade-A asshole.”