Chapter Twelve

Sitting on one of the twin beds in the motel room, Rory watched Nina eat. She huddled under the large sill of the only window. She had picked the spot as soon as they’d walked in and hadn’t budged since. Her sudden timidity gave him pause. Outside, she’d appeared fierce to the point of rudeness. Her shifty eyes had never ceased scanning her surroundings, but she’d never lost sight of him. Muscles taut, she’d moved with almost military precision. Yet, the moment he had closed the door behind them, she’d changed, as if a switch had been flipped, and she’d scampered to the space under the window, appearing scared—or shy, of all things.

Two bags of takeout were on the floor between them. She’d hoarded a plastic salad bowl and was presently munching a cherry tomato. Even though she tried not to show it, the taste obviously delighted her.

Despite her sallow complexion, it was impossible not to see the beauty in her—the elegant sweep of her prominent cheekbones and delicate curve of her sharp chin. Her lush lips just begged for a smile and were every man’s fantasy. Once she regained her health, she’d be stunning.

Back in the day, on the rare occasions that he’d visited ATDF headquarters, he remembered seeing her from a distance and thinking the same thing. He had never actually spoken with her, but he had noticed her…in a detached sort of way. He, more than anyone, had known he was an outsider, only called in when one of their own agents had gone rogue and needed to be hunted down. As a result, most agents had steered clear of him. Feared him.

With good cause. He’d been ruthless.

And because he’d been told his targets had betrayed the agency and their country, he’d been especially relentless.

All lies! Lies he had blindly believed and never questioned.

He regarded Nina silently. It was her big, dark eyes, framed by sooty lashes that were the most captivating. Stormy eyes that never strayed from him, never faltered in their close scrutiny of every move he made. It was as if she expected him to grow another head at any moment, and turn against her. Her unblinking focus was disconcerting, had him feeling like he was being dissected in microscopic detail.

Which…yeah, he probably was.

“Do you like the food?” His question startled her, and her head shifted sideways. Without looking away, she reached for the bag at her side and grabbed a handful of fries.

But she didn’t answer.

“Are you Nina Hernandez?” He kept his voice deliberately casual between sips of hot coffee.

Again, she didn’t respond.

Slowly, he reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. They were for her, not him. It had been years since he quit. Nicotine was going to help her through detox, though. He wedged one between his lips and took out a lighter.

She watched him light up and inhale, her fry-filled hand suspended halfway to her mouth. The tip of her tongue moistened her lips. “Nina died a long time ago,” she blurted.

“Did she?” He was pretty sure she meant it in the metaphorical sense. “How?”

Wary eyes followed the cigarette as she chewed, captivated by the glowing bud between his fingers. “Slowly,” she replied. Placing the salad bowl on the floor at her side, she edged closer until she could snatch the cigarette pack from the bed. Her jerky movements were reminiscent of a timid child gathering courage.

He held up his lighter in invitation as she retrieved a cigarette with trembling fingers. Eyeing him, it took a moment before she dared to lean forward and light the tobacco.

“Who are you, then?” he asked, settling back to watch her take a hesitant drag—and then choke on it. Her eyes watered from the smoke. She took another drag, regardless. “We’re no one.”

“That’s sad.” Compassion for the young woman, who sounded so very sure of her statement, jerked at his heartstrings.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Who were you, before you became no one?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” She selected a large lettuce leaf from her salad and stuffed it into her mouth.

He lifted a shoulder. “It would be nice to know what to call you.” Though pretty much convinced that she was, indeed, Hernandez, her verbal confirmation would be nice.

“We have many names. Pick one,” came her blithe reply.

Pick? Mystified, he stared at her. Pick a name? How was he supposed to—

Wait. Could she mean names from her covert operations? The intuitive leap was instant. Maybe she was testing him in some strange way, attempting to discover how much he knew about her. Or…was she simply trying to help him confirm she was Nina the only way she could?

He knew he was reaching, but what the hell, he had nothing to lose. Mentally he scrolled through the list of known aliases Nina had used over the years. Working for ATDF as an infiltration expert, she’d had many.

“Marisa?”

The immediate shake of her head denied the identity of Marisa Rhodes, a computer expert who’d infiltrated a large pharmaceutical company in England, several years ago.

“Paige?” A planted material witness for a homicide trial. That earned him another denial. Maybe this was a waste of time. To be sure, he tried another one. “Anita?”

“Anita was too weak,” came her mumbled reply around a piece of cucumber. “She could not endure.”

Okay, so not a waste of time, then.

He wondered about the significance. Had Nina’s subconscious somehow reverted to the undercover identities she had developed during her time with ATDF? That particular twist wasn’t one he could have anticipated. But…in light of her past as a child-soldier, and the training she had received, it made a strange sort of sense. He was well aware that the mind could do amazing things to protect itself against trauma.

“How about Lena?” Rory asked.

As the mercenary Lena Alvarez, Nina had single-handedly brought down a dangerous terrorist cell—admittedly with more collateral damage than her superiors had counted on. ATDF had wanted survivors, to extract information from and then use for their own purposes. As it turned out, Lena’d had other ideas.

“Lena lives,” she told him with a nod, finally confirming he was on the right track.

Although all the former child-soldiers had been incredibly skilled, Nina had made undercover work an art form. She was known for taking on completely different identities without effort. It was beginning to look as though only those fictional personas remained.

He brought up another identity he thought likely to be present. “Thyra?”

As the arm candy of a now-deceased weapons dealer-slash-movie producer, Thyra Gonzales had been worth noticing. It had been hard not to, after Rory saw some very glamorous and sexed-up photographs of her in the files.

“Thyra’s resilient,” Nina stated with another nod, her eyes sparkling with genuine pleasure as if talking about a good friend.

That Nina was consciously aware of her other identities was fascinating. And perplexing. He was no expert, but as far as he knew, that rarely happened in a multiple personality disorder.

“Alma?” he asked, thinking of the photographer who’d shot condemning photos of a military division playing cruel war games with the locals in south Peru.

Nina snorted. “Alma didn’t last a day.”

“Octavia, then?” Rory somehow expected the answer she supplied next.

“Octavia is good. She holds us together, takes care of us all. We think she’ll want to talk to you.”

“I see.” He chose his words carefully. “What about you? Who am I talking to now?”

“We told you. Nobody.”

She shivered, and something—he couldn’t be sure what—came over her.

In an instant, she changed.