Grace smiled, thinking about all the time she spent watching others live lives she was too afraid to try for. It seemed to have come in handy. Given her a keen eye of observation.
Sam glanced over at Luke, but Luke only smiled … until Stockton stabbed him again with the suture needle. Then he flinched. “Grace has very good instincts. If she doesn’t remember seeing Asheim before the shooting, then she didn’t see him.”
Sam tapped something on his phone. “Okay. I can accept that. What about the carabiniere who stole your phone? Did he ever give you any indication that he wasn’t taking the case seriously? Before Asheim picked you up in that taxi, did you suspect the carabiniere was working for the other side?”
She had to think. “No. I never suspected a thing. Well, except for right before I put the phone in the envelope.”
Sam’s eyebrows flew up. “What happened then? What did he do to tip you off?”
“He didn’t do anything. It was just a gut feeling I had before I turned over the phone. Just for a second, I wasn’t sure if I should do it. I probably wouldn’t have given him the phone at all except that Luke had just sent the video and screenshot to Gabe, err … I mean, Agent Hagen, so I knew someone else had seen the evidence. And it didn’t feel like it was my place to withhold it.”
“So it was intuition?” Sam asked.
“I guess,” she said, still coming to terms with it herself.
“I’m telling you,” Luke interrupted, “if we had listened to her instincts from the beginning, we wouldn’t have been trekking all over Rome looking for a phone she told me she didn’t lose.” He paused. “If I had listened,” he corrected himself.
Sam stuck his own phone in his pocket. “If you had, you probably never would have found out the carabiniere was working with Asheim. It’s far from protocol, but we all appreciate the great work you two did.”
“Do you have any idea who hired him to assassinate the congressman?” Grace asked. “I thought it might be someone—or an agency—at the government level.”
“We’re working on it.” Sam got to his feet. “If you figured out that much, maybe we should put you on the case.”
At first, they brushed it off as an offhand comment. But Sam looked at Grace like he expected an answer. Like he was serious about it. She glanced over at Luke, but he shrugged and said, “Grace has a great deductive mind, but she isn’t an agent. She has no experience, no training. She’s a lab rat, and she hates excitement.”
The others laughed, but Grace didn’t. “I don’t know …” she said. Something within her had awakened under all the stress. Killing someone had killed a part of her—and reanimated another. “You might talk me into changing teams given the right incentive.”
Sam whipped out a business card and handed it to her. “If you ever decide to change career paths, let me know. We always need people who can do what you did today.”
He walked out of the room. Stockton stood and zipped his medical case closed. “I’m finished too. Do me a favor, will you? Don’t let me see your face again.”
He strode away, and Luke frowned after him. “That’s not what I call a very comforting bedside manner.”
Gabe clapped him on the shoulder. “He’s an Army medic, not your nursemaid. Are you finished here? I have to be back at the office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, even if you’re still on vacation.”
“I’m done.” Luke scooted off the desk. He went through the same process of putting on his shirt, jacket, pants, and shoes that he had the last time they were there.
Gabe stood to one side and waited until he was ready. Then he motioned to the door. “If you’ll follow me, I will personally escort the two of you to the airport. And I’ll make sure you both get there safely this time.”
Grace observed the scene drawing to a close. It felt like a century of her life was being wrapped up in two seconds. She migrated closer to Luke, but she didn’t feel the same desperation at losing him that had plagued her yesterday. She’d known this would happen.
The men escorted them down the corridor to the embassy exit. Grace experienced déjà vu as she walked outside into the cool, clear night, but this time there wasn’t a taxi waiting for them. A black suburban was parked at the curb. A chauffeur in a black suit held the rear door open. Asheim was nowhere in sight.
Oh, yeah. He was dead. She’d have to keep reminding herself. It’d be a while before she truly felt safe again.
Gabe strolled right up to the car and climbed into the seat. Luke stopped at the door and pivoted around. He examined Grace with a queer look on his face. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Gabe called from somewhere out of sight. “Will you get in already? You can say your goodbyes at the airport.”
Luke’s features cleared. His shoulders drooped, and he got into the car. Grace couldn’t move. She stared at the chauffeur. Her heart couldn’t keep taking these blows. She couldn’t keep riding this emotional rollercoaster without cracking under the pressure.
Gabe stuck his head out and studied her. “Are you coming, Grace?”
She couldn’t ignore the summons. She slipped into the seat and sat next to Luke. The two rear seats faced each other like a small version of a limo. The door slammed, and the car glided away into the night.
Rome. This was the end of Grace’s Italian expedition. Of Lena’s world traveling.
She was going home alone—without Lena, without Luke, with nobody but herself. Yet she wouldn’t truly be parting with her friend forever. She was leaving a part of herself here. She knew that now. She’d lost it when Asheim had tried to kill her. He’d sealed the change by chasing her all over this city.
She was a different person now. She’d killed a man. She could never go back to being the boring person she would have been if none of this had ever happened. Her fairytale dreams had absorbed a darker tint. She couldn’t even be sorry about that change.
She turned away from the window and realized she was still holding Sam’s card. It was the most generic business card imaginable. It even said CIA right there in clear, printed letters for all the world to see. He didn’t even try to hide it.
The card said his name was Samuel R. Trent. How about that? The card also said his job title was Special Agent. That sounded like spy-speak for just about anything the intelligence community wanted it to mean. Seemed like they were all called special agents. Hiding in plain sight, there’d still be some things he’d keep to himself. Secrets. Did she want to learn them?
Why was she still holding this card? Did she really think she would go into law enforcement? Without thinking, she stuck the card in her pocket and went back to looking through the window.
Rome. She was really in Rome. She was thousands of miles away from home. That fact hadn’t impressed her as strange until now. It hadn’t felt so far away the whole time she’d traveled with Lena.
Chapter Twelve
Gabe took a white envelope out of his pocket and held it out to Grace. “Here’s a replacement passport and your ticket. You’ll find one hundred euros in that envelope just in case you need to buy snacks or anything else between here and Atlanta. The ticket is first-class, so you should be able to get some sleep on the flight. Just don’t spend all the money on alcohol.” Grace chuckled, but Gabe was serious. He caught her eyes and held them. “You might want to get sauced to forget all this, but it doesn’t help, and the hangover isn’t worth it. If you don’t believe me, just ask Luke here.”
“Hey now,” Luke said in an attempt to defend himself.
“In all honesty, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You’re going to need counseling and to talk about this to someone, and we have the best there is. Civilian doctors are good, don’t get me wrong, but they deal with civilian trauma and not what you’ve been through.”
“Thank you. I promise I will,” Grace said.
He waved toward Luke. “If you can’t reach me or Sam, there’s always Luke.” Then he grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. “Come alo
ng, you two. The next time I see either of you, it had better be a real vacation.”
Luke laughed, and Grace had to smile. She really was sad she had to part from these men. Their down-home, casual energy made them seem more human somehow, more real. She needed that. These were her people—she could feel it. She needed people who thought about and felt and saw the world around them instead of lurching through life half asleep.
Luke got out of the car. That left her to do the same. In a minute, the three of them hugged and said their goodbyes, and Luke and Grace strode into the airport. They marched in shoulder to shoulder. They’d worked on the same important case together, and they were equals. Grace was one of them now. They’d all said so.
Luke went to one counter to check in for his flight to Virginia, and Grace found the counter for her flight to Atlanta. When she got out of the line, she found Luke waiting for her, and they headed through the security checkpoint to the gates.
He lifted his hand and traced his fingertips down her cheek. “I meant what I said about you being a good partner. Thank you for everything. I won’t ever forget you.”
She swallowed down a lump in her throat. “Luke?”
“Yeah?”
She had to look away more than once before she figured out what she wanted to say. Even then, it didn’t sound right. It didn’t sound like her. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She needed to get out of Rome. Take some time to figure that out. “Do you think you’ll ever come to Florida?”
He cocked his head to study her, then cupped her cheeks with both hands. He occupied her whole awareness when he held her like that. “I don’t know. If I’d known I could meet someone like you in Florida, I probably never would have moved to Virginia.” He looked down at her mouth.
Then he moved in and kissed her. His lips had never felt so good on her, though she knew it would end in a few moments. He would pull back.
His lips trailed off her mouth, and his dark eyes bored into her soul. He caressed her cheeks and looked back and forth between her lips and her eyes. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Grace. I never knew anyone could be as brave, strong, and clearheaded as you. You’re wasted in a lab.”
Now that she stood face-to-face with him, staring down the certainty that she would leave him, she couldn’t contain the emotion overwhelming her. She heard the final boarding call for her flight, and her heart hurt enough to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. This pain didn’t translate into tears. It struck too deep for that. Trauma, time, vulnerability, and something else had molded them together. Formed a connection it hurt to step away from.
“Maybe I won’t work in a lab,” she ventured. “Maybe I’ll go into law enforcement after all.”
“You mean it? You’re a natural at thinking on your feet.”
“What if I want to?” Her voice cracked. “What then?”
He shook his head. His lips quivered, but he didn’t smile. She couldn’t stand it if he did. “You deserve so much. You’re a good person, a wholesome person. You deserve to have a good life. You’re the type of person we do this work for. We do this so people like you can live in peace, and it makes us happy to see that. To provide that. Don’t take that away from me. I need to know you’re safe and happy somewhere. Knowing that will give my life some meaning. It’ll give me something to fight for.”
“I just want to make you proud.” Those words came out of some ancient part of her. They hurt coming out, but she’d never meant anything more.
“I am proud of you.” He moved in and kissed her again, only once. “I’m beyond proud of you. You saved my life, and you caught the man who assassinated a United States congressman. You’re a hero to the entire world, and you’re a hero to me. You don’t have to do any more than that. You did the job. Now you can go home.”
She opened her mouth, but her throat wouldn’t work. She needed to say something else. “Will I ever see you again?”
He didn’t pull away at that question. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. “We’ll always be together. All those gunshots, all that fear, it fused us together. No matter where we go, we’ll never be apart. Never doubt that. Okay? You’ll always be right here.” He laid her hand on his chest right over his heart.
She couldn’t speak anymore. She wanted to fall apart, but everything that had happened to her in Rome left her too strong for that. Fighting Asheim had forged her into something stronger than iron, stronger than tragedy. She was too firm in herself. She would survive everything, even this.
He folded his arms around her and hugged her against him. She slipped her hands around his ribs and shut her eyes in the warmth of his shirt. She huddled there for the last few seconds of sanctuary before she had to go back to being strong.
Whatever else happened to her, he’d given her this. He gave her the one place in the world where she didn’t have to defend herself against her own strength. Everywhere else she went, everyone else she ever met, everything else she ever did, she would have to guard herself.
Only here, in his arms, against his heart, could she let down her guard and feel. She might never find this again with any other man. And right this minute, she didn’t want to. She wanted this piece of her heart to belong to him alone. This bond that had been built over the last couple of days, Luke being the last thread of happiness with Lena, she wanted it to last forever.
The next minute, it was over. He straightened up and kissed her on the forehead. He pulled away and took her hand. “Go, or you’re going to miss another flight.” He stood still and his eyes shone, but he didn’t hug or kiss her again. He towered over her, gazing down into her eyes. He squeezed her hand and whispered under his breath, “Bye.”
She mouthed the word back, but no sound would come. Then he walked away, heading down the concourse toward his gate. He didn’t look back. Just like that, he strode out of her life.
She turned around and started walking in the opposite direction to her gate and got in line to board her flight. She had a first-class ticket and didn’t need to wait in line, but she wanted just a few more minutes to gain her composure before sitting down. Families talked in Italian. A few tourists chatted in other languages. No one talked to her. They looked right through her and didn’t see her. None of them knew what happened to her. None of them saw the events stamped into her being. Maybe they held scars of their own. It captivated her to think about it, her imagination in full swing.
She lurched through the boarding process. She couldn’t feel the seat under her or the seatbelt around her waist. She didn’t hear the safety announcement. She didn’t even look out the window when the plane left the ground and lifted into the clouds.
The sun rose, and she saw the Atlantic slipping underneath the plane. Luke was out there somewhere. He was landing at Norfolk. He was going back to his house to rest his leg. In a few days or weeks, he would be back on his feet, keeping the world safe for democracy or whatever it was he did.
Only now, with a thousand miles separating her from him, she realized he was right. He was still with her. He always would be. He was a part of her, and she was a part of him. They had traded pieces of themselves in the car and in that damp hole. No distance could part them.
That bond anchored them deeper than danger, deeper than anything most could understand. It made her the person who could kill Asheim. Asheim wasn’t the only one who’d made her into that person. Luke had done it. Lena had done it. Grace had done it to herself. She knew she would never be a lab rat again. She would never again be someone who could live a life in peace while people like Luke, Gabe, and Sam Trent worked to make it possible.
In a few hours, she would walk off this plane into a new life, a new self, a new destiny.
She spent the rest of the flight studying the people who sat near her. She examined their clothes, their electronics, their body language, their skin. She searched her instincts to glean as much information from them as she could without talking to them.
She profiled every person who crossed he
r path. She measured which ones might have a criminal history or a propensity to turn to criminal behavior in the future. Once she started thinking that way, she couldn’t stop it. She didn’t want to. She saw it written into the fabric of society, where anyone could see it if they only took the time to look.
Chapter Thirteen
Six Months Later
Stepping out of the counselor’s office, she was thankful Gabe kept his word and helped her find someone that could help her through everything that had happened in Rome. Someone who was familiar with the trauma she suffered. She was finding her place in her new world. Settling into a new version of happy and looking forward to going back to school.
She had been home from Rome a few months when, sitting in her new apartment, she took out Sam’s card and stared at it. She wasn’t an intelligence agent. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be one. There was one thing she knew for sure though. She would always be a person who knew what to do with a gun if she ever again got her hands on one. She would spend the rest of her life becoming that person.
She would never again be the person who couldn’t shoot, who required Lena to give up her chance at safety to save her. Asheim didn’t do that to her. She did. She wanted to be one of the hounds. She wanted to be one of the people hunting down people like Asheim. Whether she ever succeeded meant nothing. She was already that person. She couldn’t turn it off now.
She put the card back in her pocket, but she had already crossed that line. She couldn’t remember when or where she’d crossed it, but she did. She’d left her old life, bloody and shot to death, on the streets of Rome.
Chapter Fourteen
What She Didn't See Page 9
