“I think so. I hope so.”
She stares down at our intertwined fingers. “Why Paris?”
“I’m not sure. Stateside, Knight and Mirchoff are a train ride away from each other. They must be meeting with someone while they’re there.”
“Someone important enough to pull them away from the Felix rollout here.”
“Right.”
“Well, at least it’s Paris,” she says with a sigh.
“Exactly. Could be worse places to chase the bad guys.” I lift her hand to my lips and smile, which inspires one of her own, a small consolation.
There’s a loud rapping at the door. I know it’s Townsend before I rise and recognize him through the peephole.
“Miss me?” He’s wearing a smug smile when he enters the room.
“Not exactly,” I say. “Where were you?”
“Doing a little research. Making some new friends. How about you?” He drops onto the couch and props his feet up as he has a habit of doing. “Find anything good?”
“Kristopher Boswell is on his deathbed. Kolt’s mother, Gillian Mirchoff, has been running the show. At least we suspect she is.”
“Vince isn’t exactly up for the job these days,” he says with a raspy snicker.
“We think she’s meeting up with someone else from the Company. We’re hoping to intercept them if we can get there in time.”
“Where?”
“Paris.”
He runs his tongue along his teeth, his eyes taking on a wicked glimmer. “That is interesting.”
Isabel’s stare is fixed on him. “Why is that interesting?”
“I had a chat with Jay this morning.”
We wait expectantly.
“Lorenzo Generazzo was taken into custody just outside Berlin by German Polizei a couple of days ago. He was trying to blackmail one of the foreign ministers.”
“Generazzo,” Isabel repeats.
“Goes by the name Crow in some circles. Ever heard of him?” Townsend takes a cigarette and wedges it between his lips before lighting it. “If I were a betting man, I’d say the Company’s sending its best men to come collect their newest problem.”
“Now I know why you’re in such a good mood,” I say.
He laughs. “It’s a good news day, for certain.”
“The Company must have connections to the German government. People willing to turn him over,” Isabel says, her voice more concerned than relieved.
Townsend lifts an eyebrow. “Would that surprise you?”
“He asked Jay about a job he did over there a while back,” I say.
My thoughts return to the remote field in New Jersey where I found Jay and made her give Crow everything he wanted to save her own life. I knew he’d make a mess of whatever information she gave him. It was only a matter of time.
“Anita Eschweiler,” I continue. “Her uncle was running against the sitting Chancellor and positioned to win. He wouldn’t take bribes to back down.”
“Until they popped his niece, I’m guessing,” Townsend says.
“That means whoever beat him is behind the hit,” Isabel says. “And they probably didn’t appreciate him circling back to collect an extra payment.”
Townsend blows a plume of smoke into the air. “Probably didn’t appreciate the Company letting a rogue hitman track down a client either. I don’t know what’s in Paris, but I’m guessing they’ll be paying a visit to whoever has Crow while they’re in the neighborhood. With someone at that level, they’ll want to smooth things over.”
Isabel rises and folds her arms over her chest. “Good thing we booked our tickets.”
In the silence lies a question she doesn’t dare ask. Will Townsend come? Has his obsession with finding and killing Crow finally come to an end now that he’s in someone else’s custody? Or will he complicate this even more by making sure the job is done to his satisfaction?
Townsend smirks. “If taking care of Crow is important enough to abandon Felix for a few days, I’m guessing they’re not going to go easy on him. I used to work for them, you know. Not exactly the merciful type.”
Isabel’s shoulders relax, a subtle change that maybe only I notice. “This is goodbye, then.”
I don’t miss the hopefulness in her tone.
He reaches into his pocket, his cigarette dangling from his lips. He pulls out a thumb drive and tosses it her way.
She catches it. “What is this?”
“A parting gift,” he says. “Mush said he found what you were looking for. Some of it anyway.”
My mouth goes dry. I know there’s not a serum on that disk, but the mention of Mushenko is a jarring reminder of what else is due. Even though Isabel has made her position clear, I’m no closer to knowing what I’d do if and when he delivers an antidote. I don’t know if the craving for more of my memories will ever wane or if I’m even capable of resisting the temptation of having it all back.
“Did he give you anything else?”
Our gazes clash.
He shakes his head. “No, mate. Not yet.”
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The Hacker Series
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About the Author
Meredith Wild is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author. After publishing her debut novel, Hardwired, in September 2013, Wild used her ten years of experience as a tech entrepreneur to push the boundaries of her “self-published” status, becoming stocked in brick-and-mortar bookstore chains nationwide and forging relationships with major retailers.
In 2014, Wild founded her own imprint, Waterhouse Press, under which she hit #1 on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. She has been featured on CBS This Morning and the Today Show, and in the New York Times, the Hollywood Reporter, Publishers Weekly, and the Examiner. Her foreign rights have been sold in twenty-two languages.
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