Under the Rose

by Nolan, Kathryn

  Nothing got my heart racing more than the pursuit. It was the adrenaline spike that zipped through my blood, that made me feel alive. As I raced down Broad Street, I was too distracted to think about how my former FBI partner had been actively breaking the law for years.

  I was too distracted to think about how I might have had a complete mental breakdown in the Deputy Director’s office, surrounded by his staff.

  I couldn’t think about my unending task list, the federal cases that never got closed, the work pressure that transformed me into an insomniac.

  I was even too distracted to think about how I was disobeying direct orders—so intent was I to take Dahl to the ground. My brain only registered actions: hunt, chase, pursue.

  Win.

  “Sam!”

  Freya’s voice made me stumble, of course. She was my most distracting distraction. And in the split second it took for me to regain my footing, Dahl slipped deeper into the crowd. I ducked around groups of tourists snapping pictures and sprinted across a crosswalk to the sound of horns blaring. A trash truck roared in front of me, cutting off my line of sight.

  I cursed. Slapped the truck on the side. Darted to the left, desperately searching for the same figure on the move.

  Nothing.

  I was facing an alley between an historic, fancy-looking hotel and a museum. I spotted movement at the very back, which had me sprinting toward the flash of color. Cornering Dahl in an alley would be a quick and painless way to best Freya. Yet the moment my palms met the back wall, I knew I’d made a mistake. I’d chosen the wrong path, trusted a false instinct.

  Lost him.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, dragging a hand across my mouth. Loping back out to the street, I scanned the crowd. He could have grouped up with a crowd. Or he could be hiding in a bush right now with a knife, waiting to attack.

  A sense of danger whispered against the back of my neck. Dahl? Another mad book thief? A bright blur of motion flickered in my periphery. My fists clenched, pulse spiking. A small body crashed into mine while shouting the word “motherfucker.”

  Freya.

  My chest and arms collided with her chest and arms, and she would have crashed to the sidewalk if I hadn’t dropped down and caught her.

  Our faces hovered an inch apart—close enough that I could see the hints of blue in her emerald eyes. Eyes that were wide with disbelief.

  And then annoyance.

  “I thought you were Dahl.”

  “I thought you were Dahl.”

  “This is the second time today you’ve tried to kiss me, by the way,” she said. “Remember about the knee-meeting-balls thing.”

  I swallowed a smirk. Instead I stood quickly, yanking her with me.

  “Interesting way of saying thanks for catching me, Byrne,” I retorted.

  Freya’s hair had fallen from its bun, and her glasses sat askew on her nose. I went to fix them, then dropped my hands.

  “What…what are you doing?” she asked, cagey.

  “Nothing.” I let my hands land on my tie, absently straightening it. “Dahl’s gone, by the way.”

  “Interesting way of saying you lost our suspect, Byrne.”

  Tourists were clustered around us, cars speeding by. I took Freya by the elbow and headed toward the closest crosswalk. Like earlier, she shook me off, stalking ahead with her spine straight.

  “A garbage truck cut me off,” I hissed, easily matching her pace. “I followed him into an alley, and he disappeared.”

  She glanced over her shoulder once, pulling me into a darkened doorway of a hair salon. We were facing the hotel and museum where I’d chased Dahl down.

  “That’s the book festival Abe’s been talking about all day,” she said, pointing to the hotel. Now that I was paying attention, I noticed the long white banner stretched across its grandiose entrance: The 60th Annual Antiquarian Book Festival.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” she replied. “I ran inside, did a cursory search of the lobby and the first-floor rooms. The convention opens tomorrow morning, so the public spaces were all closed off. He could be in there, checked into a room. Or he could have run to that museum. Or he could have grabbed a cab and sped off to the airport. I couldn’t keep a visual on him.”

  “Me neither,” I admitted.

  “You know what could have helped the situation? Having your partner there to help you. And not spooking him in the first place.”

  I scowled, walking quickly to the alley where we’d dumped my car. “Dahl took off. I followed. There isn’t a law against it.”

  “Not a law,” Freya said, tapping her chin. “But we don’t leave partners behind, do we?”

  She was absolutely right—but I didn’t reply.

  We slid into the car, both of us blowing out twin breaths of irritation. Her phone vibrated with a call from Abe—one glance at her face, and I knew she was as pissed off as I was.

  I leaned in to listen, caught her sugar scent. Ignored my body’s physical response to her nearness. Ignored the curve of her neck, the glittering gold studs along the curve of her ear. The studs were shaped like stars and planets. Freya Evandale had a veritable universe pierced in her skin.

  “Update, please,” came Abe’s clipped voice as soon as she answered the call.

  “Sam and I pursued who we assumed was Dahl all the way from Queen Village to Center City,” she explained. “Unfortunately, we lost our visual.”

  Abe’s silence was telling.

  “We can’t confirm where he ended up,” I added. “But we believe he ran into The Grand Dame Hotel, sir.”

  “The book festival?” came his immediate response. Something electric sparked between Freya and me—brighter than our combined frustration. I knew the unique sensation of this demand.

  It was a lead. Abe felt it, too—because his next words were, “Come back to Codex immediately. We need a plan.”

  “I’m not usually one for brute force, but why don’t we make it easy on ourselves and have Sam bust into the hotel with his FBI badge?” Freya said, shrugging. “Ask to see the guest list for the hotel?”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Abe and I both said. Freya’s eyes narrowed at me—an attempt to decipher what I hoped wasn’t an obvious lie. Except she and I had been trained by the best human lie detectors in the world.

  “Why not?” she asked. “Isn’t that why we’re using Byrne as a consultant?”

  I was technically an FBI agent on administrative leave under internal investigation. I was denied FBI privileges at every level, had been stripped of my badge and gun. My privately-owned weapon was holstered at my back, but the weight of it felt off.

  “Because I’d rather see Codex agents infiltrate undercover,” Abe said. “It’s smarter and raises less of a profile. Remember, Scarlett is paying us to be as discreet as possible. Not run into situations with guns blazing.”

  “That makes sense.” Her tone toward her boss was conciliatory.

  But the way she was staring at me betrayed her inner desire to call me on my bullshit.

  “Let’s regroup in twenty,” he said. “I’ve got a signed contract in my hands. We’ve been hired by a famous Hollywood director for a case with a swift deadline. And the only people I want working it undercover are the two of you.”

  She rubbed her forehead, avoiding me. I stared at a spot on my windshield, doing the same.

  “And not Henry and Del?” she asked. She was worrying at her bottom lip.

  “I need their cover as the Thornhills to remain intact for a few pending cases,” Abe said. “And I don’t want them possibly blowing it to chase down Dahl surrounded by sources they’ve been cultivating for the past six months.” There was a beat. “Are we clear?”

  “Yeah, whatever,” she muttered. Her body language was hunched, less pissed and more despondent.

  “Good,” Abe said. “So that means I better not hear that my field agents lost a librarian intern during a foot chase ever again. Also clear?”r />
  This time, Freya’s green gaze flew to mine, cheeks pink at his sharp tone. It could have been the Quantico classroom again, with Abraham Royal skewering the two of us for bickering during one of his lectures.

  “Of course, sir,” I said curtly. “Won’t happen again.”

  He made a muffled grunt of assent before disconnecting.

  “Looks like this partnership is off to a great start,” I said grimly.

  8

  Sam

  Freya and I jumped from the car at the same time, practically sprinting toward the Codex offices.

  I hit the door a millisecond before she did, ignoring the whispered insults she muttered behind my back. An older woman with ivory hair sat behind a desk, face buried between the pages of a faded-looking mystery novel. She peeked from behind it, smiling when she saw Freya.

  “Byrne, this is Bea,” Freya said, giving the woman in question a side-hug. “She runs Marple’s Home for Used and Abandoned Books and feeds my paperback addiction. She also doesn’t ask too many questions about what we do on the second floor.” She said this last part in a dramatic stage whisper, which made Bea giggle behind her novel.

  “Allow an old woman to dream about book spies,” she said. “And Abraham in that suit.”

  Freya made a yuck face. “He’s basically my older, more annoying brother.”

  Bea snorted before turning her gaze to me. “And who is this now?”

  I extended my hand and shook her hand. “Special Agent Samuel Byrne. A pleasure.”

  Bea’s smile was awfully lascivious.

  “Don’t let his macho-man act fool you,” Freya said, tugging me toward the door that led to Codex. “Byrne’s a smug asshole.”

  “And Freya is the most irritating person I’ve ever known,” I said easily. Bea laughed, thinking us joking, but as soon as the door slammed behind us, only cold fury remained.

  “Evandale,” I said, stopping her at the top of the stairs. “We just got assigned a case that’s a huge fucking deal. I sure as shit can’t fight with you the whole time.”

  She turned, arms crossed. Brows raised. “I’m not fighting with you, Bryne. I’m disagreeing with how we’re handling things. If we’re going to be partners, you need to trust that I know what I’m doing too.”

  “I have more undercover experience than you,” I said softly. Pain creased her expression—a bit of those nerves she was failing in hiding. “I think Abe would say I had seniority because of it.”

  Freya stepped right to me, tips of our shoes touching. “This is how we got all of those fake people killed in our fake hostage crisis.”

  I almost winced—the memory was not a good one. Our second month at Quantico, Freya and I had been paired up in one of our classes on domestic terrorism. We’d led a team through Hogan’s Alley—the fake town the FBI had constructed on the campus for real-life demonstrations. We’d been partners, led hostage negotiators on a simulation with a bomb threat in an office building with twenty hostages. Ten minutes in, we had buckled beneath the weight of our sniping and had failed across the board.

  “We got those hostages fake killed because you’re too stubborn to ever listen,” I shot back. “That was the worst grade I’d ever received, and it was your fault.”

  Her brows shot even higher. She poked me in the middle of the chest. “If this is open feedback time, I’ll remind you that you ran after our suspect and left me behind.”

  “Because you need to start thinking like an agent, Evandale.”

  “Oh my god, why are you the most infuriating man who ever lived?” She slapped a palm to her forehead. “We’re private detectives, which means for once in the too-many years that I’ve known you, I have the upper hand. I should have seniority over you. And while we’re on the topic, are you going to tell your partner why you lied about flashing your FBI badge?”

  That stopped me dead in my tracks. The victory etched into her expression only irked me more. “I didn’t lie.”

  “That’s another lie,” she said, hands on her hips.

  “Maybe it’s because I don’t trust you.” I said it harshly—and watched silly, free-spirited Freya Evandale become an ice sculpture. Frozen and stoic.

  “Then we do have a problem,” she muttered.

  The door swung open, and Abraham stood there, face cool. “Once you’re done fighting like children, would you like to come inside so we can talk about the most important case of our careers?”

  My cheeks burned—I flashed a pissed-off look at Freya. Abe knew me as serious and hard-working and, above all, respectful of authority. There was no way you could grow up in my household and not understand deference. But I’d just let Freya tempt me into a pointless argument in front of one of the finest minds I’d ever known.

  My father’s words of advice echoed in the silence that followed Abe’s instructions. Fix yourself.

  I was beginning to fully understand the sentiment.

  Freya and I both grumbled sorry and slid past Abe into the Codex office. Delilah and Henry stood at a table with their heads together, sifting through piles of paper and old books. A whiteboard stood in the middle of the room, and various laptops were running. I guessed they were all Freya’s, based on the open programs. As an agent, I’d gone through intensive training in computer science. But what she could do was above and beyond my meager understanding.

  Abe pressed two bags of what smelled like tacos into our hands. “Eat, then talk,” he said. But as soon as I sat down, Freya was already typing frantically on one of the laptops, bag empty.

  “What did you do, swallow them whole?” I eyed her guardedly.

  She smirked, but her focus never left her screen.

  “Talents, Byrne. I told you I got ’em.” It was a subtle dig at our argument in the stairwell. But I’d known Freya long enough to know this new light tone was her way of waving a minuscule white flag—at least until we sorted out our plan.

  “While Henry and Delilah work with Francisco on interviewing his other staff,” Abe said, “I want Sam and Freya to work out how to get into that book festival. I don’t like the coincidence of Dahl possibly fleeing there. My first thought is to send Freya and Sam in undercover, find the buyer, recover the letters.”

  Click-click-click went Freya’s fingers across the keyboard. Distracted, I glanced at her over my shoulder, but her face was set in deep concentration.

  “Let’s walk this through.” On the board, Abe wrote undercover identities with a big question mark next to it. As much as I wanted to indulge in the bag of food, I wanted even more to prove to Abe that the favor he was doing for the Deputy Director wasn’t a giant mistake.

  So I jumped in. “Freya and I go undercover as booksellers. Invent an identity, put the word out that we’re in the market for rare love letters. See what floats to the top.”

  “The book fair is sold out,” she said from behind me. “They’re not selling tickets at the door.”

  I tampered down my irritation. “That seems like a simple fix. Surely we can call and demand tickets if we convince them we’re rich and powerful enough.”

  Abe said, “An intriguing idea. Unless you have a better one, Freya?”

  The man was smart—and knew how to goad his most competitive students into brilliance.

  “I do actually have an idea,” she said. “Thanks to my expert sleuthing, I’ve learned that two of the guests that were expected to attend this weekend canceled unexpectedly because they’re sick. Supposedly.”

  She popped a pen into her bun, expression hopeful. I knew this look—this was Freya at her most genius.

  “Who canceled?” Henry asked.

  “Julian King and Birdie Barnes.” She wiggled her fingers through the air. “The rock stars of rare books.”

  9

  Freya

  “I remember those names,” Delilah said.

  “What are you talking about?” Sam asked. My nemesis was perched on the edge of the table, still looking immaculate even after a foot pursuit and a car c
hase.

  “Julian King and Birdie Barnes are two people I’ve been tracking on Under the Rose,” I explained. Sam stood up, interest piqued, and walked toward me on the couch. I gave him a quick summary of what I’d told Delilah about—the secret patterns, the messages about letters, the names that kept appearing. “The first level of code words used is asking the question, ‘didn’t we once meet each other at Reichenbach Falls?’”

  Sam actually sat down next to me on the couch, his body taking up more space than I wanted.

  “It’s a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story,” Henry added. “The story where Holmes fakes his own death, although Doyle originally intended for the character to be killed off for good. But readers were so incensed he was forced to bring him back to life in the next story.”

  “But I believe there’s another code phrase, another level of thievery and deception,” I continued. “This group of people is always talking about their empty houses.”

  Henry seemed intrigued but stayed silent.

  “Julian and Birdie are beloved,” I said. “Trusted. May already be into shady shit, given their big price tags. I think it’d be a straightforward identity to assume with the largest pay-off.”

  “Assuming the identity of real people is a much greater risk,” Sam rumbled next to me. The back of my neck prickled, reacting to his nearness.

  I turned to him, palms up. “Sure, being Julian and Birdie is a risk, but the reward is a faster way to earn trust. I’ve been low-key stalking these two for the last couple of days. No photos of them exist online. They use their bookstore logos as avatars on the site. Their social media pages are only two years old. Just posts about the store, nothing identifying.”

  “I think we can assume Julian and Birdie are using aliases,” Delilah chimed in. “Which makes it less risky, since you can become anyone with that kind of identity.”

  “Unless we meet someone there who’s met the real Julian and Birdie in person,” Sam said.

  That insight thudded into our debate.

  Abe rubbed his jaw, glancing out the window. “Do you have a sense of how much Dahl saw you during your car chase?”