I went cold inside when I read the objective, printed across the top in big, bold print: “Locate the target and terminate immediately.”
I sat back against the couch and closed my eyes.
This was a kill mission. They’d sent me, blindly, on a kill mission, and now that I was here, there was no turning back.
You could run, that voice in my head said again. You could leave now, get ahead of them by a few hours, at least.
But I had nowhere to go, and nothing to go there with.
My knee started bobbing up and down.
Could I do this? Could I kill someone based only on the Branch’s orders?
I sat forward again and propped my elbows on my knees, running my fingers through my hair as I thought.
Maybe there was a good reason behind the mission.
I read through the rest of the file with quick efficiency, memorizing the facts, but there was nothing in there that warranted a kill order.
I drained the rest of my coffee and closed out the file, locking the computer when I was finished.
In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and tried to talk myself down from the ledge. I could do this. If it meant saving Anna and the guys, then I could do this.
And maybe it’d help if I met this Charlie, saw something in him that was off-kilter. Something that told me he needed to die.
I tugged on the khaki-colored trench coat Marie had given me, since I didn’t have much for winter gear. It made me look like an investment banker, but it served its purpose.
But on my way out the door, I caught sight of my reflection in the full-length mirror in the hallway and immediately stopped.
I didn’t even recognize myself.
Who was I becoming? And for what?
Anna would hate this version of you, the voice said, and I knew it was right.
The tea shop where this Charlie guy worked was on a block downtown closed to through traffic. The street had been laid with red brick, the intersections closed off with wrought iron fencing. String lights zigzagged across the block from roof to roof. There were vintage lampposts, too, and a lot of the shops had hand-painted signs hanging out front.
I’d done a little bit of research on Sarasota before leaving the Branch building, looking for reasons they would send me to a little Wisconsin town. It was a tourist stop, with the Lower Red Lake being the main draw and a few prominent factories in the industrial district.
The crime rate here was practically nonexistent, with most of the crimes misdemeanors that took place during the tourist season. There hadn’t been a reported murder in more than five years. Which told me the Branch didn’t really have a presence here. Wherever they were, people dropped dead like gnats.
The case file Marie had sent me said Charlie worked every Friday, so I was hoping to run into him to get a preliminary read. I needed to know what he was like, and whether or not he posed a considerable threat. Judging by his body size, he wouldn’t, but you could never be overprepared.
The smell of a hundred different teas hit me as soon as I opened the shop’s front door. New Agey music played through the sound system. There were only a few customers inside. Not the ideal situation. It was easier to maintain anonymity in a crowd.
I stopped just inside the doorway to check out the building. No surveillance system. Good. An exit in the back. Line of sight was good at pretty much every location in the store. All of the store’s products were on the east and west walls, with the service counter in the center.
Along the back wall, six brewers were set up, all labeled with different teas so customers could sample the products. Although there was a gun hidden beneath my jacket, I always liked to have an alternative means of defense and hot water was as good a weapon as any.
I took another step inside and the bleached pine floor squeaked beneath my weight. No way to move around unnoticed.
“Can I help you?” a girl said as I folded my sunglasses and hung them on the collar of my T-shirt.
“Um, maybe.” I glanced down at her name tag.
I wasn’t able to tamp down the shock that dropped through me. If anyone was looking, they’d see it written all over my face.
Charlie. Her name was Charlie. Five foot five, 140 pounds, platinum hair.
Shit.
“Your name is Charlie?” I said, easy, cool.
She nodded and smiled, like she got this question all the time. “Short for Charlene, but everyone calls me Charlie. It’s weird, I know. A girl having a boy’s name.”
“No.” I shook my head too quickly. “Not weird at all. Are you the only Charlie here? I could have sworn a guy name Charlie helped me last time I was here.”
“Nope. Only one.” She twisted slightly to nod at a taller girl in the back, a head of curly brown hair hiding her face from view. “That’s Melanie, and we have a Jessica that works here, too, but no guys. No other Charlies, either.”
“Huh,” I said.
My mission was to kill this girl? A pretty, nineteen-year-old girl who worked at a fucking tea shop?
Was this some kind of test? Was the Branch seeing how far they could push me? And whether I’d follow their orders, no matter how depraved the orders were?
The human mind has three defense mechanisms—intellect, instinct, and intuition—and right now all three were telling me there was something off about this mission. I just wasn’t sure if it was my own moral compass swinging wildly off center, or if there really was more going on here than the Branch was telling me.
I had the portentous feeling that we were playing a game, a dangerous game, and I didn’t know all the rules.
I slid my hands into the pockets of my jacket, tightening them into fists. Anger was pulsing behind my eyes, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to kill Riley with my bare hands.
I inhaled sharply as I tried to reorient myself.
I’d brought along a bug to plant, so I could spend the afternoon listening to everything Charlie said and did. That hadn’t changed.
“What’s your best rooibos blend?” I asked.
Charlie nodded to a section along the east wall, turning for a fraction of a second. I slipped the bug beneath the cash register, attaching it to the bottom.
“Definitely caramel crème. It’s my favorite blend out of all of them.”
“Then I guess I better try that one.” I grabbed a bag of loose leaf, and she rang up the purchase.
“Are you from around here?” she asked as she handed over my change.
“I have family here, so I’m just visiting.”
“Ahh. I see.” She crossed her arms over her chest and I noticed a giant scar running down the backside of her arm, from her elbow to her wrist. It was the kind of scar you got from major reconstructive surgery. From the discoloration of the skin, it was at least a few years old.
“It’s been a while since I was here last,” I said. “Where’s the best place to eat?”
“Depends on what you’re in the mood for.”
If I was going to get inside this girl’s head and figure out the best course of action, then I had to do more than make small talk about tea. I needed to spend some time with her one on one.
“Pizza,” I replied.
“Then go to Red’s Pizzeria. It’s on the boardwalk, near the marina.”
“Do you think you could show me? I’ll buy you a slice to say thanks.”
She smiled again, and unfolded her arms to stick her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, hiding the scar from view. “Are you asking me out?”
“Do you want me to ask you out?”
She shifted, and looked away as color filled her cheeks. I got the impression she wasn’t used to being asked out. She was pretty enough. She wasn’t tiny, like Anna, but she had a nice body. There was no reason she shouldn’t have a boyfriend. Unless it wasn’t her looks that turned people off. Maybe there was a story from her past—the reason the Branch had sent me here—that scared people away.
“You�
��re not an ax murderer, are you?” she asked.
My chest tightened. “Not this week.”
She laughed. “All right. I get off at four.”
“I’ll be here at four, then.”
She nodded and looked away again, the smile growing bigger, the color in her cheeks darkening.
Guilt twisted like a blade between my ribs. I was asking her out on a date so I could kill her.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Back in the apartment, I activated the planted bug and popped an ear bud in my ear. Immediately, I recognized Charlie’s voice.
“I’m not sure if I should go. Maybe I should have said no.”
Another female voice piped in. “You must be joking. Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not joking, Melanie. Did you see him? He was wearing a Burberry trench coat. Guys like that do not ask out girls like me.”
There was some rustling around, then a thud.
“Listen to me, Charlie,” Melanie said. “That boy is hot. Like, too-close-to-the-sun hot. Like, he-could-deep-fry-me-like-a-tamale hot. Who cares what kind of jacket—”
“A Burberry trench coat.”
“—he was wearing. HE. IS. HOT.”
“Okay, I get it!” Charlie said. “The guy is good-looking. That doesn’t mean I should go out with him.”
“It is the only reason you should go out with him.”
“He could be an asshole.”
“Yes, but he’s a hot asshole.”
When I planted that bug, this was so far from the intel I’d thought I’d gather.
“So, you go out with him,” Melanie said. “You have some pizza. You have some conversation. That doesn’t mean you have to sleep with him.”
“God, Mel!”
“And afterward, you can decide whether or not you like him, and whether or not you want to go out with him again.”
“He said he was just visiting.”
Some unspoken conversation passed between them, because Charlie sighed, and Melanie laughed, before a customer asked for help.
I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to every shred of conversation that went on between the girls. I was never mentioned again, thank God. I’m not a narcissist, after all.
Charlie had a few phone conversations later in the day, but they sounded like business calls—nothing out of the ordinary.
At three, I set aside the surveillance equipment. It was recording everything it picked up, so I could listen later.
I went into the bathroom and checked my reflection. I hadn’t been on a date in a long time, and even then, I’d been in high school. Dating in high school didn’t really count. Especially considering the memories were only vague shadows of the past.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Shave? Comb my hair?
Not for the first time, I had the urge to call Anna and ask for her guidance. Back in the farmhouse lab, she’d been my best friend. I still considered her my best friend. She was the only good thing that came out of signing on with the Branch.
It was Helen Keller who said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” And I had never felt as alone as I did now. Like an anchor cut from its ship, sitting forgotten on the bottom of some dark ocean floor.
I hadn’t realized it, when I turned Anna and the others over to the Branch, just how much better I was when I was with them.
I sighed at my reflection in the mirror and decided I looked good enough. In a few days, Charlie would be dead, and none of this would matter anyway.
I drove to the tea shop, and parked behind it in a central parking lot. I left my gun in the glove compartment and locked it in the car, behind me.
As I walked around the block, to the front of the shop, something unexpected happened—my heart started thudding in my chest, and my stomach felt a little woozy.
Was I nervous?
I cursed beneath my breath and turned on the person I needed to be, the person Charlie needed me to be to win her trust. I couldn’t be nervous, not now, so I pulled in several settling breaths, and counted backward from twenty. It was a meditation technique I’d read about, and it worked well enough.
Charlie was waiting for me outside on the sidewalk, her attention on her cell phone. She really was pretty. Her platinum hair was shoulder length, straight and thick. She was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, untied black combat boots, and, under her gray leather jacket, a black T-shirt with a buffalo skull printed on the front.
She had a super-laid-back vibe, and it made me wonder why the Branch wanted her dead. She didn’t seem the type to be harboring national secrets.
“Hey,” I called and when she looked up, a genuine smile lit up her face, reaching all the way to her gray-green eyes.
“Hey.” She slid her cell phone in her back pocket. “I wasn’t sure if you’d show.”
There was a hint of resignation in her voice, like she wasn’t unaccustomed to being stood up.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I’m dying for some pizza.”
She shifted the messenger bag she had slung across her body, so that it rested on her hip. “Well, you’re in for a treat. Red’s really is the best around.”
We started walking in the direction of Lower Red Lake and the marina. I already knew where Red’s Pizzeria was because I’d checked it out before meeting her, just to be sure it was legit. If the Branch wanted Charlie dead, there was a possibility she saw me coming from a mile away. She could have already been playing me. I had to know all the angles.
As we waited for traffic to clear, Charlie turned to me and said, “You know, I realized after you left that I didn’t even ask your name.”
“It’s Trev.”
“Short for Trevor?”
“Just Trev.”
“What’s your last name?”
I contemplated whether I should tell her the truth. My real name. I was on a mission, and one of the first rules of being on assignment was never to use your real name, but for some reason, I wanted her to know it. Not many people did anymore. Or at least, not many that mattered.
“My last name is Harper.”
“Trev Harper. It sounds like…” She trailed off, her gaze flitting to the clouds as she thought. It made her eyes look more gray than green, like river rocks. “It sounds like the name of a rock star. You aren’t secretly a rock star, are you?”
“Are you trying to figure out who I am by eliminating what I’m not?”
She grinned. “Actually, yes. And it all starts with ‘ax murderer.’ ”
I couldn’t help but laugh. And I couldn’t help but notice how good it felt.
We crossed the street, and once we crested a hill, Lower Red Lake came into view. Most of the trees had shed their leaves, so the view was unobstructed. There was a park at the end of this street, with a wide grassy area at the front, leading down to a sandy beach. The tourist brochure I’d read this morning said the park was the best spot for barbecues, swimming, and picnics. Right now, it was empty, as was the playground that spread out to the north. Behind it was what was known as Sycamore Woods, ten acres of paved paths for running and biking. My case file said Charlie liked biking there.
“So,” Charlie said, “you said earlier that you have family here?”
I’d rehearsed all the answers to these kinds of questions before I’d even arrived in town. It was good to have your story well thought out, to make sure the details stayed consistent.
“My grandmother.”
“How long are you staying in town?”
I shrugged, because I honestly wasn’t sure. “A few weeks, probably.” Probably more like a few days if I could follow through with this mission.
When we reached the boardwalk, we turned left, our footsteps echoing through the weathered boards. Over the lake, a V of ducks took flight, disappearing past the line of trees on the opposite side.
“Have you lived in Sarasota your whole life?” I asked. I already knew the answer to this question. S
he’d just moved here a few years ago, but I didn’t know the place she’d left when she’d moved.
“No. I just moved here a few years back. I used to live with my uncle, in Michigan.”
That set off some alarm bells. A lot of the Branch’s activity went on in Michigan. It’s where their headquarters were stationed.
I tried to think of anyone I knew within the Branch with the last name Worthington, but I came up blank. Didn’t mean there wasn’t a connection.
“Why did you move?” I asked.
She was quiet for a minute. “It’s kinda complicated. I mean, the biggest reason was that I got into a bad car accident, and my uncle blamed himself, so he sent me home to my mom.”
The car accident explained the scar on her arm.
“Why did he blame himself?”
“Because he’d been working a lot, and I’d been partying a lot. He never noticed. I was drunk when I got into the accident.”
“Oh.”
None of this had been in her case file. Was it important to the case? I couldn’t know for sure until I did some more research. I made a mental note to look into her family more closely when I got back to the apartment.
“Your uncle still blame himself?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said quietly. “He’s dead.”
With Red’s Pizzeria in sight, she surged ahead of me and hurried inside.
The guy behind the counter at Red’s greeted Charlie by name. I let her order for us as I checked the place out. There were framed pictures all over the walls of people who had dined in the restaurant. I didn’t recognize any of them after a quick scan.
I settled into a red vinyl booth along the front windows because I knew it’d afford me clear sight of anyone nearing the restaurant, but also because the view was great. The water was gray, and steady, but it glittered silver in the light. Cattails grew on the western side. A weeping willow stood just beyond, the branches hanging so low, they trailed in the water.
Being locked in a lab for five years had taught me the importance of savoring. Of taking in the details and committing them to memory.
There’s this French saying that goes something like, Everyone has two lives. The second begins when you realize you only have one. Now that I was free, now that the walls of my cell were gone, I wasn’t going to waste one second of… well, anything.
Betrayed Page 2
