Best Kept Lies
Page 12
Of the two of them, he certainly had no reason to be.
Hailey realized he was clutching his paper tight enough to smudge the graphite print. He set it down beside his rapidly cooling coffee and folded his clawed hands. “Why are you here, Adam?”
“There a problem with checking in with my favorite handler?” Adam shot back.
A hitch of shoulders stretched the fabric of his off-the-rack shirt, pulled at the plastic buttons. He had bulked up since their last conversation.
At least prison had been good for something.
“I’m not your handler anymore,” Hailey pointed out, affecting calm. “And you’re a wanted man.”
He didn’t say ‘you’re supposed to be rotting in a gulag somewhere’ because for all he knew, Adam had been turned and released by their Russian colleagues. He wouldn’t be the first serviceman to go from praising the Queen to praising Allah, Stalin or any other idol just to catch a break.
Hailey couldn’t fault him for defecting. Sometimes, it was the only sensible thing to do.
“Oh, that.” Adam brushed the reminder aside with a lackadaisical wave. “Minor logistical hitch. Doesn’t stop me getting around.”
“So I see.”
The waitress returned with Adam’s coffee. The napkin under the saucer had been inscribed with digits quickly jotted down in blue ballpoint. Hailey revised his assumption—perhaps the young woman hadn’t sighted that foreboding zing in Adam’s gaze. Perhaps she found that attractive.
She wouldn’t be the first.
“How long have you been following me?” Hailey asked, more out of interest than any real disquiet. If Adam had wanted him dead, he’d be dead already. Any number of ways to do it, but the simplest of all—a bullet to the head—would have spared Adam a trip down to the boardwalk.
Yet here he was, prodding the old dog with a stick just because he could.
Adam smirked, his ginger whiskers twitching with a sharp pull of muscle. “Afraid you’re slipping?”
“A man my age doesn’t fear much of anything anymore. Too costly.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“I can’t take you back in,” Hailey said. “I’m retired.”
“You mean you’ve been disavowed.”
So you know. Hailey didn’t have to try to conceal the twitch of a smile. It was second nature by now. “New blood at GCHQ. It was high time they made some changes.”
He didn’t owe Adam an explanation, but habit compelled him to make a vague show of civility, for old times’ sake.
It was also for the sake of old times and whatever complicity they’d once shared that he felt obliged to remark on the weather when conversation faltered. He brought up the digits jotted down on the napkin as a lighthearted jab, when Adam wouldn’t answer with more than a vague, noncommittal hum. His attempts fell mostly flat.
“I’m not asking any favors,” Adam muttered, entirely out of the blue.
Hailey arched an eyebrow.
“I’m done with the Service… With Maxwell, Bowen, the lot.”
“You’re a free agent now, are you?”
He watched Adam grin broadly. There was something still so boyish in his face despite the thick ginger beard. The thuggish slant of his brow was a far cry from the innocence of youth.
“I’m on leave,” he said. It wasn’t a yes or a no, but Hailey hadn’t been expecting confirmation, anyway. “Thought I’d take care of some personal business while I was in the neighborhood…”
“I’m staying at the Grand Hotel.”
“I know.”
It was Hailey’s turn to smile, albeit tepidly. Of course, Adam would know better than to approach him without first performing his due diligence.
Hailey had trained him too well.
He liberated a crisp five euro bill from his wallet and slotted it under his cup. “Come by tonight,” he said, rising.
“You forgot your puzzle.”
“You can finish it for me,” Hailey told Adam blithely. “That eight across is a tricky one.” He wasn’t attempting to delay the inevitable, but his espresso had cooled and there were still a few postcards he hadn’t mailed.
A phone call or two that wouldn’t go amiss—for old times’ sake.
He could feel Adam’s gaze on him as he ambled slowly up the crooked coastal road. It was boring into the back of his neck like a sharpshooter’s red bead.
A loud bang suddenly shattered the silence, as loud as a clap of thunder.
Hailey staggered, but there was no sudden flood of heat down his spine, no crippling ache in his lungs. A Citroën rumbled past at great speed, stirring the pleats of his trench coat with a sputter of billowing black smoke. Adam would have used a silencer. Hailey took comfort in the thought.
On the flipside of relief, there was the embarrassment of thinking that loud noises were enough to rattle his cage. It was a miserable lapse from a man who’d once prided himself on having nerves of steel.
He couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder to acknowledge the slip—at least that was one joke he and Adam could share equally.
Between the rocky parapet bordering the esplanade on one side and the cornucopia of glass-fronted shops on the other, it was no hardship to focus aged eyes on the coffee shop. Two tables remained occupied, mostly by men and women of Hailey’s generation. Adam wasn’t sat at either one.
He was never here. You made him up. An attractive proposition.
Hailey had spent a lifetime doubting and double-checking.
He knew better now.
It was rare but not unheard of for agents to sometimes crawl out of their graves, to say nothing of returning from exile. Besides, there were two cups on the table he’d just vacated and the folded newspaper was gone.
Adam was not a figment of his imagination. He was a herald.
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About the Author
Helena Maeve has always been globe trotter with a fondness for adventure, but only recently has she started putting to paper the many stories she’s collected in her excursions. When she isn’t writing erotic romance novels, she can usually be found in an airport or on a plane, furiously penning in her trusty little notebook.
Email: helenamaeve@outlook.com
Helena loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.pride-publishing.com.
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Also by Helena Maeve
Courting Treason
Misfit Hearts
Flight Made Easy
In the Presence of Mine Enemy
Fault Lines