“Aggie?”
“Your mother?” she finally said. “Where did you see her?”
She said see her, as if it was a fact.
I frowned. “Crossing Washington Street.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No.”
“Was she with anyone?”
“Aggie?” I said. “Why—”
Her eyes were locked on something in the backyard, but when I followed her line of sight, I caught only a flicker of motion beyond the fence.
Aggie set the pan down on the table and raced around the peninsula with a speed I hadn’t thought she was capable of at her age, and with her ailing hips. She tore her cell phone from its charger, her fingers racing over the screen.
“Are you calling Dr. Sedwick?” I asked, disgruntled.
“Where’s Nick?” she said, ignoring my question, never taking her eyes from the phone.
“I don’t know. Why?”
The back door opened.
I expected it to be Nick, as if he’d been summoned by Aggie’s inquiry.
But it wasn’t.
Aggie dropped the phone to the counter with a clatter.
I lost all feeling in my body. I couldn’t even feel the beating of my heart in my chest, though I could hear it drumming loudly in my ears.
The person standing in the doorway was my mother.
The kitchen went eerily quiet. My heart slowed to a staccato beat.
“Elizabeth,” Aggie said sharply. “You should leave.”
I heard Aggie’s words, but I couldn’t make sense of them. It was as if she’d spoken in a language I did not understand.
Chair legs scraped against the floor. I looked down, realizing it was my chair, realizing I was now on my feet. My hands trembled at my sides.
“Elizabeth,” Mom said, and took a step toward me.
It was startling, how little she had changed. The wrinkles around her eyes were cut deeper with age, but that was the only visible sign that six years had passed since the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was the same dark auburn, the same length it had been, cut just below her shoulders.
Her lips were tinted with the same lipstick—her favorite shade, Vintage Rose. She’d bought it in bulk, afraid that it would be discontinued. All these details came together, forming a picture I didn’t want to see.
Nothing had changed in my mother’s life except that I’d been absent from it.
I’d thought she’d died.
“Don’t come any closer.” Aggie’s voice was pitched low and throaty.
“Elizabeth,” Mom repeated, and locked her eyes on me, eyes that were watery and tinged red. “Honey, I—”
Aggie came around the peninsula and put herself between me and my mother. “No,” she said, as if she were reprimanding a dog for digging in the garbage. “Don’t you dare.”
“Mom,” I whispered. “Where—How—”
A tear streamed down her face, and she swiped it away with hands that were dry and cracked. Whenever she’d worked long shifts at the hospital, her hands looked like that from too much washing. It was a detail so familiar, it was almost as if the years between us had evaporated and I was a little girl again, happy to see my mother home from work.
But I wasn’t that girl. And six years was a long time to go without the one person you needed most.
“Listen to me, honey,” she started. “We have to leave. Now. It’s not safe here.”
“Don’t listen to her, Elizabeth,” Aggie said. Her shoulders were rigid, her back pulled up in a straight line. “You are not welcome here, Moira.”
“Aggie!” I said. None of this made sense. I needed more time to process. I’d dreamed of this moment every day since I’d escaped. I was not going to force my mom right back out the door.
Mom looked past Aggie at me. “Please, honey.”
Where had she been? Why hadn’t she been here?
“Please, baby,” she said. “You have to listen. Nick is not who he says he is. He’s dangerous. He was sent here to kill you six years ago, and he’s here to finish the job.”
“Do not listen to her,” Aggie said.
With a swiftness that Aggie could not match, Mom stepped around her and took my hands in hers. Hers were cold and shaking.
“You have to come with me. I know someone who can help us.”
Aggie was suddenly beside me. She whacked my mom’s hand with a wooden spoon. Mom’s face hardened as she pulled back.
“Get out,” Aggie said.
“Aggie!” I shouted again.
The back door opened. And this time it was Nick.
He looked from me to Aggie to my mother holding her hand close to her chest, and back to me.
“Elizabeth—” he started, narrowing his eyes, his hand sliding behind his back, as if he were reaching for something. But whatever it was he was looking for wasn’t there, and he grimaced, his blue eyes flashing with regret.
Mom got in close to my side, winding her arm around my waist. “We have to go,” she whispered. “Now.”
Something crashed through the front door. The door blew back and slammed into the wall. The stained glass in the window shattered. Aggie yelped. Mom grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the den.
Several men and a woman flooded into the kitchen, guns in their hands. Nick tore one of Aggie’s vintage rolling pins from the wall and hurled it at the first person he saw. The man, clothed in black, hit the floor hard, his eyes fluttering shut.
I shrieked.
Another man swung at Nick, but Nick had already moved, ducking, and then kicking the man in the knee. Something cracked. The man crumpled with a howl. Nick went down with him and yanked the man’s gun from his hands. He brought it up to his line of sight and aimed.
“Elizabeth!” Mom shouted, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my feet beneath me. There was only the throbbing of my pulse in my neck and the air stuck helplessly in my throat.
Nick shot, and a bullet lodged itself in yet another man’s head. I backpedaled and slammed into the counter, the edge digging into my hip.
Another body hit the floor with a sickening thud, and Nick stole his gun, too.
He started shooting both guns at once, and the pop-pop of the shots, followed by the cries of the men, filled the room until it was deafening, until I couldn’t take it any longer.
I slammed my hands over my ears, slammed my eyes shut, as old images flashed in my head. Of men, dressed in black, hunting me in a lab where I’d been held captive for months.
Guns in hands, barrels aiming for anything that moved, and one person standing at my side, ferrying me to safety.
Six years ago, in that lab, I knew who I could trust. I might not have known the person’s name, or even what they looked like, but the line in the sand had been drawn in black, so stark that I knew exactly which side I was on.
But now, in Aggie’s kitchen, with the Stroganoff cooling on the table and the air punctuated with the smell of blood and fired bullets, I couldn’t find the line.
I didn’t know which side I was on.
The window behind Nick shattered. Glass plinked against the table. My eyes snapped open in time to see Aggie stagger back against the table, to see my glass of iced tea tip over and puddle on the floor.
Aggie’s mouth widened into an O and her apron turned black with her blood.
“Aggie!” I shrieked, moving toward her, but my mother yanked me back. “We have to—”
Aggie’s knees gave out. She turned her eyes to me as she fell, the deep-set wrinkles around her mouth hardening as she said, “Run.”
Mom wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled. I flailed, digging my nails into her hands. She let me go, and I raced across the kitchen.
“Grab her!” Mom yelled, and two men scooped me up before I could reach Aggie, pinning my arms in their grip.
Another black-clad man went after Nick and kicked the gun from his hands. The gun flew back, bounced off the table, and thudded to the floor. The m
an threw a punch, but Nick was quick to dodge and came back up with a blow to the man’s stomach. When the man bent over, gasping for air, Nick rammed his knee into the man’s head, knocking him unconscious.
“Nick!” I screamed.
He looked up, and I realized too late that my saying his name was the wrong thing to do at a time like this.
It was the distraction his assailants needed.
A punch landed in Nick’s stomach, and he doubled over. The attacker slammed his elbow into Nick’s kidney, and Nick hit the ground.
“No!” I screamed.
But no one was listening to me.
“Follow me!” Mom yelled above the cacophony, and my captors raced to obey her.
I was dragged into the den. Mom flipped the lock on the French doors and shoved them open. We clambered out.
Once on the deck, I wrestled out of the men’s grip. “I’m not leaving Aggie!”
Mom shoved aside the men and came to my side, taking my face in her rough, dry hands. “Listen to me, honey. We cannot stay here. Aggie is not your friend.”
I batted her hands away. “You act like Aggie is the bad guy.”
“That’s because she is. She and Nick both. They work for the Branch. They have been waiting for the right time to hurt you.”
“But—”
More shots rang out in the house. Someone shouted an order.
“We have to go before you’re the one who’s shot,” Mom said. “No more arguing. I won’t lose you now that I finally have you back.”
She nodded at the men, and they grabbed me again, tugging me across the deck and down the stairs. We wound our way through the garden, and through the gate to the alley where a black sedan sat idling.
Sirens blared in the distance.
The man on my right opened the car’s back door. I was pushed inside, and the door slammed shut a second later, sealing off the sounds of the sirens and of the gunshots still being fired in the house. Mom climbed into the passenger seat. The locks thunked closed.
The man behind the wheel turned around. “I’m glad you got out safe and sound,” he said to me. “Everything is going to be fine now.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
He smiled briefly, and the smile was so wrong for a time like this.
“My name is Tom Riley,” he said. “But you can just call me Riley.”
31
NICK
I LIMPED OUT THE BACK DOOR AND hurried to the garden, my shoulder and abdomen on fire. I’d been sliced twice with a kitchen knife, and though I didn’t think anything vital had been hit, the pain still slowed me down.
The gate leading from the backyard hung open. I powered through, gasping, and stopped.
I made a circle. Nothing moved. No one was there.
Elizabeth was gone.
I growled out a curse as sirens wailed up the street. I couldn’t stay there.
Cop cars screeched to a halt out front. I’d left enough of the Branch agents alive to keep the police busy for a while.
With blood running down my face and from a wound on my leg, walking on the streets would draw too much attention, so I cut through a few neighboring yards until I reached the line of woods that would eventually thin out to a church.
I’d made this same trek two days before. It was always good to have an escape plan. But I wasn’t so sure I’d make it this time. My leg kept folding beneath me, and I had to rest for a second until the feeling came back to it.
I was leaving obvious tracks in the woods, too, but I didn’t have time to cover them.
A half mile from the church, I leaned against a tree and strained to listen. No sirens here. No dogs barking. That was a good sign.
I bent over and sucked in air. It never seemed like enough. My chest was burning, my leg was pounding, and my vision kept winking out.
The church parking lot was empty save for a small white car and a truck. I found an unlocked back door that led to the church’s basement and stumbled inside, blinking against the dusky light.
There were kids’ toys everywhere, spilling from toy boxes and piled in baskets along the wall. The carpet was dark green, thankfully, so it hid the blood still dripping from my wounds.
I followed a hallway to a lounge, and then another to a storage room and plopped down on an old wingback chair shoved between stacks of boxes.
I dug out the cell phone to call Trev, but he didn’t pick up. Trev was closest, but I needed more help than one guy could give. Looked like Sam was going to get his wish. I needed the others right now. I hated to admit it—I liked to think I could manage just fine on my own—but I was clearly in over my head.
The Branch was here. And I bet Riley wasn’t far behind.
With a blood-crusted finger, I pounded in Sam’s number. Anna picked up. “Where’s the dog?” she said, opening with our code.
I inhaled, biting down the urge to cry. I did not cry. I wasn’t going to start now.
“Nick?” she said.
My voice wavered as I managed to get out, “I need your help.”
She immediately went on alert. “What’s wrong?”
“The Branch… they have Elizabeth and I might have been shot. I’m not sure yet.”
“Where are you now?”
“In a church about two miles from Elizabeth’s house.”
“Are you safe for now?”
“For now.”
“I’m calling Trev—”
“I just did. He didn’t pick up.”
“Then I’ll keep trying him until he does.” She shouted for Sam, then Cas, before coming back on the line. “We’re on our way, okay? Sit tight.”
“Hurry. Please.”
“We’ll be there in a few hours, if we have to speed the whole way there.” Her voice hardened. “And then I’m going to kill whoever hurt you.”
I heard the back door open sometime later and realized I wasn’t hidden very well. I didn’t have enough energy to burrow in somewhere now, so if it was Riley here to finish me off, he wouldn’t have a hard time finding me.
There had been a total of eight Branch agents in Aggie’s house, and I’d taken them all out. But not without some major damage. After looking at my leg, I was confident I had only been grazed by a bullet, not shot, but the longer I sat there, the worse I felt. My wounds were growing hotter by the second and pounded in time with my heart.
“Nick?” Trev called.
Not Riley then.
“In here,” I replied.
The door opened, and light washed through. I shielded my eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that in a church.”
He chuckled and came closer. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell for a dozen other things already.”
“Like turning on us?”
“‘Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.’”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
He helped me to my feet and put my arm around his shoulders. He was a few inches shorter than I was, which made it a lot easier to walk using him for support.
“We got a problem,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I think Elizabeth’s mother is working with Riley.”
“Really?”
“She was at the house when I got there, right when the Branch agents swept in.” I winced, and held my breath for a beat as a new twinge of pain subsided. “And when I saw a picture of her at Elizabeth’s house earlier today, I thought she looked familiar, but the memory was one that just appeared, you know? Not a flashback, just a memory that resurfaced, like it’d never been gone. I knew I’d seen her before, I just couldn’t place where until now.”
“So where did you see her?”
“At the lab beneath the barn, which makes sense, because she was kidnapped with Elizabeth, except I don’t think she was a prisoner.”
“Well, we can s
ort all this out after I clean you up.”
We hobbled out of the church together. Trev’s car was waiting nearby. “Looks like you’ll be getting blood all over your pretty Jag.”
“I brought plastic.”
“You what?”
“Anna told me you were injured, so I brought plastic.”
“I can’t believe you right now.”
“I can’t believe you’re surprised.”
The plastic crinkled as I sat down. It stuck to my arms, covered in sweat and blood. I needed a shower. And a shot of tequila.
“Got any booze at your place?”
Trev slid in behind the wheel and started up the car. “What do you think?”
I grumbled as he took off.
“We’re a half hour out,” Anna said through the line. “You’re okay?”
“For now,” I said. “Bring booze.”
She relayed the message to Sam, who grunted in the background.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m going to need it. I’m banged up, remember? We can use it to numb the pain and clean the wound.”
“I can buy rubbing alcohol for that,” Anna said. “I think there’s some in the first-aid kit already.”
“Bring me booze,” I said again, and she finally relented.
I lay back on the bed in Trev’s hotel room and slammed my eyes shut. The room was spinning. And not because I was drunk this time.
“We have to go after them,” I said to Trev as he handed me a glass of water.
“I know.”
“They have Elizabeth.”
“I know.”
How had I lost her? She’d been so close. And then she was just gone.
Probably that had been their plan all along. Send in a bunch of Branch agents to distract me so they could nab Elizabeth without a problem.
Of course, I couldn’t compete with her mother. Elizabeth would probably have followed her anyway.
I took a gulp of water and set the cup down.
Trev stood at the end of the bed staring at me. “We should probably check out your wounds.”
“Are you trying to get me naked?”
He sighed. “You’re a lot more like Cas than you care to admit.”
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