Past Sins (Silhouette Bombshell)

by Debra Webb

  The realization that she very well could be telling the truth dawned slowly in his eyes.

  “You killed people for the CIA.”

  She nodded.

  His gaze swung to Landry’s. “Are you CIA, as well?”

  “Interpol.”

  Jeffrey blinked. “This is…” He wagged his head from right to left. “This is unbelievable.”

  Olivia felt herself relax a bit. At least she’d gotten past that hurdle. “The Company has been out of my life for three years. They thought I was dead. All but Hamilton.”

  Jeffrey gestured vaguely. “The man whose house you broke into last night?”

  She nodded. “He’s the deputy director of field operations. When I was active he was my boss. I reported directly to him because of the sensitive nature of my position.”

  Jeffrey ran a hand through his hair. “You’re saying that you killed people for the CIA?”

  Apparently that part still hadn’t penetrated completely.

  “Yes.” Clasping her hands in front of her, Olivia took a deep breath and tried again. “Everything I’ve told you is true. Whether you choose to believe me is up to you, but we have to move on. Our lives depend upon what we do next. Can I count on you?”

  Whether it was her persistence that paid off or his own confusion that finally made him relent, he caved. Maybe he just decided that playing along for now was his only choice. That was kind of how she felt about her new partnership with Landry.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to promise me you’ll do whatever I ask, no questions, no hesitation.”

  He looked hesitant already, but he agreed. “All right.” He glanced at Landry before settling his gaze on hers once more. “Anything for you, Olivia.”

  Whatever had transpired between these two had clearly pitted one against the other. That was fine by her. Gave her the edge.

  Whatever Landry had planned, he needed to know one thing right now. From this moment on, he was no longer in charge.

  She stood. “We have plans to make. Our first step should be determining who all the suspects are. Anyone who had knowledge of the Al Hadi operation, CIA and Interpol.” Her gaze lingered on Landry as she spoke. “To do the job right we need a few hours’ sleep.” She hated to admit that weakness, but she had scarcely slept in days. That kind of handicap would work against her. Sleep deprivation triggered errors in judgment. She’d probably already made one major mistake getting involved with him again. But he’d left her little choice.

  Landry pushed to his feet. “That sounds reasonable. Though we shouldn’t lose any more time than absolutely necessary.”

  “Agreed.” There was something else she required, as well. “I’ll need my weapon and my phone.”

  Jeffrey rose next. “That goes for me, as well.” He cleared his throat and qualified his statement. “The part about the phone, I mean.”

  Landry appeared reluctant to meet their demands.

  “No negotiations,” she spelled out. “We’re either equal in this or we go our separate ways.”

  “As long as you have your end of things under control, I’m good with that.”

  She didn’t have to ask for clarification. He meant Jeffrey. She could handle Jeffrey. Landry handed over her Beretta along with their cell phones.

  “It’s eight-thirty now,” she said after a quick check of the time on her phone’s display. “We’ll resume this discussion at one.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Landry turned his back and headed down the hall.

  He confused her constantly. One minute he had too much to say, the next he had nothing to add.

  Nothing about any of this added up, in Olivia’s opinion. Particularly Landry’s sudden concern for her well-being. Three long years. And now he showed up claiming to want to save her from some imminent doom.

  She had absolutely no reason to believe him.

  And yet, she wanted to.

  Olivia watched the twenty-nine become thirty on the digital clock as the time reached half past noon. She’d slept roughly two hours, and even then she’d awakened every time Jeffrey made the slightest sound or move.

  She’d lain there, wide awake, until he dozed off. He had his phone back and she needed to be sure he didn’t use it to call for help. Not that he would want to do anything to injure her, but she felt relatively certain that he considered her certifiable by this point. Despite having been chased, shot at and kidnapped, finding out his significant other was a former assassin couldn’t have been easy to take in stride.

  She had to be crazy. What was she doing here? How could she trust anything Landry told her?

  Olivia sat up and plowed her fingers through her hair. She couldn’t. That was the problem. She couldn’t trust anyone from her old life.

  In some ways she never could. That was part of the game. She played by the rules and she worked under the assumption that the others did, as well. But someone hadn’t. That possibility had always been there, lurking just around every corner. It was part of the risk.

  She hadn’t operated in a vacuum. There had been rumors and rumblings of past betrayals. Agents who were disowned when an op went bad. That protected the Agency. Allowing the agent to take the fall served the greater good. She’d understood that unwritten rule.

  But having an agent execute a man whose name hadn’t been listed in the book of the dead was wrong any way you looked at it.

  Hamilton had given the order.

  But someone else had made a mistake.

  And she’d paid the price.

  Jeffrey didn’t rouse as she got up. She tugged on her boots, tucked the knife back into place and tied the laces. The Beretta went into her waistband at the small of her back. She slid her cell into a back pocket.

  She hesitated before leaving the room, distracted by her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. She looked tired. She looked nothing like Sheara.

  Sheara had been well prepared at all times. Her instincts had been sharp, her skills unmatched. Confidence and relentlessness had exuded from her.

  What she saw staring back at her was the fringes of fear and no confidence at all. She fingered the necklace she always wore. Refused to think about the night he’d given it to her.

  Olivia closed her eyes. Imagined her long black hair in a chic French twist. A tailored designer suit adorning her five-seven frame. That was Olivia Mills, psychologist.

  Vanessa Clark, aka Sheara, was nowhere to be seen.

  That one fact was the most dangerous part of what she was about to do.

  Sheara could handle anything Landry or anyone else threw her way.

  Olivia Mills was soft…compassionate.

  She was a dead woman walking if she didn’t get her act together.

  Her stomach grumbled, signaling that she needed to eat. She’d barely touched her breakfast. She reminded herself that she would need the energy. That was one thing Sheara and Olivia had in common—both were too focused on other things to remember to eat. Great when she was spending hours a day in an elegant leather chair listening to the plight, real or imagined, of a patient. Not so great in survival mode.

  As she wandered into the living room, she thought about this house. Landry had said that he’d borrowed it. That could mean several different things, including the possibility that they were here without an invitation. She shook her head. Breaking and entering was the least of her worries right now.

  Landry wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. The bathroom door had been standing wide open when she passed and he hadn’t been in there, either.

  She went to the back door, which was open, and peered beyond the screen door. He stood at the edge of the yard where the trees began. That same boundary she’d likened to her life just a few hours ago.

  He stared into the woods a few moments before continuing, following the perimeter where the grass met the trees. Was he ensuring that they were alone out here in the middle of nowhere? Or was he simply killing tim
e?

  She pushed the screen door open and walked out onto the porch. She’d reached the last step down to the yard when Landry’s attention shifted in her direction. He crossed the yard and met her at the bottom of the steps.

  “Are you worried that someone knows we’re here?”

  “No one knows our location.”

  She folded her arms over her chest, annoyed that he could sound so sure. “How can you be certain? We could have been tailed last night.”

  “We weren’t.”

  Irritation fired her blood. If she were honest with herself she’d have to admit that the part that bothered her most was that he could be so damn certain. That she had once been able to do that and no longer could, evidently, made bad matters worse.

  “What about the owner, doesn’t he know you’re here?”

  “No one knows, Nessa.”

  She stiffened at his use of the nickname only he had used for her.

  “Sorry. Olivia,” he amended.

  He wasn’t sorry. She read the lie in his eyes.

  Maybe her instincts were working better than she’d thought.

  “Who owns this place?” She wasn’t going to let him get away with all the subterfuge. If they were going to work together she needed everything.

  “No one important.” He gestured to the door. “We should go inside and discuss our first move.”

  She held up a hand. “We’re not going anywhere until you start giving me the whole story.”

  His hands braced on his hips, an indicator of his impatience.

  Too bad.

  “The house belongs to a friend I used to know.”

  A woman.

  The realization struck with startling furor.

  “When did you know her?”

  “Long before us.”

  That muscle that always tightened in his jaw when he didn’t want to talk about something clenched as she watched.

  “How long before us?”

  She hadn’t meant to ask that. She sounded like a jealous lover. They weren’t lovers anymore. Hadn’t been for three years. Nothing connected them any longer except a dangerous past that could get them both killed in the next twenty-four hours or less.

  “Years.”

  She had to look away. Couldn’t bear the way he looked at her when he said that solitary word. As if he’d suffered…as if he’d cared that he’d lost someone who meant something to him.

  Get past it. “So where is she now?”

  His shoulders lifted in a show of indifference. “On vacation.”

  The more questions she asked on the subject, the more interested in his personal life she appeared. That was not the impression she wanted to give. She wasn’t interested. She didn’t even care.

  “So, let’s talk.” She turned on her heel and went back inside. He followed.

  He picked up a folder from the kitchen countertop and joined her at the table.

  The folder contained a map, handwritten notes and glossy head shots.

  She picked up the first one. “Director Woods.”

  Olivia had met him on several occasions. Had respected his decisions for the entire seven years she’d worked for the CIA.

  The next photo was of Hamilton.

  Deputy Director David Hamilton had saved her life.

  She owed him the benefit of the doubt.

  The next head shot was of a staff adviser to the former U.S. president, the one who’d been in the Oval Office when Olivia completed her last assignment for the CIA. This same adviser had, incredibly, moved even higher up the proverbial food chain under the new administration. Men like him always ensured their asses were covered. They knew secrets that could guarantee their passage straight through the Pearly Gates when the time came.

  “You think Paul Echols had something to do with this?” She couldn’t see it. There were some aspects of the Agency’s work that even the president didn’t want to know. His adviser would simply use the rule that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. The odds that he knew the whole story were minimal.

  Landry shuffled through his handwritten notes. “Anyone who had access to the orders is a suspect, right?”

  Maybe. The final photo was a face she didn’t immediately recognize. “Who’s this?” The man looked to be about forty or forty-five. Dark hair with a dusting of gray. Steely eyes. He looked aristocratic and somehow vaguely familiar.

  “Andrew Page.”

  “You think your superior was involved?” Is involved, she should have said. The idea that Page could be his anonymous source wasn’t lost on her. But she would have to depend upon him to supply the possible suspects from Interpol. She could only guess.

  “What I said—” he leaned back into his chair “—was that anyone who had access to the orders is a suspect.”

  She knew what he’d said. She could also read between the lines. “You don’t trust Page?” Her impression had always been that the two were close. Had that changed in the past three years?

  “That’s the question of the hour.” He tapped each photo. “Who do we trust?”

  Olivia wished he’d taken the time to shave. She blinked, forced her gaze back to the pile of photos. Few men could carry off the look. Unfortunately for her, Landry was one of those chosen few. The coal black whiskers emphasized those planes and angles of his inordinately handsome face that she’d just as soon ignore.

  To get herself back on track, she dragged the map to her side of the table. “What do the Xs designate?” He’d drawn a black X in three locations, each surrounded by a square box. A couple of circles, drawn in red ink, highlighted two additional locations. All in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., less than one hundred miles from their current location.

  “The Xs are where we can find our suspects for now. I can’t guarantee where they’ll be twenty-four hours from now. That’s why we have to act fast. This—” he touched one of the red circles “—is our current location. This—” he indicated the other “—is where my former superior is vacationing this week.”

  “Your former superior?” Had she heard wrong?

  “Yes.”

  What the hell? She needed more details. “Andrew Page resigned from Interpol? He was fired? And then he decided to vacation in America?” She’d met Page once or twice. Debonair was the one word that summed him up best.

  “Neither.” Landry shuffled his notes back into the folder. “I quit.”

  His announcement sent shock waves reverberating through her. “You left Interpol?”

  “Yes.”

  Okay, he’d said that. I quit. She had to get past the astonishment and get to the facts.

  “When? Why?” That information would be immensely helpful for reasons she didn’t understand just yet. She couldn’t believe it. He’d lived and breathed Interpol.

  “Two years ago.”

  New tremors of shock shuddered through her. This information cast a whole different light on the situation. “How can you possibly have access to the intelligence needed to conduct this operation if you’re out of the loop?” He was no better off than she was. What the hell were they doing here? If he was leading them into this blind…

  Her gut clenched. Was this further proof that he was an enemy rather than an ally? Stop. She couldn’t keep waffling on the issue. She’d made a decision to trust him. If it was a mistake, she’d pay the price in the end. For now, she would operate under the assumption that they were allies.

  “I still have my contacts.”

  But he wasn’t looking her in the eye.

  “Assuming you’re being totally on the up-and-up with me, what’s your plan?” She couldn’t keep wasting time trying to get him to come clean with her. She reminded herself that keeping certain aspects secret was par for the course. She had, and would do the same.

  “We put all the players on alert.”

  “By reactivating Sheara.” He’d set her up to prompt certain responses.

  “I needed you to get out of L.A. for your protection. For your f
riend’s, as well. You know they would have used him to get to you.”

  That she knew.

  “I anticipated that you would go to Hamilton. My plan was to rendezvous with you there while Hamilton reacted to your abrupt appearance. Phase one is in motion.”

  The urge to slug him again welled inside her but she had to hear the rest. He’d set her up and then waited for her to show and she’d done exactly that.

  “Now that you’ve gone to Hamilton,” he said, moving on, “he indicated he would start an investigation of his own, yes? What we’re looking for is the reaction of others to his actions.”

  “Every action has a reaction.” No doubt about that. “But that doesn’t make him the one who fingered me for elimination.”

  Landry swept the hair back from his forehead with one long-fingered hand. “Let’s just say that he’s not at the top of my list, either.”

  She didn’t want to notice those kinds of things about him, but her mind kept filtering through the memories of him using those strong hands to touch her. Focus, Olivia.

  “We can’t just sit here and wait for one of these guys to come calling,” she countered, chasing away the images. There had to be more to his plan than this.

  He watched her closely a moment, most likely to gauge her reaction to what he was about to say. “You’re going to pay each one a visit, prod a more aggressive reaction. I’ll be your backup.”

  Before she could respond, he went on, “I wish there was another way. But, unfortunately, it’s you they appear to want first and foremost. It has to be you who rattles each cage.”

  “What am I supposed to offer?”

  Those blue eyes stared straight into hers and the answer pierced her heart way before it penetrated her brain. “Me.”

  Chapter 10

  Olivia had a lot more questions for Landry, but there wasn’t time.