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“You owe me a tire, Miss Weaver,” he said, nodding toward Chris—a name she now knew was a fabrication. “Chris” left them alone in the room.

“No. I left everything nice and square. Plenty of notice. Trained my replacement. Left on good terms. Fulfilled my three-year commitment. Why can’t you just let me be gone?”

He chuckled. “Your replacement. You and I both know there’s no replacing someone like you. Anyway, do you know how much money we poured into you? Your education and training? I thought we had an understanding. A gentleman’s agreement.”

“I guess I’m no gentleman,” Annie replied.

“That used to be one of the things I liked about you.” He looked her up and down.

“I’m not coming back,” she said. “So now you’re just burning up more money you could use on someone else.”

“Everyone has hard assignments, Miss Weaver, and everyone takes breaks. It’s fine to take a few months to get your head on straight. But this is throwing away everything we built together.”

She shook her head. She didn’t have to explain herself to him, especially since she had asked herself the same question not so long ago. To her, Clifton was a boss. To Frank Clifton, Annie Weaver was a possession, a rare gem he did not want to lose. At first it was flattering, but then she grew distrustful of what started to feel like someone blowing smoke. Was she really so special? Was her knack for languages worth all this? Her out-of-line actions had led to the death of two agents, who probably had families.

“Come back to DC, and you’ll get a much higher salary step. You won’t have to go overseas,” he said. “There are plenty of people right here on our own soil who need your special skill set.”

“You said all this already, and I turned you down. Mr.Clifton, I have things to do.”

“Ah yes, you need a job. You need a bed. You need hot water.” He smiled. “Shame about your housing situation.”

She sank down into a desk chair. “What else is going to go wrong, I wonder, if I don’t come back?”

“What else indeed?” He sat across the aisle from her. “Computers are a miraculous invention. It wasn’t hard to hack into the UCLA housing database. Our whole lives are accessible now, Miss Weaver. No matter where you go, I will be there.”

She shook her head. “If you force me to return, I’ll never be the loyal employee you want. You have to know that.”

“You know, the Minsk investigation is still pending. Two dead agents, a missing potential informant with a dead family. A deadchild. Someone needs to take the fall for that. We both know that personshouldbe you.”

She felt lightheaded and gripped the edge of the desk to anchor herself.

“Jeffries told you to stay away from the wife, didn’t he? It was in the paperwork. But you didn’t, did you?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Two dead agents,” he said again. “Could be a lot of trouble. We could press charges if we wanted. Label you a traitor. Charge you with treason!”

“Stop. I get it. Stop.”

“On the other hand, if you come back with me today, that could all go away,” he snapped. “Your secrets are my secrets, Annie.”

She sat up, feeling her gut instinct rising behind her belly button, above the panic, tossing her a life vest.

“Your secrets are my secrets,” she repeated. “Your hands aren’t exactly clean.” They both knew that Clifton hadn’t gotten to where he was playing by the rules. He would order a bottle of scotch and claim it as an expense. He handpicked his favorites and manipulated them like he did to Annie now.

“No,” he acknowledged. “Which is why we’re offering a compromise.” He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a little black pager. He leaned across the aisle and set it on the edge of her desk, pushing it toward her. “From time to time, different law enforcement agencies need the talents of someone like you.”

“Someone like me,” she repeated in a low voice, looking down at the dark screen of the pager.

“It’s a good deal,” he said. “It’s good for us to loan out personnel in the spirit of departmental cooperation. It’s good for you too. Technically, you’ll be paid as a contractor.”

“Meaning I can technically disregard the rules about interrogating our own citizens?”

“Don’t be crass,” he dismissed her. “No one’s going to ask you to torture anyone. You’ll be asked to talk to people occasionally. That’s all.”

“I won’t take less than $100 an hour.” She grasped for a number high enough that he would have to refuse.

But he nodded in agreement. “We’ll take care of all that. But on call is on call, and when that pager goes off—whether it’s the FBI, the DEA, or any area that LAPD covers—you’ll have one hour to answer.”