Page 43 of Agency

Kisses from both men. Sweet, gentle, almost tender kisses, before they began to help me off Andrew’s lap and onto the seat between them.

I blinked in surprise as I looked around for the first time since leaving the street out in front of the Bothersome Beaver. “Seriously? A parking garage?”

“Your parking garage,” Jericho said. “Luckily cops in the city don’t give a shit about speeding, or else we’d have had some explaining to do.”

Laughing, I began to pull my clothes on. Jeans first, then top and hoodie, then shoes. Andrew, now fully dressed, didn’t seem all that keen on my leaving, and I ended up crawling over him when he almost refused to move. There were, of course, some kisses stolen by him along the way.

Both of them, actually.

Lamely, I turned back and waved to where they both still had the rear passenger’s side door open. Knowing smiles at the corners of their mouths, they waved back.

Just looking at them made my heart race a little faster…

But the second I turned away? The second I turned away, there he was, with his glassy, death-gaze stare.

Grigori Smolensky.

And that made my heart race even faster.

“Hey,” I called, coming to a stop.

“Hey what?” Andrew called back.

“Yeah,” Jericho. “Hey what?”

“You guys busy tomorrow morning?”

They exchanged looks. “Why?” Jericho asked. “You want to get breakfast, or something?”

“No,” I said, digging into my pocket to retrieve my hotel room key. Holding the chipped card up near even with my face, I smiled broadly. “But, I wouldn’t mind having an extra-late last night in St. Louis, if you don’t.”

Chapter Twelve

Ambyr

My blood ran cold as I stepped off the elevator to find Valerie Jaros’ cool, gray eyes flickering up from her copy of the Wall Street Journal to fix me with her unflinching gaze.

“Motherfucker,” I muttered to myself, my eyes darting first to the desk–then to the exit, and the valet already standing duty beyond. How in the fuck had she even found me?

Last we’d spoken, Valerie had been in the PNW and not planning on visiting the Midwest while I worked this contract. Something must have changed to bring her here. Had she somehow sixth-sensed my decision to quit the game? Was there some kind of bat signal I’d set off by secretly and silently questioning my life choices? Or was her spider sense somehow tingling when I’d booked this room in addition to the other?

After all, she was my handler. Her job was more or less to make sure I wasn’t losing my shit.

My eyes went back to the exit. I could just go. I could just walk out and get my car from the valet, then leave for the airport. She was older, she wouldn’t be able to stop me. She couldn’t compete.

No, scratch the plane. Drive. Drive and drive until the gas ran out. That way they wouldn’t be able to track my flight records. East or west, north or south… didn’t matter. Not as long as I was headed away from this hotel lobby and, more importantly, Valerie.

But what good would that do? They’d just hunt me down. Not her, specifically, but someone from the Agency. I hadn’t heard of many operators leaving over the years, but I knew leaving was possible. Improbable, maybe. But still possible.

Just disappearing, though? Oh, they’d be after me then. They’d bring out the big guns.

So, I did the only thing I could…

“You could have just called, you know,” I said, taking a seat behind and slightly off to the side from the older spymaster, so that our backs were to each other. She’d chosen one that was off the main section of the lobby, but which still had both direct line of sight to the bank of elevator and a couple adjacent seats. On the plus side, she might have been able to see the elevators, but she couldn’t see the way I was sitting with my arms crossed like a petulant child.

“Not when you disappear, I can’t.” Valerie Jaros’ ginger hair had long ago begun to gray, giving her a strawberry blonde tinge of sorts that went well with the prim and proper cream pantsuit she wore. If the early morning fall chilliness bothered her she didn’t show any discomfort as, legs crossed in the lobby chair, she flipped through her copy of theWall Street Journal.

“I was just cagey, that’s all. I saw one of those Russians at my hotel night before last.”