Page 61 of Deathtoll

“I’m sorry.”

“Just say it.”

“We have reason to believe that Asael is alive.”

No, no, no!

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. For a few seconds, she couldn’t catch her breath. In what universe was this fair? In what universe was this even remotely possible?

“How?”

“We’re looking into that. Our facial recognition software has been getting better and better, and we recently analyzed security footage at a small airstrip in Colorado during an investigation that involved a credible terror threat.”

“Computers can be wrong.” Denial came rushing forth. “My laptop crashes all the time. Just because some software matched Asael, it doesn’t mean he’s…” Kate could not bring herself to say the wordalive.

“Partial match. We think he might have had work done.”

“Like plastic surgery?” Kate gripped the phone, feeling as if a whirlpool had opened beneath her and sucked her into a bad thriller movie. The script writer of her life needed to be seriously fired. “So, he’s a terrorist now?”

“We don’t believe so. He just happened to come through at the same time as some men we’re interested in did.”

“Colorado is far from Pennsylvania.” She knew it didn’t mean anything, but she said the words anyway.

“Please keep an eye out. That’s all I am asking,” the agent told her. “Has anything unusual happened lately around where you live?”

For several seconds, Kate couldn’t breathe. Blood pounded at her temples.Betty Gardner. Tony Mauro.

No, no, no.“A suspicious death and a hit-and-run.” Her voice was high with panic. “Both were my neighbors.”

“When?”

“Mr. Mauro yesterday. Betty on last Monday.”

A pen scratched over paper on the other end of the line. “Could be coincidence, but I can’t say it doesn’t sound suspicious. I’m going to call the local police and ask some questions, to be on the safe side. Is Captain Ethan Bing still the man in charge?”

“He is.”

The agent probably made a note of that too, because she paused for a second before saying, “We have no reason to believe Asael knows where you are, or even that he knows that you’re alive. We have no reason to think that he’s heading your way. I’m still working out of DC. If anything changes, I’ll come up. I don’t want you to be scared. I just want you to be alert.”

“No problem there.” Kate gave a weak laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’m never going to sleep again.”

“Are you and Murph Dolan still together?”

Because Kate didn’t want to go into all that, she simply said, “Sure.”

Technically. Almost.They worked at the same place, saw each other daily.

“Good. He’s a solid guy. Stick around him. I’ll also ask Captain Bing to keep an eye on you.”

“He keeps an eye on me already. I had a would-be patient turn violent a few days ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You had a difficult week.”

You didn’t make it any better,Kate wanted to say, but she didn’t. She thanked Cirelli for the update.

She kept it together. Her old fears didn’t break loose until after she’d hung up with the agent. But then old memories of her friend Marco’s murder rushed her: his shocked eyes, the crimson of his blood spreading on the white carpet, the assassin’s face reflected in the glass. Then when he’d tracked her down for the first time and the bullet had come within an inch of her face, how she’d swerved off the road and hit a tree head-on. How the FBI decided she should fake her death and disappear. But they hadn’t fooled Asael. He’d shown up at her funeral and tried to blow her up as she sat in the FBI van. A couple of years in hiding, then Mordocai found her. Again, she escaped by a hair.

Only because of Murph.