Page 41 of Justified Lies

“Stop that. We have work to do right now.”

“And later?”

“Up to you.”

Her eyes sparkled as her lips tipped up. It was the first genuine smile he had seen from her in years. From the moment he’d run into her here on the island, she had seemed…not sad, but not happy. Something was weighing her down, keeping her trapped in some way.

“Let’s go look at this research you have,” he said, hating the way her happiness seemed to fade. The sooner they got to work and figured this out, the sooner…his mind had been moving in a direction that he hadn’t planned. After their breakup, he had convinced himself that he didn’t need her. But now, even when they were sparring and she was calling him “Kappy,” he felt more alive than he had since they had been together.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he followed her down the stairs to the wall in the living room. She hit a button, and a door slid open.

“Could you be more of a spy?”

She snorted. “This was here when I bought the house. It is one of the reasons I bought it.”

She stepped into the small room, and he realized it was some kind of panic room. The lights came on automatically.

The entire wall was filled with an investigation that must have taken…

He glanced at her. “How long have you been working on this?”

“Since my brother and I have completely recovered. We knew there was something more than the CIA wanted to admit.”

He nodded as he looked over the research and the connections they’d made. Kap knew she had been a CIA agent, but she wasn’t an investigator. She probably could have worked at the BAU with this level of work. The list of abductions, ten to be exact. Nine deaths. One survivor.

“You could have let this go.”

“No. I couldn’t.”

He glanced at Eden. Her arms were crossed, her expression determined.

“You think whoever it is will come after your brother?”

“First, if we hadn’t found the others, we probably would have let it go. Or at least hired someone else to deal with it. But these are agents. All of them are dead for some reason we can’t figure out. There is no connection with their work.”

“They’re agents. They had to have some enemies.”

She made a rude sound. “Yes, but if you look closer, every one of them was considered not because of the job.”

“Don’t they cover up their deaths? The CIA lies about things like that, right?”

“Yes, to the public.”

It took a second for the ramifications to sink in. “You’ve seen the official reports?”

She nodded.

“How?”

“Can you arrest me if I know someone who hacked into the CIA and made copies?”

“You know someone who can hack into the CIA?”

“No comment.”

He growled. “I won’t arrest you. You didn’t do it.”

“Then, yes, I do know someone who can hack into the CIA.”