Page 30 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Two weeks later
It wasn’t in Ellie’s nature to be a detail-oriented person. Her mother was the one who had made it her mission to drill into her the importance of paying attention to the little things.
“God is in the details,” she’d say, a phrase Ellie once thought was a way to get her to clean her room properly.
Never missing a teaching opportunity, her mom explained to Ellie what the saying meant before she was old enough to understand it.
“The phrase originated in Germany in the mid- to late seventeenth century,” she explained. “Meaning God is concerned about the small things. All you have to do is look at creation to see that.”
“Why do we say the devil is in the details now?” Ellie asked when she was older and had heard the phrase used differently.
“Leave it to Americans to take God out of it. In the 1960s, devil became popular to say. I prefer God. The French version is ‘the good God is in the details.’”
Over time, the lessons stuck. In her work and now in her precarious situation, focusing on details had become second nature. If anything, she’d taken them too far. Overthinking was a familiar enemy, but one she could live with if it kept her alive.
That’s what she was contemplating now. Analyzing what to think about the three men she was dating. Overanalyzing to the point that her head hurt.
Three sets of feelings. Three layers of suspicion. She’d fallen for each of them in different ways, but that didn’t stop her from questioning their every move.
Take Matthew, for instance. The operative chosen by her mother to support the mission. Handsome, charming, and always so sure of himself. Too sure.
Ellie couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something. She had no reason to suspect him until the text exchange, a small moment that had spiraled into the need for a full-blown investigation.
When she was being chased by the three Middle Eastern men, she had texted Matthew to come and help her.
She texted him again to pick her up at the hotel after she killed one of the men.
When asked where he was when he got those messages, he claimed to be at his apartment on the other side of the island.
Ellie knew the exact times of both texts.
Now, as she examined the map spread across her desk, unease settled deep in her gut.
The numbers didn’t add up. She traced the highlighted route with her fingertip, following the only possible path Matthew could have taken.
Even in ideal conditions, with no traffic, no delays, it wasn’t feasible. Impossible even. At least not on paper.
Her pulse ticked up. If Matthew had lied about something so basic, what else had he lied about?
She pushed back from the desk, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Doubt twisted inside her and barraged her with relentless confusion. Matthew had always been confident, always so smooth in his explanations. Maybe too smooth.
Had she ignored the signs? Had she mistaken his self-assuredness for reliability when it had been something else entirely?
Was he playing a game? Working a cover. Like she was doing. But for nefarious reasons.
She inhaled sharply and clenched her jaw. No, she needed proof, not paranoia. Facts, not feelings.
And she wouldn’t know for sure unless she physically tested the timeline.
Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. Details matter. They could save your life—or end it.
Ellie exhaled and squared her shoulders. If Matthew was lying, it could change everything. And feelings aside, if he was the mole, he wasn’t just charming and good-looking, he was dangerous.
She grabbed her keys and phone. Time to test his story.
Ellie parked her car outside Matthew’s apartment complex, a modest building painted in Cayman shades that were now faded yellow and blue. The morning sun was bright, the kind of day when the sun cast golden light on everything it touched.
Her mood was anything but sunny.
Everything was timed meticulously. She was in the position to leave his apartment at the same time she texted him that day. While traffic might vary, it should be similar enough to be conclusive.
She started her stopwatch at the exact time she sent Matthew the text.
Since he said he was working, she waited one minute before leaving.
It’d take him at least that long to drop what he was doing, run to his car, and race to the hotel.
She assumed he’d drive faster than normal, considering the urgency behind her text.
Ellie tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she pulled out of the parking lot. Her stopwatch sat on the console. Its digital display glowed, and she glanced at it dozens of times as the numbers ticked away with cold precision.
Seconds passed like dripping water, slow and methodical, each pulling her closer to an answer she wasn’t sure she wanted. What if she was wrong? What if Matthew had been exactly where he said he was? She was already chastising herself for overanalyzing things again.
But then there was the other possibility. The one that sent ice curling through her veins.
What if he was lying?
A bead of sweat traced a path down the back of her neck despite the cool blast of air conditioning.
The reality of what she was doing hit her with full force.
She wasn’t just testing a hunch. She was gathering proof that the man she had trusted, the man who had saved her life more than once, might be playing her.
Her stomach twisted at the idea. but she forced herself to push forward. Feelings had no place in this. If Matthew was the mole, emotions would only get in the way.
She pressed her foot harder on the gas.
There was no turning back now.
Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as she held it too tightly. Each beat of the stopwatch counted down the seconds she couldn’t spare. The island’s palm trees blurred past, and the shimmering waves in the distance offered no comfort.
Her eyes darted between the timer and the traffic ahead.
Why was she so nervous? She shifted in her seat, her back stiff with tension, as though bracing for an impact that hadn’t yet come.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath as her foot pressed harder on the accelerator.
The island’s winding roads curved ahead, lined with swaying palm trees that danced to the breeze as if cheering her on. Ellie’s mind raced faster than the car, trying to calculate what it might mean if Matthew couldn’t have covered this distance in the time he claimed.
Frustration intensified when she had to slow down for a minivan that crawled along in front of her. She checked the stopwatch again. Precious seconds slipped away.
Ellie gritted her teeth. Every tick of the clock felt like proof that Matthew had lied.
Yet she didn’t want to believe what seemed obvious. What if he hadn’t gotten behind a slow driver? What if traffic was lighter then than it was today?
The minutes stretched painfully thin. Her gaze obsessively flitted between the road and the timer. The lush greenery of the island and the beautiful sea to her left blurred past her, but Ellie barely noticed.
The timer reached one minute. At ten seconds, denial was replaced with extreme disappointment. She’d hoped against hope that she was wrong.
She wasn’t. The numbers weren’t adding up.
A knot of dread coiled in her stomach as she banged her hand on the steering wheel.
What if I miscalculated? Desperation clawed at the edges of reason.
But she knew better. This wasn’t a rounding error or a misjudgment. The discrepancy wasn’t minor—it was eight full minutes.
When she finally pulled into the hotel parking lot, her heart sank. She killed the engine and sat there in the heavy silence. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
The truth was clear: Matthew’s story didn’t fit.
She stared out the windshield, but her vision tunneled, the world around her shrinking until all that remained was the cold realization settling in her bones. If he had lied about this, what else had he lied about?
The memory of his voice played in her mind, steady, convincing, without a trace of hesitation. She had trusted that voice. Had fallen for the way he made her feel safe.
But safety was an illusion. And illusions could get her killed.
She angrily turned off the timer and tossed it on the passenger’s seat harder than she should have. Even with the clear evidence, she decided to turn around and drive back to his house and repeat the route, refusing to believe what she knew to be true. This time, speeding. She got the same result.
Unwilling to accept the obvious, she tried it one more time. Breaking every traffic law along the way. The results were faster, but still short. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t match the timeline Matthew had implied.
The drive home was a blur. She dropped her bag on the kitchen counter and poured herself a glass of water. Her hands trembled as she lifted it to her lips.
She wanted to believe he had an innocent explanation for the discrepancy. Maybe he’d misremembered. Maybe he’d made a mistake. But a small, insistent voice in the back of her mind whispered: He didn’t! He lied to you.
Ellie set the glass down and leaned against the counter as her thoughts spiraled out of control. She replayed every conversation she’d had with Matthew, every lingering look, every moment of connection.
She thought about the way he held her hand, the way he made her laugh. The way he kissed her that one time. Innocently. Almost apologetically. It had all felt so genuine.
But genuine people didn’t lie about things like this.
The worst part was the knot of emotion tangled in her chest. She didn’t want him to be the mole. She didn’t want to feel this crushing sense of betrayal. And she didn’t want to admit that part of her, despite everything, had started to fall for him to some extent.
Ellie shook her head and forced herself to focus. Emotions had no place in her line of work, no room for doubt. If Matthew was the mole, he was a threat, and threats had to be eliminated.
Her decision was made. She would confront Matthew but not in a way that gave him the upper hand. She needed to control the situation, to catch him off guard.
She came up with a plan.
Scuba diving. Out in the middle of the Caribbean. That’s where she’d confront him.The first thing she did the next morning was contact the marina and rent a boat.
A perfect ruse. Isolated, far from prying eyes, with the Cayman Trench a stone’s throw away. If he were innocent, they’d enjoy a beautiful day together. If guilty, he’d have to tell her the truth, or she’d threaten to shoot him in the head and dump his body in the trench.
Twenty-five thousand feet deep. One of the deepest in the world.
Ellie shivered, pushing the thought aside. She grabbed her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found Matthew’s name. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a moment before she tapped it.
The phone rang twice before he picked up. “Hey, Ellie,” Matthew said, his voice warm and familiar. “What’s up?”
“Hi, Matthew,” she said, forcing a smile into her tone. “I was wondering what you think about going scuba diving sometime.”
“Scuba diving?” he repeated, a hint of surprise in his voice.
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “I’ve been looking at all the spots. I figured it’d be a fun way to spend the day. We can’t always be working.”
He paused long enough to make her pulse quicken. “Sure,” Matthew said finally. “That sounds amazing. What day were you thinking?”
Ellie gave him the details, her voice steady as her heart raced. When the call ended, she set her phone down and exhaled slowly.
The trap was set.
For a moment, she allowed herself to feel the fear, the doubt, the crushing ramifications of her actions.
Her mom’s instructions had been clear. When you find the mole, make him disappear.
“What if I can take him alive?” she’d asked. “Don’t you want me to bring him back to the States to stand trial?”
Her mother had been adamant. “No. If he’s not CIA, then we don’t want him here.
He’d have rights and a lawyer. If he is CIA, that makes it messier.
We have a way of handling these things ourselves.
The CIA doesn’t want the publicity that comes with a traitor in their midst. Everyone knows that if they betray their oath, we’ll take them out and make them disappear. ”
Ellie had agreed, but now she wasn’t so sure. It’s one thing to kill a Middle Eastern terrorist trying to kill her, quite another to kill Matthew.
Remembering her mother’s final admonition sent anxiety shooting through her faster than a shot from a taser gun.
Just be sure that you don’t get it wrong. You don’t want to kill an innocent man .
Ellie’s thoughts churned like the restless tide. What if she was wrong? What if her instincts were failing her, and Matthew wasn’t the mole? The possibility gnawed at her, sharp and unrelenting.
She took a deep breath, willing herself to focus. The stakes were too high to let doubt take over. She didn’t have all the answers, but she didn’t need to—not yet. Sometimes, the best thing to do was to take one step at a time and let the rest unfold.
Soon, she’d have her answers. Whether or not she was ready for them was another matter entirely.