Page 77 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

Mark chuckled. “No big deal. I think he likes you. But hey, if he’s competition, I’ll just have to step up my game.”

Ellie’s laugh felt hollow as her appetite vanished.

Now she had a new worry. Not only was Matthew following her, but Luke was as well. How else could he have seen them together?

She thought she could keep the three of them separated. Compartmentalized. Now all their paths had crossed. They knew about each other, and that was disconcerting.

This was what her parents meant about romantic entanglements.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Two weeks later

It wasn’tin 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 secondnature. 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.