Page 5 of Steinbeck (The Minnesota Kingstons #5)

“It’s off the radar. Whenever people think about clandestine hubs, the last place they think is Lisbon. It’s all London or Berlin or even Paris. Besides, I love the smell of the ocean.”

“You live on the Tagus River.”

“Close enough.” She glanced at him. “For a girl who grew up in South Dakota, the ocean is any decent body of water.”

He said nothing to her revelation about the life she’d had before joining an international spy ring. Once upon a time, she’d mentioned a single mom, moving around a lot. “Why didn’t you contact your sister?”

Heavy sigh from the passenger seat. “I was afraid they’d trace the signal and...”

“And find her. And use her.”

She nodded. “I mentioned the fading cell signal too, right? I had to make a choice.”

“Harder to track an Internet search than a cell call.”

“I didn’t think they’d make any connection to you. You’re still scrubbed from the Internet, thanks to your SEAL past.”

“Maybe. Hopefully.”

They’d reached the outskirts of Lisbon. “How do we get to your place?”

“Have we been followed?”

He glanced in the rearview mirror again. “Nope.”

“I live near Bairro Alto.” She directed him off the highway, into a neighborhood.

They passed milky white stone and red-brick apartment buildings, the streets lined with olive and linden trees that bordered boulevards and parks.

As they drove toward the center, the roads turned to cobblestone and the architecture went from modern to historic, the buildings more Renaissance and classical.

“I love the ancient architecture of Europe.”

“Don’t be fooled. These buildings are only two or three hundred years old. An earthquake and a tsunami wiped out the entire city back in the late seventeen hundreds. It’s not Rome or anything.”

“You talk like you’re not from America. Admit it—everything in Europe is old.”

She smirked, and he didn’t know why the smile hung on to him, took root. Hello. Just. An. Op.

As in Operation Free Phoenix and Make Sure Declan’s AI Program Hasn’t Fallen into the Wrong Hands.

“Maybe that’s why I like Lisbon. The city was completely destroyed and they rebuilt it from nothing. I like fresh starts.”

Interesting. She directed him deeper into the city, finally pulling up to a creamy white Renaissance-style building with narrow Romanesque balconies and a clay-tile roof. A streetcar rang as it rumbled by them. The night arched high, cloudless, a thousand stars watching them.

He shut off the car. “You sure this is a good idea?”

She keyed in a code to a gated door. “My sister is a security expert. I promise—anyone tries to break in, we’ll know. We’ll be safe here.”

He grabbed his burner phone, then a backpack from the back, and followed her inside a narrow entry, then up three flights of stairs to an apartment with a keyless entrance.

The inside was exactly like what he’d expect from a woman who lived out of a suitcase. Or a backpack.

Not a big place—the kitchen attached to the main room, with two tall balcony doors that let in the darkness through sheer white linen drapes.

A hallway with a door at the end, and one near the front.

Wood floors, a black leather sectional, a round Formica table with two chairs, faux plants, and a bookcase.

He set his backpack on the floor and walked over to the bookcase.

It took up the entire wall, jammed full of books. “You read fantasy?”

“It’s epic. And not real. And maybe I’d like a world where you could time travel or conjure up magic or even fly.” She walked over to the kitchen and picked up a hot pot. “I’m making tea. I think there are probably biscuits in the pantry.”

He picked up a book, paged through it. It was about a slave trying to reclaim his kingdom. That might be a story he could read. “You sound British.”

“I’m anything I need to be.” She set the pot on to boil. “Except clean. I’m going to hop into the shower.” She pointed to the nearest bedroom. “There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Make yourself at home.”

Just like that? “You sure one of us shouldn’t stand watch?”

She pointed to a flat-panel screen on the wall in her kitchen.

It showed four camera views—one from the balcony, one in the hallway outside her landing, one in the alleyway below her balcony, probably, and one near the front door.

“I’ll set the alarm. Don’t worry—if it sounds, you’ll have two minutes to grab a towel before anyone can get in. ” She winked.

Clearly, she’d shaken off the tremble from the dungeon on their drive into the city.

She headed down the hall to the bedroom in the back.

Okay then.

He found the room spare but clean, a double bed with a cotton blanket, a side table, a reading lamp, a wooden chair. And a full bathroom.

The heat of the shower turned his bones from brittle to revived.

He pulled off the itchy fake beard, washed his face, shampooed out the itch from his hair, then pulled out his kit and shaved.

He dumped the clothes in the garbage can, then found a clean pair of cargo pants and a T-shirt in his duffel.

Pulling them on, he stepped to the window and surveyed the view. The lights of the city burned, and he eased open the balcony door, let in the ocean—er, river—smells.

He could like it here. And maybe, once this was over?—

Stop. So what if she’d clung to him? Of course she had—he would have been freaked out too if he’d been shoved into an underground hole on his way to Russia.

But it stayed with him, the shape of her body against his, the sense that she’d needed him.

Had reached out to him, thank you very much , in her hour of need.

He was brushing his teeth when he heard the beeping.

He spat and ran out into the hallway in his bare feet, his heart thundering.

Phoenix’s door hung open at the end of the hall, the scent of a shower lingering in the air. The beeping emitted from the panel in the kitchen, and he walked over.

He’d triggered the alarm when he opened the balcony door, it seemed. “Phoenix!” No answer. He pressed reset.

The beeping died. And that’s when he read the panel alert. Street entrance accessed.

“Phoenix?”

He turned, headed back to her room. Pushed the half-open door.

The bedside light splashed over a double bed, a canvas picture of the ocean on the wall. The scent of lavender lifted from the bathroom. He took a chance and looked inside.

Nothing except a wet towel hanging on a warmer, and her grimy clothing in the garbage can too.

He rounded and headed back to the flatscreen and rewound the feed.

And watched as Miss Thank You for Saving Me strolled right up to the door, keyed in her code, flung a backpack over her shoulder, and walked out into the night.

* * *

He wouldn’t even notice she was gone.

Emberly stood in the shadows, breathing in the city, the smell of simmering oil and seasoned pork seeping out into the darkness, the scents of pastries fresh from the ovens of late-night bakeries, and even the savory treats of prego and the chourico assado ablaze at a vendor across the square.

The city sang after dark—music from local cafés, streetcars clanging, people laughing at nearby bistros.

“Calm down, Nim. I’m fine.”

Really. The shaking had stopped, mostly, and after a shower that loosened all the damp grime and potential crawlies from her hair and pores, she wasn’t lying.

Mostly. Because in her apartment right now was trouble. Big trouble.

What had she been thinking, inviting Steinbeck, the man who only complicated—that should probably be in all caps—her life, into her... well, her domain ?

Her secret flat.

Her safe space.

“Two months, Emberly. Two. Months since you went dark. I was out of my mind.” Nimue’s voice pinched tight and low, the way she got when life felt too big, when she had to find a way to corral it and reduce it to ones and zeros.

To a computer program she could manipulate and control.

The skills she’d acquired being a world-class white-hat hacker.

“I’m sorry. The Internet on the island cut out after the earthquake?—”

“Not an earthquake,” Nimue said, a little more calm in her voice. “A landslide triggered by an explosion on the island. I looked into it.”

Her sister was probably sitting on the porch of her beach house in Florida, the small cottage nestled in the seagrass and sand dunes, overlooking a silver-tipped ocean, the scent of salt in her shoulder-length brown hair.

Dark freckles kissing her sandy-hued skin.

And wearing a pair of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that read sudo rm -rf /*.

“Right. Well, then I hopped on a yacht. It belonged to Declan Stone and, of course, was attacked by Russian pirates,” Emberly said as she walked toward a nearby food vendor.

“I don’t think I can hear this.”

“We got away—but then while I was rescuing Declan from Cuba?—”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve been held for the last month by the Russian Mafia. But I’m okay. Steinbeck rescued me.”

Silence. So long that—“Nim?”

“Steinbeck. Declan Stone’s bodyguard. The Navy SEAL from Krakow. The guy you left for dead?—”

“Yes, him. Okay. We sort of... became friends?” Yeah, that sounded weird, even to Emberly’s ears.

Nimue echoed it. “Friends?”

“I don’t know what we are,” Emberly said as the man at the prego counter nodded at her, holding a couple of greasy wrapped pregos in papo seco rolls, slices of cheese melting from the ends.

She had popped in an earbud and now dropped her phone into her pocket, paid and took the sandwiches.

“It’s a long story, but... listen, he rescued me.

And he didn’t have to, so I guess, yes. Friends.

” She garnished the sandwiches with mustard and garlic, then wrapped both of them in napkins and set them inside her backpack, along with the two cold bottles of pineapple Sumol.

“So now what?”