Page 11 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Present Day

The Desert

Alex

The door was standing open, and outside, the night was quiet and still. After the darkness of the shack, it felt like broad

daylight, the way the full moon shone overhead. They were surrounded by at least a billion stars, but absolutely nothing else.

No trees. No buildings. Just a chilly wind and dry air and miles of rocks and sand and—

“Desert,” King grumbled. “Of course we’re in the middle of the desert.”

But that was hardly their only problem because Alex was looking around, and realizing—

“There’s no car? Seriously? Tweedledee and Tweedledee-er—”

“That’s not how that goes—”

“Couldn’t have left a vehicle conveniently parked outside?”

“Someone must have dropped them off.”

“Ya think?” She spun on him, but he went on, colder than before. Still put together. Almost unmussed and certainly unfussed,

as if he had been pulled from a very important meeting and was eager to get back to the office.

“Of course, we would have known that if it hadn’t been for the yapping—”

Alex couldn’t help herself. She jerked her arm and felt the handcuff bite into her skin. It was worth it when he growled,

“Ow.”

“Oops,” she said. Then she looked around.

“I would say we should split up and vow to never see each other again, except...” She shook their joined hands, rattling their handcuffs and making her point.

“Which is a shame. That’s the one thing we can usually agree on.

” But something in his gaze made Alex look away when she asked, “How many times would that make? Cartagena? The Amalfi Coast? Scotland—”

“I didn’t say it in Scotland.”

It was the first time she’d ever heard him sound defensive, and it should have felt like victory. Instead, she just felt cold.

The moon was high overhead, and they had no way of knowing what was east or west. North or south. Safe or incredibly dangerous.

The only thing that was certain was that they couldn’t stay there.

“I’m going that way.” She didn’t know why she pointed to her right. It might have been instinct, or maybe her subconscious

had made some calculation that was so minute she didn’t know she’d even done it. But it didn’t matter, because—

“I was going to go that way,” King admitted.

“Then I guess I’ll let you come with me,” she said.

“You’re too kind.”

But what they really were was handcuffed together in the middle of the desert, possibly the only people for a thousand miles

in any direction they could trust.

***

They must have walked for hours—a fact made worse by the fact that Alex was wearing a sundress and a pair of flimsy sandals.

Her skin had gone sweaty during the fight and was now covered in goose bumps and sand.

King was in jeans and a sports jacket (no tie) and she tried not to shiver.

“Here.”

“What?” She sounded almost afraid, but he was slipping off his coat then turning it inside out as he dragged the sleeve over

his still-cuffed hand and then onto hers.

She wanted to shove it down his throat, but it wasn’t just a Tom Ford blazer. It was an olive branch, and part of Alex knew she’d be a fool not to take it.

“Thank you.”

The fabric was soft on her skin and warm from his body. It smelled like the happiest days of her life, and Alex wanted to

close her eyes and sink into a memory. She also wanted to cut out that part of her brain and set it on fire. She couldn’t

do either, unfortunately, so she just kept walking.

There was light on the horizon, like the sun was coming up even though the moon was still too high.

“Guesses?” he asked.

“Syria,” Alex said on instinct.

“Too cold,” he told her.

“Afghanistan,” she tried again.

“Not mountainous enough.”

“Well, what’s your big idea?”

He looked around. “Iran?” He gave a shrug.

“Maybe.”

They crossed a rutted trail and scrambled over an outcropping of rocks, eyes and ears tuned to any sound of approaching vehicles

or voices carrying on the wind.

He looked at her. “What’s the last thing you remember?” It should have been a simple question, but it felt like a test because

everything felt like a test when it came from Michael Kingsley.

They were ten years out of the Farm, but she was still the girl in the hoodie she bought at the International Spy Museum,

and he was still the Golden Boy. He was still unflappable and Alex was still unworthy. She was still covering up her fear

with her bravado and he was still looking at her like he had no idea how they ever ended up in the same career.

“You tell me first.”

He blew out a breath and hung his head, and Alex could feel the frustration coming off him in waves. “Not everything is a

fight, Sterling. Sometimes a question is just a question.”

They started to climb a rocky hill. Her feet slid in the sand and small stones, but she wasn’t about to take the hand that was bound to hers.

“Sterling—”

“I was home,” she admitted, and then she felt him stop. Turn. Stare. Looks can’t kill, Alex knew that for a fact. But they

could wound sometimes, and she wanted to hide against the gaze that pierced her.

“Which was where , exactly?” He sounded like the guy from the Farm again, like the virtual stranger who had hated her on sight and on instinct.

He was cold and hard and... wounded. A brittle shell that wasn’t quite enough protection.

“What about you?” Her throat burned. She’d been breathing too much dust, and the air was too dry. It wasn’t because a part

of her felt like crying. Not even a little. “What do you remember?”

“I don’t”—the words were a whisper—“ remember . I can’t.” He sounded mad enough to rip their cuffs in two. He hung his head as if trying to shake it off. “The last thing

I remember is being home. In Scotland.” The words were crisp and clean, like a break. “Now it’s your turn, Sterling. Where

exactly have you been calling home for the past—”

“We don’t know how long we were out,” she said.

“I know exactly how long you were missing.”

“I wasn’t missing .”

“No. Of course you weren’t missing.” His voice turned harder—colder. An icicle sharp enough to kill. “You were just straight-up

gone .”

She looked away and kept climbing while the sky grew brighter on the horizon. There was something over that ridge, and Alex

only hoped it was a pair of bolt cutters. “We need to find cover. Lie low. Get some water and a clean phone to call it in.”

“Sterling—”

“Let’s just focus on getting out of Pakistan or Syria or wherever the...”

But Alex trailed off as they crested the ridge. She had to. Because she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know how to feel as she looked down on the sea of light that stretched out beneath them. Neon blinking and burning and turning night to day as they stared down on the city of Las Vegas.

“Well, it could be worse,” King said. “It could be Cartagena.”