Page 87 of The Vigilante's Lover

Mia has just zipped up her jacket when Colette buzzes us from the front of the car. “Arriving in D.C. in about ten minutes. I’m going to do some evasive maneuvers to make sure we’re cloaked as we go into the belly of the whale.”

“You can bring down the screen,” I tell her. “Your virgin eyes are safe.”

“If you say so!” Colette says, but she buzzes the wall down, filling the car with additional light.

“Let me get your cuffs,” Mia says.

I extend an arm and let her fold back the sleeves and fasten them with onyx cufflinks.

It’s a small gesture, but I’ve never let any woman dress me in any fashion. So it speaks to me. We’re going to have to go in and do this thing. But I swear we’re retiring after we take down Sutherland and get this kill order off Colette and Sam.

“The skies are hot hot hot,” Colette says as we hop on the freeway toward downtown. She leans forward to peer out. “Three cloaked Vigilantes and at least a dozen fake news choppers.”

“How do you spot a cloaked helicopter?” Mia asks. “I can see the ones with big channel numbers on the sides, but nothing else.”

“You learn to spot the warping of the scene that indicates a visual cloak.” I point out the window. “See that black News 37 one? There’s a cloaked one at five o’clock from it.”

Mia makes a circle in the air as if she’s drawing an invisible clock. “There’s a cloud with an unusual bend to it,” she says. “I think I see it.”

I sit back. “Colette, do we have any sort of plan?”

She glances over her shoulder. “Sam does. We’ll go over things when we get together.”

“No time to fake your death or his, I guess,” I say.

“Gawd, there is no telling who is really alive or dead at this rate,” Colette says. “I’ve never seen the network in this sort of chaos.”

“That’s exactly the sort of thing you want to create if your intent is to take over,” I tell her. I reach for Mia’s hand. I haven’t forgotten that she doesn’t know who she is. I want her to have that information before we go in.

“Did you leave the oval ring at the hotel?” I ask.

She reaches down for a backpack at her feet. “No, I brought it.” She pulls out the blue nightie and searches along the bottom of the bag.

I take the wisp of fabric. “I’m glad you rescued this.”

She grins, a hint of a blush tinting her cheeks. “Here it is.” She holds out her palm. The oversized stone gleams black.

I take it from her and slide it on her thumb. “We’ll have it resized for you,” I say.

She holds up her hand to examine it. “Okay. Is it important?”

I take her fingers in mine. “It belonged to the very first Vigilante. His name was Prescott Adams. This ring was given to him by President Eisenhower after World War II.”

Mia turns her hand to look more closely at the ring. “Did you find out whose initials are inside?”

“A woman’s. The Vigilantes were started by Eisenhower, a global enterprise in honor of his affection for a young woman who drove him around during the war when he was general.”

“Did they have an affair?”

“No one knows the sordid details, but everyone is certain they were very close.”

“Is she KHS?”

“Yes.”

“How does this connect to me?” she asks. Her eyes shine, reflecting the changing landscape outside the window.

“This ring is assigned to you. You are the last surviving member of Prescott Adams’s family. The last of the original Vigilantes.”

She exhales long and slow. I realize I’ve gotten ahead of myself with my own plan. In the cemetery when I decided to escape all this, to live a simple life with Mia, I forgot something important.

To ask her what she wants.

She presses her fist to her chest. “So I can be a Vigilante if I want to?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know why you were at the safe house. We don’t know what happened to your parents. I think you were being protected.”

“How do I find out?”

“A couple committee members would have private, personal knowledge of your history, as they would have voted on your designation as a special.”

I let her absorb all this. Her chest rises and falls with each deep inhalation.

“We’re about to rendezvous with Sam,” Colette says quietly. She understands the implications of what I’ve said as well.

“Is this why I could go around the silo wherever I wanted?” Mia asks.

“Probably.”

“Does that mean I can get into this big meeting coming up with Sutherland?”

I realize she has a very good point. “Quite possibly.”

She lets go of me and leans forward, holding on to the back of the front seat. “It sounds like I have the keys to the kingdom,” she says to Colette. “Give me some weapons and let’s cause some damage.”

Colette breaks out in a wide smile. “Sam’s already on it.”