“When do you have to be in Rex’s suite?” she asked, beginning the first conversation we’d shared in over twelve hours.
“About half an hour. But I’ll get out of your hair now. I’m desperate for some caffeine, so I’m off in search of some—”
She held out a large paper cup with a lid on it.
“Coffee,” I finished saying as I took it from her. “Thanks.”
“Now that I’ve saved you some time…”
I could guess what she didn’t want to say but needed to. “Is this about Greenly?”
She sighed. “We have an operational plan. You need to be brought in on some details.” She smiled wryly and shook her head. “Actually, you don’t. But I want you to be. I insisted X let me give you the choice.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know one more thing about her work. But this was my damn life, and she’d hidden enough from me. “Fine. Whatever you can tell me.”
“Wewill tell you.” She nodded toward the door. “The team has a suite two floors below this one.” She called to Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants, who trotted to her side for pets. “I’ll be back soon,” she told him. To me, she said, “You should take your tux with you so you can head to Rex’s right after the briefing.”
The briefing. That sounded official. And ominous. I pulled my tux in its bag out of the closet and followed Kat out of the suite, down the hall dotted here and there with security, or so she’d told me, and into the elevator. A minute later, we arrived on a different floor, which looked the same as ours, except for the lack of security. She knocked on a door that was exactly two floors below ours, and when the door swung open, we stepped into a suite that was precisely like ours, except for a round table surrounded by folding chairs in front of the fireplace where our upholstered chairs and ottomans would have been.
That could not be a coincidence, although I had no idea what it meant.
“Do you remember Cynthia Kessler from last week?” Kat asked.
A pretty blonde who looked vaguely familiar shook my hand. “It’s okay if you don’t. You’d had a shock. This”—she motioned to a tall, thin, twenty-something woman with dark hair—“is my tactical team partner, Mai Li. She’s a—”
“Sharpshooter,” I said as I shook Mai’s hand. “You hit a guy from hundreds of feet away last week.”
“Thousands, actually,” Mai answered. “A thousand meters. The length of ten football fields.”
I stood in stunned silence because what do you say to that? Maybe I shouldn’t have been quite so surprised. Kat had said they were an elite team at an elite agency. Nothing but the best for deceiving me.
“Kessler, Li, Kat, you’re all there?” A man’s voice came from the speaker of a cell phone in the middle of the table.
“All here, Pasco,” Kat said as she sat at the table.
“I’ve always wanted to say this,” the man whispered, then said loudly, “Good morning, Angels!”
“No,” Cynthia said. “You’re not suave enough to be Charlie.” She motioned for me to sit.
I slid into the chair beside Kat because it seemed dramatic to choose a seat a few feet away from her to make a point.
Mai paced the edges of the room, sipping from a coffee mug, picking a piece of wrapped chocolate from a bowl, and offering some to me, which I declined.
“She’s sometimes restless,” Cynthia told me. “By-product of all those hours sitting still and waiting for a shot.”
I nodded, as if anything about their world made sense to me.
Meanwhile, Cynthia and Kat exchanged a look that seemed to convey an entire conversation. Cynthia blew out a long breath, then nodded. “Right. I’ll lead the briefing. Mr. Halifax, I know you’re aware that you’re a kidnapping target. Now that one of your potential kidnappers has met Kat, their organization will have thoroughly researched her and found the cover story we’ve built for her.”
I glanced at Kat. She stared out the window, her face turned away from me. But I could read her body language in her slouched posture and bent head. She was miserable. Was it this mission, or was it me?
“Mr. Halifax,” Cynthia said.
I turned my attention back to her. “Sorry. Please, call me Gage.”
She nodded. “Greenly believes Kat is a procurer. These are people that…well, procure things for very wealthy—”
I glanced at her, thinking of Rex and his family.
