“It was loud enough to drown out her screams?”
“It was loud enough that I took a sleeping pill when I needed a nap.Now I just live with the insomnia.”
Many times, Jez had wished she’d never moved to Virginia.Ruby’s broken body wasn’t the first she’d seen—when she was nine, a man had jumped from a building and splattered himself across the sidewalk in front of her—and it wouldn’t be the last.But it was the one that kept her up at night.Yes, her time in Blackstone Bluff had left her with two major regrets—she hadn’t been able to save her friend, and she’d never found her dad.Which was the whole reason she’d moved to Fairfax County in the first place.Sure, she’d found traces of his presence, ephemeral, like vapour trails on an icy morning, but Jeremy Pope himself was a ghost.His mom had passed away when he was seven.His father was a mystery.A handful of foster parents remembered the boy who’d passed through their home, and the few CIA veterans willing to talk recalled him being the best undercover officer the agency had ever seen.Perhaps that was how he’d vanished into the ether so easily?Jez was the only concrete evidence that the man codenamed Jericho had ever existed.
Much like Ruby.Her mom’s alcohol-ravaged liver had given up years ago, and Ruby’s sole legacy was a headstone in Eastlawn Cemetery.Although when Jez visited her grave, she sometimes found a fresh bouquet resting on the cold stone.
“No one else in the house heard anything?”
“Levi claimed he was wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and Justin said Eliza was ‘emotional,’ which is diplo-speak for ‘she was shrieking through the phone.’Speaking of Justin’s shitty taste in women, what do you think of his latest infatuation?”
Alexa had sent Jez a photo of the woman, along with the messageAnother fucking redhead.How long do you think this one will last?
“Jessalyn?She’s a definite improvement on her predecessor.I only met Melanie once, but my fingers were itching to slap duct tape over her mouth.”
“I never had the pleasure.I did meet the one before her, though.Rebecca.”
“By chance or on purpose?”
“On purpose.There’s very little in life that happens by chance.Although we were never formally introduced, and I doubt she remembers my face.”
“I heard she cheated.”
“Who do you think sent Justin the photos of her doing the nasty with a man who wasn’t him?”
When Alexa found a bunch of messages between Rebecca and a colleague, Jez had been dispatched to see if they’d followed through on their flirting.Even though she hadn’t seen Justin for years at that point, she still didn’t want him to make yet another dumbass mistake with a woman.
“Damn.Does he know it was you?”
“Of course he doesn’t.Tell me Jessalyn isn’t a raging narcissist or a philanderer or two steps away from a nervous breakdown?”
“She isn’t.I mean, I don’t think so.Can a woman be a philanderer?”
“Why not?We’re all about smashing the patriarchy here.”
Sometimes literally.As a member of Point Team Golf, more commonly known as the Choir, an all-female special forces team that fixed the problems others couldn’t and didn’t officially exist, she’d eliminated a number of problematic jackasses.A few women too, because she was an equal-opportunities assassin, but statistically, more men wound up in positions where they could do great harm.Alexa, who’d been pretty antiestablishment since her uncle—a police officer—abused her as a child, had analysed the numbers a while back, and the pattern was clear.Men were bad news.
Alexa also freelanced for the Choir, albeit somewhat grudgingly.She used the codename Echo now, and perhaps one of the strangest parts of this whole fiasco was hearing their old names again, relics of a past they’d both tried to forget.
“But Jessalyn does have one thing you don’t,” Ari said.
“Dubious taste in men?”
Ari raised an eyebrow.“Are you telling me that the rumours you disposed of an ex because he was a traitorous bastard aren’t true?”
No, they were true.Unfortunately.But at least Jez had never married Bastian, and now she had Cole, who was a walking green flag of a man.Mostly.He wasn’t averse to a little breath play, but that was a good thing.
“Fair point.”
“It’s nothing to do with men.”
“She has a dog?Baking skills?”
“Empathy.She has empathy.”
Maybe Jez would have that too if she hadn’t spent so long dealing with fallout from the worst parts of human nature.
“Good for her.”
