For a long moment, she stared at the lock screen. A scenic photograph—forest reflected in a still lake, morning mist curling across the water. Peaceful. Personal. The kind of image a person chose because it meant something to them.
His grandfather’s fishing spot. It had to be. The place he’d never gotten to take the older man one last time.
Her throat tightened.
She could stop here. Should stop here. He hadn’t given her any real reason to distrust him. He’d been kind. Protective. Genuine. He’d held her hand through a crash landing and apologized for his nightmares and smiled at her over breakfast in a way that had made her forget she was supposed to be someone else.
But she’d been fooled before. And her instincts were the one thing she couldn’t afford to second-guess, especially when those instincts were compromised by feelings she had no business having.
She pulled out her secure phone and dialed London.
“Lynx.” Her boss’s voice emerged crisp, professional. “Status?”
“In Cairns. Flight to Sydney in three hours. I need Nimue.”
A pause. “What’s the situation?”
“I have a tablet that belongs to someone I’ve been traveling with. Security consultant. He’s been . . . helpful. But I need to verify that he is who he says he is.”
“Helpful how?”
Jayden hesitated. How could she explain it? The crash landing. The shared cabin. The way she couldn’t stop thinking about him, no matter how hard she tried.
“He’s been in proximity since Hawaii,” she said instead. “Close proximity. I need to make sure that’s coincidence, not design.”
“Understood. Hold for Nimue.”
A click. Then a new voice—younger, sharper, with the faint hum of multiple monitors in the background. “Nimue here. What am I looking at?”
“Standard tablet. Password protected. Lock screen shows a mountain landscape.”
“Model?”
Jayden checked. Gave her the information.
“Old model. Security’s not great. Okay, can you connect it to your phone? Use your phone charger.”
Um, packed in her carryon. “I don’t have it.”
“Okay, well, when you get to your destination, find one and we’ll see what you can do. Anything else in the bag?”
The bathroom remained empty—a small blessing. The last thing she needed was someone walking in on her hacking a stranger’s tablet in an airport stall.
Not a stranger. Dakota.
She pushed the guilt down. This was the job. This was who she was.
Jayden rooted through the suitcase and found a folder labeled “Sydney.”
Her breath stilled when she opened it.
Blueprints. The Sydney Opera House, rendered in precise architectural detail. Multiple files—floor plans, sight lines, security positions, evacuation routes.
Her heart stuttered.
“Nimue. I’m looking at blueprints for the Sydney Opera House.”
“Take photos and send them to me.”
