Eric swallowed hard.“I’m…not used to anyone helping me.”
Cole snorted.Nowthathe could relate to.“I’dgetused to it, if I were you.Hadley will insist on it.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, running through lists of Eric’s known enemies and anyone who might’ve been privy to his true identity.Neither list was all that long.And most of his known enemies were either still in Russia, or dead.
Then Cole remembered how he’d been caught up in this whole mission to begin with and asked about anyone inStella’spast who might like to see him hanged for espionage.He expected the answer to beno one.
It wasn’t…
Chapter31
Hadley didn’t bother coming up with a good excuse to talk to Stella.They didn’t have time for that.So, she marched right up to the woman’s front door and rang the bell.
She’d have to be a little delicate in how she brought up the whole sleeper agent thing, though.Carefully manipulate the direction of the conversation so she didn’t scare the woman away.
As soon as Stella answered, Hadley blurted, “I know your husband is a Russian spy.”
Well, shit.So much for delicacy.
The welcoming smile slipped off Stella’s face.“I…have no idea what you’re talking about.Is this some kind of joke?”
She held up her hands in supplication.“Look, don’t worry.I’m not turning you guys in or anything.We’re looking for a way to help you.”
If she was a trained spy like Eric and Cole, Hadley was pretty sure Stella would stall or get angry or try to talk her way out of the accusation.But she clearly wasn’t any better at subterfuge than Hadley was, because she merely sighed in an exhausted, world-weary kind of way, and ushered Hadley into her house.“Might as well come in so that you don’t ruin my whole life in front of the neighbors,” she muttered.
Hadley took a seat on Stella’s sleek, Scandinavian-style sofa, which was way nicer than the overstuffed, bargain basement piece of crap Franklin’s team had furnishedherhome with.Shockingthat he’d cheaped out like that.
“I’m sorry for blurting it out like that,” Hadley admitted as Stella sat down on the loveseat facing the sofa.“I had every intention of being tactful.”She frowned.“The intention got lost between my brain and mouth, though.”
“Happens to me sometimes, too,” Stella said.“So, Eric was right, wasn’t he?Clark is a spy.”
“His name is actually Cole.Mine’s Hadley.And, yeah.He was sent to get proof there was a sleeper agent in this neighborhood.He spotted Eric right away.And vice versa, I guess.”
“Takes one to know one, I suppose.”
Wasn’tthatthe God’s honest truth?“I got roped in to make Cole’s cover more legit.”
Stella snorted.“Good plan.That guy alone in this neighborhood would’ve caused abigstir.”
Hadley could only imagine.“Cole didn’t want to come here at all.He got blackmailed into it.Me too, if I’m being honest.But once we talked to you both and got the feeling that maybe you’d been dealt a bad hand like we had…well, turning you in lost its appeal.My gut tells me even if Eric was a sleeper agent, he doesn’t intend to do anything bad here now.”
“Your instincts are good,” she said quietly.“Eric escaped the agency before we even met.Now, he’s the most patriotic American I’ve ever met.He’d never betray this country.Or me.”
“The fact that he’d never betray you was never unclear,” Hadley said with a chuckle.“That man is crazy for you.”
“It’s mutual.I’d doanythingfor him.”She let out a deep breath.“So, if you don’t feel good about turning my husband in to the government, whatdoyou feel like doing with us?We’re kind of at your mercy at this point.”
“Well, what we’d like to do is dig up some dirt on the jackass who blackmailed us into this, then blackmail him back into leaving all four of us alone.”
Stella slow blinked a couple of times before saying, “That’s…a lot of blackmailing.”
“Yeah,” Hadley admitted.“It’s a little intimidating.But Tenley says that’s the way to go and I trust her about that stuff.”
“Who’s Tenley?”
“Long story.Point is, the only way all four of us won’t end up in some black ops site is if we do the blackmail thing, and the only way to do the blackmail thing is to pool our knowledge.”
“What knowledge?I don’t know anything.”
