Page 88 of The Shadow Friends

“You mean like you were going to do to me?” said Minnihan.

“But we didn’t, did we?” Ben shot back.

“Are these the Vory killers you told me about?” asked Jo.

“Maybe,” said Maggie. “Or we could be dealing with something else entirely. Someone far more sophisticated than prison mafia. Someone who was able to slip into Purity last week, kill two people, and slip away without ever being noticed.”

“And now he’s coming for Ingrid? Why?”

Ben, Declan, and Maggie exchanged glances. Oh, Jo knew what those looks meant. They were collectively weighing their decision. Deciding whether to trust her with this information.

“I hold top security clearance,” said Minnihan. “I need to hear this too.”

Maggie nodded. “Sit down, Jo. This is complicated.”

Chapter 33

Ingrid

She was awake before dawn, opening her eyes to an unfamiliar darkness and lying in an unfamiliar bed. Not that unfamiliar beds were new to her; during her work abroad, she’d slept in more such beds than she could count, some of them swathed in luxury one-thousand-thread-count linens, others infested with bedbugs and reeking of stale sweat and cigarettes. This bed, in Maggie’s spare room, was clean and comfortable, if spartan, with white cotton sheets and a utilitarian blue blanket. The practical bed linens of a practical woman, in keeping with everything else in Maggie’s farmhouse. If one had to go into hiding, this was as agreeable a place as one could hope for, but Ingrid longed to be at home. To water her plants, sleep in her own bed, sit at her own hearth. For too many years, she’d bounced around the world, never really settling down until she’d retired in Purity. This was the town where she’d planned to live out her life, the town where she’d intended to die.

Something that might happen a lot sooner than she expected.

She rolled onto her side and reached out to Lloyd. To her surprise, he was not there and the sheet was cool to her touch. Usually she was the first to get up in the morning, the first to fire up the coffeepot, and it unsettled her to find his side of the bed empty. She turned on the lamp and saw that his clothes, which he’d left draped over a chair the night before, were now gone. She caught the faint aroma of coffee, wafting up from the kitchen.

She climbed out of bed and got dressed.

Downstairs, she found Lloyd sitting in the kitchen with a mug of coffee on the table in front of him. Also on the table was the 9mm Heckler & Koch that Ben had lent them from his vast personal armory. Lloyd had removed the slide and barrel and had field-stripped the firearm. Now he was surveying the disassembled parts, which he’d arrayed on a newspaper spread across the table.

“Lloyd,” she said, “what are you doing?”

He looked up. “I wanted to be sure it was oiled and ready. I’m going to put in some time at the range. It’s been a while since I’ve had any target practice. Maybe Ben can give me a few pointers. There’s coffee, if you want some.”

She definitely wanted some. She pulled a mug from the cabinet and filled it with fragrant French roast from the carafe. While their own house in the village was quiet, Maggie’s farm, away from any passing traffic, was truly silent, and the only noise was the jarring click of Lloyd reassembling the gun. She gulped down the coffee and refilled the mug. This would be a five-cup morning; that first shot of caffeine was only now revving up her gray cells.

“Refill?” she asked Lloyd.

“Yes, please.”

She poured him a fresh cup of coffee and sat down. Watched Lloyd stir in his usual two teaspoons of sugar plus a generous slug of cream, turning his coffee into a child’s brew of sweet caramel. Lloyd liked things sweet. Which made her wonder why she had been his choice as a wife. Sweet she was not, and never had been.

Outside the window, darkness had lifted to a dull gray. Inside, they were just an old married couple, sitting at a kitchen table with their coffees, waiting for the sun to come up.

“We need to talk,” he said.

She sighed. “Yes.”

“And be honest with each other.”

“Yes”

“Even though it scares me.”

She frowned at him. “Why?”

“Because of what I might hear.” He met her gaze. “When you were with him—with Rodrigo—it must have brought back a lot of memories.”

“They weren’t all good.”