Page 144 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

“I need Abraham,” I say. Then I turn and head to the elevators.

Twenty-eight minutes later, Miles Lancaster is gone. Maxwell Shaw looks back at me from the mirror. My hair has been darkened; I’ve got a beard, tortoiseshell glasses, and the altered nose that Reese recognized anyway.

My hands are steady, and it makes me mad.

Charlie found the van leaving the garage on a traffic camera. It had stolen plates. Charlie and Emerson are working together to follow it camera by camera. It doesn’t feel like it’s nearly enough, but it’s something.

Before I walk out, I surrender every device that Rooke prohibited. Maxwell’s phone is the only one I carry.

The drive takes seventeen minutes, and every one of them feels like a betrayal. When I get to the address, a security gate opens before I reach it, and I follow the drive to a dark stone house set far back from the road.

A man in a suit meets me at the entrance and says, “Mr. Shaw.”

I give him the smile that belongs to Maxwell. He searches me, takes the phone, and then opens the door.

I step inside and see a man standing at the far end of the room beside a table. He’s got silver hair, an immaculate suit, and calm, assessing eyes. Julian Rooke. And on the table beside him sits a small black case. “Mr. Shaw,” he says.

Reese is somewhere in his network. Six lives are inside that case. I become Maxwell Shaw completely. “Mr. Rooke.”

CHAPTER 26

THE QUESTIONS THEY DON’T ASK

REESE

Ithought kidnapped civilians were supposed to be taken somewhere sketchy, like a cold warehouse by the docks or the back rooms of a run-down family fun center. Not a house with a cheerful painting of spring-colored poppies above the couch. It sends mixed messages. Especially considering the zip tie that is binding my wrists.

My purse is gone, my phone is gone, I have no idea what is going to happen to me, and no one knows where I am. My hands are shaking, and I can’t stop my leg from bouncing.

I give this abduction a 3/10. The abduction itself earns one star, and the other two are entirely for the decor.

The woman from the parking garage sits across from me at a dining table that looks like it came from a furniture showroom, and the man who helped drag me into the van stands near what looks like a pretty nice kitchen. The woman has been asking questions. I’ve been noticing everything, because my inability to stop people-watching has finally become relevant to an actual crime.

And suddenly, I’m wondering if the woman moonlights as a realtor. Maybe that’s why we’re in a furnished house that doesn’t appear lived in—she’s selling it. Or maybe she moonlights as a person looking to buy a house, and she made sure to see what code the realtor was entering in the lockbox of this house.

Maybe the house is another clue. They brought me somewhere comfortable, have me sitting at a dining table, and there are only two of them. They don’t seem to think I’m dangerous. They must just think I’m a civilian who saw something she shouldn’t have.

I would very much like them to keep thinking that.

The woman leans forward again and asks a question she’s already asked twice, just using different wording. “Why were you at the aviation hangar two weeks ago?”

I take in a deep breath, trying to gather some patience. I am very afraid of this woman, but she’s also getting on my nerves. “I told you, my purse was missing. It has an AirTag in it. I followed the location.”

“And you expect me to believe you accidentally followed a tracking device to a private hangar?”

“No. I expect you to think it sounds ridiculous, because it does.”

The man by the kitchen glances up.

“Why was there an AirTag in your purse?”

I take another long breath, like I’m really trying to find my patience. “Because a few months ago, I asked a mannequin in a thrift store to hold my purse while I looked at a skirt, and left the store without it. My roommate decided technology needed to compensate for my forgetfulness.”

The man by the kitchen almost smiles.

“Who were you following?”

“My purse.”