Page 149 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

Then Rooke turns a second device toward me. The funds have been sitting in a secure holding account since this afternoon. Rooke verified they were there before he ever gave Maxwell the address, but he can’t touch them until I authorize the transfer.

I enter Maxwell’s one-time code, and we wait.

Rooke’s screen refreshes, showing that the payment has been released. The smallest change comes over him—it’s not relief. More like completion. Julian Rooke likes closed loops. Now there’s one thing left—the drive needs to be in my possession before the team moves.

Rooke reaches into the case and removes a narrow card. “This is your decryption key. Once the drive leaves this room, my involvement ends.”

I almost smile.

Then a phone vibrates in his jacket. He doesn’t move immediately, but when he finally pulls the phone from his pocket, he glances at it for a moment. And for the first time since I entered the house, Julian Rooke loses control of his face. Barely, and only for a small moment, there’s a tightening beside his mouth, and his eyes go still. Something happened.

Reese.

Every part of me screams her name. Begs me to run to wherever she is. It takes everything I’ve got to keep my expression bored.

Rooke looks up from the phone and meets my eyes, then looks back down. He types a short reply before looking back at me. “I was just informed that my ‘security problem’ won’t be causing any further problems.”

“Good,” I say. I have no idea if that means Reese is safe or that she’s dead. I know only that whatever just happened wasn’t good news for Rooke.

Rooke studies me for long enough that I know he’s looking for the thing he couldn’t find before—a connection.

I let impatience show. Nothing else. Not fear about what that means. Not worry about Reese. Not a fiery impatience to leave and go find her right this second.

Finally, he slips the phone away and says, “Here’s the goods,” as he slides the drive and credentials toward me. I pick them up, and his eyes drop to my hand. That’s the last condition. Somewhere outside this house, the team is moving.

When he meets my gaze again, something changes in his expression. Not because I moved wrong, but because I didn’t.

He knows people too well. Maybe that means he also knows when someone has stopped needing to convince him.

“Who are you?” he asks.

A crash sounds from the front of the house, and the door behind me flies open. “Federal agents!”

I look at him. And this time, I don’t give him Maxwell’s smile—I give him mine.

Everything happens at once. Rooke’s security man reaches beneath his jacket, and I’m out of my chair before his hand gets there, catching his wrist and driving him into the wall. More agents flood the room.

Rooke doesn’t run. He simply watches me while an agent pulls his hands behind his back. He’s studying me. Really studying me. I can see him recalculating every answer Maxwell gave him tonight, and every detail his people collected during the vetting. Rearranging information he’d already accepted now that one fundamental fact has changed.

His expression changes. “The woman at the hangar,” he says.

I give him nothing.

His eyes narrow. “She didn’t know Maxwell Shaw.” He pauses a moment. “She knew you.”

He’s too late. I don’t answer.

The second the room is secure and I’m outside, someone puts a phone in my hand. Charlie is already on the line. I don’t even say hello—I just say, “Reese?”

“She’s safe.”

My knees nearly stop working, and I put one hand against the brick of the house.

Charlie keeps talking. “She got herself out. Ledger’s with her—she’s back at the CSA.”

I close my eyes. She’s safe. The words move through me like oxygen after I’ve been underwater too long.

“She got herself out?”