Page 74 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

“It does if you put an AirTag in your purse because you regularly misplace it, then discover that said purse is sitting at a private aviation complex outside Baltimore.”

Cold alarm moves through me. “You were at the hangar?”

“I was in the parking-lot-adjacent region.”

“How close did you get?”

“Not close enough to ruin your covert airplane transaction.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

Her eyebrows rise above the glasses. “I stayed beside the charter office. I didn’t cross any restricted lines, interrupt your meeting, or run toward you yelling your real name. I have watched spy movies.”

“This isn’t a movie.”

“Yes, I became aware of that when I saw my best friend wearing someone else’s nose.”

I look toward my front windows even though there’s nothing to see but the closed curtains. She was close enough to observe the meeting. Close enough to hear at least part of it. And none of us saw her.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t.

The woman checking her phone flashes through my mind. The maintenance worker straightening. The meeting ending seconds later.

Cold settles lower in my stomach. Reese might be what spooked them.

“How long were you there?”

“Not long. Five minutes?”

Five. Minutes. Long enough to be photographed. Long enough for someone to get her plate number. Long enough for Rooke’s security to decide an unidentified woman watching Maxwell Shaw deserved attention.

I pull out my phone.

Reese watches me. “What are you doing?”

“Letting Charlie know. If you’re what ended that meeting, we need to figure that out now.”

I send her a quick message telling her Reese was near the charter office for approximately five minutes and asking her to start pulling every exterior camera angle we can access. Then I put my phone away.

“How did you recognize me?”

She looks offended. “Because I know you.”

“Reese, Abraham changed the shape of my nose, darkened and restyled my hair, changed the shape of my jaw with the beard, and put glasses on me. You weren’t supposed to recognize me.”

“You stood like you.”

I stare at her.

She pushes her glasses back up. “You adjusted your cuff the way you always do. Then you looked at the reflection in the plane instead of turning to look around the hangar.”

“I was monitoring for people approaching.”

“I know.”