Page 140 of Mile High Ruin

“Are you certain?”

Anton nods. “The match is strong.”

I lean back against my chair. Jesus.

The drunk, lecherous bastard I had written off as nothing more than a predator may have been sitting inside the conspiracy from the beginning.

And now there’s no way to ask him.

23

SLOANE

By the fourth day at Vadim’s house, I have developed a plan.

It’s not a particularly sophisticated plan, but sophistication has become less important to me than simply getting out.

Vadim has mostly left me alone since the morning after we slept together, which should have been a relief considering how complicated everything between us has become, except his absence somehow irritates me almost as much as his constant presence used to. I see him occasionally at meals or crossing one of the corridors with Anton beside him, always talking about something that ends the moment I get close enough to hear, but he doesn’t come looking for me, doesn’t drag me into another interrogation, and certainly doesn’t mention what happened between us.

If anything, he has become painfully polite.

I hate it.

I hate that after spending an entire night with his hands and mouth all over me, he can look across a breakfast table and ask whether I slept well in the same tone he might use with a visiting accountant.

More importantly, I’m still not allowed to leave.

Nobody calls it that, of course. There’s always some careful explanation about security, the investigation, or the fact that whoever used my bag may still know who I am, but the gates remain guarded and every vehicle leaving the property has a security detail attached to it.

So I’ve started paying attention.

The eastern garden gate opens every morning when deliveries arrive. The kitchen staff receive produce shortly after eight. There’s a smaller service road beyond the greenhouse that appears to join the main road several hundred yards from the primary entrance, and unlike the front gate, it’s usually watched by only one guard.

I’m not planning to disappear forever. I just want to reach Chișinău, find a hotel, contact the American embassy if necessary, and make decisions without Vadim hovering somewhere in the background deciding what’s safest for me.

Camille wants no part of it. When I mention the possibility of leaving, carefully and without explaining exactly how, she looks at me as though I suggested we parachute from the roof. “Sloane, absolutely not.”

“We can’t stay here indefinitely.”

“It has been four days.”

“That’s four days longer than I intended to be in Moldova.”

Camille folds her arms around herself and looks toward the tall windows of the sitting room. She has improved since Bucharest, but not by much. Sudden noises still make her flinch, she rarely walks through the gardens alone, and she has begun checking the locks on her bedroom door before sleeping even though this is probably one of the most heavily protected houses in Eastern Europe.

“I feel safer here,” she admits.

I understand that. After Hale and the tarmac, part of me feels safer here too.

That’s precisely what makes it dangerous. Safety can become comfortable enough that you stop noticing someone else controls the doors.

“I’m not asking you to come with me.”

She looks horrified. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

I shrug. “At this point I’m not sure what it is you want. I’m only saying I need to know whether I actually have the choice Vadim keeps insisting I have.”

Camille glances toward the hallway as though simply saying his name too loudly might summon him. “I wouldn’t test him.”