Page 187 of Black Reign

A client I no longer care about is due in twelve minutes.

I pick up the paperback.

Read the underlined line again.

Then close it carefully.

Vesper could have sent an encrypted file.

A message.

A photograph.

Instead she gave me something physical.

Cheap.

Used.

Handled by strangers before either of us touched it.

I should send it for prints.

Fiber analysis.

Trace evidence.

I don't.

I put the book inside my briefcase.

Not the evidence case.

Mine.

Then I reopen Adrien Beaumont.

This time I don't start with his daughter.

I start with his death.

Because Vesper asked me to prove Ghost and Xavier are the same man where it matters.

And for the first time in my life, finding the truth feels more important than finding the woman hiding behind it.

8

Imake my first mistake in London.

My mistake is believing I am still the person doing the watching.

For three days, I know where Xavier Blackwell is before he does.

His office.

His hotel.

The restaurant where he meets a government minister who looks considerably less impressive in person than he does on television.