Page 23 of Consume Me

“So we started there,” Brex added. “And we had something to go on. We know Norris was MI-18, so I dug into his file.”

“And?” The man had been my confidant, my protector, practically my father, for my entire life. Did I want to know what they’d found?

“That’s where things get interesting.” He looked at Georgia for encouragement. I wasn’t going to like whatever came next. “There is no James Norris. Not really. He exists on paper, but none of his background checks out.”

I clutched the edge of the table so hard I thought it might splinter under my grip. “I don’t understand.”

“His history is made up. How much do you know about his childhood? His education?” Georgia asked me. She didn’t seem nearly as nervous about this as her partner.

“Very little,” I admitted. “Are you telling me he made it up?” Norris was our only connection to MI-18. I knew about the organisation because of him. It might have been easier to question if DeAngelo hadn’t pointed us in the same direction.

“No. The opposite,” Brex said swiftly. “We think it’s all been erased so well—his life, his youth— that even he doesn’t think about it anymore. He never talked about it.”

Georgia nodded in agreement. “To any of us. Even I talk about my childhood.”

I could only imagine the twisted, fucked-up memories she had to share. But she was right. Norris, who was full of advice and wisdom, never relied on his own past for any of it. “How does this help us?”

“We started looking for others like him,” Brex continued. “Men and women with military experience and cookie cutter backgrounds.”

“You found more?” I guessed, finally releasing the table. This was something. I could feel it.

“Not exactly. We found something else. Disappearances. Most labeled ‘probable suicides.”

“Probable?” I repeated.

“Sometimes there were notes, but never bodies,” Georgia said.

“Why not just erase them entirely?” Smith asked. He’d been listening up until now, taking all this in with that shrewd, unnerving manner of his.

“Family. Friends. These are real people—or, at least, some of them are—and we suspect that most of them aren’t dead at all.”

“They’re operatives,” Georgia added.

“But which ones?” Smith asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I’ve started conducting interviews with family members. Told them it was a routine follow-up to assess mental health concerns for surviving family of deceased military.” Brex shrugged. If lying to grieving families bothered him, he didn’t show any sign of it. Then again, if we were right, their family members were traitors. “I’ve only managed to speak to a half dozen, but I’ve heard the same thing a number of times. A few told me that they could have sworn they’d seen their loved ones. At a shop. On the street. In a park. They thought they were seeing ghosts, but…”

“You can’t erase family,” I muttered. If this were true, if these men and women had walked away from their lives, that didn’t mean they could stay away from the people they loved, even if it was only to check in on them.

“Won’t reaching out to the families be suspicious?” Smith asked. “It might be noticed.”

A feline smile carved across Georgia’s face. “We’re counting on it.”

Chapter 9

CLARA

I didn’t want to go back to my room. I didn’t want to blindly accept whatever fate these people had in store for me or my son. There were too many of them for this building to be as secure as I’d initially thought. So I took a page out of their playbook. They’d created a distraction to get to me. When June came to take me back to my ‘quarters,’ I took a few steps outside the exam room before I slumped against the wall.

“Oh dear!” She rushed to help me. Her arms wrapping protectively around my shoulder. I wanted to push her away, but I needed her to buy into my act.

“Sorry,” I murmured, pressing a hand to my forehead. “I feel dizzy.”

“You need to eat. That blood draw,” she clucked. “Two days without food. Here.”

Two days. Now I knew something else. I’d disappeared two days ago. I knew Alexander was searching for me. I knew he wouldn’t rest, and I could only hope that two days wouldn’t turn into three.

June helped me to a chair, casting pitying glances my way. “I’ll be right back. Guard, can you come here!”