Page 43 of Only the Hunter

“Give me a shout if you need anything,” Noah calls to my back.

“Will do.”

I hop in my car, wondering how Brie and Syd concluded Quinn and Hudson are an item. Did Quinn tell them? Did they observe something? Then again, why do I care? This is a temporary gig for me—a stepping stone until I’ve passed background with the NSA.

I shoot Evie a text as I approach her building.

Me

Here. I’ll park and wait.

Evie

I’m outside. In front of the coffee cart. Early Bird Coffee.

I’m ten minutes early and she’s already outside? That doesn’t sit right.

I clock her standing on the sidewalk—holding a cardboard file box.

Did she quit?

I pull up to the side and lower the window. “Evie.”

At my voice, she hurries over. If it weren’t for heavy traffic, I’d jump out and help her. She opens the back door and sets her box and overcoat on the seat, then jumps in the front seat.

Her hair is pulled back in a bun that’s coming loose—strands escaping at her temples and neck. Her suit jacket is rumpled, collar askew. Those sharp eyes that miss nothing look drawn and shadowed. Tired in a way that has nothing to do with lack of sleep—or the faint outline of bruises showing beneath her makeup.

She’s holding herself together by sheer will, and I can feel the tension radiating off her.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I keep my voice even, non-confrontational.

Evie stares out the windshield as traffic inches forward, her reflection faint in the glass. The cardboard box in the backseat shifts as I brake, folders sliding. Everything about her posture is controlled, like someone who's decided not to fall apart until she gets somewhere private.

“I asked for personal leave,” she says finally. “Effective immediately.”

That gets my full attention. Personal leave isn’t nothing. It’s clean, but it’s drastic.

“And they let you walk out with a box,” I guess.

“Yes.”

“Evie.”

She exhales through her nose, almost a snort. “You don’t have to say it like that. I know what it looks like.”

Walking out with a box looks like she’s not coming back. “Tell me what it is.”

She turns to me then, really looks at me, and I get the sense she’s made a decision she doesn’t love but has committed to.

“I’m going to Geneva.”

My first instinct is immediate: Hell no.

But I keep my expression neutral. Rule one: let people finish. Let them get to the why before you start solving problems they haven’t asked you to solve.

Still, my internal alarm fires on all cylinders.

Fuck no. Absolutely not.