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“It seemed you were prepared to stop when all this happened.”
“That was revenge. I never looked past that. If you want the truth, I never thought I would survive it.”
“But you did. We both did.”
They both lapsed into silence.
She rested her arms on the roof of the car. “I didn’t think anything would ever scare me, Robie.” She exhaled a long breath. “But this does.”
“It’s not like a hit where you cross the i’s and dot the t’s. You don’t really think, you just execute. This, this you really have to think about.”
“And one and one don’t necessarily make two.”
“Almost never make two,” he amended.
“So how do you make sense out of it?”
“You can’t.”
Reel looked up. The rain had started falling after several days of dry weather. It was gloomy, depressing; even objects in the near distance were hard to make out.
As the rain picked up, neither of them made a move to get into the car. In about a minute they were soaked, but they just stood there.
“I’m not sure I can live like that, Robie.”
“I’m not sure either. But I think we have to try.”
Reel glanced down at her pocket. She pulled out the Distinguished Intelligence Cross and looked at it.
“Did you ever in a million years think you would get one of these?”
“No.”
“We got this for killing a man.”
“We got this for doing our job.”
She dropped the medal back into her pocket and looked at
him. “But this is not a job you walk away from.”
“There aren’t many who have.”
“I’d rather leave it all in the field.”
“From the look of the world right now, you might get your wish.”
She looked away. “When Gwen and Joe were alive I knew I had at least two people who would mourn me. Who were my friends. That was important to me.”
“Well, now you have me.”
She stared back at him. “Do I? Really?”
“Close your eyes,” he said.
“What?”
“Close your damn eyes.”
“Robie!”
“Just do it.”
She closed her eyes as the rain continued to fall.
A minute passed.
She finally reopened them.
Will Robie was still there.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Michelle, for taking care of everything else in the way only you can.
To Mitch Hoffman, for always seeing the trees and the forest.
To David Young, Jamie Raab, Sonya Cheuse, Lindsey Rose, Emi Battaglia, Tom Maciag, Maja Thomas, Martha Otis, Karen Torres, Anthony Goff, Bob Castillo, Michele McGonigle, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing, who support me every day.
To Aaron and Arleen Priest, Lucy Childs Baker, Lisa Erbach Vance, Nicole James, Frances Jalet-Miller, and John Richmond, for always having my back.
To Anthony Forbes Watson, Jeremy Trevathan, Maria Rejt, Trisha Jackson, Katie James, Natasha Harding, Aimee Roche, Lee Dibble, Sophie Portas, Stuart Dwyer, Stacey Hamilton, James Long, Anna Bond, Sarah Willcox, and Geoff Duffield at Pan Macmillan, for leading me to number one in the UK.
To Arabella Stein, Sandy Violette, and Caspian Dennis, for being so good at what you do.
To Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy, for continuing to astonish me with your audio performances.
To Steven Maat at Bruna, for keeping me at the top in Holland.
To Bob Schule, for always being there for me.
To Janet DiCarlo, James Gelder, Michael Gioffre, and Karin Meenan, I hope that you enjoyed your characters.
To Kristen, Natasha, and Lynette, for keeping me straight, true, and sane.
And to Roland Ottewell for another great copyediting job.
