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Rory sat forward, fingers flying over his center keyboard. “I’ve accessed records from Homeland, National Intelligence, NSA, CIA, you name it. There’s not a single mention of suspicion being placed on the U.S. for the assassination. No military communications, no DOD reports. Nothing.”
“But someone wanted it to look like we took out the chancellor,” Beatrice said. “My guess? They wanted to use it as leverage.”
Vivi came out of her chair and tapped the desk with a finger. “Leverage to get me to turn traitor and give up national secrets.”
“By impersonating me,” Ian said quietly.
Beatrice and Rory nodded in synch. “Whoever did this played you, Vivi,” Beatrice said. “It has to be someone who knew about you and Ian.”
All eyes went to her and she walked away, pivoted, and stomped back. “That’s not possible. No one knew.”
“Someone did,” Ian said. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Right?”
“Yes,” Beatrice said. “And we’re going to figure out who.”
Thirteen
The next morning, Vivi hung her head and tried to breathe. She’d sworn she’d never do it again. Hadn’t believed she’d everhaveto.
But here she was in the office that really wasn’t hers, even though it was freshly painted and had her requested items in it, segmenting everything going on in her brain, just like her days at NSA.
She gave each issue a sticky note and smacked it down on the desk.
Ian and our marriage.
Love, sex…how could they fully commit to a relationship when there were all these unanswered questions?
The sex was incredible, always had been, but it added another layer of stickiness. She tried to visualize the two of them living a normal, married life, and couldn’t. Neither of them was normal, not by a long shot. He lived for action, adventure, righting wrongs. She liked staying in her office, behind closed doors, and analyzing people. Helping them, but in a different manner than he did.
She slapped down the next sticky note:Photo.
Beatrice had ordered Rory to plant virtual “trip wires” for whoever might notice he’d hacked into Vivi’s private phone and emails. Told him tonotcover his tracks and plant carrots for their rabbit to follow back to them.
Stupid, in Vivi’s opinion. That was a can of very dangerous snakes and once it was open, there was no stuffing them back in.
While she might be dead to the world, Beatrice claimed whoever was watching—Command & Control? A terrorist like Lawrence?—would assume Ian was the one hunting down that photo to destroy it, and they’d come after him.
Making him the target.
Vivi couldn’t say she was pleased by Beatrice and Rory putting Ian in danger, but her husband had thought it a brilliant move and was, at that very moment, searching through dozens of debriefings and follow-up reports about the chancellor’s assassination. Like her helping Sloane, he now had a purpose.
Another sticky note:Sloane.
Vivi was determined to help the girl, but with her own issues filling up her waking moments, as well as tormenting her in her dreams, how could she possibly be clearheaded enough to do right by her?
She’d already outlined questions and a plan of action to use with Beatrice and Cal, but so far, she couldn’t pin either of them down to have a session. They’d both ignored the order to be in her office at nine.
Which in itself was another issue.You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Her mentor had said it all the time.
The couple claimed ridding Sloane of her nightmares was a high priority, yet both had been avoiding her.
My memory. The next sticky note joined the others.
It wasn’t enough to theorize why someone had set-up Ian, and then to not use the photo and publicly throw suspicion on him and the U.S. government. It was another to figure out why Vivi had gone to Berlin and invited herself to Jim Lawrence’s party.
She needed time to think. Time to sort out her memories. She needed…
Hypnosis. She stuck the final note in the center of the others.
