Shadow Burn (Shadow Point Security Romantic Suspense #5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Blackridge, Montana

Katherine Townsend let herself into the Blackridge Public Library at six-thirty, the way she had every weekday for the past month.

The side door key was cool in her palm. Margie, the head librarian, had pressed it on her during the second week Katherine showed up, claiming Katherine was going to freeze to death waiting on the steps.

It was only September, but the nighttime temperatures were already dipping into the thirties and hanging on in the early mornings.

The same key worked for the private back meeting room, which Katherine’s boss had approved as a temporary, sanctioned CIA workplace after reviewing its layout and security.

Katherine entered and flipped on the lights, pausing for a moment to take it in.

She loved these early mornings with the hushed quiet of the room and the smell of paper and her coffee.

The long oak table seated twelve and was perfect for spreading out the papers she was archiving.

The whiteboard at the front was one she would never use, so she’d stacked the boxes of files, photos, and more in front of it.

At the end of the table, she set her travel mug to the left and her document bag to the right, then pulled on cotton gloves before lifting the lid of the next archival box she needed to catalog.

Walter Vance, retired Station Chief, had died three months ago in his home here in Blackridge. His widow had donated his personal papers to the University of Montana. She’d had no idea what she’d handed over.

Katherine did. Lifting one of the letters in its sleeve, she read it again. Vance’s handwriting was unmistakable, the date September 2003, with no addressee. There were three references to the operational cover name Cinder.

The problem? That cover had belonged to a spy who’d been dead for nine years when Vance wrote the letter.

She pulled out her notebook and added the cross-reference, then checked the time.

She had three hours before she needed to be back at the rental for her ten o’clock meeting.

The man Dr. Vivian Montgomery had recommended when Katherine had contacted her was a security expert, not a bodyguard.

Katherine didn’t need a bodyguard, but Montgomery, the head of Shadow Point Security, had spent a notable amount of time on the phone explaining what he wasn’t willing to do.

“He doesn’t take fieldwork,” Dr. Montgomery had said. “He doesn’t do client-facing assignments like this. He’s internal support, and he’s made his preferences clear. I respect those preferences. I’ll offer him your job, but he may say no.”

“All I need a tech consultant,” Katherine had replied, “not a bodyguard.”

Dr. Montgomery had hesitated, then simply said, “Good luck.”

Which meant Katherine would have to convince this Jasper Perault that helping her trace and straighten out this anomaly about the dead spy was a job worth taking.

She worked through the next entries in the box, photographing each page with her personal phone before adding her notations.

The Agency phone stayed at the bottom of her bag.

She didn’t want it near this work for now, and she was beginning to suspect she didn’t want it anywhere near her at all.

Not until she was sure this was only a clerical mistake and nothing more.

Two months ago, she’d come across the file on a 2019 reference to Cinder, another mention long after the spy was supposed to be dead.

She’d submitted it for internal review and discovered shortly afterward that it had been quietly downgraded to clerical anomaly, resolved, and routed away from her without notification.

Three weeks before that, her colleagues had toasted her ten-year anniversary as Senior Archivist with paper cups of cheap fizzy wine that was supposed to replace real champagne.

For an Army brat who’d moved every few years during her young life, staying in one place for ten years had felt more significant than anything else she’d done with her life.

And yet, here she was assigned a job far beneath her. She suspected the Cinder flag was the reason.

She suspected a lot of things she couldn’t prove.

After sipping her coffee, she held the next page to the light, checking for the watermark that would place it within the correct office chain. Most analysts never bothered. Archivists did. Paper could reveal so much more than words.

She locked up at nine-twenty and drove back to her rental, watching the mountains the whole way.

They never stopped looking like a postcard.

Six weeks in this town, and she still couldn’t reconcile the amazing view with this transplant assignment far beneath her station and the message it was sending.

You’ve stirred the wrong pot.

Priss met her at the door. Five years of cohabitation had taught the cat the sound of a key in a lock, and the gray tabby was already winding around her ankles before Katherine could set down her bag.

“You’re going to trip me.”

Priss replied with a chirp that conveyed neither apology nor concern.

“I’ve been gone three hours. You can’t be hungry already.”

The cat gave a longer, more dramatic meow that echoed in the foyer.

Katherine stepped over her and headed to the kitchen.

She set her bag on the counter and started a fresh pot of coffee.

She had ten minutes to set up the table and prepare her careful explanation of her situation without actually saying too much.

No one in Montana was cleared to know everything she knew.

“You’re not allowed on the table during this meeting,” she told Priss. “I mean it.”

Priss jumped onto the kitchen table in clear defiance.

“Off.”

The cat blinked at her, slowly and deliberately. Priss had heard the word off millions of times and had drawn her own conclusions about its applicability.

Katherine lifted her, set her on the floor, and laid out the notebooks. The Vance cross-references were in the navy leather one. The original flag analysis was in the burgundy. The timeline she had built from scratch was in the black one, which was the one she trusted most.

She checked her outfit in the bathroom mirror. She never wore anything but work clothes unless she was done for the day. Today’s outfit was a navy blazer, cream blouse, and dark trousers.

As Priss gave her sad eyes from the floor, she put in the small diamond earrings she’d bought herself the week the Agency hired her, the same ones she had worn the day they toasted her ten year anniversary. These days, they felt heavier than usual.

Priss followed her back to the kitchen and sat in the doorway, tail flicking.

“I need this to go well,” Katherine told her. “If you have any influence over the universe, this is the time to use it.”

Priss yawned.

The doorbell rang.

Katherine opened the door to a man in a hoodie with eyes darker than her pot of coffee.

He stood at her threshold with his hands in the front pocket of a faded gray zip-up, dark jeans, and running shoes that looked like they’d logged a lot of miles.

Tall and lean, he was all angles and quiet control, those warm brown eyes somehow managing to appear cool and aloof. Nothing about him matched the consultant she’d expected, and annoyingly, nothing about him was easy to dismiss.

“Katherine Townsend?”

“Yes.”

“Jasper Perault. Vivi sent me.”

“You’re early.”

He didn’t apologize for it. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all.” She tugged on her blazer’s cuffs, her stomach tensing over the coming minutes. “I appreciate punctuality.”

She stepped aside and gestured him in. He moved past her with the same posture and confidence her father had always had. A former military man, she guessed.

A slim leather bag hung over his shoulder and he pulled a phone from his hoodie’s pocket. The bag was scuffed at the corners and looked like it had been well used.

In the kitchen, he scanned the space, registered the notebooks, and took a seat.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Black, please.”

She poured for both of them, adding cream to hers. He took the mug, fingers brushing hers. They were warm, dry, and calloused at the ends. An interesting detail for a man Dr. Montgomery had described as a tech consultant and moved like a prowling panther.

Why am I noticing this at all? Katherine snapped her gaze away from his hand and grabbed her own cup.

Priss appeared from the hallway and walked straight to Jasper. She sniffed his shoes and rubbed the side of her face along his calf.

“You have a cat,” Jasper said.

Katherine tried to shoo her away. “Not simply a cat. I’m owned by the queen of cats.”

His mouth twitched.

“Are you allergic?” she asked.

“No.” He set down the coffee, bent, and held out his hand. Priss head-butted it with the enthusiasm of a small drunk. “What’s her name?”

“Priss.”

“Doesn’t suit her.”

“It absolutely does. She lives up to it daily.”

He scratched the cat under the chin with one knuckle. Priss closed her eyes. Katherine watched five years of feline standards collapse on her kitchen floor. Never had the cat warmed up to any man she’d brought home in D.C.

“Can we talk about why I called?” she asked.

Jasper patted Priss again. “Of course.”

Katherine sat across from him as he opened his leather bag. Inside was a slim laptop, a stylus, and a small notepad with a black pen clipped to the spine. He took out the notepad and set the pen beside it.

When she stared at it, he asked, “Can I make notes?”

“You’re going to take notes by hand?”

His intense gaze bore into her. “I’ll transfer them to my digital files if I decide to take your case.”

She worried her bottom lip, an old habit she’d broken years ago. If I decide to take your case…

“Before we start,” he said, “I want to be clear about a few things.”

Priss’s purring was loud enough to make Katherine want to roll her eyes. “Okay.”

“I haven’t agreed to take this assignment.”

She fought the urge to bite her lip again. “I’m fully aware of that. That’s why you’re here—to get a handle on my situation and what I need help with.”