Chapter 5
Five
Luc waved them into their respective rooms and headed down the stairs to prepare dinner.
Hanna went into the queen room and closed her door with a soft click.
Marielle and Omar looked at each other for a moment of awkward silence before they crossed the threshold into the king room.
She was surprised at the palpable distance between them.
After all, they’d just spent several days pretending to be married.
But without the cover, the easy familiarity between them had vanished.
Omar would rather sleep on the floor than share a bed with her.
As he closed the door, she took in the room.
A king bed dressed in crisp white linens with a single indigo stripe running along the edge of the duvet and the pillowcase dominated the space. Beside it, a chipped white jug on the nightstand held a bouquet of fresh lavender, its sweet scent mixing with the salt air.
Two chairs upholstered in mismatched but complementary fabrics, one a faded floral, the other striped linen, sat angled toward the open window that let in the evening light and the distant lapping of the sea.
A mirror in a flaking gilt frame hung on the dove gray wall above a small writing desk.
The art was minimal but meaningful: a single watercolor of the calanque, pale blues bleeding into sandy ochre; an old map of the coastline in a simple wooden frame; and an extreme close-up photograph of a purple spiral-shelled snail in shallow water. .
Despite the danger, the uncertainty, and the charged awkwardness between them, Marielle’s tight chest eased. This room said rest. Relax. Regroup. She took the deepest breath she’d taken all day, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly.
After a moment, Omar cleared his throat.
She opened her eyes to see him watching her.
“Do you want to use the washroom first?”
She considered the question. “No you go. I’ll take another run at Hanna. See if she’ll tell me what she knows.”
He frowned. “Let’s wait until we can talk to her together. And we need to talk, too.”
“We do?” She played dumb.
He gave her a knowing look. “Yes, we do. About the safe house.”
“Right. No time like the present.”
Just then there was a soft knock at the door. Omar arched an eyebrow at the well-timed interruption, and yanked open the door
“So,” Hanna said, “there’s only one bathroom up here. Do you mind if I use it first? I won’t be long. I just need to rinse the salt water off before I put on Luc’s gorgeous clothes.”
“It’s all yours,” Omar told her.
Marielle’s stomach sank as he closed the door and turned back to her. So much for a reprieve.
“You were saying?”
She worked her jaw as she worked out how much to say. “I have reason to believe the safe house has been compromised.”
“Reason to believe?” he echoed. “What reason?”
“Can you just trust me? As your partner?”
He frowned. “I do trust you, Elle. But we have different areas of expertise. And I think it’s fair to say I’m the specialist in field work.”
“You are the specialist in field work,” she agreed. “And I’m the specialist in data interpretation. I received some data that I’ve interpreted to mean we shouldn’t go to the safe house.”
His frown turned into bewilderment. “What data? Did we get a covcom message I don’t know about?” He reached for the device in his bag.
She shook her head no.
“Another text from Chelsea?”
“No.”
“Are you seriously going to make me guess?”
There was no way to get him on board without telling him everything. And she really needed him on board.
She sank onto the edge of the bed and patted the duvet beside her. “Come. Sit next to me.”
He gave her a suspicious look but joined her.
She reached into her dry bag and pulled out the rose gold compact. “Do you remember how at the dinner, when I was pretending to be drunk, I made such a big deal out of my compact being ruined when I fell into the pool?”
He blinked at the apparent non sequitur before answering. “You said it was couldn’t be replaced because a dear friend gave it to you.”
“Right. That’s partially true.”
He rolled his neck from one side to the other, cracking it. “Which part?”
“Olivia gave it to me. But it isn’t ruined.”
“I don’t understand. Doesn’t it have blush or bronzer or something in there that got wet?”
“The makeup isn’t important.” She found herself reaching to push her glasses up on her nose and caught herself. Liv had once told her it was her tell when she was nervous. So she shoved her hands under her quads to resist the temptation.
“Marielle.”
His voice was a warning. He was losing patience.
“Look, it’s not a compact.”
He stared down at the shiny object balanced on her knee. “I think it is.”
“I mean, it is a compact, but it’s not just a compact.” She eased her hand out from under and picked it up. “It’s also a covert communication device.”
He rubbed his forehead. “What?”
She flipped it open, and the lighted mirror turned on. “See?”
“You’ve had a second covcom this entire time and didn’t tell me?”
She took a split second to consider various tacks to justify keeping it herself, but his thunderous expression convinced her to own it. “Yes. In my defense, I didn’t know myself until we were in the back of the limo on the way to the yacht and I popped it open to check my makeup.”
“You didn’t know Olivia gave you a covcom? I’m not following.”
“She didn’t tell me. She must have slipped in with the toiletries and makeup the operations team pulled together for me.”
“How do you know it was from Olivia and not the team?”
He poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the bureau and drained it in one gulp.
“Is your headache getting worse?”
He waved the question away. “It’ll get better once you spit out the rest of the story.”
Her chest tightened at his irritated tone. Unlike many of her colleagues, she didn’t thrive on conflict. She avoided it. But this was too important to run from.
“I thought it was a regular compact. But when I opened it up, the lights blinked a message.”
He inhaled loudly, more of an impatient snort than a breath.
She held up a hand. “Just listen, please. The message didn’t use the agreed-upon cipher for this mission. It was a different code.”
“What code?”
“It’s one we made up when we were at the Farm for training. We used it for silly things like setting up happy hours or telling each other funny stories that happened on our squad.”
His eyes softened. “Sounds like the CIA equivalent of middle schoolers passing notes in class.”
“Pretty much,” she agreed. “After our training, I forgot all about it—until that day she was having her driving lesson with Trent. I saw the burn notice before it went out, I violated—who knows how many workplace regulations and actual laws—to warn her she’d been burned.”
“How?”
“I hacked into her covcom and used our code.”
He considered this for a moment. “That was a big risk, Elle. You could have been charged with treason.”
“Yeah, well. She’s my friend, and she was being hung out to dry. I seem to remember you risked being charged with treason when Trent asked for your help when they were under fire at the lake house.”
She had him, and she knew it. The night they’d met, they’d both put loyalty to their friends over the job. She just had to trust he’d do the same for Hanna.
“Anyway, when I opened the compact, I had a message from Olivia using our code. But it wasn’t anything mission-related, so I didn’t see a reason to tell you.”
He held her gaze for a long, loaded moment. Then he said, “What was the message?”
“Omar—”
“I want to trust you. I really do. But if you hold out on me, I’m not sure how I can.”
She raised her chin, pulled back her shoulders, and spoke with as much dignity as she could muster. “If you must know, she was cheerleading me, letting me know she believed in me even though I didn’t have any field experience.”
His brown eyes went wide. “We all believe in you,” he said slowly.
“Clearly not. You said it yourself, I’m not an expert in the field. I’m a desk jockey.”
“That’s not what I meant. Everyone know you’re qualified, but you didn’t sign up—”
She cut him off. No need to delve into her insecurities. “Anyway, after Jake ordered us to abort the mission and abandon Hanna—”
“He didn’t say abandon Hanna,” he insisted.
“Regardless of the semantics, that’s what he wanted us to do. So I sent Olivia a coded message asking her to talk to him or to get Trent to talk to him.”
“You can’t play back-channel office politics while you’re undercover in an active mission, Marielle. You have to be focused solely on the mission.”
“I was focused on the mission.” Her voice was hot when she went on, “I am focused on the mission. Can you just let me finish, please?”
“Fine.” He threw his hands up in surrender. “Finish.”
“After I fell in the pool, I was a worried the device might stop working.”
“You shouldn’t have been. Our team’s the best. Waterproofing is child’s play for them.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Just before dinner, I opened the compact to touch up my lipstick, and I had a message. Poppy Jones was right next to me. She saw the light blinking.”
He nodded his head slowly, understanding. “That’s why you made up the story about the compact being broken. Because Brad’s bubble-headed pop star girlfriend saw the light flash.”
“She seemed very interested. So I made a big deal about it being on the fritz.”
“What was the message?”
She held his gaze. “Don’t go to the safe house.”
He looked at her. She looked at him. The room was so quiet she could hear the hum of bees’ wings in the overgrown herb garden below the open window.
A light rap on the door broke the silence.
Hanna’s voice floated in from the hallway. “I’m all done. Next up.”
Marielle popped to her feet, grabbed her borrowed clothes, and rushed off to the bathroom, leaving him to process what she’d said.