Chapter 10
Audra huddled into the fuzzy hoodie Sam had bought her and stared out the hotel window at the planes moving around the airport runways. There were still hours until bedtime—and she’d had a decent nap earlier—but she was exhausted. The adrenaline had ebbed and the effects of her injuries were kicking in. A fiery throb pulsed in her hip, and a drum line pounded a deafening tattoo in her head. She needed several more hours of solid sleep and some strong painkillers. She had ibuprofen and coffee. It would have to be enough.
Sam’s phone buzzed. She turned away from the window to look at him. In the light and not in some dark back alley, she could see how the years they’d been apart had aged him. There was a hardness to his eyes that wasn’t there before. He’d lost some weight but gained muscle, leaving his face more angular. Mostly, there was just a matureness about him that he didn’t have a decade ago.
He shifted in the desk chair he’d perched in earlier and removed his phone from his pocket to answer it. Putting it on speaker, he laid it on the desk. “Hello?”
“Sam, you have all of us on speaker,” a male voice said.
“Good. You’re on speaker too.” Sam looked at her. “With a friend of mine. Aud, say hi.”
“Hello,” she called.
“Well, hi,” the man said. “I’m Dean.”
“Ford,” another voice said.
“Edie,” came a woman’s voice.
“Max,” said another man.
“Asher,” a second man said.
“Jordan,” said yet another.
“Brooke. I’m the last one here,” another woman said.
Audra looked at Sam. “How many of you are there? I only remember five other names.”
“Brooke and Jordan aren’t part of the original group. Jordan is Edie’s husband. They’re the ones who got married when we ran into each other. Brooke is Ford’s fiancée,” Sam said.
“Wait, is that why you ran off at the jewelry store?” Ford asked. “Because you saw her?”
“Yes. Long story short, Audra and I knew each other a decade ago. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe it and had to verify it was her.”
“Okay, so what’s going on now?” Max asked.
Sam glanced at Audra. “Do you want to explain, or do you want me to?”
She got up and came over to sit on the bed by his chair. “I will.” Crossing her legs, she leaned her elbows on them. “My name is Audra Ridley. I work for the Secret Intelligence Service. I’m assuming with your backgrounds you all know what that is?”
There was a chorus of yeses until Jordan chimed in.
“Um, no. Civilian, here. I’m guessing you’re a spy, though? And British?”
“Yes. It’s what many people call MI6. We call it SIS. I’m in Las Vegas undercover as the fiancée of the head of the Irish mafia’s Vegas branch. Last night, someone tried to kill me.”
A collective murmur went through the line.
“Are you all right?” Brooke asked.
“I’m okay. A little banged up, but I’ll heal. I called Sam for help because I think my handler might be in on the plot to kill me. Two nights ago, we met so I could hand over some intelligence. Last night, he called to tell me he’d just chased someone out of my back garden and was now the one being pursued. I went to help him and was hit by a car. While I was lying on the pavement, barely conscious, I saw a man come up to me. He had on black trainers. Friday night, Theo—my handler—had on the same shoes. I don’t know if he was the one who came up to me last night, or if he did, but wasn’t the one to hit me and then ran because people were pursuing him too. I just have a gut feeling something isn’t right.”
“Why didn’t you contact your superiors? Or have you?” Ford asked.
“I did. She ordered me back to Britain. That’s a ridiculous notion. We’re very close to bringing down Liam Brogan—the Irish mob boss. Even if my cover’s blown, I’m a valuable asset to law enforcement here. No one has more knowledge of their operations than me.”
“Did she give you a reason why she wanted you to go back?” Edie asked.
“No. But there was a tension in her voice that bothered me. Like she was irritated.” Audra sighed. “I know my reasoning is thin, but I’ve spent my adult life reading people and situations. Something is off.”
“What’s your handler’s name?” Asher asked.
“Theo Anderson.”
“And where did you get hit by the car?”
She told him the area.
“Okay, thanks.”
Audra frowned and looked at Sam, a question in her eyes.
He smiled. “Asher’s the computer whiz, remember?”
Her expression cleared. “Ah. Yes. I don’t know what you hope to find with that information, though. He used an alias with everyone except me. And I don’t know what it is. That’s on purpose. I also doubt there are any news articles about my hit and run. Dee, my boss, would squash those stories.”
“I’m not looking for news. At least, that’s not all I’m looking for. Vegas has cameras. Everywhere.”
“Probably not there. It’s a ritzy part of town.”
“You’d be surprised. Did you get a look at the car that hit you?”
“No. They turned their headlights on just as I looked back and blinded me.”
“What else can you tell me about Theo?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Age. Background. Physical characteristics. Hobbies. All of it.”
Audra massaged her temples, the headache the ibuprofen had dulled roaring back to life. “He’s forty-two. Dark hair, hazel eyes. About six feet tall. Fit. He’s from Chipping Norton. Never married—that I know of—and no children. I don’t know about other family. He runs a lot and likes a good curry. We didn’t get all buddy-buddy, so I can’t tell you much more than that.”
“That’s plenty.” Asher’s voice sounded distracted.
“He’s busy now,” Dean said. “What can we do for you guys? What do you need?”
“Mostly for you all to use your contacts to make some discreet inquiries about who might want to go after an SIS officer,” Sam said. “We’re staying in… we’re staying here for… a few days, at least. Audra will be safe with me until we can stop Brogan and his goons. After that, we’ll see. Maybe come down there.”
She frowned at him. She’d noticed he tripped over words. He didn’t use to. And she could tell it bothered him; his jaw clenched and worked every time he stopped to think.
Audra pushed her questions about that to the side for now and turned back to the phone call. “If it is Brogan. If Theo’s involved, there might be a mole in the SIS. Maybe I got too close to unmasking them. Though I don’t know how. I haven’t come across anyone who raises my suspicions. Not like that, anyway. I have some files we need to go over. I took them off of Liam’s computer. Maybe there’s something there that will give us a clue.”
“Is it a hard copy or online?” Asher asked.
“Online.”
“Can you send it to me? I’ll start working on it.”
“If Sam will let me use his phone to log in to my cloud server, yes.”
Sam nodded. “Of course. We need to get you a new phone.”
“Okay,” Ford said. “Sam, send us your flight itinerary if you decide to bring her home with you. One of us will pick you up. If anything changes, let us know.”
“I will.”
Suddenly, Asher cursed.
“What?” Ford asked.
“We might have a problem. Vegas PD found a body near that park early this morning. No ID, but male. They estimate late-thirties. Dark hair, about six feet tall.”
With wide eyes, Audra met Sam’s gaze. “Oh, hell.”
“Oh, hell is right,” he said. “If that’s Theo, who’s the man in the black sneakers?”