Chapter 6 #2
“Oh.” So, Ezra could potentially still be alive? Doubtful, but she’d hang on to hope whenever possible.
“They’re also poring over Ezra’s old case files from his time at the CIA station in France,” Wyatt added.
“Ezra’s mom was from the Gaza Strip, and his father was a French national.
After his parents were killed in one of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts years ago, he was raised by his aunt in Paris. ”
“Which was why he worked with the Agency. He was an optimist hoping to bring peace to the region. All Ezra ever wanted was for both sides to get along,” Harper said with a solemn tone, remembering only a few details about him.
“After you find the driver, maybe you should look over Ezra’s files, too?
” Wyatt stood and tugged at the brim of his black ball cap.
“Zack didn’t want to talk about Ezra’s past involvement with the CIA when he was here with us, and not even Director Spenser seems all that ready to share.
He told Natasha the details of Ezra’s past cases in France are most likely not connected to our current assignment.
Spenser’s lack of communication makes me all that more curious about what happened before Ezra left the Agency and went off-the-grid in 2018. ”
With Ezra presumed dead, Wyatt was asking her to tell him what she knew about Ezra from their time together at the CIA. What would she say?
It was a black hole in her mind. And now she’d have to confess to the team she was having issues with her memory.
She also had a bad feeling Spenser’s refusal to share had less to do with Ezra’s old cases being unrelated and more to do with them being highly classified and “need to know,” even for their team.
“You don’t remember,” Roman said in that bone-chilling voice he’d used back in the bedroom.
A.J. set the laptop on the coffee table, stood, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Chris and Finn took a step away from the window. The only two people sitting were her and Roman, and they were now partaking in a staring contest.
“Or do you not want to tell us?” Roman’s forehead tightened.
“It seems to me you’re the only one keeping secrets,” she blurted and regretted it immediately.
“I’m sorry.” She directed her apology toward Wyatt, not the man who made her feel a little crazy right now.
“Memories keep coming and going sort of like a dream you start to remember but then can’t,” she tried to explain in the only way she knew how.
“I’ll be fine soon.” She stood and grabbed A.J.
’s laptop. “Let me focus on tracking down the driver for now. I’m sure Natasha can press her dad to get Spenser to talk and keep Zack from interfering with our work. ”
“If not, maybe we call in the big guns,” A.J. said. “Have Knox phone his pops. POTUS may not even know since he wasn’t President back then, but he can find out.”
“They’ll talk. We have a terrorist attack to stop, which is more important than keeping secrets.” Chris’s words had Roman’s attention swinging toward him, and Harper’s stomach sank.
“There are plenty of people tracking the possible target for the attack and who might be responsible,” A.J. said a moment later. “Our mission is to find the driver and confirm Ezra is really dead. I’m sure we’ll piece everything together.”
She started to turn for her room, opting to work alone but stilled at the memory of Zack showing up at her apartment last week to alert her that Ezra had contacted the Agency.
Eyes closed, she held the now-closed laptop to her chest and tried to latch on to the memory.
Valentine’s Day. She’d insisted Roman come over and watch a movie.
Attempt number—she had no clue—at being friends again.
If we can survive Valentine’s and not tear each other’s clothes off, we can survive anything, she remembered texting him, and he’d responded with an emoji rolling his eyes, his way of saying thanks for putting that image in my head without actually saying it.
But he’d shown up. He hadn’t let her be alone on such a romantic holiday.
Not even two minutes into the movie Peppermint with Jennifer Garner and the call button signaling she had a visitor had gone off. Zack tried to speak to her in private, and Roman being Roman refused to let another man pull her away from him.
But damn it . . . that was eventually bound to happen, wasn’t it? If they couldn’t be together, she had no plans on being single late in her life with a mountain of regrets. Even in her foggy state, she knew that much.
“What do you remember?” It was Finn this time breaking through her daze. Roman seemed to still be stuck in silence after she accused him of keeping secrets in front of the team, which she already hated herself for doing.
“I, um, remember when Zack showed up to my place last week and mentioned Ezra making contact, but he’d said Ezra would only talk to me.
And then he ordered me to keep a case from 2018—can’t remember which one—to myself.
He thought you were civilians, but I guess from the sounds of it, even Spenser would prefer you not to know.
” She pivoted back to face the room, and when Roman found her eyes, she nearly mouthed, I’m sorry.
“Nothing else?” Wyatt asked, and Chris elbowed him in the side as if a reminder not to press, but what choice did Wyatt have? They couldn’t let people die because her memories were shitty and she needed time to heal.
“Something is bothering me,” A.J. suddenly said, stepping around the coffee table.
“Why not kill Zack and Harper as well? If someone knew Ezra was meeting with the CIA, why let them walk away? And why the big show with the explosion?” He held a hand up in apology for suggesting the mystery driver kill her, too.
“Unless they were simply taunting us. Letting us know we can’t stop them.” Chris finished his coffee, crushed the paper cup into a ball inside his hand, and tossed it into the trash.
A.J. shook his head. “Terrorists don’t pass up a chance to kill CIA officers, not without a damn good reason.”
“Then they must have had a reason,” Roman said, breaking his silence, and that thick, deep tone of his had her skin pebbling.
She swallowed and did her best to hold his eyes without blinking. “Then I guess we better find out why.”