Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Harper had her wireless earbuds in and listened to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman as she worked.
She’d watched the movie with Emily and Liam’s eleven-year-old daughter, Elaina, a few weeks ago when she visited them in D.C.
After that, she was hooked and played the song Rewrite the Stars on repeat, trying to convince herself it wasn’t about her and Roman.
At her request, Chris had hauled the desk in the suite’s living room over by the window to take advantage of the warm sunshine filtering in as she worked.
She was trying to pin down more information about Mauricio while waiting for Director Spenser to send over all the files connected with Ezra.
She wanted to go over them again herself on the off chance the Agency had missed a connection.
Not that Harper needed that intel anymore. Now that her memories had returned, the details were crystal clear and more painful than ever.
Part of her wanted to reveal the truth to the team now with Roman away from the suite. Wouldn’t it be easier to share her ugly past mistakes without him there looking at her with pity in his eyes?
Roman had left twenty minutes ago to talk to Carmen and his uncle. After his comment about there being a strained relationship between his uncle and his dad, a lot more made sense about Roman.
The fact that he never talked about his father’s side of the family in Spain but had no problem talking about his mom’s side in Brazil.
And how he’d acted as though he’d rather wear wet boots for a week than ask his uncle for help scoring them tickets to an event in Monaco when they were there at New Year’s for an op—not that he’d admitted that.
Staying in this hotel must not be easy for him. How could she not want to poke and prod to learn more about what happened between his dad and uncle, though?
It was in her nature to get to the root cause of problems, which was why she’d probably tried one too many times to get the man to open up last year while they’d been sneaking around. But I didn’t tell him about Brandon, she guiltily reminded herself.
In her defense, if she’d told him about Brandon, she’d have violated her oath to her previous boss, Linda Walsh, the Inspector General of the CIA. Harper would have been sent to join the likes of traitors sitting inside CIA black sites, erased from history.
Now that Natasha had informed Harper she had the approval to share with Echo Team, would she be able to stomach telling them?
Would they look at her differently? Would Roman?
Harper reached for the necklace tucked beneath her tee and palmed the pendant.
She shouldn’t have even brought it with her to Spain or risked wearing it now, but when she’d opened her suitcase earlier and spied it in her small travel jewelry box, the memories of when Roman had given it to her flooded to mind.
And she’d slipped it on against her better judgment.
“You okay?” She peeked at Chris now hovering by the desk with his cell to his ear, and she hurriedly hid the pendant beneath her tee.
“I’m fine.” Removing one earbud, she mouthed, “Rory?”
Chris had fallen in love with Rory back in October when she’d been brought in to help train their new K9. Little did anyone know, her time with Chris would turn into quite the adventure. For Harper and Roman, too.
The four of them had been kidnapped, shipwrecked, dealt with smugglers and pirates . . . and then pretty much kidnapped again by a former CIA officer gone rogue. She highly doubted anyone would believe the story even if Harper was allowed to share it.
Now, Rory and Chris were engaged, and Rory not only worked with their dog, Bear, but helped train other service animals as well.
“She good?” Harper asked.
“Yeah, she and Ana were having lunch in D.C. with Adriana, but then Adriana started tossing her cookies, which resulted in Ana feeling queasy, and so they bailed.” Chris grimaced at the image.
Adriana was Knox’s wife and the President’s daughter-in-law, and she was also four months pregnant. Knox and Adriana had only shared the news two weeks ago, and against Knox’s requests, Adriana refused to step back from her work in Secret Service, despite her heavy bouts with nausea.
“Tell them I said hi.” She smiled and returned her earbud to focus back on her laptop, needing to lose herself in her work.
So far, Mauricio appeared to be a normal guy.
After prison, he bounced around to oddball jobs before finally securing a sous chef position at an eatery in the city three months ago.
Why throw it all away to kidnap and kill a guy?
Something didn’t add up. Sous chef by day and hired hitman by night?
Wielding the knife in the kitchen and—okay, Harper, stop yourself there.
“They say they’re glad you’re okay,” Chris added loud enough for her to hear before leaving her side.
The rest of the guys were in their rooms, making calls, reaching out to old sources. Basically, doing what they did best. Trying to put the pieces together to assemble the picture.
Harper closed out of her secure browser a few minutes later, frustrated she was coming up with a big fat nada. Mauricio was almost too clean, aside from a parking ticket, and well, manslaughter. Whoever killed him had most likely used Mauricio as a pawn in a much larger game.
She was tempted to hit repeat on the same song, but she resisted. I need to move on. At least move forward.
Harper snatched her personal phone and sent out a quick text to Roman, unable to stop herself. Probably the opposite of what she should have been doing.
Harper: Any luck?
Okay, so he hadn’t left too long ago, but knowing Roman, he’d be in and out of Luciano’s place within five minutes.
Roman: Luciano was at his home outside the city having lunch with Carmen. Almost to his house.
Luciano. Lucifer. Pretty close. Was his uncle the devil to Roman?
Roman: You have any luck?
Harper: Not yet.
She stared at the dots appearing, then disappearing as he wrote.
Harper: Tell me something.
Roman: What?
Harper: Anything.
A minute went by.
Roman: America’s first roller coaster in New York was built to try and distract people from saloons and brothels.
A smile cut across Harper’s lips almost immediately at the random fact. And then she found herself getting hung up on the word brothel.
Thoughts of her and Roman in some harem-looking room from the set of Game of Thrones came to mind. A ridiculous fantasy, especially since Asher, not Roman, looked like the actor Jason Momoa from that show. Okay, new fantasy.
They were in Italy at the height of the Roman Empire, and Roman was reclining on a pile of brightly colored pillows on the floor, watching her dance naked for him. His chest covered in a sheen of sweat, his eyes hungry for her.
He’d be impatient. Unable to keep from touching her, he’d stand to his full height and set his warm palms on her skin and flip her over. Take her hard as the guards heard her moans from outside.
Harper bowed her head, admonishing herself for allowing that single word to steal her thoughts and send them in an inappropriate direction. But it had helped. She wasn’t thinking about Brandon or her failure to discover something about Mauricio that would help the team.
She looked down at her phone to see he’d sent another random fact.
Roman: Volcanoes were erupting on the moon when dinosaurs were still alive.
Harper: Give me one more.
This was their old routine. She knew reciting facts helped calm Roman, and last June, she started asking him to share random facts with her whenever she felt herself starting to spiral.
Roman: Cut a cactus down in Arizona, and you can go to jail for up to 25 years.
Harper: Thank God you told me all that. I’ll never look at roller coasters again without thinking about seedy brothels.
She blushed at what the word brothel had really brought to mind.
Harper: And I’ll never wind up in jail because I just crossed off cutting down a cactus from my bucket list.
Roman: Happy to help.
Harper: By the way, I was engaged to a traitor. And he’s the reason why I doubt myself sometimes, and why I don’t always trust my judgment. But after you came into my life, I realized I never loved him.
Harper read her insane message and deleted every last word instead of sending it.
Roman: Sorry about this morning. I struggle around you. It’s hard.
Her heart may have skipped a beat at his text, and she resisted her normal impulse to make a pun. To tell him she’d been aware of how hard he’d been earlier.
But Roman was sharing his feelings, and maybe it was through a text, but that was still a big deal for him.
Kind of huge, actually. And, of course, she knew how hard it was for him, but he didn’t usually verbalize (or write) his feelings.
Emojis, sure. Lots of shrugs, eye-rolls, and a few yellow guys with their tongues sticking out. The tongue one always her favorite.
Harper: It’s hard because we’re supposed to be together.
She considered hitting delete again, but screw it, she hit send.
She swiveled in her chair to ensure no one was watching her texting Roman when she ought to be following her nonexistent leads.
After two minutes with no response, she set her personal phone down as her work phone rang. Natasha’s name lit up on the screen.
“Hey.” More bad news?
“I wanted to let you know that I followed up on Zack’s story,” Natasha began, and Harper heard the low chatter of voices off in the distance. Jessica and Bravo Team. “Can you talk?”
“Yeah.” For the moment, she was alone in the living room.
“According to forensics, it was definitely Brandon that died last summer in Nicaragua. Zack’s statement checks out. Spenser sent me the autopsy photos, and I was wondering . . .”
Natasha wanted her to confirm for herself it was Brandon on a cold hard slab, didn’t she? “Opening my email now.”
“Thank you. Sorry to ask.”
“It’s not seeing his dead body that bothers me,” she said under her breath, anger coiling tight in her stomach and working up into her chest to make her heart thump harder. It’s what that asshole did that keeps me up at night.
The images downloaded a moment later, and Harper rolled back from the desk a few inches as she took in the sight of her ex-fiancé with his eyes closed, his hair disheveled, bruises all over his face and neck.
He’d survived the initial helicopter crash only to later die of internal bleeding from the accident. Well, that’s what Zack had told her.
She felt nothing other than remorse and regret looking at Brandon. Not an ounce of sadness for the son of a bitch.
“That’s him,” she confirmed after swallowing a lump full of bitterness. But she’d had a job to do, and she’d done it, regardless of the costs.
“Unless he rose from the dead and zombies are the new thing for 2022, then Brandon is most likely not connected to whatever is going on now,” Natasha said, trying to help lighten the mood, knowing how hard this was for Harper. “But that only rules out Brandon. There were other players involved.”
“They’re all still in black sites, according to Zack.”
“And if you all missed someone back then? You and Ezra were responsible for—”
“I know, but I was good at my job. There’s no one else.” She paused. “And you know as well as I do that the CIA used their best interrogation tactics on Brandon and the others to make sure of that.”
Natasha was quiet for a few seconds. “Someone knew Ezra reached out to the Agency, and—”
“We can only speculate, but I’ll take a look at all cases connected to Ezra from our time working together.”
“I hate to say this, Harper, but I think someone knew he was meeting with you, specifically, and that person wanted you to watch Ezra die.” She let the words fall out slowly as if worried about the impact.
“If that’s the case, we need to find out why they’d let me walk away.” Harper slowly rose from her chair. “And then stop them from doing whatever they have planned next.”