CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The hospital released Camden the next day.
The CIA had offered another safe house.
Camden declined with a string of indignant obscenities that made his counterpart smirk.
Beth had even offered him another vehicle, but he wanted nothing that came from outside Titan.
Shah arranged for a vehicle and a cell phone.
Camden found the car in a designated location and pulled himself into the front seat.
His body ached like someone had used his sternum to stir up hot coals.
He didn’t know where he was going and didn’t have a plan.
Shah and Amanda suggested Titan’s US headquarters, but Parker hadn’t come up with new information to work on.
At least, that was the line everyone continued to feed him.
After running a series of red lights and making U-turns, Camden decided no tail was following him.
He pulled onto the highway.
His first order of business was to visit Esme.
He pulled up to the vacant-looking warehouse and parked next to her Mercedes.
The entrance was locked.
He scoured the building for doors.
Each was locked. Some were chained.
How couldn’t this place have security cameras?
He returned to the main entrance, pulled out his wallet, and withdrew a set of lockpick keys.
The tumblers were complicated, but alone with the sun shining, he had nothing but time.
The last tumbler fell, and he let himself inside.
The hall was cold and dark.
“Esme?” Camden wove through the familiar corridor.
“We need to talk.” He found her office with the slip of light showing under the door and banged on it.
“Esme, open up.”
The door opened, and unfazed, she looked at him as though he were a petulant child.
“I do business by appointment.”
“I want to know who the men were on your guest list.”
“I don’t—”
“Tell me.”
“Or what? You’ll yell at me? Hit me? Kill me?” She smiled sweetly.
“I’m not easy to take down.”
“Who are they?”
“I’ve told Beth everything I know.”
“That’s first-class bullshit.”
Esme returned behind her desk.
“I understand your girlfriend is gone.”
Girlfriend caught him off guard.
“You know where she is?”
“If I did, wouldn’t that be something I would have shared?” She steepled her fingers together.
“Let me ask you a question.” She gestured for him to take a seat, though he ignored her.
“Camden, if you want to talk shop, sit down or leave. There’s no situation where you will lord over me like that.”
His nostrils flared, but he sat down.
“What?”
“Tell me how you met.”
“No.”
“Titan was helping the CIA cover their ass, wasn’t it?” Her long fingernails tipped together under her chin as she hummed.
“The night when everything went down, Hailey didn’t call you. She didn’t talk to you, did she? Only Amelia?”
His molars ground together.
“What did she tell you that night?”
“Why?”
Esme shrugged.
“Maybe if I knew more, I could help.”
“She didn’t tell me anything.”
Her steepled fingers tapped together before she dropped them into her lap.
“I guess I can’t help.”
His phone rang.
“Feel free to answer,” Esme said.
He held the phone to his ear.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
Beth wasn’t who he expected to be on the other line.
“What do you want?”
“We have a problem.”
“We’ve had a lot of those lately.”
“There’s an issue with Esme.”
“You don’t say.” He held the phone against his ear and hoped the volume was low enough that Beth’s words didn’t travel.
“I can’t find that right now. Give me ten, and I’ll look.”
“Damn it, Camden,” Beth snapped.
“Are you with her?”
“Sure, yeah. I said I can look.”
“Call me when you leave.”
He hung up.
Camden shoved his phone into his pocket.
He didn’t like that Beth had his phone number.
Every time the CIA crossed paths with him, shit went down.
“Are you going now?” Esme arched an eyebrow.
“Or would you like to continue this unproductive back-and-forth?”
“If you know where Amelia is and don’t tell me, I’m going to find out and make your life miserable.”
Esme held his gaze.
“If I could tell you, I would.”
He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Esme.
Had he really thought he might find Amelia there?
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Relock the door on your way out.”
Camden’s chest ached.
It was more than the blisters and burns on his chest. He couldn’t find Amelia, and an ever-increasing panic had shredded his heart.
He retraced his steps and was momentarily blinded when he returned from Esme’s dungeon and into the sun.
Why did Esme want to know about the first night he’d spoken to Amelia?
Camden put the car in drive and tried to strangle the steering wheel.
He didn’t know where he was driving.
Camden could only think about the most blaring problem: His woman was missing.
He had no choice but to find her.
But then what after that?
His temples throbbed.
He would make sure she was safe, then the job would be over.
He would be heartsick, but one way or another, Amelia would have answers.
That was what mattered.
The main phone number from the Abu Dhabi headquarters appeared on the center dashboard as his phone rang.
He jabbed the screen.
“Yeah?”
“Are you driving?” Amanda’s voice flooded the car through the speakerphone.
“Yeah. Pulling onto the Beltway.”
She paused as though waiting for Camden to offer more details, but he didn’t have much of a plan.
“Where are you headed?”
“Don’t know yet,” he admitted.
“Do you know Beth Tourne is trying to find you?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to know what she wants?” Amanda pressed.
“I already have the gist. There’s an issue with a local contact.”
“Camden, are you okay?”
“No. Everything’s fucked. Amelia is missing, and we’ve got nothing but problems.” He checked traffic as he merged.
His phone buzzed.
“I sent you GPS coordinates.”
“To what?” The only answer he needed to hear was Amelia.
“I don’t know.”
Camden’s grip tightened.
“But that’s where you need to go,” Amanda said.
The call ended. Her message was displayed on the screen.
With one touch, the directions loaded.
He recognized the street name from the night he’d called in the emergency help request in Arlington, Virginia.
Twenty minutes later, Camden pulled onto the street.
Unmarked vehicles were parked in a driveway and on both sides of the road.
He parked behind one and spotted Beth’s Lexus.
What the hell was she doing here?
A man in a suit was guarding the front door and stopped Camden.
“I need to talk to Beth Tourne.”
He spoke into his shirtsleeve and waved him to one side.
“Stay here.”
A minute later, the door opened, and Beth gestured for him to step inside.
“It’s fine. He’s with me.”
Camden sidestepped the guard and, without saying hello, said, “We have an Esme problem.”
She gave him an annoyed look over her shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have gone to see her.”
“Why?” He stepped around agents holding imaging devices over the floor and against the baseboards.
A woman was standing on a step stool and imaging the ceiling.
“She’s on our payroll,” Beth explained.
“That wasn’t hard to figure out when you arranged for an introduction.”
“The problem is Esme might be on someone else’s payroll also.”
That stopped him cold.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know. Whoever killed Jonathan, Hailey, and their handler?”
They walked by the Dumonts’ home office.
No fewer than five agents were crammed into the space and tearing the desk and walls apart.
“But logic says if there were Russian sleeper agents working in her house of fun, then she might have something to do with that.”
They reached the kitchen.
A man was inspecting the inside of the oven.
All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out and stacked on the dining table as a young agent sat, tediously bagging what had to be dozens of items.
Camden gestured to the house.
“Why’s this happening now?”
“Jonathan’s dead.”
“As a doornail,” Camden confirmed.
“I went to his funeral.”
“Hailey’s missing. No body has surfaced. Amelia’s missing. Again, no body.”
Pinpricks of cold fear skipped over his shoulders.
“Why are you talking to me like this is news?”
“Forget whatever your situation with Amelia has become and think: Hailey and Amelia could have been sleeper agents, and the men ‘chasing’ her”—Beth put air quotes around “chasing”—“were her extraction team.”
His mouth fell open.
It snapped back into place.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Event planning in DC? That puts her in contact with highly targeted assets. It’s an angle we hadn’t considered.”
“So you’re telling me that you’re not looking for Amelia… but treating her like a target? A spy ?”
“Yes.”
“Goddamn, you people are so stupid.”
“If you and Jared Westin hadn’t interfered, she would still be in US custody.”
He smacked his hand against his forehead.
His heart raced at the absurdity.
“You’re insane. This is ludicrous.”
“Actually, it makes a lot of sense, but you’re too close to the situation.” Beth put her hands on her hips.
“She seduced you, Camden. She used you. And now, she and her sister are gone. Frankly, you’re lucky to be alive.”
Camden pressed his fingers to his temples.
He believed no part of Beth’s explanation.
“And that’s why you’re tearing apart this house? To find proof?” He shook his head.
“Why you destroyed Amelia’s house? Absolutely unbelievable.”
“Amelia’s condominium?” Beth pursed her lips but then shook her head.
“The Stone sisters are sleeper agents. They could have been radicalized in their teens and put to work during college. Their cover was blown. They killed Hailey’s handler and husband and disappeared with everything needed to prove the work Jonathan died for.”