20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Ashley
“ H e’s here?” I question in a low whisper, the smell of coffee and baked goods lifting in the air, while fear settles in my belly. In hindsight, I’m not sure how good of an idea it was to bring Smith to Aaron when Aaron hates him.
“Yes,” Aaron says, “he’s here. I want to watch him for a few minutes.”
“He won’t give you anything to question,” I say. “He’s a good man. I can’t say that enough. Even if he was going to betray you, he wouldn’t make it obvious.”
“There are tells,” Aaron says. “Things I’ll teach you to read. Things you need to know to survive.”
“What is he doing?”
“Looking around. Looking for you.” But Aaron doesn’t look at me. He watches Smith. “Go talk to him,” he finally says. “He’s probably wearing a wire. He’ll lie and say he’s not if you ask him. Assume he is. Always assume the person you’re dealing with is wired. In other words, don’t tell him who I am.”
“Then what do I say?”
“Tell him you want him to meet a friend.”
“But he’ll still be wired. What good will that do?”
“Just do it, baby.”
I inhale and let out my breath before standing up. I turn, and right as I do, Smith steps in front of me. He’s found us and now he’s assessing me and me him. He’s tall, with sandy brown hair and warm brown eyes, just the way I remember him. Today, he’s in a T-shirt and jeans with a leather jacket that I’m sure hides a gun. “Hi, stranger,” I say. “Thanks for coming.”
“Who’s the man?”
“Someone who needs your help. I need your help. I told him we could trust you, which is why I need you to take off the wire I know you’re wearing.”
His eyes narrow. “Tell me you’re not in trouble.”
“I’ve been in trouble. That’s how we met. He’s not my problem. Please, Smith. Pull the wire and show him you did it. Then we’ll tell you everything.”
“Are you afraid for your safety?”
“I’m afraid for both of our safety. That’s why we came to you. Please do this for me.”
He inhales and looks skyward before he yanks out the earpiece he’s wearing. “That’s all I’m wearing. Let’s sit down.”
I nod, and the minute I turn, Aaron is on his feet, taking my hand and pulling me around to his side of the table. He and Smith step to the table, facing each other. “Who are you?” Smith demands, “and why should I trust you?”
“You know who I am, and I stayed away until I got word that they were trying to kill her to get to me. I saved her. And now, I’ve lost the only person outside of her I trusted in the process.”
“Who is they? Who is trying to kill her, if not you?”
“Let’s sit,” Aaron says.
“Yes, please,” I plead. “Let’s sit.”
The two men stare at each other several more beats and then as if they’d agreed when I see no signs that they did so, they sit. Then I sit. “He’s telling the truth,” I say. “He was setup and then his mentor tried to kill me. If Aaron hadn’t come for me—I’d be dead.”
Smith looks at me, eyeing me for several long beats before he looks at Aaron. “What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know. I exposed my real name to Ashley, but that’s not enough to put me on a hit list. All I can think is that this is about a case I was working on before I was setup. I got close to something that hit high levels of the CIA. I needed to be out of the picture.”
“You’re saying the CIA is dirty?”
“Oh, come on,” Aaron says. “Like it’s hard to believe. Our level of dirty is filthy. And you have to know that. I can’t trust anyone. Hell, I don’t want to trust you .”
“Then why are you?”
“I have the money and resources to disappear and live well, but I want more for Ashley. I want to know that we aren’t living as hunted animals. She doesn’t deserve that and that’s why I stayed away. I needed to make this go away before I went after her.”
“And yet, here we are,” Smith says dryly. “And here she is.”
“There’s a hit out on her, which is obviously about me. They wanted to lure me out of the shadows, and it worked.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Ashley believes you have the resources to help me make that happen.”
“We have the resources to help,” he says. “The question is: should we? We can take Ashley. We can protect her.”
“No,” I object. “That’s not happening. I’m staying with him, with or without your help.”
Smith narrows his eyes on me. “He lied to you.”
“He was on a mission. I was part of it. I was a way to get to a client my law firm was dealing with.”
“He used you, and you feel good about this?” Smith challenges.
“People meet with a side agenda all the time, Smith. They don’t plan to fall in love.”
“And I do love her,” Aaron says, “with all my heart.”
Smith’s gaze shoots accusations at Aaron. “Or, you’re still using her to get to the target at her firm.”
“I’m no longer CIA. They’re hunting me. I have no reason to go after that client except one: to find out why that investigation led us here, where we are now.”
Smith shifts his attention back to me. “You need to think about Cole and Lori.”
“I am thinking about them,” I argue. “Someone tried to smoke Aaron out. There’s every reason to believe they’ll do that through me and my people next. This has to end.”
“Keeping this small is important,” Aaron says. “If one person in your operation is dirty, and don’t tell me no one is, because everyone has dirty people involved, lives could be lost.”
Smith scrubs his clean-shaven jaw. “I have to talk to the Walker brothers. Who was the client you were investigating?”
Aaron shakes his head. “I need to meet your bosses before I give you anything. I’m not risking the people Ashley cares about getting hurt because I named a name to the wrong people.”
Smith scowls. “How do I reach you?”
“You don’t. We’ll reach you.” Aaron stands up and takes me with him. “You have twelve hours and then we leave the city.” Aaron pulls me around the table and doesn’t stop. He’s a bulldozer, driving me forward and through the restaurant.
We exit to the streets, and he holds me close, cutting right. “Don’t look. Man in the leather jacket by the pole. He’s a problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s not your friend’s friend.” We cut down a side street, and my heart is suddenly racing, adrenaline pumping.
“What are we doing?”
“Finding out what he wants.” Aaron turns right to a main street again and stops at a bagel shop. “Go inside. Wait on me.”
“No, I—”
He kisses me. “Do as I say. Now. This is how you stay alive. You listen. You let me do what I do.”
I swallow hard, and because I have no choice, I enter the bagel shop and pray Aaron comes back alive. I walk to the back of the shop and sit down. A few seconds later, Smith walks in. I rush to him. “Someone was following us. Please. Go help Aaron.”
“I know someone was following you,” he says. “And no. I’m not going to help Aaron.”