Chapter 3
Ace
Under the guise of working to hinder the development of a Limaji intelligence agency, I’m busier than I should be since I’m not doing any such thing.
In fact, I’m working on helping them start it up.
It probably isn’t the most ethical thing I’ve ever done, but I know Erik and the royal family intimately.
We’re friends, and I was involved in helping him stay alive during his years in exile.
He's a good man who has the best interests of his country at heart, and while I don’t know what the CIA’s issue is with him wanting his own version of an intelligence agency, I literally have no way to stop him.
So now I’m bopping around Europe doing some reconnaissance here and a little intelligence there, but mostly I’m hanging out in Limaj, relaxing.
I’ve just gotten to the airport in Hiskale after one short but intense CIA mission in early December, anxious to head back to my room at the palace and get some rest, when my phone rings.
I’ve been up for nearly two days, but when a name I haven’t seen in years flashes on the screen, I answer it briskly. “Mrs. Barrow?”
“Andrew. Thank goodness I found you.”
“What’s wrong?” I know that sound, the panic in a person’s voice, telling me something is going on.
“I need your help.” She’s a normally stoic-sounding woman but that isn’t what I hear now.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s Shannon.”
“What?” My heart nearly stops, memories of a sweet, soulful kiss a long time ago fluttering through the windows of my mind like one of those old-fashioned flip books. “What’s going on?”
“She’s a teacher at a school in Germany now. She’s been in Cologne about a year and has been really happy there, but something weird is happening. I think she has a stalker.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, no, but I know my daughter and she’s worried. There’s nothing concrete, but there have been a lot of little things, and they keep happening. She’s been trying to make light of it, but she was freaked out earlier today and now I’m scared, Andrew.”
“I’m not sure what I can do, but tell me everything.”
“I need you to go to Germany and find out who’s tormenting her.”
“I can’t just pick up and go—”
“After her divorce, she moved to Germany to get away. It was messy and…embarrassing. I… That’s probably my fault, for being so hard on her, but I’m truly worried now and you’re the only person I could think of who might help us.
We don’t have anyone else now that her father’s gone. Please. If not for me, then for Wayne.”
I sigh, though it’s probably more on the inside than outside. I have a lot on my plate and don’t have time for a rich, beautiful damsel in distress.
Not even one whose kiss still haunts my dreams.
“Andrew? I have money. I’ll pay you anything you want. Just please, don’t let anything happen to her.”
I make an impulsive decision even though I’ll probably regret it.
“I don’t need or want money, but you have to text me everything you know about her life in Cologne,” I say after a moment.
“Phone number, address, email, the name of the school where she works, names of other teachers, bosses, boyfriends—anything and everything. A recent picture. I need as much detail as possible, especially if she’s denying there’s a problem. ”
“I’ll send everything right away.”
“I’ll be in touch.” I disconnect and make a call to my buddy Darryl “Chains” Carruthers, who runs Westfield & Carruthers Security in Las Vegas. I’ve worked with them on occasion and trust him implicitly.
“Hey, it’s me. I need any information you can dig up on a woman named Shannon Barrow. Approximately thirty-one years old, daughter of the late Senator Wayne Barrow. It’s important.”
* * *
I arrive in Cologne the same night and check into a hotel.
I need some rest before I delve into whatever this is.
The truth is that I’m not sure if I want to see Shannon or not.
Our short encounter a decade ago is one of those memories you romanticize until it’s the end-all of everything: women, relationships, expectations, the lot of it.
I’ve kissed Shannon in my dreams a hundred thousand times since then, and I’d fucked more than one woman pretending she was Shannon. That’s neither healthy nor fair, to the women I’ve bedded or to myself, and my gut tells me seeing Shannon will only rip that wound open.
It isn’t really a wound. More of a faded scar.
Something small but momentous that you forget about until the occasional itch reminds you it’s there.
Shannon isn’t an itch, though, and the memory never faded.
I’ve thought of her more often than I want to admit, and knowing she’s here, just half a mile or so down the road, is going to drive me nuts.
As tired as I am, after going without sleep for forty-eight hours, I still toss and turn. After about five hours, I give up and get out of bed, showering then pulling on clean clothes.
I hit the street and smile. Cologne is a great little town, and I’ve been here on more than one occasion.
It’s December, so the Christmas markets are open and even early in the morning I catch a whiff of pastries baking.
It’s a wonderful time of year to be in this part of the world.
I love Europe any time of year and often toy with the idea of retiring here someday, but the weeks leading up to Christmas are special.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to spend the holidays with someone I’m in love with, but it’s too dangerous in my line of work.
Cologne is just as I remembered it, and I smile to myself as I walk down the street Shannon lives on.
Her apartment building is small but a bit more modern than some of the others.
The front doors are locked, offering a modicum of security, and I pause to try them, just in case.
Definitely locked, which is good. The street is lined with cars, which means it’s a busy area, and a quick glance in either direction tells me traffic will pick up as people get ready for work.
According to Shannon’s mother, she doesn’t have a car. The school where she works is about six blocks away, and I head in that direction. There’s a bakery up ahead, and I can’t help but go in, smiling at the pleasant-faced woman behind the counter.
“Good morning,” I tell her in German. I order coffee and indulge in a pastry, taking both to go as I continue down the street. It’s chilly this morning, and the coffee feels good in my hands.
Shannon’s mother said she usually leaves for work about seven thirty, and it’s just seven now, so I plan to be settled somewhere I can watch her approach the school.
It will hopefully allow me to see if anyone is following her.
I hope not, but that’s why I’m here, after all.
If I can get rid of the guy or at least find out what’s going on and turn him over to the police, maybe I won’t have to talk to Shannon at all.
I can update Mrs. Barrow and go back to Limaj without aggravating any of my virtual scars.
That’s laughable.
I’ll be able to stay away from her about as well as I was able to ignore her mother’s plea for help. Samantha Barrow wouldn’t have called me if she didn’t think Shannon’s fears were legitimate, and I’m not going to let anything happen to her.
Not on my watch.
I find the school and check out possible vantage points across the street. There’s an office building that would be perfect if it wasn’t locked up tight. I could get in, of course, but this isn’t an official mission and I need to be discreet until I know what’s going on.
I’m just about to cross the street when I see her.
She’s walking briskly, a calf-length maroon coat pulled tight around her.
Her hair is in a loose braid down her back, and she isn’t wearing glasses, which makes me smile.
She’s as beautiful as I remember, a decade older but as sweet as ever.
She smiles at someone she passes on the street, and it lights up her whole face.
When she pauses to pet a dog that runs toward her, my gut clenches a little as I fight off the urge to call her name.
It’s disconcerting that she still has the same effect on me that she had the night I met her.
I’m usually better than this.
What is it about this woman?
She speaks to a few people as she walks up the steps to the school and then disappears inside and out of sight. I scan the street and there doesn’t appear to be anyone watching or following her, though I wouldn’t be able to see them if they were indoors somewhere looking through a window.
Well, that answers my first question.
Now it’s time to get to work.
* * *
I go back to my hotel, change into generic clothes that will make me look like a repairman of some kind, pick up a few supplies and head back to her apartment building.
I get in quickly and easily, which is good for me but bad for her, and get a feel for the place, the basic layout, and how she lives. Her apartment is a little harder to get into since she has multiple locks, but it doesn’t take that long.
The place is definitely a woman’s apartment, filled with bright colors, plants, and feminine touches.
There are red and pink throw pillows on the couch, a turquoise afghan hanging over what looks like an antique rocking chair, and white lacy curtains on the windows.
I do a sweep, checking for bugs or anything out of the ordinary, and slip out without drawing any attention to myself.
I tend to do things like this at night, but Shannon will be home then and I have no choice but to do it now.
I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon scouring over every aspect of Shannon’s life.
Her social media pages, phone records, email, bills, everything.
Samantha gave me a ton of information and Chains did a good job running her name through every system he has access to.
She isn’t a criminal and doesn’t have a record, so I focus instead on her daily life, spending habits, and social life.
I feel a little guilty about invading her privacy like this, but that’s the only way to get some insight on what might be going on.
Of course, I can’t deny I’m curious.
She doesn’t post a lot, mostly when she travels, but her feed has a spattering of fun photos of her with some of the people in her life.
Skiing in Switzerland with friends, shopping in New York with her mother, biking in a vineyard somewhere in France.
She seems happy and healthy, though her posts are few and far between, and she appears to spend most of her time with the same few people.
I dig into her ex-husband next.
Douglas Maynard is a thirty-five-year-old Washington, D.C. attorney. His wedding just last month to another lawyer at his firm was all over the gossip pages and I scowl as I scroll through the photos. He’s dorky looking while his new wife is extremely attractive.
Not prettier than Shannon, of course, but one of those women who has every hair in place and her makeup spray-painted on. She’s pretty, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Shannon in my opinion.
I’m probably happier than I should be that Shannon is single, but I need to see what there is to see with her ex. There are quite a few references to their divorce but the details are sketchy. Someone cheated, but D.C. gossip columnists didn’t call either of them out specifically.
My gut tells me it wasn’t Shannon.
Nothing raises any red flags, so I log off my laptop and grab my coat. I want to be outside the school when Shannon leaves, just to get a feel for her routine. I’m doing some of what I’m trained to do, but this isn’t a mission. This is personal.
There’s a part of me that desperately wants to look at her, lose myself in a wonderful fantasy about the one who got away. Hell, she was never mine, but for several hours one night I pretended she was. Somehow, the idea dug itself into my psyche and never let go. I’m not usually such a romantic.
In fact, I’ve never been much of a romantic at all, so this pull to Shannon doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I pick up my pace and try to focus. I need to find out what’s going on, not lose myself in memories. And the sooner I do it, the sooner I can get back to the real world—one that doesn’t include a blonde with big blue eyes.