Chapter 45
Lancelot
The divan—the little couch in the mid-cabin—had been mine on the way over. I’d claimed it before we cleared the runway, stretched out with my ankles crossed and my hands behind my head while Arthur delivered the close protection briefing to a woman he was trying hard not to ogle.
But on the flight back? Arthur was on the divan with his arm around that same woman and her head tipped against his shoulder. Both of them were bruised, bandaged, and completely unbothered by having me as an audience.
I was at the worktable in the aft cabin with my laptop, doing what I did best—making us look good. Or trying to, given that ninety percent of what had actually happened was classified under an agreement with a secret society.
“Okay, here’s the concept I’ve got so far,” I said, loud enough for them to hear over the engines.
“The FBI and Caine-Ferraro retained Round Table Security to provide close protection for their authentication specialist during a high-value engagement in England. RTS personnel accompanied Dr. Lyons through multiple research sites, ensuring the safe transport of the artifact and the security of her proprietary findings.”
“Proprietary findings,” Gwen repeated. “That makes it sound like I discovered a new toothpaste flavor.”
“Would you prefer ‘groundbreaking scholarly conclusions of immense historical significance we’re not allowed to talk about’?”
“I’d prefer something that doesn’t make me sound like a press release.”
“You’re literally in a press release. That’s what I’m writing.”
Arthur laughed. He hadn’t been this relaxed in years, which was impressive, considering the state of him.
At least he’d finally conceded to a country doctor stitching him up at the cottage this morning.
I’d practically dragged Arthur into the kitchen chair for that.
The man had eight ghost operators, a private jet, and his father’s entire security apparatus at his disposal, and he still needed his best friend to make him sit down for medical attention.
“Keep it vague,” Arthur said. “The authentication is real-ish and will be on file soon enough. Everything else stays out.”
“Obviously.” I scrolled through my draft, highlighting section after section I’d need to gut. “And I’m assuming we don’t mention the creepy caretaker.”
Arthur breathed out through his nose. “No.”
“What did your father say?”
Arthur adjusted his arm around Gwen, more careful of her injuries than his. He shook his head slowly, conveying the truth I’d suspected—Ethan Fowley would not be an issue for the Penn family again.
I barely remembered my own parents, but I knew Arthur’s well. In fact, I probably knew more about Gerald Penn in his role as the owner of Pendragon Security than Arthur’s mother did. He was cold and calculating, and that was on his better days.
“So nothing about the Custodians, the cave, the sword’s deeper history, or Ethan.” I leaned back in my chair. “What am I allowed to say? The weather was nice?”
“It rained a lot,” Gwen said.
“Right. Shitty weather.” I typed for a while, reworking the opening paragraphs to say absolutely nothing in the most professional way possible.
Across the cabin, Arthur whispered into Gwen’s ear.
She turned her face up toward his, and he brushed his thumb across her cheek.
She smiled. Small, private, aimed at him alone.
They’d had eyes for each other since we’d first walked into the storage room at Ferraro’s. Some kind of magic had been at work between them, though it took me a few days to accept it.
Good for them.
“All right,” I said, pulling up a new section. “I need an academic, but accessible, summary of the item we were protecting.”
“The authentication confirmed the blade was seventh-century Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship.” She straightened and turned to face me.
Her jaw set stubbornly, despite the bruises that made me want to punch Rick Younge’s injured leg.
“The earliest verified owner was an eighteenth-century collector named Sir Edmund Hargrove of Hertfordshire, who was inspired by local traditions to have the pommel recast based on an inscription at a church near his home.”
Arthur kissed the side of her head. Giving the falsified conclusion had cost her so much, but it had bought her freedom. What if we’d had a few more hours to breach the safe room? Could we have gotten her out with the sword, so she could have told the whole story?
“I’ll take that,” I said. “Arthur, a quote from you?”
“Round Table Security was honored to support the authentication process. Our team’s priority was ensuring the safety of both the specialist and the artifact.”
“Boring, but usable.”
“That’s the idea.”
I typed it up. The press piece was thin, but it was all I had.
The real story would have been the kind of PR that put a company on the map.
Instead, I had a few bland lines and an awful weather report.
But the agreement was the agreement. And the woman curling up on the divan with my best friend was more important than any headline.
It was possible I’d originally wanted to take the job because I wasn’t over her. Possible, but no way it was true, because that wasn’t how I rolled. Relationships weren’t worth the risk.
My phone buzzed on the table. I glanced at it and put it on speaker. “Hey, Morganna. You’re on with me, Arthur, and Gwen. What have you got for us?”
Arthur shifted on the divan, wincing as his ribs caught up with the movement. He started to stand.
“Sit down.” I brought my phone to the forward cabin and turned one of the empty chairs around so it faced the injured couple. “There. Now nobody has to move.”
Arthur settled back, equal parts grateful and annoyed. The man had no idea how to let people take care of him.
“How’s the flight?” Morganna asked.
“Smooth. Arthur looks like he lost a bar fight, Gwen looks like she won one, and I look incredible as always.”
“I’m sure you do,” our favorite intelligence analyst drawled. “Listen, I was going to run some more queries on Hopkins, but your cryptic message last night made me reconsider. Want me to stay on him?”
“We agreed to drop it.” Arthur gave Gwen a rueful smile. “Which means you have to, as well, Morganna.”
“I can wipe his hard drive? Set a virus to crawl their digital networks?”
“I appreciate the offer,” he chuckled. “But no, we’re closing the door on Theo Hopkins.”
“Too bad. But on the upside, I’ve found the journalist.”
Arthur leaned forward. “Shit, seriously?”
“Celine Bonicelli. Multitalented correspondent, freelance, based in D.C. She used a staff pseudonym for the Crécy piece, but the access she had to Arthur’s military service records narrows the source pool considerably.
I cross-referenced her bylined work against the pseudonymous publication dates and found scheduling overlaps the magazine didn’t bother to obscure.
Once I had the timing pattern, confirming her identity was straightforward.
I’ve traced two of the three possible sources inside the military records system, but the third? It’s all pointing toward Rick Younge.”
Fuck. I looked at Arthur. “He was after you before Gwen stumbled over the Custodians?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Why would he have done that? It’s been years since Legacy.”
Morganna added, “I’ll see what I can find, but I don’t expect his motivations will ever be reasonable.”
Arthur nodded slowly and said, “Thanks, Morganna. Excellent work, as always.”
“You might change your mind when you see my consulting invoice.”
“Consulting invoice?” Arthur winced theatrically.
“Blame Merlin. He was an ass while he was here. Take it out of his paycheck.”
“Son of a bitch,” Arthur muttered.
“I’ll send the full dossier to both of you,” Morganna chuckled. “You’re going to like this one, Lance.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Check the dossier when you get it.” She hung up before I could push her on it, which was very Morganna.
“You need to hire her,” I said.
“I’m trying to.” Arthur fell back into a quiet conversation with Gwen about what to tell Caine-Ferraro and whether they should bring Sam into the circle of trust.
I put the chair back against the cabin wall and headed aft.
I sat at the worktable and opened my laptop, where Morganna’s email was waiting for me.
I clicked through to the attached document.
Three pages. Celine Bonicelli, thirty-one, Northwestern journalism, freelance since twenty-six, published in half a dozen defense and foreign policy outlets.
She’d embedded with a Marine unit in Helmand Province for six months.
Impressive. That piece won a Polk Award.
She was tenacious, often going after stories other reporters wouldn’t touch.
I brought up the image file at the bottom.
Her eyes. Light brown. Almost amber. Long auburn hair fell in layers around her face. Olive skin. A spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
My hand went still on the trackpad.
It’s her.
I knew her. But from where? When? Half a memory a lifetime ago.
Water.
Cold.
I stared at the photo. The freckles. The eyes. Those fucking eyes.
“Lance?” Arthur’s voice snapped me back to the moment. “What did Morganna have?”
I closed the laptop. Stood. Walked forward and leaned against the galley wall with my hands in my pockets. Casual. I was always casual. But those eyes. “The journalist is solid. Polk Award, embedded reporting, the real deal. Not some hack with a grudge.”
Maybe? Or was I forgetting something, and she was after me, not Arthur?
Arthur nodded, but Gwen was watching me.
“She’s also attractive,” I added, “which is probably why Morganna told me I’d like the dossier. Because apparently that’s all anyone thinks I bring to the table.”
Arthur shrugged one shoulder and said, “If the shoe—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.” I liked women. So what? And why had liking women become the sum total of who I was?
I would have laughed it off two years ago. But then I’d met a woman while I was on a short-term job in New York, and things changed. I was alone. Millions of people around me, a beautiful woman on my arm, and I’d never been so fucking alone.
If I’d told Arthur I hadn’t slept with a single woman in those two years, he wouldn’t have believed me. Of course he wouldn’t, because you’ve told him about at least a dozen you’d taken to bed in that time.
I swiveled the big chair by them and dropped into it. Outside the oval windows, the Atlantic stretched below us. Same view as the flight over. Same jet, same people.
Different everything.
“So what’s the play?” I said. “On Bonicelli. If she’s got some sort of link to Rick—”
“We’ll figure it out when we land. I don’t want to think about journalists, Custodians, or Rick Younge right now.” Arthur tightened his arm around Gwen. “I want to get off this plane and sleep for three days.”
“Three days?” I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Can I take the jet back to Malta?”
“For the translator?” Arthur rolled his eyes at me, and Gwen just laughed.
I grinned at them—the easy grin, the one that came naturally. But nothing felt natural right now. The laptop pulled at me, the voice in the back of my mind demanding answers about Celine Bonicelli and why her eyes were so familiar.
The voice might have been insistent, but the hard ball settling in my gut said I wasn’t ready for the truth.