Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Four months later
The venue tonight was a renovated limestone estate on the west side of Austin, Texas.
All arched doorways and iron fixtures and outdoor terraces strung with lights that made everything look like a wedding.
The crowd was three hundred deep—tech money, venture capital, a few oil families who’d diversified into philanthropy the way some people diversified into hobbies.
A charity auction benefiting arts education.
Isaac adjusted the cuff of his jacket. Different city, different venue, same evening. He could have swapped this crowd for any of the last half-dozen events and nothing would have changed except the accent.
He checked in with his team.
“Zone Three, status on the north terrace.”
The reply came through his earpiece. “Quiet. A couple of smokers, no movement toward the restricted corridor.”
“Copy. Primary, how’s the package?”
“Southeast corner, second drink, talking to the host. Relaxed. No concerns.”
The package was David Endicott, CEO of a biotech startup that had gone public six months ago and made a lot of people very rich and a few people very angry.
One of the angry ones had sent three emails to Endicott’s office describing, in creative detail, what he planned to do with a hunting knife.
Endicott’s board had hired Zodiac Tactical, and Isaac had flown in five days ago to run the detail.
Five days was enough to get a read on the client. Endicott was cooperative. His wife was nervous. The emails were credible and escalating—each one more specific than the last, with references to Endicott’s home address, his gym, his travel schedule.
Whoever was sending them hadn’t made a move yet, but the pattern was trending in a direction that would keep Zodiac on the detail for the foreseeable future.
Isaac’s job tonight was to make sure Endicott enjoyed his evening without a stalker deciding this was the night to stop writing and start showing up.
He moved through the main hall, scanning. Three operatives on the floor, two at entry points, one on close protection. Everybody where they should be.
“Zone One, you’ve got a gap forming at the west service entrance. The catering staff keeps propping that door. Get it closed and keep it closed.”
“Copy, closing it now.”
Isaac circled the perimeter of the room. The crowd was louder than Boston crowds. Less polished, more performative. New money that hadn’t learned to whisper yet. He nodded at guests who made eye contact, sidestepped a waiter carrying a tray of something architectural involving tuna.
“Zone Three, I’ve got a sight line issue on the south terrace. The floral arrangement by the cocktail tables is blocking the camera angle. Shift position ten feet east and confirm you still have coverage.”
“Moving.” A pause. “Full sight line restored.”
“Good. Hold there.”
He’d been in Austin about a week. Before that, assignments that blurred together. Ian kept him moving: events, intake assessments, the high-society security work that required someone who could wear a tuxedo without looking like he was in costume. Isaac was good at it. He’d always been good at it.
The restlessness had settled into something duller over the past few months. Less an itch and more a low hum, constant and ignorable, the background noise of a life that functioned perfectly well without ever surprising him.
For a brief stretch in Boston, something had cut through. Made the work feel sharp, made him feel awake. Two galas, a fire, a hotel room, and a woman who’d disappeared before dawn.
That stretch was over.
Now it was another event, another room, another night in a suit managing a situation that his team could probably handle without him.
“Primary, status check.”
“Package hasn’t moved. Third drink now. Wife joined him.”
Good. Isaac completed his circuit and found a position near the main bar with a sight line to the south terrace and the primary exit. He didn’t order a drink. He was working.
The room moved around him in its expensive, predictable rhythm. He let his gaze sweep the crowd, section by section, the way he always did. East wall, bar, dance floor, auction tables, south terrace entrance—
He stopped and did a double take.
Fallon.
She was near the auction tables, thirty feet away, half-turned from him.
Her hair was different—shorter, or pinned to look shorter, curling against the nape of her neck instead of the sleek twist he remembered.
Dark red dress, fitted close. She was holding a glass of champagne and listening to a man in a gray suit talk, her head tilted at the angle of polite interest.
Four months. Four months since waking up alone after their night together.
He’d let it go. Or at least told himself he had. Filed it under Things That Didn’t Work Out. Then moved on the way grown-ass adults move on.
His hands went still at his sides.
She hadn’t seen him. She was angled away, her attention on the man in gray, her body positioned with her back to Isaac’s side of the room. He watched her laugh at something the man said—her head tipping back, her hand lifting in a gesture that looked easy and warm.
But the timing was wrong. Too quick, too even. He’d seen her real laugh, and it didn’t look like that.
He made himself breathe. Two events in Boston, two disappearances. If she spotted him, she’d be gone before he could cross the room. Whatever chance he had of talking to her depended on her not knowing he was here.
Although he wasn’t sure why he’d want to talk to her at all.
She moved away from the man in the gray suit. Casual, unhurried. She drifted toward a cluster of guests near the bar, champagne glass still in her hand, and slid into the group’s orbit without anyone registering the addition.
Isaac kept his eyes on her. She’d positioned herself at the edge of the group near the bar, standing close to a tall man in a charcoal suit who was gesturing expansively with his drink.
The man was holding court—big gestures, animated face, the people around him reacting on cue.
Fallon matched them. Her free hand brushed the man’s arm as she leaned in.
Then her hand moved.
Isaac almost didn’t see it, it was fast. Her fingers dipped inside the man’s jacket, past the lapel, into the interior pocket, and came out with something small and metallic that caught the light for a fraction of a second before it disappeared into her closed fist.
A money clip. She’d lifted a money clip out of his interior breast pocket while the man was mid-sentence, mid-gesture, surrounded by six other people, and not one of them had seen it happen.
She was already moving. Two steps back from the group, a half-turn toward the bar, the champagne glass set down on a passing tray with the same hand that was now empty and relaxed at her side. The money clip was gone. The whole thing had taken less than four seconds.
The tall man kept talking. He hadn’t felt a thing.
Isaac stood very still.
The room kept going. Glasses clinked. The band played something with horns. Three hundred people talked and laughed and performed for each other, and none of them had the slightest idea what had just happened ten feet from the bar.
Fallon was a thief.
He felt it land in his chest first. Then it spread. Every conversation from Boston restructured itself in real time.
Working, technically. Scoping out for an event. I’m supposed to be taking notes on the layout and the lighting.
Her at the first gala, reading the room, reading the people, cataloging details he’d assumed were professional curiosity.
Her at the Arts Alliance fundraiser in a different look, different makeup, different energy.
Her at both events, positioned near the edges of the crowd, near the exits, always half-turned toward the door.
He’d watched her read three strangers across a ballroom and thought she was perceptive. Charming. Someone who paid attention.
She did pay attention. She paid attention so she could steal from them.
Everything he thought he knew about her was wrong. And the part that unsettled him most wasn’t the lie. It was that even now, standing here with the truth laid bare in front of him, he couldn’t look away from her.
He breathed through it and let his training take over. Feelings later. Decisions now.
She was drifting toward the edge of the room, heading for the south terrace doors. No urgency, no hurried exit. She moved without drawing attention, without leaving a ripple. Smart.
But he wasn’t going to let her go. Couldn’t let her go.
Professionalism had nothing to do with it. Zodiac wasn’t here to prevent petty theft, that was the building security team’s problem. Sure, he could turn Fallon in, and maybe he would if the circumstances were different. But they weren’t.
This wasn’t a professional decision; it was purely personal.
He crossed the room. Adjusted his path to intersect with hers before she reached the exit. He kept his pace even, his posture relaxed. A man at a party, heading somewhere specific.
He cut her off ten feet from the doors.
Her eyes found him, and her entire body went rigid.
A half-second of something raw broke across her face—shock, then alarm, and underneath both, something that flickered and vanished before he could name it.
She recovered fast. The mask came back, smooth and practiced, and by the time he was close enough to speak she looked like a woman mildly surprised to run into an acquaintance.
But he’d seen the half-second. He’d seen all of it.
“Isaac.” She said his name like she was testing whether it was still real.
“Fallon.”
“What are you doing in Austin?”
“Working. You?”
“Same.”
“Yeah.” He let that word carry everything he wasn’t saying. “I noticed.”
Something recalculated behind her eyes.