Stephanie
SIXTEEN
Bonding over murder fantasies was not on my to-do list.
Camryn has no intention of taking me to the safe house. She hasn’t explained, but she’s testing loyalties, and after years of assessing people’s behaviors, I can say with certainty that the AD just failed.
It’s in the tense line of her shoulders and the thin press of her lips.
She’s furious, and I almost feel sorry for whoever is about to be on the receiving end of her wrath.
Still, that doesn’t answer where we are going, and I’m afraid to ask because I have both a sinking feeling and a flutter in my stomach.
Of course, that could be the lovely cocktail of painkillers.
“I need the restroom,” Camryn murmurs, pulling into a gas station.
That doesn’t seem likely since the woman has the bladder of a rhino.
My eyes flick to the fuel gauge, but it’s three-quarters full and we’ve already stocked up on snacks.
I have enough to behave like an unsupervised child at the candy stand for a week.
She slows into the shadowed parking lot. Night has fallen, and the lights appear to have been broken.
“Okay,” I drawl.
We exit the car, and I frown when she leaves the keys and her unsecured phone inside, but Camryn doesn’t make mistakes, so despite my misgivings, I keep my mouth shut. We make the redundant trip to the restroom, in case we have to justify the stop.
“Are you going to explain?” I wonder.
“Soon. Just follow my lead and act normal.”
Normal is a relative term, and my frame of reference is anything but.
As we step around the corner of the parking lot, I lift my head to find two people in our car. I freeze, and my heart slams against my bruised ribs.
“Keep going,” she murmurs. To where? Should I sit on the person’s lap? I can’t even tell if they are male or female. “Into the white car.”
This is very cloak and dagger, and I can’t stop the niggling worry that Camryn is leading me into a trap. That is, until I notice the way she favors her left side. Nobody who takes a bullet for you is playing you.
“But the snacks?”
She snorts and climbs inside the driver’s side, while I get in the passenger. I risk a look at the other car, finding two women who look, at first glance, very similar to us.
Camryn nods once, and they exit the gas station in the direction we were traveling. She spends a few minutes connecting the secure phone to the car, then pulls out and goes back down the road we came in on.
“You can speak freely,” she says as she blows out a breath.
I have so many questions competing for headspace, but I’ll go with the most pressing one. “Did they just steal our snacks?”
“Back seat.”
I glance over and sure enough, the bags are there waiting. Well, now that my impending low blood sugar is sorted, I suppose I should ask more obvious questions. “What just happened?”
“The safe house is compromised.”
Her voice is even, but I can sense the undercurrent of rage.
“So who were they?”
“Not the FBI.”
“I gathered.”
“Sometimes you have to bend the rules because the people who are supposed to have your back are more likely to stab you in it.”
Her world must be rocked right now. I want to tell her it gets better, and she has stumbled on the small percentage of shits in the universe. But that’s not true. Money talks in every community, and the FBI is not immune.
“What’s the plan?”
She smiles, but it’s full of grim determination. “To stash you somewhere safe so I’m free to unravel how deep this betrayal goes.”
“That’s a dangerous plan.”
“It’s the only one that will work. I have faith that they’ll never find you, and I can’t concentrate and protect you at the same time.”
“I didn’t mean my safety, Camryn, I meant yours. Not only are you poking the bear, you’re doing it not knowing how many are going to come rushing to its roar.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about me.”
“If you die, I will feel personally responsible. How could I not worry?”
“I was neck-deep in this before we ever met, Stephanie.”
My thoughts scatter to James and the relationship they’ve formed. It’s not a romantic one, but she doesn’t treat him like a criminal. “Is he as bad as he portrays himself?” I ask, too curious not to.
Camryn doesn’t pretend not to understand who I mean. It’s something I appreciate about her in the short time we’ve known each other. She tilts her head but keeps her eyes on the road.
“He has done bad things,” she starts, then twists her lips as if she’s trying to think how to explain a complicated man in a few short words.
“But every person he’s got out has a consistent opinion of him.
He protected them where he could, avoided pain and abuse, and found creative ways to make the rest of them believe he’d done what he had to prove his loyalty. ”
My chest tightens as she confirms what I already know deep down. He is at his core a good man caught in dangerous circumstances.
“That said,” she continues, “he has murdered people.”
“Who?”
“The ones we know of were men who overstepped or threatened the entire operation with reckless actions.”
“So, not the victims?”
She glances at me before refocusing on the road. “Murder isn’t acceptable in our society, no matter the deeds committed.”
The words feel practised, but I watched him murder men who got nothing less than they deserved. If there were more justice like that in the world, then perhaps they would think twice before taking that which isn’t freely offered.
“Sometimes you have to accept bad things happen to bad people, but in my opinion, not enough,” I mutter as I grab a bag of jelly candies and offer her some.
She takes a handful and pops a few into her mouth.
Look at me being an excellent passenger princess in charge of snacks and interesting conversation.
“I fear more and more that you are right,” she says after some time. “But as a woman, I feel it’s important to warn you about the man you idolize.”
“I don’t idolize him.” The denial escapes before I’ve thought it through.
Camryn’s lips twitch. “Really? Then how did you know his number off by heart when I asked you to message him?”
Touché. I huff. “Having a good memory is not an indicator of affection.”
“You’ve risked more for him than most people would risk for family.”
“He’s family.”
“He’s your brother’s girlfriend’s brother.”
“Family.”
“Just because fate put him in your path and the two of you bonded over something dark and traumatic doesn’t make him the right man for you.”
The darkness beyond the windshield swallows the landscape, leaving only the tunnel of headlights stretching ahead of us. I fold my arms and stare at the shadows sliding past while I try to untangle feelings I never intended to have.
“I might not know him well, but I think he’s torturing himself.”
“You have no idea how right you are.”
I want to pick apart that statement, to understand him on a deeper level.
He risked coming to pluck me from my new life and interrupting the FBI’s operation. One doesn’t do that unless they care on some fundamental level about you. I know the man who walks into danger every damn time. I know the man who had countless opportunities to not choose me.
The problem is that every version of James exists alongside another. The man who saved me. The man who kills. The man who protects. The man everyone fears.
Sometimes I struggle to reconcile them into a single person.
“Do you trust him?” I ask.
Camryn taps her thumbs on the steering wheel as she takes her time answering. “With my life.”
The certainty in her voice catches me off guard. “But not with your heart?”
Her gaze flicks toward me before returning to the road. “Nobody should be trusted with that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A sigh escapes her. “No. Not with my heart. But then it was never his for the taking. That’s not who we are. I am his handler, and he’s the criminal under our control.”
Something about that answer unsettles me more than a warning ever could. “Do you think he’ll betray you?”
“Never.”
I throw my hands up. “You’re impossible.”
A quiet laugh slips from her. “James believes he deserves to suffer.” The humor vanishes as quickly as it arrived.
“I’ve spent years interviewing people, profiling people, and trying to understand what makes them tick.
Most people build stories about themselves.
Some convince themselves they’re heroes.
Others convince themselves they’re victims. James doesn’t do either. He believes he’s beyond saving.”
I toe off my sneakers and twist in my seat to look at her, one foot tucked under my thigh.
The words don’t fit the man I met. I think about the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention.
The way he never seems comfortable receiving kindness.
How guilt follows him like a second shadow. “You don’t believe that?” I check.
“No.”
The answer comes without hesitation.
“Neither do I.”
The admission leaves my mouth before I can stop it, and silence settles between us.
The phone mounted on the dashboard vibrates, and Camryn’s posture changes at once.
“What is it?” I wonder.
She doesn’t answer as a notification flashes across the screen. Incoming secure file. My stomach knots.
The file downloads while Camryn guides the car onto the shoulder. Gravel crunches beneath the tyres as she brings us to a stop and stares at the progress bar creeping across the display.
Neither of us speaks while it loads. When it reaches one hundred percent, she opens the file, and a video begins in darkness. The image shakes with the uneven movement of a body camera before gradually steadying. A timestamp from less than twenty minutes ago glows in one corner.
My pulse hammers.
Two figures step out of the vehicle we swapped.
The decoys. The woman who looked enough like me to fool someone at a distance and the woman who could pass for Camryn under poor lighting.
Ahead of them sits a small property surrounded by trees.
Everything appears normal. One woman approaches the front door while the other scans the perimeter, and all hell breaks loose. Gunfire explodes across the screen.
My lookalike drops to the floor. Fake Camryn spins toward the sound, gun already in hand. More shots follow. Muzzle flashes erupt from the darkness surrounding the property, not from one position but several.
This is a hunt. The realization turns my blood cold. Someone knew exactly where they would be. Where we meant to be.
The camera jerks as the woman wearing it dives for cover. Branches and dirt fill the screen before another burst of gunfire rings out. The image pitches sideways, freezes, and then goes black.
I stare at the empty screen while a sick feeling settles in my stomach. My hand raises to cover my mouth. “Oh, my God.”
Camryn doesn’t move. She watches the darkness where the footage ended, her face stripped of expression. That frightens me more than anger ever could.
“Camryn?”
A long breath leaves her lungs. “I hate being right.” Her voice carries a certainty, not a hunch or suspicion. This is confirmed.
I swallow hard. “That means the location was leaked.”
“Yes.”
The single word lands like a gunshot as our eyes meet. Until now, there was room for another explanation. A mistake. Bad judgement. A coincidence.
Now there is only the truth.
The Assistant Director didn’t make an error. He handed over the safe house, and in the same breath, me. And now two more people paid for it with their lives.
How many more need to die to save one woman?