CHAPTER 107
CSTC Headquarters, Maryland
It was a miracle I was still alive.
I was going to be sidelined for a good while, but the doctors were encouraged by my initial recovery. I was on track to be exercising in four weeks, maybe even running in six.
Rowan Anderson was the traitor. She was the spy alluded to at the briefing in North Carolina. The only survivor from Senator Coleman Harrison’s protective detail. How could we all have been so stupid?
She was responsible for Meg’s death. And she had almost pinned Elise Courville’s murder on me, until Sam Starnes put an end to that investigation.
We were all in agreement: The first order of business was to get Haracat al Marrak out of Paris. After that I would make sure Rowan Anderson died a heinous death.
Meg’s death shattered me. I felt responsible for failing her. I’d left her vulnerable to attack. I’d promised to protect her. I hadn’t, and now she was dead.
As I grieved, my rage would ebb and flow. One moment I’d be melancholy, on the verge of a meltdown, the next almost giddy in the fantasy of putting a bullet through Rowan Anderson’s temple. She was no longer a person to me, just a target for my hatred.
We all have those Where were you when? moments in life, like the Kennedy assassinations or 9/11. Tristan and I were sitting on his back porch sipping twenty-three-year-old Pappy and telling stories about Meg when one of those moments stopped me in my tracks.
Unknown Caller rang through on my work phone.
“Phillips.”
There was a pause on the other end, then a voice saying, “I’m so sorry.”
I felt the tears welling up, colliding with the furious sound of my heart throbbing.
For a good ten seconds, I willed the image of Meg lying in her casket to disappear. It wouldn’t go away.
Tristan looked at me, perplexed, and mouthed, What gives?
“You’re an evil fucking person, Rowan Anderson,” I said in the most measured voice I could muster, “and I will kill you very soon.”
“Nat, I am so sorry. You don’t understand. They made me do it. You must believe me,” she begged.
“Who, Rowan? Who the fuck made you shoot me and kill Meg?” I felt my emotional temperature rising sky fucking high.
“Meg?” she questioned. “I didn’t kill Meg—I swear. I had to make them think I tried to kill you, but I purposely let you live.” There was panic in her voice. “I swear to you, Nat.”
“You’re lying and I am going to kill you,” I said, my voice rising with every syllable of the threat before I hung up.
Tristan figured it out pretty quickly and just nodded as I tried to breathe. He opened the bottle and poured three fingers into my glass. It was a nice burn as the bourbon hit the back of my throat.
The phone rang again. Unknown Caller.
The fucking nerve.
“Don’t ever fucking call me again.”
“Mr. Phillips?”
A woman’s voice. But not Rowan Anderson’s. The voice sounded authoritative. Senator Tabitha Doyle, maybe? I went into recovery mode.
“I am so sorry, ma’am,” I said humbly into the receiver. “I thought it was somebody else calling. Who is this, please?”
“Mr. Phillips, my name is Theresa Larson. I believe my uncle Alexander told you I would be in touch. We have much to discuss.”