CHAPTER 46
Brynn
Geneva, Switzerland to Tallinn, Estonia
Day Thirty to Thirty-Three Off Grid
Jameson was not a car-game kind of guy.
I learned that somewhere between Switzerland and whatever stretch of snow-covered nowhere we were currently pretending was a road.
To be fair, I already suspected it. He had the general energy of a man who considered fun suspicious if it happened without a tactical objective.
But after thirty-plus hours of driving, hiding, switching plates, changing vehicles, and eating food from gas stations that clearly had no relationship with joy, I was desperate.
So I tried, briefly.
“I spy,” I said, staring through the windshield at another wall of dark trees and snow, “something white.”
Jameson kept his attention on the road. “No.”
“You didn’t even guess.”
“Snow,” he said.
“Could’ve been a sign.”
His hands stayed steady on the wheel. “It wasn’t.”
“You’re terrible at this.”
“I’m efficient,” he said.
“That is not the same thing.”
His gaze moved briefly to the rearview mirror. “It is if the goal is ending the game.”
Which, honestly, was fair.
The alphabet game lasted longer. Almost seven minutes.
I made it to C before realizing I couldn’t recognize the language on half the signs we passed, and Jameson refused to accept my argument that “mysterious European road symbol” should count as a letter.
He glanced toward the sign as we passed it. “It doesn’t have letters.”
“It has energy.”
“That isn’t how alphabets work,” he said.
“Says the man actively destroying morale.”
He adjusted his glasses with one finger. “Morale is stable.”
“My morale is in a ditch.”
“Then it matches the roads,” he said.
I turned my head and stared at him.
His mouth didn’t move. Not even a little.
But I knew.
I poked his ribs.
He glanced down at the exact spot my finger had touched, then back at the road. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes.” I reached for him again.
His hand snapped out and caught mine before I made contact. “For what purpose?”
He was fast enough to make me laugh through my response. “Accountability.”
He set my hand on his thigh and returned his attention to the road. “For what?”
“Being funny on purpose and refusing to admit it.”
“I wasn’t being funny,” he said.
“Liar.”
After that, I gave up on games and decided to see what else I could learn about him.
This was not snooping.
It was journalism, purely my nature.
“Parents?” I asked.
He answered questions the way he did everything else. Carefully, precisely, like each fact had to clear security before leaving his mouth. “Both dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once, eyes remaining on the road. “They were older. They tried for a long time before Harrison and I came along.”
“And then they got twins.”
“Yes,” he said.
“That had to be a shock.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I believe the phrase my mother used was statistically excessive.”
A laugh slipped out of me. “Sounds like I would have liked her.”
“She was very tired,” he said.
“I imagine you and Harrison were delightful.”
He flicked on the turn signal and guided us onto another road. “Harrison was.”
I turned toward him. “And you?”
His eyes flicked briefly toward mine. “Difficult.”
“No. Quiet, probably,” I said. “Literal. Too observant for everyone’s comfort.”
His jaw shifted once. “They didn’t always know what to do with me.”
There was more beneath that sentence, but the road ahead was dark, the drive was long, and grief had already made him give me more than I expected.
So I let it stay there.
For now.
I tucked one leg beneath me as much as the seat belt allowed. “Okay. My brother.”
Something close to a grimace pulled at his mouth.
“Oh, no. You don’t get to make that face and then pretend you didn’t.”
His expression went completely blank. “I did not make a face.”
“You absolutely did.” I studied his profile. “How do you know Beckett?”
“I told you. Through work,” he said.
“Yes, but what kind of work?”
His hands tightened slightly on the wheel. “The kind I cannot explain for him.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Both,” he said.
I stared at him. “You know what he does.”
He checked the rearview mirror before answering. “I know what he did when our paths crossed.”
“That distinction sounds deeply suspicious.”
“It is also the most accurate answer I can give you,” he said.
“Was he CIA?”
His mouth flattened. “Brynn.”
“I know he was a captain in the United States Army Special Forces.”
He reached across and covered my mouth without taking his eyes off the road. “I’m not doing this.”
I smiled against his palm, caught his wrist, and tried to pull his hand away. “Organized crime?”
His eyes cut briefly toward mine. “Now you’re testing me. You’ve met your sister-in-law.”
“True, but you’re the one refusing to provide categories.”
His attention returned to the road. “I genuinely cannot tell you much. I have reason to believe he may still be active, and anything operational could put both of you at risk.”
The humor left me.
“Still active doing what?”
He sighed. “That is exactly the question I cannot answer.”
I folded my arms.
Beckett Hunt had some explaining to do.
A truly offensive amount of explaining.
I made a mental note to hound him until either he cracked or Isabel took pity on me and provided diagrams.
“Fine,” I said.
Jameson’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.
“For now.”
They tightened again.
I smiled faintly. “Tell me about the rest of your team.”
His gaze stayed on the road. “What do you want to know?”
“Who they were. You’ve told me about Tomar, but not the others.”
His thumb moved once against the steering wheel. “The central team was small. Whitaker. Laurent. Reinhardt. Tomar. Me.”
The third name landed strangely.
Not immediately.
A beat late, like my brain had heard it before I understood why it mattered.
“Wait.”
He glanced over at me.
“What was Reinhardt’s first name?”
His brow tightened.
For a moment, his attention remained on the road, searching through a memory apparently filed under surnames, clearances, and operational reports.
“Matthias,” he said finally.
Everything inside me stopped.
The road kept moving beneath us. Snow flashed through the headlights. Trees passed in dark, endless rows.
Jameson looked at me again, longer this time. “Brynn?”
“Matt.”
His attention snapped fully back to the road, but every part of him had gone still. “What?”
“Matthias Reinhardt.” My voice sounded far away. “That was my Matt.”
Silence filled the car.
Not the easy silence from before.
Something heavier.
His hands tightened around the wheel. “Your private investigator friend?”
“Yes.”
Jameson stared through the windshield. “You’re certain?”
“He always introduced himself as Matt Reinhardt.” I swallowed. “I never heard anyone call him Matthias.”
All the warmth had left his face.
“He was on your team,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then why was he investigating Mirrorstream before he died? He already knew what he was looking at.”
“I don’t know.” His answer came slowly, like every possible explanation was rearranging itself faster than he could assess it.
His grip shifted against the leather. “But it explains the terminology. Continuity Risk. Heat Retention Window. Fade Directive. He didn’t find those words by accident. He already knew what they meant.”
I tried to fit the pieces together again.
“But why would he tell me to look for you?”
Jameson said nothing.
His eyes cut to the rearview mirror.
Once.
Then again.
The warmth from earlier disappeared so completely it felt like someone had shut off the heat.
I followed his gaze, but the mirror only gave me darkness, snow, and the pale smear of our own headlights reflecting off the road behind us.
“What?” I asked.
A thin prickle moved across the back of my neck, light as static, gone as soon as it came.
“Jameson.”
He kept his attention on the rearview mirror. “There’s been a vehicle behind us for a little while now.”
I looked toward my side mirror, careful not to turn too fast.
At first, I saw nothing except darkness and snow.
Then headlights appeared far back on the road.
Two pale points.