Chapter Fifteen #3
If her sister was still alive. Given the amount of time that had passed, what had happened to Jonathan, and the crazy way Amelia ended up in prison, he didn’t think Hailey’s survival was possible. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” She yanked him to face her. “I want to find her. As in physically.” She released him and gestured blankly toward the rain-slicked street. “I want to search for her. Look at places they think she could have gone.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Even ignoring the level of danger she was asking for, no evidence existed that Hailey was alive. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“Tell me what to say to Beth to make it happen.”
The more desperation he saw in her eyes, the more he wasn’t sure Amelia needed to gallivant around the CIA’s backyard, searching for a missing asset. “There’s no telling what—”
“Camden, please.”
“You need to understand what happened leading up to that night.” He didn’t have permission to explain, and she didn’t have clearance. Yet there he was, about to open his mouth because he couldn’t stand her radiating pain. “Are you familiar with the phrase ‘NOC list’?”
She shook her head.
“Essentially, it’s a list of agents and their covers. It identifies who is undercover and who they are in their everyday real lives.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not privy to its reach or the damage or how much is still unknown, but…” He really needed to shut his mouth.
“But what?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “A couple of weeks ago, a NOC list hit the black market. An unknown NOC list. No one knew what was on it or who had access. Hell, I don’t even know if everyone took it seriously at first.”
“It was obviously serious,” she said bitterly.
“I’m saying all this because the level of unknowns was—is—astronomical. We don’t know what Hailey and Jonathan were working on, but it was enough to kill for.”
She looked completely unmoved.
“This isn’t like an episode of CSI or Without a Trace. You can’t follow a lead and find an answer. It’s not that simple.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” She crossed her arms.
That indifferent expression morphed into one that was somewhere on the scale between indignant and pissed. His stomach bottomed out. “What? No.”
“I never suggested it was simple. I just want to discuss it.”
Clearly, he’d made a misstep and needed to get better footing in the conversation. “What I’m saying is—” He took a deep breath. “I’m telling you Beth will shoot you down.”
“Why?”
“At the most basic level? You’re untrained.”
“They put me in prison. Clearly,” she tossed back at him, “they think I can handle some level of danger.”
“There were guards, and you were in solitary confinement.”
She twisted her lips as the wheels kept turning. Amelia wiped water off her cheeks. “What if you help me too?”
A wild goose chase for a dead female asset that the CIA hadn’t turned up? With an untrained woman who was garnering more and more of his attention in very unprofessional ways? No. Absolutely not. It would be the kind of huge mistake that had earned him the reputation for being impulsive. “Depends.”
Her face lit up, and Camden felt that in his soul. She didn’t wait for him to backtrack and turned them around, pulling him back toward Beth.
They walked into the house. Fluffy white towels waited for them on a console table by the front door.
Beth thought every situation through. It was good to know she was always thinking of the next steps, possible reactions, and their ramifications.
She was tenacious. That was probably one of the qualities that made her good at her job.
If she wasn’t already on her way to being a CIA handler, he bet it would happen soon enough.
He wasn’t sure how well Amelia’s ask would go, but at least Camden wouldn’t be the one shutting it down.
“I started a fresh pot of coffee,” Beth called from the kitchen.
“Of course she did,” Amelia grumbled.
He snickered. Beth was like some kind of lethal version of a prep school PTA president.
Once again, he found himself comparing the two women.
Amelia was actually the tenacious one. If Beth was an always-scheming PTA caricature, Amelia was positioning herself as David versus Goliath.
But who was Goliath? The CIA? The group who murdered Jonathan and abducted Hailey? Both, probably.
Amelia untied her bun, rubbed the towel over her hair and shoulders at lightning speed, and sped off toward Beth while he was still wiping the rain off his face.
Shit. They should’ve thought out their request. The wording would matter.
It almost had to be Beth’s idea. They needed to know all the angles and dangers already and have a plan to overcome them.
He needed to channel his inner Liam Brosnan.
Camden’s team leader did that in his sleep.
It was the first time he’d ever wished Liam’s cautious forethought was one of his own qualities.
He followed Amelia into the kitchen and saw Beth eyeing her, sensing they were about to drop a burdensome request. Still, true to form and nailing her PTA-president performance, Beth greeted them with a lift of the coffee pot. She poured it into three waiting mugs. “How do you take your coffee?”
“I want to help find my sister,” Amelia answered.
Beth set down the pot with unreadable detachment. Her bright smile remained in place as though Amelia had asked about field-trip duty.
“If you tell me what Hailey was working on, I’ll jump in. Just hand me a list of everything you know.” Amelia squared her shoulders. “I’ll tell you everything I find out. I just want to find her.”
“Even if I knew what she was doing, her work was classified.”
“I’ll swear on a Bible or sign my name in blood. Whatever it takes to—”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Beth almost masked her condescension.
Camden picked up on the thinly hidden superiority and was positive that would only fuel Amelia’s fire.
“And even if it did,” Beth continued, “I don’t have time to help you. You can’t just go into the field blind, without training, and—”
“Camden said he would help.”
Beth’s lips flattened before her gaze swiveled, eyes fiercely challenging him. “Did you?”
He grinned, thinking Beth’s head might explode. “I can do the heavy lifting, and I’m sure Titan could work out the classified part.”
“As if it’s that simple.”
“Sometimes it is.” His flippancy was just enough to balance Beth’s condescension.
The truth was that he had no idea if Boss Man would sign off on a wild goose chase, but Beth didn’t know that.
She also seemed to hold Jared in untouchable regard.
That would work in Camden’s favor. Beth blinked slowly and took her time to calculate a response that said no way.
“We could call Jared now,” he offered.
“I bet we could…” Beth let out a deep breath and turned toward the cabinets. “Let see if this place has some peppermint schnapps or something. Because everyone in this room will need it.”