Chapter 19
Eden woke to the smell of coffee and bacon.
Her stomach rumbled in response. She stretched her arms overhead and yawned.
Her eyes opened, and she realized that she was still in the office, but she wasn’t at the table anymore.
Instead, she was on the sofa. She didn’t remember getting there or finding a throw to cover herself with.
She was frowning when she sat up and swung her legs over the side. Her neck was tense, as were her shoulders and upper back, which meant that she had spent considerable time on the computer without stretching. Usually, she woke bent over her desk, not on a couch.
While trying to figure out when she’d finally passed out from exhaustion last night, she rose to her feet and folded the blanket. Then she walked out of the office to see Maks in the kitchen once more. There were plates on the island, as well as two coffee mugs that had steam rising from them.
He glanced up as she walked toward him and grinned. “Morning.”
“Morning,” she replied.
“You really need to be more careful. I’ve no idea how long you were asleep hunched over the laptop, but that can do serious damage to your back.”
She bit the side of her lip. “I know. How did you get me to move to the sofa?”
“I didn’t get you to do anything. I carried you to it so you could sleep properly.”
At this bit of news, she winced. “I’m sorry. When I work that late, I’m pretty out of it. Not sure you could’ve woken me if you tried.”
“I didn’t try,” he said with a chuckle.
“But thank you. I appreciate you moving me. I would be in worse pain if I’d stayed hunched over all night.”
Maks lifted the pan and transferred the bacon onto a plate to drain. “Why not just go to bed if you knew you were getting that tired?”
“Usually, it’s because I’m on the trail of something and don’t want to stop. I’ve done that before and wasn’t able to remember what I’d been looking for the day before.”
“Ah. Makes sense, I suppose. Hungry?”
“Famished.” She took a seat at the island and quickly dumped some cream into her coffee before moving a few slices of bacon onto her plate. “How do we have bacon? I wouldn’t think that’s something that lasts for months.”
Maks shook his head. “It isn’t. I walked to the store and bought a few items.”
“Walked?” she asked, shocked. “How far away is it?”
“About five miles. I needed to get in a run anyway. I used the time to do that, get some items, and also check around the village to see if anything was amiss.”
She raised her brows. “Wow. Well, thank you for the bacon. Did you find anything?”
“Nothing, thankfully.”
“Weren’t you worried about someone recognizing you?”
He shrugged. “I made sure I went early when there were few people about. The shopkeeper was more concerned with getting set up for the day than paying attention to me. I’ve done this many times before.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have. I just know that if it was me, I would’ve been seen by everyone.” She took a bit of bacon and chewed. “If we need to go, then we can go. I can work anywhere.”
“This house has a secure connection to the internet. We won’t have that if we leave, and if we get on the internet searching for anything about the Saints, we might as well paint a bullseye on us.”
The fact that Eden hadn’t thought of that proved just how ill-prepared she was for what was going on. “Of course.”
“Don’t beat yourself up for not thinking of these types of things. That’s what I’m here for. It’s what I do daily. You concentrate on doing what you do best.”
She flashed him a smile. “That, I can do.”
He finished off a piece of bacon. “Did you find anything interesting last night?”
“A few things that caught my attention. One of the women who was murdered happened to be in a relationship with a man that the papers went out of their way to hide.”
“Did you find him?”
“I did,” she replied with a nod. “He’s in British parliament.
He’s been married for thirty-five years, has two kids, and five grandchildren.
The interesting part is that when I dug into him, he was a nobody.
His rise in politics was quick, and within just a few years, he had a seat in the House of Commons.
That’s when things really got interesting.
He suddenly became someone everyone wanted on their side.
From what I could learn about him, he has brought nothing significant to the table other than the fact that he could take a fish out of its scales. ”
Maks swallowed his bite and drank some coffee. He lowered the cup back to the island before he said, “That is interesting, and I wish I could say that was something odd, but it isn’t. Things like that do happen.”
“When he was all but homeless just two years before he was first elected into parliament?”
“Some might say he had a windfall.”
She chuckled. “It was something like that for sure. I managed to find an early interview with him where he let it slip that someone had come into his life and helped him to get back on his feet. You could see it on his face that as soon as the words were out, he regretted them. He never mentioned anything like that again, and no one ever asked him that question again. At least that I could find.”
“Hmm,” Maks said. “This could certainly be an intervention by the Saints. But why him?”
“That’s what I wondered. It took some time, but I learned that his great-great-grandfather happened to invest in a British company that did work in both Russia and Europe.”
“Okay…” Maks said with a shrug.
Eden couldn’t hold back her smile. “The company was actually owned by a Russian, who was known to have been a part of the KGB.”
Maks slowly nodded his head. “The dots are connecting.”
“Little by little. It’s not a slam dunk, but there are too many coincidences, and I don’t believe in them.”
“Neither do I. And this is just from looking into the murder of one woman?”
Eden nodded and grabbed another piece of bacon. “That’s right. Her death was ruled natural since the medical examiner said she had a heart attack, but if that date was on the sheet you gave me, then she was likely killed by the Saints.”
“I agree. And if she was having an affair with this man in the British parliament, who the Saints helped to get into his position, then the woman must have stumbled across something she shouldn’t have.”
“Or was about to say something she shouldn’t,” Eden offered.
Maks’ lips twisted. “Either way, she’s dead.”
“Sadly, yes.”
Eden finished her bacon and coffee and slid off the stool to begin cleaning up.
“You don’t have to do that,” he told her.
She didn’t even glance his way as she washed their plates. “I know.”
The kitchen got quiet as the water ran and she cleaned. She dried her hand on a towel when she finished and turned around to find herself alone. Eden walked upstairs to get changed for the day and spotted the door to Maks’ room closed, and heard the water running from the sink in the bathroom.
Eden hesitated, though she wasn’t sure why.
It wasn’t as if she’d knock on the door and tell him that she’d like for him to remove his clothes so she could see a full frontal.
Instead, she continued on to her room and softly clicked the door into place.
She stripped out of the clothes she’d slept in and put them and yesterday’s clothes in a pile.
Then she found her spare pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.
She opted to put on socks and her shoes, just in case they had to leave quickly.
After washing her face, brushing her teeth, and getting the tangles out of her hair, she took the dirty clothes downstairs and started a load of laundry.
Might as well take advantage while she could.
There was no telling when they’d have to leave, or if she’d be in the same clothes for days at a time.
Although, when running for your life, no one really cared what they were wearing or how long they’d been in it.
Needs changed quickly in such instances.
Eden made her way to the office and began working once more.
It wasn’t long before she was lost in the search again, going down one rabbit hole after another.
Sometimes, nothing came out of it, but she did uncover a few gems along the way.
She made sure to put everything in a document for easy access, and then she copied it multiple times.
There was no way she was going to go through all of this work and have it lost if the Saints took it.
For the next three days, she worked, finding more and more information while Maks continued cooking and hunting and even cleaning.
He brought her water to keep her hydrated, which reminded her to get up and walk around, stretching her muscles.
They would chat for a few seconds, but he always left quickly so she could get back to work.
Lunches were nice. They were simple meals of sandwiches or soup, but she came out of the office and let her brain rest for a little while.
Her favorite meals were dinner. Every evening, Maks had something for them to eat.
There was also always a bottle of wine for them to share.
This was the time when they really talked.
Usually, it was her speaking about her family, but Maks didn’t hold back. He told her more and more about himself and the time before he joined the Army. And the more she learned, the more she found him incredibly interesting. And the more she wanted to know.
It was only after the wine had been drunk and the kitchen cleaned that they went back to the office and she would show him what she’d found that day.
She was always ready to tell him, but he was patient that way.
Something she’d never been able to conquer.
For an hour, they’d sit on the sofa together while she went through everything.
Sometimes he took notes, sometimes he gave clues to things she hadn’t known, which helped her search and uncover even more.
On the third day, she finally got to the first pen drive.
It was loaded with information. So much, that she knew she was going to need a few days just to sift through all of it and put it in some kind of order before she could even determine where to start searching.
“I wish I had more to show you,” she said as he scrolled through the documents and images on the pen drive.
After a moment, he said, “I’ve seen this man before.”
Eden peered closer at the older man bent with age with thick eyebrows that had been carefully cut. What was left of his hair was white and wispy, with only a few strands atop his head. He was impeccably dressed in a suit as he got into the back of a black Jaguar.
“Do you know his name?” she asked.
Maks shook his head.
She shifted the computer and opened another screen to see if she could match the man’s face to a photo somewhere else to perhaps get a name. “William Holder,” she said when several photos popped up of the American business owner with ties to Hollywood investments.
The frown Maks wore grew deeper the longer he looked at the photo. “I saw him in the CIA building when I first joined. He was in an office with other suits. There were men like him everywhere. But…I’m certain I saw him about two years ago at the FSB headquarters.”
“There’s a real possibility that William Holder could be a Saint. Maybe even one of the Elders you spoke of,” she offered.
Maks moved the laptop completely onto her lap and got to his feet. “I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen him somewhere else, as well.”
“Don’t force it. It’ll come to you eventually.”
“We don’t have that kind of time. There’s something about his face that I recognize, something from long ago that I should remember.”
Eden opened her lips to speak, but Maks walked out. She stared at the doorway long after he’d gone, thinking of what he’d said. Then she turned her attention to the computer and began doing a deep dive on William Holder.