Chapter 1 Ingrid #2
In life, Sophie had been a pale and luminous beauty, but beneath her seeming fragility was tempered steel.
For almost a year, she had gone unnoticed while embedded within a viper’s nest of men who made their fortunes from death and destruction.
She had been listening, always listening, as those men talked freely about the deals they’d made, the rivals they’d eliminated.
None of those men could imagine that the harmless and insignificant girl they’d hired to serve their drinks, adorn their yachts, would be the Trojan horse that would bring them down.
Ingrid herself had been dubious when a troubled Sophie first approached the Agency with information about the syndicate.
Damning information that she’d gleaned while she’d hovered silently in the background.
To the syndicate, she was just another pretty face, like so many others that could always be found orbiting powerful men.
Unlike the others, though, Sophie had been paying attention and taking notes.
She had come to understand, with growing horror, who these men were and the brutal violence they were capable of.
I’m sorry. Ingrid reached out to Sophie’s lifeless body. Oh God, I’m sorry.
“Ingrid.” Rodrigo gently tugged on her arm. “There’s nothing you can do here. Come, let me take you to the village.”
“How did this happen? How did they find us?”
“I don’t know.”
“We had no warning. Why didn’t our men warn us?”
There was a silence. She looked up and saw his pained expression.
“What happened to them? Where are Simon and Gordon?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Both of them?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“Just tell me!”
“If you really want to know,” he said quietly, “I’ll show you.”
She should not have asked. Far better to have read the details in some dry autopsy report, or to hear about it second- or third-hand, to put as much distance as she could from this bloody reality. But now that she was staring at the carnage, these images would be forever imprinted in her memory.
Gordon would have been taken down first. His body was lying outside the stone guardhouse, sprawled at the edge of the garden, his blood soaking into the soil.
Life’s nutrients, returning to the earth to nourish next year’s blossoms. The instrument of death was still implanted in Gordon’s left orbit.
It was a stiletto, an elegant and efficient tool made of stainless steel.
Some sort of symbol was engraved on the handle: a small circle with a dot inside.
A minimalist design, like the weapon itself.
It would have been a mercifully quick death—at least she hoped it was.
One stab would have driven the tip of the stiletto through the eye socket and straight into the brain. Gordon would not have suffered long.
The same could not be said for Simon.
He, too, must have been taken by surprise, because his gun was lying off in the corner, where it had probably been kicked during the fight.
The room smelled of carnage, the stink of sweat and desperation.
The wall was covered with fantails of blood, sprayed there from his severed carotid artery as he’d turned and twisted.
From the doorway, Ingrid surveyed the blood, splashed like scarlet streamers around the room, and imagined Simon slip-sliding through those pools.
He had been the fair-haired kid on their team, only twenty-eight and happy to have escaped the small and unexciting town in Texas where he’d grown up.
Now he’d be returning to that town in a box.
She turned and walked away.
Outside in the garden, she took deep breaths, emptying her lungs of the stench. A hot wind swept down the valley, bringing with it the scent of summer-warmed grass and lavender. She heard Rodrigo’s footsteps crunching toward her across the gravel.
“What about the men who did this?” she asked.
“We’ve secured the location. They’re all dead,” said Rodrigo. “We took care of it.”
“Are you sure?”
“You saw their bodies.”
She thought back to the blood and chaos left behind in the farmhouse.
She remembered two men lying dead on the stairs, a third body sprawled on the kitchen floor.
And there’d been a fourth one in the yard, where Ingrid had brought him down with her rifle shots.
She recalled their black SUV roaring up to the farmhouse, and the view she’d had through her rifle scope of the occupants inside that vehicle.
“There’s someone missing,” she said.
Rodrigo frowned at her. “What?”
“I saw four bodies at the house.”
“Yes. That’s all of them.”
“But there were five people in the SUV.”
“No, we killed them all. There were four.”
“And no one escaped?”
“Trust me, there was no fifth man.”
“But I could swear—”
“Ingrid.” He touched her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “You caught the blast from that door. When I found you, you were barely conscious. Can you really be certain of what you saw?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, and clutched her head. It was still throbbing from the blast, and she tried to rub away the ache, the failure. “I just need to be sure. I owe it to Gordon and Simon. And Sophie . . .”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Come. Let me take you back to the hotel.”
Suddenly exhausted, she sagged against him.
They had once been lovers, and even though she had ended it a year ago, the contours of his body still felt familiar.
They’d seemed well matched in so many ways, the way her head tucked so perfectly under his chin, even the way the rhythm of their breathing seemed aligned.
But that was before she’d really known him.
Before she’d come to realize that she was just one in a long line of Rodrigo’s conquests.
This fire between them, so bright and hot, would inevitably burn out, leaving nothing but ashes.
She stared down at Gordon’s body and thought about all the memories that blade had destroyed as it sank into his brain.
All the laughter, all the dreams. All the love.
“His son just turned twelve,” she said softly.
“Gordon showed me his photo the other day. Told me how rotten he felt about missing the boy’s birthday. And his wife. Oh God, Vicky . . .”
“This isn’t the time to think about it.”
“When is the time?” She looked up at Rodrigo. “Or will there never be a good time? Do we just shove it into the closet and forget it? The way we forget everything else?”
He took her arm. “You need to rest.”
“No. What I really need is to go home.”
“Yes. I think that’s a good idea. You should fly home. Take as much time as you need, and come back when you feel ready.” He caressed her cheek. “But please,” he said with a smile. “Don’t be gone for too long.”
She caught his wrist and gently lowered his hand. “To be honest, there’s another reason I need to go home for a while.”
“What reason?”
She turned and looked up the road at the safe house.
At what should have been a safe house but instead had turned into a place of slaughter.
“I thought I was going to die there. And that’s when I realized what I want to live for.
Who I want to live for. I need to tell him, while I still have the chance. ”
“Him?” Rodrigo frowned. “You can’t mean that analyst you’ve been talking about?”
“That’s exactly who I mean.”
“Are you really going home to that—that desk jockey?”
“That desk jockey loves me.” In ways that you never will, she thought.
“And is that enough?”
“Love?” She looked at him and gave a sad laugh. “You really don’t understand it, do you?”
“I understand that you and I have something special.”
“And how long would that last?”
“Long enough.” He tilted up her head and looked straight into her eyes.
“Admit it, Ingrid. You’d miss me, wouldn’t you?
How long will it take for you to get bored with him?
Maybe not this year or next year, but eventually you will be.
He has no idea what our world is like. He spends all day at his desk and goes home every night, to what? Dinner and a video?”
“That’s starting to sound pretty damn good.”
“You know what does sound good?” He pulled her closer, so close their bodies were pressed against each other. “A hotel room. A glass of champagne . . .”
She stepped away. “I’ll write my report tonight, and it will be on your desk tomorrow, for the cable.
And then I’m going to apply for a transfer.
” She looked down one last time at Gordon.
Poor Gordon would never have the chance to grow old, but she would.
And she didn’t want to do it alone. “Goodbye, Rodrigo. I’ll invite you to the wedding. ” She turned and walked away.
“I won’t come!” he called.
“Suit yourself.”
“I hate to watch tragedies!”
“Not a tragedy.” She paused and glanced back at him. “A happy ending.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t know.