Chapter 38
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Are you alright?”
Jones is the first to speak, although it’s muted at first, as if my ears are clogged.
“She’s fine,” Carmine mutters dismissively. “But I do love being right.”
My eyes fall to him, eyebrows pulling together in a silent question. I notice that my heartbeat has finally begun to steady. The edges of my fingertips are fuzzy, though, like they’re itching for a fight.
“I had a hunch that you were in the dark,” he explains.
“All that high-and-mighty garbage was annoying, sure, but you seemed to really believe it.” Carmine drums his fingers on his thighs and repositions a frame on the desk.
“We figured that we were either dealing with a psychopath, or a… deranged agent.”
The words dislodge a memory—Graham telling me the same thing days ago in Paris. Was that why he chose to save me instead of leaving me to die at the Consultant’s estate?
“Not deranged,” I reply, falling back into my chair. “Naive.”
“A little deranged, though, right?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Sloane,” Jones pipes in.
I give her my best attempt at a smile, which feels more like a grimace. “Thanks.” Tired of sitting upright, I mimic Carmine’s position, kicking my feet up on the desk. “So, that’s the real reason why you were following us in Colorado,” I say.
“It was a bit of everythin’—they’d been on our radar for a while, but then your boss made a mistake.”
I lift a brow. “Care to share with the class?”
“That’s, uh—” His eyes dart to Jones. “—irrelevant, at this juncture. What we need to discuss is how you plan on miraculously catching the man who’s thus far managed to evade capture. Where’s your boyfriend, by the way? Wasn’t he s‘posed to be here?”
“Not my boyfriend,” I grumble.
“Sure, sure.”
“He’s at the Reading Room in the British Museum?—”
Jones gasps. “—oh, I love the Reading Room?—”
“—meeting with a contact,” I continue. “If we can find out the date and the location of the Consultant’s birthday soirée, we’ll be primed to corner him and finally make an arrest.”
The original plan, if it was ever a real plan. But I won’t admit that out loud.
“What makes your CI better than ours?” Carmine replies with a frown.
My gaze flicks to the ceiling for a moment before landing back on him. “Because this isn’t a CI, it’s a friend.”
I’ve decided not to reveal the Consultant’s real identity before we have some leverage.
Why implicate Graham unnecessarily? I don’t know how Raffaele managed to spring him from prison, but something tells me it wasn’t entirely above board.
He’s on thin ice as it is, skating by while the FBI has a bigger fish to catch—plus, at this point, he’s of more use to them on the outside.
Besides, last I checked—at an internet cafe when we arrived in London and Graham needed to get in touch with his contact—the Consultant’s estate has been listed for sale. He probably packed up the moment he realized his brother-in-law betrayed him.
But what happens when the Consultant is finally arrested? I don’t think the FBI is in the habit of keeping criminals out of prison.
He shouldn’t have followed me here. He should have disappeared the minute our feet hit British soil—there are far too many variables. Too many people after us, so many fingers in the pie that I can hardly keep track.
I’m not going to be able to make sure everyone is safe.
We’re standing to leave when Carmine motions for me to stay behind. I watch Jones slip out the door and down the hall, stomach twisting with that all-too-familiar sense of dread.
“Listen—ah, hold on.” He stoops beside his desk, wrenching something from the underside and dunking it into his coffee. “They’re not gonna be too happy ‘bout that,” he declares, the both of us silently staring as it disappears under the surface with a defeated clink.
“A bug? Seriously?”
Carmine props both hands on the desk and leans forward. “You tried to kill me in Paris. I think we’re even, kid.”
Yeah, okay. Fair.
“If I tried to kill you, you’d be dead,” I grumble, crossing my arms and waiting for him to continue.
“Remember how you said you were naive ‘bout your boss?”
I blink.
“I’ve got a real conversationalist, here,” Carmine mutters to himself. “Well, anyway, you might want to keep that in mind when it comes to your boyfriend.”
My pulse picks up but my expression remains neutral. “You’ll have to elaborate.”
“We haven’t been able to figure out how,” he replies, voice dropping several decibels. “But he’s tangled up real good in all of this. You thought the Consultant was after you, yeah?”
I give a curt nod, a cold sweat breaking out down my back.
Carmine drags a hand over his face. “But who did you see in France? Your buddies from the ISA,” he says. “The Consultant’s got hitmen and assassins up the wazoo, and you never saw any of ‘em. Honestly, Sloane, you really think you’re that good?”
The answer is no. But he doesn’t need to know that. I pinch my lips together to keep the nausea at bay.
“In my opinion—” His eyes flick to someone walking by outside, tracking them until they disappear around the corridor. “—the Consultant doesn’t give a lick about either of you. It’s the ISA that’s been pulling the strings, using you.”
The problem agent.
“I don’t see how Graham fits into all this,” I reply weakly.
Carmine’s mouth twists into a sad smile that I’ve come to know as pity.
“You fled France because you thought the Consultant was comin’ after you, but it ended up being the ISA.
” He pauses, as if waiting for me to put it together.
“All I’m saying is this—how did Graham know you were in danger?
He would’ve needed a heads up from someone powerful enough to know. Someone like the Consultant.”
My fingernails bite into the flesh of my palms. I’m struggling to keep it together, keep him in the dark, keep my emotions in control.
“And you have to wonder why they’d be on good enough terms for him to get a warnin’ like that.” He straightens and mimics my stance, crossing his arms over his barrel chest. “I’ve been ‘round long enough to smell the rot. Why’d you think I didn’t want him to come to London?”
The final blow.
I’m dead on my feet as I thank Carmine for his time and stride out his door before he can see my face turn a shade of green.
Then the elevator dings and I’m suddenly on the ground floor, returning my visitor’s badge and shoving through the turnstiles.
Everything’s spinning, hazy and white when I stumble into the cold, droplets of rain awaking my senses to the hoards of pedestrians.
I slither through the crowds and beneath a shifting ceiling of umbrellas, heart threatening to crack a rib with the sheer force of its beat. My feet find a secluded alley, and I grasp the slick wall for balance, sliding to the ground on my knees.
Of course Graham wanted to come with me.
Maybe it wasn’t a romantic gesture or some deep attachment we’ve shared. He was doing what Graham Baudelaire does—what he’s always done—manipulate those around him for his own gain.
And the worst part is that I can’t even fault him, because who am I?
A soulless tool. A rubber-stamped assassin. I'd been fooling myself by stopping to think otherwise.
He’s woven a tangled web, I’ll admit. So much so that the compass face has fogged up and I don’t know who to believe.
Why would the Consultant give him information if they aren’t working together?
If Klaus wanted us dead, we’d be dead—so why does he want us alive?
And what part does Graham really play in all this?
A part of me, however naive, can’t fathom the idea that he’s been playing me this whole time. Maybe it’s my own pride, bristling at the idea of being bested. How can I possibly know that he is who he says? Blind faith?
I tip my head back and close my eyes for a moment, allowing the frigid raindrops to bring me back to the present. There’s no way to figure this out right now—especially not when Graham’s been playing chess and I’ve been playing checkers.
My mind wanders back to Retzsch’s painting: the young man in a match with the devil for his soul.
Graham used it to explain that we think differently, and he was right yet again—if he’s a Grandmaster, I’m the chair that the players sit in. Serviceable, but only if there’s someone around to use me.
If I have any hope of figuring this out, I need to stop thinking like an ISA agent and start thinking like a thief. Three steps ahead—five if we can manage it, Graham’s voice from my memories infiltrates my thoughts uninvited. I feel my chest tighten.
A car door opens only a few feet behind me.
I jump to my feet and whirl around, prepared to disappear into the crowd or fight my way out. Two feet jump down into the alley from behind the SUV’s door—men’s loafers—and I’m about to veer back onto the sidewalk when the door shuts.
My hand flies to where my gun should be. Too bad the Embassy has those pesky body scanners.
“I’m thrilled to find you alive and well,” the voice calls.
The raindrops slow to a warped, shifting haze. Our eyes meet and my lungs stutter.
Raffaele.