Double Agent (6 page)

Now it was so over, the divorce papers had dust on them. She couldn’t have the kind of relationships other women seemed to think were so great. It wasn’t in Sabine to be so vulnerable that it gave someone else the power to break her heart.

Sabine fished the hard drive from her suitcase and went into her office, proud that Doug would see her sanctuary.

The bookshelves heaved with everything from books on gardening—one day she’d do that—to popular classics. She didn’t buy first editions; she bought books she could read again and again, ones that were now frayed. Some had tape on their spines they were so worn out. Just like the armchair. She’d spent many hours in the plush chair by the window, lost in another world.

Even though she’d rather go AWOL in any one of her books, she took the hard drive to the oak desk and slid it in the port that would download the contents to her desktop computer. In minutes they would have everything they needed to bring down the person responsible for Ben’s death.

She switched on her computer and tapped her finger while it booted up. Doug scanned the shelves and made short noises. Was that good or bad?

He looked over at her. “You’re pretty good with computers?”

Sabine exhaled. They were out of sensitive waters and back to plain old banter. “Who do you think taught Ben everything he knew?”

Doug looked impressed. Sabine shifted in the leather chair. A few clicks later, she tapped her fingers on the desk while the information downloaded.

“Sabine.” Doug hauled her out of the chair, his eyes on the hard drive she’d flown halfway around the world for. Smoke curled up from the bay.

It sparked.

Doug pulled her to the doorway.

A loud boom shook the room. The force of the explosion blew her to the ground, and Doug landed on top of her. His head hit the floor beside her, and she winced at the sound.

Smoke filled the room. Sabine felt the heat of flames but couldn’t move. Doug seemed to be unconscious, pinning her to the floor. “Get off me.”

She shoved at him. “Get up, Doug.” He didn’t respond. Heat touched her bare foot. She tried to shift away from the flames, but couldn’t move under his weight.

“Come on, soldier. Wake up. I have no intention of burning to death with you lying on top of me.”

SIX

“I
’m sorry I yelled at you when you were unconscious,” Sabine said.

The fire truck pulled away from the house. She was beside him on the front step. Thankfully the blaze had been small and quickly contained, but Doug’s head continued to thump from his injury, like he’d been hit with a brick. “I’m sorry I was unconscious.”

“It could have been a lot worse.” She raised her chin from the cocoon of the blanket the EMTs had given her. “It could still be raining.”

Doug shrugged. “I guess.”

“You don’t really feel guilty about this, do you?” She laid a hand on his arm. “Doug, this wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know the hard drive would blow up. It’s not your fault you were knocked out. We’re both barely hurt.”

“I know.”

“But you should have...what? Done more? Cut yourself some slack. You’re not a superhero, so far as I know. Just a regular human like the rest of us.”

How was it she could take one look at him and deftly nail his problem? Was it so obvious he was plagued by guilt? He was just trying to do a good job, and things kept getting messed up.

A familiar prickle teased the back of his neck. Doug stood. They shouldn’t be out in the open in broad daylight now that emergency services were gone. Too bad it was Saturday. When the front window of her office had blown out, her neighbor had been mowing his lawn. Good that the firefighters had come so fast; bad that many neighbors were home on the weekend and curious about the small explosion.

Doug was just glad he’d come to before the fire spread and thus had saved himself the indignity of being hauled out of the house by a firefighter.

“What is it?” Sabine looked up and down her street.

“It’s not safe to stay here.”

Her eyes flashed like she was getting ready to argue.

“Sabine—”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. I just have to get some things together before I can leave.”

He held open the front door for her. “Pack for a few days. And bring anything of Ben’s you think might yield information.”

Sabine tore her eyes from the charred, waterlogged floor and the ash-covered walls. “Where are we going?”

“When I know, I’ll tell you.”

She ascended the stairs. Doug pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Colonel Hiller? The hard drive we got from Parelli had some kind of fail-safe. It blew up before we could get anything from it.”

Kids screamed and laughed in the background. “I’m going to assume it’s you who got the cops to back off with their questions.”

“You’re welcome, Sergeant Major. What’s your plan?”

“Get her somewhere safe. Get some answers.”

“Why don’t the two of you head to your dad’s place?” There was silence for a moment. “You can’t tell me the general wouldn’t be fine with it. Not to mention he has the most secure residence we know of.”

Doug fought the urge to reach through the phone and throttle his superior officer. “You’re right, but I don’t like it, sir.”

“Want me to make it an order?”

Doug sighed. “Is this some kind of conspiracy to get me to his birthday party?”

The colonel barked a laugh and then yelled at his son to stop trying to drown his sister in the pool. “Birthday aside, it wouldn’t hurt you to visit the man. He calls just about every day asking after you.”

“His clearance is still good?”

“You think I tell him what you’re doing?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Sergeant Major. Get yourself on a plane to D.C. Your dad’s place will give you the space and the time you need to question Ms. Sabine Laduca. I’ll get to tell the CIA that she’s in our custody, and they can wait until we’re done with her.”

Doug wanted to ask all the questions on the tip of his tongue, but Sabine appeared. She hauled two huge suitcases down the stairs. “Yes, sir.”

She glanced at him. Doug hung up the phone and she came to him, looking like she expected him to tell her who was on the phone and the content of the conversation.

“Got everything?”

“I’ll put these in my car and come back for my purse and lock up the house.”

She didn’t get his sarcasm, apparently. “Actually, they’re going in my rental car.” He pointed out front. “The Prius across the street.”

Her head cocked to the side. “I would have pegged you more as a big truck kind of guy.”

She was right. “It was all they had.” He grabbed the first suitcase. “Enough stalling—let’s get moving.”

By the time he crammed both suitcases alongside his duffel bag in the trunk of the tiny car, Sabine had locked her front door. He scanned the street while she crossed to him, looking good enough he needed to concentrate on something else or he’d get distracted. She might have a smudge of ash on the side of her face, but she was still beautiful.

In the car, Sabine buckled her seat belt. “So where are we going?”

He looked over. She was trying to hide a smirk. The driver’s seat was a tight fit for him.

“Want me to drive?”

“No, thank you.” He didn’t care if his tone was short. “We’re going to my dad’s place in Washington. Gates, security guards, few people to worry about and plenty of space to sit down and figure all this out.”

He drove out of her subdivision, pulled onto the freeway and headed for the airport. “Nothing to say?”

She just stared out the window.

“You’re just going to let me take you wherever I want and not do anything about it?” They both knew she could give him the slip whenever she wanted. Doug would have to be on guard. “Sabine?”

She finally looked at him. “Take the next exit. I need something from my storage unit before we leave town.”

He couldn’t read the look on her face because he had his eyes on the road. Sometime soon they needed to sit down and have this out. There was still way too much he didn’t know about Sabine, Ben and this whole business.

But there was something he needed to get clear right then. “Why did you tell me you were with the CIA?”

* * *

Sabine blinked and her face creased into a frown. “You think I was lying?”

“Were you?”

“Let me guess. You called to check my story?”

“My commanding officer did.”

She nodded. “The CIA is supposed to deny my existence. It’s what they do.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Tell me what it is.”

He glanced at her, and she saw a flash of worry had darkened his eyes. Interesting, since he didn’t care about her. The only reason they were together was so he could interrogate her.

“The CIA claims you don’t work for them anymore. Since six years ago, you’ve been a rogue agent.”

Six years ago?

Sabine flinched. She could still feel the sting of gunfire from that day. With her cover blown, she’d been given a new handler and now worked in a clandestine department. Well, it was the CIA, so all the departments were clandestine, but hers even more so.

One day she’d either retire or end up as a nameless star on a wall, with only a handful of people who would ever really know what had happened to her.

Of course they would deny her existence. To them she probably didn’t exist. That was the nature of the work she did. She didn’t need to prove herself to Doug; she knew who she worked for. The fact that she hadn’t even stepped foot inside Langley in those six years only proved just how under the radar they wanted her.

* * *

Doug pulled up outside a garage-size unit in the far corner of the complex. He could tell the news about who she worked for was a shock, but she seemed to push it away. The closer they drove to her storage area, the tenser she became.

With one foot out the parked car, she turned back. Her mouth was thin. “Stay here.”

He watched her walk away. He wanted to go, despite what she said. He gripped the steering wheel so tight he was probably warping it. Sure, she’d ditched him yesterday in the Dominican Republic, but since then they’d fought off an intruder together and had almost been blown up. This was a good time to show her that he would do what she asked. Especially when she said it with that look of total despair on her face—the same look she’d had at Ben’s funeral. She’d been ready to lose it to her grief again. What had brought it back to the surface now?

Her family had been happy at one time. At least if the photo in Ben’s room was anything to go by. Then something had gone down, and the two of them had ended up in foster care until Sabine had turned eighteen and won custody of her fifteen-year-old brother. Doug had figured their parents were dead, but they could have just as easily been in jail.

Perhaps the loss of her brother was surging up at the most unexpected moment to blindside her, just as it did to him. Ben was the only family she had and Doug had taken that away from her. As if he had forgotten his culpability.

Doug watched Sabine stride past the unit number she’d given him, the one he would have been able to see directly into. She went three units down, unlocked it and slid up the door. Doug swallowed. He could pretend otherwise, but he had it bad when a woman using all her strength to open a garage door got to him.

He tapped the steering wheel.

Checked his phone.

Sabine reappeared with a briefcase, which she set on the backseat. She clipped her seat belt and looked up. “What?”

“You’re not going to tell me what that is?”

“It’s a briefcase.”

“Sabine—”

“Oh, don’t say it like you’re so exasperated. I’m tired, Doug. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Can we at least try to be civil to each other for a while?”

“Fine. Only because I’m tired, too. Your couch is not the most comfortable place in the world to sleep. Though, I have bunked down in a lot worse places.”

“You didn’t use the guest room?”

“You passed out. I wasn’t going to snoop around. I figured crashing on the couch was the least imposing way of keeping an eye on you.”

“Keeping an eye on—”

“Enough.” Doug held up his hand. “Let’s go back to the truce. I liked that idea.”

Sabine folded her arms. “Truce.”

“Good. It won’t be long, and then we can rest on the plane. When we get to my dad’s, there might be a little party going on, but we can sneak in through the kitchen.”

* * *

The
little party,
as Doug had put it, turned out to be a seventieth birthday bash for his father, General Andrew Richardson. Limousines lined the driveway. The entire place was lit up, and swing music from a live band poured out open windows. Doug drove their rental car—a midsize sedan this time—around the side of the house, through a brick archway to a rear courtyard.

Sabine wished she was wearing the green floor-length gown she’d put in her suitcase on a whim. A formal dress could come in handy at any time and packing for any occasion had long been a habit. Then again, anything would be better than showing up in ash-smeared clothes and smelling like she’d run a marathon. At least she’d taken some time at the airport to find a bathroom and clean up a little bit. Though she’d have paid money for a shower.

“Ready?”

She nodded. Doug had valiantly tried to draw her into conversation during the flight, but she hadn’t been able to get past the mess of thoughts that had hummed in her head like a swarm of bees. Ben’s death, then Christophe’s, and the loss of any leads they might have had. It was late, and Sabine was ready for sleep. Maybe one day in the future she’d wake up and not feel just as tired as she had when she had gone to bed. As hard as she had pushed to find out what had happened to Ben, it had taken its toll.

Doug got out the bags and opened her door. “You okay?”

“You mean other than smelling like a gym sock?”

He snorted. “You’re so pretty I don’t think that would make a difference.”

He thought she was pretty?

“Come on.” He helped her out.

“I usually don’t need this much babying.”

“You said it yourself. It’s been a rough time for you lately.”

“I don’t like being helpless.”

Doug snorted, pulling her bags by their handles, his duffel hanging over his shoulder. “Whatever you are, Sabine Laduca, it’s anything but helpless.”

The door opened to an older woman with a stylish bob cut and blond highlights. She was comfortably round in her knit sweater and black slacks, and smiled wide at the sight of them. “I didn’t dare believe it until I saw it myself.”

Doug dropped the luggage and swept her up into a hug. “Jean.” He kissed both her cheeks.

“The prodigal son returns.”

Doug laughed. “I haven’t been that bad, have I?”

The older lady chuckled. “He’s done okay. Don’t worry yourself.”

“You take good care of him.”

“Yes, yes.” She ushered them into an extensive galley kitchen. “I’m more concerned with what you’ve brought with you, or should I say, whom?”

Sabine held out her hand. “Sabine Laduca.”

“I know, darling. I’m Jean Pepper.” The hand that clasped hers wasn’t altogether soft, but it was warm. Sabine imagined the woman was much like a grandmother should be and had to push away a pang of something she didn’t want to think about.

“Your brother had nothing but good things to say about you.”

Sabine sucked in a breath, not knowing what to say. A lot of Ben’s attachment to her had been because of what had happened to their parents. She’d loved Ben, but it was strange to meet someone who knew of her. So much for living a low-key life.

Thankfully Doug came to her rescue. He probably read her discomfort. Why he felt it necessary to put his hand on the small of her back was anyone’s guess. Still, it was nice to have him stand shoulder to shoulder with her almost like they were a team. “I’m going to show Sabine upstairs so she can settle in.”

Jean glanced between them as though she knew a secret. “Your tux is hanging from the closet door in your room.”

“Does he know I’m here?”

“I decided to surprise him. He’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t come.”

Doug nodded to Jean and grabbed all the bags again. “I’ll be back down shortly.”

Sabine didn’t offer to carry any of the bags. He’d been adamant the few times she had tried to pull even one, giving her some ridiculous spiel about being perfectly capable. Apparently he didn’t get that she was just as able.