Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 (21 page)

-31-

HSP Headquarters

Noro, Haphez

They stopped on the squad floor long enough to pick up their field packs. For a moment Ziva couldn’t figure out why there was no locker assigned to her, but then she remembered what Emeri had said about having Dasaro’s old office at her disposal. She had yet to even set foot in the room, so she was surprised to find the door open and the light on when she approached. A second desk, currently occupied by Aura, was situated across from the one Dasaro had used. The woman looked up from her work as Ziva entered but said nothing. Tufts of hair had come loose from her braid, but she’d brushed it behind her shoulder without bothering to fix it. Rather than a formal suit, she now donned a casual jacket and pants and dark circles enveloped her eyes. She looked like every other agent in the building.

Ziva ignored her and angled toward the locker against the far wall. All of Dasaro’s personal effects had been removed, leaving the space bare except for the basic field supply pack all the agents’ lockers contained. She had no idea what had become of her old one. Not that it mattered – all the packs contained exactly the same things anyway. If you wanted something more than what was there, you had to pack it yourself. She went ahead and filled it with a few of her own items.

She removed the bag from the locker and slipped her arm through one of the straps, taking a moment to look around the rest of the office. The desk and walls were completely empty, and the computer terminal and wall monitor were powered down. She doubted that would ever change. She had little interest in even using the space, much less turning it into her own.

“Where are you going?”

Ziva turned to face Aura, who hadn’t removed her eyes from her computer. The question hadn’t been gruff, nor had it contained a shred of genuine curiosity. An answer – a fact – was all she desired.

“Salex.”

Aura’s gaze flitted toward her for a split second. “Stay in contact.”

Ziva went out without so much as a nod. She had to admit she was beginning to warm up to the probation officer – at least they were both trying to achieve a common goal. Still, fighting Aura was like fighting a copy of herself, and she didn’t like it. Even the simple request to stay in communication rubbed her the wrong way.

She found Aroska already waiting for her in the parking bay beside an idling agency groundcar. They both got in without a word and he piloted the vehicle out into traffic and pointed it toward the hills to the east.

Part of her felt bad for having spent so much time lying to everyone about her past, particularly Skeet and Zinni. Even the word “lying” sounded so negative – it was more like withholding the truth. It wasn’t that she’d given them false information; she’d just never given them any information at all. Then she’d proceeded to continue withholding that information, living the majority of her adult life as if Jak Gamon had never existed. If what she was doing should indeed be called lying, then she’d technically been doing it since she was seven years old. She’d gotten rather good at it over the years, and it didn’t just apply to her Nostia. She could lie to others – and herself, for that matter – without so much as a second thought.

“Good liars are better at detecting
other
liars,” Gamon had told her once. She didn’t doubt it. It was one of the reasons she’d been able to pick up on his charade just in time to defend herself, and why she now knew Aroska was being less than truthful about why he wanted her to come to Salex. Well, no, it wasn’t so much
why
he wanted her to come – having her employ her tracking skills seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation. Even if that were the truth, there was still something he wasn’t telling her, information he was withholding. Normally it would have bothered her to no end, but at the moment she was more concerned with getting to the resort town and finding clues – finding Zinni – as quickly as possible.

They’d made it out of the city and were zipping along a trade route that cut through lush farmland before Aroska spoke. “How do you get?”

Ziva turned her attention away from the view of the Tranyi River off to their right. “What?”

“Back at your place, Skeet asked why you’d been able to open up to me, and you said, ‘you know how I get’.”

“Please tell me you didn’t want me to come just so you could ask me that while I was trapped in here,” she said, attempting to regulate a sudden increase in heart rate.

To her relief, he shook his head, but when he spoke, his tone was gruffer than she’d expected. “I just want to know what you meant by that.”

“You have a really bad habit of eavesdropping outside closed doors,” she muttered, reveling in the rather shocked look he gave her. “Yeah, I know that’s how you found out I killed Soren. It’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

For once, the mention of his deceased brother didn’t make his cheeks flush with anger. Something that looked like either dread or guilt flashed through his eyes, though with his gaze directed straight ahead at the road, it was impossible to tell for sure. He tightened his grip on the controls and clenched his jaw, refusing to say more.

At least it had gotten him to shut up. Still, it bothered her that saying Soren’s name hadn’t produced the usual results. In the past, mentioning his brother had always been a surefire way to keep Aroska at bay, keep him angry enough that he
wanted
to distance himself from her. Ziva wasn’t sure what to think of his current reaction, or lack thereof.

On top of that, she could tell the question he’d just posed hadn’t been what he was hiding after all. He was still keeping something from her. He’d been growing bolder lately, and part of her was glad. It made him a more efficient agent, after all. But part of her hated it. Hated the way he could actually tell what she was thinking and feeling. Hated the way he no longer caved when caught in her glare. Hated the way he seemed to be developing immunity to her manipulation tactics. The idea that her primary defense mechanism was no longer one hundred percent effective terrified her.

Ziva sat there watching the landscape whiz by outside, trying to blame Aroska for her troubles while simultaneously wondering how she’d lost control. She finally decided it was pointless to worry about him and directed her focus down to the data pad on her lap. The Salex office had forwarded all the information on the children and missing ship for them to review on the trip over, and she busied herself reading through it, taking everything in as fast as her mind would allow.

“If the kids were taken here in the plaza, we should start by investigating ground zero,” she said. “I’m sure there are plenty of people there who saw or heard something. The next step will be to look for surveillance in the area, maybe a security cam that has some footage of what went down. We can’t really do much else after that other than re-examine the ship’s flight path. This should take four or five hours tops, and we can be back in Noro before—”

“Ziva.”

The first thing that struck her was that it was the first time Aroska had spoken for at least twenty minutes. The second was his tone. “What?” she said, immediately snapping to attention. In past experience, that kind of tone always meant one of two things: something significant was going on ahead – a quick glance through the windshield ruled that out – or the speaker was about to share something they doubted she wanted to hear. Her eyebrows immediately slid together and she set her jaw, waiting for him to continue.

Aroska’s knuckles were white as he gripped the steering controls. “My
family
lives in Salex.”

“Excuse me?”

“My father, mother, brother, his family – they run one of the most successful govino orchards in the entire Noro region.”

Ziva shook her head, raking her hand back through her hair. She felt her heart rate spike again. “Pull over.”

“Ziva, please, I—”

“Just pull over.”

“Will you just listen for a minute? This—”

Without another word, she drew her pistol and shoved the barrel against his temple. “I said pull the damn car over!”

He swallowed and complied, and the vehicle settled to the ground and skidded over to the shoulder in a great cloud of dust. Ziva stuffed the gun back into its holster and gathered up her pack, flinging the passenger door open before Aroska could get a word in edgewise. She slung the bag over her shoulder and began to trudge through the dirt back in the direction from which they’d come.

She heard the pilot’s door slam behind her. “Where do you think you’re going?” Aroska shouted.

“Not to Salex, that’s for sure!”

“Oh, come on!” She heard his footsteps approaching quickly behind her and turned, shying to one side just before he could grab her arm.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d never come with me if you knew the truth!” He respectfully took a step back but placed his hands on his hips, refusing to back down. “My nephew was one of those kids who got taken. He’s mentally handicapped and takes medications he can’t survive more than a couple of days without. Ziva, he’s only seven years old. As soon as I heard, I knew I needed you with me. You’re the best chance we have of finding him and any of those other kids.”

For a moment, Ziva wondered what her response would have been if he’d just asked. “You seriously think your family is going to let me just waltz in and help? Are you insane?”

“Ziva, they don’t know who you are.”

She threw up her hands. “How?”

“Because I never told them. I may have been angry about Soren, but I’m not stupid. Telling anyone outside the agency who the Cleaner was would have gotten me fired, and at that point I knew keeping my job was the only way I could ever catch up to you and confront you.” He sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead as if the memory were unpleasant. “They don’t know who you are,” he murmured again.

For a long time, the only sound to be heard was the whistle of air as traffic whizzed by on the road. Ziva kept a firm grip on the strap of her pack, having half a mind to just keep walking. She shifted her gaze periodically from Aroska to the land ahead, the land where the little settlement of Salex lay. An odd sensation coursed through her stomach – it had been a long time since she’d been so genuinely uncomfortable with an idea. It was one thing to have to face Aroska on a daily basis, but Soren’s entire family? It didn’t matter whether they knew who she was. The thought made her sick.

On the other hand, this was one of their freshest leads thus far. If they could make it to the town soon enough and find some clues, it might bring them one step closer to finding Ronan and Zinni. And if rescuing some kids was part of the deal, everyone could go home satisfied.

Ziva clenched her jaw and walked back to the car. “Fine, let’s go. But I hope you understand how much this is
not
okay.”

If Aroska was surprised by her choice, he masked it well. It was tempting to not go just to deny him the benefit of being right about her. She wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so good at knowing what she was thinking, and it was infuriating. But there were lives on the line here, and she reminded herself that Ronan and the Resistance would just keep coming back until they got whatever they wanted.

“Does the Salex office even know we’re coming?” she asked, massaging her temples as the car lifted from the ground and merged with the flow of traffic.

“I told them we were coming to look around and that we’d be in the area if they needed anything.”

“So you lied to Emeri.”

“He knows my family lives out here. That’s why he contacted me first.”

“But when I…” Ziva paused, knowing there was no way to sugarcoat what she was about to say. “When I was reviewing Soren’s cleaning order, it said all of his next of kin were in Noro.”

“They all moved out here after that,” Aroska replied in the same clipped tone
she
usually spoke to
him
in. “My dad’s parents were ready to sell their orchard but wanted to keep it in the family. He also thought it would be best to get everyone out of the city after Soren’s death and the failed attempt on his own life.” His eyes shifted toward her for a split second.

“I told you before; I had nothing to do with that!” Ziva spat.

He sighed. “I know.” He stared straight ahead without speaking for several seconds, and the look on his face transformed back into one of guilt. “I don’t understand though. If nobody knows who you are, why are you still so worried?”

She directed her focus toward a single tree atop a nearby hill and didn’t look away. “I form connections,” she murmured.

She heard the pilot’s seat creak as Aroska turned toward her. “What?”

“That’s ‘how I get’.” She met his gaze for a moment before returning hers to the road. “When I have a target, it’s my job to learn everything there is to know about them. It helps me predict what they’re going to do, where they’re going to be. When the time comes to take the shot, it’s almost like I’m killing someone I’ve come to know. Maybe it’s morbid, but I’ve formed a connection with them.”
Even with the ones I wasn’t supposed to kill
, she thought. “The only way to move on and continue doing my job is to forget them, shut them out of my memory. Sever the connection. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”