Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
They would need MaeBe’s talents tomorrow night when they intended to break into Nolan Byrne’s personal system and take the data they needed. Although he’d greatly prefer Drake handle that part of the op, Deke was insistent on MaeBe being there since Drake was still Agency. Kyle trusted the man, but this was Deke’s mission.
However, Mae was his, and he would make the decisions when it came to her. He wasn’t going to let anyone put her in danger. Not even for the sake of an op.
He glanced back at the screen, but the woman was gone, likely already in the club.
The night was beginning. He had to get through it then they would go on their vacation and everything would be as it should be.
“Hey, are you worried about this?” Drake asked.
He was always worried about Julia. Even though she was dead, she still hung over his life like the sword of Damocles. She would show up as a ghost threatening everything. He just had to make MaeBe love him fully, wholly. Perhaps then she could handle mistakes he’d made with Julia. “I’m going to meet with Deke. I’ll talk to him. There might be some worst-case scenarios we haven’t played through yet. I’ll feel better once I’ve been in a room with this Jane person and I know it’s not Julia.”
“How could it be Julia? You killed her.”
“I shot her. I thought I killed her. I was sure I had. Now I wonder because we had to leave. That fire ensured we didn’t find her body. What would she have done if she survived that night? What if she’d been wearing a vest? I didn’t go for a head shot. I couldn’t. I hit her in the chest, and I can’t remember if there was blood. Her body fell and the fire was raging by then. I had minutes to get out.”
The truth was that whole day was a blur. He remembered parts of it with brilliant clarity, but the rest was a mess in his head. He dreamed about it at night, and the dreams had woven in with reality, meshing into a nightmare where he couldn’t tell truth from fiction. The one thing he’d known was that Julia was dead, and now even that was in question.
But now wasn’t the time to confront the subject. He would do a deep dive into Jane Adams tomorrow. Tonight he would find Deke and keep Mae close.
“What else could have happened? I saw her. She’s not…” Drake stopped, his face going pale. “You think she could have taken over someone’s life. Someone vulnerable. Someone who wouldn’t be missed. Damn it. We talked about this. Julia and I would have conversations about what would happen if we got burned. She said she had a couple of people on her radar if she needed a new life. I told her I did too. I would take over some Hollywood star’s life.”
“You were joking. She wasn’t.” His gut was suddenly in knots. “I’m not saying that’s what happened. Mae looked into Jane’s online presence and verified it.”
“But that’s what Julia would need. She would need someone with no family and very few friends. She would need someone with her basic build and facial structure so the plastic surgery wasn’t too hard to get right.” Drake’s jaw was tight as he spoke, his shoulders a straight line. “You’re right. We might have made the most rookie mistake of all. We didn’t bury a body.”
He couldn’t even contemplate it. Julia wasn’t in this building meeting Mae as they spoke. The good news was they were surrounded by people—smart, trained people. Kayla was with the women. If by some crazy twist of fate Julia had survived, tonight wouldn’t be the night she tried to kill him. “I’m going to find Deke and join up with the women as fast as we can. You monitor the situation from here. If something goes sideways, you know what to do.”
“No. I really don’t.”
“If that’s Julia walking around this club, there’s only one way out and that’s for me to take myself off the playing board. If I’m alive, MaeBe’s the pawn she goes after.”
“Goes after?” Drake asked.
“It’s all a game to Julia. She’ll be pissed that I’m close to MaeBe.” He couldn’t believe he was actually considering the nightmare scenario. It couldn’t be true, but he had to have it in the back of his head.
He hadn’t seen her body after the fire, hadn’t buried her so he knew one hundred percent that she was in the ground. She could have been wearing a vest. His shot could have been off and missed her heart. She could have had someone lurking in the background waiting to save her.
His brain was moving a million miles a minute, taking him to worse and worse destinations.