Page 38 of Poison Evidence

“I know how. A little.”

He raised a brow in question.

“Cressida—one of my coworkers—invited me to go to the Raptor compound in Virginia to learn how to shoot. She’s been taking lessons from her boyfriend since they returned from Turkey. Given that I received threatening hate mail thanks to Patrick, I accepted.”

“Raptor. That’s your cousin’s mercenary company.”

“They do more military trainings than mercenary work, but yes, Raptor is Alec’s company. He doesn’t run it, though. Conflict of interest now that he’s in the senate.”

“And Trina-of-the-good-fashion-advice’s boyfriend runs the place now.”

“Yes. You have a good memory for names.”

He did, but that wasn’t why he remembered Dr. Trina Sorenson or Keith Hatcher. Again he wondered if he should tell her about Parker Reeves. But she’d never met Luke and didn’t know Undine well. Plus, Undine likely hated him for everything he’d done last fall. “Some of the names are familiar from the news,” he said, playing it safe.

“I would imagine there are stories you tracked down when you decided to use me.”

“Yes.” No use denying it. “But I also followed the story of Cressida Porter and Ian Boyd’s exfiltration from Turkey closely. A covert operator always wants to know what the other side is doing.”

She flinched at the reminder they were on opposing sides. But again, no point in denying it.

“And of course, your ex-husband became the focal point of that story, which made it more relevant to me.” He stepped into the head and grabbed his toothbrush. “Is it weird, working with Cressida after what happened?”

She canted her head in a motion that was both yes and no. “At first, but only because I hated that I didn’t warn her and others, even though I didn’t know myself.”

“You feel guilty.”

“Of course I do. I never suspected… I feel stupid and responsible.”

“The head of the CIA didn’t know, and he was the guy who recruited Hill at one point. He’s the one who should feel guilty.” He lowered a brow. “Why did you divorce him?”

She brushed by him to grab her toothbrush, everything about her manner telegraphing her irritation at his question. “To answer your first question,” she said as she applied paste, then handed the tube to him. “Cressida and I bonded over our mutual dislike of my ex. NHHC is a good fit for me—I knew most of my coworkers already thanks to joint projects with MacLeod-Hill. Patrick was the public face of the organization, but I ran things behind the scenes.”

“Why did your father bring Hill onboard when he retired? You were more than capable of being both the face of the organization and the actual director.”

“At the time, I was only twenty-five and didn’t feel ready to step into my dad’s shoes.” She glared at her toothbrush. “Plus, it’s long been known there’s a gender gap in funding scientific research—and we relied on research grants a great deal. We felt more funding was likely to be approved with a male at the helm.”

Dimitri frowned. “And you went along with that?” he asked, unable to hide his incredulity.

“It’s a shitty world. I had to set aside my personal feelings on that topic for the good of the organization.” She sighed. “There’s also the fact that Patrick had great charisma—which I lack. I told myself his magnetism was the key to bringing in more funding. It wasn’t solely because he had a penis.”

“You don’t lack charisma.”Hell no.He’d been drawn to her from the moment they met.

She gave a hard laugh. “Well, I don’t stroke male egos and have an intolerance of idiocy, which is two-thirds of the game.” She shrugged. “There was also the fact that Patrick was bringing money to the deal. On paper, he was wealthy and pledged much of his money to the institute’s scientific endeavors. The initial endowment set up by my grandmother—she was a Ravissant—had long since run out. We were hoping with Patrick’s money we could fund the studies that were passed over by NIH grants.” She frowned. “And projects like CAM, which we wanted to keep in-house.”

“But then you found out sea exploration and mapping was his method for moving arms and gave him legitimacy to travel in the Middle East.”

“Bingo. And when the true source of his wealth was revealed, all that seed money he gave the institute was seized. I had to fight to hold on to CAM and made a deal with the Navy to avoid losing him—it—altogether.”

“And here we are,” Dimitri said.

“Yeah. Here we are.” Bitterness tinged her voice. “I thought I’d made the deal onmyterms, figuring I’d learned something about negotiating in the divorce.”

Her jaw tightened. “The Defense Intelligence Agency tried to recruit me to claim CAM, but I refused. I went to NHHC because it was the type of organization I believe in, the type of work Iwantto do. I have an MA in GIS and remote sensing.” She stared at her toothbrush, as if it held wisdom. “I knew the Pentagon and DIA would eventually duplicate the technology for intelligence-gathering purposes. I could live with that, as long asIwasn’t going to be the one spying on the countries I was graciously permitted to work in. But the DIA is using me. They forced me to become a spy without even a whispered heads-up.”

“Because they knew you’d refuse.”

She met his gaze and jutted out her chin. “Damn right. Spies are soulless traitors.”

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