Page 79 of Bonded in Death

“Okay then, good.”

“I’ll send Ivanna up.”

“It’s kind of swank in here,” Peabody commented when he left.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Do you want anything on-screen?”

“Not yet. Maybe not at all. We want the option.”

“Got it. How do you want to play this?”

“Straight, and we’ll find out if she does the same. Informal interview. She’s a target, and she’s a source.”

“Protect the target, mine the source.”

“That’s right.” Eve walked to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. “That’s exactly right.”

Chapter Eleven

When Ivanna walked in, she glanced around, smiled.

“I’m never not in wonder of this house. So many beautiful spaces. Where do you want me?”

“If you’d just take a seat at the table. I need to record this.”

“Of course.” Slim, graceful, she walked to one of the leather chairs.

She still wore her wedding ring, Eve noted, a thin band of tiny diamonds that caught the light.

“We’ve got coffee or tea.”

“I’d love some tea, thank you.”

“How do you take it?” Peabody asked her.

“Just as it comes.” Before she sat, she admired the view out the windows. “Yes, always a wonder. I saw Roarke when he was a boy. Well, a young man,” she corrected as she sat. “Shortly after Marlena’s murder. The grief, it radiated from him. The grief, the guilt, the rage.”

“He hasn’t mentioned that.”

“He wouldn’t have seen me, or noticed me if he had. Or rememberedme if he’d done either. I was very good at what I did. I thought of recruiting him, such a clever one, so skilled—and the anger can be a plus.

“Thank you,” she said when Peabody brought her tea. “But Summerset needed him, so I let him be. I deleted his file.”

“You had a file on Roarke?”

“My agency did.”

“And your agency?”

“MI6.”

“Ms. Liski—”

“Ivanna, please. You prefer Dallas and Peabody, but we all have connections here. Though I still have connections in my former work, I’ve retired. There are things about that work I can’t and won’t tell you. They’re above your security clearance. But I believe what you’ll ask me here won’t apply to any of that.”

“You were an agent, a field agent, for MI6?”

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