Page 32 of The Spy

“I’ll never be far. You’ll know where to look.”

Remembering the surveillance cameras and the lonely question of their years of separation, she shook her head. “We can’t. I can’t.”

His eyes, pools of despair, stared into her soul. The lack of hope, the determination tore at her like nothing ever had. But she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to stop what she suspected was for the best.

Would she never again be with him? She closed her eyes against the pain, squeezed them shut to stop another flow of tears. And when she opened them again, he was gone.

* * *

Weeks blendedinto a month and then two. Lucan had disappeared from all who knew him. The brothers, their wives, had reached out to her nearly every day, but none of them had heard even a peep. Anna knew they wouldn’t. She knew he had to go completely silent to shake the trail. Then he would show evidence of himself in random places, to start a scent somewhere else.

But people would always be watching home. If he showed up here, they would know. She moved through the motions of being the queen. Ferdinand had tried to return, but even his jovial, meaningless chatter had been repulsive to her so she sent him away.

And then she heard news of a drug lord in Cuba going down, his regime with him. And she smiled.Nice work.

Someone hit the trafficking centers of power too, with a vengeance. She watched as a freak arsonist burned down half of a city, the news covering the event even in Spain.Go Lucan.

She watched her surveillance but he had gone under even her radar and she was comforted by that. If she couldn’t see him, no one else could either.

Every now and then she would see or hear something and sense his touch had been there. And then too many days of silence, and an empty feeling and she knew something was wrong.

Two days with a niggling worry in her gut, she walked into Barlow’s office. “I need to see him.”

“I’ve told you we don’t have contact.”

“I need to see him.”

Barlow hesitated and then brought up a screen. “We aren’t sure but this might have been the last place he was.” He pointed to a blurry figure. “He’s going after his threats.”

“He can’t possibly take them all down. He’s making new enemies.”

“I don’t think he’s trying to get rid of the danger in his life. I just think he figures he might as well do something.”

Anna nodded. “I think you’re right. But he’s suddenly silent. I can’t explain it. Something’s wrong.”

Barlow nodded. “We lost our trail in the Philippines.”

“Show me the reports.” She paused, looking into Barlow’s face. “And thank you, for watching him.”

He nodded, then put a file on the desk. “I’ll be in the other room.”

She spent several hours reading where he’d been, what they thought he was doing, following his every move. Barlow had stuck right with him, but he misunderstood some of Lucan’s actions. Anna began to see a pattern and she knew what he was after, and knew his one fatal flaw. And he was missing a vital piece of information.

The men weren’t really after him.

She pulled up the last file, an image of the man from Jordan. The stalker. They were after her. “Barlow.”

He came running in.

“What do we know about this guy? Pull up everything you’ve got.”

He handed her a file, already in his hand.

“Thanks. Sit down.”

She skimmed. “So this guy is worse than we thought.”

“Much.”

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